Cole and Barbara nodded and thanked her for her assistance. Over the ensuing weeks, they discussed the situation in detail. Ever since the blessing, there had been no more episodes of any type that indicated the intrusion of lost souls. Maude stayed on with the Caruthers for another four weeks until Barbara was fully prepared to take care of all the kids. It was a sad day when they had to bid farewell to Maude and they knew in their hearts that they owed her a debt that money would not settle.
When Cole returned from Blackwell, he and Barbara, with heavy hearts decided against opening the safe haven as previously planned. It was just not worth the risk, no matter how small. They explained to the partners they had been working with that there had been a change in the direction of the purposes of the Shawcroft House. There was an initial disappointment among them all, but when Cole offered them all a stake in the new business idea, all was fine. To distance itself from the dark past, the house under the guidance of Cole and Barbara was rented out to a major events company out of London that used the majestic and historic stone edifice as a backdrop to endless weddings, anniversary celebrations, and other formal functions.
The idea was to make the interior of the house as warm and friendly and inviting as possible to begin to erase the memories of the Hellingly School. Over time, a reputation was built and hardly anyone except the most ghoulish in town associated the new house with the old school. They had not been able to finalize their original dream for the Shawcroft House, but Cole and Barbara felt confident in the decision they had made. After having been up and running for a few months, they invited Maude back to see what they had done. She was amazed at the transformation and assured the Caruthers that the house was now empty of its old inhabitants. The unhappy ghosts of all the children had been magically released from their prison.
The Haunting of Sanderson Mansion
By Riley Amitrani
Prologue
2:43 AM, June 25, 1937
New Orleans, Louisiana
Lisa Sanderson sat awake in bed, listening to the sound of the front door shutting quietly. Even in the large house, sounds echoed at night. For the twelfth night this month, her husband, Andrew, had come home hours after he promised. It wasn’t hard to believe that work kept him out late, especially since he ran one of the most prosperous trading companies, but lately, Lisa couldn’t help wondering if he was cheating on her.
The soft blanket on her lap reminded her that it was his job and money that allowed her to quit being a receptionist at his company’s front desk. It reminded her of how charming he was when they first met, bringing her flowers and giving her additional time off whenever she asked for it. She remembered how happy she was when he asked her to marry him. It was a dream come true move to a large house like his, and she was so happy, nothing else seemed to matter.
“I didn’t think you’d still be up,” Andrew said as he opened the room door. “Thought you’d be asleep.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Lisa replied. Andrew smelled like alcohol and something else she couldn’t make out. “You said you’d be back at midnight.”
“Things ran late,” Andrew said gruffly. “Don’t wait up for me next time.”
Without saying another word, he threw his coat on the bed and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Lisa stared at his coat for a minute, wondering if she dared to touch it. A small voice inside her said that it was the only way she would know anything.
Quickly, Lisa scrambled to his coat and began rummaging through the pockets. She knew that he rarely cleared them out unless they had to go into the wash. No one ever touched his coat pockets. She pulled folded picture, its middle clearly worn from being open and closed many times. The back of the picture had a woman’s name – Veronica – and a phone number below. Lisa wondered who this woman was to be able to afford a camera. She opened the photo and stifled a gasp. Rather than the headshot she was expecting, as many women frequently gave them to Andrew, the picture featured a naked young woman with dark hair.
Lisa folded the picture and stuffed in back into Andrew’s coat pocket. Once she made sure that it looked undisturbed, she crawled back to her side of the bed. Confused breaths heaved in her chest as she ducked under the blanket, pretending that she was asleep. No matter how much she tried to ignore the picture, it kept coming back to her mind.
Andrew slid into bed a few minutes later. She could feel the dampness of the shower lingering on his body. As he pulled her close to him and began tracing his fingers along her leg, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to imagine how many other times he had done this with Veronica.
4:58 PM, August 3, 1937
New Orleans, Louisiana
“Who’s Veronica?” Lisa blurted out. Her hands were squeezed together nervously.
“Excuse me?” Andrew turned to face her, his brows dipping down in a fierce frown.
“Veronica,” Lisa repeated. “Who is she?”
“She’s none of your business,” Andrew said. His voice was dancing on the edge of threatening. “Go take care of the laundry. Now. And don’t ever ask me questions again. It’s not your place to have an opinion about what I do.”
11:17 PM, August 27, 1937
New Orleans, Louisiana
It wasn’t hard for Danny to kill his best friend. Not when that man had spent years abusing his wife and isolating her from everyone else. Keeping her shut away from socializing unless he was holding a party or inviting Danny to dinner. It was even easier once he fell in love with Lisa.
He had visited her once, while Andrew was out of town. She told him that Andrew was having an affair and broke down into tears. That night, he vowed that she would never have to shed another tear. And that’s how he ended up here. Standing over the dead body of his best friend.
He had managed to compress arsenic into the form of pills and gave them to Lisa. She wound then crush the pills and mix it with Andrew’s food. As time went on, they increased the arsenic dosage, and Andrew became sicker and sicker. But it was taking too long.
