Sometime Yesterday

by Yvonne Heidt

  Sarah continued to kiss Beth while she steered her to the maroon chaise against the wall. The back of Beth’s knees hit the edge and she sat. Sarah knelt on the floor in front of her and unbuttoned the painter’s smock. Beth held still until she was finished then slipped it off her shoulders, revealing the lack of undergarments.

  Sarah chuckled. “You’re naked, love.”

  Beth’s cheeks flushed. “You told me to be.”

  “So I did,” Sarah answered. She kissed a freckled shoulder before lowering her head to draw a pink nipple into her mouth.

  Natalie’s sharp intake of breath matched Beth’s. She had a perfect view of the pair now. She could feel her own nipples harden in response to the scene in front of her and a wave of desire swept over her. She closed her eyes and felt a small twinge of voyeuristic guilt for witnessing what was a very private moment.

  Beth’s soft sigh from across the room had Natalie looking back again. Sarah trailed tiny kisses along Beth’s stomach before spreading her thighs. Sarah’s nightgown pooled on the floor beneath her.

  Natalie didn’t think she’d ever seen anything so erotic in her life. It was like watching a beautifully choreographed dance. Sarah kissed the softness in front of her and Natalie sighed in tandem with Beth again. She put a hand to her mouth to hush herself. When Sarah’s tongue slid along Beth’s swollen flesh, she raised her own hips.

  Natalie slipped her hand under the waistband of her shorts, surprised to find herself soaking wet. She heard unmistakable sucking sounds and Beth’s little whimpers. She found her own clit swollen and engorged, and when she ran her fingers over it, her stomach clenched.

  Beth’s hips rocked against Sarah’s face, her hands twined her long hair. She threw her head back and exposed her long neck before her body stiffened and she fell backward, still panting. Sarah laid her head on her quivering stomach. Her nightgown was pulled up and her hands cupped her sex.

  Natalie watched two of her fingers disappear into the wet folds and mirrored her movements.

  Beth wrapped Sarah’s hair into a tail to pull her face up then sucked her tongue in the rhythm Sarah was dancing between her thighs.

  The sight was so unbelievably sensual; Natalie increased her own pressure and tempo until she was gasping for breath. She cried out loud when the orgasm overtook her. Her eyes closed for a moment.

  Natalie woke to the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall. Damn it. She could also still hear the echo of Sarah and Beth making love. The dream was so real. The noise in the hall stopped and Natalie held her breath, waiting for the door to open. She let it out slowly when nothing happened. She wondered briefly if she should ask her mother if she heard the footsteps and run to her bedroom as she did when she was a child. The silence was almost as unnerving as the footsteps.

  A voice in the room whispered. “I will love you forever.”

  Chapter Ten

  Natalie smelled bacon frying. She found her mother in the kitchen making breakfast and her laptop open on the table. “You’ve been busy this morning.”

  Her mother looked up from the stove. “Good morning, sleepyhead. I’ve been up for hours. Sit. I’ll bring you some coffee.”

  “You don’t have to wait on me, Mom.” Natalie sat anyway, knowing it was useless to argue with her. “How did you sleep?”

  “Oh,” her mother said nonchalantly, “I slept fine.”

  Natalie had a moment of trepidation and hoped like hell her mother didn’t have any sex dreams. Oh. God. Now the image was stuck in her head. “Please tell me you didn’t have any dreams.”

  Her mother patted her hand. “No, no funny dreams. Honestly? I felt the dark energy pacing the halls most of the night. How about you?”

  Natalie hesitated. “I had dreams that were very vivid. I felt as if I were in the same room with them.”

  “Who?”

  “Sarah and Beth.”

  Her mother’s eyes widened. “Who’s Beth?”

  “Apparently, she’s my doppelganger. The first dreams I had, I was looking out of her eyes with my thoughts.” She shivered. “It’s more than a little creepy.”

