The Blacker House

by Nicole Mulloy

  After a while, she put the book down, grabbed her pen and pad of paper, and sat down on the edge of her bed. Scratching Ace behind the ears, she glanced over at Jacob’s photo and thought about what she would write tonight.

  “Oh, Jacob, I love you so much!” a falsetto voice said from the hallway. Kate looked over and saw Matt peeking through her door. He was making kissing motions with his mouth.

  “Matt, why is it that you still act like a junior high-schooler?”

  He came over to Kate’s bed and stretched out on his belly. Ace, disturbed by the intrusion, got slowly to his feet, jumped off the bed and curled up in the corner, glaring at Matt.

  “So, what’s up, sis?”

  “You must be lonely if you’re coming in here to talk to me,” Kate said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. Matt did this a lot back at the old house. He’d come into Kate’s room to talk about his day or ask her about hers. They talked about friends, movies, music. He gave pretty good advice. Kate found that he was usually right about things.

  Matt had it made. Good things just happened to Matt, usually by luck. Tall and lithe with a thick head of sandy hair, Matt sparkled with charm and fun. When it came to sports, it didn’t matter what he played, he played it well. If he needed a job, someone offered one to him. If he wanted a date, well, Matt didn’t have any trouble there either.

  “I’m bored stiff. I’ve got to meet some people,” he said.

  “Your classes start soon, right? Are you going to sign up for some intramural football?”

  “It’s too late for this year. Maybe next year.” He looked disinterested with the topic of football and school. He nodded his head in the direction of Jacob’s picture. “So, how’s Jacob doing?”

  “He’s okay, I guess. His classes already started. Did I tell you? He’s going to look into transferring his credits so he can go to school here. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

  Matt looked at her with disbelief then shook his head. “Naw, Jacob would never leave Nebraska.”

  “Why not? I mean, he just told me last night that....”

  “Kate, he’s hardly ever been out of the state. His whole family is there. No, he won’t leave,” Matt said with an assuredness that Kate usually found comforting. Now, it just irritated her.

  “He said that he would and I believe him.”

  “Okay, think about it for a second. Will Jacob’s mother ever let him come this far away?”

  Kate had to stop and think about that. Jacob’s mother. A tall, dominating woman with thick, black eyebrows, steel gray hair and a sour look, she was a powerful force in Jacob’s life. Jacob’s mother had often come up with an errand or chore that Jacob had to do--right when Jacob was supposed to be with Kate. She had ruined several dates that way. Kate avoided her at all costs. The few times when Kate had visited Jacob at his house, his mother, who was usually in her garden, would glance up at Kate with a grimace on her dirt-streaked cheeks. Just the memory of her made Kate shudder.

  “He’s got to stand up to her sometime, right?”

  “Ha,” Matt said, standing up and stretching his back. “Good luck with that.”

  Out on the landing, they heard a door slam and heavy footsteps going down the stairs. Seth was going out somewhere.

  “Is he going to be like this forever?” Kate asked. Their older brother had not been the same since leaving Nebraska.

  “He’ll be alright. See ya, sis. I’m going to bed.” As soon as Matt closed the door, Ace rose and jumped back onto the bed, curling up in the warm spot Matt had just vacated.

  She sighed, leaned back against her pillow, and began to write. Dear Jacob, she wrote in large, flourishing cursive. She doodled a heart next to his name while she thought of exactly what to say tonight. She told him about her day at school, about Lisa and the table of sophomore girls she sat with at lunch. She didn’t mention cute Chris or his invitation.

  Suddenly, her old dog Ace sat bolt upright, one ear peaked. Ace hadn’t moved that fast in years.

  “What’s the matter, boy?” she asked him, but as she said the words, she saw it. The shadows in the room moved. She looked up at her chandelier, that strange, wonderful chandelier. It was moving. All by itself. A pang of fear gripped her as goose bumps rose on her body. She pulled herself back into her pillow, trying to distance herself but unable to look away.

  It spun in silent, soft circles, around and around, as if touched by an invisible hand, the little dogs engraved upon it seemed to be running, running in circles. As she watched, the rotation grew stronger and the movement crescendoed into great circular swings, the blue fringe flying out on all sides.

  Kate sat dumbstruck, staring. Her mind raced with possibilities. Could Matt be playing a trick on her? Or maybe a breeze was blowing in her room? She raised a hand slightly. Only the air moving from the wildly swinging chandelier could be felt. She suppressed the urge to reach up, to grab the thing and make it stop. She didn’t want to touch it.

  So, she stared, and as she did, she chandelier’s furious pace slowed slightly. It made smaller and smaller circles until it barely moved, just swaying ever so slightly. Then, it stopped. Kate continued to lie still, watching for several minutes. When nothing else happened, she finally blinked her eyes and rubbed them, then sat up slightly in her bed to take a closer look. The dogs, which seemed innocent and playful before, now sneered and glared at her.

