THE HOUSE OF CAPTURED FANCY

CHAPTER ONE

He found himself driving again while she slept. He always drove and she always slept. For twelve hapless years he drove her back and forth to her mother's house in Naples, West Virginia. The roads, being what they were, made the seemingly endless round of trips tedious and exhausting. She slept while he wrestled the car around wet and slippery curves, accelerated and braked a dozen times or more per mile. He thought about the interstate that would be finished someday and span the length of the entire state. It would cut the nearly seven-hour trip into a mere four hours, perhaps three in a new car with wiper blades and a defroster that worked.

The headlights illuminated a yellow sign indicating that caution should be observed on the winding road ahead, as if he needed to be reminded. He pumped the brakes several times, filling the lines with fluid. The car responded predictably and slowed. West Virginia's mountains and curves demanded respect. He smiled confidently as the car eased into the curve and a banked ascent that required a lower gear and increased acceleration. The motor pinged and the pistons rattled. The car balked and jerked several times before accepting the flow of cheap leaded gasoline and the challenge of the hill. An oil change, a can of STP, a set of new spark plugs and the six-year-old Mercury Comet would be good for another two years, he decided. He gunned the motor and the tires spun on the wet pavement. He eased off the accelerator contentedly. The compression was still good, good as new, probably.

A pair of bright oncoming headlights topped the hill and rounded the curve. He veered quickly to the right onto the soft berm and then back on to the road. "Stupid asshole!" He shouted.

Angela stirred and yawned. "Hmm?" She purred. "I must have fallen asleep. Did you say something, Harry?"

"Not unless you're traveling under an assumed name," he mused.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Some asshole just tried to run us off this mountain, that's all."

She stretched lazily uncoiling the kinks in her arms, legs and back. "Where are we now?"

"Somewhere between Hinton and Pipestem," he replied.

She ransacked the bag of fruit that accompanied every trip. "Then we should be there pretty soon."

She found a 'Red Delicious' and attacked it. He watched in admiration. Healthy and fastidious, she would never knowingly profane the temple the Almighty had bequeathed to her with liquor, candy, hot dogs or big Macs. She would dine only on fresh fruit, lean red meats, vegetables and perhaps a gallon or two of red wine on nearly any occasion, but only because of its close ties with the grape.

"That guy could have killed us," he insinuated. "They ought to make not dimming your headlights a capital offense in this state: attempted murder."

Angela sucked apple skin from between her teeth, and when a sliver persisted, she picked it loose with the sanitized and gelatin strengthened nail of her little finger. He admired her thoroughness. Nothing would ever defile that sanctified temple of Athena, not artificial preservatives, canned soups, stimulants of any kind, or even oral suggestions. He accelerated, spun the tires on the wet pavement and returned her withering glance with a bored but slightly mischievous smile.

The weather went from bad to worse. The road all but disappeared beneath the torrential downpour of rain. The Mercury crawled down the road at a mere twenty-five miles per hour. "Harry, darling, maybe we shouldn't try to make it tonight. Maybe we should stop at a motel."

Over the years he had become somewhat impatient, and on occasions, verbally abusive when she offered unsolicited suggestions. "Motel? You see a motel around here anywhere? The nearest motel has to be in Naples."

She ignored his remarks. "I remember something around here. A state park a lodge, or a guesthouse, or something. ..."

"We passed that an hour ago," he said. "It's as far behind us as Naples is ahead of us."

Her eyes narrowed and her brow furled in thought. All 147 coulombs of IQ activated. A synaptic event was about to take place, he mused.

"There must be someplace. ..." she continued.

Harrison Ashe, or Harry aka hairy, aka Hari, as he was more commonly known among students and staffers at one of the state's little known, nay, obscure institutions of higher learning, pounced on the brake pedal.

"Oh My blue-blooded Buddha! The Department of Highways is losing its collective mind! They have turned roads into obstacle courses! They are ambushing motorists! No wonder the major source of revenue in this state is traffic tickets and auto parts. The auto industry probably pays a bounty to the road commission for every car they disable!"

Angela rolled the window down. Shielding her eyes with her hand from the rain, she read the glowing yellow sign. "It says, 'high water'. It looks like we'll have to make a detour."

Harry's laughter was much too loud and unattractive, and his voice was filled with sarcasm and a touch of madness. "Detour? You mean they actually made two roads that go to the same place? You'll never convince me."

She gazed through the car's window and pouring rain into an impenetrable darkness and made a modest and demure assumption. "Unless I'm mistaken ..."

"Likely," Harry murmured.

"... that road over there will take us up and over the ridge and down to Kegley. From there we're just a few miles from mother's house."

Harry twisted the steering wheel into a position that would get them onto the secondary road. The car jerked into motion. He rode the brake over the first rain-filled gully and turned on the bright lights.

"Good Gautama, would you look at that! We'll need a mowing machine to get down this road."

"Harry, I do wish you would stop invoking your gods every time things get a little stressful. One of these days they're going to hear you and reply."

The thought sent a chill snaking up his spine and over his shoulders. He glanced briefly at her from the corners of his eyes to see if she was waiting and watching for a reaction. Lately, she seemed to be exercising incredible patience and cunning insight with and into him.

