by Lena Gregory
Priscilla stood and faced her defiant brother.
Jim jumped up and took her arm. “Let it go, Conrad. Just sit down.”
The other guests looked on, more interested now in the conflict at the head of the table than anything Cass had to say.
The smoke coming from the fireplace increased, seeping throughout the room. If things hadn’t gone wrong, she’d be in the middle of the séance by now. Had Bee set the timer on the fog machine he’d used in the fantasy section of his fashion show? Or was the fireplace backing up and going to kill them all?
The Wellington siblings’ bickering was cut off by a huge boom, loud enough to shake the room, rattling the wineglasses on the table. Cass surged to her feet, knocking the chair over behind her. Many of the guests stood, too, fidgeting, twisting their fingers, gazes darting around wildly, obviously nervous. Unsure if this was part of the show. Unfortunately, Cass was just as much in the dark as they were.
She cast a quick glance at Stephanie, reluctant to tear her gaze from the Wellingtons gathered at the head of the table in front of the fireplace. Stephanie’s expression was a mask of confusion. Apparently, she didn’t know what was going on either.
The cloud of smoke billowed toward the high-domed ceiling, gaining form as it rose, taking on substance, forming a shape. The vague shape of a man emerged, his shoulders broad . . . Cass blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the image. It had to be her imagination. She rubbed her eyes.
A woman screamed. Another fainted. A man scoffed.
Cass stood with her mouth open, unsure what to do. Was this Bee’s doing? He was a master at creativity, might even have the skill to pull it off, but she couldn’t see how. A chill raced up her spine.
The next explosion of sound sent a tremor through the room. Cass gripped the table. A blast of ice-cold air gusted from the fireplace, eradicating the still-forming figure and extinguishing the roaring fire, as well as the candles on the table. The sconces flickered and died in a shower of sparks, leaving the room shrouded in blackness. The music abruptly stopped.
The momentary silence was deafening.
Chaos ensued.
“What the heck is going on here?” Conrad whined. “Whatever it is, I’m not amused.”
People panicked, the harsh thumps of chairs falling over, people scrambling from the room. “Move.”
“Get out of the way.”
“What was that thing?”
“Was it really a ghost, Herbert? I want to go home. Now.”
The heavy thud of footsteps overhead brought an immediate halt to the evacuation. The urgency of the voices dropped to frantic whispers.
“What is it?”
Someone was crying, the soft sobs echoing through the strained semi-silence.
Cass held her breath and listened through the harsh sounds of ragged breathing and soft whimpers. The noise seemed to be coming from directly above them. Clomp, clomp, clomp . . . accompanied by a strange scratching sound. Footsteps? Too fast. Whoever it was would have to be running.
“It’s on the stairs.” The shaky voice was barely decipherable. “It’s coming down the stairs. What do we do?”
Stephanie grabbed Cass’s hand, leaned over and whispered, “Is this part of the show?”
Cass shook her head then realized Stephanie couldn’t see her in the dark, but she wasn’t able to force the word no past her chattering teeth.
The pounding grew louder. The scratching came closer. Right outside the room. A deafening peal of . . . thunder? The ballroom door burst open.
Screaming, some of the men now joined the women.
Cass’s heart jackhammered in her chest. She tried to suck in a breath. Couldn’t.
“Sorry, Cass, but this is more than I signed on for.”
Bee?
A dim light flickered to life as Stephanie lit a barbeque lighter and held it to one of the candles on the table. She went down the line, lighting every candle she could find, her hand shaking wildly each time she touched the flame to a wick.
Bee clomped across the room on his platform shoes, his intense gaze pinned on Cass. Beast clung to his side, tail tucked between his legs.
“What are you still doing here?” She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to control her erratic heartbeat.
As soon as they reached her, Beast whimpered and nudged her hand with his nose. Weaving the fingers of her free hand through the thick mane standing up around his neck, Cass took as much comfort as she offered.
Conrad stormed across the room, his demeanor aggressive as he approached Cass.
Beast growled low in his throat, baring his teeth, hackles raised.
Although Conrad stopped in his tracks, he didn’t back down. Pointing a finger at Cass, he yelled, “That’s going too far. I don’t know what kind of cheap game you’re playing, with your foolish parlor tricks, but I for one have had enough. I’m canceling the rest of the weekend.”
“You can’t do that.” Panic clawed at her throat. No way was she refunding all of these people the price of their tickets.
“I can, and I just did.” He spun on his heel and plowed into his brother.
Jim shoved him back with an open palm to his chest, his teeth clenched. His green eyes held a dangerous look she wouldn’t have thought possible. “Let’s all calm down.”
Conrad tightened a fist at his side, but Priscilla stepped between them before he could take a swing. Cass couldn’t help but wonder if he’d have had the nerve to do it.
“Enough.” Priscilla spoke calmly, her voice pitched low, forcing everyone to quiet down if they wanted to hear her. And it definitely seemed no one wanted to miss what she had to say.
“Please excuse my brothers’ behavior.” She glanced around the room, making eye contact with each person. “It seems tension is running a bit high in light of the . . . events . . . that took place during the séance.”
