Summon the Keeper

by Tanya Huff

  He sounded so positive, Claire didn’t bother pointing out that mice seldom came in a bright fire-engine red.

  “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll bring some traps up later.”

  So would she, and she rather thought hers would be more successful.

  Ignoring the way her reflection moved slightly out of sync, Claire ducked around an elaborate, full-length mirror and finally ended up under the sloping edge of die roof. “This,” she said, turning off the flashlight, “is certainly strange.”

  Displayed in relative isolation by one of the windows was a bed and mattress, a set of drawers, an old radio, a washstand with a full china set, and a pair of ladder-back chairs.

  As Claire stepped forward, she caught sight of something that drove all thoughts of V.C. Andrews-style decorating out of her mind. Just at the edge of the “room” was the very table she’d been looking for. It could easily seat twelve, and all it needed was a bit of polish.

  “Dean! I’ve found it!” She swept a pile of papers onto the floor and had barely emerged, sneezing and coughing from the cloud of dust, when Dean stepped out from between a stack of washstands and yet another steamer trunk, having discovered a slightly wider route to the spot.

  “It looks solid enough,” he admitted, circling the table. Frowning thoughtfully, he heaved one end into the air. “It’s some heavy. How are you after carrying it downstairs?” Releasing the table edge, he bent under it for a closer inspection, highlighting the joints with his flashlight beam. “Those stairs are narrow, and it doesn’t come apart.”

  “I’ll get it down the same way they got it up.” Dismissing the little voice in the back of her mind that suggested she was showing off, Claire carefully reached through the possibilities and pulled power. “First, I stack the chairs and tables currently in the dining room, out in the hall.”

  Listening hard, Dean thought he heard the faint sound of stainless steel chiming against stainless steel and the slightly louder sound of an irritated cat.

  “Then…” She traced a design in the dust on the table. “…I send this beauty down to replace them.”

  The table disappeared.

  “Rapporter cette table!”

  Waving one hand vigorously in front of her face, Claire peered through the reestablished dust cloud at Dean. “What did you say?”

  He sneezed. “Wasn’t me.”

  In the silence that followed his denial, they could hear the dust settling.

  “It’s quiet.”

  “Too quiet,” Claire corrected.

  With a sinister rustle, scattered papers rose into the air, riding an invisible whirlwind. They spun for a moment in place, faster, faster, then whipped forward.

  Claire dove for Dean just as he reached out to rescue her. Foreheads connected. They hit the floor together as the papers flew overhead.

  Ears ringing, Claire scrambled to her knees. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Trying to save you!”

  “Oh? How?”

  “Like this!” He flung himself at her and returned her to the floor as the papers made their second pass. The edge of an envelope opened a small cut on his cheek.

  “Get off me!”

  “You’re welcome!” Too buzzed with adrenaline to be embarrassed, he rolled onto his back and watched her climb to her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “Putting a stop to this!” She pointed a rigid finger at the papers. “Right now!”

  Everything except a postcard plummeted to the floor. The postcard made one final dive.

  “You, too!” Claire snapped.

  It burst into flames and fell as a fine patina of ash over the rest.

  Hands on her hips, she glared around the open space where the table had been. “We can do this easy or we can do this hard. Your choice.”

  The silence picked up a certain mocking quality.

  “Just remember, I warned you.”

  “Now what?” Dean asked, standing slowly, keeping a wary eye on those larger items, like chairs, that might also be considered movable.

  Claire bent down and smudged a bit of ash on her left forefinger. “Now, I’m going to make whatever it is show itself.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Of course,” she snapped. “Check the card.”

  “The card?”

  “The business card I gave you.”

  He pulled it out of his wallet as she walked over to the window ledge and smudged a bit of dust on her right forefinger.

  Aunt Claire, Keeper

  Your Accident is my Opportunity

  (spiritual invocations a specialty)

  “It didn’t say that before.”

  “It didn’t need to. Now, be quiet.” With both hands out at shoulder height, she pulled power. The symbol drawn by her left hand glowed green, the symbol drawn by her right glowed red. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Appear because I say you must.”

  Dean glanced back down at the card. It now read: (poetry optional). Claire’s sister apparently had a good idea of Claire’s limitations.

  Between the symbols, fighting the invocation every inch of the way, the figure of a man began to materialize. Still translucent, he jerked back and forth trying to break the power that held him. When he finally realized he couldn’t win, he snapped into focus so quickly the air around him twanged. Medium height and medium build, he wore a bulky black turtleneck, faded jeans, and a sneer.

  The symbols lost their color, glowing white.

  “Your name,” Claire commanded.

  “Jacques Labaet” Squinting, he tossed shoulder length, dark-blond hair back off his face. “And I am not at your service.” When he tried to stride forward, lines of power snapped him back between the symbols. Brows drew in over the bridge of a prominent nose. “All right Perhaps I am.”

  “Give me your word you won’t attack again, and I’ll release you.”

  “And if l do not?”

  The symbols brightened. “Exorcism.”

  One hand raised to shield his eyes, Jacques shook a chiding finger at her. “You are a Keeper. You cannot do that. You have rules.”

