Standing in the lobby was the Lady in Red. She turned to look at me as I stood there, a smile emerging on her face. Here in the bright light of day as it strewn in from the windows, illuminating her dress and sending a warm red glow around the room, she looked more beautiful than ever. Before, in the dimly lit dining room the first night I saw her, her dress seemed to match the year 1856, but now that I could see her fully, it looked more akin to a dress set in the early 1900’s. This confused me further about her, not knowing where or rather when she came from. All I knew at the time was that she was somehow linked to the town.
“Miss Winters, it is good to see you. I told you it would be sooner than later.” She giggled.
“It is good to see you as well. How may I help you today at the Hotel Bella Muerte?”
“I’d like a room please, any one will do.” She said.
I crossed the floor and went behind the desk. “What name should I put on your doorplate”
“Just put Lilly Bennett dear.” She responded.
My eyes shot up from where I had begun to write her name down in the log book. “Excuse me? Did…..did you just say Lilly Bennett?”
“I certainly did. Lilly Bennett.” She repeated.
I was curious at this point and decided to push my luck. “You aren’t by any chance related to the Bennetts who built and owned the hotel are you?”
“Yes I am, I’m the great granddaughter of Rosa and John Bennett.” She answered proudly.
“I don’t understand, if you are the great granddaughter of the original Bennetts how do you have their last name? They only had 2 daughters.”
“How do you know they only had 2 children?” She said with a mischievous smile.
“Well the picture upstairs only had Mary and Martha in it. Are you saying that they had more children after them?” I asked now very confused.
“I didn’t say that. They had 2 children before them. Another set of twins named William and Westley Bennett.” She replied.
“Where were they then? I have never seen a picture of them.” I asked hoping I wasn’t wrong.
“They were already grown by the time their parents and younger sisters decided to come out west. They stayed back East and continued to run their father’s business.” She responded.
“I see, and you are which ones granddaughter?” I asked her.
“I’m Westley’s granddaughter. My father was his son.”
“That’s very interesting, I didn’t know that!” I said as I continued to fill out her name card. “Did you ever have any children?”
She let out a loud laugh that rang out through the entire hotel, melodious in sound. “Heavens no! I was too busy being the caretaker of the hotel.”
I paused a moment thinking I hadn’t heard her right. “You were a caretaker of the hotel?”
“Yes, I took care of the hotel for years before I figured out how to time hop. I never had time to have children after that.” She said.
“How were you the caretaker if the brothers stayed back East?” I questioned her.
“Well I came out west, silly.” She answered “Listen we have a lot to talk about and a lot to catch up on, but for right now I am tired from my journey and would like to rest.”
“Well then follow me and I’ll get you settled in room #12. There is no longer any pipe ghosts in that room currently, so don’t worry.” I told her.
We then went up the stairs as I took her to her room. I had picked up her luggage on the way up and was surprised by how heavy it was. It felt like she was carrying a ton of rocks in them. I tried to handle them carefully as we went down the hallways. I was grateful when we finally reached her room. I unlocked her door and set her luggage just inside. She thanked me and I headed down to the lobby as she got settled.
I was still confused from all the thoughts fighting to take precedence in my mind. Not only did I just find out the lady in red was a Bennett but that she was also a former caretaker of the hotel that knew how to time jump. It made me wonder how many other former caretakers there were like this. I also had a lot to think about with the letter I had just gotten translated. What did the curse truly mean? And was there a way to break it if so. As I walked down the hallways on my way to the lobby, I reflected on these things, hardly being able to wait for Miss Lilly to wake up to ask her all my questions.
Once in the lobby, I noticed something that Lilly had dropped. It was a small, engraved locket. At first I thought it was mine because they looked just alike. I opened hers to reveal an old black and white photo of two people, arguably a husband and wife, standing in front of a building. In the other side of the locket was another photo, black and white as well, of another couple. If it wasn’t for the photos, I would have certainly thought it was mine, as I held up mine that I was wearing for comparison. Both were solid, polished gold lockets, with roses engraved on the front and a saying on the back reading “I Love You” on hers, and “To the Moon and Back” on mine. This became a conundrum for me. If this locket wasn’t mine, and if the locket was hers, why were they so similar?
I suddenly looked up from the lockets when I heard a loud sound from outside. I ran to check it out wondering what could possibly have made such a loud noise. Once at the window I could see exactly what. It was Mr. Wilkens. Now Mr. Wilkens was a strange character. He always toted a gun on this shoulder, and a bottle of booze in the other hand. He was perpetually drunk and smelled like a distillery, and he looked like he hadn’t bathed once in the entire 2 plus centuries since the towns founding. He was hard to look at and harder to understand because he was constantly slurring his words.
