Kat Richardson: Greywalker

Nothing touched me in the old olive green truck. I sat until I caught my breath; then I started the engine and drove. Once I was up on the freeway, the real present was in complete control.

The Bellevue Hilton was modern and bland. I approached the building with all my concentration on the normal, determined not to be swept up again by anything weird. In the lobby, a signboard directed visitors to the chamber of commerce luncheon, and small clutches of business people drifted toward the lobby doors.

I heard footsteps on the carpet, and someone called my name.

I turned and saw Colleen Shadley walking across the lobby, carrying her attaché case. She moved with a smooth grace, even on her rather tall heels. Without them she would barely break five five. Somehow I had carried away the impression that we were close to the same height. But even wearing flat-soled boots, I overtopped her by more than two inches.

"Harper," she greeted me, extending her hand. "I'm so glad you made it. I have those papers for you." She opened the flap on the case and offered me a plain manila envelope. "Have you been able to get started yet?"

"I've got a little information, but now that I have this, I should be able to get along faster." I offered her an envelope containing the pictures of Cameron that she had lent me. "I'll let you know as soon as something comes up."

She gave me a cool, professional smile and wished me well, then turned away. I got out of there before someone asked her who I was.

I had almost two hours to kill. I craved a cup of coffee or anything mundane and anchoring: comfort food, bad TV, something like that. I decided to try a little shopping. Coffee and lunch and department stores in suburban Bellevue. Not a shadow-thing in sight. I was done and on my way back to Seattle by three fifteen. If I was fast enough, perhaps the strangeness couldn't catch up to me.

I was even feeling a bit smug when I parked near the Danzigers' house. I was ten minutes early. I locked up the Rover and walked toward the pale blue house.

It was one of those square, half-brick, half-clapboard houses from about 1900. It had a deep, railed front porch overhung by the second floor. A favorite-grandma house. A pleasant, if slightly wild, garden overran the yard above a short flight of stone steps and a vine-grown wooden arch.

Closer to, the house glowed, golden and beckoning as a cheery fire. It should have made me feel welcome, but the hair on my neck prickled.

The door popped open to my knock. Ben Danziger was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, bearded, and blue-eyed. His wavy black hair stood from his head in electrified tufts, and he looked like either a mad scientist or a terrified rabbinical student.

"Hi! You must be Harper Blaine," he exclaimed. "Come in, come in. Excuse the way I look. I've been doing the laundry and the static from the dryer always makes me look like a mad poodle." He held the door open and I stepped inside. The house did not glow as brightly inside, but it contained a low hum like the contented purring of a cat.

He turned and ducked through another doorway on the left. "Would you like a glass of tea?"

I followed him into the kitchen, dazed by his bouncing energy. "Yeah, sure."

You could have filmed commercials for Grandma's Old-Fashioned Something in there, among the rubbed hardwood floors and polished copper pots on racks.

Danziger excused himself to pop into the back room and toss a pile of clothing into a wicker basket. He paused and called out, "Honey, our guest's here!"

A voice came from a bulge in his chest pocket. "Start without me, darlin'. The baby's being stubborn."

He bounced back in and rattled around, piling objects on a wooden tray. He swept it up, then put it back down on a huge table and looked at me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't ask if you prefer your tea over ice. Do you?"

I was too surprised to say I had assumed that he meant iced tea when he mentioned glasses. "I don't care one way or the other."

"Ah. Good. I like Russian tea. Mara'll join us in the study."

Toting the tray, he led me up the staircase and around the landing to a small door. "Open that for me, will you?"

I opened the door and followed him up a last narrow flight of stairs into what used to be the attic. A large skylight had been installed on the southern slope of the roof, making a bright, comfortable small office—if you didn't mind ducking a lot. Wall sconces bounced more light up against the sloping walls and ceiling. Bookshelves stood wherever the walls rose over four feet. The lower, darker corners were stacked with boxes.

Danziger's desk was built of four wooden file cabinets and a wooden door. An old leather swivel chair stood on one side and an old leather couch on the other. He elbowed a clear space in the books on the desk and set down the tray. The soft, aged leather of the sofa squeaked and settled around me as I sat down.

Danziger began tinkering with teapots and tall, metal-caged glasses. "Water?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"Hot water in the tea? It's really strong, otherwise," he explained.

"Sure. Whatever you suggest."

He frowned in concentration, poured dark tea into one of the glasses, measuring it against some spot on the filigree cage, then added hot water with equal precision.

He handed me the glass, saying, "Skelly sent you to us because you've been seeing strange stuff. So tell me about the strange stuff."

I put up a hand. "Wait a minute. Let's start with some background. I don't know anything about you except that a doctor who seems a bit… unconventional suggested I talk to you. How can you help me? Just who or what are you?"

"Well, I'm a part-time linguistics professor at the U and I do some other research on the side—which is how I met Skelleher and my wife, Mara. I translate text to and from Russian, Czech, Polish, Ger-man, and a few other languages, and do related work in comparative religion and philosophy. I was a philosophy major once, and I got interested in comparative religion and started studying languages, met Mara, and one thing led to another… I used to teach religion and philosophy, too, but budget cuts… you know." He shrugged.

I looked askance at him. "And what does any of that have to do with my problem?"

Danziger gestured as he explained. "Well, when you really start to tangle with religion and philosophy, you eventually run up against all the mystical stuff about death and souls, the meaning of life, burden, responsibility, unity—all the really big, freaky topics. And then you have two choices: just jump over it and go on to the parts that don't bend your brain, or dive into the bizarre and try to run truth to ground. I guess I just like wrestling with the weird stuff and I ended up writing a book about it. So now I'm 'the ghost guy.»

I scowled. I had no wish to be an experiment in flaky science. "So you're some kind of parapsychologist."

He shook his head. "I'm just a strange type of philosopher, really. I don't know any ghosts, personally, except for Albert over there," he added, pointing into a corner.

I looked, saw nothing, turned my head and saw a slender, weedy shadow just inside the door. It was not particularly thick, but it had baleful cat eyes that glared at me. I started.

"What is that?" I demanded.

Danziger smiled. "That's Albert. We're pretty sure he was a boarder in this house during Prohibition and died here from drinking doctored gin. Poor old sot." Danziger shook his head and smoothed a hand over his hair, dispelling the last of the static so his dark hair flopped down and made him look like a half-wilted dahlia. "Anyhow, you can see him and that's good. I can't. I only know he's there because I've figured out the cold spot. Fakers always look where I point and swear he's right there."