“I’d love to.” Katie spoke in a low tone, not wishing to disturb the peace and quiet of the place. “But the gate’s padlocked.”
“Oh, that’s no problem.”
The officer started back to his car while explaining over his shoulder. “My ex-sister-in-law is a real estate agent. She gave me the keys so I could do a walk-through every now and then. We get riffraff out here, which is why I followed you in.” He reached his cruiser and leaned in through the open window, still talking. “I haven’t gone inside for quite a while. Wouldn’t hurt to check around now…if you’ve got time.”
Katie opened the door in an instant, no longer thinking about the lateness of the hour or her hunger pangs. “I can make time.”
Chapter 2
“Found them!” The sheriff backed his lean frame out of the window and waved a ring of keys before heading toward the gate. As he stomped through the dense grass he pointed to the ground. “Careful, there’s broken glass everywhere, and who-knows-what hidden in the weeds.”
Katie stopped and looked down at her open-toed sandals. “What exactly do you mean by, who-knows-what?” She lifted one foot and then the other. “Like snakes?”
“Could be.” He nodded. “But don’t worry, they won’t hurt you…unless you step on them, of course.”
“Thanks,” Katie mumbled as she concentrated on placing her feet where his had been.
As he stood at the gate, the sheriff inspected each key, and finally held one up. “I think it’s this one.” With a little jiggling and jostling, the rusty padlock opened and the chain fell away. The sheriff pushed on the gate, but it didn’t move at first. After a few hard shakes, the hinges let loose, emitting a wailing, high-pitched screech that made Katie feel a bit unwelcome.
“Follow me,” he said. “Watch out for loose bricks.”
Walking carefully along the neglected path, Katie stepped to the side to touch the bark of one of the trees towering over the front yard. “I’ve seen these white trees before, but I don’t know what they’re called.” The trunk displayed a distinctive fusion of creams, grays, and browns, but the limbs above were a smooth, snowy white that stood out vividly against the brilliant blue sky.
The sheriff stopped and turned. “They’re sycamores. See how the bark forms a lacy pattern at the bottom? Back in the old days they called it lacewood.” He turned and bounded up the steps while Katie ran her fingertips over the intricate design. “It’s beautiful,” she said, under her breath. “Lacewood.”
“Of course, another common name for the tree hereabouts is ghostwood,” the sheriff quipped over his shoulder while he searched through the keys. “But that wouldn’t make a very good name for a house, now would it?”
Katie lifted her eyes from the multicolored bark at the bottom to the skeletal limbs overhead. Even in broad daylight the trees appeared ghostly, with budding branches reaching out like bony fingers. Yet the unusual color was so beautiful it dispelled any notions of apprehension or fear.
After one last look at the patterns on the base of the nearest tree, Katie turned to follow the sheriff. The stately pillars bookmarking the wide veranda added a grace and charm to the otherwise run-down property. She put her hand on one of them as she walked by, and jumped back when the paint fragmented and showered the ground.
Ignoring the flaws, Katie focused instead on the long-forgotten majesty of bygone days. Yes, the outward appearance suggested deterioration and decay, but the dignity of the place remained intact as far as she was concerned.
The sheriff triumphantly held up an old skeleton key before sticking it in the lock. The thick wooden door creaked open noisily—some might say mournfully—after the sheriff gave it several hard shoves with his shoulder.
Clearing the doorway of spider webs with a few swipes of his hand, he walked in without a moment’s hesitation. Katie, on the other hand, eyed the space above her and on each side before cautiously following him through. When she stepped across the threshold, she let out her breath in one long, “W-o-w!”
“Welcome to Lacewood,” the sheriff said. “These fourteen-foot ceilings really hit you when you first walk in, don’t they?”
Katie merely nodded as she gaped at the antique chandelier overhead. Though time and dust had dimmed the sparkle, the elaborate detail suggested it was made of the finest crystal. It was a work of art, breathtaking even in its current condition.
