“Are you coming in?” she asked.
“Of course,” Olivia said, smiling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The house was dark and unbearably silent. Mariah went straight to the laundry room to change out of the scrubs, even though they were oddly comfortable. Olivia, needing a pick-me-up went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. It was late, but the caffeine was needed. Mariah came back after a few moments and stood at the doorway to the kitchen watching Olivia work. She prepared two mugs of coffee, and some sandwiches; peanut butter and syrup, just the way Mariah liked them.
She knew it was an odd combination but having been a struggling NYC college student with little income to spare, she had picked up the sandwich style when the store was sold out of her go to, honey. Syrup seemed like a logical substitution, so she went with it and it was surprisingly delicious; the perfect combination of salty and sweet. She has stocked peanut butter and syrup in her cabinets ever since. Her mom makes fun of her for it, but she didn’t attend college in New York, so she didn’t understand the struggle.
Clearing her throat to make her presence known, Mariah walked over to her table, and set the mask down. She peered over at the basement door, which was taken off the hinges when the coroner was removing the nun’s body. She walked over and looked down into the darkness happy that the light was off so she couldn’t see the blood-stained dirt floor. She was grateful that it wasn’t her mother that had fallen down and died. Hating herself for that thought, she looked over at Olivia who was sipping coffee. She told Olivia she would be right back and ran up to the library.
Mariah decided it was high time they crack the code of Oakley house and who or what lived here. She gathered all the photos she had found, the medical records in French, and other French documents that she had found while looking through various books and things. It seemed that whoever had lived in the house hundreds of years ago had gone out of their way to cover up this house but did a poor job of filtering through the library. People tend to use whatever they have handy, or photos as page markers. Those things seem to have been forgotten.
She plopped the pile of documents on the kitchen table, and sat down roughly, pushing her chair back against the wall. Olivia watched from over her sandwich and waited for Mariah to speak first. The silence that ensued could have scared a zombie. Olivia just sat waiting, but so did Mariah. Neither of the two were talking or making any move to start looking at the array of papers in front of them. Olivia finally just stood up, turned away from Mariah and walked out of the kitchen.
“I want to see those dolls again,” she shouted from the front room back towards the kitchen where Mariah still sat, staring at the table of crap.
Olivia walked through the house to the staircase, she turned to see if Mariah was following her, but it seemed she was on her own. She shrugged her shoulders and headed up the staircase to the third-floor room with the creepy doll cabinet and the telescope. She pushed the door open and froze, standing by the telescope clear as day was a woman. She had long flowing blonde hair, and was incredibly pretty, but when their eyes met, Olivia was struck with such hatred, she felt like she could burn the world to the ground and that would still not satisfy her need for vengeance.
Olivia hurriedly backed up and closed the door. She stood there for several minutes getting control of herself, before opening the door again to see if the woman was still there. She was gone. Olivia shivered and walked into the room, she had lied to Mariah when she said she never saw or believed in hauntings. The fact was, she did believe, and she wasn’t going to let some silly ghost scare her away. Olivia thought about going to get Mariah, but she soon pushed that thought aside. The woman had been standing at the telescope, and Olivia was curious why.
As she peered through to the trees outside, Olivia saw that the telescope was zoomed to the direction of the small cemetery she and Mariah had come upon a few days ago.
“Interesting,” she whispered.
Olivia turned and walked over to the cabinet. She could have sworn that they had left it open with all the dolls set out on the floor, but all the dolls were back inside the cabinet, and it was closed and pushed back against the wall.
Mariah must have cleaned up in here, she thought. She must be stronger than she lets on, if she was able to move the cabinet back, by herself. She opened the doors and looked over each doll. The chip from the hand of the one Mariah had broken sat next to the doll it belonged to, and all the dolls looked pristine.
Olivia closed the doors and turned to leave the room, satisfied that there was nothing else in the room to find. She almost didn’t notice, a small boy sat curled in the corner of the room, blood running from his eyes. Placing her finger to her lips, she shushed the small child, who promptly disappeared.
Olivia walked back to the kitchen. She was expecting Mariah to be knee deep in papers, but instead she found the room empty, a half-eaten sandwich and the bottle of sleeping medication sitting next to an empty glass of water. Mariah must have decided to go to bed. Strange that she wouldn’t tell her. Kind of rude, too, she thought. Though she understood that the day, hell, the week had been pretty traumatic, Olivia still felt it would have been prudent to let her know that she was heading to bed early and was leaving all the food clean up too. Although Mariah may not have meant for Olivia to clean up, Olivia did so anyway.
“I bet the children’s names on that big stone by the graves were all yours,” Olivia said out loud to the empty room. “I’m sure there is so much sadness in your heart. How horrible to lose all your children so young.”
Olivia didn’t make a habit out of talking to herself, or to ghosts, but the lady in that room, she had some serious problems and Olivia assumed it had to do with how her children died. Once she cleaned up the kitchen, Olivia sat with a fresh cup of coffee at the table ready to do what needed to be done. She reached for the first photo she saw, dropping it almost as soon as she picked it up.
“Hmm,” she mumbled to herself.
The picture was of a man. He looked to be in his middle to late thirties. He had short hair brushed to the side. The photo was black and white, but she was sure his hair was dark brown. He had piercing eyes, the kind that could see through you and read your inner most thoughts.
Olivia stared down at the photo. He looked just like a man on her dad’s side of the family. Weird, she thought while she turned the photo around in her hands. The back was sticky, so she examined the back of the picture more closely. It seemed that the photo had been folded so only the man was seen in it. She picked and picked at the back before the rest of the picture finally came unstuck.
