Aria in Ice (24 page)

The next words by Stanislav Smetana were in
English. I wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that
Aura Lee could talk the devil himself into opening a lemonade stand
in the very bowels of Hades. The fact that Baron Smetana had
doubtless never heard a syllable of English didn’t faze a soul
here. Aura Lee resumed her questioning of the
man—spirit—whatever.

“Tell us wahy you need to speak to us
toonaht, Stanislav?”

“I want the truth revealed. I have watched
through the centuries as the lies poisoned the Duskova family. It
is time for truth and time for peace and time for me to be at
rest.”

The sentiments were nice but I was ready for
the meat. Were we about to hear who had murdered Ignatz Jezek?
Would Baron Smetana spill the beans as to where Ignatz had hidden
the magic flute?

Apparently the answer was ‘no’ to both
questions. For the story the ghost had to tell had taken place in
the Seventeenth Century, long before Ignatz had even set eyes on
Kouzlo
Noc
, much less charmed the inhabitants with
his musical talent.

I pulled my focus back to the sonorous tones
of the dead man.

“I came to
Kouzlo Noc
in the year of
our Lord 1621. I am a good soldier when my country needed me. I am
also a good Catholic. An honorable man– or I was before I learned
to hate. I was sent here by order of King Ferdinand to rule at the
castle and be certain that the peasants returned to their Catholic
beliefs.”

I’m not exactly an expert in Czech history,
but I did remember reading a long blurb in my guide book about King
Ferdinand II, who took over in 1620 or so and knocked years of
religious tolerance right out on its holy—uh -ear. Protestants
who’d been worshipping for a century without fear of reprisal
suddenly were forced to be part of the Vatican family again.
Ferdinand even executed a group of something like thirty men who
had fought to keep religious freedom a going concern. It had been a
tough time of transition in Czechoslovakia.

But the Baron was telling his story, so I
pulled my focus back, wondering when we’d get to flutes and
Mozart—if ever.

“Ferdinand did not want the rich land
destroyed.” He paused. “I am a simple man and I do not always
understand the ways of kings but I was not given a choice. I was to
take control of the castle and the lands in the name of King
Ferdinand the Second. I did. With no weapon used; no blood spilled.
The Duskova family surrendered to me as a wise family ought when
they see the outcome will be one of despair unless they choose
peace.”

Aura Lee gently prodded the spirit. “What
happened? Wahy did dishonah fall upon you and yours? Please tell
those that ah gathered in this room on this hallowed night.”

The disembodied voice continued. In this last
week, I’d heard one ghost playing a flute, another playing Cole
Porter and finally a sweet old lady singing early Eric Clapton as
she left her ancestral home for the last time. Musical spirits. I
was comfortable with it. Music was a genteel way to listen to those
who’d passed into that good night. I found I didn’t like the
chatter issuing forth from—whomever. It was as though I was
watching a piece of theatre. Aura Lee and Stanislav Smetana were
onstage and the rest of us were in the audience. And even with my
ghost-listening and ESP experiences I couldn’t help the phrase
forming in my head ”
this is one big crock.”

I focused hard on his next words.

“The Baron of
Kouzlo Noc
agreed to let
me rule over his lands and in return I asked his guidance in that
ruling. He agreed and for the first months of 1621, we lived in
harmony.”

“And then?” Aura coaxed.

“Then his daughter, Marie, returned to the
castle. She had been away at the time of the invasion, visiting
family in Bohemia. We fell in love. Yes, she loved me as deeply as
I loved her, although, she had been raised Lutheran. She soon saw
the truth of my faith and converted back.”

Uh oh. I could see where this was headed
already. Heck, anyone who’s ever stayed home with a cold and
watched daytime dramas while eating chicken soup and ice cream and
trashing tissue boxes could see where this was headed. The makings
of the ”
yeah, you can have my lands but you can’t have my
daughter, you greedy, religiously arrogant sonovabitch”
had
begun at
Kouzlo Noc
the day the lovely Marie happened to
catch the eye of Stan here.

