The Haunting Season

by Michelle Muto

  Everyone nodded or shook hands. Alex wrapped an arm around Bryan’s mother, and Bryan looked away.

  “Bryan, it’s okay. Honest,” his sister said softly, resting a hand on his arm. Bryan swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Sweetheart,” Bryan’s mother said, excusing herself from small talk with Jess’s mother and moving away from her boyfriend. Bryan seemed to relax a bit. “We’ll be just fine.” She leaned forward and whispered something too softly for Jess to hear clearly, but it was something about finally being happy. Then she turned to face everyone. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “Hon, do you have the car keys?” Alex patted the pockets on his slacks.

  “Bryan!” Erin mouthed accusingly.

  “What?” Bryan mouthed back. “I didn’t do it.”

  The boyfriend seemed nice enough. At the same time, Jess totally understood. Watching her mother with someone other than her father had been hard at first, too.

  “Never mind!” Alex pulled the keys from his right pants pocket. “They’re right here.”

  Bryan shifted his footing and looked toward the door. Whatever ability Bryan had, it wasn’t like hers or Allison’s. Jess wondered if Bryan’s ability was more physical. Telekinesis? Mind control? Something else? Cool.

  Her heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t wait to talk to her fellow test subjects and get the chance to know more about them and about Siler House. She had been waiting for something like Siler House to come into her life. She looked around at the stairwell and the large, inviting room, and wondered that if houses could think, would Siler House feel the same way about her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind?” Jess’s mother asked for the millionth time. “Our last family vacation before you go off to school?” Her eyes darted away from Allison, who had officially become Jess’s new roommate.

  Ignoring her mother’s repeated plea for Jess to leave with them, Jess plunked her suitcase down on the bed closest to the window. Allison sat on her own bed, absently staring into space, her suitcases still untouched against the wall.

  The room was a good size, plenty big enough for two girls to share, which Jess thought was saying something. She unzipped her suitcase and pulled out several pairs of shorts and placed them in one of the dresser drawers. “Nice room.”

  “It used to be a playroom for the Silers’ daughters,” the maid who had shown Jess and her mother to the room informed them. “If there’s nothing else…”

  It was close to five o’clock, and Jess imagined the woman wanted to finish her chores before leaving.

  “No. I’m good. Thanks,” Jess replied.

  “There’s a nightlight in the bathroom, and one for the room, should you need them,” the maid added.

  “Thanks,” Jess replied, as anxious for her to leave as she clearly was. For that matter, she was also ready for her mother to leave.

  The maid nodded as she briskly walked across the room to the door. “Take care. Sleep well. My shift’s ending and I must be going.” Her mother opened her mouth in protest, but the maid was already out the door and halfway down the hall.

  With the woman gone, her mother examined the room as though everything about it might be part of some test. She paid particular attention to the lock on the door.

  “Mrs. Hirsch has the keys,” Allison informed her.

  “Mrs. Hirsch?” Jess’s mother inquired.

  Allison nodded. “I think she’s the head housekeeper or something. She was here, right before you came up. She said she’ll be living here with us. She’s staying downstairs on the second floor with Dr. Brandt and the guys.”

  Allison wiped at her red, watery eyes, an indicator she’d been crying before Jess showed up. She still couldn’t believe the way Allison’s aunt had acted. Jess glanced at her mother, who was busy checking the window latch. “I’ll be fine, Mom. Really. Okay? Every couple of days the maids come in, and there’s Mrs. Hirsch. She’ll be here the whole time. Allison and I will be nice and safe up here—alone. Right, Allison?” Jess wanted to bring up that she was eighteen after all, but decided against it.

  “Alone,” Allison muttered morosely. Whatever had happened between her and her aunt must have been really something. Allison’s shoulders were slumped and her hair needed brushing. She hardly seemed like someone to be afraid of—instead, she was more like someone who needed a friend.

  Her mother stood, hesitating. “Well, if you’re sure…”

  Jess gave her mother a hug. “Yes! I’m sure. Paul will think you’re staying, too, if you don’t hurry up. One month, Mom. It’s just one month. I’ll be home before college starts. We’ll have plenty of time together then.”

