by George Esler
learn soon enough that woman marches to the beat of her own drum. I have not agreed to take on any other boarders.”
“Oh.” I felt silly as I took another bite of my food. The eggs lost some of their taste. Why in the world was the maid preparing another bedroom if nobody else was coming? And if she was off her rocker, then what should I make of her warning? I almost asked Esau about the nursery, but an overwhelming urge to keep silent on that topic won the day, and I said nothing about it.
After breakfast, I took Esau up on his offer to explore the place. I decided to start outside; I had been cooped up inside for far too long. I exited through the front door. It was still early, and the remnants of a pre-dawn fog hung about the grounds, stubbornly refusing to relinquish their hold. I descended the steps, and stood looking up at the rows of glittering windows that stretched far to the left and right. The daylight reflecting off of the glass panes turned them into so many mirrors and all I could see on them was an echo of the dull sky. Had someone actually been watching me last night? Had that creepy feeling been legitimate? Today, I felt nothing.
I crossed the horseshoe drive and made my way to the cracked fountain at its center. Grime clung to the chipped stone, and a rust-colored film encircled the base, marking the old waterline. The child angel statue continued to stare back toward the door, that horrified look etched into his features. Growing bored with that, I moved about the grounds themselves. The area immediately surrounding the estate was wide open, but the land sloped down to the west where a thick stand of trees formed an impenetrable wall to my roaming eye. I would be exploring the woods soon enough, I knew.
The house faced south, but I walked north, behind the estate. Heavy foot traffic had worn away the grass, forming a path that led away from the house and meandered about two hundred yards down to an old-fashioned well. Farther along in the same direction, beyond the well, I could just make out the surface of a wide lake. The fog was thickest down by the water so I decided to wait for the sun to finish chasing the mists away before I ventured that far.
Having nowhere better to go, I ambled down to the well and peered down inside of it. A thick rope attached to a crank disappeared into the gloom below, in which I thought I could just discern the shiny surface of standing water. I gave the crank a few turns, surprised at the loud metallic grating it produced, and watched the rope begin to rise.
A woman’s voice called out from the depths below, startling me.
“Hello, young man. Have you come to visit me?”
I jumped back, letting go of the crank, and the weighted bucket at the far end of the rope splashed back into the water.
Laughter rang from below. The voice called out again. “Was that necessary?”
I crept back to the edge of the well and willed myself to peek over again. I could not make out anything below that appeared out of the ordinary, but then again, it was very difficult to see all the way to the bottom, where the light failed to reach and shadows reigned.
“Are you okay?” I called. “Did you fall down there? Are you able to climb out? Do you need me to go get help for you?”
More laughter from below. “If you knew what you were saying, you would not be asking those questions.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“Look,” I said, “do you need help or not?”
The next voice that spoke came from behind me. “Who are you talking to?”
I spun and found myself looking down at Trevor. The young boy was dressed in cotton slacks and a heavy sweater. He studied me with an expression bordering somewhere between incredulity and apprehension.
I pointed behind me. “There’s someone down there. I think someone has fallen into the well.”
“In the well?” He walked over and peered down. He called out. “Hello?”
There was no answer.
“She was just speaking to me,” I said. “At first I thought maybe she was in some sort of trouble, but she sounded just fine to me.”
Trevor looked at me. “I don’t know what to say to you right now.”
“You don’t believe me,” I said. “I wouldn’t believe me either, but I know what I heard.”
“It’s not that,” Trevor said. “Nobody else has ever heard her before. My dad doesn’t believe me.”
That surprised me like a well-timed slap to the face. “Wait, then you’ve heard it too?”
“Of course. My mother fell down in this well and died years ago, when I was just an infant.”
He looked down into the well again.
“Stop trying to scare the new kid, mom,” he yelled.
Laughter echoed up from below again. Trevor rolled his eyes.
