Impression of Bones

  by

  Melanie Jackson

  Version 1.1 – November, 2012

  Published by Brian Jackson at KDP

  Copyright © 2012 by Melanie Jackson

  Discover other titles by Melanie Jackson at www.melaniejackson.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Chapter 1

  “Everyone says that Barclay Castle isn’t haunted, but I am of the opinion that everyone is lying,” Juliet Henry said to Raphael James. “That tower is thick with gloom and the acoustics make the wind sound like voices, and everything feels … wrong.”

  The mere introduction of the subject had her skin trying to crawl off her neck.

  “It actually gives you the shivers?” Raphael asked interestedly. In his experience with the lady, he was of the opinion that it would take a great deal to bother Juliet.

  “Shudders and screams and jumping—which thankfully no one else heard or saw.” Her rational mind was outraged by the suggestion that she was troubled by something supernatural, but facts were facts. Juliet trusted her gut as much as her mind when it came to sorting the likely but unproven assertions from merely feeble theories. But this time mind and gut were in conflict. She might not believe in ghosts but her senses forbade being alone in the castle tower. It was haunted, either by the sick thoughts of the living or by the residue of the dead. Every breath she took in that tower room made her feel increasingly unwell, and had there been a graceful way out of the project she would have taken it.

  “I’ll be glad when Esteban gets back. If he is willing, I’d like him to look a little more into the history of the place. It can’t be as clean as the PR people want us to think it is.” This seemed like a nice, rational thing to do. It wasn’t strange, like trying to find a priest to carry out an exorcism.

  “It was a reform school, yes?” Raphael went on cleaning his paintbrushes. “I imagine there were a great many unhappy youths housed there.”

  “And before that a tuberculosis hospital where people were even more unhappy. Everyone knows that old hospitals are haunted,” she grumbled. Life on the outside had taught her humility about her creative talents, but she had not been stripped of her factual understanding of the value of her other faculties. “There used to be an old cemetery there somewhere, but supposedly all the bodies were moved before it became a reformatory, so I doubt it’s anything to do with that.”

  Raphael changed the subject.

  “Tell me about the room you’ve been assigned. It has potential?”

  It had potential if anyone ever saw it. There wasn’t anything Juliet could do to alter the externals of the plain tower. Massive stones resisted all but the most intrusive and expensive interference from humans. But she hoped to give the inside a karmic remodel. It was badly needed.

  Juliet had agreed to take on the last room in a restoration project that was supposedly going to raise funds for several local charities. Artists were paired with interior designers and given rooms inside the castle to decorate/restore. After the open house tours and hoped-for media blitz, the castle would then be sold and the money divided among the charities. Most of the other rooms at the castle were completed. Juliet was the last to join the project and therefore had been given a room no one else wanted. She was beginning to wonder if it went unclaimed for reasons other than inaccessibility.

  Juliet had been somewhat skeptical of the venture, especially since she was coming onboard so late, but then she met Randolph Kingman III—Dolph to his friends and those he would have disarmed—and Juliet had allowed herself to be persuaded by his enthusiasm and salesmanship. And by her recognition of the fact that artists need a degree of fame. For their egos but also to help the bottom line, and those who said they didn’t were lying or already famous. To achieve this, one needed the media and this project could supply it.

  What artists didn’t want was criticism, especially from other professionals or critics, but no one would grumble too much since this was for charity, and Juliet knew that normally she would not have been asked to work on this type of project. It was, after all, for more established artists, but Dolph had purchased one of her Lake Tahoe landscapes on Raphael’s recommendation and decided to ask her to participate. She had been flattered and there was no denying that the man had an irresistible line of chat when he talked about commercial opportunities and the benefits of participating in the venture. That she quickly discovered she was being used as a way for him to get close to Raphael didn’t matter. The brilliant but reclusive artist could make mincemeat out of Dolph Kingman anytime he wanted to and she knew she had his blessing.

  However appealing the notion of economic solvency, brought about because she became the darling of the media, Juliet had known from the first that the project wasn’t in her line and now she was repenting, especially after getting acquainted with her interior design partner, the pathological liar Deborah Peters, who was supposed to make Juliet’s vision become flesh, or at least upholstery. So far she had required nothing of Deborah except that she supply a particular kind of canvas in eight-foot widths which Juliet was turning into tapestries. Whether the woman with her fake British accent as thick as peanut butter was seeing Dolph Kingman away from the project was another matter. If she was, she was only one among the many, or so the gossips said.

  “Is it that bad?” Raphael asked when the silence had stretched on for a while.

  Juliet shook her head. Raphael had been away so there was a lot she needed to explain.

  “I’ve been reluctant to face the extent of the disaster. It’s one of the tower rooms, so it’s round except in one four-foot area where there might have been a fireplace, though I don’t see how it could have been vented so maybe it was something else. In any event it’s been closed up with stone tiles. The walls are sprouting these hideous excrescences about every three feet just above eye level. They are supposed to be angels. Maybe Neanderthal angels, though mostly they look like pop-eyed toads. Anyhow, there is nothing to do but cover them up as much as I can with tapestries and hope no one gets nightmares from looking at them. They are high enough up that I think I will use them as a brace for a shelf that circles the room. Cutting a curved shelf was a pain, but there was nothing else to be done to cover the damned things, without being accused of vandalism of a historic treasure.”

