"Go ahead. I need to lie here a minute and get my wits together. I'm going to sneak downstairs and score a caffeine fix. Want anything?"
"No, thanks."
When Anna returned to the room, Cris was gathering her sketch pads, a cup of coffee steaming on the nightstand. "I ran into Jefferson Spence. You know, the fat writer. It's kind of cool to be here with actual famous people."
Anna shrugged. "We had to study his Seasons of Sleep in American lit. About put me to sleep, let me tell you."
"He wrote that one here, at the manor. They say he writes about real people, only he changes the names so he won't get sued. I wonder if we'll be in his next book."
Anna went to her dresser to pick out some clothes. "I'll be the ghost-hunting flake with the big nose, and you can be-"
"— the bimbo housewife who has wet dreams."
"Except it wouldn't be that simple in the book," Anna said, then sniffed daintily. "You'd be a 'trembling Venus, clutching and grasping at the sheets, back arched toward the dark ceiling of heaven, the endless roof of forever, the prison of night,' et cetera and so on.
Cris laughed so hard that she snorted into her coffee. A knock came at the door. Anna crossed her arms, not sure if the nightgown was revealing or not. She avoided mirrors these days.
Cris apparently had little modesty, having gone downstairs in the yellow slip she still wore. "Enter," she shouted. "We're all decent here."
Miss Mamie came into the room, her hands clasped, a smile on her face that could have been carved in wood. "You ladies sleep well?"
"More or less," Cris said. "The beds are very comfortable."
"And you, Miss Galloway? You were out late last night?" Miss Mamie's eyes reflected the warm flickering light of the fire.
Was Miss Mamie chiding her, or merely making conversation? The hostess knew that Anna was a para-psychologist. Anna hadn't seen any reason to lie on her retreat application. In fact, she'd learned to take a stubborn pride in her peculiarities.
So she saw no reason to lie now. "I took a walk," she said. "On that ridge to the east."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" There was no mistaking the challenge in the hostess's voice.
"No." Not a lie. She wasn't sure yet what she was looking for, besides her own ghost.
"Maybe it will come to you, Miss Galloway. Keep your spirits up." Miss Mamie pursed her lips in a reptilian smile and looked at the portrait of Ephram Korban.
"You've got a very strange house," Cris said.
"The house is his," Miss Mamie said, with a slight bow toward the portrait. She touched the locket that hung from the strand of pearls that circled her throat. "I just keep the home fires burning."
She left them to dress and to speculate about the meaning of their hostess's cryptic manner.
"This way, Mr. Jackson."
Lilith headed down the narrow stairs. Mason repositioned the twenty-pound chunk of red maple in his arms and followed her. The musty, moist air clung to the skin of Mason's face. He stared down into the dark basement, making sure each step was solid before fully shifting his weight.
Lilith waited at the bottom of the stairs, holding the lantern at shoulder level. When Mason finally reached the basement floor, he peered into the gloomy and shifting shadows, trying to get a feel for the basement's layout. Tiny wedges of windows were set high in the walls just above the ground, but only a graying of starlight leaked through. The aroma of dry rot gave way to a deeper, older decay.
He stumbled and his tool satchel banged against his hip. The handle was starting to dig into his skin where the satchel dangled from his shoulder. Lilith led him past a couple of thick wooden beams, a cluster of old furniture, and a small doorway. The lantern's firelight glinted off rows of dusty wine bottles tucked in the narrow alcove.
"Why is it so hot?" Mason asked. His voice was swallowed by the dead space.
"Central heating," Lilith said. "Mr. Korban insisted on having his fires."
Mason wondered if he would be able to work down here for long stretches. Sculpting usually sent the sweat gushing from his pores. The work was as much muscle as it was inspiration. Only the final touches, the thin detailing and polishing, were not so physically demanding that they wore him out.
"Where's the stove?" he asked.
Lilith pointed into the darkness toward the left end of the basement. "There's a separate room over there so the workers can keep the fire stoked from the outside. The ductwork runs all through the house."
She lifted the lantern higher and Mason saw the dull metal sheeting of the ducts.
"Air-circulated heat," he said. "That was pretty sophisticated for its time, wasn't it?"
"I'm not a historian, Mr. Jackson. Miss Mamie would be the one to answer such questions."
Lilith led him into an area that wasn't exactly a room. It was more like a bit of floor space divided by timber posts and shelving. A rough-finished cabinet flanked the near side of what he guessed was going to be his studio.*
"I hope this will do," she said. "We've only had a few sculptors at the manor, but many painters. And one old gentleman who did acid etchings and woodblock prints. We've all managed to work just fine down here."
"Oh, do you paint?"
"I used to."
He didn't want to comment on her career change. His own might be coming soon enough. "Maybe a little of that creative spirit soaked into the walls."
"Maybe so, Mr. Jackson. Maybe more than we know."
She was an odd one, Mason decided. If she weren't so frosty, he would risk getting to know her. But he was better off focusing on his work. Besides, he was positive that Miss Mamie wouldn't approve of the hired help cavorting with the guests, no matter how much the guests cavorted with each other.
A thick table stood in the center of the studio space. Mason set down the bulky maple with a solid thump. He shook the satchel from his arm onto the table as well. It would stay dark down here even during the day. He didn't mind, though. He worked mostly by touch and instinct, anyway.
"Will that be all?" Again Lilith seemed to be in a hurry to get away from him. Or perhaps it wasn't him. Maybe she wanted to be away from this dim, claustrophobic place where Mason was going to spend his time.
"So will I have to curse the darkness?" he answered.
"Excuse me?"
He pointed to the lantern. "I assume you're taking that with you."
"Oh, I see." She stepped toward the shelves, and in the lantern light Mason saw a clutter of half-melted candles. "There are matches in that cupboard."
She waited until Mason lit two of the thick candles. He found an oil lamp on the bottom shelf and rolled up the wick. He had just touched the tip of a candle to the wick when she called, "Good luck," then she was gone.
As her echoing footsteps receded up the stairs, he muttered to himself, "Jeez, no wonder people make up stories about this place."
Mason lit an extra candle and spread his tools across the table. He studied the sharpened edges of the blades before turning his attention to the red maple. Then he paced, his mind drifting into that mysterious well-spring from which ideas bubbled forth.
His foot caught on something, causing a muffled crash. He brought the lamp down low to see what he had tripped over. It was a stretched canvas, the back graying with age. He turned it over.
On the canvas was a perfect reproduction of Korban Manor on a stormy night, done in the same thick oils as the other paintings that lined the walls of the house. The manor was drawn to precise scale, seeming such a natural part of the landscape that it looked as if the house had grown out of the soil like a living thing. In the painting was the knothole that Mason had noticed earlier that morning in the siding beneath a second-floor window.
But the photographic realism wasn't the only quality that made the painting so powerful. The manor was vibrant, as if it were shaking with the force of the fantasized gale. The trees were wild with wind, and black clouds hovered around the manor's flat roof. Mason gently touched the canvas and a cool electricity surged up his arm. He wondered why such a beautiful work was relegated to the corruptive air of the basement.