The Campaign

Background

The Mount Loretto Girls' Orphanage (New York State) burned down on the Nones of March, a generation after it had been abandoned by the Catholic archdiocese. According to authorities, the odd green flames of the conflagration were caused by copper in the roof, and by the Nones of April, those same authorities had made the decision to demolish the centennial building.

Since then, the area has been transformed into a state park, and the orphans who once lived there have had a few years to forget their once home.

It has not been forgotten by the archdiocese, however.

As a state park, the Mount Loretto Park has been woefully unsuccessful in drawing people, and funding has been continuously cut for one reason or another. Eleven months ago, on the Ides of January, the park's anniversary review arrived: sell it.

The archdiocese immediately sent a representative to the state bidding. Armed with twice the land's value, but charged to spend less than half it's value if possible, Dean MacHaggerty expected a rather easy sale.

What he got, was a rude surprise. A handsome woman in an antique black dress, and perhaps in her late twenties, outbid him at somewhere close to three times the value of the land. They never spoke, but the sound of her voice as she bid was like the purr of a cat who knows she is going to win. All of this he related to his superiors, and at that, they seemingly dropped the issue.

On December 17th, Christina received a letter from New York, sent on the Ides of December (13th). Hand-written in elegant script on tan-stained cotton, folded neatly thrice, and placed in a black envelope sealed with a wax stamp of a narrow cross criss-crossed with a medieval serpent and a rose vine. The letters A.L decorate the lower-left quadrant, and a lion on its hind legs decorates the lower-right quadrant. The letter itself is short, and enclosed with it are a pair of plane tickets, a check for $10,000 written with silver ink, and a very tiny key, perhaps a centimeter long.

Dear Christina, I hope the new year finds you in good health and hearty cheer, despite the slings of fortune you have endured over this holiday. I fear that you do not know me, although we once met as children, and I have never forgotten your kindness in that time.

I have acquired, somewhat accidentally, a rather large property which I have little or no interest in, but which I am unable to sell due to the contract I unfortunately saddled myself with. I thought I was buying something entirely different. I should have been warned by the odd looks I received when I bid so high, but I was intent upon the quarry and failed to notice.

As it is, however, I discovered that I can, in fact, give it away, and that the person to whom I give it would not be bound by the strictures of the contract. I would not ask anything dishonest of you! I am content without receiving anything but the satisfaction of being rid of the property, and I shall consider the money (already lost, alas) well spent in the pursuit in a lesson of perceptiveness.

If that was not clear: I wish to give this property to you, to keep or sell as you will, as a thank you for your childhood kindness. The only stipulation is that you must visit the place in person, and pen your name to the deed in person. If you do not, the archdiocese and other interested parties are likely as not to accuse me of pretending to gift it, and selling it, as it were, under the table. Only your presence and your lack of any real connection to me can assure them of the truth of my intent.

I have included with this letter a pair of tickets for two weekends in the month of January. Use whichever, as I shall be there both times. Or, should you be unable to make it in January, please reply soon and let me know when you should, and I shall swiftly return to you with the appropriate tickets.

I have also included a check to cover the first year of anticipated expenses and taxes on the property, should you prefer to keep it than sell it. If you do sell it, please consider the check a small boon for this favor.

Happy wishes and joys of the seasons,
Elizabeth Catherine Adelaide

Elizabeth Catherine Adelaide
what a quick Internet research by Christina turns up

Elizabeth is a little known New York heiress, worth several million dollars but not otherwise noteworthy. She owns a few shops, all focused on antiques, the quality of which generally brings her some small admiration among certain circles. One antique that she is known to have, the original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, she has thus far been unwilling to part with for any price, although offers of several times Elizabeth's net worth have been made.

Elizabeth was born in 1975, on December 13th, and was a quiet, studious child. Her earliest years were spent in an orphanage after her parents died in a tragic fire, until she was reunited with her grandparents abroad. They moved to the United States to take care of the child, and to make up for the years of estrangement between them and Elizabeth's parents. When they died, they left what remained of their fortune to their grand daughter.

Elizabeth herself never properly socialized, however, and continued to grow further from the hustle and bustle of society. Also a bit eccentric, Elizabeth has been written up in a few social circle rags as "a quiet, reserved woman, given to solitude and wearing antique clothing" and "a most eligible bachelorette, if one could deal with her taste in clothing and withdrawn attitude" and perhaps most cruelly, "most likely heiress to die a spinster".

