Tidepool

by Nicole Willson

  Tidepool

  Nicole Willson

  Copyright © 2021 by Nicole Willson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Kelly Beyus, Emily Peters, and Cindy Kilbourne

  Designed by Shayne Leighton

  The Parliament House

  www.parliamenthousepress.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  THE DAUGHTER IN THE BASEMENT

  Chapter 2

  SORROW

  Chapter 3

  MRS. OLIVER’S CHAIR

  Chapter 4

  MISTER NO NAME

  Chapter 5

  ALL THAT REMAINS

  Chapter 6

  RETRIEVING THE RUNAWAY

  Chapter 7

  A BAD BUSINESS

  Chapter 8

  RUTHIE AND LUCY

  Chapter 9

  THE OCEAN IS A HARSH PLACE

  Chapter 10

  THE CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

  Chapter 11

  THE PRANK

  Chapter 12

  THE UNCOMFORTABLE LUNCHEON

  Chapter 13

  MRS. OLIVER’S DAUGHTER

  Chapter 14

  GOING TO CHURCH

  Chapter 15

  SIMEON OLIVER TAKES A WIFE

  Chapter 16

  MR. SHERMAN HAS HIS DOUBTS

  Chapter 17

  THE LATE-NIGHT VISITOR

  Chapter 18

  MESSRS. WARNER AND BURNETT

  Chapter 19

  THE VERY AWKWARD BREAKFAST

  Chapter 20

  A NOTE FROM HOME

  Chapter 21

  THE NEW DAUGHTER

  Chapter 22

  THE BLOODY MESS

  Chapter 23

  THE CELL

  Chapter 24

  THE LORDS BELOW

  Chapter 25

  THEY RISE

  Chapter 26

  THE RECKONING

  Chapter 27

  RESURRECTION

  Chapter 28

  THE GHASTLY APPARITION

  Chapter 29

  MANIA

  Chapter 30

  SORROW WALKER

  Chapter 31

  CITY OF ANGELS

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A Request…

  The Parliament House

  More From The Parliament House

  This book is dedicated to every writer who’s ever been told they should write “serious” fiction instead of horror. Don’t listen.

  Chapter One

  THE DAUGHTER IN THE BASEMENT

  Henry Hamilton

  September 1913

  * * *

  Tidepool looked like the kind of place where people went to die, not to live.

  After less than a day there, Henry Hamilton had already seen enough. His father had settled on the little oceanside town as a possible location for a beach resort. Henry’s colleague and friend, Charlie Sherman returned from the place completely sold on the idea, but as Henry strolled around Tidepool’s dirt streets he couldn’t understand their enthusiasm.

  The town was all wooden buildings that had long since warped in the town’s pervasive dampness, topped by metal signs corroded from exposure to the salty air. Loose shutters banged in the breeze as Henry passed. Even the beach, which Charlie claimed would be Tidepool’s main attraction, was marred by the rotted hulk of a sailboat and bloated seabird corpses washing ashore. The ramshackle stores lining the muddy main street looked like they might collapse into splinters and planks if Henry gave them a good swift kick.

  He was starting to want to.

  The pervasive odors of salt water and fish wafted off the nearby ocean, but another smell lurked underneath those, something even less pleasant. Henry couldn’t identify it, but it reminded him somewhat of the stench of a dead animal rotting in the woods.

  The putrid smell suited Tidepool well. The longer Henry remained here, the more anxious he felt to get home.

  But perhaps he was being unfair. Perhaps he was too used to the buildings and bustle of Baltimore, his hometown.

  The passing townspeople didn’t bother hiding their stares. Henry stood out in his tailored blue suit, which likely cost more money than most people here ever saw. The clothing sported by the locals might have been colorful once, but had long since faded to the same drab colors as their dilapidated buildings. And while the looks the locals gave him bore no particular malice, Henry certainly wouldn’t call them friendly.

  It didn’t help that as Henry walked, he grew increasingly uneasy. He couldn’t have said why. The town was quiet to the point of boredom. Nobody had treated him with anything other than politeness. And yet …

  Tidepool feels like a small town holding its breath, waiting for something to happen—and not something good.

  That’s what he’d tell Father when he returned to Baltimore. Perhaps they could truly make something of this town, but Henry had his doubts.

  The only place in Tidepool still busy at six o’clock at night was Cooper’s Inn and Tavern, where Henry had taken a room. The sound of voices and the clanking of glasses and plates carried out into the street as Henry neared the inn.

  He opened the tavern door and was accosted by the smells of cooking fish and a crackling fire. As he approached the bar, Balthazar Cooper, the innkeeper, gave Henry a curt nod from behind the wooden counter.

  “Evening, Balt. Glass of whiskey, if you please.”

  Balt’s hair was sandy and thinning, and no matter what time of day Henry encountered him, the older man’s blue eyes looked watery and sleepless. Like everything in Tidepool, the innkeeper seemed shabby and worn down. Indeed, all the townspeople—even the younger ones—looked weathered, blasted with salt, the same pale shade as the sand on the beach outside Cooper’s.

