Previously in Frankengeld. After seducing Gerda, because she insisted on it, Damion settled back into the routine at number 34. Then a letter, from his Mother, stated that Elodie needed his medical help. It was a trap! Damion was forcibly engaged to the child-minded Katy, and the marriage was to be concluded, and consummated in full view of all the guests, just one hour later! Costache and Bogdan, his jailers, were delighting in telling him the erotic details of the wedding to come, until Miit, the cat, sent them to sleep. Now Damion is following the cat to release the spirit that has helped him escape a fate worse than death.
Now read on...
25th June in the year 1784.
As I followed the cat down the corridor I was aware that an Alienist would tell me that I was hallucinating. That listening to voices in my head was a very dangerous thing to do. But I trusted my ghost and was determined to do my best for her. Many old tales suggested that ghosts became stuck between the material world and heaven, that they were unable to move on until some condition or other had been achieved. Perhaps she needed to rescue someone in order to ascend to heaven.
The house was quiet. There were some servants that I did not recognise, doubtless working for the guests. I walked with an attitude of confidence, ignored them, as a master of the house should, and they paid me no attention in return. I followed the cat, Miit, and we descended from the bedroom floor to the ballroom level. One more set of stairs to go and we would be on the ground floor. Then it was out of the front door, down the road, and back to the safety of Carlsbruck.
The cat took me to the Blue Room and walked inside, through the door as usual. I followed in the more conventional manner. When I entered and closed the door behind me I found it was now rubbing up against the coffin of the ancient priestess. The sarcophagus stood upright, towering over me, its paint still bright after centuries in the tomb, and many decades in our house.
"Break the seal," said the voice. "Let me free."
So the ghost was the priestess. That made her much older than I expected. What a torment to be unable to pass on for thousands of years to whatever afterlife they believed in. I had to admit my knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman cultures was much better than the Egyptians so I knew little of their beliefs on the afterlife. But it was their own fault.
They had some sort of writing. Little pictures and symbols. Very pretty, but impossible to read. Someone told me the last person who could read them died over a thousand years ago. So now we have no idea what they say. Reading a Greek or Roman writer you can learn a lot about how they thought, how they behaved, what life was like for them. But what does Bird plus Water plus Round-thing say? That they enjoyed sailing on the river Nile in a Coracle hunting Water fowl? That they Salivated whenever they saw Duck on their Dinner plate? It could be either, or neither.
Perhaps in the future someone will find a clue that will let us understand these symbols, but I had a more important thing to do. To break the seal and release the spirit of the priestess. I took out my penknife and slit through the wax seal and the ancient cords that were holding the lid of the coffin closed. Then I stood back.
I'm not sure what I expected. Perhaps to see her ghost, as I had in the Red Room, and then watch it ascend to heaven in a cloud of tiny, golden, sparkling lights. Not for the lid to open and a mummy wrapped in the traditional bandages to stagger out, moaning, and waving its arms at me. I shrank away from the walking corpse afraid that its hands were coming for my throat.
It was quicker than I and I was grabbed, but the hands didn't grasp my throat. They rested on my shoulders which seemed to help the mummy to steady itself. Then the corpse shook its head and the bandages disintegrated. I braced myself to see a dessicated skull but what emerged was the face of the ghost looking up at me. Youthful, perfect, and smiling with delight. She lay her head upon my chest, for she was a petite young woman, and sighed.
"Thank you," she whispered. "It has been so long."
I estimated it might have been three thousand years and yet she still looked a teenager. No time to explore this paradox now, I thought, we need to escape.
"Quite right," she said, making me wonder if I had said those words out loud. Then she shook herself and the remainder of the bandages became dust. She was dressed as I had seen her as a ghost which immediately made me concerned that we had a problem. If we wanted to return to Carlsbruck, without causing a scene, she needed to look more like a local. A lot more.
"We need to find you some new clothes," I suggested.
She looked at herself, her hair moving and revealing her youthful breasts, which rather emphasised the point I was making. Then she slid her hands down her body and, like a waterfall, cascading from her shoulders to her feet, a new costume clothed her. Suddenly she was dressed like Elodie in her best clothes she used for a holy day and I understood she had been watching my sister too. I touched her new clothes. Were these an illusion? But no, my fingers found cloth, or thought they found cloth, the garments seemed real.
"My name is Mut Haat Monifa," my young friend announced. "But if that is strange to you then you may call me simply Monifa. I need to collect some things, and then we can go."
She opened one of my father's cabinets of antiquities and removed over a dozen of the Egyptian charms, stuffing them into her pockets. The clothes must be real, I decided, or the talismans would have fallen on the floor. Then she picked up the mummified cat from its place on the shelf and, clutching it like a child might hug a doll, indicated she was ready to depart.
How was I going to explain this to everyone? I expected an emotional releasing of the ghost's spirit, not an extra person to join us at number 34. But I owed her a lot. I decided I would present her to my friends as a guest at Durishaus who had helped me escape. Both facts were true, if a bit of a simplification. We peeped out of the Blue Room and, seeing nobody around, set off for the front door.
Going down the main staircase we were passed by just one person. A young, slender, black woman, presumably the new maid that Stephan had told me about. She stood to the side to let us pass and lowered her eyes. I glanced back to find her studying us closely but she made no comment and I had no reason to suspect she might betray us. She gave me a little hesitant smile when she saw I was not angry at her for looking at me, then ran up the stairs to continue her duties.
The cat was ahead of us and when we arrived at the hallway walked straight out through the front door. We were not going to be so lucky. The key, which normally sat on a large iron hook by the door - in case of fire you understand - was missing. And, turning the handle, I discovered the door was securely locked. Perhaps this was a strategem by my Father to make it harder for me to leave. In which case it was going to work. I threw up my hands in despair.
"We must seek another way out," I said to Monifa, I was in a panic worrying that, at any moment, someone would arrive to drag me back to my fate in the ballroom. "There is a door from the conservatory to the garden. That should be unguarded."
"This way is quicker," she replied.
"Yes," I agreed. "But they have locked it, and we have no key." I shook the door handle to demonstrate our plight.
"I will be your key," said my increasingly mysterious companion. She put her hand over the lock and there was a click as the internal mechanism moved. Then Monifa turned the handle and pulled open the door, just wide enough to slip out. I followed and we walked away from Durishaus together.
I tried not to hurry, not to do anything that would draw attention to myself and Monifa, but it was hard. Every fibre of my being screamed at me to run, to get as far away as I could, that at any moment Costache and Bogdan would emerge to force me back into the house and wedded bliss.
Monifa held my hand and hugged the mummified cat with the other. Her presence seemed to steady my nerves and soon we were conversing, quietly, as we made our way to freedom.
Out past the statues we went, with Monifa making a gesture towards them that I could only think of as a sign warding away evil - as if they could harm us. Once on the road back to Carlsbruck she lessened the pace slightly and leant into my side.
"We must make good time," she said. "For when the evil brothers awake there will be... trouble."
"They will be annoyed to have lost me," I admitted.
"More than that, Damion," she looked up with her big eyes. "I believe that a crisis is descending upon Durishaus."
"Ah... pray enlighten me."
"I cannot give details, for I do not know any, but I have felt a growing tension within the house over the last few days."
