“Sure, sure, we can go together. Why do you want to go there so badly?”
“It’s where she went,” Ginny said, her voice low and confident.
“Who?”
“The monster,” Ginny replied.
Lacey sucked on her teeth, her heart suddenly racing at the speed of light. “What monster?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Derby took it in.”
“Took…it…what?” Lacey wondered what in the world Ginny was referring to. A monster? The Derbys seemed like nice people. In fact, they had generously taken an orphan in.
Joann.
Lacey’s heart lurched. She recalled Mrs. Kline, the Derbys’ neighbors for many years. Her mind sifted through the case notes, as well as the day she had visited the woman at the asylum. During the time of her mental breakdown, she had started to get paranoid. The police had even found strange, eerie drawings about the Derbys, depicted as a hellish creature. Then, Lacey remembered one of Mrs. Kline’s statements that had popped up during the case:
Evil surrounds us all, hidden behind friendly eyes. The wolf disguised in sheepskin.
Lacey’s grip of the cell bars tightened. “Was there something wrong with Joann?” she asked Ginny.
Ginny remained silent. Then, after what seemed an eternity, she gave a slight nod.
Shivers ran down Lacey’s back. “I need to get out of here.”
The little girl stood up, the moonlight highlighting the same old dress she always wore. The black ruffles, the cute but out-of-date shoes…something about her didn’t seem to fit.
The girl moved a few steps forward, getting close to the bars until the two of them stood face to face. An alarming plea now sat in the girl’s big, dark eyes.
“Ginny, who are you exactly?” Lacey murmured.
The girl blinked softly, then without much ado, she glided through the bars, her little body evaporating from outside the cell and reappearing inside of it, right next to a shell -shocked Lacey.
“I’m Virginia,” the girl answered. “Virginia Kyle.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Only Lacey’s labored breathing could be heard as she ran down the streets of Raven Hills in the dead of night. Ginny—or really, Virginia Kyle—walked at her side, quietly and with an ethereal glow around her.
Now that Lacey had learned exactly who the little girl was, she knew the truth. Ginny was Virginia’s nickname from childhood—a childhood that was torn away from her by her untimely death.
And then Virginia became a ghost.
Lacey’s mind reeled with millions of questions, one in particular regarding her sanity. Had she lost it? The fact that Ginny was a ghost seemed a wild notion, but not one she could deny. There she was, a little pale girl wearing the witch’s Halloween costume she had donned that long-gone night in the nineteen sixties. Not only was Ginny there in ghost form, but her advantageous condition made her invisible and undetectable to everyone else in town, letting her slip in and out unnoticed.
She had grabbed the cell’s key and helped Lacey escape from the jail keeping her hostage, and now led her straight to the Derbys’ shop.
“Why am I the only one who can see you?” Lacey asked her, trying to ignore the way the girl put her on edge now that she knew she was a ghost. She reassured herself that at least Ginny didn’t seem like a malevolent spirit, just a sad one, and with one heck of a story to tell.
“Others did too,” Ginny replied. “At first.”
“Not anymore?”
Ginny shook her little head, a black strand of hair caressing her pale face. “I tried to warn people, to tell them what I know. But they rejected me and decided not to hear me. Once a spirit is ignored, it doesn’t show to people that much anymore.”
Lacey thought for a long moment. “I thought ghosts haunt places, despite people not wanting them there.”
“Haunting is being present. Making things happen, like stealing a slice of apple pie from Mrs. Smythe’s kitchen counter and making her think the dog ate it.”
Lacey glanced at the girl, and for the first time noticed a little tug on her lips. She chuckled, relieved to see some hint of serenity on the poor girl.
“Why aren’t they listening to you?” Lacey inquired. Why would the people of Raven Hills not want to know the truth or figure out the strange events that happened through the decades?
Ginny remained quiet for a few moments, contemplating. Then she whispered, “People would rather not see things if those things are too evil to understand.”
Lacey’s blood curdled, wondering why the residents would be so obtuse. She wanted to ask more questions, but Ginny’s face returned to an emotionless veil as they reached Derby’s Soap Shop.
They climbed the few steps up to the door and Lacey glanced over her shoulders. Well, it looked like she’d have to break and enter again.
“Shoot, I don’t have anything on me,” she muttered to herself as she patted her clothes down. No credit card and no bobby pins. She’d have to break a window.
“I can help,” Ginny said and at that, she traveled through the wooden shop door, her body disappearing from the front porch and into the shop.
“Oh, right,” Lacey said under her breath. “You’re a ghost.” Shivers traveled down her back.
Hearing the lock unhinge, she pushed on the doorknob, gaining free and technically legal access to the store. Although she imagined that Bennett wouldn’t let her off the hook after hearing, “Oh, the ghost of Virginia Kyle let me into the shop.”
She tiptoed inside the shop, careful not to bump into things. Only the moonlight shining through the large windows carved little lighted paths through the store. The strong scent of hundreds of soaps permeated the air, and Lacey had to stifle a sneeze. The shop smelled like jasmine, lemongrass, coconut, and a thousand other scents mingling together in one huge cluster of aromas.
