Over the top melodramatic. That’s me.
“Hey, I hate to talk and run but I have to run,” Tessie said. “Call me tomorrow if you can.”
Which reminded me that tomorrow was Saturday. I wondered what people did on the weekends around the Manor. Did we all go to town as a group? Were meals still served? What about Pat and Bob?
I said my goodbyes with Tessie and then went to wash my hands and face. The water thunked and spit at me as I turned on the faucet and then stopped. I sighed. I wondered if the water was purposely turned off or if there was a problem with my bathroom. It was nearly time to go downstairs, so I decided I’d wait to report things until I got down there. Maggie should be around and she’d know what was happening.
I closed the door, locking it behind me, forgetting, for the first time, my walkie-talkie.
Chapter 19
Pat and Bob were working quickly around the kitchen, which smelled heavenly. Roast turkey, stuffing, and potatoes, everything you think of around Thanksgiving, except, of course it wasn’t November. No pie though. Not that I was terribly disappointed because I didn’t want to overeat that much.
The familiar sounds of clanking pans and the clunk and thunk of the water system and the creaks of the floor boards greeted me in the dining hall. Clearly they had water even if I didn’t.
This was the noisiest place I’d ever stayed in. I’d lived close to the airport in Columbia and that place had been quieter. Of course, there the noise had come from the airplanes, not the apartment itself.
Here, the outer noises were quiet but the inner ones were constantly rumbling and thundering like an unhappy stomach, which made me think of one of my favorite words. Borborygmus. The sound your stomach makes when it growls. Maybe the Manor was hungry? Now that was a scary thought.
No one else was in the dining hall but I settled myself in my seat. The sideboard near the front, where I served myself breakfast and lunch, was cleared off and tidy. The coffee urns were closed up and cleaned, the covers open to air out the inside, ready for the morning.
Soon enough Jonathan hurried in, looking over his shoulder.
“So someone else is here,” he said. “So many people leave for the weekend.”
“I was wondering about the weekends here,” I said. I asked him about the food.
“Oh, they work all week. Pat and Bob are off next week. They work one week on and one week off, starting on Mondays, and then Janet and Tyler work the other days. You’ll like them, too. Janet talks a lot,” Jonathan said.
“And the cleaning people?” I asked.
Jonathan waved a hand. “Maggie is off but she runs a tight ship. If there’s a problem, she’ll be available by cell phone.”
Which would be great if I had her number. No doubt someone around here did and they could help me.
“How is your valuation coming?” I asked.
“I’m hoping to get an art restorer here in the next few weeks. I’m finding a number of paintings that I have questions about. There’s work here that I just can’t do on site, although I’m sure Rachel would tell us she could.”
“I haven’t seen her in days,” I said, thinking back. I guess I had seen her at dinner last night but not this morning, nor at lunch.
“Consider yourself lucky,” Jonathan said. “She’s been everywhere. It’s no wonder she doesn’t finish anything because she flits from place to place. Now she’s up near the old schoolroom where she found a room full of old furniture. I mean it all needs to be done, but I think Bethany was hoping to get Audra’s quarters done.”
I agreed. It seemed that it would go faster if Rachel were methodical.
“A lot of the antiques will just get sold. Bethany has talked about having some down in the main rooms for atmosphere, but the bedrooms will probably have a mix of the best pieces and then be filled in with modern items, like the IKEA dressers we all have,” Jonathan said.
I nodded.
Bethany hurried in. “I can’t believe what you found!” she said to me, not bothering to greet either of us. I saw Jonathan’s face perk up. This was gossip he wanted to know.
“What did I find?” I asked.
“It’s a fortune. It was in the name of my father’s business, which has long since been dissolved, but because Robert Hanna died before the business was dissolved, all of this went to Aunt Audra but she never knew about it! As her heir, this goes to me as well. Not that I need the money, but it’s a bit like finding buried treasure, don’t you think?”
I made the appropriate noises as I took in what she was saying.
“The oddest thing is, is that while it was in the name of the business, no one else had known about it. It wasn’t linked to any of Audra’s father’s other accounts,” Bethany said. “It was just isolated on its own, which is probably why she didn’t know about it.”
“And the bankbook was hidden,” I said, thinking about it.
“There are rumors, of course,” Bethany went on, “that Hanna got Audra’s father to help him run rum down to the states during prohibition. This could be where they kept those accounts. I wish I knew more about the Hanna family. I’d hate to take money that belonged to them.”
“I could look into for you,” I said. “While I specialized in preservation and archival work, I did go to library school and I’m no slouch at research.” I didn’t mention that research was my main love and if I’d had a choice, I’d have been a research librarian. It was only that those positions were coveted. Preservation and archival work was much less sexy, even by librarian standards.
“That would be fantastic,” Bethany said. She immediately changed topics, at which Jonathan looked disappointed. Personally, I’d have loved to pick her brain a bit more about what she knew about her Aunt Audra and the family, but she had moved so smoothly into what everyone was doing for the weekend and then it was impossible to find a way to turn the conversation back to her family. It was almost like she didn’t want us to know about her aunt.
