The Brown House

by Christy Sloat

  “Well, I am totally happy for you Lyn. But this isn’t going to intrude on your relationship at all. No one said we were fighting ghosts, we just want to find answers,” I told her reassuringly. She nodded and hugged me tightly. I hugged her back and prayed that we in fact didn’t have to fight any ghosts. I wasn’t sure what the ‘others’ would do once they found out I was hiding the family tree they so desperately wanted me to find for them. I hadn’t planned on giving it to them anytime soon. So far no one seemed mad. I hadn’t seen or heard from Pearl or her mother today. Yet something told me that meant nothing.

  “We have to find out what’s behind that door,” Ephraim said, as he pulled into my driveway.

  “Why is that? What good will that do?” I asked, as I got out of the truck and grabbed my bag. He shut off the engine and got out as well, followed by Lyn.

  “He’s right Brylee, there is something they don’t want anyone to know about. Why else would they keep it locked up and so secret for all these years.”

  “Whoa, I thought we agreed finding the artist was going to help us get answers.” They both looked at each other, like they were hiding something.

  Lyn spoke first, “It might help, yes, but if this family truly went into hiding they may not want to assist us. We have to think of all the options. Since you and Kayla are so chummy, Ephraim and I think you should talk to her.” She took my bag from me and set it on the truck hood.

  “So we are going to go find her right now,” Ephraim said as he started off into the woods behind my house. I had no choice but to follow behind them.

  Chapter Twenty

  I didn’t understand why they insisted we talk to Kayla, other than the fact that she could tell us about the night she died. We had all come to agree that she was dead and not missing like we had all thought. I had to try to come to terms with all of it. Kayla was dead, and I was some sort of special ghost seer. I didn’t want to be unique; this wasn’t a talent I chose. In fact, I would rather be able to fly or walk through walls instead of seeing and communicating with the dead. As we walked in silence I thought mostly about Pearl and how she asked me to find the family tree. I had let her down by not giving it to her. She had helped me by trying to keep her family at bay. I didn’t know if I deserved her help any longer. As for Violet, she was just trying to scare me. I was sure of it.

  We came to a large ravine and stopped. Ephraim pulled Lyn across then reached out for me. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up into his arms. The dance was this weekend, and all I wanted was to go back to being a semi-normal teenager. I just wanted to be able to enjoy the dance with him and Lyn. I knew we couldn’t stay out here all afternoon since my mom was driving Lyn and I to go dress shopping down to the shore today. We had to rush this meeting with Kayla, if we found her at all.

  Shortly after the ravine I heard the familiar sounds of water. Sure enough, we had found the stream. It was beautiful and sparkly in the sunshine. It looked like the perfect place to have a picnic. I sat on a soft spot in the grass and threw my hands up. “Ok we’re here. Now what do we do?” Ephraim sat across from me and Lyn leaned against a tree. We sat in silence for a long while, because even though Ephraim and Lyn had thought this was a good idea, they had no idea if Kayla was here. The sun started to get lower in the sky and Kayla still hadn’t shown up. While we waited Lyn took out her laptop and, surprisingly, got WIFI service. She and Ephraim sat together and tried to track down the artist. I leaned my head back and stared at the sky. It was a beautiful autumn day and I was starting to get used to the colder weather here. I learned to layer clothes and to always wear Ephraim’s coat. I closed my eyes for just a second and my phone buzzed in my pocket making me jump. I pulled it out and opened the text, trying to listen to Ephraim talk at the same time. He and Lyn may have found something.

  “Cool,” I said to them, as I read my phone.

  Even though I’m gone, I still think of you every day.

  It was another text from ETHAN! My jaw almost hit the grass. How in the world could I explain this? Knowing that I can somehow talk to the dead, this may be very possible. I text back with fingers trembling,

  Ethan?

  Yes, Brylee. Don’t be scared, please.

  I’m just confused, how can you still text me?

  Good service I guess.

  Are you really, gone?

  Yes I am. I am so sorry for leaving. I miss you. I have to go, talk to you soon.

  Bye.

