Bone Key

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  They decided to be touristy and see various sights. "Wanna go to the Little White House?" Greg asked, as they sat at the foot of the bed in their hotel room at the Hyatt on Front Street.

  "What about the Hemingway House?"

  "I guess. I mean, it's just Hemingway." Even as he said the words, Greg wished he could have taken them back.

  "'Just' Hemingway? Ernest Hemingway is the greatest American writer!"

  "Only if you don't count every other American writer." They'd been having this argument for years. In fact, they had it before they started dating, as they'd first met in an American literature class in college where the subject came up. (The professor, of course, was on her side, but most of the class was on his.)

  Krysta opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it, then held up a hand. "We're not doing this. Look, whatever you think of his writing, he lived here, and there's this great museum dedicated to him. And it's full of cats."

  Greg blinked. "Cats?"

  Nodding, Krysta said, "Yup. A whole mess of them. And they're all six-toed."

  "You're kidding!" Greg felt his eyes grow wide. "Oh, that's great. Polydactyl cats are just cool." A cat person his entire life, his and Krysta's apartment back home in Lawrence, Kansas, currently held three felines, who were being cared for by Greg's sister while their providers were on vacation.

  Shaking her head, Krysta got up and moved toward the door, grabbing her large black Coach bag on the way. The expensive purse didn't really track with the T-shirt, shorts, and mesh sandals she was wearing, but Krysta insisted that she needed something big enough to carry all her stuff, and Greg had long since given up trying to argue.

  "Why can't you just say 'six-toed' cats like everyone else?" she asked.

  "See, this is what I'm talking about," Greg said as he grabbed the battered old Kansas City Royals cap he'd had since he was a kid and followed her out. "Hemingway was the kind of writer who would use 'six-toed' instead of 'polydactyl', but 'polydactyl' is a perfectly acceptable word to use for anyone who's remotely educated."

  Closing the door behind them—if you didn't pull it shut, it didn't always close all the way, and they had valuables in there—they proceeded down the hall to the elevator. Krysta started rummaging in her purse while saying, "Yeah, but the term's imprecise. All 'polydactyl' means is having more fingers or toes than usual. 'Six-toed' means precisely what the cats in the Hemingway House are: six-toed. Aha!" That last was when she finally dug her sunglasses out of the huge purse.

  Greg hated it when Krysta wore the sunglasses, because they covered her amazing blue eyes. They had come out of the English class not liking each other, but met again the next semester at a party held in a mutual friend's dorm suite. She'd changed her hair color, so he didn't recognize her, and started hitting on the woman with the amazing blue eyes, not discovering until they'd been up all night talking (well past the point where the party had fizzled out) that she was his nemesis from the American Lit class. Her eyes were like pools of moonlight, and she only groaned a little when he'd said that out loud the first time.

  Tapping the down button for the elevator with his right knuckle, Greg said, "I thought we weren't having this argument."

  "We aren't—this is an argument about you being a pretentious academic twit, not an argument about the relative merits of Hemingway's writing."

  "I could've sworn I tied this to Hemingway," he said with a smile.

  "Yes," Krysta said tartly, "and I ignored that in favor of calling you a twit. I said I wasn't having this argument."

  Shaking his head and laughing, he said, "I love you."

  Her blue eyes twinkled just as she put the sunglasses on over them. "I love you, too."

  It was a short, pleasant walk down Front to Whitehall, then down Whitehall several blocks until they reached Olivia Street, passing several houses, restaurants, and such on the way—not to mention one of the entrances to the Little White House, which had been Harry S Truman's preferred vacation spot while he was president, eschewing Camp David (which back then was called Shangri-La). Across the street from the Hemingway House was the giant lighthouse. Looking up at the huge cylindrical structure, Greg said, "We should go there after Hemingway."

  "Um, okay."

  Shooting his wife a look at her hesitant tone, Greg asked, "What?"

  "Well, you know there's no elevator, right? You have to walk all the way up to the top of that thing."

  "Yeah, so?" Greg said indignantly, not liking the implication.

