The girl was vibrant, but something was missing. Like her soul was scarred by life and haunted memories. The last sketch showed her face, framed by the edges of an ornate mirror. There was a determination of the jaw and a longing in the eyes.
Jennie turned the pictures over. The same hand had signed them all.
Jemima Abbott
There were no dates, but the paper was foxed and yellowed. They had been there for some time.
As Jennie turned to set them on the table something else slipped from between the papers and sifted to the floor. There were needles of rosemary, their color and fragrance almost gone.
“I pray you, love, remember,” Jennie whispered. The words sounded out loud, but the voice in which they sounded was not her own.
Chapter Five – Heavenly Confidence
Several cups of tea and a soothing novel failed to lull Jennie into the belief that she would be able to sleep without nightmares. Finally, she dug in the bottom of her duffel and took out the little bottle of sleeping pills.
She’d told herself she wouldn’t take them any more after she was married. Will wasn’t there and this house was creepy on a different scale. It wasn’t really getting back into a habit. It was just for this one night. One night to get some sleep.
Sleep closed over her head like muddy water. She woke in the morning, sweaty but not sopping as she had been the night before. She was heavy-eyed and muzzy-minded, but able to tell herself that at least she didn’t wake up screaming or worse.
There was a message from Will, saying he was still delayed. She frowned and made herself send him back a reassuring message.
She spent the morning dutifully inventorying, cleaning, doing small repairs and fretting over the money for large ones. Lunch consisted of risotto, made with fresh ingredients, nothing to trouble her mind or her stomach. She figured that she both deserved and needed some time out in the fresh air.
She was bent over in that boxed-in garden with its cypresses and marigolds. No, she needed to stand up straight and move briskly, but she didn’t really want to walk on the road and meet the neighbors. She didn’t want to drive to the chalk cliffs and listen to the sea and think about Matthew Arnold.
“It’s melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.”
No. Not alone. With Will, she could go on to the part about love and forget the rest. No. She would stay home and walk along the grounds which were certainly extensive. According to the realtor, it was described as charmingly picturesque.
It was realtor-speak for paths which were all overgrown and the benches crumbled away. They would have to decide what to do about them at some point. She’d get a head start.
She went through the walled garden and into the shrubbery. The way I went with the Kelpie, she thought. No, that was indigestion. First, she was among hedges gone wild, the aisles between them narrow, their lower branches dead and bare.
She would need to cut them down and replant them. That would be best. Then she was into the real woods. Lovely woods they were, too: beech and oak, fairly open, the sun slanting down onto the forest floor.
Soon the floor was less open, the brambles thicker. Jennie tried not to let their scratching remind her of anything. She almost succeeded. Her dream had been soundless, so she focused on sounds now, the soughing of the wind in the boughs, the blackbird singing, and the sound of animals crunching behind her.
Wait. What?
What was crunching through the briars behind her?
A deer, Jennie told herself. Charming. It didn’t exactly sound like that. Jennie didn’t look over her shoulder. If it’s a deer I’ll scare it if I look, she told herself. If it’s something else, well it will scare me, she admitted. She walked faster.
The trees were thicker overhead. She couldn’t see the sun. Was she walking in anything like a straight line? Was she circling back toward that thing? While she was walking she thought she heard it following; when she stopped, it stopped, half a second behind her. She waited a long time. It didn’t start again.
A chill wet breath touched the back of her neck. Jennie didn’t tell herself anything. She simply ran, letting the brambles yank her hair out of its bun, wrenching her ankle painfully as she stumbled on a hidden hummock, hurrying ahead. She had to get away; far away.
There was light again and she broke into a clearing. It wasn’t the lawn by the lake where the Kelpie had brought her. She was running through tall reeds that clicked softly as she brushed through them.
Then she was splashing in the ankle-deep water. It must be the lake, after all. Stop, Jennie told herself. Stop. She kept running. The water was knee-deep. Then the bottom was gone and the green water closed over her head.
This is stupid, Jennie told herself. I’m not in danger. I can swim. She struck out in a vigorous breaststroke and stuck her head out of the water. She gulped air.
Something grabbed her left arm. She tore at it with her right arm. She heard the painful whinny of a horse. It was a weed she was gripping with all her might. It was the Kelpie’s mane. It had seized her right arm too. She had to throw her head back at a painful angle to get her nose and mouth up to the air. She couldn’t sustain that position long.
“Jesus!” she gasped, not at all sure whether she was cursing or praying.
She gave one more convulsive heave and her arms broke free. She thrashed to shore. The reeds clicked over her as she passed through with their flower heads nodding in the wind.
Flowers. Flowering reed. Confidence in Heaven.
Jennie laughed, a little raggedly.
“I wouldn’t say I was exactly confident,” she said, “but thank you, all the same.”
