Deader Homes and Gardens

by Angie Fox

  Chapter 17

  We’ve changed our minds. We need to go now!” I called, pounding on the door. But the ghost of the governess—if she was still out there—didn’t respond.

  Seemed she had us exactly where she wanted us.

  I reached for Ellis in the dark. “I’m sorry…I—”

  “It’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “We’ll figure it out.”

  I didn’t see how.

  We weren’t only trapped in a haunted house, but now we were on the third floor with no way out, a questionable ghost helping us, and an angry ghost on the loose. My bag and Frankie’s urn were back in the bathroom. Our cell phones were soaked from our struggle in the tub, and we still hadn’t discovered any more than we knew before.

  “Let’s think this through,” Ellis murmured, slipping away from me. I heard him move deeper into the room.

  I followed, listening to his harsh, deep breaths. “Ellis?”

  He clicked on a flashlight, casting a circle of light over the locked door.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  “Back of my belt. Police-issue MagLite.”

  Thank goodness for small miracles. And cop boyfriends.

  His light caught the narrow bed in the center of the room. A white coverlet crawled with gnarled vines, poised to reach out and snare the unsuspecting. I took a calculated step back. Not that I thought the coverlet was alive. It better not be. But in this house, you couldn’t be too careful.

  This room had freaked me out from the start, because it was clean—as if the governess were still alive and able to touch the world of the living.

  The sticky sweet scent of decaying jasmines lingered in the air.

  The beam caught the tilt of the roof over the front of the house and two windows that peered out like watchful eyes.

  “We can open one of the windows and signal for help,” I said, looking for a latch on the closest one. The upstairs windows were visible to everyone in the neighborhood below. Surely, if we were to lean outside, perhaps shine the light, someone would see us and help. The latch didn’t budge. “Oh, come on.”

  Ellis tried the other one. “It’s jammed.”

  More likely, it was being held closed. The governess didn’t want us to leave. Robert, either.

  Well, I wasn’t going to cower in the dark, trapped by an angry spirit. “We’ll break it,” I said. “Give me your flashlight.”

  Ellis let out a small chuckle. “Hold up, Xena, warrior princess. I actually learned how to do this.”

  “How?” I asked. He raised the metal light and smashed the butt of it into the window. His whack at the glass looked exactly how I would do it. Minus a bunch of the strength.

  “Police academy,” he said, hitting it again, and again. The muscles in his arms flexed hard. “The glass should have broken by now,” he said, breathing heavily, frustration creeping into his voice.

  Yes, well, this wasn’t a normal window in a normal house.

  He looked at the window as if he couldn’t quite believe it was still whole. He hit it again until he was spent. And still, the window held.

  “Okay, we’ll think of something else,” I said, refusing to lose hope. I moved to the shadowy washstand that stood between the windows and picked up the heavy earthen pitcher, shivering at the coldness of the handle. “We’ve handled…interesting situations before.”

  “Get back, Verity,” Ellis said, placing himself between me and the window. I turned and saw a jagged shadow of a fully formed human slink down the glass. It had no face, no real depth to it. It bunched as it attempted to push in under the windowsill.

  “You see it?” I asked.

  “No, but it’s ice cold over here.”

  “Don’t go near that window.” I watched as the dark energy concentrated outside, where the window joined the sill, testing, reaching.

  If it got in and we were trapped, I had absolutely no fricking clue how we could defend ourselves.

  I braced, ready to fight, as if that would stop a cursed spirit.

  “What’s it doing?” Ellis pressed.

  “Nothing, yet.”

  When the dark form didn’t get in under the sill, it slunk over the glass itself, pushing and testing. I watched with bated breath, but it didn’t make it inside.

  I drew closer to Ellis. “Maybe the governess did us a favor. So far, we’re safe here.”

  The wood sill crackled and the shadow disappeared.

  I glanced up at him. “It’s gone.”

  He nodded a few times, no doubt adjusting his sense of what was possible. “I’d like to be able to get out when we want. Maybe she has a spare key somewhere.”

