“When?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll be there.” She tried to sound happy about it, but it wasn’t easy.
“Holly, are you ill?” Delilah sat across from her granddaughter at a small round table near a window overlooking the Brimstone Valley and studied the purple bags under Holly’s eyes, the pale face, the barely-combed hair. And her clothing - shorts and a decidedly ratty T-shirt.
“I’m fine.” The girl’s smile was forced. “Just a little tired.”
“Did you sleep in your clothes?”
“Um, a little, I guess. I got up early and came home from the Grangers’ house then fell asleep again.”
“Yes, Steve let me know.” Delilah heard stridency in her own voice and softened it. “Next time, change for breakfast. Why didn’t you want to go camping, Holly? I was under the impression you would love to go. Fishing, hiking, horseback riding, roasting marshmallows over the campfire.”
The girl shrugged, a pained look on her face. “I don’t know. I just wanted to come home.”
Frieda set toast and Denver omelets before them, then brought a teapot and pitcher of orange juice to the table and proceeded to serve. “Anything else, Miss Delilah?”
“That will be all for now, thank you.” Delilah waited until Frieda left. “Holly, did I understand you correctly? You didn’t want to go camping because you wanted to come home?”
Her granddaughter nodded.
Delilah hesitated. “Do you mean you consider this your home?”
Holly studied her hands a long time before nodding. Then she looked Delilah straight in the eye. “Yes. I mean, I would like it to be my home.”
“I would like that, too but your mother will likely take you back to California eventually. I can’t stop her.”
“Has she called you? Is she still in Sedona?”
Delilah’s heart broke for the girl. “I haven’t heard from her. She’s probably working very hard.” She nearly choked on the words.
The look Holly gave her was too adult, too knowing, and her words were almost inaudible. “If you asked her, she would probably let me stay.”
“She might. But Holly, this isn’t a good place for you to live. It’s dangerous.”
“Why? Because I can see ghosts?”
Delilah studied her. “I guess you could say that. Holly, I spoke with my cousin Adeline, yesterday for the first time since Carrie died. I know you’ve spoken with her as well. She’s very concerned for your safety. She has eyes like yours, you know.”
Holly sipped orange juice and looked uncomfortable. “I know. Adeline said you didn’t like her because you think she killed your sister.”
“I was mixed up, sweetheart. I blamed her because she was with Carrie when she died.”
“But-”
Delilah, cheeks flaming, reached across the table and put her hand over Holly’s. “I blamed her because I was a little girl and I wanted her to die instead of my sister. I was angry. So angry.” Tears threatened but she fought them back. “Carrie was everything to me. Our mother died when I was three and so, to me, Carrie wasn’t just my sister, she was my mother. She protected me. She loved me. I didn’t think I could survive without her.”
Holly held her gaze. “What did she protect you from?”
Delilah studied the 11-year-old, seeing maturity beyond her years and ached for her. The girl didn’t even know what childhood was. She’d been nothing but a latchkey child, left to fend for herself while her mother did whatever she wanted. She went to school, the library, and the park. She cleaned and cooked. She was Cinderella. Holly had admitted that Charlotte had never taken her to an amusement park, to the beach, or the mountains. She’d never ridden a carousel or seen the astronomy show at the Griffith Park Observatory despite the fact it was so near Van Nuys. She’d never even been to the zoo. The highlight of her life, thus far, had been a class field trip to a local dairy. It was unconscionable, and how she’d survived - indeed, thrived - baffled and impressed Delilah no end.
Charlotte had had every advantage, and Delilah wondered what would have happened if she’d been stuck with just a library and a park. She’d probably have run away and become a criminal. Charlotte had never willingly read a book in her life.
“Miss Delilah?” Holly was watching her.
“The other night, in the restaurant, you called me Gram.” Delilah spoke haltingly.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. You may continue to call me that if you’d like.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” Pride be damned. This girl needed someone, even if she couldn’t stay with her forever. “In fact, I’d like you to.”