The first time I had met him he was drunk off his ass sitting in a water trough at the edge of town near the gas station. It was the closest thing to a bath as he ever got. The next time I saw him he was passed out on top of the post office roof, snoring the shingles off and Jasper tying to poke him with a broom handle to “get him the hell off his roof.” The last time I’d seen him he had decided to eat a lot of candy from the pharmacy, which I now know makes you hallucinate, and chase fake butterflies while stumbling around town, running into buildings and such. This time it appeared that he was shooting a rifle into the center of town, at something, what I didn’t know, and yelling profanities and harbingers of great doom. I was about to go outside when he shot again, this time the bullet going through the library window. I watched on as the librarian come outside, squawking and shrieking at him and chasing him all over the street. It was quite comedic to see.
After a while of sitting and relaxing in the lobby I heard someone come down the stairs. I turned to see who it was, and saw Lilly coming down. She had changed her dress, though still red in color, to a floral print that suited her well. I couldn’t imagine her in anything but red. She smiled at me as she came down the stairs. I retrieved the locket and handed it out to her.
“I think you may have lost this.” I told her.
“Oh my stars! I’m so glad you found it! I looked everywhere for it in my room. I’m surprised I didn’t feel it slip off.” She said to me.
“Can I ask you a question? About the locket I mean.” I began.
“Of course. Do you like it?” She asked.
“I love it. Where did you get it from?” I replied, having hidden my own under my shirt.
“It was given to me as a present by my Great Aunt Mary. Their father had a locket set made for the twins when they were little. When I knew them they were quite old, but they loved to give presents.” She said as she placed the locket back around her neck.
Before I could ask her any further questions about the locket, we heard a door slam from upstairs. We both looked at each other and moved towards the stairs to see what had caused the sound. Right about the time we both reached the stairs, more doors began to open and slam shut, one at a time starting from one end of the hall to the other. This had become a nearly regular occurrence. It was as if a ghost didn’t like my being here at the hotel and wanted to make their frustrations known. I looked back at Miss Lilly, her facial expression said she was somewhere between knowing what had made the sound but yet not knowing why.
“What is that? What keeps doing that? It happens frequently especially over the last two and a half weeks.” I asked her.
“I’m not sure.” She said hesitantly.
“Did this ever happen with you?” I continued hoping she’d reveal more.
“A couple of times yes, but never like this.” She told me as she turned from the staircase back towards the lobby as she continued on to the sitting room.
I followed her and thought to ask, “What can you tell me about this hotel? There is so much that I already know but at the same time so many things I don’t.”
“It’s simple for the most part depending on the situation. The normal duties are easy to learn, it’s the supernatural things that make the job unpredictable. I found though, that there are many loop holes and ways to get around much of it. I could write you a list of things that detail what all to do in certain situations if you like.”
I wasn’t about to pass up on this offer, “Yes please! I would love that, especially since I lost the first one.”
I ran to grab some paper from the desk in the lobby and came back to where she sat. Over the next few hours we sat and talked and she shared much of her firsthand knowledge for the hotel as she wrote for me a new list of rules and tips to keep the hotel running. Turns out there were a lot of things that could be changed about the town and hotel. I had the power and the finances to change the décor of the hotel as I wished and erect new buildings in the town. The only catch was I had to have everything built from materials placed just inside the town line without sucking a new person into the town. It was a difficult task but not an impossible one. Knowing this, I got excited because the town had been in such disrepair, but knowing I could improve it gave me great satisfaction.
She also told me that the dolls in the doll room were made in likeness of the past caretakers. When the caretakers died, their souls were bound to the town, and instead of having too many at any given time their souls were chased into the dolls to keep them safe and sound and from tripping over one another. I thought that made sense, it also explained why there were no other caretakers around except for me and Lilly. The doll I found outside my door was actually one of the more “practical jokers” of the crowd. That made me feel a little better about them but saddened as well. They meant no harm to me or the tenants of the hotel but they were also trapped in that room day in and day out. It just wasn’t fair. I decided that I would no longer, unless I had a resident at the hotel, face them to the walls at night, but instead give them free reign over the hotel at night, even if the thought of walking talking dolls still gave me the heebie jeebies.
I leaned too that Mr. Elberton was also a former caretaker like Lilly who gave up the caretaking life to time travel. I thought that was fitting, as he seemed the type of person never able to sit still in one place for too long. I asked Lilly how they were able to time jump but she refused to tell me. Her reason being that once you start you can’t stop since you could never go back to the exact same time as you left. Only Mr. Elberton knew how to come close. I got lucky and only wound up being a few minutes shy of the time I left when I returned.
