Talitha

by Rachael Rawlings

  During lunch, Claire studied while she ate, her mind wandering to Noel and the interview. On one hand, it could be the answer to all their problems. A place to stay, part time work, and they wouldn’t need to ask for help from anyone.

  But on the other hand, the idea she would be moving into an old house, an old house with a long history, made her a little sick inside.

  The voices flitted through her mind, and she physically shook her head as though to dislodge the thought.

  There was no reason it should come back. That tiny chemical imbalance that had descended like a black cloud in adolescence, puberty rearing its ugly head. The whole thing had been ridiculous. It had started as an accident, a stupid kid prank that had gone terribly wrong. Her mind flashed to a quick view of scenes, the empty house with the papers taped to the windows, Noel’s pixie face alight with mischief, the odd murmurs, lights, and shadows. Haunted. Dead. A dead house. She shook her head again and forced herself to focus. Her hands felt damp and cold and she stood up quickly, a wave of lightheadedness making her sway on her feet. She grabbed the tabletop and just stood for a moment, getting her balance back. Slowly, she grabbed up her purse and slipped into the bathroom as quietly as she could. She stood at the sink and turned on the hot water, waiting for it to warm. Staring at herself in the mirror, she had studied the blue eyes rimmed with red, and the wild hair falling around her shoulders. Her face was angular and her expression tended to be too serious. She had been called plain or striking, but never pretty. But this was fine with her because she was generally unconcerned with her appearance. She wore little makeup, and that was only on special occasions. She was often too busy to check the mirror at all. Now the girl in the mirror looked haunted, frightened, and frightening. She had to remind herself she was far from that long-ago event, that house exploration when she was a teenager.

  Realizing her lunchtime was ending, Claire put her chilled hands into the heated water. With quick efficiency, she grabbed a wad of paper towels and soaked them in the warmth. She pressed them to her face, her cheeks and eyes, feeling the tension drain. She dabbed at her face with another dry towel and checked her watch. Not much time. She scooped up her purse and returned to her table. Quickly she stuffed her books and notebooks back in her bag. She heaved a sigh. She was ready for a break, a break from the stress and worry, worry about her family, her job, money, and her future.

  Her irrepressible roommate was already there when Claire got to the apartment. It took only a minute to realize Noel was pacing and wringing her hands with excitement. She had changed from her waitressing clothes into her favorite jeans with painted hearts trailing down one leg. Her tee shirt was several sizes too small, showing her figure to an advantage, and a rainbow peace sign emblazoned across her chest. Her dark hair was close cropped around the sides and back with a longer layer on top that fell in attractive waves around her face, but now it was standing up in choppy locks where she had run her hands through it.

  Claire dropped her book bag to the floor and, getting a glass of water, sat at the scarred kitchen table. “Okay, what’s the story? You’ve hit pay dirt, right?”

  Noel sat down opposite and paused dramatically. The sunlight from the window framed her like a halo. “Our problems are solved. We met over at Applebee’s to talk. He even paid for lunch.”

  “He who?” Claire interrupted.

  “Oh, Charles, the man in charge of the renovation.” Claire nodded and Noel continued. “He asked me some background questions, our experience and all that. But really, I don’t think it mattered that much.” Noel’s hands fluttered as she spoke, her nervous energy fairly bouncing off the walls.

  “That desperate?” Claire asked suspiciously.

  “Well, I’m not sure about that but...” She looked cautiously at Claire, “I did get to see the house. Talitha.”

  Claire had grown accustomed to reading her roommate. It became surprisingly easy after being friends with someone for 10 years to know exactly what someone was feeling. Noel was good at covering her thoughts generally and had managed to build up a protective face for most people, but Claire could see through her with almost no effort, and she was holding something back.

  “The house?” Claire prompted.

  Noel frowned. “You know, maybe it’s better if you see it for yourself.”

  “I will soon enough,” Claire responded. “Just tell me what it’s like.”

  Noel’s expression cleared. “I think I’ll just wait and let you decide.”

  Claire looked surprised. “Well, at least tell me something about it!” she demanded.

  “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” Noel responded cryptically.

  The rest of the evening Noel remained determinedly reticent. She refused to elaborate about the house or Charles and instead, decided to let her serious friend stew for a while. She knew Claire well enough to realize by the time they actually saw the house, it could never be as bad as Claire had imagined it.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning both girls slept in late and woke to the sound of the phone ringing. It was Charles on the line, and Claire listened to Noel’s side of the conversation.

  After she hung up, Noel wiped her face slowly and yawned. “So, we’re meeting Charles at McDonald’s, and he’s going to lead us out to the house. It’s kind of hard to find, and I got a little lost when we went out there before.”

  “What time?” Claire asked curling up on the tattered couch.

  “10:30. We’ve got an hour. But we might want to leave a little early to grab some coffee.”

  Claire agreed and slowly stood. “I’ll be ready in a few,” she reassured Noel, and headed toward her tiny room.

