The Manor

CHAPTER 13

"Did you get any footage this morning?" Adam leaned against the bureau and folded his arms.

Paul put away his camera. "I have to save my batteries. I only have four. That gives me about eight hours of juice. And there's no way to recharge them out here."

Adam watched Paul stack the equipment in the closet. His partner had a cute body, he had to admit. But Adam sometimes wondered if their relationship was built on anything besides the physical. Paul liked Times Square, and the place gave Adam the creeps. Paul liked coffeehouses and parties, and Adam liked curling up on the sofa with a good book. When it came right down to it, Paul was late-night MTV and Adam was weekend VH-1.

And there was the issue of adoption. Adam was ready to raise a child, to share the wealth of love in his heart. He had plenty of money from his inheritance. Enough to pay the adoption fees and lawyers, enough for the courts to be satisfied that Adam had that most-desired parental quality: that Adam would be able to afford whatever outrageously expensive toy was trendy each Christmas, so the child wouldn't grow up as a social outcast, snubbed by peers and forever despised by advertisers.

Adam was afraid in some small part of himself that he only wanted a child to tie Paul down. Paul was a bit of a free spirit, and even unknowingly hurt Adam by going on a weeklong cruise with an older man before Adam had mustered the courage to share his feelings. Paul had been faithful since, but Adam wondered if perhaps the right temptation had never arisen. In fact, he thought maybe you couldn't even call it "faith" until that faith had survived a test.

"What do you want to do tonight?" Paul said. "Go down for drinks?"

"You could have joined me for lunch."

"Look, we don't have to spend every damned second together, do we?"

Adam didn't answer, because something shifted in the mirror, a flicker cast by the fireplace.

"What's wrong?" Paul said.

Adam rubbed his eyes. "Nothing. I'm just a little messed up, I guess."

Paul grinned. "Oh yeah. Maybe you saw the woman in white. And you thought I was lying."

"Too many other weird things are happening. I just saw-"

"Saw what?"

"I don't know. Just the reflection of the painting. I feel like… like everything's going out of control. I mean, we're fighting all the time and I'm supposed to care about your stupid video when you won't even listen to a word I say. And this place, it's getting on my nerves."

"Come on, this is only our third day here."

"And these problems are supposed to just go away?"

Paul's face clenched in anger. "I don't have time for this right now. In fact, I never have time for these pointless arguments. All you want to do is talk in circles."

"Look, I don't mind paying for this vacation, but I thought you were going to be working on your project-"

"Oh, here we go with that crap again. You and your money."

Adam was on the verge of tears. Paul scorned tears and would say Adam was being a silly little girl. And Paul would say it with the smug superiority of someone whose emotions were always in check. Except the emotion of anger.

"Oh, Princess," Paul said, coming to him, hugging him. "Did someone upset the tea cart? Do you need another forty mattresses so you won't feel the pea?"

"Go away." Adam pushed Paul's arms from around his waist. "You bastard."

Adam's vision blurred from rage. This was crazy. He never lost control like this.

"Fine, Princess," Paul said. "Don't bother waiting up for me."

Adam sat on the bed as the door slammed. He wished they'd never come to Korban Manor. He stood and grabbed the bedstead, then started pulling the twin beds apart. When he had them in separate corners of the room, he looked up at the portrait of Korban.

"Paul can have the woman in white, and I'll have you."

The fire roared its approval.

The horses were beautiful, sleek, their muscles bunched in grace. No wonder they were Anna's favorite animals. Once, before the fatalistic oncology report, she had dreamed of owning a stable and boarding horses. But that dream was as fleeting and insubstantial as all the others, whether the dream was of Korban Manor, Stephen, or her own ghost.

She heard an off-key whistle, what sounded like an attempt at "Yankee Doodle," and turned to see Mason walking down the road toward the barn. He waved and stopped beside her at the fence, then looked across the pasture as if watching a movie projected against the distant mountains.

"So, how's the ghost-hunting going?" he asked.