“Let’s go,” he said to me, spinning on his heel and pacing away. “I hate when she gets in this mood.”
Episode 2
Helen’s Gambit
1
I can still clearly remember the night that my Charles, godsend that he was, took the plunge over the banister in the main foyer and cracked his head open on the marble tiles below. I heard the scream, and the sickening crunch when his body struck the floor, like a hundred people cracking their knuckles all at once. According to the accident report, he died instantly and did not suffer. At the time that it happened, I was cleaning one of the upstairs bedrooms; Charles had just exited that same bedroom, and was on his way back to the little lodge we shared far to the rear of the Drury property. I won’t say why he was in the bedroom with me or what we did, because it would not be in good taste. He was my husband of many years, and such things are not at all improper.
This particular night sticks out in my mind for a couple of reasons, and the fact that it was the night on which I lost my husband is only one pebble in a large pond. The other reason was that this was the night I first spotted Lionel Drury, Esau’s father, framed in a darkened doorway up the hall. This was no small feat considering that Lionel had been dead just over ten years when I saw him there. It happened just as Charles left that little bedroom, blowing me one last kiss before he went, with the afterglow from our passion still very evident on his pleased face. He did not see the apparition.
I followed in my husband’s wake out into the darkened hallway, but I did not call out to him. His back retreated into the distance as I looked for ghosts. But there was no sign of Lionel, who had once done a very bad thing in that room behind the last door on the left. Charles reached the winding stairs. I contented myself that I had merely imagined the vision, and returned to my chore, straightening my maid’s uniform as I went. A moment later I heard the scream and that unforgettable splatter.
That was Halloween night 2006, which itself just happened to be the twenty year anniversary of another great tragedy and another night when I witnessed a peculiar sight involving Lionel; my master walking up the hall, covered in blood, dragging an axe along the carpeted floor. That would have been October 1986, approximately ten years before Lionel died.
I screamed when I saw Lionel like that. How could I not? I was young and naïve, and believed him to be hurt. He assured me, in that soothing baritone of his, honey to my ears, that everything was perfect, and he kissed me full on the lips, like he had so many times before. When we parted I saw that some of the blood covering him had wiped off on me as well. I didn’t mind; If Charles was a balm to my soul, then Lionel was a drug I could not seem to withdraw from.
Before you judge me as some charlatan, please understand that I have always regretted those youthful indiscretions. Charles never found out, of course, and when Lionel died of a stroke in 1996, it was like a great secret went with him and I was free again. Free once more to cling to my husband and not worry about the wily seductions of an older and more experienced man who always got what he wanted, whom nobody ever refused, myself included. The string of women he paraded through the house apparently couldn’t refuse him either.
After my husband died, I was convinced for the longest time that I had only imagined seeing that vision of Lionel just a moment before the fall. But there
have been other times since then when I have spotted him about the property, and only a fool would continue to rationalize such things. Ghosts walk these halls and grounds. I wonder if Esau has ever sighted the spirit of his long-dead father, but I dare not mention this to him. I like my job too much. I am too old now to even think of starting a new career.
The first time I laid eyes on Henry Crosson, I knew there was some deeper meaning to why he ended up here, at Drury Manor, after all these years. The kid looks so much like his mother that it boggles my mind, even taking into account that many kids resemble one of their parents. But with Henry, it is as if someone took Emily herself and slapped her features on a younger, male body. In a way, she has returned to me, like I always knew she would. I immediately worried over what Trevor might say to our young charge. I suspect Trevor knows of some of the goings-on at the house as well, but I have never discussed this with him.
I could not bring myself to look at Henry that first night, so afraid was I that he would see something in my face and be able read my innermost secrets. Truth be told, I was still trying to make heads or tails of the whole situation.
Because I had known in advance that Henry was coming, known it even before Esau revealed to the staff that he was taking on a young boy who would be boarding with us for a while.
It’s even possible that I knew he was coming before Esau himself did, the