  "All right, but when we're halfway up and you're all winded from hauling the Buddha Belly up all those stairs, don't come crying to me."

  Self-consciously patting his potbelly—which Krysta had affectionately dubbed "the Buddha Belly" two years ago—he said, "I thought you liked the Buddha Belly."

  "I love it, my sweet, but it's an impediment to stair-climbing."

  "Bah. And fooey. I will climb the stairs, and I will laugh at your mockery of my fitness."

  "Assuming you can breathe, sure," Krysta said with a smile and a peck on his cheek.

  Said peck did not mollify him. "C'mon, let's go look at the paean to an overrated author."

  Krysta stuck out her tongue, then proceeded to the ticket booth in front of the brick wall that surrounded the house. Behind the booth was an ivy-covered gate, currently open.

  After paying the entrance fee to a bored-looking young woman in the booth who looked put out by them interrupting her reading of Entertainment Weekly, they proceeded through the gate and up the stairs to the house. A smiling young man with small eyes, a big nose, and crooked teeth greeted them as they approached. "Hello! Welcome to the Hemingway Home and Museum! Is this your first time?"

  There was no one else around. Greg had noticed that there were fewer people on the streets this morning than there had been other mornings, and he attributed that to it being the day after New Year's—which was part of why they'd planned for their stay to extend past the holiday. "Yes, it is."

  "My name's David, and I'll be running the tour, which starts at fifteen minutes past the hour. Until then, I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have." As if anticipating the first one, he continued: "The house was originally built in 1851 by Asa Tift, who was a marine architect and a wrecker. Ernest Hemingway made this his home in 1931."

  Krysta asked, "Why is there a brick wall around the house? Security?"

  Greg wasn't interested in that—he was looking for the cats, and was surprised not to see any.

  "After a fashion," David said in response to Krysta's query. "Originally there was a simple chain-link fence around the property, but Mr. Hemingway wanted privacy from the people who would stare at the house. Mr. Hemingway was quite the celebrity, and Key West is a much more casual locale than, say, Hollywood, so—"

  "Where are the cats?"

  Suddenly David got nervous. "Er—I'm afraid—you see—"

  "What is it?" Greg asked.

  "Are you all right?" Krysta added, concern in her voice.

  Palming sweat off his forehead, David said, "It's nothing, I just—anything else about Mr. Hemingway you'd like to know?"

  "Are the cats really descendants of the polydactyl he had?"

  Krysta put in, "My husband is more a cat person than a Hemingway person, I'm afraid."

  David winced. "Oh, I wish you hadn't said that."

  "What? Why—" Suddenly, Greg felt a hand grab his shoulder. Whirling around, he saw—

  Nobody. But he still felt the hand.

  A voice cried out, echoing off the brick walls and vibrating within Greg's ribs, seeming to come from everywhere at once. "Get out! Get out, get out, get out!"

  The hand pushed Greg, sending him stumbling down the stairs toward the gate. Greg tried to get his feet under him, but couldn't get solid purchase, and fell to the ground. He winced in pain as his right arm struck the pavement.

  "Oh my God, Greg!" Krysta ran to him, kneeling down next to him. "Are you all right?"

  Greg clambere
d to a sitting-up position and looked at his forearm. He had several abrasions, it was bleeding, and dammit it hurt. Looking up at David, the tour guide looked as if he'd seen a ghost. "What the hell was that?"

  That voice came back. "I said, get out, goddammit! I'm sick and goddamn tired of goddamn cat-lovers!"

  Now Greg was starting to get seriously freaked out. "What—Who—?" It has to be a recording of some kind, or over a speaker. Has to be.

  Even as he tried to rationalize that, he didn't really believe it. When a voice came over a speaker, you didn't feel the voice in your soul.

  The voice continued. "She can stay. He has to go!"

  "Er," David said, "ah, okay. I mean, of course, Mr. Hemingway."

  Greg blinked. "Mr. Hemingway?" Now he knew this was some kind of trick. He got unsteadily to his feet, only able to use his left arm and Krysta for support. "This is bogus. Hemingway's dead, you stupid dork, and I've got a skinned arm, and I—"

  Again with the voice: "Of course I'm dead, you numbskull! But this is my house, not a cat haven."