  Natalie told her mother about witnessing Beth paint the portrait of Sarah, currently hanging above the fireplace. She left out a great deal of the details, but told enough to convey the depth of love they held for each other. She finished her story with how she woke up to the footsteps in the hallway.

  “Well, that almost validates my theory that I had about them being trapped.” Her mother looked thoughtful and tapped her chin.

  “Right before I went back to sleep, I heard one of them say, ‘I’ll love you forever.’ Mom, it was so real and Beth looked so much like me, it was uncanny.” Natalie felt hopeful. “It can’t be that simple, right? The connection, I mean.”

  “One thing I know about spirits, honey, is that it is almost never simple. We can go to the courthouse and library today to search the old-fashioned way for past owners of record.”

  “I think I know an easier way.” Natalie pulled the laptop closer to bring up the online listings for Bayside. She found the number she was looking for and dialed.

  “Stan?”

  “Yes, this is him.”

  “Hello. This is Natalie, the one who bought the Seeley place?”

  There was a pause on the line. “Yes, Natalie. What can I help you with?”

  “Stan, I was hoping you could tell me the names of the previous owners.”

  “I’m sure that Karen—”

  Natalie cut him off. “Please, Stan. You told me yourself how the gossip mill grinds.” At this point she was thinking that if Karen hadn’t been forthcoming before she bought the house, Natalie didn’t trust her to be now. “I just need a name. They did such a tremendous amount of renovation here; they must have come into your store a thousand times.”

  Another long pause had Natalie wondering if he hung up on her. Then she heard the rustle of papers.

  “Okay,” he said. “Beecher, Brad and Tina. That’s Beecher with two e’s.”

  “Thank you, Stan. I appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, well. Just don’t tell ’em where you got it.” His voice was gruff. “Later, Miss Natalie.”

  “Good-bye,” she said to the click.

  Her mother checked the listings and found a Beecher, B & T, in a town only thirty miles away. “It’s not a common name,” she said.

  Natalie agreed and keyed the address into the GPS on her phone. “Well, it’s a beautiful day for a drive up the coast.”

  Her mother smiled. “Isn’t it just?”

  *

  Natalie turned in her seat to look at her mother. “Should we have called?” It seemed like a good idea at the time to surprise the Beechers, but now that they were sitting in the driveway, she was having second thoughts. “Maybe they both work.” Natalie was always forgetting that not everyone worked from home.

  “Brand new subdivision,” her mother said. “Nice house. Not quite as big as the one they left behind, though.”

  Natalie was too nervous to look at the details. She wanted to get this over with. “Ready?”

  The front door opened before they reached it and a woman in her mid-fifties was looking out of the small gap.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Mrs. Beecher?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Natalie and this is my mother, Colleen.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to sell me something or make me come to Jesus?”

  There was no easy way to do this, so Natalie jumped right in. “I bought your house.” She watched a flicker of fear pass over Mrs. Beecher’s face. “We just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I’ve been almost expecting this.” She looked resigned as she opened the door wider. “The house was on the market for almost three years, so we were surprised when it sold. Come in then. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Beecher.”

  “Tina, please. I’m going to need something to drink. Sit
down; I’ll be right back.” She led them to a formal living room.

  “She’s pale and scared,” Natalie’s mother said in a low voice. “But she seems very pleasant.”

  “At least she didn’t shut the door in our face or pretend she didn’t know why we were here.” Natalie was relieved.

  Tina returned with three glasses of ice water on a small tray. “You might need it,” she said.

  Natalie’s mother took one. “Thank you, dear. Can you tell us about the house?”

  “How did you come to buy it?” Tina asked.

  Natalie smiled at the memory. “It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I had been visiting my friend Mary in Bayside. I was driving back up the coast when I saw the sign. I don’t know why exactly, but I turned and went straight up to the house. The realtor listed sent Karen up to let me in. I fell in love with the charming old house.” She sat back. “And you?”