  The weather had warmed up slightly when they left the apartment, and they kept the windows rolled down as they drove. Their building was close to downtown Louisville, one of the many larger residences that had been chopped up to provide apartments for the ever-growing University of Louisville student body. The morning air was comfortable with the fading scent of exhaust and cut grass rushing in as Noel increased speed. The antique Escort rattled in protest, but continued forward, the whine of the engine making conversation impossible. Claire took the extra minutes of silence as a time to lean back against the seat and close her eyes, relishing the breeze brushing her face and stirring the strands of hair drifting against her cheeks. They arrived early and got breakfast and a cup of coffee as they waited in the car. Noel kept the window rolled down and let the warm air flavored with the spicy smell of sausage surround them. Claire carefully reviewed the information about the job with Noel before Charles arrived. She wanted to be forewarned of any possible catches before facing the house. Noel continued to smile as she answered the questions.

  “It’s not as though we’re doing brain surgery. All we have to do is clean where they tell us to,” she said wryly. “Trust me, you’re worrying for nothing. I think we were the only applicants so far.”

  But Claire didn’t feel so secure. Something still hovered in the back of her mind that warned her nothing in her life was ever as easy as it first seemed. She just hoped this time she was wrong.

  Charles arrived exactly on time, which appealed to the perfectionist in Claire. He was a tall man with an average build, leaning toward the middle age spread that came with a happy marriage and good food. He was nicely dressed in a pair of casual slacks and a dress shirt. He wore no tie and the top two buttons were unbuttoned, revealing a tanned V of skin. His face was also tanned with sandy brows and hair, lightly tipped with gold highlights from the sun. Claire thought he looked as though he was working on maintaining a business-like demeanor, but was failing miserably. Claire noted when he smiled, deep dimples appeared, giving him a boyish charm when combined with the lock of hair that was continually falling onto his forehead.

  “So, Noel tells me the two of you have been friends for a long time.”

  Claire smiled and pushed the wisps of hair out of her face.

  “We met in mid
dle school. We weren’t as close then. We kind of bonded in high school. We’ve been friends since then,” she replied, nerves making her give a little too much information. She found she was watching his expression for a sign of what he was thinking. But he appeared genuine, mildly curious and slightly amused, as his eyes skimmed back to her roommate.

  “Has Noel told you much about the house?”

  “No, actually she’s been holding out on me. She said it was something I needed to see.”

  Charles grinned boyishly.

  “Well, if that’s how Noel wants it, I guess we’ll have to go along.” He turned back towards his car and disengaged the locks. “If you are ready to go, we’ll be on our way.”

  Claire noted as he pulled his car onto the road he had two car seats in the back and a brightly colored duck stuffed into the back window, its felt eyes pressed against the glass.

  “I think I’m going to like him,” she told Noel, smiling.

  Noel drove their car with more excited style than finesse, and they followed Charles out of town. Although she had been there once before, Noel admitted she didn’t think she could find it again without help, so Charles drove slowly to avoid losing them in the Louisville traffic. They caught Interstate 64 and headed away from the city, watching as the busy streets and neighborhoods gave way to open fields lined with stubby pines or clumped forest trees bending and beckoning in the wind.

  Charles followed the interstate until he had passed the Jefferson/Shelby County line and exited at the Simpsonville sign. This was mostly new territory for both the girls. They had grown up in Northern Kentucky and hadn’t ventured this far from the city of Louisville. Now as the road stretched away from the main thoroughfare, the scenery changed again. Paved roads split curved hillsides of farmland and pasture. Fences of wood and wire stitched the landscape into quilted patterns, and stately horses or staid cows meandered in their own personal kingdoms. They turned off again, the tires bumping over the less smoothly paved track. Here the road narrowed until no dividing line for the lanes could be seen. The trees closed in more closely and hung over the road like a tunnel of greenery with the sun shut out in places and showing like a bright squinting eye farther down the lane. Driveways became few and far between, and the road began a progressive ascent. There was a parting of the trees, and Claire was surprised to see a one-lane concrete bridge crossing a tumbling spring. The water widened into a frothy marsh to their left as they passed. The bridge was in poor repair, a white concrete painted structure so chipped and beaten it looked more like a skeleton stretching over the water. The road turned abruptly after the bridge, hiding it from sight, but Claire still felt its presence, like a Déjà vu. Where had she seen it before? The car was still rattling from the rough pavement when the road had given way to a gravel drive that wound its way for another mile of rough terrain.

  This ended at a gate, huge and forbidding, which blocked the drive. The walls were bent in a curved arch ending in a line of hedges, growing wild and blending into the forest. Beyond the black iron bars of the gate, a cleared drive could be seen going uphill to the most indescribable house Claire had ever seen. She felt her heart speed up slightly and her palms grow damp. She had another feeling of Déjà vu, as though at some other time, in some other life, she had seen the house at this angle, the light dappling the darkened face of the old structure, the windows like empty wells.

  Charles slid out of his car, unlocked the gate, and pulled it open towards the cars. Noel waited impatiently until he had pulled his car through so she could follow. Claire watched with something like dismay when he closed the gate behind them. The ring of metal against metal made her shiver involuntarily.

