by Patricia Fry
“Right—but I haven’t seen Colbi or Iris or my sister to really visit with. I miss them when I don’t see them for a long time.” She lurched forward a little. “Oh, that reminds me. I want to ask Iris what she remembers about the old seminary. My aunt says her mother used to work there and that she’d come home with some stories of strange happenings.”
Michael set his gaze on Savannah. “Really? I wonder what kind of stories?”
“I’m eager to find out.” Savannah glanced at him and cringed. “At least I think I am.”
****
Two days later the regular after-church lunch group began to gather at the Kaiser Bed-and-Breakfast Inn.
“The place looks grand,” Savannah said when Iris greeted her, Michael, and Lily in the foyer.
“Well, you’ve seen it at its finest—you know, when we had the grand opening party. What’s different?” Iris asked.
After looking around, Savannah said, “Well, not much, I guess. It’s just so lovely and it’s nice to see it’s staying that way. You must have a great staff.”
“Indeed, I do,” Iris said, smiling. “The cleaning staff keeps the vases filled with fresh flowers. And they clean every inch of this place weekly, if not daily. There’s a lot of upkeep. But Melody left a large dowry when she died.”
“Dowry?” Michael questioned. “It sounds like you took a bride rather than having inherited a bed-and-breakfast.”
Iris laughed. “It’s like taking a bride—it’s a lot of responsibility, and I appreciate having the money to invest in it.” She leaned toward the couple. “It’s paying its way. Can you believe it? We’re actually making a profit.”
“That’s wonderful, Iris,” Savannah said, hugging her.
“You must have the right combination of staff and ideas,” Max said as he entered with Margaret and joined in on the conversation.
“I think that’s the key,” Iris said. “How else would I have been able to get away for our amazing trip last month?”
“I know how nerve-racking it can be to leave your business to someone else,” Michael said. “So the place ran smoothly while you were gone?”
Iris nodded. “As far as I can tell.”
“It just shows how little she does around here,” Margaret teased. “Ever feel like you aren’t needed?”
“Now, Maggie,” Michael reprimanded, it’s actually a sign of good leadership when you can leave your business and the wheels keep turning in the right direction.”
“And good employees,” Bud said when he and Brianna joined the others.
Michael put his arm across Bud’s shoulders. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“So where are your weekend guests?” Savannah asked.
“I didn’t book guests for this evening,” she said, smiling. “You’re our guests.” Iris glanced around at the others and gestured. “Well come in, everyone and prepare to feast. Mattie and Rupert are cooking up a fantastic gourmet luncheon for us.”
“Rupert is a cook too?” Max asked.
“Well, he knows how to barbecue and he grilled the beef tenderloin.”
Just then, Craig emitted a very definite, “Ahem.”
When Iris heard this, she grabbed his arm and announced, “Oh yes, and Craig helped.”
“Yeah, what did he do,” Margaret asked, “hold Rupert’s beer?”
“It so happens,” Craig said, “that I know my way around a grill. I gave Rupert a few pointers.”
Iris grinned at her husband, then she noticed her manager emerge from the kitchen with a large platter.
“Almost ready,” Ruth announced.
When she disappeared through the doorway again, Savannah said, “Looks like Ruth’s helping her sister in the kitchen. How are the three of them working out? I know you’re happy with Mattie. Are Ruth and Rupert doing okay?”
“Oh, yes,” Iris gushed. “I’m so pleased with them. Mattie may have come with a less-than-desirable past and Ruth and Rupert may not actually have manager experience, but I have to say, they’re all doing excellent work. Oh yes, we have a good thing going on here.”
“So what’s Mattie fixing?” Brianna wanted to know.
“Shrimp cocktail, mashed yams, roasted Brussels sprouts, and a raspberry tiramisu trifle for dessert.”
“Oh my gosh,” Margaret said, “you’ll have to roll me out of here after a meal like that.” She swooned. “Sounds wonderful.”
Brianna rubbed her hands together. “Can’t wait.”
