by Connie Myres
“That would be fine,” Madisyn said, following Mary up the steps.
When Moose left, Mary gave Madisyn a quick tour of the mansion, stopping on the second floor in front of her own chosen bedroom. “You can pick any room you like, that includes the third floor if you would like more privacy.”
“This room here looks fine,” Madisyn said walking into the room to the left of the staircase and across from Mary’s room. She sat her duffel bag on the bed and walked around the room opening dresser drawers and inspecting items on the fireplace mantel. “I love it.”
“You picked one of the smaller rooms; you can always move to one of the larger rooms if it feels too cramped.”
“Compared to my dorm room it’s huge.”
“I’ll let you unpack and get used to the room.” Mary walked to the doorway and stopped. “Oh, until we catch that rat, keep your door closed. I don’t want it wandering in here.”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
“And tomorrow plan on coming with me to Anisteem.” Mary smiled. “I’d like you to meet Eddie, he’s one of the lawyers that’s helping me. I think you two will hit it off.”
Chapter 10
Madisyn put away her clothes and looked out her only window. The mansion sat at an angle; if she put her face close to the glass, she could see the dock.
She plopped on the bed; a little lumpy but good enough. This will be a nice way to spend the summer before going back to Anisteem College for her senior year. So far, Ms. McMaster didn’t seem like a slave driver; being a helping hand was what the job seemed to entail.
Madisyn got out of bed and walked downstairs to find Mary. She walked into the library and saw Mary sitting at the desk looking at papers. She cleared her throat. “Do you need help with anything, Ms. McMaster?”
Mary looked up. “Yes, first, call me Mary. And second, the blueprints to the mansion are here.”
Madisyn walked up to the desk and picked up the fragile linin prints that Mary slid toward her on the desk.
“What I want to do,” Mary said, “is find the secret passages and rooms. I know they’re not on the blueprints, but maybe you can look at them while you walk around and see if you can figure out where they possibly could be.”
“It seems like a job for Nancy Drew and that’s right up my alley.” Madisyn scanned the prints, then looked at Mary who was putting the remainder of the papers that were on the desk into a drawer. “But do you have any actual work like sweeping or cleaning? I’d be happy to do it.”
“Yes, you can help me burn a stinky old doll that I found in the servants’ quarters. It’s in the kitchen.”
Madisyn followed Mary into the kitchen where a trash can was tipped over by the sink.
“Pickles, did you get into the garbage?” Mary said, looking down at the dog walking next to her.
Madisyn watched as Mary sat the can upright and looked inside.
“The doll’s missing. Did you take it, Pickles?”
Madisyn smiled when she watched Pickles look up at Mary with the saddest look on his wrinkly little face. “He looks innocent to me. What does it look like?”
Mary put the can back under the sink. “It’s about this tall and looks like, and don’t laugh—a voodoo doll, at least that’s what Eddie said.”
“Don’t worry about sounding weird, I find all that paranormal stuff interesting. I even have friends who have their own investigation team. But I don’t think it’s going to take ghost hunters to find a doll that Pickles took from the trash.”
“You’re right,” Mary said, putting her hands on her hips. “Pickles couldn’t have taken it too far. It has to be in this house someplace.”
Chapter 11
After Mary said she had to lie down for a while, Madisyn gathered the blueprints and decided to look around the mansion. With Pickles at her feet, she began in the library, checking to see if walls seemed too thick or rooms too far apart.
Remembering old mystery movies, Madisyn pushed on wall panels and gently pulled on sconces hoping something would slide open and reveal a hidden room. So far nothing moved.
Madisyn walked from room to room downstairs until she got to the servants’ quarters. Was she allowed to go up there? No one was living there as far as she knew so she went up the steps. For some reason, it felt creepy in that part of the house. She looked back when Pickles began to whine.
“Come on, Pickles, you can come with me.”
Pickles looked up at her from the foot of the stairs.
“Okay, then, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”
When she reached the top, she stopped. A noise like something was moving around frightened her. It’s that rat.
Madisyn stood still, listening. It sounded like the rat was walking. Walking? No, it sounded that way because of the way sound was carried through the mansion.
Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she had to see if it was a mouse, a rat, or a dreaded groundhog. She rolled up the blueprints so that she wouldn’t accidentally tear them and looked around for something like a broom to keep the rodent at bay. All she saw was a candlestick. She picked it up and walked down the hall toward the other staircase. Whatever was running around, had decided to go up to the third floor.
Madisyn walked up the steps, one creak at a time until she got to the top. Even though she knew that the little animal would be afraid of her and hide, the knowledge didn’t make her feel any less anxious. She clenched the candlestick as she walked from room to room, relieved she had not heard or seen anything.
Deciding that the mouse must’ve run into his house, she opened the blueprints. “Might as well see if it looks like a secret passage could be here while I’m in the area. But I don’t think I’ll find anything because why would there be a hiding room in the servant’s quarters? The Underground Railroad to help slaves escape could be one reason. Ender House was built in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, probably before the Civil War, and that was a time that slaves escaped from the South to the free states, she reasoned. But there was no indication of any secret passages, at least that she saw.”