The car crept slowly down the road leveling the weeds that grew between the tire paths. "At least we won't have to worry about the road washing out," he said. "There's too much vegetation growing on it for that to happen."

"It gets better farther down the road," she said.

"Better for whom? The Department of Soil Conservation?"

Harry checked the speedometer. The car was traveling less than ten miles an hour. "How far did you say it was to Kegley?"

Angela did not reply. Her silence, he suspected, was further cause for alarm. He pressed her for an answer. "How far?"

She dropped her chin and withdrew into the farthest recesses of the seat. "About thirty miles."

Harry's grip tightened on the wheel. His lips twisted and ticked nervously. He nodded his head rhythmically, almost hopelessly. "I guess if I push it, I might be able to make fifteen miles an hour. That means only two more hours of ... this."

Angela slumped down in the seat, rested her head against the door and closed her eyes. Harry glared at her. "I don't suppose you would consider taking her 'through the flume' or 'over the rapids', or whatever the case may be, would you?" Angela remained silent. Harry continued to nod impatiently. "I thought so. No spouse of mine will ever lose any sleep while I'm still able to run the rapids."

He watched her closely for several minutes to see if she'd nail him with that nullifying stare that made him feel like a kid who had just pissed in his best pair of pants. But there was no response. Somehow she knew he was watching. For all intents and purposes, she was dead to the world. The only thing that would awaken her, or solicit any kind of response, would be his hand on any part of her body. She would rise like a phoenix from its own cold dead ashes if that were to happen. He contemplated making that gesture just to make her uneasy, but discarded the thought after considering the tremendous difficulties that already lay before him.

He drove for nearly an hour before the road became an impenetrable mass of lush green foliage standing tall and erect before him in the pouring rain. The car dropped suddenly into a deep pothole filled with water. The frame and axle scraped the ground and the car gurgled to a stop. Harry quickly fired the ignition, but the water in the pothole seeped into the exhaust system and the car refused to start. He rested his head against the steering wheel and groaned. "Oh, Butsu, why me? Why me?"

Angela sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Are we there?"

Harry sat erect behind the steering wheel and grinned. "Yes, my beloved, we are there; we have arrived at the bourne from which few men ever return."

He slumped helplessly against the wheel again. Angela examined the wooded countryside, or what she could see of it. "Oh, Harry, what have you done? You've taken the wrong road. You've driven down into Frazier's Bottom."

"If that's the case, then I wish Frazier would fart and blow us back to civilization. I'm tired and I want to go home."

Angela did not appear to be too disturbed by the new developments. In fact, the corners of her mouth looked as if they were flirting with a smile. "You're just going to have to turn around and go back and take the road that forks to the left."

Harry restrained a maniacal laugh. "Go back?" He giggled. "Don't you realize that we are beached! We can't go back, we can't go forward. We can't go in any direction, up or down, or around in circles. We're hung up. This road was made for a Conestoga wagon with a four-foot high axle and a forty mule team, not for an old Mercury Comet with less than twelve inches of ground clearance."

Angela stared impatiently at him and he giggled again. "Harry, have you tried?"

He stopped giggling and glared menacingly at her.

"Well, you know how you are about these things. You just give up without trying. Have you tried?"

He was adamant. "I don't have to try. I can tell."

They both sat in silence for several seconds. Finally, Harry turned the ignition key again. The car gurgled and whined and refused to start. He turned to Angela, but did not bother to mock her with a smile.

"There's only one thing left to do. You've got to go for help," she said.

Harry nodded in agreement. "Of course, it's so simple. I don't know why it didn't occur to me. I suppose it's because I don't have an IQ of 150."

They sat and listened to the rain beating down upon the hood. "My chances for survival out there are not good right now. I think I'll wait until the rain lets up."

Angela began to bite her lower lip nervously. Harry recognized the gesture and trembled at the intensity of her concentration. "Unless I'm mistaken ..."

"Likely," He murmured.

"... The old Frazier house is around here somewhere. But it has been so long. I don't even know if there are any Frazier's anymore. In fact, I'm not even sure if there ever was one. But there has always been a house, a ghastly old thing, falling down rotten, and someone has always lived there. Funny little men, all crooked and with big smiles, with dark thick glasses and round bald little heads."

Harry laughed loud enough to conceal his anxiety. "Now you're trying to arouse my curiosity. You know I couldn't pass up a chance to meet a crooked little man with a bald head living in a falling down rotten old house."

Angela peered back and forth through the car windows, and saw something near the road. "Look! Look! Just ahead! Turn the lights on!"

He pulled the light switch out and lit the road up for forty yards She directed his line of vision to a tangle of laurel and shrubs. And then he saw the column of crumbling stonework almost concealed by vegetation. Disappearing gradually into the darkness and growth were the wrought iron spires of an ancient fence.

"I'll be damned. The next thing you're probably going to tell me is that there is a house ..."

Before he could finish the sentence, Angela laid her hand gently on his wrist. "Look through those trees. No, up higher, up toward the first branches. Do you see the light?"

He focused his eyes on what appeared to be a single cat's eye shining midway up the side of a tree. "Angel, I've got news for you. That's no light, that is a 'will o' the wisp', and if you pursue it, as legend goes, it will lead you to your doom."

