McCann's Manor (35 page)

"You know, you have a
very
active imagination! I think you're just grasping at straws now because you have had a couple of bad experiences. Just because there have been a few snakes in the grass involved with this house doesn't mean they
all
were, nor does it mean everyone is out to get you,” John said.

"No, it doesn't; I'll admit that much. But you know, places like this draw dark spirits to them,” Liz said.

"What
are
you talking about?” John asked.

"This
place
is a portal through time and space, John,” Liz pointed out. “There are
lots
of reasons to want to be in control of such a place, most of them selfish and greedy. Think of it. Being able to go back or forward through time is a great opportunity. You could steal great treasures and vanish into thin air to another place and time where no one would ever find you. You could tamper with history or use your knowledge of the future to set yourself up to become wealthy and powerful. Tarrh never used his portal for selfish gain, but I suspect Benjamin did at Spencer's insistence. But more than that; Benjamin learned to control the portal to transport himself through time to a
specific
date and place. Name me a dozen people who wouldn't be tempted by
that power
alone."

"Maybe Leonard
did
know about the portal and shared that knowledge with Adams,” Kim continued. “To Leonard it was just a game, but Adams saw it as an opportunity to do, or control, something. Maybe it started as an innocent desire to further medicine and turned into an obsession. Or maybe Liz is just being
paranoid
!"

Liz gave Kim a sideways glance, then rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe I
am
being paranoid. Or maybe Leonard was influenced by that part of Tarrh who was Moira and she wanted Leonard out of the way so she could further her own selfish ambitions. Tarrh suspected Moira had married him to have access to the portal and maybe she still has hopes of using it for her own gain somehow,” Liz said.

"What kind of hopes could she have now?” Kim asked.

"She is the demented sort, Kim; I
met
her, remember?” Liz asked. “I'm not saying any of her goals would be sane or even possible; just that she might still have designs on controlling the portal for her own purposes. Besides, with the company she kept, she probably has a few tricks up her sleeve! I wouldn't put anything past her."

Kim kept her silence a few minutes as she pondered what Liz had said. “
Nice
prospect,” she said at last. Her sarcasm stung. “But I'm ready to change the subject now. Anyone besides me want to take some extension cords and lamps, dustcloths and a vacuum into Ben's study and wade through the rubble of two hundred years; see what we find?"

"Hey, I'm ready! Let's go,” John said.

"Me, too,” Liz agreed. “Let's go!"

The week of Halloween rolled around without further paranormal adventure. Having finished their translations of Tarrh's manuscripts and books, they had located and explored all the hidden passages delineated in Tarrh's floor plans but found no additional manuscripts. More disappointing to Liz, they had found nothing in any of Ben's journals to indicate how he had accomplished the banishment of Tarrh's composite soul to the pit. The papers in Ben's hidden study gave no indication of the secret passages he himself had added to his own floor plan, nor did anything they found give them any hints where he might have stashed the rest of Tarrh's manuscripts or the rest of his own writings, if indeed they existed at all.

Kim and Liz had decided to clean all the hidden rooms and passages they had found and had rigged some rudimentary lighting to illuminate them dimly for the Halloween party. They thought it would make an interesting game for the psychics to show off their paranormal abilities by divining to find hidden passages and rooms. They only hoped no one would find any of Ben's hidden rooms they had yet to explore themselves. They planned to make a game of it, writing up a number of vague and misleading hints to hand out to each psychic. Each would be given a set of clues about a particular room, so each psychic, or group of psychics if their guests turned out to be numerous, would be concentrating on a different room in the manor. The parapsychologists would then have a certain length of time to study their clues and ask questions to clarify the hints they had received before they were expected to lead the others to their particular hidden passage. They omitted the crescent room, which bore Missy's bloody hand prints and still housed Tarrh's manuscripts and books, from the rooms they included in the game.

