I poked Shay almost as hard in her ribs as she’d leveled me earlier that evening when I was bugging her about Fritz. “Did she say Atlantis?”
“Stop that! ” she murmured. “What’s this about a séance? Did your mother send her? “
“Minette has gone off to the wilds of Tibet for some annual Wiccan Catholics conference and she’s not up on the latest comings and goings of her baby which is such a shock to me I’m still processing the freedom. But there’s no way Minette is going to be contacting Southern Belles to pop in during blizzards to commune with the departed. She’d be hijacking her to go to Tibet instead.”
“Well then, where did Ms. Lee come from?”
“Atlantis.”
“Oh shut up. You’re hopeless.”
We suddenly realized that our voices had been rising and our little discussion was now being intently followed by all the occupants of the sitting room. Auraliah Lee smiled at us.
“Ladies? Would y’all care to sit down? I can’t staht the séance until ever’one is seated. Ever’one? Ah am Auraliah Lee. My friends call me Aura Lee.” She winked at me. “Yes, Abby, just like the old Army theme song that sounds just lahk Love Me Tender.”
How the heck did she know my name? Could it be my mother wasn’t in Tibet? Had Minette Dumas Fouchet flown back to Texas and had met Aura Lee during a connection in Atlanta (where all flights connect, including, I now strongly suspected, those of the newly dearly departed.) The only other plausible answer was that my buddy Jane Doe, aka Madam Euphoria, had run into Aura Lee at a psychics and mediums church social in New Orleans, then sent her to Prague to harass me since she herself didn’t have the time.
The soft Southern tones were compelling. No way was I going to remain standing. Ms. Lee was bound to soon start explaining why she was here. And how in blazes she’d gotten here. I’d seen no car just outside the door. No snowmobile. Apparently she’d just transported her short frame through the snowy air and landed right at the nose of the dragons.
I sat, silent. Everyone sat, silent.
“Well, now, ever’one’s here? Yes? Good. We don’t need a big ol’ table to have a lovely séance. But ah do ask that everyone hold hands because we must link to one another for the spirits to join us.”
I raised my hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But it’s been a really strange day and this is now becoming a really strange night. Uh, no offense, but why are you here? In words of one syllable, preferably.”
She giggled like a girl half her age. “Oh, Honey, ah’m so sorry, didn’t ah explain?”
I smiled. “No, not exactly, Ms. Lee.”
“Well, now, ah’m here to conduct a séance so we can get at the truth and let a tortured spirit fahnd peace at last.”
“Uh, what truth?”
She giggled again. “Well, now, that’ll come out when the truth is revealed, won’t it?”
I was getting a headache all over my body. And sadly, it appeared I was the only one in the group who had a problem with the circles I was chasing. Corbin and Jozef both looked a bit nonplussed but they stayed silent. Johnny appeared amused. Shay, my traitorous buddy, had already grabbed Fritz’ hand and closed her eyes and seemed eager to commune with the spirits. I knew her. She was just glad she’d been given an opportunity to hold Fritz’ hand. Lily, Franz, Mitchell, and the two remaining Duskova sisters all seemed tense, but ready to partake in whatever ritual Auraliah Lee from Atlanta/ Atlantis had prepared.
What the hell. We were in a haunted castle where a dead body had been discovered less than twelve hours ago. A ghostly flautist had been entertaining me since I first arrived at Kouzlo Noc. The clone of Miss Hannah Hammerstein sat across from me in all her delicate glory. One piano tuner had died less than a week ago and the new one was being romanced by my best friend who would doubtless drop the poor kid the instant she returned to Manhattan and her baseball-pitching boyfriend. An elderly bookseller was gifting me with books on Masonic symbolism in the hopes I could solve a two- hundred-year-plus puzzle. Historians were digging through graves hoping to find a magic flute on a coffin. The man I loved was keeping our relationship secret out of some misguided knight-in-shining-armor attempt to keep me safe but was at least taking occasional time outs from creating murals and bringing in dead bodies to sneak in some aerobically-charged kisses. Circumstances kept going from bizarre to just plain weird. So a séance to learn the truth about a question no one had asked just seemed pretty normal for the week. Rev it up.