Holly’s somber, tired little face lit up. “Me, too. Thank you, Gram.”
Delilah nearly teared up again. “I’m proud of you, Holly.”
“Thank you.” She took her first bite of omelet and grinned. “What did Carrie protect you from, Gram?”
Delilah studied Holly, tempted to gloss everything over, as she always had, but there was no sense in it. “My grandfather, your great-great-grandfather, was a powerful man. A sick man.”
“Sick?”
“Mentally sick. Carrie told me over and over he was a bad man and to stay away from him.” She paused. “I don’t know why - I was too young to know much of anything - but I did know it was true. Carrie died because of him, Holly. Adeline has promised to tell me why.” She squeezed her hand. “To tell us.”
“He’s the Beast,” Holly said somberly.
“What?” Delilah felt dizzy. “Who told you that?”
“He talked to me in a dream. He looked like a black dragon with burning eyes and blue fire under his scales. He had a horrible deep dark voice.”
She didn’t want to ask, but she forced herself. “What did he say to you?”
“He wanted me to climb on the dragon and fly with him. And that nurse, Pearl Abbott, she tried to push me over the balcony and get me on the dragon’s back.” She hesitated. “That’s how I got the bruises.”
Delilah shivered. “Pinching Pearl. Yes, Adeline and I talked about her.”
“You know about her?”
“I do, but only because Addie and Ben jogged my memory yesterday. I was barely six when everything happened. I don’t have many memories of my time here.” She smiled. “Ben told me Carrie used to bring me to the drug store for ice cream when I was little. I almost recall it, but not quite. It was so many years ago.” Her smile broadened. “And do you know what else?”
“What else?”
“Ben was in love with Carrie back then. He was in his mid-twenties and was just waiting for her to turn sixteen so he could declare his intentions. He wanted to marry her and bring us both to live with him. I remember that she was sweet on him, too. She told me she was going to marry him.”
Holly beamed. “It’s so romantic!”
“Yes, it was.” Sadness nearly overwhelmed her as she thought of what might have been. She spoke brusquely. “But it wasn’t to be. Instead, I went to live with Aunt Beatrice in her grand townhouse in Boston. That was quite an adventure. She took me to Europe every summer vacation, sent me to the finest schools, and taught me about some rather strange things.”
“I want to know more about that, but first please tell me what bad things your grandfather did. You’re still afraid of him.”
“You know your mind, don’t you, Holly?” Delilah shook her head. “He was truly frightening - I think small children pick up on such things.”
Holly nodded.
“From my six-year-old point of view, Henry Hank Barrow was as tall as a pharaoh and as broad as Paul Bunyan. He always wore stiff black suits and polished black shoes and he carried a gold pocket watch with that symbol of his engraved on it.”
“Infurnam Aeris?”
“You don’t miss a thing, do you, young lady? Yes, that symbol. He liked to twirl the watch and tell me to stare at it and now I wonder if he wasn’t attempting to h
ypnotize me with the thing. At any rate, he had bushy salt and pepper hair and big white mutton chops, and his eyebrows were black with long white hairs curling through them and they arched over his eyes like the devil’s own brows. I thought of him as a big dark hulk, and the day Carrie died, that’s how I saw him that last time, down in the basement at the foot of the stairs. He was nothing but a horrible mass of darkness and a pair of glinting eyes in the lamplight, glaring up as Carrie gave me his book.” She paused. “I never saw my sister again …” She swallowed. “Holly, it’s too dangerous for you to be here.”
“What book?” Holly replied.
Delilah shook her head. “I’d forgotten it until yesterday. It was big and black with the Infurnam Aeris symbol on it. Do you know anything about the symbol, Holly?”
“Steve told me he had a cult and that was its symbol. Pearl Abbott was part of it, too, and it wasn’t nice. Henry Hank thought he was a wizard and he tried to make people do things. Bad things.”
