Don't Tell a Soul

by Kirsten Miller

  I looked out the windows. It was dark outside. The croissant at the café was the last thing I’d eaten. I’d been so immersed in Grace Louth’s legend that I hadn’t realized I was famished.

  “Give me a sec to get dressed, and I’ll be right down!” I shouted. There were only three people who could have rifled through my stuff while I was in Louth that afternoon. Miriam was my top suspect. Number two on the list was her son. The Reinharts weren’t to be trusted, and I didn’t want Miriam to hear me removing the barricade from my door.

  * * *

  —

  Downstairs the kitchen was lit by the flames from the fireplace. Miriam had taken the seat closest to the stove. Sam sat silently at the head of the table. The browned carcass of a chicken claimed center stage.

  “Where’s my uncle?” I asked as I pulled out a chair.

  “He and his business partner had a meeting in the city,” Miriam informed me. “They said they would be back later.”

  “His business partner?” It was the first I’d heard that such a person existed.

  “A man named Gavin Turner,” Miriam said, passing me a bowl of roasted potatoes. “He’s an investor in the inn. James made him a partner not long after the fire.”

  “Why would James need investors?” I asked. My mother always said her brother hadn’t been born with a head for business. But he had been born rich, and so had Sarah. After she’d died, he’d left the city with a sizable fortune.

  Sam regarded me with a bemused expression as I served myself some of the chicken. “We don’t know. We’re just your uncle’s servants,” he said bluntly.

  It was such a strange thing to say. James had some notable faults, but snobbery had never been one of them. I almost wondered if we were talking about the same person. I realized I must have rubbed Sam the wrong way that afternoon. Maybe he’d heard me on my call with my mother. Or maybe he just didn’t care for outsiders.

  “How was your first day in Louth?” Miriam asked, to change the subject. “Did you do anything interesting?”

  “Well, let’s see,” I said, pausing for dramatic effect. “I got snubbed by a lady at the bakery, had two people warn me that Louth isn’t a good place for me, got scared by some guys in a pickup who wanted to either help me or murder me. I also found out that the manor might be cursed and that the ghost of Grace Louth killed a man in my room. So, yeah, I’d say it was a pretty interesting day.”

  Miriam and Sam shared a look. I suppose they’d been expecting typical chitchat. They would learn soon enough that there was nothing typical about me.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me that the manor’s so famous?” I pressed them. “No wonder Lark was fascinated by Grace Louth.”

  Neither of the Reinharts uttered a word. Miriam kept her lips primly sealed, and Sam glowered at me as if I’d gone somewhere I didn’t belong.

  “Sorry, but we’ve been asked not to speak about what happened to Lark or her mother,” he said. “James doesn’t want any more gossip, and we don’t want to lose our jobs.”

  I looked at his mother and lifted an eyebrow. If that was the rule, she’d already broken it.

  “James wouldn’t fire you for something like that. Besides, I’m family.”

  “Your uncle didn’t make any exceptions,” Sam said.

  “Then how about Grace? Can you talk about her?” I was growing frustrated.

  Sam opened his mouth, but before he could speak, his mother laid a hand on his forearm. She had something she wanted to say. “The manor is not cursed, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she told me.

  Sam shot her a side-eye.

  “How can you be sure?” I asked, interested to hear what she’d say.

  “Members of my family have worked in this house from the day it was built to the day it was abandoned over a hundred years later. No one ever saw any evidence of a curse.”

  I figured I’d play devil’s advocate. “You were the one who demanded I come to you if I ever saw anything unusual. Now you’re telling me this place isn’t cursed or haunted?”

  “A house doesn’t need ghosts to be haunted,” Sam said.

  That caught me off guard. I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  “Can we please find something a little more uplifting to discuss?” Miriam sounded frazzled. “I think I’ve had more than enough death for one lifetime.”