  Her mother managed a weak smile. “Don’t forget to put your phone on charge. You’re always forgetting—”

  “I’ll put my phone on charge,” Jess sighed. “I promise. Now, go before Paul comes up here looking for you.”

  “One month. Unless you call us before then. Maybe I should go find Mrs. Hirsch. I’d like to at least meet her before we leave.” Her mother straightened her blouse and left, leaving Jess alone with her sullen roommate.

  Allison stared after Jess’s mother for a moment, making the silence between them seem awkward. Jess got up and went to the window. The Red Room, as the sign on the hallway door indicated, had been aptly named. The wall with the window had been painted a vermillion red. The curtains matched their bedspreads, white with red vines. The room overlooked the back lawn.

  “Moms,” Jess said, turning away from the window. “What she really means is she’s going to tell Mrs. Hirsch that I’m prone to imagination and...” Jess faltered. She didn’t know Allison well enough to tell her she’d been on medication for a supposed nervous breakdown. Not that she agreed with the doctors. They just didn’t understand. But maybe Allison would.

  Jess sighed and flopped onto her bed, deciding that nothing she had to say could come close to the embarrassment Allison had suffered downstairs. “No one believes me. Not even when I told them about a small candy box with some money inside it that Grams had stashed in a dresser drawer before she died. Mom said I must have just forgotten that Grams had already told me or something.”

  “At least she loves you,” Allison replied. “Your mother is here. Mine isn’t. My father, either. They had me put away for a while. A mental hospital.”

  Wow, Jess thought. Allison went one step further than she had. That had to be rough. A mental hospital? When Jess had been seeing the psychiatrist, she’d worried that he would recommend a mental hospital for a short time, too. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Allison stated without raising her head. “We’ve never been close, even before all this. My parents are traveling, so I’ve been staying with my aunt and uncle the past week. But, they’re all afraid of me.” Allison began picking at her fingernails, which were already too short.

  “Well, I’m not afraid of you,” Jess said. “I think people who are different than us are afraid, sometimes. But, I’m sure they’ll come around.”

  “I’m classified as borderline schizophrenic,” Allison announced casually. “Unless you want to consider the full-on alternative to that diagnosis. Anyway, we’ve got some real family issues going on. But who doesn’t, right? Looks like you’ve got some issues with your mom. But it’s nothing like the relationship I have with mine. So, you really think I’m like you?”

  Jess shrugged. “Well, sure. I mean, we’re all here for the same reason, right? An experiment on the paranormal. Ghosts.” Jess didn’t want to address the schizophrenia diagnosis, which she found a bit disconcerting. But given her own experience with psychiatrists, she decided to give Allison a chance.

  “You see ghosts?” Allison asked, almost as if she was relieved.

  Jess nodded. “Yeah. Do you?”

  Allison stared blankly at her, making Jess wonder if her new roommate was on some major meds or was really just that strange.

  “It used to fre
ak me out,” Jess continued. “But I’m sort of used to it now. Sorry about your family. Like Dr. Brandt said, it’s because they don’t understand. I mean, it’s sort of creepy.”

  “I’m afraid of me,” Allison blurted out, tears beginning to stream down her face again. “I thought it might all be over, but this place! I’m... I’m scared. Terrified, actually. I think my family wants something to happen to me. I think they want me put away somewhere permanently. Not that they cared before this, but now? This place?” She shifted her position on the bed, and took a steadying breath. “Sorry. TMI, right? I don’t know you, and you probably don’t want to hear all this. But I don’t have anyone to talk to usually, and I feel like I’m all alone. Sort of. I mean, I don’t think we’re really by ourselves here.” She swiped at her cheeks and let out a halfhearted laugh. “I sound crazy.”

  Allison might be afraid, but she was hardly crazy. She’d been through a lot, apparently. Still, weren’t they all considered a little crazy, as Allison had put it, for believing in ghosts and stuff to begin with? Jess shrugged. “Well, yeah. A tiny bit. Which means you’re probably at least as sane as I am. So, we see ghosts. Looks like we’ve got something in common.”

