A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  “Eeny, meanie, miney, moe, take the ring or I’ll take your toe.” Ruby sang the words slowly, her eyes flat and mean. Black dirt beneath Ruby Lee’s gnawed fingernails, her ungodly strong grip on Peyton’s bare foot, a small knife pressed against her big toe.

  “Stop it, Ruby!” Peyton screamed.

  Ruby had pushed her down beneath the largest magnolia tree, pulled off her red Mary Jane and held her foot in a vice grip. The more Peyton tried to wriggle away, the harder Ruby Lee gripped the knife against Peyton’s skin, blood trickled down her foot. Hot tears burned her eyes. The party music was too loud, no one heard her cry for help.

  “Okay! I’ll take the ring! Please, please, stop!” Peyton sobbed.

  Mrs. Miller had brought various pieces of Bertha Mae’s jewelry from the museum and placed them on display in the manor for the guests to see. Ruby Lee wanted the ring with the red stone, the ruby ring.

  “I want it tonight,” Ruby said through clenched teeth.

  “I’ll take the ring. Tonight. After everyone is gone.”

  “Take the ring. Or I’ll take a toe.” Ruby sliced the knife horizontally, leaving a bloody gash across Peyton’s big toe.

  Peyton vowed she would get Ruby out of her life one way or another.

  Peyton could see Mrs. Miller, so much younger then, setting up a display in the music room for visitors to see—two box-like cameras and several tintypes of Peyton’s Alcott ancestors. Mrs. Miller talked about the tintypes, what they were and the fact that she knew how to make them.

  “You can make them!?” Peyton asked once she and Ruby were inside again and the guests left the room. “Make one of us.” She jumped up and down in little hops, the cut on her toe burning inside her shoe. She felt blood glue her sock to her foot. She thought Ruby might forget about the ring if they were all busy making tintypes.

  Ruby tugged on a diamond necklace her father had given her, seemed to consider the idea. She often twisted the diamond charm between her finger and thumb, tried to get people to notice the fact that it was an actual diamond.

  “We could put on those dresses!” Peyton pointed to the mannequins that wore Alcott family attire.

  After much pleading, Mrs. Miller had finally given in and said they could wear the vintage dresses if they promised to be careful and not run around in them. First, she told them she had to drive into town for supplies. Peyton insisted they go with her, said her mother would never allow them to be in the manor by themselves.

  While Mrs. Miller ran inside the photo shop to ask old Mr. Ferguson if he had the supplies, Ruby had a few things to say to Peyton. She told her that she wouldn’t at all be pretty in that red fluffy dress that Peyton loved so much. She told her that she was pudgy and that she shouldn’t be in pictures.

  Whenever Ruby wanted to get her way, she would snatch a pinch of soft skin under Peyton’s arm or the inside of her thigh. Then she would twist and squeeze until Peyton acquiesced. Twice Peyton fought back and hit Ruby hard enough to leave a mark and a bruise on her face. But she got in trouble with her parents and Mrs. Miller for that. Ruby also had a way of convincing people that she wasn’t at fault.

  When Mrs. Miller returned with the supplies she needed, Peyton told Mrs. Miller that she changed her mind and didn’t want to be in the photo, that she would play photo assistant, instead. She rubbed her arm where Ruby had left a mark.

  Mrs. Miller made the tintype of Ruby proudly wearing the red dress.

  Peyton’s private movie stopped and the screen went blank.

  Mrs. Miller’s lips flattened. “If you had never suggested the tintype, I wouldn’t have lost my girl.”

  Peyton opened her mouth to tell her what a horrible little girl Ruby was. But she stopped. Mrs. Miller held too many cards, she held her life in her hands.

  “I obviously didn’t know that was going to happen.” Peyton pressed her fingers to her temples where the pressure was building.

  Mrs. Miller paced around her like judge and jury. “You’re going to bring her back to me.”

  Peyton licked her dry lips, expected Mrs. Miller to grab a section of skin under her arm and pinch. Just like her daughter used to. “I told you I don’t know how I got back. It just happened.”

