CHAPTER 13
'Did you get any footage this morning?' Adam leaned against the bureau and folded his arms.
Paul put away his camera. 'I have to save my batteries. I only have four. That gives me about eight hours of juice. And there's no way to recharge them out here.'
Adam watched Paul stack the equipment in the closet. His partner had a cute body, he had to admit. But Adam sometimes wondered if their relationship was built on anything besides the physical. Paul liked Times Square, and the place gave Adam the creeps. Paul liked coffeehouses and parties, and Adam liked curling up on the sofa with a good book. When it came right down to it, Paul was late-night MTV and Adam was weekend VH-1.
And there was the issue of adoption. Adam was ready to raise a child, to share the wealth of love in his heart. He had plenty of money from his inheritance. Enough to pay the adoption fees and lawyers, enough for the courts to be satisfied that Adam had that most-desired parental quality: that Adam would be able to afford whatever outrageously expensive toy was trendy each Christmas, so the child wouldn't grow up as a social outcast, snubbed by peers and forever despised by advertisers.
Adam was afraid in some small part of himself that he only wanted a child to tie Paul down. Paul was a bit of a free spirit, and even unknowingly hurt Adam by going on a weeklong cruise with an older man before Adam had mustered the courage to share his feelings. Paul had been faithful since, but Adam wondered if perhaps the right temptation had never arisen. In fact, he thought maybe you couldn't even call it 'faith' until that faith had survived a test.
'What do you want to do tonight?' Paul said. 'Go down for drinks?'
'You could have joined me for lunch.'
'Look, we don't have to spend every damned second together, do we?'
Adam didn't answer, because something shifted in the mirror, a flicker cast by the fireplace.
'What's wrong?' Paul said.
Adam rubbed his eyes. 'Nothing. I'm just a little messed up, I guess.'
Paul grinned. 'Oh yeah. Maybe you saw the woman in white. And you thought I was lying.'
'Too many other weird things are happening. I just saw-'
'Saw what?'
'I don't know. Just the reflection of the painting. I feel like… like everything's going out of control. I mean, we're fighting all the time and I'm supposed to care about your stupid video when you won't even listen to a word I say. And this place, it's getting on my nerves.'
'Come on, this is only our third day here.'
'And these problems are supposed to just go away?'
Paul's face clenched in anger. 'I don't have time for this right now. In fact, I never have time for these pointless arguments. All you want to do is talk in circles.'
'Look, I don't mind paying for this vacation, but I thought you were going to be working on your project-'
'Oh, here we go with that crap again. You and your money.'
Adam was on the verge of tears. Paul scorned tears and would say Adam was being a silly little girl. And Paul would say it with the smug superiority of someone whose emotions were always in check. Except the emotion of anger.
'Oh, Princess,' Paul said, coming to him, hugging him. 'Did someone upset the tea cart? Do you need another forty mattresses so you won't feel the pea?'
'Go away.' Adam pushed Paul's arms from around his waist. 'You bastard.'
Adam's vision blurred from rage. This was crazy. He never lost control like this.
'Fine, Princess,' Paul said. 'Don't bother waiting up for me.'
Adam sat on the bed as the door slammed. He wished they'd never come to Korban Manor. He stood and grabbed the bedstead, then started pulling the twin beds apart. When he had them in separate corners of the room, he looked up at the portrait of Korban.
'Paul can have the woman in white, and I'll have you.'
The fire roared its approval.
The horses were beautiful, sleek, their muscles bunched in grace. No wonder they were Anna's favorite animals. Once, before the fatalistic oncology report, she had dreamed of owning a stable and boarding horses. But that dream was as fleeting and insubstantial as all the others, whether the dream was of Korban Manor, Stephen, or her own ghost.
She heard an off-key whistle, what sounded like an attempt at 'Yankee Doodle,' and turned to see Mason walking down the road toward the barn. He waved and stopped beside her at the fence, then looked across the pasture as if watching a movie projected against the distant mountains.
'So, how's the ghost-hunting going?' he asked.
She didn't need this. Stephen was bad enough. At least Stephen believed in ghosts, though his ghosts had energy readings instead of souls. But Mason was just another self-centered loser, probably a blind atheist, cocksure that nothing existed after breath ceased. Atheists were far more proselytizing and smug than any Christian Anna had ever met.
'You know something?' she said. 'People like you deserve to be haunted.'
Mason spread his arms in wounded resignation. 'What did I say?'
'You don't have to say it with words. Your eyes say plenty. Your eyes say, 'What a lovable flake. She's bound to be impressed by a great artist such as myself and it's only a matter of time before she falls into my bed.' '
'You must have me confused with William Roth.'
'Sorry,' she said, knowing she was taking her frustration and anger out on a relatively innocent bystander. But no one was completely innocent. 'I'm just a little unraveled at the moment.'
'Want to talk about it?'
'Yeah. Like you'd understand.'
'Look, I've seen you taking your long walks, sneaking out at night with your flashlight. So you like to be alone. That's fine. So do I. But if weird things are happening to me, they're probably happening to you, too. Maybe even worse stuff, because no way in hell would I go out there in the dark.' Mason nodded to the forest that, even with the explosion of autumn's colors, appeared to harbor fast and sharp shadows.
'What weird things are you talking about? I thought you were a skeptic.'
'Ah. I figured I'd arouse your scientific curiosity, if nothing else. Have you seen George around?'
'George?'
Mason moved closer, lowering his voice as if to deter an invisible eavesdropper. 'How long does somebody have to be dead before he becomes a ghost?'
Anna looked at Korban Manor through the trees, at the widow's walk with its thin white railing, where her dream figure had stood under the moonlight. 'Maybe it happens before they're even dead.'
'Okay. How about this one? Can you be haunted by something inside your own head? Because I'm seeing Ephram Korban every time I close my eyes, I see him in the mirror, I see him in the fireplace, my hands carve his goddamned face even when I tell them to work on something else.'
'I think the shrinks call it 'obsessive-compulsive disorder.' But that describes every artist I've ever known. And ninety-nine percent of all human males.'
'Hey, we're not all assholes. And I wish you'd get off your personal vendetta against everybody who has a dream. Some artists are normal people who just happen to make things because we can't figure out how in the hell to communicate with people.'
'And some of us are normal people who search for proof of the afterlife because this life sucks in so many ways and humans always disappoint us. Ghosts are easier to believe in than most of the people I've met.'
'Truce, then. Obviously we're both crazy as hell. For a minute there, I was afraid we didn't have anything in common.'
That brought an unfamiliar smile to Anna's lips. 'All right. Let's start over. I guess you've heard all the ghost stories. About how Ephram Korban jumped to his death off the widow's walk, though the best legends claim that one of the servants pushed him to his death because of the usual reasons.'
'What reasons are those?'
