Haunted Happenings

by Lucrezia Black

  Thornton didn’t know for certain, but he was sure if he listened long enough, he would understand.

  “Almost immediately after moving into Willow Abbey I began a two-year affair with a man. His name doesn’t matter so I won’t bother saying it. I was quite the socialite back then, and we threw parties every weekend. The who’s who of society would arrive to see the abbey and to see me. We spent too much money, drank too much champagne, and played the music too loud, but it was the 20s. Things were good.” She smiled a little. “Things were too good, to say the least. I was having an affair. I was married to a wealthy man who cared dearly for me. I was the highlight of society. It was a good time. I had everything I could have wanted. I was so young back then.” Her eyes went distant for a moment as if she were trying to remember exactly what it had been like.

  “Anyhow, I ended up pregnant.” She glanced over at Richard. “Yes, with you. But there in lay the issue. I was sleeping with two different men. I had no idea who the father was and, as far as I knew, Stanley knew nothing about my affair. I was proven very wrong about that one night.” She shivered at the memory. “I was throwing a party, like most weekends, and the man I was having an affair with was there. He’d found out I was pregnant. I’m not certain how, but he knew and he was doting on me. His attentions caught Stanley’s attention.” She looked over at her husband with regret in her eyes.

  Stanley took her hand over the table and gave it a squeeze. “We’ve moved on from this, Dear,” he said, his voice rough.

  “I know, but they need to know what happened that night.” She drew in a deep breath. “Anyway, Stanley went to confront the man and me. We were upstairs at the time and he found us together in the hall. There was an argument. Things got heated quickly and they got a little out of control. I’m not sure how it happened but I fell down the stairs.”

  Thornton’s eyes went wide but he didn’t comment. It wasn’t the time to comment. It was the time to listen to what she had to say.

  “I woke up the next morning in the hospital and I was alone. I’d never been so scared in my life.” She looked down at her hand inside Stanley’s. “My main concern the baby. When I finally got a hold of a nurse, she let me know that I was fine and that I had been very lucky.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “I waited a day before I called Stanley. He’d calmed down by then and had transitioned from angry to concerned. I told him that I was sorry and I begged for forgiveness. I told him the baby had to be his. I told him there would no longer be an affair. I made a world of promises and, much to my surprise, Stanley took me back.” She looked at him affectionately. “I had Richard a few months later and we haven’t looked back since.”

  She looked from Richard to Thornton. “If anything is leaving an imprint on that house, it is that night. It’s the only event that I could think of. Our lives were rather mundane after that.”

  Richard tapped his fingers on the table in front of him. “So, who is my father?”

  Delia gave a shrug. “We have no way of knowing for sure. I mean DNA tests weren’t a thing back then, but you look enough like Stanley to eliminate any doubt.”

  Richard looked closely at his father, or assumed father, for a moment and then gave a nod. “You’ve been my father this long, there would be no sense in changing it.”

  Thornton considered the story he’d just been told. It fit what Drew and Danae had told him. It made sense. Nothing about it failed to line up with the encounters in the house. He appeared to have found his answer.

  He excused himself when the food arrived, dialled Drew’s number from memory and waited for the connection on his cell phone.

  “I have the information you were looking for,” he said into the phone and then proceeded to repeat exactly what he’d heard.

  Chapter 8

  Expelling the Past

  * * *

  After Drew disconnected the call with Thornton, he simply stared at it for a moment. It all made perfect sense. The story he’d been told matched the events he’d witnessed. That single evening had clearly left a lasting imprint on the house. The real question now was how to make it stop.

  He looked across the room to where his wife was seated, folding laundry and knew that if anyone could determine an answer she would. He crossed the room and took a seat beside her.

  “Who was that on the phone?” Danae inquired as she folded a shirt.

  He grabbed a pair of pants and began to fold them. “That was Thornton. He filled me in on a bit of family history that he just found out. It all makes perfect sense now.”

  He took a moment to relay the story to her and she was nodding in agreement by the end of it.

  “Yes, that does sound like what’s been going on. The party noises, the argument – and if the fight was that intense, there is no wonder it’s left an imprint on the house.” She glanced at the space around her. “It’s such a beautiful house to be disturbed by one sad moment in history.”

  “Yes, that is very true.” He looked at the house around him. In another life he could picture himself living somewhere this grand, but for the moment it wasn’t practical. He liked their little house in the country. He liked the yard where their kids played; he liked all the little flaws and memories that filled each room.

  It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t glorious. The yard wasn’t well maintained because he was always so busy working on other people’s gardens, but it was a home. It was welcoming. It was familiar. It was comfortable, and it held everything he could ever want to raise his family.

  The abbey was beautiful, but it would take something special to be turned into a home. It would take a certain element to make the elegance approachable. Having met Caroline, he had no doubt that she’d be able to make that happen. If anyone could return the abbey to its former glory, it would be her.

