Griffith Tavern (Taryn's Camera Book 2)

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  She didn’t notice any of this.

  Angry at herself even more now for not taking the nice man, Jamie, up on his offer and fed up with being so broke, she painted on.

  Finally, when the sun started sliding in behind the clouds and she realized she’d need more linseed oil to continue, she stopped. Her canvas stared back at her, a quarter of the way completed. The real tavern waited in expectation, anticipating her next move.

  Her energy had vanished, though, and she was drained. It was looking like rain, too. She couldn’t do anymore today.

  After loading the car with the canvas and paints before it came a downpour, she grabbed Miss Dixie and began walking around the tavern. She was finished painting, but she wasn’t finished with her day. There were still things she wanted to do, needed to do. She might work on the painting back in her room and she could use more images.

  The clicking of the camera was comforting to her and as soothing as any tonic or pills she’d ever taken. She aimed Miss Dixie at the windows, the porch, the field in the back (which used to be full of trees, she was told), and the piles of bricks that had once belonged on the building but were now laying in heaps around the yard. She’d taken more than fifty pictures before she realized it and the first few drops of rain had her scurrying back to the car.

  The tavern faded into the gray sheet of rain behind her, forlorn and unmoving. Its windows were its eyes, however, and even without looking back she could feel them on her as the muddy water from the puddles sloshed against the side of the car.

  Taryn could see the image from across the room. She’d put her memory card in her laptop and stepped into the bathroom while they were uploading. When she returned, the picture that glimmered at her had her taking a step back and slamming her shoulder into the wall behind her. Even ten feet away, it called to her and grabbed. She could feel the room start to spin, her vision growing fuzzy, the blood rushing and pounding in her head. She steadied herself on the bathroom doorframe, sure she’d pass out, and yet she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  It was the last one she’d taken, a shot of the back of the tavern. You could clearly see the gaping hole in the roof, the fragmented glass hanging on in the windows, and the poison ivy imposing itself on the brick. All of that was expected. But what looked at her wasn’t.

  “Oh geeze,” Taryn moaned, sinking to her feet.

  Standing in the dusty, grimy glass on the second floor, was a well-defined figure of a woman. It wasn’t a trick of the light, double exposure, or any other normal photo justification. From her distance Taryn could still make out her dark hair, upturned nose, deep russet dress, and pale fingers pressing on the remainder of the glass. She knew the face as well; it was the same one reflected back at her in the mirror of her dream.

  The woman, Permelia she reckoned, gazed out with sunken eyes and a frown. Her hair was groomed, her dress form-fitting and fashionable. Still, there was a look of desperation about her that made her appear on edge, frazzled–as though she might break at any moment. Her stance and the way she seemed to be pushing on the glass gave the appearance of someone who was trapped, someone who was shut off from the outside world and wanted desperately to be a part of it again.

  And she was looking right at Taryn, although she hadn’t felt a thing when she was taking the picture. Her dark eyes bore into the camera, through the lens, and straight into Taryn. The idea of being watched, observed, without her knowledge made her shake. How often were these presences aware of us, she wondered, while we had no idea they were even there?

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Taryn tried to get it together. She couldn’t concentrate with Permelia’s image staring at her look that. She felt exposed. Was there nowhere she could go to get away from this? She actually kind of liked the idea of having a link to the past she loved, but this time it was going a little far: she’d dreamed about Permelia, felt a presence in her room, and now she was watching her.

  Why her? Why Taryn? Had she done something, said something, thought something that encouraged this? Was she doing something wrong or very right?

  Could she really go through this again?

  Chapter 6

  She must want something, right?” Taryn paced back and forth, the room growing smaller by the minute. “I’m seeing this for a reason. Aren’t I?”

  “I would think so,” Matt answered carefully.

  “Shit.”

  “And nothing’s happened since Kentucky? Nothing at all?”

  “Not a damn thing,” she replied.

  They were both quiet, contemplative. Taryn stopped pacing and looked at her bed. It had been made but was now rumpled from where she’d stretched out on it. Suddenly, she felt lonely. She didn’t know why, but she had the craziest urge to hug Matt. Not just a quick one, either, but a long one. A snuggle, really. At this moment she just wanted to find a cozy couch where the two of them could sit down together so she could bury her head in his chest and close for eyes for awhile.

  “Matt?”

  “Yep?”

  “Never mind,” she sighed. What was the point? If she asked him to fly up now, he would. But just because she was lonely and feeling out of sorts didn’t mean he should disrupt his life and enter her chaos.

  “You should go back, try to take more pictures. But be careful,” he cautioned. “I can research the area, see if there’s any shops where you might pick up some supplies.”

  “I feel safe enough,” she replied honestly. And she did. “I don’t know that sage and a wand are going to help me because I don’t think she wants to hurt me. Or that anyone does.”

  Not this time, neither one of them had to say.

  “If you need me, I’ll come up there,” Matt asserted with surprising sternness. “I have vacation time.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. The last time you took a vacation was two years ago.”