  Tina smiled almost wistfully. “Oh, I did too. Fell in love with it at first sight. My husband was dead set against it. He said it was too much work. But I badgered him until he gave in. I wanted a project, you see. I had empty nest syndrome something awful and thought I needed a project.”

  “I can understand that,” Natalie’s mother said.

  “The house had been empty for years when we bought it, but the owners before us had replaced all the old plumbing and wiring. Some of the rooms were down to the studs. The kitchen was horrid.” Tina shuddered.

  “Did you ever talk with them?” Natalie asked.

  “No. It was all done through the agency. It was months later after living with the strange events for a while when we thought about asking them. We never did find them.” Tina sipped her water and continued.

  “It was just awful living in a construction zone.” She lowered her voice. “My husband isn’t very handy.”

  Natalie’s mother laughed. “I understand that as well.”

  “We hired a contractor for the big jobs. I had seriously underestimated the size of my little project. They make it look so easy on those decorating shows, don’t they? I had visions of painting and decorating to create a showpiece.”

  “The house is gorgeous. You did an amazing job with it.”

  Tina’s eyes filled. “It is, isn’t it?”

  She looked so sad, Natalie regretted to ask the next question. She cleared her throat. “You said that strange things happened?”

  Tina looked down at her hands. “It all sounds so crazy.”

  “It’s all right. We’re not here to judge you.”

  Tina studied their faces. “Okay. At first, there were strange noises. I could swear I heard someone walking in the hallway. My husband told me it was merely the sounds that old houses make. I didn’t make a great deal about it. He was quick to remind me that it was my choice to live there.” Tina paused. “I hated the basement, just hated it. Every time I went into it I felt I was being watched. It was a dreadful feeling.”

  Natalie thought she might not want to hear anymore. She really didn’t want to be scared in what was her house now.

  “Then the knocking in the walls started. Doors would open and shut at odd times. Brad never experienced any of it. He didn’t believe me.” Her eyes pleaded with them.

  “We believe you.” Natalie’s mother reached over and patted Tina’s arm.

  “The renovation took almost a year. While it was going on, Brad had explanations for everything. The workman must have done whatever it was that happened to frighten me at the time.” Tina waved her hand. “I would show him the articles I found online about hauntings and how renovations stirred up spirits and such.”

  “It pisses them off.”

  Tina looked at Natalie’s mother. “Thank you. He refused to believe anything that I showed him.”

  Natalie was beginning to develop a strong dislike for Brad. “That must have been frustrating for you.”

  “Oh, he’s not a bad man, my husband, just very practical. He sees everything in black and white. There are no gray areas for him.”

  Natalie couldn’t imagine what Tina must have felt. She grew up with a mystical mother and grandmother. No one had ever laughed at her, told her that her imagination was stupid or the boogeyman didn’t live under her bed. Her mother simply came in and kicked spirit ass with her prayers and crystals. She felt a surge of appreciation for her.

  “I thought I was losing my mind. I was the only one who heard things. I lived in terror in my own home and no one believed me.”

  “Did you have any dreams?” Natalie was curious to how Beth and Sarah fit into this story.

  Tina shivered slightly. “Yes. They started at the beginning of the second year we were there. I was always being chased by a large man wearing black. He was horrible. I was convinced he was the one haunting the house. He had this really evil laugh.” Tina mimicked the sound.

  Natalie’s hair rose on the back of her neck and she looked over at her mother. The dark man.

  “He would describe the evil things he would do to me if he ever caught me.” Tina’s face paled.

  Natalie sat forward. “Then what happened?”

  “My new psychiatrist put me on medication. That stopped the nightmares at least. I walked around doped up for the next several months.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Natalie’s mother said. “When did you decide to leave?”

  “Brad started to have dreams. He didn’t want to tell me at first, they were so bad. He started asking me questions about my experiences for the first time. He read the research I had done on the paranormal. Things started to escalate after that, but I was so grateful to know I wasn’t the only one experiencing it anymore. My husband had such a hard time accepting all of it. It shook the very foundations of everything he had been taught to believe.

