The Haunting of Blackburn Manor

by Blake Croft

  “I can’t be expected to make sure everyone gets home,” Stewart was almost hysterical. “This isn’t a rehabilitation center. People are free to come and go as they please. We only provide counseling and job opportunities to those struggling with mental health issues.”

  “So you don’t know when Tara Walsh left the Blackburn Manor?” Scott persisted.

  “I don’t even remember a Tara Walsh,” Stewart protested. “We get so many people and I don’t work with any of them. I don’t recall anyone with that name.”

  “Whoa! Everyone calm down,” Officer Carter intervened, coming to stand between Scott and Stewart. Ashley’s face looked like a thundercloud behind him. Mrs. Grady had shuffled closer down the street, her face wide and creased with worry lines. “Those phone calls have nothing to do with the tragedy today, Scotty, so why don’t we give that a rest. We’ve got the preliminary report, eh. We should let these poor people get some rest.”

  “Of course, of course,” Mrs. Grady said with derision. “No one in Blackburn Manor has ever done anything wrong. Especially not Evelyn, the virgin Mary with the burning heart, the bastion of feminism.”

  Linda’s interest piqued. Did Grady know something about Evelyn Blackburn, or her ancestors that hadn’t been reported in the newspapers at the time?

  “You vile, loathsome woman!” Ashley growled through gritted teeth. “Are you so devoid of human compassion? Marisa just died, we have no idea what happened to her and all you can do is deride an honest working woman and her family?”

  “Don’t you dare say I have no compassion. I never said a word against poor Marisa,” Mrs. Grady snapped back. “You know nothing of Evelyn Blackburn and her hypocrisy.”

  “You’re right,” Ashley said, arms akimbo, glowering at the old lady in a nightdress. “I know nothing of Evelyn Blackburn, but I see plenty. And what I see is an invalid woman who opened her house to vulnerable people, no questions asked, and providing them jobs. Opposite her is a bitter woman, who used to be brilliant at what she did, living alone, and only extending her kindness to cats.”

  Grady’s mouth opened and closed. She looked lost for words.

  “I pity you.” Ashley hit the last nail in the coffin. “But I will no longer tolerate your bullying.” She left Grady mumbling on the street.

  “Do you have any more questions?” Ashley snapped at Scott. His eyes widened, clearly startled by her sharp tone. “Are you going to interrogate us further, Officer Wilson, or am I free to go back inside my house?”

  “I, uh, no; I mean of course you’re free to go.” Scott shrugged and waved towards the house, releasing them.

  Linda was tired, and she needed rest as well, but she was annoyed with Ashley’s outburst. Sure, she had no love lost for Grady and her bitterness, but Grady knew something, and Linda felt bad for Scott. She didn’t want to go back in that house; not after Marisa’s possession. But Ashley was apparently in no mood to listen to reason and would refuse to leave if she brought it up right now; her reaction towards Grady was proof of that. There was only one option left to her. She stopped by Scott before following Ashley inside.

  “I know this whole investigation is ridiculous and makes no sense,” she whispered. “Marisa died; I can’t explain how and I’m not even sure her sleep issues were to blame. All I’m asking is that you help me and keep an open mind.”

  Scott ran his hand through his hair but didn’t comment one way or the other. Linda hadn’t expected anything more.

  “Good. Come on Ash,” Linda said. “I’ve had enough of tonight.”

  She trudged into the house. Even though she had known Marisa only a few days, her death was so sudden and bizarre it weighed down on her. The main hall was bathed in shadows. Ashley, clad in white pajama pants and a pale blue shirt was climbing the stairs slowly. She looked like a ghostly apparition in the gloom.

  They couldn’t stay here. But Ashley wouldn’t want to leave, and Linda couldn’t bear the thought of leaving without her sister.

  I have to convince her, Linda thought.

  “Ash?”

  Ashley stopped in the middle of the staircase but did not turn to face her. Her body language was odd, stooped and defeated.