“Well, you don’t have to,” Craig said. “Let’s get this eating-fest started.”
As the couples walked toward the dining room, Margaret removed her lightweight jacket, and Iris reached out for Margaret’s arm.
“New bracelet? I don’t see you wear bracelets often.” Iris studied it briefly. “I like it. Looks nice on you.”
“Oh no, it’s not mine,” Margaret said. She called out to her niece. “Vannie, Vannie, I want you to take a look at something.”
“What?” Savannah asked, doubling back to walk with her aunt.
Margaret held out her arm. “Look what I found this morning.”
“Oh my gosh! It’s my charm bracelet! Where did you find it? I’ve been looking for it for days.”
“I know. It was in that big pot with the palm next to our front porch.”
“Huh? How in the world did it get there?” Savannah asked.
“I figured you must have worn it to my house and it fell off your wrist as you walked up the stairs or something.”
“No, Auntie. I’m sure I left it on our porch that day Lily and I were looking at it. I know that’s the last time I saw it.”
Overhearing the conversation, Brianna leaned toward her sister and her aunt. “Are you gals into levitation these days?”
Savannah creased her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe you levitated it over to Aunt Marg’s place or she levitated it from your porch to hers.”
“Oh, you and your woo-woo stuff,” Margaret grumbled good-naturedly. She unfastened the bracelet and handed it to Savannah. “It’s a puzzle to me. But anyway, here it is. Now keep a closer eye on it, will you?”
Savannah hugged the bracelet to herself and smiled. “Thank you, Auntie.”
When Lily saw Savannah fasten the bracelet around her wrist, she squealed, “Mommy’s heart. Mommy’s bunny.”
Savannah lowered her arm so Lily could see the bracelet. “Yes, honey bun. Auntie found Mommy’s bracelet.”
“Oh, you found it, hon?” Michael asked. “Where?”
Savannah shook her head in disbelief. “Auntie said it was in one of the pots on her porch, but we haven’t the slightest idea how it got there.”
“Better ask your cat,” Craig suggested.
“Yeah,” Savannah agreed, “normally I would, but I can’t imagine any way possible that he had a thing to do with this.”
Brianna chuckled. “Maybe he’s into levitation.”
Once the meal had been served and the initial compliments had been shared, Savannah addressed Iris, who sat next to her, “Hey, my aunt says you know something about the old seminary. Your mother used to work there?”
Iris looked up from her meal. “Yeah, why?”
“Auntie and I are managing a cat colony out there and I was wondering about the history of the place. I don’t remember it as a child.” She grinned. “But then, I was a child. What do you recall? Was it like a school for students who wanted to go into the clergy or something?” When Savannah noticed Iris staring at her, she frowned. “What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows dramatically, “you might say that. Gosh, I haven’t thought about that place in forever.” She tilted her head. “You found cats living there? I wonder how that happened.”
“Yes,” Margaret said from across the table, “that’s all that lives out there now.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Iris said, sounding mysterious.
Savannah faced he
r. “What do you mean?”
When Iris noticed that others were waiting to hear her response as well, she brushed a red ringlet from alongside her face and said, “I guess nothing, really.” She shook her head. “It’s been closed for a long time. I’m sure everyone’s gone by now.”
“Are you talking about the old building with the bell tower east of town?” Brianna asked.
Savannah nodded, then squinted at her sister. “How do you know? You’re younger than I am and I don’t remember noticing it when we still lived here in Hammond.”
Brianna rolled her eyes. “Oma took me out there a few months ago. She has some stories about it if you’d like to hear them sometime.”
“Oh, Bud’s grandmother?” Savannah asked. She glanced briefly at Margaret. “Yeah, we might actually want to hear her stories.” She returned her attention to Iris. “So what went on out there that you recall?”
“As you said, it was a school—a religious school. Children of all ages studied theology along with a regular school curriculum, and many of them boarded.”
“Yeah, we saw the big kitchen. And your mother used to cook there?”
Iris nodded.
