The House of Secrets

by Terry Lynn Thomas

  ‘No, just talking to myself,’ I said. ‘I do that sometimes.’ I stepped aside.

  ‘I don’t need to come in. I wanted to make sure you got something to eat. We’ve got a new patient, and Matthew is with him.’

  ‘Alice brought me a tray, thank you. I was going to see Zeke,’ I said.

  ‘Good. He’ll be glad to see you,’ she said.

  ‘Bethany, does Dr Geisler have heart trouble? I know it’s none of my business, but does he take digitalis?’

  A queer look came over her face. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Never mind. It’s nothing. Just curious.’

  * * *

  The two staircases in the foyer led to different parts of the house. One led to the hospital wing, and the other led to the bedrooms. I took the stairs that led to the hospital wing, which opened into a wide landing at the top. Two utilitarian metal desks where arranged facing each other. Metal filing cabinets lined the walls. The long corridor that led to the patients’ individual rooms was on the far side of the landing.

  Both desks held a stack of files. The lamp on one of the desks had been lit, and a grey cardigan lay over the back of the chair. Voices from one of the rooms echoed down the hall. I turned to seek the source when I heard, ‘Excuse me. Can I help you?’

  Miss Joffey, the nurse who had assisted when Mr Collins came into my room, stepped out of what must have been the linen cupboard. She had a pillow in her hand and a questioning look on her face.

  ‘Oh, Miss Bennett. Mr Collins hasn’t been bothering you, has he?’

  ‘No, I’m actually hoping to visit Zeke. Is he still awake?’

  ‘I just gave him his sleeping medication, but it hasn’t taken effect yet. His room is the third door on the right. Can you see the way, or do you need me to take you to him?’

  ‘No, I can find it. Thanks.’

  Zeke’s door stood open. From the hallway I could see him sitting in one of the chairs reading a newspaper, his bad leg propped on a footstool, his injured arm loose from the bandage that should have held it fast. He set the newspaper down and waved me into the room.

  I sat in the chair next to his, but rather than lean back and sink into its depths, I remained perched on the edge, just in case I needed to flee.

  ‘Zeke.’

  ‘Sarah.’

  We both spoke at the same time.

  ‘I’ve missed you. I hated leaving you to face all that by yourself. Please believe me when I say that.’

  I believed him. So much had happened since then; so much had happened today. ‘I know. You explained all that before you left.’

  ‘It was hell, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve no idea. Jack’s lawyer painted me as an unbalanced, incompetent fool. Jack has so many fans, people who don’t even know him, ready to swear he walks on water. We presented evidence that he plagiarized Jessica’s book, and he turned around and said he and Jessica collaborated. He told the jury I imagined everything. He said that I believed what I said, but it just wasn’t true. His lawyer accused me of wanting revenge against Jack Bennett for sending me to an asylum. Jack Bennett charmed them all.’ I shook my head and met Zeke’s eyes. ‘I’m lucky I didn’t end up back at The Laurels.’

  ‘I’ll smuggle you away before I’ll let that happen. That’s a promise. I know what you can do, Sarah. I knew it last October in Bennett Cove, and I know it now. But something’s changed. What?’

  I hesitated for just a minute. The time had come to play my hand. ‘When I fell from the landing, the impact gave me this ability to see the spirits more clearly. I have auditory and visual experiences all the time.’ I told Zeke about our visit to Mrs Wills’s house and the circumstances that led to the discovery of the gold watch.

  ‘You need to be careful,’ Zeke said. ‘This information in the wrong hands could be misunderstood, misconstrued.’

  My sigh of relief came unbidden. Zeke noticed and smiled that soft smile of understanding that was his alone.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure what all this means. What makes me able to do this? Why me?’

  ‘You can help them,’ Zeke said. ‘I don’t know much about this, but ghosts have unfinished business – isn’t that correct?’

  ‘That’s a dose of logic for an illogical situation.’ I leaned back, comfortable now, sure of my footing here. ‘Dr Geisler wants me to communicate with his sister, Alysse. She died of influenza in 1919. He thinks she’s attached herself to me in some strange way.’

  ‘Has she?’