The
game
was both a smokescreen to prevent their finding passages Liz and Kim hadn't yet found, as well as a way to entertain their friends for the evening. They constructed a simple pine coffin much like the one they had found with Constance's corpse in it and put it in the passage in the hidden second level along with a lifelike dummy made up to look the way Constance had when they found her. Another dummy they placed downstairs in the vault in the parlor with a furry gray stuffed cat in keeping with the history of the place and the time of year it was. John had friends from California fix the dummies so they looked realistic enough to spook even the staunchest phantom hunter.

They decorated lavishly for the occasion and put low-watt bulbs in many of the lights to keep the place dark and mysterious. Together, they scripted a narrative to tell the history of McCann's manor, though they all agreed to keep the tale to McCann and his times and not to include Leonard or Missy—or Tarrh and his set of problems. John, dressed in a period costume and made up to look as much like Ben McCann as possible, would assume the role of Benjamin McCann's ghost and tell the tale as he led the grand tour through the mansion. If a guest failed to find his specific passage, they would all read the clues and see if anyone else could find it. If no one found that passage, Liz or Kim would reveal it, being careful if anyone heard a faint tale-tell click on the opening of any passage, to allow no one to enter that particular passage.

Liz wondered what Benjamin would think of having his home opened to a group of psychics, but since they had been thus far unable to summon him from beyond to discuss either that matter or anything about Tarrh, they resolved to proceed with their plans and to make it a fun evening everyone would remember fondly. John engaged a caterer friend to provide a veritable feast, each dish with a spooky name for the affair. They hand wrote special notes to invite Joel, Sheriff Peter Humphrey and his deputies, Mark, Willard the county coroner, and a number of the celebrities who lived at the Actor's Guild in addition to all the APG psychics. Everyone had replied to their invitations except Mark Adams, who had kept a cool distance from all of them in the days since his last visit.

Liz sat at her desk upstairs in the conservatory, working on some last minute decorations. She was thinking over the events of the past few weeks and wondering when and if they were ever going to be able to solve the mysteries that seemed to grow in number with each passing day. In her mind, at least, there were so many factors to be considered, she began to despair of ever finding an answer to any of them. She was still puzzled about Mark and his reaction to her recovery from her attack by Tarrh. He seemed like such a nice man, but now she wondered what his part in the story actually was—or if, as Kim and John had suggested, she was being too suspicious of everyone and everything now.

Too bad being psychic didn't really make her able to read the minds of others at will the way some people seemed to think. She would like to be able to see inside Mark's mind if only to learn whether he needed help to escape the clutches of spiritual manipulation. She would hate to let him continue to be tormented if he was an unwilling party to something sinister. Yet, more and more, she felt there was something
else
about him which made him want to get rid of her and Kim. What had his father been like and what had been his involvement with this house?

She jumped as Spooky the cat ran into the room and jumped up on her desk. “Hi, guy! Where have you been at this late hour?"

The cat meowed softly and began to purr as she stroked his silky fur. He rubbed against her face and meowed again, just to let her know he cared.

"What's the matter? Kim kick you out, or was it Ghost's snoring that ran you off?” she asked the cat.

He pushed against her hand until she put down her needle, closed the container of beads in front of her and moved her chair back a little to allow the animal access to her lap.

"Well, you're right; it
is
late. I'm almost finished, though, and I would like to get this done before I quit, but I can take some time to give your ears a good scratching,” she said.

They spent several minutes in mutual adoration as Liz indulged the little cat's need to be told he was truly as wonderful as he thought himself to be. Spooky seemed to be voicing the same belief about her as she doled out scratches and caresses to his ears and down his back. He was truly thrilled to be with her, she thought when, as though an electrical switch that controlled those purrs had suddenly been flipped off, he stopped purring and peered behind her in curiosity.

She watched his body language and instantly became aware of a shift in energy as he watched something—or someone—moving silently across the room behind her. He watched whatever it was come closer and closer to her until he was staring at something apparently directly behind her.

