Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

  Rebecca had tried repeatedly to pin down Mrs. Lawbaugh for an oral history interview. Imogene was always willing but somehow never able. She’d driven until she was 92, when her vision failed and she had to give up the 1965 blue Cadillac DeVille she called the H.M.S. Griffin. She’d been wheelchair-bound for the past 8 years. It was hard for her to get around. Hard for her to remember little day-to-day details. But at turns, she recalled incidents from her youth as if they were yesterday.

  “Honey, the stories I could tell you about the goings on in this hotel would curl your hair!” she once told Rebecca. But when the historian had called her the next day to arrange a chat, Imogene had had no idea who she was. Sadly, the old lady’s memories were already as elusive as butterflies. It was too late now to catch them. Rebecca hoped she would never grow that old.

  She gazed down upon the still-bright spirit of Imogene, whose perishable container was rapidly approaching its expiration date, and wondered. Are the physical failings of old age Nature’s way of making it easier for the spirit to abandon the body? In countless acts of betrayal, the body which begins as a boon becomes a bother, and at last a burden. Rebecca’s own arthritic feet ached after just one site tour, literally stopping her in her tracks, long before she was ready. Her aging body limited her in more and more ways. What would it be like to be free of it? What would it be like to move without feet, without flesh? Body-free. The prospect of release was seductive.

  “Mrs. Lawbaugh’s such a beloved fixture around here among the few remaining veteran staff that they did everything they could to make this milestone birthday perfect for her,” Dawn said, “When Imogene mentioned her fond memory of a violinist who played in the atrium many years ago. I remembered that Lochlan used to perform professionally, and he kindly agreed to play for the occasion.”

  “He’s wonderful, isn’t he?” Rebecca marveled as Lochlan coaxed Vivaldi from his instrument. Transcendence could still be achieved by those attuned to the Griffins Keep’s power to lift spirits and elevate the mundane. As it was purposed, may it ever be, Rebecca prayed silently, her faith its magic rekindled.

  Ignoring more immediate and basic needs, TITHE was determined to modernize all the guestrooms on floors 3 through 7. The desecration had begun. Although she knew it was scheduled, Rebecca’s first encounter with the dismantlement as she walked the sixth floor came as a rude shock.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” She turned to face a middle-aged workman behind her who had spoken. “Did I not see you leading a tour up here last evening? It sounded like a ghost tour.”

  “Yes, yes you did. And yes, it was a private ghost tour. I’m the hotel historian. At least, I used to be, when The Keep had a hotel historian. Now I’m just the occasional tour guide. Rebecca Bridger.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Rebecca,” he said, shaking her hand. “I am Manuel Otero. I am supervising all of this work,” he said, indicating the redecoration with a sweep of his arm.

  “No offense, Manuel. I’m sure your men do excellent work. But I hate what they’re doing to these rooms. This horrible carpet doesn’t belong in an Italian Renaissance hotel.”

  Manuel nodded. “I agree with you. But this is what the owners have selected.”

  “Well, they sure as hell don’t have a clue about the traditions that should define this property. Pardon my language, but this makes me so angry!”

  “I understand your displeasure. This is a beautiful hotel. Amazing architecture. I would very much like to talk with you sometime about the hotel’s history, especially anything you know about its construction.”

  “I’d like that,” Rebecca said, composing herself. “I’m sure with all this redecorating and remodeling, you’re bound to lay bare a few secrets not even I know about.”

  Manuel cocked his head and inquired seriously, “Why do you mention ‘secrets’?”

  “No reason, really. Except that The Keep’s architect was a member of the Order of Freemasons. And some people say that Masons designed geometrical and numerological secrets – even powers – into their structures.”

  “Is that so? Have you or others uncovered any such secrets in the Griffins Keep?”

  Reluctant to mention the upside-down panel and Lochlan’s endless theories, let alone anything about the hidden journal, Rebecca shook her head. “We can’t even find a cornerstone, which Freemasons usually installed with much fanfare and ceremony in their important buildings.”