  ‘Maybe. I’m not sure. And right now, I don’t care. Can we change the subject? Tell me about you. What’s happened? Where did you go? How did you hurt yourself?’

  ‘Shut the door, please.’ Zeke rearranged himself in the chair as I got up and shut the door. I pulled the empty chair close to him. We reached for each other and, somehow, I managed to manoeuvre around his bandaged arm and damaged leg and curl up in his lap. He wrapped his good arm around me. I rested my head against his shoulder.

  ‘I am not supposed to tell you any of this, but I’m tired of secrets, and I’m rather desperate to make things right with you. I infiltrated a band of Nazi sympathizers, and took some documents, along with a list of men who are sympathetic to Hitler. I almost got away without injury.’ Zeke held up his bandaged arm and pointed at his injured leg. ‘And now I’m here, to rest and be near you. I guess we both just needed a place to hide.’ He stared at me for a long time; his silence relayed the message of a thousand words. ‘I needed to get away from it all, decide where to go from here.’

  ‘What happened to your leg?’

  ‘Someone came after me with a knife, thus the cut on my face. I managed to get the knife away from the man, but he picked up a tyre lever and swung it at my leg.’

  I blinked back tears.

  ‘I still love you, Sarah.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’ll get through this,’ he said. ‘I’ll extricate myself from this mess and get us away from the city, away from the memory of Jack Bennett, away from it all. Have you heard from him since the trial?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I doubt he would be foolish enough to come after you now, but I’ll see if I can find out where he is. Don’t worry about him.’

  Zeke kissed my forehead. I could have stayed wrapped in his arms all night and might have done just that if Eunice Martin hadn’t burst in the room.

  She threw open the door and stood in the doorway, the light from the hallway behind her framing her in a halo of fluorescence. The fury radiated off her in waves. ‘What in the world is going on here?’

  ‘We were just visiting,’ Zeke said.

  ‘I’d better go.’ I stood up. Zeke grabbed my hand and kissed it. ‘Good night.’

  When I turned to leave, Eunice blocked my path. ‘A word, Miss Bennett.’

  She ushered me out of Zeke’s room and over to the metal desk with the cardigan hanging over the back of the chair. I expected her to ask me to sit. She didn’t. Instead she moved close to me, an aggressive action, which forced me to step away from her.

  We stood eye to eye, our noses almost touching.

  ‘This is a hospital. There are protocols that must be adhered to. These patients need peace and quiet. What do you think you’re doing, going into a patient’s room so late in the evening? You can’t just come and go as you please.’

  ‘I’ll see Zeke whenever I want,’ I said. ‘I answer to Dr Geisler, not you.’

  We faced off. I didn’t back down. Eunice would not interfere in my relationship with Zeke.

  ‘Fine. We’ll see what Dr Geisler says about that.’ She picked up a stack of charts and carried them to a door marked private. She sneered at me as she slammed it shut behind her.

  * * *

  After Eunice had stormed away, I hurried back into Zeke’s room. The sleeping medication had taken hold. He lay on his bed with his leg propped up on pillows. He didn’t toss or turn or cry out in anguish. He lay still in peaceful sleep,
oblivious to my presence, all jutting cheekbones and that horrid scar. Outside, the wind gusted. Trees cast dancing shadows on the walls of the room as they swayed in time to the wind. By the light of the moon, I moved through the darkened room to the window. I stood and gazed into the courtyard below.

  The kitchen door opened and a caped figure in a hood came flying out, like a gothic Little Red Riding Hood, with Dr Geisler following behind. When he grabbed the person’s arm, the hood fell back. Minna.

  She wrenched out of his grasp and hurried across the courtyard. She almost reached the gate when he caught up with her. He took her hand and whirled her around so she faced him. Again, Minna wrenched out of his grasp. Once free, she gesticulated with her arms, angry about something. I wished I knew what.

  Dr Geisler spoke to her. He stepped away and collected himself, while keeping a polite distance between them. Minna, who stood eye level with Dr Geisler, listened now, her body still and unmoving. Dr Geisler uttered something. His words hit their mark. The energy drained from Minna’s body. She deflated like a balloon, diminishing in size right before my eyes. Dr Geisler stepped close to her and wrapped his arms around her. Minna nestled her head against his cheek.