She opened the car door, grabbed her raincoat from the back seat and climbed out into the rain. "You can stay here if you want, but I'm going to find a phone and call mother. She's probably worried sick."

She slammed the door and wobbled unsteadily down the wet, muddy road. The lights from the car sent a dark and grotesque shadow leaping from tree to tree ahead of her. Harry rolled down his window and shouted.

"All right, Angel, you win! Wait until I find a talisman and we'll look for your crooked little men."

They followed the iron fence along the road. The mud sucked at their shoes. At several points, the rusted wrought iron javelins disappeared into thick clumps of laurel and rhododendron, and then suddenly reappeared farther down the road. The rain beat such a steady tattoo around them that it was impossible to talk.

Angela led the way. She stopped at a decrepit gate hanging from one hinge and waited for Harry. He eventually caught up, looked at her and then the gate. A very dark shadow surrounded a single tiny light visible fifty yards down the road and through the thick woods. Harry shook his head defiantly. Angela pursed her lips and plunged through the gate and down the narrow overgrown road that led to the house. Harry followed, reluctantly, close behind. Beneath his feet, beneath the leaves and fallen branches, he felt the remnants of an ancient cobblestone drive. He kept his eyes trained on the house, and the closer they got, the more discernible its enormous outline became.

The surrounding trees were monuments to nature's phenomenal creativity. They were monstrously large trunked trees with limbs like suspension bridges winding among each other. Harry marveled at the sight. He would have loved to climb them, or perch on one of those huge limbs during the day, but at night they looked frightfully menacing. During the day and in the bright sunlight, he could follow their circuitous route from tree to tree and not return until he had charted their unknown destinations. The Marco Polo of the treetops. He contemplated the thrill of sleeping in the bowers of the topmost branches of a tree. Atavistic dreams of falling from arboreal heights filled his mind. His tailbone itched and the muscles in his arms and legs twitched involuntarily.

The rain was now all but a forgotten memory and a distant sound pelting the leaves and thick limbs overhead. Harry caught up with Angela whose pace seemed to be quickening. "I have never before seen anything like this in my entire life," he said.

Angela did not seem to be impressed. "Like what?"

Harry thought she was joking, something she seldom did. He examined her features. They were steadfast and undaunted. "These trees. My God, they must be one thousand years old. Look at them. You could live in them or among them. They're huge."

"There are many good stands of timber left in West Virginia on private estates," she offered.

Harry suspected that she was merely trying to dampen his enthusiasm as she was wont to do on those rare occasion when he became over-stimulated and said and did things he knew he would later regret.

"I don't believe it. This place is an Eleusinian paradise, and I'll bet you a bottle of 'Mad Dog’ that no one has been down this road since Eve cored Adam's apple."

Angela stopped for a breath. "Don't be ridiculous. We used to come out here on picnics every Fourth of July. There's a lake and a summer camp for girls about two miles down the road, picnic benches and a playground for children. But it's all abandoned now. Something happened to the water. It turned black and children started drowning for no apparent reason."

Harry made a small piping sound and stared incredulously at her.

They were less than twenty yards from the house. They stared at the dramatic outline that stood before them. Angela was quite casual, but Harry was filled with great awe and wariness.

"It has to be haunted," he said. "Nothing could survive in a wilderness like this without giving birth to a few myths and legends, and maybe a ghost or two."

Harry waited longer than usual for Angela's reply. Still, it did not come. "Do you want to tell me about it?" He asked.

"Tell you about what?" She replied, walking toward the house.

"About the myths and legends."

Her brow furrowed. She was being thoughtfully deceptive, he deduced, but why? "There aren't any, to my knowledge," she said.

"Come on, don't give me that. I heard how you hesitated on that last comment. What did this Frazier guy do, give his mother forty whacks? Or cremate his wife in the oven? Or make gruel out of his kids and feed them to the chickens?"

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I can't think of anything to excite your morbid curiosity. All the Fraziers I've ever heard anything about were doctors or pharmacists or gentlemen farmers. No one ever said anything bad about them. Once I heard an old barber tell my father that Cornelius Frazier was a 'great hunter'. And when I was a little girl, I remember my grandfather saying that 'Corny' was well traveled and an exemplary story teller."

"What kind of a hunter? Big game? African safaris probably. I'll bet he had a few Ubangi warriors and witch doctors hanging around as his personal servants, or a South American pygmy for a chef or a shoeshine boy. He will probably invoke a terrible curse on us the minute he sees us, and the authorities will find our mutilated torsos in the river tomorrow, and our shrunken heads on the belts of one of Frazier's descendants fifty years from now."

Angela clucked her tongue. "No, nothing quite so gruesome. They were just local hunters, birds and squirrels. I think they might have hunted bear, wild boars and bobcat a long time ago, but that was all."

They pushed through the brush and stood on a large stone patio that was in the process of being swallowed up by rotting reeds and weeds. Dull gray marble statues of scantily-clad Grecian nymphs passed the time around a crumbling pond filled with decaying leaves. The heavy hand of decadence and dissolution had left its prints upon the land and property. "My God! Look at these grounds, it's a great ... big ... shame!"

