§ § § -- August 18, 1990
When Roarke and Leslie got back from the old Duncan chateau, Roarke left again almost immediately to see to the Wilkersons' fantasy, leaving Leslie in the main house going through the day's mail. It was nearly lunchtime before he returned, a thoughtful look in his dark eyes.
"Anything interesting with the Wilkersons?" Leslie asked conversationally over the meal.
"Lisa Wilkerson thinks things look promising so far," Roarke said, "but she is concerned that I have shown her the first window five years into their married future, and there are no children. It's not terribly unusual for couples to wait longer than that to start a family."
"No," Leslie murmured, yet another memory surfacing. She and Teppo had just celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary when he was killed. She squeezed her eyes shut, annoyed with herself and upset by the remembrance, and looked plaintively at Roarke. "When will everything stop reminding me of Teppo?"
Roarke's expression grew sympathetic and he covered her hand with his. "It takes time, Leslie," he said. "Time is the only proven healer, I am afraid. It eventually mellows everything, but a great deal of patience is required." He patted her hand and gestured to her plate. "I realize that both Mariki and I tend to sound like broken records, but at the risk of being repetitious – and therefore annoying – I say again, eat."
"You're both turning into a couple of nags," Leslie teased, but she did as requested. They each had fruit for dessert, and Leslie was still enjoying an apple when Mariki came to clear the table and shooed them away. They indulged her and retreated into the office, where over the course of a couple of hours or so, they dealt with the requests and inquiries of various guests.
Then, during a lull, Roarke checked his gold pocket watch before looking thoughtfully at Leslie. "I have some time before I must attend to the Wilkerson fantasy again," he remarked. "Perhaps you'd care to check up on the Laursen fantasy?"
"Sure." Leslie began to reach into the gold box on Roarke's desk for a set of keys, but he stayed her hand, shaking his head, a mysterious smile on his face.
"No, we won't take a car," he said. "Since you are now my assistant, it's time you learned a few of the tricks of the trade. And one of those involves monitoring the progress of a fantasy from time to time. Believe me, it saves quite a bit of travel time."
Leslie's mouth fell open and her eyes went wide; then wonder and excitement dawned over her face. "You're going to show me how to…uh, 'pop' in and out of a fantasy?"
Roarke chuckled at her reaction. "That I am," he said. "You'll recall that Tattoo did it on a fairly regular basis, particularly during the busier weekends, and even Lawrence consented to doing it occasionally. I don't think you'll have any trouble. Now, come into this room." They got up and Roarke led her to the doorway of the small room just beside the foot of the stairs, which was often used as a launching point for fantasies, especially those involving time travel. They stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind them.
About five seconds later the phone started to ring, but it played to an empty room. It rang ten times before finally falling silent in the middle of the eleventh peal.
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Arthur Laursen took a couple of nervous steps back from his odd Dr. Frankenstein, keeping a wary eye on her. "Look, lady, I don't think you get the picture. This is supposed to be just a fantasy, you know. You're getting a little too serious here."
She shook her head, chuckling almost too low to be heard, sauntering at leisure in the direction of the table that bore the body. "I'm afraid you're the one who doesn't understand, my dear fellow. This is no fantasy." She turned then and pinned him with a malevolent glare that set off warning bells in his brain. "You were all too eager to begin just a moment ago. If you don't want to help me, then you may as well leave. I have no use for spineless cowards."
"Oh, gimme a break," Laursen snapped, his ire piqued. "If I were really that big a coward, I wouldn't be standing in a dungeon with a dead body and a nutcase."
What happened next was completely unexpected. The woman shrieked in rage and rushed him, slamming him back against the wall before he could recover enough from his surprise to evade her. "Don't insult me like that again!" she hissed at him. "Stay or leave, it's all the same to me, but I will bring him back to life." As suddenly as she had attacked, she released Laursen and went to the table, stroking the face of the man lying thereon before finding another sheet and draping it over the body with loving care.
"Geez," Laursen muttered to himself. "Tell you what, lady, let me think it over." Without waiting for a reply from her, he started back up the curving stone staircase, barely aware that the lights went out behind him. He was just going to have to find some way to contact Roarke so he could complain. Something about this fantasy just didn't feel right.
