Chapter 6

The day after the Gregorys’ second dinner with the Butterfields turned out to be hectic. Sybil had to do errands with Caroline to buy things she needed for school, Blake needed her to do some things for him, The New York Times had called her and wanted an article on short notice, and there were details to organize for the Brooklyn show. A museum in Chicago called her about a show they were considering and wanted her to curate in November. Alicia, the housekeeper, was sick, and Sybil had to go to the supermarket, since there was nothing to eat in the house, in case the Butterfields didn’t appear that night.

She encouraged them all to dress for dinner again, but Blake couldn’t find his second tuxedo shirt, and Andy had misplaced his studs and cuff links the night before. And she realized that the dress she wanted to wear was in New York. It also occurred to her that if she had to wear an evening dress for dinner every night, she was going to run short. She didn’t have that many, and had few occasions to wear them.

“Do we really have to do this again?” Blake complained, as he put on the same shirt as the night before, after she pressed it for him. “I brought work home from the office.”

“I have work to do too,” she said, after lending a set of Blake’s cuff links to Andy. “This is fun. And I don’t want to hurt their feelings and not show up. That would be rude.”

“Sybil, they’re ghosts, for chrissake. They’re not going anywhere, and they can’t expect us to do this every night. They’ll get tired of us too.” Blake felt strongly that they needed a real life too, with living people. He had met several men he liked at work and wanted to have over for dinner.

She rushed them downstairs, and they arrived right on time. There were no sounds from the dining room, and when they reached the doorway, the room was dark, there was no fire in the grate, the table wasn’t set, and the Butterfields were not there. All of the Gregorys were unhappy as they walked into the kitchen, and Sybil scared up something to eat, grateful that she’d made it to the supermarket that day.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.” Magnus hadn’t come to play that afternoon either, and Charlie looked glum.

They didn’t come the next day either, and the morning after that, Sybil called Michael Stanton.

“They disappeared,” she said sadly, and described the evenings they’d spent together, and the two nights they hadn’t shown up. “Do you suppose they’ve moved out?”

He laughed at the idea. “Not likely. They’ve been in the house for over a hundred years. Spirits do that, they fade away and get weak for a while, and then they come back stronger than ever. They need to recharge. Don’t worry. They’ll be back.”

The Butterfields were gone for another week, and all of the Gregorys started to miss them. The children talked about them at dinner, and Blake said it might be for the best, although he missed Bert too. Sybil wrote her next article, but thought about them at night. And she went through the box of old photographs. They felt like old friends now. The Gregorys had gone back to eating dinner in jeans and old sweaters, moccasins, flip-flops, and bare feet. It wasn’t elegant, but their meals in the kitchen were casual and brief, and they talked about what they did daily. They also had dinner with a couple from Blake’s office. Sybil wasn’t crazy about them, but it was a good thing to do. Andy and Caro were busy with their homework, and she and Blake were both catching up with work after dinner. Only Charlie was bored without Magnus to play with. He looked unhappy, and even Alicia noticed it with some concern.

“I think he has imaginary friend. I hear him talking to him when there’s no one in the room with him,” she said, concerned. “He no play anymore with him, though,” she reported to Sybil, and she smiled.

“Sometimes he takes a little time off.” And she realized then that that was what the Butterfields had done. They were on a time out.

They’d been gone for nine days when Sybil heard voices in Charlie’s room one afternoon after school, and wondered if he’d brought someone home. She opened the door and poked her head in, and he and Magnus were playing videogames and shrieking with delight. She laughed when she saw them and waved at Magnus. They were back, and she hoped they’d see the whole family for dinner that night.

She checked on the boys again a little later, and they were gone. She glanced out the window and didn’t see them outside, so she assumed they were somewhere on the grounds. There were a lot of places to play in the garden and around the house. She wasn’t worried about them, and she went to her office upstairs to work on her computer. It was six o’clock when she came back downstairs to her bedroom. Blake was home by then, and she had just asked him how his day was when they both heard heavy pounding in Blake’s dressing room. Blake went to see what it was, and Sybil followed him, and they both realized the sounds came from behind the wall. He opened his closets and the sound grew stronger, and then they could hear the boys calling for help from the other side of the closet wall.

“Charlie? Where are you?” his father shouted at him, as Sybil listened and could hear Magnus shouting too. They were calling out and pounding alternately, and she could hear that her son was panicked. “Where are you?” Blake said loudly next to the heavy wood paneling so they could hear him.

“I don’t know. It’s dark.” They could barely hear him. “We’re in the secret passage,” he yelled again after a minute, afraid they’d get in trouble, but even more afraid now not to get out.

“Great,” he said with a look over his shoulder at Sybil. “How did you get in there?” he called back.

