The Triforium Page 13

  “You know, you might save yourself the walk. I bet you are confusing the Dean’s glass elevator with a tower.”

  “Glass elevator?”

  “The Dean wants to make a museum up in the triforium … our storage area. He’s looking to have a glass elevator built to make it accessible. He’s got a fund drive going on right now to try and get it done.”

  “Oh, you may be right. I heard something about a triforium. Perhaps I should be talking to the Dean? Where can I find him? I assume that his offices would be located in his abbey?”

  “They would be … they are. He’s just on leave for the moment. Why don’t you try back in a few weeks?”

  “Oh, I will. Might even help him out with some funding for this museum of his. But I would like to see this space he wants to transform. How would I get to it?”

  Emma had been silent standing next to Maeva watching her in action. She now felt it might be a good time to throw in with her.

  “Ms. Wolusky drives a Mercedes McLaren roadster. The cost of one of them could build your elevator.”

  Maeva was not happy that Emma had just given her name and the make of the car she drove to security. But she didn’t let on. As for the Chief of Security, he wasn’t impressed.

  “You’d get to it through a door in Poets’ Corner,” he said warily. “But I’m afraid the Dean will have to take you up. It’s not permitted for the public to be up there alone.”

  “Yes of course. Could you take me?” Maeva said, switching from intimidating to sweet.

  “No. I’m afraid not. You’d best make an appointment with the Dean’s secretary.”

  “And where might I find her?” she asked adding a smile.

  “The deanery is off the west cloister. Go down the south transept and take the entrance to Saint Faith’s Chapel. That will take you to the cloisters. Go around the cloisters to the deanery. I hope you have a guidebook?”

  “Oh, I’ll have to purchase one but thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”

  Maeva pivoted on her high heels. “Emma, let’s go to the bookstore shall we? We’ll find a guidebook there.”

  A few minutes after their encounter with the Chief of Security, they happened on him again. He nodded at Maeva and Emma politely but with a weak smile. However, they elected to ignore him and instead acted as though they were engrossed in the details of their newly purchased guidebook.

  “Great,” Maeva said. “Poets’ Corner is the way we would take if we actually were on our way to speak to the Dean’s secretary. So he shouldn’t be too suspicious.”

  “We’re not going to make an appointment with the Dean?”

  “No. We are going to get to the bottom of this mystery today not whenever the good Dean decides to see us … or more likely — not see us.”

  “Oh … we’re going find the office up in the triforium?” Emma asked excitedly.

  “No … I am.”

  “Please take me with you. It sounds spooky. I won’t be any bother. I promise.”

  “As I said, earlier, I need your sharp pair of eyes and ears. And I need them right here.”

  They had just walked the length of Poets’ Corner and were standing in front of a small door with a sign that was clearly marked, “No Public Admittance.”

  “I’m going through this door and will attempt to locate Mr. Butterfield’s imaginary Reverend and his mythical office. I doubt if it will take too long for me to determine that they only exist within the confines of Wally’s brain. But I feel uncomfortable with that security fellow. I need you to keep a lookout here. If he starts to head over here, come looking for me. We’ll find someplace to hide till he goes away.”

  “Oh, but I do wish I could come.”

  “Emma, you are a fledgling member of WITCH.” She smiled. “This is your first assignment. I’m counting on you to keep me out of trouble. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I’ll run through the door if that guy starts to walk down this way.”

  “Perfect, see you soon,” Maeva said, as she opened the door that led up to the triforium and disappeared behind it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tom Parr

  It seemed to Emma that she had been standing in front of the dusty old monuments for hours. She seriously regretted sneaking off wearing her mother’s high heels. Her feet were hurting her so. The only relief she could find was by half wearing them. Though her toes were in the shoes, the rest of her foot was on the cold Abbey pavement. The shoes were being wrecked. Her mother would put two and two together and realize that added up to Emma borrowing them. For a minute she feared that she would no longer be allowed to go off with Maeva. But then again, she knew her mother all too well. With a new boyfriend and the chance to be alone with him, having a pair of heels crushed by her daughter’s oversized feet was a good deal.

  Emma had stared at every effigy of every famous person buried or memorialized in Poets’ Corner. There was Robert Browning and Geoffrey Chaucer and John Dryden and lots of other people who weren’t poets buried here. She didn’t know who any of them were but she was learning their names while she waited for Maeva. She figured that would please Maeva. Emma had taken the time to look up all the famous people who Maeva had mentioned had used absinthe. Being cultured was evidently part of being a witch and Emma was taking her newfound specialness seriously.

  There was no security hanging around this section of the Abbey. They all seemed to be busy elsewhere. In fact, at the moment, there was nobody but her in Poets’ Corner. She looked down at her blistered feet and read for the second or third time the inscription of the burial inscription she was standing on.

  Tho: Parr of ye C ounty of Sallop. borne

  in a: 1483. He lived in y reignes of Ten

  princes viz: K.Edw.4. K.Ed.5. K.Rich.3.

  K.Hen.7. K.Hen.8. K.Edw.6. Q.Ma. Q.Eliz

  K.Ja. & K. Charles. aged 152, yeares.