Tearing her gaze away, Katie next feasted her eyes on the two pillars marking the arched entrance to a wide hallway running the length of the house. “I’ve never seen columns inside a house before,” she said, almost to herself.
“It’s extra support, I guess,” the sheriff said. “This foyer is as big as some houses. On the left, through those double doors, is the ballroom.”
“Ballroom?” Katie surveyed the wide plank floors, bare of everything but layers of dust. Decorative woodwork displaying quality artistry and craftsmanship bordered the walls and led the eye to the grand staircase off to the right. A sweeping bottom step narrowed and curved up to the second floor, as glamorous and majestic as the movie set of Gone with the Wind.
Katie moved forward, hesitant yet excited. Despite the decades of dirt and decay, she felt a welcoming presence here, a warm and friendly vibe. Sure, the house conveyed the impression it was too far gone to revive. But Katie preferred to think it was slumbering, perhaps dreaming of the day when someone would open the windows, allowing fragrant breezes to drift through the hallways and radiant sunlight to stream into the rooms.
Making her way over to the staircase, Katie touched the rich wood of the bannister, worn smooth by centuries of hands. Whose? And where did they go? Why did they leave?
The peace of the house and its timeless beauty unlocked something in Katie, making a prickly sensation race up her spine. There were stories here. Long-forgotten, and hidden just out of her reach. Were they to be lost forever?
Katie’s thoughts returned to her grandmother’s house. Did people still live there? Did they know about the laughter that once echoed through the halls, the ageless wisdom once passed on within its walls? Did they care?
Turning in a circle, Katie studied the room again. Faded wallpaper curled in strips above the dusty wainscoting, but the walls themselves appeared sturdy. Down the hall a set of double glass doors stood open in apparent welcome. On the far side of the entryway, and dominating the wall, a mammoth fireplace yawned beneath an ornately carved hearth. Katie’s attention was immediately drawn to a painting of a woman in nineteenth century dress that hung prominently over the mantel.
“Who is she?”
The sheriff turned to the dusty, sun-bleached portrait in the heavy Victorian-era frame. “One of the previous owners, they say.” He shrugged. “The family history kind of got lost with the house. Everyone around here calls her the Widow of Lacewood.”
Katie stood spellbound, riveted on the portrait, unable to speak or even move. The woman was dressed completely in black, but the magnificence of the gown gave the impression of sophistication and class. Her chin was slightly elevated as if to project strength, yet there was more than a hint of sorrow and pain in her eyes.
“She seems so sad.” Katie spoke without removing her gaze. “And so young. How could she be a widow?”
The sheriff had already started to walk away, but he turned back to the painting. “Not sure, but they say she never remarried. She’s the one out in the cemetery, too, I reckon.”
Katie’s heart suddenly struggled to beat, as if her blood had turned to molasses and couldn’t flow. The anguish in the woman’s expression held her spellbound. She could see the pain. Feel a heart ripped apart. Something was missing that could never be replaced.
Katie had felt such loss before. In a way, that’s why she was here.
“You coming?”
Katie heard the sheriff calling from the next room and turned to follow. With one quick glance back, she noticed particles of dust swirling and dancing in a shaft of light, almost like a living thi
ng. Her breath caught as the dust seemed to materialize into the form of a woman, her eyes dull with the same agonizing despair and disbelief as the one in the portrait.
Katie jerked her head around for a closer look and blinked. The woman was gone.
She hurriedly caught up to the sheriff. “Is this place haunted?”
He shrugged and laughed. “I’m not sure. Some say that’s why it never sold, though.”
Katie peered back over her shoulder. The room was empty. It had been her imagination, of course, combined with the way the low sun caught the dust they’d kicked up. Her exhaustion and hunger most likely contributed to the appearance of the apparition that seemed so real.
“What did you mean when you said the lady in the portrait is in the cemetery too?” Katie realized that whatever the vision was, it hadn’t frightened her. The only emotion it elicited was sorrow, as if a blanket of grief had been draped across her shoulders.
