Ghosts by Gaslight

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Ghosts by Gaslight Page 48

by Jack Dann


  “Rothac told me about Sheer Beauty,” I said to the ladies.

  Ludiya glanced nervously at her mother. Mrs. Barlow, who had a dribble of cremat on her chin, said, “And what of it?”

  “It’s illegal,” I said.

  “Cley,” she said, “you don’t understand. Every summer, all summer long, I am in contact with the Master. He treats me like I’m his mother. We sit out in the statue garden, surrounded by rosebushes, beneath an umbrella, and he tells me everything. So you’ll do nothing about the Beauty. You’ll say nothing about it. Or this summer I will be a mosquito in the Master’s ear, suggesting you be sent to Doralice.” She smiled and wiped her chin.

  The old witch had me. I calmly turned to Ludiya and said, “What is it like to take the Sheer Beauty?”

  She was sopping up a puddle of cremat with a slice of bread. The sight of her bringing the brown stained mess to her lips initiated a wave of erotic nausea that swept through me. “Strange things happen,” she said. “Odd things that leave you unsure if they are real or unreal. The more you believe them unreal, the realer they prove themselves to be; but then put faith in them, and their illusory nature begins to reveal itself again.”

  “Can you give me an example?” I said, smiling, even though her explanation was something Chibbins might have come out with.

  “You can speak directly to the Sanctity of Grace if you drink it. Without the Sheer Beauty, a living person can only feel the force of her power, hear her wailing, but with the drug, she appears clearly before you, as the woman she was, and not merely a green glowing mist floating through the night. She says that she went to her grave a saint, but her decades in the dirt have made her bitter. She’s returned for revenge against Master Below. ‘I’ve etched his headstone,’ she told me one night in the gazebo. ‘And yours,’ she added. Then the sky lit up pink with fireworks and a buck came out of the willows and entered the gazebo. He sang ‘Last Carriage to the Moon’ accompanied by music that seeped out of the shadows. When the sky had again gone black and the beast had finished his song, the Sanctity mounted him, grabbing his antlers with both hands, and they loped away amid the trees toward the old cemetery.”

  IN A NIGHTMARISH turn of events, I was forced to share a room with Chibbins for the night. I protested vehemently, saying, “You mean to tell me that in a palace of this size there isn’t another room for my partner? The basement will do.”

  Mrs. Barlow shook her head. “There is one room; the others are closed up for the winter. It has a nice big bed for you gentlemen.”

  “It won’t do,” I said.

  “Like a mosquito in his ear,” she said and stared directly at me. In that instant, I saw one of her hairs, a long white one, drop off.

  “Very well,” I said.

  I made Chibbins turn around while I undressed and slipped beneath the blankets. Then he undressed, dropping his clothes in a pile on the floor. He approached the bed stark naked, all lumpen and the color of milk. I lifted the scalpel I’d placed on the night table next to me. Looking away from him, I said, “You’re sleeping on the floor.” I expected him to protest, forgetting for a second that this was Chibbins, whose reason was twisted as a pig’s tail. In silence, his pale pile drooped down to the floor. I lay back and entertained my thoughts about the case.

  This was really the case that was no case. It was obvious. An investigation was wholly after the fact. What had happened, as I could see it, was that Rothac cooked up a pot of heady swill that had them all cockeyed. Barlow wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing and took a falling icicle through the back. Unable to deal with the old man’s passing and high on Sheer Beauty, they’d conspired to concoct some outlandish tale about a bitter saint in search of revenge. That was it. The only concern for me that remained was delving deeper into Ludiya’s personality, searching for the key that might open her and give access to her most sacred physiognomical junctures.

  I rested back on the pillow and realized that Chibbins had shimmied under the bed. He was down there moving around and scratching on the underside of the mattress. “Damn you, Chibbins,” I yelled. “What are you doing?”

  “Making a nest,” he said.

  “Stop it,” I told him.

  All was silent. I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Five seconds later, from beneath the mattress there came an extemporaneous song, like a child might concoct, about a monkey who worked at an island inn. I got out of bed, fully intending to beat him to a pulp. “Come out, Chibbins,” I called. His head suddenly popped out from beneath my side of the bed, and I gave a start.

