Chapter 1: Preface & Prologue
Chapter Text
Preface
This story is a crossover between The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis and The Shining, by Steven King, which were made into an excellent limited tv series and film respectively. Stanley Kubrick directed the 1980 movie adaptation of The Shining and it is an American horror movie classic. Scott Frank and Allan Scott created the Netflix adaptation of The Queen’s Gambit which came out in 2020. As a crossover, it leans more toward being Queen’s Gambit story. But I’ve summarized both here so anyone can follow along without prior knowledge of one or the other work.
The story features Beth Harmon and Benny Watts from The Queen’s Gambit visiting the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. There are minor characters from both stories and a few OCs. The plot is based loosely on The Shining. And a few bits are based on the Stanley Hotel, a real and allegedly haunted hotel in Colorado where Steven King stayed before writing The Shining. Plus, there are some standard horror movie tropes thrown in for fun. The story is set in the mid-1970s—after the events of The Queen’s Gambit, which ends in 1969, and just before the events of The Shining are supposed to take place.
The Queen's Gambit
If you aren’t familiar with The Queen’s Gambit, here is what you should know (lots of spoilers): It is the story of Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy with a brilliant mind and a lot of personal trauma and struggles. Beth’s biological mother, Alice Harmon, was a brilliant mathematician with a Ph.D. from an Ivy League University and a lot of mental health issues that led to her killing herself in a car crash with Beth in the car when Beth was nine. We don’t know why Alice is crazy or her exact diagnosis because everything we know about her is from flashbacks of Beth’s childhood memories. After Alice dies Beth goes to The Methuen Home, an orphanage where she learns to play chess with the janitor and is befriended by Jolene, an older resident there. At the orphanage, all the children are given tranquilizers daily and then the practice is stopped cold turkey about a year or so after Beth arrives. This is the beginning of Beth's struggle with addiction. At approximately the age of fourteen Beth is adopted by Alma and Allston Wheatley. Allston almost immediately abandons them. Alma does her best to be a loving mother to Beth in spite of her own struggles with alcohol and tranquilizers—which also give Beth access to those same substances. Unfortunately, Alma dies for reasons related to her substance abuse shortly after Beth graduates high school, contributing to Beth’s worsening difficulties with alcohol and pills. Beth becomes a very successful professional chess player as a teenager, winning many tournaments and eventually beating Benny Watts, another chess prodigy 8 years her senior, for the National Championship. She becomes friends with Benny and they train together and have a brief romantic relationship but Beth’s drinking drives a wedge between them. Beth gets sober and reconnects with her friends towards the end of the show and the ending is both optimistic and open-ended. This story is set about six years after the show ends.
The Shining
If you aren’t familiar with The Shining here is what you need to know (many spoilers): In the context of The Shining, both people and places can be “shiny.” Places can be “shiny” if they have ghosts or other kinds of psychic residue. People with “the shine” are sensitive to ghosts and past events and have other psychic abilities like telepathy.
At the start of the movie, Jack Torrance gets hired to be the winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel, located high in the mountains of Colorado. Jack is a writer and a newly sober alcoholic. He might be a bit "shiny" himself since the hotel seems to be able to effect him. Early in the movie, we find out that a previous winter caretaker went crazy and chopped up his wife and two daughters with an ax and killed himself at the hotel. We also know early in the movie that Jack injured his son while drunk and that prompted him to stop drinking five months before he takes the job. (In the book the is more about Jack both being afraid of turning into an abusive alcoholic like his own father and identifying with his father. It is a beautiful parallel to Beth's relationship with her mother who was brilliant but mentally unstable.) Jack brings his wife and four-year-old son Danny to the hotel for the winter. His son is “sensitive” (aka "shiny") and may be a bit disturbed or traumatized from the beginning. Danny is afraid and does not want to go to the hotel.
Through the course of the film, Jack descends into madness and cabin fever losing his sobriety and his grasp on reality along the way. At the instruction of the hotel's ghosts, he chases his wife and son around the hotel with an ax. They manage to stay ahead of him and eventually are rescued. Jack does not survive and becomes one more of the hotel’s ghosts. The iconic image of Jack with an ax and a crazy look in his eyes is still common in American pop culture 40+ years later.
The Stanely Hotel
Some background about the Stanley Hotel: The Overlook Hotel in The Shining is based mainly on the real Stanley Hotel in Colorado--although some of the movie’s exterior shots are other hotels and many of the interior sets are movie sets based on other hotel interiors or the director’s vision. The Stanley Hotel is a beautiful historic hotel that has been operating for 100+ seasons. It is still open and you can pay extra to stay in one of its supposedly haunted rooms. It's a popular destination with ghost hunters and horror fans. The online pictures are just gorgeous. There are lots of stories of ghosts at the Stanley Hotel but most are standard garden-variety ghosts and are much less interactive and malicious than the ghosts in the movie. Some of the “real” ghosts from the Stanley Hotel do appear in the story.
Prologue
It was a sunny July day when Beth found the invitation to the Rocky Mountain Invitational Tournament in her mailbox. It was an oversized envelope of heavy cream colored stationery. She opened it and inside was an invitation on matching cream colored cardstock. The invitation as a whole had a beautiful Art Deco style. The top of the page had a fan-shaped design in black and white with gold outlines. The lines flowed gracefully down to enclose the text in an arch shape. And in an eye-catching 1920s style font, it said, “Come play with us at the Rocky Mountain Invitational Chess Tournament” The dates were October 20-25, 1975. “We invite you to join us for a week of competitive chess in the beautiful and elegant setting of the historic Overlook Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado.” There was more information about it being a round-robin tournament with a modest prize. Along with the invitation, there was a colorful brochure with pictures of the hotel, a large white building with a red roof surrounded by gorgeous mountain scenery, and information about the numerous amenities the hotel offered. This wasn’t a tournament that Beth had heard much about and the prize wasn’t especially large but something about the look of the invitation and the pictures of the place drew her in and she knew she wanted to go.
She called Benny the next day. He had also received an invitation but he said it wasn’t worth the time and travel costs for the prize money and the tournament didn’t have enough of a reputation to get away with that. Beth argued that he had complained about chess in the US being played with plastic pieces at second-rate universities. Now there was a chance to experience a tournament in a beautiful setting and he didn’t want to go. Eventually, she wore him down and he agreed to go with her as an early birthday celebration.
Chapter 2: Sunday
Summary:
Here we go with the first real chapter. Beth and Benny arrive at the Overlook Hotel and the weirdness begins.
Notes:
I'd like to promise you some kind of a posting schedule but it would be all lies. I'm expecting this to be 7 chapters total and I'll get them posted as soon as the upcoming holiday chaos allows me to write them. The next chapter is in pretty good shape and beyond that, it is a mix of outline and some already-written scenes.
Chapter Text
Sunday
Beth Harmon and Benny Watts arrived at the historic Overlook Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late October. The sky was that perfect shade of autumnal blue that contrasted beautifully with the reds, golds, and oranges of the changing leaves. They were a day early for the Rocky Mountain Invitational Tournament. It was a small chess tournament with a correspondingly small prize but it was set in an elegant hotel with views of the Rocky Mountain National Park. The tournament hadn’t gotten much national attention until the news came out that the two top rated chess players in the country had decided to attend this year. Beth and Benny had driven cross country four days from Beth’s home in Kentucky. Last night they had stayed at a motel in Boulder—since Beth had refused to stop in Denver and Benny didn’t want to drive the unfamiliar winding mountain roads in the dark. Not that the mountain roads were any less terrifying by day. The breathtaking views of the mountains came with heart-stopping drops mere feet from the edge of the road with only a short guardrail in between to break the fall. Benny let out a sigh of relief as he pulled his aqua blue VW Beetle up in front of the hotel.
The sky was clear and the air was dry and a little bit thin at this elevation. When Beth stepped out of Benny's Beetle she took a deep breath and felt a dizzy sort of giddiness that was at odds with her normal pragmatic disposition. While its scale was in keeping with the majestic mountains that surrounded it, Beth felt dwarfed by the immense size of the imposing white structure looming over them. It was a large four-story building with a red roof and a wide columned center promenade framed by two wings on either side. It contained over a hundred guest rooms. It wasn’t a friendly looking building but Beth liked the solid Georgian architecture. The tournament materials had included a picture of the hotel and a brief history about how it had opened in 1909 and hosted numerous famous people over the years who had come to take in the natural beauty and fresh mountain air. It looked a bit more run down in person than it had in the pictures, but it was still a great deal more dignified that the place she and Benny had gone to celebrate her birthday last year. Benny had won big at poker and sprung for a weekend at the well-known Mount Airy Lodge in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. It had been a big honeymoon destination in the 1950s and 60s and was still a popular place for couples from New York to go for romantic weekends. But it had felt like they were trying too hard with organized couples’ activities and hot tubs in the rooms. Sure, it was fun for a weekend and she couldn’t really complain about fooling around in their own private hot tub. But she was glad it had only been a long weekend. She preferred places with history and substance like many of the places she had traveled to in Europe. The Overlook felt like a place with history. But Beth had yet to encounter the darker parts of the hotel’s history that the promotional materials had glossed over.
They entered the hotel to check in and found themselves in a huge, high-ceilinged lobby. It was black and white with red accents and Native American motifs. The furnishings looked like a cross between an upscale hotel and a Western hunting lodge. The leather couches and chairs looked comfortable but she didn't know why anyone wanted to make chandeliers out of animal antlers.
Beth went up to the front desk to register. She admired the beautiful polished wood of the registration desk and the arched alcove it was tucked into. They were given room keys and a map of the hotel. The dark haired man at the desk explained that the tournament was the last scheduled event for the season and they would be closing up for the winter in less than two weeks. Since they were so close to the end of the season some parts of the hotel were already closed to guests including the outdoor pool and the third and fourth floors. Guests were staying on the first and second floors. Of course, it was a large hotel, and the Lobby, Dining Room, Game Room, Colorado Room bar, Library, Ballroom, and other event spaces comprised quite a bit of space. There were also extensive gardens, a hedge maze, and a small lake outdoors. The tournament’s opening ceremony wasn’t scheduled until the next afternoon so the desk clerk suggested they explore the hotel and grounds and get comfortable. He explained the front desk hours were from eight am to eleven pm but there was always someone on call for emergencies and the phone would ring through even if no one was at the desk.
When Beth traveled internationally she had gotten in the habit of arriving a day or two early to recover from traveling and jet lag. This time, although they had driven four days cross country, there was only a slight time change and there had been much more flexibility to take breaks when they wanted. It didn’t take Beth and Benny long to bring their things to their room and get settled.
Beth liked the room immediately. It had an understated elegance. The walls were a rich cream color and the furniture was a dark, satiny smooth wood. The carpet was a sturdy tweedy looking pattern that blended shades of cream, beige, and brown. On the walls were black and white prints of Ansel Adams's photos of the Rocky Mountain National Park in frames that matched the other woodwork. The bed had white bedding, an arched wooden headboard, and a dark wood bench at the foot of the bed. By the large, arched window there was a small table with two straight-backed chairs—a perfect place for them to play chess. The bathroom was spacious with double sinks and a large bathtub that she looked forward to soaking in. There was even a bidet next to the toilet. The whole room had an Art Deco style and the sinks were in an arched alcove. The fixtures were pale mint green and the walls were white and jade green, accented with gold trim. The repetition of all the curves and arches gave the room a soothing organic flow.
Once Beth and Benny were unpacked they decided to walk around the hotel and stretch their legs after so many days cooped up in the car. The hotel was even more beautiful than the pictures had shown but there was also something about the place that was starting to make Beth uneasy. Perhaps it was just the empty, almost abandoned, feeling of being one of less than two dozen guests in a place that was built to accommodate hundreds. When she glanced at the map the layout seemed simple to navigate. The hotel was a blocky C shape with the lobby in the front center of the ground floor and the other public spaces were on the same floor on either side of the lobby and behind it. The guest rooms ran along straight corridors in the side wings. But somehow when they walked around the hotel she kept getting turned around by so many staircases and similar-looking hallways. This bothered Beth since she usually had an excellent sense of spatial awareness and a good memory for patterns. The hotel itself seemed almost as mazelike as the actual hedge maze. Still, they eventually found their way to the garden in front of the hotel and were able to enjoy the incredible view of the mountains. Beth felt somehow lighter outside the hotel proper, breathing the much-touted fresh mountain air. They had the gardens pretty much to themselves and only saw one other person at a distance, a woman in a pink dress with dark hair. They wandered through the gardens that still had some fall-blooming flowers among the statues, benches, and greenery.
When they came in from the garden it was late afternoon, and they wandered back through the lobby. Benny saw another chess player he knew checking in and went over to talk to him. Beth had long ago concluded that Benny knew just about every competitive chess player in the country that was any good and probably quite a few that weren’t. Beth had met many of them herself but she was far less inclined to make small talk with any of them. So while Benny chatted she slowly worked her way around the perimeter of the lobby examining the photos on the walls and other decorations. She spent a few minutes looking at the model of the hedge maze that took up a whole table. She had always been quick to visualize and remember patterns--it was one of the skills that contributed to her chess-playing talent--and she thought she would be able to navigate the hedge maze based on her memory of the model.
Benny caught up to her looking at some of the old black and white photographs that were hanging on one wall of the lobby. There was a photo of the couple who had built the hotel in the first decade of the century. But Benny came up to tell her he made plans for them to meet some of the other chess players for dinner at six thirty so she didn’t get to read the brass plaque underneath.
The tournament was a small one with only eight players, including Beth and Benny, so it was no problem for the restaurant staff to push two tables together and seat all the players who were there together. Two more players were expected to arrive in the morning. But for dinner, they had a group of six players and their spouses or traveling companions. Beth found herself seated at one end of the table with Benny to her left and the Colorado State Chess champion to her right. The Colorado champion was Stanley Thomas “call me Tom” Jackson. He was tall, slim, and sandy-haired with tortoiseshell-framed glasses. Beth vaguely remembered meeting him at a past US Open when he had placed in the top ten.
She liked his preppy style—a maroon sweater over a white polo shirt and khaki pants—and his easygoing manner. She gathered from the dinner conversation that his family had been in Colorado for generations and had some minor but significant role in the state’s history. And as the only native Coloradan, he had taken it upon himself to play informal host for the tournament. The other players were mostly from nearby Western states except for one player who had come down from Canada.
On Benny’s other side was the fellow they had met earlier in the lobby, Charlie M. (Murphy? Morgan? Mayfield? She’d have to ask Benny later) from Seattle. He and Benny had known each other for years and had gotten themselves into all sorts of adventures at past tournaments going back to when Benny was a teenager and had first started going to events on his own. Beth missed the beginning of the story but it was something about a fake ID and Benny getting drunk for the first time and Charlie having to get him back into the hotel late at night, staggering drunk. Beth laughed because it made her perversely glad that Benny had also been in the position of having to play hungover at least once.
“Did you win the next day?” she asked in a maliciously sweet voice.
“Draw. But it would have been a win if I’d been clear-headed,” he replied, looking down and fidgeting with his napkin.
“I know how that goes,” Beth said dryly. After all the grief he had given her about Paris it was nice to know he had also had to learn that lesson the hard way.
At the other end of the table were two other couples. Jeff and Ellie Robins (Evans? Robinson?) from Montana and Robert and Rebecca Wilson from California. If Benny was playing at being a cowboy, then Jeff was the real deal. He wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat. He was wearing a light blue chambray shirt, caramel-colored pants, and a silver string tie. And of course some well-worn cowboy boots. The blue in the shirt brought out the blue in his eyes. He had wavy brown hair and the kind of permanent tan you get from working outside. He also stood 6’2’’ and looked fit. She had no trouble imagining him handling animals that weighed several hundred pounds. Beth guessed he was in his late thirties or early forties. He wasn’t at all the type of guy she would have expected to meet at a chess tournament but when he opened his mouth he was intelligent and well-spoken. Over the course of dinner, she found out he was a large animal vet from a ranching family. His grandfather had taught all the grandkids to play chess but he was the one who had taken to it the most. He had worked it out with his father that his father would pay for college and vet school if he came home and did all the medical care for the ranch animals. He had played on the college chess team and still liked to get to a few tournaments a year. Ellie, his wife, looked like the sort of woman Beth had very little in common with. She was fortyish with light brown hair, shoulder length with bangs but no particular style. She was wearing a floral dress that came past her knees and looked like it was a decade out of style. On the other hand, she had a kind of calm contentment when she smiled which Beth admired and had desperately wished for as a teenager.