She didn't need this. Stephen was bad enough. At least Stephen believed in ghosts, though his ghosts had energy readings instead of souls. But Mason was just another self-centered loser, probably a blind atheist, cocksure that nothing existed after breath ceased. Atheists were far more proselytizing and smug than any Christian Anna had ever met.

"You know something?" she said. "People like you deserve to be haunted."

Mason spread his arms in wounded resignation. "What did I say?"

"You don't have to say it with words. Your eyes say plenty. Your eyes say, 'What a lovable flake. She's bound to be impressed by a great artist such as myself and it's only a matter of time before she falls into my bed.' "

"You must have me confused with William Roth."

"Sorry," she said, knowing she was taking her frustration and anger out on a relatively innocent bystander. But no one was completely innocent. "I'm just a little unraveled at the moment."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Yeah. Like you'd understand."

"Look, I've seen you taking your long walks, sneaking out at night with your flashlight. So you like to be alone. That's fine. So do I. But if weird things are happening to me, they're probably happening to you, too. Maybe even worse stuff, because no way in hell would I go out there in the dark." Mason nodded to the forest that, even with the explosion of autumn's colors, appeared to harbor fast and sharp shadows.

"What weird things are you talking about? I thought you were a skeptic."

"Ah. I figured I'd arouse your scientific curiosity, if nothing else. Have you seen George around?"

"George?"

Mason moved closer, lowering his voice as if to deter an invisible eavesdropper. "How long does somebody have to be dead before he becomes a ghost?"

Anna looked at Korban Manor through the trees, at the widow's walk with its thin white railing, where her dream figure had stood under the moonlight. "Maybe it happens before they're even dead."

"Okay. How about this one? Can you be haunted by something inside your own head? Because I'm seeing Ephram Korban every time I close my eyes, I see him in the mirror, I see him in the fireplace, my hands carve his goddamned face even when I tell them to work on something else."

"I think the shrinks call it 'obsessive-compulsive disorder.' But that describes every artist I've ever known. And ninety-nine percent of all human males."

"Hey, we're not all assholes. And I wish you'd get off your personal vendetta against everybody who has a dream. Some artists are normal people who just happen to make things because we can't figure out how in the hell to communicate with people."

"And some of us are normal people who search for proof of the afterlife because this life sucks in so many ways and humans always disappoint us. Ghosts are easier to believe in than most of the people I've met."

"Truce, then. Obviously we're both crazy as hell. For a minute there, I was afraid we didn't have anything in common."

That brought an unfamiliar smile to Anna's lips. "All right. Let's start over. I guess you've heard all the ghost stories. About how Ephram Korban jumped to his death off the widow's walk, though the best legends claim that one of the servants pushed him to his death because of the usual reasons."

"What reasons are those?"

"Unrequited love or requited love. Why else would you want to kill somebody? And, according to gossip and even a few parapsychology articles, Korban's spirit wanders the land, trying to find a way back into the manor in which he invested so much of his time, money, and energy."

"You don't believe it?"

The horses heard a call from the barn and took off at a gallop. "I wish I were that free," she said. "Maybe I'll get to be a horse in the next life."

"The downside is, you'd have to die first. Like Ephram Korban."

"Well, he has a grave site up over that ridge, but a grave's nothing but a hole in the ground. I haven't seen his ghost."

"You really think ghosts are here?"

"I know they're here. When your life burns up, you leave a little smoke behind. And don't ask me to prove it, or you'll remind me of someone I've spent the past year forgetting."

"I'll take your word for it. Maybe I'll ask Ransom to let me borrow one of his charm bags. Says they keep restless spirits away."

"Can't hurt," Anna said. "I'm going down to the barn. Care to join me?"

"I'm heading there anyway. Miss Mamie has all but demanded that Ransom help me find a whopping big log to turn into a life-sized statue."

"Ah, you poor suffering artists. Always having to please the critics."

"You poor critics, always having to fake that world-class cynicism."

By the time they reached the barn, Ransom had led the horses under an open shed built onto one wing of the barn. He hooked the cinch under the belly of the big roan, whose ears twitched as if this were a familiar game. Two lanterns blazed inside the barn, dangling from the dusty rafters. Leather straps and gleaming bits of metal hung along one wall, and four saddles were lined on a bench beneath the pieces of harness.

