by JL Bryan
“Very funny.”
We pressed our way along the walls, my fingers running over the raised texture of inscribed symbols that included stylized stars, spirals, and assorted symbols that reminded me of the sigils and pentacles found in the Key of Solomon, jumbles of curls and arrows that supposedly represent the names of angels and demons. The wall also featured open hands with eyes at the palm, clearly based on the Middle Eastern hamsa symbol that supposedly protects against the evil eye.
“Um, hey, Ellie?” Stacey said, speaking as low as she could from across the room.
I turned, but one of those columns blocked my view. I had to step around to see her leaning against her wall, studying the symbols.
“Did you find a door?”
“No, just wondering what's up with these weird symbols everywhere.”
“They're a mishmash of Far East, Near East, and European religious and magical signs. If I had to guess, this room was designed by Ithaca Galloway, or some of her Spiritualist pals and hangers-on.”
“And she was...?” Stacey rubbed her temple as if trying to remember.
“The Lathrop Grand Hotel closed with Mabel Lathrop's death in 1881,” I said. “It sat idle for years, but was finally purchased by Ithaca Galloway, a wealthy widow from Boston. She was deep into the whole Spiritualist movement, with speaking to the dead and automatic writing and so on. Rumors of ghosts in the old hotel brought her here. She rebuilt and restored the hotel—electricity and running water, all the fancy stuff—and moved into it along with a small court of supposed mediums, psychics, hypnotists and palm readers, a crazy crew. The entire fourth floor was private apartments for her and her friends.”
“So they built this freaky temple up here for their occult activities,” Stacey said, looking around and shivering. “There's no telling what happened in here.”
“Séances, rituals, conjuring evil spirits, blood sacrifice—” I began.
“I said 'no telling'!” Stacey snapped. “They seriously did blood sacrifices up here?”
“No one knows for sure,” I said, giving it my best melodramatic movie-trailer voice-over imitation. “Seriously, though, Spiritualism itself didn't involve that...but it was a weird, culty time in American history, and we don't know what Ithaca and her psychics might have gotten themselves into. We'll need to hit the library pretty hard.”
“Ugh. Let's find the next haunted room already.” Stacey resumed poking and prying along the wall, and I did the same on my side. “So whatever happened to Ithaca what's-her-name?”
“Galloway. She died somewhere around 1920. The hotel changed owners a few times and had an upswing during Prohibition, when all the hidden passages and secret rooms probably came in handy. Remember Prohibition began in Georgia in 1908 and wasn't repealed until 1935. The Great Depression put the hotel out of business. It opened and closed throughout the twentieth century, slowly getting updated along the way.”
“Except this floor,” Stacey said. “Nothing about this says 'updated.' I didn't know we were stepping into such a crazy situation.”
“This hotel, and this floor in particular, would have been a real hotbed of supernatural activity in its day.”
“Yeah, I'm picking up on that, thanks. Next time I'll remember to do more prelim research and spend less time playing The Sims. I mean, um, testing and calibrating our gear...”
“Right. We're lucky so much was available online.”
“Send me some links and I'll catch up—ah!” Stacey shouted as a heavy scraping sound echoed through the temple room.
I spun around with my flashlight to see her stumble briefly and regain her balance. Stacey had reached the end of the long room across from the raised dais. Two big rectangles had opened in the wall before her, a pair of concealed double doors leading into deep darkness.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah...I don't think I'm going to like this, though.” She pointed her light into the space beyond the door. “Hurry up, Ellie, I'm getting the creepy-crawlies pretty bad over here.”
“What do you see?” I hurried to join her, merging my flashlight beam with hers.
The hallway beyond was in an exquisite state of decay, with crumbling molding and warped floorboards made of heavy dark wood. More marble trimmed the walls and corners. Somebody must have had the famous marble quarries in Pickens County working overtime when these rooms were built. The ceiling was arched but fairly low—I could just about reach up and brush my fingers along the heavy wooden beams.
