On the Night of the Seventh Moon (23 page)

We tethered our horses to one of the trees and both boys set about gathering the leaves and flowers which grew close to the water.

Then Dagobert cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted: “Franz! Franz.”

I asked whom they were calling and they both exchanged secret glances. Dagobert said: “Wait and see, miss.”

I replied that I wanted to know what they were about and appealed to Fritz.

He pointed toward the island in the middle of the lake and I saw a boat being pushed out. A man jumped into it and began rowing toward us.

“That's Franz,” Fritz told me.

Dagobert was determined to be the one who disclosed the secret.

“Franz,” he said, “is the keeper of the
Gräber Insel.
He is coming to take us over so that we can put flowers on our mothers' graves. You can row over yourself but Franz likes you to call him.”

The distance between the Island of Graves and the shore was, I guessed, less than a quarter of a mile. The man in the boat was very old and bent; his gray hair grew long about his face which was almost covered by his beard so that little more than his eyes were visible and they were imbedded in wrinkles.

“Franz,” called Dagobert, “we want to show Miss Trant the Island.”

Old Franz brought the boat on the shore.

“Well, young masters,” he said, “I was expecting you.” His voice had a hollow ring; he wore a long black robe like a monk's and on his head was a tiny black skullcap. The little eyes were on me now.

“I heard you were here, Fräulein,” he said. “You must come over to my Island.”

“She wants to see the graves,” said Dagobert.

I was unaware that I had expressed such a wish but it seemed impolite to say so before their keeper.

“It was time you young masters came,” said Franz.

He took my hand to help me into the boat. His was dry, rough, and cold. Something about him made me shiver. I thought of him as Charon, the boatman of the Styx. Fritz was close behind me as though to protect me, I thought, and I was touched.

Dagobert leaped into the boat. “Are you frightened, miss?” he asked gleefully, clearly hoping that I was.

“Why do you ask? Did you expect me to be?”

“Franz lives all alone on
Gräber Insel,
don't you, Franz? Most people are a bit scared when they go there because there's nobody there but the dead and Franz, of course. I wonder if you will be scared. Franz isn't scared. He lives there all alone with the dead, don't you, Franz.”

“For seventy years,” he said. “Seventy years on the island. My father was keeper before me, and I knew I'd follow on.” He shook his head sadly. “I've no son to follow me.”

“What will they do when you die, Franz?” asked Dagobert.

Old Franz shook his head. “They'll bring someone else in. Before it was handed down from father to son.”

“Oh, Franz, the dead won't like it. I bet they'll haunt the next one and drive him away.”

“This is a very morbid subject,” I said. “I'm sure Franz will be the keeper for many years yet.”

Franz looked at me with approval. “My grandfather lived to ninety. My father to ninety-three. They say that the dead give the gift of long life to their keepers.”

“Oh, but you haven't got a son to follow you, Franz,” Dagobert reminded him. “They won't like that.”

“Why are you so pleased at the prospect, Dagobert?” I asked.

“Well, they'll come out and haunt the next one, that's why.”

The oars lapped gently in the water. I could see the island very clearly now. There appeared to be avenues of trees and flowering shrubs. It was very beautiful; and among the trees was a tiny house which reminded me of the gingerbread cottage in
Hansel and Gretel.
I felt as though I were entering that fairy-tale world again.

The boat came to rest on the shore and we scrambled out.

“First show her the ducal graves,” demanded Dagobert.

“Come this way,” said Franz.

The two boys went off to lay their flowers on their mothers' graves and I followed Franz into one of the avenues between the flowers and
the trees. There were the graves. They were magnificently kept and glowing with flowers; the marble effigies were beautiful; so were the statues of angels guarding the graves and on some were gilded caskets and ornamentations in gilt and wrought iron.

“These are the graves of the Family,” Franz told me. “After the memorial services and the burial ceremonies they are brought over to me to lie in their final resting place. I tend the shrubs and keep the graves fresh. Members of the Family sometimes come here, but rarely young ones. The young don't think of death. These two boys come though. That's because their mothers lie here . . . though not among the ducal avenues. There are two burial grounds here—that of the Dukes and their legitimate families and those whom they have honored, as they call it. Some might say dishonored. The boys come because they like to remind themselves that they are connected with the Family. I will show you the other graves afterwards. First look at these of the Family. This one is Ludwig's grave. He is the brother of Duke Carl and a traitor. He was killed by the Duke's friends and just in time for if he had not been killed he would have killed the Duke.”

“I have heard something of Ludwig.”

“He will not easily be forgotten. And there is Count Frederic to follow him. Trouble . . . trouble . . .”

“Why should there be trouble between the Duke and Count Frederic?”

“There is often trouble in families, particularly our old German ones. In the old days when the estates were so poor the brothers drew lots to see who should have what there was. An estate divided would have brought very little to brothers—if there were many of them—and there so often were—so that the only thing was to draw lots and let the winner take all. This has caused trouble through the ages. Those who have not inherited believe they owe their positions at the present day to the ill luck of their ancestors in the past. Many seek to win back by treachery what luck has denied them. Ludwig was such a one. He wanted to unseat Carl and rule Rochenstein himself.”

“And the boys' father is his son?”

“Yes, Count Frederic will have to be careful. He will have the Prince to answer to. But Frederic is clever. He'll bide his time.”

“So these are the dead ones,” I said. “Well, if they suffered when they were alive they have been given due homage here. The graves are lovely.”

“It's my pride to keep them beautiful,” Franz said, his face lighting with a smile. “I'll swear there are no more beautiful graves than mine in the whole of Europe.”