  “Then you’ll do exactly what you did before. Except this time you’ll bring Ruby back with you. And my husband, too.”

  Mrs. Miller flipped through the tintypes on the table. “It wasn’t until I lost my husband that I knew where my sweet Ruby was. I just thought she had been kidnapped on the way home that night. That’s what the police told us. No body. No signs of foul play. They had said somebody probably picked her up. Just because they could. She was such a pretty girl.

  “I beat myself up for years thinking that I never should have let her walk out of the manor by herself that night. Her daddy said that he was getting in the car and he was on his way to get her. He just asked that she start walking so he wouldn’t have to be seen by any party guests leaving the manor. He said he wasn’t dressed and he didn’t want to pull down the long drive and have somebody see him in sweats while they were in their party finest. I kissed her goodbye in the manor’s kitchen, and then I never saw her again.

  “One day he disappeared, and I had no idea where he had gone. I thought maybe he just left. We never were the same after Ruby went away. Then one day I was working in the museum, dusting off the tintypes we had on display, and I saw him. He was just staring right back at me from one of the tintypes, like he’d been there all along. Like he was trying to get me to see him. That was the first time I knew where Ruby had gone.”

  “You found her?”

  “Her hair is still red, just a little darker now that she’s grown up.” Mrs. Miller sighed and clicked her thumbnails against one another.

  It was a quiet anger that defined Mrs. Miller, Peyton thought. It hadn’t been there when she was younger and Ruby was alive.

  “You made a tintype of him with the camera before he disappeared?”

  “Mmm-hmmm. Your mother was trying to put together an advertising campaign to try to turn the community’s perception of the manor to something more positive. She wanted everyone to remember its historical significance and forget about the hauntings and the disappearances that had made the news.

  “It was a clever campaign, I’ll give her that. Everybody loved my Horace, you know. So, she had him put on an Alcott tuxedo that we had in storage at the museum. Then she had me make a tintype with Bertha Mae’s camera. The picture ran in the paper and she wrote a lengthy op-ed to go with it. I kept the tintype on display in the museum with the article beside it. It worked well, you know. The community thought Horace had lent his support to the manor, which he had, really. They backed off. Gave the Alcotts yet another chance.”

  “But then he ended up in the past,” Peyton said. She studied Horace’s image in the tintype.

  “It’s not the past. They’re trapped in the manor’s memories. They move from tintype to tintype. Memory to memory.” She took the tintype from Peyton, held it close to one of her eyes like she couldn’t quite make him out, and ran her thumb over the image of her husband. “He’s still very handsome.”

  Peyton looked at the photo in Mrs. Miller’s hands. An aged Horace Miller sat at a card table with three other tuxedoed men, each of them holding a hand of cards and a cigar.

  “That’s why you won’t leave the manor, even though Jayne Ella is rude to you. This is why you’re so insistent on staying connected to our family and to our history. It’s not the manor, it’s the tintypes. You don’t want to be away from them.”

  Mrs. Miller ran her hands over the tops of the tintypes and they clattered together. “I don’t get to see them often. These photos are the only communication I get. I won’t leave them. I won’t leave the manor. Not until you unlock the manor’s secret and bring my family back to me.”

  Peyton finally put all the pieces together. “You knew ahead of time that Beau would miss our wedding. You knew what that would do to me.”
r />   “Yes, I did. But you were young and beautiful, and I knew you would find someone else. I had to take my one opportunity while I had it. I needed someone to bring my Ruby back to me.”

  Peyton grabbed Mrs. Miller’s teacup and smashed it against the wall.

  Mrs. Miller jumped. When she finally looked at Peyton again she said, “I wasn’t wrong. You found Ira.”

  “You had no right to do that.”

  Mrs. Miller rose slowly, her stare hard and dark. “It’s your fault I lost my little girl. I missed out on everything with her. And it’s your mother’s fault that I lost my husband. So don’t tell me who has a right to do what. Your family owes me!” She banged her fist on the table.