  “In the northeast corner.”

  “Then you know something of the Freemasons, too?”

  Manuel glanced around the hallway, then gestured for her to follow him into one of the rooms being refurbished. “Come in here, please, Rebecca.” He quietly closed the door behind them, though it had only a hole where the latching mechanism had been.

  “You noticed nothing when I shook your hand,” he began, his voice discretely lowered. “But had you been a Freemason yourself, you would have known, by the way I grasped your hand and positioned my thumb between your knuckles, that I was a brother. You would even have known that I have achieved the degree of Master Mason.”

  “Then we really must talk. How long will you be working here at The Keep?”

  “It is a big job, five floors, nearly 200 rooms. My crew and I will be here for at least another three weeks.” He handed the historian his business card. “Call me on my mobile. We can go someplace for coffee soon. We have much to discuss, I think.”

  “What do you know about the history of Freemasonry in Colorado?” Manuel asked as soon as they’d gotten their coffees and found a relatively secluded corner at the Tattered Cover bookstore the next day.

  “Very little, I’m afraid,” Rebecca admitted. “I know that the lodge here in downtown Denver was one of the first established in Colorado.”

  “According to the brothers I have talked to, the only thing that came before the first Masonic meeting in Denver was the first saloon. Freemasons were among the earliest settlers, who met and formed the lodge in November 1858 – even before the gold rush that gave Denver its start the following spring.”

  “I do know that most of the men prominent in business and politics in the latter half of the 19th century were Freemasons, and that the organization was very powerful and influential well into the early 1900s.”

  “That is very true. Your first territorial governor, Mr. William Gilpin, and the territorial secretary who designed your state seal were among the earliest Freemasons in Colorado. I have been studying this, you see, since I met with my brothers of Colorado Lodge #5, who counted the Griffins Keep architect Edward Brookings among its members. Did you know that Brookings was also the architect of the Silken Rose building?”

  “I did. When it opened as a boarding school, it was Brooking’s third Denver building.”

  “Can you imagine the neighborhood around the hotel when it first opened? Three buildings only – the school, the church, and the hotel. One dedicated to education, one to faith, and the third to hospitality. The symbolism of threes is everywhere here, including the triangle shape of The Keep and the many Holy Trinity elements of the Pinnacle Church. In Freemasonry, as in ancient numerology, 3 is a very important number.”

  “Did the Denver lodge brothers tell you anything about Masonic connections to the Griffins Keep?”

  Manuel lifted his coffee cup and drank, looking over its rim into her eyes. Then he leaned forward and placed his hand over Rebecca’s. “They shared many secrets. But first I must learn something. Is there anything in the history of the hotel that speaks of a buried treasure?”

  Rebecca proceeded with caution.“Well, you know about the griffins, right? In the fountain, in the wallpaper, the stained glass windows. Used to be two flanking the Seventeenth Street entrance, and another one above the Grand Fireplace. Griffins in mythology are the guardians of mountain gold treasure. And it has long been rumored that during the hotel’s construction, a treasure of gold was buried beneath it, and that the griffins placed around The Keep continue to guard it. I love the
story, but as far as I know, it has no basis in fact.”

  “What if I told you there is a basis?”

  Rebecca spluttered in mid-sip. “You mean after I blew latte through my nose?”

  Manuel handed her a napkin and awaited her recovery.

  “I would be skeptical, but intrigued,” she said quietly.

  “What I am going to tell you now is in strictest confidence. Can I entrust you with a most significant secret?”

  Rebecca nodded solemnly.

  “My brother Masons of Denver tell me that Freemasons throughout the territory, and later the state, acquired a significant portion of the gold extracted from Colorado mines. In the early years, they didn’t trust banks, so they hid caches of their mines’ outputs in secret locations, many of them in and around Denver. They say the largest golden cache of all was hidden under the Griffins Keep, with Edward Brooking’s full knowledge and cooperation.”