  The good subjects were always the ones no one wanted to discuss, of course. I could tell by the look on Miriam’s face that I was definitely onto something. If the Reinharts didn’t believe in curses or ghosts, what did they think had happened to Lark? I knew I wasn’t going to find out anything more that night. We tried a few other topics, but none of them seemed to stick. A half hour later, dinner was over and cleanup began. I cleared the table while Miriam loaded the dishwasher and Sam put the leftovers away. No one spoke a single word.

  While Miriam and Sam stayed behind in the kitchen, I took a nighttime tour of the top three floors of the manor. I couldn’t bring myself to explore the basement. I had a deep-seated fear of underground spaces, and the thought of what might lie beneath the old house repelled me. I knew I couldn’t avoid the basement forever, but I planned to save that adventure for daytime. After leaving the Reinharts, I started on the first floor and worked my way up. I explored thirty-six rooms in all—from the formal dining room to the servants’ quarters on the third floor.

  The south wing of the manor wouldn’t have looked out of place in a palace. The wooden floors featured intricate inlays. James had chosen the finest carpets and papered the walls with richly colored prints. No expense had been spared when he’d purchased the furnishings. The rooms were as lush and luxurious as they must have been in Frederick Louth’s day. I imagined young Grace twirling under the chandeliers and racing down the grand hallways. It was hard to believe the entire mansion had been home to a family of three. I’m sure from the outside, Grace Louth looked like a princess. But I knew just how empty a big house can feel to a little girl.

  As I moved through the mansion, I kept count of the rooms that were locked. There were four, including my uncle James’s bedroom. Inside the chambers I was able to visit, I opened wardrobes and peeked into closets. The only sound was that of my footsteps on the floorboards. Some of the rooms were only dimly lit, and when I reached the north wing, there were no lights at all. I’ll admit I was a little bit frightened—though not of curses or ghosts. There were times when I was sure I wasn’t alone. I felt a presence in the manor, but I kept on going. The house knew the truth about the girls who’d lived there, and I was determined to make the manor share its secrets with me.

  Eventually I ended my tour in the conservatory on the ground floor. The walls and ceiling were composed of thousands of perfectly cut pieces of antique glass set in a cast-iron frame so delicate that it looked like it could have been spun by a spider. The décor was vaguely Indian, with teak furniture and raw-silk upholstery that had faded a bit in the light. It seemed like no one had visited in the months since the fire. The plants in the boxes along the glass walls had all shriveled up and expired. The tall palm in the center of the room was as brown as a paper bag. Only a cactus in a concrete planter was thriving. Red flowers were bursting out of its prickly pads like little baby aliens.

  Outside, the darkness pressed against the conservatory on three sides, and snow climbed its glass walls. The moon was out, and I could see the grounds behind the manor and the outline of the trees at the edge of the woods. The view couldn’t have been lovelier. Then I noticed a line of strange holes that led across the snow-covered lawn from the woods to the manor. They were footprints—and they looked fresh.

  A pinpoint of light drew my eyes to the forest. As I watched, it seemed to brighten and dim like a star or a flickering flame. Someone had recently come to the manor. And someone—or something—was still out there in the woods.

  The ne
xt morning, before I’d even had breakfast, I set out to discover the source of the light I’d seen the night before. As soon as I slipped into the forest behind the manor, I realized it wasn’t as wild as the woods on the way to town. The trees all appeared perfectly pruned, as if they were part of the manor’s gardens. In the summer, I thought, this must be a magical place.

  I shuffled through the snow until I reached a clearing. In the center, a stone mausoleum sat at the end of an ice-covered pool. Planters on either side of a grand wooden door held bouquets of frozen flowers that looked ready to shatter with a single touch. The snow surrounding the building had been shoveled aside, forming a tall white wall around it. As I watched, Sam emerged from the woods to my left with a bundle of twigs under his arm. He opened the door, and I saw that hidden windows lit the interior. I watched him arrange the twigs on a pyre and set them ablaze. The mausoleum’s fire was the source of the light I’d seen the previous night.