Tired of waiting, Danny decided to heat some arsenic until it melted. He transferred it to a syringe and injected it right in Andrew’s heart during his latest visit. It was easy enough to play it off as if one of Andrew’s competitors had poisoned the man for the sake of business. All he had to do next was hide some extra arsenic pills in the pocket of one of the house chefs.
“I’m going to leave,” Danny told Lisa. “Wait 15 minutes, then start screaming as if you woke up to find him dead.”
“Are you sure they won’t suspect us?” Lisa asked nervously.
“Everyone knows he’s been sick for the past two weeks,” Danny said. “We’ll tell them that he’s been stressed about some competitors and make it sound like an outside job. Don’t worry.”
Lisa nodded and slowly crawled into bed next to the dead body. Danny gave one last look at his best friend, then ran outside to hide the arsenic pills. Once they were in the coat pocket of the head chef, he strolled out of the house and back to his home. He had almost reached his front door when he heard the faint echo of a woman’s screams.
Everything was complete.
3:29 AM, September 19, 1937
New Orleans, Louisiana
The house was completely silent. Veronica slipped through the front door using the spare key that Andrew gave her months ago. It was time to set things straight. Andrew wasn’t killed by a jealous competitor. Everyone was too afraid of him to even try. For weeks, she had suspected that Andrew’s wife was behind his death, punishing him because he was finally happy with her.
It was all too easy to sneak upstairs. The darkness in the house, barely lighted by the faint moon outside, made it a perfect night for revenge. Pressing against her back with every move, Veronica could feel the weight of the gun she had tucked in the back of her waistband. She was about to reach for the handle of Lisa’s bedroom door when it suddenly swung open.
Before her stood a man, familiar enough that she recognized him as Andrew’s best fri
end. So, the grieving widow had so quickly brought another man into her bed. Quickly, Veronica drew the gun and pointed it at him. Danny’s eyes went wide, but instead of running away or trying to bed for mercy, he grabbed the end of the gun and tried to pull it from her.
“No!” Veronica shouted as she pulled her entire weight backward. “Get back!”
She managed to pull the gun free from his grasp, trying to aim it at him as she panted. Suddenly, Danny lunged forward and pushed her. She stumbled backward. The back of her legs hit something hard, and she felt a weightlessness around her. It had barely registered in her mind before she hit the ground and everything went black.
The police and doctor arrived in less than three minutes, but it was too late. Lisa stared as two police officers put Veronica’s body in a black bag and carried her off. Somehow, the woman looked so vulnerable in comparison to her naked photo. Maybe now, she could be with Andrew.
“Danny, I can’t do this,” Lisa said. “Not anymore.”
“You don’t have to,” Danny replied. He wrapped her in his arms and mumbled into her hair, “We can move.”
“Yes, we need to move,” Lisa agreed. “There’s too much in this house. I can’t walk around without thinking of him, and now her. I can’t be here anymore.”
“A fresh start,” Danny assured her. “We’ll move somewhere far away.”
“I’ll sell the house,” Lisa said. “I don’t ever want to be reminded of this place. It’s time I tried to be happy again.”
Present
1:29 PM, March 27, 1939
New Orleans, Louisiana
Abigail Thomas set the final box down in her new office. It was a smaller room, but it was cozy. She wiped away the sweat forming on her neck and looked out the window. The view was incredible, but she had a hard time believing that her husband spent less than a million dollars on the place. Not only was the location perfect, the size of the house was beyond anything she had seen before.
Downstairs, she could hear her five children talking to each other. Though she knew that the move had been hard for them, part of her hoped that they would be able to settle down quickly enough that they could resume their schooling. A voice in the back of her mind told her that it wasn’t right to uproot her family, but a louder voice said that it was all for the sake of her husband’s career.
Grant Thomas was slowly gaining popularity with his shipping company, and when he received an offer to take over another company in New Orleans, it had taken his family less than a month to move from their Mid-Western home. Abigail’s brain began to swim when she thought about all work she hadn’t done over the last six days. Most women didn’t have stable jobs, but she managed to divide her time between being a mother and the woman who helped Grant keep his business organized. She was the one who dealt with employee paychecks, arranged for advertising, and occasionally handled the books. For the most part, Grant was the face of the company and the people-person, while she worked behind the curtain.
“Robert, can you make sure everyone picks a room?” Abigail called out. “I want everyone’s boxes in their own room by tonight.”
“Sure, Mom,” Robert’s voice echoed slightly. “By the way, I think Dad said something about a messenger coming by about the company finances.”
“I’ll be down in a minute,” she replied. One more look out the window led her to see Grant standing in the middle of the lawn as a young boy talked to him. She sighed at the expression on her husband’s face. This couldn’t be good news.
Grant had just sent the boy back with a message of his own when she arrived downstairs. His face was flushed from moving boxes, but also from the conversation he just had.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“I hired someone to look through the new company’s finances,” Grant said. “It seems that we’re missing some money, but no one knows where it could have gone. I told them to double check everything and find that money before it leaks to the media.”