  He folded another pair of pants and looked at his wife. She had the ability to make a house a home, but the likes of the abbey had never been her dream. Sweet, simple and plain had always suited her just fine. Some things in life were better left uncomplicated.

  “Now that we know what happened here, what are we supposed to do about it?” He looked to her for guidance, like he did with most things. She would be able to give him an answer, a direction to go in.

  Danae seemed to ponder this for a moment as she continued to fold laundry. “I’ll give the spiritualist a call in the morning and see if someone can perhaps come out to deal with it. We won’t be able to expel whatever happened here, but they might.” She shrugged. “I know you don’t buy into the supernatural mumbo jumbo, but we need to do something, and, other than calling a priest, the spiritualists are the only ones who come to mind.”

  He nodded. “The guy you spoke to last time was right about what was going on here. Perhaps they will be able to help. I’m not going to write off the idea.” He smiled sheepishly. “Perhaps there is something to all this supernatural mumbo jumbo after all. I mean, I can’t deny what’s been happening here.”

  “I don’t expect this to make you a believer,” she chuckled. “This has barely been a haunting.”

  “Oh, has it not been interesting enough for you, Dear?” He grinned when she scowled.

  “I didn’t say that. I just meant that it has been fairly low key in comparison to what some people experience.” She shrugged. “It could have been worse, is really all I’m saying.”

  “It could always be worse,” he agreed.

  He helped her finish the laundry and then checked the time. It was already getting close to midnight. He never understood how the time flew by so quickly. He looked at his wife and gave a small smile. “What do you say we endure one more night of this nonsense?”

  “That sounds like a plan,” she agreed and followed him up to bed.

  They made it through the night without too much difficulty. It was almost as though they were becoming immune to the happenings of the house. That fact alone was enough to make Danae get on the phone first thing in the morning and call the spiritualis
ts she’d spoken to before.

  This time a woman answered her call. “Spiritualism and Mystic, how can I help you?”

  Danae did not hesitate at all this time. She jumped straight into her explanation. “I spoke to someone else before; a man, who informed me that my house was suffering from a residual haunting.”

  “Yes, I was informed of that call. It’s been a while since we’ve encountered one of those,” the woman on the phone stated in a curious tone and it was clear that the goings on at the abbey sparked an interest.

  “Well, we’ve identified what happened in the past to cause the imprint, but we’d really like it to go away.” She rubbed at her tired eyes. “Can you do anything to help?”

  The woman on the phone seemed to consider it for a moment. “Usually we have a fee attached to our services, but it’s been so long since we’ve seen a residual haunting that I’d be willing to waive it if you let us do a write up on it.”

  Danae considered that for a moment. “You’ll have to get the home owner’s permission on certain details, but I have no problem with discussing our experiences. Anything that pertains to the history of the house is up to the owner to disclose. Can you agree to that?”

  Again, the woman on the phone paused as if to think about what had been suggested. “Yeah, I can work with that. Would you prefer we come over at any particular time?”

  “As soon as you can, would be preferable,” Danae chuckled. “We’ll be home all day.”

  They set a time and Danae hung up the phone. They were cleaning up after breakfast when they heard the knock on the door.

  Danae opened it and smiled at the woman standing on the door step. “Hello, I’m Danae Speyers. We spoke on the phone.”

  “It’s lovely to meet you, even under the circumstances. I’m Julia.” She stepped into the house and looked around. “This is quite the place, isn’t it?”

  Danae nodded. “It definitely makes an impression.” She glanced back to where her husband had been, but he’d clearly opted to disappear outside. Apparently, she’d be alone in this.

  She understood though. He had work to do and he was already behind on it. She didn’t need him at her side to handle this. She was perfectly capable of escorting a spiritualist through the house.

  “I’m not certain how old the place is, but the lingering event stems back to the 1920s. The grandparents of the current owner lived here at the time. They were the ones who originally renovated the abbey into a living space.” She looked around herself. “And they did a good job, I would say.”

  Julie nodded in agreement. “It really is a wonderful place.” She took a moment to look around herself and appreciate the house before she got to the point. “Where is it that you’ve been experiencing the residual haunting?”

  Danae waved a hand around herself. “Well the party is down here. We hear music and people dancing and talking. We never see them, but we hear them carrying on.”

  “But that’s not the bad thing that happened. That’s just the setting for it?” Julie guessed.

  “Yes, the argument behind the residual haunting took place upstairs, just at the top of the stairs.” Danae led the way for them and indicated her best approximation of where the argument had happened. She had her own experiences to go on, and the story that Thornton had relayed to draw from.

  It had to have happened close to the top of the stairs for Delia to fall down them. There was no way to work it otherwise. Had they been any further down the hall, it would have been very difficult for the story to pan out the way Thornton had told it.

