William Bell - Fanatics

He was there.

He stood on the shore in full view, motionless, looking up at my room. He knew I was there. An icy chill inched up my spine and through my limbs.

Focused intently on my window, the man in the hooded cape floated slowly toward me, an otherworldly motion, like lava flowing across the grass. My heart battered against my ribs. My breathing was so ragged I felt I was suffocating.

He stopped by the broad skirts of the spruce tree below my window, his head tilted sharply upward, a pool of dark where his face should be. I could feel his malign hostility fixated on me, his will as strong as the granite wall between us.

The strain was unbearable. I couldn’t take anymore. I threw open the window, shrieked, “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”

The shadow didn’t react. My pulse pounded in my ears. Then, almost unaware of what I was saying, I spoke again. “ De profundis clamavi ad te domine, domine esuadi vocem meam .”

Still no response. There was only the night breeze, the reek of smoke.

But gradually, the high-voltage hostility that pulsed against the window began to recede. The spectre stood a moment longer, then withdrew in that same slow flowing movement until he reached the shore, where he faded, a shadow into shadow.

I slammed down the sash, locked it, jerked the curtains closed, then collapsed into the chair. I got up and stumbled to the night table, switched on the lamp, and snatched up my cell, falling to my knees and leaning crookedly back against the bed.

“Raphaella,” I gasped as soon as she picked up, “it’s a haunting. It’s happening again.”

I SAT ALONE at the table in the Corbizzi kitchen, watching grey pre-dawn light flow into the landscape, giving definition to trees and gardens, the dew-pearled furniture on the patio, the glass-flat water beyond the indistinct shoreline. I was still shaking from the disorientation that comes when an experience shatters your version of reality like a rock smashes a window.

After the spirit’s visitation I had spent the rest of the night in the chair by the guest-room window, startling at every sound, unable to prevent myself from leaping up every few minutes and stealing a glance through the crack between the curtains. Every light in the room was on. I had been caught in the classic dilemma of a haunt’s victim. The bedroom, with door locked, window secured, curtains closed, was a sanctuary, a cave. At the same time it was a trap that cocooned me from sight and sound but made me vulnerable to stealth.

During the night I had spoken to Raphaella for a long time on the phone, but after a while we began to cover the same ground. There was no doubt now, no denial possible. The Corbizzi mansion was being haunted by the spirit of Girolamo Savonarola. And the apparition had chosen me, approaching at first through my dreams, showing me how he had suffered during his life, tortured in a rat-infested cell by men who went about their job as calmly and unperturbed as a janitor sweeping a hall.

But what was my connection to a Roman Catholic Dominican friar who had lived half a world away, more than five hundred years in the past? Nothing, probably, beyond my coincidental presence at the Corbizzi estate. Was it fate that had brought us together? Why was he showing me how he had suffered? Why had he slipped away when I repeated the line from the Latin prayer?

Before Raphaella and I ended the call, we had agreed to keep our minds open about the spirit, while allowing for the possibility that this haunting was evil. It had certainly seemed that way.

“But,” Raphaella had reminded me, “ghosts are frightening by nature. Their otherworldliness seems threatening even if it’s not.”

“Okay,” I had conceded. “Point taken. But I still think this apparition caused the prof’s seizure, even if he scared the poor old man to death without intending to. And there’s the fire and smoke. The smell seems to come and go, but it’s associated with the spirit. There was fire when the prof died.”

We agreed that she’d come over in the morning, and in daylight, we’d think of a plan.

“Good,” I said as we ended the call. “I like plans.”

Raphaella had once thought that haunts were “neutral”-the spirit neither harmed nor helped the person receiving the visitation. But our personal experience had proved her wrong when we had been chased through the forest near the African Methodist Church by eight spirits intent on stoning us to death. Only Raphaella’s quick wits had saved us.

I got up from the kitchen table and put the kettle on to boil. In my jeans pocket, my cell vibrated.

eta 9 rs .

I replied, then made a cup of tea. When it was ready I carried it outside and down to the shore.

RAPHAELLA ARRIVED just as Mrs. Stoppini was removing a tray of homemade croissants from the oven. The sight of the buttery golden brown crescents and the fragrance of freshly ground coffee improved my mood, but not nearly as much as Raphaella did when she burst through the door, dropped her backpack on a chair, and bowled me over with a bear hug and a deep passionate kiss.

“My hero,” she said, kissing me again, longer this time. “My brave knight.”

“Ahem.” Mrs. Stoppini stood stiffly by the counter, a jug of steamed milk in her hand.

“Morning, Mrs. Stoppini,” Raphaella said, smiling. “Sorry. I lose control when I’m near him. He’s magnetic.”

Mrs. Stoppini scowled at me.

“It’s a gift,” I said. “I can’t help it.”

“Indeed.”

Raphaella was wearing a white silk blouse, jeans, and leather sandals. She had swept her hair up onto her head and secured it with two plastic barrettes shaped like butterflies-her “let’s get down to work” look.

The three of us sat down and sipped espresso, munched croissants, and chatted. Raphaella told Mrs. Stoppini about the Demeter Natural Food and Medicinal Herbs Shop and described the lessons her mother was giving her on how to mix herbal remedies. Mrs. Stoppini actually looked interested. After breakfast, Raphaella and I excused ourselves and went to the library. I dragged a chair to Raphaella’s table by the window.

“I think Mrs. S. has a streak of kindness under that severe exterior,” Raphaella commented.

“She does.”

“And I believe she’s lonely.”

“Yup, no question.”

“And she thinks you’re a fine man.”

“She’s an excellent judge of character, and very perceptive.”

“Mind you, she could be wrong.”

“That’s true.”

“Do you think she knows?” Raphaella asked, switching tracks.

“I’ve been wondering since the day I met her just how much she knows. All along she’s been careful about what she tells me. She doesn’t talk about him much. At first I thought she was protecting the prof’s reputation or something, because of the fire-you know, gossip, scandal, questions, his seizure and so on. All I know is he was a prof, wrote some books, left the university because he was dissatisfied with his department and vice versa. Not that I expect her to tell me more. It’s none of my business, after all.”

Raphaella nodded.

“But,” I went on, “her paranoia about this room is something else.”

“So she’s aware of something going on around here.”

“Exactly. All she’d say was that the prof had been working on some project that he kept from her for some reason. He wouldn’t allow her into the library. What could he have been keeping from her? His new book, the manuscript in the secret cupboard? She didn’t know about the cupboard either, and when I showed it to her she didn’t want to hear anything about the contents.”