THE GHOST DOWNSTAIRS - Chapter Three

“So what will you do now? Hold a ghost vigil in the garage?”

When Lina, a thirty-two-year-old nurse, takes a live-in job in a Seattle retirement home, her life acquires two disturbing twists: she learns that ghosts have haunted the old house since a manslaughter-suicide in the 1930s; and she finds herself falling for her mysterious coworker Ren, who seems to know more about the strange house than he’s telling.

Chapter One and further info here

Old brick mansion: photo credit

Chapter Three

On Halloween night, Lina guided a giggling Augusta Beltrayne down to the first floor. Mrs. B, or “Minnie Mouse” as she preferred to be called this evening, had donned a red nose, Disneyland mouse ears with a pink bow, and a polka-dot blouse. Lina wore a brown leaf-patterned bedsheet around her body and a wreath of yellow maple leaves on her head, and picked her way barefoot across the stone floor of the foyer. She planned to say she was a wood nymph if anyone asked.

The large living room dripped with decoration. Fake cobwebs shrouded the corners of the room and the legs of the grand piano, crepe-paper ghosts hung from the ceiling, plastic spiders marched in a winding line along the walls, and an orange-and-green sign spelled out Happy Halloween! above the fireplace. The weather was clear but frosty, and Alan Drake had built a fire against the chill. It cast a glow onto the white carpet, and the lamps in the room were veiled with thin orange scarves, making the room dim enough that Lina could see the stars through the windows. Goofy Halloween oldies played on a boom-box, and Marla and Alan, dressed as a nun and a priest, danced a swing for the entertainment of the elderly partygoers.

Lina saw Mrs. B to an armchair and served her a cup of spiced cider. She then joined Marla and Alan in leading the residents in a series of simple party games, like rolling apples across the carpet toward a row of targets, or dressing up uncarved pumpkins with paint and makeup. Whenever children came trick-or-treating, Lina coaxed them to step into the foyer far enough so the old folks could see them without getting up. There was much cooing, laughter, and “Don’t you look darling!” from the seniors, and even the most cynical kids seemed flattered. Lina rewarded them with handfuls of cube-shaped caramels, thanked the parents waiting on the sidewalk, and returned to describe the costumes to the nearsighted Mrs. B, who demanded to hear every detail.

While Lina sat on the carpet, painting eyelashes onto a pumpkin, a dark swirl of motion caught her eye. A cry of delight arose from the seniors. Lina lifted her head to see the Phantom of the Opera set a tray of cookies on the coffee table. He snapped upright with a flourish of cape, smiling under his curved white mask. Lina caught her breath with a surge of unexpected happiness.

The Phantom pointed to her and crossed the room to flop down on the carpet beside her.

“Ren,” she said, “tell me they didn’t make you work on Halloween.”

“I wanted to. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

“You’re young and hip. You must have better places to be.”

“There’s nowhere I’m appreciated more than here.”

She adjusted the paper towels under the pumpkin, avoiding an answer like, “I certainly appreciate you,” which had leaped all too lightly to her tongue. Instead she answered, “You bring cookies. Naturally you’re welcomed.”

He tilted his head to take in her outfit. “Let me guess. Yard waste?”

“I’m a wood nymph, thank you very much.”

“Just teasing. It’s very autumnal. I like it.”

Lina cast him another glance. He looked older, more a man than a houseboy, with his dark eyes shining from the holes of the mask. Or perhaps it was the way he had slicked back his hair: over the scents of bruised apples and wood smoke, Lina smelled styling gel wafting off him. It mingled with his cinnamon gum and with something richer and muskier. Had he put on cologne?

Her stomach seized up in fear as she imagined sidling up to him, inhaling the scent at the curve where his neck became his shoulder, resting her head on the folds of the old-fashioned tuxedo he wore under the cape. Why fear? She wrenched lint off the pumpkin’s stem. Why am I afraid of everything?

All she needed to do was say something about his costume. This could be an ordinary conversation if she would just let it.

“Phantom,” she said. “Very nice.”

“I live in the basement. I thought it would be appropriate.”

“Because we have other phantoms down there too?”

“I was thinking because the Phantom lived in the basement of the opera house.”

“I see. But you don’t have an underground lake, do you?”

“Only when we get record rainfall.”

Her own laughter caught her by surprise. Ren grinned and jumped to his feet again. “Alan, should I bring in more firewood?”

Alan Drake, prodding the dwindling fire with a poker, turned around and waved it in the air in agreement.

