Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds (20 page)

“Believe me,” he said with more feeling than
he had intended. “I understand.”

Her smile widened just a little. “We thought
we had a little girl. It’s not. It’s something else—”

“A poltergeist?” He’d read up on the
supernatural after he moved away from Whale Rock. And as he did,
that always made him speculate if he had let go after all.

“Yeah, that’s what someone called it,” she
said. “But that’s not really true. We didn’t have a little girl
ghost. It’s a thin young woman, I think, or a feminine boyish man,
someone to whom that kitchen meant a lot. When things are running
smoothly, in fact, when the hotel is full and so is the restaurant,
you can see her—him—it—sitting near the door, a smile on
his—her—its face as if it liked the bustle. Sometimes, it would
even help one of the morning cooks. Our previous cook—a matronly
woman whom everyone loved—would occasionally let it help her pick
ingredients. She wrote the recipes down; they’re spectacular.”

“A cooking ghost that lives in the
Caves?”

Her smile disappeared as if it had never
been. Her dark eyes flashed, and her chin set. “Go ahead. Make
fun.”

Retsler had used the same tone with her that
he used to use with Denne. It was a reflex, a way of pushing back
at information he really didn’t want to hear.

“Sorry,” Retsler said. “I didn’t mean to make
fun.”

She took a deep breath. Clearly she had to
overcome his tone so that she could continue. She expected him to
make fun of her, and it almost shut her down.

He wondered who else had made fun, and what
had changed.

“Whatever it is,” she said with a little less
enthusiasm, “it loves the kitchen just the way it’s always been. We
got new dishware and fortunately, it wasn’t china, because the
whatever it is tossed the dishware around the kitchen for weeks,
trying to get rid of it. A few pieces chipped, finally, but we
replaced them.”

“When did that stop?” he asked.

“After a few months. But we can’t wait this
one out. We don’t want it to trash a new grill, and you saw what it
did with the flour.”

“Yes,” he said, and looked down. The
footprint was fading. Had there been a wind? He hadn’t noticed.
“Did you know that this creature lives in the Caves?”

“I’m still not sure it does,” she said. “But
whenever it gets angry, it leaves footprints, coming to this site.
We’ve actually sent people into the Caves to follow the prints, but
they disappear just inside the opening.”

“So this isn’t flour.” Retsler let go of the
fence and crouched down. He touched the print. It was ice cold.

“Are you sure you should do that?” she
asked.

“I’m not sure about anything,” he said. He
checked his fingertip just to make sure the white whatever it was
didn’t transfer onto his skin. So far as he could tell, it hadn’t.
“Has anyone else tried to figure out what these prints are made
of?”

“By the time we get experts here, the
footprints have faded,” she said. “You can understand why we’re
reluctant to call folks in.”

He nodded, then stood. “You have worse
problems than this ghost?”

She bit her lower lip. “Apparently—and we
didn’t know this during the boom of the 1990s—but Marble Village
was built on the site of one of the first settlements ever on Mount
Elijah. There’s water near here—”

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “The River
Styx.”

She smiled. “No. Well, yes. But no. The River
Styx runs through the Caves, and that really is its name. Outside
of the Caves, it’s called Cave Creek. There are tributaries all
over the mountainside. One of the largest is here, although it does
dry up during summers like this one.”

“And floods in spring,” he said.

She nodded. “See why we want an
Oregonian?”

“Anyone who lives around mountains knows how
winter runoff works,” he said. He still wasn’t convinced about the
Oregonian part. “But you were telling me about the water.”

“The initial settlers thought they had a
great water supply,” she said, “so they built here instead of at
Cave Junction. Then they abandoned the town.”

“That’s not unusual in the West,” he said.
“There’s a million ghost towns just like it, places that people
tried, figured wouldn’t work, and moved on.”

“Yeah.” She glanced around him at the Caves,
as if she saw something. He hoped she would trust him enough to
tell him if she did. “But they didn’t leave because the creek dried
up or because of a wild fire or anything. They just disappeared one
night. Half the town fled and the other half was never heard from
again.”

