He turned slowly when they approached. The guy was older than dirt! He was a head taller than Gillian, and had wisps of baby fine white hair sticking out in tufts from his scalp. His eyes had that common cast all really old people had—watery, like they were facing a breeze and forgot to blink; and the edges of his eyelids were soft pink.
As they approached, his face broke into a beautiful smile. She felt Sarah’s hand tighten in hers.
“Hello,” he said. The guy might be as old as the hills, but his voice was strong and even.
“Hi!” Sarah looked up at him and smiled.
He nodded to Sarah, and looked straight at Gillian as he raised a hand to point at her house. “You live there, right?”
She bit her lip. Well, he’d know soon enough one way or another by watching them go inside. She nodded.
“We just moved in a couple of weeks ago and Nana bought it!” Sarah piped up. Gillian tightened her grip on Sarah’s hand when she felt the child begin to squirm away.
“Stay with Mommy, Sarah,” she said. Turning to the old guy, she said, “Is that important to you?”
The old guy scratched his earlobe and said, “Well, I guess it is.”
“Why?”
“Beats me!” he said, and smiled again. “I’ve been living here in Kingston ever since I retired… been about twenty-five years now. And ever since the first time I passed this place, I had to walk past it every day.” He shook his head and glanced at the ground smiling. “I don’t know why, but any day I don’t go past the place, I feel out of sorts or something.” He lifted his gaze up to Gillian’s. “Most of the time it’s vacant. And when people did live there, it was always students.”
“So?”
“You’re the first family who’s lived there for the last twenty-five years.” He gave a short nod. “That makes you special.” He pressed his lips together and nodded again, like he just made some kind of important pronouncement.
Her inclination to laugh was overruled by curiosity. She cocked her head and arched an eyebrow. “What an unusual thing to say…”
He gave a short laugh. “You’re telling me!” He ran his hand through his hair, fighting with his cowlicks and losing. “It sounded strange to me coming out of my mouth, but I just know I’m right.”
“You feel the house, mister, don’t you?” Sarah’s voice chirped up. Gillian glanced down and a chill went through her. Sarah’s eyes were like diamonds, glinting again. “And you can’t cross the street to get closer to it, can you?”
“No…” he said, looking down at her. “No, I can’t.”
“The circle isn’t closed yet, but it will be, don’t worry!” She smiled up at him, her face shining.
“Okay… when, young lady?”
“Soon!”
Gillian watched the two of them as their gazes locked. Ancient old and a sprout. She gave a small tug on Sarah’s hand. “What circle?”
Sarah turned to look at her mother. “I don’t know, Mommy. I just know, that’s all.”
Gillian closed her eyes for a second. Now that makes all the sense in the world. She opened them and gave her head a small shake and looked back to the old man. “I guess you don’t know what that circle thing means either, do you?”
“No… I only know the young missy here is right,” he said, studying Sarah. He flitted a glance to Gillian. “She’s special, isn’t she?”
“I think she is.”
He looked back at Sarah. “So tell me, young miss; do you like your new house?”
“Oh yes! Nana sold her farm and she bought it!” Her face fell. “My grandfather died, so Nana decided to move away too.”
“I’m sorry, young miss. That must have made you sad.”
Sarah looked sideways at her mother. “Well… I never really met him when he was alive…”
“You never met him, moppet…”
“Yes I did! He told me to make sure I got this!” She reached into the collar of her shirt and pulled out the St. Jude medal. It twinkled in the afternoon sun as it rocked at the end of the chain.
“Oh my God…” the old man whispered. He bent down and slowly extended his hand to Sarah, palm up. “That’s a St. Jude medal, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is! Alice has one just like it!” Sarah said. “They even have the same letters on the side!”
“A.C., right?” the old man said. His hand trembled as he touched the medal.
“That’s right! How did you know that?” she asked.
“That medal used to be mine,” he said. “I gave it to my baby sister when I left home…” His eyes looked very far away.
“No, Agnes says it’s hers!” She tucked it back inside her shirt. “She says its okay I have it now, but it was hers.”
The man’s voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t know an Alice or Agnes. But I wore that medal my whole life growing up. My father made sure I always had it; but he wouldn’t tell me anything about it.” He straightened up slowly, his eyes wide with wonder. “Before I left for the war, I put it on my baby sister.” His eyes filled with tears. “When I came back from the war, my dad had passed away and my mother remarried.” His voice hitched. “She turned me away at the door…” He covered his eyes with his hands and sobbed.