By the time Ren revived the fire, Lina had recovered her composure. Dolly Tidd took a seat at the grand piano and reeled out some old tunes from memory. While the seniors sang “Swanee River” and “Marble Halls” and “Oh! Dem Golden Slippers,” Lina hummed along, not knowing the words, and Ren slipped around the room, collecting used cups and plates and taking them away to the kitchen.

Dolly finished a song, and the seniors clapped. She moved into some experimental chords, and then, finding the right keys, began playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The serious notes spread like a tranquilizer over the room. Everyone lapsed into rumination. Lina wandered to a window and touched the cold glass. A scattering of stars glittered above, the same ones hundreds of sorority girls on past Halloweens would have seen when they stood right here. With the somber music and the firelight, Lina pictured the final act of Julia and Sean’s history more clearly than ever. Poison, collapse, death, screams, tears, silence, funeral, suicide.

You see, she thought, there were good reasons to be scared. A girl who once tried a bold romantic tactic in this house ended up killing her lover. You might turn into a grim headline if you didn’t keep your wits about you. Only by the grace of Everglade Hospital had Lina avoided being turned into a headline herself.

“For gosh sakes, Dolly, that’s depressing!” brayed Marla. Chuckles bubbled up around the room.

“Play something we can dance to,” suggested Alan.

Lina gazed at the rhododendron leaves outside the window, some of which wore a filigree of frost.

“Anyone know how to waltz?” Dolly asked, and played a few faltering, looping notes.

“Sure we do!” said Marla.

“I used to, before I grew two left feet!” offered George.

The old ladies murmured that they couldn’t possibly. Lina hugged her bulky leaf-covered bedsheet, her eyes fixed on the stars. She had learned to waltz one semester at UW, when a male friend convinced her to take ballroom dancing with him, but she hadn’t done it since. Maybe if she hadn’t said no when he asked her to go out dancing socially…maybe if she had suggested to Brent that they do something fun together like dancing, as a hobby…

“I bet you dance. You’re a young guy,” one of the ladies said.

“A waltz? I learned, once upon a time,” said a hesitant, velvety voice. Lina looked over her shoulder. Ren, as Phantom, stood at the entrance to the room, hands folded behind him under his cape.

“Dance with Lina,” Mrs. B said. “If she doesn’t know how, you can teach her.”

Lina felt her mouth drop open, but said nothing.

Ren smiled and ambled forward. “Well, Autumn?” He extended a hand to her. The cautious plinking notes from Dolly’s fingers coalesced into a dainty, slow rendition of Chopin’s Minute Waltz.

There was no escape. Even tripping over her own feet would not have been as bad as turning him down now, with everyone watching. The background of Lina’s vision was a sea of white hair and plastic Halloween masks as she placed her hand in Ren’s.

His arm circled her waist and drew her in. “Hand on my shoulder,” he reminded her.

She put it there, on the fine-woven wool of his tuxedo jacket.

He held out their joined hands at the side. “Right foot backward to start.”

On the downbeat of the next measure, she stepped back and he stepped forward. On beats two and three, they stepped sideways. Then forward for her, back for him, and off to the other side. And repeat. Lina frowned at her bare feet, concerned about going the wrong way and getting them stepped on, but the frown eased away as muscle memory took over. Simple really, the waltz.

“Well, don’t look at your feet,” called Marla, as she whirled by with Alan.

Lina swallowed and lifted her face to Ren’s. He held the ballroom posture perfectly, as if to keep from intruding on her space. He was about three inches taller than her, a good match for dancing.

“Maybe we should try to move around the room,” he said. They’d been staying in one square yard of carpet since they started.

Lina nodded, and on the next step, Ren swung her around, setting them on a looping path that led past each armchair and sofa. All the seniors laughed and clapped. Lina was smiling at their reactions by the time they had completed a full circuit. “You’re very good with them,” she said.

“Well,” he began, then his eyes caught something over her shoulder. He lowered his chin and confided, “I’m not sure they all like me.”

When he carried her around on the next step, she saw Jackie Clairmont scowling at them from an armchair near the piano. The foot of her cane was planted on the carpet beside her, and she clutched the top of it as if to menace them. Or perhaps she was just having trouble seeing in this dim light. Hard to tell with the elderly.

“But that’s not anything you did,” Lina said, her indignation stirring on his behalf.

“I know. But don’t worry about it. It’s a holiday, have fun. Dance.” At the last word, he sent her outward, spun her, and caught her close again, laughing when she yelped in surprise.

“Sorry.” She relaxed. “Haven’t done turns in a while.”

“Better practice, then. Ready?” As soon as she nodded, he twirled her again.

