Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator Read online

  Normally Gilda would have wanted to touch every object and inspect every drawer she encountered, but she now had the disturbing sensation that the room itself was observing her—as if she were an uninvited guest who had suddenly barged in on a formal party. The chairs actually looked as if they might bite her if she tried to sit on them. Gilda wandered through the room and peered through a large bay window that offered a view of several enormous houses perched at lower levels on the hillside. Farther in the distance, fog drifted across the water of San Francisco Bay.

  From the next room, Gilda heard the Hispanic woman, who seemed to be a housekeeper, speaking on the phone: “Her name is Geelda. She has a letter from you. Oh, Mr. Splinter knows? Okay. Okay. That man, he never tell me what is going on!”

  The woman returned and picked up Gilda’s suitcase. “My name is Rosa,” she said. “I am the housekeeper here. Mr. Splinter might not be home until very late this evening, but he will meet you tomorrow.”

  Rosa lugged the suitcase up a steep flight of stairs that creaked beneath her feet, and Gilda followed close behind, noticing that she and Rosa were about the same height.

  When they reached the top of the first flight of stairs, Rosa put down the suitcase and placed her hands on her hips. “Why is this suitcase so heavy?” she demanded.

  “There’s a typewriter in it.”

  “A typewriter!“ Rosa mumbled something in Spanish. Gilda guessed it was something along the lines of Why the hell would a kid pack a typewriter in a suitcase?

  “That’s okay; I can carry it myself.” Gilda dragged the suitcase up another narrow stairway to the third floor. When they reached the top of the stairs, she stopped to catch her breath and gazed down a long, austere hallway lined with several doors—each of them tightly shut. Gilda reflected that there was always something intriguing and ominous about a hallway lined with locked doors.

  “What’s in these rooms?” she asked.

  “I think there is nothing much,” Rosa replied. “Mr. Splinter’s mother used them when she lived here many years ago, and then Mr. Splinter’s wife, Margo, she used to keep her things in those rooms. But now—we keep them closed. I say, thank God for that! Too many rooms to clean!”

  Gilda wanted to ask more questions about Mr. Splinter’s mother and his ex-wife, Margo, but Rosa turned to the right and walked briskly down the hallway with a businesslike efficiency that silenced Gilda’s inquiries for the time being. When she reached the end of the hall, Rosa took a ring choked with about a hundred keys from her pocket. After a few tries, she located the correct key, and the door to the guest room swung open with a creak.

  Gilda sneezed.

  “It is very dusty,” said Rosa. “Tomorrow I will clean.”

  Inside, there was a canopy bed draped by gauzy curtains, a dressing table, and, to Gilda’s delight, a writing table.

  “Wow—this is great!” she said, putting down her suitcase and parting the white drapes on the canopy bed. She sat down on the bedspread. “This reminds me of the kind of bed they have in old movies where a vampire creeps into the room at night.”

  Rosa didn’t smile. “I do not think a vampire will come here,” she said, very seriously. “But there are ghosts in this house, of course.”

  Gilda sat up straight. “There are ghosts in this house?” she asked eagerly.

  “Of course,” said Rosa.

  “You mean you see them just standing around, or what?”

  “Sometimes I see them; sometimes I hear them. The ones in the house here, they don’t bother me. They do their thing; I do my thing.” Rosa spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she were mentioning some construction workers she had hired for home repairs.

  Gilda had the dizzying sensation of wanting to ask a million questions all at once. “But … Do you know who these ghosts are? What do they look like? What do they do?”

  Rosa shrugged. “I think they just sit in the chairs and maybe knit and drink tea. Probably same things they do in their life. This is a very old house, and many old ladies have lived here.” She began to dust a dresser as she spoke. “But in the tower … There is something there that is evil.”

  Gilda wondered whether Rosa was trying to scare her on purpose. Adults were not supposed to say things like “There is something there that is evil,” especially to kids. But Rosa seemed completely serious.

  Rosa pointed to a wall at the back of the guest room. “Behind that wall is the tower. You will see it when you are outside in the backyard.”