“Yes, that sums it up rather succinctly. Our forebear was a powerfully depraved man. And, Holly, he, somehow, in some way, is why you are not safe here. It sounds ridiculous, but I know it’s true. Adeline says you shouldn’t even be in town, let alone here at the hotel. That’s why I wish you’d gone camping with the Grangers. It might have given us time to figure out something to keep you safer.”
“What do you mean? Figure out what?”
“Well, I’m not sure about this, but Adeline says that if we could find that book, we might be able to use it to stop, well, to stop whatever is going on. To keep you safe.”
“What happened to it?”
“I hid it for Carrie that day, but I don’t know where. I threw the cards last night, trying to remember.”
“The cards?”
“Aunt Beatrice was a Spiritualist and she taught me how to read the Tarot.” Delilah blushed. “I don’t believe in it like she did, mind you, but I think it can help us see into our own minds.”
“I know about the cards. I read a book about them.”
Delilah stared. “Tarot cards? However, did you even find out about them in the first place?”
“Dark Shadows. Remember, I told you about Dark Shadows? It’s a soap opera and they have witches and vampires, and cards, and time travel, and ghosts, and-”
Delilah laughed. “I’d like to see that!”
Holly dimpled up, delighted. “We can watch it together. It’s on every weekday.”
“Then we shall.” She squeezed Holly’s hand.
“So what did your cards say, Gram? Did they tell you where the book is?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I got a hint.”
“Gram?”
Delilah, unused to her new title, hesitated. “Yes?”
“Could you show me the cards? Could you show me how to read them? Maybe together we could figure out where the book is.”
“I suppose there’s no harm in that. It’s sort of a silly game, though, Holly. You must keep that in mind.”
Holly nodded. “And can we go see Adeline or invite her over? I bet she can tell us all sorts of things.”
Shivers traveled down Delilah's spine. “Very well. Shall we invite her for afternoon tea?”
Holly grinned. “Yes, please.”
Arthur Meeks had just exited the elevator when he saw Little Miss Fancy Pants enter the fourth floor from the western stairwell. He knew she spotted him, too. Never taking her beady little eyes off him, she continued to her room and pulled her key from her pocket, then just stood there, staring. She gave him the ever-loving creeps, that’s what she did, and even though he couldn’t see the color of her eyes from halfway down the hall, he figured they were devil’s- spawn gold.
It was all he could do to tip his cap as if she didn’t scare him a bit, but he did it. She didn’t smile or nod, just turned and unlocked her door. He waited to hear it slam, but it closed with barely a sound. The locks snicking into place were louder.
See? She’s scared of me. And she should be. She’s going to pay! She thinks she’s such a hot little shit because her granny is the Queen Supreme Douchebag. But she’s nothing but a little slut, just like her mommy.
He entered his own room and locked the door securely behind himself, not out of fear of Miss Fancy Pants, nosireebob. It was because fat Mona Furburger had just checked in again and it was Christmastime in Arthur’s pants pockets. Ol’ Mona, pleading a bad breakfast or two, had asked him to unpack for her while she raised a big noisy stink in the john. He’d been glad to; not only had she given him a five dollar tip for all his hard work - which included smiling through the reeking green death that followed her out of the bathroom - he’d helped himself to one of the two dozen fifty dollar bills she always had tucked away in her jewelry bag. Just one - he knew better than to be greedy. He’d also walked away with a gold wedding band that had slipped halfway into a broken spot in the lining of the jewelry bag. It’d probably been there for years, a souvenir of one of her former husbands.
Arthur tucked Ulysses S. Grant into a hidden compartment in his wallet - he’d consult with the president later - then slipped the gold ring into his underwear drawer. He was no fool - he’d hang onto it a couple of days on the off-chance Mona Furburger reported it missing. In that case, he’d come to the rescue, finding it somewhere in her room, out of reach of her stubby fingers, and get a nice fat tip in the process. If nothing was said, he’d take it to that sleazeball Donald down at Horne’s Pawn Shop and make a few bucks. “Win-win,” he muttered as the phone rang.
