Occultation (22 page)

“Nothing looks the same in real life,” he said.

“It seemed way smaller in the pictures,” Katherine said, even though she’d suspected otherwise all along. She’d taken the brochure from her purse, comparing black and white photographs against the real artifact. “God, I hope this place isn’t as empty as it looks.”
Why’d I have to say that? Another excuse for him to think of me as a needy little bitch? Being alone isn’t so bad. Not like I’m alone, anyway. I got you babe, ha.
She glanced sidelong at her husband, checking for the oblique signs of contempt.
Maybe
I am
a needy little bitch. I’ll say something stupid just to get a reaction. Some attention.
 

There was no denying her dread of aloneness. She’d made peace with loneliness and sorrow, become accustomed to her own bleak thoughts, her recriminations and regrets. True isolation was a different proposition entirely. It seemed as if she’d dozed off during the drive from shiny, metropolitan Seattle and woken to find herself lost in a green wasteland. The town wasn’t even comfortably picturesque anymore. Far below in the deepening gulf, lamps blinked on like the running lights of a seagoing vessel in fog. Sunset wasn’t for another hour, yet a soft curtain of twilight had settled over the land. This was nowhere.
I hate you, Sonny. Selfish asshole.
 

“I hope it is,” Sonny said.

“Huh? Hope it’s what?”

“Empty.”

A wooden garage lay a hundred yards or so off in what had once likely been a cow pasture. Perhaps the garage was built from the bones of a massive barn, the place where they’d milked the cows, or slaughtered them. According to the pamphlet, more buildings were hidden beyond the central structure: a series of bungalows, a walled garden, a small distillery. 

Two men stood in conversation on the cement steps of the main building. One was tall and lean, an older gentleman whose snowy hair touched the shoulders of his gray suit. The other man was a bit younger and heavier and dressed in slacks and a dark polo shirt. 

“Welcome to Fantasy Island,” Sonny said, and laughed. He put on his sunglasses and climbed out of the car. Katherine watched him approach the men on the steps. Exhaustion had stolen her will, melted her into the seat. She chafed at his ability to adopt a genial demeanor with such casual efficacy, like a chameleon brightening to match the foliage. 

“Mr. Reynolds,” the taller man said as he shook hands with Sonny. His voice was dampened by glass. “I’m Kent Prettyman, humble steward of the Black Ram. This is my accomplice, Derek Lang.” As a group, they glanced at the car as Katherine emerged, a badger driven from her burrow. “Ah, Mrs. Reynolds! I’m Kent Prettyman. Call me Kent, please. And this is—”

Her sunglasses were the oversized variety worn by actresses and battered wives. “Kat. Just Kat.”

“Meow,” Mr. Lang said. His face was almost as dark as his shirt and he was brutishly muscular beneath the softness of his shoulders and belly. 

Mr. Prettyman explained that Mr. Lang managed the grounds. There was a significant measure of yearly upkeep on the buildings and environs, a monetary burden divided between the state, the county, and the owners of the estate. When Katherine inquired who these owners were, he said the landlords, a family of hereditary nobility, resided in Europe. The family possessed numerous holdings and cared little for the lodge, leaving its management to intermediaries, most lately (as of 1995) a nonprofit foundation for the preservation of historical sites. All rather boring, he assured them. Did they have many bags? One of the boys would fetch their luggage and park the car.

The lodge predated Olde Towne and the very weight of its history settled upon Katherine ‘s shoulders when she followed Mr. Prettyman through the double doors of age-blackened oak into the grand foyer. The Black Ram had been established as a trading post in the 1860s, doing a brisk business with settlers from Seattle and tribes from neighboring Snohomish Valley. The post was expanded and refurbished as the manse of the Welloc family, the very same who carried the deed to this day, until it finally became an inn directly following the Great Depression, and thus remained. Slabbed beams crisscrossed the upper vault and glowed gold-black from the light passing through leaded glass. Katherine squinted to discern the shadowed forms of suits of armor and weapons on display, moldering tapestries of medieval hunts, and large potted plants of obscure genus’ that thrived in gloom. The flavor was certainly far more Western European than Colonial America, or America of any other era, for that matter.