The Value of Property

Within two weeks, Christina receives additional letters, these from other interested parties who had heard the rumor that Ms. Adelaide was giving away the property. All asking to meet Christina immediately, in that pushy way that only lifelong salesmen can manage, and some even offering up to a million dollars, immediately, if there is no delay in agreeing to sign it over.

One is unusual for its lack of push or demand:

Dear Miss Tsao,

Please forgive this intrusion into your personal life, but I was made aware this week that you may be receiving an unusual property as a gift from Miss Elizabeth Adelaide. The archdiocese of Mt. Loretto would dearly like to get their hands on it, as would many other parties, I am sure. I will try to be honest with you in this matter, for I can not compete in guile or pure dollars.

Firstly, the worth on the standard market is approximately 750 thousand dollars. The worth to specialized interests, however, is closer to three million as of this writing. As regards these specialized markets, it would be better for you to wait and let the price rise a bit before selling, although I am about to ask you not to.

Secondly, the reason these specialized interests desire the land is because it is haunted. Honestly, truly, haunted. I know that sounds far fetched, but I assure you it is true. The Church has spent several years confirming this fact, and attempting to recover the land. It was a terrible mistake when we sold it, although we had little choice at the time.

Our intent is to put the souls to rest. The other interests, as I'm sure you can imagine, have other goals in mind for them.

As I am limited to the resources of my archdiocese, I can offer only two million dollars. The other interests will assuredly beat this price with nary a thought, but that, and a promise to handle the land kindly, is all I can offer, and even that little shall make for a poor few years ahead for us.

So I ask, as a personal favor, that before you sell the land to the highest bidder, that you spend at least a day on the land, and confirm for yourself its nature, and then please reconsider who you might sell it to.

Yours in God,
Father Edwards MacHaggerty

Upon receipt of the letter, Christina let some of her friends know about it. One of them did the following spot research:

The Mount Loretto area is valued, as a whole, at $45 million dollars. Much of it is owned by the Mt Loretto archdiocese, however, and they rarely sell. Recently (in the past year), they sold a strip of land to housing contractors, for the sum of $2 million... the sale was hotly contested within the Church, however, and several Church leaders were very nearly asked to step down over it. What finally persuaded them is unknown, or at least not described on the Internet.

The original sale of the park area (where the orphanage stood) was for a paltry $200,000 in the year 2000. Anything over that amount is better than good.

Upon her return to Austin and her receipt of the letters, Christina immediately begins to pen her responses to the two parties.

Dear Father MacHaggerty,

Thank you for your honesty. I can't respond on most of the specific points, but can say this: I will spend some time on the property before I make any selling decisions, and I would be happy to speak with you about it. If you would be so kind as to provide me with some contact information, I plan to be in New York the second weekend of January.

Christina Tsao

Ms. Adelaide,

Thanks for your kind holiday wishes. I hope your Christmas was spent pleasantly engaged. I spent mine cleaning out a garage, but for all its sweaty toil, it was cheerfully passed and now the fruits of my labor reside in a happily tidy storage room. Imagine my surprise coming home from such mundane matters to your most extraordinary letter!

I do indeed remember you, although I fear the kindness has slipped my mind... whatever it is, though, I'm not so sure any gesture I've offered in the past would warrant such a gift. Thus the generosity of your act renders me speechless, simply because I've so many questions to ask, but am left not knowing which to ask first. My questions can wait, however, until we meet again in person, as I will be visiting on the second weekend of January, per one of the tickets you were so kind to send me.

I regret that we haven't been closer in our recent years, and if the visit yields nothing else, I will at least have the opportunity to rectify that. Hopefully, our friendship won't remain an echo of childhood memories. Again, thank you, and I hope to see you soon.

Christina Tsao

As she seals the letter in the more typical manner (moistening the adhesive gum on the back of the envelope), she notes with some amusement the complete difference in styles of presentation. Her own letter is written on unlined paper which is slate grey in color, and her words--all black caps, and boldly angular in a modern, architectural sort of way--provide a marked contrast to the tan/black missive sitting on her coffee table. Her envelope, too, is modern looking: legal sized, grey a few shades darker than the letter it houses. The only aspect of the letter that is immediately jarring is the stamp itself. It is one of those tiny, mass produced portraits of the American flag, and its value of 37 cents, emblazoned upon the lower right corner of the picture, completes the feeling of its being painfully out of place. (But hey, those are the stamps that come in rolls of a hundred.)

