Coeur d’Alene: A Ghost Story

I wrote this in the car on a cross-country road trip, sometime in high school. I feel like I grew up driving back and forth across the United States.
This was inspired by a run down hotel I saw once in one of the hundred of random little towns we drove through.

A street in New Jersey

My sister and my mother and I were on yet another long, boring journey through rainy states where we would tumble out of our over packed car to take more colorless pictures of mediocre views each state labelled “A Must See.”

Pushed ever on by our mother’s inexhaustible enthusiasm, my sister and I sighed and complained among ourselves every stop we made, but out of grudging love we never tried to dampen our mom’s spirits. 

We had passed a number of nameless, tiny towns where people trudged along on broken sidewalks in the wet evenings, stopping only occasionally for a lukewarm meal at nameless, tiny restaurants filled with neon lights and bland paintings. Why, I wondered, poking at the egg on my styrofoam plate, humans would willingly live in these places is beyond anyone’s mortal comprehension. 

After another uncomfortable stay in a cramped hotel room, spent shivering after the heater hissed and finally broke sometime during the night, we clambered back into our faded green car and zoomed off in search of more tacky adventures. 

“Next stop,” our mom said, her eyes shining as she gazed down the empty road ahead of her, “is the hotel Coeur d’Alene. It’s famous for its stately, castle-like towers. There are even myths of a people who lived there long ago who disappeared one day and were never seen again. This is just a myth,” mom said, glancing back at us through the rearview mirror, “but of course, all myths hold a grain of truth.”

My sister and I exchanged looks, reflecting each other’s rolling eyes. Our mother liked to believe in myths and fantastic stories of all kinds. We once spent a summer hunting down supposedly haunted houses from the Civil War era in the deep south, old plantations that were reputed to have slaves still sweating in the fields on burning hot days, but whether they were actual ghosts or just mirages from the blazing sun, no one could say exactly. We slept in sheds where legendary murderers had hidden, even though there were not really any local records of all their grotesque crimes that they had committed. I figured it was just like the witch hunts; people making up stories about other people they were afraid of.

Our mother was interested by these things; the macabre and the mysterious.

Undoubtedly, this was why we were spending the night at the Coeur d’Alene. She probably wanted to find the underground tomb where all those lost people had been piled up and buried or something equally horrible. My sister and I simply shared a vague curiosity about these things, but no longer felt any fear when faced with a night in a cursed hotel. 

When we arrived at the hotel, it was different from the other haunted houses we had scouted out before. Unlike the crumbling mansions in the south, or the impossibly high apartments in the east coast with floors the elevators for some strange reasons did not reach, this hotel looked completely normal. It was actually quite pretty, with glowing windows and a glass encased cafe that rested just beyond the main hotel and along the lake. Around the hotel was a boardwalk, illuminated warmly by bulb like lamps that dotted the floating, wooden sidewalk every couple of feet, empty boats anchored along the boardwalk like waiting servants. In the water, the lights shimmered like miniature moons. Towers did oddly twist up and with the cloudy sky above, looked almost medieval, but this somehow only added to the charm. The stucco walls and deep red paths created a homey feel. 

“How nice,” our mother said to herself, smiling. We parked beside the lake in a lot, and got out of the car to stretch our arms and shake off the sleepy feeling that always came with driving long distances. My little sister, Lucy, raised her arms above her head and leaned over to the left, giving me a grimace at the same time as a cutting breeze picked up. She didn’t enjoy cold weather. 

“Vivianne,” my mother stopped me as I mechanically began taking our bags out of the car, “how about we first take a little stroll on the boardwalk before it gets too dark?” She turned around and opened her arms as though trying to embrace the entire, slowly darkening lake, and take in all the air with one breath. This was what I loved about our mom; she really lived. I shrugged and threw our bags carelessly back into the car and slammed the door shut. It took another try, because our door was a little dented, from a close scrape with a truck some days before, and sometimes caused the door to close a little crookedly. Our whole car was covered with such dings and scratches. We never bothered to fix them; our mother liked to call them our little battle wounds. 

