The
Secrets
of
Oakley House
S.A. Robinson
Published by Global Publishing Group on SMASHWORDS [email protected]
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Global Publishing Group LLC
Copyright © 2021 by S.A.Robinson
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S.Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained.
Printed in the United States of America
Worldwide Distribution
First trade edition
ISBN 978-1-954804-19-7
CHAPTER ONE
Slowly unlocking the front door, Mariah tiptoed as quietly as she could into the living room of her childhood home. She closed the door and froze, shocked to see her mother was already awake, dressed for the day, and not surprisingly drinking what Mariah assumed was a kale smoothie.
“Hi momma,” Mariah beamed.
Mariah hadn’t seen her mom in months. She hadn’t been able to make it to graduation because she had some kind of virus and didn’t want to spread it around, so she stayed home to rest. Mariah didn’t mind. Her mom and dad both saw her high school graduation, and that, to her, was the most important milestone. High school is the end of your childhood and the beginning of being an adult. Though no one tells you that being an adult sucks ass. Once she got to college things were fine. Dorm life and the first year of classes put her in a daze of comfort that she thought would last forever.
Then her dad died and Mariah took time off to grieve. When she came back to school, she had lost her dorm and ended up needing to get an apartment, which, in the city, was excruciatingly expensive. Mariah didn’t know how she had managed to make it to nineteen without realizing just how much money living on her own would cost. Rent, electric, gas, trash, water, and don’t even get her started on parking fees in New York. That city could rob you blind if you weren’t careful.
Mariah survived though. She got a part-time job working at the campus bookstore and managed to shuffle through all her classes. She spent way too much time in the library and ate mostly sandwiches and ramen. Luckily, she managed to not gain a ton of weight. The city devoured all her money, so she regularly ate light or didn’t eat at all.
Her mom walked over and hugged her tight, and Mariah noted that she smelled the same as always, a slight dot of her favorite perfume right behind her ears. It smelled like safety and home. Mariah took several deep inhales of her mom’s scent. She recalled that her dad always had a smell too. It reminded her of walking through the woods or a hardware store, very outdoorsy. Mom has always smelled fruitier; her perfume has a slight mango-orange scent. Mariah made a note to remember to ask her later what it is. Having the smell of family in her own home might make it easier to settle in.
“Mom, I know it’s early,” Mariah said, glancing at the clock that has always hung behind the couch. It was only seven in the morning, which meant she had plenty of time to take a shower and try to look somewhat human. Maybe tame her wild red curls.
“My car is out of gas. I lost my cell on the road and I have that meeting with the agent at eight. Any chance you could take me to the coffee shop to meet her?” Mariah gave her mom her best puppy dog eyes and hoped she would take pity on her.
“Actually ladybug, I was thinking. Your dad’s truck hasn’t been driven in months, why don’t you take that to your appointment. Take the gas can and get some gas to put in your tank for when you get back, then we can hunker down here tonight and have takeout.” Her mom smiled and waited for Mariah’s reply.
All she could do was stare at her mother in shock. Did she just tell her she could take her dad’s old truck? She didn’t say she could have it, but she absolutely said she can use it for the day. Mariah couldn’t help it, she jumped into her mom’s arms and hugged her as tight as she could trying to hold back tears. Her mom had to know how much driving his truck means to her.
Dad had found the rusty junk of a truck buried in some bushes in the back of a cornfield, and he ended up taking it home one day after a nice long chat with the farm owner. Her mom was livid. She wanted nothing more than to drive a new car for once in their marriage. That was exactly what she did as soon as dad had died, went out and bought a brand-new luxury sedan. It was by the grace of God that Mariah was able to convince her to keep her dad’s truck.
She had spent countless hours with him fixing that pile of crap up and making it into its beautiful classically vintage self that it is today. They even named it Betty, after her grandmother. By the time Betty was finished, she was in prime condition, and they started taking her to vintage car shows around the mid-west. They painted her cherry red, and Mariah thought Betty was gorgeous. She is one of the very first Ford trucks, a model T-Roundabout made back in 1925. Finding parts for her was difficult, but worth every minute and penny spent. Not that it was Mariah’s pennies being spent.
Betty was what got her started on a love of old things, and soon historical things became her secret passion. Mariah would spend hours researching old cars, trucks, homes, castles in Europe, and just about anything she could get her hands on. She told the real estate agent that she absolutely had to have an old house, not old like 2005, but old like the 1800s or beyond if possible. Her pre-approval was decent, but not a ton. She already knew that put her in a fixer-upper, which was just fine with her. Mariah hoped there was something in that price range and with real history available in Oakley. The town was small, but almost all the houses had been there since the Revolutionary War. Oakley had started as a French colony before Illinois was a state. It had been called Oakwood at one point in time.