  “Go on.” He knew she wasn’t finished.

  “You’ve seen pictures of the castle, right? So you know it isn’t gothic, isn’t baroque, isn’t even medieval. It’s just a kind of box with a round tower that is not even very perpendicular. Working in a castle, especially in an aerie, is supposed to be romantic. But it’s not. And the windows are so small that I had to ditch the idea about doing an observatory, which is a shame because I would have enjoyed painting some celestial charts and finding a brass telescope and things.”

  “And?”

  Juliet paused, wondering how to explain the psychic miasma that clung to her and how she found herself forced to excessive ablutions when she came home in an effort to wash the dirty feeling away. She supposed she could admit to resorting to strong tea and scones which she shared with the cat in order to have some company once it was dark.

  Some people believed that haunted houses could be cleansed. Juliet had thought about borrowing a power washer and giving it a symbolic try. But that would mean dozens of extension cords and leaking hoses and hauling the heavy machine up the stairs.

  And it probably wouldn’t work anyway, if the ghost was not anchored to the room. There were stories about some determined phantasms following their victims halfway around the world. Water, even holy water, wouldn’t get rid of anything really dedicated to its mission.

  Not that she believed in ghosts. Not really. It was just a feeling … one so strong it amounted to a premonition of doom.

  Raphael waited. That was one of the things she liked best about him. He didn’t rush her when she needed to think.

  “It sounds crazy and very California mystic, but the place gives off a bad vibe. And it would feel bad even without the dark rooms and the moaning wind that comes up every afternoon, though those don’t help. And there is a smell. I can’t pin it down, but in the afternoon when it’s hot and the wind is blowing it gets worse. I work in a constant state of alarm. Oh, it isn’t radon leaking out of the ground. I already checked.”

  “But this is interesting. What was the room used for after the castle was moved? A still room perhaps? That might account for lingering odors.”

  “Who knows? The castle is about nine hundred years old. It says in the brochure that the room was most recently used as a private chapel for the teaching staff. I think perhaps they tore out an altar or something and put in that fireplace. There is a place in the flat part of the wall where the stone doesn’t quite match the rest of the fortification. In fact, it looks more like tile than chunks of stone. It’s quite bothersome since it protrudes enough to interfere with the hangings. Maybe I can put a large painting over it.”

  “And what will it be repurposed as? You have a plan now that you’ve seen it?” Raphael had been away and this was their first chance to talk since she took on the project.

  “A yoga-meditation room.”

&nb

sp; “Motivating.”

  Juliet grunted.

  “It’s up about four stories, has no electricity or plumbing, and the only access is an uneven stair. Anyone who goes there will have to have tons of motivation. Besides, they already have every other kind of room from a gymnasium to a solarium.”

  “Have you had any troubles with Dolph? He’s a good businessman but his personal life is a bit of a three-act drama,” Raphael observed, changing the subject again. He knew Dolph and was aware of his habits. Dolph had a collector’s instincts. And not always for art.

  Dolph, she discovered after some investigation, had matriculated from a non-Ivy state college that specialized in frat parties. She didn’t hold that or the III at the end of his name against him. Her original dislike of him had had nothing to do with him being a self-invented man and trying to set himself up as west coast aristocracy. It was actually hard to say where the dislike had come from. Intuition perhaps. There was also the little matter of his not knowing Manet from Monet and not really liking either. Art was just a niche commodity market that he exploited.

  Later, she’d had more concrete reasons for distrusting him, but by then she was committed to the project and she had turned a blind eye to his morally reprehensible behavior.

  But even with one eye deliberately blinded, the other was working fine. Juliet thought about what she had seen while coming down the tower stairs the afternoon of the day before. Dolph had been rejected by one of the carpenters who had gone so far as to reach for her hammer when he refused to desist. He had been facing Juliet, who was standing in the shadows, and she had seen his face clearly. His usually lacquered hair was disarranged and his brown eyes seemed suddenly flecked with red sparks of anger, and in the throes of thwarted lust, unthinking enough to belong to a killer. In that moment Juliet had found him inhumanly repellant and had braced herself for violence. But the moment had passed before she had to intervene and he seemed to leave the carpenter alone the rest of the day. She had not come back the following morning and word was that she had quit the project.

  “Not yet. But it’s likely only a matter of time. He is usually sneaky and subtle about his harassment, but he’s one of those that has to hit on anything female. His ego demands it. As soon as the prey surrenders he moves on.” Mr. Third had so far kept his distance but he could not hide his python-like nature from Juliet any longer. She had sympathy for those who were younger and more attractive, and wondered from the first whether she should warn them about what she had seen. “I wonder if he has sense enough to keep his distance from me. If for no other reason than out of respect for you. I should hate to have to break his hands.”