  “Brylee, are you listening to me?” Lyn called to me. I was in my own world and I didn’t hear what they were telling me. I had just been texting a ghost, no big deal.

  She pointed to her screen. “We found a website. This lady does family trees and will do genealogy too. She says she has been doing it for over 40 years.”

  I just nodded; my mind was on Ethan. I looked down at our conversation and was astonished that I could still talk to my friend. Maybe having this ‘gift’ was for a reason, it helps me talk to him. Anything that brought me closer to Ethan was better than saying goodbye forever. I looked up to tell them, when I saw Kayla’s blue hair in the trees. I stood up instantly and started walking toward her.

  “Where are you going?” Lyn asked me as I kept walking.

  “Kayla’s here.” I pointed toward her as she stood there in plain sight walking to meet me.

  “We don’t see anyone Brylee.” Ephraim’s words proved that our assumptions about Kayla were correct. She was dead even though she looked very much alive standing across from me. She stood with her hands on her hips in full on attitude mode. She looked perturbed but I didn’t care right now. I had questions and she was going to give me answers.

  “Kayla, I need to talk to you. I don’t want any excuses or any disappearing acts, understood?” I told her as I got closer. She nodded and her arms fell to her sides.

  “Yeah, I won’t go anywhere. I promise, scouts honor and all that.” She sat cross-legged on the grass and I sat too.

  I didn’t know how to ask her so I just blurted it out, “Are you dead?” She looked at me sideways and her face drained of all color. The wind blew around us, but her hair stayed in place while mine blew all over. Even her clothes stayed put.

  “Why… why would you ask me that?” Tears fell from her eyes now and she just stared at me sadly.

  “You don’t know?”

  She didn’t know she was dead? I felt terrible! Here I was acting all bossy, thinking she was hiding it from me.

  “Kayla, I can talk to the dead. For some ungodly reason I have this way of communicating with them. I have seen Pearl and Violet Brown and I can text my dead friend. You come and go, and only I can see you. Think about it, can you talk to anyone besides me?” She looked as if I asked her what the square root of Pi was. I gave her a minute to think about it. I turned and looked at Ephraim and Lyn as they sat and watched me talk to myself. They didn’t see her, but they didn’t judge that I could. I felt like a freak, but they thought I was special. I had to try my hardest to embrace my new gift even though it was hard. I turned back toward Kayla and she now looked like she understood things a little better.

  “It was hard to remember that night. It was all so unclear. All I remember after was waking up here in this field by the stream. I walked into town and no one spoke to me. I looked for my mom, but she’d left our house. I felt so lost, so I started hanging out with my old friends. Like you said, they never talked to me, and soon they left for college. I was alone. Then you came along, and you can see me and talk to me.” She smiled for a second, then it faded as fast as it came. “I am dead; I died right here in these woods.” I felt my chest burn as I held my breath. Hearing her say it was shocking.

  “Are you saying you remember now?”

  “Yes, I remember. It comes and goes, all the memories of that night. But I remember it now like it just happened.” I let her talk and tell me her story. “I loved the idea of witches and wiccans. I used to study it and pretend I knew what I was talking about. Some stuff seemed
cool and other stuff was a little too dark for me, but I became obsessed with the Brown family curse stories. So much so that I told my friends that I was going to hold a séance. They were all for it, even though I had no idea what I was talking about.” She laughed and I laughed too out of nervousness. Her eyes fell to the ground and she started picking grass.

  “They all showed up, even some kids I didn’t even invite. Like the Mayhew boys, all of them except your boyfriend. They watched me as I preformed this ritual to raise the dead. I had no idea what I was doing, but for some reason Violet Brown appeared to me. She stepped inside my body, taking it over. I can’t explain the feeling. I felt like I was stuck inside my own body while someone else controlled it, I was trapped. I was helpless as she told me that I had to find the key to the corner room. She needed to unlock the secrets so that her daughter’s soul could move on. She walked us into this very field. She told me the story of her life, everything I told you about them, came from her telling me.

