‘I was just bringing it up when I ran into a snag. Did you know one of the trees came down last night?’
‘I didn’t hear it but yes, Bunty here just told me,’ Ava nodded.
‘I saw your car behind it,’ Killian nodded. ‘If you want to give me your keys Mrs McCarthy, I’ll bring it on up for you after I’ve arranged to clear the road.’
‘Thank you, Killian, so kind of you, and how is Hope?’ Bunty smiled, heaving up her swooning friend and dumping her on the cougar who was still eying up Kelley like he was her next meal. ‘Here Ivy, take Betty.’
She reached inside her purse and withdrew a small set of keys which she handed to Killian.
‘She’s doing fine, thank you Mrs McCarthy.’
‘What brought the tree down?’ Ava wondered out loud. ‘I didn’t see any lightning and I didn’t think the wind was strong enough.’
‘It wouldn’t have taken much,’ Killian shook his head. ‘I checked the tree and it was rotten the whole way through, it would have come down sooner or later. Anyway, I’ll call in a couple of the guys and have them help me clear the road.’
‘I’ll come and help you,’ Kelley answered quickly, as Ivy began to edge closer to him, still holding onto the semi-conscious Betty.
‘Coward,’ Ava whispered as he turned and shot her a disarming grin.
The strange little oddball group of women stood and watched for a moment as the two ridiculously good-looking men disappeared back through the trees.
‘Well then,’ Bunty turned to Ava, ‘let me introduce you to everyone. This is Ivy and Betty.’
Ivy had a light fine wave of hair artfully secured behind one ear with a small sparkly clip, the rest of it sat coiled over her bony shoulder in thin waves, so heavily sprayed with lacquer it moved in a giant clump whenever she shifted her head. Her lashes, which may not have been her own, were thick and black, over a layer of pale pink eyeshadow which propped up her penciled-on eyebrows like scaffolding. Her dress was the same sweet candy shade of pink and a riot of ruffles, which hurt to look at too long.
Betty had ceased swooning the minute the boys had disappeared and now stood unaided, clear eyed and assessing, as if she’d never been indisposed. She wore a no-nonsense maroon pant suit and sensible heels.
‘That over there is Barbara,’ she pointed to the woman in the peach twin set with the small gold cross, ‘then we have Esther.’
She pointed to a little woman with a sweet little cloud of pure white hair, and wrinkled skin.
‘Esther,’ Bunty said loudly, ‘SAY HELLO TO AVA.’
Esther glanced over at Bunty who was waving to get her attention.
‘No thank you dear,’ she replied in a soft voice, ‘it’s too early for dinner.’
‘She’s always forgetting to change the batteries in her hearing aids,’ Bunty rolled her eyes as she turned to the last woman in the group, ‘and this is Norma.’
Norma stood with knitting needles in her gnarled hands as she clicked away quietly. Her yarn bag had big hooped handles which were looped over her bony wrist. A winding trail of deep green yarn trailed from the bag to her needles where it was knotted and looped ruthlessly to become part of the long green shapeless ooze, which every so often she would tuck into her bag.
‘What’s she knitting?’ Ava asked curiously as she eyed the sickly green monstrosity.
‘A scarf,’ Bunty replied, ‘it’s all she can knit. She attempted a sweater once; it was so large you could fit two people in it.’
‘And that was just in the sleeves,’ Ivy laughed, though not unkindly. Instead she stared at her friend with honest amusement and affection, as opposed to the predatory smile she’d sent Kelley.
‘Well that’s everyone then,’ Bunty clapped her hands together. ‘Now you’ve officially met the Midnight Island Historical Society and ladies weekly luncheon club, you should join us. We’re always looking for new members, in fact you can take your grandmother’s place, God rest her soul. We do miss Hari something dreadful.’
‘I knew a Harry once,’ Ivy mused thoughtfully, ‘a sculptor he was,’ she winked at Ava. ‘Good with his hands.’
‘We meet Tuesdays and Thursdays,’ Betty informed her, ‘you should come to our luncheon this week. We’re having bouillabaisse, a bit fancy for my taste but it was Ivy’s turn to choose.’
‘Ah, maybe,’ Ava replied carefully.
‘We’re also the members of the Knitting and Crochet Guild, and the Apple Pie Society, but it gets slightly cumbersome to rattle off all of our titles,’ Barbara brushed an invisible speck of lint from her sleeve.
