“I’m not sure I’m right. I wasn’t paying as much attention as I might have.” Then he remembered something. “They’re using sound in medicine now, aren’t they? I know they’re breaking up kidney stones with ultrasound. My father had that done just last year.”
“They do that by discovering the vibrational frequency of the stone, then pumping up the volume of the same tone, overloading it until the stone explodes.”
“Sounds violent.”
“It is. And it’s the choice of allopathic medicine. Chemo, which targets the specific tumor with a blast of medicine in an effort to destroy it, works by the same sort of violent principle. It battles the cancer. My approach is a little different. First I try to locate the cells that contain the illness. Then I discover what is healthiest about the patient: love, compassion, gratitude, et cetera, and I try to determine the resonance of those healthy emotions. Then I play that healthy frequency back to the cells that are suffering, in an effort to vibrate them back into harmony. They’re opposite approaches to sound medicine, but they both work.”
Paul looked at her strangely.
“You’re skeptical,” she said.
“Emotions have corresponding sounds?”
“I’ll give you an example,” she said. “If you’re open to it.”
“Sure,” Paul said.
“Close your eyes.”
Paul closed his eyes, listening while she sang and held a note.
“Anything?”
“You have a very nice voice.”
“Thank you. What else?” She sang the note again, holding it for twice as long. “What do you feel right now?”
He hesitated, listening for a minute before answering. “Relaxed. I have to say, it’s very calming.”
She nodded. “Good. What about this?”
This time she didn’t sing but drew the wand around the bowl a few more times, letting the sound build. “What do you feel now?”
“That’s calming, too, but more than that. It makes me feel really good, actually.”
“That’s the universal tone for love.”
“Ah,” he said.
“See how calming it is when I add this.” She played the tone again, then sang a diminished fifth, the tritone or blue note.
“Not as calming,” he said, opening his eyes and staring at her. “Agitating, actually.”
“That’s love in a different form,” she said.
“Sex,” he said, getting it.
“You got it.” Now it was her turn to grin.
“I think I need a drink,” he said.
“Sounds like a good plan.”
She’d never seen a real speakeasy, hadn’t taken Finn’s tour of it on Thanksgiving.
She followed Paul up to the second level, which featured the same soft lighting illuminating the racks of wine that lined the walls of the hallway. After walking a long corridor that wound around the elevator shaft like a corkscrew, they came to the heavy oak door she had seen on their way down. Near the top was a tiny hatch that could be opened from the inside to check the identity of those who were entering.
“This was a hot spot during Prohibition. Boats came in at high tide, and customers climbed through a hidden tunnel to get to the bar. My father recently had the whole room done over to house his collection of port—and other exotic liquors. That’s why he was giving so many tours on Thanksgiving. He wanted to show it off for the holiday.”
“He doesn’t enjoy showing off generally?”
“Not all the time.” Paul grinned.
“That looks authentic,” she said, pointing to the hatch. “Is there a password?”
“Nope. But there probably should be. This is my father’s pride and joy.”
Paul reached for a large brass key hidden among the wine racks. He opened the door, replaced the key on the hook, and then switched on the lights. The walls inside were mahogany. Around the perimeter of the room were some polished brass steampunk-looking items similar to the ones she had seen in the boathouse.
“The bar was imported from a pub in London.”
The only visible stone in the room was the floor, which tilted slightly.
“It feels like we’re on a ship,” Callie said. She imagined she could feel the rocking motion of the sea beneath them.
“Thank my father. The walls and fixtures came from an old Salem ship, one that served the China trade during the early eighteen hundreds. That table was from the captain’s quarters.” A decanting candle and bottle sat in the middle; the candlestick holder was bolted down. “That rug was brought back on the same ship after one of its voyages to the Orient.”
Paul picked up the decanter, crossed to one of the barrels, and gently opened the spigot. “This is what you missed on Thanksgiving,” he said, bringing it back to the table, pouring her a glass of deep red-brown liquid. “A hundred-and-thirty-year-old port. Stolen off a Portuguese ship.”
He held a glass under her nose. She took a whiff. It smelled of earth, molasses, leather.
“So the Whitings were pirates as well?”
“Did I forget to mention that?”
She laughed. “Your mother really did clean up your family’s reputation.”
“Told you,” he said. “They dealt in illegal spirits, some ancient brandies, and absinthe when thujone was outlawed here. Prohibition and scarcity create great business opportunities, if you’re willing to take the risk, which my family was. How they got seven barrels of antique port all the way across the Atlantic without them being ruined, I’ll never know. And it’s pre-phylloxera port at that.” He placed the glasses on the table, taking a seat opposite her.
“Thujone? Phylloxera? You’re losing me here.” Reflexively, she’d been rubbing her palms together off and on all evening. She saw him notice.
“Thujone is the active ingredient in absinthe, and phylloxera was a tiny insect that destroyed the grapevines of Europe in the eighteen hundreds. This port, thank God, predates that tragedy.” He looked at her seriously. “There’s a reason my father keeps this place locked: Wine lovers have killed for less. They’ve also tried to counterfeit the stuff.”
“Counterfeit port? Never heard of that; another illicit family hobby?”
“Not us that time. That was Marta’s father. Some kind of get-rich-quick scheme to sell the phony stuff. But he worked for us and managed to take down our whole business with the scandal.”
“I’m not sure I understand the business model.”
“If they’re lucky enough to find it, the great houses use pre-phylloxera port as a starter for the ports they produce today,” Paul explained. “My dad sold two barrels a few years back, and the new blend they made from it sells for a thousand dollars a bottle.” He pointed to some cases in the far corner. “Which is how he was reimbursed, of course.
“Go ahead, try it,” he said, lifting his glass to her as if to toast.
Callie sipped slowly. It didn’t taste at all the way she’d expected. Instead of earthy, it was sweet, with just a trace of maple syrup and honey.
“Marta’s father didn’t have the real thing but thought he could fake it. The people he sold to knew the difference and exposed him as a fraud, and us by extension.”