McCann's Manor (40 page)

"Benjamin didn't
know
,” said Liz. “He had banished the spirits back into the pit, so I guess it never occurred to him to think that entity might be responsible for David's strange appetite for the macabre."

Kim stared at Liz a moment before replying. “Are you saying
the entity
, whatever that means, was responsible for
everything
Spencer made Benjamin do? Don't you think that may be a little far-fetched?” she asked.

"I can't explain it all to you now,” Liz began, “but what if Ben unknowingly opened the pit when he was very young? Somehow Ben was always totally protected against the attacks thrown at him. I think it may have had something to do with his being descended from Melody. Remember what Ben said about Melody knowing magic and outliving Moira and Sean?"

"Yes, but—” Kim began.

"Maybe she worked some kind of protection over all her descendants so Moira could inflict no harm on them—but Spencer, maybe, wasn't
really
Ben's half-brother and so there was no protection for him.” Liz said, her eyes growing wide at the revelation she had just uncovered. “The entity used Spencer to get at Ben in a way
it
never could,” Liz speculated.

"What was it trying to gain?” Kim asked.

Liz sighed heavily. “I have some theories on parts of it—but I haven't figured it all out yet,” she said. “Come on; we had better get down there and start acting like hostesses; our guests will begin arriving shortly."

"Yeah, you're right. Thanks. I do feel better now. Looks like we may be in for a heck of a storm, though,” Kim said.

"Storm? Really?"

"Well, look at those clouds; what do
you
think?"

Liz looked out the window, nodded. “Looks as if you may be right,” she agreed. “Oh well, what would Halloween in a haunted house be without a real thunderstorm? Hope we have laid in enough candles in case the electricity goes out."

Kim giggled, poked Liz. “Come on; we'd better get down there. By the way, John's mystery guest is Sondra—his daughter."

"His—his
daughter
?” Liz stammered, then smiled widely. “Oh, his
daughter
! Isn't that nice?"

Kim shook her head, grinned. “Um-hum—
nice
,” she agreed. “I thought that would make you happy."

Liz wrinkled her nose, rolled her eyes. “I—well, okay! It makes me happy,” she admitted.

"Aha! I thought so,” Kim said. “Come on, let's party. Are Spooky and Ghost ready?"

"Ooh, I forgot all about them. Spooky, kitty, kitty? Ghost, here boy! Time to put your costumes on!” Liz called as Kim prepared the costumes, which consisted of a small black satin cape for Ghost and a tiny
magic
wand suspended from a glittery collar for Spooky.

The storm arrived about six-thirty with a torrential downpour and claps of thunder that fairly shook the manor. For more than two hours, rain pelted McCann's Manor and no more guests arrived. The deluge claimed the electricity and telephone services early on, rendering them inoperable for the rest of the evening. Liz and Kim lit candles and visited with John, Mark and Sondra while they dined on the meal John had catered.

At eight-forty-five, John's cell phone rang. “Hello?” he said. “Joel! What? Why didn't you come in a boat? Oh. No
kidding
? Well, it's too dark to
see
the river. Yeah, phones and electricity went about six-forty here, I guess. I see ... Well, I suppose no one else will be showing up, then. Thanks for calling. Yeah, why don't you call if they get the road opened—I'm sure our caterers would like to go home. Bye."

"What is it?” Kim asked.

"Flooding. The river jumped its banks. The road between here and town washed out about six o'clock,” John announced.

"Six? Wow!” Liz said. “I guess the storm had been carrying on for a while before it got here, huh?"

"I
guess
,” John affirmed. “Joel said almost everyone between here and Austin is without power. Phone lines are down; everything's at a standstill. That
little
rain storm was fizzling out by the time it got here, but
before
it got here, it dumped a lot of rain and hail all over everything."

"Should we be climbing into the hills or something?” Kim asked.

Mark laughed. “This house is built on the highest hill around. We'll be safe enough here. John's house may be flooded, though,” he said.