Nathan came down while we were discussing weekend plans and he joined the conversation easily. Jonathan was going into Sydney for the day.
“I’ll probably just end up at the library doing more research, but I can count on a better internet connection there,” he said.
“I haven’t been there yet, so I’d like to go in,” I said. “I can do the research on the Hannas there, or a lot of it.”
Bethany seemed pleased.
The turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, and cucumber salad were all served at the same time. There were small plates of what was clearly homemade cranberry sauce, although it was limited in the amount.
Everything smelled heavenly.
Rachel came in about that time and seated herself. She didn’t look pleased at the meal although the rest of us were all picking through things for our favorites. Maggie and Jimmy weren’t around that evening. In fact, the lower part of the table was empty.
“Does everyone leave on Friday?” I asked, nodding towards the end of the table.
“Mostly,” Nathan said. “I mean we have people covering, but most of the house workers leave and those who work on the weekends come Saturday morning. Those who are on week to week, like Pat and Bob, change over on Sunday night. So dinner on Sunday is always a cold cut assortment, rather like lunch but without the soup. If you want a hot meal, you have to go out.”
“There’s that tiny little place down the road,” Jonathan said. “Mostly a bar for the locals but they make a wonderful pizza. Nice choice of beers, too.”
At least going out didn’t mean going all the way into Sydney, which was quite a number of miles. Of course, if I wanted something more than pizza I was clearly going to have to go there.
“What are you up to this weekend?” I asked Nathan.
“My work is never done,” Nathan said. “I’m going to be looking into finding an art restorer that we can cut a deal with given the number of pictures Jonathan says need work. I’ve also got a few other household things that need to be
taken care of. You might have noticed the water was off upstairs?”
I nodded.
“Maggie is finding a plumber, but I’ll need to coordinate with them because she’s not around this weekend.”
I ate until I was stuffed. It felt like a Thanksgiving meal right down to the overeating. Perhaps it’s impossible to eat roast turkey without stuffing oneself, a revenge of the bird, perhaps, for stuffing it.
I waddled up the stairs with the others. Even Rachel joined us.
“Anyone seen any ghosts lately?” she asked as we started up the stairs.
“Don’t start, Rachel,” Bethany said wearily.
“I think Lara has,” Jonathan said. He had a wicked smile and I wondered what he was trying to stir up. I regretted having told him anything about feeling like I was seeing ghosts.
“It’s probably just your toxic mold,” I said.
“Bunch of rubbish,” Rachel said. “The Manor is haunted and there are multiple spirits in each room. If you get scared, just call me. I’m good with ghosts.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that and was glad my room was right there so I had an excuse not to respond. I entered, closing the door behind me. I wasted no time locking it.
I went to pull out my walkie-talkie from my pockets but it wasn’t there. I remembered then that I had forgotten it earlier. I had left it sitting on the dresser, but it was gone.
I looked around the room and in the bathroom. I even looked under the bed, but the bright yellow thing wasn’t anywhere.
I hugged myself when I finally gave up the search. I felt my eyes beginning to water, like I was about to burst into tears, although I wasn’t quite certain why.
I knew I hadn’t taken the walkie-talkie with me. So where had it gone? And why did the missing walkie-talkie scare me more than ghosts? I could easily ask for another one when I saw Nathan, or even Maggie or Jimmy. It’s not as if I was planning to spend my weekend exploring the Manor.
Chapter 20
The noises seemed louder that night. I heard someone running down the hallway. I hadn’t yet determined what made that sound, other than a potential ghostly presence, but I did my best to ignore it. My best, unfortunately, was already thinking about the weekend and a nice normal stay in Sydney. Basically, I was doing a poor job of ignoring the sounds.
My toilet flushed by itself. I was sitting in bed, working on my computer, making the notes I had so been wanting to make earlier. I had set a new password to make it harder for anyone to break into my system, and I password protected this particular file. Perhaps I was being silly, but I didn’t want anyone to know what I was about, not exactly.
My heart thumped a bit, trying to figure out if this was some weird plumbing thing or if I had the one ghost who needed to relieve itself. What an odd thing for a ghost to need, I thought. The toilet flushed again.
Then again. This didn’t seem like something that would happen because of whatever had caused the water to stop working.
I would have called for someone but my walkie-talkie was missing.
Someone banged on my door, a loud banging that seemed designed to break the thing down. I jumped from the bed, startled, my heart hammering nearly as loudly as the banging had been.
“Who is it?” I called—if you can call squeaking like a little mouse a call.
No one answered. Not that I had expected them to.
The banging came again.
I walked slowly towards the door, my feet making the floorboards squeak beneath them. The Manor was playing with me. I was the mouse, it the cat. I felt certain of that.
I hid behind the door as I went to open it a crack and peek out. The hallway was dark. None of the lights were lit, an unusual thing. Normally they were lit all the time. I could see nothing in the darkness beyond the small circle of light that came from my door.