  “Let’s look.”

  “I’d also like to find something pointed we can try on that window,” he added. “Once we’re sure the dark shadow is gone. It’s still a good idea to break the window and signal for help.”

  He turned to the hope chest at the foot of the bed. “Let’s see what’s in here.”

  The scent of jasmine grew stronger and the room took on a distinct chill. “I’m not sure she wants us in there.” I wasn’t thrilled about upsetting the ghost who’d kept us safe. Then again, if she thought it was wise to keep us up here until the danger passed, that could be decades. Centuries. I doubted ghosts worried about such trivial matters as food and water.

  I held the light for Ellis while he unfastened the clasp.

  Stiff hinges creaked in protest as Ellis lifted the lid. “Give me some more light,” he murmured.

  I shone it down and my beam was snared by an old wooden Ouija board.

  “Don’t touch it,” I whispered. “Those things are bad news.”

  “I need to see what’s under it,” he said, lifting it out, setting it on the tangled vines of the bedspread. I swore I saw a tuft of dust spring up. Or perhaps it was something in the board. I didn’t like this one bit.

  The board appeared to be from the turn of the century. Bat wings sprouted from a sneering skull and embossed on either side of it were the words yes and no. Below, black letters and numbers stretched out in four rows, in old English style. At the bottom left and right, pentagrams stood vigil over the words hello and goodbye.

  “It’s a funny thing to keep in a hope chest,” I murmured.

  Ellis crouched in front of the trunk and reached inside again. “Look at this,” he said, removing a triangular wooden pointer with a dull crystal set in the middle.

  “That’s the planchette. It’s what the spirit uses to communicate. It moves it over the board.”

  Why couldn’t the governess have kept something normal in there? Something useful? Like a glass cutter and a flare gun.

  Ellis placed the planchette on the Ouija board, which was an exceedingly bad idea in my opinion. But he was more focused on exploring the chest. He ran his hands along the bottom, apparently not caring at all about the threat of chatty ghosts, spiders, dead rats, or even rusty metal bits…

  “Here’s a tarot deck,” he said, holding it out to me, his head bent over the chest.

  “Put it on the floor.” I wasn’t touching anything that belonged to an occultist ghost.

  I wondered if the Treadwells had known about their nanny’s ties to the spirit world. Maybe that was why the governess was spared from whatever evil Jack had brought back from Egypt. She’d found a way to protect herself.

  “Tablecloth,” Ellis said, unfolding a square of deep purple velvet. He placed that on the floor, along with a small, dry foot with three toes and claws at the end.

  “Is that a chicken foot?” I asked.

  “Looks like it,” Ellis said, placing it on the tablecloth. “Maybe it does the same thing as a lucky rabbit’s foot.”

  I didn’t see how it could.

  He leaned back from the chest. “Anyhow, that’s it.”

  Good. “Close it.” That chest creeped me out. “Maybe there’s something in the tall dresser.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Ellis said, straightening, le
aving the chest gaping open.

  I tried to ignore it as I tucked the flashlight under my arm and started on the top drawer. It was filled with underthings, and I immediately felt like I’d invaded the ghost’s personal space.

  But she was dead. She’d never wear these things again. And maybe, just maybe, she kept a door key, or perhaps a small sledgehammer, under her unmentionables.

  Or at least a very hard rock. I’d give anything for a silver jewelry box right now, one with a pointy end.

  “Let’s think about this,” Ellis said, in a tone that made me cringe. Not because he was wrong, but because I didn’t exactly want to examine our situation here. For goodness’ sake, we had an Ouija board on the bed while I went through a ghost’s underwear drawer.

  “Let’s assume your professor’s death was an accident,” Ellis said, while I exhaled firmly and began on the next drawer, this one filled with stockings. “Let’s say he drank the whiskey in Jack’s office and it was poisoned.”

  I stopped. “Do you really think—?”

  “The simplest answer is usually the right one,” he said grimly.