The walls of the house, however, appeared to be solidly intact. The massive blocks of granite and cut sandstone, and the Tudor wainscoting showed few signs of deterioration. The windows were long and thin and very dark. They were all heavily curtained or filled with dark and shadow-stained glass. The house appeared to have no more than four stories, however, one could not be certain, since the gables vanished into the trees and mist and darkness surrounding it. Harry's eyes climbed the wall and the trees, but got lost somewhere near the roof. "The rooms must have twenty-foot ceilings."

Angela moved toward the huge doors on the far side of the patio. Harry followed faithfully behind. He was emotionally upset by the size of the huge old iron gate that separated the patio from the drive. Its curved lance tips were designed to keep people in, not out, and its height was formidable.

Ornately sculpted statues of naked cherubs and saintly looking crusaders crumbling with age protected the house. Strange tapered columns of fine white marble two stories high were capped with huge stone balls and circumscribed the patio and path to the doors. "Doric columns," Harry murmured, "or some kind of phallic Stonehenge symbolism."

Angela reached the doorway and stood in the portico out of the rain dripping from the roof. The glass in the wooden doors was stained a reddish brown color identical to blood. She tried to look in but saw nothing. Harry stood as close as possible, pressing her against the door.

"Look at these doors. Gopher wood, no doubt, probably robbed from Noah's ark."

Angela pounded on the door with the ball of her fist.

"Angel, you better stand behind me. If someone actually answers that knock ... I think I'll faint."

She slipped out of a shoe and banged it against the door several times. "Do you hear anything?" She asked.

"Only you banging on the door," he replied, "and it's making me nervous."

She pounded on the door again with her shoe. Harry paced anxiously. "We'd better get out of here. We might get shot as trespassers. Some moonshiner might have a still set up in there. Besides, I have to go to the bathroom."

She continued to pound on the door. Harry was close to losing his self control with her for her enduring conviction when the pane of colored glass in the door suddenly brightened. "Sweet Siva! The place is haunted!" Harry screeched.

A bolt clanked thunderously behind the door, another bolt slid out of a securing barrel and the heavy door swung open. Harry could not take his eyes off the person standing in the doorway. A crooked little man with a bald head and a pair of very thick glasses stepped out of the diffused light and into the night. He was smiling warmly and his eyes and cheeks glowed with friendly relief and affection.

"I do hope you will forgive me. I was watching television in the study. It's on the other side of the house. I could barely hear you tapping ... tapping, tapping, tapping, at my back door."

Angela appeared to be satisfied with that explanation and the accuracy of her prediction. Harry stared at her in total disbelief. When she refused to return his glance, he smiled at the bald little man.

"My name is Harrison Ashe. I hope you can forgive this untimely intrusion, but we are having automobile problems. We're stuck down the road."

The little man smiled, opened the door and stepped aside. "Please, do come in. It's such a nasty night out, and it's so seldom I have company. I've almost forgotten how to be hospitable."

Angela walked in fearlessly while Harry took the time to reflect on the consequences.

"My name is Gilbert Poling. I'm the, uh, what shall I say, caretaker here? I was an associate of the late Cornelius Frazier."

Angela smiled with a boundless enthusiasm. "Are you related to the Valley Camp Polings?"

Gilbert smiled broadly and nodded. "My father's family. They're all first cousins."

She responded with a glow. "That's wonderful! My mother's sister married a Poling. They live in Roane County now. Uncle Eddie was a high school principal."

Gilbert beamed with pleasure. "Why that sounds like Cousin Edward. He died a few years ago of a heart attack."

Angela suddenly became very solemn. "Yes, poor Uncle Eddie. He was such a fine man. But I couldn't stand his daughter, Betty."

Gilbert ejected a howling, high-pitched laugh. "So you knew Betty, too!"

Angela frowned. "Mother used to make me spend weekends with her in the summer. It was awful. I don't know how we kept from murdering each other."

Harry flinched painfully at the word 'murder' and examined Gilbert's expression. He wanted to know exactly how strong the familial ties were bound. Gilbert seemed unconcerned.

"Yes, Betty was a little spoiled. She's married now, you know, to an optometrist in Greer County. She has a little boy and a girl of her own."

Angela nodded. "I was invited to the wedding. I'm sorry I didn't go, but Harry wasn't feeling well. He was off on one of his infamous ... flights of fancy."

Harry wandered back and forth in the narrow foyer examining the rich dark paneling, the paintings, mirrors and other furnishings, all of which appeared to be very valuable and old. There were dozens of paintings of different periods and styles hanging on the walls, but the lighting was so dim that a full appreciation of them was impossible. The floor was as hard and black as obsidian marble, and the chairs were sculpted entirely out of a dark heavy wood. The backrests were like ladders, but higher than a man could reach, and they were covered in purple velvet. He made soft cooing, awe-inspired sounds while Gilbert and Angela talked. Then Gilbert turned his full attention to Harry.

"I am always delighted to meet people who can appreciate the 'extraordinary and unusual' and are not intimidated by that which they do not understand. Do you like what you see? My late associate was quite taken by the bizarre."

Harry expressed his approval with a nod and a wry smile. "A man, no doubt, of excellent taste and breeding."

Gilbert baited him with a mischievous grin. "Yes, yes, you could say that. He also had the resources to indulge his ... fancy."

