§ § § -- August 18, 1990
For the very first time as Roarke's official, full-fledged assistant, Leslie Hamilton Komainen stepped out onto the veranda, decked out in an updated version of the white dress she used to wear as a teenager. The skirt ended just above her knees; the sleeves were three-quarter-length, and her collar was Chinese-style. The collar and cuffs were black; at the waist, she wore a thin black belt; and there was a small white button on the collar, echoed by three matching black ones just beneath. Her shoes had a low heel and were also black. Her only jewelry was her wedding ring; Roarke had told her that it might afford her some extra protection from amorous male guests, relating a couple of anecdotes about previous assistants being repeatedly hit on by determined men in order to illustrate the point.
Leslie found herself grinning inanely as she crossed the porch and paused beside the post that had been installed for Lawrence so long ago, pressing the button to ring the bell in the tower. In prompt response, the native girls who lined the landing ramp streamed down the path they always took to the plane dock; Leslie herself trotted back across the porch and met Roarke at the bottom of the steps, where they exchanged morning greetings. Roarke hesitated for a moment and peered a little more closely at Leslie, who still wore a huge, silly grin. A smile began to bloom on his own face in response.
"You certainly look happy," he observed with classic understatement.
"I'm delirious!" Leslie sang out, giggling. "Honestly, Mr. Roarke, I feel like I've just inhaled an entire tank of helium. Let's hurry and get started!"
Laughing, they walked to the car that had just pulled up and got inside. In about five minutes they had reached the dock, where girls bearing leis or trays of drinks were gathering, and the band was positioning itself. The ritual was still precisely the same. Leslie stood beside her adoptive father in the same spot Tattoo had always occupied, watching as he called out, "Smiles, everyone, smiles!" and gestured for the band to begin playing. Leslie tapped her foot to the welcoming song; Roarke still changed it every fall, but she hadn't heard this one before and decided she liked it. Maybe she could talk him into keeping it for another year.
The first guests, a bright-faced young couple, emerged from the plane and ran the gauntlet of leis and drinks. Roarke smiled. "Mr. Ace Wilkerson and his wife Lisa, from Golden, Colorado."
"They're quite young," Leslie said. "Are they newlyweds, or what?"
"They are, actually," Roarke said, "but Mrs. Wilkerson has a fantasy, and her husband decided to give her a trip here to Fantasy Island as his wedding gift to her."
"That's sweet," Leslie remarked, trying to suppress memories of hers and Teppo's wedding. A swift shadow crossed her face and Roarke noticed, of course, but let it pass without comment. "So just what is her fantasy? To find out if the marriage will be successful?"
Roarke gave her a pleasantly surprised look. "An excellent guess, Leslie! That's precisely it. Lisa Wilkerson's own parents have been divorced for many years, and the parents of most of her friends are divorced as well. She says that divorce seems to be the fate of every marriage she has ever known about; so she has requested glimpses into the future to gain some idea of what her marriage will be like, and try to take steps to change things if they seem unfavorable."
"I hope she can beat the odds," Leslie said. "It's definitely an interesting fantasy." She shifted her attention to a bookish-looking fellow with John Lennon glasses and a headful of curly chocolate-colored hair. "This guy looks like a lifetime student."
Roarke chuckled. "Not quite. This is Arthur Laursen, from Grand Forks, North Dakota, and he is a devotee of the old 'Frankenstein' films with Boris Karloff."
"I can see where this one is going," Leslie said. "He wants to emulate the mad doctor and try to raise someone from the dead."
"Almost." Roarke chuckled again. "Your guesses are turning out to be rather good this morning. Mr. Laursen does indeed want to act out such a scene for the weekend – but as the assistant, Igor, rather than the doctor himself." The amusement faded from his features and he studied Arthur Laursen with slightly narrowed eyes. "He may find that even being on the sidelines can get him into more trouble than he quite expected."
Leslie turned to eye him with concern, but she knew better than to ask any questions, because right on cue, one of the native girls delivered Roarke's drink. He raised it to their guests and announced as always, "My dear guests! I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!" And she smiled, taking comfort in the familiarity of being home again.
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An hour later, Roarke and Leslie stopped at the Lilac Bungalow to pick up Arthur Laursen. Leslie sat in front with the driver, and Laursen clambered into the middle seat beside Roarke. "This is gonna be great," Laursen blurted, eyes shining with anticipation behind his round lenses. "I've loved those old Frankenstein movies ever since I was a little kid. I dressed up as Igor or the monster every Halloween. Every time one of them played on TV, I begged my parents to let me stay up and watch. Once I got a VCR and they started coming out on video, I scoured every video store in Grand Forks trying to collect all the films."
"You certainly are quite the devotee," Roarke commented.
"Oh, absolutely. I've been saving money for this fantasy for three years, and I still can't quite believe it's finally happening. So where exactly are we going?"
"To a remote chateau," Roarke replied. "For a great many years it was inhabited by the silent-film star Claude Duncan." Laursen nodded in recognition. "After Mr. Duncan passed away nearly ten years ago, the chateau fell into disuse, and the natives in the area began to claim it was haunted. Some have even suggested that there is a body in the dungeon, just waiting to be resuscitated by an ambitious successor to Dr. Frankenstein."
