1941- Part One

When an old hotel is torn down, Marlo must deal with the spirit that was trapped inside.

1941

Part One

         I wish they hadn't torn down Harding Suites. Not because I think it should be have been made a historic landmark, like Mr. and Mrs. Matthews believe. I just want Caitlin to shut up about it. Her parents are obsessed with protesting. It's like their hobby or something. If there's something to protest, they throw themselves into protesting it.
         The Matthews’ daughter, Caitlin, has been my best friend since third grade. And as much as her parents care, she doesn’t give a rip. Really, her parents are perhaps the most active activists in the history of activism, and she’s utterly apathetic.
         What she does care about, however, is how annoying it is that her parents do care. For as long as I’ve known her (almost nine years now), she’s always complained about her parents.
         “Why can’t they see that I don’t care?” she whined almost as soon as she got into the Brick. That’s what we call my emerald green ’99 Chevy AstroVan, aka The Brick on Wheels. My dad, back when he and mom were newlyweds, went through a van phase and bought the Brick. Now he’s hit the midlife crisis and has the stereotypical shiny, red sports car and I’m left with the gas-guzzler that eats up what little money I make. O joy.
         Back to Caitlin, “I absolutely don’t give a rat’s ass that they knocked down Harding Suites,” she continued. “In fact, I kind of agree with the city- the hotel was just a waste of space! It’s not like they’ve used it since like, the fifties!” Harding Suites had been this huge five star hotel built in the twenties. It had somehow managed to stay in business through the Depression and had played host to many of the rich and famous throughout the thirties. But due to a series of strange occurrences, including unexplained deaths and mysterious disappearances, it started to lose business and was finally closed down in 1941, following the death of the owner’s grandson. It had pretty much stood there doing nothing for over half a century, just up the street from my family’s condo. The city council had recently voted in favor of it to be knocked down, which the current owner was all for, since he didn’t have to pay for the deconstruction.
         It was rather annoying, having to listen to Caitlin’s frequent venting, so I just tuned her out as per usual. Her ranting had trickled off as we pulled into the lower lot of Central Reming High School. It was rather stupid, them calling it Central Reming, as it was the only high school in town. Supposedly, there had once been a North Reming and South Reming, back in the fifties when the town had been a bustling metropolis. But for some reason or another, everyone moved away and now there was only Central Reming.
         We hurried inside the school, eager to get out of the cold November air. I was relieved that Caitlin and I didn’t have first period together. It was a happy reprieve from her parental complaints. My first class was AP European History, which was a college level course. I’m a bit of a history buff. Ok, I lied- I’m a lot of a history buff. In fact, I want to be a history major when I go to college. No clue what I’m going to do afterward, but hey, I’m only 16- give me a break. At least I have a general subject area.
         I was rather disappointed when I saw that we had a substitute. I hate subs, or at least I do in that particular class, primarily because we always end up having to answer a document based question. And to you non-AP students, DBQ = essay, accompanied by documents written mostly by stuffy old guys which you have to read to write the afore mentioned essay. What fun. Not.
“Mari!” I heard as I sat down at my desk. It was my friend, Aaron, coming to talk to me at my desk until the bell rang, like he did every day. “Wanna catch a movie this weekend?” He also asked me out every day. Well almost every day. I mean, everyone’s entitled to get sick every now an then. He just didn’t seem to get the message that I don’t like him that way. Chances are, though, I’d probably end up having to go to prom with him for lack of a better date.
         It’s not like I’m a female Quasi Moto or anything, it’s just that I don’t normally talk to guys all that much, Aaron being the exception, but his parent are like best friends with mine, so I’ve known him for well, forever.
         “Sorry, but I’m busy,” I told him, giving him the same line I gave him every day. I gave up on creative lies sophomore year, after I had been turning him down for almost a semester.
         “Oh well,” Aaron replied, not upset in the least, “maybe next time.” He went back to his desk as the bell rang and the sub came up to the front of the class to take roll.
         “Spencer, Marlo.” I winced as the sub called my name. I raised my hand in reluctant acknowledgement, discouraged by my parents’ bad choice in names. If Caitlin’s parents are weird, mine are friggin’ aliens. I know it could be worse, like that one kid in my theatre class whose name is Alap, but Marlo?
         “Your name is special and unique,” Mom says. Yeah, special. My mother is still under the impression that “special” is a compliment. I guess that just goes to show how “special” she is. But then again, she doesn’t get out much. She stays mostly at home doing layout and coding and other technical mumbo-jumbo for some big website that pays her big bucks (although not big enough to buy me an acceptable car) for her expertise.
         Dad’s not much better- he’s an orthodontist. Why anyone in their right mind want to be an orthodontist is beyond me. I mean, they have to stick their hands in the mouths of complete strangers (ok, at first they’re complete strangers, but not so much afterward- my dad’s been trying to convince me to date Thomas Leery, one of his clients, for like a month now)! And don’t say it’s because of the money. Hello, I’m driving an AstroVan. Either the money’s a gross exaggeration or my parents are cheapskates.
         Then again, there is a third option: he’s extremely obsessive compulsive, so maybe no one can stand my dad. Really, I don’t see how Mom does it. If she ever filed for divorce, I wouldn’t blame her in the least. Yeah, I’d feel sorry for dad, but I would fully support my mother’s decision.
         I love my dad, but he’s friggin’ psycho. He cleans everything. I think I permanently smell like Windex because of him (maybe that’s why I’m stuck driving an AstroVan- all the money that could be put towards a new car is squandered away on Windex). My room is like an island of dirt in a sea of Lysol because I won’t let my dad in there. I got so tired of never being able to find anything after his cleaning crusades, that in the seventh grade I went out and bought a new doorknob with a lock and then installed it with instructions I had gotten off the internet (yay, Google!). Now whenever I leave, I have to lock my room behind me in case Dad stays home or comes back early to clean, as he has done in the past.
         Well anyway, I was sitting in AP European History writing an essay about the causes of the 1848 revolutions, completely oblivious to the fact that my life was about to change forever. And God, that sounds cheesy.