“A statue. Way in the back.” The sheriff gazed off into the distance. “I remember it as a kid, but I doubt I could find it now. It was a woman kneeling…like she was crying. That’s all I remember. We used to be scared of it, to tell you the truth.”
He took another step and pointed. “Here’s the dining room.”
The sheriff stepped aside to let Katie pass, and then gestured toward the built-in china cabinets with broken glass. “Some kids got in here a couple years back and smashed the place up a little. That’s why I’ve got the keys now—so I can keep an eye on it.”
Continuing down the hall, he slid open two doors on their left to reveal a room more impressive than the front foyer and more magnificent than anything Katie had ever seen.
“And here’s the ballroom.”
The size and extravagance of the room—even in its abandoned state—left Katie breathless. Matching fireplaces, vast enough to hold a cord of wood each, graced opposite sides of the room. Floor-to-ceiling windows allowed enough sunlight in to reflect off the colossal chandeliers, creating sparkles of glimmering light on the floor. “I have never seen anything like this.”
“Me neither,” the sheriff said. “Except maybe in the movies.”
Katie followed the sheriff down the hallway to the back of the house, where an old cook stove and a gigantic wooden table identified the room as the kitchen. The flooring here was scarred and worn, but she liked the design. Big black and white checkers made the space welcoming and added a more modern flair to its character. “This is the biggest kitchen I’ve ever seen.”
Sheriff Ferguson laughed. “It isn’t the original kitchen. That one’s detached from the main house. This is where they got the food ready to serve and that sort of thing. When they started renting the place out, they turned this into the kitchen.”
Katie spied an old sink isolated from the other cabinets. “So the house has running water and everything already?”
“Yep. They say this place had modern plumbing long before anyone else in New Hope. The original owners were quite wealthy.”
“The craftsmanship shows everywhere.” Katie imagined the servants standing around the table, cutting up vegetables or baking pies. “It would be impossible to build something this extraordinary today.”
“Yep. But seems like everyone these days wants a new house,” the sheriff said. “They want the old, traditional appearance, but insist on every modern convenience. Unfortunately, the quality is usually lacking.”
“Such a shame.” Katie stood with her hands on her hips, taking in the thick wooden beams and the molding. “I can’t imagine wanting to buy something new when, with a little bit of work, something like this could be fixed up.”
“It would take more than a little bit of work.” The sheriff eyed her curiously now.
“Yes, but it’s mostly cosmetic. The bones are good.”
“True. The roof is in good shape, even though it’s old. Those old metal roofs seem to last forever.”
The comment brought to mind the metal roof at Katie’s grandmother’s house. The sound of the falling rain was like music, helping her drift off to sleep. Sometimes her grandmother would join her in bed, telling stories about the old days while they listened to the rain.
The sheriff continued through the kitchen to the back door and held it open for her. “And then there’s this.”
Katie stepped around the sheriff and took in a hodgepodge of tree limbs, shrubs, and weeds. Standing on her tiptoes, she could make out the top of an angel statue, green with moss, rising above the abundant vegetation. A broken wing seemed determined to remain above the tangle, and sad eyes peered through the dense brush beseechingly.
“They say the garden alone was five acres,” the sheriff said. “Goes all the way down to the river.”
Katie didn’t move. “How much is it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How much are they asking for this place?”
“Well, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth.”
“But your sister-in-law is an agent. Can you ask her?”
“Ex-sister-in-law,” he corrected. “Of course, but…”
Katie’s smile faded. “Who owns it? Is there a legal issue?”
“Well, Virginia Massey was the last one I know of who owned it. But I’m not the expert. Clara knows all that stuff.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Well, miss. It’s over a hundred acres. So it might be a little pricey.”
“Oh, price doesn’t matter.” Katie dismissed the obstacle with a wave of her hand.
“And it needs work,” he insisted. “Likely in the tens of thousands of dollars.” He turned and glanced over his shoulder. “Maybe in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand.”
Katie shrugged, her mind already set on results, not the money or the effort required to get them.
