Page 100 of The New Couple in 5B

“And since then, a number of horrible murders, accidents, suicides.”

“Yes,” he says, taking a sip of his coffee.

“You’ve visited so many buildings that some claim are haunted or cursed, populated by ghosts and demons, cults meeting in the basement to perform satanic rituals,” I say, remembering my notes about him and his work. “In Brooklyn, there’s even a building that is owned by a coven of witches. You’ve spent time at and written about all of these places. Have you ever experienced something you can’t explain? Are there places you have felt are truly haunted?”

Arthur takes a deep breath, rubs at his beard.

“If you mean, have I seen wailing ghouls clanking chains, or felt cold spots, heard moaning in the walls? No.”

“But...”

He leans forward, considers me. “But—I think buildings are like people,” he says finally.

“Meaning?” I ask, though I think I know. The Windermereislike a person. Grand and mysterious, someone you want to love but who keeps you at a distance.

“They have memories. They dream. You know how when you meet someone there’s a feeling—it’s more than what they say, or what they’re wearing, or how they do their hair? Without knowing why, you feel unsettled, uncomfortable?”

The basement where the lights go out, the howling draft in the back hallways, the residents who are friendly but aloof, unknowable.

“Some buildings just have bad personalities,” he continues.

Dana’s words to Chad ring back. A dark heart behind a beautiful mask.

“And maybe it attracts darkness. So if you’re well and strong, and you see a place at the Windermere, something repels you, you decline to move in. But if you’re vulnerable to sinister energies, if they speak to something going on inside you, maybe there’s a strange attraction.”

“Like a relationship,” I say, and it makes a kind of sense to me. Was I ever repelled by the Windermere? Or was I drawn to its darkness, its mystery? Maybe all I ever do is chase ghosts, even though I judge my family harshly for their metaphysical practices. Maybe something about the Windermere seduced me.

But I didn’t choose it. It was given, inherited. Through Chad’s relationship to Ivan. So it wasn’t just me or my choice. I check my phone again. Nothing. The funeral is in an hour. I don’t have much time.

“Exactly,” says Arthur. “A predator might initially be very attractive to his victim. She might be drawn to his darkness, his violence, without even realizing it because of some trauma in her past, some subconscious craving for pain.”

I push away thoughts of how this theory might relate to me and my husband.

“A building is a living entity?” I say.

“In a way. This city is an untamed jungle of a place—alive with creativity, innovation, violence, tragedy, triumph, life, love, horror, death. Our buildings and homes grow from that energy, so how can they not be alive with everything we do and have done?”

I unconsciously tap at my phone again, the chaos of my life outside these walls rhythmic thumping on my psyche. Nothing. No one. Maybe I’m the ghost, lost and wandering.

Arthur goes on. “Primitive people believed that their memories were physically present. When you, a modern young woman, conjure someone who is no longer with us, you know that you’re dwelling in memory. But early people externalized their thoughts. Ghosts and memories seemed to be visible outside the mind.”

He doesn’t know how close to the bone he’s hitting. “And the Windermere?”

He offers a quick shrug, a wan smile. “Bad things have happened there, and I bet they will again. But the same could be said for lots of places. Maybe there are just echoes through time.”

“Nothing special about it, then?” I want to believe that. That it’s just a building like so many others, housing people who do wonderful things and horrible things—a microcosm of the world we live in. A body that we fill with our own souls.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “Have you met the Aldridges?”

That he mentions them surprises me.

“They’re our neighbors. Friends, really,” I say. “Our apartment used to belong to them, but it was divided up and sold in the 1960s.”

He nods, seems to wonder whether or not to go on. Then, “Did you know that Charles Aldridge comes from a long line of psychic mediums, magicians and astrologists?”

“I didn’t.”

It’s surprising, Charles always seeming so down-to-earth. He and Ella used to own art galleries, were great patrons and avid collectors. Chad told me that they sold all their galleries and made a tidy sum, but that Charles and Ella both already came from money.

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