‘Barbara is our club secretary,’ Bunty told her helpfully.
‘Apple Pie Society?’ Ava replied.
‘We’re in charge of the yearly Apple Pie fair,’ Barbara nodded her head. ‘People come from all over to taste our pies. Lorna Pritchard has an orchard over on the west side of the island; it’s over a hundred years old, comes from her daddy’s side of the family. Of course, the name is a bit uncouth. I’ve always thought Pritchard’s Orchards doesn’t have very much panache for such an old esteemed orchard. I have suggested to her and her husband Richard on several occasions that they might want to change it. Of course, he’s lucky he didn’t have to take her name when they wed, I mean, can you imagine being married to someone named Richard Pritchard? Ridiculous.’
‘Be kind Barbara,’ Bunty admonished her.
‘She’s just sour because she never married,’ Ivy whispered. ‘When she dies it’s going to be a case of ‘return unopened’ if you know what I mean.’ She lifted a thinly penciled brow.
‘God has another plan for me,’ Barbara lifted her chin, ‘besides you never married either.’
‘That’s because I’m too much woman to limit myself to just one man,’ Ivy attempted to flick her hair, but merely succeeded in lifting it up in one great flap and plopping it back down in exactly the same position, right to the millimeter. Seriously, the woman needed to lay off the hairspray. Ava sincerely hoped Ivy didn’t smoke because she was most likely, extremely flammable.
Ava couldn’t help the smile threatening to tug at the corner of her lips as she listened to the chattering women.
‘Anyway dear, why don’t you show us where you’re staying. Seeing as our darling Hari is no longer with us, we feel a certain responsibility to make sure her only grandchild is well taken care of, so just think of us as your surrogate family.’
‘Uh huh,’ Ava’s eyes widened, not really sure what to say to the eccentric but well-meaning guild of old ladies.
Ava glanced around and noticed Bailey had stealthily slunk away. It seems she didn’t know how to take their sudden visitors any more than Ava did.
‘Come along then,’ Bunty took Ava’s arm and wrapped it companionably through her own as she began to steer her in the direction of the house. ‘Do you know, I haven’t been up here in years? The last time was with Hari.’
‘Was it really?’ Given no other choice Ava fell into step beside Bunty. ‘Did she come up here often?’
‘Not often,’ Bunty shook her head, ‘but occasionally. Sometimes she’d bring me for company, at other times she wanted to be left alone with her thoughts. She always felt a pull toward the house, something others couldn’t understand. To them it was just an old wreck used to frighten unruly children and over imaginative teens.’
‘Is there any truth to it?’ Ava asked as they ambled along, with Ivy and Barbara bickering behind them, followed by Esther who wandered along happy to just be with her friends, and Norma, who was so engrossed in her knitting that she was being herded by Betty so she didn’t accidentally collide with a tree.
‘Ah so you’ve heard some of the gossip then, have you?’ Bunty smiled.
‘I guess.’
‘It was only a matter of time I suppose. Let me guess? The rather handsome young Kelley Ryan?’
‘He thinks its haunted,’ Ava snorted.
‘Yes well, Kelley always fell into the over imaginative teen category
.’
‘What do you think?’ Ava asked curiously.
‘I think everyone who looks at the house sees what they want to see,’ Bunty replied. ‘Killian sees a sad old building in need of repair; Kelley sees a mysterious old house filled with restless spirits and secrets, and Hari…’
‘Yes?’ Ava asked, ‘what did she see?’
‘Hari,’ Bunty shook her head and sighed, ‘saw her family’s greatest shame. I think she loathed the house as much as she loved it. She was bound to the house, and it was a bondage that held her in its thrall until her last breath. She could never escape it.’
‘Why did no one ever live there?’ Ava glanced at Bunty. ‘Why did it sit empty for so long?’
‘It’s been empty ever since the great storm of 1919,’ Bunty answered. ‘After the disappearance of all those children, the house gained a reputation. Some believed it was haunted, some thought it was cursed, some figured it was just flat out plain bad luck. I’m afraid once the stigma stuck no one would touch it. It would be like trying to sell the hotel from the Shining.’
‘The Shining?’ Ava’s mouth quirked.
