by Eva Pohler
“What happened to using your imagination?” Sue asked sarcastically.
“I think this wallpaper might be sabotaging it,” Jan retorted.
“It is pretty bad,” Ellen agreed. “I can’t wait to peel it off.”
They finished touring the bottom floor and headed for the stairs, but as Ellen started to ascend, Sue grabbed her hand. “The last thing you should do is scream if you see her, okay? We want her to feel comfortable around us, if we’re going to share the same space for a while.”
Ellen could think of nothing to say, so she nodded and continued her climb.
The first thing she did after reaching the second floor was to have a peek up the attic stairs. A cold chill shuddered down her spine, and she lost the air in her lungs.
“What’s wrong?” Sue asked.
Ellen’s mouth was as dry as sandpaper. “The attic door. It’s ajar.”
Sue’s face turned white.
“So what?” Jan asked. “Is it not supposed to be?”
“It was locked the last time we came,” Sue explained.
“Should we investigate?” Ellen asked, her stomach in knots. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough to go up there.
“I’m so curious,” Sue said. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t go up there and check it out.”
“I’m scared,” Ellen admitted. “Should we go get Bud first?”
“Oh, you girls.” Jan brushed past them and headed up the stairs, though not very quickly. She held on to the rail and pulled.
“I’m more scared of Bud than I am of the ghost,” Sue said. “Come on. We’ll stay together, all right?”
Ellen nodded and followed Sue and Jan up the steps. The whole, miserable way, Ellen was tempted to ask Sue to get out her gun, just in case, but she was afraid that might make the situation worse.
The smell reached them before they made it to the top. Ellen worried they would find a dead body.
“There’s no one here,” Jan said. “Unless I’m detecting an otherworldly presence. Do you feel that, Sue?”
“I can barely breathe,” Sue said, tucking her nose and chin beneath the neckline of her blouse. “What’s that smell?”
Ellen covered her nose and mouth with her hand as she glanced around the large room. Eight very old hospital beds lined the perimeter—two against each wall. All but one of them was cluttered with what appeared to be medical equipment.
“Maybe the patients of the asylum were kept up here,” Sue speculated.
“That would explain the restraints but not the external orthopedic apparatuses,” Jan’s mother, who was a nurse for thirty years before she retired, said. “Or those bassinets.”
In one corner, three bassinets covered in cobwebs were crowded together.
Ellen stepped over a litter of paper and books as she crossed the attic floor to one of the beds with a pile of metal apparatuses. “What are those things used for?”
“Repairing bone fractures,” Jan said. “They have quite a collection up here.”
“Maybe the patients were susceptible to falls?” Sue wondered. “Maybe they broke a lot of bones.”
“That machine over there in the corner is called a Bergonic chair,” Jan said. “It was used in the thirties and forties for treating psych patients with shock therapy. We had an old one at the state hospital, though it was never used while I was there.”
Ellen shuddered. “I wonder why all this stuff is still here.”
“I guess if you buy this place, you get the antiquated equipment, too,” Jan said with a laugh. “Not sure what you’d do with it though.”
“Maybe a museum would buy it,” Ellen offered.
“We might be able to salvage the bassinets,” Sue said.
Ellen crossed her arms. “No way would I let any baby in one of those. They look about to disintegrate.”
“Not to mention the bugs,” Jan added.
“Mother, do you know what that machine is over there?” Sue asked, pointing to the far left corner.
“I think that was used to measure brain waves back in the day,” Jan said, bending over one of the beds. “Oh, and I can’t believe they have one of these.” She held up a rubber tube that was attached to a squat machine. “They used to force-feed patients through the rectum with these.”
“Oh, God.” Ellen wrinkled her nose. “What was the purpose of that?”
“They thought body fat was the cure to mental health, because so many people who suffered from nervous disorders were extremely thin.”
“I guess we would have been pretty safe back then and considered rather sane. Don’t you think, Mother?” Sue laughed.
“Right up until they heard us talk,” Jan said.
They all three laughed.
“And I think I’ve figured out where the smell is coming from,” Jan said, bending over one of the beds.
Ellen peered over Jan’s shoulder to see a shoebox filled with fur and blood. “Oh, God. What is that?”
“Dead rats,” Jan said. “Four of them, looks like.”
Just then, the hair stood up on Ellen’s arms and neck as she heard a flutter behind her, like papers blowing in the wind. She was chilled to the bone, and as she turned, she felt like she was doing so in slow motion.
Jan cried out in surprise as something white scurried across the floor and down the attic steps. It wasn’t the girl. It was smaller and on all fours.
“Was that a cat?” Ellen asked, clutching her heart.
“A ghost cat,” Sue said. “It was as white as the girl and as ethereal.”
“That’s what it was, all right,” Jan said, catching her breath. “Maybe it’s what killed these rats and placed them together in this box.”
Ellen felt dizzy, chilled, and faint. She struggled to slow down her breathing.
“Are you okay?” Sue asked her.
Ellen didn’t answer right away.
“Close your mouth,” Jan said, placing her hand on Ellen’s belly. “You’re hyperventilating and need to take deeper, slower breaths. Look at me. Breathe with me. Hold it. Come on, Ellen, hold it. And now out. Nice and slow. Use your belly to push away my hand. That’s it.”