Gillian’s heart ached for the poor man. She stepped to him and rested her hand on his shoulder. “What a terrible thing. Why would she do that?”
Through his hands, he whispered, “She said I wasn’t her child, that my father adopted me and made her raise me.” He took his hands away, reached into a pocket, drew out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “She said I was a demon seed and to leave Lanark and never show my face again!”
“Lanark?”
“Yes, it’s a small town over—”
Gillian’s hand began to shake. “I know where it is. I grew up there…”
“Really?” His face brightened. “I grew up on a dairy farm there, back during the depression and before the war. I left when I was sixteen; my parents signed papers so I could join up as soon as I was old enough.”
“A dairy farm?”
He nodded. “It was a long, long time ago… and when I was turned away from home, I went out west to work on the oil rigs.” He shrugged. “When I retired, I moved here to Kingston.” He looked around, up and down the street. “It’s a nice enough city, don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes it is… Mister… what is your name?”
“I’m sorry. How rude of me. My name is Eamon. Eamon Crawley.”
Chapter 46
At that same moment, Maureen sat frozen in a seat at the Kingston Public Library’s main branch. She had gone there as soon as Jeff’s truck left her driveway and had been going through archived newspapers on microfilm for the last two hours. Her face was bathed in a green hue the microfiche reader emitted, tucked back in the corner of the main reading room. She sat with her hand to her mouth.
“Oh my God…” she whispered.
Chapter 47
At the same time Gillian and Eamon were chatting on the street, Maureen was sitting in the archives room of the local newspaper. She leaned closer to the screen of the microfiche and read the article.
THE KINGSTON WHIG STANDARD
MURDER-SUICIDE
MAJOR KEVIN CRAWLEY
In the early morning hours of Thursday November 1, the body of Colonel Kevin Crawley of 8 Harvest Street was found hanging from the old gallows behind the provincial courthouse. A staff member of the jail, John Bannister, arriving for his shift came upon the gruesome scene and contacted the police.
When Constables Gerald Waters and James Dunleavy visited the victim’s home to notify the family, they came upon a horrific crime scene with two more corpses. The first body has been tentatively identified as Mr. Devlin Griffin; found in the home’s kitchen bludgeoned to death. Continued search of the home turned up further mayhem. Major Crawley’s wife, Bridget Mary (nee Walsh) was found in an upstairs bedroom, dead of a broken neck. Further searching turned up the Crawley’s son, a b
aby boy, unharmed.
The police recovered a note from the body of Colonel Crawley. It contained the name of his brother Sean Crawley of Lanark who was to be contacted regarding the baby, Eamon. It also contained a confession of guilt, ‘I killed them all. It’s my fault. God forgive me.’
Neighbors of the Crawley family, the Ashtons, were acquainted with the Crawleys for the past five years and commented on the family’s tragic history. It was not the first time death had visited this home. The first wife of Major Crawley, Melanie Anne (nee Forsythe) born in London England died of complications in pregnancy, two years ago. Two twin daughters, Agnes and Alice, five years of age were kidnapped and drowned earlier this year. Until now, Crawley had not been under suspicion for their deaths.
Now, the police are no longer investigating circumstances surrounding the deaths of the other family members, given the admission of guilt in the letter.
An unidentified source at headquarters has stated “It appears that the Major’s thirst for blood was only whetted by his experiences in the Great War. His confession and suicide strongly support the theory of a man with a disturbed mind. What a monster to murder your wives and children! It’s a miracle the baby survived at all.”
Maureen clutched the edge of the desk to keep from falling sideways from the sudden dizzy spell. She exhaled slowly, unaware she’d been holding her breath. Good Lord. All of that had happened in that house—her house.
And Eamon Crawley... the mystery name in the family Bible. He was the baby, raised by an uncle in Lanark. Raised by her grandfather. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. So much death!
What sort of man had Kevin Crawley been? What kind of monster? The ‘unidentified source’ in the article believed him to have been a child murderer. His own children! In all likelihood this animal murdered his first wife too! Then he killed his second wife! What a sick and disgusting man! There was death and sadness in that house, death at the hands of Kevin Crawley.
She was related to him. The realization made her head spin. Thoughts flitted through her head like fireflies. She and Gillian had been brought to the Crawley house for some reason. She knew in her bones their being at this house was no coincidence.