‘I’ve been known to indulge in the odd Stephen King, it’s my guilty pleasure,’ she whispered conspiratorially. ‘But don’t tell the ladies, it’s not on the approved reading list for the Midnight Book Club.’
‘You’re members of the book club too?’ Ava asked in amusement.
‘We are the book club,’ Bunty replied with a shrug, ‘we like to keep busy.’
‘So,’ Ava backtracked to Bunty’s earlier comment about the house, ‘some of the legend is true then? Those children did go missing?’
‘Great heavens, a wolf!’ Barbara exclaimed loudly as they stepped out from the trees in view of her little campsite, where Bailey was laid out in the sun on a sparse patch of grass.
‘That’s Bailey,’ Ava introduced her to the assembly of startled women. ‘She’s my dog but don’t worry she won’t hurt you.’
‘It’s huge!’ Betty blinked, still holding onto Norma and her bottomless knitting bag.
‘She’s part Sasquatch,’ Ava replied dryly.
‘Is this where you’re staying?’ Bunty glanced around in disapproval, noting the small scruffy tent next to the brand-new truck, both of which were behind a crude firepit. ‘Oh no, no, no, no, this simply won’t do at all. Pack your things young lady, you’ll stay with me for a while until you get on your feet.’
‘I am on my feet,’ Ava replied as she disentangled herself from Bunty’s arm and headed over to the firepit which was currently devoid of anything but ash from the night before.
Ava took a seat on the log as Bailey loped over to her and pressed her face into her lap waiting to be stroked.
‘You can’t honestly think that living like a… a hobo is preferable to staying with a friend or even at the local guest house,’ Bunty frowned. ‘If it’s a question of money...’
‘It’s not,’ Ava shook her head. ‘It’s kind of you to offer Bunty but I have money, I just don’t want to stay anywhere else. This is where I want to be.’
The moment the words left her mouth she realized they were true.
‘Well it certainly is a heck of a view,’ Ivy turned to look out across the brilliant, glittering sea.
‘I can’t imagine why on earth you’d want to stay here,’ Betty settled herself on one of the log seats. She glanced up at the house looming over them and shuddered, ‘especially on your own, with everything that’s happened there. It’s not just haunted you know,’ she whispered, ‘it’s cursed.’
‘Now, now, Betty,’ Bunty admonished with a cluck of her tongue, ‘it’s nothing of the sort. Kindly remember we are the historical society not the literary society. We deal in documented historical fact not flights of fantasy.’
Betty harrumphed slightly, her lips pursed, as she tucked her hands neatly in her lap.
Ava watched as one by one the ladies seated themselves around the cold firepit.
‘Why would you think its cursed?’ Ava asked curiously. ‘I mean, I’ve heard the stories about it being haunted…’
‘Don’t encourage her Ava,’ Bunty frowned.
‘Oh, hush up Bunty,’ Betty waggled her finger at the other woman, ‘you can be such a stick in the mud sometimes. The girl asked a question and if she’s brave enough to camp out here on her own she’s brave enough to hear the answer.’
Bunty sighed loudly and rolled her eyes heavenward.
‘It was the curse of the Lynch family,’ she began, her voice more suited to the firelight at midnight, rather than a cold dead firepit in the middle of a bright sunny morning. ‘It all began with Ephraim Lynch, the patriarch of the Lynch family back in the mid-19th century. He bought the house from a well-known Boston architect.’
‘No, no, no,’ Barbara interrupted, ‘you’re telling it all wrong. He didn’t buy it from the architect, he bought it from his son.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Betty huffed, ‘tomato tomahto, the fact is the previous owner sold it to Ephraim Lynch. At first the SON,’ she looked over at Barbara pointedly, ‘of the architect who built the place didn’t want to sell, but Ephraim had his mind set and would not be swayed. By all accounts he was a very hard man. If he set his mind to something none dared stand in his way.’
‘I heard the son had gambling debts,’ Ivy added.
‘Get on with it,’ Barbara made a speeding up motion with her hand.
‘I’m getting to it,’ Betty replied indignantly, ‘if you would all just stop interrupting.’
‘Married the maid he did,’ Norma suddenly piped up as she pulled her long green anaconda of a scarf from her bag and held it up against Ava’s body, as if she were measuring it. ‘Such a scandal.’