I walked down the line of graves and read the inscriptions. There were the Dukes of Rochenstein and Dorrenig and Counts Lokenburg. “Family titles all of them,” murmured Franz. As ever when I read that name I thought of myself back in the hunting lodge and the ceremony when Maximilian had slipped a ring on my finger . . . a ring which disappeared with my dreams . . . and the marriage lines which said I was his wife which had no substance either.

There were several avenues, all exquisitely kept—the grass weeded, the flowers blooming to perfection.

I saw the boys who called to me, and old Franz led me over to them. I passed through a gate and was in a walled graveyard. Here the graves were simple mounds with small gray stones at the head of them. I noticed some had no stones at all.

“These are the graves of those who are buried here with the permission of some member of the Family,” Franz explained.

“I'll show you my mother's grave,” said Dagobert.

I followed him, stepping cautiously between the graves to one with a headstone rather more elaborate than most of the others. On it was written Countess von Plinschen and the date of her death, 1858. Dagobert said: “She died when I was born . . . she died having me.”

“That's sad,” I murmured, touched to see the reverent manner in which he laid the pink orchids on her grave.

Fritz said: “My mother died too. Can I show you where she is?”

He took my hand and we walked away from the others. I was
conscious of the eyes of Franz following me and I thought what a gruesome place this was, and it was a pity that the Family, as they were called, hadn't buried their dead in a churchyard like normal people.

I was deeply touched at the sight of Fritz kneeling by that grave. It simply said on it Luisa Freundsberg and nothing more.

“She loved me very much,” said Fritz, “but of course I was an embarrassment to her.”

“My dear Fritz,” I said. “You must have been a great joy to her.”

His eyes were suddenly touched by pain as he said: “I don't remember her. I only remember Frau Lichen and then there was Frau Graben.”

“Well, I daresay they loved you dearly.”

“Yes,” he admitted shyly, “but it is not the same as a mother.”

“There will be others in your life to love you,” I assured him; and that seemed to please him.

We went back and joined the others.

Franz offered us refreshments and we went into his gingerbread-like house to partake of them. We stepped down into a room in which were several flowers in pots. The scent was almost overpowering. We sat at a table and from a cask he drew mugs of what tasted like beer. I didn't greatly care for it but the boys drank it with relish.

Franz told me he had made it himself. He looked after himself. He never went to the mainland; his provisions were sent over once a week by the Family, and sometimes he saw no one for weeks on end. The boys visited the island regularly once a month and every now and then when there was a burial the body was brought over by night and laid in its grave.

He was gardener and stonemason. In the old days it had been easier. He had helped his father; his mother had died when he was quite a boy. Women didn't take kindly to
Gräber Insel.
He himself had married a wife. He had gone to the mainland to find her, he said sadly. He brought her back and waited for his son. But there was no son. The island gave her the creeps, she said. She couldn't live there; and one night when he was asleep she crept out and rowed herself over to the
mainland, and in the morning he awoke to find her gone. She was never heard of since, and he was unable to take another wife—even if he could have found one to share his lonely life on the Island of Graves.

I was glad when we were in the boat again. There was something uncanny about
Gräber Insel
and I couldn't stop thinking of the old man as Charon the ferryman of the dead.

 

That night I awoke with a start. I dreamed a great deal in the last eight years but never more vividly than since I had come to Klocksburg—except of course in the months directly following my adventures.

This time I had believed I was on the Island of Graves and in that avenue I found an inscription on which was written Maximilian Count Lokenburg, and as I watched the marble slab was lifted and Maximilian stepped out of the tomb. He came to me and took me in his arms and his embrace was a frozen one. I cried out: “You are dead?” and woke up.

I had thrown off all the bedclothes. I was shivering. The window was wide open to the mountain air. I lighted my candle. I knew I shouldn't sleep for some time.

It was all coming back so vividly to me as it always did after dreams and with it that aching sadness with which I had become familiar. It brought with it a fearful sense of loss from which I believed I should never recover. There could never be anyone in my life to take his place.

Then I heard footsteps on the landing outside my room. I looked at my watch. It was just after one o'clock. Who could be walking about at this time? There were only the children and two maids in the fortress, the rest of the household had their quarters in the
Randhausburg.

The steps were stealthy as though someone was carefully picking a way toward my room. They stopped. I saw my door handle slowly turn. I remembered that I had locked the door. Since my adventure in the mist I had made a habit of this and even at home I did it.

“Who is that?” I asked. There was no answer. I listened, then I heard the footsteps going on. They were mounting the stairs, I believed. I felt the goose pimples rising on my skin; if I was right and
those footsteps were mounting the stairs they could only be going to one place—the room in the turret—the haunted room.

The two maids in the fortress and the children were all afraid of the haunted room. So . . . who could it be who was now stealthily making for it?

My curiosity was greater than my fear. Since I had come here the conviction had grown up within me that I was going to make some great discovery. I could not help feeling that I was a stranger to myself and I must be so to a certain extent because I did not know whether I had actually lived through the greatest adventure of my life or dreamed it. I knew that until I could satisfy myself as to what really happened on the Night of the Seventh Moon, I could never understand myself and therefore never know real peace of mind.

Why investigating uncanny footsteps on the stairs should help me, I did not know. All I was aware of was that these pine forests were the scene of my lost six days and somewhere here I would find the secret. So I must leave nothing unexplored however remote it might seem to my personal affairs.

I hastily wrapped a dressing gown about myself and picked up a candle. I unlocked the door; I looked out along the landing to the winding staircase. I could distinctly hear the footsteps on the stairs above.

I sped up there, holding my candle as firmly as my trembling hand would allow. Someone was there. Could it be the ghost of the woman whose lover had deceived her and who had thrown herself down from the turret windows?

The candlelight flickered on the spiral stone stairs which were worn in the middle by hundreds of years of use. I was almost at the turret. There was the door. My heart leaped with fear, the candle tipped sideways and almost went out. A figure was standing at the door of the haunted room.