  “Ever at your service, Physiognomist Cley,” he said, looking up at me.

  I kicked him in the side of the head with my bare foot. My large toe smashed against his rock skull, and the pain was exquisite. I hopped on one foot to the middle of the room, cursing wildly. By the time the pain had subsided, Chibbins had crawled out into the open and stood there, like some bitter ghost, returned to murder Reason itself.

  I took one step toward him, and that’s when we heard the strange cry. It came from outside, the sound of a woman wailing. Even with the window closed, it drilled through the glass and lodged in my spine, making my ears twitch and my neck hair rise.

  “Get dressed,” I told Chibbins. “Hurry.”

  MINUTES LATER WE were out in the dark, crunching through the snow. Chibbins carried a small lantern that emitted a weak light, and I carried my scalpel. The moon was absent, but there were stars above. A cry came again from off in the direction of the fountains. It was freezing and there was a stiff breeze, the bare willow whips tapping together with each gust.

  “Nabdoodle,” said Chibbins and spun in a circle, the beam of the lantern dancing wildly against the dark.

  “To the fountain, ass,” I said and ran. I could hear my partner scuffing through the snow behind me. I was winded by the time we reached the iced-over pool, and I sat on the edge of it. Chibbins soon arrived and held the lantern up to light the curious statue at the center of the circular stone basin. Its copper figures had gone green, and although I could not make out the features in the poor light, I knew, from having seen it earlier in the day, that one was the Master himself, Drachton Below, naked, holding his member in his hand, his head tipped back slightly. The other form was that of a woman made of leaves. She held, in both hands, a goblet fashioned from a small pumpkin. When the fountain wasn’t frozen, the water represented the wine of Nature, continually being consumed by the Master, and at the other end, dispelled in an arc, so that it rained down upon a facsimile of the Well-Built City, which lay in miniature at his feet. The significance of it evaded me, but, of course, that was beside the point.

  I listened to the wind and gazed at the constellations reflected in the pool’s glazed surface. “Chibbins,” I whispered. “Do you hear anything?”

  “A physiognomist whispering,” he said.

  Too weary to kill him, I got up, having decided we should go pay a surprise visit to the handyman. From a physiognomical standpoint, a technical examination of Rothac’s features in an attempt to conclude his potential for treachery was unnecessary. You couldn’t miss that fact that he was less of everything, ergo also less of morality and justice. Let’s be clear, he was, to my mind, part beast, and when Chibbins had sung his song about the monkey, beyond the fact that I wanted to gouge out his very eyes, I imagined Rothac as the monkey serving drinks and entertaining on the piano.

  We’d not gone ten yards toward the handyman’s house when Chibbins leaped into the air and loosed a scream. I turned back to see him frantically dancing in place, his feet moving in a blur. Something was scuttling on the ground next to him. “It bit me,” he cried.

  I raised the scalpel and moved toward him. “Lower the lantern,” I said, and I couldn’t believe he did as I’d actually requested. There was something there. As I got closer it appeared a snake rearing up to strike, but I knew it couldn’t be as there was still too much shadowed bulk beneath and behind it. Then I saw, the snake ef
fect was caused by the long neck of a bird, whose feathers suddenly opened behind it. Even in the dim light I could apprehend its beauty. It let out a wail, exactly as we had heard, and I took a step back.

  A voice came from behind me. “A peacock,” it said, and I turned to see Rothac with a cudgel in one hand and a lantern in the other. “The birds of the Summer Palace, they make a haunting sound, especially in winter.”

  “I thought it was your ghost, the Sacrilege of Anonymity.”

  “The Sanctity of Grace? You may see her yet tonight,” he said.

  Chibbins had cornered the peacock and was petting its neck, purring like a cat.

  “What, pray tell, brings you out at this time of night? I’m sure it wasn’t the cry of the Palace buzzard here. It wouldn’t have alarmed you.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Something’s about to happen, and I feel it’s not going to be good.”

  “That statement could accurately have been made at any hour since my arrival. A sinister tedium, with dashes of the grotesque, yourself included.”

  “Before this is over, Cley, you will need to imbibe the Beauty.”

