The curse .
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” she murmured. “It was just a thought.”
He nodded. “You look tired, Eleanor. Try to get some sleep and forget about tomorrow. I realize now that it escaped me how hard this week must be for you. Unlike you and Frank, I never had an attachment to this place.” He glanced around the room. “Strange, but I always felt uncomfortable here growing up, as though the hotel wanted me out of from under its roof as much as I wanted to leave. It seems to choose its master.” Then he shook his head. “Bah, don’t listen to me. Just a middle-aged man with a touch of nostalgia. Go on to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, uncle.”
The hallway was dark when she left his office. Shadows shifted outside as the wind blew vigorously. It surprised her how short the days were becoming. Dark clouds snuffed out any light from the full moon.
Despite her uncle’s suggestion, and no matter how tired she felt, she knew if she went to bed she wouldn’t fall asleep. Instead, she headed into the library. She lit the gas fireplace and it roared to life, spreading a warm glow through the room. She went to her father’s favorite chair and curled up in its massive leather embrace.
The fire reflected something, a silver flash to her right. She glanced at the table beside her. There on the glossy surface, as if her father had just been sitting there and set it down, lay the worn hardcover volume of Poe’s poems and short stories. The silver engraved letters had caught the firelight.
She picked it up, the aging cover smooth beneath her fingers. She opened the book the way she might pick up the phone to call an old friend.
The pages opened directly to The Fall of the House of Usher . Trying to remember the story, she came up with images of a dilapidated home on the brink of ruin, amidst a boggy island landscape, and a man who barely escapes with his life after the house and its inhabitants deteriorate before his eyes.
“Okay, on to something that doesn’t remind me of my life.” She flipped the pages.
The next place she stopped, she read the title Nevermore . “There came a tap-tap-tapping as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door...” Quothe the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Shadows in the room seemed to lengthen, darkening around her. She shut the book and set it on the table.
Then it dawned on her. I thought I put the book on the shelf, when Carter and I found the secret room . A chill wracked her body. Suddenly she smelled the cherry-tobacco scent of pipe smoke.
“Daddy?” Ellie bolted from the chair. Then she scoffed at herself. “Don’t be absurd.”
While she may believe in the family curse, she didn’t believe in ghosts.
Besides, the scent was too strong to be the wisp of a memory or a figment of her imagination. She heard a noise, shuffling, bottles clinking. It all came from the behind the bookshelf that led to the abandoned speakeasy.
Could it be Carter?
Maybe he’d come back. He might be taking stock of the remaining cases and barrels down below. Perhaps even using his architectural gifts to plan a refurbishment of the fascinating space. After all, no one knew about the cellar except herself, Carter, James and her uncle.
“It has to be him.”
She ventured closer to the secret door and saw a five-inch gap between the bookshelf and the wall. A tide of relief washed through her, hoping Carter had returned.
Carefully descending the steps in the dark, she rounded the downward spiral staircase toward the large metal door. It stood wide open. Faint light glowed on the stone walls of the stairwell.
“Hello,” she called out.
The shuffling went still.
Followed by silence.
She ventured into the room. An old kerosene-fueled lantern rested on the bar, emitting dim light that cast thick shadows. One of the few cases she’d kept for clients had been moved and opened. Two empty bottles lay on the floor.
“Is someone here?”
A shadow leaped into her vision.
“Oh!” It was Arnoff. “Geez, you startled me. I heard noises coming from down here.”
“I heard about this cellar.” He slurred his words.
“Arnoff, do you know what’s in those bottles?”
“Rum. Good , rum.” He weaved as he walked toward her. “Like the color of your eyes. You’re a beautiful creature.”
A smelly fingertip traced her face from her cheek to her chin. She nudged his hand away. He hiccupped.
“That’s no ordinary rum.” She was irritated he’d helped himself, especially since this was the last of the stock. “It’s been aging for ninety years. It’s highly concentrated, probably two-hundred-proof by now. And it’s worth a fortune.”