The other couple, Robert and Rebecca Wilson, were from California. She guessed they were somewhere between her age and Benny’s. Robert taught psychology at Berkley. He had curly reddish brown hair, a neatly trimmed full beard, and alert eyes and he seemed to just sit back and take everything in. Rebecca had long honey-blond hair and eyes that could look blue, green or gray depending on the light. She dressed like a hippie—a style Beth couldn’t imagine wearing herself—but it suited her. At dinner, she had on a multicolored granny square cardigan over a blue shirt and a long skirt. Beth found herself fascinated by the array of jewelry she was wearing. There were multiple long strands of beads in different colors--some glass, others wood, and some looked like colored stones. She also had a crystal around her neck on a black silk cord and silver bracelets on one wrist that clinked together whenever she moved her arm. Beth didn't get to talk with them very much but Rebecca said she preferred to go by Rain because Rebecca was the name her mother chose for the person she wanted her daughter to be and not the person she actually was. The name stuck in Beth's mind as being almost paradoxical and she wondered why someone who looked like a sun-kissed California girl would choose Rain as a nickname.
Beth had never been much for making casual small talk, though she was always more than willing to talk chess. But with Benny, Charlie, and Tom as dinner companions, she was able to let them carry the conversation with only a word here or there from her. It was just as well since she was feeling kind of unfocused and wasn’t paying close attention to the conversation. Tom was talking about Freelan and Flora Stanley, the businessman and his wife who had built the hotel. They had come up to the area in an attempt to cure the husband’s tuberculosis and after he recovered they decided to build the hotel. The thin dry air was supposed to be helpful for lung diseases and other health conditions. Although a small number of people had trouble with the altitude and developed altitude sickness. Tom mentioned if anyone felt tired, dizzy, or short of breath they could call the front desk and they could put them in touch with a local doctor. There was more about the hotel’s colorful history. But Beth found her mind wandering again and tried to focus by mentally playing through a game from a recent tournament. She had only eaten about half her dinner before a waiter came around asking if anyone wanted coffee or dessert. She asked for just coffee.
After dinner, the whole group decided to go over to the Colorado room where there was a bar and a cozy fireplace to continue the conversation.
As they were walking over to the Colorado room Benny commented, “You’ve been quiet tonight, even for you. How are you doing?”
“I’m ok, just a little tired. I’ll stay for one drink with everyone then I’ll go back to the room and go to bed.” Beth replied.
Benny brought Beth her usual drink from the bar, club soda with a wedge of lime, as everyone made themselves comfortable on the leather couches and chairs grouped by the fireplace where the staff had a small fire going. Benny perched on the arm of Beth’s chair. The conversation drifted between topics for a while until someone asked, in the spirit of the season, what was the creepiest place they ever stayed. Benny regaled them with a story of a rundown motel where the bathtub was full of bugs when they got up in the morning.
Robert had a story of staying at a place that was supposedly haunted. He hadn’t believed it until he woke up in the middle of the night when the bed dipped down like someone was sitting on the edge. But when he flipped on the lights no one was there, just an imprint on the bedspread.
The next story was about Ellie’s grandparents’ old farmhouse where she stayed in the summers growing up. There were doors that opened on their own, especially the door to the attic, and they often heard footsteps upstairs when everyone was downstairs. Ellie said it was all harmless but it made for a good story. After all, it was possible the doors swung open because the house had settled unevenly and the latches were old.
Benny chimed in that he didn’t believe in ghosts, live people were the ones you had to watch out for. Beth wasn’t sure she believed in ghosts either but she also didn’t think it was a good idea to go looking for trouble.
Tom argued that anyone who didn’t believe in ghosts now might change their minds by the end of the week. The Overlook Hotel had many reports of people seeing ghosts or other things they couldn’t explain. Some people thought they saw the man who built the hotel or his wife wandering around the hotel or the grounds. Other people thought they heard a child running around in the hallways on the fourth floor. Tom lowered his voice, “But the scariest thing that happened here was a winter caretaker a few years back who killed his wife and kids with an ax. They were all up here for the winter snowed in and I guess it was too much for him to take and he just went crazy. Maybe it was cabin fever, maybe he was crazy all along.”
Beth just sat there very still, listening with the last few sips of her drink getting warm in her glass. Her mom had gone crazy almost like that. Alice had always been crazy in her way but it never seemed like a dangerous kind of crazy until suddenly one day it was. And Beth was lucky she’d survived at all. She repressed a shudder and shifted in her seat. Benny, who was still sitting on the arm of her chair, put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“I’m going to head back to the room and go to bed,” Beth said.
“You want me to walk you back?” Benny asked.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“OK, I’ll see you later.” Benny leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
“Goodnight.” She was glad they had settled into a comfortable relationship a few years ago. It had been long enough that the media frenzy had finally died down and most people had stopped asking obnoxiously personal questions during interviews.
Beth thought she remembered the layout of the hotel well enough to get back to her room. Up one flight of stairs, a couple of turns, and a long straight corridor. But she inadvertently went up a different staircase than the way she had come down earlier. And when she came out of the stairwell nothing looked familiar. Except for the hideous red, orange, and brown carpet in a bold geometric print. It was an affront to the eyes and it seemed like it was everywhere in the hotel hallways. She knew she was on the right floor because the numbers were all in the 200s. But there weren’t any signs and the room numbers she could see nearby were nowhere near her room number. She tried walking a little way down the hallway to see if the numbers were going up or down. They went up on one side and then she came to a corner and the numbers skipped and the corridor came to a dead end. She turned around and went the other way. But it seemed like she had been walking for a long while and she still hadn’t gotten back to the staircase. She was tired and frustrated and the busy, bright-colored carpeting was beginning to give her a headache. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes to rest for a moment and hopefully get her bearings. The footprint of the hotel was a blocky C shape and she could almost picture the map in her mind. It shouldn’t be that complicated. She mentally tried to backtrack to the Colorado Room in the center section of the hotel. She was usually good with patterns but she had missed a step someplace; even though the map was clear in her mind’s eye she couldn’t quite place where she was on that map. She sighed in frustration. That’s when she noticed something tickling against her leg. She opened her eyes and looked down to see a fluffy white cat. The cat started walking away from her then stopped and looked back over its shoulder like it wanted her to follow along. She had no better idea where to go so she followed the cat.
She followed the cat a long way down the hall, past a closed-up ballroom and past another event space she didn’t recognize. Then the cat went up another wide staircase that looked like the one she remembered coming up from the center of the lobby. She went halfway down the stairs to check and could see the lobby. She’d lost track of the cat but she knew how to find her room from the lobby. It was a long walk but she didn’t get lost again and eventually made it back to her room without any more detours. She was tired and relieved to be back in her room.
She got ready for bed and lay down but Beth had never had a good relationship with sleep. As tired as she felt, sleep didn’t come right away. Instead, her mind replayed the car crash that took her mother’s life. There was a twisted kind of irony that in her head she could hear Alice saying “Close your eyes” as if it would protect her. Yet behind her eyes, she could still see all the horrors of that day in perfect clarity, in full color, and in better resolution than a technicolor film. This memory was nothing new. It had been with her for more than half her lifetime now. But the feelings were unchanged. Mounting fear and confusion as her mother was driving and crying; the shock and terror of the crash itself; and then, after the shock, the dissociation as if she were watching it all from outside her body and it was happening to some other unfortunate little girl. Did something snap inside her mother’s mind that day that she suddenly wanted to hurt herself and Beth? She wondered what it took for a person to go from just crazy to the violent kind of crazy that killed other people or themselves. She didn’t think she would ever know and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. Eventually, she drifted into a restless sleep plagued by uneasy dreams.
It was late when Benny got back to the room. In spite of his scoffing at the creepy stories earlier, the stories and the big mostly empty hotel were affecting him too. So were the few drinks he’d had after Beth left. He meant to come in quietly but he made some noise bumping around in the dark. Then he heard Beth tossing and turning and switched on the bedside lamp. They had shared a bed long enough that Benny knew she sometimes had nightmares, though they had become less frequent in the last few years.
Benny tried to wake her up, shaking her gently and telling her it was a dream. But she just twisted away from him and mumbled “Let go of me.” He let go but kept talking to her in a soothing tone of voice until she opened her eyes.
When she was awake Benny tried again to put his arms around her but she pulled away and sat up against the headboard with her knees pulled up. She was struggling to get her breathing and racing heartbeat under control. A long time ago when she was a little girl Mama had taught her numbers were her friends and she could count and take deep breaths to calm down. 1-2-3 in, 1-2-3 hold, 1-2-3 out. The pattern of the numbers was familiar and soothing and soon she felt more in control.
Benny watched her for a moment and when she seemed calmer he slowly put his hand on top of her hand which was resting on one of her knees. She looked up and he was relieved to see the wild look in her eyes was gone. “You okay now? That looked like a bad one.”
“Not the worst but bad enough.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
“There’s nothing to tell. I can’t remember much. Just a feeling of terror and scary images.” That and Alma’s voice at the end telling her it wasn’t safe for her here—whatever that was supposed to mean.
This time when Benny held out his arms to offer a hug she was glad of the comfort and leaned into the embrace. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, but she was too tired and distracted to say anything about it. They stayed there for a few minutes holding onto each other before getting up. Beth got a drink of water; Benny got ready for bed. When they got settled in bed Beth had an easier time falling asleep with Benny’s arm around her from behind. Gradually her breathing synched to his slow, steady rhythm and they both fell asleep.
Chapter 3: Monday
Summary:
More creepy things begin to happen.
Notes:
This chapter puts us about a third of the way through the story. And the next chapter won't be up until well after the holidays.
Chapter Text
Monday
The next morning was clear and sunny, a beautiful fall day. In the bright sunlight, the hotel no longer had the ominous atmosphere Beth had felt last night while alone and disoriented. When they got to the dining room sunlight was streaming in through the wide arched windows. They were greeted by a number of the people they had met last night. Benny stopped by Tom’s table to talk with the other chess players they had met yesterday. There were still several other people in the dining room she had not met the night before and Beth assumed they were guests who weren’t here for the tournament. Across the room, she saw a tall dark-haired woman in a powder blue skirt suit. For a split second, it registered as Alma and then her brain caught up to her eyes and she knew it couldn’t be.
Beth made her way to a two-person table thinking Benny would join her when he was done talking. She wanted her first cup of coffee before she had to talk with anyone. Once she had gotten her coffee and had her eggs and toast in front of her she was more ready to face the day. It wasn’t expected to be busy. There was an opening ceremony for the tournament in the afternoon and an official dinner after that. Game play wouldn’t start until the next day. That meant she had the whole morning free. She wasn’t expecting any of the other players to be a real challenge. Benny was probably the next best player here and she knew his style so well by now no amount of studying would matter anyway. That meant she could enjoy her free morning however she liked. Benny did eventually come to join her with a cup of coffee in hand and they finished their breakfast together.
After breakfast Beth suggested they go for a walk outside. Yesterday they had walked around the gardens in front of the hotel so this morning they decided to explore the grounds on the other side. On that side of the hotel, they found the outdoor pool inside a fenced area. The water had been drained out of the pool and the lounge chairs had been stacked under tarps for the winter. Near the pool area was a large patio that looked like it could be used for parties or other events and beyond the patio was a wide lawn leading down to a small lake. She couldn’t see the far side of it. But the surface reflected the deep blue sky and the trees with their brightly colored leaves. Beth was struck by how beautiful it was with the mountains in the background. The near side of the lake had a wooden boat house and a small dock with a couple of canoes and paddle boats tied up to it. There was no one else down there but the boat house had a sign about arranging boat rentals with the front desk. Beth and Benny walked out to the end of the dock and stood admiring the view for a few minutes. In the middle distance, they could see a few deer drinking at the edge of the lake.
Beth enjoyed the walk and hotel grounds so much that she convinced Benny to bring one of their chess boards out to the wide front porch of the hotel. Even out of the direct sun it was comfortable outside. Beth had her favorite cozy brown wool sweater over a white turtleneck and chocolate brown corduroy pants and Benny was in his trademark black outfit. Beth and Benny settled themselves on the white wicker furniture and started their game. They were playing casually, with no clocks or tournament rules. Playfully, Beth started with an opening sequence she remembered Morphy using in the book she was reading. It took Benny a little while to recognize the game then he smiled and made a variation to the original game. Beth smiled back and countered his move and it became a different game. By now a few of the other players have drifted over to watch them play. Tom, Robert and Rain Winston, and Jeff and Ellie Robins were there. Beth finally remembered she met Robert and Rain at some past tournament—she wasn’t sure which but possibly in San Francisco or maybe even at the US Open, though there are usually so many people at the US Open that it was impossible to keep track of everyone. The two women moved over to a table a little farther away and were talking quietly to each other.
Beth and Benny’s game eventually ended in a draw. And Beth thought she must be quite literally off her game this morning. It wasn’t unusual for the two of them to draw these days. They knew each other so well now. When one of them won, most of the time it was Beth. But Benny could still beat her occasionally—especially if she was distracted and he was playing his best. She loved to win. That will never change. But she’s learned to appreciate an opponent who can give her a real challenge and make her work for the win. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but looking back Benny had started to win her over when she realized he loved chess in almost the same way she did.
While Beth had been wool-gathering Benny had put away the chess set and everyone had decided to head over to the dining room for lunch. At lunch, they were an even larger group than they had been at dinner the night before since the last two chess players had arrived. Travers was a slight, nervous-looking man in his late thirties with light brown hair and green eyes. He’d driven in from a neighboring state but Beth didn’t catch which one—maybe Kansas or Nebraska? The other player was the Canadian, Jeremy Greenberg, who had flown into Denver this morning and driven up just in time for lunch. He was in his mid-twenties, medium height, with dark wavy hair. Greenberg was the highest-rated player at the tournament after her and Benny and if the Chess Federation gossip was anything to go by he would probably make Grandmaster in the next few years.
With the number of people in the dining room Beth thought she saw the twins across the room. She was surprised but when she looked for them later she couldn’t find them. She knew they went to a lot of tournaments since their father worked for the Chess Federation organizing tournaments. But she had talked to Matt and Mike a few weeks ago and they hadn’t mentioned coming to this one. They had mentioned knowing Dr. Franklin one of the people helping run the tournament.
Beth had a second cup of coffee at lunch but she still felt tired. She told Benny she was going back to the room to read and then change before the Opening Ceremony at three. Once the doors to the dining room closed behind her the hotel seemed quiet and still. She was walking through the middle section of the hotel when she thought she heard a piano playing. She smiled and thought of Alma playing that day in Mexico City. This was a different piece of music but it seemed slightly familiar. The music got louder as she approached the Gold Ballroom she had passed the night before. Today the doors were open and there was sunlight spilling in from the wide windows. There was a grand piano with the dust cover pulled back and the wooden keyboard cover folded up to show the black and white keys like the mystery piano player had just stepped away for a moment. Beth stopped at the doorway. She thought she saw the piano keys moving. But when she crossed the threshold and could see the piano better she decided she must have been mistaken. The room was empty and she walked up to the piano and sat down on the bench. Beth didn’t know how to play much at all. Alma had only gotten as far as showing her how to play scales and a couple of simple songs and she didn’t think she could even recall how to do that after so long. Still, it gave her comfort to picture Alma sitting at her piano playing. Although when she sat down instead of Alma’s perfume Beth smelled a faint scent of roses. Beth put her fingers on the keys as if she was going to play scales. She pressed down one key with her index finger and the note echoed through the empty room. The piano had a lovely tone but Beth had no more desire to hear it played. She got up and left the room. There was nothing more to see, just dust in the sunbeams, a quietly ticking grandfather clock, and a woman with dark hair and a long pink dress outside the window.