The sun began to set in the distance and we both decided to retire for the night. I wasn’t yet ready to go to bed, so I decided that I would read my new list of rules. The first 10 rules were as follows:
1. The unborn ghosts can be caught with a net. Just catch them and release them outside.
2. Don’t ever accept a drink from Mr. Wilkens.
3. Leave the spiders in the cellar out back alone.
4. Never plant beans on a full moon.
5. Always accept the pie from Miss Millie, just be sure to never eat it.
6. Do go to the Gas Station at night, weird things happen there at night.
7. If you meet someone named William Walker, don’t take him up on the offer of a horseback ride.
8. Don’t ever fall into Mr. Bells traps.
9. Never walk outside after dusk.
10. And above all things, never insult the librarian.
There were several other rules these were just the first 10.
The rules were simple enough and this time they were given to me by someone I trusted even though I only met her twice. She seemed trustworthy enough; I at least had no reason to distrust her. I tried to keep in mind what she had told me that day, making my way to the bathroom to do my nightly routine, trying to keep everything straight. Once finished I jumped into bed and snuggled in. I fell fast asleep in minutes, only to be rudely awakened by a knocking on my door. I got up to investigate and see who was at my door.
At my door was the strangest thing by far, something I think I’ll never truly get used to. Nothing. Whenever there was nothing present to have made a sound or bump in the night it always freaked me out more than if there had been something there. I leaned out my door and looked down the hall. Nothing. I stepped out into the hall and that’s when I saw it, a dark figure perched between the corner of the ceiling and the wall to my right at the end of the hall. Entirely black, it sat there, with only the whites of its eyes showing, a cheshire cat grin growing on its face with sharpened white teeth, as it turned its head to the side to get a better look at me. I screamed out, completely petrified by the sight before me, being in the very presence of the entity felt oppressive and dark, like great evil exuded from it.
I heard a door swing open and out of the corner of my eye, saw Miss Lilly come running down the hall. She grabbed my arm and drug me down the hall with her. Almost on cue the phantom being leaped from its perch following after, coming after us almost faster than we could run. As we came to her door she slammed it shut as the entity bashed against it. She cried out “Help me!” and I ran to her aid. Between the two of us we were just barely able to shut the door and lock it. Out of breath we sank to the floor as the banging and scratching continued on the other side of the door.
“What was that! I asked, my chest still heaving.
“Did you forget to lock the front doors?” She asked
I paused to think, “Yes, yes I think I did.”
“It’s one of the evil spirits that lives on the land. It was called when the Native people placed the curse on the town. Anywhere there is a lot of pain or suffering, they come at night, in the dark, where the sun can’t touch them.”
So that was what They and Them referred to I thought. Then I thought to ask, “What do we do? Is there a way to get rid of them?”
Right then there was a second one at the window. It looked the same as the first one, only this one had an even wider smile. It tapped at the window as Lilly spoke, “There is nothing we can do but wait it out till the morning. They leave then.”
“Won’t they get inside before then?” I asked
“No, they have to be invited in threw words or an open door. They can’t reach us in here, but they will try everything they can to enter. They can speak with voices not their own, voices that sound like friends and family members. They can even shape shift into more pleasant forms. That’s why the door to the hotel is locked for the night and not opened till morning.” She said moving from the floor to the window, closing the curtains on the now furious beast.
“Let us in, let us in little piggies.” The voice hissed from the other side of the door. “We want to come in.”
Neither of us were about to let the creature in. We stood our ground on our side of the door, not moving or talking. Then we heard a voice we recognized from outside just down below the hotel.
“Help me! Dear God someone please help me!” The voice yelled in fear mixed with pain. It was Jasper.
I hurried to the window to open it, but Lilly stopped me just in time before I had the chance to undo the latch.
“No! Don’t do that! It will get inside.” She whispered.
“But Jasper needs help.” I whispered back, urgency growing in my voice.
“That isn’t Jasper. That’s them. They speak with voices of others remember.” She replied pulling me to the center of the room. “The best thing we can do is stay put, no matter what we think we hear.”
“Why are they doing this?” I asked
“They always have, it’s just part of the stupid curse those horrible Indians placed on us. I wish they had shot them all then none of this would have ever happened!” She replied as I tried to ignore the her blatant racism towards the people of the land.
I plopped down then on the couch in the room, sighing deeply. This was going to be a long night and I wasn’t sure I was prepared for it. We continued to sit there till dawn, listening to the creatures that now had to number at least 8, take on voices of the people we knew and had known, trying to get us to open the door or windows. We could hear them pacing the halls and growling and mumbling, practicing their words with different inflections, tearing apart the hotel and breaking things. Come dawn we were exhausted and our nerves were shot. We sat there till we were sure that they were gone before we opened the door. We looked into the halls and up to the ceiling and saw nothing. We had made it. I thanked her for saving me and headed back to my room. I decided to go back to bed to finally get some rest. I could pick up and clean the hotel later. Right now all I needed was a good, long sleep.
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