by Etta Faire
It was pitch black in the basement, despite the tiny window along the top of one of the walls. And it was freezing. I looked around for a light, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, willing warmth to my body. I coughed on some dust floating around in my beam of light.
I remembered there was a lightbulb hanging from the middle of the room somewhere, and I somehow got myself to move forward to look for it. Each step felt like it could be my last. The string overhead swept over my face and I screamed like I’d been stabbed in the head before realizing what it was. I pulled the light on, but my flashlight was actually better at illuminating the room.
The basement was entirely done in bricks, with strange archways that were oddly decorative for something so unfinished. Birds with stuff in their mouths adorned each archway, maybe a stick or a snake or a bone. I shined my flashlight against the back wall where a couple bookshelves had been stored, then I moved toward the old 1950s refrigerator in the corner that I was never, ever going to open.
I looked around for my dog, but there weren’t many places to hide here. A washing machine and dryer were off to the side, where Mrs. Harpton probably did my laundry twice a week. Bless her heart. If she hadn’t done it, my options would’ve been come down here and do it myself or go dirty. And we all know which option I would have chosen if cornered to do so.
“Rex?”
No one answered.
“Not funny, Jackson,” I said, like every other victim in a horror movie, right before they discover the mysterious noise was not, in fact, their friend playing a trick on them.
The lone rocking chair at the back of the room rocked back and forth even though no one was in it like it was taunting me. I almost bolted up the stairs, but I reminded myself I was a strong medium… who dealt with ghosts all the time. It probably wasn’t Rex down here, but whoever it was obviously had something to tell me, and I should take the time to listen.
“Hello. Who’s there?” I asked. “I am open to your message.” I rolled my eyes at my own cheesy words.
A chill passed through my shoulder, with almost slicing precision. And it didn’t feel friendly. I turned quickly with the intention to run back up the stairs and abandon whatever stupid impulse brought me down here in the first place but my legs wouldn’t move, despite the fact my brain was telling them to get going. I was frozen in my spot. I went to scream, but I also realized I couldn’t form sound. It was like sleep paralysis, only I was most definitely awake.
I heard barking at the top of the stairs. Rex. I tried to call for him, but couldn’t. He barked again and again, growling now, demanding I answer. And suddenly, my legs, which were still in the middle of trying to run, were given the freedom of movement again and the jolt of unexpected momentum sent me soaring forward awkwardly like a cartoon character. I tripped over my own feet, stumbling onto the concrete floor, hard. “Rex,” I said, able to talk now. “I’m down here, boy!” Pain shot up my leg and over to my back as I crawled to a standing position again, hobbling toward the sound of the barks, almost tripping over a book at my feet.
I picked it up, feeling years of grainy dust coating my fingers. Apparently Mrs. Harpton didn’t maintain the basement nearly as well as the rest of the house. A fact no one on Earth blamed her for. I quickly wiped off the dust and scanned the title.
A Crooked Mouse
Chapter 14
Collect Them All
It was one of the missing scrapbooks. I rushed up the stairs with it, fumbling and tripping onto the concrete stairs, which made my still-hurting leg hurt even more. Rex barked wildly the whole way like he was cheering me on now, and I practically launched myself at him. I hugged him tightly, thankful he was okay. I was okay. I quickly shut the basement entrance and locked it, vowing never to go in that creepy place ever again.
I ran back down the hall and over to the living room, practically throwing the scrapbook onto the coffee table before sitting down to examine my leg. Nothing seemed broken. I took one deep breath after another, trying to get my heart to calm down, already. I hadn’t died. I was safe. Crisis averted.
As soon as I calmed down, I opened the scrapbook, still puzzled over how I’d found it in the first place. Was that scary episode an indication of how the house was going to show me stuff? Because next time, I was going to politely decline.
But I had to admit, I was happy to have another scrapbook. My third one in what I was starting to call the “Crooked Collection.” I had a feeling the house was encouraging me to collect them all, like incredibly sad Happy Meal toys.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen once I had them all, but I kind of guessed that maybe I’d be able to lift the curse that had been plaguing Gate House and possibly other families in Landover County for generations. The scrapbooks seemed to go along with an old nursery rhyme:
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house
So far I’d found the ones titled: A Crooked Man, A Crooked Stile, and now A Crooked Mouse.
It was pretty obvious to me that Henry Bowman, Jackson’s great grandfather, had to be the crooked man. He’d built his fortune in New York off a chain of brothels, even putting the prostitutes’ unplanned children to work producing clothing and such for his business. I also guessed that the money he earned from that had to be the crooked sixpence in the rhyme. The crooked stiles were a little trickier. I guessed they were somehow this house. The manor had twists and turns, fireplaces without chimneys, and doors that went into walls. There seemed to be many crooked stiles that allowed spirits to come and go as they pleased but prevented living beings from following them. The stiles also could have been the deaths in Potter Grove that didn’t happen the way they were said to have, like their “stiles” leading into the afterlife were crooked.
And whatever was in this book was going to lead me to the crooked mouse. I had no idea what that meant, but I couldn’t wait to find out. Kind of.
