A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery)

by Merabeth James

  Meg laughed. “It will be beautiful some day. I was thinking, maybe Devon buried the locket and Breanna’s hair, if it is her’s, with Cloud to keep his spirit quiet.”

  Charlie laughed, “Like that worked. Cloud is everywhere. And why not bury him with Breanna if that was his motive?”

  “Maybe he couldn’t,” Meg began thoughtfully, "maybe…."

  Charlie sighed and looked sideways at her sister. “You know I’m getting brain fry from all of this. There’s a diner. Pie and coffee sound good?”

  “As long as we don’t spoil our dinner, or Annie will have our heads. Not that pie has ever spoiled anything for me!”

  ***

  Meg had a surprise waiting for her, when they arrived home. Roses. One dozen long stemmed white roses and a card that read: Your loveliness shames even these! She questioned Annie who could only tell her that a delivery boy had dropped them off just past noon.

  “You don’t think they’re from Mitch, do you?” she asked Charlie.

  “As though that man would spend a dime on flowers, let alone know that white roses are your favorites. Who would know that except me?”

  “No one that I can think of, but maybe one of the workers, helping me outside, might have overheard me talking to them.”

  “I know you mean ‘talking to the roses’ because I know you. A normal person probably doesn’t talk to plants.”

  “Nell talks to he African Violets and look how healthy they looked. Sometimes you need to be a little more open-minded. I would think living here would have cracked your mind wide open,” Meg said with a trace of petulance.

  Charlie laughed, “You’re right, of course, at least this once. Did any of these ‘workers’ show you any particular interest?”

  “You mean leer at me or wolf whistle? Unfortunately no. They called me ‘mam’ and tried not to swear in front of me?”

  “Well, who else do you know in town?”

  “The postman, the druggist, the check out boys at the supermarket, the butcher. Charlie I know a lot of people in this town, but not one that has shown a bit of interest. I know! Maybe it’s Moe! Of course that’s probably only wishful thinking.”

  “Did he strike you as the romantic type? Someone who would send your favorite flowers with a card like that is not a ‘Moe’. Maybe it’s our new renter?”

  “Miss Knows Everything, apparently you haven’t noticed I’m not the one he’s interested in!” Meg told her, as she took a turn around the room, then two, while Annie, Freddie and Charlie watched. “I don’t know who it is. Let’s call the florist and find out what he knows.”

  What he knew didn’t prove very helpful. Someone had mailed a request for the roses and enclosed the card along with a hundred dollar bill. When Charlie asked the florist if he’d noticed the postmark, he said he hadn’t, but he still might have the envelope somewhere. But he didn’t. The morning trash had already been incinerated.

  “Well, Meg, it looks like you have a secret admirer,” Charlie told her sister, who gave her a lopsided smile.

  “Just my luck. The first guy I must have met somewhere, even if I can’t remember, with any romance in his soul, likes to play games.”

  Moments later, Meg slipped away unnoticed. Up in her room, she made her way to her bathroom and studied her reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the back of the door. Someone thought she was beautiful! When was the last time she had felt beautiful? She shook her head and sighed. She had never felt beautiful. How could she with Charlie and Rayne for sisters, though, she had to admit, that Charlie seemed totally unaware of how gorgeous she was.

  Rayne was quite the opposite. And she knew how to use her assets to get whatever she wanted. How easy it was for her! She sighed again, then reminded herself that Rayne had a warm and caring heart…probably more of one than she herself realized.

  Meg pursed her lips in what she hoped was a seductive pout. Her hair was a nice shade of honey gold, but curly, then frizzy as a dandelion gone to seed with any bit of humidity. She widened her eyes and smiled. They were a nice shade of blue with long lashes. Her extra pounds had been widdled away in the renovation of the house, leaving plenty of curves. And her breasts were bigger than both her sisters…something some men would like.

