The Chosen

Vera could only stare. A single glance quelled all her doubts at once. It’s beautiful, she thought.

Huge, high as a castle, Wroxton Hall had been restored to a Gothic masterpiece. Its old bricks had been sandblasted to a new earth-red luster. Sheets of ivy had actually been replanted in the new grout. The first-floor windows stood ten-feet tall, each opening to smooth, granite-edged verandas. The building rose in canted sections. Awninged balconies protruded from the second-and third-floor rooms; garret-suites, like ramparts against the sun, extended along the top floor. The roofs of each story had been laid in genuine slate, with polished stone friezes running the entire length of each. The building, in whole, looked nearly a hundred yards long.

Words occurred to Vera. Magnificent. Gorgeous. Awesome. But none seemed quite good enough to be applied to what stood before her. Palatial. There, that was it.

Wroxton Hall was far more than a restored mansion. It was a palace. Feldspar had retained the beauty of its age while rebuilding the place at the same time. Extraordinary, Vera thought. Feldspar’s a genius.

The four of them got out but could only remain standing speechless in the court. Birds looked down on them from the roof’s fine iron cresting. Each frieze bracket sported a gargoyle’s face, and the corner boards shined in polished granite against the plush red brick outer walls. The new glass of each high, narrow window reflected back at them like mirrors.

Behind them the move-it! truck rumbled up and stopped, discharging two loutish hired hands. “Fuckin’ Dark Shadows, man,” the driver commented through a high gaze. “Some joint, huh?” the other one remarked. “Where’s Trump and Maria?”

This was better than Vera could ever even have conceived. Feldspar was quite right; Wroxton Hall provided a resort of the utmost exclusivity. The remote locale meant nothing now. Once word got around in the trade magazines, people from all over the country would be coming here. People from all over the world.

Her excitement surged so intensely it seemed to arrest her will to move. She attempted to step forward, toward the front steps, but found she could only remain where she stood, her gaze scanning the building’s incomparable exterior. When the reality of what she was seeing set in, her breath grew light, and she actually felt subtly dizzied.

Slate-topped red brick steps led to the double entry doors, sided by great polished-granite blocks which gave perch to lazing stone lions. More articulate friezework underlined the transom’s gray-marble ledge and stained-glass fanlight. Wedged directly center was a small keystone of pure onyx in which was mounted a round, cut amethyst as big around as a silver dollar.

Great brass knockers decorated the high, walnut doors. More gorgeous stained glass filled the sidelights, set into ornate, carved sashes.

“We live here?” Lee mouthed in astonishment.

“Yes,” Vera nearly croaked.

“Jesus Christ,” Dan B. remarked yet again.

“Are we going to stand here all day like four dopes,” Donna proposed, “or are we going to go in?’

A click resounded. Behind them, the heated fountain gushed. A black line formed in the elegant veneered walnut trim. Then the great front doors pulled slowly apart.

Feldspar stubbily stepped onto the wide stone stoop. He wore a fine heather-gray Italian suit, black shirt, and black silk tie. He let his eyes rove across their upturned faces, pausing. Then he smiled within the fastidiously trimmed goatee.