Beth went back to her room and got out the book she had been reading, Paul Morphy and the Golden Age of Chess. It had been a gift from Harry—part gag gift, part apology-- when she had made it to 5 years sober last year. He’d written inside the front cover, “Dear Beth, I’m glad you proved me wrong. Love, Harry.” After reading for a few minutes, she started getting sleepy so she set her wind-up travel alarm clock for two pm and took a nap. On a sunny afternoon like this, her dreams were untroubled and she woke feeling refreshed. She had plenty of time to fix her hair and makeup and change into her dark green velvet dress. It wasn’t one of her newest dresses but the color looked good with her red hair and the velvet was soft against her skin. She had her hair parted to the side and pulled back from her face on one side with a delicate silver and marcasite hair clip. She added Alma’s pearls and some low black heels and she was ready with time to spare.
Beth met Benny and the other players for the Opening Ceremony in the Pinyon Room. The Pinyon room had the same classic elegance as the other parts of the hotel: high ceilings, cream colored walls, dark stained woodwork, and tall arched windows with stunning views of the mountains outside. Benny was sitting next to Beth during the program. They listened to one speaker after another go on about the history of the hotel, the town, the tournament, and even the Rocky Mountain National Park that the tournament was named for. Beth tried to pay attention but the afternoon sun shining in the windows made the room warm and she had been tired all day. She had trouble staying focused on the person speaking. By the time a retired geologist was talking about the formation of the Rocky Mountains seventy-five million years ago, she gave up trying. At one point, Benny pinched her leg as she was on the verge of nodding off. “Thanks,” she whispered back.
A few minutes later she caught him with his hand on her leg but slowly sliding the outside of his fingers against the velvet of her dress near her knee. She glared at him silently until he noticed.
Then he leaned over and whispered, “What? I like this dress,” and gave her one of his cocky grins.
She managed to swallow her laugh but she couldn’t completely stop her smile and had to hide it behind her hand. Benny took this as encouragement and slipped the tips of his fingers under the hem of her dress to stroke her knee. The next time the audience clapped (she had no idea why they were clapping) she used the noise as cover to hiss at Benny, “Stop it, we’re in public.”
“Just trying to keep you from getting bored and falling asleep,” he whispered back. She couldn’t decide if she was more annoyed or amused.
The next speaker was explaining the tournament rules and schedule in detail and finally Beth was able to pay attention. Fortunately, this was the last speaker and everyone went to the Colorado Room for cocktails before the formal dinner started.
Beth went to the Ladies' Room before heading over to the Colorado room. In the bathroom, she ran cold water on a paper towel and pressed it against the back of her neck. She was tired and something else felt off but she couldn’t tell quite what. She couldn’t identify any specific symptoms. She occasionally felt vaguely off just before her period started but she didn’t think it was due any time soon. At a loss for anything else to do, she touched up her lipstick. As she leaned forward to see her lipstick in the mirror she thought she heard whispers behind her. It reminded her of girls whispering behind her back in the bathrooms in high school and she felt a moment of lightheadedness. But this wasn’t an institutional high school bathroom with echoing tile floors and metal stalls. This bathroom had a sitting room with soft carpet, pink and yellow floral wallpaper, brass fixtures, and comfortable chairs. One wall had a large mirror eight feet wide and four feet high. Beth sat down on the bench in front of the mirror and rested her hands on the shelf in front of her. She could see in the large mirror she was the only one in the sitting area. She hadn’t seen or heard anyone in the adjoining bathroom when she came in but the wood partitions between stalls went all the way to the floor so perhaps she hadn’t seen them. When she looked over all of the doors were partly open and apparently empty. She decided she was being ridiculous and went to join Benny and the others for cocktails.
Beth found Benny in the Colorado room talking with Charlie and some of the other chess players. Benny had a beer in one hand and her usual club soda in his other hand. She thanked him and took a sip of her drink. She felt better immediately—maybe she was feeling off because she was dehydrated? But she was mildly annoyed Benny had a beer. Granted, he wasn’t the one with a drinking problem so it wasn’t any big deal for him to have a drink if he wanted to. It just made things a bit more difficult for her. When they had gotten back together after she stopped drinking they had talked. She had explained it would be much easier for her to stay sober if he didn’t drink around her. Sometimes even the slightest smell or taste of alcohol would trigger a craving for her. It was easier now than it had been in her early days of being sober but she still preferred not to take the chance.
She smiled a little when felt Benny’s hand resting on her lower back with his thumb slowly moving with the grain of the velvet fabric of her dress. He was telling Charlie and Tom some involved story about him going to Russia to play chess for the first time. They had each gone to Russia once separately and then again together more recently. She nodded and agreed it had been exciting and a little bit overwhelming to go there the first time. Tom recounted that he had traveled to several other places in Europe but not Russia or anywhere else behind the Iron Curtain.
Once again Beth was only half-listening to the conversation. She noticed Tom was wearing a navy blazer with brass buttons and a pair of khaki slacks. She had no doubt she and Benny could beat him at chess but she liked his style. Benny, on the other hand, hadn’t even owned a sport coat until she had bought him a charcoal grey wool one a couple of Christmases ago. She would have said he didn’t even know what one was except she had seen pictures of him wearing one and looking uncomfortable when he was about eleven or twelve. The dark gray jacket looked good on Benny and, in spite of his attachment to the black leather duster that he was currently wearing, he did occasionally wear the blazer when she requested. She thought it made him look stylish and sophisticated. He thought it was a nuisance to own anything that required dry cleaning--which seemed hypocritical when leather also required professional cleaning, presuming he ever had it cleaned at all. She smiled and chided herself internally for literal wool-gathering, having spent the last few minutes contemplating wool blazers. Benny and Tom were still talking about traveling in Italy when she excused herself to go refill her drink.
Robert Winston was at the bar getting drinks when Beth got there. He was wearing a brown and tan tweed blazer with leather elbow patches over jeans and a white button-down shirt, no tie. His reddish brown hair was longish hair for a man and he had a neatly trimmed beard. She remembered he was a professor somewhere and thought with amusement that stereotypes had to come from someplace.
“Hello, Ms. Harmon,” he said.
“Hi.” She gave him what she hoped was a polite smile and asked the bartender for a refill of her club soda.
“Not a drinker? My wife isn’t either. Alcohol gives her migraines.”
“I like to stay focused on chess, especially at tournaments.” She tried to keep the sharpness out of her voice. He was probably trying to be friendly, not invasive.
“Your focus on chess has certainly served you well so far.” He smiled. She’d guessed right this time, he was just being friendly. God, she hated small talk. Especially sober. Which reminded her, she could smell the faint scent of pot. There was another stereotype to check off. She wondered if he had any with him. Or if there was a polite way for her to ask. Would it even count as falling off the wagon since it wasn’t drinking or pills?
The bartender had brought Rob a fruity-looking red and orange drink with an orange slice as garnish and a scotch and soda. He thanked the bartender and turned to Beth, “This is a drink my wife concocted. She calls it a California Sunrise, like a virgin Tequila Sunrise with all fruit juice. It’s orange and pineapple and the red on the bottom is cranberry juice. Would you like to try one?”
“Yes, it looks good.” Club soda had kept her sober this long but fruit juice would be a nice change.
After Beth got her drink she went with Rob to talk with him and his wife. Rain was talking to an older man with silver hair and glasses. Beth recalled him as one of the speakers earlier in the afternoon, the one droning on and on about the formation of the Rocky Mountains.
Rain had changed her look from the day before. Yesterday she'd looked like a hippie. Today she was dressed more formally and looked stylish and put together. She was wearing a slate blue silk dress with off-white lace trim and a deep blue velvet jacket. The colors made Beth think of the sky on a rainy afternoon and that seemed quite fitting. Her hair was up in a French twist secured with a pearl comb. But the most eye-catching part of her outfit was her necklace. It was a long necklace with three strands and the middle strand had an iridescent white pendant in an oval silver setting. The strands of the necklace were pearls interspersed with blue, gray, black, and silver stone beads.
“You look lovely,” Beth managed to get out in spite of her surprise.
“Thank you.” Rain replied, the corners of her eyes crinkled with humor. “I’m much happier as a laid-back California girl but I just can’t shake that East Coast prep school upbringing.” She laughed and it reminded Beth of her bracelets clinking together the night before.
Beth was surprised and a little bemused that Rain seemed to be laughing with her and inviting her in on the joke. As an adult, Beth had a reputation for being a stylish dresser but she hadn’t forgotten high school when the girls with money and nice clothes went out of their way to tease and snub her. Beth smiled back and said, “That’s a beautiful necklace. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She wasn’t usually one for wearing a lot of jewelry, mostly just her watch and Alma’s pearls. But she was fascinated with how the different colors and textures in the necklace worked together.
“There isn’t another one like this. I worked with a jeweler to design it and he restrung my grandmother’s pearls to make it.” Rain laughed again. “My mother thinks it’s 'atrocious and ostentatious,'" she said, imitating her mother's accent. "But that’s just a bonus. Grams would have loved it. She was amazing and told me all these wild stories from her flapper days. How she gave birth to someone as uptight as my mother I’ll never know.”
“We were just talking about some of the stones in the necklace,” said the older gentleman. “But I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Dr. Joel Franklin, retired geologist and current chess tournament official.” He held out his weathered hand for Beth to shake.
Beth shook his hand, smiled, and said, “Beth Harmon. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I think you might know my friends, Matt and Mike Lewis.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Your reputation precedes you,” said Dr. Franklin, with a smile. “And if your friends are twins about your age, then I have worked with their father on a number of tournaments.”
“So what about the necklace?” Beth asked, turning back toward Rain.
“I chose the specific stones not just for their looks but for their other properties. I wanted stones that promoted tranquility, grounding, and protection.” She held up one strand of the necklace and pointed to a blue bead with white spots. “This is sodalite. It promotes calmness, clear thought, and open communication,” Rain said.
“Rocks and minerals have physical properties like hardness and crystalline structure. They don’t have metaphysical properties. That sodalite is simply chloric sodium aluminum silicate,” Dr. Franklin said with a hint of impatience.
Rain smiled serenely and said, “I appreciate your point of view even if I don’t share it.” Dr. Franklin just sighed in response.
“What is the stone in the middle?” Beth asked, pointing to the pendant with the iridescent white stone. There was something about the translucent white color with a blue sheen that drew her eye.
“That’s a moonstone. It is associated with the moon and feminine energy. It’s good for intuition and emotional balance.”
“The moonstone and a few of the other stones here are all in the feldspar family of minerals. The bluish iridescence is caused by closely spaced layers in the crystal diffracting the light,” added Dr. Franklin. He pointed out a gray stone with the same blue sheen. “This is Labradorite. And this blue one is Cordierite,” he said pointing to a deep blue stone with a lighter blue iridescence. “They are all in the same family of minerals that’s why they have the same kind of shine.”
“That makes so much sense,” said Rain. “Thank you for explaining the science. I always felt those stones had something in common, like siblings. But I thought the blue stone was called Iolite.”
“It can go by either name it just depends if you are talking to a geologist or a jeweler.”
Rain and Dr. Franklin continued to talk about the stones in the necklace. Beth was trying to follow the conversation. But she was still not able to stay focused very well. One of them said the shiny black stone was obsidian, a kind of volcanic glass. She remembered hearing about that in school. Some ancient people used to use obsidian to make knives and other sharp tools. In her mind, she could picture the page in the textbook with the knives and arrowheads on it and the description of how they used one rock to chip little pieces off the other rock to make the sharp edge. Suddenly she had an image in her head of someone being stabbed in the chest with an obsidian knife and there was screaming and blood pouring out everywhere. But the image was gone almost as quickly as it had come. She took a sip of her drink to cover up her startled motion. The sweetness of the juice helped her feel more alert for the moment. She noticed Rain giving her a curious look but before she said anything Benny came up behind Beth.
“It’s time to go to dinner,” he said. He draped an arm loosely around her waist. She didn’t usually like any public displays of affection but this time his hand on her waist made her feel more grounded.
The dinner was in a side room off the main dining room and they had one long table for everyone since they were a fairly small group. Everyone seated themselves around the table and Beth found herself sitting in the middle of one long side with Benny to her left and Ellie and Jeff Robins to her right. Across from her were Rob and Rain Winston. Charlie, Tom, and Dr. Franklin were on the end past Benny. There was an empty chair and then Greenberg and Travers were all the way at the other end of the table to her right.
Once they were all seated the wait staff came around to fill their water glasses and take their drink orders. Beth ordered a ginger ale. When they came around pouring red wine she put her hand over her glass so they wouldn’t pour her any. When she used to drink, red wine had been her biggest weakness. She didn’t like to even think about how many bottles she was going through in a week before she had finally quit. It was like some kind of drunken algebra problem. Even now the smell from Benny’s glass was making her mouth water and her stomach clench with anticipation. She quietly asked him to move his glass over to his other side and he did. It disrupted the formal table setting but it helped. At least she was comfortable with all the extra silverware. She remembered the first time she had gone with Alma to a restaurant fancy enough to have more than one fork and spoon. Alma had taught her how to work from the outside inwards on each side with the silverware and had told her never to rest her used silverware directly on the tablecloth. She still missed Alma though it was more of a dull ache now. She wished Alma could have lived long enough to travel to Paris and some of the other places she had played in Europe. She would have loved it. But for good or bad there was no changing the past. She sighed quietly and tried to pick up threads of the conversation going on around her.
The other couples were talking about how they had met. Ellie and Jeff had met at a big Midwestern college but she missed which one. They had been together nearly twenty years now and had four children. They seemed happy enough, as best she could tell about those things.
Rob started talking about how he and Rain met. It had also been in college but on the East Coast. He was in graduate school helping his advisor with his research on migraine headaches. He was hoping he might learn something that would help his mother who was a migraine sufferer. Instead, he met Rain who came in as one of the subjects in the study. They started dating and got married after they graduated. Rain remarked that no one had really understood what it was like for her to have migraines before. Her parents had dragged her to doctors and specialists for years to try and fix the migraines. But then at home, her parents just ignored the doctors’ recommendations about the noises, bright lights, and other things that exacerbated the headaches. But Rob had actually listened to her which made everything much less stressful. And together they explored some less mainstream treatments when they had reached the limits of what conventional medicine had to offer. Acupuncture turned out to be a huge help and she was doing much better. “Now I just see auras and don’t get the headaches,” she quipped. Ellie asked her to explain.
“With migraines, I sometimes see floating lights or get a funny smell before the headache starts. Now that I know I can do what I need to do to head things off before they get too bad. But I was joking because my boss at the metaphysical bookstore where I work talks about reading auras all the time. She has been teaching me about it. Those kinds of auras are like an energy field around a person.” Rain looked like she unfocused her eyes for a moment and continued. “Ellie, you for example have a lot of green and yellow and a little blue. That tells me you are very nurturing, grounded, and optimistic. I probably could have told that out by talking to you for a little while anyway but that is how it works. I just kind of get a vibe from people that way.”
“So what does my aura tell you about me?” Benny asked.
“Let’s see. Red, yellow, and orange mostly. Red is probably your passion and strong competitive drive. Orange is your confidence and outgoing way with people. Yellow for you is intelligence and open-mindedness. It’s probably why you haven’t dismissed aura reading and complete nonsense without hearing me out. Unlike Beth who probably thinks I am a total new-age flake. But that is from reading facial expressions, not auras.” she said.
Beth was disconcerted by being called out and hurriedly attempted to put on a neutral facial expression. But Rain just laughed and continued. “Don’t worry, Beth. You are far from the first person to think I am flakey. I’m not offended. But you have such an interesting aura I’ve never seen one quite like it. Do you want me to tell you about it?”
Beth nodded yes, unsure what else to do.