Her eyes widened and she gasped. Not just her and Gillian—Sarah! The two little girls, Agnes and Alice. Her hand flew to her mouth. Those were the names Sarah called her imaginary friends. Oh no! Not imaginary at all!
A shiver scuttled up her back and her shoulders shuddered.
Not imaginary.
Ghosts.
The ghosts of the twin girls were still in the house! Sarah had no way of knowing about them, yet she’d seen them. To her, they were just regular kids! But they weren’t. Not at all.
Her stomach knotted. Had she been sleeping in the same room where Bridget had been murdered? The memory of that frightful night when she felt she was being choked flashed in her mind, making her shiver again. Had that been Bridget? No, that was Bridget. And she was pissed!
What in the world was she supposed to do?
She pressed the buttons beside the monitor and the article hummed out of the attached printer. She shoved it into her purse. She had to get home and tell Gillian! She flew out of the library and raced home.
When she walked into the house, she did a double take at the sight of her daughter sitting at the dining room table with the family Bible spread out before her. She rushed into the room. “Where’s Sarah?”
Gillian glanced up briefly and went back to looking at the entries in the Bible, the family-tree section. “She’s out in the backyard with the dog.”
Maureen ran to the back door and looked out. Sarah and the dog were playing, wrestling with a stick on the grass. She went back to the dining room.
She pulled out a chair and sat across from her daughter. “Gillian, you’ll never guess what I’ve found out at the newspaper archives.” Instead of waiting for a reply, she continued. “The man who built this house was named Kevin Crawley. He murdered his wife—no, two wives, and his daughters, leaving their baby boy orphaned.” Her eyebrows drew together and she leaned forward. “What are you doing with the Bible out?”
Gillian’s eyes were wide staring into her mother’s. “The baby boy was named Eamon.”
Chapter 48
Maureen jerked back and her mouth fell open. “How did you know that?”
Gillian looked at her mother and smiled. “He and I had a chat right across the street.”
“What?!” Maureen reached out and clutched at her daughter’s arm.
“Yeah. You must have noticed the old guy standing in the park staring at the house? Well, he asked about us. We got to talking and he introduced himself. You could have knocked me over with a feather when he told me his last name was Crawley.” She dropped her head slowly shaking it from side to side. “This is too weird, y’know?” She lifted her eyes back to her mother. “When he told me he’d been raised in Lanark, I knew he had to be some distant relative of yours.” She glanced off to the side. “Of ours.”
“Oh my Lord, he has to be ninety years old! I’ve always wondered about his name in my Bible. How is it that he came back to Kingston?” Maureen’s mouth opened and closed like she was totally gobsmacked.
“He grew up on a dairy farm but he never liked it.” Gillian gave a rueful smile and patted her mother’s arm. “Kind of like me, I guess.” She shook her head sadly. “No, that’s not fair…it was worse for him than ever for me.”
“More than you realize, Gillian. He didn’t grow up on a dairy farm; he grew up on our dairy farm.”
“You’re kidding!”
Maureen shook her head. “He’s my mother’s cousin, Gillian. His father strangled his mother, and my grandfather took him in as a baby.” She opened her purse and took out the copy of the newspaper article and handed it to Gillian.
She read it quickly, and nodded. “Now it all makes sense.” She looked up at Maureen. “He said he loved his father but his mother always acted strange when she was around him. When the war broke out, he enlisted. While he was fighting in Europe, his father died. After the war ended, he went back to Lanark, but his mother—his aunt by marriage, actually— she turned him away. She had remarried and so he moved out west. He didn’t come to Kingston until he retired.” She tilted her head. “He had a St. Jude medal… the one Sarah’s been wearing… it’s his medal.”
“My mother had that from when she was a baby. My grandma, my Nan never told her where it came from.” Maureen chewed her lip. “My mom gave it to your father when we got married; she said Granny never liked her to wear it.”
“How did Sarah get hold of it?”
“From your father’s dresser. She told me he wanted her to have it.” Maureen’s eyes widened. “I thought she meant she felt your father would want her to have it…” Her voice faded and she looked over her shoulder to the back door. “But now… maybe he did tell her…”
“Now you’re sounding crazy, Mom, Dad never laid eyes on Sarah from the day she was born!”
Maureen dismissed Gillian’s rising ire with a wave of her hand. “I think Sarah has seen those two girls who drowned. She calls her imaginary friends Agnes and Alice, right?” She pointed to the line in the newspaper article wordlessly.
The Haunting of Crawley House (The Hauntings Of Kingston Book 1) Page 24