  Gilda stared at the wall and remembered the pointy tower that she had seen peeking over the top of the house. “What’s in it that’s evil?” For some reason, Gilda felt the need to whisper.

  Rosa also lowered her voice. “Mr. Splinter’s sister, Melanie—many years ago she jumped from that tower to her death. Something inside that tower made her turn insane. Since then, Mr. Splinter does not let anybody go into that tower.” Rosa shivered. “If he ask me to clean that tower—I quit!”

  Gilda’s mind reeled with two very opposite impulses. The psychic-investigator part of her couldn’t wait to begin snooping to find out what was inside that mysterious tower, but the other part of her mind—the wimpy, fearful, weak part that she always made an effort to squelch—simply wanted to get on a plane and return to Michigan, where everything was safe and boring compared with this foggy, ghost-infested place.

  Rosa fluffed the pillows on the bed. “The ghost of a suicide—that is very bad luck.” She turned to leave. “I go finish my work now, and you come downstairs at six o’clock, and I will make dinner.”

  “Wait—Rosa?”

  “Yes?”

  “What about Juliet? Is Mr. Splinter’s daughter here?”

  “Her room is at the other end of the hallway. She is resting. She took a bad fall and hurt her foot.”

  Gilda sensed that Rosa was growing weary of her incessant questions, so she refrained from asking exactly how Juliet fell.

  “You can go say hello if you wish, but you should know that she is not a person who likes talking.”

  This didn’t sound encouraging. Her mom had warned Gilda that Mr. Splinter was not the warm, friendly sort and that chances were good his mysterious daughter would be similarly aloof.

  After Rosa left, Gilda walked to the window and parted the lace curtains. She gazed down at a small garden of unkempt rosebushes and tangled lilies that almost completely concealed what appeared to be an angel statue. Beyond that were the flat rooftop terraces and turrets of other enormous houses built on the hillside leading down to San Francisco Bay. Waves of fog now covered the bay like ghostly blankets; the sky seemed to be composed of vapors—steam rising from a witch’s cauldron.

  Gilda felt another wave of unease, so she turned to the mirror on the dressing table and looked at herself sternly. “Get a grip, Gilda. You’re on your own now, so toughen up and stop being a baby. Whoever heard of a psychic investigator who’s afraid of ghosts?”

  Gilda opened her suitcase and placed her trusty Underwood typewriter on the writing desk. The typewriter always made her feel calmer.

  She put a piece of paper in the machine and typed:

  Things to investigate:

  What is inside that tower? Find a way to explore it. (I have to admit, I wish Wendy was here to help with that.)

  Ghosts:

  Observe as many as possible and try to communicate with them. Try not to be scared. Remember: ghosts are like spiders; you might not want to see them, but most of them can’t hurt you.

  Gilda found this last line very inspiring, and decided to make an effort to use it in conversation sometime soon.

  Gilda looked at her watch. It was only 5:00, so she had an hour before dinner at six. She thought of her mother, who would now be working at the hospital. Feeling a momentary twinge of homesickness, Gilda contemplated calling her, but decided instead to take the risk of paying Juliet a visit. Perhaps Mr. Splinter’s daughter could tell her more about the story behind the mysterious tower.

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  Meeting Juliet

  Gilda hesitated before knocking on Juliet’s door at the end of the long hallway. She took a deep breath and rapped lightly on the door.

  “Juliet?”

  There was no reply. Gilda pressed her ear to the door and heard voices from a television sitcom in the room.

  Just as Gilda was about to turn and walk away, the door swung open to reveal a gaunt girl who wore a bathrobe and leaned on a single crutch. Juliet’s blond hair was so unclean it looked almost brown, and a large orange-juice stain marked the cashmere bathrobe she had been wearing for the past few weeks. Her room had a musty odor combined with the faint stench of illness.

  Juliet gazed at Gilda with blank awe, as if she wasn’t sure whether Gilda was real.

  “S-sorry to bother you,” Gilda stammered, “but I just wanted to introduce myself.”