“Before I start I can see you two are a couple by the way your auras kind of overlap on the edges.” Beth wondered if Rain had any idea that Benny had his hand on her knee under the table. “You have a lot of red like Benny. That makes sense since you both have a very strong competitive drive with chess. You wouldn’t have made it this far without that. You have some yellow but it is more of an amber or golden yellow that shades into brown. That represents high intelligence but a very logical pragmatic sort of intelligence and that you are more grounded. You probably like a little more proof before you believe something rather than just accepting it at face value. The unusual thing about your aura is that there is a very thin iridescent white edge to it. It kind of looks like the moonstone in my necklace. That is pretty rare and I have only seen it a few times. I’m not entirely sure what it means. Also, you have three dark spots with green around the edges. The dark spots usually represent major losses and the green is where they are healing. One looks like an old loss but it has a muddy green so there is probably something unresolved there. The other places have a brighter healthier looking green like they are healing well.”
“That’s interesting,” Beth said, not knowing what else to say. She felt very exposed by the reading, even if she wasn’t sure she even believed it. Fortunately, Rain moved on and asked if Charlie wanted a reading and he accepted.
The rest of the meal passed in a kind of haze for Beth. She noticed the steak was excellent but she wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation. And she couldn’t help being aware that Benny was touching her knee and playing with the hem of her dress between courses. On a better night, she would have teased him back, knowing she had the natural advantage of being able to tease him to the point of embarrassment—though she rarely pushed things that far. Benny did notice her absent-mindedness but he was happy to talk with the other people at the table and let her be.
After the dinner, everyone was still talking and most of the group wanted to go to the Colorado room again. Beth was tired and drained from so much time socializing. She politely excused herself just as Benny was suggesting they play Speed Chess. She knew it would be a late night but she also knew she could beat Benny at Speed Chess and didn’t feel any particular need to prove it again that night.
“If that is how the night is going then I’m going back to the room and going to bed,” she told him.
Beth thought she knew the way to her room this time. She intentionally went up the staircase from the lobby so she wouldn’t get turned around. She was in the right corridor but she somehow got disoriented and started feeling strange. Her balance was not quite right and the corridor walls seemed to stretch and bend and the hall suddenly seemed very long. She put her hand on the wall and it felt rubbery. It reminded her of the first time she took the green pills at Methuen. But she’d been clean for years now and hadn’t taken a single green pill in more than half a decade. The hallway seemed so long. Her head was swimming and she struggled to read the room numbers. She just wanted to get back to her room and lie down. She kept her hand trailing along the wall for balance and started walking slowly down the hall. She thought she had gotten to her room and tried to open the door but suddenly it changed she saw the locked basement door from Methuen in front of her.
“Please, Mr. Shaibel, let me in. I wish I could play chess with you again,” she begged, feeling that childhood pain of being shut out wash over her afresh.
Then she was looking at the dark wood of the hotel room door again. She tried her key but it wouldn’t turn the lock. She looked again. This was room 237. Her room was 257. She was so tired she must have misread the number. As she slowly walked down the hall to her room the disorientation and dizziness started to subside but she was still very tired.
Beth started getting ready for bed. She was in the bathroom taking her makeup off and washing her face at the sink. She thought she saw something move behind her. She turned her head to look and was overwhelmed by a wave of dizziness and nausea. She grabbed the edge of the sink for balance. By the time her vision cleared and the nausea was gone there was nothing unusual in the mirror. Very slowly she turned her whole body so as not to move her head too quickly and upset her balance again. Of course, there was nothing behind her but an empty bathroom. She cautiously made her way out of the bathroom and into bed. She lay down in bed on her back. Her stomach had settled but there was still a slight sense of the room spinning. God, I haven’t had the spins like this since I quit drinking she thought to herself. And that reminded her of the first time she got really drunk as a teenager, lying in her bed in Alma’s house staring at the ceiling and trying desperately to focus on a chess game until everything stopped spinning and she could fall asleep. It must have worked this time too because she was asleep before she could get more than a few moves into a game.
Perhaps thinking of her teenage years when she was falling asleep set the mood for her to dream of Alma. Beth started out dreaming of the good times she had with her mother. Her dream was like a montage of all the places they traveled together: their first Christmas traveling, going to the spa together at that hotel in Houston, and all the small regional tournaments they had gone to as she built her rating up to something respectable. Then she came to the part where they were at the Hotel in Mexico City. She pictured Alma playing the piano in the lobby for an appreciative crowd. And she thought of the cozy room service dinner they had in the room that last night. She knew how this would end and a part of her struggled against it, wishing she could wake up. But the dream took her through that last day and evening they spent together. Then came the unbearable part. Walking into the hotel room talking to her mother about her chess game. Sitting on the bed and touching her mother’s leg and knowing instantly something was wrong. Alma’s face with her dead eyes open and staring at nothing. That image had haunted her nightmares almost as often as she saw Alice, mangled and bloody after the car crash. (They had tried to hide Alice under a blanket after, to spare her the sight, but she had already seen enough.) She was fighting and struggling harder to wake up now. But instead, the dream went to a deeper, darker place. Alma was lying on the bed, dead eyes staring. Then slowly she sat up and started talking to her. “Beth, I want you to be safe. It isn’t safe for you here. You need to leave before you end up like me.” Then, as if to make her point, Alma’s face went from dead-pale to grey and started to decay in front of her. She was horrified as Alma’s face was covered by spreading black mildew and then became puffy, bloated, and misshapen. Greenish-black liquid oozed out and the flesh fell away in pieces until there was only an ivory skull left staring at her with empty eye sockets. Grief and horror washed over her and she stopped struggling, allowing the weight of it to pull her under.
Beth woke up alone in the dark, flooded with fear, disgust, and deep grief for her mother. She was crying and struggling to catch her breath from the kind of deep sobs that edged into hyperventilating. She was dizzy and lightheaded from crying so hard and breathing so fast before she was able to get hold of herself. She turned on the bedside lamp, still crying. Her eyes were burning, her nose was running, and her head throbbed from crying so hard. She hadn’t cried like that when Alma first died. She’d been a little too good at keeping herself numb with booze and pills the first few years. The first time she really cried this way was when she told Jolene about Alma’s death. That was when she was first trying to get clean and every day was a struggle. It had gotten easier—both staying sober and missing her mother. But then every once in a while it snuck up on her and hit her so hard the wave of grief pulled her under and she felt like she was drowning all over again. It had been more than seven years since Alma died--the math part of her brain helpfully spit out seven years, three months, and twenty-two days. She was still a little shaky but she needed to get up and blow her nose and wash her face so she got up to go to the bathroom. As she was reaching over to flick on the bathroom light she thought she saw something flicker in the mirror again. But her hand had completed the motion before she could register what it was. And she was tired and just angry at all this emotional bullshit. Even after she had washed her face and blown her nose her head still felt stuffed up. She grabbed several tissues and went back to the bedroom, shutting the bathroom door behind her.
When Benny came in Beth was sitting up in bed waiting for her stuffy head to clear and playing math games in her head. Her first mother, Alice, had taught her about the Fibonacci series when she was a little girl. Alice had shown her math was beautiful in the same way chess could be beautiful. As a little girl, she had learned to carefully add each number to the next one to get the one after it in the sequence. One plus one was two, two plus one was three, two plus three was five, and so on. At first, she had needed to add things up in her head every time. But soon enough she had memorized the numbers well into the thousands. After so many years going through the sequence was its own mental ritual that served to calm and focus her mind.
She was startled when Benny said, “Hey, I didn’t expect you to still be up, “
“I wasn’t still up, I’m up again.”
Benny sat on the side of the bed and took a closer look at her. He could see her eyes were red-rimmed and her face had that blotchy look like she had been crying. “More bad dreams?” he asked sympathetically.
“Yeah, This one was only medium scary but it made me miss Alma so much.”
His answer was to pull her into a hug.
“How was your night?” she asked, still holding onto him.
“Good, I cleaned up at Speed Chess.”
“I thought you quit gambling?”
“It wasn’t much of a gamble. I knew I could beat them all and I did,” he said with his usual cocky attitude.
“So you just wanted to take their money?”
“Nah, they were small bets and I didn’t play anyone more than two or three times. Most people aren’t as stubborn as you are,” he said with a laugh.
Beth laughed against his neck and said, “Go get ready for bed so we can get some sleep.”
Benny went and got ready for bed. When they were both in bed Beth turned over and curled up with her head on his chest. He kissed her goodnight. He was still playing with her hair when he asked, “Your nightmares aren’t usually this bad, are they?”
“They haven’t been this bad in a while. But sometimes they come in clusters. I’ve been feeling a little off since we got here. Maybe it’s the altitude. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I don’t know.”
“I’m right here. Wake me up if you need anything.” He pulled her closer with the arm that was around her.
“I know, thanks.” She had an easier time drifting off with Benny there. It was often that way for her. The ghosts from her past had more trouble invading her dreams when she had someone sleeping next to her.
Chapter 4: Tuesday
Summary:
More ghosts and nightmares, less grasp on reality. Some chess to round it out.
Notes:
Sorry that it took so long to post this chapter. But the next chapter is more than half written so it probably won't be as long before the next one is posted.
What can I say? It's horror, it just keeps getting scarier. I am starting to feel bad for putting Beth through so much. I hope she doesn't seem too OOC but she IS being tormented by dark forces.
Chapter Text
In spite of her restless night, Beth woke up early the next morning. It was the first day of tournament play and she hoped playing chess would make her feel more like herself. Benny was still sleeping when she got up. In the morning light, she could appreciate the luxurious art deco style of the bathroom. She took a long hot shower, lingering under the steaming spray. The first game wasn’t scheduled until ten am so she had plenty of time to dress carefully and fix her hair and makeup. She put on her new apple green checked shirtdress. The top was styled like a button-down shirt with long sleeves and a single breast pocket but the waist had a fabric belt that tied and the skirt came down to just above the knee. Best of all, the dress had two side seam pockets so she had someplace to keep her room key. With the dress, she put on thick white tights, little black lace-up ankle boots with low heels, and a pine green cardigan, so dark it almost looked black in dim light. She had been growing her hair out the last few years and now it curled a few inches past her shoulders. She liked that it was long enough to pull back, braid, or even style it in a fancy updo for more formal occasions. Today she had let it dry in its natural waves and used a white scarf as a headband to keep her hair from falling in her face and distracting her while playing.
She let Benny sleep since she knew he only needed twenty minutes to get ready. She’d timed it once: fifteen minutes to roll out of bed, take a quick shower, shave, dress, and run his fingers through his hair. Another five for coffee and he was ready, twenty minutes total. Of course, there were a lot fewer wardrobe choices when almost everything you owned was basic black. Even so, she set the travel alarm clock for nine just in case so he wouldn’t be late and went down to the main part of the hotel in search of some coffee for herself.
The lobby was mostly empty this early except for someone at the registration desk. She thought he might have been the same clerk who had checked them in when they arrived. When she got closer she also recognized the man checking out as Travers. It seemed odd that he was leaving before playing a single game in the tournament. Last night he had seemed a bit nervous or high-strung but this morning he was nearly frantic. The clerk was explaining something about the cancellation policy. Travers was pacing back and forth and she caught him saying, “I don’t care about the cancellation fee I am not staying another night in this place. Not after what happened in my room last night.”
“We can offer you a different room or even upgrade you to a larger room if you like,” the clerk said.
Beth wanted to linger and hear more of the conversation but she didn’t want to look like she was eavesdropping. She walked slowly up the staircase next to the desk and stopped on the first landing pretending to look for something in her purse. She couldn’t stretch the pretext out too long if anyone was watching but she was out of their line of sight. And now that her curiosity was piqued she wanted to know what was going on.
An older black man came over to the desk and introduced himself as Mr. Halloran. He tried to get Travers to calm down but he wasn’t having it. She heard Travers saying in an agitated, high-pitched voice, “There was something in my room. I don’t know what it was but I am not staying here.”
“This hotel has a lot of history. Sometimes more sensitive visitors feel unsettled here. If you want to stay, we’ll do whatever we can to make your visit more comfortable. But if you want to leave we can make an exception to our usual cancellation policy,” Halloran said soothingly. October was often a restless month at the Overlook as the veil thinned and the insubstantial could be felt stirring.
There was more back and forth between Halloran and the clerk about the checkout but it was clear Travers was not going to stay. After some of the odd things she had experienced she desperately wanted to know the details of what happened to Travers. But she didn’t hear anything else even though she waited until Travers left the lobby before she headed to the dining room for breakfast.
There were several other chess players in the dining room. Jeff and Ellie Robins were at a table with Rob and Rain Winston. Jeremy Greenberg was at a table by himself with a newspaper in front of him. Tom and Charlie were at a table with several empty places. She briefly considered joining them. If Benny had been with her she probably would have. Instead, she found a small table by the window where she could enjoy her coffee and breakfast in peace and contemplate the mystery of what happened to Travers.
She had finished her first cup of coffee and most of her breakfast when Rain came over to her table. Rain was back to dressing like a hippie today she noted. She was dressed in a short dress with a v-neck and wide bell sleeves. The style wasn’t unusual these days but the print was wild and psychedelic looking with large flowers and swirls in bright turquoise, magenta, orange, purple, lime green, and yellow. Over the dress, she had a white crochet vest with a long fringe that came down almost to the hem of her dress. She had layers of necklaces in bright colors that matched her dress made of different materials: glass, wood, stone, and silver. She spotted a silver peace sign and some kind of crystal in among the other jewelry.
“Good morning. I hope I’m not disturbing you before you have your coffee but I have something I think you should have.” Rain said.
Beth smiled. “Good timing then. I was just about to have my second cup. I’m not really awake before the first one.” She refilled her cup from the carafe on the table and asked, “Did you want some?”
“No thanks. I had some already.” Rain said. She put her bag on the table. The bag she was using as a purse was as unusual as the rest of her wardrobe. It was a round black velveteen bag with beads and embroidery all over it. It had moons, stars, planets, and other celestial symbols.
Rain smiled, gestured toward the purse, and explained, “I made this during my astrology phase. It has all twelve astrological signs on it.” She took out a smaller black drawstring bag out of her purse and showed Beth several shiny polished stones in different colors. They were small, each one just about the size of a quarter. After taking everything out of the bag Rain lined up the stones on the table between them.
Beth admired the shiny polished stones but wasn’t sure why Rain was showing them to her.
“These are for you,” Rain said. She saw Beth’s hesitant look. “Hear me out. I know this may sound a little out there but these came from the metaphysical bookshop where I work. We have lots of different polished stones with different properties. Anyway, the day I told my boss I needed a week off to come to this tournament she told me to close my eyes and pick out some stones and I would meet someone who needed them on my trip. She’s very intuitive and when she says things out of the blue like that they have a way of working out to be true.”
Beth still looked doubtful.
Rain continued. “Do you know what chakras are?”
Beth shook her head no.
“In some Eastern traditions, people believe that the human body has seven energy centers or chakras. They believe that energy flows out of the earth, up through each chakra and out the top of the head into the universe. Each energy center vibrates at a different frequency and is associated with different colors.” Rain had arranged the stones in a line on the table in front of them in what looked like a rainbow with a black stone next to the red and a white stone next to the purple. “The first chakra is associated with black or red stones and is located at the base of the spine. For that we have obsidian and garnet. The second chakra is in the belly and is associated with orange.” Rain tapped the orange carnelian. “The third chakra is the solar plexus and is represented by yellow or gold colored stones.” Rain pointed to the citrine that was a clear golden yellow. “The fourth chakra is the heart chakra and has green or sometimes pink stones.” Rain pointed to the peridot which was the same apple-green color as Beth’s dress. “The fifth chakra is in the throat and is represented by blue stones, like this turquoise. The sixth chakra is the Third Eye in the forehead. It’s represented by indigo stones.” Rain touched the deep blue speckled sodalite. Beth recognized that had been one of the stones in Rain’s necklace last night but she hadn’t remembered the name. “The seventh chakra is the crown chakra at the top of the head. It is represented by purple, clear, or white stones.” Rain pointed to the deep purple amethyst and the iridescent white moonstone. Beth recognized the moonstone from the center of Rain’s necklace. She had silently agreed with Dr. Franklin last night that it all sounded like nonsense. But at the same time she was drawn to some of the stones, especially the moonstone.
