Aria in Ice (25 page)

We’d made it to the sitting room by this
time. Johnny heard my last comment and sailed right in. “Who could
what?”

The group of enthralled séance-goers were
still littered around what had been my bedroom for an hour before
it had undergone renovations as a pit stop on the highway to
eternity.

I ignored them. I kept my volume low and
muttered, “Shay believes what just happened here—happened.”

“Gotcha. Want to talk later?”

“Oh sure, why not?”

Jozef joined us. “That was an unexpected
event, was it not?”

“I’d give that a yes.” I raised my voice.
“Hey, gang, anyone here have any idea of who called Ms. Auraliah
Lee?” I turned back to Johnny. “Is she an old buddy from early and
endless days of
Endless Time
? Or from the Montana circus? A
fortune teller gone off the reservation so to speak?”

His green eyes sparkled in sheer
delight.”Never saw, heard or met the woman until just now. Loved
the performance,though.”

“Yeah, well, okay. Shay and I are clueless as
to where she came from. We thought she was a trip and a half and
that was a pretty amazing show she put on, but I’d love the name of
whoever told her we had a snowbound party going on at
Kouzlo
Noc
so this would be a good time to set spirits free.”

Veronika quietly crossed to me and took my
hand. “I do not tink anyone called dis woman. I tink Baron Smetana
chose her for her kindness and he iss the one who decide that he
must be free of his rage and his pain and his name must be made
whole. Why tonight?” Her eyes suddenly grew moist. “Perhaps Trina
has passed him as she passed into the light and she hass told him
that we are now wanting the rid of curses and this is good time to
get forgiveness for all?”

It was the longest speech I’d ever heard come
from Veronika Duskova and it also made great sense—inasmuch as
anything around this castle made sense. I suddenly felt exhausted,
as though I’d personally conducted the séance and aided the Baron
in achieving his new peaceful dwelling place in the hereafter.

I waved at the crowd in the sitting room.
“Hey, troops. It’s been really fun but I for one am more than ready
to call it a day. And a night. Tomorrow was supposedly going to be
a workday and I’d love to get some sleep. So, ungracious as this
sounds can everyone go tippy-tappy off to their respective rooms
and let me crash for a couple of hours?”

They left. No argument. The adrenalin high of
channeling spirits was over. I’d started punching pillows into
shape for my bed on the floor but stopped when I noticed one person
hadn’t left with the others. Johnny.

“I’ll go if you want, Abby but I have the
feeling you’d really rather I stayed. I won’t try and engage you in
scintillating conversation or scintillating exercises in passion,”
he hugged me, “unless you get some wild aerobic energy back—but if
you’d like, I’ll stoke up the fire and lie down on those blankets
and just hold you until you believe you’re safe enough to fall
asleep.”

I shivered. He’d said that word –safe. I was
anything but. I’d hidden my own thoughts from myself with comical
comments and scholarly pursuits into what did and did not
constitute symbols in
The Magic Flute
. I’d pushing any
whisper of that word to the back of my brain. But it had snuck up
on me about three minutes ago and I was shaking and freezing
because Johnny Gerard had it pegged. I was anything
but
safe. And I was damn scared. I didn’t know where the flute was. I
didn’t know who’d murdered Ignatz. Or Gustav. Or Trina. What I did
know was that there was a menace surrounding this castle—and it was
aimed at me.

I looked up at Johnny, who’d turned his face
away to let me deal with my realizations. He was adding newspapers
to the fire and the last logs that had been brought in this morning
when the weather started changing.

“Thanks, Johnny.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds,
just continued his task of keeping the room warm for the hours left
this night. Finally, he sat down on the floor next to me and took
my hands in his. “It hit me today that you hear music when spirits
sing it. I understand that even though I’m getting nothing but
silence. Abby, I hear the music in your soul because I can feel it.
I have since the day I first met you. Whether that music is light
and airy or dark and heavy. Today, that music is edgy and not in a
heavy-metal rock band crashing boundaries kind of way. I’ve
personally been getting more and more edgy and instinctively
knowing that edginess isn’t coming from the events—awful as they’ve
been. It’s coming from you because you’re absolutely terrified and
you’re trying not to let yourself even become aware of it.”