She listened. The rodent must have scurried through a hole and into another part of the house because it was quiet.
Madisyn put the candlestick back where she’d gotten it and went back downstairs where Pickles was waiting.
“Let’s check upstairs in the main house,” Madisyn said to Pickles. “But we’ll have to be quiet so that we don’t wake up Mary.”
Pickles followed Madisyn back through the kitchen and up the staircase to the second floor. Mary’s bedroom door was closed, she must be sleeping, Madisyn thought as she quietly opened a closet door in the hallway. Inside among mothballs hung old clothing from another era. A long heavy wool jacket and a top hat caught her attention. Must be from Mary’s relatives. She reached inside and roughly measured the depth. She pressed on the back wall seeing if it would slide. When it didn’t, she moved to the next hall closet. Finding a secret passage was turning out to be more difficult than she thought it would be.
Madisyn looked inside the bathroom at the end of the hall, happy there was one on the same floor as her bedroom.
The sitting room was pleasant. She could see herself using it more than the one downstairs. It would give her privacy when she wanted to get out of her room.
The last bedroom on the floor was the master. If there was going to be a secret passage, it would be in there.
Madisyn walked inside. The room looked recently used. A pair of glasses sat on a nightstand next to a book. The other nightstand had a box of tissue, an empty glass, and a pillbox. This must be the room of the person who died.
She walked up to the fireplace where various framed pictures sat on the mantel. What stood out to Madisyn was that the images were of only one or two people, not large families with kids. She had heard tell of the curse on the McMaster family and how they died under mysterious circumstances. Mary must be one of the last ones alive, possibly even the last McMaster of the lineage.
Then it occurred to Madisyn, Mary would be doomed to die a tragic death like the others. She would keep a close eye on her, she would be Mary’s guardian.
Madisyn opened the closet door. The opposite wall had a door that opened into Mary’s room. The outside wall had a case packed with books and boxes. The back wall seemed like it should go back further so she lightly tapped on it. It had a hollow sound. There had to be an open space behind it and possibly a passage, she thought, feeling around for a way to open it. But Mary was sleeping in the next room and she didn’t want to disturb her. She would tell Mary about the discovery when she woke up. Madisyn looked down at Pickles, her little shadow, he appeared as excited as she was.
Chapter 12
Mary woke from her nap with a throbbing headache. She looked at the clock next to the bed, she had been asleep for five hours; she never napped that long. She must be coming down with something. A virus or possibly the stress of moving took its toll on her. The move was rather unexpected, and she didn’t have time to prepare for it.
Mary glanced into Madisyn’s bedroom as she walked out of her room; she wasn’t in there. Then she heard Madisyn outside in the front yard. With one hand on her forehead, she walked down the staircase to the front door. When she opened it, she saw Madisyn throwing a stick and Pickles running for it, but never actually picking it up.
Mary walked onto the porch, Pickles was having fun and so was Madisyn. Then they noticed her and ran up to her.
“Are you feeling okay?” Madisyn asked, obviously concerned. “You look...tired.”
“I have a headache, I probably have some twenty-four-hour bug. I’ll feel better later, I’m sure.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
Mary walked back inside. “I don’t know. I think I’m going to take a couple aspirin and go back up to my room.”
“I can make you some chicken noodle soup. Oh, wait, there isn’t any.”
“If I’m not feeling well enough to go into town tomorrow morning with Moose and Eddie, you can go without me. I’ll make a list of some of the things we need.”
“That would be fine, but do you think you need to see the doctor?”
Mary waved a hand as if shooing a fly. “No, of course not. I’m fine, just need a little rest.”
Mary walked into the library where she had her purse. She took out a bottle of aspirin that she kept inside. “I’m going back to my room; can you bring me a bottle of water?”
“Sure, I’ll bring it right up.”
Madisyn had returned with the water before Mary climbed to the second floor.
“That’s fast,” Mary said, taking one exhausting step after another. “I must say, I’m happy you’re here, but I didn’t intend for you to take care of me.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t mind,” Madisyn said, following Mary into her bedroom. “Oh, I think I found an entrance to a secret passage. It’s in the closet between your room and the master bedroom. When I knocked on the wall, it sounded hollow.”
“That’s nice, but don’t go inside any secret passages unless I’m with you,” Mary said, walking to the chair where she had her pajama’s lying. “I know it’s early, but I’m going to bed.”
“I hope you feel better. Don’t worry about me and Pickles, we’re having fun.”
Mary shivered as she pulled the covers up to her chin. “You can close the door when you leave.”
“If you need anything, holler. I’ll be listening.”
“Thank you, Madisyn. You’re a lifesaver.”
MARY TOSSED AND TURNED through the night. She went from uncontrollable shivering to perspiring profusely until her pajamas were wet. She opened her eyes to see what time it was, it was after three o’clock. Time for more aspirin and water. She was about to turn the nightstand lamp on when something in the corner—standing in the corner—caught her attention. It looked like a four-foot-tall person.
Mary squinted then reached for her glasses. “Is that you, Madisyn?” It was too short for Madisyn, but if it was her, she would have to give the poor girl a notice of dismissal.
