The Haunted Heart: Winter (5 page)

“What the hell is all that?” I asked
faintly. I stepped back as a fancy white birdcage, perched unsafely
atop a tall, narrow apothecary chest began to wobble. The whole
wall of debris seemed to shift and start to slide. Kirk body
slammed it back into place.

“That’s some technique. You do that like
you’ve had practice.”

“Enough. You ain’t seen nothing yet. This is
just the tip of the iceberg. This landfill stretches all the way to
the back wall.”

“But where did all this come from? What the
hell
is
it?”

“Everything your uncle didn’t want upstairs.
These are the things that
didn’t
make the cut.”

“Didn’t he ever throw anything away?”

It was probably a rhetorical question, but
Kirk answered, “Not that I ever noticed.” He was smiling, seemingly
pretty pleased with himself, so I must have looked suitably
stricken as I absorbed the full extent of my inheritance.

I said, “From the way you were chortling to
yourself, I was expecting a mummy case at least. Maybe an iron
maiden.”

“There’s probably one in the back. I know
there’s a coffin in there somewhere because I helped the old man
carry it in.” Kirk’s dark gaze held mockery.

“I…have no response to that.”

“He was on the eccentric side, your
uncle.”

“I get that impression. I have no idea why
he left all this to me. I never met him. No one in my immediate
family did, as far as I know. Er…what just fell out?”

Kirk bent down and picked up a mannequin’s
head. He turned it to face me. The cold blue stare — that would be
the mannequin’s cold blue stare — looked back at me. “Alas, poor
Yorick.”

“He doesn’t look like a Yorick to me. More
like an Yves. I bet he got lost looking for his ascot.”

“It’s probably in there with his penny
loafers.”

I tore my gaze away from the glass eyes.
“Shit. We aren’t going to be able to fit anything else in this
room.”

“Sure we will. We just have to rearrange a
few things.”

“
Rearrange
a few things? We’d need a
bulldozer.”

“Nope. Just a plan and a willingness to
execute it.” Kirk cocked his head, studying the mountain of stuff.
“We only have to make enough room to shove the mirror inside,
right?”

“True. And it’s only temporary.”

“No sweat. I’ll hand you the stuff and you
stash it down the hall. We’ll get this done.”

We did get it done. It wasn’t quite as easy
as Kirk made it sound, but we managed to unload enough of the
motley collection of furniture and boxes and assorted paraphernalia
to make room for the mirror.

“We probably could have just left the mirror
in one of the hallways,” I admitted to Kirk as we climbed back up
the stairs to my rooms.

“Maybe. But I’ll feel more comfortable with
her safely stowed away downstairs.” He didn’t seem to be kidding,
which surprised me. I had the impression he wasn’t easily spooked.
In any sense of the word.

It was late afternoon by then, and the
light, never great in that old ruin of a house — and especially not
great on a gloomy winter’s day — was failing fast. I felt a nervous
sense of urgency that we get the mirror downstairs and locked in
before dusk. It wasn’t a logical feeling. It’s not like the thing
in the mirror was wearing a watch or had to punch a time card. It
would appear, if it did appear again, whenever it chose. Assuming
it had a choice in the matter.

“We should hurry,” I said.

Kirk threw me a glance.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t happen in the
daylight,” I said. I did
not
want to be holding that mirror,
trying to carry it down the staircase, the next time the apparition
appeared.

Kirk must have followed my train of thought,
because he nodded.

The assorted clocks were chiming the half
hour as we reached the top level and I pushed open the door to my
rooms.

The mirror reflected the pair of us looking
a little worse for wear. Kirk had a smudge of dust across his left
cheekbone and his dark hair looked wilder than ever. Next to him, I
looked hollow eyed and a little on the spectral side. The feeble
rays of sunset cast a bloody tint over us and the surrounding
room.

From the bedroom, I could hear the cuckoo
clock. I opened my mouth to make a joke and then remembered that it
wasn’t Alan with me.

It was strange and unsettling how for a few
seconds I could forget that he was gone, that I was never going to
turn and speak to him, laugh with him again. Recollection always
came with a sickening jolt, like grabbing onto a live wire.

“Something wrong?” Kirk asked.

I shook my head, pointed at the next room.
“Be right back.”