Curved wooden doors were sunken at regular intervals along the walls, in shadowy alcoves, making me think of some medieval monastery. I looked through one and saw a cell of a room with brick walls, a chair, and a small writing desk, the meager furniture thick with dust and cobwebs.
We moved from room to room, rolling the cart of gear with us, opening the heavy, creaking doors when we could—many of them were locked with old-fashioned keyholes instead of modern card readers, so our staff keycards weren't much help. Of the rooms we could open, some were nearly empty, while others had a jumble of furnishings, mirrors, and trunks, as though they'd been hastily designated as storage areas. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and the lights in the rooms didn't seem to function. The air was thick and stale, with a tang of dry rot.
“Are any of these rooms creepy enough for you?” Stacey whispered.
“Ha ha,” I said, but I was whispering, too. There was a heavy sense of presence in the hallway, the feeling of something malevolent nearby, stalking us, waiting and watching. The atmosphere was silent, despite the three floors of busy hotel below. The heavy walls and floors seemed to seal out all sound, except for our own footsteps and voices.
As we looked into one of the old rooms, decorated with an old bed frame, the sound of whispering echoed from somewhere out in the hall. It was like a group of people speaking to each other in low, hushed tones.
“What is that?” Stacey whispered. She looked ashen.
“I don't know.” I gestured to the door and we stepped out into the hall. The voices stopped abruptly. It was that feeling of walking into a room and everybody goes silent, as if they were all gossiping about you.
Then the door we'd just left slammed shut behind us, making us jump. I may have cried out a little in surprise and fear. I'm not perfect.
“There was nobody in that room,” Stacey whispered, pointing her flashlight at the closed door. “Right?”
More doors slammed shut, up and down the hall in both directions, every door we'd managed to open as we explored the fourth floor.
A wave of cold raised bumps all over my skin. It was accompanied by whispers, multiple voices that seemed to scatter through the air around us, their words too low to understand. It was as though a flock of invisible birds blew past us on either side, cawing at us with throaty scratching noises. Something narrow and freezing, like a dead man's finger, brushed against my cheek, but I didn't see anything there.
The voices faded away down the hall. The coordinated slamming of the doors in both directions at the same time, and the multiple overlapping voices, made me think there had been two or more active entities involved.
Stacey gaped at me, her mouth open in shock. She didn't seem to be in the mood for more exploration—and neither was I, to be honest. I wanted to go somewhere with bright lights and lots of people. Even waiting in line at the DMV would have been more pleasant.
“Okay, let's set up some cameras right here,” I said. “That should be enough to get us started. I'd rather wait until daylight before we come back to this floor. It's crazy active already.”
“Are you still planning to spend the rest of the night up here?” Stacey asked. “Maybe I should stay with you.”
“I'll think about it,” I said. I certainly wasn't looking forward to it. As we got to work with the cameras and tripods, I remained wary, waiting for the presences to return. I'd never doubted that the hotel was haunted, but it was abnormal for the entities to start leaping out at us so quickly. Gho
st hunting usually involves a lot of watching and waiting—and when it doesn't, you can bet there's danger ahead.
Chapter Four
Our cheerful hotel room on the third floor was a welcome sight. I instantly found myself breathing easier, my overloaded heartbeat slowing to something approaching normal.
“I'm starving. Should we have supper at Mabel's? Scope the place out?” Mabel's was the restaurant on the first floor, named after one of the hotel's founders, itself a five-star restaurant with a Lowcountry-Asian fusion theme. I wondered what that entailed.
I didn't disagree with Stacey's rush to change the subject to something less ghost-related. Otherwise, we might have to talk about what we'd just experienced upstairs.
“Depends who's buying,” I said. “If it's me, we can get take-out Chinese right down the street. Walking distance, even.”
“Oh, come on! This is the fanciest hotel in the Historic District. We should take advantage.” She looked at me for a long moment, then sighed. “Fine. My treat.”
