Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

The humming grew louder; the tingling sensation more widespread. Rebecca felt like a little girl. She giggled like a little girl. “It tickles!”’

  When she tried to brush off the glow coating her skin and clothes, her hands went right through it. A sense of well-being infused her. She stretched out her arms for balance and began to twirl around in a dervish of delight.

  “What’s going on in here?” Hotel ops manager Vince Murano burst into the Grand Salon and assessed the scene in an instant, annoyed. “Is this part of this equinox idiocy I’ve been hearing about all morning? Why are those draperies wide open to the sun? Do you want to fade the carpet?” He strode across the large room and jerked the window coverings closed. At the same instant he shut out the sun, the glow around Rebecca ebbed back up into the ceiling and blinked out.

  “What business have you in here?” he challenged Rebecca. “I know of no tours scheduled today. You should be at your desk in Sales. Where’s your name badge? And who on earth are you?” he demanded, turning to Rosslyn and frowning at her hippie-era outfit.

  Rebecca recovered herself and shot back. “This woman happens to be a V.I.P. Sales client who arranged to see the Salon specifically in the sunshine. She is planning a huge wedding for her daughter in July, and the photographer insists upon natural lighting for the ceremony and posed portraits.”

  Murano bowed his head in apology. “I do beg your pardon, Madam,” he said, backing out of the room. “I’m confident you’ll find the Griffins Keep a perfect setting for the celebration of your daughter’s nuptials. Please excuse my interruption.”

  Chapter 22

  “It tickled?” Lochlan said when Rebecca and Rosslyn told him of the episode in the Grand Salon. “Seriously?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

  “Whatever it was, it had this sort of electrical charge to it,” Rosslyn tried to explain. “All the little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck were standing on end. It was like an aura…only something more than that. Like an aura of favor, a visible blessing.”

  “An aureole?” Lochlan speculated. “A sort of full-body halo. That has to be a good thing.”

  “A very good thing,” Rosslyn confirmed. “Have to confess I was envious.”

  “But why me? I don’t understand.” Rebecca’s confusion scarcely muted the euphoria that lingered still. For a few moments she’d felt carefree and childlike. No, not childlike exactly. Ageless. If she could bottle that sensation and market it to menopausal women, her fortune would be made.

  Rosslyn considered the mystery. “From what I’ve just witnessed,” she said at length, “I have to conclude that the hotel spirits have a special affinity for you, Rebecca. Maybe because you keep the past alive.by sharing the history. Maybe because you identify so strongly with the place. Whatever the reason, they like you. And I sense that they’re counting on you to advocate for them somehow.”

  Lochlan fixed his gaze upon the historian, but he spoke to the astrologer. “Rebecca’s connection to The Keep is like no one else’s. I have faith that the role she’s meant to play will be revealed very soon.”

  The remodeling of floors 3 through 7 continued apace over the next month. Occasionally, when she was feeling masochistic, Rebecca would walk the level currently under destruction. The carpets were installed first, so for several weeks, the guestrooms absurdly combined that bold floorcovering with the Victorian-style furnishings.

  “The design firm’s notes claim this pattern compliments the filigreed design of The Keep’s balcony railings,” Lochlan said. “But it reminds me of something else…Can’t quite place it yet.”

  On the rust-red and mustard-colored background, the black pattern featured two crossed barbed spears or spikes within an inverted triangle. Two sides of the triangle crossed and extended into curled ends, embellished with a dual wing-shaped accent centered between them. The hideous oversized design repeated again and again, crawling across the hallways and into the guestrooms.

  “It reminds me of some cheap Vegas hotel,” Rebecca declared.

  The walls on all the lower floors were recovered in one night. Employees arrived that morning to find the flowered wallpaper completely obliterated by slick black lacquer. Stark, severe, and blank, the effect was beyond soulless. It was actually soul-sucking.