I was right. And Stanislav—dead and from
another century far removed from mine—apparently had a sense of
humor, because he seemed to note the triteness of his story. With
English getting more colloquial by the second, Baron Smetana
continued. “It is an old tale and perhaps an all too familiar one.
I recall a drama in my day by a poet of Britain that addressed very
much this same feud although he set his tale in Verona. Yes, my
friends, Marie’s father did not approve, but, unlike a man of
honor, he did not let his feelings be shown. He waited until four
months after our wedding night. Eduard Duskova, Marie’s parent,
came to our room in the north wing of
Kouzlo Noc
and stabbed
me in the back as I lay sleeping with my beautiful wife. He then
dragged my body to the window and threw me to the rocks below.
Marie was screaming even as her father pushed her across the ledge
of the window to her death.”

The nasty father bit was certainly clichéd
and the murders had happened four centuries ago, but I found myself
suddenly blinking back tears. I could hear the screams of the young
bride as she was pushed to an early death by someone she trusted
with her whole heart. The man who’d provided his seed to give her
life had taken it from her at an age far too young to die. No
wonder Baron Stanislav Smetana was still haunting
Kouzlo
Noc
. Royally pissed couldn’t begin to nail the feelings he’d
stored up for four centuries.

Auraliah Lee held up her hand for silence
since several of the séance attendees were murmuring in shock and
sympathy. She smiled. “Ah understand y’all’s feelins, really I do,
but Mr. Smetana needs to finish this, allrighty?”

No one spoke. The silence was so complete and
solid that when the Baron spoke again it sounded huge and loud in
the small space.

“My Baroness… my Marie…and I were to announce
the arrival of our first child the next day. It is what drove him
to murder us both. He would not let his lands forever go to the
child of his Catholic enemy. Worse, after he murdered us, he spread
the lie that I had taken his daughter by force, killed her, and he
was glad I had had the grace to jump from that window and put an
end to my life. The horror of this lie was that the priest believed
I had killed myself. I was not allowed to be buried in consecrated
ground. Three souls left this earth that night. My wife and unborn
child remained together and I believe—I am certain—that they have
reached heaven, but I was separated even in death by a man’s lies
and hatred. In my anguish and grief and pain over their loss, I
cursed the Duskova family for the next twenty generations.”

I tried to do a swift count in my head but my
cousin Remy is the savant in mathematical disciplines in the Dumas
family, so I wasn’t sure whether Veronika and Marta were still
living under that cloud or not. If a generation is considered
twenty-five years, multiply that by twenty and if I was right, the
Baron’s curse was good until about 2121. Ouch.

Stanislav began to sob. “I have learned that
hate destroys those who feel and speak that hate, as well as
ruining those that he has cursed. I have existed in a limbo of
despair for centuries, neither in hell nor in heaven. I miss my
family. I want to rejoin them in eternal rest and peace and I want
to tell the world that Eduard Duskova was a killer, but that his
family, and the generations of family I blindly cursed, were
innocent.”

Veronika was sobbing. She broke the circle on
the side holding Jozef’s hand but pulled Marta up next to her as
she stood and faced the pale presence of this tortured spirit. “I
am so very sorry for wrong of my ancestor doing, and I am so sorry
for child who never knew life. Stanislav, I forgive you for your
curse if you forgive Duskovas that hass made you anguished
soul.”

Marta nodded in agreement with her sister.
She probably hadn’t even caught enough of the story in English to
understand the Baron’s words, but the emotion was the same in any
language and I’d felt from the first day I met her that Marta was a
gentle and kind woman.

With a voice that was fading and raspy, the
Baron whispered, “I bless you. You and all of yours. I thank you. I
have only one request more of you.”

This could be interesting. Or dicey.

Veronika waited. We all waited.

“I wish to be buried in the cemetery with my
wife and child with a headstone that tells the world my name and
theirs so the truth will out. I wish a priest to say a Requiem Mass
for my soul.”

Veronika nodded. “I will see that this is
done. God bless you.”

Aura Lee got in the last word. “Goodbye,
Baron.
Requiescat in Pace
.”

He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. It
was so ridiculously fast that for a moment I wondered if the whole
thing had been a mass hallucination brought on by too much snow and
grief, but when I looked around I saw that everyone was accepting
the Baron’s story and subsequent dispellation of his curse as
though they’d just attended a pleasant tea party.

