Ghosts from the Past

by Bonnie Elizabeth

  Audra Schilling had been born in 1928, so she’d been nearly ninety when she died, an impressive age. She was the only child to survive. She’d had an older brother who had died before his first birthday and a younger sister who had lived only three years. There had been no more children after that.

  She’d lived in the Manor with both her parents until their deaths. I couldn’t find anything that suggested she’d ever been engaged, which I found strange, given the era. It made me wonder about her father. There was less information about his personal life, although I was able to find plenty on him as a businessman and investor.

  If there was any information, it was likely here in the house. Had Audra not married because she didn’t want to marry? Had her father kept her from marriage? He’d died suddenly in 1951, leaving everything to his daughter. Her mother had died in 1968. There was little information to be found, at least not in the cursory searches I was doing. Again, that sort of information was likely in the house.

  I sighed, mentally planning my actions for the afternoon. The lights overhead flickered and died. The drapes were pulled which plunged the room into nearly complete darkness. I froze for a second, looking at the darkened computer, hoping it was plugged into a surge protector. I was thinking that perhaps a battery backup would be a good idea. That way I’d have time to save and log out of the programs I was using.

  There was the thinnest line of light near one of the windows.

  For a moment that light disappeared. I felt no breeze in the room to have moved the draperies. I turned, watching.

  The drapery didn’t move again. I stood up to go open it, to give myself some light. I held my arms forward to make sure I didn’t hit something in the darkened room. Two steps from the desk I felt like I had walked into a cold wall.

  I moved backwards, wondering what it was when I felt someone touch my hand from behind.

  A scream passed my lips even before I could turn. I had never considered that ghosts could touch people.

  Chapter 8

  Someone else yelped, their voice lower and quieter than my own.

  “Who is it?” I demanded, thinking that a ghost wouldn’t have screamed because I did.

  “It’s Jimmy,” the voice said.

  “Don’t you have a light?” I asked.

  “I’m always leaving mine. It’s not usually a problem,” Jimmy said. “I was on my way here to see if you needed me to carry that last box in. I figured I’d do it before I grabbed some lunch.”

  “Can you get the drapes open?” I asked. “That should allow us to see each other while we speak.”

  I heard him move through the library. He kicked something, probably one of the low sets of shelves. Then I was able to see a shadowy outline which became clearer as he got to the window. Then he pulled the drapes. He sneezed.

  The dust was so heavy I thought I would suffocate. I’d need a mask if I was going to be working in here, else I’d fall ill. I hoped I’d remembered to pack something like that or I’d be delayed in my cataloging.

  “Yuck,” Jimmy said. He looked gray in the light but perhaps he was just covered with that much dust.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I really ought to go to his aid and open the other draperies.

  “No problem,” he said. “It’s my job. But, if you have your keys?”

  “I do,” I said. “And do you need the one to the room as well?” I asked.

  “Maggie gave me the master when she reminded me there was still a box in your car,” Jimmy said. “So just for the car.”

  “Great. You can leave them in the room. Nightstand next to the bed.” I figured that way there wouldn’t be any questions about where he would leave them.

  “Will do,” he said, leaving me. “You might want to think about lunch now. The power will probably come on shortly. Chances are someone looked at a light switch wrong and it blew a fuse. That means they’ll have to go down to the basement and figure out which fuse, and that can take a bit.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that,” I said. I followed him out of the library and back into the dining hall. I considered going back to my room and washing up but maybe I’d just ask if I could use the kitchen sink. I continued through and saw Pat and Bob slicing bread.

  “Can I wash my hands in the sink?” I asked.

  “If you go out near the side door there’s a powder just to the other side,” Pat said. “Probably a bit nicer than this old sink. They replaced those pipes and it’s not so noisy.”

  “Thanks,” I said and continued out around the hall. I saw the stairs and went by those. I figured there ought to be a door soon enough and there was. It was a larger room than I’d have expected of a bathroom. I wondered what it had been originally. Surely there hadn’t been bathrooms when the place was built, were there?

  It was all tile, but regular square tile in a gray white that suggested this particular powder room had been around for a number of years. It was very clean, though, and the toilet looked new. The walls had the same tile halfway up, giving the place a rather industrial look, but perhaps this was the powder room Audra’s household help had used.

  The sink dripped for about thirty seconds after I turned off the faucet and then I smelled something that I can only describe as nearly drowned rat. I suppose what I was smelling was wet hair, perhaps having washed down that drain at some point, but it made me think of rats in sewers. I wrinkled my nose. Here I was going to lunch. Lucky me.

  I wandered back out and into the dining hall. Several of the construction workers were at the far end of the table. I was surprised at how bright it was, but apparently the fuse box only connected to the rooms in the main house and not this wing. This area had lights.

  The table seemed even longer than it had the night before, perhaps a factor of having more light. It was certainly larger than any table I’d seen, even in a place like the Biltmore, where you could tour the dining room.