We began to walk towards the lake, a little stiffly at first, but soon I felt refreshingly brisk in the cool, evening air. The hotel Coeur d’Alene was the brightest building for miles around, but even with the shining windows and radiantly lit lamps everywhere, the stars in the sky glittered cheerfully. I gazed out over the lake and could vaguely see twinkling lights, but other than what I supposed were cabins on the other side, the hotel must have been the only place nearby with other people. It was somehow comforting to be alone like this, while at the same time knowing that so many other travelers were reclining inside the hotel in what I was sure were to be comfortable and fashionable chairs, drinking coffees and snacking on locally baked breads.

The floating boardwalk circled from the parking lot around the hotel and to another entrance on the other side. It bobbed gently as we strolled along, gazing at the thick, dark water that lapped up along the side, barely licking our toes if we stepped too near to the edge. The round lamps created small globes of light for about a foot or so that dropped into darkness for another few feet until another light appeared. The hotel stood majestically on the waters edge, calling us closer.

Lucy ran ahead, ridding herself of the extra energy that inevitably filled her after long drives, stopping every so often to wait impatiently for me and our mother to catch up. I preferred walking steadily with my hands in my pockets to protect me from the deepening chill. The night grew blacker, stars standing out in the inked sky like some heavenly hand had taken a needle through the blanket of night and poked holes in it for the sunlight to squeeze through. Through the cafe windows, people sat and talked, dressed unusually fashionably. I noticed, even at the distance where the women looked like tiny figurines, that they all wore dresses. I glanced down at my rumpled grey sweats. We would fit in so well. 

We walked for another couple minutes, about halfway around the long boardwalk, before I began to get very cold. Our car seemed equally far away as the entrance to the hotel, so we decided to go straight into the hotel, warm up first, and then walk the quicker route by land to our car to retrieve our things. “Hold on, Lucy!” I called out, my voice bouncing and echoing across the lake, distorting my voice, “hold on lucy, hodon luey, hucy...” it vanished into the trees beyond the water. 

Lucy turned, her face shadowed, but I could read her impatience by the way she stood, her hands on her hips, her head tilted slightly to the right. She hopped gently on her toes, waiting for me to catch up. I sped up a bit to warm myself up, and leaving my mother behind to walk at her own pace, Lucy and I took off down the pier. We ran, laughing loudly because we knew no one could hear us. Suddenly, behind us, we faintly hear our mother cry, “Vivianne!” We both stopped, and turned to see what our mother was calling about. She stood a little far back, a vague pale shape in the quivering lights, the water reflecting her weakly. We could tell nothing about her expression, nor even that she was our mother, but for her voice as she called again, “Vivianne, Lucy!” My hair stood on the back of my neck and arms; for the first time in my life, she sounded a little afraid. Her hand was pointed upwards, straight and firm, at odds with her voice. Lucy and I stepped towards her, when the lights behind us flickered. We whirled around, caught between our mother and the strange scene behind us. Every light on the hotel Coeur d’Alene was blinking, on and off, rapidly and blindingly. A strange whispering sound seemed to circle the entire hotel. In the flash of mere seconds, the cafe was ablaze with its beautiful, inviting radiance, the people inside easily seen through the massive glass windows, but the lights flickered off again. The gloom lasted but only a moment. Lucy’s mouth dropped open as the lights glared on once again. I could not believe my eyes. There was no one inside the cafe. It was completely empty. 

“wh.. What?” I sputtered, my mind reeling. Not a single person could be seen. 

“Mom!” Lucy, shouted, and I spun around. The lights on the boardwalk were steady. Our mother stood in the same position, her hand extended, obviously pointing to the hotel now. Faceless, our mother seemed frozen. My sister and I both took a step forward to her, when the boardwalk’s lights flickered once more. In the darkness, our mother vanished. When the lights returned a heartbeat later, she did not. 

“What should we do?” Lucy, asked me, her face drained and white in the lights that had looked so warm before, but now made everything around us seem pale and lifeless. I stared at her, my heart beating. We had been to so many supposedly haunted places and debunked countless of myths, that this seemed impossible. The hotel, our mother, the strange fact that since we arrived we had not met a single person outside. We looked at each other, and I knew that my fear must have been mirrored in her eyes, my sister who read my emotions like a human thermometer.

“Let’s go back to the car,” I decided quickly. It would be something familiar, and we would have a way to escape if necessary. Lucy nodded and we were about to backtrack our steps when the farthest light at the end of the pier blinked once, twice, and burned out. 

