NOVEL WEB The White Lady
She used the key Katarina had given her to let herself in through the side door. The house was quiet, except for the sound of static coming from the television in the parlor. Cally went in to shut it off and was surprised to find Nell still there. She had fallen asleep on the sofa, and someone had covered her with a crocheted throw, so Cally left her there and went back out to the Hall. George was standing on the third step from the top of the stairs, wearing a long, gray robe with the hood pulled up over his head.
“Let me guess. Gandalf?”
“No,” said George. “Jimmy Page. I have discovered there are videos on your music player device, too!” He played a brutal riff on his air-guitar and sang a few lines from “Ramble On.” He had a good voice, Cally thought, but he was no Jimmy Page.
She wished she could hug him. “Okay, but no Stairway!” she teased. George pushed back the hood of his robe, gazing down at the stairs in confusion. “Sorry,” Cally said. “I have never put that song on my player, but I’ll download it tomorrow, just for you.”
“You’re in a good mood. Did you have another date with that young prince?”
“It wasn’t a date,” said Cally. “I am in a good mood because somebody around here finally gave me some straight answers, for a change.”
George looked hurt. “I always give you straight answers,” he said.
“Where is everyone?” Cally asked him. “All in bed already?”
“I don’t know. I only just got here.”
“And where do you go when you’re not in the halls? I thought you couldn’t roam far from the Gallery.”
“Just a while ago I was in Ankh Morpork,” he said. “And that is a straight answer.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying the e-reader.” Cally put a hand on the knob of the front door and found it unlocked. “I’m going to do a check around of all the patients,” she said to George. “I hope we can talk tomorrow.”
“Sweet dreams,” he said. He pulled the hood back up over his head and uttered some very credible light-saber noises as he parried an imaginary foe below him on the stairs. At least, Cally hoped it was imaginary.
She put her head outside the door and asked the Captain if he was alright. He waved, gesturing with his flask at the brooding sky, and told her he’d be just a few more minutes.
She shook her head gently and smiled, then turned and knocked on Joan’s office door. Hearing no reply, she opened the door and tiptoed inside, nearly tripping over the fragments of a broken tea mug just inside the threshold. She had a pretty good idea she could guess the story behind that. Joan herself was asleep with her head on the arm of the sofa. Her injured foot was hanging down to the floor, and Cally was sure that was against doctor’s orders. Praying she would not wake her, Cally carefully lifted the foot in its cast and maneuvered it back onto the cushion while Joan snored softly on. Cally thought Joan almost looked peaceful in her sleep, but then she jerked and muttered something that was probably a complaint before falling silent again.
“I guess she must have decided to take that pain medicine after all,” Cally thought. She looked at the pill bottle on the end table. It was definitely not full any longer. “Not an addict, are we?” Cally murmured. She tiptoed across the room and went up the spiral stairs to fetch a blanket and a pillow from Joan’s room. With these she tried to make the sleeping woman as comfortable as possible, then picked up the shards of the tea mug and left the room.
George was no longer on the stairs as Cally went up them to check on Bethany. She found the daffodil-printed covers pushed to one side of the empty bed, but she didn’t panic this time. Seeing the bathroom door shut, she knocked and called “You’d better not be taking a shower!”
“I’m not!” Bethany called back, laughing. “I’m taking a bath!” The sound of splashing could be clearly heard through the door.
Cally sighed, but was glad Bethany was feeling better. “OK, just please call me when you’re ready to get out, so I can help make sure you don’t slip. Knock on the wall. I’ll hear you.”
Bethany promised to do so, and Cally slipped back out into the Gallery
A light shone under the door of the Cala Lily room and Cally could hear the Delaneys through the door, talking in animated tones about the wonders of the architecture they had observed that day. Their little dog was silent, though Doctor Boojums was sitting a few feet away from the door, looking as if he might be considering stirring up some trouble by scratching at it.
Cally unlocked the Rose Room door, and was dismayed but not surprised to see her laptop on the desk, open and powered on. This, she was determined, she would not get used to, not ever, and would get to the bottom of it and put a stop to it.
The chat program was running, and this reminded Cally she had asked Emerald earlier to join her for a chat tonight. She was late for the meeting she herself had arranged. She sat down to type an apology, but the screen was already full of messages from Emerald, and none of them were the usual greetings and niceties. Emerald had apparently been trying to contact her for quite some time, and the entire screen was full of text.
Emerald<< Cally, something is not right. I think you should leave.
Emerald<< Are you there? Is everything OK?
Emerald<< Seriously, I hope you’re not there.
Emerald<< Listen to me. If you’re there, just get out of the house.
Emerald<< Just get in your car. Text me once you’re on the road. I’ll send Errin.
Emerald:: Cally, are you there? Where are you?
Cally had started to type something reassuring when another message scrolled across the screen.
Emerald<< CALLY GET OUT OF THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW!!!
