BED AND BREAKFAST
©Mary Santangelo 2004It was a warm sunny day. I had just finished straightening the last bedroom on the second floor when I saw him from the window walking down the street. He was wearing a tan silk shirt and black pants - his dark brown hair with sun bleached streaks blowing in the breeze. He seemed sure of himself. He always was that way, sure of himself that is. He still looked good for a man of 50, smart, good sense, confident and a grand personality. He had a tough life being raised in an orphanage. He always felt alone as a child and clear through his young adult life. He had married in his mid twenties and stayed married for 15 years until his wife died of leukemia. They never had children. He loved her dearly and was crushed by her passing – a part of him went with her on that rainy day when she died in his arms. He thought his life was over, as soul mates do when they loose their other half. He never thought he would meet anyone else until I came along.
I met Frank two years ago. It was at a lecture one of the local bookstores was presenting. We both began talking and found out we had a lot in common. He was interested in Metaphysics as well as many other subjects of the same interests as myself. He asked me out that evening for dinner and I went. He was as nervous as a young boy on his first date. Not that I was any different. I hadn’t dated in years and I felt like I was sixteen again and experiencing my first kiss. At the restaurant, I knocked over my glass full of wine and he bumped his head against the table when he picked up his napkin that had fallen on the floor. We finally looked at each other and laughed at the whole thing. It broke the ice and we settled in to an evening of relaxation and great conversation. When he took me home, he kissed me on the forehead and told me he would call me the next day. He didn’t disappoint me. We dated two whole months before we went to bed with each other. I’m glad we waited. It was the best night of my life. He was caring, gentle and sensuous. He made me feel like a woman again. Two months after that Frank asked me to marry him and I accepted. We’ve been together ever since.
It was only three months ago when we laid eyes on the Bed and Breakfast Inn. Frank had gotten a settlement from his car accident a couple of years ago, and wanted to invest it on something solid – if there is such a thing now a days. We wanted to settle in an area that was tranquil yet alive. Key West was where the pendulum fell on the map. I used to come here a number of times as a young woman. Sometimes when my Mom and I went on boat cruises to the Bahamas, the ships would make a tourist stop here in the Keys. It is such a laid-back life style - the tropical breezes from the oceans and the sights and smells of the shops, restaurants and nightclubs. I had always wished I could come back here and live. It was a dream come true for both of us.
We bought the property. I remember the first day we walked through the front door. What a mess it was! It took us two months to renovate it, but it was worth every penny. It already had the wood floors and the high ceilings. We wall papered some of the rooms while painting the others. The kitchen was huge and during the renovations after dinner, we’d play the Platters “Only You” and dance with each other on our kitchen dance floor. It was romantic and we’d end it by making love on the table. Thank God for sturdy wooden tables.
We put all our sweat and love in this place and were determined to make it a success. It wasn’t till 5 months later, when I began to hear the noises at night. Doors slamming; footsteps outside in the halls and crying became a common occurrence. It didn’t wake up the guests; it only affected Frank and myself, maybe because we were sensitive to the phenomenon. It wasn’t long before Frank and I admitted to ourselves the place was haunted.
Great, just what we needed! We put every cent in this Bed and Breakfast and now we have freeloading spirits to cope with! I was furious to say the least. Our real estate agent gave us a deal on the property, and now I know why. Whatever happened here was so old and unknown or someone wasn’t telling us the right story. I had to investigate.
The following day, I went and found the historical society; hit the library and asked around about the property. It seemed 35 years ago a family lived here. It was a husband and wife, with two children and an old woman. None of the neighbors knew the real story, but it was said that the parents used to lock the kids up in the closet and the old women in her room. In those days, no one said anything, so people got away with things that they wouldn’t normally get away with today. Domestic situations were hands off. But that didn’t really give me any answers. I had to dig further. I checked around and found that one of the seniors, who lived not too far from the Bed and Breakfast years earlier, lived in a retirement home close by. I made an appointment to visit her the following morning and was able to see her that afternoon. Her name was Netty. No one seemed to know her exact age in years. Her silver grey locks were neatly breaded and twisted in a bun in the back of her head. Her skin was milk white and she had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. She was dressed in a bright flowered lavender/blue dress and sitting in an old oak-rocking chair on the porch. She was a bit sprite for her age, still had her senses. Some say she was close to 100, but didn’t look a day over 60 to me!