  I was planning to slip away unseen. I knew I hadn’t made much of an impression on Sam, and the feeling was mutual. Then he emerged from the mausoleum and caught sight of me standing there. I saw him flinch—and watched the relief wash over his face when he realized who I was.

  “I spotted the fire from the conservatory last night,” I said before he had time to wonder if I’d been stalking him. “I thought I’d come find out what it was. Do you always keep it lit?”

  “Twenty-four hours a day. You can see the light from town. Your uncle obviously wants everyone to know how much he loved his wife.”

  “How romantic,” I said.

  “Isn’t it?” Sam replied flatly. “Want to have a look around?”

  “Sure. Let’s see if James’s taste in graves has changed over the years.” I glanced back over my shoulder at the sullen superhero. He didn’t appreciate my dark sense of humor. “By the way, I consider myself an expert on mausoleums. Have you ever been to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn?”

  “I’ve never been to Brooklyn,” Sam admitted.

  “Well, when you go, you should visit Green-Wood. It has the very best mausoleums.”

  One of them belonged to my aunt, Sarah. I used to skip school and take the train to the cemetery. I never saw anyone there, but I knew my uncle visited. The flowers were always fresh, and there was always a handwritten card that read Love, James. After I said goodbye to Sarah, I’d walk all the way to the other side of the graveyard to spend some time with my dad. My mother hadn’t shelled out nearly as much as James had. Sarah had stately columns, a marble floor, and a statue of a weeping angel. My father rested beneath a simple tombstone with his name inscribed on the front. I tried to make it up to my dad. I’d sit with him for hours and tell him everything that he’d missed.

  It had been months since I’d been able to visit the graveyard. Before I left for Louth, I asked my mother if I could go out there one last time. She was busy with the gala, she said. She didn’t have time to escort me to Brooklyn, and she couldn’t allow me to go on my own. It would have taken a couple of hours to let me say goodbye. She didn’t want to go.

  Now I stood inside Dahlia Bellinger’s mausoleum. The fire kept the space warm, and its smoke rose from the pyre like a charmed snake and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. Beyond the fire was an alcove where Dahlia’s marble coffin lay atop a pedestal. The sides were carved in a pattern that resembled an explosion of petals. They belonged to the flower for which Dahlia had been named. Benches sat on either end of the alcove, but there was no space in the mausoleum for another coffin. Dahlia would be spending eternity alone.

  “Does my uncle come here?” I asked.

  Sam’s answer surprised me. “Every day,” he said. “Sometimes he sits here for hours.”

  “He really loved her,” I said.

  “Everyone loved Dahlia,” Sam said, coming to stand next to me. His manner had changed. Outside it had been as brusque as ever. Inside the mausoleum, he seemed almost reverent. I had a hunch that if I asked the right questions, he might break the rules and tell me about Dahlia and her daughter.

  “Why did everyone love her?” I asked.

  “She was kind,” Sam said. “We knew she’d had a rough time, but she was always doing whatever she could to help other people. My mother says she wishes Dahlia had spent just a fraction of that time on herself.”

  “Why did she need help?” I asked.

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Anyway, it’s a shame you never met her.”

  It was among my biggest regrets. But I didn’t say that. “What about Lark? Was she a saint, too?”

  “God, no.” Sam laughed. “Lark’s nothing like Dahlia. She’s a born troublemaker. Even when we were little, she never wanted to be told what to do. Apparently, she gave your uncle so much grief that he made her go live with her dad.”

  That wasn’t quite the tale James had told me. “I heard Lark was losing touch with reality,” I said. “They had to get her out of the manor because she’d become obsessed with Grace Louth. Is that true?”

  Sam glanced over at me, and I knew I’d pushed it too far. “You know I’m not supposed to talk about any of this. I can’t afford to get fired.”

  “Just give me a yes or no,” I pleaded. “Is Lark mentally ill?”

  “I have no idea what she is now,” Sam admitted. “Losing your mother like that would be enough to make anyone lose it, don’t you think? But the girl I grew up with seemed perfectly healthy.”

