“That’s reassuring to hear,” An’gel said. “Until we know what or who is behind all this, however, we can’t take it for granted that no one will be hurt. It depends on the motive, I think. If the person responsible doesn’t get what he or she wants, then the incidents could escalate.”
“Now you’re making it sound like one of those horror movies where the family moves into a house and starts getting attacked.” Dickce shivered.
“I’m sorry if I frightened you, Sister,” An’gel said, more irritated with Dickce than she cared to show. “The point is still valid. I don’t think this is a house of horrors, but what’s going on here isn’t normal. Now, Mary Turner, there’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary Turner said. “What is it?”
“Do you know whether there is a secret room or a hidden passageway in the house?” An’gel asked.
“Like in that Nancy Drew book?” Mary Turner asked. “I loved that book. My grandmother gave me her copy when I was nine years old.” She shook her head. “No, there isn’t that I know of. Daddy never said anything about one, and neither did Granny. I tried to find one after I read that book, but I never found anything.”
“I see. It would certainly go a ways toward helping explain things if there were,” An’gel said. “I’m not convinced there is one, mind you, but we have to keep our minds open to all possibilities.”
“Naturally,” Dickce said. “Does this mean you want to continue going through the house looking for those spatial oddities of yours?”
“We might as well,” An’gel replied. “We need to observe everything we can about the house, and everyone in it as well. The answer could be anywhere. Anyone.”
An’gel thought she heard the stairs creak a couple of times. She wondered who was going up or down. Where was that medium, for example?
“Have you seen Mrs. Pace recently?” An’gel directed her question to Mary Turner.
“No, as far as I know, she is still upstairs in her room. I had just come back from showing Serenity and Truss to their rooms when I startled Benjy in the hall. I was actually on my way to see you, Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce, to talk to you about dinner tonight. I’d forgotten all about that in the excitement.” She winked at Benjy, who reddened a little.
“We’ll be happy to go out to dinner,” An’gel said. “We don’t want to place any additional burden on Marcelline or you. I imagine Marcelline was looking forward to a little time off herself.”
“That’s kind of you,” Mary Turner said, “but Marcelline has already put a roast on for dinner, and there’s enough for all of us.” She paused a moment. “Not for the other guests, though. I don’t intend to feed them anything other than breakfast.”
“I smelled the roast when I came in through the kitchen,” Benjy said. “Smelled great. I vote for eating here, if that’s okay.”
Dickce laughed. “Of course it’s okay. As long as Marcelline has already cooked for us, I vote we stay here, too. We can help clean up in the kitchen afterwards.”
“Yes,” An’gel said. “That’s a good idea.”
“I’ll tell Marcelline,” Mary Turner said. “She might take you up on that, but don’t be surprised if she doesn’t. That kitchen is her domain.” She grinned as she rose from the sofa. “If there’s nothing else you need to ask me right now, I’d better go and talk to her about breakfast for the next few days and a few other things.”
“Go right ahead,” An’gel said. “If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”
Mary Turner nodded and smiled at them before she left the room.
“What shall we do now?” Dickce asked.
“For the moment, y’all can sit right here,” An’gel said. “I’m going up to my room to retrieve my phone before we do anything else. I’ll be back in a minute.”
An’gel left Dickce and Benjy chatting about his room in the annex. She paused at the foot of the stairs and steeled herself for the potential aura of cold but felt nothing when she climbed the stairs other than her own exertions.
She found her cell phone right away and was about to head downstairs again when she decided she might as well use the bathroom before she did so. She walked past the doorway to Dickce’s room and tapped on the bathroom door. The bathroom, which she was having to share with both her sister and Nathan Gamble, was between Dickce’s room and the French room. Hearing no response from within, she opened the door and entered.
While she was drying her hands, she heard the sound of raised voices coming from next door in the French room. She paused to listen for a moment. She couldn’t distinguish the words but thought that both voices sounded male. She wondered who might be arguing with Nathan Gamble. Had Henry Howard come back early from his trip into town?
An’gel replaced the towel on the rack and moved to the door. She opened it a crack and listened. The voices next door had stopped. She opened the door farther and peered to the right, toward the French room. She wanted to avoid the quarreling men if at all possible.
The hall was clear. She was about to step out and shut the door when she heard the French room door open. She stepped back in and peered around the edge of the door frame.
The lawyer Wilbanks stumbled into the hall as if he had been pushed out the door. He was in the act of fastening his pants. He glared toward the door. He sounded hoarse when he yelled, “That’s the last time I let you . . .”
An’gel pushed the door shut at the vulgar verb. She had heard and seen enough to know what had been going on next door.
CHAPTER 13
An’gel hastily shut the door and listened to judge when it might be okay for her to leave her room and head back downstairs. She didn’t want to encounter the lawyer or Nathan Gamble at the moment.
She heard Wilbanks stomp by, cursing briefly. Then silence. Her face felt heated as she recalled Wilbanks’s parting shot to Nathan Gamble. She thought it had been pretty clear earlier that the lawyer had more than a lawyer-client relationship with Serenity Foster. The fact that he had obviously been having an intimate relationship with Serenity’s brother shocked her. She could be wrong, though. She might have misinterpreted what Wilbanks had meant by the use of a vulgar term.
