The Skeleton Key Read online

  ‘I’ll put my coat on and we’ll find out.’

  We stepped into the lounge room to find my great-aunt leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, resplendent in her emerald-green dress. From beneath the mesh of her veil she looked Luke up and down from head to toe and a slight smile crept across her pale features. She could not see him when he was in ghost form, but she could certainly see him now.

  ‘Have fun,’ she said, with what I thought was a touch of naughtiness in her voice. ‘And remember, be back by midnight.’

  There are many things that are only possible after dark. But night brings with it other concerns. And a need for precautions.

  I was wearing Celia’s warm vintage camel-coloured coat over my dress and had filled the pockets of the coat with handfuls of uncooked rice in case the residents who lived on the middle floors of the house decided to hassle us.

  I stepped out of the elevator with Lieutenant Luke and we walked across the lobby of the great mansion hand in hand. I felt buoyant, if a little nervous, though I couldn’t help but notice that my date’s blue eyes (which did not glow when he was in human form but were nonetheless quite striking) appeared full of concern, his brows pulled together.

  ‘Miss Pandora?’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I do not want to disappoint you.’

  ‘You could never disappoint me, Lieutenant Luke.’

  We held hands tightly and walked across the tiles of the lobby. Under our feet were thin hairline cracks that ran the length of the beautifully tiled floor, as if the house had survived some mild earthquake or its foundations sat near a fault line, and it made me think again about the strange noises I had heard.

  ‘Do you ever hear strange noises in the house?’ I found myself asking.

  Luke nodded.

  ‘I mean, down here? Noises that seem like they’re coming from under the floor?’

  He nodded again. ‘The house has many things to tell us.’

  So it wasn’t just me.

  Let’s just have a nice date tonight, I reminded myself once again. Like two normal people on a normal date. Two normal people with a bit of a generation gap.

  I was nervous about something, I realised. Maybe it was this next bit – leaving the house – or maybe it was something else entirely.

  ‘Here we go . . .’

  I reached for the door with my right hand and Lieutenant Luke immediately let go of my left. Oh boy. I plastered a big smile on my face to hide my nerves. We’d been on the roof of the house one month earlier, when it was a full moon and he was in human form as he was tonight, and the roof was technically outside the building, right? Still, this next bit was something I was a little uncertain about. And it seemed Luke was uncertain, too. We’d tried this once before when he was in spirit form. It had not gone well. But this would be different, wouldn’t it?

  Still smiling, I turned the doorknob, pushed the front door open and stepped out into the cool spring night. I held the door open with one hand and held my other hand out to Luke.

  ‘Come with me,’ I said.

  He stood stiffly in his uniform, handsome and intoxicat­ingly real, the sheathed sword hanging from his belt.

  Trust me to have a crush on a ghost.

  Who else would have a date they might not be able to leave the house with, for, um, technical reasons?

  ‘You can do it. You’re flesh and blood tonight,’ I reasoned.

  Finally Luke closed his eyes and took a few steps forward. I realised I was holding my breath as he neared the threshold, one step at a time. The last time we’d tried this, he’d disappeared. But we did not have his sword then. Or this powerful moon and its magick. He had not been in human form. This had to be different. This had to work.

  Come on . . .

  Lieutenant Luke stepped right up to the doorway and stopped. He lifted his left foot just a touch, his boot hovering near the threshold.

  Oh, Luke . . .

  He closed his eyes but mine were wide open. This was it. This was the difference between whether or not we would ever be able to leave the house together, whether he would ever be able to walk the streets of Spektor, Manhattan, the world even. Whether he could ever be part of the other aspects of my life, beyond the walls of this strange old house . . .

  I watched him move as if in slow motion, waiting for him to dematerialise, but his foot came down on the other side. He stepped through the doorway and stood in front of me, a peculiar look on his face. ‘I’m out,’ he remarked, not quite believing it.

  He was out. He was.

  We linked arms and I took a deep breath. ‘Good,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Now, let’s see Manhattan.’