“I don’t remember reading that,” he said.
Then he smiled at her. “You’re not the only one who knows how to
use Google.”

“Tourist town,” she said. “Resorts. We didn’t
put some of the old history on any website, and fortunately, the
initial stories of Marble Village, which was called Limestone Creek
back then, weren’t published in any guidebooks.”

“You think this history is important,” he
said.

“I didn’t at the time,” she said, “but I do
now.”

He brushed off his hands and stood. The
footprints were nearly gone now, but he saw where they disappeared,
and made a mental note of it.

“Why do you think so now?” he asked.

“Because we’re under assault, Chief Retsler,”
she said. “That’s why we want you. Someone we don’t have to
convince that this is important, that it could be an emergency.
Someone who
knows
.”

He sighed. Back in Oregon, having the same
old discussions. “Didn’t Hamilton tell you? I left Whale Rock
because of the supernatural.”

“He did,” she said. “He also said he didn’t
think you’d take the job, but he said I should push.”

Retsler nodded, sighed. “So, you’ve done your
duty. You’ve pushed.”

The wind toyed with her hair. She grabbed
some loose strands and tucked them behind her ears. “You’re going
to say no, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said, and almost added,
I ran
away from all this
. But he didn’t.

“Well.” Businesslike again. She stuck out her
hand. “I’m sorry we wasted your time.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s make
sure it’s not wasted completely, all right?”

Then, without waiting for an answer, he shook
the fence. It rattled, warning whatever was behind it that he was
coming. He wasn’t sure if he had done that deliberately. He liked
to think he hadn’t.

“How do I get through this?”

“You don’t need to,” she said.

“I’d like to,” he said.

She hesitated, then pointed to an overgrown
blackberry bush near one of the boulders. “Through that.”

He’d tried to go through blackberry bushes
before. They were stubborn, and sometimes hid things with
thorns.

“I guess I’ll climb,” he said, and gripped
the mesh. The diamonds were big enough for the toes of his somewhat
dressy shoes. He hauled himself up, and carefully eased over,
landing in the dirt on the other side.

At least she wouldn’t follow him here.

“I’ll get someone to open the gate,” she
said.

He nodded absently, not caring if she did or
not. “I’d rather have an expert on the hotel’s history, preferably
not a scholarly type, but someone who’s been around for a few
generations.”

“Um, but—”

He didn’t listen to her answer. Instead, he
followed the fading footprints down the incline to the mouth of the
Caves.

The prints stopped just outside the opening.
He touched them again. Cold, but damp, as if they were made of ice
and the ice had started to melt. Water, again. Dammit.

He sniffed his fingers, wondering if the
dampness had an odor. It didn’t, or at least, it wasn’t an odor
that he could smell over the pines and the dirt and the fresh
Oregon air.

He stood. The boards over the cave entrance
were old and rotted. They hadn’t been replaced in years. Some had
broken along the sides. He touched them, and two boards fell down,
leaving a space just large enough for a young adult woman or a
slender young man who hadn’t reached his full growth to slide
through.

Retsler peered inside. No lights, but a chill
against his skin. The Caves had an ambient temperature of 41
degrees, a fact he remembered from his childhood. As a boy, he had
wondered why the settlers hadn’t built their homes inside the
Caves—they would stay relatively warm in the frigid mountain
winters and remain cool in the summer. He had mentioned it to his
father, who had laughed.

Boy, forty-one is too cold for comfortable
living, no matter what the season.

It was also too warm to keep ice frozen, so
the water inside the Caves—that damned River Styx—would continue to
flow.

Retsler wondered if he should break the wood
and go inside. Then he decided against it. He didn’t have the
equipment for one thing. Just his cell phone, which could double as
a flashlight, but wouldn’t have service deep inside. And this was a
part of the Caves that the Park Service had deliberately blocked
off, so finding him wouldn’t be easy if he got lost or turned
around.

Or attacked.

He picked up the wood. He would wait until he
had permission, or even knew if he had to go inside.