  “On the last night we were there, he woke up from a nightmare.” Tina choked up a little but continued in a hoarse voice. “And he tried to strangle me.”

  “Omigod.” Natalie was shocked. She hadn’t expected to hear that.

  “He said he snapped out of it when my eyes turned glassy.” She held a hand to her throat. “My husband is a gentle man. In thirty years he never even raised a hand in anger. Anyway, he apologized and cried then told me to pack a bag. He didn’t have to tell me twice. At that point, we’d been there for about eighteen months. It was the worst experience of my life. I didn’t care that we were leaving, I was so relieved.

  “We threw a couple of suitcases together and I was waiting for Brad on the landing when I was pushed from behind. He said he saw the force of it as I was standing a good three feet from the stairs at the time. He raced to me at the bottom, picked me up in one swoop, and rushed me to the hospital.

  “We were scared to death. The emergency room doctor said I was lucky I didn’t break my neck. I came out of that hospital with two cracked ribs and a broken ankle and I considered myself lucky.”

  That did it. Natalie was scared now. “It sounds terrifying. I’m so sorry for dredging up such horrible memories.”

  “But you’ve had experiences yourself or you wouldn’t have found me, right?”

  “Your husband’s dreams?” Natalie’s mother reminded her gently.

  “He finally told me months later. He said he had very vivid dreams of beating me, punishing me. He couldn’t say for what, but that he knew he began to enjoy it. The sight of my blood turned him on. After the night he tried to kill me, he’d had enough. It was all real then. We only went back to pack, in broad daylight, and with a group of people.

  “We bought this brand new house and Brad never said a word to me about paying two mortgages for the last three years. We pretend it never happened on the surface. I’m sorry to tell you how ecstatic we were when it sold.” Tina looked down.

  Natalie tried to take it all in. The Beechers had a horrifying experience, but it didn’t resemble her own. “What about the women?”

  Tina looked genuinely puzzled. “What women? There’s only one. The dark man.”


  “You never smelled lavender or dreamt of Beth and Sarah?”

  “No.” Tina shook her head.

  Natalie didn’t want to go into the details. Tina had been through enough sharing her experience. Instead, she steered the conversation in another direction. “Did you do research on the Seeleys? Maybe to find out who the dark man was?”

  “I always meant to. You have to remember that I thought I was going crazy. I wasn’t looking for any specific information. After we left, I didn’t care. I wanted to erase that part of my life.” She looked contrite. “I never even thought about how I was passing the nightmare to someone else. I am so sorry.”

  Natalie thought that Tina looked a bit frail. She didn’t have it in her to say anything that would make her feel guilty. It wasn’t in her nature. Her heart only wanted to reassure Tina it was fine. She would let the Beechers close this chapter of their lives. “Well,” she said finally. “The good news is that I appear to have different ghosts.”

  “Good girl,” Natalie’s mother murmured.

  Natalie didn’t mention the dark man. She told her instead about the feminine energy in the house. The look of relief on Tina’s face told Natalie she’d done the right thing.

  Her mother, bless her heart, helped to put Tina at ease then they thanked her for her time.

  It wasn’t until they were nearly home that Natalie realized she hadn’t remembered to ask about the painting. She doubted Tina would have known about it. After all, Natalie watched it being created in her dream. She was curious as to where it was hiding all these years. It seemed she had more questions than answers than ever before.

  “Mom?”

  “I don’t know yet, sweetheart.”

  “I didn’t ask you anything yet.”

  Her mother smiled. “Yes, you did.”

  “Not out loud, I didn’t.”

  “I know.” Natalie’s mother looked out the window. “We have more research to do.”

  “To find Sarah and Beth?”

  “Yes and the dark man who controls the house. Let’s put it away for now, okay? Besides, don’t you have a date to get ready for?”