  She could speak frankly about this to Raphael James. Juliet and her neighbor were not exactly a romantic item, but their relationship was more than just a sociological experiment, or something pleasant to fill up their spare time, a commodity which neither of them possessed in abundance and therefore held dear.

  “He has admitted to you that he is aware of our friendship?” Raphael asked after a moment, staring at the window before returning his gaze to her face.

  “Not in so many words. By the way, it was very brave of you to own me. There could be talk.”

  “Not at all. The pleasure is mine,” he said lightly. “But enough of this. Tell me now what else you have learned of this castle. I am very curious about your ghost. Surely the castle’s history suggests some possible identities for an unrestful spirit.”

  But Juliet hadn’t been able to discover much on her own. What was available on the Internet and in the tourist brochure was basic. Reading between the carefully edited lines, the Barclay family tree had spread wide from its roots in Manchester and had sent creepers out to take root in other lands, including the United States. One of the creeps had landed in California. Through the years the limbs had broken off and died out until the last California Barclay was no more. The castle lived on though, financed through a trust. The expensive folly built—or rebuilt, since the basic castle had been brought over from Scotland—in the 1890s had become a hospital in the 20s and a reformatory in the 40s. But then the trust ran out of money and the castle reverted to some distant cousin in Manchester, England. It was a case of the sins of the children being visited back on the fathers.

  Upkeep was larger than the withering family tree could maintain and the new owner had not been able to find anyone in the UK who wanted to invest in a white elephant. The cousin was an intimate of Dolph’s and was persuaded to turn over the rat-infested ruin to Dolph’s charity and to take the tax deduction, and let Dolph worry about those pesky property taxes and expensive retrofit to bring the castle up to code for earthquake safety.

  “There was one bit of creepiness already that somehow didn’t make the papers. There is an underground tunnel leading no one knows where since it has caved in at the far end and the gardens were left to go to wrack and ruin. The tunnel basement was used as a morgue in the twenties and then bricked up when the castle was converted to a reform school. The workmen opened it up and found that there were lots of old cots down there, and one body found buried in some rotting mattresses. The wall was a real hurry-up job—shoddy workmanship that is way below code—so they tore the wall down and replaced it with one that’s up to code. They have removed the body, of course. There was a thought that it could be the head nurse who disappeared around this time, but the autopsy of the remains, such as they were, showed that the person had tuberculosis and therefore was probably a patient. No one thinks there is anything sinister about the death, just gross carelessness among the staff at gathering up the cadavers when they shut the hospital down. Dolph wanted to leave the tunnel open for the tour. A bit of ancient ghoulishness is good for ticket sales but he was made to see that it will make a good wine cellar and local wineries are willing to stock it.”

  “Could this neglected patient be your ghost?”

  “You know, I don’t actually think there is a ghost ghost,” she finally said. “Not a black monk or a white lady or anything with an organized personality. It’s just that the place is … troubling. It smells neglected and it echoes, and it is always dark. It is like the very stones are saturated with misery that spreads over you, so being inside is depressing. Which I know sounds crazy. I just wish you could visit and see what I mean. Maybe I’m just being fanciful because the people working there aren’t very nice and it has made me paranoid.”

  “Well, I can visit,” he said calmly. “I’ve a week before I need to return to Quebec.”

  Juliet blinked.

  “It isn’t handicap accessible. Not yet,” she said regretfully because her disappointment was keen.

  “Arrangements can be made. Recall that I know the project manager and he has been trying to convince me to paint a mural in what will be the dining room since it began.”

  “You’re kidding. That would be great. I mean, you visiting—not painting a dining room mural. The room is now stainless steel modern. Good God, is the man a heathen?”

  “Worse, a capitalist with pretensions of culture. Don’t worry. I shall not be discommoded one whit more than I wish to be.” Raphael seemed to find the very idea amusing.

  Chapter 2

  Juliet felt more cheerful the next morning and was even able to talk optimistically about the project as she drove Raphael out to the castle. He had made formal arrangements to see Barclay, probably by indicating that he was possibly interested in doing something for the project. Dolph had been surprised, but not wanting to miss an opportunity he had sensibly suggested that they use an antique carrying chair to get him up and down the stairs and had detailed two men to help with that. Raphael would use his portable wheelchair for the rest of the tour.

  The day was bright and the farther inland they traveled, the more pronounced the smell of baking stone and pine became. The weather showed no awareness that it was not technically summer yet and went on cooking the countryside in its harsh light. She and Raphael eventually fell silent under the bombardment of heat and Juliet began to feel slightly sleepy.

  The area around the castle grounds was heavily wooded, but they began to catch glimpses of the fortress between the trees. Juliet pointed out the original parts of Barclay which presently was an open square design with one lone round tower. The castle’s modern add-ons, which included a garage, were done in slightly redder stone but it was not particularly noticeable because of all the trees and creepers rampaging up the walls. Though the castle was being retrofitted to some degree, an effort was being made to preserve the plants on the front side of the castle.

 

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