  “She said that her husband would hide the key here in the woods when he went away for the week. She followed him one night to see where he hid it. She had used it a few times to see Pearl, until he caught her. But once the curse struck her she couldn’t leave the house anymore. She had gotten so sick that eventually William locked her in the room with Pearl. He didn’t want to catch what she had. He had no idea that she wasn’t ill, she was cursed. We walked to where the key was still hidden. It was so far embedded into the tree’s bark that I struggled to get it free.” She paused momentarily and I was now crying. My tears were for the Brown family and for Kayla. I felt a terrible sadness that my new friend was dead.

  “The water below me had really been flowing fast that year; it was wider and fuller due to the hurricane. The tree stood right on the edge of the water, I tried so hard not to fall in. I couldn’t swim, I had never learned how. I pulled the bark free from the tree and almost had the key when I slipped on the moss and fell in the water. As soon as I hit the bottom I struck my head on a stone. Violet told me she was so sorry to have involved me. She tried to save me, but she couldn’t. She left my body while I was dying. She was helpless in her ghost form. The next thing I remember was waking up here.” Kayla looked so sad to have had to relive that story, the story of her death. I touched her shoulder gently. I felt so bad for her; she died all alone out here in the woods. No one even bothered to follow her into the woods when she walked off from her séance. What a horrible way to die. I didn’t know what to say to her, nothing I could say would be enough.

  “I still know where the key is, it’s still in the same spot. I think you need to open the door and let the secrets out Brylee. It’s what Violet wanted.”

  “No, she told me to leave them alone. If she wanted my help then she would have asked me,” I argued.

  “She isn’t asking for your help because she doesn’t want to get you hurt. Look what happened to me, I died. She wants you to stay out of it for your own safety.”

  It made sense now; she had been responsible for so many deaths she didn’t want me to get hurt, too. With me talking to Pearl, I could possibly get injured by trying to help her. She didn’t want me to stop talking to Pearl because she didn’t trust me or dislike me; it was because she knew I would develop feelings for her. She didn’t want another human to die for her mistakes.

  “What kind of secrets are in there that could help Pearl move on, did she say?” I asked, hoping to get a sense of what I was dealing with.

  “Nope. But it must be a big deal because she said the others would be so mad once the door was opened. She said I would have to leave fast and never return to the house.” The others. The ones that didn’t want me talking to Pearl. The ones that called me on the phone to scare me. Was it because they didn’t want me to find out what was in that room? Whatever was in the room must be major.

  “Okay, show me this key,” I said and she stood up and brushed herself off. “Come on guys follow us.” I motioned to Ephraim and Lyn. They hurried along behind me, still keeping their distance. It wasn’t a far walk down to the edge of the stream. I found it hard to believe that it was deep enough for Kayla to drown, but if you can’t swim you can drown in only a few inches of water. I wondered where her body was, and why no one found it. If she drowned, then why didn’t it wash up downstream? I didn’t want to ask her about that right now. We came to an old oak tree that stood alone. It was beautiful with its red leaves scattering the ground, a true sign that winter was coming.

  “It’s right here in the bark.” She pointed to a small key embedded into the bark. It was hard to see if you weren’t looking for it. You would just dismiss it as part of the tree. It was worn and weathered, much like the tree itself.

  “Ephraim, do you have anything sharp? I need to get this key out of the tree.” He handed me a small pocketknife. Lyn looked at the key and seemed shocked. “Well would you look at that,” she said as she and Ephraim stood back.

  I dug the key out and felt instantly sorry for the oak. Hopefully in time it would heal from the small damage I put into it. I stroked the key in my hand. It was such a small item but it held a lot of power. This was the key to a room no one could open and it was in my hands.

  “We have to go Brylee, your mom will be home soon. Then its dress shopping I guess,” Lyn reminded me. I looked at Kayla, who now stood at the edge of the water looking into it. She didn’t look scared of the water, just somber. She would never get to go dress shopping with Lyn or I. Or go to anymore dances at school. She was left out here to roam the town and be ignored.

