City of Masks

by Daniel Hecht

  And very much alive.

  She went through the rest of the downstairs and pulled aside every drape and curtain, then threw open every interior door so that light moved between the rooms and the house was full of long vistas. When she was done she dusted her hands together, savoring the look of the place.

  Where to begin? It had to be just the right place.

  Somewhere inside, a familiar shift had begun with the decision to bring Joyce and Edgar in. You are something of a medium, after all, Paul had observed, and it was true. Once Joyce got here, tomorrow, and Edgar presumably this weekend, Cree's best contribution to this case would be the internal process she undertook. All the other elements hinged upon that highly subjective, delicate progression toward the ghost and its mental world.

  But the upstairs of the main house scared her. She couldn't banish the memory of yesterday's events: the sight of Lila careening madly away, the bruising impact of their fight in the hall, the sudden appearance of the malevolent ghost with his knotted, turbulent affect. Just thinking about it sent jolts of electricity down her nerves. Though she was tired from the events of the last few days, she felt hyperalert and ready to run. She had to massage away a tic that began hitching her shoulder up and down, and her hands kneaded her wrists like a pair of small, frightened animals trying to comfort each other.

  No, she couldn't manage that halhvay or the master bedroom. Not yet. It would have to be somewhere the boar-headed ghost was not likely to manifest. As she and Lila had regrouped in the car yesterday, Cree had painstakingly questioned Lila about every moment of her ordeal and had verified that she'd encountered him only on the second floor of the main block and east wing; he appeared to be spatially restricted. Some relief there.

  Of course, with this ghost, you couldn't be sure of anything.

  She went to the library, opened its curtains, and sat for a time, hoping she'd find a reprise of the keening feeling she'd felt before and hoping it would prove to be the strangely absent perimortem side of the upstairs ghost. But aside from the same mood, maybe the faint smell of almonds, she didn't come up with anything. The library wasn't the right place today.

  What, then? There was still the lingering question of Lila's anomalous vital signs; she'd be wise to explore every point in the house where those had occurred.

  She headed to the back of the house and went up the rear stairs, a shorter flight leading to the former slave quarters that occupied the north wing. After a moment of claustrophobia in the darkness of the narrow stairwell, she emerged onto a landing and then went out onto the long balcony that fronted the three second-floor rooms. In town, it had been a convention of the era to provide slaves with quarters on the second floor, each room accessed only by the narrow, outside gallery, like the balcony that served second-floor motel rooms.

  This was the only part of the house where the sun came directly into the windows, and though the rooms were far smaller here, Cree found them very pleasant. Richard Beauforte had done a good job of remodeling back in 1948. The rooms retained much of their rustic simplicity, with homey furnishings and details: rough, white plaster walls and dark, wide-board floors; an antique cast-iron woodstove for heat, a wooden chest of drawers, patchwork quilts on the beds. Hand-tinted lithographs of nineteenth-century plantation scenes and anonymous portraits decorated the walls, and each bureau held a bone-china washbasin and water pitcher. But Richard had wired the rooms for electricity and converted a storage room along the row to a bathroom, making the whole wing a functional, comfortable dormitory for servants or guests.

  Cree sat on the bed in the first room, leaving the door wide to the sunshine. When they'd toured the house that first time, Lila had said only that this had been the bedroom of Josephine, the housemaid and nanny the Beaufortes had retained throughout her childhood. Why had her vital signs shown so much subconscious agitation here? She spoke of Josephine with great affection. And it was a wonderful room. Two squares of sunlight on the floor gave it a homey feel; through the open door, beyond the balcony rail, Cree could see the lawn and some bright flower beds, and then the hedge and the wall of the next house. To the left, the partially sunlit rear facade of Beauforte House seemed to glow.

  In the pleasant room and buttery sunlight, Cree felt safely removed from the malevolent presence in the main house. She was increasingly sure he was spatially contained. Lulled by the serenity here, she found the fatigue of the past week stealing over her. She let it come.

  Back here, surrounded by the yard and trees, there was no visible clue to what century this was. No phone lines, streetlights, or parked cars. She savored the feeling. It occurred to her that this feeling was more the norm of human experience: For most of human history, really, past and present hadn't been so different, the past was more evident. In the era before farms and neighborhoods were so quickly replaced with malls and highways, they often stayed more or less the same for centuries. People awoke in the rooms they'd been born in, walked past their ancestors'graves as they went to work, ate supper off the same plates their grandparents had eaten from. When things did change, they tended to do so gradually and incrementally, their essence enduring despite physical changes. Cree knew she'd absorbed some Eastern thinking in that regard, but it was by no means only an Asian philosophy. Even back in New Hampshire, she had found the same basic idea in a telling bit of Yankee folk humor: "Ayuh," the old timer says, "that there's a fine ax, had that same one all my life. Changed the handle four times, changed the head twicet, always been a good ax."

  Funny, but so true: Things changed utterly yet continued perpetually.

  Cree's thoughts spiraled and looped, and she let them lead where they might. The gentle whisper and buzz grew, not so much a sound or even a thought but a sensation around her heart and stomach. Buzzle buzz zuzz. The quiet, breathy, subliminal voices of times and people past, fascinating, lulling. No sign of the boar-headed man.