  “I can get someone to cover me here.”

  Taryn grinned at the thought. Matt hated to leave his office. Being away made him nervous, as he was sure the whole place would fall apart without him. “I’m okay. You don’t have to come up here. But maybe when this job is over I’ll come down there for a little bit.”

  “That’s a good idea! I’ve been meaning to try out some new restaurants and, well, I don’t mind eating out by myself and I do it a lot but for the first time there I always like to have someone with me. And then there’s the lighthouse they just got restored, you’ll like it a lot, and the pavilion at the beach has live music every weekend until the end of October–“

  She let Matt continue making his plans while she laid back on the bed, tired. Matt loved playing tour guide when she was there, and most of the time she enjoyed it, but at the moment the thought making her the most excited was crawling into the bed in his guestroom, shutting the black-out curtains, and falling asleep under the hum of his window unit air conditioner. She thought if she could do that, she might just sleep for a week.

  “I’ll let you know when this job wraps up,” she promised before she hung up. Of course, she had no idea where the money would come from to go down there but something usually came up. She’d drive if she had to and just pull over and nap at rest areas. She’d done that before.

  Daniel sat in the grass at Taryn’s feet, his long legs stretched out. Today he was wearing shorts that showed off his muscular, but ashen, legs. He had a long look on his normally cheerful face as he fiddled with a blade of grass and twirled it around. Taryn felt sorry for him.

  “So they didn’t give you a reason at all?” She hoped she sounded compassionate and disappointed for him. The truth was, though, she wasn’t too surprised. Grants of the caliber they were applying for had a lot of competition.

  “Not a thing,” he mumbled. “Just a standard form letter.”

  “I’m sorry, Daniel.” This she said with conviction, because she was sorry. “Surely there’s something else…”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he shrugged. “If we had more time to look. But we don’t. No way we’re going
to find the money in a couple of weeks. I think we just have to face the fact it’s going to be bought, torn down, and nobody even cares.”

  Taryn knew when it was time to work and time to talk and Daniel obviously needed to talk. Although she’d been making steady progress all afternoon, she laid down her brush and knelt on the ground next to him.

  “I care. And, you know, others will. They may not know it before it’s too late, but they’ll remember it and talk about it.”

  “It’s not the same though,” he sighed. “The building will be gone.”

  “I know what you mean. In my job, I fall in love with a new place almost every day. Well, it feels like it anyway,” she smiled. “Unfortunately, most of them get demolished. It breaks my heart every time. I’ve tried to learn new ways of coping with it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

  “I think there’s something special about the tavern,” Daniel stated. “I know you see a lot of these things and it might just look like another old building, but it feels like there’s something here. I can’t put my finger on it. I just feel drawn to it. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes I feel like maybe I was there in another life or something. I believe in that stuff.”

  Taryn came close to telling him about the pictures she’d taken the day before. She had a hunch he’d appreciate them and they might improve his afternoon. But she wasn’t ready yet. The only people who’d seen them was Matt and Rob, the owner of New Age Gifts and More in Lexington. She didn’t know if she could show to them anyone else at the moment. They were for her, of that she was sure, and she didn’t know what the “rules” were for sharing them.

  “Oh, I’m very interested in it, too. I was just reading about the history of it. It’s pretty fascinating. I didn’t know much about the stagecoach stations until I got here,” she said instead.

  “Not too much written about this one, but I’ve talked to some of the older people here in town and recorded them for an oral history project. Some of them still remember when it was a tavern. Not the original one, of course, but they still remember. And others remember their grandparents talking about it. Kind of unusual to have a woman running it all those years,” he added.

  “Permelia,” Taryn affirmed, remembering the shadowy figure in her pictures. “She must have done a good job to keep it going.”

  “I have a little bit of a crush on her,” Daniel admitted as he rose to his feet. “She’s kind of my historical girlfriend. You know, like a book girlfriend? Some of the stories I heard…well, she was interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “Most people say she was quiet. Liked to sit out on the front porch and read in the evenings. I dig that. But also that she ran to anyone who was hurt or sick and fixed them right up. Never complained. That she was a serious businesswoman and even the men around here respected her. But that she gave the best parties and was always ready to dance and laugh and keep the beer flowing.”

  Taryn laughed. “Sounds like my kind of woman!”

  “Mine too,” Daniel smiled.

  They shared a moment of silence, both staring at the tavern and thinking their own thoughts, until finally Daniel broke the quietness by fishing for his car keys. “I guess I need to go back home. I have a paper due. I’m taking this course in museum studies this summer. Once it’s finished I just need to wrap up my dissertation and I’m done.”

  “What’s your dissertation on?” Taryn asked. She remembered her college days, how eager she’d been to get out. Looking back, she wished she’d tried harder to enjoy it more while she was there.

  “You know the Shakers, the religious group?”

  Taryn nodded.

  “Whether or not they achieved religious experience through, well, actual religion or through psychological manipulation brought on by segregation, fatigue, and personal affliction.”

  “Damn,” Taryn whistled. “And what do you think?”

