Everything was apparently back to normal the morning after the mysterious electro-magnetic disruptions. Rebecca did not recognize the young man in cook’s white who approached her as she was clocking in. But he obviously knew who she was.
“You used to be the hotel historian, right?” he began. “I remember you from that ‘Ten Things You Should Know about Griffins Keep History’ video they made us watch at new employee orientation. I’m Will Whitby. Hi.”
“Hi, Bradley. Nice to meet you. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Well, yeah. Maybe. I hope so. I know the old hotel guest registers got auctioned off a few months ago, right? But didn’t I hear they went to the History Colorado Library?”
“Most did. And to be honest, it’s a far better place for them. Once they’re processed, they’ll be available to researchers who request them.”
“Any idea how long that will take?”
“I know they’ve got a huge backlog of materials to inventory and catalog. And they count on part-time volunteers to do a lot of it. Could be quite some time before anyone can get to them.”
“Well, I need to get to them – really just one of them – soon. My mom’s 50th birthday is coming up next month, and I want to give her something really unusual. Her grandparents – my great-grandparents – spent their honeymoon at the Griffins Keep in 1917. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could get a photocopy of the page with her grandpa’s signature from back then?”
“It would be a very unique gift, but I don’t see how…”
“I was thinking, maybe if you explained my request to the History Colorado guys and asked to see just that one register, they might grant you some kinda special permission. Or maybe you could volunteer to work on the Griffins Keep stuff, and while you’re there, you could snap a picture of his signature without anybody minding.”
”I suppose it’s possible. I’ve known the registrar for years. And I’m sure he’d understand my interest in the things from The Keep. Do you have the exact date or dates that your relatives stayed at the hotel?”
“Oh, sure! It was June 21. Mom says they used to always talk about how they were here on the only day the Griffins Keep ever closed. You probably know all about it. I guess they were drilling down for the well, and there was some kind of freak explosion that blew out a corner of the building or something.”
“Something like that, yes.”
“So anyway, do you think you can help me?”
Rebecca had actually been thinking about volunteering to process The Keep materials for HC ever since she’d learned they acquired them at the auction. Who better? Doing a favor for a fellow hotel employee was just the impetus she needed to offer her services.
“We don’t even know if the register for that date is among those that History Colorado acquired,” she cautioned. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
The Hart Library at History Colorado Center was thrilled to have Rebecca’s help with processing the Griffins Keep items. It did her historian heart good to see the guest registers, banquet menus, and other ephemera being properly preserved at last. The registers were currently stored in six large acid-free boxes.
She crossed her fingers that the guest book including June 21, 1917, was among HC’s recent Keep acquisitions. She’d already checked for that date in the few rescued registers she and Lochlan had hidden in the secret sub-basement storage room. If June 21, 1917, was not in the Hart collection, she would have to conclude it had never been recovered by Charlotte when she first scavenged the building to create the hotel archives, way back in the 70s. Regrettably, the series had significant gaps.
Understanding the challenges of late middle-age, a staff member had offered Rebecca the loan of a magnifying glass. Carefully opening one volume after another, the historian wondered why she had never sought out the register from that notorious day in June 1917 before this. Charlotte had, of course, scanned every page of every book in search of famous signatures years ago. But many of the 10” X 16” fabric-and-cardboard-bound historic registers were so damaged and deteriorated that Rebecca had dared not touch them unless she had a very compelling reason. With peeling covers and shredded spines, it was miraculous that some of them held together at all. A few of them didn’t.
Gingerly, she lifted a fragile register from the bottom of the third box. The first page was stamped “May 3, 1917;” the last date, “July 16, 1917.” Bingo! She held the elusive register in her cotton-gloved hands.
She turned the fragile yellowed pages a few at a time, delighting anew in the distinctive handwriting, narrowing in on the date Bradley’s great-grandparents had honeymooned at the Griffins Keep, all those years ago.
There it was, stamped in red at the top of the page. Rebecca ran her finger down the columns, searching for the newlywed Nathaniel R. Williams’ signature.
What she found instead would change her reality forever.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” the library staff member at the reference desk asked as an unsteady Rebecca walked toward the exit 10 minutes later. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
The historian blinked at the young woman, as if awaking from a dream. She shook her head, but answered in the affirmative. “Yes, thank you,” she said. “I found more than I ever could have imagined.”
For the next two days, Rebecca was uncharacteristically withdrawn and introspective. When she was finally ready to share her epiphany with Maureen, her longtime friend struggled to wrap her head around it.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Mo stated honestly.
“I’m not surprised.”
Silent for some time, Mo tried to fit the bizarre new peg into differently shaped holes.