I thought I saw something move in the shadows. I wasn’t sure what it was but I slammed the door closed. I heard something bang into the door, hard, like a cat leaping at its prey. I shuddered. Why did the Manor seem to pick up my thoughts?
I thought I saw something under the door, a flick of a shadow like the paw of a cat. I smelled the faintest hint of old meat.
If only I could talk to the place.
My bladder strained, all the fluids in my body suddenly dropping to that one space. The toilet flushed again.
How could I talk to the house? Did I just yell stop it? Would it listen? Would whoever had the room next door think I was crazy?
If I had to yell loudly, would Jonathan or Nathan, roughly across the hall, think I was insane?
I just wanted to find out what was going on.
The young woman in the pedal pushers appeared but this time she was in an old fashioned dressing gown with a tiny floral print. Her robe matched the gown beneath and there was only one button that held the robe closed at her neck.
“What would you say to me?” the girl asked.
If it was toxic mold, perhaps my insanity would go away when I went to Sydney in the morning.
“I want to know why you’re doing those things.”
“What things?” The girl’s voice sounded normal enough, although the words were inflected oddly, almost like a Scot might speak if he had never been to a city.
“Like the thing in the hallway?” I said. “What was that crashing into my door?”
“You were thinking about cats and mice,” the girl said. “We picked it up and gave you a cat large enough for your mouse.”
I was going to have rein in my imagination in this house. Or in the presence of toxic mold.
“How are you doing that?”
“I’m not sure,” the girl said. “We pick up a lot of things from those who wander the halls, but your thoughts are strong. It’s why I wanted to get your attention.”
“You have it,” I replied. I moved around her, feeling a chill but not the freezing cold.
The girl smiled. “What are you doing in the library?” She seemed very excited about what I might be doing there looking through the books.
“I’m making a list of all the books that are in there and then looking to see how they’re valued.” I wasn’t sure what her level of understanding was. Just because she looked like a young teenager from about nineteen forty or so didn’t mean she was.
“Why?”
“So that Bethany, who now owns the place, can make an informed decision about what to do with them,” I said.
“Is that what the others are doing? The funny man who scares easily and keeps saying there’s no such thing as ghosts and the weird woman who keeps telling us to go away?”
The word “us” was not lost on me. I wanted to ask who the “us” was but decided to let that pass for the moment.
“They’re valuing other things, the artwork and the furniture,” I explained.
“Why is valuing them so important?”
“When people inherit things they like to know what they have.”
“They have what’s here,” the girl said.
“But what if they want to sell it? They want to get a good price.”
“Like my father and his father did with the coal,” the girl said, as if something had just clicked.
“Much like that, only the house and the things in it are the only things she has to sell,” I said. “Are you Audra?”
“Among others,” the girl said. “It is hard to make people see us so it was easier to make a pact. We’ve been experimenting. So far, you’re the only one who has seen us even when we work together.”
“Who are you working with?”
“My father, his father, my grandmother, Angus the mason who died here, three servant girls, and Eddie.”
“Hanna?”
Audra nodded.
“Were you and Eddie in love?”
Audra turned to listen to something.
“I have to go now, but I’ll try and answer questions tomorrow. There are others that are thinking too loudly.” She disappeared.
I hoped that my thoughts weren’t so loud that they attracted the ghosts back to me. I just wanted to get on with research and note taking. Of course, after this visit, I wasn’t sure how I’d settle in.
I didn’t think I knew anything more than I had before, other than having more proof that I might be going crazy. But I felt okay meeting the ghosts in the Manor.
Audra’s visit had left me with more questions than answers, although I was glad that so far my theories were panning out. This was, of course, assuming I wasn’t just making everything up because of Jonathan’s toxic mold.
Chapter 21
That night, I dreamed of walking through the corridors of Schilling Manor. I opened doors that all looked too large and too wide to be real doors. They kept opening onto yet another gloomy corridor. At first I was just curious, touring the Manor, but something changed.
I knew I was being watched, though I couldn’t find who was watching me. I was looking around trying to find the person, only to realize that they were toying with me, like a cat with a mouse.
I began to run through the place, scurrying from room to room with a large cat behind me. I couldn’t find a good place to hide and I was starting to tire. I knew of a bolt hole in a room down the hall but I had to get there.
I felt a stray breath against the back of my neck and I woke quickly, my heart thundering in my chest. The first pink rays of dawn were coming through the window, though it was early, far earlier than I had intended to get up. The room was in gray and pink shadow.
I heard the plumbing banging around in the pipes. Someone had likely gotten up and used their toilet. It was the sound the pipes always made. Too bad the construction crew couldn’t have made quieter plumbing. What were the artists going to do?
I drew in a breath trying to calm myself from my dream. The dream had been far scarier to me than talking to the ghost the night before. I wasn’t sure why. What was it that made dreams so frightening but the real unknown, presenting itself to your face, wasn’t the horror you thought it would be?
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