  “The idea is to make the railing panels ‘pop’ when viewed from the lobby,’” Lochlan explained, parroting the designer’s press release once again. “Gotta say it edges out the mirrors flanking the toilets in every guest room for Most Heinous Decorating Misfire. Who the hell thought guests would want to see themselves sitting on the john, endlessly reflected on both sides into infinity?”

  Rebecca felt sick. “How can you make light of it?” she challenged him. The new look was many things. Funny was not one of them.

  The room contents began to arrive – the FF&E in hospitality industry lingo: Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment. One March afternoon, when Rebecca took a tour group down the stairs from 8 to 7 for the view, the doors to all the rooms on 6 gaped open. Their dark, curved bed headboards leaned against the hallway walls, surrounding the atrium space like tombstones. By the time the tour concluded and she grabbed her cellphone to photograph the ephemeral sight, the headboards were gone forever.

  Days later, Rebecca steeled herself to inspect the New Look overtaking the first floors. From room to room she gamboled, peering inside, sometimes entering. The cumulative effect was about as cozy as a filing cabinet. Cold. Vapid. Zombie rooms.

  “So, I saw you prowling around the sixth floor yesterday,” Ms. Jordan said the next morning. “What’s your take on our new décor?”

  Rebecca hesitated. “Is that a polite inquiry, or do you really want my opinion?”

  “I think I can handle honest feedback.”

  “OK. I hate it,” the historian declared without apology.

  Ms. Jordan smiled. “Good,” she said.

  “Good?”

  “Yes, good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. You see, Rebecca, you’re not the demographic we’re aiming for with the new look. Focus groups show it will appeal to the younger professionals and families – a whole new consumer base of millennials.”

  “Did those focus groups include any of our regular guests? Did they include any staff who interact with our guests on a daily basis and who understand what they value about this hotel? If you ask me, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. This ‘trending’ guestroom décor will be off-putting to guests seeking historic hotel ambiance, the heritage tourists, and people who have been coming to the Griffins Keep for decades.”

  “Heritage tourism is a fading fad. And people who’ve been coming here for decades are old,” Ms. Jordan stated flatly.

  “They’re also affluent,” Rebecca countered, “and discerning. They expect a certain level of excellence and elegance, and I don’t see them embracing this generic ‘refreshing.’ At the same time, I seriously doubt that room décor will be enough to attract new clientele looking for an ultra-modern hotel experience. You can’t change the classical architecture of the lobby.” Or could they? Certainly R.J Kuhrsfeld had done his best to reshape it in the 1930s. There was nothing to stop TITHE from implementing any alterations they chose.

  “Yes, well, Rebecca, when you earn your MBA we’ll continue this discussion. Until then, I expect you to get onboard with the changes and present them on your tours with unreserved enthusiasm. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Clear as the plexiglass on the new nightstands,” Rebecca replied.

  Reports of unexplained phenomena throughout the hotel increased dramatically as remodeling efforts amped up over the next several weeks. A construction crew member told Manuel that he saw a sofa he had just installed in a suite collapse under an invisible weight. Two other workmen refused to return to a room where they saw a dark vaporous cloud escape from the hollow terra cotta blocks of a bathroom wall they had begun to demolish.

  One guest saw indistinct figures reflected
in the huge mirrors flanking the toilet in his redesigned room. Another was awoken by the crash of an oversized picture falling off the wall and a menacing male voice saying “Leave it.”

  A housekeeper cleaning a recently remodeled room swore that she felt something brush past her shoulder right before the TV and radio came on simultaneously at full volume.

  Moans from inside the walls. Strange shadows outside upper-story windows.

  The most bizarre incident happened in the basement by the pantry service elevator. A prep cook reported that something yanked his pant leg hem so hard that it knocked him off his feet. “So I’m sprawled on the floor and I hear a voice right beside my ear say, ‘Gotcha, Sparky.’ That’s what Max Barnes always used to call me.”

  When Kevin replayed the security tape from the time the cook indicated, a dark column moved into the picture just before his fall and then instantly disappeared.

  “The spirits are even more unsettled than before,” Margaret reported when Rebecca asked her and Molly to come by the hotel one rainy afternoon in May.