We froze. The next lamp made a faint whispering sound, and deadened. The darkness crawled up the boardwalk like a huge, silent beast. The lamps popped, hissed, and unstoppably blinked off, faster and faster. My feet seemed to be glued to the wood, as I stared at the approaching blackness. I might have stood there until I was swallowed by the night as well, if Lucy had not grabbed my arm. I stumbled back, awoken to this unfamiliar sensation of what I could only describe as horror, and we fled to the only direction we could. Towards the hotel. 

I had never run so fast in my life. I flew, Lucy racing beside me, her labored breath the only sound besides the quietly lapping water that looked terrible the darker it became, and the hiss of the dying lamps. Behind us, the closest lamp flickered. I was suddenly and horribly afraid of what would happen if we were caught in the darkness.

“Faster, Lucy,” I gasped, my own body trembling with the exertion of our speed. The hotel door loomed ahead, becoming larger, and strangely welcoming as we ran. We both hit the wood, our blow cushioned by our jackets. I fumbled for the door knob, my heart beating a tattoo into my throat, as Lucy, flattened herself against the wall as though pinned. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she cried, her eyes stretched open to oncoming night. The lamp above us gave an ominous whine, and as the light gave a final shudder, we fell through the door and onto the richly decorated carpet within the hotel Coeur d’Alene. 

The door slammed shut with a satisfying thud, the warmth of the room filling our shaking bodies. The tiny, decorative window on the door revealed nothing outside. The lights on the pier were all burned out. My sister and I lay in a heap on the ground, heaving and wheezing. Sweat stood out on her bizarrely white forehead, and I could feel sweat soaking through my own jacket. The boardwalk had suddenly felt so much longer when we were running. I closed my eyes, and dropped my head to the floor, laying flat on the carpet, soaking up the safety of the hotel. Even in our escape though, I felt the vague prickle at the back of my neck. I couldn’t forget the vanished people in the cafe. We lay there in the silent room for a minute more, then stripped off our jackets. Standing up, I looked around and noticed we were in something like a great hall. The high ceiling was lit by a beautifully crafted chandelier. The light quivered on the walls, and I could tell that there were real candles.

“How do they put the candles up there?” Lucy asked me. I could always count on Lucy thinking the same things. 

“I don’t know,” I said, “but let’s see if we can find someone who knows their way around here.”

I didn’t want to remind her of the flickering cafe lights. Lucy nodded. I knew she was not fooled. We walked past rooms that still smelled like cigars or perfume, as though the memory of the Victorian era still lingered over the billiard tables and reclining chairs that sat silently. Everything appeared recently vacated. We didn’t say why, but neither of us wanted to enter any of the rooms. One door swung ever so slightly. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but it was as though someone had carefully opened it. 

Time passed, in ticks and muted chimes from the many clocks that hung all over the walls. From outside, the hotel had looked like a modernized castle, but from within, it felt like we had fallen into a stream of the past.

“It’s like we are the ones who are from another time,” Lucy whispered.

We only whispered; we were afraid of shattering the hushed atmosphere and awakening something. It seemed crazy, but the hotel itself felt like it was alive, sleeping, and we were walking inside the bowels of some mysterious creature. 

I don’t know how long we wandered, but soon we came across the cafe. I felt a jolt as I swept the room with my eyes; coffee cups still sat steaming on the small, round tables, and for one overturned chair, the elegantly backed chairs were left gently pushed out as though a whole group of laughing people had stood up suddenly and exited the room. I could almost hear the murmuring. We gazed out the grand glass windows. The lake had been swallowed up by the blackness outside, and even far across where the solitary twinkling lights had been it was dark. It seemed as though nothing existed beyond the hotel, and we were trapped in this island, the only thing left in the whole world. 

“I don’t know why,” Lucy said softly, “but I feel very sad.” She looked up at me, her hair messy after she had lost her hat. “Everything is lost. It’s frightening.” 

This cafe was the edge of the universe.

“Come on,” I said, wanting desperately to make movement in this deathly still place. “Let’s just keep walking. There must be someone here.” 

