Nothing Hidden Ever Stays

by HR Mason

  Something about the man set her on high alert, although she couldn’t quite put her finger on the reason why. Aubrey had the unsettling sensation of a connection, as if she knew Anson from somewhere, although that was impossible.

  Nevertheless, when she looked at him, she was flooded with sadness, longing, and an unexplainable feeling of wistfulness. His eyes locked onto hers, and she was overwhelmed by a familiarity she didn’t understand.

  “You look just like her,” the man muttered quietly.

  “Just like who?” Aubrey asked.

  “Anna.”

  Mrs. Bonaventure threw a sideways glance at her son. He caught his mother’s gaze and seemed to instantly regret the fact that he’d broken his silence. Without another word, he turned on his heels and headed out the front door.

  “He knew my mother? Did you know her too?” Aubrey hoped Mrs. Bonaventure, who clearly enjoyed talking, would be a great source of information.

  “Of course we knew Anna. I’ve worked for the Ross family since I was a young girl. So has Mr. Bonaventure.”

  “Oh, good. Maybe you can help me, then.”

  “Help you with what, dear?”

  “Answer some questions,” Aubrey replied.

  “What questions might that be?”

  “Why did my mother leave home?”

  “Well now… I guess I… can’t answer that. She had some… trouble… with your grandparents,” the woman stammered by way of explanation.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Your grandparents had high and clear expectations. Your mother had her own opinions, and a sadness that hovered over her wherever she went. And then there was… well, like I said, I don’t really know.”

  Aubrey was aware that the woman knew far more than she said. Mrs. Bonaventure had almost said something else, yet for some unknown reason, she’d censored herself.

  Mrs. Bonaventure smiled and headed upstairs without another word. Aubrey heard her banging around in the bedroom above. The conversation, which had ended abruptly, was over.

  Mrs. Bonaventure’s love of chatter apparently didn’t extend to matters of the Ross family. In fact, no one in Rossdale seemed inclined to speak of them.

  Aubrey wandered into the kitchen and spotted Anson in the backyard with a weed eater. He worked efficiently and effortlessly. She watched the way he moved, gracefully, powerfully, like an athlete. He made Aubrey uncomfortable and curious at the same time. She wanted to run away from him, and yet she felt compelled to know more about the man.

  His mother wasn’t forthcoming with information, but if she could get to know Anson, perhaps he would be.

  She heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairway, and Mrs. Bonaventure entered the kitchen.

  “He’s a hard worker, that son of mine,” she said quietly, almost as if she were talking to herself.

  “Yes, it looks like it,” Aubrey agreed as she continued to stare at him.

  “Since you’re officially in control of the house, is there anything specific you would like us to do when we come?”

  Her words caused Aubrey to look away from the window.

  “I’ve made a list. I’ll be selling the house soon, and there are a few things I’d like to have completed before I put it on the market,” Aubrey answered matter-of-factly.

  “You’re selling Desolate Ridge? But it’s been in your family for two hundred years!”

  The shock on the woman’s face was obvious.

  “Yes, I understand that. But I don’t want it, and it’s mine to sell. I have no need for it,” Aubrey replied curtly. “I left the list on the counter.”

  Ignoring the surprised look on Mrs. Bonaventure’s face, she walked across the kitchen to where she’d left the note on the countertop.

  It wasn’t there.

  “Did you take it already?”

  “Take what, dear?”

  “The to-do list I made. It was on the counter when I answered the door, and it’s not there now,” Aubrey replied irritably.

  “I haven’t seen a list. I just came in here a second ago,” she answered.

  “That doesn’t make sense. It was just there….”

  Aubrey searched the area where she’d left the note. She even got on her hands and knees and looked on the floor beneath the counter. As she stood to her feet, she glanced inside the trash can. It was empty, except for a single wad of paper.

  Aubrey reached inside the bin and pulled it out, recognizing it immediately. It was the list she’d made, which had been crumpled into a ball and thrown away.