*

         It wasn’t until I came home that I had any clue that something was up.
         I think I mentioned before that I live in a condo, a townhouse really, with a stoop right on the sidewalk. So we have no choice but to park on the street (I had to get really good at parallel parking really fast). There are actually signs designating which parking spaces belong to which houses, and I can’t count the number of times we’ve had to have cars towed for parking in one of our spaces, which caused us to have to park someone else’s space, causing them to have us towed. It’s a vicious cycle. So sad.
         It’s a good thing Mom didn’t drive or I’d have been stuck riding the bus since we had only two parking spaces. Mom didn’t have a car because she never really left the house, and if she did, she took the bus or a taxi. My mom- grown-up computer geek or pitiful shut-in- you be the judge.
         So I walked into the house and went down the hall to Mom’s office. She was in there typing away, as usual. Between my parents, I look most like my mom. We both have thick sandy blonde hair (technically it’s “dirty” blonde, but that sounds nasty- sandy blonde is much better) cut at shoulder length. Mom always has hers pulled back into a ponytail, otherwise it annoys her because it falls in her face and obstructs her view of the computer screen. I can never do anything with me hair. It’s pathetic.
         Anyway, in addition to the hair, we also have the same athletic build that prevents me from finding knee-high boots unless I special order them online. Stupid muscular calves. We also look a lot alike in the face, although I have a bit of a tan and Mom has a computer-induced pallor. The only trait I really share with my father is my eyes- we both have midnight blue, almost black, eyes.
         “I’m home,” I informed my mom, cracking the door open a bit and poking my head in.
          “That’s nice,” she muttered incoherently, engrossed in whatever it was that she was doing.
          I rolled my eyes and went back up the hall and up the stairs to my room. I collapsed onto my bed and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until something on the news caught my eye.
          “At 10:32 this morning,” the Channel Nine anchorwoman said, “the Reming City Library was shaken as an explosion of unknown origin blew up it’s east side. A large portion of the nonfiction section was destroyed, and many other books were damaged. The police have not released any details of the investigation, but our sources tell us that there are no reasonable suspects as of yet.”
          Who the heck would blow up the library? I don’t think there’s anyone in town smart enough to blow up the library. I know a few idiots who would like to, but they’re also the same idiots who hang around outside the BP station smoking crack. Once again, not smart enough. I used to know a few people who could possibly make a bomb, but they all went off to the School of Math and Science in Raleigh with all the other uber-smart teens of North Carolina.
          After my initial reaction, I didn’t really give all that much thought to the explosion. But that was the turning point. Everything changed after that. Little did I know that the library was just the beginning.
          Because that’s when the dreams started.

