Prolog

In which our heroes are dealt with only peripherally.

There is an old Victorian mansion on an island in the center of the San Francisco Bay. The mansion is all gleaming white board and red brick. It has a grand porch for sipping tea upon. And neat and grassy green lawns, two of them. It has a great staircase for visitors, and a tight little staircase in the back, where servants once scurried. And most days, when the traffic is moving, easy access to the Bay Bridge. The house is built on solid rock. It has three stories, plus a basement with rats and an arching high attic with spiders. It is haunted of course.

The ghost is very proud of its home.

It likes to lounge in the great, steel, claw-footed tub that sits in the attic. It is also rather fond of the little fold in space-time on the second floor balcony, which most days leads to a mid-summer festival in Atlantis. The space time fold isn't really odd, after all such things are an unwritten requirement for all old mansions built on islands. What is odd is that the only access to the balcony is through a bathroom, which was at the time of our story decorated with a great many Mickey Mouse knickknacks.

Not that Mickey was a permanent resident in the bathroom. No one lives in the old house for very long. Not because of the ghost, who is quite friendly. Although, the ghost did have an unreasoning hatred for a fern in the front living room, which it knocked over every few weeks. It's just that the house is a military house, with layers and layers of white military paint over its lovely wood inlay. And every few years the house's family moves out. And then another coat of white paint and another family move in.

At the time of our tale, a Captain and his wife and their daughter lived in the house. One of their sons lived in the servant's quarters over the garage. He played in a punk band. The ghost felt that these living arrangements were for the best. Not that ghost dislikes punk music. It is just that it was unfair competition. The ghost only has a chain, a sheet, a squeaky voice, and a cracked bell. The punk band had electrical guitars, drums, a bass, devices that woof, and several very electrically amplified voices. Unfair!

On that bright September day, the ghost was not thinking about the son and his band and the unfairness of not owning its own speaker system. It was watching the daughter of the house pack for a trip. Well, not really pack. She'd packed a month ago. Then unpacked, rearranged her stuff, rethought what she wanted to bring, repacked, unpacked again, fiddled and diddled and generally fussed over her bag. But tomorrow she was leaving. Going to France. Jump up and down in excitement. France!

She had never been to France. Or Europe. Or another country of any sort. She would have said that she'd never been anywhere. The ghost, who had lived in the same house for seventy years, felt that anyone who moved every two years couldn't really say that, but then again, the ghost had been to France (well, and Atlantis). Long ago, when the ghost was flesh and had a gender, (not really sure which one) its father, or its mother, or the government had sent it to France. The ghost tried to remember France, but couldn't really, and then realized time had gone by.

The daughter was jumping up and down again and chanting, "We're going to Fra-aa-nce. We're going to Fra-aa-nce". The other one was there too. Not the captain, or his wife, or the son, but the other one. The other one that was going to France. She was also jumping up and down and chanting, although she had not only been to France before, but a great many other places as well.

Oh and by the way, the daughter's name was and is Kay. The other one's name is and was Cee.

And so there it was, 5:00 a.m., not a creature stirring, except two slightly insane women in their mid twenties, a hundred year old ghost, and a ticking Mickey clock on the wall. Tick, tick, tick.

The clock struck 5:30 a.m. and the two women picked up their duffle bags, one black, one red, and climbed down the tiny, twisty servant's stairs. Kay's mother also came grumble, grumble down the stairs.

And they went out the door and into a car. Off to the airport, to France.

They waved at the house. The ghost waved back. And so our story begins.