I couldn’t say anything for a few minutes. I
closed my eyes and focused on my feelings—hard as that was. I’m not
the greatest with tuning into my emotions. It’s easier for me to
shrug off problems, easier for me to ignore them than to confront
them. But tonight those feelings were pouring through me. They
weren’t pleasant. But Johnny felt them right along with me.

I laid my hand over his. “You’re right. I’m
absolutely terrifed. There. I’ve said it. Do I feel better? Hell,
no.”

He hugged me. “Would you like to hear the
fact that I’m not exactly oozing with manly manliness and mucho
macho toughness right now either? There are really strange things
going on at this castle. I’m feeling—uh—
zamzodden
.”

“Say what?
Zamzodden
? What the hell is
that?”

“Literally, ‘half-boiled.’ It’s a perfectly
lovely, very old Anglo-Saxon term pulled from Latin verbiage that I
only yank out of my thesaurus when I have no other words. And it’s
a great description. Me. Like a soggy pudding.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

His turn to tease. “I taught school,
remember? I picked up all sorts of marvelously useless trivia that
has stuck with me ever since, not to mention I had a marvelous
education.”

“Yes, but old English terminology is not a
required course, if I remember correctly from my days with nuns who
blanched when they heard the name Chaucer.”

“It is.”

“What is?”

“Required.”

“It isn’t– wait—we’re doing it again.” I took
a deep breath. “Where is it required?”

“I went to an all boys’ school in
Massachusetts for exactly one year of my secondary education. Long
story about how and why and not relevant. Anyway, we learned art
history, English Literature, and when and how words that are now
common dropped into the English language. We learned ballroom
dance, lacrosse, and curling. Very eclectic education. Sadly, no
decent theatre program so I wasn’t thrilled.”

“Curling? You learned curling? You’ve got to
be kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“Dang. Johnny Gerard knows curling. Holy
Caledonia. I only thought drunken Scotsmen and intense Canadians
even knew of the sport. Although, recently, it has crept into the
regular way-into-late-night broadcasts of the Sports Channel. Shay
and I placed bets on the winner last Olympics. You’d just taken off
for Kenya so you didn’t get to particpate in the tv parties that
were more lively than the events. Very entertaining. We sipped tea
and munched scones with cream cheese pretending it’s clotted cream
and we speak in thick brogues yelling,
‘verra gude! Ye nailed
that shot, ye wee bastard!’
”

He smiled. “So, we’re avoiding the real
subject? We’re not going to talk about being scared?”

“No. We’re not. We’re tabling that discussion
until at least tomorrow. I have faced my fear and I know it exists.
That’s enough angst for one night.”

I snuggled down into the wealth of blankets,
and added, “But if you care to curl up with the terrified lady, she
won’t object ‘e’en a wee bit.’ ”

I awoke to the sound of screaming. For a
moment I thought I was reliving yesterday’s events, then realized
this was real and not a playback. Johnny sat up beside me.

“What the hell?”

“It’s Veronika. Sounds like it’s coming from
the kitchen. Let’s haul.”

He stood, then tossed a jacket to me. The
fire had burned down to ashes only and it was now chilly in the
sitting room. Especially since I was now separated from the nice
hot Gerard body that had been snuggled up against mine. We’d stayed
wrapped in each other’s arms for the few hours of night that had
been left by the time Aura Lee had traipsed off into the blizzard.
Oh, nothing I couldn’t tell Sister Mary Matrimony at my old high
school. No high-impact aerobic activities. Unfortunately. Just
sharing warmth and comfort and a badly needed feeling of safety.
Very nice indeed. I’d missed him more than I cared to admit those
rotten few months he’d been out of the country.

Johnny and I raced through the ballroom and
on into the kitchen. No one was there. The screams morphed into
keening. The sound was coming from the back staircase; the same set
of stairs that we’d taken yesterday when Johnny had shown me the
mural. We quickly headed that way.

Veronika knelt on the floor, rocking and
sobbing and moaning as she stared at the body of her sister, Marta,
who lay in a crumpled heap at the very bottom of the stairs.