  Allison managed a weak but genuine smile. “Sure. Ghosts. I guess a few ghosts wouldn’t be all that bad.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jess finished unpacking, mostly using the dresser drawers. Pretty much all the things she’d brought were summer clothes—shorts and cool cotton tops, none of which required hangers. The only thing she had to hang in the closet was a single sundress, which she had packed just in case.

  While Jess put away her clothes, she thought about Allison’s concerns regarding the house and the experiment. She hadn’t anticipated that her fellow test subjects might be unhappy with their ghost-seeing abilities. “Well, ghosts or no ghosts, I think we’ll be all right. Although,” she teased Allison, “I haven’t seen Mrs. Hirsch. What’s she like? Is she human or some spooky turn-of-the-century chambermaid?”

  Allison laughed and the sound made Jess feel more at ease with her new roomy. Sure, Allison had been through a lot, but Jess sort of understood. She’d never really thought about how lucky she was that her family didn’t look at her like a total freak. Jess never talked about ghosts outside of her family. People didn’t understand. But here, at Siler House, they were all the same in some way. They’d all been touched by something supernatural. It was one of the reasons Jess felt at home here.

  “She’s not a ghost,” Allison replied. “But she is sort of scary. She’s big and kind of mean looking. Carries a huge hoop with a bunch of keys on it. Doesn’t talk much, either. When she saw me in the bathroom crying, all she’d said was that dinner was at six, and I should clean up before then.”

  Jess put away the last of her clothes. “She sounds awful. We’ll stay out of her way, then. Do you want to go exploring? I’m dying to see more of the house.”

  “I’d rather not,” Allison admitted. “But anything beats being in here by myself.”

  “Seriously? This house gives you the creeps? Do you know the history behind it or something?” Jess asked. “I tried doing some research and didn’t find much. It’s supposed to be haunted, but so is every place else in Savannah.”

  “Confession. I don’t see ghosts. Ghosts don’t sound too bad. I see evil…spirits. So yeah, I’m creeped out. This place makes me feel like I did when…” Allison gave an exaggerated shudder.

  “When?” Jess asked.

  “You do feel it, don’t you?” Allison asked, avoiding Jess’s curiosity.

  Jess took a deep breath and listened, letting the house settle in around her. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to say that what she sensed here felt more like hope. The house had a presence, all right. But how much of that was wishful thinking? How much was because she wanted so badly for Dr. Brandt to prove her right about a connection between the real world and the world beyond? “Yeah,” she said finally. “There’s something here, but I don’t think it’s bad. Wait. You said you see spirits? Evil sprits?”

  Allison put her suitcase in the closet on top of Jess’s and closed the door. “On second thought, I like your idea about exploring. Can we start outside?”

  “Sure.” Jess couldn’t imagine what it might be like to see evil spirits. It had to be hard on Allison to have experienced what she had. Luckily for Jess, seeing ghosts had always been a gift, not a curse. The entire time Jess had been seeing them, she’d never encountered one she’d consider menacing. Pissed off, maybe. Like the ghost who made the guy at the bar spill his drink. But that was about as bad as it had ever been. The idea that all ghosts might not be benign had never occurred to her because it had never happened to her.

  “We’ll go outside while there’s still light,” Jess said. “Then we’ll explore the house after dinner. Evil spirits, huh? Not to pry, but why do you think the ghosts are evil?”

  Allison dug through her own clothes, selecting a t-shirt and pair of shorts. “They’re not really…never mind. It’s complicated. I’ll tell you later. Probably at dinner. I bet we’ll all have to talk about ourselves then.”

  Jess didn’t push the subject further. Allison was already uneasy. Jess wondered again what had happened to cause such a huge rift between Allison and her family. Jess wanted to know, but decided she’d find out soon enough. One thing was obvious, though—this experiment wasn’t the best idea for Allison.

  After they’d finished changing, they left the room and headed down the hallway.