  “You drew blood.” Claire nodded toward the cut on Dean’s cheek. “Yes, I can.”

  “Ah.” He pursed his lips and thought about it. “D’accord. You win. I give you my word.”

  The symbols disappeared.

  “You are a woman of action rapide, I allow you that.” Blinking away afterimages, he stepped toward her. “For all you are so…beautiful.” His mouth slowly curled up into a lopsided smile that softened the long lines of his face, creating an expression that somehow managed to combine lechery and innocence. Claire found it a strangely attractive combination. “Tes yeux sons comme du chocolat riche de fonce…. Your eyes they are like pools of the finest chocolate; melting and promising so very much sweetness. Does anyone ever tell you this?”

  “No.”

  “Are you certain?”

  He sounded so surprised she had to smile. “I’d have remembered.”

  “So foolish are mortal men.” After a dramatic sigh, his voice deepened to a caress. “Your lips, they are like the petal of a crimson rose, your throat like an alabaster column in the temple of my heart, your breasts…”

  “That’s quite far enough, thank you.” There was such a mix of sincere flattery and blatant opportunism in the inventory that Claire found it impossible to be insulted.

  Jacques spread expressive hands. “I mean only to say…”

  Standing at the edge of the cleared space, Dean cleared his throat. “She said that was enough.”

  “Really? Et maintenant, what did I say of mortal men?” One brow flicked up to punctuate a disdainful glance. “Ah, oui, that they are fools. Are you mortal, man? No, wait, it is not a man at all; it is a boy.”

  Moving up behind Claire’s left shoulder, Dean dropped his voice. “What is this?”

  “This is Jacques Labaet.” She couldn’t decide if she were amused or irritated by Dean’s interruption, most
ly because she couldn’t decide if he were being supportive or protective. “He’s a ghost.”

  “A ghost?” Dean repeated. He turned his head and found himself nose-to-nose with the phantom.

  “Boo,” said Jacques.

  “We have just left Kingston, steaming for Quebec City; the weather, she is bad, but she is always bad on the lakes in the fall and we think anything is better than being stuck in with the English over freeze up. We barely reach Point Fredrick when things, they go all to Hell.”

  Claire winced, but there was no response from the furnace room.

  “Pardon. Such language I should not use around a lady.” Blowing her a kiss, Jacques continued his story. “The wind she came up, roaring like a live thing. I remember something hard, I don’t know what, catching me here.” He tapped the sweater just below his sternum. “I remember cold water and then, rien. Nothing.” His shoulders rose and fell in a Gallic shrug. “They said I wash up on shore, more dead than alive. Me, I don’t know why they bring me here. Two days later, I died.”

  “And you’re a ghost.” Dean wanted to be absolutely clear on that. Every community back home had at least one story of a local haunting—ghost husbands, ghost stags, ghost ships—and if this annoying little man was the real thing, then the old stories could be real as well and there were a significant number of apologies owed. He’d have to make some phone calls when the rates went down.

  “Oui. A ghost.” Jacques favored the younger, living man with a long, hard stare, then deliberately turned away from him. “First, I haunt the room I die in. That was not so bad although, I tell you, this place is not so popular with the living. When that Augustus Smythe, that espece de mangeur de merde, he moves everything up to the attic, I must go as well and I am haunting this place ever since.”

  “As a ghost.”

  “Does he have to keep repeating?” Jacques demanded of Claire. Before she could answer, he spun around to face Dean. “Would you feel better if I disappear? All of me?” He faded out. “Bits of me?” His head reappeared.

  “You’ve been dead seventy-two years,” Dean reminded him disdainfully. If the ghost had thought to frighten him with all the appearing and disappearing, he hadn’t succeeded. The whole performance too closely resembled the Cheshire cat in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. “Seventy-two years, that’s some time to be dead. You’re used to it, I’m not.”

  Jacques’ body came back into focus as he stood, hands curled into fists and chin in the air. “Nobody asks you to be used to it, Newfie. You don’t like it, then you can get out!”

  Rising slowly and deliberately to his feet Dean was significantly larger. “I live here.”

  “And I died here, enfant, long before you were born on that hunk of rock in water!”

  “You know, you’ve got a real bad attitude for a dead guy!”

  “Say you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is why we have cats castrated,” Claire said to no one in particular. “Sit down. Both of you. You’re acting like idiots.” While she understood how males were hardwired to defend their territory, this was ridiculous.

  “Only for your sake, ma petite sorcière,” Jacques muttered sulkily, throwing himself back down onto the bed, “would I tolerate this lump of flesh.”

  Dean moved toward the chair, then shook his head and remained standing. “No. He called me a Newfie like it’s an insult. I don’t take that from anyone, living or dead.”

  “You think I am to apologize?” Leaning back on one elbow, Jacques raised his free hand scornfully. “I think not.”

  “Okay.” Full lips pressed into a thin line, Dean turned on one heel and started toward the stairs. “I’m sorry, Boss, but if you want me, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  “Ha! Go on, run away! I scare off better men than you!” When Dean disappeared behind the stacked furniture, Jacques quieted and turned a speculative glance on Claire. “You will not stop him?”