After checking my watch, I realized I only had about half an hour before I had to leave for my three-hour shift at work, which seemed almost like a waste to drive all the way down there for that amount of time. But Justin was going to get off early so we could talk about our relationship after my shift. I didn’t want to end things like last time. We were both adults now. We should discuss whatever it was going on with our relationship together, maturely.
Every part of me wanted to fake sick and back out of dinner, though.
I turned to the first page of the scrapbook, my fingers still chalky with the dust from that room.
It was an 8 x 10 photo of Henry Bowman and his family. Henry was an easy man to recognize. He looked a lot like Theodore Roosevelt, same round glasses and bushy mustache. He was standing with his wife and their four children, each staring into the camera like they were afraid to blink or smile. Wide, blank stares.
Ethel was one of the three girls. I had no idea which one, though. They all looked pretty much the same, with height being their only difference.
Judging by the age of Earl, the youngest who I knew was born in 1900, I guessed the photo was from around 1903-ish. The children were all holding something. The three older girls, each in frilly white dresses and hair in curls, held toys in their hands: one had a teddy bear, one held a wooden bird, and the third girl had a stuffed lion-dog-looking thing in one hand and that creepy doll that looked like me in the other. I shuddered when I saw that one. The reason Jackson called me Carly doll. The doll that was still in the nursery upstairs.
But Earl, a toddler dressed in dark shorts and a dark sweater, was carrying something brown and furry. It was limp in his hand, drooping out of his fist in a furry, slumped mass.
One of the corners of the photo was folded over on its edge, and I could see there was writing underneath. Carefully, I pulled the tape off and turned the fragile photo o
ver.
“Christmas 1903. Earl killed a mouse for Papa” it said on the back. Earl was Jackson and Caleb’s shared grandfather. I put the photo back and moved on, wondering now just how disgustingly literal this scrapbook was going to be when it came to catching crooked mice.
Thankfully, the next page was a letter.
My Dearest Eliza,
I have made appropriate transportation arrangements following your release from jail. Gate House is near completion and I await your arrival with breathless anticipation. I do hope you won’t hold your predicament against me. You left me no other choice.
Yours Truly,
HB
Jail? Had Henry Bowman had her arrested? For what?
I skipped ahead, looking for answers. But there weren’t any more letters, only old black-and-white photos that looked like they were from the early 1900s or before.
Some of the pages had the word “Signs” at the top of them. Apparently, the first “sign” was a photo of a glass figurine bird, very similar to a photo in another scrapbook. Back of a woman’s head as she read through her notes next to the figurine.
Under that photo was one of a person wearing a dark cloak and an old plague mask, the kind that resembled a cross between a gas mask and a bird costume. Another picture in the “signs” pages was of bear skins, eyeless and haunting, staked along a fence, three of them. Another photo had a severed animal foot adorned in jewelry.
They were all very weird and I had no idea what any of them meant or what catching a crooked mouse had to do with them all.
I turned the page, unsure if the rest of these photos were still signs or not, and what signs they were even talking about. I stared at the last page, hoping the photos didn’t mean anything.
It was one of bones again, but they were laid out like a puzzle on the floor, similar to what they do in museums when they’re trying to recreate an animal’s skeleton. It was definitely a bird. I could tell by its long bendy arms and beak-like skeleton. But it must’ve been a hoax. A woman in a long black dress and stockings laid down next to the bones, her face obscured by her arm. The bird-bone puzzle was as tall as she was, and four times as thick.
Its caption said. “Last one. Never again.”
Most the rumors in Potter Grove were turning out to be true. Bear shapeshifters, growling birds that probably wanted to kill you… I guessed the shapeshifter wars I’d heard about were probably true too. Supposedly, the wars went on in Potter Grove between the birds and the bears a long time ago. Bears eventually won. But there seemed to be an underlying feeling that it wasn’t over yet.
After looking at my cell phone clock, I grabbed my keys and put out the timer-released dog bowl that I was only allowed to use on special occasions according to my house agreement. Hanging out with my boyfriend after work was a special occasion as far as I was concerned. Or at least I hoped it was going to be.
“See you tomorrow, Rex,” I said.
Chapter 15
Rotten Fruit
It smelled like someone had mixed a vat of wood varnish with some dirty diapers and rotting, fermenting tangerines. Apparently, Rosalie had given up on having customers, ever. I followed the odor into the back room of the Purple Pony. Chopped-up leaves, stems, roots, and flowers were strewn all over the floor along with some dirt and what looked like it could have been blood, but I decided it was best not to ask.
Rosalie looked up from the bowl she was mixing and smiled, caked-on dirt around her cheeks.
“I’m doing you a favor,” she said.
“Smells like it.”
“You’ll get used to that. It’s mostly just the one ingredient. Angelica root. I used a lot of it.” She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve and her lip curled. “Maybe too much. I found that recipe I was telling you about.”
She motioned to the long strands hanging off the book shelf on the far end of the room where mesh packets had been tied to long ribbons, dripping with something red, probably what I had originally thought was blood. And still wasn’t sure.