  “Why was this in the trash can?” she questioned Mrs. Bonaventure.

  “Well, I wouldn’t know, dear. No one has been in here but you.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense. I didn’t throw it away. I left it on the counter when I answered the door.”

  Nothing about Desolate Ridge was logical. Aubrey was beginning to believe she had somehow crossed over an invisible threshold between madness and sanity. She’d teetered on the border her entire life; perhaps she’d finally made the final decisive leap. The crumpled paper was just another addition to the list of odd experiences since she’d arrived.

  “I don’t understand. I know I left this list on the counter,” Aubrey insisted as she held the paper in her hand.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, dear. Some things around here just can’t be explained,” Mrs. Bonaventure answered cryptically.

  “I don’t believe that. There’s a logical explanation for everything.”

  “Of course there is. I’m going to go dust the parlor,” the older woman replied with a nod.

  Alone with her thoughts, Aubrey tried to make sense of things. No one had been in the kitchen besides her, and she hadn’t thrown the list into the trash can. Not only had it been thrown away, it had been deliberately crumpled into a wad, as if someone were trying to make a point.

  Tapping her fingertips on the counter in agitation, Aubrey glanced out the kitchen window and saw Anson trimming a bush. She decided to ask him if he’d seen anyone in the house.

  As she angled her body toward the far side of the lawn, her eye caught sight of the rose garden she’d noticed the day before. Suddenly, she needed to see it, feeling that doing so was the most vital requirement of her life.

  She turned and walked in the opposite direction of where she’d intended to go. She made a beeline toward the garden, as if she had no choice in the matter. Her body felt directed and tugged by forces beyond her control.

  The closer she came to the arbor, the heavier her steps grew. Aubrey trudged slowly through the grass, and as she walked, she began to cry. The tears fell slowly at first, but soon they trailed down her cheeks like a waterfall cascading over a precipice. She didn’t know why she was crying, yet she couldn’t stop.

  She approached the trellis, hanging heavily with tangling, crawling roses. The tears continued to fall as if there were an endless supply. Aubrey could have cried forever and it wouldn’t have been long enough to purge the woe that seeped into her very core. The deep, all-consuming sadness engulfed her, a despondent mournfulness, like her heart had been irreparably shattered.

  Sobs racked Aubrey’s body as she opened the wooden gate that led to the garden. She stepped inside the entrance and nearly collapsed onto a wrought iron bench. The beauty of the blooming roses was overshadowed by an oppressive feeling of melancholy. It hung in the air like a thick, dense fog.

  Aubrey couldn’t understand why she’d felt obliged to visit the garden. She didn’t know why she’d been overcome with anguish. Like most things at Desolate Ridge, it made no sense.

  As she glanced helplessly around the secluded garden, her breath caught in her throat. Scattered across the ground, like flowers tossed into the wind, were six small, flat grave markers. In shock, she glanced at the names and dates. All six read “Baby Boy Ross” and listed only the death dates.

  Aubrey wiped her eyes as understanding dawned—the children had died before they’d ever had the chance to l
ive.

  13

  Desolate Ridge — 1866

  George Ross wandered through the rose garden alone. Pulling the bottle of laudanum from his breast pocket, he placed several drops on his tongue, then slumped onto the wrought iron bench and closed his eyes, willing the sweet euphoria of the elixir to be speedy. His use of the laudanum had increased substantially, but he couldn’t function without it. He didn’t want to feel anything. It was all too much.

  He glanced around the garden, wiping the tears from his eyes as he looked at the six small headstones. He didn’t know why he tortured himself by visiting, yet he did. The hidden cemetery seemed a fitting place for what he intended to do.

  He’d received word only an hour earlier that Anne, his wife, had killed herself in the asylum. She’d been there only a few months, but it had apparently been too long. George didn’t want to send his wife away, but he could barely take care of himself, let alone Anne or their one-year-old son, Peter.