"I assume that means there actually is a Dr. Frankenstein type in there who needs an assistant," Laursen said with a broad grin. "I guess in that case, all I need to do is walk in and find him."
By now the car was winding up a one-lane drive; they came to a halt in front of a beige-stucco wall broken only by an eight-foot-high iron fence with a gate in its middle. Through the fence they could see part of a brick-paved courtyard and a small fountain with an ominous-looking statue in the middle. Roarke, Leslie and Laursen got out of the car and paused in front of the gate. "This will be your home for the next two days, Mr. Laursen," Roarke said.
Laursen was staring at the fountain. "Weird-looking statue."
"A relic of the days when Claude Duncan lived here," Roarke said dismissively, but Laursen didn't take the hint.
"Does it have anything to do with my fantasy?" he persisted.
"No, not directly," Leslie put in then, "unless you believe in omens. Claude Duncan died trying to fulfill a promise to the Greek god Pan so that he could remain young and alive forever. That's Pan's statue in the fountain. So in a way, since Duncan was trying to prevent his own death and you're looking to help raise a body from the dead, this is the perfect place to experience your fantasy."
"Wow," Laursen said, properly impressed. "Well, then, what're we waiting for?"
Roarke took a key from his jacket pocket and inserted it in the padlock that had been installed on the gate after Duncan's death to keep out looters and the overly curious. "I shall lock this gate behind you, Mr. Laursen. As I said, the chateau has been empty for years, so there is no telephone or any other way to contact the outside world. You will be completely cut off from civilization for a full forty-eight hours. Do you still wish to go through with your fantasy?"
Laursen looked incredulous. "After three years of saving and planning? No way am I backing out now. Let me in, Mr. Roarke."
Roarke looked at Leslie, long enough to catch her soft huff of amusement, and smiled fleetingly in her direction before nodding briskly at Laursen. "Very well." With that, he turned the key in the lock, and the device snapped open. The iron gate swung inward with a creak, and Laursen stepped through, grinning again.
"Geronimo!" he exclaimed and galloped across the courtyard, vanishing from their view. Roarke pulled the gate shut and locked it again, then shared an "oh, well" look with his daughter before they got back into the car and it pulled away down the driveway.
Laursen found himself in front of a huge double wooden door outfitted with lion's-head knockers that had been painted black. He almost lifted one hand to bang the ring on one of them before thinking twice and giving an experimental push. Sure enough, the tall, heavy door retreated inward, and he ducked eagerly inside and strode down the hallway with its twenty-foot ceilings, never noticing that the door slid closed behind him all by itself.
Dropping his bag beside a small wooden table, he stopped long enough to get his bearings and take a good look around. Back towards the door through which he'd just come, there was a majestic flight of curving stairs; an enormous, ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling. On either side of the hallway there were three doors leading who-knew-where. He pushed one open and peered into it, but saw only pitch blackness on the other side.
"Time to explore, Art," he told himself cheerfully and dug a large flashlight out of his bag, clicking it on and poking it through the open doorway. The powerful beam revealed a flight of steep stone steps that curved out of sight to the right. Without hesitation, Laursen started down the stairs, playing the flashlight beam all over the walls, ceiling and stairs. He counted thirty steps before reaching the bottom, where he slowly swept his surroundings with his light. He hadn't gotten very far when the beam caught a light switch on the wall, and with a grin he flipped it up.
Hanging fluorescent lights popped on in response, humming in the silent room. Beneath them, to Laursen's wide-eyed delight, stood a huge oaken table draped with a sheet – and atop the sheet lay the body of a surprisingly young man. "Whoooooooa," Laursen breathed, awestruck.
"What are you doing here?" a voice asked suddenly.
Laursen whipped around so fast his glasses flew off his nose, and he had to drop to the floor and hunt for them. "Blast it, I can't see," he complained, patting the floor around him and squinting.
"Here." A hand appeared in front of his face, clutching his glasses. He grabbed them, put them on and stood up again, staring in disbelief at the woman who stood in front of him. She was graying and had an unsettlingly wild look in her eyes. Laursen scowled, perplexed. A female Dr. Frankenstein? Was this Roarke's idea of a joke?
"Thank you," he finally remembered his manners. "Who're you?"
The woman smiled and gestured at the body on the table. "You're here to help me raise him from the dead, aren't you?"
Laursen remembered his fantasy then and grinned widely at her. "You bet, doc! When do we start?"
The woman's gaze strayed to the body and she scowled, a sight that for some reason made Laursen's stomach roll over. "There is a key ingredient missing," she said, "and we can do nothing without it." She studied Laursen thoughtfully. "Tell me what you know about DNA."
"Uh…everybody's got it," Laursen said, scratching his head. "And no two persons' DNA is alike, unless maybe you're identical twins or something. I dunno, that's about all I can tell you. I'm just here to fill the role of Igor."
"Oh, you'll do that nicely," the woman said with a peculiar little smile, scrutinizing him a little too closely for his comfort. "Very nicely."