She rubbed her red-tinged hands together. “I’m making you little sachets to put in your pockets, too.”
“So I can smell like I’ve crapped my pants wherever I go… This favor is too kind.”
“Don’t be crazy. You want your privacy, right? I’ve finally found a recipe that will give you that.”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure you have.” I knew where she was going with this, even though there was no way I was going along. She’d been searching for a recipe to ward off ghosts from certain spots in my house, like the bathroom and my bedroom, places I wanted more privacy.
“I want privacy from ghosts. Not every living thing ever.”
She was still talking and didn’t hear me. “You should probably hang, oh I don’t know, maybe five to seven strands along the entrances to any room you and Justin want a little privacy in. So you don’t always have to go to his place.” She winked. “Use odd numbers and space them about a quarter inch apart, making sure they don’t touch.”
“I will be a very lonely girl if I put those things up at my house.”
“Precisely,” she said like I was saying something positive. “And when you don’t want spirits to travel with you, slip a few sachets in your pockets.”
I knew she was just trying to help me be normal.
“Thank you, Rosalie,” I said, kissing her on her cheek. “I will definitely try them out to see if they help my relationship.” I touched one of the dripping wet strands, and pulled back a smelly finger full of whatever the red stuff was. I wiped it on one of the rags on her desk. My eyes were starting to sting from the pungent fumes being produced in the back room. “If only we could open a window without freezing to death.”
“The smell’ll get better in a few days as they dry.” She continued stirring the plant goop in her bowl. Her eyes were red and watery too. “I probably shouldn’t have mixed this batch up in winter, huh? It’s a little much with the doors closed and the heat blaring.”
The wind chimes on the front door clanged indicating we had a customer and Rosalie and I both froze. It’d been so long we’d forgotten what to do when that happened.
Paula Henkel’s military-commanding voice yelled from the storeroom. “Ohmygod, she’s killed her. I knew this day would come. Hurry, Carly, I’ll help you hide the body.”
Rosalie’s eyebrows furrowed as she yelled back. “I know Paula Henkel did not just say that. She knows she’d be the first one Carly murders in my store. Isn’t that right, Carly?”
I didn’t answer and she lowered her voice. “Go see what she wants before I kill her myself.”
I pointed my red-tinged finger at her. “Be nice and no cussing. We’ve got to do business with that woman. And we need the money more than she does.”
We already negotiated and signed the paperwork days ago. Tickets had been printed. We were good to go. Still Paula Henkel’s face was pinched up and her thick arms folded as she leaned against the check-out counter.
“Rosalie’s working on a recipe for warding off ghosts,” I said when I saw her. I waved my hand in front of my nose, like that was doing something to alleviate the smell. “How’s the seance coming along?”
“I haven’t sold a single ticket. Not even one, and I know it cannot be my marketing. I have advertising up at all my usual spots: the library, the gym, the grocery, all over the place. I thought you said this boating-accident story would be a hit in this town.”
“I thought it would be.”
“I’m calling the seance off. We need to cut our losses. Just pay me half the print job on the tickets, and we’ll call it even.” She stuck her hand out like she expected me to open the cash register.
We both knew it was empty, or darn near it. “Let’s wait to see if things pick up. I’ll ask around. See what’s going on.”
Paula turned toward the door in a huff. “I should’ve known that’s what you’d say. I’m giving you two days. That’s it. If you don’t hear from me, consider the s
eance cancelled. I can’t even get the librarian to come for free. And that woman is desperate for freebies.”
“I’m sure it’ll pick up,” I said, trying to make my voice as reassuring as possible. But, honestly, I wasn’t even buying my fake optimism.
Justin’s apartment was small and beige, almost the complete opposite of my spacious Victorian with the different colored wallpaper in each room. My place also never smelled this good either, like some sort of basil and garlic sauce. A definite “million steps up” from the Purple Pony I’d just left.
The man could cook. He was gorgeous, and sweet, and I liked the crinkle around his eyes when he let himself smile naturally. He had everything going for him. I shouldn’t be pushing him away.
Why did I always push away the nice guys, and marry the Jacksons?
I rolled my linguine around my fork as we sat at the small table that took up most of his dining room, staring at each other.
He looked good tonight. He was wearing the light gray button-down shirt I loved on him because it showed off his broad shoulders. I wondered if he’d worn it on purpose. A man who wanted to break up probably wouldn’t wear the shirt he knew was my favorite, or at least I hoped he wouldn’t. I was wearing one of his favorites too, my skinny black jeans and soft blue sweater.
It was quiet at first with only the sound of the exhaust fan humming from the kitchen and our forks scraping along our plates. I took another bite of the shrimp scampi.
“I need this recipe,” I said, like I cooked. Sauce plopped along my lip from an unruly piece of linguine, and I quickly wiped it away with my finger, looking up to see if he noticed how messy I was.
He only stared at his plate. “You can take some home if you want. There’s plenty.”
“Thanks.” I hated just how acquaintance-sounding our conversation felt to me right now. I almost asked if he thought it was going to snow again tonight when, instead, I blurted out the obvious. “Are we breaking up?”
