by Skylar Finn
So, that explained the tunnel system. Emily imagined dozens of bootleggers scurrying in and out of it like ants in a colony. She wondered if the copious volume of criminal activity resulted in what Darla referred to as the house’s “dark soul.”
The book had provided a glimpse into the history of the house, but no further insight as to what had happened the night Matilda died and who might be responsible. Frustrated, Emily placed the books back on the shelf and left the library. She walked to the nearest bus stop to catch the SKIP back up Broadway.
Before she boarded, she checked over both shoulders, just to make sure no one was following her home.
Emily walked into the house and threw her keys on the table. Widget ran to the door to greet her. There was no sign of Jesse.
In spite of the fact that no one was home, music drifted from the back of the house.
Had it been a month ago, Emily might have reassured herself that it was Jesse, playing records in the parlor. Even if he wasn’t there, she would have assumed he’d forgotten and left it on. Now, Emily knew better.
She knew it was one of the ghosts who haunted the house. They’d started leaving her messages the night she and Jesse moved in. While this notion once terrified her, she now felt reassured by the idea that Matilda’s spirit might be trying to contact her. Maybe that meant she was on the right path.
She opened the parlor door, and her gaze fell upon the source of the sound: an old gramophone from the basement that mysteriously appeared in the parlor one night. Everyone—Jesse, Richard, and Emily—had each sworn they hadn’t been the one to move it, yet still it was here.
Emily looked around the parlor. Why had Matilda wanted her to come to the parlor? Was there something here she hadn’t seen?
Emily avoided the parlor since her first night in the house, when she caught a glimpse of a ghostly woman in the darkened window pane. At the time, Emily attributed it to an overactive imagination and her own reflection. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Emily approached the picture that hung behind the gramophone. It depicted a smiling Matilda, three children—two girls and a boy—and a woman around Emily’s age. The woman was the only person in the photograph not smiling. Emily believed this was Cynthia, Matilda’s assistant, who vanished the same night that Matilda and the children had.
The photograph fell from the wall and onto the carpeted floor with a muffled thump. Emily leaned over to pick it up. As she straightened, she hit her head on the old telephone table beneath the photograph.
“Ow!” Emily clutched her head with one hand and the photograph in the other. She struggled to her feet, setting the picture on the table. A small drawer in the table had been knocked open by the impact from her skull hitting the underside of it.
Emily pulled the drawer open the rest of the way. In it, she found an address book.
“Is this what you wanted me to find?” Emily said aloud. She was becoming accustomed to this strange form of communication between her and the ghosts. It was oddly reassuring, almost as if it connected her to Matilda in a way she hadn’t been in life.
As if in answer to Emily’s question, the volume of the music rose. Emily sat down at the telephone table and flipped through the address book.
Like many others in the house, it was yet another relic of a previous time. Emily hadn’t known anyone to use an address book since she was a child, but she suspected that Matilda was someone reluctant to adapt to change.
Emily flipped through the book and found many of her family members listed, which surprised her. She assumed Matilda hadn’t kept in touch with anybody. Now it seemed silly to think that Matilda hadn’t cared where they lived or what they were doing. If Emily had learned anything about Matilda, it was what a caring person she had been.
Emily was moved to see her own name, written out in Matilda’s careful penmanship. Next to this was the address of Emily’s very first apartment after college. On her birthday that year, Emily had received what looked like a handmade card in a pale blue envelope, wishing her luck at her new job. In the card was tucked a neatly folded hundred-dollar bill. She remembered feeling startled and moved that this woman she’d met only once had thought of her enough to send a card. Had she sent her a thank you card? She hoped so.
Emily flipped to the next page. There was a neon green Post-It stuck to the page. CALL ASAP! Emily flipped the Post-It note up to reveal a business card taped to the page. HAROLD R. WIMBLY, WIMBLY HARDWARE. Emily remembered Jesse making a joke about “old man Wigglesworth who runs the mom-and-pop hardware shop.”