  “Think again, manikin. I . . .” The interruption was caused by a fearful noise coming from off in the distance. This too was a wail, but wholly different from that made by the bird. The very air seemed to vibrate from it.

  “Look,” said Rothac and pointed.

  I turned and saw it out amid the netted shadow of the willow branches. There was a green mist, floating above the ground, moving along at the pace of a funeral procession. It was headed toward us. Truthfully, I wanted to run but was stunned by the sight of it. The green fog, though continually disintegrating into nothing at its edges, appeared at times to be a thin sheet wound around a body so that certain features of physiognomy became momentarily clear beneath the insubstantial wrap.

  It was on the path, twenty feet away from us. It wailed again, and I raised the scalpel. At the sound of the spirit, Chibbins sprang into action and dashed toward it. “Back, you idiot,” I yelled. Dropping the lantern, and making an arrowhead with his clasped hands in front of him, he dove into the miasma, still on his feet, and began laughing and flapping his arms as if to disperse it.

  “It’ll kill him,” said Rothac.

  “Could I be so lucky?” I said.

  The handyman and I watched as the ghost left Chibbins behind, turning in circles, wildly waving his arms. Now it bore down on us. I thrust my blade forward for protection, only realizing then how useless it would be. Only a few yards from us, it stopped advancing. There came a loud popping noise from it, like a bottle of Sparkling Vertigo hastily uncorked, and something large and glistening shot out from within the green folds of mist. Whatever it was passed me by at a furious speed, and then I heard Rothac grunt. I turned to see him fallen back, his lantern on the ground. A huge icicle had pinned him through the chest, its partially shattered point, jutting from his back, keeping him inches off the snowy earth. I looked back to the mist, expecting the same fate, but the phantom had dispersed into night. Instead, Chibbins was beside me, very much alive.

  “Chibbins is tired,” he said, and I beat him remorselessly.

  THE NEXT MORNING at breakfast, I described to Mrs. Barlow the demise of Rothac. We sat in a parlor with a wall-size window, looking out at the snow and willows. Sunlight streamed in, and I was happy for its comfort. Ludiya was there, and in the telling of the harrowing incident, I tried to make myself seem courageous and coolheaded. At one juncture, where I described wrestling with the spirit in a battle of life and death, the young Miss Barlow smiled and nodded. Luckily, Chibbins, now with a blackened left eye and a missing front tooth, was eating and could not surface to contradict me.

  “So do you still doubt what I told you of my husband’s death?” asked the old woman.

  I couldn’t verbally acknowledge my mistake. Instead I very subtly shook my head.

  “Last night, after it killed Rothac, it came to my room,” said Ludiya. “It slithered up under my covers. Did I mention that I wear no sleeping apparel? I woke to its ghostly tongue, lapping my flesh. The green mist licked me from head to foot, and then I heard the voice of the Sanctity of Grace in my mind. She told me, ‘By tomorrow night, I will have consumed you all.’ Then she vanished.”

  I must confess to a certain tightness in the trousers after hearing Ludiya’s tale; an exquisite confusion stirred my thoughts.

  “Physiognomist Cley, you and Physiognomist Chibbins must drink the Beauty and do battle with the phantom in a more substantial form. I know you can defeat her and save us,” said Miss Barlow. She reached across the table and laid her hand on mine.

  My trepidation toward drinking Rothac’s sweet swill evaporated with Ludiya’s touch. I looked momentarily at the young woman’s mother, and that wrinkled visage was staring at our nearly clasped hands, smiling and nodding. I quickly drew my hand back.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  Chibbins threw his spoon into the empty oatmeal bowl in front of him. “I summon the spirit,” he announced and belched loudly.

  Mrs. Barlow winced. “The Ministry of Physiognomy is turning out some real chaff these days,” she said.

  “My apologies for my partner,” I said, “but as you can see, I had a word with him about it last night.”

  “I was referring to you, Cley,” she said.

  “What’s that?” asked Ludiya, pointing to the center of the table.

