Wili might have been content to balance indefinitely be-tween the prospect of inheriting the estate and stealing it, but for one thing: The mansion was haunted. It was not the air of mystery or the hidden rooms. There was something alive in the house. Sometimes he heard a woman's voice -not Irma's, but the one he had heard talk to Naismith on the trail. Wili saw the creature once. It was well past midnight. He was sneaking back to the mansion after stashing his latest acquisitions. Wili oozed along the edge of the veranda, moving silently from shadow to shadow. And suddenly there was someone behind him, standing full in the moonlight. It was a woman, tall and Anglo. Her hair, silver in the light, was cut in an alien style. The clothes were like something out of the Moraleses old-time television. She turned to look straight at him. There was a faint smile on her face. He bolted - and the creature twisted, vanished.
Wili was a fast shadow through the veranda doors, up the stairs, and into his room. He jammed a chair under the doorknob and lay for many minutes, heart pounding. What had he seen? How he would like to believe it was a trick of the moonlight: The creature had vanished as if by the flick of a mirror, and large parts of the walls surrounding the veranda were of slick black glass. But tricks of the eye do not have such detail, do not smile faint smiles. What then? Television? Wili had seen plenty of flat video, and since coming to Mid-dle California had used holo tanks. Tonight went beyond all that. Besides, the vision had turned to look right at him.
So that left... a haunting. It made sense. No one - cer-tainly no woman - had dressed like that since before the plagues. Old Naismith would have been young then. Could this be the ghost of a dead love? Such tales were common in the ruins of L.A., but until now Wili had been skeptical.
Any thought of inheriting the estate was gone. The ques-tion was, could he get out of this alive? - and with how much loot? Wili watched the doorknob with horrified fas-cination. If he lived through this night, then it was probably safe to stay a few more days. The vision might be just the warning of a jealous spirit. Such a ghost would not begrudge him a few more trinkets, as long as he departed when Nais-mith returned.
Wili got very little sleep that night.
FIVE
The horsemen - four of them, with a row of five pack mules - arrived the afternoon of a slow, rainy day. It had been thundering and windy earlier, but now the rains off Vandenberg came down in a steady drizzle from a sky so overcast that it already seemed evening.
When Wili saw the four, and saw that none of them was Naismith, he faded around the mansion, toward the pond and his cache. Then he stopped for a foolish moment, wondering if he should run back and warn Irma and Bill.
But the two stupid caretakers were already running down the front steps to greet the intruders: an enormous fat fellow and three rifle-carrying men-at-arms. As he skulked in the bushes, Bill turned and seemed to look directly at his hiding place. "Wili, come help our guests."
Mustering what dignity he could, the boy emerged and walked toward the group. The old, fat one dismounted. He looked like a Jonque, but his English was strangely accented. "Ah, so this is his apprentice, hein? I have wondered if the master would ever find a successor and what sort of person he might be." He patted the bristling Wili on the head, making the usual error about the boy's age.
The gesture was patronizing, but Wili thought there was a hint of respect, almost awe, in his voice. Perhaps this slob was not a Jonque and had never seen a black before. The fellow stared silently at Wili for a moment and then seemed to notice the rain. He gave an exaggerated shiver and most of the group moved up the steps. Bill and Wili were left to take the animals around to the outbuilding.
Four guests. That was not the end. By twos and threes and fours, all through the afternoon and evening, others drifted in. The horses and mules quickly overflowed the small outbuild-ing, and Bill showed Wili hidden stables. There were no servants. The guests themselves, or at least the more junior of them, carried the baggage indoors and helped with the animals. Much of the luggage was not taken to their rooms, but disappeared into the halls below ground. The rest turned out to be food and drink - which made sense, since the manor produced only enough to feed three or four people.
Night and, more rain. The last of the visitors arrived -and one of these was Naismith. The old man took his ap-prentice aside. "Ah, Wili, you have remained." His Spanish was as stilted as ever, and he paused frequently as if waiting for some unseen speaker to supply him with a missing word. "After the meetings, when our guests have gone, you and I must talk on your course of study. You are too old to delay. For now, though, help Irma and Bill and do not... bother... our guests." He looked at Wili as though suspecting the boy might do what Wili had indeed been con-sidering. There was many a fat purse to be seen among these naive travelers.
"A new apprentice has nothing to tell his elders, and there is little he can learn from them in this short time." With that the old man departed for the halls beneath his small castle, and Wili was left to work with Irma and two of the visitors in the dimly lit kitchen.
Their mysterious guests stayed all that night and through the next day. Most kept to their rooms and the meeting halls. Several helped Bill with repairs on the outbuilding. Even here they behaved strangely: For instance, the roof of the stable badly needed work. But when the sun came out, the men wouldn't touch it. They seemed only willing to work on things where there was shade. And they never worked out-side in groups of more than two or three. Bill claimed this was all Naismith's wish.
The next evening, there was a banquet in one of the halls. Wili, Bill, and Irma brought the food in, but that was all they got to see. The heavy doors were locked and the three of them went back up to the living room. After the Moraleses had settled down with the holo, Wili drifted away as if to go to his room.
He cut through the kitchen to the side stairs. The thick carpet made speedy, soundless progress possible, and a mo-ment later he was peeking round at the entrance to the meeting hall. There were no guards, but the oak doors remained closed. A wood tripod carried a sign of gold on black. Wili silently crossed the hall and touched the sign. The velvet was deep but the gold was just painted on. It was cracked here and there and seemed very old. The letters said:
NCC and below this, hand-lettered on vellum, was:
2047
Wili stepped back, more puzzled than ever. Why? Who was there to read the sign, when the doors were shut and locked? Did these people believe in spirit spells? Wili crept to the door and set his ear against the dark wood. He heard...
Nothing. Nothing but the rush of blood in his ear. These doors were thick, but he should at least hear the murmur of voices. He could hear the sound of a century-old game show from all the way up in the living room, but the other side of this door might as well be the inside of a mountain.
Wili fled upstairs, and was a model of propriety until their guests departed the next day.
There was no single leave-taking; they left as they had come. Strange customs indeed, the Anglos had.
But one thing was as in the South. They left gifts. And the gifts were conveniently piled on the wide table in the mansion's entrance way. Wili tried to pretend disinterest, but he felt his eyes must be visibly bugging out of his head when-ever he walked by. Till now he had not seen much that was like the portable wealth of Los Angeles, but here were rubies, emeralds, diamonds, gold. There were gadgets, too, in artfully carved boxes of wood and silver. He couldn't tell if they were games or holos or what. There was so much here that a fortune could be taken and not be missed.