  The longer she sat there, the more she wondered if the chandelier had ever moved at all. Did I imagine it? It seemed so ridiculous. For the first time since moving to West Virginia, Kate did not finish writing her letter to Jacob. She quietly put the pad and pen down and then raced from the room. She curled up on the couch in the family room and slept there, fitful and chilled.

  5.

  “Good morning,” Chris said as he leaned against her locker, closing it abruptly, slamming it on poor Jacob’s face. Chris looked like he woke up ten minutes before school, tossed on a wrinkled shirt, ran his fingers through his short blonde hair and raced to school. Kate had to admit, he always looked good.

  “Jerk!” she said, laughing. As she reopened her locker, another boy approached them.

  “Hey, Chris,” the boy mumbled.

  “Hey, Patrick. Kate, you know Patrick Murphy. We’ve got a couple of classes together. Or maybe you haven’t noticed him either.”

  “Funny. I remember Patrick.” Kate had noticed him before, but he was, well, kind of forgettable. That’s the only word that came to mind. He had long, light brown hair which he wore in a ponytail. Kate didn’t really like guys with long hair. Patrick seemed to wear the same gray trench coat every day. It was a little weird.

  “What’s up?” he said quietly to Chris.

  “Nothing. What’s up with you?” Chris asked. Chris and Patrick seemed to be unlikely friends. Kate turned back to her locker.

  “I hear you live in the old Blacker place,” Patrick said.

  “Yeah, that’s what everybody seems to call it,” she said, her back still to him.

  “That house is supposed to be haunted. I’d love to poke around and do some research sometime.”

  Kate spun around and stared at him, unbelieving. “Haunted, as in ghosts?” She thought of the chandelier last night and a cold feeling wrenched her stomach.

  “Yeah, have you noticed anything weird?”

  “How do you know so much about my house?” she asked, avoiding his question.

  “Mrs. Entwhistle. She’s a literature teacher up on the third floor. Her mom grew up there.”

  “Really?”

  “She said that her mom used to hear voices and objects would fly around the room and stuff like that,” Patrick said.

  “That’s crazy,” Kate said, tossing various school books into her book bag. She wasn’t even sure which books she was grabbing. Her head started to pound. It was too early in the morning for all this. Could it be true?

  *

  The day was bad. Really bad. Kate choked when Mrs. Baker asked her a question i
n chemistry and Ms. Dobbs drilled Kate incessantly to make sure she had done her reading in Jane Eyre. It was pouring rain, so the students couldn’t eat outside today. Lisa was out sick and Kate felt lonely. Now, in Pre-Cal class, Kate sat staring out the water-streaked windows at the wet afternoon.

  She thought about her friends, her old house. She thought about her backyard in Nebraska. Their house had bordered a park and on warm summer evenings, Kate and her sisters used to run in the park, collecting fireflies in jars. They’d line up the jars around the porch and pretend it was a dance floor.

  It seemed just yesterday that she and Jacob were sitting on the porch swing, kissing and listening to far away rumbles of thunder echoing across the prairie. Kate felt a tear slip down her cheek. Just as she wiped it away, Miss Salinas called on Kate to come to the chalkboard.

  “Just solve for the variable for now and then we’ll add the new formulas,” Miss Salinas said.

  Kate swallowed hard, shuffled up to the chalkboard and looked at the numbers and letters scrawled on the board. It was utter gibberish to her. Kate couldn’t think. Her heart thumped hard in her chest. Tiny Miss Salinas stood next to her, her long black hair whitened with chalk dust.

  “Go ahead, Kate. It’s very straightforward.”

  The lump in her throat was so large, Kate thought it would choke her. She felt her face burning and knew she was about to cry again. She couldn’t cry here, in front of the whole class! In a sudden panic, she turned and ran out the door. Blood pounding in her ears, she saw nothing but white as she flew around the corner and ran into the girls’ bathroom.

  The tears came fast and hard, and Kate sobbed as she bent over the sink. When she was all tired out, she leaned her back against the wall and slumped down onto the floor. She was sitting there, exhausted and embarrassed, when the door opened. Kate quickly sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  A very pregnant woman with curly blond hair walked in and smiled. “So there you are,” she said in a thick southern accent. “I figured you would be in here.” She sat down next to Kate with some effort and more than a little groaning. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Mrs. Cauthen, the school counselor. Now, I always ask this first, just to get it out of the way. Are you pregnant, sweetie?”

  Kate looked at her with horror. “No!”

  “Good for you. See, that kind of puts things into perspective then, doesn’t it?” She smiled and deep dimples appeared on her full cheeks. “Okay, why don’t you tell me what’s going on. Why did you run out of class?”

  Kate sniffed again and chewed her lower lip. “Am I in trouble?”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Cauthen said, shaking her head of curls, “don’t worry about that. We all have bad days and sometimes we don’t make the best decisions. Miss Salinas is very understanding about these kinds of things. So, what’s up?” Kate thought that Mrs. Cauthen’s voice sounded like that of an elf, or maybe a fairy. It was oddly comforting.