  “What did Officer Carter say about the truck?”

  Ashley grunted. “Soulless crooks, the entire bunch. I can either wait four more business days, or pay extra to get my truck back in half the time. But I don’t have any money left, Lin.”

  “Maybe you should sell it,” Linda suggested.

  “What?” Ashley finally turned to face Linda. Pale-yellow street light illuminated her face from beneath. She looked haggard and furious. “Why would I do that?”

  Linda was treading on thin ice. “You’re always complaining that it’s a piece of junk.”

  Ashley closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “I am not having this conversation with you again.” Her tone was measured but there was aggression underneath it.

  “Marisa just died, Ashley,” Linda burst out. “I don’t feel comfortable spending the night in this house.”

  “She died from previous medical issues,” Ashley snapped losing all cool. “Not everything is a Supernatural episode, Linda. She died, it’s a tragedy. That does not mean we pick up and leave when we have nowhere else to go.”

  Ashley leaned forward on the banister. “And you know what? You wanted to gain real life experience, get back on your own two feet in the real world; this is as real as it gets. Leaving when things get tough is not always an option.”

  Ashley started climbing the stairs again; her feet stomping on each stair.

  “Ashley,” Linda allowed the terror she felt to infuse her voice. “Please.”

  Ashley didn’t stop.

  Linda sobbed, standing alone in the gloomy main hall. How was she going to convince Ashley to leave?

  Deep in thoughts, Linda didn’t see the open basement door, nor the silently screaming face in the painting on the living room wall. She climbed the stairs; the feeling of despair intensifying with each step.

  Chapter 20

  It was early morning, and Linda felt like a zombie.

  Fresh air did little to alleviate how tired she was, but she was grateful for the three hours of dreamless sleep she had gotten after the events of the night.

  She sat on the porch steps with a mug of coffee. Her mind kept going back to Marisa’s blank stare, how there was no spark of life in them, no will to live, and then she had just passed on.

  There had been no defining moment; no twitch of the hand, flailing of the arms or legs, no struggle against that final moment. She had just stopped breathing. Linda shuddered at the memory of the previous night and winced. The bruises around her neck were still vividly red, her voice hoarse.

  It felt like every inch of her had been scrubbed so thoroughly, that even the suggestion of a breeze hit her like a hailstorm. Her senses were on a hair trigger, ready to go off at the slightest provocation.

  She took a sip and stared at the house opposite.

  The blinds were drawn in all the windows. Nothing stirred. Linda didn’t feel wonderful about what Ashley had said to Mrs. Grady, and she wondered what were the chances Grady would talk to her about Evelyn Blackburn now.

  Keys jangled and the front door opened behind her.

  Linda sat up straighter. Stewart came out of the manor, satchel bag in one hand and a jacket in the other. His tie was askew and he’d missed closing a button on his shirt.

  “Morning.” Linda got up.

  Stewart startled so badly he dropped his keys. Linda felt pity for him. Last night hadn’t been easy on any of them. “Hi.” Stewart ducked to grab his keys. “Sorry. I’m a little jumpy this morning.” He looked worse than before. The bags under his eyes looked bruised, and he hadn’t bothered shaving.

  “I don’t blame you.” Linda gave him a tight smile. “We’re all rattled after last night.”

  “I’m going to Hackridge to visit a few funeral parlors. Marisa didn’t have a big family; just a
younger brother who lives in London. He works for some startup company so won’t be able to arrange the funeral.”

  “Marisa deserves to be laid to rest respectfully. I'm glad you're handling it. Incidentally, I was hoping to get a hold of you before you left.”

  “Sure.” He shifted his coat to his other arm and ran a hand through his hair, tussling it over his forehead. He gave her a grin that she suspected he thought was boyish but came across as over eager and slightly inappropriate given the current circumstances.

  “There’s no good way to say this,” Linda tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Is it possible to resign from the job if we’ve signed the three month contracts?”

