A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  They waltzed together under the windowed ceiling, it was the same waltz they had learned in cotillion classes years before. Peyton wondered if she could recover enough from that night when she was ten, if they could have their wedding and reception at the manor. Just like so many other Alcott family members had.

  But she never recovered. Not nearly enough.

  Mrs. Miller whistled from the kitchen and the scent of coffee wafted through the hallways. Peyton followed orders and brought the other container into the foyer. On her way to the ballroom she passed through the main living room. It was an area long enough to boast three small chandeliers—one over the sitting areas at each end of the room, and a larger one in the middle that was centered over a round table.

  Alcott Manor’s past was shadowed with murder, disappearances and a century of ghostly hauntings. Thanks to the last restoration, it had once again become a beautiful home with patterned silk wall coverings, gold-framed portraits and exquisite furniture, but there was a darkness beneath it all, threatening to haunt. Was it just because she knew the home’s history? Maybe the anxiety was getting to be too much. Alcott stories, memories of Beau, they all swirled faster through her head, competing for center stage. She felt it on her skin, the manor pushing its story from all around her, as if it could own her, make her a part of its sad history.

  She felt that if she spent too much time in the house, she might never leave. As if one day in the manor might turn into another and then another, and then one day, there wouldn’t be a way out.

  She breathed deeply to center herself, tried not to take the prescription. Finishing the job at hand was her ticket out, so she shifted into work mode. Several crystals on the chandelier moved as though someone had touched them, and she chose to ignore that. She figured she might have to ignore several more things in the manor before her time here was done. Her left hand tapped five times, then the right hand did the same. She focused on the rhythm, breathed in the calm.

  Getting tourists into the house was all about connections with tourism outlets and branding. The house would need a tagline, a positioning statement, something they could put in advertisements, on brochures and specialty items like coffee cups and drinking glasses.

  She stood still. She could almost see and hear a band playing from the alcove in the middle of the room that jutted outward into the side garden. She could almost smell the scent of cigar smoke and hear the tinkling of champagne glasses that were raised in toasts. The house was a captive, not just to its history, but to its long-ago owners. To their memories.

  The empty rooms felt crowded. Noisy.

  “Come on, Pey!” She jumped. Beau’s voice from two days before their wedding rang through the space. She remembered him jogging ahead of her, only now in slow motion, waving her forward. Too real. He stopped, doubled back and took her hand. His endless strength surged through her, lifted her up. Life was a brilliant force coursing through him, a bright light that commanded whichever space he happened to occupy. People were drawn to that light, like moths, like worshippers who couldn’t get enough.

  Peyton had to admit that it was impressive, she never got tired of watching the effect he had on people. Even so, she often felt like his flame might consume her altogether, if she stood too close. She shook her head, turned away yet again. She had to remove the past from her mind.

  She had worked hard to build a new life, and she had found her calling. Her life in Boston was a far cry from the person she used to be in Charleston. She didn’t need to think about Beau now.

  She closed her eyes, tried to shut him out. But it was as if he reached for her through the walls. Wherever he was, she didn’t know. But the memory of him wasn’t going to leave her alone.

  These rooms exuded a power, a draw and a pull into its past that tourists were going to love. She couldn’t deny that there was some energy about the house that was alive, movement she couldn’t see. She felt it on her skin. Like someone brushed her sleeve as they passed by. She examined the entirety of the room, half expecting to see someone turn the corner or come into view.

  The house had life in it. Its own life. As if it weren’t aware that the family who used to live here was long gone. As if it were still infused with a time gone by and it was unwilling to move on.

  She thought of:

  Alcott Manor ~ Where History Comes Alive

  She made a note of it in her phone.

  The juxtaposition of the splendor of the manor’s design and the tragedy of the lives that had been lost there was something she would have to embrace. There was no denying Anna Alcott’s murder or her husband Benjamin Alcott’s hanging, or all the current day people who had either disappeared or lost their lives within the old manse.

  She would have to decide if the darker information needed to be reserved for special midnight ghost tours, or would they simply blend a few plaques around the home describing the more tragic histories of certain family members?

  She walked across the room, feeling watched. As if she could peel back the walls and find her Alcott ancestors living there, alive and well.

  Silver framed photos were set up on a wide table and she studied them closely. They were familiar, but Peyton hadn’t seen them since she interned under Mrs. Miller in the Charleston History Museum. Alcott Manor history had occupied a significant amount of space and multiple exhibits.

  When Peyton and Layla were old enough, their grandmother had insisted that both girls intern at the museum. “They should represent their own family history,” her grandmother had said. “There may be dark spots in our past, but we’ll overcome it one day. The girls need to be a part of that process of moving the manor forward.”

  Layla refused, opting instead to volunteer at the regional hospital as a candy striper. Peyton reluctantly accepted the job, knowing that her grandmother’s insistence was something that had to be accommodated. The emotional price for refusing her was too steep.

  There was no job training necessary, as she had long ago memorized all the stories and speeches by listening to her grandmother give tours.

