Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

  “Are they ghosts?” Rebecca asked for clarification.

  “Oh no, not ghosts. They were never human.”

  “They’re something else entirely,” Molly said, “They emanate from the building somehow, and yet they’ve always been here.”

  “I’m sensing wings,” Margaret said. “Huge wings.”

  “Griffins!” Rebecca concluded with satisfaction. “We’ve always said griffins guarded The Keep.”

  Margaret was unconvinced. “I don’t think so. Griffins wouldn’t…blaze like this. Such intense light! They’re hard to describe. Part elemental, part ego, part engine…”

  “I’d call it The Keep’s essence,” Molly declared.

  When Rebecca later shared their perception with Lochlan, he was not surprised that the mediums had identified some sort of guardians in that particular part of The Keep. “In Freemasonry, all journeys begin in the east and end in the north, he said, “So the northeast corner of a structure is very symbolic, very important. That’s why Masonic cornerstones are laid there. So these guardians – whatever they are – the fact that they inhabit that ceiling space in the northeast of the atrium makes sense.”

  “But what are they?” Rebecca asked.

  Lochlan frowned at her as though she were being intentionally dense. “You know what they are.”

  The historian shrugged helplessly. “Well, they sound like angels.”

  “Not just angels – a special ‘class’, if you will, of celestial beings. It’s obvious to me they’re Dominions, like the one in the Salon fresco.”

  “The residual presence of the Freemasons in this place is strong,” Margaret told Rebecca on her third visit with fellow medium Molly. “I’ve brought some Masonic things of my father’s I discovered after his death to try to draw out their spirits.”

  She handed the historian several small scraps of paper. One was labeled “The Tree of Life,” a strange depiction resembling a block print, with leaves that looked nothing like leaves and a trunk that looked more like a spinal cord. Another was a drawing of a triangle with a sort of backwards “s” shape inside of it. The handwritten caption read “Signet – Sign of 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason – Prince of the Royal Secret.” Below this on the same small slip of paper were a series of words in some language unknown to Rebecca,

  “Kabalah,” Margaret explained. The same language Lochlan had used to invite Charlotte’s spirit into the archives. An even smaller scrap had another Kabalah phrase, labeled “Word of the Master Mason – Given in the manner in which it is received – toe-to-toe knee-to-knee breast-to-breast hand-to-back ear-to-cheek.” On the reverse of this typed note were several handwritten scribbles, difficult to make out. Rebecca squinted and guessed: “’11333 perfect number…Moses Burning Bush…Secret name Ya-weigh…Lady of Perfection.’ Weird. Do you have any idea what these mean?”

  Margaret shook her head. “No. But they do -- the builders of The Keep. I hoped bringing these secret things into the light would get a reaction out of them. And it has.”

  “The Masonic spirits are very upset that she’s exposing these esoteric words and symbols without the knowledge that goes with them,” Molly said. “They’re actually cursing at her. They’re telling her to put them back where she found them.”

  “And I’m telling them that I will – IF they share some secret of the building with us. These are my bargaining chips,” Margaret explained. “And I sensed the strangest revelation from the Masons a few minutes after I arrived. Something about bones. They told me there are bones in each corner of The Keep. Inside the structure itself.”

  “Bones? What kind of bones? Animal? Not human bones, surely.” Rebecca found the message both bizarre and disturbing. “Why are the bones there?”

  Margaret raised her hands in surrender. “That’s all they’ll tell me. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m getting something else.” Molly cocked her head like a dog hearing a whistle inaudible to humans. “’How dare you judge us?’ they’re demanding. They’re angry. ‘You don’t know what this city was like. Chaotic. Cruel. Uncivilized. We did what was necessary. Made sacrifices, took care --- in the ancient traditions – to ensure success. To ensure continuance.’”

  “We always love to come to this blessed place,” an elderly Hispanic woman told Rebecca one afternoon when she stopped to compliment the woman’s hat at Lobby Tea between tours. “Our Lord left his mark of favor on this hotel.”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Rebecca replied hesitantly.

