McCann's Manor (37 page)

Liz gasped. “Somehow, I
knew
that,” she said.

"Aye, ‘tis the truth, Elizabeth."

"And Missy's death?” Kim asked.

"Not easily explained, I think, Kimberly,” Benjamin began. “Melissa knew she was not personally responsible for her father's death; that it had been the spirit she called Ptarmigan acting
inside
her who took his life. Yet, she was plagued by the deed itself; in her mind, she had been an innocent witness to the act, though she could not forgive herself for being unable to prevent it. I believe something inside her fell apart and she concocted the memory about the
monster
who took her father's life also being after her and ultimately killing her as well. She believed it, you know, but it was a tale fashioned by a terrified girl who blamed herself for her father's death and not altogether wrongly so."

"But why kill Leonard in the first place?” Liz asked.

"Leonard is the one who let the spirit loose and later tried to expel it whence it came, but he was not strong enough.” Benjamin said. “I tried to help him, but he was so shaken by Tarrh's presence he refused to listen to me. He ignored the things I tried to tell him and when he realized the spirit was controlling Melissa, he ordered Tarrh to come out of her and enter him instead. His plan was to kill himself once the spirit was inside him. That, of course would have done no good in the end, although it was a noble gesture to save his daughter."

"That doesn't make much sense,” Kim said. “Didn't he realize the spirit would leave him once he was dead, just as his own spirit would leave his body?"

"He may have thought as a spirit he would be able to exert more authority over Tarrh,” he said. “I really have little idea what he thought at that point, because his thoughts were not very coherent. He was losing his reason and running out of time. He became desperate to save Melissa at any cost."

"Poor man,” Kim said, shook her head.

"And poor Missy,” Liz agreed.

"Aye,” Ben said sadly.

"Benjamin, one more question—” Kim petitioned.

"Aye?"

"We found Constance's picture in your study; it was impossible not to be impressed by the resemblance between Constance, Betty and Missy. Are either Betty or Missy the reincarnation of Constance?” Kim asked.

"Quite an unaccountable resemblance, is it not? Neither of them was Constance in another life. I cannot explain the likeness, though I think Betty may be related in some way to Constance's family,” he said. “Their similarities are quite unfathomable and made me enormously uncomfortable at first."

"Betty told us she had dreams about being married to one man, presumably Spencer, while she was in love with you. Is that only a coincidence?” Liz asked.

"I have no idea, though it may have been, again, the work of the spirit of Tarrh, or perhaps we should call it Moira, since Tarrh himself means none of us any ill,” Benjamin said.

"You are certain about Tarrh—that he intends no harm, I mean?” Kim asked.

"Aye, of him I
am
certain, though I have no idea whether he will be able to help if it should come to needing his aid,” he said.

"Thank you for your candor, Ben,” Kim said. “We're ready to have a look at your pyramid now."

"Aye, Ladies, come this way and I will show you,” he said.

Benjamin walked to the back right corner of the conservatory, placed his hands on the wall and traced circles on the panel, which slid open. “Let me show you this so you will be able to open it by yourself,” he said, closing the panel. “See, your hands go here—and here. Trace the circles bringing both hands toward each other from bottom toward the inside and then move up and around to the tops of the circles, and away from each other as you complete the outside of the circles. You try it, Elizabeth."

Liz moved into place and traced the circles as Ben showed her. Again the panel slid open. She closed it back as she had seen Ben do and motioned to Kim to try it. “Here, Kim; this is something we both need to make certain we know, just in case,” Liz said.

Kim made a little face, but stepped into place and traced the circles for the third time. The panel slid open. “These passages are all so different in the way they open, yet they are all so smooth and quiet,” she said shaking her head. “It is all such a marvel that even after all these years they still work perfectly. How did you do it?"

"Sliding panels and secret passages have been around a very long time, Kimberly, and to my knowledge only the ones that have been tampered with have ceased to work. In my time, mechanisms were much simpler,” he said with a hint of humor, “and infinitely more reliable
because
of their simplicity. Your modern technology has done little to improve on what we knew for generations, except to make everything vastly more complicated."