A few awkward chuckles followed.
A man approached Priscilla and spoke quietly to her.
She nodded and returned her attention to her guests. “It seems the electricity is out throughout the mansion, so I have a suggestion.” Her tone suggested it was more of a command. This was a side of Priscilla Cass hadn’t seen, a forceful, dominant woman used to having her orders obeyed. “We’ll retire to our rooms for the night. In the morning, we’ll have breakfast, continue with the individual readings, and perhaps the group reading.” She smiled, and more of the tension seeped from the room. “Then, if everyone is willing . . .” She stared directly at Cass. “We’ll try the séance again tomorrow night.”
Cass simply nodded dumbly, unsure what to say and unwilling to cross this new version of Priscilla Wellington.
4
“Scootch over.” Bee lifted the blanket and slid into bed with Cass.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“It’s your fault I’m stuck here, and I’m not sleeping on the cold floor.”
Even though they had a lantern on the dresser between the two full beds—Priscilla had rounded up and distributed as many flashlights and lanterns as they could gather—the heat had gone with the electricity. Cass lay in the bed, shivering, fully dressed, with her coat spread across the top of several blankets. At least Bee would give her some warmth. “Fine. You can share, but it’s not my fault you got stuck here. I can’t control the weather.”
Bee harrumphed. “By the time I finished setting everything up, the roads were already too bad to drive. There was no way I was going downstairs with that . . .” He waved a hand dramatically. “Stuff . . . going on. So I waited up here with Beast.” A small chuckle escaped, and he pressed a hand to his chest. “I nearly had a heart attack when the lights went out.”
The image of Bee running pell-mell through the dark hallways in his platform shoes popped into Cass’s mind. She glanced at Stephanie in the bed next to hers, a pile of
covers pulled up over her mouth and humor lighting her eyes. Cass couldn’t bite back the laughter, and it bubbled out.
Bee scowled then joined her.
“Don’t worry, Bee. I think half the guests had the same reaction.” Stephanie sat up straighter and lowered the blankets. “Actually, once word gets around about this fiasco, maybe interest in Mystical Musings will pick up.”
Cass shrugged. “Maybe.” Or maybe everyone will think I’m a fraud and stay away. She sighed. “By the way, Bee. How did you make that figure form in the smoke?”
His bushy eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean? What smoke?”
“The smoke from the fireplace.”
“I didn’t do anything with the fireplace.”
“You didn’t use the fog machine from the fashion show?”
“Hmmm . . . I didn’t think of it, but it would have been a good idea.”
Stephanie shifted and pulled a blanket tighter around her. “So where did the smoke come from?”
A shiver ran through Cass.
Bee shrugged. “Probably from the fire.”
But Bee hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen the man who’d started to appear. Maybe Cass hadn’t either. Maybe he’d been nothing more than a figment of her overactive imagination reacting to a room full of stress.
“And what about the image of the man that started to appear over the fireplace?” Stephanie asked.
Or, perhaps, mass hysteria? Is there even a remote possibility it could have been real? Cass did not want to examine that any closer. At least not tonight. “What about the rumbling noise? Was that your doing?”
He was already shaking his head. “I thought it was thunder.”
“Can it thunder when it’s snowing?”
“Sure.” He didn’t say anything for a minute as he seemed to ponder the answer more carefully. “At least, I think it can.”
Cass’s mind was about ready to shut down. She couldn’t take any more tonight. With any luck, which seemed sort of doubtful the way the weekend was progressing so far, the electricity would be restored by morning. In the meantime . . . “Let’s just get some sleep. About ten more guests signed up for individual readings before they went to bed, so I’m going to have to start earlier than planned.” Hmmm . . . Maybe Stephanie was right. Maybe stories of the bungled séance would bring more business.
She snuggled down into the pillow, tucking the blankets beneath her chin. Beast’s soft snores soothed her. Not that a dog was any defense against a ghost. But Beast was a really big dog, and he could be really scary when necessary. He was usually so easygoing, though. The only person he’d ever growled at had been Jay Callahan, when he’d threatened Cass. Until tonight. Why had Beast taken such an instant dislike to Conrad Wellington? Maybe because Bee disliked him. Weren’t dogs sensitive to stuff like that?
Her eyes fell closed, exhaustion weighing heavily.
Bee’s rhythmic breathing told her he’d already nodded off.
Blizzard force winds howled.
A scream jerked her from the brink of sleep. Real? Or imagined? The wind, maybe? It came again, accompanied by the pounding of footsteps in the hallway.
Ah . . . jeez. What now?
She flung the covers back, grabbed her coat, and poked her foot around the floor in search of her Uggs. When her foot came to rest on something furry, she squealed and pulled it back.
“Will you be quiet?” Bee’s sleep-filled voice helped bring her back to reality.
Slipping her arms into her coat, she stood, pushed Beast’s head off her boots, and stepped into them. Oh well, at least they’re warm.
Another scream tore through the night.
Bee shot from the bed as if he’d been cattle prodded. “What the . . .”
Voices accompanied the hurried footsteps, and Cass crept toward the door, with Bee clinging to her back.