  Balt placed a tumbler in front of Henry with no comment. Henry smiled in thanks as he picked up his drink and glanced around the tavern.

  Wooden tables filled the room, surrounding a lit fireplace. Several men sat around the tavern in groups, drinking and talking and letting out the occasional raucous laugh. An old map and a rusty anchor were the only decorations on the faded wooden walls.

  And then Henry saw the woman.

  She sat in a plush red chair close to the fireplace and gazed at the flames, her profile to him. Women drinking alone in taverns were not something Henry saw often, not even back in Baltimore.

  Could she be a prostitute? Surely not; even in the flickering firelight, Henry could tell that her black clothes were finer than his, and far more elaborate than anything he had seen on the other women of Tidepool. And certainly no lady of the evening who hoped to earn real money would come to a place like this.

  As if she could feel his eyes on her, the woman turned and gave Henry a piercing stare. Her eyes were almost as black as her clothing, and from what he could see under her hat, so was her hair.

  And then it hit him: She was Mrs. Ada Oliver. Charlie Sherman had talked about the wealthy widow after his own visit to Tidepool the month before. Why the woman had settled in Tidepool of all places mystified both Charlie and Henry, but Charlie believed that Mrs. Oliver’s presence could be useful. People with money would be more likely to buy vacation cottages and spend their summers here if they knew one of their own was already settled in, he reasoned.

  Henry realized he had been staring at her much longer than was strictly polite. Feeling somewhat emboldened by the whiskey, he stood and made his way to her table.

  “Excuse me, please. Are you Mrs. Oliver?”
>
  She looked up at him for a moment before answering.

  “Yes. Have we met?”

  “Not yet. My name is Henry Hamilton. I believe we have an acquaintance in common. My colleague Charles Sherman was in Tidepool not long ago and mentioned meeting you.”

  Her dark brows furrowed for a second. “Charles Sherman?”

  “Young fellow from Baltimore?”

  She thought for another moment and nodded, recognition flickering in her eyes.

  “Yes, I remember.” She had a deep, throaty voice, and her dark eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. “Do tell me, Mr. Hamilton—what is it about Tidepool that brings so many young people from Baltimore here as of late?”

  That’s a damn good question, ma’am. “Well, we believe Tidepool might hold a good bit of promise.”

  “Promise?” She sounded quite skeptical.

  “We’re interested in buying property here and creating a sort of coastal resort town. Similar to what’s being done with Ocean City, if you’ve been out that way. We believe we could make Tidepool a much busier place. Bring lots of people here, people with money to spend. Did you perhaps speak of this with Mr. Sherman?”

  Mrs. Oliver frowned. “We spoke of it briefly. And I seem to recall explaining to your Mr. Sherman that the people of Tidepool do not necessarily want to be busier. I thought he understood.”

  Henry chuckled, although he wasn’t pleased to hear that. Charlie made it sound as though the people he’d spoken with in Tidepool couldn’t wait to start building the place up. “Well, that’s Charlie for you. Once he gets an idea in his head, he won’t let it go easily. And he gave me the impression that the people here had showed great interest in the development of their town.”

  “I very much doubt that. I am afraid you and your colleague are looking in the wrong place.”

  “But the money that more visitors would bring could be of great service to Tidepool.”

  She gave him a sharp glance. “Are you here to ask me for money, Mr. Hamilton?”

  “Certainly not.” Not yet. “Right now, I’m just visiting. Trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak.”

  As they looked at each other, another idea began to bloom in Henry’s mind. Perhaps it was the whiskey, but as he spoke to Mrs. Oliver, something stirred in him. She was a handsome woman, older than he was but perhaps not by too much. He would put her in her thirties if he had to guess, mid-thirties to his twenty-four. And she had so much money, or so Charlie had claimed.

  Henry knew he was attractive; people had been telling him so since he was a teenager, and although he tried not to get a swelled head about it, he could see it himself. He had thick wavy blond hair, large green eyes, and his father’s height and athletic build.

  And he had no particular attachments back in Baltimore. The only girl in his life right now was his younger sister, Sorrow. He had broken off an engagement with Miss Grace Moore several months earlier when he learned of Grace’s dalliance with a local stage actor. An actor, of all people. She could have at least had the decency to betray him with someone respectable.

  Mrs. Oliver appeared more than respectable. And as far as Henry could tell, she too had no attachments. She wore no ring, and she had no companion other than himself as she sat in the tavern.

  “How long will you be staying here, Mr. Hamilton? As you may have realized, it will not take you very long to see all of Tidepool.”

  “Indeed not,” he said with a friendly laugh. “But I’ll be here another day or so. I do love the ocean.”

  A dark-skinned, heavyset woman pushed past Henry and bustled over to the fireplace. “‘Scuse me, sir,” she muttered as she edged by. This was Naomi Cooper, the innkeeper’s wife, looking flushed and damp in the dim light of the tavern. She picked up a poker and stabbed at the logs in the fireplace.

  Mrs. Oliver gave Naomi a quick glance before turning back to Henry.

  “Mr. Hamilton, I will be having dinner at home soon. Would you care to join me?”