  “I’ve always wanted to believe that,” the historian confessed. “But what proof have you?”

  Manuel glanced around the space, making sure that no one might overhear what he said next. “The Freemasons have a document, written by Brookings in 1910. He entrusted it to the lodge with the stipulation that it not be unsealed for 100 years.”

  “Why 100?”

  “Ten times 10, another powerful number in numerology. And he knew that no one living at the time would be around a century later. The Freemasons opened the Brookings document in 2010. It described a treasure of golden ingots, deposited deep within the ground beneath Denver as an offering to the Deity-- and as the mystical source of financial power for the new city.”

  The contractor continued. “Brooking’s document also revealed the location of the buried golden treasure, but it is in a riddle. I wrote it down.” He withdrew a folded piece of paper from his briefcase on the floor between them. Reverently, he read:

  “The stone Madonna’s heart of gold

  O’rsees a cache of wealth untold.”

  “Stone Madonna?” Rebecca echoed. “There’s no stone Madonna in the Griffins Keep. Never has been. It must refer to Pinnacle Church’s marble statue of the Virgin Mary with the baptismal font. Not Tthe Keep.”

  “So it seemed to the Freemasons who opened the document,” Manuel said. “So sure were they about the meaning of the clue that they requested permission from the church leaders to search the area beneath the Virgin’s statue with a metal detecting ground scanner.”

  “Did they find anything?”

  “They found the remains of an old tunnel and some tracks leading toward The Keep about 3 meters down. But the 3D scans detected nothing that appeared to be a treasure, even when they probed 10 meters beneath the church.”

  “I don’t understand. Did someone find the treasure before 2010 and remove it?”

  Manuel shrugged helplessly. “No one knows. It seems strange that Brookings’ riddle leads nowhere. The Freemasons were always convinced the treasure was beneath the Griffins Keep. But the clue seems to point elsewhere, and the Pinnacle statue theory is a dead end. I was hoping you would know something about the hotel and its history that might solve the mystery.”

  “I’m so sorry, Manuel,” Rebecca said with genuine regret. “Like I said, I know of no stone Madonna – or ‘heart of gold’ -- ever existing in The Keep, unless it was in someone’s private room. Could it have been hidden inside one of the hollow terra cotta blocks of the floors and interior walls? I understand many unexpected things have been discovered there over the decades.”

  “It is possible. I have no other idea. I am looking always as we tear into the structure to remodel bathrooms. Perhaps the Madonna – and the treasure she oversees – will never be found. And perhaps that is exactly what Edward Brookings and the Freemasons intended.”

  "At least as a designated local landmark, The Keep will fare better than the Metropolitan Building across Grand Avenue," Lochlan said. The Keep's 1880s neighbor had weathered multiple incarnations over the decades, housing at various times law offices, an investment firm, a restaurant, a theatre -- even a Buddhist temple in the 1970s. It was about to become a parking lot.

  "Have you heard when the demolition is scheduled?" Rebecca asked.

  "Next week, we're told," Lochlan said. "They plan to implode it. The dust will coat the hotel, Pinnacle Church, everything for blocks around. "Not that the Metropolitan was ever an architectural standout. But I always hate to see tangible history destroyed."

  The engineer paused, then brightened. “On the plus side, that building should be coming down just in time.”

  “Just in time – for what?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, smiling mysteriously. “If my calculations are right, it’s going to blow you away.”

  The seven-story Metropolitan Building did not go quietly. The collapse of tons of brick and stone so shook the ground that many watching the demolition from inside The Keep feared for the integrity of the stained-glass skylight. Its survival testified to the skill of the master builders who designed and erected the hotel.

  The suddenly exposed air space above the neighboring lot gapped the line of buildings along Grand Avenue like a tooth extraction. For the first time in anyone’s memory, sky was actually visible from east-facing rooms on the lower floors of The Keep. Lochlan was ecstatic.

  “Thursday morning, the 20th, 7:03,” he told Rebecca. “Be here, front and center, just outside the Grand Entrance.”