  “The image of Our Lady on the wall,” the old woman said, “right over there by the doorway.”

  Rebecca’s blank look prompted the woman to rise from her chair with some difficulty and take the historian’s arm. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

  The woman’s tea companions, probably her daughter and granddaughter, just smiled tolerantly and motioned for Rebecca to go along. Her guide steered her slowly across the lobby toward the Spa. The Mexican onyx that originally framed the massive lobby fireplace now provided an imposing entryway. To the right of one of the 3,000-pound flanking columns, the old woman pointed to a pattern in the stone.

  “You can see her, the Blessed Virgin, here,” she said, tracing it with her finger. “Here is her head, covered and bowed. And here,” she continued, reverently touching another dark blemish, slightly lower on the stone, “is her Sacred Heart.”

  She looked at Rebecca with deep satisfaction. “This is a sign that Our Lord watches over the hotel. We always feel safe and protected here.”

  Signs and wonders, Rebecca thought. Everyone sees what they want to see -- maybe need to see -- be it sacred images, mystic secrets, or ghosts.

  Rebecca squeezed the old woman’s hand. “Thank you for showing me this,” she said sincerely. In sharing her miracle, the devout woman had bestowed a blessing of her own upon a skeptic too blind to have seen it herself.

  Like most urban centers, Denver was essentially two cities, widely disparate realities for the Haves and Have-Nots. The Griffins Keep catered to the privileged and prosperous, while her neighbor, Pinnacle Church, welcomed the less fortunate. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, their soup kitchen served more than 200 hot meals to the homeless. Keep associates volunteered once a month to help set-up, serve, and clean up after the free lunch. It was during one such shift that Rebecca met Charles, a gracious elderly gentleman member of the congregation who offered to give her and other interested volunteers a behind-the-scenes tour of the church.

  The hotel historian was joined by Dawn from Sales, Amy, admin assistant for the Engineering department, and Luke, the charming bellman who sometimes led historical tours of the Keep in Rebecca’s absence. Charles was slow but nimble, they quickly discovered as he led them down a wooden ladder into Pinnacle’s unfinished basement.

  “In the early years, we were tapped into the same aquifer as the Griffins Keep,” he explained, pointing in the general direction of their old well. “In fact, our pipe organ pump was hydraulically powered by pressure from an artesian well, just like your elevators.” He showed then the huge leather bellows that breathed life into the massive 4,275-pipe organ. “Wasn’t until the 1930s that we got this electric blower. Can you believe this beauty is more than 90 years old and still going strong? Won’t be long before they can say the same of me!”

  “When did Pinnacle cap its well?” Amy asked.

  “That would be 1917,” their guide reported. “The aquifer at the 480-foot level dried up with so many Denver homes and businesses tapped into it. Most everybody switched over to city water around that time. Except for The Keep, of course, which decided to drill down to a deeper source.”

  Back up the ladder and into the sanctuary, the little group continued their exploration. “Every window in the sanctuary is stained glass – all original and made by the same outfit that did your stained glass skylight,” Charles said. “Our two buildings have lots of things in common. Of course, Denver was a pretty small town back then. Most new build
ings used the same contractors and artisans.”

  “What about Masonic connections?” Luke had been talking with Lochlan, obviously.

  “A great many of our founding members were Freemasons,” Charles said. “They were among the most prominent and influential men in the city.”

  “What about you, Charles? Are you a Freemason?”

  Their guide smiled enigmatically. “Let’s just say I can keep secrets,” he replied before continuing. “Pinnacle’s cornerstone was laid by one of the local Masonic lodges. Over the decades, its inscriptions were obscured by coal soot residue and weathering, and for awhile, it was completely forgotten. It wasn’t until we undertook exterior restoration that the foundation stone was rediscovered. We opened it about 10 years ago on the 130th anniversary of our first service. Found all sorts of wonderful things left for us by our forebears. Newspapers, letters, photographs, church programs and bulletins, a hymnal, a membership list. And the symbolic golden trowel used to spread the first mortar on the foundation stone.”