  Krysta started talking to this thing as if it was Hemingway. "I thought you loved cats."

  "I loved my cat," the voice said. "That doesn't mean I want my house to turn into a goddamned petting zoo! Now get out!"

  Greg felt the hands once again, two of them this time, on his chest, even though he couldn't see anyone other than a shocked-looking Krysta and a stone-scared David. He tried to grab at whoever it was, but he just flailed at nothing. The hands pushed him violently backward. Greg tried to keep from backing out through the gate, but the invisible hands were just too strong.

  He cried out as he again fell to the ground on his right arm. "Ow! Dammit!"

  Krysta ran through the gate after him. As soon as she cleared it, the gate closed with a resounding metallic clang that sent several ivy leaves plummeting to the sidewalk.

  "God, Greg, I'm so sorry. I'll call 911." She grabbed her purse and started rummaging around in it for her cell phone.

  Greg put his left hand on Krysta's arm. "No, no, it's okay. We'll just go to a drugstore and get something to put on it."

  "You sure?"

  "The last thing I want to do is try to explain what just happened to an ER nurse."

  Krysta smiled. "Okay. C'mon, I think there was a drugstore on Duval."

  She helped Greg to his feet. He looked at the Hemingway Home and Museum. He noticed that the young woman in the ticket booth did not consider the manifestation of Hemingway's ghost to be sufficient reason to stop reading about movie stars, as her nose stayed buried in the magazine. "What the hell was that?"

  "I don't think I wanna know," Krysta said emphatically. "But you were right, coming here was a bad idea."

  Greg shook his head as they started walking down Olivia Street toward Duval. "Wow."

  "What?"

  "That's twice this trip you've admitted I was right."

  Primly, Krysta said, "I admit you're right once a year. When I said you were right about Key West being a good vacation spot, it was still 2007. This was the one time I admitted it for '08."

  "Whatever you say, my love."

  SIX

  It was rare that Dean Winchester found himself at a loss for words.

  "Um—okay," was all he was able to manage at the revelation that the spirit of Captain Terrence Naylor was standing in front of him and trying to hold a conversation with him. "This is weird."

  "You have not answered my question yet!"

  Finally, Dean leaned back, angling his body toward the door but not willing to take his eyes off Naylor. "Sam!"

  A minute later, he heard Sam's size twelves clomping down the wooden stairs, and his brother came in. "What is it, Dean, I—Oh. It's a spirit."

  "Thank you, Captain Obvious," Dean muttered.

  Naylor was now folding his ectoplasmic arms over his insubstantial chest. "If one of you would kindly explain yourselves."

  Sam slowly tore his eyes away from Naylor to look at Dean. "It's a spirit that talks."

  "Apparently."

  Naylor bellowed, "Stop speaking of me as if I wasn't right here in front of you!"

  "Well," Sam said slowly, "you aren't—exactly. You see—you're dead."

  "Yes, I'm aware of that, if you please," Naylor said testily. "I quite distinctly recall the feeling of the sea overtaking me, the salt water filling my mouth and nose. It was rather unpleasant, and I'm not like to forget it."

  Dean frowned. "So you know you're a spirit—a ghost."

  "Of course I do! And you still have not answered—"

  "This is a hotel," Sam said. "An inn."

  Recalling the history of the place that Bodge had given him when he was here last, Dean added, "Your descendants lived here for a while, then about thirty years ago, some guy tried to turn it into a museum. That tanked pretty bad, and an old woman bought it and turned it into an inn. When she retired, she sold it to a nice young couple, who still run it." Dean figured mentioning that both members of the couple were female wouldn't be such a hot idea.

  Scowling, Naylor said, "That's absurd. Why would anyone lodge in my house?"

  "It's been renovated a bit," Sam said lamely.

  "Well, at least you're not screaming," Naylor said, shaking his head.

  "What do you mean?" Sam asked. "You've manifested before?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  Dean quickly said, "You've talked to other people before us?"