Johnny grabbed my left hand. Jozef grabbed my right. I looked around. Hands cozily encased by other hands with no break in the chain. Or circle.
In the midst of my inner monologue about various loony events experienced by Abby since first encountering Kouzlo Noc, someone had turned the lights off. The fireplace reflected the shadows of faces and added a nice scary touch to the whole event. We were ready.
Sideline: One could presume that with the rather odd abilities prevalent in Minnette Dumas Fouchet’s genetic make-up, séances had been like laundry day back home in El Paso. A normal occurrence. Not so. The first semi-séance I’d attended had been when I was ten and two friends from Miss Anita’s Dance Studio and I had tried out a Ouija board older than we were to ask some questions to the great Nijinsky about what it had been like dancing for Mother Russia. He never responded and we tossed the board.
The only other séance had taken place in Manhattan over a year ago with one Madam Euphoria had been a far different affair. In fact it had been a disaster filled with high drama and frightening revelations. I’d avoided the séance scene ever since.
Now I sat, with more than a little trepidation, and waited to discover how Aura Lee planned to ferret out “the truth.”
“Well, now, y’all. Again, thank you for bein’ willin’ to allow me to guide y’all tonight. Such a cold naht too. But that’s not relevant raht now, is it? Okey-dokey. So, movin’ raht along heah, I’d lahk to ask the spirit of Baron Smetana to join us. Baron, are you theyah?”
A new voice boomed into the small space of the sitting room. It spoke in Czech. Jozef translated. “I am Baron Stanislav Smetana. Why do you bring me back to this house of torment where I died so badly?”
Ms. Lee never skipped a beat. “Stanislav? It’s okay if ah just call you that, isn’t it?”
There was no answer so I guessed ol’ Stan didn’t have a problem with dispensing with formalities. Aura Lee continued, “Now, you’re a good Czech and always have been, but would y’all mahnd speakin’ in English for those of us who just aren’t up on our language skills?”
The next words by Stanislav Smetana were in English. I wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Aura Lee could talk the devil himself into opening a lemonade stand in the very bowels of Hades. The fact that Baron Smetana had doubtless never heard a syllable of English didn’t faze a soul here. Aura Lee resumed her questioning of the man—spirit—whatever.
“Tell us wahy you need to speak to us toonaht, Stanislav?”
“I want the truth revealed. I have watched through the centuries as the lies poisoned the Duskova family. It is time for truth and time for peace and time for me to be at rest.”
The sentiments were nice but I was ready for the meat. Were we about to hear who had murdered Ignatz Jezek? Would Baron Smetana spill the beans as to where Ignatz had hidden the magic flute?
Apparently the answer was ‘no’ to both questions. For the story the ghost had to tell had taken place in the Seventeenth Century, long before Ignatz had even set eyes on Kouzlo Noc, much less charmed the inhabitants with his musical talent.
I pulled my focus back to the sonorous tones of the dead man.
“I came to Kouzlo Noc in the year of our Lord 1621. I am a good soldier when my country needed me. I am also a good Catholic. An honorable man– or I was before I learned to hate. I was sent here by order of King Ferdinand to rule at the castle and be certain that the peasants returned to their Catholic beliefs.”
I’m not exactly an expert in Czech history, but I did remember reading a long blurb in my guide book about King Ferdinand II, who took over in 1620 or so and knocked years of religious tolerance right out on its holy—uh -ear. Protestants who’d been worshipping for a century without fear of reprisal suddenly were forced to be part of the Vatican family again. Ferdinand even executed a group of something like thirty men who had fought to keep religious freedom a going concern. It had been a tough time of transition in Czechoslovakia.