  Nearly drowsing and a little sun dazzled, she stared out the open door into the yard. In a minute, she really should get up and go back to the library, get back to work. But this was so nice.

  Really, she had always been fascinated with the Deep South, had intuitively felt it in some mysterious way all her life - had known it, known the rhythms of life and the cadence of Southern voices. The humid blossom scent, the heat of the days, fanning yourself as you sat in the shade of the gallery. The way an ankle-length skirt buoyed by layers of petticoats felt, broad and sweeping, the way you moved with it and tucked the folds when you sat.

  During the Civil War period, when the house was young, there'd have been fewer neighbors - from here you'd have a longer view, across gardens and a small field that still remained from the original plantation. Immediately behind the kitchen, there'd be the vegetable gardens and cistern. The day the Union Army first occupied this house: the men gathered around the cistern, seeking the relief of a cool drink with jackets off, blue caps tipped back, shirtsleeves rolled and circles of sweat under their arms — not used to the heat here. Their manner was half the swagger of conquerors and half the uncertainty of strangers in a foreign clime, hostiles deep within the enemy's domain. And the Beauforte slaves, too, walked uncertainly, ambivalent: inspired by the prospect of the freedom the Yankees claimed to grant them but frightened at having nowhere to go, no confidence their liberty would endure. Not sure how to act around the family — to obey, still, or to disdain their former masters? Because everyone knew the war was far from decided, these soldiers could be gone in a day or a month, and what would become of the slaves then? Everything was coming apart and uncertain. No one really knew where to go, where they would end up — not the slaves, not the family, not the neighbors.

  Beyond the cistern, on the far side of the kitchen garden, the officers'horses stirred in their makeshift paddock, and farther still, wavery in the rising heat, another unit of blue soldiers stood in loose formation at the side of the next house. Their rifles rested long on their shoulders as they watched the wife and the two children mount th
eir carriage - evicted, their house seized, just like this one. It was too far to see their faces, but they would be crying or sad and defiant beyond crying. And soon it would be time for the Beaufortes to leave, too, and it might be the last time any of them would ever see the house again in this life, and it was too poignant and sad to bear.

  Cree startled as she heard a door slam in the central block of the house. Reflexively, she leapt up and started to bolt for the door, then caught herself. Her legs were bare, no petticoats, and the skirt she wore rode above her knees, little more than a chemise - she couldn't go out of the room like this, virtually undressed! And then she was shocked to see that there was no cistern, no vegetable garden, no paddock or horses. The yard was thick with green, enclosed, with neighboring houses right on its borders.

  The present broke suddenly over her with the colors and shapes of the early twenty-first century. Right, 2002. Cree Black, right.

  She'd been daydreaming, indulging the kind of drowsing fantasy of the past she'd been having so often since arriving in New Orleans - so vivid, so real. She took a deep breath and shook her head to dispel it.

  Faint sounds of movement came from the main house.

  She walked stealthily along the gallery, opened the door, and paused to listen. Above the thud of her pulse, she heard voices - several people.

  A man. And a woman, maybe two women. In a moment, with a mix of relief and distaste, she recognized the male voice: Ronald Beauforte.

  Cree went inside and made her way to the top of the stairs.

  "Hello? Mr. Beauforte?"

  Ronald Beauforte appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, looking up, startled. But he recovered quickly. "I'll be damned. I was wondering who opened up the drapes. Well, Ms. Black, I'm giving a little house tour. You're welcome to join us." His welcome sounded strained.

  Cree went downstairs, where Ronald introduced her to three elderly ladies who he said were representatives of the New Orleans Historical Preservation Society. "And this is Lucretia Black, who's doin' us the honor of visiting from Seattle," he told them. He shot a dark glance at Cree. "Ms. Black's visit is an unexpected pleasure today."

  The three women looked at her with poorly concealed expressions of distrust.

  "I take it you are also interested in the house?" one of them asked.

  "Very much so," Cree admitted.

  The old women shared covert looks of dismay. For an instant Ron looked uncomfortable, but another expression quickly replaced the concern - an opportunistic glint followed by renewed confidence.

  "Well. I was just talking about some of the portraits," Ron said, "but I know Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Crawford are particularly interested in the restorations my father did. Please follow me, ladies. Ms. Black, do join us, won't you?"

  Cree did. Ron led them through the house, pausing to describe features of interest. He discussed several innovations the original architect had incorporated and then explained how careful his father had been to install central forced-air heating and air-conditioning so as to have minimal impact on the historical appearance of the house. When he unlocked the doors along the east wing hallway, Cree saw the interiors of the rooms for the first time. Ron explained that one had been the original kitchen and the other the larder; though now they were mostly empty, the Beaufortes had stored their most valuable antiques in them during the Chases' occupancy.

  They finished with the former slave quarters. In the room where she'd drowsed, the sun squares were gone now, the three old women crowded the room and filled it with chatter. To Cree's dismay the sense of the past faded. She clung to the images and scents, missing it, longing for that shimmering summer air. But it sifted away and left her feeling oddly empty.