  It was a beautiful, clear spring night as I stood on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, eighty-six storeys above Manhattan, holding hands with my lovely, temporarily undeceased date.

  All around us the city’s famous skyscrapers glowed from within, illuminating the sky with thousands of cubes of light. Below us a wide grid of streets stretched off in all directions, alive with taxis and cars, pedestrians and movement, flashing billboards and neon lights. In the distance, Lady Liberty held her torch aloft and, above her, a spectacular Crow Moon sat low and full in the sky, bringing her ancient, otherworldly presence to the modern urban dreamscape. In that moment I had to admit to myself that while my new life in New York was not at all as I’d imagined, there was no denying that it was tremendously exciting.

  Scary, too, at times.

  There had been moments in the previous three months when I’d truly wondered if I would cope – if I would survive, even. There were things in this world that I’d only read about in folktales and fiction. I’d seen proof of things that even the most open-minded person would reject as fanciful. There was a lot to get my head around. What would my parents make of what I was doing now, for instance? Holding the hand of a dead Civil War soldier who’d never seen modern Manhattan, and who had come to life for the night thanks to a trick of a talisman and the magick of the moon?

  Yet even though my new life was strange and challenging, I could see that I finally belonged somewhere. I had a sense of acceptance that I’d missed since losing my parents. It was almost as if I’d just been waiting in Gretchenville for the past eight years, biding my time until Manhattan summoned me.

  ‘Miss Pandora, there is so much life,’ Lieutenant Luke said in a hushed voice

  The Empire State Building opened in 1931, some seventy years after Lieutenant Luke’s death, so naturally this was his first time on the observation platform of the famous building. Now, as I turned my head to take in his expression, I could see that he was quite mesmerised by the view of the contemporary metropolis. His strong jaw had softened somehow with his awe, and those eyes of his – the most incredible blue eyes you’ll ever see – were fixed brightly on our surroundings.

  ‘There is,’ I replied simply. ‘There is.’

  He squeezed my hand.

  Luke is a true gentleman in the old-fashioned sense, and he is also the one person in the world – correction: worlds – that I knew would enjoy the delights of the Empire State Building with the same childlike wonder I did. Just like me, he had had something of a limited experience of the world until recently. I guess we had that much in common, if not much else. I could not imagine dying in a war, leaving behind a spouse and unborn baby. (His pregnant wife had been my age, he’d told me.) Or finding myself trapped in a house as a spirit that most people could never see and would never recognise or acknowledge, not knowing why I was there, not even knowing how it had happened. What loneliness that fate must hold. I leaned my head into Luke’s chest and he circled his arms around me. Yes, we’d both had our losses.

  ‘This building is said to have many ghosts. I met one named Evelyn McHale. She’s nice, if sad,’ I said, wondering why I couldn’t resist talking to a ghost about ghosts, as if it would interest him. Or perhaps telling Luke about others like him would make him feel less alone?

&nb
sp; ‘There’s something called the “Automotive Bermuda Triangle”,’ I went on as Luke continued to gaze out at the city. ‘The so-called “Empire State Building Effect”. Apparently, about a dozen automobiles are disabled within a five-block radius of this building every day. They just stop working or once they’ve been parked they won’t start again.’ I’d read about the phenomenon with some fascination.

  ‘I do not know how these automotive carriages work. I have never been inside one, myself,’ Lieutenant Luke remarked, considering the idea.

  Automotive carriages. That was another experience for our list, then.

  ‘But I would not care to ride a horse that halted when I needed him to canter,’ he continued. ‘Such behaviour could be dangerous for the rider.’

  I turned and smiled. ‘Indeed. Well, this is unusual activity. Cars are usually a bit more reliable than that. More reliable than horses,’ I said.

  ‘More reliable than a good horse?’

  Lieutenant Luke would have been quite a horseman in his day, I reminded myself. ‘Maybe a good horse is very reliable, but cars are usually pretty safe, unless you have a real lemon on your hands.’