But the Baron was telling his story, so I pulled my focus back, wondering when we’d get to flutes and Mozart—if ever.
“Ferdinand did not want the rich land destroyed.” He paused. “I am a simple man and I do not always understand the ways of kings but I was not given a choice. I was to take control of the castle and the lands in the name of King Ferdinand the Second. I did. With no weapon used; no blood spilled. The Duskova family surrendered to me as a wise family ought when they see the outcome will be one of despair unless they choose peace.”
Aura Lee gently prodded the spirit. “What happened? Wahy did dishonah fall upon you and yours? Please tell those that ah gathered in this room on this hallowed night.”
The disembodied voice continued. In this last week, I’d heard one ghost playing a flute, another playing Cole Porter and finally a sweet old lady singing early Eric Clapton as she left her ancestral home for the last time. Musical spirits. I was comfortable with it. Music was a genteel way to listen to those who’d passed into that good night. I found I didn’t like the chatter issuing forth from—whomever. It was as though I was watching a piece of theatre. Aura Lee and Stanislav Smetana were onstage and the rest of us were in the audience. And even with my ghost-listening and ESP experiences I couldn’t help the phrase forming in my head ”this is one big crock.”
I focused hard on his next words.
“The Baron of Kouzlo Noc agreed to let me rule over his lands and in return I asked his guidance in that ruling. He agreed and for the first months of 1621, we lived in harmony.”
“And then?” Aura coaxed.
“Then his daughter, Marie, returned to the castle. She had been away at the time of the invasion, visiting family in Bohemia. We fell in love. Yes, she loved me as deeply as I loved her, although, she had been raised Lutheran. She soon saw the truth of my faith and converted back.”
Uh oh. I could see where this was headed already. Heck, anyone who’s ever stayed home with a cold and watched daytime dramas while eating chicken soup and ice cream and trashing tissue boxes could see where this was headed. The makings of the ”yeah, you can have my lands but you can’t have my daughter, you greedy, religiously arrogant sonovabitch” had begun at Kouzlo Noc the day the lovely Marie happened to catch the eye of Stan here.
I was right. And Stanislav—dead and from another century far removed from mine—apparently had a sense of humor, because he seemed to note the triteness of his story. With English getting more colloquial by the second, Baron Smetana continued. “It is an old tale and perhaps an all too familiar one. I recall a drama in my day by a poet of Britain that addressed very much this same feud although he set his tale in Verona. Yes, my friends, Marie’s father did not approve, but, unlike a man of honor, he did not let his feelings be shown. He waited until four months after our wedding night. Eduard Duskova, Marie’s parent, came to our room in the north wing of Kouzlo Noc and stabbed me in the back as I lay sleeping with my beautiful wife. He then dragged my body to the window and threw me to the rocks below. Marie was screaming even as her father pushed her across the ledge of the window to her death.”
The nasty father bit was certainly clichéd and the murders had happened four centuries ago, but I found myself suddenly blinking back tears. I could hear the screams of the young bride as she was pushed to an early death by someone she trusted with her whole heart. The man who’d provided his seed to give her life had taken it from her at an age far too young to die. No wonder Baron Stanislav Smetana was still haunting Kouzlo Noc. Royally pissed couldn’t begin to nail the feelings he’d stored up for four centuries.
Auraliah Lee held up her hand for silence since several of the séance attendees were murmuring in shock and sympathy. She smiled. “Ah understand y’all’s feelins, really I do, but Mr. Smetana needs to finish this, allrighty?”
No one spoke. The silence was so complete and solid that when the Baron spoke again it sounded huge and loud in the small space.
“My Baroness… my Marie…and I were to announce the arrival of our first child the next day. It is what drove him to murder us both. He would not let his lands forever go to the child of his Catholic enemy. Worse, after he murdered us, he spread the lie that I had taken his daughter by force, killed her, and he was glad I had had the grace to jump from that window and put an end to my life. The horror of this lie was that the priest believed I had killed myself. I was not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. Three souls left this earth that night. My wife and unborn child remained together and I believe—I am certain—that they have reached heaven, but I was separated even in death by a man’s lies and hatred. In my anguish and grief and pain over their loss, I cursed the Duskova family for the next twenty generations.”