He spent the rest of the morning exploring other parts of the chateau, moving quietly for fear the weirdo in the cellar would come charging up demanding to know what he was doing. At some point he found the kitchen, which someone (probably Roarke, he supposed) had stocked with enough food for a couple of days. He wondered briefly if the madwoman had her own stash, or even bothered to eat at all. Laursen made a sandwich and ate in the kitchen, knocking back a glass of water and opening a box of cookies. He took two with him to eat while he trotted up the grand staircase from the entry and poked around the upstairs rooms.
In one of the rooms he found a movie projector and a screen mounted on the opposite wall, items that had belonged to the previous occupant, and was thrilled to find a Frankenstein picture among the reel-to-reel films in the collection. He spent a very enjoyable couple of hours watching the movie and reminding himself just why he had come here in the first place. By the time the film had ended, he was again full of the enthusiasm he'd felt when he arrived.
Laursen threaded the filmstrip back onto its original reel and set the machine to rewind the movie, then turned around and blinked. "I thought this place was cut off from civilization," he said questioningly to Leslie, who stood in the doorway watching him.
"It is," she assured him. "Just thought I'd drop in and see how your fantasy's turning out."
"Well, I don't know," Laursen said doubtfully. "There's a dungeon all right, along with loads of machinery and chemistry sets, and there's even a body to bring back to life. But I gotta tell you, Mr. Roarke sure has an odd idea of who Dr. Frankenstein's supposed to be."
"How's that?" Leslie asked, tipping her head to one side in puzzlement.
"It's a woman," Laursen informed her. "And a crazy one at that. I'm starting to have second thoughts about going through with all this."
"This was your fantasy," Leslie reminded him gently, "and from everything you've said, you never expected to work with the original Dr. Frankenstein anyway. If my memory's right, on the way here you referred to 'a Dr. Frankenstein type' who might be inhabiting this place. Right?"
Laursen thought back over his trip to the chateau and sighed. "Okay, I guess you've got a point," he conceded. "But I tell you, it's really weird. She gives me the creeps actually. I've been thinking twice about working with her."
"Enough to terminate the fantasy you saved for three years to experience?" she asked with a tiny smile of amusement. Laursen noticed and turned red.
"Well…maybe not that much," he finally muttered, and she chuckled. "But I'm not kidding, Leslie. She's taking it all way too seriously, if you ask me. And she has this look in her eyes, like any minute she's gonna bludgeon you to death."
"And then she'd have to bring you back to life," Leslie kidded, sighing softly in resignation when all she got was a blank stare. "You do look a little spooked, Mr. Laursen. Do you want me to have Mr. Roarke look into it?"
He thought it over for a long moment, then shrugged. "No, I guess not. I mean, you're right…this is my fantasy, and I did ask for it, after all. I guess I'll just have to take it as part of the vagaries of living out my wildest dream."
"That's a good attitude," she agreed. "Enjoy yourself, then." She backed up a step and disappeared around the doorway.
"Hey, wait a minute, I was gonna ask—" As he spoke, Laursen ran out into the hall, only to cut himself off when he realized Leslie was nowhere in sight. He glanced back and forth several times, wondering how she could have vanished so quickly, then shrugged and decided to get his bag and pick out a room to sleep in for the night.
Halfway down the huge entry hall, the woman from the dungeon stepped out of the cellar door directly in front of him. "Whoa!" he blurted, barely managing not to collide with her. "Holy cow, lady, you oughta look where you're going."
She fixed him with an intense stare that seemed to paralyze him in spite of himself. He stood and gaped back at her, trapped in her gaze, while she spoke in a quiet, menacing monotone. "It's time for you to begin doing your job, Igor, my friend. And I have a very important task for you." And she explained what she wanted from him in a hypnotic drone, while the helpless Laursen fell deeper and deeper under the spell she wove. "It's vital that you do this," she concluded at last. "Do you understand?"
Arthur Laursen seemed not to exist any longer. Anyone witnessing this scene would have heard Igor's voice emerge from his mouth as he intoned, "Yes, master…anything you say."