Everyone looked at John, who calmly shrugged, sat down on the sofa. “Could be, I suppose. It's come pretty close several times before,” he said. “Thing is, whether my house is flooded or not, that dip in the road between here and there will be, and no one will be able to get out of here by car until it drains off some."

"Oh, my!” Sondra exclaimed. “Every time I come see you, there's a flood."

"You should come more often, sweetie,” John said with a smile.

"Why?” she asked. “Do you like floods?"

"No, but if you came every few weeks, it couldn't possibly flood
every
time you came,” he said. “As it is, you're getting a bad impression of our little Texas home."

Sondra giggled, sat beside her father. “At least you don't have the mud slides we have in California,” she said.

"Not too often, anyway,” Mark said. “There
are
places around here that tend to slip and slide when it rains long enough and hard enough."

"Now,
that's
a pleasant thought,” Liz said. “There are quite a lot of mud and rocks right out there on our own cliff that could go slipping and sliding, for example."

"Oh, don't worry about it, Liz,” John said. “This cliff has been just like it is now for centuries. I do regret, though, that all your friends couldn't make it to see all the decorating and preparations you made for them."

"Well, you know my heart never was in this party in the first place,” Liz said. “It's probably just as well."

"But you went to so much trouble,” Mark said.

"Oh, well, we'll just put everything away and use it again next Halloween,” Kim said.

"That's the spirit!” John said. “You'll still be here next Halloween and we can just do it again."

"That would probably be better anyway,” Liz agreed. “I wasn't really looking forward to having all those
spook-mongers
out here competing to be the one to solve all the mysteries of McCann Manor. You don't
know
them."

"That bad, huh?” John asked.

"Well, there's quite a lot of competition between psychics, at least around here. Probably a lot like many actors; always harping about how they're better than anyone else,” Kim said.

"Oh,” John said. “Yes, I do know actors like that. But I thought psychics were supposed to be above that sort of thing; you know, doing things for the higher good and all that?"

"
Supposed
to be, yes. But in actuality when it comes to competition, most of them are no different from the rest of the world,” Liz said. “After a while it becomes all about how, ‘I'm more psychic than you and blah-blah-blah.’ The ones who sign up to assist in police cases get jealous if someone else gets called in on more cases than they do."

"Gee, and all this time I thought psychics were different.” Mark said.

"Oh, we are different, all right; but not
that
different,” Kim said with a laugh. “Or maybe we aren't different in that way!"

"I'll bet you two have a lot of incredible stories to tell, being called out to help solve crimes and all,” Sondra said.

"We do have a lot of stories, but we are not supposed to discuss the ones involving crimes,” Liz said. “Most of those stories are not too much fun to relive anyway. The things you get called in on as a psychic can be pretty gory."

"I never thought of that, but I'm sure they would be. Are crimes around here all that nasty?” Sondra asked.

"Yes, they can be, Sondra,” Kim said. “New York and L.A. don't have the patent on grisly crimes."

"Of course not; how silly of me,” Sondra said. Then she smiled, an impish twinkle in her eyes. “But it's Halloween. Do you have any spooky stories you
can
tell us?"

"Sondra!” John chided.

Liz smiled. “It's all right, John,” she said. “Sondra's right. This
is
the perfect time and place for a few spooky tales. What do you think, Kim?"

"Well, you have to understand that, excluding the police investigations and the stories about this house, most of our ghost stories are really quite tame,” Kim said. “We could share a few little tidbits with you, if you like."

John cleared his throat, stretched and headed for the kitchen. “I think I'll go see if our caterers are all right. I may need to make some kind of arrangements to get them home."

"Dad?” Sondra called after him. He didn't respond. “What's
that
all about?"

"The house still feels a little creepy to him, Sondra,” Liz explained. “I think he may be thinking you might wind up having to stay here tonight and he doesn't want to spook himself on ghost stories if he has to hang out here with no lights and no dependable contact with the outside world."

"He has his cell phone,” Sondra said.

"But if another bad storm were to come, he might not be able to get any reception and if we needed anything, it may all be just imagined perils, but something
could
happen, you know,” Kim said.

"Thanks!” Mark said. “I was all up for a few ghost tales and now I'm not so sure."