  The selection of furniture that the museum allowed on display occupied a suite of rooms: bedroom furniture, a couch and two chairs from the parlor, the dining room set along with its china and crystal settings, and some statuary from the ballroom. The rest was kept safely in climate-controlled storage until the manor was restored enough to once again house it on its own.

  As a tour guide, Peyton described the exact history of each piece of furniture, where it was made, its style, how it had come to be in the family and its current worth. And, of course, the family stories that went along with each piece. For example, how the children piled onto the Queen Anne style couch near the fireplace each week to hear their much-loved father read Grimm’s Fairy Tales to them.

  Peyton’s grandmother knew all sorts of stories about the original 1800s Alcott family as well and she flavored her tours with them. Like how the family gathered for a weekly croquet match on the back lawn, how the mother, Bertha Mae carried a skeleton key tied to her waist because she was obsessed about locking certain doors and cabinets. Or how Rachel, one of the Alcott children, loved the color blue, and her favorite place to play was in the side yard under the old magnolia tree.

  She studied the three furniture settings grouped together in the long room. The stories about the Alcott family exuded from the walls, ready to spring to life. She wondered if she repeated these stories aloud if the memories might do just that—spring to life.

  She went into the ballroom, a long rectangular room, painted robin’s egg blue and topped from end to end with a glass ceiling. Tables along the far wall were stacked with photo albums, old newspapers, framed pictures and foam-mounted, poster-sized photos.

  She recognized many of the pieces when they had either been on display or in storage at the Charleston Museum. Now that the manor was restored, Jayne Ella had negotiated for their return. It was Peyton’s job to select and organize the Alcott family memorabilia into exhibi
ts for the tour.

  Her text alarm dinged. Her mother:

  He’s at it again. More bad press for the manor. Can you do something to offset this?

  There was a document attached and she tapped the screen.

  She adjusted the picture size so she could read the caption, and gasped when she saw yet another picture of Beau:

  Beau Spencer, hired by the Alcott family organization to document the progress of one of the family’s many restoration attempts, disappeared nine years ago today. His father, Austin Spencer, President of First Charleston Bank, has renewed his campaign for information regarding his son’s disappearance.

  “He was last seen at Alcott Manor, then he disappeared,” Austin Spencer said. “He told me not long before his disappearance that he was breaking the engagement. The two are obviously related.”

  Peyton released a string of curse words. “That’s low even for you, Austin.” She shoved her phone into her purse and wished she had some good dirt on Beau’s father. Something, anything she could threaten him with and get him to shut up about the manor. But she didn’t have anything. She had looked.

  “My Dad has spent years trying to talk me out of the photography thing, as he calls it.” Beau’s voice from their first date was so loud and too clear. She pressed her hands to either side of her head. But the memory played anyway.

  Her first date with Beau, simple, romantic, the beach for swimming and a picnic lunch. He brought his 35 mm camera and took pictures of her, which he later developed by hand. Normally she was critical of herself in photos. But he had captured such a soft and pretty side of her, unguarded, open. “It’s easy to see the beauty in you,” he told her when he took her photos that day. She still kept several of the photos tucked in the bottom of her lingerie drawer.

  After they graduated from college, they were going to travel the world together. They had each complained for so many years about their respective home lives. Beau said, “We’ll be homeless together. Completely free. At one with the world.”

  “Ira, Ira, Ira.” She whispered her fiance’s name to remind herself where things were in the here and now. She walked to the female mannequins, each one donned in a long period-specific dress. Peyton paused briefly in front of an ivory brocade wedding dress.

  She exhaled deep and long and texted her mother that she would think about what to do. Austin Spencer had long blamed the Alcotts and the manor for his son’s death, saying there was something strange about the home. That it ought to be condemned. Unfortunately, he had a very loud voice in Charleston, one that people tended to listen to. That was a problem for their grand opening. They couldn’t have the tide of public opinion turning against them now. Last time that happened, the community nearly shut the manor down forever.

  She knew that as a father he would never stop grieving the loss of his son, but she couldn’t bring Beau back, and her entire family was counting on the income that the manor would generate.

  There were a surprising number of photos, several boxes full. Peyton made a note to organize them into groups by event. Some of the photos wouldn’t make the cut for exhibition because the sheer quantity was overwhelming. Guests would get fatigued and lose interest if too many items were on display. She needed enough to show highlights of the Alcott story, no more, no less.

  She walked to the tables of Alcott memorabilia and lifted one of the antique cameras. It was a wet plate camera from the mid-1800s.

  In college her photography professor taught the class how to take photos with wet plate cameras and dry plate cameras, then they had to develop the photos themselves. The process wasn’t that difficult once they figured out what they were doing, although the dry plate process was far easier.

  It had been fascinating for the students to see that the century-old cameras still worked. Their class even set up an exhibit of all the tintypes that they produced for their assignments. The exhibit had been so impressive that it made the local paper.