Voices echoed along the path. He decided not
to wait for someone to cut the brambles away from the gate opening
so he could get out. He climbed the mesh for a second time, his
fingers complaining as the metal dug into his skin.

He landed on the path just as Bronly returned
with one of the town parents. The curled name badge reminded
Retsler that the man was named Stanley. Stanley didn’t look as
winded by the walk as Bronly did. Despite the extra weight he
carried around his middle, Stanley was surprisingly fit.

He held up hedge trimmers. “Was gonna help
you get out.”

“Thank you,” Retsler said.

“Guess you didn’t need it.”

“I figured climbing was easier.”

Stanley looked at him through narrowed eyes.
Then he said, “Bronly here says you want to know about our
ghost.”

He sounded calm about it, calmer than Bronly
had. She glanced at him, then at Retsler.

“I did,” Retsler said, matching Stanley’s
calm tone, “but I would rather have heard from someone who maybe
lived here in the 1930s.”

“Ain’t got many of those folks left and what
we do are down to the Village. I could give you some names of folks
in a home in Medford.” Stanley wasn’t looking at Retsler. He was
peering over Retsler’s shoulder at the Caves.

“See something?” Retsler asked.

“Naw,” Stanley said. “Just like to be
watchful, is all. This ain’t the best side of the mountain to be
on.”

“Why not?”

“Creepies, crawlies, things that go bump in
the night. They like the shadow side best.”

“And this is the shadow side?”

Stanley nodded. His gaze moved from the Caves
to Retsler’s face. “Let’s go to the diner,” he said. “I bet you
could use you some pie.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Retsler
said. He glanced over his shoulder at the Caves behind him. The
white footprints were gone, but his remained. His and Ron’s and
Stanley’s, tromping all over each other, showing their confusion
and indecision. The only odd thing he noted was that on the other
side of the fence, no footprints showed at all, not even where he
had jumped.

Retsler frowned. That felt important, but he
wasn’t sure why.

Or, at least, he wasn’t sure why—yet.

***

Half a dozen patrons sat in the W-shaped
counters lining the diner. None of the patrons were the town
parents, many of whom nursed coffee near the kitchen door.

Bronly led Retsler to the farthest side of
the W, facing the windows that overlooked the small man-made pond
and beyond it, the Siskiyou National Forest.

This part of Oregon was pretty, he had to
admit that, and pretty in a different way from Montana. Maybe it
was the color of the dirt, or the narrowness of the sky or maybe it
was just the smell in the outdoor air, which he shouldn’t have been
able to smell in here.

That faint scent of fried hamburgers grew
stronger now, particularly since one of his burgers was on that
grill. The waitress, wearing a blue-and-white checkered uniform and
a little protective hat that made her look like something out of
the 1930s, had already given him ketchup and mustard in red and
yellow plastic squirt containers, without any labels. Nothing had
labels, trying to maintain the illusion of history. He wondered
what he would get if he asked for artificial sugar to go with his
iced tea, then decided not to ask.

He didn’t want to spoil the illusion
either.

Bronly also ordered a burger, which surprised
him. He would have thought that a woman like her would order a
salad. Although he hadn’t seen any salads prominently displayed on
the old-fashioned menu.

Stanley had ordered a piece of apple pie a la
mode, and the waitress had already given it to him, along with a
cup of diner coffee—nothing fancy at all, no half-caf lattes or
sprinkles allowed.

“We’re talking over here,” Stanley said as he
turned his plate so that the point of the wedge-shaped piece of pie
faced him, “because the others think this’s all crazy, that some
kids’re doing pranks.”

“You don’t?” Retsler asked. His stomach
growled again. That piece of pie looked like something out of a
magazine, perfect crust, glistening apples covered in a lovely
brown sauce.

Then Stanley ruined the perfection by slicing
off the tip. “You seen it. You want to tell me how them footprints
got where they are? And icy to boot.”

“You’ve touched the prints, then,” Retsler
said.

“First time I saw them. Windy day, but the
prints stayed the same. Ice shocked me. It was strange, and back
then, I didn’t like strange.” Stanley shoveled the pie into his
mouth.