Harry was very much aware of the fact that the word 'fancy' had been treated with special consideration and due deliberation. He decided not to be misled by generalities. He would sharpen his powers of observation and look for details instead of succumbing to innuendo.

"Your associate, I gather, was a very wealthy man."

Gilbert shrugged his shoulders. "On the contrary, he died in poverty, lost everything when he was very young, everything but this house, and it sustained him. That's why he never married, and why there are no ... legitimate heirs to the property."

Harry thought it was extremely peculiar the way Gilbert continued to accentuate certain words when he spoke. It was almost as if he were trying to convey some useful knowledge or secret to him. "Are you trying to tell me that this house is for sale ... or rent?"

Gilbert laughed softly into a cupped fist. "I'm afraid not, Mr. Ashe, but did I detect an inflection of interest in ownership in your voice? Surely you wouldn't be interested in living in an old ... mausoleum like this."

He did it again, Harry thought. The prospect of owning such an extraordinary piece of real estate was immensely thrilling. If houses could be bought with smiles, Harry knew he would own this one. "I don't know. I've never seen anything quite like it before. It would be a marvelous abode for someone with an imagination. It's a composite of many things: a castle, a chateau, a fort, a jungle hostelry, a rich man's mansion, and a poor man's dream."

Gilbert agreed with a nod of his piebald head. "It is all of those things, Mr. Ashe, and more, much more. In the morning when the light is better, I will show you around. But now, let me show you to your room."

Gilbert turned and started down the hall. Harry glanced quickly at Angela, but she was already following Gilbert's lead. He grabbed her arm and pulled her close. "I thought we came here to use the phone? Nobody said anything about staying all night."

Angela stroked his hand. "Harry, why don't you try to relax? He's family. If he weren't family, I wouldn't think of staying, but since we're almost cousins, it's hard to refuse his hospitality."

Gilbert led them from the small narrow hall through a much larger room and into what must have been the main hall. The lighting was much better because it radiated from an incredibly large glass chandelier that tinkled ever so gently overhead. There were more paintings of indiscernible countrysides, and more unfamiliar splashes of color painted in even more unfamiliar styles.

Harry was confident that he would have recognized a Picasso or a Gaugin, but nothing looked familiar. Could he possibly be drifting too far to the right, losing touch with the real world of art and literature? That might explain why he was so intimidated by an entire house full of curios and paintings that looked as if they had been created by gifted primates not artists and craftsmen.

The floor was covered with white marble tiles flecked with bits of broken glass that gleamed like diamonds. Rich walnut paneling climbed the walls and framed the windows. It was inconceivable that the inside of the house could be so completely different from the outside.

"You know, from the outside, the appearance of this place is very deceiving. One suspects that it is merely an abandoned ruin."

Gilbert's eyes twinkled. "That depends entirely upon one's point of view, or which door one enters through. You chose the back door and that does have its disadvantages."

Harry hesitated. He suspected some sort of arcane sorcerer's argot was finding its way into Gilbert's comments. He proceeded cautiously. "I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Poling."

Gilbert stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to face Harry. "I will not presume to adopt the role of master or teacher to you, Mr. Ashe. Your work on the 'split brain theory' and ‘folie a deux’ is well known throughout the world. You know as much as I do about these things. All information is available to anyone and everyone in equal portions, providing of course, we all subscribe to the theory of solipsism. There are no mysteries in this universe that a little concentration and imagination cannot reveal.

"As I said before, it depends entirely upon which door you enter through. Interpretation relies heavily upon observation. For example, you may see something and fear it, or in other circumstances, you may see the same object and be amused by it. Whether you are amused or frightened depends entirely upon the door or window through which your mind chooses to view the object. The self is the only sentient thing, and it can accomplish nothing more than its own modification."

Gilbert turned and started up the stairs. On the next step, he stopped and turned again. "In the future, you may call me Gilbert."

He turned and continued his ascent. Harry caught Angela by the arm and pulled her close enough to whisper in her ear without being over-heard. "What did you make of that?"

Angela gazed at him with a puzzled expression. "What did I make of what?"

He gripped her arm tightly and snarled in her ear. "Damn it! Don't tell me you didn't hear that occult idiomatic parabolic parable he just laid on me!"

She twisted free. "Harry, please. I heard a reasonable explanation for your impolite inquiry. Now may I go? Gilbert is waiting."

Harry gazed up the white staircase. Halfway up, Gilbert was standing and waiting patiently. Harry released his reluctant hold on her and they both trudged slowly up the steps. The stairs were white and as smooth as alabaster, but it was not paint. They looked as if they had been carved out of animal tusks and worn smooth by the ascent and descent of an endless procession of migrants. They were wide and deep, and each rise required not one but two steps. On every other step, a bust of some wizened philosopher sat upon a pedestal. Harry was concerned because he did not recognize any of them. He kept looking for a Socrates, or a Plato, or a St. Augustine, or Ulysses Grant, or a Halliburton, but none of the men looked remotely familiar. He directed Angela's attention to them. She inspected their features casually and nodded.

"They're beautiful," she said, smiling.

"Hell, yes, they're beautiful. But do you recognize any of them?"

Angela glanced at the busts again. "A few, I think."