  “How?”

  “Ah, oui, you cannot wave the dreaded exorcism over him.” Then his expression softened, and he laced his fingers behind his head, the lopsided grin not so much suggestive as explicit “Or perhaps you want to be alone with me as I want to be alone with you. Yes?”

  “No. Did you intend to drive him away?”

  “Non. But I intend to take advantage of it.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “I think not. Perhaps I should leave, too.”

  “You would leave me alone?” Letting his head fall back against the mattress, Jacques sighed deeply. “For still more long and weary years. Alone.” He paused for a moment then repeated, “Alone.”

  All the playacting, all the cheerful seduction, had disappeared. Although she knew she should maintain both a professional and personal distance, Claire couldn’t help responding emotionally. Rising out of the armchair, she walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed. It sagged under her weight. “You don’t have to stay here alone, Jacques; not any more. I can send you on.”

  “On to where? That is the question.” His eyes serious, he laid his hand over hers. “I tell you, Keeper, I was not the best of men. A bad man, no, but I cannot say and be certain that I was a good man. I would like to be certain before I go on.”

  Claire could understand that. Especially considering what waited in the furnace room.

  “So.” He rolled over on his side and his fingers tightened around hers. “Since I seem to be remaining for a time and we seem to be alone together, so conveniently on a bed, perhaps we could get to know each other better?”

  Snatching her hand through his, his grip no more confining than cool smoke, Claire leaped to her feet “Don’t you ever let up? While I appreciate your need for companionship, I do not appreciate being continually propositioned!”

  His eyes widened, his expression injured innocence. “But when first I see you, you are so beautiful, how can I not want you?”

  “That has more to do with how long you’ve been alone than it does with me.”

  “I do not want that Dean and I see him, too,” he pointed out reasonably. “And I am not to blame that it has for me been such a very long time.”

  “What do you expect? You’re dead.”

  Back up on one elbow, he rested his chin on his palm and waggled both brows suggestively. “The spirit is willing…”

  “But the flesh is nonexistent.”

  “You are a Keeper. For a time, I can be incubus for you.”

  Claire groped behind her for a chair and sat down rather abruptly. “How do you know that?”

  “There was a Keeper when I was dead no more than ten or fifteen years. She came to my room, de temps en temps—that is, from time to time. She is not so young as you, but when no one else makes offers…”

  The hair lifted off the back of Claire’s neck and she fought the urge to turn and check the space behind her. “Bleached blonde, full-figured, pouty mouth, very red lipstick?”

  “Oui.” His eyes narrowed. “You know Sa…”

  “Don’t say her name. She’s still here.”

  “Then I…” He disappeared. “…am not.”

  A little surprised, Claire scanned the area, trying to find him. She didn’t want to have to compel him to return. “I thought you two…you know?”

  “Non. You do not know.” His voice came from near the window. “There are legends about women like her, try to suck a man’s soul out his…”

  “I get the picture,” Claire interrupted hurriedly, not really in the mood for a graphic description in either language.

  “Why is that one still here?”

  How much to tell him? “Do you know what Keepers do?”

  “She told me. They guard the places where evil can enter the world.” He rematerialized, cross-legged on the bed, expressive features folded into worry. “But me, I think she want the evil for herself. I do not know what happened, but all at once, she did not come and Augustus Smythe was here. He is not a Keeper.”

  “No, he’s a Cousin. Less powerful.
She…” It was impossible not to pick up Jacques’ inflection. “…was put to sleep for trying to take over the, um, evil.” Claire could see no reason to be more specific, especially considering Jacques’ transitional state and his lack of certainty over his final destination.

  “She was put to sleep?” His voice rose, making it more a shriek than a question. “And if she wake up?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “So you say. Me, I learn a lullaby or two. And now, what happens? To me?”

  Claire frowned, uncertain of what he meant “Nothing happens to you. She can’t do anything while she’s asleep or she’d have done something by now.”

  “Je ne demande pas ce qu’elle peut faire a moi!” Agitation threw him back into French. “I know what she can do to me.” He raised both hands and made a visible effort to calm down. “I am asking what do you do now with me.”

  “What do I do?” He was persistent, she’d give him that. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing happens to me for years.” Jacques lay down again and flung an arm up over his eyes.

  “Could you please reattach that? It looks disgusting.”

  Jacques sighed but complied. “At least will you visit?”

  “When I can.”

  “Ah, you have no time because you must guard the place where evil can enter the world?”

  “I’m working at sealing the hole.”

  “And when the hole is sealed?”

  “Then I’ll move on.”

  Opening one eye, he peered up at her. “Will you bring back my table?”

  “No. You don’t need it.” When he began a sorrowful protest Claire cut him off. “You began haunting the attic when Augustus Smythe moved the furniture up from the room you died in, right?”

  “Oui.”

  She chewed on a corner of her lower lip. “Did he know you were there?”

  “He knew. He did not care.” Jacques rolled back up onto his side. Misery made his eyes surprisingly dark. “For so many years with no one who cared; do you know, cherie, I think that is worse than Hell.”

  Which explained why there was no response from the basement. Hell appreciated pain. “I have an idea.”