by Diane Rapp
“Six crates arrived today filled with logbooks. We’ll search those books for any reference to a ghost. We’ll trace the records back to the time trouble first started, figure out who the phantom might be and how to expel it from the ship.”
Kayla shook her head. “I don’t buy supernatural mumbo-jumbo. There’s got to be a physical explanation.”
Emily said, “You and Natalia should examine the room carefully, see if you can find something in the wiring or room construction. I’ve left instructions for workmen to report crazy problems directly to me. If the ship’s rigged we should find out while we’re in dry dock.”
“Okay,” Kayla said, leaving Emily’s room, “we’ll start tomorrow. I’m beat.”
In their shared room, Natalia sat cross-legged on a twin bed rubbing her wet hair with a towel. Free of makeup, black hair dangling over thin shoulders, Natalia looked almost vulnerable. She said, “You better take a shower before someone drains the hot water tank, it’s already lukewarm.”
“Thanks.” Kayla grabbed her robe and toothbrush. She stepped into the closet-sized bathroom, turned the handle to the hot position, and tested the water with fingertips. The spray felt robust but tepid. Kayla groaned. She got into the shower and rapidly lathered her hair. Abruptly the water turned icy and smelled like rotten fish and seaweed. Rivulets of slime crept down her body and soap stung her eyes. “Ugh!” she cried, nearly gagging at the smell. “This is gross.” Rubbing vigorously to rid herself of malodorous slime, the water turned scalding hot.
“Ouch!” Kayla screamed and hopped out of the shower. Steam billowed from the faucet while she fumbled to turn off the handle.
The bathroom door opened. “What’s wrong?” Natalia asked.
The noxious smell, scalding water, and slime vanished while Kayla stood naked, dripping a puddle of normal soapy water. Retrieving a robe from the door hook Kayla angrily shoved her arms in and tied the belt. “I got iced then scalded within a minute.” She omitted the horrible smell and slime.
Natalia nodded. “The water fluctuated during my shower but not that bad.”
Emily arrived to hear Kayla’s complaint. “I’m sorry, honey. The plumbing is erratic, something to do with electrical shorts in the pump stations. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It just startled me.” Kayla wiped her face and left smudged mascara on the fluffy white towel. She fought the urge to describe the whole story and run away. My imagination is running wild. It’s only faulty plumbing. She said, “I’m tired, I think I’ll go straight to bed.”
Emily hugged her. “Let’s all get a sound night’s sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Rubbing her wet hair with a fresh towel, Kayla inhaled the fresh-washed scent of the fabric. If I’m so susceptible to superstitious fantasies, she thought, I’d better proceed carefully in this spooky atmosphere. Writers might fantasize but this seems too real!
Natalia said, “So, are you going to tell me the whole story, or let my imagination run wild?”
Kayla sighed. “Remember how much fun it was as a kid, squealing at monsters in a horror movie? Trouble is, I let those movies get to me and suffered horrible nightmares for nights on end.”
“Don’t tell me that crap,” Natalia huffed. “When I touched you, I felt your terror and it was real. Don’t spout junk about imagining horrors.” Her dark eyes flashed with indignation. “To work together, we’ve got to trust each other completely.”
Kayla gazed into Natalia’s eyes and knew her friend really cared. She described the incident in detail. “It seems too unlikely to be real, so I imagined it all.”
Natalia sat quietly listening, biting her lip and rubbing long nails down silk pajamas. “I’m really sorry, Kayla.”
“Sorry? You didn’t do anything.”
Blushing, Natalia averted her eyes. “She wants to contact me. I could feel her searching for my mind, but I’m so scared of ghosts I blocked contact with her…she came after you because I refused to let her talk with me.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
Natalia’s eyes widened. “No! It’s not. When I was a kid my grandmother told me that spirits wanted to use me to communicate with the living—but I laughed it off. She was right!”
“What happened?”
“My friends and I played with a Ouija board one night. I felt ghosts touch my mind, and one tried to take over my body. They felt desperate to live again and I knew I’d die if I gave in. I fought them, forced them out of my mind and back into the shadows. I’ve avoided contact with ghosts ever since.”