They continued up the winding stairs to the first landing. "Did I say twenty-foot ceilings? I take it back, they must be at least thirty feet high!"

At the top, Gilbert paused and waited while Harry caught his breath. "How many floors are there?" He asked, panting.

"Three floors and a full attic. Actually, we have climbed to the third floor. The second floor is down and to the left of us. It is reached by stairs that originate in the kitchen and ascend to the second, third and attic floors. There is another stairwell that originates in the basement and goes directly to the second floor. Another originates on the third floor and descends to the second. It is strictly a down stair well. There is even a partial stairwell in the attic, but it doesn't go anywhere. You may examine it if you wish, you might have better luck."

Harry's smile turned into a troubled grin. They walked down the long corridor passed a row of open doors. The furniture in the rooms looked worn and tacky, as if it had been bought at a Good Will store, while the furnishings in the hall were exquisite antiques. "Are these tables made of teak?" He asked.

Gilbert turned a full 180 degrees on his spindly ax’es and came full face with the table in question. "I'm not really sure. Some are and some are not. Some are made of ebony or briar, while others are quite confusing. I've been researching and cataloging the Frazier collection for years. Unfortunately, none of the Fraziers kept any records of their expenditures or their journeys. And do you want to know something very confusing? I haven’t even begun to itemize the treasures in this house."

Harry let his eyes speak for him: one languished in surprise while the other faltered in confusion. "Don't you think it's rather dangerous to have these things out here in this wilderness? Wouldn't they be safer in a museum?"

Gilbert wagged his head back and forth and continued to smile. "No, no, Mr. Ashe, I'm afraid you don't understand. The value of these treasures cannot be measured in dollars and cents. They are strictly for appreciation. They have little value on the open market, and who would want to remove them from such a magnificent setting? You see, there is nothing to worry about."

The old man was beginning to make sense. "I think I understand, but if your associate has passed on, who will inherit his estate?"

Gilbert stopped in front of an elaborately gilded door. "The rightful heir will soon take possession, Mr. Ashe. I am expecting him along any day now."

Harry fingered the huge brass elephant head that served as a doorknob. "Well, I hope it isn't too soon. He might object to you taking us in."

Gilbert tried to ease Harry's qualms. "Not at all. I'm sure he'll be as amiable a gentleman as yourself."

Harry was becoming quite fond of the little man. He hated to part company. "Tell me, Gilbert. I thought I was acquainted with most of history's more notable figures, but I could not identify a single bust on the stairs."

Gilbert waved a finger and scolded Harry. "That is a mistake we all make. We should never think we know all there is to know. I imagine some great men have passed on leaving very little or no trace at all of the loftiness of their thoughts or deeds, take yourself for example."

Harry was startled by the subtle intimation of his suggestion. He rubbed his chin in agreement and speculated upon the depth and breadth of Gilbert's powers of observation. There seemed to be little room for miscalculations in his mind at the moment. "Yes, I see what you mean."

Harry touched the huge mahogany door, but quickly withdrew has hand, almost as if he had received a shock. "That's strange. I thought I felt something move."

He examined the door more closely. Carved into each panel were hundred of tiny figures hardly bigger than the end of one's finger, and there were dozens of panels and literally thousands of figures. He tried to interpret them, their posture, position, and the meaning of the strange legends. There were figures of nude male and female bodies being disemboweled by strange man-like creatures. Other figures were vomiting demons and passing hideous creatures though every opening in their bodies. Harry ran his hand over the carving again, but quickly withdrew it.

"Very strange. So many, it feels as if they are actually moving."

Gilbert nodded "I have experienced the same sensation many times. But as you can see, nothing is moving. I've even gone to the trouble of taking pictures to confirm my suspicions, but every picture is the same. The sensation of movement always takes place under the hand or finger where the eye cannot see. A most extraordinary phenomenon. But this house is full of such delightful mysteries."

Harry continued to examine the door. It must have taken several lifetimes for ... something to carve this door, and from the looks of it, one hell of a lifetime."

Angela entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed. "I would wish you pleasant dreams, Mrs. Ashe, but that is seldom necessary in this house. One's dreams here are usually a most pleasing experience, especially in this room. I think you will find the curios and oddities provide some form of penetration into the unconscious mind and encourage an affinity with the surroundings. I can assure you, your dreams will be unlike any you have ever had before, some undoubtedly quite delicious, and some quite terrifying."

Gilbert bowed and started to leave. Harry caught his eye with a gesture. Gilbert waited for him to speak. "Gilbert, I was wondering about ... I hope you can forgive me, but the young lady I saw running into the room at the end of the hall, could that have been you wife, or daughter?"

Gilbert was slow to reply. "So you have already had the pleasure of meeting one of my other guests. Well, that is a good sign. To be perfectly frank with you, I don't know who she is. I have never seen her. But others, like you, have told me of her presence. I hope you will find her delightful company."

Gilbert turned and loped curiously down the hall. Harry watched until he disappeared around the corner. Then he entered his room quickly and ran to Angela's side. "Did you hear that? Did you hear what that little gnome just said?" He said, "'I hope you will find her delightful company. Who? Who was he talking about?"

Angela spoke calmly. She could see where all this was leading. "Undoubtedly, he was talking about the girl you saw at the end of the hall."