  Julie stood at the top of the stairs and looked around herself. She was trying to get a feel for the place, for that particular part of the house. She could usually tell when there was some form of emotion trapped in an area. It had always been her gift, but she sensed nothing.

  She took a step forward and felt as if she was hit in the face with a baseball bat. She staggered back and would have fallen if Danae hadn’t grabbed her arm.

  “Easy there,” she said as she helped the woman get her feet under her again. “What the hell was that?”

  “A great deal of anger and resentment is trapped here. Betrayal and hurt balled up with it too.” She looked around. “That would have to have been one hell of an argument to leave this kind of mark.”

  “From what I gathered, it was.” Danae frowned. “Are you going to be able to fix it? Can you make it go away?”

  Julie nodded slowly. “Just give me an hour or so alone and you should be right as rain.”

  She shook her head. The imprint on this house was a definite, and among the strongest she’d ever felt in her life. Writing about it would get her a great deal of attention from the paranormal community. This really was the chance of a lifetime.

  “I’ll leave you to it then,” Danae said and dismissed herself. She was hopeful that Julie would fix it. She was hopeful that everything would be fine after today. And she planned on holding onto that hope until she slept through the night without disturbance.

  Epilogue

  Julie took four hours to complete her ritual. Four hours while Drew worked outside and Danae tried to stay out of the way. But after the four hours, she’d come down from upstairs looking tired but triumphant.

  Julie had assured them that there would no longer be any problems with the house. She had assured them that all the negative residual energy was now gone. She gave them her word on the matter.

  That night, they slept completely undisturbed for the first time since they’d moved into the house. No music woke them, no argument erupted in the hallway, no noise of a party could be heard, just simple, blissful silence all night long.

  A part of Danae missed the noise. She’d grown so accustomed to it. She even went to the length of turning the radio on at night to help her sleep. The silence was just too much; it was too lonely.

  But things at the abbey didn’t stay lonely for very long. Two days after Julie had cleansed the house, Danae’s mother dropped their children off. Danae greeted them with tight hugs and a face full of kisses. She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed them while they’d been away. And the timing of their return was perfect.

  She got a kick out of showing the kids around the abbey and telling them a bit about its history. Kat and Brendan were captivated by the story in the way that only kids can be. They listened intently. They asked questions, most of which Danae couldn’t answer. And they looked around in awe of the building that they were in.

  That night, everyone in the house slept peacefully. The children were not disturbed by noises in the house and all aspects of the residual haunting seemed to have been cleared away.

  After a week of peace, Drew called Thornton to inform him that the problem had been completely taken care of. He wanted to reassure the man that it would all be fine when he and his wife moved in. He also wanted to say the words. Somehow saying it out loud made it more real, more concrete.

  Thornton was overjoyed with the news. In his eyes, it was one less worry on their plate as they tried to get things ready to move in. Now the only thing left to get finished was the landscaping.

  Drew assured his employer that it was well under way and right on schedule. Now that he was finally sleeping at night, the long workdays were more enjoyable. And he always preferred to enjoy his work.

  The landscaping job at Willow Abbey took three months. Drew didn’t want to think about the amount of money Thornton had spent to get the place looking like it did now. It was an inconceivable number. Added to which was Drew’s salary for the job, which was also a hefty sum.

  He wasn’t going to complain about the pay-out. He’d put a great deal of work into the place. For two months, the Abbey had been his only job, which was something he rarely did. But it had needed his attention. The house had deserved his full attention and he was more than pleased with the outcome.

  He’d taken several before and after photos of the property and he knew that displaying the transformation on his website wou
ld get him a dozen more clients. This had to be among his best projects. He was very proud of the way things had turned out and he planned on exploiting it as much as possible.

  On the last day at the house, he and Danae were packing up their belongings. He felt a little sad to leave, but he was also looking forward to getting home. They were more than ready to return to their familiar, average life. He’d never thought he would miss that so much, but he almost craved it now.

  “I’m going to miss this place,” Danae stated as she packed her clothes in a suitcase. “It really is something.”

  “Are you going to miss the haunting?” he inquired and accepted the scowl she sent him.

  “Hardly a haunting.” She rolled her eyes. “But no, I’m not going to miss it. I am going to miss the house though. For a few months, we lived quite the high life. I mean we didn’t make much use of it, but it’s fun to imagine what this place would be like filled with guests and music and conversation.”

  “I don’t have to imagine,” he laughed. “It would be noisy enough to wake you from your sleep.”

  She glared at him again. “You know what I mean.”

  He walked over and gave her a kiss. “I know what you mean, love. And maybe, just once, Thornton will have us over for one of his fancy parties.”

  “You think so?” Her eyes lit up at the possibility.

  “One can always dream, right?” He smiled. “But right now, I want nothing more than to return to our house with our kids and get back to our average life.”

  “That sounds like the perfect plan.”

  The Haunting of Tailsbend Farm

  Prologue

  Tailsbend Farm

  Yorkshire, England