She mails the two letters, and with a frown mutters to herself, "Curiouser and curiouser." After basking for a moment in the 70 degree temperatures of the place she now calls home, she murmurs rather wistfully, "...And I just left New York, too..."

Just after she returns to her apartment and flops herself into her pappasan chair, her eyes slowly creep to the mysterious tan and black letter. She furrows her brow for a moment, and then suddenly jerks herself up and strides over to the letter. Once she picks it up, the key falls into her open palm, and she decides to replace the small ring of jade around her neck with the tiny key. She has a cat who has a fondness for small and shiny objects, after all--it wouldn't do to lose such a potentially costly trinket before her visit to the property, and it would look good on the delicate chain besides.

She performs the switch, admires it in the mirror briefly, and goes on with her life. There's always too much to do immediately after the holidays to be too bothered by mysterious letters from mysterious women--at least for now.

Dear Miss Tsao,

Of course! It was foolish of me not to provide a number in the first place. I can be reached at the Mount Loretto Archdiosese, at 631-555-3787. Simply ask for me by name, and I should be available during most hours of the day.

Yours in God,

Father Edwards MacHaggerty

By phone, Father MacHaggerty turned out to be a warm, deep-voiced man, a bit elderly and slow in manner and speech, particularly for a New York native.

In answer to Christina's many questions, he had a few answers, but hardly the satisfaction of complete knowledge of the topics at hand.

Just what do you mean when you say it's haunted?

"The haunted aspect? Ah, well, it's a bit difficult to explain over the phone, but I will try. The building was an orphanage, as you know, and apparently one of the girls there was murdered at some point in its history. When, exactly, we are not certain, but it must have been prior to 1973, when an earlier fire destroyed records. There have been no deaths which could be called murders since then."

"Er, anyway, regardless of when it happened, there have been numerous sightings of the girl, midair, being... ah.. well, strangled, roughly where the altar pews once were in the original building. There's even a photograph, although it's too blurry to provide proof - it only confirms what I've seen with my own eyes."

"A more curious effect, however, is with mirrors. Not everyone sees it, but if one looks at the site in a mirror, sometimes, at just the right angle, one can see the original building."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I know this is unbelievable over the phone. I will just have to promise to show you, as best as I can, when you arrive."

Just curious, but were you a staff member at the orphanage?

"No, no, I was a Dean of the Boys School, also in the Mount Loretto properties of the Church, during the period when the building stood. And honestly, when it was really active, I was still merely an altar boy!

"I am in charge of the occult investigation of the property, however, so I assure you my knowledge of the place is reasonably complete."

Christina stops brushing her hair and stares morosely into her gloomy reflection in the mirror. What does Father MacHaggerty mean, "haunted?" If it's true, why has Elizabeth made no mention of the land's .. peculiarity? And Elizabeth Adelaide...such impressive features, and rather peculiar herself...

Those questions added onto the strange pricing of the property in comparision to the Mount Loretto lot as a whole, and Christina cannot help but recall a few dark words when she thinks of her impending visit.

Briefly she considers switching once more the trinket on the chain around her neck, from Ms. Adelaide's small key to a gold cross kept from her more religious days. Ultimately, though, she dismisses her nervousness and attributes it to an overactive imagination given to blowing mere suggestions out of proportion.

Christina suddenly laughs out loud at her silliness, and her reflected image returns her laughter with equal mirth. "C'mon, Chris, what's wrong with you? That stuff isn't real. Ghosts don't exist." But what does exist is a check for an extra ten grand, and she can feel it already starting to burn a hole in her pocket.

Christina and Thomas (whom she had asked to come along) boarded the plane, and left for NYC. When they arrived, it was a beautiful day - blue sky, white earth. After arranging a hotel room, they arrived at the Mount Loretto Cathedral, where Father MacHaggerty awaited.

A short man, with pug nose and friendly warm eyes, and the same slow, low voice from the phone calls greeted them, "A pleasure to meet both of you. I'm, ah, sure you have questions, and I hope I can persuade you to let us buy the property from you."

Christina then grilled the poor man on all manner of things, from the history of the property to the possible motivations of Miss Adelaide. He answered what he could, and offered to take Christina (and her friend, naturally) out to the land that night, and try to demonstrate the hauntings.

He had little hope for success, but perhaps...

The night was chill as they walked around to several "prime spots" (according to MacHaggerty) with a mirror, but did not see much, until stepping into a small square of stones, the filled in space of a water well, when Father MacHaggerty finally found a good angle on his mirror.

