Crossing the Lion (a Reigning Cats and Dog) (2010) (7 page)

Even though it was a dark, rainy night in November, he was dressed for cocktails on the terrace. He wore white linen pants that miraculously didn’t have a single wrinkle in them, a phenomenon I didn’t believe I’d ever witnessed before. His shirt was also white, but it appeared to be made of nubby raw silk. It looked as if Armani or someone of his caliber had designed it: It fit the man snugly in the torso yet had sleeves that
were expertly cut to show off how nicely the fabric draped. His clothes also showed off his trim, muscular physique, no doubt the result of long, grueling hours at a gym.

As I held my candelabra up higher, I saw that he was quite handsome, with thick blond hair that even in the pale light reminded me of my favorite Crayola back in elementary school. Its unlikely shade made me suspect that the folks who made Lady Clairol had recently launched a Lord Clairol line. His eyes were also unusually rich in color. Even in the dim candlelight I could see they were a bright shade of turquoise.

Mother Nature—or Bausch & Lomb? I couldn’t help wondering.

It was only after I noticed how good-looking he was that I became aware that, for some reason, he was gripping a tennis racket in one hand. The effect of his country-club-esque sports equipment, combined with his tennis whites, made him look like someone Jay Gatsby would invite to one of his parties.

“Did I startle you?” he asked, looking surprised.

“Heavens, no,” I replied sarcastically. “I was totally anticipating that someone was going to leap out of the shadows at me.”

He laughed, revealing a set of perfect white teeth that gleamed even more brightly than the fabrics he wore. “I like to keep people on their toes.”

“You must be Taggart,” I concluded. Which meant he was Linus and Charlotte’s oldest child, according to what Winston had told me on the boat ride over. The son who already had one or two marriages under
his belt, even though he was probably only a few years older than I was.

“One and the same.” He grinned. “Call me Tag. The old man was the only one who ever called me Taggart. Which leads me to the obvious question: Who are you?”

“My name is Jessie Popper,” I said. “I’m here with some friends, Betty and Winston Farnsworth. They’re also friends of your parents. Your mother asked them to stay with her for a few days, and they asked me to join them.”

“Same reason I’m stuck here, putting up with the entire Merrywood clan,” Tag said breezily. “It’s what’s known as a command performance. First the old man’s big birthday bash, and now this.”

His comment startled me more than his abrupt appearance, since he sounded as if he didn’t particularly want to be around his family, even for his own father’s funeral.

Wanting to change the subject, I said, “Are you planning to play some tennis tonight?” I gestured toward his racket with the hand that wasn’t getting an impromptu paraffin treatment.

“What, this?” He glanced at the racket with surprise, almost as if he’d forgotten he was carrying it. “I found this in that hall closet.” He pointed to a closed door a few yards away. “When we were kids, we always cleaned our rooms by stashing most of our junk in there. I haven’t looked in it in ages, so I figured I’d see if I’d left behind anything good. This was actually a decent racket at one time. I thought I’d bring it home
with me when I finally get out of this godforsaken place.”

Good thing he happens to be wearing his tennis whites
, I thought wryly.

“Speaking of leaving, when did you arrive?” I asked. I realized I sounded as if I was giving him the third degree, so I fibbed, “You were missed at dinner.”

“Ha! I sincerely doubt that, but thanks for saying so.” Flashing his pearly whites at me once again, Tag added, “I had some pressing business in the city, and I just got here a few minutes ago. Good thing the ferry has enough room for my car, since there’s no way I’d feel comfortable leaving it on the other side of the bay, completely unattended.

“See?” he added, gesturing toward a window at the end of the hall. “That’s my little roadster, right out there.”

Dutifully, I walked over and glanced outside. Despite the rain and fog, I could see a cluster of cars: Winston’s Rolls, a shiny black BMW I suspected belonged to Missy and Townie, and a dilapidated clunker that had to be Brock’s. But I got the feeling the one Tag wanted me to notice was the gleaming cherry-red Ferrari. I’m no car expert, but I was pretty sure that thing was the ultimate in boy toys.