“Ginny?” she called out, her eyes squinting at the darkness. The little girl was nowhere to be found.
She took a few more steps around the shop, unsure about what she needed to look for. Where was Ginny leading her to exactly?
A little shimmering light flashed ahead in the corner. Ginny’s figure glowed with a pale light as she rested against a closed door.
“Ginny, what’s in there?” Lacey asked and walked toward her. When she reached her, the girl backed into the door and disappeared on the other side. Lacey wondered if she’d ever get used to seeing that strange occurrence.
Lacey tried the knob and found the door unlocked. She opened it and stepped inside. With no window letting any moonlight in, it was pitch black.
“Ginny, are you here?” she asked, the hairs on her arms standing on attention. After what seemed an eternity, Ginny’s light flickered again. She sat at a desk, her eyes dead set on a little file drawer to the right of it.
Lacey walked over to it, and as Ginny’s lighted figure began to fade again, she caught sight of a desk lamp. She flipped it on, thankful she could now see.
She looked around the room, finding herself in a small office. It was cluttered with tons of file folders and endless rows of cardboard boxes of different sizes. She surmised they were used to ship or package the Derby soaps.
She looked over at the cabinet that had caught Ginny’s attention. The tags were yellowed and faded, but one in particular struck her eye: Employee Files.
She opened it, the drawer sticking at first but then yielding with a little elbow grease. Only two files waited there, probably belonging to the employees hired outside of the Derby family. The names on them were George Goass and Michael Keenley.
She opened the first one, George’s, and found paycheck stubs, vacation request forms, and nothing else really specific.
She then moved on to Michael’s.
Thumbing through his file, which was bulkier than George’s, she found much of the same type of forms at first. PTO forms, his initial job application, and general clerical records. But then, another section altogether bundled at the end.
Squin
ting at them, she flipped through the old pages. Some were handwritten, others were typed. A few photographs were stapled to certain pages, proving as some sort of evidence.
As Lacey scanned through them, she noticed an eerie pattern. Michael Keenley was being bullied at work. Not just that. He was being terrorized, until finally, the last paper in his file was a resignation letter. Slouching back into the desk chair, Lacey read through the filed complaints housed in this folder, and found her blood freezing in her veins as they grew progressively worse.
Chapter Thirty
CASE #8 - A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT
1987-1990
Michael Keenley was a young man, only seventeen, when he started working at Derby’s Soap Shop after school and on weekends during his junior and senior years. The Raven Hills High School Yearbook of 1987 shows the picture of a smiling young man, a bit skinny, with shaggy brown hair and intelligent hazel eyes. He appeared as a normal guy like any other his senior year.
His work file the first year at Derby’s Soap Shop tells the story of an eager, hardworking teenager. He showed up on time for his shifts and rarely called in sick. Notes from Mr. Derby include very positive remarks on Michael’s progress, and he was even given a small raise after his first year of employment. Things took a turn during his second summer.
That’s when the complaints he submitted about Joann began. What follows are some of the complaints Michael Keenley made, and, ultimately, his resignation.
July 8: I saw Joann carving something into the soaps, some…symbol. It looked like a box of some kind. I told her we aren’t supposed to do that. She hissed at me, like a cat. Then she told me to mind my own business. I told her I would tell Mr. and Mrs. Derby what she was doing and she threw a soap at me, which I thankfully dodged, and she screamed at me again to mind my own business.
July 12: Came to work today and in my cubby was a dead rat. I can’t prove who put it there but I just know it was Joann. Its throat was slit and the symbol she had been carving into the soaps was carved into its belly.
July 14: After my lunch break I went back to work, and all the soaps I had created that morning were all melted at my workstation. I asked Joann what happened but she said, “I wouldn’t know. I was minding my own business.”
July 17: Came in this morning to work. All the soaps were off the shelves, and all over the floor. Many of them were broken and no longer salable. At first I thought the store had been robbed but then remembered I had needed to unlock the door to come in for my shift. Joann had worked the closing shift the night before, so I believe she did this so I would have to clean it.
July 30: This month has been an absolute hell. Joann makes nasty remarks to me under her breath. Sometimes I see her staring at me, and I swear her eyes are pure black. I don’t know how she is doing that, but if she’s trying to scare me, it’s working. Besides this, I find my work undone constantly. She leaves me to clean her own mess or to take care of her responsibilities. I have been told time and time again that she will be spoken to, but nothing has improved.
August 10: I don’t know how she manages it. I will turn my back and the next thing I know everything behind me is collapsing. Sometimes the soaps will hit me. I have bruises everywhere. She is good at covering her tracks, as sometimes Joann isn’t even in the room when this happens. She must have a timed rig of some sort. I don’t know how long I can take this.
September 18: I have made countless complaints against your daughter Joann. I don’t know if you have followed through on your promises to talk to and discipline her. I do know that the situation has only escalated. I have seen her play some “pranks,” as she calls them, on some other employees as well, and they aren’t funny or good natured. Everyone is feeling quite disturbed by her behavior. I am nearly at my wits’ end. This has been a good job, especially last year. The pay is great for someone like me, and the experience as well, but I don’t think I can tolerate much more harassment from Joann.