  Molly agreed. “Very disturbed, unhappy. Out of balance and uncentered.”

  “Like everyone else here,” Rebecca said. “But what can any of us do about it?”

  Margaret looked up from their seats in the lobby and cast her gaze about the atrium balconies, then at Molly. Her fellow medium, perceiving similar messages, answered the question in her eyes with a nod.

  “The good sir knights, the Knights Templar overseeing The Keep, are carefully watching these developments. They’ve set sentries at all the guestroom doors, keeping the benevolent spirits shut inside, preventing them from mingling with dangerous new forces arising within The Keep. These dark entities have been summoned by unconscionable men of power, living and dead, scheming together.”

  Margaret paused and took both Rebecca’s hands in hers.

  “The protective spirits have been waiting for you to ask what you can do. There is a role for you, Rebecca, a role no one else can play. I’m hearing that the Knights will be calling upon you when the time is near.”

  “The time for what?”

  The medium released Rebecca’s hands and shrugged helplessly. “That’s all I got. I’m sorry. But I have the sense that it’s very important. You’re very important.”

  Later, as the mediums walked toward their parked cars, Molly said, “I’m glad you didn’t tell her the rest of it.”

  “I couldn’t,” Margaret replied sadly. “What good would it do for her to know she may not survive the ordeal that lies ahead?”

  “Hey yo, history lady – What’s your name?” the visiting Chad Tagawa called out one day as she traversed the lobby.

  “I’m Rebecca Bridger.”

  “Yeah, right. So Becks, we’ve never really talked, and I just wanted to say hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “Ya know, even though we don’t really need all that history stuff anymore, I think you sorta represent the hotel to a lotta people.”

  “Thank you?” Rebecca said, not certain what he meant by the statement.

  “Because you’re sorta like from another time and old. And you probably used to be pretty good looking, but you could use some work, you know what I mean?”

  She stared at him. “You’re not very good with people, are you, Mr. Tagawa?”

  He grinned. “Don’t hafta be,” he said, “when I’ve got more money than God.” He backpedaled when she didn’t smile. “Kidding! I’m totally kidding about the God thing.”

  Rebecca shook her head and started away. “Please don’t feel obliged to speak to me again.”

  On the mezzanine level, she opened one of the tall, heavy doors to the Grand Salon and halted, aghast. In the center of the room, a huge tarp covered the floor. Three workmen on ladders were assaulting the ceiling fresco. Mickey Branson himself was directing the vandalism.

  “Can’t have religious-themed art harshing The Keep’s new fam-fun vibe,” he explained to the historian with a wave and a smile.

  “But…but that painting dates back to the hotel’s opening,” she protested feebly.

  “No duh. And it’s totally depressing! Makes people think of church and shit. We’re gonna replace it with a wizard or fairies -- something more popular. Angels, gawd. Whoever thought they belonged in a hotel?”

  She stood watching the casual obliteration of The Keep’s celestial guardians with horror. “Does Stan Tagawa know about this?”

  “Oh yeah, of course. His orders, actually. He and Chad hate this thing. Stan wants it gone by his visit Friday.”

  Two of the workmen slathered plaster around the perimeter of the painting, working their way inwards. Knowing the answer, Rebecca asked nonetheless. “What’s the guy with the scraper doing?”

  “Trying to chip the gold off those swords before they cover it all up. Don’t know what we can do with it, but it must be worth something.”

  Rebecca stared as one archangel after another disappeared beneath fresh ceiling plaster.

  “Wait!” she cried, suddenly animated. Impulsively grasping Branson’s upper arm, she pointed upward. “Don’t let them cover up the orb on the Dominion’s scepter.”

  Mickey glanced at her grip on his arm, then up at the fresco. “Why not?”

  “Well, because,” she began, releasing him and stepping back, “Because it’s got kind of a magical quality, you know? It could probably be incorporated into the new design somehow, like a crystal ball or a fairy wand or something.”