“Sounds great. I don't want to die on an empty stomach.” I headed for the door.
“Uh...Ellie?”
I spun around, grabbing my flashlight. My eyes darted to the closet, the mirror, the dark space under the bed. “What?”
“I'm pretty sure they have a dress code,” she said.
I glanced down at my jeans and my clunky utility belt, hung with dual flashlight holsters. “Is this not what A-list celebrities wear to dinner?”
“I'm just going to change real quick.” Stacey removed a black cocktail dress from her luggage.
“Why did you bring evening wear for a case?”
“I thought we might want to blend in with the guests at some point. And I was totally right. Do you have anything?”
“I guess I have some black slacks...”
“Here.” Stacey brought out a pink top and pitched it to me. It was light and soft in my hands, made of thin cashmere. “Toss that on.”
I sighed. I wasn't a big fan of pink or other extremely bright colors—they're like waving a flag asking for attention in public, when I would rather stay somewhere close to invisible, especially while on a case. Still, it was much nicer than anything I'd stuffed into my suitcase on my way out the door. A bit nicer than anything I owned, really.
Stacey called ahead to make reservations, then we headed downstairs. The front portion of the restaurant was a bar and lounge area where a finely dressed woman who looked about ninety years old played softly at a grand piano, filling the room with a peaceful sound.
We ordered drinks at the bar—sweet tea for me, mainly for the caffeine—then sat on a paisley sofa with arms thicker than my whole body, waiting for our table. We listened to the pianist and people-watched. The crowd was well-dressed, in a conservative and muted way, mostly couples.
Paintings and photographs of the hotel, particularly black and white pictures of the lounge itself, decorated one wall. The pictures included fedora-clad men in suits, uniformed soldiers and sailors from the world wars, a very young Ray Charles, and yellowed images of people in nineteenth-century garb. More recent pictures showed crowds in tuxedos, gowns, and masks at the hotel's famous annual Halloween ball, something to capitalize on all the ghost-curious tourists in town for the season.
An oil painting of a plump, red-cheeked woman in a big antebellum hoop skirt, standing by the fireplace in the big first-floor ballroom, presided above all of them. A plate identified her as MABEL LATHROP, who'd founded the hotel along with her doctor husband.
“What else should we expect from the fourth floor?” Stacey whispered. “I don't remember reading anything about it. I saw the Destination America show a year or so ago, but I'm pretty iffy about the details now...”
“I haven't seen the fourth floor mentioned much, either,” I said. “I think they let the tourists and the ghost-hunter shows focus on the lower floors.”
“Like whatever is on four is too awful to tell people about...”
“Or they just don't want images of that floor getting out because it's hideous and in bad shape. People might think the whole hotel is outdated and falling apart.”
The hostess fetched us from the lounge and led us to our table. Candles flickered above white tablecloth.
“You should find an excuse to bring Michael in on this case,” Stacey said. “This place is romantic as all get-out.”
“I told you my policy on that,” I said. “I don't want to put him in danger.”
“Wouldn't want to put your big, strong firefighter in harm's way.”
“Exactly. He's in harm's way enough without me dragging him to meet all of the most dangerous and restless spirits in town.”
“Well, it's a missed opportunity,” Stacey said. “This place is so nice. Can we call Jacob yet? Somebody needs to get some romance out of this situation.”
The restaurant's blue-crab sushi sounded interesting, so I decided to try it. Stacey ordered a pad thai dish with Southern vegetables and organic free-range chicken. The menu had no prices on it. I was glad I wasn't buying.
“So you think Ithaca Galloway and her psychic friends network are the problem here?” Stacey asked. “I wonder why all the stories focus on Abigail, then?”
“Pretty girl kills seventeen soldier boys with a scalpel,” I said. “It's a flashy story.”
“There must have been a lot of problems on the fourth floor, if nobody ever renovated it in the past century.”
“It would be an expensive job, too. Those bedroom chambers we saw didn't have any bathrooms attached.”
