John took one final step closer to the window. He looked to his feet: no quilt. He looked up and saw me hovering behind the door, for it had been me who had shut it, closing him in.
The power of two women can be formidable, especially when combined with the determination of years of struggle and anger that had steeped inside both Sukeena and me. She took an arm and yanked, spinning him. I charged with all my strength. But in the end it was neither Sukeena nor me. I only wish it were so. It was April—that enormous wind—that did the job for us. I threw my weight into John, certainly. Sukeena pulled with all her substantial strength. A look of shock and surprise—the hunter hunted—my husband lifted off his feet in an ungainly and weightless manner. There, he faced our daughter in the stained-glass window. April smiled and blinked and repeated one last time, “Da … da.” (At that moment I wondered, had it been Sukeena’s and my idea, or had it been April’s all along?)
John Rimbauer planted his feet. He skidded across the wooden planks, and I swear I smelled burning wood as his heels dragged. He flew up and through the window, exploding it into a thousand pieces, and plunged down and off the slate roof from some fifty feet above the flagstone terrace. I recall him insisting upon the construction of that abysmal front terrace. I had never cared for it.
I like it a lot better now that it’s rose red.
26 FEBRUARY 1923
My son came home to-day and together we buried his father. Hundreds attended, from women whose names I did not want to know, to the dockhands who thought of him as a personal friend, to the bankers, businessmen and public officials who have made their careers off him. I stood in all black, crying real tears, holding my son firmly by the shoulder—the first time I have seen him in nearly three years.
It is difficult to express in these pages the acute sense of loss, of grief that I am experiencing. Despite all the atrocious things John Rimbauer did to me, the pain he brought to my life, I admired him greatly, loved him at times and marveled at his success. Even with the gambling losses he leaves behind a dynasty, a king’s fortune as it turns out.
Adam and I spent the later part of the afternoon walking the woods where he and his father hunted squirrels and rabbit. After some reminiscing and retelling of stories about his father, Adam finally brought up the subject he had avoided for years.
“Is it haunted?” he asked, looking not at me but at his own boots in the wet leaves.
“It’s possessed,” I answered honestly. “That’s the best way I can put it.”
“As in ‘ghosts’?”
“Spirits.”
We stopped on the trail, overlooking Lasky Pond.
“And April?”
Here was the discussion I had so longed to have with my son. I knew that John had colored his opinion. The newspaper, perhaps at John’s bidding, had reported a day or two later that the ice on Lasky Pond was found broken, and that April might have fallen through. (I wonder, then, that we never found the body!) This became the generally accepted view: an accident on the pond; a bear who had gotten close to the city; a mountain lion. Anything but the truth.
“She’s in the house, Adam.”
“That’s preposterous, Mother!” It was my husband’s voice, though carried in my son’s body, and the effect was disarming. How quickly they learn.
“Why do you think your father found ways all these years to keep you from returning to the house? You think he was afraid of the woods? This pond? He was afraid of the walls.”
“Father was afraid of nothing.”
“We’re all afraid of something, dear. Your father was a great man. But he was afraid of the truth. He fired Douglas Posey to avoid facing the truth; he kept you from this house, your home. Never fear the truth, Adam. It’s the only real passport you have to reach new levels of understanding. You may find it corny, but the truth can set you free.”
“It is corny.” He toed the fallen leaves, burrowing a wet hole into the forest floor and overturning a small, shiny rock.
“If you stay long enough, it may be possible for you to hear her voice.”
“Mother …”
“What? I’m crazy? You can tell me, Adam. You tell me.”
1 MARCH 1923
So it was that on a perfectly still night, three days later, my son and I climbed the creaking Tower steps toward that place where his father had met his death. Adam is a good-looking, strong boy of thirteen, with wide shoulders and thoughtful eyes. Despite his adolescent strength, he moved cautiously and nervously up those stairs, the wind rising in our ears. Wind, at first. Then the soft calling of his sister’s voice.
As their mother I had forgotten how close these two had been—nearly inseparable, until Adam was shuttled off to boarding school. They had grown up nearly as twins—Adam helping his slightly incapacitated sister; April as foil for his games and test subject for his inventions.
My young boy, whom this school had developed prematurely into a young man, collapsed down onto the steps and wept openly, falling into his mother’s arms, and knowing this was no trick. He was afraid, and I should have thought about his tender age and realized it was too soon for him. There would be plenty of time for all this. Why had I insisted on rushing it? Why had I felt nearly desperate to prove my sanity to my child? (Is such a thing provable anyway?)
As it was, mother and son eventually reached the Tower, sitting on its wooden floor. The open hole that had been the stained-glass window was now boarded up. Someday I will manage to replace that window. We huddled together, crying, laughing. Adam tried to talk back to that whispering voice, and though I did not understand the exchange, I would swear here on these pages that he spoke with his sister. I know for a fact that he returned to the Tower each and every night and spent hours up there.
He is back at school now. But he’s writing me, nearly daily—this son who had been virtually absent from my life. I feel whole again. Woman. Mother. John’s absence is more tolerable each passing day. Peace has returned to Rose Red. Adam and I are a family again.