  The six headstones swam before his eyes, mocking his pain. Every pregnancy had sent George and Anne deeper into despair. By the time Peter finally came along, Anne was lost in an abyss of grief and couldn’t find her way out. George was no better, numbing his pain with laudanum just to survive.

  He had no explanation for the depression that had haunted him since boyhood. The tragic death of his mother, Emilia, was perhaps part of the reason. He hadn’t seen her fall from the second-story landing of their home, but he’d lived with the terrible ramifications of the loss.

  George’s father, Byron, had never been the same after the death of his wife. He’d shuffled through the halls of Desolate Ridge day after day, a skeleton of a man, raving about “the voices.” No one understood what he was talking about. The doctors declared Byron mad, irrevocably broken, but harmless. So they’d medicated George’s ailing father, allowing him to stay at Desolate Ridge until he’d finally taken his own life.

  Everyone whispered about the horrible accident that had killed Emilia Ross, but George believed it had killed them all in some ways. George had lost his mother in the accident, and his father as a result of it. A dark cloud of gloom had followed him throughout his life.

  When George Ross met the lovely Anne Ashbridge, he had hoped she might bring him some light. Unfortunately, he quickly discovered that Anne shared his predisposition for sadness. They tried to chase away the shadows together, feeling as if their love could conquer the melancholy they shared, living so close to the surface.

  They married, and Anne was soon with child. The couple believed the birth of their baby would finally bring them some joy. But it wasn’t to be. One miscarriage turned into five. With each loss Anne suffered, the darkness crept closer. After losing her sixth child, Anne was unable to feel anything but despair. Then she became pregnant once again.

  Throughout her pregnancy with Peter, Anne barely acknowledged the fact that she was expecting. Even as she passed all the milestones she’d never reached with the other pregnancies, she refused to accept that she would finally be a mother. She’d had too many crushing disappointments; she was no longer capable of hope.

  When Peter was born, Anne refused to hold him. Soon after, she wouldn’t get out of bed. She kept the curtains in her room drawn all day, refusing to allow even a sliver of light to enter. The doctors finally institutionalized Anne, and George let them. He had failed his family.

  George Ross withdrew inside himself, believing the poison of his gloom had infected those he loved. Everything was his fault. His despair was too strong to allow anything near him to flourish. His depression had been too potent for the children in his wife’s womb to survive.

  He had driven Anne to insanity, and she’d killed herself in the asylum. He knew his toxicity would consume young Peter if he allowed it to. The only way to ensure that didn’t happen was to stay away from his son.

  Desperately, George dropped to his knees as the sobs racked his body. He reached one tentative hand toward the gravestone closest to him, caressing the etched lettering. The sadness was more than he could stand. It was a monster on his back, pushing, shoving him down until he could no longer rise. He collapsed onto the hard ground, his body lying prostrate beside the shrine to his children.

  His hands trembled as he once again reached for the laudanum bottle in his breast pocket. He’d already taken far too much, yet the darkness lingered. The numbness that used to embrace him with each drop refused to come near. The blissful oblivion of the drug had abandoned him, just as his parents had. Ironically, he was perpetuating the legacy of desertion with his own son. But he was too weak to care.

  He tipped the laudanum bottle on end, draining its entire contents into his mouth. Soon it would all be over. He had tried to fight the darkness, but it had won.

  14

  Aubrey had fallen asleep with the light on, as always. Before bed, she’d finally worked up the courage to peruse the Ross family Bible. As she’d read over the births, deaths, and marriages, she was struck with a revelation—the women in her family all died very young.

  With the exception of her grandmother, Elizabeth, every woman who had married into the Ross family was Aubrey’s age or younger when she passed away. Why did these women, seemingly youthful and vibrant, die by the age of twenty-five? How had they died? Who was the mother of the babies in the rose garden? The death dates on their headstones spanned less than a three-year period, so Aubrey assumed one mother had grieved the loss of them all. Also eerie was the fact that each generation of the Ross family produced a single living child, always a male—except for Aubrey and her mother.