"Look, here," and he cranked his head out of the way, "look from my angle".

Christina looked over his shoulder, and saw nothing for a moment, then caught a glimpse. A bit of effort, and she could see the orphanage, still standing, unburned, in the mirror. The very ordinary looking mirror.

She snapped pictures, and then took pictures of the area where the orphanage should be, mere empty space. She checked her LCD screen. She still had the mirror shots.

Father MacHaggerty hesitated, then, "If you wish to watch for the ghost, I have some thermal blankets at the cathedral, we could pick those up and..."

Christina and Thomas looked at each other. He was freezing, but he nodded assent.

Later that night, around two in the morning, as the key around her neck got suddenly colder, Christina saw wisps of fog which could almost, if you squinted and imagined very hard, look like a ghostly young girl bent backwards by ghostly hands at her neck. The fog drifted and disappeared. No one else had seen it, and she'd missed the opportunity to photograph it.

They decided to go home for the night. As they left, Christina walked backwards, snapping shots of the area. She stopped when, although her eyes had not seen anything, the LCD screen was showing an intense, ghostly-white girl staring intensely, almost hungrily, directly into the lens.

Christina had some problems getting to sleep that night, so Thomas kept watch in the hotel room. No one really slept, but Christina managed to doze fitfully. Then morning, and time to go meet Elizabeth Catherine Adelaide.

Somewhere during the dozing, Christina dreamed.

In the dream, Elizabeth Catherine Adelaide was already waiting, alongside a taxi cab, when Christina arrived to look at the property. She was a creepy young woman, given to staring in an almost hungry fashion, and dressed in archaic fashion.

Together, the two wandered about the property, Elizabeth explaining the history of the area in great detail. Curiously, they walked the same path as Father MacHaggerty had when looking for the haunting spots. Afterward, they agreed to meet at exactly 9pm that night (it being a Saturday and Elizabeth a busy woman), to see if they could spot the haunting aspect. The exact order of events after that was vague, at least in memory afterward, but Christina distinctly remembered a few things.

Buying a laptop, extra batteries, extra memory cards for her digital camera, a portable printer... oh the electronic toys she bought!

Elizabeth stating "Such a literary night", and Thomas (who came along) quoting a line about the Jabberwocky, which seemed to amuse Elizabeth... or discomfit her.

Elizabeth holding a clamshell mirror made of sterling silver, and seeing the orphanage clearly in it, whichever way it was turned.

The key about Christina's neck getting intensely cold, and fog shifting this way and that in the dark.

And at some point, as Christina held the silver mirror, suddenly finding herself at the orphanage, displaced in time along with Thomas, and fleeing dark shadows that seemed to contain more than they should.

In all, an unusual dream.

When she awoke, she thought for a moment, almost entranced by the thinking, and then promptly went out and bought the electronic toys. No sense in getting pictures of a ghost if one did not have a record of it, after all. And then she went straightaway to the orphanage to meet Elizabeth.

...who was stepping out of a taxi cab that looked much like the one in the dream, in the same dress as the dream. The only difference, at least at first glance, was that this morning, Elizabeth was flanked by a pair of lawyers.

And it was the lawyers who had the hungry gaze, rather than Miss Adelaide.

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. . . ."

I've never been a morning person. Mornings are made even worse when I hafta spend over an hour on a subway that seems to rock for the sole purpose of lulling its passengers to quiet sleep. I am a native New Yorker, but I'm not as vigilant in my general mistrust of people as I once was, so when I felt my eyelids grow heavy with drowsiness, I allowed them to droop, just for a while, as the train continued along its steely path.

As I walked up to the property, the crisp, cold wind was doing a rather fine job of waking me up for my first meeting with the eccentric heiress. I've been living in warm and sunny Austin for a while now, after all, and my former urban hardness has softened somewhat. When I finally reached the property, what I saw immediately jarred me to complete wakefulness.

Elizabeth Adelaide, wearing a dress that looked, at least in style, like it belonged in a drawing room during the turn of the century (the last one, I mean), cut quite an interesting figure against the barren winter landscape. I'm sure my eyes widened rather unbecomingly, but I couldn't help it. After a second, my gaze shot to my own hiking boots, jeans, and heavy fleece zip-up, which were all, by that point, caked with snow in some places. (I miss snow so much that I tend to frolic in it like a kid whenever I can.) I felt, for some reason, frighteningly under-dressed and painfully out of place. I mentally chastised myself for leaving some of my more tasteful things at the hotel when her voice pulled me back to the task at hand.