She stood in the semicircle of men, oversized shades dangling from her fingers. Her arm brushed Sonny’s and each of them instinctively flinched. She opened her mouth to mutter an apology and saw the gesture would be fruitless; he’d already forgotten her. His white shirt shone in the encroaching darkness and it illuminated his inscrutable, olive face, lent it the illusion of life. Mr. Prettyman said something to Mr. Lang, and Mr. Lang slunk away.

“No phones?” Sonny said, incredulous enough to drop his fake smile for a moment.

“There is a house phone,” Mr. Prettyman said. He pointed to a wooden-paneled booth across from the front desk. Another bit of bric-a-brac from a dusty period in European history. Doubtless the lodge sported a billiards room, a smoking den, tables for baccarat and canasta. “And another in my office. No wireless internet, I’m afraid. We make every attempt to foster an atmosphere of seclusion and relaxation here at the Black Ram. Guests needn’t trouble themselves with intrusions from the city while in our care.”

“A
house
phone….”

“It’s all in the brochure,” Katherine said. “Didn’t you read the brochure, honey? It’ll be an adventure, like the hotel we stayed at in Croatia, or the other one in Mexico.” Remote, decrepit half-star hotels, the pair of them. It rained torrentially during their stay in Mexico and the roof leaked in a half dozen places, water fairly poured in, truth be told, and sent cockroaches skittering across the bed sheets in search of high ground. “Who cares. I’m sure we’ve got plenty of bars on this hill.” She flipped open her cell phone and checked. 

“Are we the only guests?” Sonny asked.

“Oh, well, there are several others. Fewer than a dozen, at the moment. Midsummer doldrums,” Mr. Prettyman said. He rubbed his hands together when he spoke, absently polishing the malachite ring on the third finger of his left hand—Katherine couldn’t make out the symbol embossed upon onyx; a star, perhaps. “At our peak we can host on the order of eighty or so guests. I’ll give you a tour of the property—tomorrow morning, say? Allow me to introduce the staff.” Even as he spoke, a pair of strapping boys laboriously rolled a baggage cart overstuffed with the Reynoldses’ belongings through the lobby and onto the elevator at the opposite end of the room. The elevator was flanked by a pair of marble rams and appeared as ancient as everything else, a wide platform caged in wrought iron. It lifted almost silently, except for the soft ding of a bell and the hum and slide of well-oiled gears.  

As promised, Mr. Prettyman walked them through the lodge, and Katherine smugly noted there was indeed a den containing card and billiard tables, an abundance of big game trophies, and the largest stone fireplace she’d ever seen—larger than the ones found in the proud old rustic ski lodges in Italy they’d frequented before Sonny broke his knee and gave up skiing altogether. 

“Naturally it gets rather soggy during the winter, but summer storms are also fierce in these parts,” Mr. Prettyman said. “A front will roll down out of the mountains and positively deck us with thunder and lightning. Nothing like a roaring fire and hot cocoa to steel a soul against the weather….”

The proprietor oversaw a chef and bartender and their requisite assistants, a handful of maids and custodial personnel, two porters (Billy and Zack, the burly farm boys), a maintenance man, and the concierge, a gaunt, clerkish gentleman named Kristoff. Kristoff had jaundiced eyes and old-fashioned false teeth that didn’t quite fit his mouth. He smelled sharply of alcohol. Katherine thought the dour fellow probably kept a flask of something strong under the desk. As Mr. Prettyman swept them along to the upper floors, he mentioned Mr. Lang was responsible for nearly a dozen carpenters, laborers, and gardeners. In addition, Mr. Lang stood in as the de facto chief of security—he handled the infrequent trespasser; hunters, mainly. Poachers who slipped into the wooded preserve beyond the lodge in hopes of bagging a deer or one of the wild boars or black bears that roamed the hills. The land had once doubled as a private wildlife preserve.

“Wild boar? Bears?” Katherine wasn’t happy with this revelation. “Is that even…well, legal?”

“I don’t think the family concerned itself with the niceties back then,” Mr. Prettyman said. “They stocked their game in the ’20s, I believe. Possibly earlier. Money talks, as the saying goes. Local law enforcement was frequently invited to hunt with the, ah, royalty, as it were. Oh, and there’s a small cougar population. Indigenous.”

“So much for nature walks.”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Reynolds! Don’t bother them, they won’t bother you. Very few of the big animals venture close to the lodge proper. Besides, if you’d care to explore the region, sightsee the ruins and whatnot, I’m sure Mr. Lang would be happy to organize a daytrip. He’s a dead shot. Small likelihood of your being eaten by bears, I promise.”  

