I tapped the rim of my cup. “I wanted a drink.”
“You can drink in your room.”
“I can’t—I wasn’t ready yet to go to my room.”
“Why? Tell me.”
At that moment, everything that should have been a barrier between us dissolved, washed away by waves of tears. I wept as I hadn’t since my husband’s last breath, when I wept not only for the loss of him but because no one would truly believe my mourning. I wept then too as I did in this moment, for the woman I’d become. Lost, alone. I wept for what I couldn’t face the night before, for being frightened to the core and having no one to protect me. To soothe me. To reassure me that I was safe. I brought my hands up to cover my face, as if that alone could hide this horrific emotional display, and then I felt them—his warm hands wrapped around mine, tugging them away.
“Mrs. Krause? Did something happen?”
I opened my eyes and took in our grip. His finger grazed across my knuckles, stopping before touching my wedding band. The sight was mesmerizing, like a tiny ballet. My pulse eventually slowed, matching the pace of his touch. My breath grew steady, my eyes dry. My sleeve had hitched up, exposing the rash. This too he touched, a sensation as featherlight as the one that brought it.
Regaining my senses, I took my hand away and answered his silent question. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, Mrs. Krause. I don’t know everything, but I do know that. Something happened.”
The way he spoke made it seem as if we had a history of confidence between us. So I told him. Everything, starting with the scratch on my door, the invisible touch, the voice. When I tried to replicate its sound, however, the chill of memory overtook me and I grasped my throat, unable to continue.
“What did she say?” Bert prodded.
“She said, ‘Something for you, Hedda Krause.’” Then a thought nudged. She? “It wasn’t a woman’s voice.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve never heard a woman’s voice like that before.”
Bert steepled his fingers and propped his chin on them, waiting. For what, exactly? For me to remember, to recall, to bring back the voice. A woman? Certainly not. But then—
A memory. When I was a young girl, my mother still alive, we lived in a house populated by many other women. There was one, much older than my mother (so I thought at the time), whose voice carried the same quality as that of my visitor. I conjured it, right there at the table across from Bert. I heard her speaking, beckoning, even laughing. Some of the younger women called her “Froggy,” and I did too, once. But Mother chastised me, telling me that she’d been badly hurt years ago at the hands of a bad man, and that was why her voice sounded broken. It was broken. And so was she.
“I suppose …” I left the conclusion to trail. “But that doesn’t tell me who she was. Or why she would want to inflict such torture on me.”
I may have imagined it, but I would swear I saw a hint of a smile tug the corner of Bert’s lip. “So, no one’s told you?”
“Told me what?”
Now he did smile, broadly and engaging. “Are you telling me the whole time you’ve been here, nobody’s said anything to you about Sallie?”
Without knowing why, only that his levity brightened me, I found myself smiling too. “No. Who is she?”
Bert made a small, secretive sound. “Finish your coffee.” Then he stood, hand outstretched, waiting. By now the drink had cooled to where I could take it down in a few satisfying gulps. He took our cups to the bar, set them behind, and came back to help me with my chair.
“Now, Mrs. Krause,” he said, placing my hand in the crook of his arm, where it felt instantly at home, “if I were any other man, I would escort you right to your room. But I know neither of us wants that kind of trouble.”
My latent tranquility vanished. “I can’t—”
Bert pressed my hand. “Trust me when I tell you this is not a conversation to have tonight. Not at this late hour. And not with so much…coffee.”
“Please,” I said, not even sure what I beseeched.
“Just walk yourself right up there. Keep your eyes focused on the floor. Walk like you can’t stop, and then—” We were at the door. He looked out into the lobby, checking the path to be clear before dropping my arm, taking my face in his hands.
“Bert,” I said right before he placed a single, soft kiss directly on my waiting lips.
“Think of it as a charm.”
I had nothing in me. No response. No words. No breath. My feet, numb with disassociation, stepped into the hall, but at his voice I turned.
“One more thing, Mrs. Krause?”
“Yes, Bert?”
“Once you’re in your room, shut the door. Lock it. She don’t like to go inside.”
Chapter 5
Excerpt from
My Spectral Accuser: The Haunted Life of Hedda Krause
Published by the Author Herself
I shall now pause in my own narrative to tell you the story of Sallie White. What you are about to ingest in only a few minutes’ time is the product of hundreds of hours of conversations on my part. Idle chat with the chambermaids along with brandy and cards in the lobby with guests who have been patrons of the Menger Hotel nearly since its opening day. I never exchanged a word on the subject with Mr. Sylvan, but I’d taken to the more than occasional hot toddy with Bert in the late evenings. I could tell how reluctant he was to share details about Sallie White, and he did so only at my insistence.
“It’s never a good idea to plant a ghost in someone’s mind,” he said, wiping the cherrywood bar with a clean white towel. “Muddles it all up if there’s an expectation.”
As for you, Dear Reader, if you are faint of heart, if you are profoundly disturbed by stories of violence and murder or fearful of tales of an otherworldly nature, I invite you to bypass the rest of this chapter and go to the next. I intend to spare no detail, nor shall I embellish beyond what was told to me. There are lessons to be learned in the most tragic of lives, and none could be more tragic than that of poor Sallie White.
Death of a Chambermaid:
The Sad Fate of Sallie White
Sallie White arrived in San Antonio a free woman. Independent. Alone. A mixed blessing to be sure, as there has never been a time when such was advantageous for a woman. Her place of birth, her origins, her people—none of it is known, nor is there a path-print to tell us how she happened upon the bustling streets of this city. She comes to historical life established as a chambermaid at the Menger Hotel.
By all accounts, Sallie White loved her job and took great pride in performing it well. She was always fastidious in her appearance—dark hair tucked neatly into her cap, her face and hands always scrubbed clean. Guests said she moved in and out of rooms like a whisper, leaving everything neat and tidy with no disturbance to their presence. She fielded requests with a soft-spoken “Yes, ma’am,” or “Certainly, sir,” and then tended to the matter with all required discretion.
If history could rewrite itself, Sallie might have fallen in love and settled down with a man well-matched to her work ethic and good nature. No doubt there were shopkeepers and livery drivers and carpenters who would welcome a woman with her heart to share their own. Instead, she fell into the arms of Henry Wheeler, and later would die at his hands.