Ghosts of Villa de Zenith

Book summary

At Villa de Zenith, a charming seniors' apartment, strange occurrences unfold after the arrival of a mysterious couple, Karen and Alfred Grindelwald. Flickering lights, eerie sounds, and moving objects spur a group of residents to uncover the truth. Kenna McKinnon's GHOSTS OF VILLA DE ZENITH offers a heartwarming tale of mystery, humor, and friendship.

Excerpt from Ghosts of Villa de Zenith

On the first day of autumn 2027 in the city of Edmonton, Canada, cold rain blasted silver shadows through the historic Westmount area. Beyond its front yard, a five-story apartment building, Villa de Zenith, housed quiet and independent seniors who shuddered through the storm - the outside walls ran wet, as red brick flashed with lightning bolts thrown from ancient gods above.

The tenant shivering on the front walk hunched over her Zippo and lit an already drenched cigarette. She inhaled greedily. Smoking was not permitted inside the building. Forced to expose herself to the fury of the gale, Mariya didn’t mind the inconvenience. Five stories above, a slim figure watched from a hallway window, silhouetted by a crimson Exit sign. Azalea Bright, peering out, threw malevolent thoughts like the gods’ lightning bolts to her neighbor below, hoping to exterminate her own demons by a purging of her tortured soul to the pure soul of her former friend.

Zenith means the time at which something is most powerful or successful. It is also the highest point above a terrestrial object. Any other meaning is paranormal and inaccurate, not to be confused with the musings of the figure in the yard, whose name was Mariya Babiak. Her rival five floors up watched as Mariya shivered, extinguished her smoke, and scurried toward the glass front doors of the seniors’ complex. Then the watching figure, Azalea, melted into the dim lights on the fifth floor.

Talk ran underground and rampant in the small rooms. Villa de Zenith housed all manner of personalities, and any empty apartments and rooms smelling of death and sweet smoke were no worse or better than imaginations could fathom. Mariya glanced up. The war in her home country continued. She was peace loving and close lipped about international news, especially that which involved her ancestral nation. Azalea, she knew, avidly watched television news and avidly watched Mariya. Why? She thought: I have been a good friend. Mariya was a good friend to all tenants in Villa de Zenith and Azalea had been no exception. Perhaps an incident no longer remembered as significant?

The glass doors opened with a click of her large steel key and the sturdy figure entered. Inside to the left was the common room. Music rang out of the open doors. Darian and Kay strummed joyfully on guitar and rattled maracas as usual on this, a Tuesday evening. The common room was used by all tenants. This was their time.

Good, Mariya thought. I’m safe.

***

In her apartment, Azalea smoked hiddenly and thought of salt and vandalism, but her spirit longed for release. Some of the tenants, including Mariya, understood this but the slim woman simply hated. Their kind thoughts were foreign to her.

Azalea was in a safe place, a sanctuary unrelated to the blowing streets outside and the screams of the gale; however, she loved the night and its inhabitants. She longed for those in the shadows of the empty city and the anonymity of darkness. She smoked and simmered. Simmered and smoked.

Azalea understood all too well the chaos of mental illness. Not the relief, not the release, not the love that poured out of the world for her tortuous journey. In her mind, a story took place. A story of intrigue and paranoia, and conspiracy that was unfounded but responsive to the demands of modern medications and prayer, if she would accept them.

She didn’t know that Villa de Zenith wished her well. The kindly tenants sometimes left gifts at her door. Brilliant and wary, Azalea scorned them until they gave up. Inwardly and out, the storm raged on.

Commune with a circle. Laugh. Sit in darkness and know the power of ritual. She knew all that to be medicine for her soul yet with her walker her only friend, Ariel remembered daily that her life used to be free when she would run with the wind through her greying hair, with a buddy at her side, and relish the never-ending days. Now she felt like she was in a cage. Constrained by excess flesh and illness, Ariel Dahlen remembered when she was an Amazon and Viking woman; she remembered in her aging bones, but time stretched interminably now that youth had fled. She gazed at the world out of intelligent probing grey eyes, a life tumbled sideways from good health. Dreams dashed on the doorstep of an inevitable future, she had surrendered.

