Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century 6)

Through the largest window, the padre spied an enormous straw-haired man with a wheel barrow, toting bricks from one place to another in the late-afternoon gloom. “And who is that?” he asked the nun.

“Ah. That is Tim,” she said softly. “He keeps the grounds, and performs assorted tasks indoors when needed. He is pleasant and quiet, though feeble-minded, as they say. Sarah has not told me as much, but I believe he’s some relation to her—a cousin, or half-brother. She keeps a kindly eye on him, making sure he’s housed and fed.”

He murmured, “That is good of her,” and he looked, listened, and didn’t really need to ask—but asked anyway: “And that’s everyone, isn’t it? There’s no one else staying here, or working here?”

“Not directly, no. Others come and go, but mostly stay away as they’re able. The postman and other couriers, deliverymen, farmers with produce from the mainland, and a dry-goods clerk who drops off supplies twice per week. Washing powders, flour and sugar, oats, and that sort of thing.”

“Where do Sarah and Tim live?”

“Sarah has a room here, or a suite, I should say. As for Tim, I’m not certain…but he doesn’t live here. There is a groundskeeper’s quarter around back, but Tim doesn’t sleep there, either. The Alvarez family likewise has a home elsewhere, despite Sarah’s repeated offers to give them a set of dedicated rooms. She’s on the verge of offering the space for free, I think.”

“How would the owners feel about it, if she were to offer room and board to the staff?”

Sister Eileen cocked her head in a little shrug. “I haven’t the faintest. The hotel is owned by an investment group. I’m not sure you could point to a single person, and call him the man in charge.”

“How strange,” the padre mused.

“Maybe, or maybe not. I don’t pretend to understand the inner workings of Texas financiers; but most of the Texans I’ve known are less afraid of ghosts, and more afraid of being penniless,” she said with a faint smile. “Therefore someone, somewhere, believes the hotel is profitable—or that it can be. The Jacaranda Hotel will stay open until the investors are convinced otherwise.”

The padre finished his supper, and lifted his napkin off his lap. He set it beside his plate. “We’ll see.”

By the time the meal had finished, and the last of the plates and cutlery collected, the sky had gone a very dark, ashy purple. It’d be black within another quarter hour, the padre thought as he stared past the curtains—and then stepped out of the way, when Mrs. Alvarez came to close them.

He begged her pardon in Spanish; she gave him a nod that said she didn’t really care.

One by one, she drew the long white panels across the tall panes of leaded glass. One by one, the gaslights were illuminated, and they filled the large meeting space with a warm, bright glow accompanied by the ever-present hiss of the fixtures, and the soft, never-ending clanks of the fans on the ceiling.

Mrs. Alvarez went to a control panel and opened it with a key. She adjusted some levers and the fans slowed, then stopped altogether. The night would be cooler, after all—and soon, there’d be no one left to enjoy the faint circulation in the sitting area.

One by one, the guests said their good-nights and left for their rooms.

Footstep by retreating footstep, the place fell quiet.

Then Sister Eileen turned to the padre, and regarded him with those strange gold eyes. “The…the events, which happen here—they do not always wait for evening.”

“There is no real reason for evil to resign itself to the darkness, though in my experience it often does.”

“This hotel is no different. No different at all. We should be on our guard. But not here,” she added, catching Mrs. Alvarez’s eye. “The ladies wish for us to move along, so they can finish their tasks and find their way home. Only those who pay for the privilege care to remain here after the sun has set.”

They left for the main lobby, where they found Sarah behind the desk, reading another newspaper, or perhaps the same one as before. She set it aside with a smile, happier by far to have customers than to be alone with the island’s daily reports.

The padre looked at the floor, and its sinister swirl of art; he looked at the young woman, ensconced behind the counter as if it were a barricade—as if it could somehow protect her from the thing beneath the floor. It was a sentinel’s post, more than a welcome desk.

He avoided the mosaic, stepping around it to the left.

Sister Eileen stepped to her right. Approaching the desk and the girl she asked, “No new missives?”

“Still none, I regret to say.” She regretted it enough that the workmanlike smile slipped, and her voice fell a few notes when she added, “I’m starting to worry. I know what you said, but we’ve been waiting for weeks. I just don’t think the Rangers will come.”

“They will,” the nun argued. “But they are few, and the miles are long across Texas. Don’t give up on them yet.”

Sarah pressed, “But if they do come, what would they do? Will they close the hotel, do you think?” The tremble of hope in that last word tugged at the padre’s heart.

Sister Eileen said, “The Jacaranda is a dangerous place, and the Rangers could document the goings-on here. They could take the facts to the shareholders, and spread the word to the newspapers, send it across the wires. They could tell the world more easily than we might, anyway—and that’s important. Whatever haunts these grounds may not be huntable by the likes of us, or the Rangers either. But we may starve it of its prey.”

“We try to spread the word,” Sarah whispered. “We try to make it known, but still they come.”

“And still you remain,” the padre said. It was not quite an accusation.