She kept talking—to herself? To Jesus maybe? She didn’t know. She didn’t think that out as she made herself walk, not run, all the way back through the brambles and through the open wood and into the shrubbery. She arrived in the garden and into the driveway where Will was just getting out of the car.
He couldn’t be. He was still supposed to be in the States. He’d said so just that morning.
Well then, he wasn’t there. She was cracking up after all. Kelpies and ghosts and now a hallucination of Will. What was she going to see next?
“Jennie?’ His voice was unsteady, uncertain. “Jennie? I thought you’d be glad to see me. Jennie…what’s the matter?”
“Why are you here now?’ It came out less graciously than Jennie would have chosen if she’d had time to talk.
“I thought I might stop in and see my wife,” Will said with strained lightness.
“You said you weren’t coming yet. I mean, I thought I had to stay alone in this horrible house for at least two more days without you. Will, are you really here?” She was rambling.
“Poor, Jennie! It’s good to be missed, but I’d better not go away at all if it’s going to make you act like this!” Will’s voice sounded better. He put his arms around her and then jerked away.
“Jennie, you’re sopping wet!”
Now that there was no need for it, Jennie started to cry.
“I am glad to see you,” she said. “Oh, Will…I have such a story to tell.”
Chapter Six – Regret
“I swear everything that I’m telling you is the god honest truth. You’ve never known me to lie in the past and I’m not going to start now.” Jennie was doing what she could to get Will to listen to how the house and the land surrounding the property was acting like it had a life of its own.
Will looked at his wife and felt sorry for her. Leaving her to fend for herself was unforgivable. He just never saw a way around it and decided to surprise her. The surprise was on him by the way that she greeted him.
“I wish I knew how to tell him without sounding crazy. I will have to trust in his love for me.” She thought that the chances of him believing her were slim.
“I want you to drink your tea a
nd try to take it easy. You have to know what you’re saying is ludicrous.” He said.
He stood behind her at the table massaging her shoulders and trying his best not to say something that he was going to regret.
“I know what it sounds like.” With shaky fingers, she grasped onto the teacup and held it with both hands up to her lips. The china was an heirloom set past down from his parents.
The traditional English tea soothed her rattled nerves. There was no way that anybody could believe her story without living it themselves.
“It sounds like you have been overstressed and I feel responsible for keeping you waiting.” He felt his words had no conviction. The house was a work in progress. It was different from the first time he had seen it with her. There was something unnerving about the place.
“I hate to continue to repeat myself, but I’ve heard voices and I’ve had some strange dreams that feel too real. I actually felt like I was drowning and there was no one around to throw me a lifeline.” The fingers on her right hand were nervously pulling at the lace tablecloth adorning what was an antique table of Victorian times.
“I want to get off of that topic for the time being. I do have to admit what you’ve done to the place is an amazing transformation.” Will wasn’t amused and felt like this was some kind of cruel joke being played on him. He had no idea what his wife had gone through over the last few days.
“I had to keep myself busy or I would have lost my mind. I’m sure that if I were in your shoes that I would be thinking about having me committed someplace.” She hissed. “Time feels like it’s dragging too slowly. How do I get the images out of my head - the horse and its eyes with the feelings it evokes in me.” She pondered the thought and it made her grimace with the vivid imagery.
She hadn’t shown him the best part and was waiting for the right time to spring on him the news of what she had found.
“I love you more than my life and it concerns me that you have lost your touch with reality. I’m sure with an old house like this there are many different noises. I’m here with you and nothing is ever going to take you away from me. We will deal with this together.” He said visibly concerned that her mind was over taxed.
He watched as she finished her tea and she wasn’t hanging by a thread of her sanity anymore.
“You’ve known me for longer than most and I’ve never been scared of anything? There is nothing there in the dark that isn’t there in the light. I’ve never been afraid of the dark and had no interest in a night light growing up. My father would have seen that as a weakness.” She got up and had to hold onto the table to prevent from collapsing.
“I’m willing to listen. You know that I don’t believe in anything without concrete proof. Show me this Kelpie and those strange voices which most likely come from old pipes. I don’t want to make light of what you have been going through, but you have to see it from my point of view.”
“It’s frustrating when I know what I’m saying is the truth. Let me give you a tour of the place. I think that you will be happy with some of the results,” She said walking ahead of him looking around for anything out of the ordinary to spring out at the last second.
The floorboards creaked underneath their weight. There was the sound of the whistling wind coming through a crack in one of the windows. It was nothing that couldn’t be explained away.
“We agreed coming here and starting over was best for the both of us. This is a new chapter in our lives and I’m looking forward to making a life with you here in this wonderful place.” Will was trying to put a good spin on a tenuous situation.
They went up the stairs and the paintings on the wall seemed to follow them with their eyes. They had to avoid the railing. It was loose and would need some much-needed maintenance to bring it back to code.
