Now Entering Silver Hollow

by Anne L. Hogue-Boucher

  This is the thought that keeps me awake at night. Maybe I should go back to the hospital and get this sorted out because these things aren’t real.

  They just feel real.

  I may argue with myself forever as to what I’ve experienced. Bryce is my companion, my lover, and my best friend. Why would I doubt that? Just because of a terrible hallucination?

  Although, every once in a while, I look over at Bryce when he isn’t aware I am looking. I see that gleam in his eyes that looks like a caricature of himself, and sporting a foolish, wide grin.

  -K.

  BEFORE THE BEGINNING

  “Constance? Connie? Wake up, love. Please. Please wake up.”

  But she didn’t stir. Her husband took a step closer to the bed. “Connie?”

  Walker reached out and touched her face—sometimes his wife slept so hard that he had to caress her to wake her—but he recoiled. Icy as the winter morning. Walker cried out and bit into his hand. “This can’t—no. Connie. Connie, please wake up!”

  The room spun out from his feet and Walker fell backward, putting a hand behind himself to gain ground. No ground to gain. A snap of old kindling rang out as pain shot up his arm, wrist breaking. The man howled.

  Outside, scarlet dotted the blanket of fresh snow, leading to a bright red cardinal on the ground, wings fluttering, then stopping. Walker held onto his wrist and looked around, trying to decide where to go. Platt? No help there, not after the incident happened with Ella. What would he say? That the house killed his wife, and that it would kill him, too? The townspeople would think he’d gone mad, as Ella had.

  The neighboring house was empty. No one dared live in it after Ella’s incident. That left the meeting hall and church, and the Preacher. Walker shook his head at the idea of getting any help from a charlatan and cultist. Walker rejected the myths of Alastor or the Timeworn.

  His eyes roved over the broken bird. There was nowhere to go. No one would believe him and the ones who did would say that he was cursed or tainted, and they would kill him.

  Walker ran back into the house.

  Thoughts raced through his head. Bury Constance in the cellar, if he dared to go there again, and say she wandered into the woods on a walk. He’d have to create tracks in the snow. Her shoes. Yes, he’d use a good pair of shoes, stamp out a trail and then—the ravine was a long drop. If she were to slip—

  “I didn’t kill her,” Walker said to the house. “You killed her. You did and you know it.”

  The reply was a groan of creaking boards and rats scurrying in the walls. Walker slammed his good fist into it, sending throbbing pain into his knuckles as the wall remain unmoved.

  Before he could bury her, he had to set his broken wrist.

  The arm throbbed with each step back up the stairs, jarring his body with bolts of lightning. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead yet the chill gripped him with greater force.

  As he opened the door, Walker refused to look at the bed where Constance slept, focused instead on the nurse’s kit she carried with her wherever she went. In the small township of Silver Hollow, she was the only person with any medical knowledge.

  Walker set the broken wrist on his left hand with a sickening crack. His stomach rolled, and he vomited, nearly missing the chamber pot with his yellow, watery bile. The room began spinning again, and he rolled forward, away from the chamber pot, head between his knees.

  Was he hearing chanting?

  Chants, in a chorus of whispered, distant voices. Walker closed his eyes and tried to focus on it. No, it couldn’t be a chant—just the rats in the walls, or a family of squirrels nesting for the winter.

  It isn’t otherworldly. It isn’t. It isn’t.

  The paper he’d written on blew off his desk in a strong gust of wind and landed at his feet.

  ***

  One month before, the crisis with Ella met its twenty-year anniversary. Back then, the first whispers of a mustache began to etch out their fuzzy lines on his face. How his Union Army friends teased him (how old are you again?). Now the facial hair was thicker and better trimmed. Today, especially. He dressed in his military uniform and his brass jingled with each step on the freezing ground.

  The yellowing grass would give way to the whitewash of winter and the gray sky would continue to be as pale and wan as ever. Just as immovable as the headstones in the cemetery that appeared to grow larger as he walked.