  When they were done there, the three ladies conferred as Ronald took a moment to shut the doors along the balcony. Then, as he led the way to the narrow stairway, one of them turned back to Cree. It was Mrs. Crawford, a thin woman with a mesh of blue veins visible through the nearly transparent pale skin of her face, white hair spun fine as cotton candy, an expensive-looking, perfectly tailored suit. A woman of porcelain delicacy with a brittle, disapproving expression.

  "I take it your interest is private, Ms. Black?" she asked. She looked Cree up and down and apparently found her unsatisfactory.

  "Well, yes - "

  "We are somewhat disappointed. We weren't aware Mr. Beauforte was entertaining other interest at this point. I do hope this doesn't mean we'll be competitors in a bidding war. That would be so unfortunate for both parties, don't you think?"

  "Wait a minute — " Cree began, getting the drift now.

  But before she could continue, Ronald Beauforte appeared again, looking up at them from the bend in the stairs. "Oh, there you are. We missed you. If you have any questions, I'm happy to try to be of assistance — ?" He smiled insincerely as he continued up, and Cree got the sense he was deliberately interrupting them.

  Mrs. Crawford didn't take her eyes off Cree. "We were just discussing how important it is to keep houses of great historical significance accessible to the public. To preserve our cultural heritage for posterity."

  "So very true," Ronald agreed. He took Mrs. Crawford's arm and steered her toward the stairs. "But I did so want to show you the carriage house - again my father was well ahead of his time and took pains with the restoration, bless his soul — " And he shepherded her into the stairwell before Cree could say anything.

  "I supposed you're wondering what that was all about," Ronald said. He shut the front door and dusted his hands together. Outside, the three ladies of the Historical Preservation Society were making their way down the front walk.

  "Yeah — I'm wondering why you're showing the house to prospective buyers even though your sister still hopes to live here."

  Ronald crossed his arms and stood flat-footed, looking down at her and smiling. "What the hell were you doin' up there when we came in? Not to beat a cliche to death, but you looked like you'd seen a - "

  "And why you intentionally let them think of me as another possible buyer. I assume having another buyer in the picture would help drive up the price?"

  "Ms. Black, your presence was, to put it mildly, unexpected. What would you have me do, explain the whole sorry business to them? 'Ladies, this here is a ghost buster we've hired because my sister is going crazy and we're so afraid for her mental health we'll do any damned thing'? But no, I didn't mind them assuming that's what you're here for, and no, it probably won't hurt the price." He didn't seem at all disconcerted by Cree's scorn.

  "What about Lila?"

  "Oh, what about Lila?" Ronald's good mood vanished. He turned away, frustrated, striding into the front parlor and then wheeling back to face Cree. "First the woman takes it into her head that she's perishing to live in the old family home - last kid leaves the nest, and suddenly she comes up with the notion that there's going to be some great Southern dynasty reborn here? Hell, she'll be lucky if her kids'll even come visit after college. You see what she's doing? It's not just the empty nest thing, she's got some kind of a . . . a hole in her life, and decides living in this place is going to fill it. She's suddenly feeling her age, feeling alone, and so she's clinging to some kind of a dream or . . . fantasy that isn't real, never was. Just how seriously am I supposed to take it? And Jack! Well, we all know^ what Jack - "

  "Doesn't she deserve a chance to see if that's what she really wants? Don't dreams deserve a chance to become real?"

  Ronald stopped his tirade to drop his chin on his chest as if martyred by Cree's idealism. But when he raised his face, his huff had vanished and his expression was appreciative. "You sure get in deep, quick, don't you? We've only been talking five minutes and look how very philosophical we're getting!" He clicked his tongue, looking at her admiringly, then sobered again. "No, Ms. Black, I am not immune to the idea that dreams deserve a chance. But let's look at what's really happened. Just as my dear sister is giving her dream that chance, all of a sudden she comes up with this big reason not to,
doesn't she? See, what you don't know is, there's some history here. We've been having to deal with Lila's fits and starts, grand plans and self-sabotage - have I got the psychobabble right? - since she was fifteen! This time it's ghosts, terrors, I don't know what all, none of you'll tell me. And next time it'll be something else. Who knows where this thing'll end up? You see what shape Lila's in. Can you guarantee you're going to 'cure' her? That you're going to exorcize the . . . evil spirits she thinks this old place is stuffed with? That when the all dust settles, and you've come and gone, she's still going to want to move in here? You can guarantee that?"

  "No."

  "Fine. So what's the harm of having backup plans? You know, these old places cost money even when they're sitting empty. You got half a million dollars in antiques gathering dust and getting eaten by moths and mice. You got an acre of roof to keep from leaking. You're paying for security service, pest control, insurance, taxes, yard work, you name it, and all for what? To have something to worry about! Why not see it preserved for posterity, just like little ol' Miz Crawfish said?"

  "How much does Lila know about your 'backup plans'?"

  Ronald turned away to stride into the front parlor. "Are we done here? You want to help me pull these? Sunlight - they say it'll wreck up these rugs and whatnot." He unhooked the ties and tugged the front drapes together. The room dimmed, taking on one small shade of its former melancholy.