“I know you’re a skeptic. But I’d appreciate it if you’d humor me and keep these. It would make me feel better if you had them. And don’t worry, nothing here is especially valuable. They’re all semiprecious stones that only sell for a few dollars.”
Beth had been looking at the colors and textures of the stones and only half listening. They were pretty and the smooth weight felt good in her hand. “Okay,” she agreed and started to put the little bag of stones away in her purse. She wasn’t sure why Rain was being so nice to her. Something about her quirkiness appealed to Beth but she had never been good at making friends, especially with other women.
Rain stopped her and took the last thing from the bag, a clear quartz crystal on a black satin cord. “May I?” Rain asked, gesturing to put the necklace over Beth’s head. Beth nodded. The cord had been cleverly tied so you could slide the knots and adjust the length of the cord. Beth lifted her hair and Rain slipped the necklace over her head and adjusted it so the crystal fell just below the hollow of her throat, nestled discretely where the collar of her dress was partially open. Beth didn’t usually wear much jewelry other than her watch but she found that slight weight of the crystal felt good resting against her breastbone.
Beth looked up when she heard a familiar voice and saw Benny had come into the dining room. He stopped to say hello to Charlie and some of the other players on his way over to Beth’s table. Benny had just sat down and was pouring himself a cup of coffee when Dr. Franklin came into the dining room.
Dr. Franklin looked around and cleared his throat. “I see everyone is present. I need to make an announcement. Mr. Travers has withdrawn from the tournament for personal reasons. We will be rescheduling this morning’s games that were scheduled for ten am so we can rearrange the schedule. Our first round of games will start at two pm and the morning games will now take place at seven pm. The new schedule will be posted in the Pinyon Room by noon and the first round of game play will begin at two this afternoon. We will continue to follow the original game times of ten and two for the rest of the tournament.”
After breakfast, Beth and Benny went down to the lobby. Beth caught sight of the model hedge maze out of the corner of her eye. She pulled Benny over to it and said, “We should go explore the maze.” She studied the model looking at the shapes and patterns, attempting to memorize the path to the center.
“Come on, no more cheating. Let’s try out the real thing,” Benny said and took her arm to lead her toward the front doors of the lobby.
The maze was in front of the hotel, across the main driveway with the maze entrance facing the hotel's front doors. As they approached the arched entrance to the maze they passed several signs and a large map. Benny stopped to read about the history of the maze and Beth went to study the map. It should have matched the model in the lobby exactly but she wasn’t quite sure it did. She couldn’t put her finger on any specific differences but there was something that felt off.
“It says it is both a maze and a labyrinth,” Benny commented.
“Aren’t they the same thing?” Beth asked.
“Not exactly. A labyrinth has only one path through and a maze has many.” Beth decided not to ask how it could be both. She was already learning that the Overlook was full of contradictions, both subtle and overt.
“Shall we?” Benny asked, walking toward the arched entrance. Beth joined him walking through the entrance and turning left. The maze, like the hotel itself, was formal and imposing. The hedges towered over them at least twice the height of a person. But the paths were wide with benches at frequent intervals and the hedges were impeccably trimmed, making flat sides and square corners.
At first Beth enjoyed walking through the maze with Benny. She knew from the map it wouldn’t be easy to find their way. There were numerous twists, turns, and dead ends. When they hit a dead end they would just backtrack to the last place the path split. Beth was enjoying the challenge of matching her mental map to the real maze.
She was sure the next turn was a left and walked confidently ahead expecting to Benny to follow her. Instead it was another dead end. She turned around expecting Benny to be behind her but he wasn’t. It was just another wall of greenery blocking her way. Suddenly she was disoriented and it felt like the hedge walls were closing in on her. She was dizzy and she knew she was breathing too fast but she couldn’t seem to take a deep breath. There were whispering voices and at first she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then she heard Alma whispering angrily. “Why did you go to Denver? You promised me you would never go there!”
She felt fourteen all over again, pleading with Alma, trying to placate her. “We only drove through Denver. We didn’t even stop. Please don’t be mad.”
“Why would I be mad?” Benny asked. Beth hadn’t heard him come up behind her.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she snapped. She had finally managed to catch her breath. The dizziness was receding but she still felt slightly light headed.
“There’s no one else here,” Benny said matter of factly. “But never mind, I found the center.”
“Fine, let’s just get out of here,” she agreed.
He reached a hand out to her and she took. After a few more turns they made it to the center of the maze where they sat on one of the benches for a rest. Beth brought up one of Morphy’s games from the book she was reading and talked about the strategy he had used. As always, chess helped her feel grounded and in control. They were still verbally playing through the possible variations he could have used while they made their way out of the maze. Beth made sure they stayed in sight of one another and the return circuit was completely uneventful.
By the time they found their way out of the hedge maze it was nearly noon. They went to the Pinyon room and checked the updated tournament schedule then made their way to the dining room. All the chess players had lunch together. There was some mild trash talking, but Beth stayed above it all. She has nothing to prove verbally. She could devastate any of them on the chessboard and they all knew it. She smiled discretely behind her hand as Benny and Charlie traded verbal barbs.
By a quarter to two all the players had made their way to the Pinyon room. It was a large room and was set up for three separate matches, with chairs for spectators near each one. Without Travers there are seven players instead of eight, disrupting the symmetry and leaving one player on the sidelines. Beth was playing Tom Jackson. He smiled warmly and shook her hand when she sat down across from him. Benny was up against Jeremy Greenberg. And the third game was Rob Winston and Jeff Robins. Charlie Murphy was the odd one out, left to spectate.
Beth won easily, to no one’s surprise. But Tom was gracious about it said it had been a pleasure to play with her. She smiled and shook his hand again. He wasn’t a bad player, just predictable and not able to see as many moves in advance as she could. In a way he reminded her of Harry—a solid, conventional player but not particularly inventive.
The match had taken a little over an hour leaving Beth with the rest of the afternoon to herself. The other two matches were still going on. It looked like Benny would probably win his match eventually but it would take a while to wrap up.
She watched Rob Winston and Jeff Robins playing for a few minutes to get a feel for their styles. Rain and Ellie were sitting together in the audience. Beth thought of joining them but she wasn’t sure if she’d be welcome. Rob and Jeff were both unconventional players but in different ways. Rob seemed more intuitive, reading the other player as much as the board. Jeff was steady and determined but sometimes missed the subtleties. She didn’t think he spent a lot of time reading up on established strategies. But that meant sometimes he could surprise an opponent with an unexpected move.
Beth left the Pinyon room intending to go back to her room for a nap or perhaps a relaxing bath. The corridors were mostly empty and she was becoming more confident that she knew her way around. But the hotel had a way of shaking that confidence at every wrong turn. She went around a corner and she was not where she thought she was. She was still on the second floor; she was sure of that. But this hallway had a gold curtains and a carpet with yellow, cream, and gold squares.
She thought she was alone until she saw someone at the far end of the corridor. No, not one person, two. Her twin friends Matt and Mike were there holding out a chessboard, each of them holding one side and saying “Hello, Beth. Come play with us.”
“That wasn’t right, why were they here?” She thought in confusion. They weren’t supposed to be at this tournament. They had told her that weeks ago. Then she blinked-just a blink-and her confusion turned to horror as the scene changed. Matt and Mike were both on the ground dead and covered in blood. Even the chessboard was splashed with blood and the pieces were scattered in a puddle of red. Beth stumbled back and gasped in horror, covering her face with her hands. But it was no help. When she closed her eyes she saw Alice dead and bloody lying next to the wrecked car.
When she looked again the twins were standing there unharmed, asking her to “Come play with us” again. She turned and ran back around the corner and down a staircase and another hallway. She ran until she was out of breath and she had no idea where she was.
The hotel wasn’t done toying with her yet. She looked down the seen the same yellow and gold carpet but now she was outside the Gold Ballroom. The doors were open. There was a dark haired man in an old style suit with a wine colored jacket and slicked back hair behind the bar but the room was otherwise empty. For a moment she had thought it was Borgov, but when she looked more closely the bartender was slimmer and had more grey in his hair. She went in anyway, hoping for some coffee and a few minutes to pull herself together.
Beth asked the bartender if she could get a cup of coffee.
“I haven’t got any coffee but I can get you something stronger if you like,” he drawled.
She was tempted but she knew from experience it wouldn’t end well. Still, her mouth watered at the thought of a Gibson to calm her nerves. In her head she knew the more she needed the drink the worse of an idea it would be for her to take one. But it was still an act of will to ask for a glass of water instead.
She gulped down the water and held out her glass for a refill. At least it soothed her dry throat.
“I’m Lloyd,” the bartender offered. “What are you doing at the Overlook?”
“Beth. I’m here to play chess.” And to doubt my own sanity. Not that she said that second part out loud.
“Chess? Really? A pretty young thing like you?”
“Yes, chess. I like it and I’m very good at it,” she said firmly.
Beth was annoyed by his comment but not surprised. She had been fighting attitudes like that her whole career and she took great pleasure in defying expectations. But there was no reason to stick around and put up with it so she left.
She was standing in the hallway outside the ballroom when an older black man approached from down the hall. She thought he might be the man who had been at the desk with Travers this morning but she wasn’t sure.
“You look lost. Can I help you find where you want to go?” he asked.
“I was looking for someplace to get a cup of coffee.” Beth replied.
He glanced at his watch. “The dining room is closed now but lucky for you I’m the head chef. If you want to come down to the kitchen I can put a fresh pot of coffee on for you.”
Beth smiled tentatively. “That sounds good.” She followed him down the stairs to the lower level and into a large commercial kitchen.
He invited her to sit at a small table and went to start the coffee. “There now, it‘ll be ready in just a few minutes. You’re one of our visiting chess players here for the tournament, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you have a real talent too.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I know, you’re the National Chess Champion and one day soon you’ll be World Champion. But that’s not what I’m talking about.” Beth just looked at him blankly, not knowing what he was getting at. Chess had always been her big talent.
He stared back, looking disconcertingly into her eyes like he could see into her. “Someone used to call you Bethie,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“My Mama used to. But she died when I was little.” She’d almost said her Mama was gone. But that wasn’t quite true. She could still her Mama’s voice in her head telling her to be strong, to follow her own path, and not to trust anyone too much. When she closed her eyes she could see Mama’s face. She didn’t think Mama would ever really be gone, like it or not.
While she was thinking Mr. Halloran had poured each of them coffee in thick-sided white ceramic mugs and added a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream to each one.
“Thank you, this is my favorite.” She smiled and took a sip, holding the mug with both hands. Hot and cold, bitter and sweet all swirled together in her mouth. She’d discovered the combination of hanging out with her friends at the diner by her house in Lexington.
“I had a feeling it might be. I have a knack for guessing things before people tell me. I wondered if you might too. Or maybe your Mama did?”
“Yeah, sometimes,” she agreed warily. She didn’t want to know things that way. But it could be hard to shut them out, especially without the booze or pills to help.
“Things were complicated with your Mama, weren’t they?” he asked sympathetically. Something about his voice or manner reminded her of Townes and his way of listening and understanding.
“You could say that.” Beth paused, not wanting to share too much with a stranger. But then, impulsively, she continued. “She was smart but crazy and unpredictable. She loved me in her way I suppose. But it was confusing for a little kid. You know?”
“I can see how it would be. Did your Mama sometimes seem to know what you were thinking or know things before they happened?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that might be. My grandmother was like that. We could have whole conversations without ever opening our mouths. She called it ‘shining.’ She helped me understand it was a rare gift.” Beth could hear the warmth in his voice talking about his grandmother. She wondered what it would have been like to grow up with grandparents.
“I’m not so sure it’s a gift at all. I think it was a big part of what made Mama go crazy,” she said.
“That could be. It can be hard to understand without anyone to help you. Some folks don’t believe in it even when it happens to them. Have you ever met anyone else other than your Mama with the shine?”
“No, not that I know of. Other than you, of course.” He smiled at how quickly she picked up on things.
“Is there anything you want to ask me about?”
“A lot of things, probably. I wouldn’t even know where to start.” She said candidly.
“Then I’ll start. Why did you want to come here?” he asked.
“To play at the chess tournament?” Her voice went up uncertainly at the end. But that wasn’t all of it. She didn’t know how to put the rest into words. “I don’t know. I saw pictures of the hotel and I knew I needed to come here. Like I was drawn here. But that makes no logical sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make logical sense. Some things are about intuition. It’s not just people who can have the shine. Places can be shiny too. Like this place.”
“Bad things have happened here.” Beth knew it without question.
Mr. Halloran was silent for a long moment, thinking how to explain. She wasn’t a child. She was an adult with some defenses. But there were weaknesses as well. Her past had left deep cracks in her psyche and the dark forces would exploit every weakness. And those forces were restless this time of year. “Yes, some bad things have happened here. But not only bad things. Anything that causes strong emotions can leave traces. Like an afterimage after a bright flash of light or a lingering smell.”
“Like the smell of roses?”
He smiled. She really was quick. “That’s Flora. She helped her husband build this place. She loved it here and she lived to a ripe old age. You have nothing to worry about from her.”
“But there are other things I do need to worry about here.” Of that she was sure.
“Maybe. You have a lot of anger and darkness in you, or in your past at least. You might attract darker energy.” He sighed. “Just be careful. You can come to me if you have any more questions or if anything seems odd.”
“What about room 237?”
“Just stay out of room 237.” His tone was firm but his manner seemed evasive.
“Why? What happened there?”
“Nothing good.” He looked at her then looked away and sighed. “You’re not a child. I can’t forbid you to go there. But I strongly advise against it. I can’t see anything good coming of it.”
“Are you afraid of what’s in there?” she asked.
“No, I ain’t!” He said it forcefully but not convincingly.
“Then why should I stay out?”
“I can’t see anything good coming of it is all. People who have the shine sometimes can see things that haven’t happened yet. And sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago. And some of the things that happened in this hotel over the years…not all of them were good.”
“Can it hurt me if it happened a long time ago?” she asked, getting right to the point.
“Mostly it’s like a picture in a book or like watching a film. But the pictures won’t be pretty ones.”
“So it can’t hurt me?”
“It’s hard to say for sure. It would be safer for you not to find out.” He sighed. He didn’t want to scare her but the longer he talked with her the more he felt it was she was at risk staying here.
Beth was tired of all this talking in circles and vague threats. In short, she was out of patience. She had a tournament to win and she wasn’t going to let creepy stories scare her away from doing it. “Well, if you’re not even sure then I’m not going to let it get to me. If it makes you feel better, I won’t go looking for any trouble.” Beth said sharply.
“That’s something I suppose. If you need anything I’m usually down here in the kitchen. Or call the front desk and someone will find me with a message.” He still had misgivings about her staying at the Overlook but the moment to air those concerns had passed.
“Thank you for the coffee. I very much enjoyed it.” She smiled sincerely to take the sting out of her earlier impatience.
“You’re welcome. May I walk you to the main staircase?”
Beth accepted his offer and went up the lobby stairs and back to her room. She didn’t get lost along the way this time. Benny wasn’t there and she had more than two hours before dinner. Plenty of time for a long relaxing soak in the bathtub. In the bright afternoon sun, the green Art Deco bathroom was beautiful and seemed harmless. She started the hot water filling and was pleased to find a little bottle of bubble bath in the basket with the shampoo and lotion the hotel provided.