Had Matilda ever called him? Or had it been too late?
Emily picked up a long black dialing wand lying next to the rotary phone. With trembling hands, she dialed the number on the card.
5
As she dialed, she tried to figure out what she would say to Harold Wimbly. Obviously, she couldn’t announce that the ghost of her aunt had suggested she should give him a ring. But what excuse could she have as a reasonable pretense for asking what Matilda wanted so badly to speak to him about?
“Wimbly Hardware, Harold Wimbly speaking,” a pleasant older man’s voice answered the phone. Emily felt less worried about coming up with something to say. Mr. Wimbly sounded like a department store Santa Claus, only kinder.
“Hi, Mr. Wimbly,” she said. “You don’t know me, but I think you knew my great aunt, Matilda. My husband, Jesse, has been buying supplies from you so we can renovate her house.”
“Jesse’s wife!” Mr. Wimbly sounded delighted. “That boy is such good company. Why, he has me in stitches every time he comes into the store.”
Emily thought Jesse might object to being referred to as a boy, but then, Mr. Wimbly sounded about four hundred years old. To Mr. Wimbly, anyone under the age of seventy-five was probably considered a young man in his prime.
“He does have quite the sense of humor,” Emily agreed with a smile. Of all the strange and occasionally terrible people they’d met since moving here, Mr. Wimbly sounded like the nicest.
“Indeed. And Matilda’s niece! Why, your aunt was one of my favorite people.” On the imaginary scoreboard within Emily’s mind, she mentally increased the number of people besides her who believed in Matilda’s innocence from two to three.
“Thank you, Mr. Wimbly. That’s kind of you to say. I was just wondering if you knew my Aunt Matilda was planning to call you and what it might have been about.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Wimbly, and for the first time since she’d called, he sounded less than benevolent. “Them.”
“Who?” asked Emily, startled at the sudden shift in his tone.
“The property management company,” said Mr. Wimbly, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Them.”
“Uh, yes,” said Emily. It was easy enough to infer that he was not a fan of Three Star Properties. “They’ve been pestering me and Jesse for a while now.”
“That don’t surprise me none,” said Mr. Wimbly. “Been after me and the wife to put our place in their hands for the last five years now. Aggressive, bullying. The city of Boulder sits firmly in their palms, driving up the property tax every year. It’s gotten so high that those who’ve lived in their homes all their lives, retired in them, and own them fair and square can barely afford to live in their own houses. Some couldn’t afford it and they’ve been driven out.. And then those property management vultures sweep in and make an offer. It’s a disease, is what it is. Three Star just wants Boulder to be a rich, elitist town filled with snobs and phonies. They want all the old residents out so they can replace us with them—whaddya call them, the computer people?”
“Tech guys?”
“Yeah, them tech guys. Boulder will be the next San Francisco, mark my words. Burn and bury the real residents of this town and replace us with soulless corporate drones and bloodsucking leeches.”
Emily was momentarily speechless. Mr. Wimbly had gotten very dark, very quickly. It was like hearing Mr. Rogers transform into Hannibal Lecter.
“Don�
�t let them get you,” Mr. Wimbly said. “Whatever you do, you gotta hang on to that property. We can’t let them win.”
“No, definitely not,” Emily agreed. Partially because she did agree, but mostly because she could see this was expected of her, and to say anything else would bring a swift end to the conversation. Which, come to think of it, might be for the better.
“They’ll bribe you, intimidate you, and flat-out lie to you, but you can’t let them win! We gotta hold out. We’re all that’s left of this town, from when it was great, and if they have their way, we’ll all be gone.”
“Well, we definitely don’t want that,” said Emily.
“Indeed,” said Mr. Wimbly. It was a far more solemn ‘indeed’ than his earlier one, and Emily saw it as her opportunity to exit the conversation. “Well,” she said, “I’ll definitely talk this over with Jesse, and we’ll be sure to take your advice.”