“On the one hand, it explains so much,” she finally said. “But on the other, it presents a whole new set of mysteries.”
“You’re telling me.”
“I thought the discovery of the golden treasure was big. But this…this totally trumps anything.”
“The overriding questions at this point, as I see it, are How? And Why?”
“Wish I had answers, Beck. But this is way beyond me, beyond any psychic insights I might have. My advice is to seek out those mediums who seem to be so attuned to the spirits of The Keep’s past. Especially the one who’s tapped into the Masonic and Knights Templar stuff.”
“Margaret,” Rebecca said. “She’ll be almost as blown away as I am.”
“I think you should confide in Lochlan, too. He knows so much about the building, its secrets and its powers. Plus, he cares about you. I suspect you’re going to need all the support you can get in the very near future.”
The ancient talisman around Rebecca’s neck seemed to grow warmer. She was going to need some magic, as well.
Margaret and Molly arrived in the Keep lobby early the next morning. “The spirits told us we needed to come to you even before you called,” Molly explained. “They’re very worked up over some new development. Do tell!”
“Could be the fact that this atrium is about to be closed off from the sunlight and that the Keep’s artesian well will soon be capped,” Rebecca said.
“Oh no!” Margaret exclaimed. “Those changes are bound to disrupt – if not completely block – the spiritual flow of The Keep. But that’s not what the spirits brought us here to learn. It’s not just about the hotel. It’s about you. What’s changed with you, Rebecca? You seem somehow distant, distracted. We’re here to help.”
When the historian told the sensitives about her experience in the library a few days earlier, their reactions mingled shock and awe. They knew about the notorious day of the hotel’s only shut down. And they understood the implications and the gravitas of Rebecca’s disclosure.
“I think we both sensed something remarkable about your connection to The Keep the first time we met you,” Molly said. “Of course I can’t speak for Margaret, but I confess I’m a little envious. As far as I know, this is unprecedented.”
Her fellow medium stood and walked carefully around the construction disarray still littering the lobby. She paused near the Madonna image in the onyx, unaware of how close she was to the golden treasure, and scanned the open balconies encircling the atrium. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
“The Keep spirits are telling me the time is nigh,” she said. “But they seem to be blocking me out for the first time. I’m sensing they plan to communicate their intentions directly to you, Rebecca – and only to you. They won’t tell me what they need. I keep getting something about ‘back to the bones.’ I’m hearing that phrase over and over again, more voices joining in with each repetition. They’re not referring to the same bones the Freemasons hinted at around Halloween. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you what it means.”
Molly, in the meantime, had made her way just beyond the far side of the front desk. She cast her gaze to the space below the skylight in the corner above the concierge desk, the place where she’d sensed The Keep’s driving force – its essence – on her initial visit back in October. It seemed to Rebecca a long time ago.
“The hotel guardians have a mission for you,” Molly told the historian, without taking her eyes from the seventh-story corner. “May the angels grant you strength.”
Rebecca nodded solemnly. “I await their instructions.”
Back to the bones. What was Rebecca to make of that? Stripping bare, returning to basics. If only that could happen with the Griffins Keep! Slash away decades of alterations forced upon the structure so brilliantly conceived and aesthetically wrought. Purge the physical and philosophical perversions that daily dragged the beloved beauty further from its higher purpose.
But how, without destroying the hotel all together?
Rebecca’s latest assignment from Ms. Jordan was to “revisit” the recorded self-guided tour script.
“People like it, but it has way too much elaboration and way too many stories,” she explained. “Who wants to hear that much about the history of an old building that doesn’t even look like it used to? Don’t waste their time with stuff that’s not here anymore. I need it cut by half, just a few factoids for each stop.”
Aye, aye, Cap’n! Rebecca thought. Stuff that’s gone, waste of time. Got it. Out of sight, out of relevance. Rebecca gnashed her historian teeth. Tell that to our ghosts.
Feeling more obsolete than ever, Rebecca stared at the script hardcopy. She missed the days of regularly delivering the information live and in-person, missed the challenge of tweaking it to speak to the interests of each distinctive tour audience. No room for the personal touch in a TITHE universe.
After whittling Harrison Griffins backstory to almost nothing, she proceeded to condense the hotel’s special features to bullet points:
Italian Renaissance architecture.
Golden onyx wainscoting.
Electrical-generating dynamos.
Artesian well water source.
Fireproof construction.
Hold the phone.
“Absolutely fireproof building.,.. Iron, steel, and concrete framework...terra-cotta floors and interior walls. In the event of fire, room contents would be destroyed. But the super-structure itself… “
The former historian was not at her Sales receptionist desk when Lochlan stopped by a few minutes later to talk. To the right of Rebecca’s keyboard lay the tour script, one section circled repeatedly with orange highlighter. From that moment, he understood.
