The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (32 page)

243

“Come,” she said.

“I can’t. Do you hear that?”

“Hear only the wind, sir,” she lied. “Mustn’t be afraid of the

wind.”

“Is that all it is?”

“Oh, yes, sir. The Tower get all sort of the winds.” She

reminded him, “The quilt, sir. When we to lie down, the wind no

longer make the sound.” She tugged on his arm. “The master not

afraid of a little wind?”

When one needs John to budge, one resorts to his playing

against his own impressions of himself. This trick worked. He

?uffed himself up, expanded his chest and took after my maid

once again, slowing ascending the misshapen staircase leading to

the Tower.

She threw the door open.

It had to be the right night. We knew that in our early stages of

planning. First, a full moon—for these are the nights that April

will visit. Second, that time of night when the moon sits just

above the horizon, fully lighting the stained-glass window there.

We knew what would be said. The stress of an in?rm wife. His

daughter disappearing like that. The gambling. The visits to

Chinatown. The social pressures that wealth can bring.

Sukeena entered the Tower ?rst. The voice was so clearly

April’s now. “Da . . . da . . . ,” it said. John stepped in behind,

and the door gently swung shut behind him. In the stained-glass

window, the lovely rose changed before our eyes into a ghostly

specter of my daughter’s misshapen and withered arm. The wind

asked, “These are your gifts to your children?” My husband stood

as if his shoes had been nailed to the ?ooring. The hand in the

window, my daughter’s hand, plain as day, beckoned him, her

?nger waving him toward her. “Da . . . da. Come . . .

Look . . .”

If all those years ago in Africa a person had told me that

someday the spirits would join me in the ful?llment of my wishes,

I might have imagined pure love between husband and wife—

worldly travel and long sumptuous meals that added not a pound

to my frame. A family of six children. Songs by the ?re in the

evenings and a game of whist with friends after supper. I might

never have imagined this.

John took one ?nal step closer to the window. He looked to

his feet: no quilt. He looked up and saw me hovering behind the

door, for it had been me who had shut it, closing him in.

The power of two women can be formidable, especially when

combined with the determination of years of struggle and anger

that had steeped inside both Sukeena and me. She took an arm

and yanked, spinning him. I charged with all my strength. But in

the end it was neither Sukeena nor me. I only wish it were so. It

was April—that enormous wind—that did the job for us. I threw

my weight into John, certainly. Sukeena pulled with all her substantial

strength. A look of shock and surprise—the hunter

hunted—my husband lifted off his feet in an ungainly and weightless

manner. There, he faced our daughter in the stained-glass

window. April smiled and blinked and repeated one last time,

“Da . . . da.” (At that moment I wondered, had it been

Sukeena’s and my idea, or had it been April’s all along?)

John Rimbauer planted his feet. He skidded across the

wooden planks, and I swear I smelled burning wood as his heels

dragged. He ?ew up and through the window, exploding it into a

thousand pieces, and plunged down and off the slate roof from

some ?fty feet above the ?agstone terrace. I recall him insisting

upon the construction of that abysmal front terrace. I had never

cared for it.

I like it a lot better now that it’s rose red.

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26 february 1923

My son came home to-day and together we buried his father.

Hundreds attended, from women whose names I did not want to

know, to the dockhands who thought of him as a personal friend,

to the bankers, businessmen and public of?cials who have made

their careers off him. I stood in all black, crying real tears, holding

my son ?rmly by the shoulder—the ?rst time I have seen him

in nearly three years.

It is dif?cult to express in these pages the acute sense of loss,

of grief that I am experiencing. Despite all the atrocious things

John Rimbauer did to me, the pain he brought to my life, I

admired him greatly, loved him at times and marveled at his success.

Even with the gambling losses he leaves behind a dynasty, a

king’s fortune as it turns out.

Adam and I spent the later part of the afternoon walking the

woods where he and his father hunted squirrels and rabbit. After

some reminiscing and retelling of stories about his father, Adam

?nally brought up the subject he had avoided for years.

“Is it haunted?” he asked, looking not at me but at his own

boots in the wet leaves.

“It’s possessed,” I answered honestly. “That’s the best way I

can put it.”

“As in ‘ghosts’?”

“Spirits.”

We stopped on the trail, overlooking Lasky Pond.

“And April?”

Here was the discussion I had so longed to have with my son. I

knew that John had colored his opinion. The newspaper, perhaps

at John’s bidding, had reported a day or two later that the ice on

Lasky Pond was found broken, and that April might have fallen

through. (I wonder, then, that we never found the body!) This

became the generally accepted view: an accident on the pond; a

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bear who had gotten close to the city; a mountain lion. Anything

but the truth.

“She’s in the house, Adam.”

“That’s preposterous, Mother!” It was my husband’s voice,

though carried in my son’s body, and the effect was disarming.

How quickly they learn.

“Why do you think your father found ways all these years to

keep you from returning to the house? You think he was afraid of

the woods? This pond? He was afraid of the walls.”

“Father was afraid of nothing.”

“We’re all afraid of something, dear. Your father was a great

man. But he was afraid of the truth. He ?red Douglas Posey to

avoid facing the truth; he kept you from this house, your home.

Never fear the truth, Adam. It’s the only real passport you have to

reach new levels of understanding. You may ?nd it corny, but the

truth can set you free.”

“It is corny.” He toed the fallen leaves, burrowing a wet hole

into the forest ?oor and overturning a small, shiny rock.

“If you stay long enough, it may be possible for you to hear

her voice.”

“Mother . . .”