"What is it, boy?” she asked mechanically.

The cat continued to stare at the apparition behind her.

Liz took a deep breath, slowly turned to see what had him so interested, although she wanted to call for help instead of checking it out to see; as though if she didn't look, it would negate the presence she felt there behind her. As she turned, the cat sprang from her lap and ran from the room, growling.

Liz swallowed her heart as she continued to turn. She saw Benjamin McCann towering over her, as clearly as if it had been John. She looked up at him, swallowed again, tried to control the shallow breaths which bore witness to her state of near panic at Ben's sudden appearance.
Get a grip on yourself, girl; you have seen ghosts before,
she told herself. She waited for a sign or a word from him, but he continued to stare at her. She tried to remind herself Ben had never posed any threat to her, but all she could think about was that this might not truly be Benjamin McCann, but an impostor posing as Ben to get her trust before choking her or slapping a gigantic ring across her face—or some other as yet unthought-of atrocity.

What if this was
not
Ben at all, but Moira? In all the time she and Kim had been dabbling in parapsychology, they had never encountered a spirit as strong or as unpredictable as the one she had come to know as Tarrh. Having met Moira, Liz was now certain
she
was the one causing all the trouble; she was the strong one who refused to fit into the mold, the one who could materialize in any form she chose. Moira turned all the rules Liz had believed in all these years upside down and appeared to threaten her very sanity.

Benjamin seemed to know her thoughts, smiled at her warmly. “You have helped me and I would show my gratitude to you,” he said. “Timothy and I both owe you a great debt."

She peered at the floor then and saw Timothy standing beside Ben. The large gray fur ball jumped onto her lap as if on cue, began to purr and work his feet on her leg. “I'm glad to see you, Benjamin; and
you
, Timothy,” she managed to say at last. “I have some questions for you, Ben."

"You have learned the secret about Tarrh McCann, Moira and Sean,” he said. It was a statement of fact. “Now you require the knowledge I have hidden from the world all these years. I protected my secret rooms with high magic so no one could enter them and learn what I knew. Not even the specter you know as Tarrh, powerful as those combined beings are, could enter there. I protected the rooms from Spencer as well. Not only could he not enter them, he could destroy no part of the house to find what was in them."

"Why are you willing to share your secrets with me now?” Liz asked.

"You have a good heart and you are not interested in knowing for personal gain, but to help others, and that is as it should be,” he said. “Know this, however; once you know the way into my most clandestine of sacred space, you will be in more danger than before because they will be able to access my secrets through you and your thoughts, unless you protect your mind with all the fervor you would use to protect your very life. They can never enter this space, though, and you will be safe there. Even if they find the way to get into the pyramid, they will not be able to enter it, not even from inside your mind."

"Pyramid? What pyramid?” Liz quizzed.

"
My
pyramid, Elizabeth. Unlike my study, it is not visible from the outside of the house, but it
is
here and it is the only place you can depend on as totally safe space,” Ben informed her.

"Is that where your writings and the rest of Tarrh's are?” Liz asked.

"Aye. Do you want to see?” he asked.

"I
need
to see it, don't I?” she asked.

"If you would resolve this enigma, you must enter my high chamber and learn the wisdom I have reserved for you. I hoped one day someone would come here and prove worthy to learn the secrets; I had all but given up hope it would ever happen,” he told her.

"How can you be sure I will still prove worthy to know your treasured secrets?” Liz asked. “So many have proven themselves
unworthy
over the years—how can you
know
you can trust me? I'm as human as the others and humans are prone to such avarice."

"That is true. Yet you and your friend appear to be the last hope. Your Betty and John have agreed if you and Kimberly fail, no others will be brought here. The house will be closed and gradually fall back to the earth, its secrets taken with it to decay,” he informed her.

"John didn't tell me that! How can you know all these things?” Liz asked as her eyes caught a slight movement behind Ben. Kim had come in through the open door and stood peering at Liz and Ben.