  But she was vertically challenged, she thought, standing on tiptoe and laughing. High heels had given her the inches, but unfortunately, she lacked the coordination to pull off the look. She envied those women who could run in heels, go up and down stairs in heels, stand all day in heels, but she lacked the gift. So short she was and short she’d have to stay, unless someone came up with a pill some day.

  She sighed. "Maybe I really am beautiful. My secret admirer thinks so. He would have to be some weirdo, of course, or a psychopath. Why does every wounded bird find its way to me?" she wondered and not for the first time.

  ***

  As Meg had told her sister, Breanna did continue to visit her at night…sometimes two or three nights in a row, then nothing for a week or more. Meg would wake up shivering from the cold and find her asleep next to her with Freddie tucked between them. She had taken to keeping an extra blanket close at hand for just those occasions.

  Often, she would wake to find Breanna rummaging through the armoire, or rifling through her dresser. At times, she was almost solid while, at other times, she was nothing more substantial than a cold wisp of fog and the sweet, cloying scent of roses.

  Sometimes she would stand in front of the window looking into the night with the moon lighting her up like a Japanese lantern. She seemed to be looking for someone and Meg wondered if it was Devon. Occasionally, they would hear the ‘thump…thump…thump’ coming down the hall and Breanna would disappear, through the wall, into Charlie’s room.

  Then one night she woke up to find Breanna sitting on the edge of her bed, writing in a journal of some kind. Curiosity aroused, Meg wrapped the extra blanket around her and tried reading over her shoulder, but Breanna rose, abruptly, and crossed the room. Kneeling at the bottom of the wall, she moved the baseboard and shoved the journal inside, then rose and pointed her pale finger directly at Meg before she vanished.

  Curiosity really aroused now, she slipped from bed, dragging the blanket across the room. Squatting down, she felt along the edge of the baseboard till she found the part that moved. And there it was! The very journal Breanna had been writing in, but dusty and cobwebby, which made her sneeze violently three times, after which she blessed herself, unwilling to risk being carried off by leprechauns. A friend in school had told her that at an impressionable age. Not that she really needed to worry. It was only the sad fate of unblessed virgins, which she hadn’t been for some time…at least technically!

  Wide awake now, Freddie bounded, playfully, from the bed and landed on the blanket, compelling Meg to drag him across the floor to the nearest chair, where she pulled herself up and sat down. Turning on the reading lamp next to it, she studied the journal in her hands. It was pink for one thing. And locked, but a bobby pin took care of that.

  The first entry was dated about three years before her disappearance, Meg quickly calculated. Breanna would have been about fourteen.

  I had a dream last night about Namma, my namesake. She told me I needed to start a diary…said it would be important some day. That the one who found it, would know what to do with it. Or something like that. I’m afraid that seeing Namma even in a dream after she’s been dead for so long, had me too scared to listen very good. But here goes…

  As was her habit with anything she read, Meg then flipped to the last entry:

  Devon and I are going to run away. We’re going to leave separately and meet outside in the woods by the lake. Then we’ll hitch hike into the city and disappear. We have some money he stole from father, so we must be gone before he finds out. I have a bad feeling about this…

  The journal ended there and Meg was hooked. She flipped through it, reading at random. Most entries were about the ordinary happenings in Breanna’s life. Ther
e was a lot about Devon. Nell had been right. They were inseparable. Then an entry caught her eye.

  I woke up and he was sitting on the edge of my bed looking at me. I started to scream but he put his hand over my mouth. It smelled like sweat and something else. He told me to lie still or he would hurt me. He looked at me for a long time, though I couldn’t see him cause it was too dark. Then he left.

  The next entry was almost a month later.

  He came tonight. I had locked my door but he had a key. He stood looking down at me and the moonlight glittered off his eyes. I was really scared.

  “Dear God, Meg whispered in horror. ”The poor child. Her own brother. Nell had been right!“ Then she read:

  I put a chair under the doorknob and I could hear him pushing against it, but he didn’t get it open. I think he was afraid to make too much noise. He thinks I haven’t told Devon. He told me he would hurt Devon more than he ever had before if I tell. I don’t want Devon to be hurt, but I have to tell someone…

  It wasn’t Devon, Meg thought, then who? She kept on reading.