  I expected them to kiss, but Dr Geisler patted her back, an avuncular gesture between two friends. Minna pushed away from him. She pulled the hood up over her head, touched Dr Geisler’s shoulder, turned, and walked away, her steps sure and strong. She slipped out of the gate and into the alley that ran behind the house.

  Dr Geisler watched her for a few seconds, before he shook his head and went back through the door that led into the kitchen. It wasn’t until he had pulled the blackout blind down that I noticed the burning ember of a cigarette in the alley. Someone had eavesdropped on their conversation. That someone headed off after Minna, staying in the shadows so as not to be seen.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning I found Mrs McDougal mumbling to herself as she whirled through the kitchen, pulling bread pans from the cupboard and slamming them onto the butcher-block workstation.

  I hesitated in the doorway, not sure if I would be welcome this morning. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Alice is sick with a cold. She does the shopping on her way in each morning, so I’ve nothing for breakfast or lunch.’ She took a bag of flour and set it next to the bread pans. ‘I’m going to bake some bread, and we’ll just have to eat some of that dehydrated Lipton soup for lunch. As I live and breathe, I have never served anything from a package, ever. I do not believe in instant soup, or instant anything, but this is an emergency.’

  I donned one of the aprons that hung on the wall next to the pantry. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Oh, bless you. You cook the eggs. I’ll make some biscuits. We’ll have that with fresh jam. That will have to do for breakfast. Then for lunch we’ll have the horrid dehydrated soup with the fresh bread.’

  We worked side by side for the next twenty minutes. I used the fresh eggs that were delivered that morning and produced a chafing dish of light and fluffy scrambled eggs just as Mrs McDougal took a tray of biscuits out of the oven.

  ‘So if you’ll help with the laying of trays at lunch that should take care of things.’ We leaned against the counter and surveyed our successful patch-up breakfast. Bethany sent one of the orderlies to spoon out the eggs and load up the trays, which would be carried upstairs to the patients. After he left, I asked the question that niggled at the back of my mind.

  ‘Tell me about Gregory, Dr Geisler’s brother.’

  ‘Gregory? Minna’s been talking, hasn’t she?’ Mrs McDougal rinsed her coffee cup and set it on the draining board near the sink. She took a seat at the refectory table and waved me into the chair across from her. I grabbed a plate and filled it with eggs and two biscuits. As I ate, Mrs McDougal told me about Gregory.

  ‘Matthew and Gregory’s father died when Gregory was 21, so Matthew would have been 15. Too young for either of them to lose their father. Young men need a role model. He died of pneumonia, and believe me when I tell you, he fought that disease until he took his last breath. I came here just before he died because Alysse needed a woman to tend to her daily needs. She was a wilful child who had been over-indulged by her father and brothers. My husband had died, and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.

  ‘Gregory was a petulant child, spoiled, entitled, thought of no one but himself. His father left his money to both boys equally, with a generous endowment for Alysse. Gregory didn’t like that. He thought, being the eldest, he should have control of all the money. I tell you this so you can know what sort of a man he was: elegant, handsome, thought he was the centre of the world. Oh, he had a knack for making people mad. Heaven help anyone who challenged him. But he loved Minna. I thought they would be happy together. We all hoped Minna would bring out the good in Gregory.

  ‘My days were filled with caring for Alysse, seeing to her education, and keeping her out of trouble. She had an artistic temperament and the brains of a man. She seethed at the unfair way in which society treated women. ‘There’s nothing that a man can do that I cannot!’ I can just see her, hands on her hips, her eyes flashing. She spoke her mind that one did, and as a result got into the worst scrapes.’

  Mrs McDougal gazed out the window. ‘Those were good days. I was so busy with Alysse, I didn’t have much time or interest in Gregory and his love affair. I wasn’t here for the wedding. My sister had fallen ill and I took the train to Los Angeles to tend to her. I came home to a house in mourning. Minna stood Gregory up at the altar, just left him there exposed to the world, when she decided not to marry him. He couldn’t cope with the rejection.