  The only things with vibrancy at the moment were the chrysanthemum bouquets he carried in his hand. The red, pink, and gold blooms from his greenhouse gave off peppery scents and clung to his uniform from clutching them so close.

  Kneeling, Walker placed them on the graves of Ella’s children. She was not buried with them. Forbidden from the cemetery, her body burned in a bonfire after they hanged her.

  He hadn’t been there. Three-years married to Connie by then, Walker helped put the Western Territory back together after the war had come to an end. When he returned to find that Miss Ella had been possessed by madness and her children suffered for it, he wept for them. Despite frequent tries, he and Connie never bore any offspring by blood, and he cared for children who’d been abandoned by war. The two of them took three home—ages eight to twelve—treating them as his own blood. Raised them to adulthood. When they reached eighteen, they left to seek their fortunes either in the Southern Territory, in Grace City, or by venturing back westward.

  Something soft landed on his shoulder. A dainty hand. Walker looked up to see Constance standing behind him, a small smile on her face. “Are you well, husband?”

  The man rose to his feet once more. Though he would hardly refer to himself as old, there were runners of gray in his mustache, and his joints made creaking noises when he stood.

  Walker picked up her small, gloved hand and kissed it. “Yes I am. This place isn’t, but I’m well.”

  Constance nodded. “They don’t want to remember, Walker. Too much pain.”

  “Bully for them. They should have done something to prevent it.” He grimaced.

  “What would you do if you’d been there? Stuck your nose in Ella’s business? You were a bold young man, Colonel Dubbs, but not so nosy.” Her tone remained light and chiding, and her gentle expression softened the cutting truth of her words.

  “Yes, yes.” Walker waved his free hand at her. “All well and good to say what I would do because of my absence, engaging in hypotheticals. But I’d like to think I’d have tried to help take care of the family.”

  Connie nodded. “I know you would, but she might not have let you.”

  “This is so.”

  She took his arm. “Let’s head home and I’ll fix you midday meal.”

  For the past seventeen years, the Dubbs House had seen many changes. They opened it as a hospital for the sick and indigent once his children left. It had remained that way for five years. Once the crisis passed, they turned it back into their home. In the last two years, it was too quiet. Too empty.

  The house itself was built over some kind of mass grave that no one ever talked about, and he never knew what it was. Probably a crematorium. Walker always dismissed the mass grave talk as superstitious nonsense that made no more sense than the Timeworn Order or Saint Alastor. Patients told stories to Constance and sometimes to Walker, but they were sick people and dismissed the stories just as easily as the feverish hallucinations of the infirm.

  “If there were hauntings,” Walker said, “we’d have seen them ourselves by now.” Every time someone brought it up, he replied with his pat answer.

  “Maybe we refuse to see,” Constance winked at him. “And that’s why it never bothers with us.”

  His wife made a barley soup with rabbit for lunch. They ate in the kitchen nook. There were only the two of them in the house. With the dining area a reminder of no more children, a lifetime of quiet meals with clattering utensils against china, it made sense to eat in the smaller space.

  On his third bowl,
Walker sat back and sighed. “That soup is probably your best yet.”

  “You say that every time.” Constance laughed.

  “I mean it every time.” He stood and helped her clear the table and wash up after. The cultist men didn’t do such things, but Walker Jeremiah Dubbs was not a cultist.

  There were times, ever since Walker had the house built, that people would report strange things. One builder went mad, ran into the woods, and killed two children playing by the stream. They strung him up for it, despite his screams that he wasn’t responsible—that he was being controlled. There were other times there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  “The house slept,” Walker said as he helped Connie put the dried dishes back in the cupboards.

  “Tell me, how does a house sleep?” Connie smirked at him.

  “It doesn’t. But I was just remembering something I read by that spiritualist. Can’t recall his name, but he wrote that book on hauntings.” Walker scratched his head. “Gerald—something or other. Remember?”