  "Of course! Well, not precisely talked. I attempted to do so, but they never displayed any form of comprehension. It was most irritating, especially the ear-piercing wails of the girls."

  "And you've always been here?" Sam asked.

  "Following my death, my soul came to this place. I used to mock those absurd spiritualists that my Agnes would go to. I didn't believe that one could speak to the souls in heaven or in hell. It never occurred to me that they might not actually arrive at either destination. Instead, after death, I found myself here."

  "That's not uncommon," Sam said. "Spirits often are drawn after death to places that were important to them in life."

  "There has never been anything more important to me than this house, young man, not even the boats I served upon. I was a wrecker for my entire adult life, and I built this house myself. The material was paid for with the wages I earned on the wreckers, and I constructed it with these two good hands." He held out hands that had probably been meaty and callused when they had had substance.

  Dean was about to say something, but the captain kept talking. The poor bastard hadn't had a proper conversation in a hundred fifty years or so, so Dean let him ramble on.

  "Eventually, I owned my own vessel and took a wife. Agnes bore me sons and daughters, and I retired so I could watch my children grow. Then she—she passed on from the consumption, and I purchased another boat." He shook his head. "The business had changed, sadly, especially after the War of Northern Aggression ended so poorly."

  Somehow, Dean managed not to snort. He knew plenty of modern Southerners who still referred to the American Civil War that way.

  "Young wreckers who didn't know the reefs and had to be salvaged themselves when they went out. Much more corruption, honorable judges retiring and being replaced by foolish young men who understood nothing of tradition. And then that blessed storm... "

  Sam looked as though he hadn't followed any of that. Dean only knew what Naylor was talking about by virtue of having visited Key West before. He held up a finger. "Uh, Captain? Look, my brother and I need to, ah, have a conversation in private, okay? We'll be right outside."

  "Truly this is a lodging house?"

  Nodding, Sam said, "Truly. Um—what year do you think it is, Captain?"

  "Well, I perished in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-one. I suppose we're approaching the turn of the century now?"

  "Actually, we've passed it," Sam said.

  "Twice," Dean added helpfully. "It's now twenty hundred and eight."

  Naylor's face fe
ll. "It's been that long?"

  "'Fraid so." Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder and hustled him out through the porch door. "Now then, if you'll excuse us."

  They went out, Dean slid the door shut, and they walked out into the garden. "It's that Molly chick and Farmer Greeley all over again," he said. Sam shook his head. "Yeah, but this is a lot different. Molly and Greeley only manifested once a year. That's why they were solid and speaking, it was a whole year's worth of spiritual energy concentrated into a single day. Plus, they were tied to a particular time and place. But going from a typical haunting to something like this—that's new." Sam scratched the back of his head. "What was all that about wrecking things?"

  Dean was unable to help smiling at the opportunity to lecture Sam for a change. "He was a wrecker—it was the big business around here in the nineteenth century."

  "They'd deliberately wreck ships? That's awful."

  "No, dumb-ass, the ships'd get wrecked all by themselves. There's reefs out there up the ass, and ships would get nailed all the time. Remember, most boats were wood back then. The wreckers were salvage ships that would rescue the boats."

  Looking back at the bungalow, Sam said, "So he was a pirate."

  "That's what I thought, too, at first," Dean said with a chuckle. "But no, it was all legit. Was pretty heavily regulated, too, but people who were good at it made a bundle. Half the nice houses on the island were built by wreckers and their families."

  "Huh." Sam put his hands on his hips. "So now what?"

  Dean shrugged. "Now nothin'. Yaphet said the spirits on the island were more active. This proves it wasn't just him bein' stoned."

  "This is more than just active, Dean, this is—I don't now, supercharged."

  "Yeah," Dean said, "that'd take some serious mojo."

  Sighing, Sam said, "Which makes it even more likely that it's one of our Wyoming refugees." He pulled his Treo out of his pants pocket. "I'm gonna give Bobby a call."

  "Okay. I'm gonna see what I can do about my roommate situation."

  As Sam put the phone to his ear, Dean stepped back up onto the porch and slid the door open.