She pictured Mr. Lang’s sadistic grin, his sweaty hands caressing a hunting rifle. “I think I’d like to lie down now.”

Their suite occupied the second floor of the southern wing. It consisted of a living room, kitchenette, bedroom, and one and a half baths. The pine bureaus and armoire were antiques. A tapestry depicting a stag hunt hung over the bed, some pastoral oil paintings were scattered elsewhere, and in the living area a Philco radio that must’ve been popular in the 1940s, but no television. The living room window commanded a view of the forested hills.

Katherine eyed the stag hunt. The vision of the stag, rearing before frothing mastiffs and men on horses, all eyes black and wild, the horns and the spears—this visceral image looming over the bed was a disquieting prospect.

“First no phones, now no television.” Sonny rummaged through the drawers of a small writing desk. A kerosene lamp perched atop the hutch of the desk, bookending a handful of clothbound volumes so decrepit, humidity had sloughed the titles from their spines. He sniffed the sooty glass. “Makes you wonder how often they lose power. Prettyman says there’s a coal furnace in the boiler room.”

“Maybe it’s part of the ambience. Lamps, rose petals—” 

“Yep, and a romantic game of cribbage. Or dominos.” He rattled a velvet bag and she laughed.

A few minutes later they argued, an indication things were back to normal, or what passed for normalcy here in the lucky thirteenth year of their union. She’d made reference to Mr. Prettyman’s offhand comment regarding ruins and Sonny immediately clammed up. He leaped to his feet and began pacing the bedroom. Then he grabbed his coat. Katherine asked where he was going, alarmed at the prospect of being deserted in this place, surrounded by strangers, one of whom gave her the serious creeps. “Out,” he said.

“But where?” By an act of supreme will she kept her voice level.

“Don’t worry about it. Take a nap. Whatever.” He was on his way, face set, a man in action. 

Jesus, and I thought the alpha male routine was sexy, once.
“We’re in this together. This leaky ol’ rowboat.  Right?”

“I’ll see you for supper.” His demeanor was that of a man announcing to his family he was running to the corner store for cigarettes.
I’ll be right back!
He turned away, snuffing the conversation.

“Yeah, sure.” She wanted to stick her nail file in his ass cheek.

“Kitchen’s open till ten. Put on something nice. You look good in the taffeta.” He walked out, shutting the door carefully behind him.

Katherine flipped him the bird with both hands and slumped on the bed and seethed. She hated him, not because he’d dismissed her as one dismisses an inferior, a child, although certainly that was a portion. Her rage sprang from the simple fact that he always seemed to know so much more than she did. 

She went to the window and stared out at a landscape growing soft and shapeless as light slipped away. Toward the horizon and closing fast, came a towering storm cloud, a death’s-head lit by internal fires. Her eyes grew heavy. She swallowed a couple of pills from one of multiple bottles that comprised her daily regimen of behavioral equalization, and fell asleep. Wind clattered the shutters and the last bit of evening sun faded and died.

3.

Katherine had spent six years dwelling on the accident, yet she seldom pictured Janie. Baby clothes, the odor of formula and spittle, but not the baby herself. In retrospect, the pregnancy, the seven months that had followed, were dreamlike; they left an impression that she’d engaged in a protracted struggle with some indefinable illness or injury. Yes, it seemed the stuff of dreams. There
were
scars: her vertigo persisted, and too, her phobia of bridges and overpasses. Sometimes the cry of an infant caused her to lactate. Sometimes it elicited a flood of tears and inconsolable sobbing. She’d screamed at a hapless mother in a coffee shop; told her to
shut up her squalling brat
and was instantly mortified at the lady’s expression of shock and fear. Thankfully, the fits of lunacy had ebbed. 

Sonny had wanted another child right away. A few months after the dust of the tragedy settled, he insisted they try again. His desire developed into an unequivocal force, an implacable usurper of their life-aspirations, of all they’d planned during their days as romantic conspirators. 

Katherine’s mother pulled her aside at the family Christmas dinner—she recalled her father and Sonny’s laughter echoing from the living room, how it transcended the boom and roar of a football game on TV. Sonny hated football, sneered at the preening athletes, their “bling” and arrogance; he pretended to enjoy sports to bond with her father who’d been a devout booster of his own hometown high school team since forever.