  Kate sighed deeply. “I just miss my old house and my boyfriend. I was thinking about him and I just...I don’t know. I just kind of lost it. Then Miss Salinas called me to the chalkboard and I couldn’t even read the numbers up there.”

  “You had a little anxiety attack?”

  “I guess. I just blanked out and I was going to cry and I didn’t want to do it in front of the whole class.”

  “Yeah, I understand. It happens to everybody. You’ve been under a lot of stress, huh? Moving into a new house, starting at a new school. It’s hard.” Kate teared up again. It was so nice to hear this from an adult. She didn’t know why, but hearing Mrs. Cauthen put her feelings into words made her feelings real, validated. “It is hard right now, but it’s gonna’ get better. I bet you’ve already got some friends here, dont’cha?”

  “Yeah, a couple.”

  “Pretty soon, this place is gonna’ feel like home. And your boyfriend...what’s his name?”

  “Jacob.”

  “Jacob could maybe come and see you some time? Have you asked your folks if he can visit?”

  “Not yet, but he’s thinking about transferring to Marshall.”

  “Really? That’s just wonderful. He must really like you.” Mrs. Cauthen sat there, hands folded over her big belly, smiling at Kate. Kate felt better just looking at her.

  “I miss him a lot.”

  “I bet you do. Do you write him letters?” Mrs. Cauthen pronounced it, “Do you rot him laders?”

  “Yeah, every night.”

  “I’d like to see a picture of him sometime.”

  Kate smiled. “I have lots.”

  “I bet you do.” Mrs. Cauthen put her hands on the floor and pushed her body back into a standing position. “I’m glad you are feeling better. If you ever need to talk to me, I’m in that tiny little office on the first floor, right next to the bathroom. I think the door says ‘Custodian.’”

  Kate laughed.

  “I know, it’s funny. They keep telling me they’re going to change that sign. Oh, well.” She put a hand on Kate’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Day’s almost over. So, why don’t we tell everyone you have a stomachache and you can just get on home.”

  *

  Kate walked home alone after school. She walked up the alley and through the gate to the back door of the house. As she closed the gate and turned to look at the house, she remembered Patrick’s words. Haunted. Was that possible?

  She pulled her house keys out of her purse and slid them into the lock. The house was eerily quiet. Nobody else was home. She dropped her backpack by the door and went to the fridge. Ace came up, wagging his tail.

  “Hi, boy," she said, giving his head a scratch. She grabbed a diet soda and headed into the family room. With two brothers and two sisters, Kate never got to watch what she wanted on television. Having the TV to herself was quite a luxury. She turned it on and flipped through the channels, finding MTV. A bunch of women were dancing on a table in a club.

  It felt strange to be in the big house alone. While Kate tried to enjoy the quiet afternoon, the fact that she was alone kept rattling around in her head. Eventually, she turned the channel and found a show about interior design. This actually interested Kate. She felt the tightness in her shoulders start to relax. She stopped sensing the empty house around her. Ace jumped up onto the couch next to her and starting licking his paw.

  A sudden sound made her jump. Kate sprang up looked around the room for the source of the sound. She considered the family room safe and relatively cozy, compared to the rest of the house. The ceiling-to-floor bookshelves, partially filled with her father’s books, seemed homey and familiar. But now, the room seemed to sizzle with electricity. She heard another sound, a thump, coming from her right.

  Kate snatched up her diet soda and left the room. “Come on, Ace.” Kate walked out the back door and sat on the back porch. Kate breathed deeply, feeling better in the outdoors, even though thick clouds obscured the sun. The dog seemed relieved to be in the backyard too and took up sniffing the bushes.

  Just an old house making noises, she told herself. Maybe we have mice.

  About ten minutes later, Lucy opened the back gate and walked up the path. “Hi, Kate. They told me you were sick. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just had a really bad day.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Lucy said with a sympathetic smile. Lucy seemed to have grown up a lot in the last few weeks, Kate noticed. Gone was the awkward, shy middle-schooler. Lucy’s baby cheeks had melted away over the summer, leaving a young woman’s face. She seemed to have grown a few inches, lengthening her legs, leaning out her arms and torso.

  When Lucy was about six, Mom had dressed her up as Snow White for Halloween. All she needed was a dress and a touch of red lipstick. The resemblance had been uncanny. Now, Lucy didn’t look like Snow White anymore. She looked like Snow White’s hot older sister.

  “I just miss Jacob. That, and this house is, I don’t know, kind of spooky, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. I t
hink so too. It’s so pretty though. And big. I love having my own room.” Lucy and Marie always shared a room back in Nebraska. It worked when they were both little, but Lucy had outgrown Marie’s tastes lately, preferring posters of good-looking movie stars to Marie’s teddy bears.

  “That’s why I’m out here,” Kate said, a little shamefacedly. She didn’t like to show such fear in front of Lucy.

  “Really?”

  “Spooky in there by yourself.”

  “The other day when I was taking a shower, I thought somebody was in the room with me. I kept opening the shower curtain and looking, but there was nobody out there. I just felt somebody there, you know?”