“Not exactly five-star accommodations.”
“So you'd have to add a lot of plumbing, just to begin with. Madeline's company will need to throw a lot of money up there to make it as nice as the rest of the hotel.”
Our food arrived, and it looked fantastic. The crab meat in my sushi was fresh and sweet. I tried a tiny blot of the Tabasco wasabi and found it spicy and weird.
“We can't rule out other ghosts yet,” I said. “This place has a long history.”
“But why did they suddenly turn violent?”
“It's hard to guess the ghosts' motives when we don't know who they are. I bet the Historical Association has a thick file on this place. I'll call Grant Patterson.”
“Excuse me,” a woman's voice said, just after clearing her throat. I turned to see Big Hairspray Lady in droopy ripped jeans and a Judas Priest shirt, looking at me through big black wraparound sunglasses, even though we were indoors and it was night time. Her husband sat two tables away, gray ponytail coiled around his shoulder. I wondered if that was the formal way for a man to wear his ponytail. A girl of eleven or twelve sulked at the table beside him, dressed in a bright tie-dyed shirt as if thumbing her nose at her darkly clad heavy-metal-loving parents. She tapped furiously at her phone, seemingly oblivious to the physical world around her.
“Yes?” I said.
“I couldn't help but overhear you discussing the ghosts in the hotel,” she said. “Are you here with the paranormal adventure package?”
Uh-oh. Madeline had asked for discretion, and we'd just totally failed at it.
“Sorry, um, no,” I said. “What's that?”
“Oh, we book them through our travel agent back home in Seattle. Ted Leibowicz?” She said it like she expected me to know her travel agent personally. I nodded. “They come bundled with reservations at a haunted hotel and haunted restaurants, several ghost tours...”
“Sounds fun,” I said.
“Are you here to see Abigail, too?” she asked, but continued talking without leaving me time to answer. “Maurice—that's my husband, Maurice—Maurice and I, we've been all over. The Winchester House in California, the Magnolia Hotel in Texas, the Congress Plaza in Chicago, you name it. I think I'm a little psychic, but Maurice disagrees.”
I nodded along like a bobble-headed doll. Across the restaurant, by the brick corridor to the kitchen, Madeline stood talking with an elderly Japanese chef in a white coat. Madeline
kept glancing our way with a tight, nervous smile and a cold look in her eyes.
“My name's Carla,” Big Hairspray Lady told me. “It's so nice to meet a few fellow spirit seekers. Should we team up?”
“Uh...” I began. “We're not really—”
“Are you the lucky ones renting 208?” she asked, breathless and excited, and I gathered this might be the real point of her approaching us.
“Sorry, no,” I said. “We just happened to hear this place was haunted a few minutes ago.”
“Are you sure?” She removed her shades and narrowed her eyes. “It sounded like you were speaking in-depth about it. Determining the ghosts' motives? Research at some historical society? That doesn't sound casual at all.”
“You must have overheard wrong,” I said.
“It's not nice to eavesdrop,” Stacey added.
Carla gaped at her for a second, then scowled.
“Excuse me for existing and following my path of enlightenment,” Carla said. “I hope you'll find your way to that path one day.” Then she stalked back to sit with her grinning husband and totally disengaged daughter.
“We'd better wrap this up,” I told Stacey, explaining about Madeline's unfriendly stare. “I think we've just annoyed the client by being out among the hotel guests.”
“Why? Don't we look fabulous enough?”
“We also have information she wants to keep contained...and here she comes.”
Madeline strode toward us, her shoulders squared up, not exactly jogging but not exactly strolling, either. Her smile was far from generous.
“How are your entrees this evening?” she asked us.
“Pretty amazing,” Stacey said.
“We weren't planning to charge it to our rooms,” I added.
Madeline waved a hand. “I'm sure you weren't. I'd be happy to arrange a discount on room service. I know you're busy, and coming all the way down here to eat must be an inconvenience.”