“Arthur,” he answered in his best butt-kissing voice.
“We have new arrivals.” Peg Moran’s nasal voice was as snooty as a twenty-dollar call girls on Christmas Eve.
“Be there in a jiffy.”
Adjusting his cap, he raced out the door and ran straight into Little Miss Fancy Pants, who was watering a fern beside the elevator. She ignored him as he pressed the call button, so he licked his lips and looked her up and down.
“Better stop it.” She spoke under her breath.
“Didn’t do nothing.”
She looked straight at him then and for an instant, he was afraid he’d see those gold eyes again, but they were blue save for that big speck like the old lady at the Humble Station had. “You ain’t Miss Delilah’s granddaughter, no. You got more basic roots than that. You’re related to the old witch at the gas station. I can tell by the eyes.”
Something sparked in the girl’s gaze, but it was gone before it took. “Adeline Chance is our cousin and she’s not a witch. You better not say things like that.” She strutted past him, head in the air, snotty as you please, and began watering the ferns on the other side of the elevator.
Little bitch. You’ll get yours. “Where’s your mother?” he asked as the elevator arrived.
The girl looked up, surprised. “Working.”
The elevator opened. He undid the accordion door and looked at Little Miss Fancy Pants. Seeing a certain insecurity, he spoke. “You know what your mother does for a living? Does she tell you what she does for a living?”
Fancy Pants glared and he didn’t think she had a clue.
He smirked and let one hand glide over Methuselah as he shut the elevator cage with the other. He gave himself a little squeeze. “Do you know, little girl? Does she tell you what she does at work? Does she show you her movies and teach you how to do things?” He licked his lips. “How to do things to men?” He winked. “I bet you wanna be just like her when you’re all grown up.” His eyes travelled up and down her body. “Won’t be long now and you can be just like your momma.”
She stared at him, her face unreadable. He pushed the lobby button. As the doors closed, he groaned with need but didn’t dare touch himself for fear of staining his uniform pants.
“Little whore,” he whispered. “Dirty little whore.”
39
Holly Takes a Shortcut
After her run-in with Arthur Meeks, Holly’s mood soured. She quickly finished watering a
nd reported back to the penthouse, happy that Frieda met her at the door with five crisp one dollar bills - her week’s pay. The housekeeper explained that Miss Delilah was working on hotel business with Vera and the Commodore and expected to see Holly back at three-forty-five, dressed for afternoon tea with Adeline Chance.
In her room, Holly changed into shorts and a clean blue tank top, happy that the bruises on her arms had faded enough for it - it was going to be too hot for a shirt with sleeves. She folded four of the dollars and slipped them inside her Friar Tuck bank then tucked the fifth into her pocket.
She sat down at the little dinette table and took an apple from the blue bowl she’d glued back together after the earthquake. Chewing, she looked at the presents her grandmother had brought her. There were three spiral notebooks with bright purple, green, and red covers, a pack of Bic pens, another of pencils, a sharpener, a dictionary and a thesaurus, and even several paperback novels. Gram had explained that since she liked to read, maybe she’d like to write, too, and Holly knew it was true. Her mood lightened. She had already written down her dream and other things that had happened since her arrival, but now she thought about how much fun it might be to make up a story. She smiled; her grandmother was so thoughtful.
She finished her apple then made it downstairs without running into Arthur Meeks. Peg Moran smiled at her from the reception desk. “Holly, how are you today?”
She smiled. “I’m fine.”
“I was just wondering, hon, why don’t you take the elevator?”
Holly shrugged. “I dunno.”
“It doesn’t frighten you, does it? It’s old, but it’s safe.”
“I’m not scared of the elevator.” That was true - it was what might be in it that frightened her. “The stairs are faster.”
“I see.” Peg smiled. “A girl your age. That makes sense.” She laughed. “At my age, elevators are faster.”
“Peg, can I ask a question?”
“Sure, Holly. Ask away.”
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