October 23: I confronted Joann today. She laughed in my face. She told me I was insane. Then she told me that if I left “HER” town that it would be better for me. That in this town the insane don’t get better, that they just go to Hope Sanitarium and live in the misery of their lost minds until they are granted the mercy of death. I told her I didn’t understand why she had taken to hating me so much, especially over some marks in the soap. She grabbed my wrist then, and her nails dug into my skin so hard I bled. She said, “Quit this job, and quit this town. There’s nothing here for you.”
November 4:
Mr. and Mrs. Derby,
I regret to tell you that this is my two weeks’ notice of resignation. I walked out of my home today to find my cat, Whiskers, dead on the welcome mat. It was killed in the same manner as the rat that was left in my cubby back in July. Throat slit and a weird box symbol carved into its side. Again, I cannot prove Joann did this, but I know it was her. I previously enjoyed my employment here and appreciate the value of having work experience before I left high school. However, over the past year the environment here has become hostile and no longer tenable. I have put up with more than I would have anywhere else because you’ve been so good to me in the past.
I beg you, find some kind of help for Joann as I believe she must be truly a disturbed individual, judging from the behavior I have observed. I also feel obligated to mention that I know she has some sort of friendship with Allison Loughton. Allison came to the shop a few days ago. Joann took her to the back work room to have a conversation, and I saw them talking there. I couldn’t fully understand what I was seeing, but it was upsetting to say the least. Allison was looking up at Joann, rapt, and hanging on her every word. Joann had her hands on Allison’s shoulders and she leaned in close to Allison. It appeared she whispered something in her ear.
Allison left after a few moments, and she looked dazed, pale, and weak. I offered her a seat and a glass of water, but she walked by as if she didn’t hear me, with a red welt on her neck, as if she’d been stung. I didn’t know what to make of it but it was very odd. I urge you to please talk to your daughter about all of this, and perhaps even put an end to this odd friendship with Allison.
Respectfully,
Micheal
Chapter Thirty-One
Lacey stormed into her room at Saddle Inn. Dawn broke through as she rummaged through the drawer of her nightstand, reaching for her leather journal. The walk alone from Derby’s Soap Shop to the inn had been terrifying. With Ginny suddenly disappearing into thin air—literally—she had glanced over her shoulder the whole way back. Luckily, the inn was silent and she took care not to wake up Diddy as she slinked into her room.
All the while, Michael Keenley’s written words replayed in her mind.
I beg you find some kind of help for Joann as I believe she must be truly a disturbed individual.
Her heart sank, thinking of how Joann had tormented the poor boy. She wondered why the Derbys hadn’t done anything about their daughter’s behavior, but then again, they had seemed so happy to just have a child that they’d probably overlooked any oddities.
Except Joann hadn’t been just odd. She had been crazy.
Now more than ever, Lacey realized that Joann was a huge problem in Raven Hills. At first, Libby Kline had complained about the Derbys. What if she had meant Joann in particular? Or what if in her madness, she grouped the Derbys collectively as a disturbing family? No one had paid attention to Libby, not after her schizophrenic episodes that ultimately landed her in the insane asylum.
Poor Libby.
She had said something peculiar when Lacey had visited her at Hope Sanitarium. Lacey frantically thumbed through the leather journal now in her hands, trying to find the page where she’d scribbled Libby’s German words. At last, the inked words appeared on the page.
Ich lebe in ihr.
She tried to reach for her phone, but then remembered it had been confiscated by Bennett’s deputies before booking her. Cursing under her breath, she earmarked th
e page, a reminder to look for the translation of those words as soon as possible.
Then, thinking back to Michael’s filed complaints, she traced back to another bizarre event.
Michael didn’t like the friendship between Joann and Allison. What he had witnessed that day, the last time he had reported a complaint, had shaken him to the core.
What words had Joann whispered to Allison, and what had the mark on Allison’s neck meant? She remembered Allison’s mother telling her the girl had died of cancer, and that during the autopsy they had found a mark on her neck.
A shiver ran down Lacey’s back. All of these things couldn’t just be coincidences. Sure, Libby Kline might’ve been psychotic and paranoid about Joann. But what about Michael? He couldn’t have made up all those lies about Joann harassing him.
Not to mention, even Allison had started to detach herself from the strange girl before she suddenly died.
Lacey sat on her bed, the entire weight of the situation crashing down on her. Not only had Joann done something terrible to the town, something Lacey needed to figure out, but now Lacey herself faced severe charges, like breaking and entering, and escaping arrest.
The feeble early morning light trickled in, and although she felt her lids droop closed, she shook herself awake. She scanned the room, resignation and nerves running through her. Who could she turn to now? What would she do next?
The A/C unit kicked on again, the usual ruckus filling the room. The old unit rattled on and off, its dated motor sounding like a whistling train since it had been repaired earlier in the week.
Instinctively, Lacey’s gaze trailed to the air intake vent on the wall. She didn’t think much of it at first, until a thin beam of sunlight showed a strange mark on the wall. She rose from the bed and headed toward it.
Raven Hills- Unraveling Evil Page 12