I also had a sense that swooning over Tag’s choice of transportation was the best way to rack up a few brownie points.

“Wow!” I exclaimed, doing my best to sound sincere, even though I could never get that excited about a vehicle that didn’t come equipped with its own
X-ray machine. “That’s some set of wheels! I bet you—”

I froze at the sound of the same wailing that had erupted during dinner. As if that wasn’t enough to make my blood run cold, loud, gloomy organ music filled the hallway a couple of seconds later.

“What
is
that?” I demanded, hoping I’d get a more satisfying answer than last time.

Tag chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s only Aunt Alvira.”

I could feel my eyes growing as round as two tennis balls. “Elvira—as in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark? That creepy character from the horror movies?”

“Not quite.” Grinning, Tag explained, “That’s Alvira—with an
A
.”

“You have an aunt living in the house?” I asked, surprised.

“Yup, up on the top floor,” he replied. “She’s my father’s sister. She lives all alone up there, where she can’t get into any trouble.”

I blinked. “You keep your aunt locked away in an
attic
?”

He laughed again. “You’d have to meet her yourself to understand. But that’s not likely to happen. Aunt Alvira is—well, let’s just say she’s not very sociable.”

As if to drive his point home, the mournful wail from above cut through the house once more. Eerie organ music followed, this time a complicated melody in the same minor key.

Nervously, I said, “This strikes me as a bizarre new twist on the concept of mother-in-law apartments.”

Tag looked deep into my eyes. “You’ll find that a lot of things here on Solitude Island aren’t the way they are anywhere else.”

I was about to ask him what he meant when he gave his tennis racket a few swings. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a very long day. I’m ready to hit the hay. Catch you later, Jessie.”

With that, he turned. I watched him walk down the hall toward the stairs I’d just come up, still swinging his racket as he faded into the shadows.

As I continued toward my room, I realized for the first time that I, too, was wiped out. Still using nothing but flickering candles to light the way, I followed the directions Charlotte had given me, going all the way to the door at the very end of the hall.

I pushed it open, reassured that I’d found the right room when I spotted my suitcase on the floor.
Go, Gwennie
, I thought, as I held the candelabra up higher to get a better look.

The good-size room was outfitted with the same heavy, dust-covered antiques used to furnish the rest of the house. In here were a four-poster bed, an armoire, and a tall dresser covered with a lace doily. A fireplace still glowed with the last remaining embers of what had probably once been a decent fire but at this point didn’t do a thing to make the room any warmer—either temperature-wise or ambience-wise.

The thick drapes had already been drawn so that they concealed the windows from view. The thick velvet fabric was a subdued shade of blue that in the dim light looked gray.

The wallpaper appeared to be the same color. At first, its busy pattern looked like an abstract design of squiggles and other odd shapes. But after staring at it for a few seconds, I realized that scattered across every few feet were two circles positioned side by side, with a dot in the middle of each.

They looked an awful lot like pairs of eyes.

That design seemed vaguely familiar. I racked my brain, snapping my fingers when I finally remembered where I’d seen it before.

The Haunting
, a classic film made in the early 1960s and based on a scary novel by Shirley Jackson called
The Haunting of Hill House
. The wallpaper in one of the characters’ bedrooms looked a lot like this, and at night those circles turned into glowing eyes accompanied by the sound of a child crying—

It was only a movie!
I reminded myself. Still, I wished that when it came to watching DVDs, I’d stuck to comedies and romances.

I carefully placed the candelabra on the dresser, sat down on the bed, and began pulling off my shoes.

You’re really letting your imagination run away with you
, I scolded myself.
This is just an ordinary bedroom, one that happens to be in a big, old house that needs an interior designer almost as much as it needs a good cleaning service
.

But by that point I’d begun to wonder if the rundown look of the Merrywoods’ mansion was simply the result of the family’s affinity for shabby chic, a decorating style that was a favorite with the well-to-do. It was especially popular with “old money.” It
clearly stated, “Sure, I can afford whatever I want. But nothing I could buy would come close to these cherished old things that have been part of my family forever.” In other words, “We’ve been rich for generations.”