“You don’t want to disappoint Emily.”
Natalia pushed her hair back away from her face. “I’ll help as much as I can, but…” Her voice faltered.
“Emily will understand once we explain…besides this is probably an elaborate hoax and your expertise with illusion will solve the mystery.”
“Thanks.” Natalia studied the flawless polish on her fingernails. “Promise me…you must be extra careful…” Natalia raised her eyes and stared at Kayla. “The ghost got into your mind. If she gains more control she might try to take control of your body to achieve her own purpose.”
Natalia’s frightened expression made Kayla understand that her friend seriously believed in the danger. “I’ll be very careful.” Natalia called the ghost “she” and somehow Kayla agreed with the label. She remembered a flowery scent infused with the odor of seaweed but she couldn’t place the smell. What was it?
Chapter 3 ~ The Lady
Kayla slept soundly and woke to the cheerful clatter of dishes in the next room. Natalia’s empty bed looked neat and her half of the room precisely organized. Kayla felt embarrassed to see things spread out in a helter-skelter manner on her side. Is Natalia a neat freak? she wondered.
A shipboard lifestyle often transformed the most flamboyant soul into a Felix Unger. Room stewards organized stray belongings in an annoyingly irrational manner and after several frustrating scavenger hunts it was easier to keep things orderly. Kayla often thought that room stewards delighted in training new crew. She straightened her half of the room.
Dressed in shorts and T-shirt, Kayla emerged from the bedroom to find a breakfast table filled with bacon, eggs, and fresh-baked rolls. “This looks fabulous. I’m glad the kitchen isn’t experiencing remodeling difficulties.”
Natalia leaned back, patting a flat stomach. “Yeah, my waistline won’t be the same by the end of this cruise.”
Emily spread butter on a steaming scone. “My new head chef does a marvelous job. He complains that the galley is a total disaster, the help is useless, and the supplies are substandard. He’s frantically training everyone to his unique methods of organization and food preparation. Every good chef I’ve met follows the same routine to correct the deficiencies of the previous chef.”
“Did you hire all new staff?” Kayla asked, biting into a warm, buttery roll.
“Mostly, since the previous crew was French and I prefer English-speaking personnel. Luckily the previous chief steward, Jean-Claude speaks perfect English and agreed to stay on. He’s worked on this ship for years and understands how things were organized.”
“How about Captain Lafort?” Natalia dabbed the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin.
Emily rolled her eyes. “That man’s a real trial. He’s staying long enough to translate logbooks.”
Kayla crunched a piece of bacon. “Are all the logs in French?”
“No. The Dutch owned the ship before the French bought it eight years ago, and they maintained English as their official language.” Emily gestured at boxes filled with logbooks. “These arrived yesterday.”
Natalia gathered her hair into a long ponytail and tied it with a red silk scarf. “Let’s start with Lafort’s logbooks so we can get rid of him. I’ve worked on French ships and their attitude about women was revolting—they think we’re all servants, only good for a pinch and giggle.”
“After a few days in Lafort’s company, we’ll all be glad of h
is absence,” Emily said. “The most recent logs are still in his cabin, so bring your coffee along. This might be a very long session.”
Kayla swallowed a last bite of bacon and egg, gulped down the orange juice, and secured a fresh cup of coffee. “Do we need to clear up?”
Emily shook her head. “My room steward takes care of it—he’s undergoing a training schedule that makes the military look like kindergarten. Jean-Claude promises the entire staff will be well-trained before sailing.”
Jean-Claude—his name makes me think of a tall kick-boxer dressed in perfectly pressed whites barely concealing his muscles. As they departed the suite, she saw a rotund balding man issuing orders to the cowering staff. He noticed her and quietly closed the door to the crew corridor. Kayla smiled and thought, Jean-Claude is more like Napoleon than a handsome movie star—oh well.
Sidestepping rolls of new carpet, buckets of paint, and stacks of lumber lining the hallways, the trio proceeded to the captain’s suite two flights down. Although they carried flashlights, daylight spilled through open cabin doors to illuminate the windowless corridor. The smell of fresh sawdust and acrid odor of paint mixed with the scent of musty green carpet and gold drapery. It’s funny how decorators considered this stuff “modern” at some point, but it’s trash now.