“Oh, I’ve told him all about those rodents. I bring it up every time he comes in.”
No wonder it had been so easy to convince Jesse to stay in the house after the break-in. Emily silently thanked Mr. Wimbly for his propaganda.
“Well, it was nice to talk to you, Mr. Wimbly,” said Emily. “I hope you have a wonderful evening.”
“You as well,” said Mr. Wimbly.
Emily hung up the phone. As usual, it all came back to Three Star. There had to be some way for her to get something substantial on them. There was no way Darla had tailed her in order to be helpful. And something else was bothering her, too—everyone said they’d vanished without a trace. But there was no way two adults and three children disappeared into thin air. It seemed obvious that something terrible happened.
So why were Matilda, Cynthia, and the children written off as missing for so long? Had the person investigating wanted it to look like a missing person’s case, rather than a potential homicide, and hidden their bodies? If only she could get her hands on the police report without Oglethorpe finding out.
Emily felt beyond frustrated. For some reason, her eyes kept coming back to rest on the picture hanging on the wall: Matilda, Cynthia, and the kids. Something about it was bothering her, and she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. She studied the picture, thinking.
She heard the voice of Andrea through the typewriter. She heard the memories of the younger children that night in the basement. She and Jesse had both seen a shadow gliding wraith-like down the hallway. And she thought she had seen a face in the window their first night here, but the next day dismissed it as her own reflection.
If it was her reflection, and the shadow she followed was Matilda, then where was the ghost of Cynthia Harkness?
Later that day, Jesse was in the backyard with Richard, standing over the open hood of the truck.
“Just brought over a distributor cap,” Richard said. “I got an old Ford out back I mine for parts.”
“Lucky I hadn’t bought the part yet,” said Jesse. “I spent most of the day getting stuff to block the passageway and looking at security systems. Old Man Wimbly’s gonna give me a deal.”
Richard nodded. “That’s wise of you. Enhance your security, and no one can breach your fortress.”
Jesse gave him an odd look he didn’t see.
“Richard,” said Emily. “What do you know about Cynthia Harkness?”
“Cynthia Harkness?” Richard scratched his head. “To tell the truth, I never did know too much about her. She was pretty aloof when she worked here, liked to keep to herself. Good with the kids and got along well enough with Matilda, but never really much one for conversation. Why do you ask?”
“I thought I saw her in the parlor, but it turned out to be my reflection,” said Emily, shrugging. “It just made me curious. She disappeared with Matilda, but I know so little about her.”
Richard looked spooked. “Do you think you saw a ghost?” he asked.
“Why do you ask?” said Emily. She’d never once confided in anyone besides Jesse about what she saw in the house.
“Ghosts are real,” said Richard seriously. “People might not believe in them, but just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“I agree,” said Emily. “So, you think I saw a ghost?”
Richard bit his lip, as if debating how much he wanted to say. “It seems to me that if any of them were alive, somebody would have found them by now,” he said.
“Do you know why it was considered a Missing Persons case and not a homicide?” asked Emily.
“No bodies, were there? Hard to rule something a homicide if there’s no concrete evidence that somebody’s been killed.”
“But what else could have happened?” Emily asked. “For that many people to go missing like that, especially children—surely the sheriff at least suspected there was foul play involved.”
“If he did, Sheriff Oglethorpe probably hid the evidence before anybody noticed so he wouldn’t have to conduct a proper investigation,” said Richard.
“Why would he do that?” asked Jesse.
“Oglethorpe likes his job for the power and influence, no other reason. He’s just biding his time till he can retire and collect his pension. One more election and he can coast the rest of the way through. Last thing he wants to deal with is a homicide, let alone five.”
“You don’t like the sheriff, do you?” said Emily, watching him closely.