*

          I love my history class but I downright hate the reading notes. They take forever, and I have to do them every night unless I want to fail the reading quizzes we get every day.
          That night I thought I had finally cracked, considering that I was dreaming about history. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t all that surprised. I mean, it had actually happened before the previous year, when I had crammed for my test on the history of the Constitution for my tenth grade civics and economics class. I had ended up having Patrick Henry and James Madison debate over the pros and cons of the Articles of Confederation in my dreams for a week.
          This time at least, the dream was in the twentieth century. It was strange because it was so realistic. I was in town- no, I was more than just in town. I was standing outside Harding Suites. Only instead of being a pile of rubble, or even run-down and decrepit, it was the hotel it had once been, in all its five-star glory. There were valets taking cars and bellhops with trolleys; there were men in tailcoats and women in elegant dresses, walking arm in arm in and out of the hotel.
          I was thrown out of my reverie by a rather loud HONK. I turned around and barely managed to avoid being made road kill by a black town car that pulled up in front of the hotel. A valet hurried to open the back door, and a tall, graying man in a suit stepped out. A bellhop was at his side in an instant.
          “Good afternoon, Mr. Harding! Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked in the eager tone of a seasoned brown-noser. The man in the suit must have been the owner of the Suites. Another person got out of the car. He was the same height as Mr. Harding, but much younger; he looked to be only a couple of years older than me. He was actually kind of hot, in a 1940s sort of way, with neatly combed hair the color of dark chocolate. What was startling about him though, was his eyes- they were a rich shade of violet. I had never before seen anything like them. Those strange eyes surveyed his surroundings, which primarily consisted of suck-up bellhops trying to get in good with their boss- he was obviously uncomfortable, probably unused to such attention. Then suddenly those eyes were on me. Ours met and it was electric. I know it sounds so cliché, but really, it was like a shock went though and I was paralyzed, entranced by those gorgeous, violet eyes.
          Ignoring the first suck-up bellhop, Mr. Harding continued to the front door. “Come, James,” he called over his shoulder to the boy behind him. The boy, James, seemed to suddenly snap back to reality and hurried after him, releasing me from whatever hold he had. This dream was just getting stranger and stranger. Curious, I walked towards the hotel. I figured I might as well go in. It’s a dream- what’s the worst that could happen? Yeah, I could be trapped by James’s beautiful eyes again, but sense he wasn’t that bad to look at, it’s not like I’d really mind. Staring at a hottie all night long hardly constitutes a nightmare.
          No one seemed to notice me as I approached the large, ornate glass doors, embellished with gold. I was astonished when I saw my reflection; I really wasn’t expecting what I was wearing. I was in a baby blue dress pulled back in the middle by a sash, with short sleeves and a white collar. I was even in matching pumps and my hair was curled. Dang.
          I shook my head, reminding myself that it was a dream (so I must have a very imaginative subconscious), a fact that I was strangely aware of. Normally when you dream, you don’t really know that you’re dreaming until you wake up. Right? Well somehow I knew I was dreaming. So I decided to just ignore the ‘40s clothing and go into the hotel.
          Inside, Mr. Harding was discussing something with the concierge while James stood back a bit, still looking quite uncomfortable. I pulled aside a bellhop who had just come in behind me. “Yes, Miss?” he asked politely.
          “Um, who’s the young man with Mr. Harding?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound too out of place.
          The bellhop grinned and replied, “Oh, that would be James Kennan. He’s Mr. Harding’s grandson and luckier than me, to have many a lovely lady after him.” With a wink, he walked away, off to go help one of the hotel’s many residents.
          I debated with myself for a moment, trying to decide what to do next. “Why not,” I said aloud, and walked towards James. Since I didn’t usually talk to guys while awake, I might as well give it a try in my dreams.