  I looked to see the green mist rising from the dried gourd centerpiece. In a flash, it coalesced into the rippling winding sheet form I’d witnessed on the path the previous night. Chibbins applauded, but I was not so happy to see the thing again. Ludiya screamed. Mrs. Barlow stood and shook her fist at the apparition. “Be gone,” she shouted in a cracking voice.

  When I heard the popping noise, I dove to the floor. Somebody gave a sudden gasp of pain. When I finally lifted my head above the tabletop, I noticed the Sanctity of Grace had, of an instant, disappeared, and I remembered Rothac saying, “She hears everything, sees everything, is everywhere.” The next thing I knew, Ludiya was crying hysterically. I turned my attention to her mother, now pinned to the back of her throne with a thick icicle through the mouth. Blood and shattered teeth were everywhere. Her death stare was pointed in my direction.

  “If we’re to be saved, you must take the Beauty, Cley,” said Ludiya amid her blubbering. Chibbins was busy placing coffee cups and saucers beneath the spots where the frozen shaft leaked onto the tablecloth. He lifted his empty oatmeal bowl, turned it upside down, and put it on Mrs. Barlow’s head, covering her eyes.

  THAT AFTERNOON, CHIBBINS and I made our way out to Rothac’s place and retrieved the cauldron of Beauty that still sat on the fireplace hearth. Of course, by then the fire was out and the stuff was cold, but Ludiya had told us it could be reheated. Chibbins carried the pot by its handle, twitching as he walked and sloshing the violet liquid so that some drops fell out. Wherever it fell, the snow turned not violet but black.

  Once we returned to the Palace, I ordered Chibbins to drag Mrs. Barlow’s and Rothac’s remains to the carriage house where the cold would keep them somewhat fresher in death than life. When he returned from that task, I sent him out again, this time to count the willow trees. In the meantime, I found Ludiya and proffered my condolences. We sat on the divan in one of the hundred rooms, my arm tightly around her shoulders, like I was a favorite uncle. Her bosom pressed against me, and I lightly kissed her ear as she sobbed and said, “Poor Mother.” Poor Mother was not the appellation I’d have used for the old hag, although Poor might have been part of it.

  After dinner, we retired to the plush thrones of the piano room, and Ludiya served us each a piping hot mug of the Beauty. The bubbling violet gave off a paradisiacal scent, and I found myself unable to resist it. So sweet, like a sweetness from the center of the earth or wrung out of the blue sky like rain wrung from the blouse of a field worker caught in a storm. I tasted it, and for a moment, my mind went blank. I saw pu
re white as if the powerful taste were instead a bright light. Once I began drinking, feeling the warmth of the brew as it traveled through me, I didn’t stop until the mug was empty. I took mine away from my lips as Ludiya did the same with hers. Chibbins had beat us both to the finish.

  “Now,” said Ludiya, “give it a minute and you’ll begin to see what I was talking about.”

  “How long do the effects of the drug last?” asked Chibbins.

  I did a double take, unable to believe that my partner was capable of asking an intelligent question. In fact it was the question I was about to ask.

  “Three or four hours,” she said.

  “Must I stay in my chair?” asked Chibbins.

  “No,” she said. “You will feel the need to rise and move around.”

  For my part, I was staring at Chibbins. Something had happened. A great change had come over him. Not only had the Beauty conferred upon him a sort of relaxed, confident persona, leaning back in his chair with one leg suavely over the left arm, but he now had, without my witnessing it having grown, a thin dark mustache. He looked over at me and said, “Cley, old boy, do we have a plan?”

  “Chibbins, what’s happened to you?” I asked.

  “Nothing yet,” he said. “I propose we charge the Sanctity of Grace simultaneously, scalpels carving the air. We’ll slice her stem from stern and leave what’s left for the peacocks.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “We’ll wait to see what the meeting brings.”

  “There are birds in the fireplace,” said Ludiya, and I noticed piano music, although no one sat at the bench.

  “It’s starting,” I said.

  “Cley, you have a halo,” said Chibbins.

  “Where did you get the cigarette?” I asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” he said and took a drag. “Right now, there are green jewels crawling across the ceiling.” His head was back and he was laughing.

  Ludiya stood and approached me. I reached out and took her hand. Bringing it to my lips, I kissed the back of it.

 

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