a history of confidence between us. So I told him. Everything, starting with the scratch on my door, the invisible touch, the voice. When I tried to replicate its sound, however, the chill of memory overtook me and I grasped my throat, unable to continue.
“What did she say?” Bert prodded.
“She said, ‘Something for you, Hedda Krause.’” Then a thought nudged. She? “It wasn’t a woman’s voice.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never heard a woman’s voice like that before.”
Bert steepled his fingers and propped his chin on them, waiting. For what, exactly? For me to remember, to recall, to bring back the voice. A woman? Certainly not. But then—
A memory. When I was a young girl, my mother still alive, we lived in a house populated by many other women. There was one, much older than my mother (so I thought at the time), whose voice carried the same quality as that of my visitor. I conjured it, right there at the table across from Bert. I heard her speaking, beckoning, even laughing. Some of the younger women called her “Froggy,” and I did too, once. But Mother chastised me, telling me that she’d been badly hurt years ago at the hands of a bad man, and that was why her voice sounded broken. It was broken. And so was she.
“I suppose …” I left the conclusion to trail. “But that doesn’t tell me who she was. Or why she would want to inflict such torture on me.”
I may have imagined it, but I would swear I saw a hint of a smile tug the corner of Bert’s lip. “So, no one’s told you?”
“Told me what?”
Now he did smile, broadly and engaging. “Are you telling me the whole time you’ve been here, nobody’s said anything to you about Sallie?”
Without knowing why, only that his levity brightened me, I found myself smiling too. “No. Who is she?”
Bert made a small, secretive sound. “Finish your coffee.” Then he stood, hand outstretched, waiting. By now the drink had cooled to where I could take it down in a few satisfying gulps. He took our cups to the bar, set them behind, and came back to help me with my chair.
“Now, Mrs. Krause,” he said, placing my hand in the crook of his arm, where it felt instantly at home, “if I were any other man, I would escort you right to your room. But I know neither of us wants that kind of trouble.”
My latent tranquility vanished. “I can’t—”
Bert pressed my hand. “Trust me when I tell you this is not a conversation to have tonight. Not at this late hour. And not with so much…coffee.”
“Please,” I said, not even sure what I beseeched.
“Just walk yourself right up there. Keep your eyes focused on the floor. Walk like you can’t stop, and then—” We were at the door. He looked out into the lobby, checking the path to be clear before dropping my arm, taking my face in his hands.
“Bert,” I said right before he placed a single, soft kiss directly on my waiting lips.
“Think of it as a charm.”
I had nothing in me. No response. No words. No breath. My feet, numb with disassociation, stepped into the hall, but at his voice I turned.
“One more thing, Mrs. Krause?”
“Yes, Bert?”
“Once you’re in your room, shut the door. Lock it. She don’t like to go inside.”
Chapter 5
Excerpt from
My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause
Published by the Author Herself
I shall now pause in my own narrative to tell you the story of Sallie White. What you are about to ingest in only a few minutes’ time is the product of hundreds of hours of conversations on my part. Idle chat with the chambermaids along with brandy and cards in the lobby with guests who have been patrons of the Menger Hotel nearly since its opening day. I never exchanged a word on the subject with Mr. Sylvan, but I’d taken to the more than occasional hot toddy with Bert in the late evenings. I could tell how reluctant he was to share details about Sallie White, and he did so only at my insistence.
“It’s never a good idea to plant a ghost in someone’s mind,” he said, wiping the cherrywood bar with a clean white towel. “Muddles it all up if there’s an expectation.”
As for you, Dear Reader, if you are faint of heart, if you are profoundly disturbed by stories of violence and murder or fearful of tales of an otherworldly nature, I invite you