“Miserable,” I say, smiling softly.
“Lots of turbulence?”
“No, I get motion sickness—”
“Oh, my son has the same problem! Since he was a wee one. Now he’s grown with a son of his own, and Robbie Jr. can’t set foot on a plane without wetting himself and losing his lunch. Like father, like son, I guess. They have to sedate the poor boy whenever they fly out to visit relatives in Reno. Of course, I've suggested more homeopathic remedies—flower essences, healing crystals—but Robbie is a nonbeliever. Anyway, have you been inside yet?”
“Inside?” I glance at the front door of the house with trepidation. Somehow, in the fading afternoon light, the shadowed entrance looks even less friendly than it did only a moment ago. “I haven’t gone inside there, no. I just got here—”
“Good!” She claps her hands together with a sharp smack, causing my eyes to widen in surprise. “Then I haven’t kept you waiting for long. I do want this to be a pleasant experience for you, Ms. Dark. And given the, well…” Her head tilts toward the house slightly, and she purses her lips, suddenly serious. “Given the fixer-upper state of your new home, I want to make this transaction as easy for you as possible. So.” She reaches out to pat my hand, as if in sympathy. “Shall we step over the threshold together, hmm?”
What an odd way for a real estate agent to speak, to behave… Of course, Marie looks more like a medium at a psychic fair than a real estate agent, and I have to admit: her hesitant assessment of the house as a “fixer-upper” gave me a strange, unsettled feeling in the pit of my already unsettled stomach.
I regard the peeling purple door again, wondering what hazards lie behind it. Holes in the floorboards, holes in the ceilings? Moldy, mildewy, musty rooms that haven’t been occupied by anything other than moths and mice for decades?
Unaccountably, the barista’s story of a ghost drifting over the staircase enters my mind—but then I roll my eyes and shake my head, annoyed at myself. What I told the green-haired coffee slinger was true: I don’t believe in ghosts. Or witches or vampires or zombies. Or reanimated mummies, for God’s sake. I believe in the stuff I can see with my own eyes, touch with my own hands. I’ve never allowed the rampant legends of spooky voices or ancient curses to scare me away from dig sites, so a kid’s (probably inebriated) “ghost” experience—while trespassing, no less—rates pretty low on my mental list of Things to Take Seriously.
Sighing, I offer Marie a small smile and step onto the groaning front porch. “Let’s check this out.”
“All right. You first, homeowner. But please watch your step.”
The realty office had sent the door key to my site address in Cairo. After an absurd amount of digging around, I find the key ring in my bag and push the small silver key into the lock. I’d expected some resistance; this door probably hasn’t been opened often in the past couple of years. But, surprisingly, the knob turns with little effort, and the bond between the door frame and the door breaks soundlessly, without a single creepy creak.
Well, that’s promising...
But then I step forward, and my foot gives way beneath me, sinking far lower than the level of the floor. I catch myself on a tall, hard object—a side table? It’s too hazy and dusty to see clearly—and manage to avoid falling headfirst onto the hardwood. But my ankle, caught in a hole, twists beneath me.
“Oh, Ms. Dark! Are you hurt?”
“No. It’s nothing,” I lie, grunting and lowering myself to the floor. I remove my foot from the small gap in the floorboards and sit with my head pressed against my knees, wincing from the hot sear of pain. I’d injured the same ankle in Cairo last week by tripping—weirdly enough—over a black cat that had wandered into my open-air living quarters. Guess you’re in for some bad luck, Lucia, the site manager, had told me teasingly, after I limped out of my shelter in search of ice. Lucia didn’t believe in ghosts or superstitions any more than I did. The locals we hired to help us with the dig had insisted that the urn we unearthed from the desert sand, marked all over with red-painted hieroglyphics, was cursed, so Lucia and I had made a game of blaming our stale coffee on this supposed curse—along with the sandstorms, and that horrid infestation of stinging beetles.
