had been Sally White, this hotel would be haunted by the ghost of Henry Wheeler. I had two rivals for the affections of my late husband, one of whom was an heiress to a company known in every household in the nation. Yet I prevailed. Not by methods of which I am terribly proud, but if a fleshly woman with millions of dollars could not thwart my path to happiness, then neither would the remaining spirit of a long-dead maid. The quest for love compels risks.
Thus, I took on the role of the offense in our fight.
“How can I summon her to me?” I asked Bert this question in the dead of a bitter January night. By then we’d given up any sort of pretense that we were anything other than friends. Nights when the bar was empty, knowing the night clerk was dozing behind a magazine, I’d creep in, whereupon Bert would lock the doors, pull the shade, and join me at my table.
“What do you mean, summon?” he asked, filling my glass with a special brandy kept under the bar just for me. “You don’t mean anything like one of those séances, do you? Witches talking to the dead? Because not only is that pure evil, but Mr. Sylvan would never allow such a thing on his property.”
“Of course not. I mean Sallie herself. If she can be bothered to show up in…unexpected places whenever she wishes, how can I get her to come speak to me when I wish?”
“You know you sound crazy.”
“Ah, but you know I’m not.”
“I did until just this minute. Now I’m not entirely sure.” He grinned at me over his cup. Coffee, straight, as he always drank. And though I could sense the levity in his comment, there was a hint of sincerity behind it. I should have told him about the photograph, I chastised myself. More, I should have shown it to him, so he would know. “You believe me, don’t you, Bert?”
“It’s like what I told you at the beginning. You got to be careful about plantin’ ideas in a mind, because they can take root, whether they have a life to them or not. It’s like thinkin’ to yourself, I’d like to have me a little dog. A little black-and-white dog with spots. And then, next you know, you’re seein’ little black-and-white spotted dogs everywhere. Places you’ve never seen them before. But maybe they was always there—you just hadn’t brung them up to the top of your mind yet.”
“You think Sallie is just something I have brought to the top of my mind?”
“No.” He poured me another. “What you heard that first night was probably real enough. It’s a different story than what most tell, but …” He left the thought unfinished.
“I have heard her since.”
“I know you have.”
“On multiple occasions. And in multiple…ways.” He cocked his head, inviting me to elaborate, but I did not.
“I think,” he said, his voice as gentle as I ever heard it, “that’s maybe because you have stayed here for—well, longer than most do. Most people, they’re here a night. Maybe two or three. Then they go. So if they see or hear somethin’, they can put it out of mind because they don’t have another night comin’.”
I steeled myself. “Are you saying I should leave?”
“No.” He shook his head for emphasis. “No, I am not sayin’ that at all. What I do say, is that maybe just by bein’ here, in a way, you’re summoning her already. Maybe she thinks, when people leave, she’s scarin’ them off. And she just hasn’t scared you off yet.”
I let his words sink in with the brandy. “She won’t.”
“That’s my girl.” He offered his smile, which, along with the sentiment, managed to warm every bit of me that the drink left cold.
That night I left the bar in a manner quite the opposite of how I left the nights before. Rather than keeping my head down, eyes focused on my feet, I kept my gaze employed in a constant sweep of the shadows, scanning left and right as I imagined a soldier on patrol might do. With every step I whispered, “Come out here, Sally White,” just under my breath, keeping my teeth gritted closed behind my lips. I kept up my challenge in the hall, hearing the blood rush in my ears, knowing she and I would be trapped in the long, narrow passage.
I went into my room and shut my door as usual but stopped