  “Cool. Where’s the Griffins Keep’s cornerstone?” Amy asked. They all turned to the hotel historian.

  “I’ve asked Lochlan that same question,” Rebecca said, “and he tells me that Masonic cornerstones were always laid in the northeast corner of their structures.”

  “That would be the Pirates’ Pub corner, right? I’ve never noticed anything there.”

  “Apparently there isn’t. Lochlan thinks the stone might have been moved – or removed -- by the Kuhrsfelds when they remodeled that whole corner in the ‘30s. But the hotel may never have had a cornerstone. Freemasons traditionally dedicated them only in public or religious buildings, not commercial.”

  “Sounds like a mystery we’ll just have to live with,” Dawn concluded.

  Knowing that one of Pinnacle’s many highly prosperous members had ordered an imposing $30,000 pipe organ, the church architect had designed the sanctuary as a concert hall.

  “The acoustics are sublime,” their guide declared. “I believe Isaac, our organ master, is coming in a little later this afternoon. If we’re lucky, we may hear him practice. But before that, let’s go crawl around the pipes, shall we? Watch your heads,” he cautioned as he directed them through a small wall panel he’d pried open. The organ pipes rose in graduated forests. Some metal. Some wood. “The largest is 42-feet high. The smallest, thinner and shorter than a pencil. The newer bank over there was added later to produce the sound of brass horns.”

  They took turns posing among the pipes for cellphone photos.

  Back in the sanctuary, Charles pointed out the impressive pulpit. Adjacent to that, the baptismal font featured a white marble Madonna and Child.

  “Now, I have to take back what I said earlier about every window in the sanctuary being stained glass,” their guide said after identifying the tranquil sculpture’s artist and donor. “Have a look over on the south wall, way up above the balcony near the ceiling. See that small, square opening? Some of our Masonic members added that window when the baptismal statue was installed. From December 21 through Christmas Day every year, the sunlight streams through that window directly onto the Madonna.”

  “How magical!” Amy said, looking up and imagining it.

  Rebecca wondered if she’d heard right. Building elements aligned by Freemasons to key positions of the sun? December 21-- the winter solstice. Here, it seemed, was an example of exactly what Lochlan had suggested regarding The Keep’s orientation in relation to the annual solar trajectory. Maybe his theory wasn’t so farfetched after all.

  The high point of their tour – literally – was Pinnacle’s bell tower. Though it appeared from the street to be part of the church structure, the tower and its soaring spire were completely freestanding. Made entirely of stone, the steeple pointed 183 feet heavenward, like a divine antenna for spiritual transmissions.

  “Does the steeple have a lightning rod?” Rebecca asked.

  “Not really necessary now, with all the skyscrapers in the neighborhood,” Charles told her.

  “But what about in the early years? It had to have been higher than anything else around. And topped with a metal cross, seems like it would naturally attract strikes. Has it ever been hit by lightening?”

  “Only once, I’m told,” Charles said. “A freak occurrence, as I understand it, back in 1917. Perfectly sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. They were doing some sort of work at the Griffins Keep, and there was an accident. You know, the hotel still generated its own electricity back then. Direct current from the basement dynamos, prone to – irregularities. An electrical bolt shot from the flagpole atop the Keep to the cross on our steeple.

  “Guess they were never sure what happened exactly. But they say the shock wave of the thing shook the whole neighborhood.”

  Chapter 13

  Denver Mountain Herald, June 21, 1917:

  “The Griffins Keep Hotel closed today for the first time in its twenty-seven-year history when workmen drilling onsite for a new water source apparently struck a pocket of natural gas and set off an explosion, causing moderate damage to the northeast corner of the building. Guests occupying the effected rooms reported bright flashes and a rush of chill air around 11:40 am. Eyewitnesses outside the hotel described a ‘shimmering shaft of blue-white light’ erupting from the rooftop and glancing across the intersection to the Pinnacle Church steeple tip, where it dissipated instantly.