On further reflection, she decided she was correct. Given the state of the lawyer’s clothing when he was ejected from the room, there was really only one conclusion.
She waited a minute, timed on her cell phone, before she opened the door again. A quick glance assured her that the hallway was empty, and she closed the door and hurried toward the stairs. She debated whether to share what she had seen with Mary Turner. Is the young woman aware of an intimate relationship between her cousin and the lawyer? she wondered.
A few delicate questions might resolve that issue. Once she could think of the right delicate questions to ask, of course. She would share with Dickce and Benjy, though. The incident might have no bearing at all on the strange incidents here at Cliffwood, but An’gel knew better than to rule anything out, no matter how far-fetched it might seem now.
When she walked into the front parlor, she found Benjy and Dickce sharing a sofa. Primrose Pace occupied the other, and from what An’gel heard as she entered, the medium was regaling the others with tales of her exploits with the spiritual world.
“The house was absolutely chock-full of restless spirits,” Mrs. Pace said. “I thought I’d never manage to deal with every single one of them. It took me two months, but by the time I was finished, the house was quiet and empty of spirits.”
“That’s amazing,” Benjy said. “How many ghosts were actually in the house?”
“Thirteen,” Mrs. Pace answered. “The house had been built partially on an old burial ground for plantation slaves. They were angry spirits, naturally, but I was able to help them find their way onto the next plane of existence.”
“I’m sure you felt great satisf
action, knowing that you’d helped all those tortured souls.” Dickce looked toward An’gel. “Have a seat, Sister. Benjy and I are absolutely enthralled by Mrs. Pace’s adventures.”
“Thank you, I will.” An’gel chose the armchair Mary Turner had occupied earlier. “Please continue, Mrs. Pace. Don’t mind my interruption.”
Mrs. Pace inclined her head to acknowledge An’gel’s remark. “Yes, I was happy to help the family. They were terrified and on the point of moving out, even though they couldn’t afford anywhere else to live. I was their last resort, or so they said. If only they had come to me sooner, they might have saved themselves two years of torment.” She shook her head.
“Where was this house?” Benjy asked. “I wonder if it’s in one of the books on haunted houses I was looking at.”
“I really can’t say,” Mrs. Pace responded. “I have to respect the family’s privacy, you understand.”
And protect yourself from anyone trying to check up on your bona fides, An’gel thought. Such a sensational story was bound to have been known about. Perhaps Benjy could do some research and see if he could come up with anything on it. That would be one way to check Mrs. Pace’s authenticity.
“That story reminds me so much of that really scary movie.” Dickce turned her head toward An’gel, away from Mrs. Pace, and winked. “What was the name of it, An’gel? You know, the one where that family lived in a house on top of a Native American burial ground, and their little girl began acting so strange.”
“Poltergeist, is that the one you mean?” An’gel replied.
“Yes, that’s it,” Dickce said. “Have you ever seen that movie, Mrs. Pace?”
“When it first came out, but not since. I tend to avoid films like that because so many of them really aren’t accurate,” Mrs. Pace said. “Yes, there are similarities between the movie and the house I cleared of ghosts. Poltergeists, if you prefer.” She smiled briefly.
“Do you think that’s what we have here at Cliffwood?” An’gel asked. “A poltergeist?”
“It’s very likely,” Mrs. Pace replied, “although poltergeists most often tend to appear when there are children or teenagers present in the house. Perhaps because much of what the poltergeists are said to do usually turn out to be pranks played by the children involved.”
“There are no children here,” Dickce said.
“No, and the activity that Mrs. Catlin has observed isn’t the noisy kind that poltergeists are generally known for.”
“The word comes from German, doesn’t it?” An’gel said. “It translates roughly as rumbling spirit or noisy spirit, I believe.”
Mrs. Pace nodded approvingly. “Yes, Miss Ducote, that’s correct. The spirit or spirits here aren’t noisy. They move things around, but they don’t hurl things or behave maliciously.”
“That’s certainly a relief to me,” Dickce said. “The last thing I want is a noisy spirit throwing things at me.”
“I don’t want to mislead you,” Mrs. Pace said. “The behavior could escalate. That happens sometimes, so you have to be prepared in case it does.”
“What is your plan to deal with any spirits you find here at Cliffwood?” An’gel asked.
“Oh, there are definitely spirits here,” Mrs. Pace said. “The first step is to let them get used to my presence, you see. Only then will I be able to establish trust with them. Then I will show them the way on to the next plane of existence, and they can leave this world behind forever.”
The woman certainly sounded plausible, An’gel thought. Most of what Mrs. Pace had said jibed with what An’gel herself had read over the years, both in nonfiction and in fiction. There were common threads to it all, and Mrs. Pace obviously knew that.
An’gel wanted to ask the woman what she charged for her services, but since she wouldn’t be paying the bill, it wasn’t really any of her business. She hoped that Mary Turner and Henry Howard would be able to afford it, because she doubted that Mrs. Pace worked cheap.