Harry held Angela's hand in his own and squeezed it tight. "But that's just it, I didn’t see any girl. I just said it, just to see what kind of a response I'd get from the old boy."

Angela pulled her hand free. "Harry, you're always making problems for yourself."

He was dumb-founded. "Jesus, is that all you can say? I make problems for myself? You make problems for me. Your mother makes problems for me. I don't make problems for me, they come to me out of necessity, when they've got no place else to go."

Angela bounced lightly on the bed. "I don't think I've ever sat on a more comfortable bed."

Harry growled. "It's probably stuffed with the pubic hairs of ten thousand vestal virgins."

Angela frowned. "Harry, honestly, can't you keep your mind out of the gutter for one minute?"

He began to pace nervously back and forth. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep in this room. Just look at all this weird stuff."

He walked to a mirror mounted on the wall and rested his hand against the glass. "Just look at this mirror."

The top of the gold-plated frame pressed against the ceiling. Raised figures of naked men and women dallied indiscreetly behind clustered beds of flowers and foliage along the edges of the frame.

"Look at the limb of this tree. See how it sweeps around the mirror, comes down over here and suddenly turns into a serpent. And look at this, the serpent's tail splits and, lo and behold, what do we have here? Two lush and plump thighs resplendent with a jeweled navel and the most inviting little bird's nest I have ever seen."

Harry gazed into the mirror at Angela's reflection. She seemed to be oblivious of his presence. He smiled and watched her disrobe and assume several erotic positions he had never known her to assume before. He stopped smiling and watched incredulously as she flung herself on the bed and began to roll and twist her body into strange and unusual configurations. She jumped up and down on the bed, landed on her back, lifted her legs high into the air and dared him with a smile to come and sample her wares. He deliberated upon an all out offensive, but decided upon stealth and patience, just to prolong her inspired performance.

No longer capable of further restraint, he turned toward the bed only to discover, much to his surprise, that she was reposing silently like an infant in a fetal position, fully clothed. Quickly, he returned to the mirror to recapture the images that had escaped him, but she was still dressed and lying supine upon the bed. He searched the mirror for the serpent's tail, the cleft thighs, but he could no longer find them among the golden filigree. Instead, he found two snake-like eyes gazing at him from beneath a golden stump. He turned back to the bed and the motionless figure of Angela.

"Angel, are you sleeping?" She grumbled an incoherent reply without opening her eyes. Harry sat beside her on the bed. "Angel, this place is kind of funny." She did not reply. She was consistently good at doing that. "Did you hear me?" He asked.

She remained silent. In fact, her body appeared to be imitating the dead. Harry leaned over her and shook her vigorously. "Angela! Angela! Are you all right? Speak to me!"

She bolted upright and sat rigidly on the bed. "What is it? What's wrong? Is something wrong?"

Harry stuttered helplessly. "I thought ... I thought ..."

"You thought what?"

"I thought you might have seen the bathroom on the way up here. My kidneys won't last another minute."

She bounced from the bed and strode across the room to a rounded door that looked like the side of a commercial wine cask. She lifted the wooden handle and slammed it back. The door creaked open to reveal a lavishly decorated bathroom nearly half the size of the bedroom. The tile and lights glistened so brightly that it looked more like a ballroom than a bathroom.

The commode was a jewel-encrusted throne. The bathtub, a modest size pool. There were six life size statues of muscular men and pampered virgins holding vases containing living vines and flowers that were climbing and dripping from the walls.

Angela returned to the bed and Harry cautiously entered the bathroom. He was hesitant about closing the door. His aversion to using public bathrooms or facilities provided by hotels or distant relatives had nothing to do with sanitation, but everything to do with exposing one's organs of elimination in unfamiliar surroundings. He felt absurd and ridiculous dropping his trousers after ascending an elevated commode and positioning his derriere over a velvet covered toilet seat. He sat stiffly for several moments awaiting the sound of trumpets after a movement, but nothing moved. His nerves were ganging up on his colon.

He took advantage of the bidet, rubbed himself dry with a deliciously soft towel, and while descending the throne, turned and bowed several times while backing out through the same door through which he had entered. It closed behind him and he turned and found himself in the hall, not in the bedroom, and there was a young woman standing and waiting for him a few doors away.

His unannounced presence did not startle or disturb her in the least. She acknowledged his presence with a nod and began to pace pensively back and forth. From a distance, she was young and beautiful. She wore a long ragged white gown that was torn in several places and was covered with dust. Her hair was a distraught nest of golden tangles and her eyes appeared to be deeply distressed. Her delicate features gave him the impression that she was burdened with some unearthly responsibility.

He waited for her to respond to his presence. She ignored him, as did most young and beautiful women. Slowly, he worked his way surreptitiously down the hall. She placed her fingers lightly on her lips and disappeared into a room. The door remained open. Pretending to admire the paper on the wall and the room's furnishings, he strolled by and casually glanced into her room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and motioned for him to join her. He checked the hall for eyewitnesses or busy-bodies and entered.

"How do you like your room?" She asked

"You mean ...?" He pointed down the hall. She nodded. "I think it's very nice. Lovely bed, very comfortable. How do you like yours?"