  I grabbed the mug by my place and filled it with coffee. None of the people at my end of the table were there yet so I made my way down to the foot of the table and started talking to the two men and one woman who were eating sandwiches from brown bags.

  “Don’t they provide you with lunch?” I asked.

  One of the men shrugged. “We can get it here, but after a time it starts tasting all the same.”

  The woman nodded. “Sometimes I eat here. Sometimes I bring something. Sometimes a little of both, I guess.”

  “You the new one?” the third man asked.

  I said I was. “Where are you working now?”

  “We’re up on the third floor, probably above the rooms you’re in. We’re finishers, mostly. There are teams outside, too. A whole group of roofers. And one working on that old greenhouse which has been nothing but a headache since day one.”

  The woman nodded. “They don’t like it out there. The glass keeps getting damaged but no one can figure out why. They’ve reordered about three times.”

  That was odd.

  “And they don’t know why?” I asked.

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Sabotage?”

  The woman shrugged.

  “Who’d want to?” one of the men said. He chewed a bite quickly before saying anything else. “It’s not like there was anyone but Bethany to inherit, and if she does make this an artist’s retreat, it would offer some jobs around here, year round probably.”

  Who would want to sabotage indeed? But he hadn’t said it was. Of course, no one had said it wasn’t either.

  “I was in the library earlier,” I said. “Working. When the lights went off I went to open the drapes but I thought I’d walked into a wall of cold. Does that kind of thing happen often?”

  “All the walls here are pretty cold when you think about it.” The talkative man laughed. The other nodded.

  “It was in the middle of the room,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for joking. I wanted a good answer.

  “We’ve all felt the cold,” the woman said. “It just comes
and goes. No one has a good reason for it, except maybe a ghost. You know there are cold spots in haunted houses and stuff.”

  “So you think it’s ghosts?”

  “Can’t find a better reason for the cold spots,” the man said. “No one described it like a wall though.”

  Which meant no one had run into something large and cold, they’d only felt cold. I’d felt something like a body frozen in ice, which was maybe why I kept calling it a wall. Because I didn’t even want to think about a frozen body. I shivered, gripping my coffee mug for the warmth. I let the scent waft up into my nose, bringing me back to the table.

  I let the conversations buzz around me while I drank, hoping that I could caffeinate my fears away. It wasn’t working and I was getting hungry.

  Jonathan came into the dining hall and started picking at the food. He hadn’t noticed me sitting down at the end of the table so I got up, placing my mug at my seat and went up behind him. I was surprised when he jumped a little.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Just been working alone for the whole morning,” he said. “I’m going through some of the artwork that was stored in the attic. There’s no electricity up there at all so I’m working under battery operated lights. There’s so much dust and rat droppings that I’m amazed that any of the artwork up there is salvageable at all. The only good thing is that I got to explore the widow’s walk, which they’ve already made sure was safe.”

  I picked up a bowl and took some of the soup. It smelled like an ordinary chicken noodle but that would do.

  “How was your morning? Other than not finding your phone?” Jonathan asked when he sat down again.

  I was a little surprised that he’d heard about my phone but perhaps everyone had. We were all on the same channel on the walkie-talkies.

  “I was just getting started in the library when the power went out there,” I said. “Jimmy was coming by to move another box out of my car when it happened and he said it might take some time to sort it out.”

  Jonathan nodded but didn’t say anything else. “You know, Nathan and Bethany hate it when we talk like this, but I swear this place doesn’t want to give up any of its secrets. If I believed in ghosts, well, I’d have left after the first day. You know, I’m the second art historian to have worked here and Rachel is the third antiques person.”

  “How many librarians?” I asked, smiling a little, although the fact that there had been other people working here gave me a bit of a start.

  “Only you,” Jonathan said. “Originally they had found someone who specialized in art and rare books and thought that was enough, but the project is so huge and finding people who would stay so difficult that they decided to chop up the jobs. Rachel may be willing to do all our jobs, and the way things are going, she might end up with that, although it will take her forever. I think she’s gotten through about a third of what the previous dealer got through in a day and she’s been here for two weeks.”

  “How long have they been working on sorting things?” I asked.

  “Since Audra Schilling died,” Jonathan said. “Now, this is all gossip because I listen and the people down at the little cove town like to gossip, but apparently there’s been nothing but trouble since Audra died. The house was in disrepair for half her life but it wasn’t weird like this, or at least not as weird. Some of that is probably trying to update the electrical panels and rewiring what they can get to, but lots of it is pretty unexplainable. People used to come up from the town to help out, moving boxes and things, but they don’t do that anymore.”

  I sipped at my soup thinking about what Jonathan was telling me. He went on about theories and I listened with half an ear, wondering if I wanted a sandwich or something else. He had taken a bunch of meats and cheeses and crackers and was snacking on them between sharing gossip. He had a few tomatoes and radishes as well, but those were just sitting on the plate, at least so far.

  “Of course, they all say that Audra’s luck had always been bad,” Jonathan said. The mention of Audra and something personal made my ears perk.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. It was the first time I’d done anything more than murmur some sort of response since he’d begun. That seemed to get him going as he straightened up and began that story.