“There was a door in a closet on the third floor. There’s a staircase, but there’s no handle on this side, and there’s no way out from downstairs. We tried.”

“Okay. I’ll get you out in a minute.” Blake grabbed a flashlight he kept in a drawer and headed for the back stairs, and shouted at Sybil over his shoulder. “Keep talking to them.” He dashed up the stairs to the third floor, where the guest bedrooms were, and checked every closet. There was none with a door at the back of it, and Blake was starting to worry. He was thinking about calling the fire department when he checked one closet for a second time, and saw the thin outline of a door. It wouldn’t release when he pressed it, there was no knob, and it looked painted shut. He turned to go back downstairs to call the fire department, and found Bert standing right behind him with a frown. He had appeared from nowhere, and startled Blake.

“Now what are those two up to?” Bert said with a rueful look at Blake, who was happy to see him, after their hiatus, and particularly now with the boys trapped behind the wall.

“They found some secret passage behind the wall in one of the closets. Charlie says they got in from up here.” Bert beckoned to him to follow, and led him to another closet that was used for storage. At the very back, they found a door. Bert tried it and it was jammed. They needed something to pry it open, and the two men looked at each other, trying to decide what to do next.

“I never told my boys about this because I knew they’d wind up stuck in it one day,” Bert said to Blake. “It’s not on the plans. It serves no useful purpose, except for a fast escape. Our builder thought it would be fun to add it, to use if we were ever under an attack of some kind.”

“I think I saw a crowbar downstairs. I’ll run down and get it,” Blake offered and Bert stopped him.

“Never mind, I can take care of it,” he said, laughing. “I’ll put my full weight against it when I get them back up here, and when we get them out, we can both box their ears.” And as soon as he said it, he was gone. He had gone right through the wall, while standing there, talking to Blake, and he shouted back from the other side. “I hear them. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“They’re on the floor below,” Blake told him. “Sybil’s talking to them.”

“It’s filthy in here,” Bert said in a tone of disgust, and then stopped talking. A minute later, Sybil could hear Bert talking to the boys on the other side of the wall, and he shouted to her so she could hear him. “I’ve got them. Blake is waiting upstairs. You’ll have Charlie back in a minute,” he reassured her, and she could hear their voices fading as Bert walked them back up the stairs, and then he called out to Blake in the closet where he was waiting for them to emerge. “Stand back,” Bert warned him, and Blake took a big step out of the closet. An instant later Bert burst through the stuck door. He didn’t do his walk-through-walls trick, since he had to get Charlie out too. A moment later the four of them were standing amid the splintered wood of the door, with two of the filthiest boys Blake had ever seen, and they both looked scared stiff. Bert was almost as dirty as they were, and didn’t look pleased.

“What were you two thinking?” he asked them. “What if we hadn’t found you, or didn’t hear you? You could have been stuck in there for weeks. And I’m sure there are bats in there,” he said with an ominous look, and both boys started to cry. The two men repressed a smile, now that they had them safely in hand.

“Mr. Butterfield is right,” Blake told Charlie. “There could have been a well or a trap door. You could get killed,” and then he realized that only his son could. Magnus was already dead, but he was every bit as frightened as any other six-year-old boy. Blake made a mental note to have the entrance to the passage sealed off so they couldn’t do it again.

“You both need a bath,” Bert said to the two blackened faces. “Magnus, I want you to apologize to Charlie’s father for doing something dangerous with your friend. You’ll have dinner in your room tonight.” Bert sounded stern but loving, and Magnus hung his head when he apologized to Blake. By then, Sybil had come upstairs and gasped when she saw how grimy they were. And Bert looked just as bad.

“How long were you in there?” she asked, relieved to see them, after she thanked Bert for rescuing them.

“A long time,” Charlie answered, and both boys cast furtive looks at each other. It had been fun until it got scary and they couldn’t get out.

The five of them headed back downstairs, and Alicia saw them when they reached the second floor, or she saw Blake and Sybil with Charlie. She couldn’t see Magnus with Bert, but the Gregorys acted as though they were talking to more than just one another, and she stared at Charlie.

“What you do up there?” she asked Charlie.

“They found a secret passage,” Blake said, since he could see Magnus clearly and was referring to both boys.

“You lucky you no find ghosts in there,” she said, wagging a finger at Charlie, and went back to the kitchen, and they all laughed after she left. Sybil led Charlie straight to the bathroom to put him in the bath, and Bert chatted with Blake for a minute, then apologized again, as Magnus waited for him meekly.

“That was a very effective trick you managed,” Blake complimented Bert with a grin, and he laughed.

“I don’t do it often, only in emergencies. It’s very tiring and requires a lot of concentration,” he said seriously.