  Stewart’s face had covered all the muted colors in the rainbow by the time she finished. It ended on a very faded violet. Otherwise his face was still, leaking no emotion at all.

  Linda shifted from one foot to the other, hoping he would say something and not be offended.

  “I don’t understand.” Stewart shifted his satchel bag from one hand to the other. “It’s only been a few days since you arrived. You’ve only just started work on the vegetable garden.”

  “I know,” Linda stammered. “I was just wondering, hypothetically, if we didn’t like-”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not an option,” Stewart said briskly. He walked past her all hustle and bustle now like he was the white rabbit, late for a very important date. “That’s why we have these contracts to protect the retreat from flaky employees.”

  Linda was affronted by his attitude and the words he was using. She had just inquired what the consequences could be; she hadn’t given him two weeks’ notice.

  “What if employees chose to live somewhere else?” Linda asked. She followed him to the edge of the porch and watched him hurrying to his car.

  Stewart opened the backdoor of his car and put his suitcase in. “It wouldn’t be a problem in Ashley’s case because she’s a full time employee; she can choose to stay wherever she likes. In your case it wouldn’t work. You have the privilege of a job because you are also part guest. If you choose to stay away from the retreat we will be forced to give the job to someone else. That’s the policy.”

  Great! Linda thought. How am I going to convince Ashley now? Not only will I lose my income, I’d be asking her to shell out for rent which we can’t afford.

  “Have a good day,” was all he said before he got in and closed the door.

  Linda watched, flabbergasted, as he backed out of the drive and drove away.

  Breathing heavily to soothe her disappointment, Linda went back inside the manor.

  “What am I going to do?” she asked no one in particular, but it felt good to say it aloud. She paced the living room, heart hammering against her ribs.

  Linda went to the kitchen to get some water to cool down. Ashley hadn’t come down yet; Linda suspected she was still fast asleep.

  Linda finished her drink of water and put the glass in the sink to wash later. She had been mildly hungry before she had met Stewart but now her hunger had been replaced with clawing anxiety.

  She went back into the living room, toying with the idea of watching some TV to pass the time but the first thing that caught her eye was the open basement door. She looked at the dark doorway, the darkness stared back.

  Linda was sure the door had been closed when she came downstairs, but she acknowledged that she hadn’t been paying it much attention, her mind being on other things. Walking slowly, images of Marisa’s prone body under the stairs superimposed on her mind’s eye, Linda approached the door. She kept her distance and pushed the door closed with the toe of her shoe.

  It whined as it swung and shut with a soft click.

  The air seemed to clear in an instant and the room looked brighter than before.

  Sighing with relief, Linda turned to face the living room, and nearly fell back with a strangled scream, biting her tongue painfully.

  A face dominated the painting; a screaming face, contorted in painful lines. Linda had seen the face before, in a fevered dream where there was dirt and soil from floor to ceiling. It had belonged to the dead Irish boy. She even remembered his name, Oisin.

  Hands trembling, Linda pressed her throbbing tongue to the roof of her mouth, tasting the salty iron tang of blood. The boy’s tormented eyes followed her as she walked to the middle of the living room.

  You can’t blame it on some ghost, you know.

  Linda’s scalp prickled with sweat, beads of it covered her upper lip, her armpits were damp, her back felt slick with it; she flashed cold and hot all at once. Was it possible? It couldn’t be. There were no such things as ghosts… were there?

  But the long gone miners and their miserable lives in a world covered in dirt? She had dreamed of them long before she had known of them. Were they sending her warnings like her mother?

  “What are you doing?”

  Linda jumped. Ashley stood yawning in the kitchen.

  “The paintings changed.” Linda said, her voice frail and thin.

  “What?” Ashley scratched the back of her head. She walked over to stand beside Linda. She smelled of stale sweat. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you see it?” Linda was incredulous. “It’s right there staring at us!”

  “It’s just a bunch of rocks and trees, Lin,” Ashley was irritated.