  The house towered in front of them, rising four stories of stone centered in a large plot of cleared weeds. The lawn was sadly overrun with brambles and coarse vegetation, which choked off the grass leaving tangled vines with bare patches of earth beneath. The vines continued to the gravel drive and stretched out their spiny limbs across the steps and crept up the walls. The driveway ended in a large loop in front of the house with a fountain rising in the center. The fountain had once been a group of wildly rearing horses, heads thrown back, eyes rolling, hooves pawing at the air. Two of the horses had lost pieces of their heads or ears and several others had lost legs or hooves over time. Streaks of dark gray and black ran down their faces like tears, and the sleek mains had been worn by wind and rain. The water pooling at the base was a dark oily green.

  Behind the fountain, steps rose in two flights to the front door of the house, a black railing that matched the curved metal of the gate on either side. The door was a double panel, heavy dark wood with a strip of stained glass flanking each side. The main part of the house rose in a solid block, a large square window in the center over the door winking crimson and blue. The other windows were narrow; some with colored glass and others with thick clear panes. There were visible cracks or broken panes in some of the upper floors, but the windows on the first and second floor were in good condition, and some showed recent scrubbing. No ornamentation could be seen around the windows or at the roofline, and the stone was a light gray, which caught the color of the sunlight. The impression was austere, almost to the point the house reminded Claire of a prison.

  The two wings stretching out from the center hall were very different in style. The walls to the right and left were made of the same stone, but a deep porch supported by carved stone columns broke up their façade. A narrow balcony accessible through French doors on the second floor stretched the entire length of the wings. The windows in the wings of the house were large rectangles with clear glass, which sparkled when the morning light stuck them but would be shadowed as the sun rose overhead.

  The walls ended with an angular roofline above broken only by large chimneys. On the far end of the wings were rounded turrets, topped with whimsical pointed roofs like witches’ caps. Each of the turrets boasted four long narrow windows with beautiful stained glass that glowed in the flickering sun as the beams cleared the treetops. French doors had replaced the windows in the first few rooms on the bottom floor as well, and above, the small balconies with ornate railings added a gingerbread effect. The clash of the two architecture styles should have been unattractive, but for some reason it seemed right to Claire, and she found herself both attracted to and repelled by the house.

  They parked both cars in front of the house and Noel turned to Claire. “What do you think?” Her eyes were fairly dancing, and she smiled as though she had a great secret.

  “We’re supposed to clean that?” Claire asked. She couldn’t help but smile back. For all her dread about the house, her first impression was benign after they passed the entry gates. The house was big, no huge, and cleaning it would undoubtedly be challenge, but it held none of the dark feelings Claire had expected. Perhaps she had been overly sensitive, and the stress from exams had impacted her more than she had thought.

  Charles had gotten out of his car and was approaching the front door, moving briskly. Claire and Noel scrambled out after him, leaving their purses in the car. They had purposely dressed casually in jeans and loose shirts because Charles had warned them about the condition of the house, and now Claire was grateful for her old tennis shoes. There was mud mixed with the gravel, and the long grass painted stripes of muck on the cuffs of her jeans.

  Now, seeing it close up, Claire was glad she hadn’t gotten any descriptions from Noel. It would be nearly impossible to put the overall impression of the house into words.

  They caught up with Charles on the porch. It was obvious that work had already started as soon as he opened the door. Tools were piled in untidy groups just inside the doorway. Walking into the front room, Claire was struck again by the size. The ceiling rose several floors high with two curving staircases descending from above to join at a landing on the bottom step. The floor was marble, a few tiles cracked or scratched, but still very elegant. The tiles ranged in color from a pearly gray to a soft taupe and formed a
pattern that was difficult to discern due to the protective mats that had been thrown on the floor from the front door to the stairway and beyond. The stairs themselves were wooden, the spindles and railing carved into ornate loops with great lions displaying sharp fangs at the newel posts above and below. A threadbare runner covered the center of the stair tread, and it was gray from traffic and age.

  To the left and right were doors leading to adjoining rooms, but Charles continued straight back to open the door behind the stairway. This next room appeared to be a huge dining room stretching across most of the middle of the house. In the center was a long table, as heavily carved as the stairway, with mismatched chairs. Only two of the chairs appeared to belong with the table, the rest a variety of seats from card table chairs to cushioned armchairs that must have belonged to the parlor.

  The dining room appeared to be relatively untouched with dark paneled walls and scratched wooden floors. Great pieces of furniture flanked two of the walls, but sheets had been thrown over them to protect them during the renovation. A layer of dust covered every surface except the tabletop and spider webs hung in lacy ribbons from the crown molding.

  Charles did not hesitate but continued into the adjoining room, the kitchen. This room had been renovated extensively with gleaming stainless-steel appliances and granite counter tops. The floor was a utilitarian terra cotta tile, and the walls a shiny white gloss. He stopped and looked around the room, clearly pleased.

  “This is the first room we finished. We knew some of the men would be staying over and would need the facilities. It will eventually be used to make all the meals for the hotel.”