I glanced around one more time, testing my theory. It was then that I noticed the wooden bookshelf in one corner. It was tall, reaching nearly to the ceiling. I padded over to it in my socks, grabbing the candelabra off the dresser as I crossed the room.

I scanned the titles on the spines of the thick, dusty volumes, many of them bound in leather. They were classics, mostly—plays by the ancient Greeks Aeschylus and Sophocles, the works of Shakespeare, novels by Milton and Melville and the Brontë sisters.

Then I spotted a copy of
Frankenstein
, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I couldn’t resist reaching for it, thinking it might be appropriate to skim through the first few pages before going to sleep.

As soon as I pulled it off the shelf, I heard a low, rumbling sound.

Earthquake?
I thought with alarm.

Almost immediately, I realized where the noise was coming from. The entire bookshelf was moving to one side.

“Oh, my!” I cried out loud. “What have I done?”

My clouded brain assumed that somehow I had caused one of the walls to fall apart simply by removing a single book. But after only a few seconds, the noise stopped.

I blinked a few times, trying to decide if I was really seeing what I thought.

I was. The bookshelf had shifted a distance of five or six feet, revealing a door that up until now had been completely concealed.

My heart pounded violently as I stepped over to the door, wondering if I dared try to open it.

I couldn’t resist.

The palm of my hand was moist as I grabbed the cold metal doorknob and tried to turn it.

It turned with surprising ease.

By this point, my heart felt as if it were getting ready to explode in my chest. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me.

I pushed, holding the candelabra up so I could see what was on the other side.

The door wouldn’t give.

Huh?
I thought, not sure if I was relieved or dismayed.

It took me about three seconds to realize what the problem was.

Pull, don’t push
, an exasperated voice inside my head instructed.

I did. And it opened.

Once again, I thrust out the candelabra, blinking as I struggled to see in the dark and hoping my heart would hold out just a little longer before it broke into a thousand pieces. And then I saw what was on the other side.

A staircase. A hidden staircase.

Yikes!

I seemed to recall that somewhere along the line, Nancy Drew, one of my childhood idols, had encountered a hidden staircase.

But Nancy was a lot braver than I was.

In fact, now that I knew what was behind the door, I decided that that was enough. It was true that part of me was intrigued. But another part of me recognized that venturing up those stairs would be a foolhardy proposition at any time—and that doing it in the dark of night, without the aid of either electricity or a decent flashlight, was likely to be downright dangerous.

I could trip and fall!
I told myself.
Or encounter bats or rats or—or even crazy Aunt Alvira!

With all those solid rationalizations in mind, I closed the door firmly, hoping that whatever was at the top of the hidden staircase would stay put. After all, this wasn’t exactly a hotel in which I could request a room with a better view—or fewer features from ghost stories and horror movies. I was a guest in the home of a woman who had just suffered a terrible loss, and the last thing she needed was one of her houseguests complaining about the accommodations.

I pushed
Frankenstein
back into place on the shelf. As I’d expected, the magic bookcase began to rumble again, this time moving in the opposite direction and settling itself with what sounded like a sigh of relief.

It was definitely time to go to bed. It had been a long day, one that included nutty aunts locked away in the attic, business associates named after characters in a board game, butlers who looked like walking cadavers, stuffed ravens and antique suits of armor
covered in dust—and now this, a hidden staircase right in my bedroom.

I quickly changed into my flannel pj’s and slid between the sheets. I expected to lie awake for hours, worrying about Aunt Alvira and conjuring up visions of ghosts and ghouls and who knew what else. I decided to give it five minutes. Then, if I was too overcome with the heebie-jeebies to fall asleep, I’d go ask Betty and Winston if I could sleep at the foot of their bed. Instead, in what seemed like mere seconds after my head hit the pillow, I was out, no doubt the result of having consumed both sherry and wine in the very same evening.

The last thing I remembered was listening to the sound of the rain pounding on the roof, hoping it would drown out any screams, organ music, or other assorted noises that threatened to keep me awake.