  The fireplace poker clattered to the ground with a metallic bang, turning heads all over the tavern. The older woman picked the poker up and murmured apologies as she placed it against the wall. She avoided Mrs. Oliver’s intent stare as she hustled back to the kitchen.

  That gave Henry a few extra seconds to ponder the widow’s offer. Inviting him home when they’d just met? She was apparently nothing if not rather bold.

  “I’d be delighted. Such a gracious offer.” Maybe she was lonely. It didn’t look to him as if there were too many eligible men in Tidepool for her to entertain herself with.

  The yokels in the tavern turned to watch them leave, and murmurs sounded around the room. Perhaps they had nothing better to pay attention to than whoever might leave Cooper’s with Mrs. Oliver. Perhaps they all wished they were Henry. Perhaps they thought he was a degenerate.

  But who cared what they thought?

  Mrs. Oliver walked slightly in front of him as they left the tavern and proceeded up Water Street. He studied the way her black silk dress skimmed over her body, wondering how long it had been since she’d been with anyone.

  “Is it always this quiet in Tidepool, Mrs. Oliver?” He saw almost no other people out on the street.

  “I suppose so. People tend not to like going out at night.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “There are mostly silly, superstitious folk around here. They talk of ghosts. And sea monsters, if you can imagine.” She let out a chuckle that didn’t sound even the slightest bit amused.

  “Sea monsters? That’s a new one.” Henry pondered that as they turned right and followed a narrower street. Could a few stories about Tidepool ghosts and monsters be used to pique visitor interest in the place? That sort of thing might attract a certain type of tourist.

  Perhaps he could persuade Mrs. Oliver to share a few of those tales. He felt increasingly convinced that a possible path to developing Tidepool was to win the affections of Mrs. Oliver. She might be easier to persuade to invest in their efforts if she had a more…personal stake in the whole thing.

  His father was fond of saying that one should never overlook any possible ways to a favorable resolution, and he wanted to bring this one home. Whatever doubts he had about this town, he wanted Father to see that he was just as capable as Charlie Sherman of getting things done.

  A particularly large house that Henry had spotted on his way into Tidepool loomed into view as they crested the hill.

  “Here we are, Mr. Hamilton.”

  Henry’s breath stopped. For just a minute, all thoughts of the seduction of Mrs. Oliver fled his mind.

  Mrs. Oliver’s home looked utterly out of place in Tidepool, as if it had been picked up and dropped into the town from another, far wealthier place.

  Four columns flanked the front door and led to a balcony with a wrought-iron railing on the third floor. Two smaller balconies extended from the sides of the second level of the house. Dim light shone from a window on the top floor. The dark shimmer of the Atlantic was visible from where they stood, and the sound of waves breaking on the shore carried up to them. The smell of salt air washed over him as he took in the view.

  He could also see some of the headstones of Tidepool’s vast cemetery, looking gray and indistinct in the darkness. Those spoiled the glorious view a bit.

  Henry wondered just what it was Mr. Oliver had done in life to leave his widow so well off. He dismissed the brief thought that she couldn’t possibly be living in a place as big as this all by herself.

  Inside, the house’s wooden floors looked rather worn. A large staircase wound up one wall towards the upper levels. A portrait of a very stern man dominated the entryway, and Henry wondered to himself if this could be the late Mr. Oliver. But no, certainly not; the fellow’s long hair and his clothing were several decades out of date, making him far too old to have ever been married to Mrs. Oliver. An ancestor, then.

  Whoever the fellow was, his dark scowl gave Henry the unpleasant feeling of being judge
d and found wanting.

  The smell of salt water intensified inside the house, and Henry wasn’t sure how that could be. Surely nobody had a window open in here with the chill outside. Perhaps the ocean air permeated everything in Tidepool.

  He turned away from the portrait and nodded to Mrs. Oliver as his thoughts returned to the goal he had set as they walked to her house. Perhaps Charlie really did know what he was talking about. If they could spend some money to knock down all the dilapidated shacks and build some bigger houses and attractions, who knew what Tidepool might become?

  And then footsteps sounded on the staircase, and Henry’s heart sank. He had made no allowances for anyone else in his plans for the seduction of Mrs. Oliver. Had he been wrong all this time? Did she already have a companion—a lover—after all?

  A disheveled young man in a rumpled white shirt and dark pants walked down the steps, his head turned in Henry’s direction. His messy black hair looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed, and his skin was even whiter than Mrs. Oliver’s. Henry found it impossible to tell what the young man might be thinking, as his eyes were obscured by thick, tinted glasses. Henry wondered how he could even see in the dim foyer.

  Surely this bizarre fellow could not be involved with Mrs. Oliver. Henry simply wouldn’t believe it.

  The young man reached the foyer and stood with his back pressed against the wall as if he feared Henry. He was quite tall and thin, with a long, narrow face.

  Mrs. Oliver turned to him.

  “Good evening, Quentin. I have brought home a visitor this evening. Mr. Henry Hamilton, I would like to introduce you to my brother, Quentin Ramsay.”