“People who use all caps” were the butt of some of the favorite jokes between them, so Cally knew Emerald must be serious. She typed “Why?” but before she could press the Enter key to send the message, she heard a crashing sound in the hallway, and a woman’s voice calling “Help me!”
Cally ran into Bethany’s room, where the door to the bathroom was still closed. “Bethany, are you OK?” she called through the door with her hand already on the knob.
“I’m still fine!” Bethany called back, laughing. “Almost done! Give me just a few more minutes.”
It hadn’t been Bethany’s voice, anyway, Cally was sure. She went back out into the hallway and ran to the Cala Lily room. She could still hear the Delaneys chatting amicably inside, but the butler’s desk outside the door had been completely disarranged. Its little drawers and compartments hung open, and papers and bric-a-brac lay scattered over the carpet.
“Help me!” came the call again; it was coming from the stairs. Cally turned to see an old woman standing on the top step, pale and frail and white haired, dressed in a long white gown.
“The real White Lady!” Cally breathed.
When the woman saw Cally, she ran toward her. Cally had thought she was used to spirits by now, but this truly frightened her and she shrank back, covering her face with both arms. By the time she steeled herself to look up, the woman had run past her and opened the door to the backstairs. Standing in the open doorway. She looked at Cally with huge eyes and called, “You have to help me!”
Cally gathered her courage and approached the doorway as the figure disappeared into it. The only light in the narrow stairwell came from the open door at the bottom, where the fleeing figure had stopped to open the door to the back hall. Apparently, unlike George, this specter could touch things.
It ran out into the back hall, then, while Cally still hesitated. She heard the Delaneys’ dog start to bark as Doctor Boojums ran up behind her and dashed between her legs – or did he run right through them? – and down the stairs to the open doorway below. “Fine!” she said, and followed.
The figure in white had paused in the back hall as if waiting for her, but when she had nearly caught up to it, it ran away toward the kitchen. It did not enter the kitchen, however. Instead it opened a narrow door across from the kitchen and disappeared into the darkness inside. Cally followed, and stopped once more as damp, musty air from the dark doorway struck her face. Groping inside for a light switch, she put her foot out into nothing. This was, apparently, the cellar stairway, and with all her heart Cally did not want to go down those stairs.
“Help!” the voice called plaintively from somewhere below. Cally felt with her foot for the top step, still unable to find a light switch. Her groping hands came to rest on a pipe railing, and she used this to feel her way down the first three or four steps until her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. She could just make out the white figure waiting below. As soon as her gaze came to rest on it, it ran again, still calling for her to come and help it.
Cally took a deep breath and felt her way down the rest of the stairs, brushing aside cobwebs, and other things she didn’t want to know about, that kept catching in her hair. As she reached the bottom, the room was suddenly filled with light. The white lady had opened a door, and the light from the room that lay beyond it seemed dazzlingly bright compared to the darkness of the cellar.
She followed as it slipped through this door, then stopped, squinting against the brightness.
The room was painted in cheerful pastel colors, though there was no sign of Bethany’s floral decorating style. A four-poster bed stood in one corner, and the rest of the room, though small, was crammed with bookshelves and curio cabinets, each overflowing in turn with knickknacks, books, and framed photos. Silk draperies at one side appeared to be merely nailed to a blank wall, and the ceiling above was an open network of rafters and ducts and electrical wiring.
The woman in white was crouched over something on the floor. She shrank back as Cally came closer to see the sprawled figure of a man, lying face down just inside another doorway on the opposite side of the room. It looked as if he had fallen down the flight of wooden stairs which rose beyond the door. The old woman knelt a few inches away, wringing her hands and watching Cally, begging for help. Cally finally began to understand: this woman was not a ghost at all. Her rheumy eyes were brimming with very human tears; her white garment was not an antebellum ball gown but merely a threadbare cotton nightgown printed with faded lavender flowers. Her thin, bony hands plucked at the man’s shirt sleeve as she pleaded in the voice of a truly heartbroken, very real woman. “You have to help me,” she said again. “Johnny won’t wake up!” Cally knelt beside her and with some effort turned the man over just enough to see his face. It was Ian May.
Before Cally could begin to piece this together in her mind, Foster appeared on the stairs beyond the doorway, holding a thick sheaf of papers in one hand and a large flashlight in the other. A whiff of kerosene accompanied him. “What in hell?” he said, looking down at the lady in white. He was clearly just as mystified about her as Cally was. “What is this place? Who is she? What is going on here?”
Cally spread her arms, indicating the whole room, and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I think she brought us to help Ian.” She loosened Ian’s collar and was relieved to find he had a pulse. She assured the old woman about this, putting a comforting hand on her thin, trembling shoulder. The woman flinched, wide eyed, at her touch, but she did not back away. Cally said to Foster, “You should call for Ignacio. I think he’s has some paramedic training.”
“Yes,” Foster said, coming the rest of the way down the stairs and looking around. He put the stack of papers down on the bed. Fishing his phone out of his pocket with one hand, he reached to put the flashlight on the bookshelf. Then he turned and struck Cally over the head with it.