  “So you don’t think she went berserk and burned the house down?”

  Sam wouldn’t bite. “All I can tell you is that Lark was always one of the smartest, nicest kids I knew. She wasn’t for everyone, but I liked her a lot. I think you would have liked her, too.”

  “I have a feeling you’re right,” I said.

  For the first time since we’d met, Sam smiled. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll give you a tour of the grounds.”

  * * *

  —

  In February, there wasn’t much to see. The manor’s glorious gardens were nothing but vast stretches of snow with a few prickly lumps protruding here and there. “You’ll have to use your imagination,” Sam kept saying. By the time we’d walked all the way to the front of the house, it had become a running joke.

  I’d decided I liked him. Sam didn’t seem to want anything. The tour wasn’t an excuse to spend time alone with me. He was obviously proud of the work he’d done—even if most of it was hidden under a foot of snow. I felt so comfortable in his company that it wasn’t until we were walking between the topiary bushes that lined the drive that I remembered I hadn’t been alone with a guy my age in months. I shivered at the thought and put my guard back up.

  “These are some creepy-ass bushes,” I said, looking up at the topiary. The wind had swept away much of their snowy coats, and misshapen monsters were beginning to emerge. The humanoid hedges had been intimidating enough when they were being kept perfectly pruned. Now that they were returning to their natural state, they were truly disturbing.

  “Yes, this is the one spot where I don’t recommend using your imagination,” Sam said. “I keep asking James if I can trim the hedges, but he always tells me to wait. I have a hunch he likes them this way. Maybe he thinks they scare off unwanted visitors.”

  I remembered how they’d looked in the dark the night I’d arrived. They’d almost succeeded in scaring me away, too.

  “Speaking of creepy, I saw something out here the night I arrived,” I said. “Whatever it was walked on two legs. I watched it run across the drive from one bush to another.”

  I saw Sam stiffen. He looked out into the trees. “Lot of deer around here,” he said. “They come out at night and eat everything they can find. It’s a constant battle to keep them from destroying the gardens.”

  “Do the deer here walk on two legs?” I asked.

  “They can if t
hey want to,” he said. I sensed he was on the verge of clamming up, so I stopped asking questions. Then, as I turned to look back at the manor, Sam asked one of his own.

  “Why are you here, Bram?” he said. “And why have you been asking so many questions about Lark?”

  If he’d asked me a moment earlier, I might have told him. But by the time the words were out of his mouth, I was unable to answer. My eyes had been drawn to movement on the balcony outside the rose room. Someone was standing there. A figure in white, watching the two of us. I was too far away to get a good look at her. Her features were little more than a blur, but I knew it couldn’t be Miriam.

  “Look.” I pointed to the house, my voice rising. “Who’s that standing on my balcony?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam answered.

  I glanced over at him to see that he was staring straight at me. His face was blank, but all the color had drained from it. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost.

  “Come on! Let’s see who it is!” I grabbed Sam’s arm, but he wouldn’t budge. “What are you waiting for?” I demanded.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

  “Oh my God, what’s wrong with you?” I cried. “Are you blind? She’s standing right there!”

  I’d taken my eyes off the balcony for a split second. This time, when I looked back, she was gone. I dropped Sam’s arm, and everything went silent. Either my eyes were playing tricks on me—or Sam was. I honestly didn’t know which was worse. I’d been alone with him for well over an hour, and I’d started to trust him. Now I realized I didn’t know him at all.

  I felt the panic welling up inside me.

  “I gotta go,” I told him; then I broke into a run, and I didn’t stop until I was back at the house.

  Sam never tried to stop me.

  I was racing up the stairs to the second floor when I was ambushed by my uncle. I’d passed his Land Rover in the drive, where I’d noticed heat waves radiating from its hood. He’d just driven up. Where he’d come from was anyone’s guess. I could see he’d had a haircut, and he was wearing one of his old suits. I remembered how handsome James had been when I was little. He was only forty years old now, but he looked like that younger man’s grandfather.