“I want you to know that you are the strongest woman I know. Nothing ever shakes your resolve and the woman that I see before me is different somehow. I don’t want you to take that as an insult. I just miss the confident woman that I have known and loved from the moment we said our vows to one another.”
“I hate to say this, but I regret buying the place. I really thought it was a good foundation to build on. I was wrong. I wish that it wasn’t, but I fear that what I have seen is only the beginning.” She felt like somebody was walking over her grave. The shutters banging against the house did not instill any kind of confidence.
“I don’t want to hear you say that. We’ve invested a lot of money. There’s a reason why we are doing the work ourselves or have you forgotten.” He wanted to shake his wife out of this nonsense about some kind of spirit haunting the place.
They went into the bedroom and she found the paintings exactly where she had left them. There was something different about the young woman’s eyes. There was a sadness that wasn’t there before. The emotion was so strong that Jenny felt like something had slammed into her making her body go rigid.
“I need him and I need you to find him for me. Life means nothing without him.” The voice sounded like it was crackling being played on a phonograph of an indeterminate age. It was all around them.
“Did you say something, my love?” Will questioned her after hearing what sounded like a woman’s voice. He couldn’t quite make out what she said.
“I didn’t say anything.” She had stopped short with her hand touching the painting.
“What is it about this painting that sends a cold chill through me?” She asked herself while looking to Will for answers he didn’t have.
A sense of bewilderment came over her and she suddenly flashed on the inky blackness of the water which had surrounded her. It was there one second and gone the next
“It must be my ears deceiving me. All this talk about ghosts has gotten in my head.”
“How do you think I feel living in this nightmare day in and day out? You’ve only scratched the surface of what this house is capable of.” She barked.
There was suddenly the sound of scratching and a piece of the wallpapering came loose from the wall.
“We need to get a hold of ourselves. This is our home and we are not going anywhere.” Will stood back as more of the wallpapering came loose to reveal a family portrait of the way the kids had grown up over the years.
The markings on the wall showed that one child excelled while the other one stayed completely still in his evolvement. The age of the young boy was stunted as if his life was expunged. The sound of crying caught them both off guard and had them standing in complete silence.
The lights began to flicker with the sound of electricity coursing through the old wires in the walls. The sound was concerning and had both Will and Jennie feeling momentarily like they had gotten in over their head.
“My little boy. My husband. Both gone but not forgotten; not ever forgotten.” The voice was like it was lost in limbo fighting to stay corporeal in this time.
“You can’t stand there and tell me that you don’t hear that.” Jennie looked at her husband and saw that he was shaking his shoulders like he didn’t know what he was hearing.
“I hear something, but it’s very low and I have no idea how you can possibly make sense out of it. It’s all in your head. It’s a figment of your overactive imagination. I don’t want to fall into the same trap.” He stood there defiantly with his arms crossed.
“I found these things and I believe that they mean something.” She showed him all the paintings and the scrapbook of drawings made by the hand of a little girl in pain.
“You can see how over the years has affected her.” Jennie was running her hands through her hair pulling at the locks not realizing that she was ripping them from the root.
“They are only paintings and drawings made by the previous owners.” He was trying to convince himself while at the same time looking at one particular photo.
It was the Abbott family and the ring on the father’s finger had some significance. He had seen it before and when he questioned the origin it led down blind all
eys. He had seen the same crest on the back door. He had taken an etching on his last visit.
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. Stay here for any length of time and you’ll find out what I have been talking about. Let’s go down to the basement. I haven’t been down there since… I really don’t want to even put it into words.”
“I’m going to show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m going to take your challenge. This is my home and I have spent my life trying to find my purpose. I’ve never been happier than with you. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.” There were what he had previously thought were voices, but they were light whispers in the wind.
Jennie understood everything that was being said, but she had no context. She needed to get to the bottom of this and the mystery was driving her mad. She felt like she was breathing heavier than normal and then she saw how the temperature had shifted dramatically. Their decline into the basement had given over to a chill in the air.
“You have no idea how much I want to believe you. We should go into town and make some inquiries about the place and the previous owners. I’m sure that somebody will have some idea of what transpired here.” She put her foot on solid ground and there was no water to indicate there had been any sort of a flood.
There were blue bell. Regrets. They were growing in the basement corner. It was rather unusual, but nothing that a green thumb couldn’t take care of.
“I’m looking around and I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. No doubt this place could use some heat, but we knew we were going to have our hands full when we took on this immense project. The grounds need tending, but I have seen some remarkable improvements. I have no problem with learning the history of this place and I find myself rather curious.” He wanted to put her mind at ease and felt the only way to do that was to play along.
“I don’t need you placating me like a child. I just want you to have an open mind. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” Jennie felt this moment of dread and then something grabbed onto her ankle. She looked down and could not see anything other than the faint imprint of fingerprints.
Haunting and Scares Collection Page 9