          “Hi,” I said from behind him.
          He turned around, and it was a bit weird that he didn’t seem surprised in the least to see me. “Hello,” he replied.
          Oh crap. I had no idea what to say to him. See, this is why I’ve never had much success with boys- I have this horrible tendency to not think things through before I open my mouth.
          “So you’re Mr. Harding’s grandson?” I sputtered, mentally slapping myself for the idiocy of my question.
          “Yes,” he answered, looking a just a tad distracted.
          “Are you ok?”
          “Oh, um, yeah. It’s just-“ He trailed off, looking around the lobby. “Do you feel something weird here?” he asked suddenly, looking at me intently.
          “What do you mean?” Something weird? Considering that this was perhaps the strangest dream I’ve ever had, then yes. I mean, normally I don’t dream. And if I do, I don’t remember whatever it was I dreamed when I wake up, unless it happens to be really strange, like my current predicament.
          He shook his head and explained, “I’m not sure, but sometimes… I’m able to sense, and- and feel things.” He paused, closing his eyes. “And it feels bad here. I thought you might sense stuff too, since you randomly came up to me like that. And outside, I saw you, and it was… intense. You can’t be some average Joe. Or I suppose it would be Jane in your case,” he said with a grin. “You probably think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
          “No, not really,” I replied. He was right about what had happened outside- intense was certainly the word for it. “Outside- yeah, I felt that too.”
          “You did?” he asked, clearly surprised. “Wow, so maybe I’m not crazy.”
          “Then again it could be a coincidence and we’re both psychos. Gran always said that one is craziness, two’s a coincidence, and three or more is either sanity or mass hysteria.”
          He grinned at me again, the sort of grin that had he been in my time, would’ve had him elected homecoming or prom king in an instant. “You could be insane too, that is a definite possibility. My whole family thinks I’m insane except my granddad. He’s always believed in psychics and that kind of stuff, so he and I are kind of the black sheep of the family.”
          “There’s three,” I told him, “so maybe we are sane.”
          “Or mass hysteria; we can’t forget that.” I couldn’t help but smile at him. It was surprisingly easy to talk to him. Why couldn’t they have guys like him in my time? Or maybe it was all my fault. Maybe I was born into the wrong time period. Yeah, I think I could handle living in the forties, with no TV, and it was 1941, which meant that the U.S. was about to enter the war, so there’d be rationing of gas, and gum, and chocolate… and there was also the whole misogynistic society thing where women were the housewives and baby-makers… Who the heck was I kidding? Three cheers for the twenty-first century!
          “I just thought of something,” James said, bringing me out of my reverie.
          “What?”
          “I’m standing here talking to you, having a nice debate over the state of our sanity or lack there of, and I don’t even know your name.”
          I smiled again and replied, “It’s Marlo. Marlo Spencer.”
          “Well, Marlo,” he started but stopped abruptly. Faster than I could have thought possible, his head turned towards the elevator, his gaze riveted there. No, it wasn’t the elevator- it was someone who had just came out of the elevator. It was a man in a dark gray suit, his face shadowed by a matching fedora. He didn’t really look all that out of the ordinary, as there were just as many businessmen as there were actors and moguls, even more, perhaps.
          I turned my focus back to James and was alarmed by his expression. There was a look of pure venom in his eyes. It was of sheer hate and animosity, some feral beast drawn from within him, making him bare his teeth and growl.
          “Are you ok?” I asked, which was a blatantly stupid question as there was obviously something very wrong.
          He shook his head and muttered, “That man…”
          “What about him?” But I never found out, because that’s when I woke up. The sound of Evanescence’s “Call Me When You’re Sober” rang through the hotel, and it took me a moment to realize that it was my radio alarm clock, trying to wake me up for school. I groaned as I came into consciousness and hit the snooze button, silently cursing my school for starting so early.
          I somehow managed to lurch out of bed and trudge on to the bathroom, muttering a string of quiet profanities. I could tell it was going to be a long day.