Phantom Manor (English version)

The curse of the Thunder Bird

Thunder Mesa, Colorado, October 27th 1865

After three days of exhausting researches which have not give anything, I finished to snatch from Mr. Ravenscroft the information I cared so much : he agreed to talk to me about the curse supposed to weigh over Thunder Mesa, Ravenswood Manor and the Big Thunder Mountain. According to the Indians present here, a Thunder Bird, overpowerful spirit for the moment asleep, would live in the mountain, jealously keeping a treasure, even more invaluable than gold. Anybody who would try to seize this treasure would immediatly be destroyed. Henry Ravenswood would have discovered it and, all to his glory and greed, would have wanted to get it, provoking the Thunder Bird's anger, who triggered an earthquake of unprecedented violence, which miraculously saved the manor. The story seems to me implausible : if I was a Indian spirit, furious against Henry Ravenswood, I would destroy the symbol of his power with him.

Anyway, I'm not an Indian spirit and no doubt it was only a wrong move from one of the workers. An unfortunate move, certainly, but what can we do now ? I would like to meet Mr. Ravenswood, but I don't know if he wil accept my card...

Lord Alexander E. Chelsea's diary

***

Ella and Paul were installed from either side of the large oaken table. The mayor lived in a comfortable house, as his profession permitted him, but his tea were quite repellent. He had apologized and had finished to prepare her some coffee, drink which never had attracted the young girl but finally seemed to be as exquisite as the tea. Paul took a nip and stayed thinking for a while. There was no place where he felt safer than his home.

"Good," he said. "What do you want to know ?"

"Everything you think useful to tell me," Ella answered. "I don't want to be surprised by any detail arriving at the manor tomorrow."

"I don't know more than the other inhabitants, I'm afraid. Though Mr. Nutterville had been here for a longer time than me... You maybe could question him, if you don't fear the Don Juans.

"This Nutterville is a Don Juan ?" Ella asked with surprise, raising an eyebrow.

"God, no !" Paul exclaimed, laughing. "He burried the Ravenswood... He's far too old for this kind of things ! No, I was talking about his apprentice, Cristobal Harrington. He comes from the East, Boston I think, or maybe Philadelphia. Anyway, it doesn't matter, let's see what can be useful to you... Nay vital."

He stood up and stopped in front of the window, groping on the shleve beside him to find his pipe. Once he had lit it, he looked at Ella in the reflection of the window.

"When Henry Ravenswood arrived, Thunder Mesa was nothing more than a vast area made of ocher dust and brackish water," he said. "In this water, he found gold, lots of gold. He could have been pleased with it, but he was sure that the mountain in the middle of the lake contained much more nuggets than all he had already token to the earth. He was ambitious, and he immediatly decided to make of the Big Thunder Mountain his main source of income. Oh, he succeeded quite quickly. People trusted him.

But he had hushed up to everyone the warning of the Indians who lived here in the past : according to them, a powerful spirit, the Thunder Bird, was watching over the mine and was keeping an eye on Ravenswood. A great treasure, far more precious than all the gold of the world, was hidden in the mountain, and he would never try to seize it if he didn't want to attract the anger of this spirit, as a monstruous earthquake. I told you Ravenswood was ambitious... He didn't listen to these rantings. He paid it with his life.

His daughter, Melanie, met by chance a worker from the mine, and it was already an exploit, because his father never let her go anywhere alone. This young man, Jake Evans, was already madly in love for her, and she succumbed at her turn. This is where things started to go wrong. Henry Ravenswood first agreed to give Melanie's hand to the young Evans, then recanted when he learned their desire to go far from the manor. Nothing to do, the two young people continued to see each other and the wedding seemed unstoppable.

The day before the ceremony, Ravenswood, in an execrable mood, went to the mine with his wife Martha. He never came back : a frightening earthquake shook the town, destroying the galleries and the lives of everyone in the mountain. Melanie was ravaged, but the wedding was maintained. The next day was the last time we saw the young married and their guests. Once the doors had been closed on them, they were condemned. Nobody knew what they had become, and nobody never knew it until we find Jasper and Anna Jones, the Ravenswood's butler and chambermaid, laid in the graveyard, almost dead of fright and tiredness. Their story was quite disjointed, but one thing had been perfectly understood : they had been tyrannized and tortured by evil spirits, and one seemed to be Henry Ravenswood himself. They were sure that the goal was to kill them, because "the Master had already murdered Miss Ravenswood and explosed in a limitless triumph", to repeat their words.

The mayor at this time, Mr. Thurl Ravenscroft, sent them in urgence in an hospital in New-York. At the end of the year 1866, no more than a few months after their arrival in New-York,  Jasper died and his body was sent back to Thunder Mesa to respect his vow to be burried beside his master. In January 1867, it was Anna's turn to come back to us. Your father was there at this moment, milady. He was with Mr. Ravenscroft when the Jones get out of the manor. I wouldn't be surprised if he had written all this in his diary... You should take a look at it."

Ella nodded, fascinated. She didn't doubt her father had been as enchanted as horrified when he attend to the discovery of the two servants. Through the window, she contemplated the Big Thunder Mountain with an intense look, as if she would have wanted to see through the rock. Which wonderful and dangerous being was hiding inside ? What was this treasure he defended so jealously ? She suddenly understood Henry Ravenswood : once he knew the existence of this trophy, a little bit ambitious being could only want to know what it was. And this, no matter the price to pay.