  “You can’t see the face?” Trepidation tripped own Linda’s spine like ice cubes. “How can you not see it?”

  “Forget the face, for God’s sake, Linda!” Ashley shouted. “I thought this place would heal you, not make things worse.”

  Linda’s own anger was rising to the surface. She had known Ashley would be upset, but not to the extent that she would lie about the painting.

  “I’m not crazy,” Linda said, biting her lip. “This isn’t PTSD hallucinations or sleep paralysis. I’m telling you Ashley, something beyond our control is happening here-”

  Ashley’s face went from red to purple in seconds.

  “Please spare me that,” she said. “Let me put this in words you’ll understand.” She said slowly, like talking to an infant. “We can’t leave. We can’t afford to.”

  “I’m not saying we leave the jobs,” Linda begged. “Just not stay here.”

  “You’re insane,” Ashley snapped. “I’m already in the hole because of the truck, but you want me to shell extra money for rent?”

  “I’m just asking for a little help,” Linda snapped back. “I can’t do this on my own.”

  “Of course you can’t,” Ashley rolled her eyes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Every word was hitting Linda on the raw. Their exhaustion and worry was culminating into hysterical rage.

  “You know exactly what I mean!” Ashley pointed an accusing finger at her. “Poor little Linda can’t do anything to save herself. She has to marry Jackson to get away from Dad. She has to move to a God awful remote place. She has to take Ashley, because Linda can’t friggin' do anything!”

  Tears pricked Linda’s eyes, but she refused to cry and prove Ashley right. Yes, she had always been the weaker of the two sisters but she had never begged anyone to get her out of her problems.

  “I never asked you to come,” Linda spat. “You were never at home when we were kids anyway, so why do you care now? Because you needed a job and they were offering it. It was never to support me so don’t you sit on that high horse and talk down to me.”

  Ashley flinched, as if Linda had physically slapped her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry Linda,” Ashley’s mouth twisted cruelly. “I totally believe you now. Yes,” she gasped, looking at the painting. “I do see a face in the painting. A screaming witch is running at us!” She turned towards Linda, her face a mask of mockery. “You’ve been delusional since you were a baby,” Ashley said. “That monocle man with a watch on a chain you recall from our neighborhood? He doesn’t exist. You would come home with stories about a young girl in a sailor suit at the pond, and neighbors that onl
y you had ever seen. Just like now with this painting.”

  Linda turned her astonished eyes to the painting.

  The face was gone.

  Her world shifted from its axis to become a little skewed.

  Was Ashley right? Had she been hallucinating people and events her entire life? What was true? What was false? The distinction between fantasy and reality was shattered into a million pieces she had no energy to pick up and fix.

  She had been so sure of a supernatural presence at work here that going back to the original medical diagnosis had her reeling.

  Unthinkable questions hammered at her consciousness that broke down all barriers of what had been real and imaginary in her life. Hearing your childhood and your character defined in terms starkly different from your own understanding of yourself was like looking at a funhouse mirror, only it wasn’t a trick mirror, it showed you how people saw you. It was disconcerting and obscene.

  Had Jackson really beaten her within an inch of her life with a rolling pin, or had she imagined it all?

  Was she the aggressor? Had the knife in Jackson’s gut been the last assault of many?

  Her head spun. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Lin,” Ashley’s voice was crumpled under the weight of her remorse. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that.” She tried to touch Linda’s arm but Linda backed away, not wanting any physical contact with anyone. “Please, just forget I said anything.”

  “I’m going for a walk,” Linda said. She rushed towards the door, ignoring Ashley’s cries to come back. She couldn’t be in the same room with her at the moment. She grabbed the keys from the hall table.

  She opened the front door. The fresh air hit her like a wall. It did wonders for her cluttered mind. She climbed briskly down the porch steps and then began walking rapidly towards the hill, her thoughts as wild as the wind that had picked up suddenly. Clouds raced across the sky. It was a beautiful summer day.