  It made sense. That would have killed both Jack and my old professor. Darn Dale for whatever he was celebrating with that old whiskey.

  I eased a tuft of silk stockings back into the drawer as best as I could. Ellis had sent the whiskey to the lab. “When will we know?”

  “In a day or two.”

  If we lasted that long.

  I heard him move toward the bed, his footsteps echoing on the hardwood. “Duranja’s cousin is head of the main lab in Jackson.”

  “I love small towns.” I shone the light behind him, onto the Ouija board. The planchette hadn’t moved. Thank God.

  The light also illuminated Ellis, who was leaning up against the foot of the bed. “Now if Dale was poisoned, his death was an accident. Dale wasn’t attacked.”

  “That’s good,” I said. I supposed. Although it certainly didn’t bring him back. I started in on the next drawer: one filled with meticulously folded blouses. I patted them down, trying not to disturb the creases. “I still don’t understand why Robert attacked me in the tub.” I hadn’t done a thing to the ghost.

  Except invade his space, ignore his warning, and try to talk to his dead sister. But I’d been doing that the day before as well.

  “Are you sure it was Robert?” Ellis asked.

  I turned to Ellis. “There’s no doubt in my mind.” I’d never forget Robert’s cruel eyes and the hard slant of his mouth. “It could have easily been Robert on that cliff as well. I didn’t see who tried to push me over, but I’m sure it was a ghost.” No mortal would have had time to get away.

  The light cast dark shadows across Ellis’s features as he thought. “You were safe the first time you saw Robert and the first two times you came here,” he reasoned. “What changed?”

  “Nothing.” I’d shown up with good intentions, ready to help each time.

  “Something shifted,” he concluded. “What did you see?” he pressed. “What did you say? Think hard.”

  “All right.” I rubbed my hands on my arms, trying to warm them. “Lee and I entered the house with no problem. Except for the run-in with the governess.” I’d told him all about it. “We brought my professor the second time. I met Robert. I saw the artifacts on the ghostly plane and encountered a jagged shadowy thing in the Egyptian game room, but the spirit didn’t attack. Lee, the professor, and I looked through the journals. Professor Grassino died,” I added, wishing I could change it. I owed it to him to figure this out. “This afternoon, I spent time in the garden, but I’d already been out there once before with Lee. Lee goes there all the time and he’s fine.” At least I hoped he was okay. “I saw where the grape arbor burned and found a candle holder there. The gardener basically admitted it belonged to the governess.”

  “Then you were attacked,” Ellis said as I bent to open the last drawer. “There has to be something we’re missing.”

  “The governess was the only survivor. She most likely set the fire, but she’s not the one attacking us.” At least I didn’t think she was, not after she gave us shelter tonight. I scooted over as he crouched down to help me search. We found two side-by-side stacks of carefully folded skirts, with nothing around or under them. But I could tell Ellis’s mind was on what could have happened to cause Robert to go after me. “I don’t understand why he wants to hurt me,” I insisted. “Ghosts like me.”

  He stopped and braced an elbow on his thigh. “You keep saying that, but I don’t think it’s true in this case.”

  I hated to think that he could be right.

  “Hey,” he said, taking my hand, helping me up. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “I sure hope so.” There was nothing of use in the dresser. Nowhere else to look for any hard objects. “I had such hopes for breaking out,” I said.

  As I spoke the words, a circle of fog formed on the window closest to us.

  Ellis’s fingers tightened on mine. “You see that?” he murmured.

  “Yes,” I said under my breath.

  It was as if someone let out a hot breath on cold glass.

  Slowly, we watched the condensation inch across the window until it formed a perfect circle.

  Don’t freak out.

  “What do you want?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

  A tiny fingerprint appeared on the outside of the window.

  Ellis cursed under his breath.

  The little fingertip paused. Then it began to creep across the glass. With a child’s unsteady hand, it drew a closed, mostly triangular…

  “Coffin,” Ellis murmured.