Ariel lived on the second floor of Villa de Zenith. Across from her apartment was Mickey Planter’s old suite. His door was a constant reminder of the endearing and vital Mickey - his raspy voice, twisted smile and – oh, they loved him! He was very active and full of life. Loved sports, especially soccer. He was often seen rocking back and forth on his chair like a mischievous child, and he’d been known to stop a car and shout, “Your wheels are turning!” or yell, “I have lice!”.

That’s why, when Mickey died in the spring of that year, his absence was a shock to the whole community. An avid sports fan and runner, he rarely spoke of the heart condition that eventually felled him one night in late April as he sat at his solitary meal of chips and gravy. When he didn’t appear in public for four days in a row, his neighbors called management to unlock the door. They found him on the tiles beneath his kitchen table, twisted, blue, cold and rigid.

Bernie Mae, a lovely white-haired Metis lady from next door to Mickey’s place saw him first, before management dared to enter, standing with the keys in their hand outside in the hallway. Bernie Mae was wearing animal print sunglasses at the time due to recent eye surgery, but nothing wrong with her vision - she said Mickey looked surprised and his hand still held the fork. But he was dead. No reviving the avid soccer watcher and runner, seemingly so health conscious except for his last meal which didn’t kill him, Bernie Mae explained. No immediate relatives were available for Mickey, but a couple of second cousins came hushed and wondering, and cleaned the apartment and arranged for an autopsy. No one in Villa de Zenith understood why Mickey Planter took his last breath at that time or what for sure killed him, or even when it happened. Speculation, as always, circulated through hunched murmuring figures in the common room.

Afterwards, they whispered a story of ghosts and access to locked doors on the third floor above and beyond that to the fourth and fifth, extending even to Azalea’s suite. Footsteps thudded the hallways at midnight and someone knocked on closed locked doors but speculation ceased as being an overactive imagination on someone’s part. Villa de Zenith returned to normal. Still, the tales of ghosts lingered. There were many more tales, in this complex where the aged came to pass into oblivion.

After the September storm and a brief frost, birch, elm, poplar, and willow flamed orange, yellow, and russet red like a wildfire erupting through green shrubs and still verdant lawns. The sun had the glow of a thousand suns in the afternoon, in the summer memories of those stretched amiably on the benches in front of the glass doors. October seemed no different. Brilliant leaves dropped, dappling the lawns and sidewalks with cornflakes crunch. Children who started school the month before trooped home with backpacks, met parents, siblings, and dogs to greet the still long days before the first snow. Victoria Deaves on the fourth-floor stashed dog treats and water under the big barbecue grill covered with a tarp that rested by the wrought iron fence beside the green benches. Dogs were more welcome than children. Coyotes from the river valley and homeless people from downtown were less welcome than either. But the area was well kept and beautiful, an upscale neighborhood historic and close to amenities, served by city buses and Ubers at all times of the day and evenings; Villa de Zenith for seniors was inexpensive and nicely maintained. Still, some tenants complained. Good natured grumbling was the norm. It knit them together, a common theme of comradeship or perhaps boredom. The watchful gardener of the group, a kind and intelligent woman named Kathleen (the first name given to any baby boomer in 1946), joined in vicariously – listened and put together puzzle pieces on the table next to the library in the common room – silence is golden and speech is silver, she said, her cup of orange tea next to her elbow. She did not complain. Others ate cake and cookies, and Darian Polo and Kay played music, in which Kathleen Taylor joined with a lovely soprano voice.

Then, a ghost erupted into their peaceful existence. Kindly but mischievous, as Mickey Planter was in life. No one noticed until Mariya Babiak overheard Azalea Bright screaming in the elevator one night, and stood outside the elevator doors, and saw the blue haze ooze from the cracks in the door. She heard Mickey’s voice, pungent as burnt vanilla pudding, wail, Has our team lost again? Then he laughed, in a maniacal way, and when the elevator doors opened, Azalea was hunched in an orange chair in the corner, her eyes popped in terror and her face blue.

Later, after the police van arrived, the situation was put down to a mental breakdown and smoking in the elevator. Mickey’s voice? Mariya seemed sure, after, that Azalea had imitated a man’s raspy tone and scared the cheese and crackers out of her. When Azalea returned from the psychiatric ward, all was forgotten. At least until the seniors on the fourth floor heard the moaning at midnight and footsteps of an invisible intruder.