  Daniel smiled and scratched at his beard. “I think if you get me up at the crack of dawn every day, make me work hard, separate me from my wife and kids, tell me I’m not allowed to have fun or do any of the things I enjoy anymore and then throw me in a building at night and say it’s okay to scream and shout–I’m probably going to feel some kind of release.”

  “Good point. I always liked the Shakers, though,” Taryn mused. “Very organized souls with their chairs hanging on their walls and minimalism.”

  “And they did give us the modern day broom,” Daniel added with a laugh.

  Taryn spent the rest of the afternoon in a painting frenzy, catching up on the lost time she’d spent talking to Daniel. She liked Daniel and missed his company; she felt a nice, easy kinship with him and was sorry about his grant. He was still young, naïve, and hopeful. He’d lose some of that along the way, especially with his field, but she hoped he held onto those qualities as long as he could. He’d need them; the field needed them.

  Taryn took a walk at the end of the day, after she’d wrapped everything up and stored it in her car. The traffic on the road behind her was light now and only a few cars lumbered by.

  The early evening light hit the bricks, causing the tavern to light up against the darkening sky and giving them a rosy glow. It was a lonely spot, despite its close proximity to town and its position on the road.

  One thing was for sure–when they put in the new interstate exit things would pick up around here traffic-wise. Especially, she thought grimly, if they threw in a few big box stores and a multiplex. Not that she, herself, was above a little retail therapy but it seemed unfair that in order to have great shopping they had to destroy all the fields and farmlands. Taryn would’ve been perfectly content to go back to even the way things were when she was a kid and there were still big department stores on Main Street. Sure, you might have to go to a few different places to find what you wanted and her grandmother had grumbled more than once about having to drive into Nashville for a dress, but there was adventure in it. Now, everyone just seemed to move through these big stores with dead eyes, never stopping to talk to each other or really look around. It took the joy out of shopping.

  Matt would say there had never been any joy in shopping in the first place. Then again, he was still trying to squeeze into his high school letter jacket at the age of thirty–not because he had any nostalgia about those years (they’d been torturous for him, band geek and all) but because he hated to shop.

  On the last trip back to her car, something made her stop and turn around. It was just the faint whisper of a breeze, nothing that should have been disturbing, but the deliberateness tugged at her and made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She had the strongest feeling someone was watching her and that someone was not looking at her from the road, but from the supposedly deserted house. Thinking about the picture from the day before, she hesitated, not sure she wanted to pursue the matter.

  Nothing was there. The house was quiet, the windows empty. Yet, something hovered; a viscidness that surrounded her and made it hard to catch her breath. It pushed down on her from above, gently but with great pressure. Taryn closed her eyes and, focusing on her breathing, tried to dispel the invisible suit of armor that enveloped her. Little by little, it eased up until the air felt normal again.

  She turned back to the car and started towards it but she’d barely taken two steps when the breezes stirred again, nipping at her neck and fingers.

  Ever so gently, Taryn laid her paints down on the ground and, moving in slow motion, turned to face the building. At first it looked the same as before, nothing appeared to have been moved or manipulated in any way. But there, standing in a downstairs window, was the unmistakable shadowy outline of a woman and she was staring straight at Taryn.

  Taryn jumped a little but didn’t look away. The energy radiating from the house was hot and palpable as Permelia’s eyes bore into her. She couldn’t turn her head or ignore what she was seeing, despite the fear that crept down her spine and reached into her heart.

  For a brief mome
nt, the two solitary women watched one another with equal curiosity. Neither the figure nor Taryn moved; time itself seemed to stop for just an instant as the currents between them sparked. Taryn could feel a bond of sorts that felt as real and solid as the ground underneath her feet. She couldn’t make out any distinctive facial features but had the impression of long black hair falling around her shoulders and a dark colored dress. She was neither smiling nor frowning, but possessed a sharp look of concentration, as though she was unable to find the words she was seeking. Taryn could still hear the faint hum of cars behind her but they felt a million miles away, in another place and time. Even the old tavern glimmered dimly, wavering in the chasm the two women formed. For a moment it was intact again, whole, and then it was in shambles. As confused by the events as Taryn, it wasn’t sure which version of itself it should be.

  Taryn was much calmer than she thought she’d ever be, faced with a situation such as this one. Right before the figure shimmered away, shimmering was the only way Taryn would be able to describe it to Matt later, she lifted her right hand in a kind of wave and Taryn knew she was directing it at her. The bond dissipated and the force threw Taryn to the ground, the wind knocked out of her. Before scrambling to her feet she thought she’d heard a cry of pain, but she might have been imagining it.

  Chapter 7

  So what did you do?” Matt asked with genuine curiosity.

  “I waved back,” Taryn answered. “You know, it felt rude not to.”

  “I don’t know that I would’ve stuck around once I saw her.”

  Taryn had trouble explaining how she’d felt compelled to stay, that she probably couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to. And that, although she’d been scared, she was also curious. A huge part of her was almost disappointed when their link was interrupted.