Emily knocked on Lafort’s door. Pandemonium greeted the women as the door burst open revealing a disheveled space and Captain Lafort holding an ice bag over a swollen eye.
“Mrs. Schultz! It is zee time you came to help,” he said, using a sweeping gesture to indicate the chaos. “You see? Zee room, she is turned up and down. A book, it came flying into my face. My life, it is in extreme danger! I leave! Now!” He hefted an oversized suitcase and pushed his way past the women into the corridor.
“But Captain Lafort!” Emily sputtered. “We need an interpreter.”
The Lafort whirled, shaking the bag of ice in Emily’s face. He shouted, “Turn zee ship into a garbage scow, grind her into zee fire wood, or sink her! I care no more! I refuse to risk my life another day!” He gazed into the air, his eyes bleary and wild. “You hear me, madame fantome? I abandon zee ship to you!”
Bang! The cabin door slammed shut behind him, and the women watched Lafort crash into a wall before he dashed down the hall shouting French invectives at the ceiling.
Kayla smothered giggles unsuccessfully with her hand.
“I guess the ghost didn’t like him!” Emily said. She opened the door carefully and peaked inside. “I don’t blame her! That obnoxious twit would drive anyone to violence. Perhaps Lafort’s the reason the ghost got upset, and maybe she’ll settle down since he’s gone.”
“I don’t think so,” Natalia said, eyeing the messy suite. “Wasn’t Lafort the captain on the Sea Mist for years? Something else must have happened, something that is making her more agitated. I don’t think she’ll rest easy until we solve her problem.”
Kayla nudged a logbook with her toe. “Maybe a disgruntled crew member blamed Lafort for losing his job and set this all up as revenge. Fired crew might’ve trashed his quarters—this mess speaks volumes about Lafort. Someone really hates him.”
Tables were knocked over, a sofa upended, broken lamps, and the ship’s logbooks scattered across the floor. While surveying the room, the last book left standing on the shelf toppled to the floor.
Natalia gasped as they watched book pages turn by themselves—slowly at first, then faster as if a stiff wind blew through the room. Abruptly the pages ceased moving as Kayla picked up the book. “She stopped on May twenty-seventh, today’s date, but this entry is eight years old. I wish I could read French.”
Emily took the book and marked the place with a stray piece of paper. “Jean-Claude speaks English better than Lafort. I hate to intrude on his schedule but he won’t waste our time. Start organizing while I fetch him.”
The task looked daunting but they moved furniture, stacked logbooks, and filled trash bags until the chaos diminished. Kayla picked up a book and thumbed through neatly written pages. She asked, “What’s the French word for ghost?”
Stacking the books by year, Natalia said, “French words often sound like English just spelled different. When Lafort shouted at the ghost he used a word that sounded like phantom. I doubt he’d put anything in writing, so we should look for references of death or accidents.”
Kayla nodded. “While doing research for my Caribbean guidebook, I learned the French word for death is mort. What’s the word for accident?”
“The word is accident, the spelling is the same but we pronounce it with a French accent,” a deep male voice answered and Jean-Claude swept into the room followed by Emily. Although plump, his body moved with efficiency and grace. His dignified attitude and strength of personality, conveyed by brooding dark eyes and firm set of jaw, diminished his balding head, undersized stature, and rotund torso.
He must be a descendant of Napoleon, Kayla thought. He gently but forcibly removed the logbook from her hand and said, “Lafort would not reference the Lady in these books.”
“You know about the ghost?” Emily asked.
“Mais oui, madame. The Lady, she was well known to my staff, dwelling within the ship from our first day on ship, eight years ago.” With an enchanting trace of accent, Jean-Claude spoke precise English in a soft well-modulated voice. “We learned to work around the Lady and she gave us no difficulty…until recently.”
Emily looked hopeful. “How did you work around her?”