  “Who are you?” Juliet spoke with a small voice that was at once soft and icy.

  Despite her unkempt appearance, Juliet had a kind of diminutive, prim demeanor that made Gilda feel very large and sloppy, as if she were an enormous puppy with muddy paws that had just been introduced to a tiny French poodle. “I’m a distant relative of your father’s,” said Gilda. “I mean, my mom is his second cousin or something. Didn’t your dad tell you he invited me to visit?”

  “My father invited you to visit?”

  “I got a letter from his assistant, Summer—”

  “Oh—her. I didn’t know we had any relatives.” Juliet didn’t sound particularly excited about the discovery.

  “I guess you do,” said Gilda, not knowing what else to say.

  Juliet eyed Gilda’s wrinkled plaid sundress and flip-flops with disapproval. She could tell they were cheap, and not the least bit trendy. Juliet didn’t exactly mean to be snobbish; this way of thinking was simply second nature to her. Her mother often took her on extravagant shopping trips, and the girls at school were almost all wealthy and well dressed.

  Gilda sensed that Juliet was the sort of girl who probably wore designer clothing every day of the week when she wasn’t in her bathrobe—the kind of girl who almost certainly would have ignored Gilda if they had happened to go to the same school. Of course, they would never become friends. Gilda now regretted having bothered to introduce herself.

  “So what happened to you?” Gilda asked bluntly, staring at the crutch under Juliet’s arm.

  Juliet closed the door in Gilda’s face without another word.

  Gilda fumed. When people are mean-spirited and rude, I pity them, Gilda’s mother sometimes said. For a moment, Gilda tried to feel pity for the obviously unhappy girl who had just dismissed her, but she could only feel rage. She had hoped that she could ask Juliet about the tower and the ghosts, but talking with Juliet was more unpleasant than the notion of facing several demons by herself.

  When Gilda was really angry, only her typewriter could help. She returned to her room, and with a flurry of loud, snapping keystrokes, began a story entitled “The World’s Most Disgusting Girl”:

  One morning, Juliet Splinter awoke to discover that her right foot was rotting and that all of her hair had fallen out overnight. Nobody wanted to come near her because she smelled like a sewer rat …

  Gilda felt only slightly better after imagining Juliet’s various diseases and misfortunes. Then she noticed that it was just after six o’clock, and that she was very hungry.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Gilda found Rosa flipping a tortilla in a skillet. Gilda’s mouth watered at the aroma of melted cheese and sautéed onions.

  “What are you making?” Gilda asked.

  “Quesadillas. You like Mexican food?”

  “I love it!” said Gilda. “My friend Wendy and I go to Taco Bell all the time in Michigan.”

  Rosa looked disgusted and muttered something in Spanish. She pointed a spatula at Gilda. “That is not real Mexican!” Rosa proceeded to complain that Mr. Splinter and Juliet had no appreciation for Mexican food: “Mr. Splinter, he only wants a vodka tonic after work, and sometimes a steak. Most times he eats out anyway.”

  “What about Juliet?”

  “Don’t get me started on that girl! She eats nothing but celery and hard-boiled eggs! And only in her room. She never will come downstairs for dinner.”

  “She seems kind of … different,” said Gilda cautiously.

  “It is not her fault, but she is a bad seed.”

  This statement intrigued Gilda, who had always suspected that certain people were simply “born bad.”

  Rosa deftly sprinkled cheese on a quesadilla while simultaneously flipping several tortillas on the stove. “She never says one nice word. I think she may be loco like her dead aunt.” She twirled her finger next to her head.

  “Did you know Juliet’s aunt?”

  Rosa shook her head. “Mr. Splinter, he hired me a few years after his sister died.”

  “So how do you know she was crazy?”

  Rosa shrugged. “It is crazy to jump from a tower window, no?”

  “I guess.”

  “You like jalapeños?”

  “Who?”

  “You like it spicy?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Want a margarita?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Just kidding. You are too young.” Rosa seemed more animated when she was cooking—almost giddy.