  From his expression I realised that he didn’t understand what I meant. ‘A lemon is a poor quality car,’ I said. Of course he wasn’t familiar with modern slang. ‘One theory says the big antenna on top of the building causes this Bermuda Triangle effect. It’s a radio and television antenna and they think it interferes with the electrics.’ I looked above us and Luke followed my eye line. ‘Or maybe it’s something else,’ I said, thinking of the jumpers like Evelyn and the workers who had died during the construction. Industry estimates at the time stated that one death per floor of construction was to be expected but, thankfully, many reports put the final toll at far fewer than that.

  ‘What do you think it is that causes this “triangle” you speak of?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. New York held many mysteries. We knew that better than most. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’d believe just about anything at this point.’

  We looked out over the city in silence.

  ‘Can we stay a while longer?’ Lieutenant Luke asked. I nodded and he put his arms around my waist again, and we watched the world together for a blissful stretch of time that might have been twenty minutes or an hour, I couldn’t say. It seemed like we’d developed such a connection that we understood each other without even speaking. I could feel him within me. It was a closeness I found foreign and intoxicating, and I felt truly happy there, with Luke’s arms linked around my waist. We watched the planes traverse the giant night sky, the cars moving below. The city pulse. The moon. I didn’t even see any of the ghosts said to inhabit the place. It felt almost normal. It was perfect.

  And then it all had to change.

  The doors opened directly behind us in a rush of moving air and, naturally, we both turned. And there he was.

  Jay Rockwell.

  He stepped out onto the breezy platform not three feet from where Lieutenant Luke and I stood. Jay was an athletic six foot six with an impressive physique formed from years of competitive rowing in college. He was wearing jeans and his familiar leather jacket, with a woolly scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. He had a full head of dark brown, close-cropped hair and what is commonly called ‘ruggedly handsome’ good looks. On spotting his face I immediately blurted a greeting.

  ‘Oh, hi, Jay!’

  And as soon as I did I found myself caught in one of those awkward moments. You know, the moment when your dead boyfriend meets your ex-boyfriend-with-amnesia-who-doesn’t-remember-you.

  Jay jerked his head around to look at us. ‘Uh, hi . . .’ he said. ‘Do I know you?’

  I blanched. Luke and I let go of each other and stood side by side. My date was dead silent.

  Of course Jay Rockwell didn’t remember me. I’d known that but I’d forgotten it for just long enough to make a fool of myself. He was one of the more charming (living) men I’d met in my life. We’d dated briefly, but he didn’t remember anything of it since a four-hundred-year-old entrepreneur named Elizabeth Bathory attacked us. Because Jay wasn’t the target – I was – he’d been ‘erased’. That was how the supernatural world dealt with the little issue of confidentiality. By giving guys like Jay Rockwell amnesia so they wouldn’t go around declaring the presence of . . . well, everything you can imagine and more. Ghosts, zombies, witches, vampires . . . I mean, Sanguine. The existence of Sanguine.

  ‘Um . . .’ was all that came out as I tried to think of what to say.

  I couldn’t tell Jay Rockwell that I’d saved him from a gang of ill-tempered women with fangs and a thirst for mischief and human blood. That wasn’t going to work at all.

  ‘I think we met at . . .’ I stopped. I tried again. ‘We, uh . . .’

  Oh, I’m a terrible liar.

  ‘I work for Pandora magazine,’ I finally managed. ‘My name is Pandora English.’

  ‘Oh. Pandora?’ Jay replied, seeming not to recall either myself or the magazine, but trying to cover it, trying to be smooth.

  Just then a woman appeared. I could tell she was Jay’s date because she was very, very beautiful, and she arrived in a short dress and a cloud of expensive cosmetics to latch onto his arm with that air of protectiveness some women have around their dates. So, they haven’t been dating long, I thought, a bit surprised at my own jealousy.

  The woman was about twenty-five, the same age as Jay (and the same age as Luke, if you didn’t count the hundred and fifty years of dead time). She smiled glowingly at Jay and then looked at Luke and I with amusement. ‘You two been to a costume party?’ she asked.