“How much money did they lose?” Abigail frowned. It wasn’t like Grant’s office to lose track of money, no matter how small the amount. His people were as meticulous as he was. But his new employees had no idea how careful he was in his work.
“About six thousand,” he said. The stress was beginning to press down on his shoulders. It was too soon after a big move like this for anything to go wrong. “I’m hoping it’s just a mistake and someone misplaced a piece of paper, but there’s nothing we can do about it until we find out.”
“I’ll take a look at the accounts again to make sure,” Abigail promised. “Come back inside. We have a lot of unpacking to do before we can get back to work. It’ll take your mind off things.”
Grant gave her a small smile and took her hand. As they walked back into the house, Abigail noticed that Isabella, their recently hired maid, was wearing a more revealing top than she thought was appropriate. In a house with three teenaged boys, she always made sure that everything about her household was age appropriate. Abigail made a mental note to speak to Isabella about it when they had a moment away from everyone else.
“I still can’t believe this place was so cheap,” Grant said, admiring the interior. “The previous owner must have been an idiot to let a beauty like this go.”
“Maybe they moved on to better things,” Abigail replied. “Just like we did.” Though she smiled at her husband, she couldn’t help feeling a strange tingle as they shut the door. For a brief second, she thought she heard a single footstep right behind her, but the space was empty.
10:42 AM, March 29, 1939
New Orleans, Louisiana
It had taken a couple of days, but Abigail and Grant tracked down the money the company had almost lost. A copy of one of their work receipts had been misplaced, but once Grant’s employees at his old company realized where it was, everything had been sorted out.
Abigail sat at her desk and looked over her list of tasks for the day. It wasn’t any more than she normally had to do before the move, but she was feeling more stressed. Maybe it was because of the move – they still weren’t completely unpacked and there were boxes that needed to be sorted out. It also didn’t help that her kids hadn’t completely settled into their new home yet. They had been helpful in cleaning the house, but that left little time for their schooling. She had hoped that they could resume that day, but it looked like that would have to be pushed until the following week.
She could hear Isabella humming as she walked by her open office door with a broom in hand. The young woman was once again wearing a simple dress, but a revealing v-neck cut showed off too much of her youth. Abigail sighed and rose from her chair, deciding that it was time to have a conversation with their maid.
“Isabella?” she called out gently. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Yes, Mrs. Thomas,” Isabella replied. She set her broom down and walked back to Abigail’s office door. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I know you’re young,” Abigail said in a motherly tone. “And you’re very beautiful. But I’m afraid that what you’re wearing isn’t appropriate for this household. I have three boys who are all growing up, and I don’t think it’s good for them to be seeing this much of your body.”
“I’m sorry,” Isabella dropped her head. “I did not mean to cause any trouble.”
“It’s alright,” Abigail said. “I just want you to be more careful. I appreciate all the work you’ve done for us in the past two months, and I would really like for you to stay with us.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Thomas,” Isabella said. “I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Abigail smiled at the young woman and dismissed her to finish the rest of her housework. It occurred to her that not many families were very nice to their hired help, especially when they were often colored people. Isabella’s family had come over from Puerto Rico for a better life, and she had left her family at a young age to clean the homes of other families.
As Abigail sat
back down to work, she felt an uneasy jolt of electricity run through her body. It felt like something had moved through her, but there was no one else in the room. Right as she picked up a pen to write down a new task on her list, she thought she heard a voice whispering in her ear.
“Liar,” a barely audible voice said.
“Who’s there?” she spun around and looked at the room, empty except for herself. Outside, Isabella asked if she was calling for her. Abigail shook her head and said no.
She turned back to her task list for the day and willed the strange feeling to go away.
5:58 PM, March 29, 1939
New Orleans, Louisiana
Grant Thomas sat in his office, the door locked. He had told his wife that he had was expecting an important call and could not be disturbed. Phones were rare and expensive, but he made sure to have one in his office in case he needed to speak to clients out-of-state.
He opened the locked drawer in his desk and pulled out a black file. Inside, there were several photos. Thomas removed his favorite photo with great familiarity. It had been mailed directly to his former office several weeks ago, with no name or return address. When he first saw the picture, he had been furious. It was a serious implication against him if the sender had intended blackmail. But a close look told him that there would never be a blackmailer.
The picture featured the naked body of a young woman, taken in such a way that nothing above her neck could be seen. The woman had been careful, and so had he. Each time he brought out the photo for pleasure, he made sure that he wouldn’t be disturbed for a healthy amount of time.
Today was different. Thomas couldn’t look at the picture without feeling a great sense that something bad would happen. He set it down on his desk and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, cleared his throat, and sat up straight in his chair. When he looked at the picture again, he could have sworn that for a moment, he saw the image of a beautiful young woman with raven-black hair. One blink and the picture was back to normal, showing nothing more than what it had been for the past five weeks.
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