  The managing director considered her suggestion. “A crystal ball? Yeah, maybe. It does have that cool glowy effect.

  “Leave that weird ball thing in the center uncovered for now, you guys,” he told the plasterers. “We’ll let the artist have a look and see if she wants to use it.”

  Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief at her temporary victory. When she returned to the Salon later that day, nothing of the fresco remained but the Dominion’s ethereal orb in the center. Even with the lights off, it radiated eerily. Rebecca smiled, recalling the sun’s effect upon it on equinox morning. The orb’s presence was important. Of that she was certain, without understanding why.

  In a city which boasted 300+ days of sunshine a year, rain was a rare occurrence. Some people were oblivious to the weather, their moods unaffected by dreary skies and damp atmosphere. Not so for Rebecca. Like many lifelong Coloradans, she was spoiled by the high, dry climate.

  This rainy May morning depressed her more than usual. She felt defeated, unanchored by all the physical disruptions at the Griffins Keep. She bemoaned the incremental wane of elegance. The historic hotel was not alone in its rush to mediocrity. With ongoing “urban infill,” much of downtown Denver was keeping apace.

  Members of the Past Timers, a loose association of local historians who had long lunched each Friday afternoon at the Wynkoop Brewery, lamented the transformation of the surrounding LoDo environs as its historic brick warehouse district was overshadowed by what some of them characterized as “Soviet Block architecture.” The hastily erected square, featureless buildings were too dull to be called ugly. Architectural continuity, compliment, and balance were nowhere to be found in the cretinous conglomeration, evidencing not a penny nor an instant spent on aesthetic design or detail. No individuality. No character.

  The Past-Timers included both amateur and professional historians. A few stalwarts constituted the core group – the retired judge, the city auditor, the ghost town photographer, the university press editor. Others drifted in by invitation upon occasion to talk about their history projects and to seek opinions or expertise. The dynamic assemblage was endlessly fascinating, and Rebecca joined in whenever she could. The beer never failed to stimulate lively discussion.

  “Still working at The Keep?” the judge asked her as he drained his Railyard Ale that warm May afternoon. “I hear it was bought by Californians. Lord save us from parasitic real estate investors!” He raised his empty glass and clinked Rebecca’s. “Waiter, another here, if you please!”<
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  “Still there,” Rebecca confirmed, “fighting to keep history from oblivion. What are you working on these days, Judge? Finish that book on Dwight Eisenhower’s paintings?”

  “At long last, yes. Put that one to bed about a month ago. I’ve moved on now to a biography of the flamboyant deco-era architect Baylor Templeton. Interesting character. Quite the bon vivant ladies’ man in the 30s and 40s, it turns out. Never let marriages cramp his style. Actually came across a great story about Templeton and the Griffins Keep the other day that might interest you.”

  “I’d love to hear it. Didn’t know there was a connection between the two.”

  “Oh, my yes. The hotel hosted most of Templeton’s notorious wild parties – both during and after Prohibition. Apparently The Keep was the place to go if you had the money for premium liquor. Brought it in through ex-patriate friends of the hotel living in Europe and Canada, the Caribbean and South America. Templeton soirees were never ‘dry’ – nor dull. They say the most desirable women in the West graced his gatherings.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, according to one of Templeton’s stepchildren that I interviewed, in the midst of one of these Dionysian affairs, a female guest – probably a call girl -- who apparently overindulged in alcohol or other substances, actually expired of heart failure in the middle of the party. Rather than put a damper on the festivities, Templeton ordered Keep banquet employees to move her body onto a table by the wall and cover it with a tablecloth. And the party continued unabated until dawn.”

  A chill ran across the back of Rebecca’s neck. “They covered her body with a tablecloth?”

  “So I’m told. Seems a bit callous, I must say. But that was Templeton’s style.”

  “She wore a crimson gown,” Rebecca said without thinking.

  “Beg pardon?” The judge cupped a hand to his bad ear.

  “Oh, nothing. Never mind. But I think I’ll join you in a second ale.”