  “You know she was engaged. Around the time of the war, of course, and her fiancé was a commoner and had fought over there but came back wounded. It didn’t matter to Audra. They were ‘in love.’” Jonathan made large finger quotes around the word.

  “Anyway, one night he just disappeared. People said he’d left the area because he couldn’t stand to be home again. I guess he’d been pretty changed—quiet and then angry and real unpredictable when he’d come home. Of course, I guess no one really knew he was a suitor. It was very scandalous as he worked for her father out here on the grounds. I guess something like Jimmy’s job was for Audra.”

  “That’s very sad,” I said. And she’d never married or had another suitor. I had seen a few photos of her in my research and she wasn’t an ugly woman, so she must have been devoted to the man.

  Jonathan nodded. “They say that she was never the same after that, becoming quieter. Before, I guess, she was a lot like Bethany, outgoing and smiling. After her father died, I hear she became downright reclusive. She didn’t particularly want to talk to anyone then, and, of course, being a rich woman, she didn’t have to.”

  “Do you know anything more about the family itself?” I asked.

  “Like what?” Jonathan asked.

  “Her father maybe?”

  At that moment Bethany waltzed into the room. She looked surprisingly clean in her jeans and floral print blouse. She had on a white sweater that held her walkie-talkie in the pocket. She breezed over to us as she grabbed her mug.

  “I hear that Nathan got you started this morning!” She said it like it was some sort of milestone.

  “A little. Unfortunately the power went out,” I said. “Jimmy suggested it was a good time for lunch.”

  “Well, at least you can give me a few updates on what you think now that you’ve actually seen everything,” Bethany said. “Let me get some food.”

  I gave Jonathan a look but he shook his head ever so slightly, as if the topic of Bethany’s family was off limits when she was around.

  I got up to get a bit of lunch meat—turkey for me—and a lovely looking hard roll. There was butter and mustard and some cheese. I added lettuce and quickly had a nice sandwich. There was a small broccoli salad which I took a bit of and some of the tomatoes that Jonathan had. They were the tiny grape tomatoes. I hoped they were tasty.

  Bethany had already settled when I came back to the table. We spent the rest of lunch discussing what I thought of the work and how long it might take.

  After listening while he finished his lunch, Jonathan got up and left for the attic once more.

  At some point Nathan joined us, taking Rachel’s seat rather than sitting between the two of us as he had the night before.

  “Rachel will hate that,” Bethany pointed out.

  “When was the last time she came down when anyone was eating lunch?” Nathan asked.

  Bethany sighed. I wanted to ask her about Rachel but didn’t want to seem gossipy.

  Several people from the construction and cleaning crews came in and left while we talked. I was starting to feel restive.

  “I should see if the power is on back there,” I said.

  “I’m sure we can catch up again in a few days,” Bethany said, still smiling.

  “I’m sure.”

  I was barely out of the dining hall, the voices still echoing behind me, when the hallway got cold and I rubbed my arms. The light seemed to dim around me.

  I heard voices from behind one of the closed doors in the corridor.

  I walked slowly, trying to be quiet, although given the propensity of the floor to squeak I wasn’t particularly successful. Still, the voices didn’t change.

 
“You know the master was delighted that he disappeared,” a woman said. I pushed open the door, slowly, looking around but saw no one.

  I stood there, staring into the empty space, wondering where the voices were coming from. I turned to go when I thought I saw two women in uniforms that could have dressed the extras in Downton Abby standing near a table that hadn’t been there a moment ago. When I turned again to get a good look, it was gone.

  The chill intensified for a moment, like someone had opened a freezer. Just as quickly it was gone. The lights brightened around me.

  I was reminded of Jonathan’s comments about ghosts.

  I had had my fortune told shortly after graduation. Tessie and I had thought it would be fun. The woman had looked at me and sighed. “You’re sensitive,” she said quietly. “You’ll be the one who notices the spirits when everyone else walks on without pause.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps coming here was not a particularly wise decision. There was enough strangeness going on without having to see ghosts.

  Chapter 9

  I walked slowly back to the library. The floor still creaked. It smelled normal, the faintest hint of chicken soup, coming from behind me. I was cool but not cold or chilled, although mentally I was rather frightened. I didn’t want to see a formless ghost coming towards me. I didn’t want to see any ghost, really.

  Coming here felt wrong. I wondered if I could use Skype on the business computer, seeing I couldn’t even call a friend with my phone missing. I wanted to hear a friendly voice.

  The lights were on in the library. I went to the computer and tried starting it again. It made the usual noises upon starting and I began to relax a little. Now, to decide where to begin cataloging.

  I spot checked books around the room, figuring that this would be the logical room to begin with. After all, I had the computer there. The other rooms would need to be done on paper and then entered into the system. Perhaps I could ask Nathan to hire someone when I got that far, or else I’d be cataloging in the morning and entering data in the afternoon.