After the cafe, which had smelled of coffee and, oddly enough, companionship, the hallways felt musty and tunnel like. We dared not take the elevators; one door was wide open to a gaping shaft. We found a sweeping staircase that spiraled upwards, tightening as it went higher, until the staircase seemed to squeeze itself into the ceiling. We stepped onto the next floor up. The carpet was threadbare, and the clocks seemed to tick more slowly, as though they had not been wound up for a very long time. 

“Why are there so many clocks, Vivianne?” Lucy asked. I had no answer and Lucy didn’t ask again. She had asked to simply try to fill the silence. 

The entire hotel was silent, but in a desperate way, like someone holding back words, rather than having no voice. I thought I would scream from the heavy speechlessness. Then we entered the library. 

Compared to the smothered quiet within the book lined room, the outside hotel was completely alive. The very air between the towering bookcases quivered with secrets, the oxygen bone dry. Sweeping through the stillness, that strange whispering tantalized my imagination. The books know we are here, I thought, losing my logic.

My sister and I tiptoed past a shelf of Rs, where we could read in spidery print on the cracked book spines titles like, “Rogues of the Wild West,” and “Rain: The Importance of Weather Prediction.” I didn’t recognize anything. Some things were written in different languages. 

The room was mute. I could no longer tell if I had gone deaf or if everything really was this silent. We gingerly walked past shelves and books stacked neatly, and once past a chair where an open book was slowly turning from one page to another, as though being flipped over by an imperceptible breath of air. I felt a cold tingle in my lower back, and Lucy gripped my hand hard. 

We reached the end of the massive room after an eternity, the last shelf covered with books all beginning with the letter A. “Alps, The” I read out loud in a hushed voice, My words sounded ear-splitting in the silence. “All’s Well That Ends Well,” 

“I know that one,” Lucy whispered eagerly. 

“Alene’s Heart,” I paused. Alene. 

“Coeur d’Alene!” Lucy said, her excitement bare even in her quiet voice. “The same as the hotel!”

My own heart pounded. I reached up to the take the book. It wanted me to take it. As my fingertips brushed the spine of the book, the whispering in the room seemed to become louder. Lucy looked nervously around her, as the library lights above us dimmed faintly. My courage nearly failed me as I grabbed the book and slid it off the shelf. Nothing happened. 

We sat on the floor carefully, and put our heads together over the book. The cover was thick, and decorated in faded gold. “Alene’s Heart,” the title read, in boastfully elaborate letters that now looked cumbersome and old fashioned. With a creak, the front cover turned, and I gently brushed away some feathery dust that settled on the page. There was a picture of a young girl, a black and white image blurred by time. Even without the definition, her eyes stared sharply out. She had severely parted hair, pulled up in a sleek bun that made her look much older than the picture indicated in a tiny caption below; Alene, 18 years of age. Her hands were laid demurely on her lap, her tiny frame draped in a constricting dress of Victorian fashion. 

“She looks so unhappy,” Lucy said wonderingly, forgetting for the first time to whisper. I shivered slightly, unconsciously pulling my jacket tighter around me. We turned to a random page, and read.

Alene Cortisse, though but the eighteen at the time, suffered from terrible illness of humors in the braine. Legend tells of the many times she screamed until neighbors believed her to be murdered, only to find her lying prostrate on the stone floor, her hair in wild array. A beautiful young woman, her outside appearance belied the vicious jealousy that burned her from within. Many mothers of the town refused to allow their children near Alene for the fear they carried of the sick girl. Because she could never have a child of her own, for no man would come near her, she gathered the innocent and small who wandered unwittingly by her home and locked them inside the many towers of her grand estate, often the orphan or runaway. As the years passed, Alene became increasingly more reclusive, and rarely went outside of her crumbling home. Any child who entered the grounds of the mansion was never seen again. Townspeople who had heard of her but never seen Alene Cortisse passed along stories of her witch-like qualities; spiteful stories that whispered of her blood drinking rituals to keep herself young, stories that said she was terrified of being alone, and so bewitched lonely wanderers to stay trapped within her enigmatic walls. It has been decades since Alene has last been seen, but her home remains strangely a lit at night. Perhaps a kindly stranger still tends to the grounds. 