Soon she got the hang of it. Every spin delighted the old folks watching, so Ren orchestrated several. By the time the song was winding toward its last measure, they had waltzed back around to Mrs. B’s chair. As Dolly played the final chord, Ren dipped Lina down to an angle nearly parallel with the floor. Cheers broke out from Mrs. B, George, and Marla. Lina clung to Ren’s shoulder, laughing. His mask slipped and tumbled, and Lina yanked her hand out of his to catch it. His free arm ducked under her body to support her.

“Thanks,” they both said, and they both grinned. Then Lina lost all words for a second, because she was horizontal in the houseboy’s arms, in a firelit room, with his comely face right above hers. His mouth smelled like cinnamon and possibly alcohol—was that mouthwash, or a swig of bourbon? She didn’t care. In fact, she wanted a better taste. She wanted to sink onto the carpet and pull him with her, she wanted the Phantom cloak wrapped all around her, she wanted to feel his warmth and his weight.

Everyone was watching them. The applause fell quiet. Lina panicked and tried to put his mask back on him, too quickly. It bonked him on the nose, and he grunted and fell to his knees, dropping Lina to her bottom on the carpet. The mask cartwheeled across the floor.

“Oh—I’m sorry!” she said, while the residents laughed.

“It’s fine. I’m okay.” Ren snagged the mask, took her hand, and helped her up.

“Really, I, I’m such a…”

Smiling, he shook his head, cut her a bow straight out of Jane Austen, swept up the empty cookie tray, and strolled back to the kitchen.

He did not reappear for a quarter of an hour, and by then his mask was back in place and Dolly had stopped playing the piano. The old folks were tired, having been at the party for two hours, and many of them hobbled back to their rooms. George, Dolly, and Betty sat in chairs close to the fire, talking of their parents and of Halloweens past.

Lina led Mrs. B back upstairs, then returned to her own room, still attired in a sheet and a tangle of leaves. She left the light off and stood at her window in the blue dark. The tip of a downtown skyscraper, five miles away, sparkled between a roof and a tree. It looked out of place and futuristic after such an old-fashioned evening. But out there and all around her lay modern Seattle, with modern, bold street-smart people.

She could have been like that. She didn’t have to end up this way. What had gone wrong? She plucked a maple leaf from her head and crumpled it under her nose to breathe in the tea-like scent. How different would life have been if she had spoken to Kenny about the love notes he had sent her when they were twelve? What if she hadn’t slapped away Troy’s hands in high school every time he had tried to touch her breasts, and what if she hadn’t broken up with him when he said he loved her? Instead of hiding from the world in shame after she lost her virginity with Scott in college, what if she had returned one of his calls? What if she had moved to Atlanta with Brent like he had originally asked her to, instead of deciding it wasn’t meant to be and letting him go?

She crushed the leaf in her hand; its dry edges poked her skin. What if, right now, she called Ren’s room and asked him out for a drink? It was Halloween, Friday night, and they were in the U District. Festivity awaited, if only she dared enter its realm.

Before timidity could overrule her impulse, she switched on her lamp, grabbed the phone, and dialed the extension listed for Ren Schultz on the laminated directory taped to her wall. She let it ring five times before she hung up. He wasn’t there. Of course; he was probably still cleaning up the kitchen.

She jogged barefoot along the corridor to the back stairwell, and down to the kitchen. He wasn’t there either. The kitchen was deserted. Lina opened the back door, which led from the pantry out into the fenced backyard, and leaned out, keeping her feet on the interior floors, shivering in the icy outdoor air.

“Ren?” she said, but the yard was silent.

She closed the door. As she herself had commented, he was young and hip and must have better places to be. She, meanwhile, was old and pathetic and might as well brew some tea and go to bed. Sullenly she padded into the kitchen and lit up the gas stove under a kettle of water.

After making her tea she carried the mug out past the living room. George and the two ladies still sat before the fireplace, now singing a round of that spooky folk tune Lina had learned in elementary school:

Have you seen the ghost of Tom?

Long white bones with the flesh all gone,

Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, poor old Tom!

Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?

A fitting tune for Halloween, but the singers sounded so jolly it wasn’t even spooky anymore. Lina climbed the front stairs slowly, careful not to spill her hot tea. Below, George hollered commands for another song. She paused with her hand on the banister to hear what it would be.

A shove against her shoulder splashed tea onto the carpet. Lina gasped. Her firm grip on the banister only barely kept her from falling over. “Who’s—” she said, but it became clear, as she turned around, that nobody was there.

Imagining things, she thought in a panic. I’m imagining things.