  & was B uryed here novemb. 15. 1635.

  She didn’t understand a word of it, other than this Parr guy was one hundred and fifty two years old when he was buried here. While she stared at all the abbreviations trying to make some sense of them, a pair of big bulging blue eyes rose up to the surface of the grave and stared back at her.

  “You’re a witch.”

  Emma had the presence of mind to place her hands over her mouth and stifle her scream. But still, she tripped over backwards and onto the floor. Grabbing her shoes, she immediately got back onto her feet and looked about to make sure no one saw her fall. She had heard about a few of the sisters at Tipsy Dolls seeing ghosts but she never thought she would. Emma took a few deep breaths to collect herself. Then, leaving her mother’s high heels behind, she crept back to where the eyes were. Emma could see a complete head now in the stone. “Who are you and how do you know I’m a witch?” she asked nervously but with a degree of pride.

  Now a finger rose up from the underground tomb and went across the ghost’s lips. “Shhhh…. They’ll think thee be mad. Go beyond the door the other witch went in. I shall meet thee there.”

  On the other side of the door it was dimly lit. There was a stone staircase that twisted up into the Abbey like a corkscrew, but Emma could not see any sign of a ghost. Then slowly, materializing on the third step from the bottom came into view a very old bent-over ghost that propped itself up with a staff.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen witches. They don’t come here much. To think all this time then two in one day. Oh … yes … you wanted to know who I be. I be the ghost of Thomas Parr. Perchance you’ve heard of Old Tom Parr?”

  “No. I’ve never seen a ghost before.” Emma said half scared and half enthralled with being on conversational terms with a spirit.

  “People have forgotten Tom Parr already? Was quite famous in the day. I mean, who lives to be one hundred and fifty tw
o? Kept body and soul together on naught but cheese and bread and cider and ale. Lived through the reigns of Edward IV, Edward the V, Richard III, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth, Mary, James, and Charles. Had a child out of wedlock at one hundred and married a second wife at one hundred and twenty two. You’d think people would remember something like that no matter how much times have changed.”

  “Sorry, I’m not much good with famous people. Maeva … I mean the other witch would tell you that. But I’m trying. Excuse me … but how did you know I’m … I mean Maeva and I are witches?”

  “Seen lots of your kind go up in smoke. Take no offense, but we burnt every witch we laid hands on and many folk who were not witches we’d throw into the fires just to be on the safe side. But to answer thee, tis the eyes. They’re rolling. Your ghost comes in and out. It takes hold of thee then loses thee. Not so much with the other one. Maeva?”

  “Maeva Wolusky. She’s our president.”

  “President? I’ve heard the American Colonies got one of them. Now witches as well. Somehow seems fitting to me. Your president’s eyes don’t roll much with her ghost’s presence. Absinthe I suspect.”

  “Green Man’s Own. I’m too young for it. But many of my sisters use it.”

  “I’d keep away from it. Cider and ale and cheese are all a body needs. Take me for instance, there’s no older corpse in the Abbey … well there are older spirits but not one of them had a host that lived as long as mine. It took one hundred and fifty two years for him to die. I guess today they’d call me a post-term baby.”

  Tom Parr laughed at his joke, which Emma suspected that he had made often through the centuries since his death.

  “Now you listen to me. Eat cheese. A nice Dorset Blue Vinney would be good victuals for thee. Never get tired of it. What killed my host was a change in diet. He should never have gone to see King Charles. Being a celebrity and all, the king wanted to meet his acquaintance. Had him up to the palace, had Van Dyck and Rubens paint his portrait. Then he fed him some rich food. It killed him. So sort of as a way to make amends, the good king had us buried here. He was such an excellent sovereign. Pity that malcontent upstairs had his head chopped off.”

  “Oh that’s why we’re here, to see some Reverend upstairs. Did he have your king killed?”

  “Oh no. No. Not the Reverend. No. No. No. The Reverend would never do such a thing. He’s the one who puts everything right. No, it was his lackey. That lickspittle, maggot pie, Bradshaw.”

  “Bradshaw? John Bradshaw?”

  “Aye.”

  “But the security people told us that there was no Reverend Poda … something or another … or a Mr. Bradshaw. Maeva said that they have an office up in the treeformeum. But security said there wasn’t.”

  “What would they know? They’re almost all flesh. Just ignorant that’s all. There’s an office up there. But no one goes up there unless they are invited. Few of us spooks have ever seen it. I never have.”

  “So it is up there.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Emma’ s heart jumped into her mouth. It was the second time in a few short minutes that she had been nearly frightened out of her wits.

  “I’ve searched the entire area, just a lot of crates and cigarette butts.” Maeva had appeared, rounding the staircase and pausing just a few steps above Tom Parr to answer what she thought was Emma’s question.

  Emma looked up at her incredulously. “But Tom says there is an office up there.”

  “Tom who?”

  “See? Tis the absinthe. Her brain is all muddled and gripped with it. The witch can neither see nor hear me.”

  The door they had taken from Poets’ Corner unexpectedly opened.