  The renovation crew had done a great job on Siler House. They had refinished the floorboards and put fresh paint on the walls. The whole place looked new—but Jess could imagine it might have looked the same back when the Silers lived here—elegant and grand, and yet charming and comforting. Siler House would make a great bed and breakfast—once all the renovations were complete. For Jess, the next couple of weeks at Siler House held nothing but amazing possibilities.

  If Allison would only look at things the way she did—see how beautiful the place was, she might realize the house itself was nothing to be afraid of. Jess wanted to open the door of every room they passed, wanted to take in everything about the house. Once or twice, she absently reached out, letting her hand brush against one of the doorknobs, which might have been original or just a really good replica.

  As strange and elusive as Jess found Allison, she drew comfort knowing the other participants would each have some strange experience to share, some line of connection.

  “Just ghosts, huh?” Allison asked, as they walked out into the stifling heat of the early evening.

  The mosquitoes were already out, and Jess swatted one on her arm. She flicked the body of the dead insect off and rubbed at the blood. “Yeah. Not for a while, though. I’ve been trying to get them to show up again, but nothing’s happened since...since my dad died right after the holidays. My mom thinks I made everything up. She thinks it’s my way of coping with his death, that everything I experienced can be explained some other way.”

  “I believe you,” Allison said, taking a step off the front porch, apparently unfazed by the swarm of insects.

  “I hate summers in the South.” Jess swatted at another mosquito that had decided her legs made a safer target. “There’s got to be millions of these little vampires.”

  “Run!” Allison darted across the lawn, leaving Jess to chase her.

  Jess glanced behind her, seeing nothing but the hovering swarm of insects. She ran after Allison, following her down the length of the yard and around the house’s corner, finally drawing up alongside her where she’d come to a complete stop.

  “I don’t think we outran the mosquitoes,” Allison said.

  Allison’s observation was probably an understatement. But, either they’d managed to outrun a few thousand or this side of the house had fewer hordes.

  Jess waved away one of the bugs buzzing at her ear. “How come you’re not being eaten alive?”

  Allison shrugged. “Bad bloo
d, I suppose.”

  Her voice sounded distant, far off. Jess stopped swatting her arms and legs long enough to see what Allison was staring at. It was a garden. Nothing like back home in Asheville, probably because the hot summer sun scorched the flowers here. Small plants with tiny red flowers, a white hibiscus and several pots with ferns lined the garden pathway.

  At the end of the path was a tall iron fence, complete with arched gate. Inside the gated section was a gravesite with an elaborate monument in the shape of two young girls, carved from marble in amazing lifelike detail. Both girls wore their hair long and loose across their shoulders, with bows at their temples. Both wore matching dresses and ankle-high, lace-up boots. At the base of the monument were more flowers, one sporting soft pink blossoms.

  “Wow!” Jess said. “This has to be the most amazing gravesite I’ve ever seen. Come on.”

  Decorative, spear-like posts sat atop the iron fence. Jess pulled on the arched service gate, but it didn’t budge. “Damn. It’s locked.”

  “It keeps people like us out,” Allison replied. “But wow is right. I wonder who they were? It’s amazing! You can even see their boot laces.”

  Jess pointed to the base of the monument. "Emma and Grace Siler. April 3, 1899, died August 1909. Twins! But there’s no actual date of death, only the month. Kind of weird, don’t you think?”

  “It’s because they’re still here.” Allison tugged at Jess. “We made a mistake coming out here. We need to go. Now.”

  “What? We just got here.”

  “They’re here,” Allison said.

  “I thought you don’t see ghosts,” Jess said, confused. If ghosts were present, she’d like to see them. She tried to imagine cute little girls with white dresses, each holding dolls or teddy bears. She scanned the area. Nothing.

  “There, in the woods.” Allison pointed to a section of trees a hundred or so yards from where they stood. “They want us to follow them.”

  A whitish, shadowy object moved behind a range of trees—or so Jess believed. It didn’t look like a person, much less two girls, but she had seen something. Hadn’t she? Adrenaline raced through her, but she tried to remain calm. Still, it might be the first step in finding her way back to seeing ghosts again. Maybe even Grams and Dad. Her pulse kicked up a beat.