Later that evening, with a plate of grilled steak and potatoes Paul had cooked, Ellen sat in front of a football game—she had no idea who was playing and didn’t care—and told Paul about the attic.
“I guess I can cancel the locksmith then, huh?” Paul had paused the TV during the commercials and was now fast-forwarding to the game.
Ellen wiped her chin with her napkin. “Won’t Ronnie want a key made anyway?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He found the game and hit play. “Are you still interested in the place? I mean, I wouldn’t let a bunch of old hospital equipment and ghost stories stop you from following your dream.”
Ellen’s mouth dropped open for the second time that day. She hadn’t told him that she’d personally seen what might be a ghost or a vagrant because she was worried he’d try to stop her from pursuing the house. Now she wondered if she should give him more credit. Maybe he did care about her dreams.
“Well, there’s a little more to it,” she admitted before telling him everything. It felt amazing to have a real conversation with him again. Although he stared at the television, she could tell he was listening to her. “What do you think I should do?”
“Well, if the girl was a vagrant, I’d think the neighbors would have caught on to her by now, don’t you? And if she’s an apparition, maybe she just needs closure. And maybe you’re the one to give to her.”
Ellen had to bite her tongue to keep her mouth from falling open a third time. She also had to close her eyes to keep the tears back as she was reminded of the man she’d married, the man she loved. Why didn’t she see him more often? Was he invisible, too?
“That’s a good point,” she managed to say after clearing her throat. “Thank you, honey. That’s good advice.”
Ellen felt more determined than ever to uncover the real story behin
d the old house. Maybe she and her friends wouldn’t buy it, but she would definitely investigate it. She wanted to see if she could find out about the patients who lived there. Maybe there had been a young girl among them, and maybe that girl had owned a cat.
After clearing away the supper dishes and wiping down the kitchen counters, Ellen sat in the front room in her favorite reading chair with her feet propped up on an ottoman and ran a Google search on Dr. Jonathan Piers using her laptop. As she waited for the page to download, she cleaned her reading glasses and was reminded that her last eye visit had got her a recommendation for progressive lenses. She hoped to put that off a little while longer, however.
With reading glasses perched on her nose, she read over the first page of her search results. Only the top result was for “Piers.” The rest of the page was full of Jonathan Pierce. So she clicked on the one link, hoping it would lead her somewhere, and before she had a chance to find out, Paul entered the room.
She was so unused to him coming into that room, that she was at first startled, giving a small cry similar to the sound Jan had made when the ghost cat had run across the attic floor.
Paul laughed. “What was that?”
“You scared me.” She laughed, too. “All this talk of ghosts, I guess.”
“Are you staying up?” he asked. “I’m thinking about turning in.”
Ellen hesitated, caught off guard by this subtle but clear invitation for intimacy. If she refused, she would probably not get another for several months; if she accepted, her research would have to wait.
Would she be able to relax and enjoy herself with her curiosity so intensely piqued?
She should accept. She should accept. “Well…”
“Good night,” he said. “The Cowboys won, in case you were interested.”
Before she could think of what to say, he turned and walked away.
She sat there in her chair, stunned, and unsure how to respond. Should she chase after him? Had she misread him? Maybe he hadn’t extended an invitation after all. Had he mistaken her indecision for disinterest? Maybe he’d been afraid to wait too long for the rejection he must have come to expect from her.
She decided she would read this one page about Dr. Jonathan Piers, and then she would follow Paul to his bedroom. She would wait to research the gold legend another time.
Dr. Jonathan Piers, 1900-1972, was a popular and controversial doctor who practiced the highly criticized “rest cure” developed by Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell in Philadelphia during the Civil War. Piers operated a rest home for “hysterical and nervous” women on an inconspicuous estate in San Antonio from 1930 until his death. He treated such famous persons as actress Willa Von Kempf and author Virginia Mason. Although the rest cure has been praised by some patients and their families, it has been heavily criticized by both feminists and professionals in the medical community for its oppressive treatment of women. It required months of bed rest, shock therapy, force-feeding, and isolation.
Piers’s rest home was one of the last of its kind, officially closing to new patients in the wake of the doctor’s death in 1972. Although the cause of the doctor’s death is inconclusive, suspicions of suicide dominated public opinion.
Ellen closed her laptop and flattened her hand over her pounding heart. This house was calling to her—she could feel it. Injustice happened there, and the ghosts of its residents needed closure. She jumped from her chair and practically skated in her stockinged feet toward her husband’s room, anxious to relay what she’d learned.
Through his closed door, she heard the buzz-saw sound of his snoring.
She was too late.
Chapter Seven: The Psychic and the Locksmith
As Ellen drove toward the King William district on Monday from the university where she taught, a phrase from Thomas Merton’s No Man Is an Island played over and over in her mind: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” She had just been discussing the meaning of art with her students, offering them multiple perspectives and inviting them to share their own, and this quote from Merton was her favorite. To find and to lose oneself in the most positive ways, she had explained, was what had attracted her to art. She found herself by connecting with her creative spirit and allowing it to breathe through what she painted. And when she lost herself, it wasn’t a feeling of loss but of transcendence from everyday routine to something extraordinary.
