~ Charlesgate ~

by

Dina Keratsis

Five miles and four pancakes later, Anne and Zylla walked across the Massachusetts Avenue bridge to Boston and headed toward the Purple Pumpkin Tattoo Parlor.

Zylla inhaled the river air and smiled at Anne. "Ah, who needs a man when I have a roommate who can cook like you?"

"Because, my little mushroom cloud, although the way to your heart is through your stomach, which makes me wonder about your true gender, I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you, let alone sleep with you."

"Hrrumph." Zylla stuck her nose in the air.

"Here’s your street." Anne paused at the corner of Beacon Street. "I suppose you want to take a detour and visit the Charlesgate?"

"Of course," Zylla replied, already turning the corner and striding toward the end of the block. Anne jogged to keep up.

And there, on the corner of Charlesgate East and Beacon Streets, she waited--the majestic and marred brick and sandstone mansion that Zylla loved.

The corner of the building rounded into a turret, and Zylla followed its ascent to a green copper cone topped by a weathervane that soared into the bright blue sky above, twirling in the river breeze. Then her view dropped down to the Beacon Street entrance.

The name Charlesgate, entwined with stone vines and flowers, was carved above a Romanesque archway and beckoned Zylla to climb the steps and enter the green and gold tiled archway.

She looked at Anne and shrugged. "I have to try."

"I know." Anne smiled as she rested a hand on the rusty iron gate. "I’ll wait for you on the steps."

Zylla trotted up the steps into the cool darkness of the alcove and lovingly gazed at the gold-green ceramic tiled walls. Along the ceiling, the glossy tiles sported figures of knights, cherubs, flowers and heraldic crests. Zylla ignored the chunks where tile was missing, just as she overlooked the broken lantern that hung from the ceiling on a rusted chain.

Instead, she turned to the iron and glass double doors, barely glancing at the yellow and black "No Trespassing" sign taped across them, or the thick chain and padlock wrapped around the door handles.

As always, Zylla wrapped her fingers around the grubby brass handle, closed her eyes, and pulled. And as always the padlock didn’t magically fall off to allow her entrance into the Charlesgate’s realm. She wiped the grease from her palm onto her jeans and rested her forehead against the glass, closing her eyes.

Instantly, the brief dizziness that sometimes overcame her when she visited the Charlesgate returned.

The first time it had happened, Zylla had barely swallowed her panic from the melting sensation in her body and the buzzing in her ears. Now, she was used to the random bouts of dizziness and glimpses of the past that occasionally visited her mind when she came here, pulling her into the Charlesgate. She simply put it down to too much caffeine and a vivid imagination, yet still couldn’t bring herself to tell Anne or Aunt Maddie about the episodes.

Each dizzy spell and its accompanying vision offered a glimpse into the Charlesgate. This time, in her mind’s eye, she entered the building with two women dressed in Victorian garb. She heard the clatter of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones before the door closed behind her, then she heard only the noises of the busy dining room down the hall--the harmonies from a piano, the clinks of silver on dinnerware, and the chatter of people. As she walked toward the sounds, her blue muslin skirt swished around her legs and the scent of lavender, sweet and calming, drifted to her nose.

Just as quickly, the sensory experience passed, replaced by the sounds of modern day traffic, and Zylla still stood outside the padlocked doors of the Charlesgate.

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling with its great flakes of paint hanging precariously by mere fibers and stared at the golden green tiles of the alcove’s walls. They were so shiny that they looked wet. If she touched one, would she melt into that other world?

With hope, she reached out and pressed her index finger against the tile. Cold and dry, it did not pull her into her vision world, but Zylla felt a joyous tingle shoot through her finger, up her arm and into her blood. As if the building were made especially for me, she thought, and blushed at her own fancy.

But there was no denying that she had a strange tie to the building, imagined or not. Whenever she looked at the Charlesgate, a bittersweet longing rushed through her, and she had a desperate feeling that the fairy tale was eluding her by mere centimeters and that perhaps Heathcliff wasn’t, after all, rotting in some bog on an English moor.

"It’s a shame to let this building rot," Anne said, jarring Zylla from her reverie, and she turned to her friend, who had quietly entered the alcove to stand next to her.

"But," she continued, "better a ruin than a university dorm. At least it got some of its integrity back."

Zylla plopped down onto the top step and squinted into the midday sun. "You’re right about that."

"Still," Anne added as she sank down next to Zylla. "It would be cool to meet the ghost."

Zylla opened her mouth to say that according to her research, there was no ghost, only stories concocted by college students under the influence of illegal substances.

"I know, I know." Anne cut her off. "But don’t you wish there was?"

"Yeah." She grinned, and Anne laughed.

"You sure you want to go through with this tattoo thing, Zyll?"

Zylla extended her legs and crossed her feet at the ankles, to lean her body weight on her hands. She watched her feet while she answered Anne.

"Sometime last night," she began, "I realized that I wasn’t in love with Mike, that I hadn’t been for a good number of years."

She met Anne’s eyes. "I wasted a lot of time waiting for Mike and I have nothing to show for it. I don’t even know who I am! It’s pretty damn scary, actually, and I’ve made up my mind to never waste time again."

Zylla inhaled and slowly exhaled before continuing. "But I know myself, and it’s even scarier that I might just forget my new resolution and sink comfortably into another rut, letting another twenty years pass before the next crisis wakes me up.

"So I’m getting a tattoo, a permanent reminder to never forget."

Anne was silent beside her and Zylla shifted uncomfortably.

"So what are you going to do now?" Anne finally asked.

She drew up her legs and slumped forward, letting her elbows rest on her knees. "That’s the problem. The trouble is, I really don’t know what to do with what I know. And love."

"Your research obsessions, you mean. Hmmmm." Anne twirled her gold hair in thought. "You have a degree. You could teach history."

Zylla wrinkled her nose.

"Well, what about writing, then? You’re disciplined, and with your overactive imagination and all those weird nightmares you have, you’d be great."

Zylla looked over her shoulder at the broken Charlesgate with its gaping holes where windows used to be. Disconsolation settled in her belly. Here was a case where reality mauled the fairytale and turned happily ever after into a lonely pile of rocks.

If people only knew the grand history of the building!

"You could do something about it, you know," Anne said quietly, as if divining Zylla’s thoughts. "Write an article. Write a book."

"I guess," Zylla shrugged. "But writing doesn’t pay the rent. Besides, who really cares about this place anyway?"

Anne stared at her with a cool blue gaze. "You do."

She remained silent and after a few seconds, Anne stood. "Well, c’mon. If you’re determined to go through with this tattoo thing, I’ll hold your hand."

The two women trotted down the stairs and walked to the end of the block. As they turned the corner onto Charlesgate East, a white swish flashed in the corner of Zylla’s eye, and she looked up at the Charlesgate’s sandstone exterior. There, above the Moorish columns of the Charlesgate East Street entrance, a banner flapped in the breeze.

The words Caval Construction and Management marked the white cloth in big red letters.

Speechless, Zylla jumped up and down, clutching Anne’s arm with one hand and pointing at the banner with the index finger of her other hand.

Anne barely noticed. Her eyes widened and she grabbed Zylla to stop her frenzied movement.

"Look," she whispered, "There’s someone at the front door!"