Lucy’s head knocked roughly against mine as she stood up suddenly, her lips tinged blue from the freezing cold I had not been aware of. Stunned back into reality (was it reality? This twisted, parallel world we were trapped in), I blinked my dry eyes to help me refocus as I looked up at Lucy. She was poised for flight, her hands were shaking as she stared back into the gloomy bookcases.

I slowly rose to my feet, clutching the book in numb fingers. The silence in the room was no longer deathly, but menacing, persuasive, imploring. Lucy and I barely gave each other any hint, but as of one mind we began to run for the door, as the whispering rising from the books become a harrowing muttering, and swirled like a wind, blowing ancient dust from hidden corners of the dingy room. The books shuddered and tumbled off the shelfs, hitting us, falling apart, pages tearing and cutting at us. As the door grew closer and closer the space between the book cases seemed to shrink, threatening to crush us.

Our shoulders knocking painfully against each other as we bolted, our hands over our heads to block the pounding books as they fell smashing upon us. The door swung open and we fell through. But we did not pause, our fear pressing us forward like a knife at our backs, and we ran down the winding staircase.

With horror, I saw that the paintings on the wall were alive, the burning, stabbing eyes of Alene Cortisse staring down at us from the faces of old, military men and beautiful shepherdesses. We ran through the wide hallway, the ceiling arching up to the candlelit chandeliers, our fleeing shadows dancing and shaking on the wooden paneled walls. Every room became ablaze with light and noise as we ran by them, though we paused to look neither left nor right to see what was happening within each. The cafe alone was silent, the woody scent of roasted coffee beans following us as we tore past. Lucy’s pace was faltering, and I could see her pupils were huge.

“Faster Lucy, faster!” I shouted against the monstrous sound of the hotel’s pleading demands. My lungs were about to burst. The horrible whispering of the hotel grew louder, tearing after us, whipped to a howling wind that scraped our ears. The front door was just in our reach. With one hand I grabbed Lucy to make her keep up her speed, my other hand strained ahead of me, desperate to clutch the door handle. For a few terrible moments my hands fumbled, my terrified fingers jerkily moving on their own accord, attempting to turn the heavy, bronze, old fashioned knob.

“Open it, Vivianne, open it!” Lucy shrieked, banging on the door in panic, and with a final anguished yank, the door crashed wide open. The darkness outside which had seemed so chilling before, embraced us, and we vanished into the night.

“Lucy. Vivianne.” 

The soft voice tugged at my inner conscious, as a gentle hand stroked my cheek. Slowly, I opened my eyes to slits, guarding my sleep heavy eyes from the bright light. Next to me I could hear someone rustling in another sheet-tangled bed. Through blurred eyes, I could see Lucy turning and stretching in her bed. Her hair sat on top of her head as wild as a lion’s mane. She smiled drowsily at me, then with her impossible quickness, shook off her lethargy and bounded out of bed. Our mother was sitting next to me, and as I looked back from Lucy to her, she gave a swift smile and said, “Time to get up. Need to pack.” and left the room with Lucy, who was already asking what was for breakfast and where were we going and what should we pack this time. 

I laid in my bed for a couple more minutes, feeling a little disoriented by the sudden wake up. Already I was slightly cross at the idea of another trip; I had an strange feeling that we had just returned from one. With a sigh, I sat up, my head spinning a bit, and placed my hand on my pillow to steady myself. Instead of the soft feather down I expected, my hands sunk halfway into the pillow and was stopped by something hard. I looked down in surprise, and lifted up the pillow to see what was underneath it. My blood froze. 

“Vivianne,” Lucy came back into the room, her hands impatiently on her hips and her head cocked slightly to the side in an expression of pained tolerance. “Hurry up. And bring your swimsuit, mom says we’re going to some lake.” She didn’t wait for my reply, and twirled once in the doorway before returning to the kitchen where I could hear eggs frying. Lucy hadn’t noticed the book on my lap, or the bloodlessness of my face. 

I looked from the empty doorway down to the heavy book that felt cold in my hands. I could feel my heart beat pounding in my fingertips, beating fast against the book cover until I could not distinguish if it was my heart or the book that was throbbing. I took a deep breath and opened the cover, already horribly certain of what I would see. 

Alene Cortisse stared back at me, a stony, ironical expression in her knowing, dark eyes.