She lay back in the steaming water and rested her head on a rolled-up towel. She wanted to relax but she couldn’t help thinking about the conversation in the kitchen. She had always known her Mama had been crazy. She didn’t know if “shiny” and crazy were the same thing. Was it the explanation she had been searching for all these years? If she had the same “shine” would it make her crazy too? She’d been fighting Alice’s brand of crazy for so long, afraid of turning into her. It was exhausting. She’d thought when she gotten sober she might have escaped the craziness. She might never be normal but at least she’d felt stable. But now she felt unmoored. Maybe the crazy hadn’t gone; it was just hiding in the shadows biding its time and waiting for a weak moment to creep back in. When she was tired, or stressed, or on the edge of sleep Alice was there in her mind. She’d always had nightmares and flashbacks of the car crash that took her Mama’s life. Between the shock, the grief, and the pills, her memories from right after that were disjointed. She remembered the day Mama died in bits and pieces. Some parts were in slow motion and vivid detail and other parts felt far away like she was watching from outside herself. She remembered the crash itself in detail but she had replayed it in her head so many times the intensity was finally starting to fade. She wasn’t sure the pain of seeing her Mama lying dead, blood staining her pale pink dress, would ever fade. Mama had looked so pretty in that dress when they had set out that morning. After that things were more out of focus. She remembered standing on the bridge in the hot sun with the police talking over her like she wasn’t even there. In a way she wasn’t there; her mind felt melted and sluggish in the summer heat and she couldn’t think clearly. Everything felt far away and unreal. The next bit she recalled was driving in a big black car with a social worker telling her that her mother had “passed on” as if she hadn’t been right there and seen everything for herself. She remembered the cold draft on the back of her neck when her braid was cut off. She remembered them taking her dress with Mama’s embroidery away forever and then trying to tell her she would be better off in an orphanage. Mostly she remembered lying awake night after night in a room full of other girls feeling so many things she couldn’t even begin to untangle. Instead of hearing the soothing sound of crickets chirping like in the trailer she stared at the ceiling and heard twenty other girls snoring and coughing and shifting around in their beds.
In spite of her distressing thoughts, Beth did manage to relax after a while. The steam and hot water made her sleepy and she started to drift off. She dreamed of the day she entered Methuen. In real life so much had happened that day she was too shocked to feel anything but numb acceptance by the time she got there. The dream was different, almost the opposite. She couldn’t change anything but she felt everything. She felt small approaching the doors with the building looming over her. The building itself felt overwhelmingly full—so many people all with their own histories, feelings, and personalities. It was almost like the building itself had a personality of its own and not a friendly and welcoming one. She had remembered it as a bland institutional backdrop. But now she felt the layers of pain and unhappiness permeating the walls. So many lost little girls feeling alone and unwanted. She felt like she was soaking in all of their sadness. Almost like she was being pulled under, drowning in their despair. The water filled her mouth and nose and she woke up coughing and sputtering.
Once she caught her breath she realized she must have fallen asleep. She was wide awake now and the bath water was barely lukewarm. She got out of the tub and let it drain. She wrapped her hair in a towel and turned to reach for the bathrobe hanging on the hook behind the door. That’s when she saw it. CHECKMATE scrawled in bright red lipstick across the mirror. She was sure it hadn’t been there when she got into the bath.
“Benny?” she called out but she was alone in the room. Was this his idea of a joke? He’d scoffed at the ghost stories about the hotel last night. This wasn’t funny though. In fact, she was beyond angry when she realized it was the iconic, expensive, Dior red lipstick she had splurged on while shopping for makeup in Paris after finally winning the Remy-Vallon. The graceful curve of the lipstick tip was crushed. She could still use it with a lip brush but it wasn’t the same. She sighed and went to get dressed.
Beth wasn’t much in the mood to get dressed up and socialize with everyone at dinner but she had to eat so she resigned herself to it. She felt chilled in spite of the hot bath and dressed in a warm outfit—dark green turtle neck, black pants, black cardigan sweater with white piping. The crystal necklace caught her eye and she put that on too. It looked good against the green turtleneck. Usually she took great care with her hair and makeup but this time she went easy on the makeup and just added a dusting of powder and a muted lipstick. She twisted her hair up into a soft chignon and secured it with a handful of hairpins. She looked at her reflection and was satisfied with the look—casual but presentable.
Benny came in as she was finishing up. “How was your game?” she asked.
“It ran long. Greenberg is better than I gave him credit for. And probably still underrated. But I was able to wear him down in the end.”
“So you weren’t back here?” It didn’t make sense to her. So far as she knew, no one else had been in the room. She felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle in under her turtleneck.
“No, we were playing until a few minutes ago,” Benny confirmed.
“Someone wrote on the bathroom mirror with my best red lipstick.” Her voice was full of barely concealed irritation.
“It wasn’t me. Why the hell would I mess with your lipstick?” He was confused but defensive.
“You tell me! Someone did. The tip is crushed on my favorite lipstick. No one else was in the room but the two of us.” Her anger was edging into hysteria.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I wasn’t even here.” More defensiveness.
“Well, you can see for yourself someone did it.” She pointed toward the bathroom.
Benny went to look. “CHECKMATE” was still on the mirror. When he came out he saw his duffle bag packed up by the door.
“You’re kicking me out? You want me to get my own room?” His voice was sharp, hurt as much as angry.
“No, stay. That wasn’t me,” Beth denied.
“So who was it? One of the ghosts?” He’d meant the sarcasm to be funny but it wasn’t. A shiver ran through her in spite of her cozy outfit.
“I don’t know…” The fight had gone out of her leaving only doubts in its wake. Maybe she really was losing it.
“Never mind then. Let’s go to dinner.” It was as close to an apology as she was likely to get. She sighed and followed him out of the room.
Beth made her way down to the dining room with Benny. There was one long table for all the players again. She’s sitting between Benny and Tom. When the waiter came around for drink orders she asked for club soda and lime out of habit. The other players were settling in, chatting about the first round of games. The waiter came back with their drinks and put Tom’s Scotch and soda in front of her. She had it halfway to her mouth when she froze, realizing what she had been about to do. She could smell the alcohol and she wanted it so badly. She swallowed hard and slowly put it back on the table by Tom’s place. The vast difference between Scotch and soda and lime and soda had never been more apparent. Her hand was still shaking when she put it on Benny’s leg under the table. Absently, he put his hand over hers and used his thumb to stroke the back of her hand while he kept talking to Rob across the table. The waiter put her club soda with a twist of lime in front of her. No one else was even the slightest bit aware of the danger averted. Glasses clinked and people kept on talking but Beth was exhausted already.
The steak, baked potato, and salad might have been delicious had she been paying enough attention to notice. After dinner, Benny went to play his game. Beth had meant to use her free round to observe the other player’s playing styles. Instead she pled tiredness and went back to her room. Nothing unusual happened on her walk back. In fact, she arrived at her room door not even remembering the journey.
Beth had been tired all day but was still too restless and unsettled for sleep when she finally got into bed. She hated to admit even to herself how much arguing with Benny made her feel off balance. They’d made up but there was still tension between them. And there was still no explanation for either the lipstick on the mirror or his packed bag. He had his game to play and would probably stay in the Colorado room with the other players for a while after that. She wasn’t sure she would be able to fall asleep until he came back and that annoyed her. She wished she felt more independent and that it was easier to dismiss her phantom fears and not pay them any mind.
She picked up the book she had been reading and flipped past Harry’s inscription. Years ago he’d compared her to Paul Morphy, predicting she would be washed up by the time she was twenty-one if she kept going the way that she was. Instead, she had gotten a handle on her addictions and was doing well personally and professionally. But she still wasn’t sure she would ever be free of her Mama’s legacy of insanity. If anything her conversation with Mr. Halloran made that legacy feel closer than ever. Even if Alice had been psychic and not just crazy how much of an explanation was that really? How thin was the line between psychic and psychotic? And more importantly, which side of the line was she on since coming here? Beth pushed the thought away and tried again to read her book. She didn’t get very far before falling asleep with the lights on and the book open on her chest.
It was late when Benny came in. He was tipsy and not quiet. Beth startled awake, blinking in the bright light. Benny was digging through the duffle bag he hadn’t unpacked earlier.
She was annoyed and at the same time reminded her painfully of Alma doing the same thing that last week in Mexico City. She put her book on the night table and pulled the covers over her head. It only took him a couple of minutes of clattering around in the bathroom before coming to bed but it felt like an eternity.
“‘Night, Babe,” he mumbled after shutting off the light. It seemed like no time before he was asleep facing away from her. Somehow she felt more alone than she had before he’d come back to the room. After a while, she fell back asleep.
In her dream she saw the Methuen Home looming, anything but homelike, larger than life and oozing with gray despair. Each memory was repeated, distorted. In the background, there was the sound of little girls singing hymns in high childish voices. “Go and join the others in the chapel.” She heard, along with the sound of someone walking away, punctuated by the taps of a cane.
She was riding in the car with the social worker and she was talking about her mother having passed on. She heard her mother’s voice saying “You can join me any time you want, Bethie. It’s so beautiful here.”
Then she was in being led around Methuen as if she had never seen it before. She was in the storage room where they kept the clothing. She felt her braid being cut off then the blade scraped against the back of her newly bared neck and she ducked away as the butcher knife came toward her chest. “Be a good girl and hold still. Just one more cut.” She wanted to run but she couldn’t move. She felt a stabbing pain in her chest and she saw Mama’s embroidered heart with blood staining the worn green cloth. “Let’s just burn this.” It flashed to a scene of someone holding her bloody heart it their hand, flames in the background. And then it was all gone.
Next, she was in the dormitory with Mrs. Deardorff spouting hypocritical platitudes about finding a better life. She heard Alice’s voice like she was whispering in her ear, “If you want a better life join me in the next life.” Mrs. Deardorff pulled the wooden box out from under the bed. It kept sliding out until she could see it was shaped like a coffin just the right size for a child.
The scene shifted and she was walking down the steps to the Methuen basement with blackboard erasers in her hands. It felt bigger than she remembered and she felt dread at what was in the basement. The basement had been her refuge. Her safe place. Now...it was something else…
Then she was in the car with Mama again. They were racing toward the narrow bridge and black truck. She knew what was coming and she was powerless to stop it. Just like always. And then the crash. Jarring and loud like always.
This time it ended with Alice, broken and bloody in her pale pink dress after the wreck saying “You should have stayed with me, Bethie. But it’s not too late. We could still be together forever…and ever…and ever.”
Beth woke up. Instead of the heart-pounding fear the nightmares usually left in their wake she was filled with heavy, inconsolable, sadness. It was like having a rock tied to her, the weight of it pulling her under the water. She knew now with miserable sureness that her mother had wanted to kill her too. She had always wondered. It was no longer a question in her mind. She turned over and pressed her forehead against Benny’s back, feeling him warm and alive. He barely stirred when she wrapped her arm around his waist but she could feel him breathing and that was comfort enough. Eventually she drifted back into sleep.
It wasn’t a peaceful sleep. It was mostly dark when Benny woke up, with only the faintest hint of predawn light in the sky. His first thought was to get a drink of water. Then he realized it was Beth tossing and turning that had woken him. She was shifting around in her sleep like she was trying to get away from something and mumbling. It sounded like “No, get away.”
He tried talking to her soothingly, saying her name and asking her to wake up. When he reached out to touch her arm she pulled away violently saying, “Let go! don’t touch me!” He kept trying to talk to her calmly but she wouldn’t wake up. After a while, she said, “No, Mama, no.” and turned away to her other side crying in her sleep. He felt more helpless than usual. In spite of their argument the day before he wanted to offer some sort of comfort. But he knew better than trying before she was ready. She was too proud of her independence for that. Often her nightmares left her disturbed but distant and she rarely wanted to talk about them once they were over.
He got up and went to the bathroom. When he came back she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He got back into bed and put an arm around her from behind. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered against her hair, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. In all the years he’d known her she’d had this self-destructive streak. It might seem like it was gone for a while but just when he was lulled into thinking she had beaten it for good this time it always showed itself again in some new way. She shifted against him, only half awake. “C’mere, Beth,” he said and pulled her closer. She turned over and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, still not fully awake. He sighed, rested his hand against her hair, and watched the dawn light gently creep across the sky.
Chapter 5: Wednesday
Summary:
And the horror continues to build...
Notes:
Thank you for your patience. Here is another chapter before Halloween. I'm working on the next chapter but I doubt it will be up before Halloween but maybe a bit after (no promises).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The next thing Benny knew it was eight o’clock and the Baby Ben travel alarm was ringing on the nightstand with its incessant tinny clanging. He reached past Beth and shut it off. He was tired, his mouth was dry, and he had a slight headache. He needed a shower and coffee, badly. Beth was just sitting up, rubbing her eyes. They felt scratchier than usual this morning.
“Do you mind if I take the first shower? Then you can lay down for a few more minutes,” he said.
“Fine,” she answered distractedly. She wasn’t really awake yet. She had gone to bed early but she still felt tired. It was the kind of heavy tiredness where you feel like you could just sink into the mattress. Maybe Benny was right, she could lie down for a few more minutes and she’d feel better. Maybe. She thought there was something else. She couldn’t remember exactly what; She just had a sad, heavy feeling. She put her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. She heard distant voices whispering. For the most part she couldn’t make out what they were saying but she recognized her Mama’s voice saying, “Come with me, Bethie…”
Benny came out of the shower with a towel around his waist. “It’s your turn. Time to get up, Beth.” He started getting dressed. She opened her eyes but still felt groggy and disoriented. She sat up slowly and forced herself to get out of bed.
Once Beth was in the bathroom and he heard the water running Benny called Jolene. He had a feeling something wasn’t right with Beth but maybe Jolene would have some insights. It was still early enough he caught her at home.
“Hey, Jolene, it’s Benny.”
“Hey, Cowboy. What’s going on? I haven’t got much time to talk. I gotta head to work in ten minutes or so.”
He cut the pleasantries and got straight to the point. “I’m worried about Beth. She’s been having nightmares a lot the last few nights. I know she has them occasionally but it’s not usually all the time like this. Something feels off. But you’ve known her longer than anyone. Did she used to have nightmares a lot when you guys were younger?”
“No, I don’t think so. Mostly when we were kids Beth had trouble sleeping. She used to lie in bed staring in the ceiling playing chess in her head.” Jolene said.
Benny chuckled, “That sounds like Beth alright.”
“I guess she might have had bad dreams sometimes but she didn’t talk about it. No one did. It was an orphanage, none of us exactly had happy childhoods.” Benny could almost hear her shrug. “It’s not like any of us got kisses and cuddles if we woke up from a bad dream. We all learned pretty fast to stay quiet and not disturb anyone, especially after lights out. The staff would scold you for making noise and the other kids would call you a crybaby. I was the oldest for a long time. Sometimes after Beth was adopted and gone I used to help the new girls or the littlest ones get settled. It was better than listening to them cry all night.” Jolene sighed. It hadn’t been easy but they’d learned to be tough. You had to be tough if you were going to make it as an orphan.
“Thanks, Jolene. I just wondered if this was something new with Beth. I dunno, something feels off with her the last few days.”
“Has she gone off the wagon?” Jolene asked.
“I thought of that too but no. I’ve been watching for that.” He was still puzzled.
“I don’t know then. But call me later or have Beth call me if there’s anything else. I’ve gotta run now or I’ll be late.”
“Okay, I catch you later. Thanks.” Benny hung up, not much enlightened by the conversation.
Later on, at work, Jolene remembered a half-forgotten conversation she’d had with Beth. It was long after Methuen when they were getting reacquainted as adults. She’d been staying with Beth in her blue house and they had been talking late at night in the dark. Beth had confessed in a whisper that she dreamed over and over about the crash that killed her mother and she didn’t think it had been an accident at all. She thought of calling Benny back but she didn’t want to betray a confidence. Maybe she’d call back and talk to Beth herself.
Meanwhile, Beth was in the bathroom. It was still steamy from Benny’s shower. She started the water and got in. At first she stood there letting the hot water run over her, trying to wake up. But it wasn’t working very well. If anything she felt sleepier, like she could fall asleep standing there. And maybe she did fall asleep for a second because she felt a surge of adrenaline as her arm shot out suddenly to stop herself from falling. Well, I guess I’m awake now she thought as she finished washing up.
When she got out of the shower the room was full of steam and the mirrors were covered in condensation. Still, she thought she saw something flickering in the mirror when she was drying off. She turned to get a better look and saw Alma’s face in the mirror over the sink. “You need to leave, Beth. It’s not safe for you here.” she said. Alma’s face flickered to the image of a skull before disappearing completely. The mirror was fogged with condensation so the image was misty and blurred but Beth was sure of what she had seen. She gripped the edges of the sink so tight her knuckles went white, fighting off dizziness. Weakly she called out for Benny.