I tried to do a swift count in my head but my cousin Remy is the savant in mathematical disciplines in the Dumas family, so I wasn’t sure whether Veronika and Marta were still living under that cloud or not. If a generation is considered twenty-five years, multiply that by twenty and if I was right, the Baron’s curse was good until about 2121. Ouch.
Stanislav began to sob. “I have learned that hate destroys those who feel and speak that hate, as well as ruining those that he has cursed. I have existed in a limbo of despair for centuries, neither in hell nor in heaven. I miss my family. I want to rejoin them in eternal rest and peace and I want to tell the world that Eduard Duskova was a killer, but that his family, and the generations of family I blindly cursed, were innocent.”
Veronika was sobbing. She broke the circle on the side holding Jozef’s hand but pulled Marta up next to her as she stood and faced the pale presence of this tortured spirit. “I am so very sorry for wrong of my ancestor doing, and I am so sorry for child who never knew life. Stanislav, I forgive you for your curse if you forgive Duskovas that hass made you anguished soul.”
Marta nodded in agreement with her sister. She probably hadn’t even caught enough of the story in English to understand the Baron’s words, but the emotion was the same in any language and I’d felt from the first day I met her that Marta was a gentle and kind woman.
With a voice that was fading and raspy, the Baron whispered, “I bless you. You and all of yours. I thank you. I have only one request more of you.”
This could be interesting. Or dicey.
Veronika waited. We all waited.
“I wish to be buried in the cemetery with my wife and child with a headstone that tells the world my name and theirs so the truth will out. I wish a priest to say a Requiem Mass for my soul.”
Veronika nodded. “I will see that this is done. God bless you.”
Aura Lee got in the last word. “Goodbye, Baron. Requiescat in Pace.”
He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. It was so ridiculously fast that for a moment I wondered if the whole thing had been a mass hallucination brought on by too much snow and grief, but when I looked around I saw that everyone was accepting the Baron’s story and subsequent dispellation of his curse as though they’d just attended a pleasant tea party.
Aura Lee reached over and clicked on the lamp she’d douse what seemed like hours ago. I checked the clock on the mantle over the fireplace. Twelve-thirty. The whole séance had lasted less than half an hour. Aura Lee calmly headed for the rack, donned her coat, her hat then wrapped the muffler around her neck three times.
“Ah’m goin’ now. It was real nice to meetcha’ll and I hope we have occasion to get togethah in the future.”
She was out of the room and at the back door almost before any of us had snapped out of the trance or shock or whatever we’d been in for thirty minutes. Shay and I took off after her then politely held the heavy door open for her as she stepped out into the frigid night.
The blizzard was still raging. I couldn’t even tell if the snow was sticking with the fierce winds blowing. The visibility was nil.
“Aura Lee. You can’t go out in this. You can’t even see. Where’s your car? There’s room here. Please stay the night.”
Aura Lee stopped for a second in the doorway turned and smiled. “I’m fine, darlin’. Really ah am. Don’t y’all worry about me. Bah, bah, now.”
I had the strangest urge to call, “Y’all come back now, ya hear?” as she stepped out into the snow but I stifled it. Although I’m sure Auraliah Lee would have appreciated the sentiment. So much so that she might be so inclined as to take me up on that, show up tomorrow and haul in another family ghost the next visit. With the way my luck was going in solving the flute mystery, it probably would not be Ignatz—again.
Auraliah Lee turned once before walking in the direction of the old cemetery where the Baron would now be buried. I knew she’d turned because I could see the red muffler blowing and the red bow on the beret facing Shay and me.
“Requiescat in Pace,” she called.
Within seconds, she was swallowed up into the night.