Trembling, she knelt and pressed the hem of her sheet-dress against the wet spots on the carpet until the tea was soaked up. Then, mug in hand, she ran across the landing, ready to bolt up to her room and shut herself in with all the lights on, but a wavering voice from the second floor stopped her. Someone was singing in creaky, unsteady tones. Lina peered around the corner. Jackie Clairmont wandered down the hallway to her room, singing the same “Ghost of Tom” the others were singing downstairs.

But instead of “Tom” she was saying “Sean.”

“Have you seen the ghost of Sean?”

Lina, though her knees were literally shaking, reminded herself she was responsible for the well-being of these people, and called out, “Mrs. Clairmont?”

Jackie Clairmont lumbered around to look at her. The doleful tune died away on her lips.

“Can I help you back to your room?” Lina asked.

Mrs. Clairmont put out a hand and touched her door. “No…no, I’ve made it.” She pushed open the door and squinted at it. “This wasn’t my room. I was down the hall. And Julia was upstairs on the third floor, by that rooftop door.”

Lina suppressed a shudder. That was her room now, the one near the trapdoor leading to the attic and the roof. Wonderful. Just what she needed to think about during those night shifts.

“Do you need anything?” she asked Jackie Clairmont.

Mrs. Clairmont shook her head as if it weighed quite a lot and shuffled into her room.

Lina dashed upstairs and shut herself into her room—Julia’s former room, if Jackie Clairmont was right. She shucked her wreath and her tea-spotted sheet, wriggled into her nightgown, and sat on the floor with her back against the bed, sipping tea. Everything frightened her now: life, death, love, the idea of calling Ren, the seniors she worked for, and every last room in this house, including her own.

It took another two hours and the reading of some lighthearted P. G. Wodehouse stories before exhaustion took the place of fear. Only then was she able to climb into bed and sleep.

* * *

On Saturday, the first of November, Lina had the afternoon off. Made restless by the autumn sun streaming through the windows, not to mention the strange experiences of the past month, Lina threw on her brown overcoat and a pair of sunglasses and set out for the University of Washington library.

She entered in the wake of two young men who trod heavily under their backpacks. The warm, dehumidified library air swept around her, engulfing her in a smell of books and an echo of vast spaces, making her feel as if she needed to be studying for midterms.

After inquiring at an information desk, she was pointed to the microfiche section. The girl there, with a tiny silver ball pierced through her nostril, perked up when Lina explained what she was looking for.

“Double-death at a sorority? That’s wild. Okay, I’ll show you how to search on that.” She seated Lina at a computer and leaned over her shoulder to direct her.

Limiting the time frame to the 1930s, they turned up the relevant articles in the university newspaper within a minute. “Houseboy Killed at Sorority,” said the earliest stark headline, dated April 13, 1936. The next day’s paper had a follow-up story titled “Reynolds Death Ruled Accidental.” The day after that: “Funeral Held for University Man Killed at Sorority.” The next day: “Sorority Woman Charged with Wrongful Death.” And finally: “Suicide at Gamma Eta Omicron: Tragedy of Reynolds Death Continues.”

The girl wrote down all the citations and fetched the necessary microfiches. She guided Lina to a microfiche machine, and once Lina had the hang of the dizzying controls, which sent the old-style newsprint flying across the screen at highway speeds, the girl left Lina to her reading.

Lina located and devoured each article, and only after she was done reading all five did she realize none of them included a photograph of Sean Reynolds, the houseboy. It disappointed her, though the reason was shallow: if he resembled Ren, she wanted to see him.

The last article, however, did have a photo of Julia Grise, accidental killer. Julia shared that title with Lina, perhaps, but not much else. Julia was a pretty girl with a bold smile and a tight, wavy blond bob parted on the side and dipping over one eyebrow. She seemed glamorous and passionate, whereas Lina was just clumsy. Pushing aside her own guilt and frustration, Lina examined Julia’s grainy photo on the screen, trying to bring it to life, trying to imagine those eyes flashing in flirtation at someone, those lips kissing a houseboy who looked like Ren.

Those bright locks of hair against the concrete floor of the garage.

Lina shivered and went back to reread the articles. None of them mentioned Jackie by name, but they corroborated and expanded upon Jackie’s story. Julia Grise, twenty-one, gave a toxic mixture of sleeping pills and brandy to Sean Reynolds, twenty-two, in what was meant to be a harmless prank to make him fall asleep, at the Gamma Eta Omicron sorority house on Friday night, April 10. Emergency medics were called, but efforts to revive him failed. Funeral services were to be held Tuesday.