When she spoke, I easily saw how the Church lost the bid for the property to this woman, even aside from the money aspect. I mean, this woman has presence. Even if you were dense enough to miss her commanding tone of voice (it is kinda subtle), there's no mistaking her body language--her eyes cut, and she wears her confidence like a well tailored cloak.

We went through the tour (I would have accepted one anyway, but she offered it like she knew I wanted one), and I felt rather like a puppy chasing after its master's heels...I probably looked like one, too--it wasn't my turf, after all. In order to assuage that unshakeable feeling of inferiority, I comforted myself, and busied my mind, by taking careful mental notes of her version of the land's history, and the path she traced as we walked.

Eventually, the topic of the hauntings came up, and, to show that I wasn't a complete nitwit, I offered to show her the images captured the night before. Then the worst thing happened.

The intense shot of the ghost girl wasn't in memory. At all. Even though there had been two other witnesses to its existence last night. After staring at the lyingass LCD screen for a second, I met Elizabeth's expectant gaze and went through the other, less powerful shots in slide show mode. Understandably, she doubted their authenticity. (Hell, at that point, I probably did, too.) We agreed to meet later that night so that Elizabeth might see for herself what I had already seen.

Well, I'll tell ya, I marched my money loaded ass straight into Manhattan after that meeting and I picked up all the toys I wanted but couldn't afford before: top of the line laptop, extra 128 mb memory cards, a portable USB hard drive, portable printer, carrying case, batteries--you name it, I probably picked it up. No fuckin' way my pics are gonna get mysteriously eaten again. Not if I can help it.

We met later that night, and I brought Thomas along. Hey, the more witnesses, the merrier.

After the brief introduction ("Thomas, this is Ms. Elizabeth Catherine Adelaide." "Please, call me Elizabeth."), we essentially did with Elizabeth what we did with Father MacHaggerty. That is to say, we wandered around the property like a buncha fools with a mirror (though Elizabeth was the more elegant fool out of all of us), looking around every so often for what didn't exist.

After remarking that she doesn't get out much (No, really?!), and noticing my "impressive array of modern technology," and chatting very briefly about reading, Elizabeth sighed as she turned her eyes toward the heavens and added, "It's such a .. literary night."

As I smiled and nodded politely (I was desperately trying to come up with some appropriate quote, but couldn't find one), Thomas broke in with, "Beware the Jabberwock, my son . . . ." for which I promptly thwapped him. Things were creepy enough already, thanks.

Finally, we got something on our mirror. And then we lost it again. Elizabeth, still dubious, pulled out her own mirror--appropriately for her, a heavy, antique silver thing--and there in her mirror the orphange stood as if solid, in all its architectural splendor. You didn't need to strain your imagination, or anything, either. There it was, at all angles.

A few moments later, the key I wore around my neck got so cold that I thought it was going to give me frostbite. With that and the apparent solidity of the orphanage to serve as a warning, another image manifested. It was that intense ghost girl again, this time almost as solid as the building behind her. And there she was, bent backward against the hands at her throat, with her skirt hiked up. And just as suddenly as she appeared, she dissipated.

Elizabeth was the first to regain her voice. "Well, I think I've had enough for this evening." She left her mirror with me in case we wanted to poke around some more, and she departed.

Thomas and I got moving, since we didn't intend to stay, either. We followed the long driveway...and followed it...right into an area where the forest had apparently grown on top of it so thickly that the path itself was no longer in view.

Immediately, Thomas whipped out a flashlight (bless his heart and his boy-scout-ever-prepared-ish-ness!) and started shining the beam of light into the shadows. And the shadows seemed to flee. Like, as if sentient. Or something. Undaunted, I pulled out my cell phone as I began recalling the numbers for cab and car services...only to find out that my phone wasn't getting any signal. And my laptop's WiFi connection sure as hell wasn't working. And the shadows moved again.

We headed back towards the incline of the hill and decided to wait for dawn. Eventually, dawn broke. Thomas began calling my name, and I had to blink against the sudden light of morning. I was, apparently, in my own bed at the hotel. And, apparently, this morning is the morning I am to meet with Elizabeth Catherine Adelaide...for the first time.

I went and got my "impressive array of modern technology" (although to me it's more "necessary and proper") right after I rolled outta bed. Now I'm sitting on the subway, on my way to my first meeting with the eccentric heiress. I'm also trying to fight off sleep and I'm failing.

God, I hate mornings.

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