Kim nodded. “You have a point there,” she said as she peered behind the wall they had just opened. “It's dark in here. Should we get a flashlight?"

"Aye, it appears dark from the outside, but if you will go ahead and step inside, I will show you yet another ancient marvel. Go now; you can trust me,” he urged.

Timothy meowed softly and padded silently inside the passage as if to show them there was nothing to fear inside from the dark. Liz and Kim stepped into the chamber followed by Benjamin, who closed the panel behind him and rubbed his hands together briskly before touching the wall. At his touch, a soft glow began under his hands and spread in a few seconds, lighting up the entire wall in a soft green luminescence that gradually grew brighter and whiter until the room they were in was almost as bright as the conservatory had been.

"How did you do that?” Liz asked, incredulous.

"I will not reveal all my secrets at once, ladies, but there are no windows in this chamber or in the pyramid up the ladder, there. I had to have a way to illuminate my favorite room, did I not?” he asked.

"Yes, but—” Kim said.

"All you need to know is how to activate the light and that is by rubbing your hands together as I just did and then laying them flat against the wall,” he said simply. “All the passages work the same way, so you see, you have no need for your electric lights. Once activated, the light will go on for hours. Should it begin to dim before you are ready to leave, simply rub your hands together again and touch the walls once more."

"It's magic!” Liz said.

Benjamin chuckled. “Aye, ‘tis magic, but ‘tis natural magic and you have only to know the mechanics of making it work; there are no bulbs to change, nor any bills to pay and this light would still be working for a thousand years hence."

Kim and Liz looked at each other, shrugged. They found themselves inside another triangular room formed by the back wall of the house and an interior wall of the octagonal library. This particular passage was remarkably clean considering it had been unused for two hundred years, unlike the other passages they had found.
Quite remarkable
, Liz thought.

"All right, then. You know how to get in and how to activate the light. To close the panel from the inside, touch the frame here, just so. Touching it thus will also open the panel once you are ready to leave. Are you prepared for a bit of a climb?” he asked.

Liz looked at the narrow ladder which was attached to the inner wall and led straight up some fifteen feet to disappear into seeming nothingness. “Sure,” she said, “no problem."

Benjamin gave her an amused look before he scooped Timothy off the floor, set the cat on his shoulder and began his ascent up the steep ladder. “All you have to do is climb; the panel at the top opens when you get there all by itself; like your automatic supermarket doors,” he announced.

"Have you
seen
automatic supermarket doors?” Kim asked.

"Aye, I have. You think all I did these last two hundred years was sit around this old dreary house and wait for you?” he called back over his shoulder.

Liz stifled a chuckle, started climbing the ladder. She wasn't worried about getting up to the pyramid; it was the trick of coming down again that had her concerned. Surely she would be able to manage it and if not under her own power, perhaps the pyramid would have a magic trick she could use to get down again. She followed close behind Benjamin with Kim climbing right behind her.

Once Liz got to the top of the ladder, she found Benjamin's strong hand again extended to help her into the pyramid. She shivered at the way it felt to touch him. How could an apparition feel so alive? She could actually feel the warmth and texture of his skin, a phenomenon she had never experienced with a ghost before. He fairly lifted her into the room, then turned to offer the same hand to Kim and in turn helped her into the pyramid before returning to look deep into Liz's puzzled eyes.

"Surely you do not think all ghosts are the same,” he said.

"No,” Liz said, “but—"

He smiled at her with such warmth she would have sworn he was alive, as alive as John and every bit as exciting. “Perhaps I am not a ghost at all, but I have traveled into the future to meet you here and tell you my secrets so that you and Kimberly might save this house—this abused
child
of mine—from a sad and lonely fate,” he suggested.