"I don't know if you are aware of it or not, but you are booked into the bridal chamber," she said, laughing and giggling in a strange way.

"You mean bridal suite," he replied.

"Chamber," she replied. "Chaim-brrrr."

"It's all right. Not the Greenbrier, but it's all right."

"They say that room is quite conducive to cannibal bliss. Have you noticed anything unusual?"

Harry smiled warily. "You mean, connubial bliss, don't you?"

The movement of her head was completely independent from any other part of her body. "Ho, ho, what have we here, an ambulating editor? No, I meant cannibal bliss. Are you sure you haven't noticed?"

There had to be another way of looking at it, but Harry couldn't quite put his finger on it. "Yes, yes, now that you mentioned it, I did see something in the mirror, something I've never seen before."

She threw her head back and ran her fingers through her tangled nest of a hair-do. "I can show you a better time than she can."

She opened her mouth and licked her lips absurdly. If she weren’t so young, thought Harry, I'd do more than laugh. She dropped back on the bed and stretched out her arms and legs. "Take my body. Make love to me you beautiful savage."

Her posturing made Harry nervous and uneasy. "I'd like to oblige, but I'm not even sure you're old enough."

She offered her arms to him. "I am as old as the earth, the mother of nations, mistress, whore, Madonna and matriarch. I am all things to all men."

"Does Gilbert know you're here?"

She jumped up from the bed and looked around. "Oh, promise me you won't tell him, promise?"

Harry smiled with casual confidence. "Well, it's none of my business. I mean, if you need a place to stay ..."

She began to laugh, very softly at first, and the louder she laughed, the more transparent she became until only her laughter and the words, 'Be careful what you dream in there. It might end up dreaming you!' Filled the room, and Harry was alone. Alone until Angela returned from the bathroom with a huge towel wrapped around her body like a sarong. Her hair was wet and combed down straight against her neck.

"Honestly, the Polings think of everything," she said. "You can't beat true West Virginia hospitality."

Harry rotated slowly taking in the dimensions and the furnishings of the room. He was back where he had started from. In the room Gilbert had originally assigned him. "How the hell did I get back in here?"

"What do you mean?" Angela replied.

"I mean, how did I get back in here from out there? Or down the hall without moving a foot?"

"Darling, you've been standing in the same place since I went into the shower. I would have heard you if you left."

Harry sat on the edge of the bed and deliberated momentarily on the preceding events. "Angela, what were you laughing about in the shower?"

She opened a closet door and found a selection of nightgowns. She unhesitatingly chose a white one and slipped it on. "Oh, could you hear me? I didn't think I laughed that loud."

"Yes, I heard you," he muttered silently to himself.

She made three quick and graceful turns in the middle of the room. "Do you like it?"

"Lovely," he replied, with very little enthusiasm.

"You're not going to sleep in your clothes again, are you?"

Harry pulled a chair up to the window. "I'm not going to sleep at all in this fun house. I might wake up in bed with your mother."

The thought sent a chill scrambling up his back and down his arms.

"Is that wishful thinking?" she asked with a smile and a wink.

A rapid succession of involuntary contractions occurred throughout his nervous system. He thought he was going to spaz out. "God forbid," he murmured." He felt a nasty chill and trembled again.

That was completely out of character for her, he thought, stooping to verbalize. Usually it was an activity considered far beneath her dignity. He positioned the chair so he could stare out the window and also keep an eye on the door.

"What is most unfortunate," Harry said, "is that I will probably live to regret this." He kicked off his shoes and dropped into the chair. "At the first crack of dawn, we're out of here."

He turned to say good night. Angela was crawling beneath the covers. She smiled seductively, coyly lowering her eyes and narrowing her shoulders to deepen the cleavage between her breasts.

"Darling, I think you're making a terrible mistake."

Harry shook his head resolutely and thought to himself: 'The only mistake I ever made was marrying a schizophrenic hillbilly who couldn't see the forest for the trees.'

He turned his attention to the night sky beyond the windows and watched her reflection in the glass. Writhing like a serpent, she kicked her bare legs toward the ceiling and frolicked with a pillow clamped tightly between her sturdy thighs.

"These yoga exercises are great for releasing peptides produced in the liver that mediate hormone activity," she advised.

He watched her extraordinary performance for ten minutes before she moaned deeply and finally collapsed, wormed her way beneath the covers and dozed off. He slept for less than an hour before he was abruptly awakened by a single vision. While he slept, he dreamed about the rotting trunk of a tree he had seen just beyond the window. The tree trunk was about fifteen feet high and the top was as jagged as a rotten tooth. While he slept, the dead limbs of the tree trunk came to life, extended themselves toward the ground and began to try and extricate itself from the earth.

Slowly the trunk began to assume the features of a man, an old man, hoary with age, and bearded. Thick hair matted with dirt and dead twigs flowed down his back and over his chest. His arms and shoulders were immense measuring at least three to four feet in circumference. His eyebrows were as thick as shrubs, and they over-shadowed the dark sockets where his eyes were doubtlessly hidden.

His body appeared to be buried in the soil from the waist down, and he tried ... was trying ... to lift himself out of the ground. But his arms were not quite strong enough. He looked like a captive god, an angry god, and Harry trembled at the thought of the consequences if it ever freed itself from the earth.