“What do you think is going on?” Tremors shook his voice.
“I have no idea, but I can’t imagine it’s anything good.”
“Should we wake Stephanie?”
“Stephanie’s already up.”
Cass jumped at the voice just behind her.
“Nice to know you guys were going to leave me here alone,” Stephanie said.
Beast barked.
Ugh . . . Frustration shortened Cass’s temper. “Fine. Let’s just go find out what’s happening, but don’t let Beast out until we know what’s going on.”
Opening the door only as much as necessary, keeping Beast in the room, the trio slipped through into chaos. Oil lamps hung sporadically along the hall cast a soft, flickering glow over the melee, making the scene seem all the more surreal.
Priscilla stood sobbing at the bottom of a steep stairway in the middle of the hall. A stairway that hadn’t been there when Cass had gone to bed. What the . . . A quick glance up explained why. An attic-style stairway had been pulled down from the ceiling, presumably after they’d started to fall asleep.
Jim held his sister against his chest, one arm embracing her, the other hand rubbing circles on her back. “You have to calm down and tell me what’s wrong if you want me to help.”
Priscilla sucked in a deep breath but didn’t manage to form any sounds other than crying.
Many of the guests were now crammed into the narrow hallway, standing around in various states of undress, most wrapped in coats or blankets and holding an assortment of flickering lanterns, candles, or flashlights, looking as confused as Cass felt. She couldn’t help but wonder why Jim didn’t go up the stairs and see if anything was up there. It seemed like the most obvious course of action.
Would she have to do it?
She chanced a quick glance at the gathering crowd. Gazes darted frantically around, ultimately landing on the newfound stairway before not so discreetly shifting away. Feet shuffling and soft murmurs told her she wasn’t the only one who’d had the thought. Of course, no one seemed too eager to go see what had the super-composed Priscilla Wellington sobbing like a baby.
Sucking in a shaky breath, Priscilla lifted her head from Jim’s chest. She stared at her brother through eyes that were puffy and red, black makeup tracks running down her cheeks and circling her eyes. Her lower lip trembled, and she sniffed.
Someone held out a wadded-up tissue, and she reached for it and looked around, seemingly noticing the crowd for the first time. Her eyes went wide, fear etched into every line of her face. She’d aged ten years in the span of those few seconds, before she turned back to James. “Conrad . . .”
Cass had to strain to make out the harsh whisper.
She heaved in another breath. “He’s . . .” Sniff. Her voice grew stronger, but not by much. She sighed. “He’s . . . dead.”
A collective gasp filled the hallway, then silence.
“I found him in the cupola.”
Jim pushed Priscilla aside, grabbed a lantern from someone, and ascended the steps two at a time. Cass glanced around, then followed.
“Are you nuts?” Bee grabbed her arm and tried to hold her back.
Pulling her arm away, she leaned close so only he and Stephanie, who were practically glued together, could hear. “I have to go. This could kill my reputation. I have to know what happened.” She started up then breathed a sigh of relief when she felt their weight settle on the ladder-like stairs behind her.
“Wait.”
Cass froze at the familiar voice and looked down into Donald’s face.
“You might need this.” He held a flashlight out to her, the beam of light bouncing around the hallway in his unsteady hand.
Coward. He never could take any kind of stress. Was she being unkind? Probably. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed the light and said, “Thanks.”
Directing the light in front of her, she ascended quickly—before she could change her mind—and poked her head into the cupola.
It only took a moment to find Jim in the center of the small room, lantern lifted, staring at his brother’s body hanging from a noose tied to a rafter.
Bee sucked in a breath from behind her and slapped his hand over his mouth.
Stephanie gasped.
Ignoring them, Cass moved toward Jim, gaze carefully averted to avoid looking at Conrad. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head but remained silent, staring at the body as it swung gently in the soft breeze probably coming through the old windows, the creak, creak, creak of the swinging rope hypnotic.
Unsure what to do, Cass hesitated. She didn’t want to startle him, but she certainly wasn’t going to stand there all night, or leave him there. “Jim? Are you all right?” She laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“You know what’s weird?”
Cass frowned.
“He’s had some sort of weird fascination with this cupola since the day we first looked at this house. With everything we had to do to get ready for this weekend, he still insisted on having the stairway installed before the séance so he could have access to it from inside the house.” He finally pulled his gaze away from his brother to look at Cass. “Priscilla didn’t know he’d chosen the room he wanted to stay in, and she accidently gave it to another couple who’d already checked in. Conrad freaked out. He wanted her to throw the guests out so he could have it, but she refused. They had a wicked argument over it. She finally caved when Joan approached her and told her how much it meant to him to have the only room directly beneath the cupola. She had no idea why, but Priscilla relented and relocated the other guests.”
Cass didn’t know what to say, so she simply remained silent.
Pain filled his eyes, and he lowered the lantern and sidestepped Cass without another word.
Bee and Stephanie shuffled out of the way so he could reach the stairway.
“You think he planned to kill himself all along?” Bee approached her without letting his gaze fall on Conrad.
“I don’t know.”