  “Seven o’clock in the morning,” she wailed. “I am not a morning person. It’ll be cold. The sun won’t even be up yet.”

  Lochlan grinned. “That’s exactly the point.”

  On the chilly morning of the vernal equinox, Rebecca snuggled up to her coffee mug and stood with several others who had accepted Lochlan’s invitation to witness the sunrise. Kevin from Security was there, Amy and a couple of open-minded co-workers from Engineering, Manuel the contractor, Dawn from Sales, and Lochlan’s psychic astrologer friend Rosslyn. Commuters who cruised past on Grand in the pre-dawn light paid no attention to the strange group staring expectantly at the empty Metropolitan space.

  The horizon itself was still obscured by a low building to the east of the demolition scar. But as the rising sun peered over its roof, affirmation of Lochlan’s prediction spread before them on the hotel’s facade. The original entrance to the Griffins Keep was precisely positioned to align with the rays of the equinox dawn.

  “I’ll be damned,” Kevin marveled. “You nailed it, dude.”

  “Magnifico!” Manuel raised his arms high and wide, as if to embrace the former entryway.

  “I think the carving of Harrison C. Griffin looks happy,” Amy declared with a smile of her own. “This is so cool!”

  Rosslyn touched the stone on one side of the entrance arch. “I sense the whole building is energized,” she said. “For the first time in many, many years, it is once again attuned to the sun in its journey across the heavens, as it was always meant to be.”

  Rebecca processed the evidence silently. This could not be coincidence. Lochlan was right. His contention that Freemasons imitated the Temple of Solomon in the hotel’s creation seemed solidly plausible.

  Throughout the morning, as word of the amazing phenomenon spread, hotel associates sneaked outside to see for themselves. Those who grasped the significance returned to their tasks invigorated by apparent proof of The Keep’s inherent magic.

  Rosslyn walked the building for quite some time after the equinox sunrise, reading the vibrations of the stone, both outside and within the walls. Rebecca encountered her midmorning in the Grand Salon.

  “I knew you’d come,” the psychic said. “The sun should be striking this center bay window right about now.” Each of them grabbed a long metal rod to pull the heavy draperies apart. The sun’s rays streamed into the room and illuminated a patch of onyx on the opposite wall. “Fantastic! Just as in the Temple, the sun at equinox shines between the two pillars.”

  Rebecca remembered Lochlan explaining that the
support columns in the Salon were extensions of two onyx pillars that once flanked the entrance on the ground floor. Before the Kuhrsfelds enclosed those columns within a wall to create the Kipling space, they certainly would have framed this morning’s rising sun. Rebecca felt the last of her skepticism melting.

  The two women stepped simultaneously, as if responding to a secret signal, into the patch of sunlight, blinking in the brightness but relishing the warmth. A low humming sound made them both look up.

  There in the ceiling fresco, the orb on the top of the archangel’s scepter began to glow. It was not the sunlight that illuminated it; the angle was all wrong. The illumination came – impossibly -- from within the painting.

  “Do you see it, too?” Rosslyn asked in a whisper.

  Rebecca nodded. “What…?”

  Before she could frame her question, she felt it. A tingling, like touching her tongue to a battery. A bit shocking, but not unpleasant. Weird. She turned to tell Rosslyn about the odd sensation, and found the astrologer staring at her wide-eyed.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this. Are you OK?”

  Rebecca smiled uneasily. “Honestly? I feel sort of like a vibrator set on low. Or like a hive full of bees. What’s happening?”

  “Hold out your arm and see for yourself,” Rosslyn instructed, struggling to remain calm.

  Rebecca did as directed. Her arm, her whole body, was glowing like the archangel’s scepter. From overhead, a stream of opalescent light dipped down from the fresco like a tornadic funnel cloud, drenching her in a layer of luminescence. Rosslyn, untouched by the light, watched in amazement as what looked like living energy coalesced around the historian.