‘It wasn’t the maid,’ Bunty finally intervened. ‘She was a local girl from a well to do family, but she was only sixteen when she married Ephraim, who was by that time forty-three.’
‘Ew,’ Ava murmured.
‘It wasn’t unheard of to marry that young back then. I mean, this would have been,’ Bunty shook her head, gazing skyward as she cast her mind back, ‘1867? Or thereabouts.’
‘It is kinda gross though,’ Ava frowned. ‘I mean, I know some young women like their sugar daddies, but sixteen seems really young. Why would her parents allow it?’
‘I imagine they would have insisted.’
‘Why would they…’ Ava’s voice trailed off as her nose wrinkled. ‘Oh, double ew.’
‘Poor child,’ Bunty shook her head, ‘shotgun wedding at sixteen and she was dead within half a year.’
‘Dead?’ Ava’s brows rose.
‘A seven-month baby and died in childbirth. He was too big for her small body; she bled to death.’
‘God rest her soul,’ Norma murmured as the click clack of her knitting needles resumed.
‘Do you mind,’ Betty replied primly, ‘I’m telling this story.’
‘Go ahead then,’ Bunty flipped her hand.
‘Thank you,’ Betty replied. ‘Now, where was I? Ah yes, the babe, well poor girl died in childbirth, but the boy survived, Ephraim’s son whom he named Edison. Now, he also has an unfortunate story. He grew up alone in the house with only his father and a constant stream of wet nurses and maids, for curiously none of them ever stayed long. When he was in his twenties Edison married. He and his bride left Midnight the very night of the wedding. She did not even spend one night under the roof of her new father in law, instead they left the island and headed to New York. They had not been there long when Edison was involved in a terrible automobile accident, this would have been in eighteen ninety…… three?’
‘Two,’ Bunty corrected.
‘1892,’ Betty nodded shooting Bunty a look. ‘He survived, barely, but he was paralyzed. With no income and no means of supporting themselves they had no choice but to return to Midnight Island and to his father’s house. The following year Edison’s wife Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, Luella.’
‘But how?’ Av
a frowned. ‘If he was paralyzed, surely he wouldn’t be able to…’
Ava broke off as Betty’s brows rose and she gave her a very pointed look.
‘You’re not actually suggesting that…’
‘The child was not Edison’s daughter but half-sister? That his wife was impregnated by her father in law?’ Betty replied. ‘There’s no proof of course, there was some local gossip, talk of an affair, but the records show that Eleanor became pregnant several times in the following years as her husband’s health deteriorated. There were four stillbirths, before she gave birth to a son, Edmund, in 1899, six years younger than his sister Luella. Her husband Edison died in Dec 1898 a full seven months before the boy was born. It was reported that Edison had taken a turn for the worse in October of that year, as the weather worsened so did his condition. He simply would have been too frail, too ill to impregnate his wife.’
Ava shook her head slowly as she tried to process what she was being told. Glancing up, she met Bunty’s eyes. The older woman quickly looked away, her cheeks pinching, and her lips pressed together in a tight line. She was holding something back, of that Ava was certain. Bunty McCarthy knew far more than she was letting on to the other women of the historical society and Ava was determined to find out what it was.
‘I heard that the little boy, Edmund is it? died. I was told he drowned in his bath and that it was Luella who killed him.’
‘Stuff of nonsense,’ Bunty sniffed. ‘The boy did drown, but it was nothing more than an accident. Luella was never accused of killing her brother. That’s just juvenile islander gossip.’
‘She was never committed to an asylum then?’ Ava asked.
‘No,’ Bunty shook her head. ‘She did run away from home though, was gone for a good few years.’
‘Why did she come back then?’ Ava leaned further forward. ‘I thought she turned the house into a school.’
‘She did,’ Bunty replied. ‘Her mother, all alone in the house, suffered a stroke. Unable to care for herself, Luella returned to the island only to find all the family’s money was gone, depleted over the years since Ephraim Lynch’s death in 1902. They were flat broke. Luella opened the house as a school. At first it was only attended by the children on the island, then gradually she expanded it and many children came from the mainland and boarded at the house as it generated more income. After a while Luella employed a young teacher from Boston by the name of Jonathan Sedgewick. He boarded at the Morgan guest house for a time as it would not have been proper for him to live under the same roof as Luella, who was unmarried.’
The Clockwork House Page 10