  There was a note on my pillow. He’s mad because of the chair. His note said: open the door or I will mark him with my cane so no one will ever even know he’s your brother. I had to do what he said. I can’t have him hurt Devon.

  Meg found tears rolling down both cheeks. “The poor little girl,” she told Freddie who had wedged himself in the chair next to her. “It was her father. He was a monster. Even a bigger one than we thought. No wonder she flees from him, whenever she hears him coming down the hall! Even in death she isn’t free of him.” Unable to stop reading, she continued.

  I lied to Devon. I think he knows that something is wrong, but I couldn’t tell him. I must never tell him no matter how much I want to. We have never had secrets before and it’s making me feel cut adrift when I need him more than ever.

  Then she found the entry that matched Nell’s story.

  He touched me tonight. Rubbed my hair against his face and lifted my nightgown. I pretended to be asleep. He was so close I could feel his breath on my face. He touched my breast and I screamed, but he forced a pillow over my face. Then Devon burst in the room and he moved away from me. I could see Devon’s face and knew he would kill him for me if he could. But he was afraid, too. The we heard footsteps overhead….Nanny’s room…she’d heard my screams and was on her way. Father shoved Devon against the wall…told him “If you breath a word about this I will kill you both!” He was gone before Nanny arrived, but Devon stayed with me.

  “Stayed with you and took the blame because he couldn’t risk seeing you hurt.,” Meg said to Breanna in case she was listening. The entries continued. Devon was in military school and Nell dismissed. Meg liked her new school and found she made friends easily. Her father’s nightly attentions continued, but he seemed satisfied with looking and not touching, though Breanna remained terrified. Then Devon returned from military school:

  I can’t believe it. Devon’s back. I missed him so much it was like having half of me gone and I know he felt the same. There was some scandal at school. He told me that an upper classmate had tried to do something to him he couldn’t allow, something ugly, so he pushed him down the stairs. Father is very angry and blames Devon. Calls him the ‘family disgrace’, but Devon and I both know who that really is.

  So the scandal Nell had hinted at wasn’t Devon’s fault either, Meg thought, maybe Devon was completely innocent? But then she read: I don’t think Devon likes my new friends. He thinks they take up too much of my time. Maybe he’s a bit jealous. We’ve always been so close. He’s never had to share me before.

  Meg went on to read about the first murdered girl who had been a school mate of Breanna’s….had visited her in this very house.

  I can’t believe Mary is dead. She was my best friend next to Devon, of course. Who could have done such a thing? I won’t read the papers. It’s bad enough to know she was murdered and raped. I don’t want to know any more.

  Then she read:

  Devon has been so strange lately. When we were younger, we often slipped out at night…him in pursuit of the giant Silk Moths to add to his collection, even though I hated what he did to them. We would go to our special place…the Folly on the island and watch the moon ride the night sky sometimes only coming back in, when it was almost dawn. Nanny slept like the dead and never caught us. I outgrew all that, but he never did and now I hear him leave most every night. The police have been questioning him. I know he’s scared. If only I could help him. There is one good thing….Father hasn’t been to visit me in more than a week.

  The other entries at the time of the second murder were all similar. Breanna was horrified, as another one her friends was raped and killed. She was increasingly concerned about Devon…especially when the police turned their full attention in his direction. Then Meg read the second to the last entry.

  Father came tonight and Devon was not here. It has been months since father sneaked into my room and I had been hoping and praying it was over. He was different…agitated…restless. He prowled the room and then grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me and shook me till I though my neck would snap. I have never been so frightened. If we don't leave soon, I know something terrible is going to happen.

  Meg closed the diary and leaned back in her chair. Tears ran freely down her cheeks. Devon was Breanna’s savior, not the monster everyone thought him, at least in that regard. But was he a murderer? He was different…unique…a freak by all the usual standards. What had happened to them…those two born under a dark star?