“Thanks, momma,” Mariah whispered in her mother’s ear.
She kissed her mom on the cheek then broke away and headed up to her old bedroom. The first stop was to the hall closet where her mom keeps all of her dad’s things. Mariah opened the door and was immediately accosted by his outdoorsy scent. It drifted into her nostrils and slashed through the heart. Her entire body went numb, her jaw tightened, and tears flood her eyes.
“I miss you so much daddy,” Mariah cried staring into the closet and rubbing her fingers along his old shirts.
He was supposed to be here now, to someday meet his grandchildren, and see her grow somewhat old. That chance was ripped away after parent’s weekend, Sophomore year. Mariah’s mom had sprained ankle so she couldn’t make the trip and her dad decided to drive instead of fly. He always loved taking the scenic route. Her mother insisted he take her car because she didn’t trust how far Betty could go. On his way home after a fun-filled weekend of seeing the campus and all of New York’s finest hot dog stands, a driver going down the opposite side of the road dosed off and his car crossed the median. Mariah’s dad had no time to react. The police said he died on
impact.
Life changed that day. Her mom shut down completely. Mariah cried for weeks before just going completely numb. It took a while to get back on track. Her mom started her lifestyle changes, eating healthier, exercising, and doing single woman things, and Mariah threw herself into school.
The memories are what keeps her sane, knowing that her dad never missed a chance to spend time with her and he loved her mom fiercely. It was almost like he had known that he would go first. He had set up so many insurance policies that made sure that if or when he died, her mom would never have to go back to work to support herself. He also made sure that he had enough money set aside that Mariah was able to pay for college without having to take out a million loans. That allowed her to get herself started after college while she took her time looking for a real job. For that, she was entirely grateful, but she hated that him dying was how it came about. Life really isn’t fair.
Closing the door, Mariah walked to her bedroom, grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand, and dried her eyes. She headed into the bathroom and started the shower; knowing she would feel better once she was clean and refreshed.
While memories are wonderful, they are also a burden, especially when everything around you triggers them. Memories of her dad were literally everywhere she looked. This house keeps so many memories, not just for her and her mom but for the whole extended family.
The house has been owned by Litback’s dating back to the early 1800s. As a kid, that used to scare Mariah half to death. The basement is unfinished and mostly made of dirt. She was convinced growing up that people were buried down there. She could hardly stand walking by the door, much less venturing down there to grab anything.
Her mom used to keep all the Christmas decorations in the basement, and they would get covered in spiders and webs throughout the year. Mariah would have to shove her fear into the back of her mind to help decorate the house for the holidays. Halfway down the stairs, there’s a door that leads outside. It’s the door the servants would enter and exit through in the older days. That used to make her mad, making human beings enter through a different door just because they had a lower societal standing, but now she understands that it is part of history. Like it or not, it happened. That was then, not now. Her mom has since had that door sealed off and the basement has nothing but spiders these days. Apparently, it creeped her out as well.
As a kid, Mariah never once imagined that her strong-willed mother would have had any fears. But when her dad died and they moved things around, Mariah was shocked to learn that the house has always given her mom the heebie-jeebies. She told Mariah that the idea of how many people have potentially died in the house made her skin crawl. Old houses have so much history living inside the walls. In those days bodies of the dead were left in the bedroom for days while family visited and mourned. Mariah had to admit the thought was creepy.
How many souls reside in the house? Did they die of old age? Sickness? Murder? Her mind could run away with thousands of possible stories if she allowed herself to dwell on it
Shaking off those thoughts, she finished showering and redirected her focus to her upcoming meeting with the realtor. Hopefully, today she would find her future house.
While she knew she would eventually inherit this house, she would love to start her own little piece of history that wasn’t related to her family.
CHAPTER TWO
Mariah had managed to make it to the gas station to get gas, and grab a prepaid phone to get her by until she could file a claim for the lost one. It took a bit of time to get the old truck going. Mom really should be running Betty more often, she thought. She strolled into the coffee shop downtown just in time to see the agent sitting down with a steaming mug of tea. She saw Mariah right away and smiled. Mariah held up her index finger in a move to say, ‘I’m going to grab a coffee,’ and headed for the line.
The shop was busy, full of police, paramedics, doctors and the general population, all there for their morning coffee before heading to work.