Beth was still standing at the sink wrapped in a towel when he came into the room. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I felt a little light headed for a minute but I’m okay now,” she said casually, trying to play it off as nothing. In the mirror there was only her own misty reflection.
She let Benny slip an arm around her waist and walk with her into the bedroom. She sat on the side of the bed for a few minutes taking deep breaths and using her Mama’s math exercises to get her composure back. Then she got dressed. For today she had a black and white wool jumper she had bought the first time she had gone to Paris. It was a few years old now but it was a classic style and very well made so it had held up nicely. All she had to do was change her accessories and it looked up to date. This time she had it paired with a white blouse, black tights and her black booties. The crystal necklace sat in the same spot at her throat where she had worn it yesterday, completing the outfit. She grabbed her black sweater too. The Overlook seemed to have an excessive number of drafts and cold spots.
“Are you feeling better? Ready for breakfast?” Benny asked as she was finishing up her make up.
“I’m a little tired but I’ll be fine once I get some coffee and breakfast.” She replied. He highly doubted that but he didn’t see much point in calling her on it.
“After all, I’ve got a tournament to win,” she continued with predatory smile. That sound so much like her usual attitude he couldn’t help grinning. Maybe he was worrying too much.
They headed to the dining room and met everyone for breakfast. Beth did feel a bit more clear-headed once she got her coffee and breakfast. She was a little tired but mostly she just felt chilled even in her thick wool cardigan.
After breakfast they went to the Pinyon room. Beth was playing Jeff Robins and Benny was playing Charlie Murphy. Beth played her first game and won despite her lingering tiredness. They were the first ones to finish. She had several occasions of seeing a flicker of movement or hearing whispers. The whispers were indistinct at first but then it became more clear that a man’s voice was advising her on the game. “Move the bishop not the pawn,” he said in a smooth Southern accented voice. She went to move the pawn but found her hand touching the bishop instead so she had to move it. She cursed inwardly but recovered. Jeff wasn’t an experienced enough player to exploit her mistake the way a more experienced player might have.
After the morning’s game, a win in a game she barely remembered playing, Beth went outside for a walk. The sky was gray and overcast and it was chillier than it had been yesterday. At breakfast someone had mentioned the possibility of an early snowstorm tonight or tomorrow. She pulled her sweater closer around her and walked briskly down toward the lake. She walked past the dock and the boathouse where she had walked with Benny the day before. On the other side of the boathouse was a small sandy beach with a swimming area. Floating out in the water was a wooden raft.
Her mind flashed to an old memory and she watched it play out in her mind’s eye. She was at a lake in Kentucky with her Mama. She couldn’t have been more than five years old. It was a warm sunny day and her Mama pulled her dress off over her head and dove into the water in just her slip. She wanted to follow her but she didn’t know how to swim yet. She remembered the feeling of rising panic and terror as Mama stayed under the water so long. Would she ever come back up? Then Alice surfaced far out by the raft. She climbed on the raft and waved to Beth before gracefully diving in and swimming back to shore. She remembered the feeling of relief as her Mama came back to her and picked her up and hugged her.
The memory was fading but the intense fear she had felt as a child still lingered. In the present there was something out in the water. She could see a ripple as a dark head broke the surface of the water. It wasn’t her Mama. As it got closer she wasn’t even sure it was human. She stood there frozen, watching as it came closer. Then whatever it was stood and started walking toward the shore. Beth could see dead-grey skin, claw-like hands, and dark wet hair covering its face. Suddenly she knew she didn’t ever want to see its face. She turned and ran as fast as she could away from the lake and toward the dubious safety of the hotel.
She made it most of the way back to the hotel, to the area by the patio and outdoor pool, before she was too out of breath to continue. She pressed her hand against the pain in her side and looked around. She couldn’t see anything in the lake anymore. But the pool looked different. The gate was open and the furniture was arranged around the pool. If she’d had any capacity to be surprised left she would have been surprised to see Matt and Mike by the pool, standing by a table with a chessboard all set up for a new game.
“Hello, Beth,” They said together. Without thinking Beth started to walk towards them, drawn in by their familiar friendly faces. “Come play with us.”
Then the scene changed and the twins were lying on the ground covered in blood with an ax on the ground between them. The swimming pool was full of blood, splashing in a wave over the side.
Then the twins were standing there, inviting her to, “Come play with us forever…and ever...and ever.”
Instinctively, Beth covered her face with her hands in shock and terror. When she looked again they were gone. The pool gate was closed and locked. The pool was empty and covered; the furniture was back stacked under their tarps.
Beth slowly walked back into the hotel in a daze. So many shocks so close together left her feeling distant and disconnected. She saw Rain and Ellie sitting in the lobby chatting. She had no desire to join them. She had no idea how they even managed to become such good friends in just a few days. But she was used to being on the outside of those kinds of female friendships and she could hardly spare the energy to worry about it just then. That’s why she was surprised that Rain was giving her a long concerned look.
Rain knew better than telling Beth her aura looked dull and was pulled in close to her body. Instead she got up and went over to Beth and insisted Beth join them for lunch. Ellie patted Beth’s hand remarked how it was ice cold and added that the dining room had chicken soup as a special today. Beth started to tell them she was tired and just wanted to go back to her room to rest. But she didn’t have the energy to fight and allowed herself to be swept along by their friendly manner. At lunch she let them order chicken soup and a club sandwich for her when she just wanted hot coffee.
Beth’s first uncharitable impression of Ellie had been of her being a frumpy, irrelevant housewife. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate, her flowery dresses looked dated and at home she had four children between the ages of six and fifteen. But Beth didn’t resist when Ellie encouraged her in a motherly way have some of her soup and eat a few bites of her sandwich. Rain and Ellie continued to chat back and forth and by the end of the meal the hot soup had started to melt the knot of fear that had lodged in her chest. Rain remarked that the food had done her good and the color had come back into her face.
Benny and Charlie came in just as they were finishing lunch. His morning game against Charlie had run long but Benny had won in the end. They were in good spirits and still talking strategy. They joined the table where Beth was sitting with Ellie and Rain. Beth was left slowly sipping her cup of coffee while Benny and Charlie rehashed their game. Beth wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell Benny about what she had seen outside by the lake.
After lunch Beth was playing Jeremey Greenberg. Beth didn’t think it would be too difficult to beat him and eventually she did win but it took longer than she expected. She started with her usual opening and he countered. There weren’t any surprises this early in the game and she was playing almost on autopilot. It was like a voice in her head was whispering the next move to her each time. They were good moves and she made them without thinking much about it. They were deep into the middle game when she realized she couldn’t recall her last several moves. She took a deep breath and drank some of her water. She was able to discretely consult her notes and see her last few moves while Greenberg was contemplating his next move. Even with her lapse of attention he wasn’t in a good position to win. Under the table she dug the nails of her left hand into her palm to stay alert.
She analyzed the game dispassionately. It wasn’t a long game so far and it showed evidence of the ruthless aggressiveness of her younger playing style. She’d sacrificed more pieces than usual but it had still left her in a good position. She was an aggressive player but her more mature style had a surgical precision in carving up her opponent’s defenses rather than stunning her opposition with brute force tactics. She saw it clearly now and she knew it would be obvious to Benny as well. His game had ended and she could see him in the audience watching her. But she didn’t think the other players here would notice the difference in her playing style.
Benny was watching her closely. He was concerned already and she didn’t seem as focused as she usually was while playing. She could be absolutely single minded when it came to chess, an obsession they both shared. She was playing a sequence he hadn’t seen her use before, or at least not recently. But it seemed familiar. Then it clicked—she had been reading that book about Morphy and the sequence was from one of his games. He watched as she systematically took Greenberg apart in the endgame. She looked focused and in her element.
She shook hands with Greenberg and then caught Benny’s eye and gave him a triumphant smile when Greenberg turned away. He smiled back—this was the side of Beth he loved best. Theirs had been the last game to end and the rest of the audience drifted out when they were done.
“Good game. I wasn’t sure what you were doing in the middle there but the end was beautiful.” She smiled at the compliment. She certainly wasn’t going to admit she had no idea either. She was high on the thrill of winning. That part never got old. Benny leaned in to kiss her but she turned her head slightly so he got her cheek.
“Benny, we’re in public,” she objected.
“Hardly.” He said dryly. The last tournament official who had been straightening up was leaving as he said it.
He tried again and this time she let him kiss her. It started out softly but when she parted her lips he upped the stakes and kissed her harder, one hand in her hair and the other pulling her against him. She ran a hand through his hair in return and kissed him back before pulling away, breathless.
“If that’s what you want we have a room.” She laughed. “But we’d probably miss dinner.” She said it playfully. If she hadn’t been feeling tired and under the weather the last few days she would have gone for it. The thrill of a hard fought win always got her going.
Benny laughed, “After dinner is soon enough.”
“Then don’t stay up half the night playing Speed Chess again.” She teased, trying but not quite succeeding at keeping it light.
They headed over to the dining room and everyone from the tournament was at one table again. By now the wait staff had just left the tables pushed together to accommodate them. Rob and Rain were across from Beth and Benny and Greenberg was on Benny’s other side at the end of the table.
“I’d heard about your reputation but I still underestimated you. That was a tough game.” Greenberg commented to Beth.
“Don’t take it personally; she beats everyone. Even some of the best players in the world. Even me a lot of the time,” Benny said.
“How do you deal with that?” Greenberg asked.
“She’s the best and I like being with the best.” Benny caught her eye and smiled.
She smiled back and squeezed his leg under the table. “You do manage to keep me on my toes.”
Out of sight, Benny put his hand on hers and turned to Greenberg. “She’s been reading about Morphy this week. Did you recognize the sequence?”
“No, I didn’t,” Greenberg replied.
Benny would have cited the specific game if he hadn’t been interrupted by the waiter asking for their drink orders. After the previous night’s incident Beth choose an orange juice and seltzer spritzer instead of her usual club soda and lime.
Across the table Beth noticed Rain playing with her ear and her attention was drawn to something shiny in her hair.
“Those are pretty earrings,” Beth said.
Rain smiled and took one off to show Beth. “There’s a moon face carved in it,” Rain said. The earring was silver with a round moonstone the size of a dime. A sleeping face had been carved into the moonstone. Below the moon face was another smaller moonstone and then at the bottom there were long glass beads dangling down.
Rain put her earring back on and Rob noticed she was still fidgeting with her ear, pinching the front with her thumb and index finger. “Are you getting a migraine, Sweetheart?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet but I can feel the air pressure changing. There’s some kind of storm rolling in. I can always tell. It’s one of my migraine superpowers.” Rain said with a smile.
Tom mentioned there was an early snowstorm predicted for tomorrow. He explained that up in the mountains it got cold and snowy much earlier in the season but they were well prepared to handle the snow in Colorado.
Beth was only half listening to the conversation. Across the table she watched Rob slide his hand under Rain’s hair to massage the back of her neck. Every time she moved her head the earrings moved and the light reflected off them. The way the light sparkled and moved had a hypnotic effect on Beth. She picked at her food absently and everything felt far away. In her mind she could hear the distant tinkling of a piano. She didn’t know the name of the piece but Alma had played it often.
She was startled when Benny put his hand on her shoulder saying her name. “Are you you okay?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m just tired today.” She answered.
“I was thinking of calling it an early night too. I’m hoping a hot bath with a cold washcloth on the back of my neck will be enough to head off a migraine.” Rain said, “Do you want to walk up together?”
“Yes,” Beth agreed instantly. She was exceedingly grateful for a polite way to excuse herself early.
Beth and Rain walk upstairs together. Their rooms were along the same hallway and Rain was in room 215. Rain said goodnight and went into her room and Beth was left to walk down the hallway to her room, 257. Right past room 237.
When Beth walked past room 237 the door was unlatched and open a little bit, with the key still in the lock. She hadn’t planned to go in there but she found herself pushing open the door. As it swung open, she felt, irrationally, like someone else was in control and she was just along for the ride.
Beth surveyed her surroundings. Room 237 was a larger room than hers, a suite with a sitting room and a bedroom. She was standing in a sitting area with a lavender sofa and love seat arranged around a fireplace. The carpet was different too— purple and green arches that flowed past the sitting area and up a short set of steps into what must be the bedroom. Through the open door at the top of the steps she saw the foot of a king-size bed and the backlit outline of a bathroom door. Though a lamp had been lit on a table by the sofa, the air smelled stagnant and musty, as though the room was empty and had been so for quite some time.
At first she thought the room was still empty; until she heard a noise coming from the bathroom. It sounded like objects being thrown. As she moved toward the bathroom door she saw a small glass bottle of green pills on the floor by the bathroom doorway and picked it up. She knew better but the impulse was overpowering. She pushed open the bathroom door—the bathroom had the same green and gold décor as in her bathroom. There was a fire flickering in the bathtub and a woman with dark hair facing away from her. There was a surreal dreamlike quality to the whole scene. The woman turned around and it was Alice. She had a pile of random things near the bathtub--books, clothes, household items—and she was adding them to the fire she had set. Beth saw Alice throw her thesis into the fire--like an echo of an old memory-- and reach down to pick up another book. Beth recognized the book—it was her copy of Modern Chess Openings! Alice threw it into the fire before Beth could stop her. Beth shouted no and snatched the book out of the flames, burning her hand in the process. She turned and Alice was now the bloody, broken post-car-crash Alice. She limped toward Beth.
“Stay with me, Bethie,” she urged. She lunged for Beth, trying to grab her. Beth pushed her away and she fell onto the conflagration in the bathtub. She screamed. Beth dropped the book and ran out of the room slamming the door behind her. She ran down the hall and into her room, shutting and locking that door behind her too. She turned on all the lights and lay down on the bed sobbing and terrified. She cried herself to sleep fully dressed on top of the covers, lying on her side, cradling her burnt hand. The pill bottle was still in her sweater pocket.
The ringing telephone woke her up. It had been ringing a while—she wasn’t sure how many times-- but by the time she was awake enough to pick it up and say hello there was no one there.
Jolene had been trying to reach Beth all day, she had called at least a half a dozen times. But it was eleven pm her time, two time zones ahead of Colorado. It was too late to keep calling. She’d try again tomorrow but she had a bad feeling. She knew something was wrong but not what it was. She would try one more time in the morning but if she couldn’t reach Beth or Benny she might have to go out there. She flipped on the tv. The eleven o’clock news was talking about an early snow storm dumping snow across the Rockies in the next twenty four to thirty six hours.
Beth didn’t remember walking back to her room or falling asleep in her clothes. She put her pajamas on and hesitated a moment before going into the bathroom. But it looked empty with all the lights on and she managed to brush her teeth and run cold water on her sore hand. There was a blister on her finger she didn’t recall getting. She got into bed wishing she had something that would help her sleep. She tried reading but she kept reading the same page over and over and taking in none of it. Impatiently put the book aside. It had been a long time since her insomnia was this bad. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling and feeling nine years old again. She wanted to go through the game she had played with Greenberg earlier but she still couldn’t remember some bits of the middle game. She mentally played as much as she could remember and promised herself she would reconstruct the whole thing tomorrow. It took a long time but she eventually fell asleep.
She dreamt something was chasing her. She didn’t know what it was, only that she can’t slow down or let it catch her. At first she’s running through the halls of Methuen. It’s dark and there are shadows dancing on the walls. Her footsteps echo on the hard tile floors. She gets to the basement door but it’s locked. It’s the one place at Methuen that ever felt safe and it's denied to her. She keeps running and the hallways change. She’s in a basement but it isn’t Methuen’s basement. She runs up a staircase. She can tell from the jarringly bright colored carpets she is in the Overlook now. She runs past the Gold ballroom and sees Lloyd alone behind the bar but she doesn’t stop. She runs past room 237 but she doesn’t want to stop there either. After that she doesn’t recognize any more landmarks. Then she is outside running through the hedge maze and it’s snowing. She’s out of breath and lost. She has to slow down to catch her breath and glances behind her. She sees Alice’s broken body limping along behind her, pink dress covered in blood, broken leg leaving drag marks in the snow with every step. Her leg looks twisted and her chest is caved in from hitting the steering wheel. Even her head is at an impossible angle, leaning brokenly to one side. But still she keeps coming, following Beth relentlessly.