I found a stack of stale-smelling sheets in
the linen cupboard and grabbed a flat one, returning to the front
room and Kirk. “We can cover the mirror with this.” I draped a
yellowed flat sheet over the mirror. I wasn’t sure if it was an
improvement or not. There was something a little too shroud-like
about that large pale square.

“You take the base, I’ll take the top,” Kirk
said, resting his large, square hands on each side of the arched
top of the frame. Both ends of the frame were heavy and ornately
carved with foliate scrolls and trelliswork. The upper frame
consisted of almost a foot of arched cresting centered by a flower
vase on a lambrequin and flanked by roses and angels.

I stooped, grabbed the bottom of the frame,
and lifted. It was even heavier than I expected. Spots danced in
front of my eyes.

“Got it?”

I grunted assent.

We lugged it out of the room, maneuvering it
on its side to get it through the doorway, and then tottered
slowly, slowly down the staircase with it.

Halfway down the stairway, Kirk signaled for
a halt. We carefully lowered the mirror and leaned it against the
railing.

“Jesus Christ, that’s one heavy mother,”
Kirk swore.

“Yeah.” And he was carrying the heavy end.
“Maybe we could try sliding it down the steps?”

“You want to risk seven years bad luck with
this thing?”

“We’d have to hang onto it, but maybe we
could guide it down to the next flight?”

“Maybe we could ride it like a sled.”

I grimaced.

We both looked down to the windows on the
ground floor. My mouth dried as I saw the deepening twilight.

“I think this will be faster in the long
run,” Kirk said. He nodded at the mirror. “Her petticoat is
showing.”

The sheet had started to slip and I snatched
it up, draping it once more over the curved top. It was probably
childish, but I had a growing dread of what might be happening
beneath the sheet. In all likelihood nothing was happening, but I
couldn’t be sure. I had a — probably superstitious — dread that now
we knew about the mirror, our awareness would give the ghost
strength.

We wrestled the mirror back up again and
staggered unsteadily with it down the next stretch of stairs to the
lower landing. There we wiped our sweaty hands and faces,
readjusted our grips, and hurriedly lugged it the final leg to the
ground floor. By then the twilight had melted into the darkness.
Dark shadows thrust out in weird angles from the corners, slicing
across the dusty floorboards.

The muscles of my shoulders and back were
knotted with strain as we trundled our load across the hall. There
were knots in my stomach too, but those came from escalating
anxiety.

“We’ve still got to get this thing down to
the basement.”

“I know.” Kirk was grim.

We started down the basement stairs. Kirk
took the lead again, this time facing front gripping the sides of
the frame to steady himself. The term “steady” was relative. I was
pretty sure we were both going to plunge to our deaths. And while I
wasn’t particularly afraid for my own life, I didn’t want to be the
cause of Kirk’s demise. I hung onto the mirror with all my strength
and we stumbled down the last span of steps.

Despite the fact that the basement was
colder than a meat locker, we were both flushed and heavily
perspiring by the time we squeezed down the hallway and opened the
door to the junk room.

My muscles shook as we levered the mirror
upright. Even Kirk was breathing hard. We half scooted, half slid
the mirror inside — by then I didn’t care if we scraped off a grand
or so of ormolu — leaning it back against the wall. I stepped into
the hall; Kirk backed out after me, and slammed the door shut.

“You realize next we’re going to have to
drag this bastard
upstairs
?” I said.

Kirk nodded grimly.

We were silent as he turned the old
fashioned key in the lock. As I heard the tumbler click over, I
felt a sense of immense relief. Maybe Kirk did too because he let
out a long breath and then glanced at me almost
self-consciously.

“Now maybe we can all get some sleep,” he
said.

“You do seem to appreciate a good night’s
rest.”

“Damn straight.”

That was the last thing either of us said as
we climbed up the stairs again. As we reached the ground level,
Kirk said, “Let me know when you figure out a new home for the Lady
of Shalott. I’ll be happy to drive her wherever she wants to
go.”

“The Lady of Who?”

“Tennyson. Never mind. I don’t think they
were teaching Tennyson when you were in school.” Kirk peeled off,
moving down the hall toward his rooms. “Just let me know when we
can begin deportation. I’ll be happy to clear my schedule.”