“Could Magnus have gotten out that way?” Blake was fascinated, and Bert shook his head.

“He’s not old enough, I think. He’s never been able to do it, fortunately. That’s all we need, a six-year-old who can walk through walls.” Blake was silent for a minute, thinking about it.

“We missed you,” Blake said. “It’s nice to see you. We were afraid you weren’t coming back,” he admitted.

“We were in Woodside. We never stay down there for long.” Blake wondered when they had sold that house, and who lived there now. It had been their country home a long time ago, and Bert had said it was where they kept their horses. He and Gwyneth were excellent riders and so were their children. He mentioned that Gwyneth rode sidesaddle and Augusta had been a terrific rider in her day, although she no longer rode. “Dinner tomorrow night?” he asked, and Blake nodded with a look of relief. He was so pleased that they’d returned, even if the boys got into mischief together.

“We’d love it,” Blake accepted with pleasure, and Bert waved as he escorted Magnus down the grand staircase, holding him by one ear. Halfway down the stairs, they both disappeared.

Blake wandered into the bathroom where Sybil was scrubbing Charlie in the enormous tub, and he was telling her how scared they had been.

“I don’t want you doing anything like that again,” his father scolded him, “or we won’t let you play with Magnus anymore.”

“I promise,” he said, looking clean and subdued, as Sybil lifted him out of the tub and toweled him off.

“Bert said they were in Woodside all week,” he told Sybil, and she nodded. There had been a few mentions of it in Bettina’s book, but Bettina had said they had sold the property after the crash and brought the horses back to a stable in Marin County, which was more convenient for them to ride whenever they wanted. She hadn’t said much about the house in Woodside, and didn’t seem to remember it well, or care much about it.

They had dinner in their kitchen that night, and Charlie told the others about his big adventure. He said he had been with Magnus, and Andy and Caro were happy to hear they were back.

“They invited us to dinner tomorrow night,” Blake told them, and everyone was pleased. Blake mentioned to Sybil that he had to give a business dinner in a few weeks with some of his new partners. He wanted to ask Bert about it, to make sure that the plan met with their approval too, and didn’t interfere with them. He didn’t intend to give a business dinner with Augusta staring at his associates through her lorgnette, although he assumed that his guests wouldn’t see her, but he and Sybil would. Alicia not being able to see them suggested that no one outside the family would be able to. It appeared to be a privilege reserved only for them.

Bert laughed when he asked him the following night when they dined together for the first time in ten days.

“Of course you can give a dinner! It’s your house!”

“Well, not really. You lived here first, and you still do,” Blake said respectfully with a grin.

“But we can accommodate you whenever you want. We don’t want to interfere with your life,” Bert said kindly. “Just let us know and we’ll go to Woodside for the night. The air will do us good.” It was really as though they were alive. They acted like it, and they looked it to Blake and Sybil and their children. It was the oddest sensation being with them, just like ordinary people, but knowing that they weren’t really there. Blake was learning that they were only visible to family and people they were close to and felt at ease with, and only within the house or the grounds. They weren’t visible even to the Gregorys beyond that. They existed in a very specific, limited dimension, and yet it defied space and time. It was a phenomenon Blake couldn’t explain but accepted. “Just let me know when. I’ll keep my mother-in-law busy.” He smiled at Blake. “What sort of guests?” He was curious about them and the other parts of Blake’s life.

“They’re my associates. What’s referred to as ‘geeks’ nowadays. Men who are experts in technology. It’s a form of communicating using complex formulas. I’m the finance guy. I don’t always understand what they do myself.”

“I’m sure it’s beyond me too,” Bert said. Angus had overheard them discussing a party, and leapt in immediately.

“Happy to play the bagpipes for you, dear boy. It always adds some life to a party,” he said jovially, as Magnus made a horrible face and pretended to plug his ears, and the others laughed. And then Angus turned to Andy and asked if he had applied to the University of Edinburgh, and Andy was serious in response.

“I did. I really like it. I sent in my application about a week ago, right before the deadline. We’ll see how it goes.” He had no idea if he’d get in. And his two friends had applied too.

“Wonderful place,” Angus told him. “I’ve never been so happy in my life as I was there. No women at the school in my day, of course, but they started accepting them twenty-five years ago, in 1892. You’ll have fun.” Andy was stunned when he heard the year and did the math, as Angus continued to reminisce. “I was engaged twice while I was there, to local girls,” he chuckled.

“How many times have you been engaged, Uncle Angus?” his great-nephew Josiah asked him, and Angus thought about it for a minute before he answered.

“Oh, dozens, easily…maybe forty or fifty. I used to get engaged at least once a year. Things have slowed down a little lately,” he said with a look of regret as the others laughed, even his sister.