"Well, hello there, young 'uns," Ransom called in greeting. He looked a bit longer at Anna and glanced at the sky with a frown.

"Need any help?" Anna asked.

"Don't need none, but I sure do like company. You know your way around a horse?"

"One end eats and the other doesn't," Mason said.

"And one end might kick you in the crotch, if you send off vibes of stupidity." Anna rubbed the nose of the chestnut, and in seconds it was nuzzling her neck, blowing softly through its nostrils. If only she were that good with men. Back when she cared about such things, anyway. Or ghosts. It would be a welcome change for them to rush out of the land of the dead with open arms and a smile.

She snapped the reins on the bridle and fed the leather through the steel rings. "These guys are great," she said to Ransom.

"They sure took a shine to you."

"I was raised around horses once."

"Once?" Mason asked.

"A long story, one of many," she said.

"Watch out, Mason," Ransom said. "A woman with secrets is generally bad news. Will you folks give me a hand hauling out the wagon?"

They headed for the interior of the barn, Ransom pausing to push the sliding wooden doors farther apart. He was about to step inside when he looked above the barn door and grabbed the rag-ball charm from around his neck. He waved it and closed his eyes, whispering something rhythmical that Anna couldn't hear.

"Danged if they ain't changed it again," Ransom said. He rolled a wooden barrel to the door, climbed on it with trembling legs, then stood and turned the horseshoe that was nailed above the door. He hung it so that the prongs pointed up, toward the sky.

"Does the luck not work the other way?" Anna asked.

"That charm is a heck of a lot older than what you might reckon. It's come to mean 'luck' to most people, but signs get watered down and weakened 'cause people forget the truth of them. Same as a four-leaf clover."

"Sure, they're magically delicious, like the cereal."

"Used to be, it gave the person carrying it the power to see ghosts and witches. Back when people believed."

Anna caught Mason's look. "So points-down on the horseshoe is bad, right?"

"It's practically throwing open the door to every kind of dead thing you care to imagine. I like for the dead to stay dead." He again gave Anna that sad, distant look. "Too bad not everybody around these parts feels the same way."

Mason helped Ransom down from the barrel. Anna tethered the horses to a locust post and followed the men inside the bam. Horse-drawn vehicles were lined against a side wall. The hay wagon stood nearest the door. Beside it were two sleighs, a surrey with its top folded down, and a fancy carriage with a lantern at each corner. All of the vehicles were restored and maintained in the kind of condition that would send antique dealers scrambling for their checkbooks. The aroma of cottonseed oil and leather fought with the hay dust for dominance of the barn's air.

A large metal hay rake sat in the far corner, slightly red from rust. There was a single seat for the operator, and a coupling in the front to yoke the draft animals. The large steel tines of the rake curled in the air like a claw.

"That's a wicked-looking machine," Mason said.

"Yep," Ransom said, unblocking the wheels of the wagon. "That's the windrower, that sharp part that looks like an overgrown pitchfork. And you can see the hay-cutter arm. Works by the turn of the wheels. We still do hay the hard way around here."

"I'll bet the horses love it," Anna said.

"Yeah, and they's smart enough to know they get to eat the hay, come winter."

"You going to cut any while we're here?" she asked, thinking how much fun it would be to help. Hard physical labor did wonders for the depressed and self-pitying mind. "Some of those meadows around here are getting pretty high."

"We had to hold off for a while because the signs were in the heart."

"The heart?"

"Ain't a good time for cutting oats or wheat or any reaping crop. It's a time fit only for the harvest of dead things."

Mason cleared his throat and spat loudly. "Ugh. Hay dust choking me." He looked at Anna and said, "Sorry for being crude. That's the way we do it in Sawyer Creek."

"In case you ain't noticed, this ain't Sawyer Creek," Ransom said. He motioned them to go to the rear of the wagon and he picked up the tongue. "Throw your shoulders in, now."