Despite the ache in my ankle, the thought of Lucia now—brown-limbed, sharp-tongued, graceful Lucia—sends a flash of heat through me; I bite my lip, remembering the way she felt in my arms. She and I had shared work and meals and private jokes, and we’d shared a bed, too—sometimes mine, sometimes hers. One night, we made love beneath the stars, a few yards away from the excavation site, our entwined shapes lost in the shadows of a red-gold dune. Her skin was sand and velvet against my tongue…
She’s still camped out in Cairo; when she kissed me good-bye, she said that she would write to me here. But I don’t expect her to. We’re too alike: she, like me, lives a life without commitment. By next month, she’ll be off to Greece or South America, where she’ll seek out new wonders and warm someone else’s cot.
I massage my ankle; it’s grown hot to the touch. Frustrated and embarrassed, I smile at Marie self-consciously. “Sorry, I should’ve looked before I stepped—”
“No, no, I should have warned you about that hole. I’d forgotten about it. It’s been weeks since I was last here. Things have been so hectic lately, and I wasn’t able to come out yesterday like I’d planned to, to do a final walkthrough for you or a sage cleansing. Do you need me to call an ambulance, or drive you to a clinic?”
“I’m fine,” I assure her, chuckling softly. “I have a habit of falling. Don’t give it another thought.” In the dim, slanting light, alive with floating dust motes, I notice a tear on the thigh of my jeans—and then I feel the prick of an upside-down nail beneath me. I must have sliced the denim when I slid down to the floor…
God, I hope the airline finds my luggage soon. In my tacky neon shirt, torn jeans, and coffee-stained boots, I hardly feel fit to be seen by make-believe ghosts, let alone living, breathing people. I rake a hand through my short mess of brown curls and then heft myself to my feet, suppressing a groan.
“Sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure, thanks. I just need to walk it off.”
“Ms. Dark—”
“Alex.”
“Oh. Alex.” Marie’s round face looks strange, almost vaporous, in the angled, dusty beams of light seeping through cracks in the boarded-up windows. “If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from? You have a sort of accent, and my father was born in England—London, actually—so I wondered if you might be from England, too. Or Scotland?”
“No.” I chuckle again. “I’m not from England. I’m not from anywhere. I’ve spent some time in England. Boarding school for a couple of years. But I’ve lived all over. My mother and sister and I traveled with my dad to most of his dig sites while I was growing up, and I kept up the wandering habit after he passed on. I was born in Toronto, though. My sister lives there now. She and her husband have a contracting business.”
“Ah, so you’re Canadian?”
“Technically speaking, yeah.” I smile again. “I haven’t stepped foot on Canadian soil in years, though. And this is my first time in the States in about a decade.”
“Have you been to the falls before?”
I nod, rising to my feet with a slight wobble and reaching out to the side table again for balance. “My parents used to bring us to Niagara Falls every summer. My dad worked the whole time—speaking engagements at museums and colleges, and he attended the annual conference on archaeology held at the convention center in Buffalo—so my mom and sister Cordelia and I took in the tourist traps without him.” I gaze toward one of the dirty-paned windows, its glass boarded over on the exterior of the house. “It was a special place to us,” I say softly, trailing a finger over the dust on the tabletop. “We moved from apartment to apartment, from country to country, but always came back to Niagara Falls in June.”
“And now you’ve come to stay.”
My eyes widen, and my mou
th, all of the sudden, goes dry. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. “To stay? No, I— No.” Now you’ve come to stay… Marie’s statement rattles me more than it should. I turn to face her, shaking my head, brown curls drifting in front of my eyes. “Sorry. I haven’t come to stay, only to fix up this place and then sell it for a profit. I’ll go back to digging. I’m only taking a break—”
“Well, then I hope it’s a restful break. I hope it proves to be exactly what you need, Ms. Dark. Er, Alex.” With deep calm shimmering in her too-blue eyes, Marie takes both of my hands and squeezes them gently. “I believe that everything happens for a reason. If you feel that you need to be here right now, then you do need to be here—and all the rest will fall into place.”
I smile slightly, unused to this sort of New Agey talk but oddly reassured by it. Maybe I just feel soothed by Marie’s comfortable presence. She reminds me a little of a professor I was fond of during my undergrad days at NYU. “No matter what happens,” I say, glancing up at the chipped ceiling with its bulb-less chandelier, and then staring at the curving, purportedly haunted staircase at the back of the entryway, “it’s sure to be an adventure.”