I was greeted with a motherly smile and a motion by her frail hand to come sit near her. I introduced myself and began to talk to her about our purchase of the Bed and Breakfast. She cut me sort and said “The house on Hammerhill Drive? I said “Yes, it’s now a Bed and Breakfast”. Her face became like stone and tears swelled in her eyes. With a quivering voice she said, “You must get out of there”. “It isn’t safe”. I said, “I don’t understand, why”? “Tell me why - please?” my voice rising. “It’s important, I must know!” At that point, I was desperate. She took a deep breath and gave a heavy sigh. Reached into her dress pocket and took out a dainty handkerchief to wipe the tears from her eyes. She took another deep breath and out came another sigh. With tears still in her eyes, she looked at me – almost with pity. “Who are you? I said. She looked up at me and said “I lived there with my family many years ago”. “It was a terrible time”. “We were poor; jobs were hard to find. “Times were difficult”. Joe drank so much…. she said as she shook her head.
By that time a million things were racing through my head. Was she the Mother, the old woman! A neighbor! I didn’t know what to think! She began with her story.
“The house was given to us by Dr. James Kinney. He was one of those old time Doctors who would visit your house if you were sick and not worry about the payment. All he wanted was to just take care of you. He had a real big heart. He was married to a woman 20 years his junior. She’d run around town like a whore – drinking and making an ass of herself while he was delivering babies. She didn’t deserve him. He was such a good man. Some say she practiced some old religion - maybe from the Islands off the coast. No one really knew. We were afraid to find out. Doc was such a good-hearted soul, we tried to warn him, but he just wouldn’t listen”.
“It was late in September, we had one of those terrible tropical storms. It was something awful”. The rain was just pourin down, the wind blowin. I could a sworn it was a hurricane!
There was a big accident on the main road. One of the trees fell and hit an electric pole. Doc Kinney was out there helping the police and making sure no one was hurt”. His wife Alicia had other plans. I’ll never forget it. I lived not two houses away across the street. It was on that rainy night when I went to the window to make sure everything was secured that I gazed across to their house and almost fainted. It was like the entire house was in a mist. It looked sinister and spooky. A cold chill went up my spine. I never felt fear like that. I couldn’t even explain it. It was like the house was in a crossroads in time and space. I drew the drapes and had myself some wine. I didn’t look out the window the rest of the evening – scared me so much.
The next morning was like nothing ever happened. The sun came out bright as a 200-watt light bulb, almost blinded me as I opened the drapes. Doc’s house was as calm as the flat ocean sea. I wasn’t even afraid anymore. It was like all of it never happened.
Two weeks later we heard Docs wife had left. Just took off – no word – no letter – nothing. At the time, I was renting a room at the boarding house. My husband died a year after my son was born, and I struggled making a living ever since. It wasn’t easy in those days and I had nothing to show for it – no house, no money, nothing. Doc called me over one afternoon for coffee. We knew each other a number of years and we became good friends. When he married Alicia, we sort of parted ways; not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t stand her. She just wasn’t right for him.
He sat me down at the table and said he was leaving. I tried to find out where, but he evaded the question. He said he would deed the property and house over to me so I’d have a place to live with my son. I didn’t know what to say, I was shocked. I tried to ask him about Alicia, but all I got was, “She’s gone for good”. “It’s time for me to move on”. Next thing I knew, I owned the house.
At the beginning, I even hesitated to move in with that incident and all. Eventually, everyone said I was nuts and was stupid if I didn’t move in there. I was 50 now, my son Joey was 28. He was a good boy then. He’d say come on Ma, I’ll protect ya”. So we moved. It wasn’t bad for the first year, but then Joey started acting strange. He’d be full of anxiety and tension. It just wasn’t like him. He had met a lovely girl the year before and now she had gotten pregnant, so he had to do the right thing. We had a small ceremony in the back yard area. Our friends all bought over covered dishes and we managed to have a nice little reception. 8 months later his wife Janie gave birth to a 9-pound baby boy – my first grandchild. We named him after his grandfather Zechariah. Joey worked at the local gas station and his wife a waitress at the Acropolis diner. I’d take care of little Zach during the day.