  Connie nodded. “Gerald Faber.”

  “Faber, that’s the one,” Walker snapped his fingers when Connie refreshed his memory. “Well, he went on with nonsense about how haunted houses had periods of time where there was no activity. He said it was due to the energy going to sleep. Then he started on about how the cultists say spirits that sleep in the winter and are active in summer—as if it were true.” Walker laughed. “So I thought that since you and I never see these inexplicable effects, the house must be asleep when it’s just us.”

  Connie joined in on the joke. “Must be. Our spirits here must not read, because they’re active any time of year, and they go wild in winter sometimes.”

  They laughed together and Walker went over to her, picked her up in his arms, and kissed her, feeling the soft sleeves of her dress brush against his neck.

  When they parted, he looked into her eyes. “How about heading upstairs and trying to wake those spirits from their slumber with some racket?”

  Connie nodded, face pink and growing redder as she pressed her lips to his.

  ***

  Constance woke from her afternoon nap to the sounds of Walker’s light breathing that was edging on a snore. Lighting the hurricane lamp made it totter and clang against the table, enough noise to make her eyes go wide as she glanced back at her husband. He was still asleep, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  The house was dark—the sun passed from the east side to the west, and Constance checked Walker’s pocket watch. Time for supper.

  She got dressed favoring a sheer dressing gown. With the two of them alone, Constance preferred a comfortable manner of dress. She admired her figure in the mirror—still slender, but not too slim. The curve of the belly was rounder than it used to be—a little bump under the navel, but she didn’t mind. Walker never mentioned it.

  The gossamer gown’s sleeves were too long to be practical for cooking, so she flattened and folded them against her arms and rolled the sleeves past her elbows. Aunt Beatrice caught fire when her sleeve caught in the woodstove, and Constance would never forget the odor of her charred flesh. Or the sounds of her screams as she fell to the ground. Or the sight of her father, mother, and Uncle Archippus surrounding her with blankets to put her out.

  Scarred beyond recognition for the rest of her life, her hair never grew back for all the thick webbing of scars on her head. It scared forty-three-year-old Connie now as much as it scared nine-year-old Connie when it happened. After she saw the surgeons and enlightened ones save Beatrice and fight the infection, her career path as a nurse solidified.

  Walker came to the kitchen to help with dinner a few moments later.

  “You look a bit peaked,” Constance frowned when she turned from the stove and saw him. That had been an understatement. He looked pale and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  “Terrible dream. Just terrible. Can’t seem to shake it.” He stopped cutting carrots and wiped sweat from his brow.

  “As though it made you sick.” Constance put her hand to his forehead. “No fever. Must have shaken your nerves.”

  Walker cleared his throat. “It did. Surely did.”

  “Chase it away,” Constance took his arm and made him sit at the table. “Tell me and chase it away.”

  “It was about the children. Ella’s children. Except—” Walker ran a hand through his hair and patted it back into place. “Except I was doing everything through Ella’s body, and then it was you. You were on the floor and I was cutting into you and I—”

  “You liked it in the same way you like to lie with me.” Constance set the rest of the rabbit stew on the stove to warm and added the extra carrots. She sat with him and took both his hands in hers.

  “I did.” Walker’s face flushed with red and he looked at the floor. Connie still held onto him.

  “And now you’re awake, feeling guilty for your mind’s wanderings.”

  “Yes.” Walker’s color had come back thanks to the flood of blood to his cheeks. He wasn’t sweating any longer.

  “Well, don’t.” Constance gave his hands a squeeze. “Everyone has dreams that test our primal nature, to be sure. Especially men who have seen war and done their killing face-to-face. I saw my share of the destruction out west, and tended to the wounded. I recall what you had to do.”

  Walker nodded, then sighed. “I won’t indulge such dreams.”

  “I know you won’t. Blame the war, or even the spirits if you want—it’s of no consequence, Walker. All they are, and all they’ll ever be, are dreams.” She stood up and went to the stove to stir up the leftover stew. “Are you ready to eat?”