The Griffins Keep, the Great Lady of Denver hotels, was about to experience one helluva hot flash.
“How long have you known?” Rebecca asked when Lochlan expressed no surprise at her History Colorado library revelation.
“Since our first conversation about your divorce and your maiden name.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I had faith that all would be revealed when the time was right.”
“But if that prep cook hadn’t asked me to look in the guest register….”
“Ah, but he did.”
“How can it be? What does it mean?”
“It means that everything is unfolding as it was destined to. There’s something about your spirit that the Knights valued and banked, if you will, for a future withdrawal. It means payout time is now, and only you can sign for it.”
“They’ve communicated with me directly,” Rebecca told him, “The Knights Templar who have guarded the Griffins Keep from the first, they touched me when I hung the myotrageous horn around my neck and opened myself to their message.”
Lochlan knew about her mysterious talisman and its strange response to the hotel silver teaspoon artifact.
“They didn’t tell, but rather showed me in a sort of vision what I was to do,” Rebecca explained.
“You’re not afraid?”
“Terrified.” Her voice broke. “What the Knights require is tantamount to murder. How can I comply?”
“The death of a few to save millions of souls. How often has that been the rationale for havoc throughout history? The elimination of heretics is justified in defense of the Temple. The spiritual portal must be maintained. You can no longer doubt that you are The Keep’s defender, designated long ago.”
The truth of his words was unassailable. Reminded of her role, Rebecca drew a deep breath, straightened her spine, steeled her resolve. “I’ll need the sword of the Third Griffin. Will you retrieve it for me?”
“We’ll fetch it together,” Lochlan said. “Right now.”
Surrounded by tangible reminders of the Griffins Keep’s glorious past in the hidden sub-basement repository, Rebecca drew strength. She was not the first to take risks in the name of the Keep’s legacy. Artifacts rescued over the decades by gallant employees and collected in this secret space bore witness to the hotel’s respectful stewards. All of them – past and present -- looked now to her to defend the mystique and the majesty of the place they loved. She felt their expectation and honored their trust.
The historian and the engineer who served The Keep above all said little. Their communication went beyond words. Rebecca collapsed onto a pile of embroidered table linens.
“I’m so tired,” she said. “So very tired suddenly. I’m not sure I can go through with this. You could do it, Lochlan. You’re a much better choice than I for the task ahead. Surely the Knights would welcome your help.”
Lochlan sank down beside her and took her hand. “I’ll help. Of course, I will. In any way I can. But I haven’t your special magic or connection. You know you can’t cheat fate at this stage of the game. You won’t be alone.”
Rebecca knew that to be true. She could already feel the presence of The Keep’s countless spiritual sojourners, as well as the Knight guardians.
“You’ll do everything you can to get innocent people out of harm’s way, won’t you? Mo will help you, and Margaret and Molly and Rosslyn. I’ve told no one else about what lies ahead.”
Lochlan put an arm around Rebecca’s slight shoulders. “Don’t you worry. With all of us working together, we’ll lead everyone to safety. You just follow the Knights’ instructions.”
She leaned against him and quietly began to sob. “I’m so afraid this will be the last thing I ever do.”
His heart caught in his throat.
“I won’t lie to you,” he said at last. “At our age, we feel our mortality in subtle ways almost every day. Little by little or in one grand stroke, death moves closer. The body is temporary, a perishable vessel for the essence of a person. But surely by now you know. The greatest secret the Freemasons built into The Keep is that death is not the end, that this is only one plane of existence among many. This building, this temple, is where travelers take stock, turn a corner on their journey to The Light. You believe that now, don’t you?”
Rebecca sighed. “’I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth,’” she began, reciting the Apostles Creed she’d memorized in childhood. “’…and in the life everlasting.’ For real, with all my heart.” She squeezed his hand tightly.
Lochlan brushed back her hair with the long fingers of his other hand and tenderly kissed her forehead, her ear, her neck.
“Mmmm, goosebumps,” she murmured, turning to look into his eyes. “Thank you for showing me how glorious the communion of bodies – even aging bodies -- can be. I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll be along presently,” he assured her. “For now, concentrate on what the Knights need you to do. It’s not every historian who gets to actually make history.”
“Promise me that when it’s over, no matter what happens, you’ll retrieve this sword and keep it from outsiders,” Rebecca beseeched him. “Return it to its proper place above the fireplace as soon as you’re able.”
Lochlan stood and bowed deeply, as he had done once before in this same room. “I do so promise,” he said, “upon my honor as a knight of the Griffins Keep and your obedient servant.” He extended his hand and helped her to her feet.
“Time to go,” he said.