Sean Reynolds, they said, was a fourth-year UW student, living at Gamma Eta Omicron as a houseboy and pursuing a bachelor of science degree in mathematics. Julia was in her third year and was studying art. Sean’s family, from across the Sound in Port Townsend, was coming in for the funeral but had nothing to say to the papers.

The second article rehashed the tragedy, which was ruled an accident. The third covered the funeral and offered a few obituary-like observations about Sean Reynolds. He had played baseball in high school in Port Townsend, he had been a good student, he had talked of becoming a math teacher or bookkeeper. The fourth article turned sinister. The day after the funeral, Sean’s parents slapped Julia Grise with wrongful death charges. They were reputedly hoping for a manslaughter conviction. The “distraught” Grise was not available for comment. The next day, her midnight suicide was front-page news at the UW.

One article ran a photograph of the house, looking as if it was in a different location due to the small stature of its trees. The maple in front, so grandiose now, barely reached the second story in this picture. Lina located her own window on the third floor: Julia’s window, back then.

Was the room empty for the rest of that year? Did the girls drape the doorway in black crepe and place flowers at the threshold, and leave it undisturbed to collect dust and ghosts? Lina hoped not. She hoped, for her own peace of mind, that another girl moved in as soon as possible, someone happy and innocent and fresh, who went on to live a successful life and have delightful children, someone whose essence would erase the stain Julia left on it.

Lina found the girl with the pierced nose again and arranged for photocopies to be made of the articles. While she waited at the counter for the copies, she wondered yet again how on earth Ren lived so calmly in that basement.

* * *

When she returned it was 4:30 in the afternoon and getting dark. She went to the kitchen first, rather than up to her room, and found Ren sitting at the breakfast bar, writing in a clothbound journal. She had seen him doing this before at quiet moments between meals. She had entertained the idea that he was a fledgling poet. But now, as she set her photocopies on the counter and took off her coat, she saw he was writing rather too fast and too steadily for poetry. Surely a poet would deliberate over each line, choosing words the way a wine connoisseur would choose the right vintage for a dinner.

She could always ask, of course.

“Do you write poetry?”

He glanced up. “This? No, this is just a journal. Little things, whatever’s on my mind.” He put the cap on the pen and closed the book.

Lina seated herself upon a stool and unfolded the photocopies. “Well. I was just at the library. Look what I found.” She pushed the articles toward him.

He dragged them over and read the headline of the first one. “Ah. Did your research.” He spread the articles out on the counter.

“Yes. Interesting stuff. Depressing, though.”

Ren nodded. He lingered on the photograph of the house. “Look how small the trees were then.”

“I noticed that too.”

He swept them into a stack without having done more than skimmed them and hopped off his stool. “So what will you do now? Hold a ghost vigil in the garage?”

“God, no. I don’t actually want to see anything.”

“I wouldn’t either.” He collected the journal and pen. “I better put this stuff away. Got a spinach salad to make.”

“Hm. Spinach.” Lina wrinkled her nose.

He pointed the pen at her, backing toward the stairs. “It’ll be good, with the dressing I make.”

“Fine. I’ll try it.”

He lifted his chin in acknowledgment and disappeared down the stairs. Lina picked up her coat and photocopies and walked slowly alongside the breakfast bar, rereading one of them. Ren was back before she got to the end of the paragraph. He bounded up the stairs, ducked into the pantry, and emerged in the kitchen tying his apron around his waist.

Lina called, “See you at dinner,” and moved toward the stairwell.

“See you.”

She put a foot on the step, then stopped and wheeled toward the basement stairs. She needed another box of tissues, and had been meaning to go down to the storage area and get one.

Trying not to be daunted by the low ceilings and vaultlike shadows between shelves, Lina plucked two boxes of tissues from the supplies in one of the storage rooms and hurried out. When she got to Ren’s door, the door to his “tiny little room in the basement,” her feet slowed. He was upstairs, involved with spinach. She could have a peek inside. Just out of curiosity.

Sure. Innocent curiosity. His personal effects interested her, to be truthful; most notably that journal. Was she mentioned in it? Did it say, Last night I danced with Lina, who I find very attractive? Or possibly, Got shanghaied into dancing an endless waltz with this weird woman who lives here. I think she’s about forty. Or did she not rate a mention at all?

She took a quick look around, then gripped the doorknob and twisted.

It was locked.

She retreated, chastising herself for the attempt. That was practically stalker behavior right there. How would she feel if he crept into her room and sniffed through her belongings? She’d find it creepy, that’s how she would feel.

Look, Lina, she thought. If you like him, flirt with him, but don’t spy on him. No wonder her relationships didn’t work out. Had she always been this weird?