We all did the best we could considering. Not to long after Zachary’s birth, Janie thought she was pregnant again. Sure enough she was right. Joey was furious. We couldn’t afford us, let alone another baby coming in. Joey got worse, wouldn’t come home after work, but ended up stopping at the Green Hornet bar down on A Street. He’d come home many a nights drunk with us putting him to bed. When the second child was born I’d begin to get strange feelings. I couldn’t pin point it, but I was beginning to feel uncomfortable in the house. Just about as uncomfortable as that rainy night when I looked out the window and saw that mist engulfing this house. I didn’t know what it was so one afternoon, I took the car and drove down to the Church to see the Minister. I wasn’t a regular churchgoer, so I didn’t know how the preacher would react to me and my plight. Reverend Sinclair was very polite and was kind enough to talk to me. He had remembered old Doc Kinney and his strange wife and told me that she practiced a form of Witchcraft through her family line. Someone told him her family line was older than Moses - if that was a possibility. She had Egyptian lineage right down to the Pharaohs. He went on and on talking about although she looked 20 years his junior, she was really much older. Well, I sat there listening to Reverend Sinclair for an hour and just about thought he was touched in the head, but I kept my mouth shut. When the hour was up, I thanked him and went on my way.
When I got home, I made a pot of coffee and just about drank the whole pot! Just thinking about all the things the reverend said. It was too fantastic. Witchcraft; magick; ancient Egypt, eternal youth - I didn’t know what to make of it. I tried to forget the whole darn thing, but I just couldn’t. Then one day, while I was cleaning, I found something on the floor behind one of the end tables. I wondered where it came from. I had never seen anything like it before. I held on to it and when I was driving around near the church one day, I stopped by to see Reverend Sinclair again, and showed it to him. He said it was a scarab. Something the Egyptians used as some kind of amulet or something to be young. I told him I found it in the house and he just about jumped out of his skin. We both looked at each other and at that very moment, Doc Kinney’s wife came to mind! Now I was really scared. Was I holding the key to eternal youth? I ran like a bat out of hell, got into the car and drove down to the main library. I had to find out what the scarab was.
When I got there, I found some interesting things. I began to read in the encyclopedia:
Scarab beetle or scarab, name for members of a large family of heavy-bodied, oval beetles (the Scarabaeidae), with about 30,000 species distributed throughout most of the world and over 1,200 in North America…A large group of scarab beetles are scavengers, feeding on decaying vegetation or on the dung of grazing animals. Most of these lay their eggs in underground chambers supplied with dung, where the larvae feed and pupate, emerging as adults. These scarabs, called dung beetles, play an extremely important role in the rapid recycling of organic matter and the disposal of disease-breeding wastes. Australia, which has few native dung beetle species, has imported African species to help dispose of cattle dung. Some of the dung beetles, known as tumblebugs, form balls of dung that they roll about with their hind legs, sometimes for long distances and sometimes working in pairs. Eventually they bury the ball and lay eggs in it. One such ball-roller is the sacred scarab (Scarabaeus sacer), a black scarab beetle of the Mediterranean region. In ancient Egypt the periodic appearance of this beetle in great numbers on the surface of the Nile mud led men to associate the sacred scarab with resurrection and immortality…Their ball-rolling activities were associated with the diurnal movement of the sun…In most species of this group the males are prominently horned.
In another book it said: Small jars and coffins containing dried (mummified) scarabs were often placed in Egyptian tombs as part of their ancient funeral rites to ensure eternal resurrection.
The more I read, the more it stated “a symbol of new life, self-generation, renewal and resurrection”. “What did this all mean?” Was Doc mixed up in something, he didn’t have any power over? I didn’t know what to think. My heart was pounding and I was exhausted and baffled. I just went home, took a hot bath, poured me some wine and tried to relax.