  I coughed.

  Luke was wearing his uniform, of course. He didn’t have much choice about that. If he wasn’t near the cavalry sword he wore around his waist he simply dissolved into his ghostly form again, and I doubted he could even escape the house like that. Yes, it was a relief that Luke was finally able to venture from the mansion walls in his human body when the moon was full and ‘the magick high’, as my great-aunt put it. But he was still in that uniform, sword and all.

  He did stand out a touch.

  ‘Greetings,’ Lieutenant Luke finally offered. ‘Ma’am, I am dressed in this uniform for a special party, as you say,’ he said stiffly.

  Hearing his voice aloud in front of other people made my head swim.

  Jay’s date burst out laughing. ‘Oh, that’s so good! You really sound old-worldy.’ She turned to me. ‘And what are you going as, some kind of secretary?’

  My smile was so big and so fake it could have snapped off like an icicle.

  ‘This dress belonged to Lauren Bacall, as a matter of fact,’ I retorted after a beat, pulling the edges of my coat back a touch to show it off. The sapphire dress fluttered in the wind.

  ‘You look very beautiful,’ Jay told me sincerely, but unwisely.

  Jay’s date shot him a look. I noticed Luke tense a little.

  ‘I took my blonde wig off,’ I continued. ‘It was getting itchy.’

  I was not as glamorous as Bacall and I can’t imagine I looked dressed up for a costume party, but never mind. If Jay and his date had any idea they were talking to a woman with some strange ‘gifts’ and man who’d died in the Civil War, they didn’t let on.

  ‘Have a good time. It was nice to see you again, uh . . .’

  ‘Pandora,’ I said. ‘And you, too, Jay. I hope everything is going well at Men Only Magazine.’ I didn’t much approve of the magazine he worked for. I thought it was a bit heavy on ladies airbrushed into small bathers and a bit light on what you’d call content. Not that it mattered as he didn’t even remember me. But that was fine.

  Yup, that was fine.

  We all exchanged smiles. Mine, I’m sure, was a little strained. Then Jay and his date wandered off to another part of the observation deck.

  In the late 1940s the edge of the observation platform had been fenced in with a tall, wire barrier, and now I stepped up to the mesh and cl
osed my fingers around it, feeling the wind blowing back my hair and pushing the hem of my dress flat against my knees. I looked out over the city, feeling unsettled. Perhaps it was inevitable that leaving the house with Luke would be awkward at some point, but what were the chances of running into Jay, of all people? Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so ambitious. Perhaps a stroll through Central Park, where we were less likely to run into people, would have been wiser, especially for our first time out together.

  ‘Are you well, Miss Pandora?’ Lieutenant Luke asked. He touched my elbow gently.

  I nodded, still staring out over the city.

  We took the lift back down to ground level without saying a word, and when we stepped out onto the street we saw that Jay and his haughty date had linked arms and were walking away from the building. Jay’s outrageously expensive, low-slung silver Ferrari was parked nearby. I’d recognise it anywhere. I’d had a bit of trouble getting into that car in a knee-length dress with a split, so I couldn’t imagine how his date would negotiate it in her skimpy outfit.

  Stop it, I thought.

  I wondered if his car would start, or if they’d be a victim of the Empire State Building Effect.

  Stop!

  I pulled my gaze away.

  The walk home with Lieutenant Luke was quieter than I’d hoped. It wasn’t like we were purposely not talking. It was more like something was on both our minds and neither of us were ready to air our thoughts just yet.

  Central Park was lit only by the occasional lamp post, and the cover of darkness was a comforting camouflage after the public exposure of the Empire State Building. At this hour the park felt uninhabited, except for the odd set of joggers. Few New Yorkers dared to traverse this area alone at night, and that badly timed observation brought me back to memories of Jay driving me home from our date only a couple of months earlier – a date he had no recollection of.

  ‘You find him attractive,’ Lieutenant Luke said suddenly, and I was pulled out of my thoughts as effectively as if smelling salts had been put under my nose.