  “I am now.” Walker stood and helped set the table.

  After dinner and cleaning up, Constance joined Walker in the den. He was building a fire when she sat on the settee with her knitting project. The settee made a soft creaking sound as Walker joined her.

  “What’s your new project?” Constance asked. Hers was obvious now—she was working on an Aran to mail to their youngest.

  “Simple scarves for the children. I’ve ordered watches from Southerlyn’s of Grace City for them. Hope they deliver on time.” He cleared his throat and held out the beginnings of a burgundy scarf. “Will Jeanie like this? The thickness, I mean—not too wide?”

  Connie eyed the craft and shook her head. “No, it’s fine. And that’s her favorite color. But make sure you make it long. She’s a tall girl.”

  Walker nodded and went back to it. They chatted about the children and he shed the last vestiges of the nightmare he had that afternoon. By the time the fire dwindled to a few embers glowing and fizzling, he was ready to take to the bedroom once more.

  Constance went to the bathroom to settle in for a hot bath before bed. As the tub filled with running water, steam billowing off the faucet, she turned to the sink and put oil on her skin. The fragrance of roses, lavender, and jasmine perfumed the air, and Constance sighed, grateful for the indoor plumbing.

  Lately, she had not slept well, and when Walker inquired, she blamed it on aging. But the heat inside her, her increased desires, and the reduction of her cycle marked a bigger change for her to come, and soon. The only thing that could lull her into sleep at night was a hot bath and the scents of her oils. Occasionally, she paid for it by waking up drenched in sweat, heart racing, but an open window at night, even in winter, eased things for her.

  Recently, Connie compromised by opening the bathroom window while she bathed. It helped her stay relaxed and not get overheated though Walker had scolded her for doing so. “You’ll catch a chill and get sick from it.”

  “I refute the idea that cold air causes illness,” Constance said. Walker quieted.

  With the window open, the water in the tub cooled off enough not to scald her when she entered. Just in time to put oils on her face to keep the folds of time at bay.

  An unfamiliar aroma hit her nose while Constance had her eyes covered. She didn’
t know it, but it was pleasant. Fruity. She looked around, searching for the scent.

  A squeak escaped her lips as she saw a woman in her bath, nude, and staring at her with a mirrored open-mouthed gaze. She reached out to the other woman, trying to speak, but no sound came out.

  “What are you doing?” The woman with the scandalized expression asked, voice shrill and sharp.

  Constance stepped back to bolt for the door. She started to say something, but then the lady in her tub vanished.

  All that was left was a bathtub filled with clean water.

  “Walker?” Constance felt a surge of dizziness and sat hard on the floor, putting her head between her knees. Had she called for him loudly enough?

  The footfalls in the hallway relieved her. Walker threw open the door. “Connie? What’s wrong?” He knelt with her, trying to get a look at her face. She looked up and reached out for him. Walker took her hand and put his other hand on her back, rubbing it.

  Connie’s tears slid down her cheeks and stained her dressing gown. “I saw something. Insane—I might be going insane.”

  Walker frowned, brows knitting to form an owl-like ‘v.’ “Tell me what happened.”

  Connie explained it and Walker sat on the floor with her, paying no attention to the cold seeping into his robe. He shook his head. “I don’t understand it, but I trust you—something happened here.”

  “But it couldn’t be real, Walker. Spirits don’t exist.”

  “No. You’re right. Not spirits. Perhaps something scientific we don’t yet understand.” He stood and went to the tub, putting his hand in the water. “It’s still warm. Do you want to take your bath?”

  Constance shook her head. “Is it terrible that I don’t?”

  Walker chuckled. “Not at all. Would it help if I stayed?”

  She nodded, and he helped her stand on shaking legs, leading her into the tub. He pulled up the chaise and sat with her, then scrubbed her back. Drips and splashes of water echoed off the porcelain.