The Dead Room

The father sighed. “Marina, we’re seeing New York. Can’t we just let the kids have some fun along with their education?”

“Fun?” the wife repeated icily.

“I’m sorry,” the father said with a sigh.

Joe couldn’t help himself. “Good evening,” he said, approaching the group. “It’s a little late. Not much open around here at this hour. Actually…nothing open. But bars.”

The father puffed up. But the wife agreed.

“Yes,” she murmured, staring at Joe a little suspiciously, then tugged at her husband’s arm. “We should get back to the hotel.”

“We only have two days here with the kids,” the husband said.

“You might notice that the street is pretty deserted,” Joe said politely.

“Are you a cop?” the wife asked.

“I was.”

“I read in the newspaper that there have been unexplained disappearances in this area,” the wife said.

“Are we prostitutes?” the husband hissed.

“I want to go,” the wife insisted.

They moved on, looking back now and then to see that they weren’t being followed.

“Catch a taxi down the block—they’ll be going north,” Joe called.

Then he put the house and its memories behind him and started down the street in the opposite direction, shrugging his shoulders, as if he could shrug away the feelings that seized him every time he came to Hastings House.

Strange. He felt as if the house itself were beckoning to him.

As if something—someone?—inside was calling him back, unwilling to let him go.

He gritted his teeth and moved on. He wasn’t given to fantasy. The real world was tough enough.

Still, he stopped halfway down the block and stared back at the house. Then, almost angrily, he moved on.

A house simply could not call out to him, as if asking for some kind of help….

3

It was evening when they arrived at Hastings House. To the left there was a large pit, along with the partially demolished miniskyscraper that was being torn down to be replaced by a megabuilding. Downtown was coming back in a big way.

To the right—beyond a narrow expanse of grass, the only evidence that there had once been many residences in the area—stood an office building/apartment complex built in the 1940s. The sun was falling, and, if Leslie narrowed her vision, she could almost imagine what this very small spot in the world might have looked like in the past.

But then she began to hear the angry beeping of horns, the sudden blare of rap music, a shout, the click of heels on pavement…this was, after all, New York. Even on a lazy Sunday afternoon, this was the piece of granite where so many people had decided they had to live. The center of the universe, in the minds of so many. She smiled. With all its sins and dirt and mixture of good and evil, she loved the city. Rebel she might be, but she loved New York.

And it was good to be back.

“Hey!” the cabbie interjected, breaking her thoughts. With an accent only on the single syllable, she wasn’t sure just what part of the world his speech denoted. “Somebody gonna pay me?”

“Oh, yes, right,” Professor Laymon said. Leslie didn’t even turn around. She felt Brad at her shoulder as she stared at Hastings House. What would it offer up to her now? Now that she was who she was—now that she was changed?

She felt Brad’s hand on her shoulder. “It’s a house,” he said softly. “But if you’re the least bit uneasy, there’s no reason on earth for you to stay here.”

She turned, smiling at him. “I want to stay here.”

“It won’t bring Matt back to life.”

“I know,” she said, looking back toward Hastings House.

The house was beautiful. Two stories high, and all the outer over-the-centuries additions had been ripped away and its facade had been restored to the Colonial-era style in which it had been originally built. Even downtown, there were few buildings to compare with it, other than St. Paul’s Cathedral and Fraunces Tavern. It had been given a white-picket fence—higher than it would have been when the house was built, and even as the sun set, the alarm wires around it were visible. A sign on the gate advertised the house’s historical importance, and announced visiting times and admission prices.

It looked just as it had the last time she had come here.

The damage from the blast and fire had been repaired.

And since it was Sunday, after five, there were no lingering tourists. The horn blasts and other street sounds seemed to come from far away. The house was quiet, as if it were resting.

As if it were expecting something.

Then the front door burst open, and Greta Peterson came hurrying down the walk to the gate. “Come in, come in. We’ve been waiting for you. Watching.”

We?

Who the heck else was here? Leslie had hoped for a quiet night. No one would have understood, so she hadn’t said anything, but she really wanted the house to herself.

Before she knew it, Greta, with all her warmth and enthusiasm, had reached her, hugged her, rested an arm around her shoulders and called out a greeting to Professor Laymon and Brad. Then Greta dragged her up the walk, saying, “Oh, Leslie, I’m so happy to see you. You look wonderful, dear. A bit too thin, but wonderful. I know that thin is in…but don’t go losing your shape, young lady.”

That from a rail-thin, hyper matron, Leslie thought dryly.

But Greta’s warmth and enthusiasm were endearing. Then, as they neared the house, Leslie’s heart sank.

Greta had apparently planned a welcome party. Thankfully, it appeared to be a small one. Sergeant Robert Adair—okay, she liked Robert and was delighted to see him—peeked out the doorway as they approached. Behind him, Hank Smith, from the development company, stepped into view, and then Ken Dryer, the attractive and articulate police spokesman, made an appearance.

“Leslie!” Robert called, smiling affectionately.

“Robert,” she said with a smile, accepting a hug as the other men stood back.

“Hey, Les,” Hank said, offering her a handshake.

Ken Dryer gave her a very proper hug before moving on to shake Brad’s hand and ask about the weather in D.C. Then he started down the path to welcome the professor and collect Leslie’s rolling suitcase from the sidewalk.

“Gorgeous as ever,” Robert Adair whispered softly. “You okay?” he asked, taking her hands and looking at her with concern in his eyes.

“Fine,” she assured him.