She wants to scream for help but she’s all alone. There’s no one to hear her scream. She hears Mama’s voice echoing out of the past, “The strongest person is the one who’s not afraid to be alone.” But she IS afraid. And she IS alone. Alice is nearly close enough to touch her so she screams anyway.
Beth woke herself up screaming “NO” over and over again. She was shaking and out of breath. Even with the lights on it took her a long time to catch her breath.
Her throat was raw and she desperately wanted a glass of water. She wanted it enough to go into the green bathroom, though she didn’t trust the place even with all the lights on. She kept her head down, watching her hands and didn’t look into the mirror as she filled her water glass. Even so, she heard Alma’s voice and now she was the one pleading with Beth, “Please, Beth, you’ve got to go. You’ve got to leave before anything worse happens. This place is hungry. It’s dangerous for you to stay here.” She shut off the water and stubbornly refused to look up as she left the bathroom.
Beth sat on the edge of the bed with her water. The glass was full but she took small sips to make it last. She didn’t want to brave the bathroom again. Maybe Alma was right and she should just leave. But she hated to go before she could win the tournament and she was currently in first place. She’d talk with Benny about it in the morning. But first she had to make it through the rest of the night. And it promised to be a long night. It wasn’t even midnight yet. She got up and paced the room. It didn’t help. She got out her chess board and set up the game from the afternoon intending to play it through and fill in the gaps in her memory. Only when she went to sit at the table the sweater she had been wearing that day slipped to the floor and landed with a clunk. She checked the pocket. She couldn’t recall putting anything in there. It was a small glass prescription bottle full of green tranquilizer pills. She would recognize them anywhere, though the bottle was an older style she hadn’t seen since she was a child. She and Jolene had purged her house of the green pills nearly six years ago. She’d flushed the last few she had kept “just in case” in Moscow a few months later. She told herself she should flush these too, immediately. But she’d have to go back in the bathroom to do that. She’d flush them in the morning. That should be soon enough she told herself.
It took her the better part of an hour to play through the game. She remembered the beginning clearly but then she lost the thread. She could infer what the next moves were from her notes and how the pieces were positioned later. But it was no use. There were still parts she couldn’t remember. She gave up in frustration and decided back to go to bed.
She lay in bed listening to the tiny ticks from the travel alarm clock and not sleeping. The clock’s glow in the dark numbers told her it was nearly one am. Benny wasn’t back yet. She’d already tried all her usual tricks for getting to sleep—reading, playing through chess games, math exercises. The last had only led to more disturbing thoughts about Alice and she’d had more than enough of that the last few days. The green pills were right there on the nightstand so she would remember to flush them in the morning. But morning was hours away. She turned away so she wasn’t staring them in the face. Just three more games and this tournament would be over—less than forty-eight hours and they could leave the Overlook Hotel forever. But if she wanted to win those games she needed to sleep. She turned over again. The pills were right there in arm’s reach. It had been years but she could practically feel them making her fears, restlessness, and racing thoughts melt away. Just one pill—maybe two to be sure—and she could have a good night’s sleep. She wasn’t going to misuse them. She didn’t want to get high. She was just so tired and sleep seemed so far away. She sat up and reached for the bottle, shaking out two pills into her hand. She stared at them in her palm for a moment then quickly threw them into the back of her throat and swallowed them dry before she could change her mind. She lay back on the bed and felt herself relax. She knew it took some time for the pills to start working but she already felt better. She was asleep in a matter of minutes.
Earlier in the evening Benny had been concerned for Beth and had been planning to call it an early night. But you know what they say about the best laid plans. Instead he was taken in by his own vices and all those responsible, sensible plans had gone awry. First he got caught up in playing speed chess, then pool in the Game Room, and after that Charlie suggested a poker game. It had gotten late and he knew he’d had a few too many drinks. It just kind of snuck up on him. He’d learned long ago to watch how much he drank while playing poker. It’s a much better strategy to let the other players drink their fill while he nursed the same drink as long as he could. Then he could take advantage of their sloppy playing. But Beth wasn’t the only one who didn’t have her head in the game today. Well, at least he hadn’t lost much money he consoled himself. Everyone else was drinking too and he more or less broken even.
He’d lost track of the time and it was down to just him, Tom, and Charlie when they finally ended the game. As he got up from the table he realized his balance was off. It had been a long time since he’d had this much to drink. He was swaying a little but he found his way back to the room alright.
Benny got back to the room and saw Beth sleeping. When he saw her, he couldn’t help thinking of how good it felt to kiss her before dinner. He got undressed and got into bed but Beth didn’t stir. He pushed her hair back from her face and kissed her gently on the lips. She woke up when Benny started to kiss her in ernest. She was feeling so relaxed she just kissed him back. She could taste the alcohol on his breath and she craved it. She lost herself in the feel of kissing him. He kissed her more aggressively, squeezing her breast through the silky fabric of her pajama top. She was caught up in the moment too and responded by kissing him back with sloppy, urgent kisses. Then, suddenly, she felt a wave of heat go through her. It wasn’t a sexy kind of heat. It was a feverish kind of heat that came with a wave of nausea. She pushed Benny away and turned away and curled up on her side feeling sweaty and sick to her stomach.
“What the hell, Babe?” he said. But she was too busy fighting off nausea to answer. So he turned over and was out and snoring in seconds.
But Beth was feeling too sick to sleep. And she wanted a drink badly. She felt herself trembling. The whiskey on Benny’s breath was an irresistible temptation. After a few minutes her stomach settled but she still felt the sweat cooling on her skin, making her feel cold and clammy. She needed to change so she got up and got dressed in the clothes she had been wearing the day before. The back of her neck felt strangely sensitive so she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail.
It was very late but she was restless. And she didn’t think she could stand to stay cooped up in the room with the smell of whiskey and the sound of Benny snoring without losing what was left of her mind. She wanted a drink but she’d have to settle for a walk. Maybe she could sit in the lobby for a while until she felt better.
The corridors were silent at this late hour as she made her way down towards the lobby, taking the farther staircase so she didn’t have to walk past room 237. As she got closer to the lobby she heard swirling instrumental music. She could pick out the melody and hear the strings but she didn’t recognize the song. She followed the music and found herself at the door to the Gold Ballroom. Inside the ballroom men in tuxedos and women in elegant dropped waist dresses were dancing and celebrating. It must have been a costume ball since most of the guests were wearing masks. She was mesmerized by the glamour and opulence of the scene and she wanted to join in. This was how she imagined the hotel would be when she opened her invitation. And she had caught glimpses of it in the photos in the lobby and she wanted to be a part of it, not just outside looking in.
Beth had a moment of self-consciousness about being underdressed in her short wool jumper but the doorman greeted her, “Good evening, Miss Harmon. It’s good of you to join us.”
Beth entered the ballroom and looked around, admiring the elegant scene. She especially admired the women in their beaded cocktail dresses and feathered headbands. Many of them had chic bobbed haircuts that reminded her of Cleo—gorgeous raven haired Cleo who had permanently affixed herself in Beth’s mind as the epitome of feminine style and sophistication. She wished she was dressed for the occasion herself in a stylish beaded cocktail dress.
Beth ended up by the bar. She knew better but she wanted a drink. She hoped the alcohol would help shut out the unwanted voices and nightmares for a while. Most of the time she had been here she had just wanted a good night’s sleep and a break from the nightmares but neither seemed to be forthcoming.
She ordered a Gibson from the bartender. She felt nothing but relief when the alcohol burned down her throat and into her stomach. Lloyd, the bartender, suggested that if she liked gin drinks that many young ladies like the Bee’s Knees or a White Lady. He handed her a menu with a whole page of whimsically named gin drinks with different fruity flavors. She was tempted to try them all but there were too many. She started with the Bee’s Knees which had a delightful orange flavor.
“She seems more like a Fallen Angel type to me,” she overheard one of the waiters say to Lloyd in a leering voice. She looked away and pretended not to hear. She had long ago learned there were men like that everywhere.
After Lloyd brought her a White Lady she drifted away from the bar. The drinks had left her feeling relaxed and mellow. She was enjoying the music. Slowly she stared to sway and dance along with it. She took a step to the side and out of nowhere a waiter crashed into her, spilling his tray of drinks all over her. He apologized and tried to wipe off her dress with a bar towel. But she recognized his voice from his earlier leering comment and told him, “Just stop.”
He beckoned for a woman to come over from by the bar. “This is my wife Delphine. She can take you to the Ladies room and help you get cleaned up.”
Delphine Grady took Beth to the Ladies room with the pink and yellow wallpaper to get cleaned up. Delphine explained she was married to the hotel caretaker and she did a little bit of everything to help around the hotel. Beth’s wool dress was pretty much of a lost cause—it was soaked in some places and sticky in others. Delphine explained that she could bring Beth a dry dress and get the other one cleaned and returned to her room the next day. The hotel kept a selection of formal wear for guests to borrow and she knew there was a green and black dress that would be perfect for Beth.
Beth recognized the bathroom from the first night of her stay. She was on edge, expecting the whispering voices that seemed to follow her everywhere in the hotel. But all she heard was the muted music from the ballroom.
Delphine came back with the dress and it was beautiful, everything Beth had wished for: it was a sleeveless emerald green silk shift with a sheer, lacy black layer over it. The over layer was heavily beaded around the V neck and in a large diamond pattern over the body of the dress. The hem was a zigzag edge just below the knee. Beth changed into the dress with Dephine’s assistance. The beads gave the dress a satisfying weight and made a soft swishing and clicking sound when she twisted and moved in it. It made her want to dance. Delphine had also brought some bobby pins, a comb, and a black beaded headband with black and green feathers on it. She used the comb to make an opening above the pony tail and somehow flipped the end of the ponytail through it twice and pinned the ends underneath and transformed her hair into a fancy updo. Beth smiled at her appearance in the mirror. The dress fit her perfectly and with the feathered headband she looked the equal of any of the other women at the party. Like she had stepped out of time.
Beth went back to the ballroom and got a Cherry Lime Rickey—the gin was lovely with cherry and lime flavors. She looked around wistfully wishing she had someone to dance with. Benny or maybe Townes. Much as she loved Benny she’d probably have more fun dancing with Townes. He’s a sharp dresser and a wonderful dancer. Once he had asked her to a formal work event—just as friends—and they had a great time. He would have been a perfect boyfriend, except that he already was--to Roger. But there was no point dwelling on that. It was old news now. Still, she stood by the bar with her drink in hand watching the beautifully dressed couples dancing and wishing someone would ask her to dance.
Then, to her surprise, a blond man with deep set blue eyes and a strong jaw, wearing a black half-mask and tuxedo did ask her to dance. She finished her drink in one long swallow and joined him on the dance floor.
After that there was a whirlwind of well-dressed, masked men asking her to dance or offering her drinks. Mostly she said yes and had a wonderful time drinking and dancing. She was tipsy at first, relaxed and having fun dancing. The buzz of the gin and the dancing shut out the whispering voices and softened the edges of everything. She’d been trying for five long years to forget how good this felt. But somewhere along the line she lost track of how many different gin drinks she’d sampled. She was slurring and a little off balance, dancing with more enthusiasm than grace, but still dancing. By now it was closer to dawn than midnight and the party was starting to wind down. There was hardly anyone left to dance with.
Somehow she ended up dancing with Mr. Grady—in the whirlwind of the evening she had almost forgotten how creepy he seemed earlier. When they danced he slid his hand down to grab her ass then he tried to kiss her. She turned away in time to avoid his kiss but got a sudden whiff of rot and decay. She gagged and ran out of the ballroom to the Ladies Room across the hall. She made it just in time and threw up in the toilet. It took a few rounds to get everything up. She found herself kneeling on the floor of the beautiful, formal bathroom in an elegant dress drunk and sick, regretting all the decisions that gotten her there. And she was hearing whispering voices. Again.
She recognized Alma’s voice briskly saying, “I’ve certainly been where you are now. And you’re probably better off getting it out of your system now—less of a hangover tomorrow. But you need to get yourself up and go sleep it off in your own bed.”
She heard someone come into the bathroom and was momentarily confused to see Delphine not Alma.
“Are you alright, Ma’am?” she asked.
“I’m feeling a little better,” Beth claimed. Slowly, with exaggerated care, she got herself up and went over to the sink. Delphine handed her wet paper towels. She wiped her face and the back of her neck and rinsed out her mouth. It helped a little. But she knew there was worse coming.
Delphine walked her out of the bathroom and advised Beth to go back to her room and go to bed. Beth started on her way back to her room but she was so tired. She felt dizzy for a moment and sat on one of the sofas in the hallway outside the ballroom. She was sitting there with her eyes closed when she smelled roses.
Beth opened her eyes and saw a proper looking older woman standing there. “It’s late and it won’t do to sleep out here. Any manner of rogue or scoundrel might happen by and find you sitting out in the open and wish to take liberties,” she scolded.
“You may be right,” Beth agreed.
She pushed herself upright and started slowly walking back to her room trailing her hand along the wall for balance. She made it up the stairs to her floor but she was so tired and it felt like the floor was tilting and spinning with every step. Everything looked the same with the damn bright, headache-inducing carpets. She leaned against the wall for balance and slowly slid down to the floor. Distantly she heard Alma telling her to get up but she couldn’t summon the will to do it. She thought she felt something brushing against her ankles but she didn’t even have the energy to open her eyes and look.
Some unknown amount of time later Mr. Halloran found her sitting in the hallway barely conscious.
“I had a feeling you might need some help.” He offered her a hand up. “I was just on my way to open up the kitchen. But I have a few minutes to walk you back to your room.”
“Thanks,” she said but she didn’t have it in her to say much more.
He walked her to her door and waited for her to unlock it. She went in and took off the fancy dress, throwing it over a chair, and fell into bed in just her pajama top. She passed out next to Benny and slept dreamlessly until morning for a change.
Notes:
The music playing in the ballroom scene is Midnight, The Stars and You by Al Bowlly. It is the music playing in the ballroom scene of The Shining. Here is the link.
There really are a lot of Prohibition Era mixed drinks to cover up the taste of bathtub Gin. All the gin drinks mentioned in the story are from that era.
ShadowSpellchecker on Chapter 1 Sat 29 Oct 2022 07:57PM UTC
Last Edited Sat 29 Oct 2022 08:50PM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 1 Sat 29 Oct 2022 11:51PM UTC
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0bi on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Oct 2022 01:16AM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Oct 2022 05:53AM UTC
Last Edited Sun 30 Oct 2022 07:36PM UTC
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SmoothFluffle on Chapter 1 Sat 05 Nov 2022 06:59PM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 1 Sun 06 Nov 2022 03:00AM UTC
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ShadowSpellchecker on Chapter 2 Fri 11 Nov 2022 06:59AM UTC
Last Edited Fri 11 Nov 2022 07:03AM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 2 Fri 11 Nov 2022 07:24AM UTC
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0bi on Chapter 2 Sat 12 Nov 2022 06:24PM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 2 Sun 13 Nov 2022 02:40AM UTC
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wolflings on Chapter 2 Thu 10 Oct 2024 11:06PM UTC
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ShadowSpellchecker on Chapter 3 Tue 13 Dec 2022 04:55AM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 3 Tue 13 Dec 2022 06:10AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 14 Dec 2022 08:52PM UTC
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wolflings on Chapter 3 Fri 11 Oct 2024 11:12PM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 3 Sun 13 Oct 2024 04:22AM UTC
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wolflings on Chapter 4 Sat 12 Oct 2024 05:42PM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 4 Sun 13 Oct 2024 05:34AM UTC
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wolflings on Chapter 5 Sun 20 Oct 2024 09:31AM UTC
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Tiarat on Chapter 5 Mon 21 Oct 2024 04:46AM UTC
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