  ‘Two days later, he drove off in that sport cars of his and crashed it on purpose. Trust Gregory to go out in a blaze of glory. You know the worst part? He sent his suicide note to Minna in the mail. So not only did she have to deal with the guilt of the accident itself, she also received a letter from Gregory after his suicide, explaining that she drove him to kill himself. I don’t much care for Minna, but that was a cruel thing for Gregory to do.

  ‘I hadn’t been back twenty minutes when Dr Geisler called me into his study. He had stacked all the pictures of Gregory on a table in his office and asked me to get rid of them. I’d never seen him so angry. I didn’t have the heart to throw the pictures away, so I boxed them up and took them to the attic. Later Dr Geisler found them and threw them away himself. He was furious with me for not doing as he asked. He forbade me to utter Gregory’s name. I’ve never heard him speak of his brother again. Miss Bethany didn’t even know her husband had a brother until Minna arrived.

  ‘Minna beguiled all the young men she met. She didn’t even have to try. They flocked to her as though she were honey. She was like a bauble in a shop window, something that you look at and then want to possess. But I knew her, and every now and then she’d say something that led me to believe she had seen things that weren’t fit for a child’s eyes. That very quality made those around her want to take care of her, which just irritated her to no end.

  ‘After Gregory’s suicide, she fled San Francisco. No one knew where she went. The newspapers tried to find her, and I assumed she wanted to get away from society. I spent a lot of time chasing nosy reporters away. Two months ago, Minna showed up out of the blue. She just dropped in one afternoon. Dr Geisler and the missus made room for her, gave her one of the nicest rooms, and told her she could stay here as long as she wanted. You have to give Miss Bethany credit, not many a wife would allow that.

  ‘Anyway, Minna had – still has, truth be told – some crazy notion that Gregory Geisler is alive and has come to take his revenge. She thinks she’s got special powers and sees ghosts, or some ridiculous notion like that. She’s mad as a hatter.’

  ‘I feel sorry for her,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve a soft heart. We’ll see if you feel the same way after a month or two. At least she’s safe here. If Dr Geisler can help her, he will. And that’s enough gossip this morning.’
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  Mrs McDougal stood up. I followed suit, rinsed my plate, and set it with the others to drain.

  ‘I need to get to work. I will see you before noon to help with lunch.’

  ‘Thank you, Sarah. You’re a life saver.’

  * * *

  A fresh pile of handwritten notes awaited me. I flipped through them and had just slipped a fresh piece of onion skin into my typewriter, when Dr Geisler came into my office. ‘Can we speak for a moment?’

  ‘Of course.’ I stood, thinking he would want to see me in his office, but he waved me back into my seat and took the empty chair near my desk for himself.

  ‘I wanted to see how you were doing after yesterday. We never talked.’

  I checked myself before I spoke, knowing that Dr Geisler’s questions were clinical rather than personal. I must never forget that my particular truth could lead me right back into the asylum, never mind Dr Geisler’s promises to the contrary.

  ‘You can trust my word, Sarah. I assure you, there will be no asylum. Did you really see Mrs Wills’s grandfather?’

  I nodded. ‘At first he seemed surprised that I could hear him. He was frustrated.’ I stopped for a moment, careful how I formed my thoughts. Dr Geisler waited, ever patient. ‘It’s hard to put into words, but when that light shone on me, I felt this unending font of – I know this sounds strange, Dr Geisler – but I felt love, true love. Anyway, after he spoke to me, told me where to find the watch, he walked into the light, and it disappeared behind him.’

  ‘That is remarkable. My goodness. I had no idea. Sarah, what a gift you have.’

  I laughed, unable to keep the sarcasm at bay. ‘That’s not true, and you know it. If I told anyone but you – and Zeke – the truth, I’d be locked in an asylum, and some well-intentioned psychiatrist would throw away the key. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘I’ve known you were special since I first heard of your case, back when you were at The Laurels. Many claim to have psychic powers, and I do believe that some people are sensitive, empathic, if you will. But I’ve never in my entire life seen anyone directly contact a person who has crossed through the veil. I am amazed, and awed, and very grateful to have witnessed this.’ He fiddled with his cufflink before he met my eyes. ‘I know about the burn on your hand. Zeke told me how you got it.’