  She stared at the mountain of old cameras, newspapers and memory books stacked on tables against the wall and made notes on how she wanted to display them. She moved a few of the items around on the table; it was a massive amount of information to organize. Stress tightened the muscles in her chest into a knot.

  One photo had been left on the table. It had captured a party in the ballroom. Women in full, ankle-length ballgowns danced with men, some of whom wore Confederate army uniforms, others wore long-tailed tuxedos. Six grand chandeliers hung from either side of the domed glass in the ceiling. She glanced up, where only two of those fixtures remained today.

  The ballroom displays would need to focus on the celebrations that had taken place there, she decided. She would pull all of the photographs and tintypes of the wedding receptions and galas and sort them for the displays. The plastic containers held rows upon rows of tintype photographs and she popped open the lid of one of them. Their firm structures clapped against one another when she filed through them. People and places looked so different in tintypes. Black and white photos appeared as though the camera had only visited a minuscule space of time and preserved a memory. Tintypes were heavier, denser. Looking at them was like looking at captured lives beneath solid glass-paned windows. It was hard to imagine the people or anything else moving beyond that very moment.

  Her text alarm dinged. It was her mother:

  Meet me at the back door, if you would, please.

  Need help bringing a few things in.

  Peyton’s heels echoed in the vacuous room. She left the ballroom through the doors on the opposite side of the room. From all the trips she had made through the manor with her father when she was young, she remembered cutting through the great hall. It was a large room toward the back of the house that featured a grand staircase. She had seen it many times in photos, where the original Alcott family members often posed with dignitaries.

  When she stepped into the great hall, a chill swept over her. It blew across her face strongly enough that her bangs moved off of her forehead. Goosebumps spread down her arms and legs. Her heart thrummed.

  Someone was there. A presence.

  Peyton tried to move forward. Couldn’t.

  The presence swirled around her, stalking her, screaming in a soundless voice that made her ears hurt. She couldn’t quite hear the noise but she knew someone was there. Yelling. Threatening. Peyton closed her eyes, put her fingers over her ears.

  There was a realm where things were said spiritually—angels gave guidance, departed souls spoke to their loved ones, earthbound spirits spoke to mediums or whomever they wanted—Peyton didn’t hear any of that.

  “Go away!” she said.

  The presence faded. The chill dissipated.

  She opened her eyes and lowered her hands from her ears.

  The lowest step of the grand staircase was right in front of her.

  The memory snatched her quick and cold: She was ten, sitting on that bottom stair. She shook from the inside out, the damp cold deep in her bones. Memories flashed like lightning: a scream, the sickly sweet scent of blood, the rotting smell of sick.

  Peyton’s heart jumped to her throat, made her gasp for air.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Mrs. Miller stood in the doorway, twisting a round locket between her fingers.

  “Yes.” She pressed her hand against her chest, tried to catch her breath.

  “I’m sorry to have startled you. We’ll have to put bells on my shoes,” Mrs. Miller said, her tone smooth and slithering.

  4

  “Peyton?” her mother called from somewhere near the back of the house.

  She tried to call to her mother but her throat was dry and tight.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Mrs. Miller whispered, her stare clinging to Peyton.

  She saw the room as it used to be, dark and cold, the sound of water dripping.

  The distant sound of keys jingled and high heels clomped on hardwoods in a hurry. “Peyton?”

  She dashed to the ballroom and grab
bed her purse. The Xanax was in the side pocket. Her hand shook when she tipped the bottle, and several pills bounced onto the floor and under the table.

  She kneeled, grabbed at the pills as if they were tiny bits of gold and dropped them into the bottle. She stopped herself from throwing several of them into her mouth.

  “Peyton!”

  She lifted her head too quickly and hit it on the underside of the table. Hundreds of tintypes rattled above her.

  “Ow!” She pressed her hand to her head.

  “Oh, gosh, honey. Are you okay?”

  Peyton looked up and saw her mother and her sister, Layla, standing over her. Layla held Peyton’s wedding dress.

  “Yeah. Great,” Peyton said to her mother. “Hey, Layla-pop.”

  “Hey, yourself. Let me see your head.”

  Peyton tilted her head toward her younger sister, who was still dressed in her nurse’s scrubs from work. With a delicate touch, she rubbed her fingers over the painful spot on her head.

  “You’re gonna have a goose egg. Let me see your eyes. Look at me.” Layla searched her sister’s eyes, held up one finger and asked her to follow it. “No concussion. But you could use some ice.”

  “What are these?” Jayne Ella took the wedding dress from Layla, laid it over the table and picked up one of the pills.

  “Something for a headache.”

  Her mother held the tablet to the light. “This is prescription. Are you getting migraines these days?”

  Peyton stood. “I’ll take that.”

  Layla took the bottle. “Xanax?”

  “When did you start taking anxiety meds?” Jayne Ella’s tone pitched high.

  Peyton snatched the bottle from her sister and dropped several of the pills into the container. “My doctor gave me a prescription for them before I came down. I didn’t know how I would handle being here for such a long period of time.”