“You were a menace,” Augusta scolded him. “You nearly killed our poor mother with all your cavorting around and misbehaving and chasing after women. And most of the time, you weren’t engaged,” she reminded him, and Angus looked nostalgic as she said it, which made them laugh more.

“Those were the good days.” And he still had a wicked gleam in his eye whenever he looked at Sybil or her daughter. Sybil had worn a strapless red satin evening gown that night. It was old but pretty, and molded her figure. Caroline had worn a short black cocktail dress that showed off her legs.

“Are you a dancer?” Augusta had asked Caroline innocently when they walked in, and Caro said she wasn’t but had gone to ballet class when she was little.

“I thought that might be a tutu,” she said, referring to her dress, and Caroline blushed while the others giggled. The comment was typical of their grandmother, who didn’t approve of new fashions, or anything that showed an ankle or a bit of leg.

After that, they had dinner together several nights in a row, and they were growing familiar with each other. The teasing and jokes were more familial, and Andy had started treating Bettina like a sister, although he still had a noticeable crush on Lucy, whose real age would have been much younger in 1917, but her spirit seemed to have settled on the age she had died. But whatever her age, Andy was sensible about it and knew a romance with her wasn’t possible or realistic. He loved her fragile beauty and worried about her health, and brought her books he thought she’d like, particularly poetry, which was her favorite form of literature.

She was so delicate and so frail she seemed like a porcelain doll to him, and on days when she didn’t feel strong enough to go out in the garden, he came home from school and read poetry to her. She loved the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and sometimes Josiah teased him about it. The two young men got along well too. Josiah wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, and Andy hadn’t met any girls he liked at school yet, just boys he played sports with, so they hung out together sometimes when Andy came home from school.

Josiah was beginning to treat Caroline like a sister too. Although heartrendingly pretty, she was only sixteen and he was twenty-three. His mother had delicately pointed out that she was too young for him. And at sixteen she wouldn’t even be “out” yet, in society, for two more years, so she wasn’t fair game. He reluctantly agreed and said “Maybe in two years.” His mother hoped he’d be married by then, since he was old enough, and worked at his father’s bank. But no well-born young woman of their acquaintance had snagged his heart yet. Caroline was much more exciting and more daring than the girls he knew. But Josiah understood that she came from another century and, like Andy, he was sensible. He had been engaged two years before, but it hadn’t worked out.

Sybil helped Blake organize his business dinner. They invited eight couples and hired a caterer to serve Thai food. They had told their guests to come dressed casually, which Sybil thought would mean for the women slacks and a pretty silk shirt, or short fun wool dresses, or miniskirts and boots, since the techie crowd was very young, and she was shocked when all the men showed up in T-shirts and jeans or jogging pants with running shoes, and the women in jeans and sandals with sweatshirts and no makeup. It was a far cry from their elegant dinners in the same room with the Butterfields. But the evening was interesting. The right people had come, and Blake was pleased, and said there were at least four young high-tech billionaires in the room, in addition to the two founders of his firm. He hoped he’d be one of them one day, although Sybil always told him she was happy as they were. She didn’t know what she’d do with a plane and a boat, a house in Atherton or Belvedere, and houses in the Hamptons and the Caribbean. They lived in a mansion and had a perfect life, with great children, and they loved each other. That was enough for her. But Blake was more ambitious than that.

Several times during the evening, their guests asked if they’d seen any ghosts yet. The historical appearance of the house looked as though it would lend itself to that. Blake and Sybil answered immediately that they hadn’t, and changed the subject before anyone could pursue it. They didn’t want anyone guessing or making a joke of it. And they felt deeply protective of their new friendship with the Butterfields.

The food served by the caterer Sybil had hired was excellent. Blake had selected some very fine Napa Valley wines to go with it, and everyone was pleased. They were in awe of the Gregorys’ home. Several people asked about the house’s history and how they’d found it. It was so elegant and impeccably put together that people assumed they’d paid a fortune for it, which they hadn’t.

As Blake and Sybil looked down the long dining table at each other, they both found they missed the Butterfields. Their dinners with them were more elegant and more fun. And as brilliant as the “geeks” from Blake’s business were, many of them were socially awkward and not the best conversationalists unless they were talking business, money, or high-tech. And Sybil didn’t find the women very interesting either. They talked about their planes, their workout programs, or their kids.

It made them both laugh afterward when they admitted to each other that they had more fun with the family of ghosts they lived with. But Blake was satisfied that the evening had been a success. He thanked Sybil for doing it so nicely, and as they got undressed and discussed the evening, it seemed amazing to both of them that their best friends in San Francisco were a family that had been ghosts for nearly a century.