“I’m hoping I found a buyer, but how fast we
can move the mirror out of here probably depends on the
snowstorm.”

Kirk called without looking back, “Yep. Keep
me posted.”

I watched him go into his rooms. The door
closed with finality behind him.

M
uted and random
guitar chords infiltrated the floorboards and insinuated their way
into my consciousness. I put my pen down and rubbed my eyes.

The notes were too irregular and aimless to
qualify as melody, and that was just as well. I couldn’t listen to
music anymore. Funny how a particular arrangement of flats, sharps
and naturals could bring back a forgotten point in time, could
recreate the way light fell across Alan’s sleeping face, the scent
of his aftershave, the sound of his laughter, the brush of his hand
on my bare skin. Recall it all so immediately, so intensely that
the return to present time felt like a punch to the heart.

Already his voice was starting to fade from
my memory. How could that be when I’d known him all my life? When
I’d spent more time talking to him than anyone else in the
world.

I pinched the bridge of my nose hard. No
good thinking of that now. That way lay madness. Literally, some
would say. Lowering my hand, I stared blearily at the nearest
clock, this one the green and gold Chinoiserie long case clock in
the corner. Eleven forty-five.

That made nearly seven hours I’d been poring
over Great-Uncle Winston’s ledgers. And I had little enough to show
for it. I’d been looking for some mention of the mirror, in fact, I
was sure I’d seen a notation on it somewhere, but I couldn’t find
it now. Presumably my uncle had his own system of record keeping
beyond scribbling every thought on any available scrap of paper.
No, that wasn’t fair. There were decades-worth of neatly filled in
ledgers, but in the last years of his life, Uncle Winston seemed to
have grown noticeably less meticulous.

A cocktail napkin that looked like an
antique itself read:
Victrola Cab @1920. Carved finger pulls. No
TT. Red face "on" indicator. 48"l x 48.5"h x 25"w.
There was a
lot of that kind of thing.

Hell. Might as well call it a night. It was
moot anyway. There was no offer anyone could make me for that
mirror that was too low. At this point, I was willing to bribe
someone to come and take the thing away.

I closed the ledger and pushed back my
chair. A hot drink would be nice. An Irish coffee or cocoa laced
with peppermint schnapps. But there was nothing like that in my
uncle’s cupboards, and even if there had been, I didn’t treat
myself to that kind of thing anymore. I had no time for
self-indulgence.

Maybe I had more in common with old Winston
than I thought, because he hadn’t gone in for self-indulgence
either. There were canned goods in his cupboards older than me, and
if he’d bought a new set of sheets or towels in the last decade,
they were safely hidden in a hope chest somewhere. No, if I really
wanted to do myself a favor, I’d see if I could find a hot water
bottle in that crowded, airless linen cupboard. The house was
bitterly cold at night even when it hadn’t been snowing off and on
all day.

Somehow I couldn’t get up enthusiasm for the
hot water bottle hunt, though, and instead I went into the drafty
little bathroom where, for the last forty years, Uncle Winston had
shaved his whiskers, brushed his teeth, and watched his face grow
older and older and older. I shivered. It was even colder in here.
As frigid as though I’d left the window over the toilet standing
open. I flicked the wall switch and one of the two bulbs overhead
popped, leaving the small room bathed in a gray, dingy light.

“Great,” I muttered. But maybe it was an
improvement. In the poor light it wasn’t as easy to see how badly
the bathtub needed cleaning. The bathtub, the toilet, the fixtures,
the mirror, me...

Yeah, even discounting the corpselike tint
cast by the overhead light, I really did look terrible. I needed a
bath, a shave, a couple of nights’ sleep, and something to eat that
didn’t have the words “Fun Size” on the label. I needed to pull
myself together.

Or I could just turn the gas on that antique
stove in the kitchen up full blast and go to bed.

“Dirty pool,” I chided myself, and popped
open the medicine cabinet. I’d run out of toothpaste two days ago,
but Uncle Winston had a lifetime supply of toothpowder that tasted
like a mix of dust and peppermint. Of course I could always amble
downstairs and ask to borrow Kirk’s. I pictured his reaction to yet
another unannounced visit from yours truly, and sniggered.