  “You suggested this whole past present photo gimmick, just so you could send me back.”

  Mrs. Miller nodded.

  “What makes you think I’ll know how to bring this Alcott secret to light?”

  “You’ll find a way. You’ll want to rescue Beau. No one else would have the motivation that you do.”

  “And what if I can’t?”

  “Then I think I’ll take a picture of Ira to give you double the motivation.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would. And if he doesn’t work, I’ll move to Layla. Then on to those cute girls of hers.”

  Peyton pushed her hands into her hair and squeezed her head.

  “I’ve waited a long time for you to come home. You’re the best person for the job. Also, I think you shouldn’t be able to move ahead with your wedding until Ruby is able to have one for herself.”

  Mrs. Miller smoothed the front of her dress. She had been like this since Peyton and Ruby were little. “Anything Peyton can have, Ruby should have better.” Peyton and Ruby walked into the museum one day after school and found Mrs. Miller singing that to herself. She sang the words to the old show tune “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better.”

  “Mama!” Ruby Lee had said. “That’s so funny!” She tugged the small diamond charm, pulled it from left to right.

  But it hadn’t been funny to Peyton. She remembered limping back to the manor that day when Mrs. Miller made the tintype. Ruby Lee put on the red dress and swished around in it. “It really does look much better on me, don’t you think?” Ruby said.

  “How did you get back?” Mrs. Miller whispered, as if Peyton would give her the real story this time.

  “I told you, I don’t know,” Peyton said. “It just happened.”

  13

  Ira’s and Jayne Ella’s voices carried from the upstairs as if they were on their way down the grand staircase. Peyton thought of the vital meeting with the bankers that was scheduled for later in the day, the one that would determine the fate of the manor. And her family’s wellbeing.

  She printed six copies of her plan for the manor and reviewed the finer details of her strategy with her mother. All the while stifling the nerves that felt like live wires in her gut. Her mother needed to be prepared to handle the meeting alone. The night before, it had taken several hours for her to be propelled into the manor’s memories. She assumed it would be the same timing today, but she didn’t know for sure.

  Ira toured the first level of the manor, then she took him outside to the back porch. They stood hand-in-hand and looked over their wedding site, the calm ocean sparkling in postcard-perfect fashion. He held her close.

  His spiced cologne brought up memories of how they would laze in his bed for hours on Sundays—early morning lovemaking, bagels from their favorite shop with sides of eggs and bacon, hot coffee from his French press. The world had been only theirs then.

  She felt badly that he didn’t know it was a good-bye hug, that he didn’t know she would be gone for a while, and that he didn’t know who she was going to see. There was no way to explain any of that.

  “You look quite good in this historical attire,” he said. His kisses trailed along her neck. “All I can think of is how to get you out of this dress…so many tiny little buttons.”

  She captured his hands in her own.

  “Not here,” she said with her most pleasant smile.

  A movement caught her attention. Mrs. Miller stood between the kitchen and the main hallway. Her stare was dark and flat, and her presence reminded Peyton that she had a job to do. Loved ones to protect.

  She walked Ira out of Mrs. Miller’s view.

  “Does she always look at people like that?” he asked.

  “Usually,” Peyton said.

  Ira shook his head. “I reserved a nice beach house for us so we could have some alone time before the chaos descends,” he said. “I want you all to myself for as long as possible. Kind of an early honeymoon.”

  “Ira.” She ran her hands over his chest, not quite believing what she was about to say. “I know this is going to sound incredibly strange. Especially since we and—well, Jayne Ella have gone to all this trouble. But I can be terribly shy sometimes and—”

  “I’ve never known you to be shy.” He kissed her lips gently.

  “Okay, maybe shy isn’t the right word—”

  “Did I tell you that Senator Michaels is coming to the wedding?”

  “From Massachusetts?”

  “Yeah. Our families go back a long way. It will be great press for our family. And the manor. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I interrupted you. What were you going to say?”