Having overheard this, Max said, “I didn’t know you came from a line of chefs, Iris.”
Her face lit up. “Oh yes, Mom and I had some of our best times together in our kitchen.” She frowned before saying, “But I sure didn’t like going to the kitchen at that place where she worked.”
“You went to work with her?” Savannah asked.
“What else was she going to do with me during the summer months? I couldn’t stay home by myself until I turned eleven or twelve. Yes, it was twelve. I remember on my twelfth birthday telling Mom, in no uncertain terms, that I was not going to work with her anymore.” Iris chuckled. “Know what she said? She told me that was okay, but if I stayed home, I had to clean house and prepare our dinner. Mom usually cooked the morning and noon meals at the seminary. But I was in charge of our dinner meal after that and that’s when I had my first experience cooking by myself.”
“Didn’t you almost burn your kitchen down once?” Margaret asked.
“Yeah,” Iris said, sloughing her off. “That’s another story for another time.” She leaned toward Margaret and glanced at Savannah. “But you want to know what went on in the seminary. Well, I was never exactly sure, but thinking back on it from an adult point of view, I wonder now if they weren’t involved in some sort of black magic.” She shook her head. “Something odd was going on there. I’ll never forget the day I stumbled upon...” She paused and looked around the table at the others.
“What?” Savannah, Margaret, and Brianna asked. Most of the others were engaged in their own conversations—Michael and Max were discussing a health issue involving one of Max’s shelter cats, Colbi and Damon were telling Ruth about something baby Rosemary had done that morning, and Bud was discussing grilling with Craig and Rupert.
“Well, there were actually two incidents,” Iris said quietly. “There was one when I was a child and another when I was a rather wild twenty-something.” She sat in contemplation before saying, “I always thought they were related, but I’m actually not sure they were.”
“What?” Margaret asked impatiently.
“Well, one day when I was there playing with some of the other children…”
“What other children?” Brianna asked. “Students?”
“Yes, students and other kids who went to work with their parents like I did. I sometimes went to classes there—you know, in the summer.”
Margaret huffed. “You, at a religious school?”
“They had regular classes, too; it wasn’t all religious stuff.” Iris winced. “There was a lot of praying going on, though—in class, before meals, and at the end of the day. Anyway, I guess they figured as long as I was there, I might as well be learning something.” She grinned. “Maybe they hoped to recruit me.” When she noticed some of the others now listening to her, she continued, “But it wasn’t in the classroom that I had the first encounter.”
“Encounter with what?” Colbi asked, now interested in what the women at the other end of the table were discussing.
“We’re about to find out,” Margaret said. She noticed that Ruth was also listening.
Iris stared into space for a moment.
“What was it?” Margaret asked. “You never told me about any encounters out there.”
Iris looked down at her plate. “I never told anyone. It was too weird.” She began speaking more quietly, as if remembering the details as she went along. “I was only about nine or ten, maybe. The other kids went to class and I stayed behind playing with my Slinky on the steps of that sunken patio thing out back where the fountain is.” She looked across at Margaret, then at Savannah. “Is that still there?”
Savannah shook her head. “No. Well, part of it is. I saw a cement slab behind the building and broken pieces of what could have been a fountain scattered here and there.”
Margaret added, “Yeah, and there are cement body parts along the fence in a pile of junk.”
Iris pointed a finger in the air, her eyes wide. “Yes, there were figures on it—cement figures of angels. I sometimes sat on the steps staring at those angels and imagining what they would do or say if they were actually alive.” She swallowed hard. “Well, one day while I was playing with my Slinky, I saw a lizard on the edge of the fountain and I decided to give him a push.” She flashed a sly grin. “I wanted to watch him swim. So I started to push him into the water. But before I could do it…” she glanced at the others, then continued, “…one of the figures spoke to me.”
“A cement angel spoke to you?” Margaret asked in a cynical tone.
“Yes,” Iris insisted. “As clear as day.”
“What did he say?” Savannah asked, struggling to keep a straight face.