Liz and Kim laughed.

"Have you really
seen
ghosts?” Sondra asked.

"Yes, we have,” Liz said.

"What's it like?"

"Sometimes it can be scary, but mostly it isn't,” Kim said.

"How can you tell if it's a ghost? I mean, is all that stuff true about the chill in the air and all?” Sondra asked.

"One thing you have to understand about ghosts, Sondra,” Liz began in a grave tone, “each ghost is as individual as each person is. A person who dies with unresolved life issues doesn't simply become a part of some great gray characterless blob. He or she retains the same personality as in life. True, when some ghosts are present there's a chill in the air, but this isn't a characteristic that occurs across the board with every ghost. With some, you might smell a distinguishing odor; with others, the air could be warm, damp or even sticky."

"That makes sense,” Sondra said. “So each ghost you've encountered had a unique quality or air that marked its identity?"

"In almost every case, yes,” Kim said.

"Almost?” Mark asked.

"Yes,
almost
,” Liz said. “The ghosts we have encountered here don't always represent themselves in a unique way, but because matters are still unsettled here, we aren't going to talk about them tonight."

"I'm not sure I understand your reluctance to talk about the ghosts here in this house,” Sondra said.

"We're still working on this case and because of that, we aren't really at liberty to talk about it with people who aren't familiar with the case,” Kim said. “It's like any other investigation in that you can't throw anything you do know
out there
until you're sure about most of the facts. It will cloud and prejudice your investigation and could actually doom the examination to failure. So if you only wanted to talk about the ghosts here, I'm afraid we can't."

"Oh, well, I can understand that, I suppose. I just always wondered what it was about this house that Dad found so perplexing. I thought if we could talk about it a little, then maybe I would understand better,” Sondra said.

"Another time we'll be happy to discuss this house with you,” Liz promised. “This time, we can't. Do you still want to hear about ghosts?"

"Well, yes, I do!” Sondra said excitedly.

"The last house we lived in was haunted, too,” Liz said.

"Really?” Mark asked. “You two only live in haunted houses?"

Kim laughed. “Sometimes it almost seems that way,” she said, “but I think it's more that spirits gravitate toward us because we can see and hear them. We wind up having spirits around us wherever we go."

"But the last house was different,” Liz added. “The day we moved in, I sat down and looked around after the last box had been stacked up in the front room. The place just had a
feel
to it. I leaned back and said, ‘This place has ghosts.’”

"Yes, I remember,” Kim said. “I agreed with Liz's assessment and no sooner had I said it than the back door, which was closed and locked, opened and the light came on in the kitchen. Then, as though the spirit suddenly realized we weren't whoever he thought we were, the light went back out and the back door closed."

"You're kidding!” Mark said.

"No, not at all,” Liz said. “And what's even funnier, that light in the kitchen had something wrong with it and didn't even work. The incidence of it coming on that first night then going back off was the only time it burned during the entire three years we lived there."

"Were you ghost-busting there, too?” Sondra asked.

"No, although I think we did do quite a bit of ghost busting while we were there,” Kim said. “There was one of the bedrooms we used for an office and you could routinely hear sounds in there."

"What kind of sounds?” Sondra asked.

"For one, you know how it sounds when someone lifts a slat on the Venetian blinds to peer out?” Kim asked.

"Yes?"

"I was sitting up late working on a pair of earrings one night,” Liz said. “I kept hearing the sound of a slat on the blind being lifted, but every time I would look, the blinds would all be in place. Finally, I pretended to be working and just cut my eyes over and there was the slat, slowly sliding back into place."

"Ooh, that's way weird!” Sondra said.

"I'll say,” Mark chimed in. “What did you do?"

"Well, the spirits in that house were mostly just playing with us,” Liz said. “I said something like, ‘caught you,’ and it didn't happen again. The specter seemed to be testing me to see if I would be easy to frighten. When I didn't lose my cool, it seemed content I knew how to handle myself when faced with the presence of spirits."

"Is that normal? I mean, do ghosts
test
you a lot?” Mark asked.