“Yes, I know. But I’ve never seen them.” He leaned down and caught her hands in his. “Come on. Let’s get a drink.”
She allowed him to pull her to her feet and followed him as he kept her hand securely in his. They stopped in the library long enough to get a bottle of dark whiskey and went into the heated green house. He hit the light switch, flooding the room with hot house lights.
“I’ve got clippings from most of the original plants in the garden,” he said softly, as his eyes unconsciously followed the line of the shelf. He stopped at the far side of the room and pulled up two stools. He carefully set the decanter down. From under the shelf he found two paper cups and filled them to the brim. He handed one to Claire and drank the other in one long swallow.
She followed suit, choking on the fiery liquid. But it settled warmly in her belly, and she felt her shaking cease.
“I’ve been working on the house for a long time, but I just started the garden about six months ago. I had help finding the original plants to get clippings from, but most were too overgrown to be saved. I wanted to start it all over, but use the original plants and design.” He paused, running his hand through his hair in a nervous gesture.
Claire pulled her stool closer to the shelf and leaned against it weakly. She listened as he talked, knowing he was just skirting the subject.
“This house has potential, but frankly I just wanted to get the damn thing finished. I want it to be used, to be functioning again instead of hanging around my neck like some albatross. What a disaster.” He turned away, disgusted.
“But you knew this place was...”
“Haunted? Possessed?” He laughed dryly. “There have been rumors for years, but no one believes them. And our luck has been so awful when dealing with this place I just figured it was a lot of imagination and bad blood.”
“You said...”
“I said I knew about them. It takes some time and experience to lend credence to what you can’t see. What you smell, feel, hear, but never see. I could never prove anything and neither could anyone else.”
“I could.”
He looked at her gravely. He raised his hand to smooth a strand of hair from her brow. “Yes, I guess you could.”
Claire felt herself blush at his touch, her feelings tangled with confusion, fear, and desire. She couldn’t deny she found him attractive. Her eyes had betrayed her often enough, seeking him when he wasn’t in the room. She had constantly found herself listening for him, for his footsteps, his music.
She turned away from his steady gaze and looked down at her empty cup, her pale fingers indenting the soft sides.
“What did you see?” He asked softly.
“Are you sure you want to know?” She smiled, trying to sound as though it was a joke, but knowing it wasn’t. “There have been a lot of small things, little signs that have seemed to build up. Like they’re trying to tell me something, and I just can’t get it.”
He caught her hand lightly. “What was the first thing you saw?”
She sighed, her mind quickly reviewing the last weeks. If she told him the sum total of her experiences, he would think her mad. She carefully began recounting her story, describing the wineglass, the mirror writing, and the occurrence in the parlor when she had first run into him.
“You thought I looked like the portrait, and that’s why you fainted?”
“Maybe at first, but not later, when I really got to see you." she paused and took a deep breath. "No, I thought you looked like the ghost on the bridge.”
His face visibly paled and he drew back. “What do you mean?” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper.
She felt her face redden in response. She hadn’t meant to mention the bridge; it sounded too insane. How could she have seen him on the bridge when he was out of town? She had never seen the spirit of someone still alive and well. She had convinced herself that for once it was her imagination, a mixture of anxiety about the new job, and suggestion from the many portraits in the house. But now he was staring at her as though he were seeing a ghost.
“Nothing, no, I think it was just my imagination...”
“No, it wasn’t. You said you saw a ghost on the bridge. He looked like me.”
“He was you,” she responded softly.
He sat back, rubbing his eyes. “He was my father.”
She stared at him, trying to digest the obvious look of pain on his face. She knew then what had happened, and perhaps his reason for being there at the house. His father had died there and was like the other shades in her life. A visitor just watching, checking on her and the life going on around them after their lives were lost.
“When did he die?” she asked softly.
“Almost 20 years ago. He loved this place; he was almost obsessed with it. He dragged me here all the time. Camping in the woods, climbing to the turrets to look out over the grounds; he loved it all. It was his dream. To take this old place and restore it. Fill it with life. He even had plans drawn out for the renovation, the gardens, the fountain, the grounds with a swimming pool out back and golf course.” He turned and looked bitterly out the window. “We had come to visit in the winter. It had been empty for years, but he just couldn’t give it up. He needed to make sure it was holding up against the snow and ice, and I think he had a hard time staying away. We were coming up the drive. I don’t know what he saw: why he veered. But the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital like this,” he paused and looked at his weak leg, “and he was gone.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly, responding to the naked grief in his eyes. “You must have been close.”
“Yes. He was a fine man. We had our differences, but I thought the sun rose and set on him.” He pulled the wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open, extracting a bent photo. “He was a special kind of person.” As he showed her the picture, she felt a second tremor of shock. The two figures, standing side by side and leaning against the hood of a bright red Firebird, were very similar. But the man could have been Cole in a different decade, longer hair, dusty jeans, a white tee shirt, and tattered tennis shoes. The boy at his side was the younger carbon copy, struggling to stand up next to his father, to match him in stance.