  She remembered the first entry. The grandmother, the one Nell had said loved her grandchildren, wanted the diary written so she would find it some day. Breanna had led her to it. But how was she to use what she learned? It was more than forty years ago and all the people concerned were long dead, except maybe Devon?

  She looked at the window and saw that dawn was already brightening the sky. .She unlocked her door and checked the hall in both directions. All was quiet. Charlie's door was never locked 'just in case she needed her during the night', so she slipped inside and made a beeline for the lumpy pile of bedding that harbored her sister. She needed her big sister who somehow could make things right no matter how wrong. She needed her quite desperately. She was sick to her very soul.

  ***

  “What now?” Charlie moaned, pulling her pillow over her head and mumbling from underneath one corner, “don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Not much last night! Look at what I found!” Charlie moaned louder and pulled the blankets up over the pillow. Meg sputtered in exasperation and ordered, “Get her, Freddie.

  He was making good progress digging her out, when Charlie issued her best warning growl and sat up. Freddie settled back on his haunches, eyeing her with new respect. Meg shoved the journal under her nose and said, “Read!”

  Charlie brushed her hair out of her eyes and yawned hugely. “What is so important that it can’t wait till later? Like any time after this ungodly hour whatever it is?”

  “It’s Breanna’s journal. Her ghost led me to it. She might have been trying to for months, but I kept falling asleep on her. Anyway, you have to read it from beginning to end, though I had a peek at the ending first, you know how I can’t stand not knowing how things turn out before I see how things begin…you always told me to stop doing that cause it ruined it for…”

  “Stop! Let me get up, get dressed, have some coffee and a bite of breakfast first, if that’s okay with you?. Afterwards I will lock myself in my tower and not budge till I’ve read every single word. Deal?”

  “Deal, but…”

  “No ’buts’! Take your demonic dog with you and leave me in peace. I’ll be down in a few moments. You can start the coffee. Annie will still be enjoying what I’m not allowed to…a quiet entire night’s sleep.”

  “Did you hear what she called you?” Meg asked Freddie, as she led him down the back stairs to the kitchen. “’Demonic Dog’! Can you imagine? She sh
ould be careful about tossing names like that around. If she wants to see ‘demonic’ she need look no farther than ‘Old Thumper’s’ room.”

  As it turned out, Charlie had picked up the journal, as soon as Meg and Freddie had left her room, and found herself as hooked as her sister. She was still in bed, when Meg knocked on the door an hour later. She carried a breakfast tray that smelled too good to be her cooking.

  “I thought you could use this. Annie cooked it if that relieves your mind. Though I could have. She’s been teaching me and tells me I’m making progress. And I'm actually kind of enjoying it, though no one could be more surprised than me! What do you think so far?”

  Charlie raked her hair back and sighed, “Old Thumper is a monster. One we don’t want hanging around here. How did you find this again? I wasn’t listening to you earlier.”

  “I woke up and Breanna was sitting next to me writing in it, or it was a residual sort of ‘writing’ since there aren’t any new entries, then she led me to where it was hidden. Get back to reading. I’ll bring lunch later,” Meg told her as she backed out of the room. But Charlie was no longer listening. She was busily reading Breanna’s journal, as she munched a crisp slice of bacon.

  Sometime later, juggling a lunch tray and a vase of white roses (she thought she’d share) she opened Charlie’s door and looked around. The large pile of rumpled sheets blankets and pillows was no longer occupied, so she crossed the floor to the tower room, where she found her sitting at her desk looking out the window.

  She had been crying, too. “Such a waste,” she told Meg. “No one to love or understand them…at least after Nell came to doubt them. If they had been born to different parents, how their world would have changed.”

  “Do you really think so?” Maybe they were too unique to fit comfortably in society’s shoebox,“ Meg told her quietly, ”no matter who their parents were.“