  “I did tell you that the triforium was off limits to the general public. I want you two to leave now. I don’t expect to see you back again at the Abbey.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Summoning

  It was but a short drive from Westminster Abbey to Tipsy Dolls in Mayfair, a drive that was punctuated with the squealing of tires from a car that could reach sixty-two miles per hour in three point seven seconds and one hundred and twenty-four miles per hour in ten point six seconds. However, due to snarled traffic, interminable pedestrian crossings, outbursts of rage over being tossed out of the Abbey, it had taken Maeva and Emma a considerable amount of time to traverse less than one-and-a-half miles distance. There had been absolutely no conversation since they had been thrown out of the Abbey. What little communication that took place was through the lurching and abrupt stops of the Mercedes SLR McLaren and the thumping of Maeva’s hands on the steering wheel.

  Emma decided that all the anger that Maeva was venting with a 5.4 liter super charged V8 engine was being misdirected towards the motoring public and it was best for her, and everybody’s safety, if she owned up to causing the mess with the security people at the Abbey.

  “I’m soooo sorry Maeva,” she said as tears welling up in her eyes, “I should have kept a better lookout.”

  “No Emma. Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong. I should have guessed that all those cigarette butts on the floor of the triforium belonged to the Chief of Security. I spent far too much time nosing around up there and should have come down and gotten you sooner. It was just a matter of time before I got nabbed. Still, our embarrassment aside, it was a worthwhile trip. At least I know that our peculiar Mr. Wallace Butterfield of Butterfield and Son Architects is as much an architect as a six year old is with a box of Legos. Besides, it’s my fault. Believe it. I mean it. It’s my fault. I think I’m worldly but I obviously am not. I bought into his cock-and-bull story about this Reverend Poda-Pirudi and the commission to design a tower and his meeting with this Melanesian eccentric up in his posh office in the triforium. Let’s face it, Maeva Wolusky is dumb.”

  A driver, who had been waiting behind the Mercedes at a stoplight, leaned on his horn. “Screw you!” Maeva cursed, as she positioned her middle finger up in front of her rearview mirror for his inspection. She then slowly rolled through the signal. It went abruptly from yellow to red, forcing the impatient fellow behind her to endure another sequence stopped at the light.

  “No Maeva … no. You are wrong. He’s telling the truth.”

  “What? Why would you think that?”

  “I tried to tell you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “There is a reverend a tri … whatever it’s called.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because when you were up there I met a ghost. He told me.”

  “You met a ghost? Well the place must be full of them but it’s rare for one to let you see him. How did you meet this ghost?”

  “I was in Poets’ Corner where you told me to keep a lookout. He surprised me. Oh was I scared! But he was really kind of nice. He said his name was Tom and he had me meet with him on the other side of the door. You came down when we were talking. But you didn’t see that he was there.”

  “Tom huh? Oh yes … you did mention a Tom. He was a ghost. What did he say to you?”

  “He talked about you and me being witches and said he’d met lots of our kind. Also told me what to eat to live as long as he did. Tom lived to be one hundred and fifty-two.”

  “What did he eat?”

  “Mostly cheese.”

  “I see … guess longevity isn’t everything.”

  “But Tom also said that there was an office up where you were. However, no one is allowed in unless invited. He also said there is a Reverend and a guy that works for him that nobody likes. Tom seems to like the Reverend though, says he makes things right.”

  “Makes things right? Emma you are a natural. You are such a gifted girl of fourteen. I bet you’ll be our president soon. Look, we’re here and it appears a lot of our sisters are here too.”

  Maeva
maneuvered the roadster into a parking space on Salmesbury Avenue near to the musician’s entrance of Tipsy Dolls. When they got out Maeva was so excited that she didn’t bother with putting the cover over her car. But still found the time to grab hold of one of the cases of Green Man’s Own.

  “Come Emma. We’re going to have a very special meeting and I’m going to announce to our coven what you saw and heard today.”

  As the two entered the old eatery, Maeva began to sense that something seemed to be out of sorts with the place. It had had some kind of makeover. Things were missing from the hall and there were lots of sounds of commotion coming from just beyond it. Maeva motioned Emma with her head to stop. There, remaining silent, they listened to what was going on in the next room.

  ***

  Terrified and shaking, Wallace Butterfield’s breathing was becoming restricted from countless wraps of duct tape. The pain of standing so long was causing his leg to convulse, and all of the excitement wasn’t easy on his bladder. He hadn’t gone to the toilet in hours.

  But, Butterfield’s ghost was feeling quite differently. He was beside himself with joy. Wallace’s torment was always his pleasure. There wasn’t any reason for him to create fright and panic within Wallace. There was no need to run up and down his spine. These reformed absinthe drinkers were taking care of all of that for him. He decided to just enjoy the show. However, if his assistance was required — well, he would be more than happy to oblige the ladies.

  It seemed like hours, but in time the women of WITCH did return. Now all of them were bare-chested, clothed only in loincloths. That is, except for Hecuba, who was the last to make her entry. She wore a red loincloth and had a mantle of a lioness skin draped over her back, with the skinned face of the lioness secured to the top of her head. Fastened upright upon the lion’s head was a large silver lunar disk with an image of a Uraeus, the striking cobra of the Wedjat eye.