And yet, except for her standard demonstrations for her students, she hadn’t painted in years.
In a strange way, her desire to rehabilitate the Greek revival stemmed from this deep and urgent need to find herself and to lose herself. And now that there were other women—victims of an archaic and oppressive “rest cure” whose voices had been stifled—her need to resurrect the house was more compelling than ever. She wanted to find out as much as she could about the women who had lived there, and she wanted to give those women a voice.
But she dreaded showing Tanya what she and Sue had discovered in the attic.
If only Sue could be there, too. Unfortunately Jan had guilted her daughter into going with her to a doctor’s appointment, even though it was a regular checkup and nothing out of the ordinary. Sue would not be able to meet them at the house this evening. It was up to Ellen to convince Tanya that this was the house they should buy.
When Ellen pulled up to the curb in front of the Gold House, she saw Tanya already sitting in her car waiting. Ellen climbed from her vehicle and gazed at the old Greek revival, imagining how it must have looked back in 1860, when it was newly built and before it had been turned into a place of torture. Suddenly, she could clearly see the prominent columns along the front portico, joining the arches between them. The yellow paint trimmed in white was crisp against a yard of green grass and vibrant foliage. The wisteria came to life, and its purple blooms hung like chandeliers from the portico. The porch itself was cleanly swept and lined with pots of colorful flowers. Two rocking chairs flanked one of the front windows, framed with clean white shutters and matching those on the story above.
Tanya said hello and pulled Ellen from her vision.
“You okay?” Tanya asked.
Ellen caught her breath and blinked, and it was then that she noticed that Tanya’s eyes were red-rimmed. “I’m okay. What about you?”
Tanya swiped at tears with the back of her hands. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Is it your mom?”
Tanya nodded.
“I’m sorry. Has something else happened?”
“I went by there on the way over here, and my dad is just so overwhelmed and depressed. It’s really hard on him, you know?”
“I can imagine.”
“And Dave and I have begged them to move in with us, but Dad wants his own space, wants to stay in his own home.”
“Have you thought about moving in with them, just temporarily?” Ellen asked.
“Yes, but Dad insists he can handle it.” She broke down into more tears. “But I don’t think he can.”
Ellen put her arm around Tanya and tried to comfort her. “I guess you’ll have to trust him to tell you when he can’t.”
“If she doesn’t kill them both first,” she said. “He had to put out a fire yesterday in the kitchen. I can’t believe he didn’t call me.”
Ellen wasn’t sure what to say. “Maybe he was embarrassed. Or maybe he didn’t want to worry you.”
“I tried to talk to my mom, too. And, for a second, I thought she knew who I was again. She seemed to recognize me, but she called me Vivian again. That was her cousin. She passed away last year.” Tanya covered her face. “My mom’s forgotten all about me. Her own daughter.”
“Somewhere deep inside, there’s a part of her who senses you and loves you.”
“How can you know that?” Tanya asked.
“I choose to believe it.”
Tanya nodded but didn’t look convinced.
“Ready to see the attic?” Ellen asked. “It will definitely get
your mind off of your parents.”
Tanya followed Ellen up the cracked sidewalk. “Sue warned me about the medical equipment and the dead rats—oh, and the cat ghost! Sounds creepy. Are you sure you’re still interested in this place?”
Ellen stopped to face Tanya. “More than ever. Look, I don’t know if that girl is a ghost or just some vagrant who is pretending to be a ghost, but regardless, this house has a history that needs to be brought out into the open. The women who were imprisoned here need their stories to be told, don’t you think?”
“We don’t have to buy the house to research its past residents.”
They continued toward the front door. “True. But wouldn’t it be something to give the original house its dignity back? After all it’s been through?”
Tanya smiled. “Yes. Yes, it would.”
As Ellen opened the front door, the locksmith pulled up behind her car, and she and Tanya waited for him to catch up with them before entering. He carried a toolbox and wore a cap and coveralls. His brown face was sweaty beneath the cap, and he looked tired. After introducing himself as Miguel, he asked to see the lock that needed to be rekeyed.
Miguel followed Ellen and Tanya up the steps to the second floor. Ellen’s heart raced as they reached the door to the attic steps, because she was anxious about seeing the girl or the cat again. When she opened the door to the dark stairwell, she did get a shock, but it wasn’t ethereal.
The attic door, which had been left ajar, was closed.
“How is it closed?” Ellen whispered.
“Are you sure you left it open?” Tanya asked.
Ellen nodded, clasping her trembling hands together.
“Maybe someone else has viewed the house,” Tanya offered.
“Maybe.” Ellen climbed the stairs in spite of her fear and tried the knob. “It’s locked.”
Tanya glanced at Miguel before whispering, “You think the ghost may have locked it?”
Ellen shrugged. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“Ghost?” the locksmith asked.
“The house has a reputation,” Ellen explained. “The neighbors say it’s haunted. I just know I left this door open yesterday, but it’s locked now, so I guess you’ll have to pick it before you can rekey it.”