The sheriff raised his eyebrows and appeared ready to caution her further, but she brought the conversation to an end by pulling out her phone. “What’s Clara’s number? I’ll call her before I head back to New York.”
Chapter 3
Katie felt the rough edge of the old key in her hand as she walked toward the padlocked gate of her new home. It sent electric currents of excitement through her—along with a ripple of pure terror. This was hers. All of it. Thirty days ago she hadn’t known this place existed. Now it was home.
She paused before opening the old gate and took a deep, slow breath. The air was clean. The sky was vast. The birds singing from the branches of the sycamore trees sounded jubilant—as if they were serenading her into this new world. She glanced up at the sunlight streaking through the tree limbs but couldn’t see the source of the joyful chorus through the thick new leaves.
Katie couldn’t explain the mystical pull of this house, the strange magic it created. Her friends in New York thought she’d gone off the deep end—and maybe she had. Why else would she be wearing this ridiculous smile as she pushed open the rusty gate of a decrepit, abandoned house? Why else would she feel downright giddy at the thought of owning all these weeds and shrubs and rocks?
The sycamores on either side of the house loomed before her, even more stunning and towering than when Katie first saw them. Back then, of course, the limbs were cloaked only in buds and a promise of what was to come. Now they were in full leaf, their immense white trunks standing in deep contrast to the green overhead, their boughs nodding and whispering mysteriously to one another as she passed. She tried to imagine what her view from the house would be like in the fall, when the trees around Lacewood erupted into a carnival of color, creating a tapestry of hues in every direction, as far as the eye could see.
Katie took her time making her way to the house. Mine. All mine, kept running through her head. Followed by, what in the heck am I doing? As she swept her eyes over the expansive vista of deterioration before her, she couldn’t help but think of the extravagant penthouse she left behind.
One moment she was excited, the next shaking with fear. She was completely alone here. No neighbors abov
e and below her. No housekeeper to make her bed, or restaurant to deliver her dinner. So simple, yet so complicated. So exciting and terrifying…so daunting and thrilling.
Pure, stark fear, bordering on hysteria, bubbled up—and was swallowed. Bright sunlight and singing birds had a way of making panic over unknown things seem trivial. By the time Katie reached the front steps, she’d conquered her misgivings. I need this, she told herself. And heaven knows, it needs me.
After sticking the key into the lock with a trembling hand, Katie gave a firm turn. The resulting click sent an emotional charge straight through her. This was it. She’d just unlocked the door to her new home…her new life.
Katie took a deep breath and pushed. It didn’t budge. She thrust her shoulder against the solid wood, triggering only a mild groan when it opened—not a loud, wailing screech like when the sheriff forced his way through. Perhaps the house had accepted her, as she had accepted it…
At least she didn’t feel like an intruder when she walked in.
Then again, neither did she feel quite at home.
Closing the door behind her, Katie stood perfectly still in the foyer, her heart pounding in her ears. Dried leaves made a scuffling sound as they whisked across the floor in a hurried dance, settling into the shadows as if hiding from a stranger.
Katie knew the electricity hadn’t been turned on yet, so didn’t bother trying the switch. She studied the room in silence, seeing things she hadn’t seen—or at least didn’t remember—during her earlier walk-through.
Cobwebs, dust, and broken glass were the first things she noticed in the dim light, followed by the musty smells of dampness and decay. The ceiling and walls ranged from a washed-out yellow to a smoky, dingy hue, except for a couple of brown splotches where water had found its way in. Furniture, swathed in dusty sheets, appeared ghostly, drowsing in forgotten neglect in the corners.
“A little fresh air will do wonders.” Katie said the words out loud and was startled when her voice echoed and reverberated back to her in the nearly-empty room. She hurried to a window on the south side of the house and wrestled with the monstrous pane until at last it moved. The panel only rose a few inches, but the effect was instantaneous. Warm air full of birdsong and the alluring fragrances of spring rushed in, creating a completely different atmosphere.
Duty Bound (Shades of Gray Civil War Serial Trilogy Book 1) Page 23
