HURRYING THE LENGTH OF THE LONG NORTH hall, Fric more than once looked worriedly over his shoulder, for he had always half believed that ghosts lurked1 in the lonelier corners of the great house. On this night, he was all but certain of their presence.
As he passed a gilded2 mirror set above an old-as-dirt console, he thought he glimpsed two figures in the age-discolored glass: he himself, but also someone taller, darker, hurrying just behind him.
In a tapestry3 that probably dated from before the last ice age, threatening-looking horsemen on dark steeds seemed to turn their heads to watch him pass. Peripherally4, he thought he saw the horses—eyes wild, nostrils5 flared—begin to gallop6 through that fabric7 field and forest, as if intent on bolting out of their woven world and into the third-floor hallway.
Considering his current state of mind, Fric was not suited for work in a graveyard9, a mortuary, a morgue, or in a cryogenics facility where gaggles of dead people were frozen in expectation that one day they could be thawed10 and returned to life.
In a movie, Ghost Dad had played Sherlock Holmes, who had turned out to be the first man ever to have his body scientifically [257] frozen upon death. Holmes was revived in the year 2225, where a Utopian society needed his help to solve the first murder in a hundred years.
Deleting either the evil robots or the evil aliens, or the evil mummies, would have made it a better movie. Sometimes a film could be too imaginative.
At this moment, however, Fric had no difficulty believing that Palazzo Rospo might be seething11 with ghosts, robots, aliens, mummies, and some unnameable thing worse than all the others, especially here on the third floor, where he was alone. Not safely alone, perhaps, but alone in the sense that he was the only living human presence.
His father’s bedroom and the suite8 of rooms related to it were on this level, in the west wing and along part of the north corridor. With Ghost Dad in residence, Fric had company in this high retreat, but most nights he dwelt alone here on the third floor.
Like now.
At the junction12 of the north and the east hallways, he stood as still as a corpsicle in a cryogenic vat13, listening to the house.
Fric more imagined than heard the patter of rain. The roof was slate14, well insulated, and far above even this high hallway.
The faint and inconstant sough of winter wind was but a memory from another time, for this was largely a windless night.
In addition to Fric’s suite, along the east hall were other chambers16. Seldom-used guest bedrooms. A walk-in linen17 closet. An electric-utilities room crammed18 with equipment mysterious to Fric but reminiscent of Frankenstein’s laboratory. There was a small sitting room, richly furnished and well maintained, in which no one ever sat.
At the end of the hall lay the door to a set of back stairs that went down five stories, all the way to the lower garage. Another set of stairs, at the end of the west hall, also descended19 to the bottom of Palazzo Rospo. Neither was as wide or as grand, of course, as the main staircase, which featured a crystal chandelier at each landing.
[258] The actress Cassandra Lirnone—born name, Sandy Leaky—who had lived with Fric’s father for five months, staying in the house even when he was absent, had churned up and down every staircase fifteen times a day, as part of her workout regimen. A well-equipped gym on the second floor offered a StairMaster among numerous machines, but Cassandra said the “authentic” stairs were less boring than the make-believe stairs and had a more natural effect on leg and butt20 muscles.
Slathered in sweat, grunting21, squinting22, grimacing24, cursing like the possessed25 girl in The Exorcist, screeching26 at Fric if he happened onto the stairs when she was using them, climbing Cassandra would not have been recognizable to the editors at People magazine. They had twice selected her as one of the most beautiful people in the world.
Apparently27, however, all the effort had been worthwhile. Ghost Dad had more than once told Cassandra that she was a deadly weapon because her calf28 muscles could crack a man’s skull29, her thigh30 muscles could break any heart, and her butt could drive a man crazy.
Ha, ha, ha. Instead of testing your sense of humor, some jokes tested your gag reflex.
One day near the end of her stay, Cassandra had fallen down the back west stairs and broken an ankle.
Genuinely funny.
Now Fric followed the east hall not to his suite, but to the last room on the right before the stairs.
This inelegant space, measuring about twelve feet by fourteen, had a sturdy plank31 floor and bare white walls. Empty at the moment, it served as a staging point for the transferral of goods in and out of the attic32.
A spacious33 dumbwaiter, driven by an electric motor, could carry up to four hundred pounds, allowing for the storage of heavy boxes and large objects in the vastness above. A door opened to a spiral staircase that also led to the attic.
[259] Fric used the stairs. He climbed carefully, with one hand always on the railing, concerned that his amusement regarding Cassandra’s broken ankle would jinx him with a shattered leg of his own.