  “Rosa,” Gilda ventured, “do you see any ghosts right now?”

  Rosa glanced around the room. “Too noisy right now. They like it quiet.”

  Rosa served quesadillas to Gilda in the dining room, then prepared a tray with celery and hard-boiled eggs to take upstairs to Juliet. “For her majesty,” said Rosa, winking at Gilda.

  After delivering the tray to Juliet, Rosa wrapped a scarf around her head and placed some of the quesadillas she had made in a basket. “Okay, Geelda. I am leaving now.”

  “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to eat dinner?”

  “I will eat at home with my kids.”

  “I thought you lived here.”

  Rosa shook her head. “Too many ghosts in this house for me.”

  “Really?!”

  “Just kidding! See you tomorrow.”

  “Wait—when does Mr. Splinter come home?”

  “Tonight, very late. He sometimes works until ten or eleven o’clock.”

  Gilda sat alone under the massive crystal chandelier, which looked as though it might pull the whole ceiling down at any minute. Through the window, the world outside had been swallowed completely by fog.

  Gilda’s stomach tightened as she remembered Rosa’s comment about how the ghosts in the house “like it quiet.” She glanced around the dining room, half expecting to see the chairs suddenly populated with white-haired ladies wearing gauzy dresses and holding teacups. “Hello?” she asked tentatively. “Is anybody here?” A loud, mooing sound, like the mournful call of a giant mechanical cow, was the only reply. Gilda almost jumped out of her seat, but then she realized that the sound was only a foghorn blasting across the bay.

  Forcing herself to be brave, Gilda wandered through the parlor and the library. The ghosts must love this house, she thought, noticing that all the walls were decorated with peeling wallpaper in faded floral patterns or painted a dusty shade of green. In the dim light, dark pieces of furniture with lion’s feet resembled living creatures that had fallen asleep.

  Gilda wondered when Mr. Splinter would finally return from work. What if he turned out to be even meaner than Juliet? He certainly didn’t seem to be in any hurry to meet his houseguest from Michigan.

  Gilda felt something soft brushing against her leg and let out an involuntary shriek. She found herself looking down at a huge gray cat.

  “How long have you been here in this room?” Gilda asked.

  The cat peered up at her expectantly with topaz eyes, its fluffy tail twitching back and forth like a plume of blue smoke. Gilda was allergic to cat hair, but cats always had a perverse way of seeking her company.<
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  “Excuse me,” said Gilda, feeling, for some reason, that it would be rude to walk away from the cat without some explanation.

  Deciding that she’d prefer not to meet Mr. Splinter until absolutely necessary, Gilda began to climb the creaking staircases that led to her bedroom on the third floor. As she ascended the stairs, Gilda again had the disturbing feeling that she was being watched. Half expecting to see the cat following her up the stairs, she turned to look behind her, but she was alone in the house.

  Except for Juliet.

  Now that it was dark, the idea of being alone in this house with her made Gilda feel paranoid. There was something freakish about that frail, haunted-looking girl.

  With a burst of frightened energy, Gilda ran the rest of the way up the stairs. Then she noticed a dim glow of light at the end of the hallway.

  The light came from Juliet’s bedroom; strangely, Juliet had left her door open. There was something odd about this: Gilda distinctly remembered Juliet slamming the door in her face, and it seemed surprising that she would leave her door open on purpose when Gilda was around.

  Gilda held her breath and listened. She thought she heard a faint sound coming from inside the room, like a whispering voice that rose and fell in a cadence of conversation that was too faint to hear clearly. Was Juliet talking to someone? If so—to whom? Weren’t the two of them alone in the house? Gilda supposed it was possible that Juliet was talking on the phone, but something about the tone of the voice seemed too whispery and strange to be normal conversation.

  Now as curious as she was frightened, Gilda moved slowly toward Juliet’s doorway, edging sideways and keeping her back close to the wall in an attempt to conceal herself in the shadows. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, until she got close enough to cautiously peek into the room without being seen.