Aura Lee reached over and clicked on the lamp
she’d douse what seemed like hours ago. I checked the clock on the
mantle over the fireplace. Twelve-thirty. The whole séance had
lasted less than half an hour. Aura Lee calmly headed for the rack,
donned her coat, her hat then wrapped the muffler around her neck
three times.

“Ah’m goin’ now. It was real nice to
meetcha’ll and I hope we have occasion to get togethah in the
future.”

She was out of the room and at the back door
almost before any of us had snapped out of the trance or shock or
whatever we’d been in for thirty minutes. Shay and I took off after
her then politely held the heavy door open for her as she stepped
out into the frigid night.

The blizzard was still raging. I couldn’t
even tell if the snow was sticking with the fierce winds blowing.
The visibility was nil.

“Aura Lee. You can’t go out in this. You
can’t even see. Where’s your car? There’s room here. Please stay
the night.”

Aura Lee stopped for a second in the doorway
turned and smiled. “I’m fine, darlin’. Really ah am. Don’t y’all
worry about me. Bah, bah, now.”

I had the strangest urge to call, “Y’all come
back now, ya hear?” as she stepped out into the snow but I stifled
it. Although I’m sure Auraliah Lee would have appreciated the
sentiment. So much so that she might be so inclined as to take me
up on that, show up tomorrow and haul in another family ghost the
next visit. With the way my luck was going in solving the flute
mystery, it probably would not be Ignatz—again.

Auraliah Lee turned once before walking in
the direction of the old cemetery where the Baron would now be
buried. I knew she’d turned because I could see the red muffler
blowing and the red bow on the beret facing Shay and me.

“
Requiescat in Pace
,” she called.

Within seconds, she was swallowed up into the
night.

I punched Shay’s shoulder.

“Would you close the damn door?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Sorry.”

She complied. We stared at each other for a
full minute. Finally, I took the initiative.

“What just happened?”

“Huh?”

“What. Just. Happened.”

Shay eyes widened but she remained
silent.

I shook the shoulder I’d just punched. “Shay,
a very strange stranger just showed up unannounced and conducted an
even stranger séance to grant pardon and absolution to a really
strange ghost none of us knew was hanging around
Kouzlo Noc
.
Does any of this seem slightly—oh—
strange
—to you?”

Her normal sense of irony was gradually being
restored. She smiled. “Just a tad. But aren’t you thrilled? Shit. A
real live talking ghost spills a tale that’s extremely
Shakespearean in nature and you were right there with front row
seats. Can’t ask for more than that on a dark and stormy night in
Czechoslovakia.”

“Czech Republic. You add Slovakia and there’s
liable to be two American ghosts floating around the Vlatava with
the Baron.” I thought for a second. “What’s bizarre is that he
didn’t have anything to do with Ignatz Jezek. Or with Trina for
that matter, unless you consider her untimely demise part of the
curse he laid down awhile back there.”

“And your point?”

“I’m not sure. I guess I didn’t imagine
anyone like Aura Lee zipping in for a brief séance and zipping out
without getting some answers to the questions that keep nagging me,
subsequently keeping me awake. And, excuse me—how did the woman zip
in? And zip out? Was she real?” I paused. “Wait. She’s real. Has to
be. No self-respecting witch or ghost or goddess would be caught in
that awful red beret by anyone living. Aside from former
congressional interns.”

Shay burst out laughing. I joined in and felt
the tension from the last thirty minutes—heck, from the last entire
day—begin to slide away from the knot in my back.

Shay nudged me. “Let’s get back to the
sitting room. It’s far too cold here and I have no desire to stay
at the door. It’s my guess that Auraliah Lee—and, by the way, is
that her whole name or her first name? Anyway, she’s not coming
back to
Kouzlo Noc
. At least not for the rest of the
night.”

I agreed. “I just wish she’d given me some
sort of hint or clue or pass code that helped with the main mystery
here. And don’t tell me she couldn’t point her little red beret
right to it because I’ll bet you a week’s salary that she
could.”