“Maybe the blinds discouraged her?” Dean offered.
“Maybe we should put the wagon train in a circle,” Austin muttered. “You should start to worry when the drums stop.”
After a long hot shower, Claire spent the rest of the day sprawled in an armchair, watching a National Geographic video about killer whales. It was one of only eleven tapes she’d salvaged from Augustus Smythe’s extensive collection. The pornography hadn’t been the worst of it; his video library had also included every episode of “Gunsmoke” plus a nearly complete collection of “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Hell was not only murky, it filled out subscription forms.
“You coming, Austin?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Tail lashing from side to side he backed up a step just in case Claire decided to force the issue. “You actually want me to get into that cross between a cage and a coffin, allow myself to be lifted three stories off the ground by an antique mechanism reinstalled by a cook under the direction of a dead sailor? I think not.”
“It’s perfectly safe.”
“That’s what you said about that cruise.”
“Cruise?” Jacques asked by her ear.
“Bermuda Triangle. Long story,” Claire told him.
“I wouldn’t get into that thing,” Austin continued, ears flat, “if I still had all nine lives. Not even if I’d rescued Princess Toadstool and picked up another life. If anything goes wrong, somebody has to be around to say I told you so.”
“Suit yourself.” Unfortunately for any second thoughts she might have been having, Claire couldn’t back out now, not with the cat so vehemently opposed. He was quite smug enough without her giving him more ammunition. She closed the door, dropped the inner gate, and turned to the more corporeal of her two companions. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“It’s simple.” Dean flashed her a confident grin. “All you do is turn this level from the off position to either the right or the left. Right takes us up, and left takes us down.”
Claire sighed. “That’s probably why they labeled it that way. I was asking on a more esoteric level, but never mind. Let’s get this ride over with, shall we?”
“Anything you say, Boss.” Feet braced, Dean wrapped both hands around the gleaming brass lever and swung it to the right.
Up in the attic, ancient machinery gave a startled jerk and wheezed into life, sending wave after wave of vibration through the stored furniture. The small, multicolored creature removing the last of the most recent marshmallows from the imp traps whirled around and fell to what served it for knees. In all of its short existence, it had never heard such a sound. Extrapolating from limited experience, it created a wild and metaphysical explanation that changed its life forever.
But that’s another story.
Claire pressed one hand flat against the wall as the elevator lurched upward. “It works.”
“I never doubted it.” Looking like the captain at the wheel of a very small ship, Dean kept his eyes locked on the edge of the floor joists moving down on the other side of the iron gate. When the top edge of the first floor was almost even with the floor of the elevator, he lifted the switch back up into the off position. In the few seconds it took for the machinery to stop, the floors came level.
“Good eye, Anglais,” Jacques muttered. “Such a pity you were born too late to make this a career.”
“Yeah?” Stepping left, Dean hooked up the gate and reached for the latch on the outer door. “Well, it’s a pity you died too early for me to…”
“To what, Angla…”
Careful not to step over the threshold, Claire leaned out of the elevator and peered up and down the beach, eyes squinted against the ruddy light of the setting sun. “This doesn’t look like the lobby.” The touch of the breeze on her cheek, the sound of the waves curling and slapping into pieces against the fine, white sand, the smell of the rotting fish they appeared to have cut in half worked together to convince her it wasn’t illusion either. “I’m beginning to see why Augustus Smythe closed this thing up.”
“Because he does not like to take the vacation? Perhaps because he did not have a beautiful woman to walk with by the sea.” Wafting past her, Jacques turned and held out his hand.
Claire stared at him, horrified. “What are you doing out there? In fact, how can you be out there?” A quick glance showed that a doily taken from his old room remained crumpled in the back corner. “Your anchor’s in here!”
“As to how, I do not know. As to what, I am inviting you to go for the walk.”
“The walk? Jacques, I don’t think you quite realize where you are.” Had she been able to hold him, she’d have grabbed his hand and yanked him back into the relative safety of the elevator.
“And where am I, cherie! Where is this place that gives me such freedom?”
“I don’t know. And that’s my point!”
“Ah, you are frightened of the unexpected. I understand, cherie, you are a woman, after all.” Lit from behind by the sun, his eyes gleamed.
She folded her arms. “If you’re implying I’m not taking the same stupid chance you are because I’m only a woman, go ahead. I’m not going to fall for it.”
“You wound me, cherie. I said I understood why you are frightened.”
Dean moved out of the elevator too fast for Claire to grab him. “Are you saying I’m a coward?”
“Am I saying that?” Jacques drifted backward, toward the edge of the water. “Non. I would never think of such a thing.”
“You better not be,” Dean muttered. He drew in a deep lungful of air and smiled contentedly. “Man, this place smells just like home.”
The ghost snorted. “If your home smells like this, Anglais, it is no wonder you clean so much.”
The familiar salt air had put Dean in too good a mood to continue the argument. Shaking his head, he wandered down to meet the next wave coming in.
“Excuse me!”
Both men turned and, drawn by Claire’s expression, found themselves returning to the elevator considerably more quickly than they’d left it.
“If you two are quite through exposing yourselves, maybe we could think about getting…now what?”
Dean had disappeared around the doorframe.
“This is some weird.” His voice came from directly behind her. “There’s just this door in the sand. From this side, you can’t see the elevator at all.”
“Don’t step where it should be!” Claire shouted. She didn’t want to think about what could happen should three realities—elevator, beach, and Dean—suddenly find themselves sharing the same space. When Dean reappeared, she backed away from the door, leaving him room to get in. “Come on.”
Jacques stepped between them, his long face wearing the half rakish, half pleading expression she found so difficult to resist. “Cherie, how often is there the chance to enjoy such a sunset?”
“And how enjoyable will it be if I leave the elevator and it disappears?”
“So before you leave, we prop the door open with a rock. If only the door is real here, then the elevator will go nowhere.”
“You don’t know that,” Claire muttered, but she could feel her resolve weakening. It was a beautiful beach; brilliant white sand stretching down to turquoise water, the setting sun brushing the entire scene with red-gold light.
“If I cannot convince you, cherie…” His eyes twinkled under lowered lids. “…then I dare you.”
“You dare me?”