The attic extended the entire length and breadth of the mansion34. The space was finished, not rough: plaster walls, solid plank floor covered with linoleum35 for easy cleaning.
Colonnades36 of massive vertical37 beams supported an elaborate trusswork of rafters that held up the roof. No partitions had been constructed between these beams, so the attic remained one great open room.
In practice, you could not see easily from one end of the high chamber15 to another, for suspended by wires from the rafters were hundreds of enormous, framed movie posters. Every one of them bore the name and giant image of Channing Manheim.
Fric’s father had made just twenty-two films, but he collected career-related items in every language. His movies were big box office worldwide, and any one project produced dozens of posters.
The hanging posters formed walls of a kind, and aisles38, as did hundreds of stacked boxes packed full of Channing Manheim memorabilia that included T-shirts bearing his likeness39 and/or catchphrases from his films, wristwatches on which time ticked across his famous face, coffee mugs bearing his mug, hats, caps, jackets, drinking glasses, action figures, dolls, hundreds of different toys, lingerie, lockets, lunchboxes, and more merchandise than Fric could remember or imagine.
At every turn were life-size and larger-than-life, freestanding cardboard figures of Ghost Dad. Here he was a roughneck cowboy, there the captain of a spaceship, here a naval40 officer, there a jet pilot, a jungle explorer, a nineteenth-century cavalry41 officer, a doctor, a boxer42, a policeman, a firefighter. ...
More elaborate cardboard dioramas featured the biggest star in the world in whole sets from his movies. These had been displayed in [260] theater lobbies, and many of them, if supplied with batteries, would prove to have moving parts and flashing lights.
Cool props43 from his films lay on open metal shelves or leaned against the walls. Futuristic weapons, firemen’s helmets, soldiers’ helmets, a suit of armor, a robot spider the size of an armchair ...
Larger props, like the time machine from Future Imperfect, were stored at a warehouse44 in Santa Monica. That facility and this attic featured museum-quality heating and humidifying systems to ensure the least possible deterioration45 of the items in the collection.
Ghost Dad had recently bought the estate next door to Palazzo Rospo. He intended to tear down the existing house on that adjacent property, connect the two parcels of land, and build a museum in the architectural style of Palazzo Rospo, to display his memorabilia.
Although his father had never said as much, Fric suspected that the intention was for the estate to be opened to the public one day, in the manner of Graceland, and that Fric himself would be expected to manage this operation.
If that day ever came, he would, of course, have to blow his brains out or throw himself off a tall building, or both, if he had not already successfully started a new, secret life under an assumed identity in Goose Crotch, Montana, or in some other town so remote and simple that “the locals still referred to movies as “magic-lantern shows.”
Once in a while when he climbed into the attic to wander the Manheim maze46, Fric was enchanted47. Sometimes he was even thrilled to be a part of this almost-legendary, nearly magical enterprise.
At other times, he felt at most an inch tall and shrinking, an insignificant48 bug49 of a boy, in danger of being stepped on, smashed flat, and forgotten.
This evening, he felt neither inspired nor discouraged by the collection, for he toured it solely50 in search of a hiding place. In this labyrinth51, surely he would discover a pocket of sanctuary52 among the memorabilia, where he could conceal53 himself and be protected by his [261] father’s omnipresent face and name, which might ward54 off evil in much the way that garlic and a crucifix discouraged vampires55.
He came to a seven-foot-high mirror in a frame of carved and hand-painted snakes writhing56 in jewel-colored tangles57. In Black Snow, Fric’s father had seen glimpses of his future in this mirror.
Fric saw Fric, and Fric alone, squinting at his reflection as he sometimes did, trying to blur58 his image into someone taller and tougher than who he really was. As usual, he failed to fool himself into feeling heroic, but he was glad that the mirror didn’t reveal scenes from his future, confirming what a hopeless geek he would still be at thirty, forty, fifty.
As Fric stepped back from the mirror and began to turn away, the glass appeared to ripple59, and a man came through it, a big man, looking plenty tough without having to squint23. The grinning brute60 reached for Fric, and Fric ran for his life.
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1
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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peripherally
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| 外围地，外面地 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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thawed
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| 解冻 | |
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seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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24
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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26
screeching
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| v.发出尖叫声( screech的现在分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫 | |
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27
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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linoleum
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| n.油布，油毯 | |
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colonnades
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| n.石柱廊( colonnade的名词复数 ) | |
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vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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41
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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43
props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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44
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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45
deterioration
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| n.退化；恶化；变坏 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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47
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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48
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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49
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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50
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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51
labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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52
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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53
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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54
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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55
vampires
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| n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门 | |
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56
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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tangles
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| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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58
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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59
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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