“Well, first a dove landed on the angel’s wing. That was an interesting phenomenon on its own, but then I heard this voice.”
Margaret giggled. “Are you sure it wasn’t the dove speaking?”
Brianna nudged Margaret with her shoulder. “Good one.”
Iris sat up straighter and cranked, “If you’re going to make fun of my story, I’m not going to tell it.”
“I want to hear it,” Savannah said. “Don’t pay any attention to them.” She asked more quietly, “What did the angel say, Iris?”
“Well, I don’t remember all if it, but basically he told me that I should be kind to all creatures and bring happiness to others—something like that.” She made eye contact with the women around the table. “And then he said, ‘believe or die.’ That’s the part I’ll never forget.”
“Yeah,” Margaret said, “sounds like a message from that dove to me.”
Margaret and Brianna snickered.
Colbi glanced rather disgustedly at the two of them, and asked, “Iris, are you sure there wasn’t someone hiding behind the fountain? Maybe they were sitting out of sight praying out loud.”
“No!” Iris said emphatically. “I thought so too, so I walked around the fountain and I saw no one but that dove and those cement figures.”
“Wow! That must have creeped you out,” Savannah said.
“Kinda. I was certainly afraid of dying and I didn’t know what I was supposed to believe in order to keep from dying. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out that riddle. When I didn’t die, I eventually forgot about it—well, I quit obsessing about it, anyway, until…”
“Until what?” Margaret asked.
“Well…” she hesitated. “This is almost too bizarre to even talk about.”
“What?” Brianna and Colbi asked eagerly.
Iris took a shallow breath. “Not too long after that, another kid and I were playing out near the pond.”
“The fountain?” Savannah asked.
“No, it’s a natural pond out beyond the building, where you see all those trees.” She chuckled. “To Timmy and me, it was a gigantic forest full of wild ani
mals and adventures just waiting to happen.” She smiled. “We had quite the imagination. But what we saw that day wasn’t an imaginary tiger or lion or bear we could slay with our plastic swords. It was real and boy, was it scary.”
“What?” Margaret asked. “Tell us.”
“We’d been playing around the edge of the pond for a little while when we heard a strange sound—like a hum, sort of—coming from the forest. Of course, we wanted to see what it was. So we headed into the trees toward the sound. As we got closer and closer, it got louder and louder. We thought maybe it was a swarm of bees and we almost turned back, when all of a sudden we heard something else. It sounded like a man shouting ‘Kill her! Kill her now!’” Iris glanced around the table at the others. “The humming got louder and louder and we started getting a little scared. But neither of us wanted to admit it, so we trudged on, not knowing what in the heck we would encounter.”
“What was it, Iris?” Colbi asked.
“Yeah, was it that serial killer that was running loose around here when we were kids?” Margaret asked. “I remember hearing about him. Mama used to tell us stories about him to scare us into staying close to home. Was it him out there in that forest?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Iris said.
“Let her tell the story,” Savannah prompted. “So what happened, Iris?”
“Well, we kept walking toward the sound and the deeper we went into the trees, the darker it got. It was winter and close to supper time as I recall and it was starting to get dark. When we finally saw them, we weren’t too sure what we were seeing, but it looked like a group of people all dressed in black robes with hoods and…” she hesitated, “…they were chanting.” She looked up. “Of course, we didn’t know what that was or what to call it at the time. But now I know the humming sound we heard was people chanting.” She lowered her voice. “They were leaning over something on the ground. To this day, I don’t know if it was a person or an animal or what. But I swear those people had either killed it or were about to.”
“Gads,” Margaret said. “Were they Ku Klux Klan?”
“I don’t think so,” Iris said. “First, I think it was the wrong era and I’ve never heard of them in California, have you?” Before anyone could respond, she continued, “No. They looked more like monks, actually, but they each wore something shiny and shimmery around the waist of their cloak. I remember being struck by the shimmer coming from their robes. It almost looked like a string of lights or something. Maybe it was just the way the light from their fire caught the silver or whatever it was.”