We heard voices and fast footsteps. The rest
of the group who’d spent the night in the castle had followed the
sounds of Veronika’s distress and were now crowding in just behind
me. Johnny immediately turned around and held up his hand in a
classic “Halt” pose.”

“Don’t anyone touch her. Just stay back there
for a second.”

Everyone obeyed. The tone of his voice would
allow for nothing else. He walked over to Veronika and Marta and
knelt on the floor, reaching his hand out and placing it on Marta’s
neck. He released his breath in one big ‘Whew.’

“Sweet Jesus. She’s alive. I’ve got a pulse
here. It’s not terrific and she’s definitely not conscious, but
she’s alive.”

Utterances of “Oh, thank God!” were heard
from Jozef and Fritz. Lily continued to stare in silence while
Franz and Mitchell and Shay stepped forward toward Johnny. Corbin
turned and walked back into the kitchen yelling, “Are the phones
back up? I’ll try the one in here.”

Fritz leaned over and helped Veronika to her
feet. Her face was set in horror and her eyes were glassy. He
murmured, “Veronika. Marta’s alive. Do you understand that? We’ve
got to get help but she’s not dead. Do you hear me? She is not
dead. Not like Trina. Not like my brother.”

“Help,” Veronika whispered. “Yes. There must
be help.” She looked at me. “Is
polici
still here?”

Then the import of Fritz’s words hit.
“Brother?” Veronika began to cry again. “Iss brother the piano
tuner? Ach, no.”

Fritz nodded while every last man and woman
gathered in the hall stared at him.

“Yes. Gustav. He was the brother closest to
me in age. And he came to
Kouzlo Noc
and he died.”

Veronika buried her face in her hands. “I am
so, so very sorry. He should not have died. He worked good and he
wass in north tower to look for a book for me. I now am of belief
he did not fall. He was pushed. Like Trina was pushed into moat.
Like Marta pushed down stairs.”

For a moment no one knew what to say. The
only thought spining through my brain was “
someone here is a
killer.”
It was vital to discover who. It was also vital to get
help for Marta.

I turned my focus back to Veronika’s question
about the police. “Madam D, the police left early last night. Um.
You had already gone upstairs and you didn’t hear them leave.”
With Trina’s body carried out in a bag
, my mind screamed,
but I didn’t say those words. “Corbin has gone to see if any of the
landline phones work. Everybody? We need to focus here and figure
out how to get Marta to a hospital. We can deal with the who, how
and whys later.”

Johnny nodded with me, then added, in a tone
of pure steel, “And we will.”

I turned to Shay, who began to gently lead
Veronika away from her sister’s pale frame. “Shay? Were you able to
recharge your cell last night? I wonder if we can call out if the
regular phones aren’t back on line?”

She shook her head. “There was a major power
outage. Lasted from about one in morning on. I was going to plug
the cell in after Auraliah Lee left but I forgot and then when I
remembered there was no power for the adaptor.”

I glanced around. No power was still the rule
of the day. I’d thought the blizzard had stopped and assumed we now
had electricity, but but I’d been wrong on both counts. The short
break we’d experienced in the snow last night had only served to
recharge the strength of the blizzard this morning. No cheery
lights blazed in
Kouzlo Noc
.

Corbin came back inside the stairwell.
“Kitchen power is out, too, so the kitchen phone is not on.”

“Let’s check the rest of the house… I mean,
castle.” I suggested. “Even if none of the phones work, there could
be one power source to plug in a cell.” My mind suddenly flashed on
Jozef’s arrival early yesterday. “Wait! Duh. There are cars
outside. One of them’s bound to have a charger somewhere.”

Franz, Mitchell and Corbin all headed back
through the kitchen toward the door that led closest to what passed
for a garage. The boathouse. Johnny was still kneeling next to
Marta, cautiously feeling for broken bones while trying not to move
her. He looked up at me.

“She needs a blanket, Abby. Or two or more.
She’s really cold and I’m sure she‘s in shock.”

Shay and I raced back toward the sitting room
and gathered up the bedding I’d used last night. Lily stayed in the
kitchen with Veronika, asking her where the cups were for tea and
coffee, since it was apparent we were all going to need something
hot soon. Bless gas stoves.