“You could have been twins,” she said softly.
He smiled, looking more amused than sad.
“Dad loved this place. It was a long time before I had the money and the ability to help. But I decided this was the time. I wanted to do this for him. To keep his dream going when he couldn’t.”
Claire nodded. With her own father’s recent illness, she had felt a shadow of what could have been. What would she have done if her father hadn’t made it through the heart attack and surgery? She felt sure she would have been haunted by his death, by all the unfinished business he had left behind.
“So, you’re going to renovate the house for your father? And then what?”
He sighed. “I hadn’t gotten that far in the plans. If the place made any money, I could keep it in the family for the investment. But that’s a big if. Right now, I’m wondering if we’ll ever get the place finished. And if we do, I’m not so sure it’s a safe place for people to visit.”
She watched as he visually shook of the memories, and looked again at her, changing the subject. “You’ve never been hurt by these spirits before?”
“No, not really.” She said evasively. She didn’t want to delve into her history. Not now, and maybe not ever. “I wasn’t sure what was happening, and I didn’t want to blow this all out of proportion. I guess I still wanted to believe it was someone, some person trying to scare me.”
“And now you don’t think so.”
“No, these things are different. They’re malevolent,” she searched for a stronger word, “evil. I’ve had the impression of other ghosts before, but I’ve never been touched by them. This house is the strongest place I’ve ever been. It’s too strong, and it’s changing, growing all the time.”
“We’ve got to get you out of here.
”
“I don’t know if it will do any good now. They’re trying to talk to me, to communicate. If they don’t get to me, I think they’re going to find someone else. You can’t just get rid of me and assume the problem will be gone.”
“I’ll just tear the whole thing down,” he said abruptly, standing up to pace the room. “It was a bad idea to start this project. I think my best alternative is to just destroy the house and whatever is in it. Leave it back here in the woods. Finish this.”
“No,” she said quickly, suddenly sure that that was the worst idea. “There is something incomplete here. There is something wrong, and it can’t just be swept under the rug. Something happened here, something bad, and you’ve got to help me figure out what it was.”
He turned back quickly. “I’m not going to risk you getting hurt.”
She couldn’t deny she was touched, even flattered by his expression of concern, but she forced herself to reason with him.
“I won’t. I’ll be more careful. I won’t go anywhere alone. I’ll take someone with me everywhere, as long as I’m in the house. I’ve never had one of the ghosts show up unless I was alone.”
He frowned. “All this happened in the foyer, the parlor, the steps. All in the main part of the house. What about the wings? Your bedroom?”
She looked uncomfortable. She didn’t want to seem naive, but she also felt like she was safe with the ghosts in her room.
“Let me show you something.”
He looked puzzled but followed her up as she left the green house and headed for the side stairs. As with the rest of the wing, the side stairs had been built later than the front staircase and were almost half the size with bare wooden treads and a sharp angled bend that made them double back on themselves. They were also poorly lit and poorly tended with cracked and bent slats and a handrail that abruptly ended before reaching the second floor. Claire could feel Cole’s body hovering close behind hers, and she wondered if he were concerned about her previous falls.
When she reached the head of the stairs she went quickly down the hall to her room where she could hear the radio droning behind Noel’s door and guessed she was studying.
She quickly opened her door and looked in, standing in the doorway. She was almost happy to see the results of her visitor.
Once again, a perfume bottle was open, this time a spicy floral filled the room. Lipstick was open on the dresser and her cleanser and moisturizer were both uncapped. In contrast, her shoes were lined up precisely at the foot of her bed and again her clothes had been disturbed. This time a nightgown, a deep green satin with ribbon straps, was laid out on her bed with the matching robe next to it as though waiting for the owner to return.
“I have my own ladies’ maid,” she said lightly, stepping inside. “She lays out my clothes, checks my cosmetics...” She picked up the lipstick and replaced the cap.
“What are you talking about?”
“When I left my room, none of this was out,” she said gesturing to the cosmetics. “And my clothes were all in my drawers. I didn’t do any of this.”
“You mean they move your things?”
“She does. She seems interested in my belongings, but she always does her job. She made my bed this morning and picked up some of my clothes.”
“You’ve seen her?” His face was a mixture of disbelief and awe.
Claire told him briefly about her experience the night before and then pulled the key from her pocket. Cole took it from her palm, the brush of his fingers causing a slight flutter in her chest. He turned the key over, holding it gingerly in his fingers.
“This could go to any door here.”
“I wondered if all the keys would look alike. But I’m betting it’s the key to her door. Or at least one important to her. Why else would she hide it?”
He nodded his agreement and sat down warily by the fire. “This is a lot to digest.”
Claire prowled around the room, her hands gesturing as she talked.
“I’ve read some of the book, the one you lent me. And there’s definitely enough tragedy to account for a few ghosts. But I just haven’t figured out the specifics. There are some pretty powerful beings here and they are hell bent, if you’ll excuse the expression, to speak to me.”