Jean-Claude shrugged. “We catered to her preferences. If the Lady’s cabin was occupied by honeymooners or happily married couples, the atmosphere in the room remained pleasant. Many travelers complimented us regarding little objects the Lady left behind.”
“Little objects?” Kayla asked.
Jean-Claude’s dark eyes twinkled. “The Lady is fond of lavender scented soap. Should the cabin steward place a soap smelling of vanilla or pine into the bathroom, it transformed into lavender. The Lady, she is also fond of yellow roses. Every morning a single rosebud appears in a bud vase on the dressing table and blooms all the day. A guest who was allergic to roses complained so we removed the flower. Alors another rose soon appeared. The guest, she worried that the lock to her room was faulty. We transferred her to another suite and solved the dilemma. It was our policy to move guests who proved incompatible with the Lady and it worked beautifully.”
Emily nodded. “Since the ghost’s been on the ship for longer than eight years, we don’t need to bother with these logbooks. We’ll begin on the older books. Did Captain Lafort know about the ghost?”
“Mais ouis, the captain, he knew from his first day onboard.” Jean-Claude’s lips curled into a mischievous grin. “The Lady, she did not like the captain and made little jokes upon him, very amusing. The captain, he avoided the entire corridor near the Lady’s cabin even when it cost him extra steps.”
Observing the disheveled suite, he said, “This is very unusual. Never in the past has the Lady caused trouble this far away from her domain. I assume the captain, he made her very angry.” His eyes dark brown eyes looked sad. “At first the Lady, she was happy to sail with us, but lately, she is very unhappy. Find a way to make her happy once more and this ship becomes a place of pleasure for everyone.”
Emily said, “We’ll do our best. We won’t keep you from your training schedule, Jean-Claude. The older logbooks are written in English, so we won’t need your help to translate.” She shook his hand. “Thanks for the valuable information.”
“My pleasure always, madame.” He tapped his forehead in a salute and retreated from the room.
“He just saved us loads of time!” Natalia plopped onto the sofa. “What should we do next?”
Returning a logbook to the shelf, Kayla said, “Could we take a look at the Lady’s cabin? Jean-Claude’s narrative made me curious to see her domain.”
“Good idea,” Emily said. “The old furniture and carpets were removed yesterday, so we can examine the empty room b
efore installing new stuff.”
Natalia grinned. “If anyone rigged the room for special effects, we should find the evidence quickly. Let’s go.”
The Lady’s cabin was two flights down, an interior cabin at the junction of two corridors. They turned their flashlights on to navigate along the dark corridor, stripped of the old carpeting.
As their footsteps echoed down the narrow hallway, Natalia’s flashlight flickered and died. She stopped, shook it, and unscrewed the cap. “You two go ahead. I’ll get more batteries from my bag and catch up.”
Emily and Kayla continued. A few minutes later their flashlights illuminated the intersecting corridor. Emily stood before the cabin door. “This is it,” she said.
Kayla twisted the handle. As the door opened, light spilled from the room into the darkened hallway. “Good, the electricity’s turned on.” Kayla stepped inside the cabin and clicked off her flashlight. “I thought you said they stripped the room. It doesn’t look like they touched it—everything’s still intact and looks almost new.”
“That can’t be.” Emily stepped into the cabin. “I don’t understand.”
Kayla laughed. “You’re bumping into the ‘tomorrow syndrome.’ If workmen guarantee the job will be finished today, they actually plan to start tomorrow. Don’t worry! We’ll inspect the room with the furniture in place. In fact I’d like to see how the room originally appeared.”
Opening the bathroom, Kayla picked up the soap and sniffed. “Jean-Claude’s right, this smells like lavender but the label reads potpourri. If this is a setup, somebody’s really doing a number on us.” Kayla peered into the closet and behind the bed, and Emily fingered the single yellow rose standing in a bud vase, her expression thoughtful.
“I can’t see anything unusual.” Kayla plopped onto the bed and stroked the velvety green and gold bedcover. “A ghost saves on wear and tear. The bedspread and carpet look outdated but fresh. Do you suppose somebody kept a supply of original bedding for this stunt?”
“You still don’t believe in the Lady?” Emily asked.