Marie slides her arm through mine and pats my hand again. “Come on, Alex. Let’s begin the tour, hmm?”
I learn, as we walk through the house, that there are eight large rooms in various states of disrepair, in addition to an unfinished basement and an attic. Downstairs, Marie shows me a kitchen devoid of appliances and countertops but with a large, cozy-looking fireplace set into the inner wall; a sitting room with a built-in reading bench beneath the boarded-up bow window; a dining room, square, red, and very dark; and a “salon,” as Marie calls the living room, wallpapered in an odd pattern that looks, to my eye, like interlocking fish bones.
Though the rooms are spacious and will probably be bright enough once the boards are removed from the windows, they’re in neglected, shabby shape. The place hasn’t been inhabited in decades—I’m unclear as to when the last resident vacated the premises—so I had expected grime, but I’m half-afraid of falling through the floors or getting crushed beneath rubble, should the ceilings above my head suddenly give way.
I take some comfort in the fact that Cordelia will be arriving the day after tomorrow to help me assess all of the construction work that needs to be done. Judging by my uninformed first impressions, though, this house should be rebuilt from the ground up.
I hope I haven’t made a terrible mistake…
The sinking feeling in my stomach—on top of the lingering post-flight nausea—tells me that, yeah, I probably have.
Well, it won’t be the first time a hotheaded decision got me into a jam—and, I’m sure, it won’t be the last time, either.
“Be careful on this staircase,” Marie tells me, as she stands on the bottom landing, her beringed hand resting lightly on the knobbed newel post. “It’s safe enough, but I’ve fallen on it both of the two times that I’ve been here. I...um...just felt dizzy all of the sudden and slipped.” She glances at me self-consciously; then she shrugs. “Maybe I got lightheaded from breathing in this dusty air. I’ve had asthma since age three, so that’s likely it. Although I should say...” She shakes her head. “Anyway, watch your step.”
Following Marie’s lead, I take each stair one at a time, admiring the scrollwork on the carved banister as I glide my left hand along it. The faces of the steps themselves are adorned with curlicues and fleur-de-lis, and the wood is stained a rich, dark red-brown. When I lift my head at the first landing, my eyes confront a five-foot-tall stained glass window with a pointed, arching crown.
I pause in front of it, a little stunned, my eyes still as I hold my breath.
I’ve never seen a window like this one before.
My family didn’t attend church services—my father was an avowed atheist, and my mother followed an eclectic spiritual path—but we toured many of the gothic churches of Europe with their soaring architecture and artful, Christian-themed stained glass windows.
This stained glass window, though, doesn’t depict a religious scene—no saints or angels or grapes, no crosses or trumpets twined with lilies.
I stare into the glass gaze of a brown-eyed woman, dressed smartly in a black corseted Victorian dress, and I feel something within me, something new or long-buried, move, or quake, or suddenly wake up from a deep, dark sleep. It’s the same feeling that I get when I’m trying to remember something and almost have it—it’s right there at the edge of my consciousness—but I can’t bring the memory fully to mind.
Staring at the glass woman, I shiver slightly; the air feels cold all around me, and the hairs on my arms are standing on end.
“Who—” I begin, but Marie is already nodding her gray head, pointing at the window and looking poised to tell me a tale.
“This house was built by the Patton family,” she says quietly, meeting my eye as she clasps her hands over her stomach. “Have you heard of the Pattons? I’m sure you have. They made quite a name for themselves.”
“No, I…” I begin to shake my head, but then I pause, thinking. “Patton… You don’t mean—are they related to the Patton Papers empire?”
To my surprise, Marie nods her head, smiling her friendly, encouraging smile. “That’s right. Godrick Patton dabbled in everything from music to medicine to mummy-collecting in Egypt, but he made his fortune by mass-producing stationery and Valentines for Victorian ladies during the late 1800s. Of course, now Patton Papers is a multibillion-dollar company with no ties to the original Patton family at all. In fact, there aren’t any Pattons left alive. At least, not as far as I know.” She shifts her gaze to the entryway below us. “But during the heyday of his paper fortune, Godrick Patton built this house. Chose every wood stain and wallpaper—even drew up the architectural plans himself. He was quite the renaissance man.”