“Claire, I think that’s even more reason for you to leave here. I can’t have you risking yourself...” He stood and strolled toward her as she leaned against the fireplace, taking her hand tightly in his own. “Look, I’m not your family, and I haven’t known you for long, but I like to think we have something of a relationship here. I wouldn’t want to presume where I’m not wanted, but I can’t just stand by and let you throw yourself into something dangerous like this.”
She stared into his handsome face, momentarily overcome by his proximity and the sheer power she felt in his grasp.
The door burst open and Noel came in, freezing in the doorway.
Claire felt herself color as Noel looked from Cole standing uncomfortably a few feet back from the chair, to her, as she stood next to the cold fireplace.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Noel said, backing back out of the doorway.
“No, Noel, come in. This involves you too,” Cole responded, waving her in the door. He turned quickly, moving with rare grace considering his recent injury, to close the door behind her.
“We were talking about the house,” Claire said slowly.
“The ghosts,” Cole clarified.
Noel looked from one to the other and sat slowly down on the bed. “Has something else happened?”
Claire walked to the bed and sat next to her. “Just more of the same. It was in the parlor again. I feel like it’s really trying to contact me. They know me, and they’re after me for something.”
Cole stood at the closed door. He leaned against the panel, his face sober. Abruptly he swung the door open again and stepped into the doorway, glancing down the empty halls.
“Let’s get out of here. Pack a bag, we’ll spend the night in town. I’m not sure I want to have this conversation with the extra audience.”
Noel stared at him as he left and turned her surprised gaze to Claire. “He’s spooked.”
Claire nodded and got up, running her fingers through her hair. “Let’s get going. We have a long night ahead of us.”
Chapter Thirteen
The streetlights seemed unusually bright as they pulled into the lot at the Danbury Inn. It was located close to Louisville off I-64 on Blankenbaker Parkway. It was conveniently flanked by two newly built fast food restaurants with a Cracker Barrel close by. The parking lot was easy to maneuver in since it wasn’t a particularly busy night for travelers.
Claire’s head ached dully and her stomach was queasy. The ride in from the house was anything but soothing. Cole had driven slowly; eyes riveted on the road as his headlights pierced the deep country darkness. As the bridge loomed ahead, his speed dropped even more, and she knew he was thinking of his father. But as she scanned the scarred stone and rutted pavement, she saw no extra shadows in the broken moonlight.
Once on the familiar road leading to the city, his speed increased, the engine going from a purr to a roar, as if they were being chased from the darkness. Although horse farms mostly dominated that stretch of road, a few gas stations stood in stark contrast to the unending black of the night road, beacons of civilization. It was with great relief she watched him merge onto the interstate and closer to civilization. At the hotel, he went inside alone to get the keys, leaving the girls huddled in the car, a sense of unreality pervading the almost pedantic scene. The contrast between the monstrous house and its other worldly occupants and the neon lit inn with station wagons and mini vans almost brought tears to Claire’s eyes. She watched anxiously as Cole reappeared with the keys and almost smiled as he brushed off their offer to pay for their rooms. Since they were being run out of the house by the remains of his ancestors, he insisted he would pay for the rooms, and the girls were in no position to obje
ct.
They walked into the dimly lit atrium that opened on both sides in five floors of rooms. The center of the atrium boasted an indoor garden area, which gave the whole room warmth and life. Their rooms were on the ground floor, two adjoining rooms for Noel and Claire, Cole’s room just next to theirs.
Claire dropped her hastily packed bag on the bed, leaving the adjoining door to Noel’s room open. Noel came in almost immediately. She looked the same, shedding only her jacket and shoes in her own room before coming over. She sat comfortably on one of the twin beds curling her long legs beneath the voluminous skirt of her peasant dress.
“I’m so bushed. I know you must be tired too. Are you going to class tomorrow?”
Claire took off her shoes and dropped on the opposite bed, leaning back against the pillows. “I need to. I can’t miss many more classes no matter what happens. Maybe Cole will drop me off before he takes you back.” She paused. “You are going back, aren’t you?”
Noel looked undecided. “Claire, you know I want to help you, but I’m thinking we both need to get away from that place. I told you we can stay with Ben.”
“No, I’m sticking it out until Thanksgiving. I’m going to be a lot more careful and avoid the worst spots in the house, but I can’t just leave now.” She felt her eyes fill and rubbed them with the back of her hand, looking away from her friend. “Noel, I’m not so sure they wouldn’t follow me. I just have this feeling I’m stuck in a nightmare with these people now, these lost souls, and I must see this through. I’ve lived with this for so long, maybe I’m getting tired of it. I want this to stop, but I feel like they are stronger than I am, and they’re not going to let me get away so easily.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think they could find me, no matter where I went.”
Noel looked stricken. “Claire, I’m worried about you, girl. I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure and I’m trying to understand this ESP stuff, but you’ve never seemed this...You just seem like you’re getting out of touch. It’s reminding me too much of before.”
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