  “Maybe it’s a…” I tried to think of something more pleasant. But he was right. Little Charlotte—if I had to guess—had given us our very own casket.

  Ellis strode over to the window and took hold of the shade.

  “That’s not going to discourage her,” I warned. She’d practically joined me in the tub the other day.

  “I know,” he said, gently lowering it, and the shade on the other window as well. “I just don’t want to look at that. Not after tonight.”

  I understood completely.

  “Come. Sit on the bed with me,” he said warmly.

  I shone a light on the narrow mattress with the Ouija board resting at the bottom. “Not on your life.” I could stand all night if I had to.

  He sat and I heard the crackling of the rope mattress frame. “It’s not so bad.” He leaned his back against the wooden headboard, opening up an arm for me to snuggle under.

  I was being invited to snuggle with my ex-fiancé’s brother on a ghost’s bed while trapped inside a haunted house. Was this my life now? “If a year ago, you’d told me…”

  He gave a wry smile. “Don’t go there.”

  “Fine,” I said, “only for you.” I forced myself to join him on the tangle of embroidered vines. The mattress sank in the middle, which made it very easy for me to slide down next to him.

  I shone the light toward the ceiling and tried to forget where we were. The heat of him felt so good and I sighed out loud when he wrapped an arm around me.

  “I suppose we’re staying over,” I said. Ironic, since I hadn’t allowed myself the pleasure since the night I’d spent at Ellis’s place when he’d been injured. We weren’t even dating then.

  He kissed me on top of the head. “I have to admit I’ve been wanting to spend the night with you,” he said. “Although this wasn’t the way I’d pictured it,” he added with a touch of irony.

  We’d taken our relationship slow since we’d been outed by a ghost. It had been my choice and his. Now that we were an official couple, we wanted to take the time to really get to know each other, and I had to admit I was enjoying it. I leaned up and pressed my lips against his chin, his cheek, his forehead.

  “Now you’re just teasing,” he said, finding my lips.

  His mouth slanted over mine, and I leaned closer, feeling the heat of his body and the strength
of him beside me.

  We deepened the kiss and he groaned as we pressed tight against each other. Oh, yes. I could definitely get used to this.

  I broke away. “We’d better stay alert.”

  “Right,” he said, his lips brushing my cheek.

  We lay in the dark together, and despite the dangers we’d faced, I found myself enjoying the warmth of him and the way he held me. Ellis had a way of making me feel safe. With him, I was part of something bigger than myself.

  I snuggled tighter. “Thanks for being here with me.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he vowed. And I knew it was true.

  I closed my eyes and, quite by mistake, fell asleep in his arms.

  The next morning, I was awakened by a shake from Ellis. “Verity,” he whispered, “wake up. The door just creaked open.”

  “What?” It was barely light. I struggled to see.

  “It’s only open an inch,” he said, helping me up. “I stayed awake. I saw. Come on.”

  My eyes adjusted and I could see it. The door stood open. Barely. “Robert can probably get in now.”

  “And we can get out,” he said, taking my hand.

  “Right.” I’d somehow lost my shoes in the night. “Wait,” I said, reaching for my sandals where they lay next to the Ouija board at the bottom of the bed.

  We should have put that thing away. Although I wasn’t going to touch it.

  I slipped one sandal on, then dropped the other as the planchette on the board stirred.

  “Look,” Ellis said, pointing at the bed.

  I rushed to join him at the door, one shoe in hand. “Let’s go.”

  He hesitated in the doorway. “I want to see what it says.”

  Him and his investigative curiosity. “It’s not supposed to say anything. It’s supposed to wait until we play the game,” which would never happen.

  The planchette rattled against the board before inching over the X, the Y, the Z, until its pointer rested on a single word: Goodbye.

  We ran. Down the hall, down a flight of stairs to the second floor landing. We made a quick pit stop into the bathroom on the second floor to grab Frankie’s urn and my bag. Then we hit the front stairs like the house was on fire. I’d pry the door off the hinges with my fingernails if I had to.