The next day, I broke the door lock to the attic and went in. It was stuffy and dusty as it hadn’t been open in years. I thought that maybe if I looked through the junk, I’d find some answers. Well I did. Old Doc’s wife was just that…OLD! I had found pictures of her from an era that she shouldn’t have lived in. It was impossible! I thought “How”?? How could this be? How could she stay young – according to the picture and the date, she had to have been at least 200 years old!
I looked at Netty with amazement. Could this be the rambling of an old woman who’s imagination has caught up with her or was there some truth in her words? I had to press the issue further.
“Netty”, I said; “What happened? Did you investigate further? What about your son’s behavior? Can you tell me more? She smiled and said, “Well darlin, there was something in me that wanted to know all, but I was scared to death and just left well enough alone. I had them rebolt the attic door and I never went in there again. As for my son Joey, we found out later that he was havin an affair with some mystery woman. We were shocked – he just wasn’t that kinda boy. When we confronted him about it, he just would not talk about it. He said he would stop seeing her for the kids and that was the end of it. He never told us about the woman he was seeing. All he said was “If I told ya, you’d never believe me”. But for years, I just felt uncomfortable in that house. I just didn’t feel safe there. I was just a gut feelin; I couldn’t explain it. If there was some other place to go to bring my family, I would have, but times were hard and that was our house – so we all just made the best of it. All I wanted was to see my grandkids grow up and that was my priority. I put everything else out of my mind.
Netty looked right at me and a wonderful smile graced her face. I kissed her gently on the forehead and thanked her for what information she gave me. I said goodbye and I asked her if she wouldn’t mind if I visited her once in awhile. She said she didn’t mind at all and I left.
My mind was filled with confusion. I didn’t know where to look or who to turn to. But I did think of the attic. Maybe I could find some more answers there?
With all this in mind, I really didn’t want to go home yet; I stopped for a cappuccino at one of the local café’s. I had to think.
While I was in the café, I saw an ankh around the neck of the waitress who was serving me. She was very lovely with long black hair and dark skin. I managed to strike up some conversation about the ankh. She told me she was Egyptian and that the ankh represented long life and eternal youth. I felt this was a good opportunity to discuss the scarab and magic. I was lucky – she knew a little bit about the subjects. She told me that when she was a young girl, her grandfather told her that in ancient times if certain magical scrolls were recited, one could live forever.
I looked up at her with a smile and said “Like the mummy”? She smiled back with “No, it wasn’t about raising the dead. It was about not dying at all”. With that, she went back to serving her customers.
I finished my cappuccino and took off. It was dinnertime by the time I got home and I began preparing an evening meal for our guests. When I finished putting the dishes into the dishwasher, I was exhausted, so I just hit the sack. It was a long day, and I had lots to think about. I left my feelings and findings to myself. It was too soon to tell Frank until I knew more.
The next morning, I thought it was time to investigate. I took my cup of coffee and made my way to the attic. We never even thought about going up there. All we cared about was fixing up the place and the attic just dropped from our minds. We kept saying we would get to it someday, but life got in the way and we never did go up in there. At this point, this time was better than any. I managed to break the lock and went in there. It was just as stuffy and dusty as Netty described it – maybe moreso. It was a mess; old furniture; books. I never thought there would be so much junk in here. It sort of bothered me why no one ever claimed it. It was like they walked away and left everything behind.
As I rummaged through the junk, I came across an old trunk. It was locked, so I had to force it open. I was amazed at the age of the items inside. There were old photos, an old camera, a few pieces of old clothes and on the very bottom to my amazement was an Egyptian Ankh. What on earth was an Egyptian ankh doing in this old trunk? It seemed so out of place. As I picked it up, my mind went to Netty’s story of Dr. Kinney and what the waitress at the café said about the ankh. My thoughts were irrational – was old Doc Kinney’s wife a woman who never grew old? Who was the mystery woman Netty’s son was dating when they lived in the house? Was she Doc Kinney’s wife?!
My brain was on overload and for a brief moment, I felt a chill go up my spine. I had to get out of the attic and fast. I made it to the kitchen, my legs weak and trembling and poured myself another cup of coffee. What on earth could it all mean? Was there an ancient mystery concealed in the house. Should I seek it out, or leave well enough alone? And would anyone believe me if the mystery every came to light? I guess some mysteries are better left unsolved.