  “Kayla, I hope you will still come around and talk to me.” I did want to keep speaking to her. She was my friend now. I wished I had known her in life too, we would have gotten along very well.

  “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I have a feeling that I can’t move on just yet. Like the Brown’s I’m sort of stuck here to wander. I will still come around, I will just try harder to not get you into trouble.” She smiled lightly and then she was gone. I tucked the key into my bag and we all walked back toward the house. On the way there I filled them in on what Kayla told me. No one spoke after that until we reached the house. We were all sort of sad to learn how Kayla had died.

  “We have to try to find her body, maybe report it that she drowned,” Lyn suggested.

  “Oh sure, I’ll tell them she told me all about it. Lyn, I can’t tell anyone, they will think I’m crazy.” I wiped my tears on my sleeve and Lyn put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Oh yeah, true. Sorry. Brylee, do you still want to go dress shopping?” I didn’t really want to go anymore, but I didn’t want to ruin our plans. Just because Kayla’s life had ended didn’t mean mine had to stop.

  “Yeah, totally,” I lied. I couldn’t let her down. Ephraim pulled me aside as Lyn went to greet my mom at the door.

  “It’s nice of you to still go even though you don’t feel like it. You’re a good friend to her.” He tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. I loved it when he did that.

  “Yeah, well, she is a good friend and so are you.” I choked on the last words. I still didn’t want to assume that he and I were anything more. Not yet, not until he said he wanted to be my boyfriend.

  “Let me hold the key until you get back. I’ll keep it safe so they don’t try to take it from you.” It was a great idea to keep the key out of the house and away from the Brown’s. Until we figured out what the hell to do with the damn thing, Ephraim could hold onto it. I handed it to him and he tucked it into his shirt pocket. He bent down and kissed my forehead and walked away.

  Once we reached the beach town where the little dress shop was, I could smell the salt in the air. It had seemed like forever that I had been away from the beach. Back home I practically lived there. Almost every morning I would go watch Ethan surf before school and have bonfires on the beach at night. The familiar sound of seagulls filled my ears as we passed the ocean to my left. I let Lyn take the front seat and I sat in the back. I had a lot to think about, so
I let Mom and Lyn do the talking. I watched the ocean from the window and leaned my head against the glass. This had been such a strange few weeks. Things had happened that I never thought possible. Yet, I didn’t really freak out, I handled all the circumstances pretty calmly. Even losing Ethan had been a situation that I didn’t let consume me. Sure, knowing I can still talk to him helped, but come on, even that is strange. How many people can talk with lost loved ones?

  “Brylee, are you awake back there?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah, I’m just enjoying seeing the beach is all.” Neither Mom nor Dad would ever understand what I was going through. I was so happy to have Ephraim and Lynley. They were dealing with the same as me, and taking it so bravely. Lyn especially. She sat so confidently in the front seat talking with my mom. When I first met her she had been awkward and shy. Not anymore. Something changed inside her; maybe it was being with Miles.

  “Lynley and I are discussing dress colors, what colors do you want?” Mom asked in a perky voice. She was excited, it was apparent.

  “Please call me Lyn. Only Ephraim and my mom call me Lynley,” Lyn reminded.

  “I don’t know what colors, Mom. Maybe blue like the ocean back home.”

  The ocean here didn’t compare to home. It was darker and the sand looked so dirty. I wanted to stay positive though, at least we weren’t in the middle of the country with no beach.

  “Or blue for Ephraim’s eyes,” Lyn joked. But I didn’t laugh along with her. It was true, his eyes were blue. The kindest blue I had ever seen.

  We pulled into the shop and the sky was a stunning orange. I stepped out of the car and Lyn came up beside me as I stared at the gorgeous sky above. She rested her head on my shoulder and we sat silent for a moment. Mom came to look for us. “Oh there you are, I went into the store and you weren’t behind me. What’s wrong?” She looked concerned. “Oh no, thinking about him aren’t you?” She thought I was thinking about Ethan. I let her think that and she stood with us for a few moments. Only Lyn and I knew what my silence was for. It was everything we were going through, all these secrets.