They maneuvered the wagon out the door and under the shed. As Anna and Ransom hitched the team, Mason explored the barn. A few minutes later, he poked his head outside. "Hey, what's under the trapdoor?"

Ransom stroked the mane on the chestnut mare. "Taters, sweet taters, cabbage, apples, turnips. Root cellar for stuff that don't need to be kept so cold."

"Can I look?"

Ransom went to the bench and tugged on a pair of rough leather gloves. "Help yourself."

Anna followed Mason to the corner of the barn, where the trapdoor was set in the floor between two stacks of hay bales.

"Got doors on the bottom floor, where the barn's set against the hillside," Ransom said. "We can haul from the orchards and gardens straight up to here, save a lot of handling. Then there's a tunnel goes back to the Big House. Ephram Korban had it dug in case a blizzard struck or something. He was always going on about 'tunnels of the soul,' for some reason. I expect he was about half crazy, if some of them legends are true."

"Or maybe all the legends are true and he was all the way crazy," Anna said.

Mason knelt and lifted the heavy wooden door. The cellar smelled of sweet must and earth, with a faint scent of rotted fruit. The darkness beneath had a weight, like black oil. A makeshift ladder led down into the seemingly bottomless depths.

"Ain't much of interest down there," Ransom said. "Unless you like to sit and talk to the rats."

"Rats?" Mason let the door fall with a slam, knocking dust loose from the rafters. Anna fought a sneeze.

Ransom grinned, his sparse teeth yellow in the weak lamplight. "Rats as big around as your thigh."

"I hate rats," Mason said. "I grew up with them. Sounded like cavalry behind the walls of my bedroom. What I hate the most is those beady eyes, like they're sizing you up."

"Don't worry," Ransom said. "They get plenty to eat without having to gnaw on the guests."

"Miss Mamie would probably scold them for having bad manners."

Anna laughed. Maybe Mason wasn't so bad. At least he wasn't afraid to show weakness. Unlike her.

Mason stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. Something fluttered from the rafters and brushed Anna's face, and she wiped at it as if it were cobwebs.

"Jesus, don't tell me that was a bat," Mason said, ducking. "Bats are nothing but rats with wings."

"That was a bluebird," Ransom said. "Lucky for you, young lady. If a bluebird flies in your path, it means you're going to be kissed."

"Great," she said. "And I thought I earned my kisses by casting magic spells on unsuspecting men."

"Believe what you want," Ransom said. "I reckon you see through the signs better than anybody. Now, I'd best get on with the chores."

Mason wiped his hands on an old horse blanket hanging from the rafters. "So, Ransom, do you have time to help me find an overgrown log that's just right for statue-making?"

"Why do you think we hitched up the wagon? Miss Mamie always gets her way with things."

"So I'm starting to find out."

"Let's get on before dark. Might have to go below Beechy Gap, where we had a big windfall a few winters back. Want to come along, young lady?"

"No, thanks. I've got some chores of my own."

"I reckon some things got to be done alone," he said.

Anna wasn't sure what to make of Ransom. He kept dropping hints but a deep fear was hidden behind his eyes. Maybe he had secrets of his own. She waited until Mason and Ransom climbed up onto the buck-board seat, then she passed Ransom the reins.

"See you later tonight?" Mason asked her.

Anna felt the half smile on her face, and wasn't sure which way she wanted the corners of her mouth to point. "We'll see."

Ransom flipped the reins and the team headed up the road, where the wide sandy ribbon threaded between the trees into the forest. She slid the barn doors closed, then looked up at the horseshoe.

It was points-down again.

Dead things come in.

She looked at the forest.

Under the fringe of shadowed underbrush, amid the laurel and locust and briars, the woman in white stood, the bouquet held out in challenge. The ghost stared at Anna like a mirror, then turned and drifted among the trees.

"All right, damn you," Anna said. "I'll play hide-and-seek with you."

As she entered the forest, she wondered how you could ever catch up to your own ghost. And why it would hide from you in the first place. Ransom was right about one thing. A woman with secrets generally was bad news.