  “Several windows and light fixtures in The Keep shattered. The hotel’s main electrical circuits inexplicably overloaded. No one was injured in the incident, but an unidentified woman, last seen reading in the Ladies Ordinary on the eighth floor of the hotel, was reported missing. Investigators determined that she must have fled in the commotion and chosen not to return.

  “According to management, the Griffins Keep’s guests are being accommodated by neighboring hotels until repairs can be completed and the site is certified safe. The hotel hopes to reopen no later than tomorrow evening.”

  The historical newspaper clipping Rebecca pulled from the archives files raised more questions than it answered. A rush of chill air --- with a gas explosion? It didn’t fit. Electrical overload and a shaft of light that shot across to the church steeple? That sounded more like a power surge than an explosion. And what about the “unidentified woman” who went missing at the same time? Was she ever actually located, or merely forgotten?

  Rebecca couldn’t help but muse that had Great-Aunt Frankie been reporting for the Herald at the time, the anomaly might not have been so summarily dismissed.

  Frankie Chase was the quintessential plucky female journalist, a whip-smart “muckraker” ala Nellie Bly. Fearless, forthright, and sometimes fanatical, she was a force to be reckoned with on the Denver newspaper scene for half-a-century. She smoked. She drank. She swore. And she lived life on her own terms.

  Frankie Chase delighted in pushing boundaries. Widow-and-orphan sob stories were not for her. Frankie covered the politics, crime, and social issues of the day. Tireless and talented, she championed many a progressive cause in the early twentieth century. Denver’s adult public education, juvenile justice system, family planning, and even civic Christmas lighting were due, in large part, to her crusading and persuasive columns. No one could tug the collective heartstrings and shape public opinion like Frankie Chase.

  The Herald later lured the intrepid reporter away from the Times with buckets of money and the promise of carte blanche to cover any stories that appealed to her. Soon after, Frankie had married to avoid the stigma of spinsterhood and regretted it almost immediately.

  “I suppose I thought I could transform myself into the passive, obedient creature my husband -- and most men back then -- wanted in a wife,” she once explained to Becky. “I expected more of myself than he did.” Divorced quietly by mutual consent after less than three years, Frankie thereafter invested all her passion in her career. In retrospect, Rebecca speculated that had she followed Aunt Frankie’s example during her own marriage, rather t
han her mother’s long-suffering model, she might have saved herself years of pain.

  After more than 40 years with the Herald, Frankie was fired at the age of 71 for an “altercation in the newsroom” (according to a rival paper).

  “That damned new editor was always criticizing my writing style. Hell, it was plenty good enough before he came along in the 60s. ‘Too flowery,’ he said. ‘Not objective,’ he groused. When he demanded I write an apology for my criticism of some asinine state legislators, I let him have it – and I don’t mean the apology.”

  At the age of 76, Frankie went back to her hometown of Cripple Creek, where she bought and ran the local paper for many more years. A heavy smoker all her life, she finally succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 82.

  “I always thought it was so sad that Frances was childless,” Rebecca’s mother had commented on several occasions. But it seemed to Rebecca that her great-aunt had no regrets in that regard.

  For her part, Rebecca had always considered herself “child-free” – a term which sounded much less pathetic than “childless.” The timing and circumstances had never been right for motherhood in Rebecca’s childbearing years, and she was grateful to live in an era of reproductive choice.

  “But who will take care of you when you get old?” her younger sister Ruthie, the mother of seven, sometimes fretted.

  “I’m not going to get old,” Rebecca would reply simply. She had seen enough of old age to know it wasn’t for her. The Golden Years were not for the faint of heart, she knew, with the physical failings and escalating indignities. She would pass, thank you very much. Rebecca had no intention of outliving her useful body. With luck, some sort of accident would take her out, long before she would even consider leaning on anyone else for support.