Settling into the chair next to Liza, her agent, who also happened to be a good friend, she eyed the small folder sitting on the table. They had been friends in high school, and if truth be told, Mariah secretly had a crush on Liza even though she knew Liza was straight. Liza was fun and vibrant. Back then, Mariah was envious of Liza’s smooth, straight, blonde hair that fluttered down her back. Now, however, she has a short haircut, and it looks as though she has dyed her hair light brown. It’s a good look on her. It makes her blue eyes pop. Blonde hair, blue eyes are the norm; but brown hair and blue eyes are way more appealing in Mariah’s opinion.
Stopping herself before mentally taking things too far in her mind, she reminded herself that Liza is married and now has two kids. It’s crazy that so many of her old school friends were now married with kids and careers. If she hadn’t taken time off when her dad passed, she would have finished school almost a year earlier and she too would be about settled in life by now. Mariah, however, had no prospects in her love life and wanted nothing more than to focus all her attention on fixing up her future home. Kids can wait. Romance can wait. For now, anyway.
Glancing around and sipping her coffee Mariah saw several old acquaintances. Though that was to be expected in such a small town. Everyone knows everyone and no one has secrets. Small town life was much different from New York, where nobody knows who you are, and most people want to keep it that way. She and Liza spent a while sipping slowly on their drinks, catching up on the past few years. They hadn’t seen each other since her dads’ funeral.
Of course, most of the town came. Everyone loved her dad. He always had a way of knowing when to help and when to stay back. Sometimes Mariah joked that he could read people’s minds. He would just laugh and explain that he was intuitive. He could read people and places easily because he was able to relate to them on a personal level. He often called himself an empath. Mariah didn’t believe in such things.
After an hour of playing catch up, Liza got down to business. She had brought a small stack of files, each detailing a house for sale in or around Oakley. Each one was older than her great-grandmother. Mariah was in historical house heaven, sort of. Some of these houses looked like they had already been restored, and in a modern way, not a preservation way. Mariah wanted one that she could restore to its old glory. She also didn’t want her house to be modern and new, she craved old and decrepit.
After nixing half the pile right away they were left with three houses. One was a gorgeous old stone on an acre of land. The windows looked like they were made in the stone age, the chimney was half fallen and there were a few stairs missing leading to the second floor, from what she could tell in the pictures. But the History of the house was boring. Like many houses in Oakley, it had been in the same family since it was built. It was being sold now because the younger generations don’t care so much about old family homes, they want shiny new ones.
House number two was a green and beige Victorian built in the mid-1800s. It was two stories with an attic and an unfinished basement. The entire house was wallpapered and looked as though someone tried to fix it up and possibly just ran out of time, money, or both. The story of the house was very much the same as the other, family selling off decades of memories. Such a shame, Mariah thought.
House number three spiked Mariah’s interest from the moment she saw it. Stone, brick and just a little paint here and there. Three floors, and an unfinished basement that reminded her of the one in her family home. That would be the first thing to change, she thought to herself. There looks to be an attic, but Liza informed her that no attic door had ever been located and the space up there seemed to only contain asbestos insulation. The house has what looked like a castle on the side, the kind that makes you think immediately of spiral staircases and kings and queens of old England. Built back in the 1700s, when Oakley was a French settlement, the house looked like it had some stories to tell.
When she asked Liza for more details on the house
, Liza shivered a little and told her that everything that she or anyone has on the house was already in the file. The family that currently owns it has had it in their family since 1866. The aristocrat had won it in a game of poker during the War. No one has lived in the home since the nineties when one of the family members inherited it from the death of their grandfather. After moving in, they moved right back out less than two months later, claiming it had an infestation. No one has lived in the home since. The grandchildren are ready to offload the property, family heirloom, or not. They call it The Oakley House because it was originally the Mayor’s house for Oakwood, now Oakley.
Liza told her no one really knew who owned the house before the end of the Civil war, and no one has ever been able to find out much about the families that lived there, much less the Oakley house itself. Some speculate that Oakley was the original owner’s Surname, and they used the guise of a poker game to get rid of it. That, however, is all just rumor. The lack of history made the house a bit of a landmark these days. The historical society wouldn’t let it be torn down, so the owners simply take care of it every so often but do not live in it.
Mariah wondered how she had never heard about this house. She had lived here her whole life and she had never seen the place.
She had no choice; her curiosity compelled her to go see it in person, right away. Liza looked at her kindly for a moment before asking if she was sure she wanted to see that house. When Mariah told her she was positive, Liza shivered again and told Mariah to follow her there. Mariah was so excited that she almost missed the look of terror on Liza’s face.
The Secrets of Oakley House Page 1