  Each new discovery was stranger and more unsettling than the last. There must have been a reason for everything. Aubrey needed to know.

  She tossed and turned in the mammoth four-poster bed. Her sleep patterns had been abnormal since arriving at Desolate Ridge, and the restlessness was beginning to catch up with her. The line between real and imaginary had become so blurred she could barely tell the difference anymore.

  Spectre hissed, startling Aubrey. She shot up in bed, chills erupting on every inch of her skin. The hair on her arms rose on end, and the back of her neck prickled. Her eye began to twitch as she heard the unsettling sound of a woman crying. It wasn’t a soft whimpering but was instead a keening wail.

  Her heart pounded in her chest as she deliberated about what to do. The sound was too loud to ignore, yet the thought of leaving the safety of her bed was unconscionable.

  Her racing pulse throbbed in her finger as the sapphire ring squeezed tightly, gripping like a vise. The woman’s weeping continued, growing in volume. Aubrey twisted the ring, the blue of the stone glowing hauntingly. Or was that just her imagination?

  It seemed that since she’d slipped the piece of jewelry onto her finger, nothing had been normal. Aubrey tugged, trying to remove the ring, but her effort was in vain. The jewelry wouldn’t budge. In fact, it seemed to be growing tighter by the moment.

  The woman’s crying intensified. Aubrey had no choice but to investigate.

  She crept from the master bedroom and made her way into the hall. As she neared the doorway leading upstairs to the attic, the noise level increased. She’d only been in the attic once, and she had no desire to do so again, especially in the middle of the night. But she had to find out what was going on.

  Someone was up there.

  Aubrey needed a flashlight, but she remembered it was in the kitchen. She padded softly down the winding staircase to retrieve it. As she neared the bottom of the stairs, she began to cough. The distinct smell of smoke trailed into her nostrils, choking her with its pungency. Something was on fire!

  She ran toward the odor, choking and sputtering as she went. The scorching smell was coming from the sitting room. Aubrey’s brain refused to work quickly. She should have dialed 911, but the image of Sheriff Metzger came to mind instead.

  She remembered feeling compelled to program his number into her phone the night he’d handed her his card. She didn’t know why she’d
done so, as she’d had no intention of ever using it. Rather than question it, she simply dialed.

  “This is Aubrey Ross. There’s a fire,” she screamed into the phone when he picked up.

  She reached the sitting room and was nearly knocked over by the scorching heat. Flames licked and danced, burning with fervor. The entire room was engulfed in the blaze. She covered her mouth and nose with her nightgown, but the all-consuming firestorm was too much. She tried to take shallow breaths, but the angry flames released a sulfurous odor.

  Aubrey grew dizzy, and the room began to spin before her eyes. Why has he done this to us? The phrase, which made no sense, grew louder in her muddled brain. She began to scream in an effort to drown out the words, but they continued to swim in her mind. Why has he done this to us?

  The phone dropped to the floor. Her eyes watered as she continued to choke. She tried to open the sitting room door, but it had closed behind her. She banged on the unyielding door, twisting the knob frantically, but it was no use. She was locked inside.

  Why has he done this to us?

  She just needed to get to the window. If she could pry it open, she would be safe.

  Get to the window!

  It was her last thought before she passed out.

  15

  Desolate Ridge — 1897

  Peter Ross paced back and forth across the hardwood floor of his study. His rage burned as hot as an inferno. His wife had taken things too far. She had crossed the line. She had embarrassed him.

  She had to be stopped.

  He lit his cigar and sighed deeply. A plume of smoke swirled in the air. When he’d married Catherine Sykes, he’d had suspicions that the woman would be unfaithful. A woman like her was too beautiful, too perfect to ever be satisfied with only one man. Stupidly, he’d believed his love could change her. He’d been wrong.