Of course, if she and Dickce, with Benjy’s help, were able to expose the truth without the aid of Mrs. Pace, the woman would go away empty-handed. An’gel wasn’t going to underestimate her. She figured Mrs. Pace was shrewd enough to realize that An’gel and Dickce weren’t necessarily her allies in this situation. What Mrs. Pace had shared with them so far was nothing really concrete, at least in terms of Cliffwood’s so-called ghosts. It was the standard line for these situations. An’gel intended to keep an eye on Mrs. Pace, and no doubt Mrs. Pace intended to do the same with her.
Now An’gel wished the woman would leave so she could share her latest interesting bit of news with Dickce and Benjy. She wanted their take on what she had observed.
Perhaps sensing that her presence was no longer desired, Mrs. Pace rose from the sofa. “I have enjoyed chatting with you, but it’s time I resumed my attempts to converse with the spirits here. I am going into the library. Perhaps the spirit who turns the pages in the dictionary will be there and willing to talk to me.” She moved in a stately fashion from the room. A few moments later An’gel heard a door close, and she thought Mrs. Pace had shut herself up in the library.
“Thank goodness,” An’gel said. “I’ve been about to burst to tell you what I saw and heard upstairs right before I came back down. I want to know if you agree with my interpretation of it.”
“Go ahead, then,” Dickce said when An’gel failed to continue straightaway. “I’m dying to hear about it.”
An’gel glanced toward the hall. Perhaps she should go close the door in case anyone happened by. The house was quiet around them. She heard no sounds of activity from anywhere else, and she decided the door could stay open.
She did lean forward in her chair, however, and lower her voice while she related the story to her sister and Benjy. She stumbled a bit over the vulgar word Wilbanks had used but thought that she had managed to convey it well enough without actually repeating it. When she’d finished, she sat back and waited for their reactions.
Benjy appeared briefly shocked, perhaps more by An’gel’s euphemism than by the act itself, she thought. Dickce didn’t appear to be fazed by any of it. She chuckled when An’gel finished.
“That does add some spice to the mix,” she said.
“I’ll say.” Benjy nodded.
“I can’t tell Mary Turner,” An’gel said. “Unless it turns out to have a bearing on the situation here.”
“No, you can’t, not yet,” Dickce replied. “Right now, I have to say, Nathan Gamble is my chief suspect in all this. If the contents of that room are the object of these shenanigans, I figure he’s trying to spook Mary Turner so badly that she’ll agree to let him have everything, will or no will.”
“I would say the same,” An’gel said. “I’m glad to know we’re working on the same assumption here. So far I haven’t been able to come up with any other reason for all this.”
“What if it really turns out to be a ghost, and not some person pretending to be one?” Benjy asked. “What then?”
“Despite what has happened since we’ve been here,” An’gel said after a moment’s thought, “I don’t think I really believe that a ghost is responsible. I don’t have any explanation yet how my dress and my nightgown were moved around in my room. I also don’t have any explanation for what I saw on the staircase this morning. But until I’m convinced there’s absolutely no other explanation possible, I don’t believe the answer is a spirit.”
Benjy nodded. “I agree with you, but I haven’t experienced anything weird yet.” He grinned suddenly. “Who knows what I’d think afterwards?”
“I’m more open-minded than you, An’gel,” Dickce said. “I believe there are sometimes things that we can’t explain in any rational way. We’ve never been able to explain the odd things that happen at Riverhill, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” An’gel grimaced. “But then we haven’t really had anyone i
n to look at the house. An engineer, I mean, or an architect. There’s probably a perfectly rational explanation for what we’ve experienced.”
An’gel became aware that neither Dickce nor Benjy was paying attention to her. They had identical expressions, a mixture of fear and awe. “What on earth is the matter with you two?”
Dickce swallowed hard. “Look behind you.”
An’gel turned in her chair to see the parlor door closing slowly.
All by itself.
CHAPTER 14
For a few seconds An’gel couldn’t breathe. The sight of the door closing on its own felt threatening in a way that none of the other incidents had done. Were they being shut in?
Benjy jumped up from the sofa and scrambled to get to the door without knocking anything over. An’gel, her breath back, marveled at how light on his feet he was. Within seconds he reached the door, perhaps an inch from being closed, and grabbed the knob. He jerked the door open and stepped into the hall.
An’gel and Dickce waited for him to come back into the parlor. When he did, perhaps thirty seconds later, he was shaking his head.
“There was nobody out there that I could see,” Benjy said. “This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.” He stood about a foot from the door, now still, and stared at it. Then he began to examine every section of the door and the door frame.
An’gel and Dickce, after a quick glance at each other to make sure they were both all right, sat in silence until Benjy finished his examination of the door. They watched as he felt along all the edges and then ran his hands carefully over the surface of the door and the frame. After a couple of minutes, he stepped away and shook his head.
“I don’t see anything attached to it or any kind of device that could make it close automatically. I guess maybe the ghost was trying to make us believe it’s real.” He came back to the sofa and dropped down, looking troubled.
“It certainly looks that way,” An’gel said. “Thank you for being so quick to check it out. I confess I don’t think I could have moved even if the ceiling had started to cave in on us.”
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