With glasses on, Mary looked to see what the shadow was. She clenched her chest, her heart pounding erratically when she saw a withered old person looking back. The moonlight cast an eerie gray on its skin as wrinkled as Pickles. Even though the hair was long and scraggly, she could not tell if it was a man or woman. Then it rushed up to her like a film in fast motion, stopping inches from Mary’s face. And with the breath of insecticide, of brimstone, it said, “You will die in three days, Mary McMaster.”
Mary screamed as the thing shot out of the room, vanishing through the closed door. She sat there, frozen from fright. If her heart was any weaker, she would’ve dropped dead that moment, let alone in three days.
Madisyn ran into the room and up to Mary. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Mary could hardly speak. “I saw, I saw a...” She didn’t know exactly what she did see. A ghost, a demon, the vengeful Zachariah De Moen? “Did you see it? It dashed through the door.”
Madisyn shook her head. “See what? I didn’t see anything.”
With the room now well lit, Mary was calming down. Her heart was slowing its gallop to a trot as she unclenched her fist. She sighed. “I thought I saw someone in my room, like a creepy old witch. It told me I was going to die in three days.” Mary watched Pickles jump onto the bed. “I think a high fever caused me to have a bad dream. I haven’t had one of those since I was a child.”
“Could it be the McMaster curse? Did it say how you were going to—die?”
“It’s all nonsense. I don’t believe in such things. But what I do believe in is putting on dry nightclothes.”
Madisyn went back to bed while Pickles stayed at the foot of Mary’s bed having already dozed off. She slipped into dry clothes and instead of getting back into bed she decided to go downstairs to get something cold to drink, not room temperature water.
The light from the growing moon cast enough light into the stairwell for Mary to feel along the wall for the light switch to the staircase. By the time she found it, Pickles was at her feet.
“Now don’t you go getting under my feet, Pickles,” Mary said, beginning down the steps. “I don’t want to trip over you and fall and break my neck. Or people are going to think the McMaster curse killed me and not your carelessness.”
Mary walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of ice water; it was cold and tasted good. She sat the glass on the counter and listened for that rat or anything else out of the ordinary like that crazy old witch or whatever that thing was in her bedroom.
“Just a figment of my imagination,” Mary said aloud. But was it? She was awake when she saw and smelled its rotten odor. The thought made her quiver.
Chapter 13
Madisyn showered and ate breakfast shortly before Moose and Eddie arrived to take her and Mary into Anisteem. She looked out the window and saw Moose walking up to the house with an animal cage trap in each hand and a handsome gentleman at his side.
Madisyn stepped onto the porch to greet them. The man was staring at her, smiling. She smiled back.
Moose tromped up the porch steps. “Maddie, I’d like you to meet Eddie, he’s one of the lawyers helping Mary.” He looked at Eddie who was beaming at Madisyn. “Eddie, this is my niece, Madisyn. She’ll be coming with us into town.”
Eddie held out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Madisyn felt her cheeks flush as she put her hand in his. He held it gently. “Likewise.”
Moose watched them make goo-goo eyes at each other. “Where’s Mary?”
Moose looked at Madisyn, then at Eddie, and back to Madisyn. He cleared his throat.
“Oh, sorry, Uncle,” Madisyn said. “Mary doesn’t feel well today, so she’s not coming with us. She said to continue on without her.”
“Is she okay?” Eddie asked. “Does she need to go to the walk-in clinic?”
“No, I don’t think so. She said it’s just the flu or somet
hing and that she’ll feel better tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s up and about by the time we get back.” Madisyn motioned toward the door. “Come inside while I get my purse and tell Mary we’re leaving.”
They walked inside while Madisyn ran up the stairs feeling excited. She knocked on Mary’s door. “May I come in?”
“Of course, Madisyn.”
Madisyn opened the door. Mary was still in bed showing no attempt at rising. “We’re leaving now, and Moose brought a couple animal traps. Are you going to be all right while I’m gone?”
Mary let out a weak cough. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Have fun. Did Eddie come with Moose?”
“Yes, and he seems to be a very nice guy.”
Mary smiled. “Good. I’ll see you when you get back.”
Madisyn closed Mary’s door and walked to her room to get her purse. She applied a light floral perfume and ran back downstairs where Moose and Eddie were emerging from the basement. “Mary’s still going to stay, but I’m ready to go.”
“The traps are set. I’ll check them when we get back.” Moose looked around nervously as he walked toward the front door. “This place has such an odd feel to it. I don’t like it.”
As they walked outside toward Daisy Dancer, Madisyn said, “I know what you mean, Uncle. But I love it here, it’s such a grand place and I think I found a secret passage, but I have to wait for Mary to check it out.”
Eddie walked at Madisyn’s side. “Really? An actual secret passage? I didn’t see it on the blueprints.”
“It’s not on the blueprints but the letter from Horace said there were secret passages and rooms.”
“I believe it,” Moose said walking onto the dock. “But don’t go into them alone.”
“I won’t,” Madisyn said, taking Eddie’s hand as she stepped onto the boat. “Not because I think I’m going to fall through the floorboards—or because Mary said—but because of what I might find. Especially after what Mary saw last night.”