Nothing so sweet.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
BOOKKEEPING RECORDS SUBSTANTIATE ELLEN RIMBAUER’S CLAIM OF FIRING THE THIRTY-FOUR STAFF MEMBERS FOR A PERIOD OF FOUR MONTHS. DURING THAT TIME IT IS BELIEVED SHE LIVED IN ROSE RED COMPLETELY ALONE AND WITHOUT A SINGLE VISITOR. WHATEVER HER MENTAL STATE GOING INTO THIS SOLITUDE, SHE CAME OUT THE WORSE FOR WEAR. OVER THE SUBSEQUENT TWO MONTHS, SHE REINSTATED A STAFF OF TWENTY. SHE THREW PARTIES. AT THE LAST, 1946’S ANNUAL INAUGURAL BALL, ONE OF THAT PERIOD’S GREATEST FILM ACTRESSES, DEANNA PETRIE, DISAPPEARED IN ROSE RED (THERE ARE UNCONFIRMED RUMORS THAT HER FRIENDSHIP WITH ELLEN WENT BEYOND THE NORM). THIS WAS THE LAST GREAT PARTY THROWN IN ROSE RED. THE STAFF WAS REDUCED TO FIFTEEN AT THE START OF THE U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN WORLD WAR II. BY 1950 ELLEN RIMBAUER HAD DISAPPEARED.
IN 1950, AS SHE WAS APPROACHING THE AGE OF SEVENTY, A NEARLY BLIND ELLEN RIMBAUER IS SAID TO HAVE ENTERED THE PERSPECTIVE HALLWAY NEVER TO RETURN. STAFF THERE CLAIM TO HAVE SINCE HEARD SAWING AND HAMMERING IN THE ATTIC.
AT THE TIME OF HER DEATH, ELLEN RIMBAUER, ONCE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND ENVIED WOMAN IN SEATTLE’S HIGH SOCIETY, WAS A WIZENED OLD LADY, FEVERISH, HALF BLIND AND SLIGHTLY MAD. IT IS SAID THAT FROM TIME TO TIME ROSE RED CAN BE HEARD LAUGHING OR CRYING—THAT THE SOUND CARRIES FOR MILES AND IS OFTEN MISTAKEN FOR EITHER A WILD ANIMAL OR A SHIP’S HORN.
• • •
SOON I SHALL VENTURE INSIDE ROSE RED, ARMED WITH SOPHISTICATED DETECTION EQUIPMENT; STEVEN RIMBAUER, A DESCENDANT OF ELLEN AND JOHN RIMBAUER; AND SOME OF THE MOST POWERFUL “PERCEPTIONISTS”—PSYCHICS—IN THIS PART OF THE COUNTRY. WE HOPE TO AWAKEN THE “SOUL” OF THIS ENORMOUS STRUCTURE, THE BEING THAT LIES WITHIN THE WALLS, AND TO OPEN COMMUNICATION WITH EITHER APRIL, SUKEENA, ELLEN OR ROSE RED HERSELF. IT IS THIS LAST OPTION THAT I FEAR MOST OF ALL. THIS DIARY CONFIRMS A FORMIDABLE PRESENCE. AS ALWAYS IN THE STUDY OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA, ONE ACCEPTS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF THE UNKNOWN, THE UNCHARTED. SPIN A GLOBE, OPEN A DOOR AND WHO KNOWS WHAT MAY HAPPEN? WE SHALL SEE. LIFE IS AN
ADVENTURE. ROSE RED OFFERS THE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME. WHO, IN MY FIELD, WOULD TURN DOWN SUCH AN OPPORTUNITY? AND SO I GO FORWARD, UNCERTAIN AND YET EXCITED. WE CANNOT DISCOVER THE PSYCHIC BOUNDARIES THAT EXIST IF WE DON’T DARE LOOK FOR THEM. WHAT WE FIND IS OURS FOR A MOMENT, SCIENCE’S FOREVER. IT IS THAT MOMENT I CHERISH—THAT SINGULAR MOMENT WHEN WHATEVER IS OUT THERE IS MINE, AND MINE ALONE. IN THAT WINKING OF AN EYE, THE WORLD IS LIMITLESS, AND I ALONG WITH IT.
—JOYCE REARDON, P.P.A., M.D., PH.D.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to my publishers, Beaumont University Press. I hope the publication will widen the public’s perception and acceptance of psychic phenomena, and firmly anchor a fascinating historical period in the growth and expansion of the Pacific Northwest. I have taken great pains to edit this document to a readable size, deleting the repetitive sections and omitting those I found offensive. For the extremely curious, or the voyeuristically minded among you, a portion of those edits can be found archived on the World Wide Web at www.beaumontuniversity.net. Photos of the house can be viewed on the Web site as well.
Good reading. In the name of science I will pursue the truth of Rose Red, wherever it may lead me.
Sincerely,
Joyce Reardon,
P.P.A., M.D., Ph.D.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Joyce Reardon has been a professor at the university for 15 years, becoming the Paranormal Studies department chairman in 1999. She holds an undergraduate degree from Beaumont, graduate degrees from City College, and a doctorate in Paranormal Studies from Greenwich University. In 1998, she began researching the mysteries of Rose Red after discovering Ellen Rimbauer’s diary.
COPYRIGHT
Photographs on pp. vii, 32, 36, 48, and 278 copyright © 2001 Jimmy Malecki / ABC
Photograph on p. 72 copyright © 2001 MSCUA, University of Washington Libraries, Barnes 171-L
All sketches copyright © 2001 Hyperion
Copyright © 2001 Hyperion
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