“Really?” Amazed, I turn again toward the woman’s likeness pieced out in cut pieces of colored glass. Somehow, the window artist managed to convey an expression of impishness in the young woman’s face. Her eyes are warm but also teasing, and her mouth curves up into a knowing half-smile. Her dress drapes loosely around her small breasts and soft hips, the “fabric” falling to her ankles and concealing all but the tips of her sharp red boots. Odd, I think, red boots, not black. Her gloved hands hold a piece of paper—a letter, maybe. She’s the picture of a wise, worldly woman playing a game, playing her part, in order to get what she really wants out of life. I wonder what she wanted.
“Was this Godrick Patton’s wife?”
“No. That’s his daughter Elizabeth. Bess, they called her. Godrick’s wife Amelia died shortly after Elizabeth was born. Amelia never lived in this house. And Bess was their only child, the only heir.”
“Elizabeth,” I whisper, biting my lip. A quick, icy chill rushes over me, and I shiver again, even though none of the windows nearby are open. Besides, no cold air could be seeping in from outdoors: the temperature is in the high 70s today, not cool at all. I rub my arms and clear my throat. “So, her father commissioned an artist to make this window?”
“Yes. Godrick loved Elizabeth very much. You know,” Marie begins in an odd tone, eyeing me thoughtfully with her head tilted to one side, “you resemble her. Her hair is longer, of course, and you don’t seem the type to wear a corset—”
“I’m not,” I laugh.
“But there’s a resemblance—in the eyes, I think.” She nods her gray head, thoroughly convinced. “You both have that look about you, like you’re plotting something, or keeping a secret. Oh, and I mean that in the most complimentary way, Ms. Dark. Sorry. Alex. As you can see, Elizabeth Patton was a beautiful girl. Tragic, what happened to her, poor thing.” Marie sighs shortly; then she turns on the landing to brave the second flight of stairs. “But enough ancient history. Come along now, before the sun sets. This house is frightfully dark at night, and the electricity isn’t on yet. I hope you brought candles.”
I didn’t, and I’m beginning to realize just
how unprepared I am for this harebrained venture. I don’t even have a sleeping bag to sleep in tonight, since the airline misplaced all of my luggage.
Marie pauses in front of a pair of open double doors near the top of the stairs. “Now, here’s the master bedroom. This was Godrick’s room, of course, and I would think it gets the most light—or will, once you pry those awful boards away.”
I poke my head into the room but don’t step inside; there isn’t much to see, anyway. It’s a large room, larger than any bedroom I’ve ever had before, and its wallpaper is a dull gray, though there’s the ghost of a pattern of silhouettes. A toile pattern, I think it once was. The room could easily accommodate a king-sized bed, a couple of regal wardrobes, and a full-sized sofa. Marie shows me the comparatively small, empty closet and then leads me onward to the next bedroom, opening the crystal-knobbed door wide.
“You might use this room as an office,” Marie says, stepping over the threshold, kitten heels clicking. “It’s the smallest of the three. Godrick’s mother lived here. She was an invalid and never went downstairs.”
“Never? You mean…”
Marie frowns, gesturing toward a darker rectangle on the hardwood floor, where a bed likely stood. “She died in this room, and others died within these walls, too. Elizabeth, for one—”
“Elizabeth? How did she—”
“—but you’ll find that’s often the case with old houses. It isn’t out of the ordinary at all. My own house was built much later, in the 1920s, and there were three deaths beneath the roof before my husband and I moved in.” She offers me a soft, sympathetic smile. “We haven’t had any ghost sightings, if that’s what you’re worried about, so I...expect you won’t run into any haunting activity here.” She pauses, gazing toward the ceiling. “Most likely.”
“Right,” I murmur, even as, against my will, the image of the ghost on the stairs floats up behind my mind’s eye. Now its face is that of an old woman, and its hands—reaching, reaching—are faintly wrinkled, creased with long, branching blue veins...
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