Ghost Music by Graham Masterton

asking Tilda if she believes what I’ve been telling them. He says that
he
doesn’t.”
    â€œSo what
have
you been telling them?”
    â€œI’ve been telling them to keep the faith, that’s all.”
    â€œBut why? What’s bugging Axel so much? They seem like a perfectly happy family to me.”
    â€œThat’s the trouble.”
    I was sitting up in bed, watching Kate brush her hair in front of the dressing table mirrors. I could see three Kates—four, if you counted the real one as well as the reflections. She was wearing a simple white nightdress with a scalloped lace collar, which made her look even younger and more enchanted than ever.
    The bedroom suite that Axel and Tilda had given us was huge, and dimly lit. We had a massive four-poster bed, with green tapestry hangings, and a couch like a Viking longboat heaped with cushions. Next door, the bathroom was vast, more like a green-and-white-tiled cathedral than a bathroom. We had sat together in foaming pine-scented water, right up to our necks, and sung anechoing duet of “
love . . . ageless and evergreen . . . seldom seen by two
. . .”
    But now that we were alone together, there were so many questions that I needed Kate to answer for me; and as tired as I was, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep tonight until she did.
    I climbed off the bed and stood close behind her, so that there were three of me as well as three of her, and I laid my hands on her shoulders. They were so bony, under her thin linen nightdress, and she smelled of flowers.
    â€œI know what you’re going to ask me,” she said. “You’re going to ask me the
real
reason why I invited you to come here and meet the Westerlunds.”
    â€œThat, and a few other things, yes.”
    â€œWill you be angry if I ask you to wait and see?”
    â€œAngry? I don’t know about
angry
. Confused, yes. And more than a little spooked, if you want to know the truth.”
    â€œSpooked? Why should you be spooked?” “Well . . . you’re probably not going to believe this, but I met Elsa and Felicia in the living room, about five minutes before you guys got home from your shopping. You don’t think
that’s
spooky? Because I sure do.”
    She turned around and looked up at me. “Is that what happened?”
    Now, if somebody had told
me
that, I would have said, “Say again?” or “You’re
shitting
me,” or “How many glasses of schnapps did you drink at supper?” But Kate seemed completely calm about it.
    â€œI thought I might have been dreaming,” I told her. “Or jetlagged, maybe. Or God alone knows what. But I swear on my mother’s life that when I first arrived here, I walked into the living room and there were Elsa and Felicia, playing chess.”
    â€œDid you talk to them?”
    â€œSure. Felicia told me that she had won a singing prize at school,and Elsa told me that she wanted me to write a song for her. Then the front door opened and you came in, with Axel and Tilda, and with Elsa and Felicia, too. I looked into the living room, but Elsa and Felicia weren’t there anymore—and the chessmen were right back where they had been before. Now is that spooky or is that spooky?”
    Kate turned away for a moment, the same way that Axel had, at supper. Then she said, “What’s
your
explanation?”
    â€œ
My
explanation? I don’t have an explanation. That’s why I’m asking
you
.”
    She looked back up at me. “You didn’t mention it to Axel or Tilda.”
    â€œAre you putting me on? I didn’t want them to think that I was out on license from Bellevue psychiatric wing.”
    â€œPerhaps it
was
a dream. Or a kind of a dream.”
    â€œOh, yes? And maybe I can fly back to New York and get there before I leave.”
    Kate stood up, and gently touched my face, as if she were blind, and she was trying