“What? I’m crazy? You can tell me, Adam. You tell me.”

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1 march 1923

So it was that on a perfectly still night, three days later, my son

and I climbed the creaking Tower steps toward that place where

his father had met his death. Adam is a good-looking, strong boy

of thirteen, with wide shoulders and thoughtful eyes. Despite his

adolescent strength, he moved cautiously and nervously up those

stairs, the wind rising in our ears. Wind, at ?rst. Then the soft

calling of his sister’s voice.

As their mother I had forgotten how close these two had

been—nearly inseparable, until Adam was shuttled off to boarding

school. They had grown up nearly as twins—Adam helping his

slightly incapacitated sister; April as foil for his games and test

subject for his inventions.

My young boy, whom this school had developed prematurely

into a young man, collapsed down onto the steps and wept

openly, falling into his mother’s arms, and knowing this was no

trick. He was afraid, and I should have thought about his tender

age and realized it was too soon for him. There would be plenty

of time for all this. Why had I insisted on rushing it? Why had I

felt nearly desperate to prove my sanity to my child? (Is such a

thing provable anyway?)

As it was, mother and son eventually reached the Tower, sitting

on its wooden ?oor. The open hole that had been the

stained-glass window was now boarded up. Someday I will manage

to replace that window. We huddled together, crying, laughing.

Adam tried to talk back to that whispering voice, and though I did

not understand the exchange, I would swear here on these pages

that he spoke with his sister. I know for a fact that he returned to

the Tower each and every night and spent hours up there.

He is back at school now. But he’s writing me, nearly daily—

this son who had been virtually absent from my life. I feel whole

again. Woman. Mother. John’s absence is more tolerable each

passing day. Peace has returned to Rose Red. Adam and I are a

family again.

Nothing so sweet.

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249

19 february 1928

Dear God in Heaven! Give her back to me!

Sukeena has gone missing! Last seen in the Health Room! No

sign of her anywhere, I wander this tomb’s endless hallways wondering

why everyone who becomes so close to me ends up stolen

from my life. Robbed from me. I hate this house. Despise it! I

will never invite Adam back again.

The staff is nearly sick with looking for my maid, so many

hours—days now!—have we been at it. The house is impossibly

large. Believe this or not, Dear Diary, we all have witnessed physical

transformations. Hallways change structure and appearance

behind your back. Rooms disappear! What is going on? How can

it be? A physical structure, a building, and yet ?uid as water. A

chameleon. She no longer requires growing larger—she reinvents

herself internally. Once a hallway, now a ballroom; once a basement,

now a dungeon!

I ordered all Sukeena’s plants uprooted from the Health

Room (for upon her disappearance, it bloomed more richly than

I have ever seen—every plant at once in full blossom!). I watched

that task carried out—watched it with my own eyes from up in my

chambers, recalling my past observation of other events down

there as well. Seven workers took three hours to clear the room

down to bare soil. By the time they reached the west end, the east

had sprouted new plants. By the following morning, the plants

were six feet tall—taller than they’d ever been, and in full bloom.

That is Sukeena providing that bloom—her love, her energy, her

powers.

We all—every one of us!—heard Rose Red laugh last night.

Laugh at me. At us. It was the most frightening sound I’ve ever

heard.

If there is a game to this, she has clearly won. They are all

gone. My loved ones. I am alone. Alone in my thoughts, alone in

my silence, alone in this house.

I shall ?re the entire staff (before she gets another of them!).

I shall dwell in this place alone for a time. Let her suffer. Let

her fail. Perhaps then we can strike a bargain, this house and me.

Perhaps then she’ll allow me to visit Sukeena as I do April. My

husband taught me well: everything is negotiable.

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editor’s note: bookkeeping records substantiate

ellen rimbauer’s claim of FIring the thirty-four

staff members for a period of four months. during

that time it is believed she lived in rose red completely

alone and without a single visitor. whatever

her mental state going into this solitude, she

came out the worse for wear. over the subsequent

two months, she reinstated a staff of twenty. she

threw parties. at the last, 1946’s annual inaugural

ball, one of that period’s greatest FIlm actresses,

deanna petrie, disappeared in rose red (there are

unconFIrmed rumors that her friendship with ellen

went beyond the norm). this was the last great

party thrown in rose red. the staff was reduced to

FIfteen at the start of the u.s. involvement in

world war ii. by 1950 ellen rimbauer had disappeared.

in 1950, as she was approaching the age of seventy, a

nearly blind ellen rimbauer is said to have entered

the perspective hallway never to return. staff

there claim to have since heard sawing and hammering

in the attic.

at the time of her death, ellen rimbauer, once

the most beautiful and envied woman in seattle’s

high society, was a wizened old lady, feverish, half

blind and slightly mad. it is said that from time to

time rose red can be heard laughing or crying—that

the sound carries for miles and is often mistaken

for either a wild animal or a ship’s horn.

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• • •

soon i shall venture inside rose red, armed with

sophisticated detection equipment; steven rimbauer,

a descendant of ellen and john rimbauer;

and some of the most powerful “perceptionists”—

psychics—in this part of the country. we hope to

awaken the “soul” of this enormous structure, the

being that lies within the walls, and to open communication

with either april, sukeena, ellen or

rose red herself. it is this last option that i fear

most of all. this diary conFIrms a formidable presence.

as always in the study of psychic phenomena,

one accepts a certain amount of the unknown, the

uncharted. spin a globe, open a door and who

knows what may happen? we shall see. life is an

adventure. rose red offers the research opportunity