Liz at last tore her eyes from his to look around the large pyramid, which was already brightly lit by the wizardry Benjamin had shown them in the antechamber below. In the center of the room was a square workbench atop a pedestal built up about a third the height of the pyramid. Various large tomes lay on one side of the workbench, a number of mysterious, magical tools on the other. The room itself was almost austere from the absence of the rich wood which was so prevalent in the rest of the house. Here the walls were fashioned of some kind of crude brick. She was impressed by how clean and fresh the air seemed in this room, though she knew there was no air conditioning in the chamber, nor were there any visible openings to account for the ventilation.

Kim stepped toward the pedestal, climbed the five steps to the top and scanned the items on the workbench. “Well, this is giving me goose bumps just looking at it,” she announced at last.

Timothy bounded across the floor to join Kim by jumping onto the workbench. Kim scratched the gray cat's ears absently as she continued to look at all the wizard's tools spread before her.

Benjamin watched her a few minutes before he approached the workbench. “Everything here is just as I left it,” he said. He picked up a large crystal, handed it to Kim. “This has been my crystal since I was a child. I want you to have it. It will help you in your quests, and it will allay the doubts you still have about me, Kimberly."

Kim was obviously shaken by the energy in the crystal. She took a deep breath, turned the magnificent double-terminated quartz in her hand and watched the light play on it and inside it. “It is an incredible gift, Ben,” she said. “Thank you. I will try to use it in purity and wisdom."

"Aye,” he said, “I am sure you will.” He picked up another stone, studied the color of it briefly before his eyes found Liz, still standing near the entrance to the room. “This one is for you, Elizabeth. Will you come receive it?"

Liz walked to the pedestal and stepped onto it slowly. This was part of some kind of ceremony, she thought, though she didn't know what the ritual was or how she recognized it. She stared at the red stone, a huge, faceted garnet nearly black in color. The stone was to keep her grounded in truth and to help protect her mind. It was a gift she needed desperately, yet she feared it, for with it came the responsibility to become one of the protectors of the knowledge about which Benjamin had spoken. Life would never be the same for Kim and Liz from this moment on. In taking the garnet, she would be opening her mind to receive a legacy of magic and occult wisdom such as she had never dreamed of having. Was it really necessary to possess all that erudition in order to give the spirits here peace? Why did Benjamin want to pass all this learning to them? With a shaky awareness as to the significance of Ben's offering, Liz extended her trembling hand to receive the stone.

Ben was giving the house over to Kim and Liz, along with all the paranormal wisdom he possessed and full proprietorship of the portal. The sheer weight of the responsibility made Liz's knees weak, still she reached for the garnet. It was too late to back out. Her soul was tied to this house even before, but now she was sealing her fate as she accepted the stone and felt a rush of insight such as she had never known, filling her as never before.

An eternity seemed to pass as the three of them stood there with Benjamin touching both the stones that lay in their outstretched hands. Electricity. Power. Wisdom beyond anything they had dreamed before passed into them, settled into their souls. During that remarkable and tangible union, they knew everything Benjamin knew, they became larger than they had been and for an instant, they knew something about all creation, their senses heightened almost to the point of absolute pain, mingled with pure ecstasy. Colors swirled around them, colors of brighter and deeper hues than they had ever seen before. Sounds so harsh and yet so sweet they brought tears to their eyes echoed through them and reverberated inside their souls until they had tasted every emotion conceivable in the human existence and more.

Awareness past imagination came over them, lingered with them for a split second in time that was still longer than all eternity before it began to enfold over them and bring them back to their normal senses. When it was over, Liz and Kim stood on the pedestal by the wizard's workbench, clinging to one another in total emotional discord. Benjamin and Timothy were gone.

They slowly made their way off the pedestal and out of the pyramid. They took the stones with them, along with a memory of the most incredible event they had ever participated in or witnessed, one they would seldom speak of and never share with another living being for fear it had all been imagined. But it was
real
, just as the stones were genuine, and they knew it. They were better equipped to deal with Moira and the hold she had over their lives than they had ever been before. Soon the time would come to test their vast new knowledge, but not right now. It would be later—quite a bit later.