“What’s to like about a man afraid of a hard day’s work? You know he’s not even in town right now? He’s up at his place in Vail, probably sipping hot chocolate in front of his fireplace.” Richard shook his head. “I don’t understand what’s happened to this town,” he said, and Emily was reminded of Mr. Wimbly. “Used to be hardworking, decent, honest people. Now it’s nothing but moneygrubbers and crooks.”
In the kitchen, once she and Jesse were alone, Emily quickly recapped the day’s events: Watkins, Darla, the library, and Mr. Wimbly. She ended with her epiphany in the study.
“It’s weird how we keep seeing all these specters—ghosts, whatever you want to call them: a spirit’s imprint of their memory here on earth. Andrea spoke to me through the typewriter. I’m pretty sure the shadow we saw was Matilda’s. I heard the children in the basement during the break-in. I thought I saw Cynthia’s reflection in the window of the parlor, but now I’m not so sure. I’m beginning to think I was imagining things.”
“But she’s dead,” said Jesse. “Isn’t she?” He glanced around nervously, as if waiting for her to appear.
“That’s what I thought,” said Emily. “It seemed the most natural and obvious conclusion to assume that everyone who disappeared that night died—where else would they be? People don’t just vanish into thin air. We’ve heard all these ghosts, confined to the house in which we can be pretty sure they were murdered. The only one we haven’t seen or heard is Cynthia. Wouldn’t she be here, too? We know nothing about her but what we’ve been told by Richard and the sheriff, which is nothing. The whole thing is just really weird. If she’s not here with the others, does that mean she made it out somehow? And if she is alive, she’s obviously hiding from someone, or several someones. She’s probably terrified.”
“If they offed Matilda and the kids but Cynthia somehow escaped, why wouldn’t she just pack up and leave town?” asked Jesse. “Why stick around here?”
“Watkins told me they declared death in absentia after months of monitoring them for any signs of life, like bank account activity and phone records,” said Emily. “She probably couldn’t go anywhere. They would have picked her up immediately. She might be hiding somewhere, like the woods behind the library, pretending to be homeless. She probably is homeless now; it’s not like she can go home. I’m sure they have people watching her place. If it is really her, we have to find her. She’s the only one who can tell us what happened that night.”
“Who can she tell?” said Jesse. “It’s not like we can go waltzing into the sheriff’s office.”
“We have to find her before th
e sheriff gets back from Vail,” Emily said. “And if Sheriff Oglethorpe is out of town all weekend, this is our chance to get our hands on that case file.”
6
August 23rd, 2003
I can’t believe this is happening. Grandma Delphine left me the house instead of Chelsea. She told me she knew I would do something meaningful with it. Chelsea is furious, of course.
The house has not been decorated since Mother moved Grandma Delphine to the home five years ago, and it shows. Unfortunately, even with my modest inheritance, I do not have the means to redecorate it. I will have to make do with what I can find secondhand.
The groundskeeper, Richard, who worked for Grandma Delphine and Grandpa Hershel, has been most helpful with this. He has a number of secondhand items from his family’s home, and he volunteered to bring them up to the house. He knows of my dream to create a home for wayward children, and he’s already brought over a few things—a toy chest, a jewelry box, an old carousel horse—that once belonged to his sisters.
I only hope my venture is successful and I can create a space filled with laughter, love, kindness, and empathy. The kind of space I never had when I was a child.
Matilda gazed at the old lion’s head door knocker before she turned the key in the lock of the front door. She wanted to relish the moment that this place—the sanctuary from her difficult childhood—became hers.
It wasn’t that her family had been particularly abusive or unhappy. As far as she knew, Matilda had been the only unhappy one among them. But her father spent more time at work than he did at home, as so many fathers do, and Matilda rarely saw him. On the occasions she did, he was like a stranger to her. She felt as though they were passengers on a train, making polite conversation with one another.
Her mother seemed as though she couldn’t stand Matilda—the way she dressed, her hair, and even her expressions.