  Her stomach cramped and she pressed a hand against the pain. The signs were starting sooner this time. The additional tintypes that Mrs. Miller made must have sped things up.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Something I ate, I think.” She knew there was a chance that she wouldn’t make it back in time for the wedding.

  “Why don’t I drive you to the beach house now and you can lie down?”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve got a ton of work to do between now and the wedding. I’m not sure how much time we’re going to have together and—”

  “Seriously?” He held her closer, his hands rubbing up and down her back.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s bad timing. But I can’t very well leave the manor or my work unfinished.” She flashed him her sweetest smile, the flirtatious one. Her skin buzzed with an electric current, it was another sign that she would be gone soon.

  “You’re too sensible for an almost-bride.”

  “Well, it’s a lot of work and…I’m wondering if maybe we need to rethink the ceremony.”

  The force gathered in her stomach, formed a ball, twisting and spinning with increasing speed. Same as before. Soon she would be catapulted into the dark side of Alcott Manor that only a handful of people knew about—a shadowy reality of captive memories.

  He kissed her and she could barely feel his lips on hers.

  “I rented the beach house for us. It was going to be our last few days together—before family arrives.” He stroked her hair, kissed her on her forehead, her nose, her mouth.

  He had an insistent way when it came to her and she had always enjoyed his attentiveness. Today he somehow managed to be so overly focused on her while not actually listening to what she was saying. She placed her hands on the outside of his shoulders. “I won’t be around much while I’m wrapping up all this work, anyway. Listen—”

  “But I’ve already taken the time off from the practice.”

  “You can just stay at the house on your own. Get some R&R.”

  “Well, I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

  “You can spend time here. With us.” Mrs. Miller shuffled onto the porch, her smile wide, something black shifting behind it. “We’ll keep you company.”

  “No!” Peyton said. “I’ll be working. Remember?” With her eyes she silently begged Mrs. Miller for her cooperation. It was like asking a snake not to bite, or a scorpion not to sting.

  “Well, when you’re at the bank and whatnot. He might need company.” Mrs. Miller clicked her tongue.

  Peyton could imagine Mrs. Miller telling Ira about the tintype exhibit. And how wonderful i
t would be if Ira dressed up in authentic Alcott wear as well. For a picture, with a special turn of the century camera.

  “He’s already made plans. He’s going to relax and catch up on things.”

  Mrs. Miller turned to Ira and patted him on the arm several times. “Don’t pay her any attention, you’re welcome here any time, you hear me? Any time.” She wagged a knowing finger at Ira as she went into the house, one slow step after another.

  “Thank you, madam,” he said professionally. “I may take you up on that offer.”

  “See that you do,” Mrs. Miller sang.

  “You don’t need to be here,” Peyton whispered to Ira and straightened his collar. “Don’t let her make you feel that way. You don’t take enough vacation. Enjoy this break—sleep in, take a run, read a few of those medical mysteries you love so much. Hopefully I’ll be back soon. But I do think we need to talk about the timing of the ceremony—”

  “What do you mean be back? Are you going somewhere?”

  “I mean—I go into my own world when I have a lot of work. You know me.” She smiled but it felt plastic, a betrayal of the honesty that had been central to their relationship.

  “Do I need to be concerned about anything? Are we…okay? I get the feeling that you’re trying to say good-bye.” His laugh was nervous.

  She stroked the side of his face and he leaned into her hand. She remembered how her therapist told her how pleased she was that Peyton had chosen someone who was so in love with her. “Not everyone does that. Sometimes, if we don’t truly recover from the loss, we will partner with those who are unavailable in some way, emotionally or otherwise. It can become a repetitive pattern.”

  “I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.” Fine was the farthest from the truth. “It’s just this place, it’s too much history, you know? Sometimes I think it’s going to devour me. Like a sickness that takes over. I need to close out my business at the manor and be done with it, and I think that’s going to take longer than I anticipated. Plus, I’m just really uncomfortable here. It’s hard.”