The beautiful woman from the doll room stood just inches away from him. A small child sat in a chair beside her. There was no hatred in her eyes in the photograph. It looked like a photograph of a small, happy family. The child in the photo was cute, and alive. Olivia made note to look up the small boy’s name.
She stashed the photo in her pocket and reached for more papers to go through. She felt a need though, to check on her friend. Olivia walked up the steps to the second floor, walked down the hall and poked her head into the room to check on Mariah. She was sleeping just as suspected; the room was so hot though. Olivia walked into the room, the fan was off and it looked as though the vents were closed. She remembered Mariah mentioning the vents needing to be cleaned before the AC could be turned on, but the rest of the house was pretty comfortable. She opened the window to allow a breeze and then headed back to the kitchen, ready to investigate this big old haunted house a little more.
She sat for what felt like hours looking through the papers. They were all written in big flowing cursive French. Mariah had said there was no option but to find an interpreter to translate. Typing all of this into the phone’s little translate app would take decades. She reached for Mariah’s phone, which lay forgotten on the table and pulled up the translator app. She typed in a random sentence,
‘La patiente souffre d’hysterie et pense qu’elle fait du mal a s
es enfants.’
Olivia pressed the translate button and waited.
The screen read: ‘The patient has hysteria and presents with thoughts of harming her children.”
Damn, Olivia thought, this app must really work well. Olivia decided to be done for the night, as the information was leading down a very dark path; one she wasn’t sure she wanted to walk alone. She set the papers down and headed up to the room next to Mariah’s, sure that her friend wouldn’t mind if she stayed the night. Olivia settled herself into a big four poster bed that sat in one of the many rooms of the house. It was the only thing in the room. A creepy bed, with huge dark curtains. Despite being a strange room and bed, she fell right to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mariah woke to the familiar sound of scratching. Certain that she would find the culprit this time, she slid out of bed as quietly as possible and slowly tiptoed to the hallway. She didn’t expect to bump into Olivia in the hall. She must have heard the scratching sounds as well and had come to see what it was.
Mariah had assumed that Olivia would have eventually gone home last night. She knew she was a bad hostess for going to bed, but she felt so overwhelmed sitting in the kitchen staring at the basement door frame, that she no longer could keep her eyes open.
“It’s the mice,” Mariah mumbled to Olivia.
Olivia felt like it was not mice, but she humored Mariah and followed her through the halls listening for the sounds. Mariah stopped every few steps and put her ear to the wall, listening intently. It was at the very end of the hall, the back side of the house that Mariah heard the sound again. Olivia looked around the floor in search of a critter, but nothing was there. Mariah had her ear to the wall and was slightly tapping.
“You’re tapping as if the mice are going to knock back and say, hey we’re here,” Olivia teased and rolled her eyes. She turned to walk back to the room she was sleeping in.
The dark hall was creepy, but nothing compared to seeing a small child walk towards you and then disappear. Olivia jumped back, not expecting to see anything much-less a small boy. Mariah turned, looking at Olivia with a puzzled expression. She wanted to know what had scared her enough to jump.
“Are you okay? Did you see one of the mice?” Mariah whispered becoming super worried about the house being infested.
Olivia couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing. A mouse would have been much more preferable than ghosts in every corner of this damn house, she thought. The moment the thought crossed her mind, she realized she was an idiot. This house was over two hundred years old, surely many people had come and gone and even died here. Smirking, she turned back to Mariah.
“Nothing, just jumpy from being half asleep,” she lied.
Mariah stood, staring at her friend wondering what was so funny that it warranted laughing. She reached into her pocket to check her phone, but quickly realized she didn’t have it with her. Fantastic, she left it in the kitchen. Deciding on a few more hours of sleep Mariah decided to head back to bed. She would call the exterminator back in the morning about the spiders, and go find herself a pet cat; hopefully one that enjoys hunting mice.
As she started back towards her bed, Olivia grabbed her hand, stopping her in her tracks. She was going to tell Mariah about everything she had seen, in the doll room, in the hall and most importantly about the picture she found of her long dead relative. However, Mariah’s eyes were so tired looking, Olivia looked her over and decided that this wasn’t the time. She let Mariah’s hand go and ushered her back to bed.
Olivia wandered around the dark house, room to room, peeking in drawers and cabinets as she went. She found more papers to add to the stack already piling up on the kitchen table.
After a thorough look at all three floors of that were accessed by the main staircase, Olivia ventured to the kitchen. It was well after five in the morning now, and the sun was beginning to filter through the windows. She hoped that Mariah would be up soon, and in anticipation, she made coffee. She poured hers into a yeti that she found in a cabinet, opened the side door and wandered out to look around the property. She left a note for Mariah on the counter next to the other cup of coffee.
Mariah struggled to wake up. She flopped from her side to her back, then sat up and rubbed her eyes. Pulling her phone over by the cord she saw it was almost six in the morning. Wait a minute. How did my phone get here? she thought. She remembered leaving it in the kitchen when she was looking for it in the middle of the night? Pushing the thought aside, she flipped through her phone in search of the time and date that the vent cleaners were coming. When she found it, she threw herself out of bed and pulled on a clean pair of sweats. They were supposed to be there to clean the air vents in twenty minutes. Good thing I woke up just now, she thought.
Why had she woken up? She looked around the room for a cause, but found nothing but a small bowl of berries. Olivia must have left them for her. She popped one into her mouth, and promptly spit it back out. It was beyond bitter. Where did these come from? She hadn’t bought any fruit recently. Shivering slightly from the nasty taste, she headed to the bathroom.
She brushed her teeth and made quick work of her big knotted bushel of curls, then walked quickly around the halls, looking for the room Olivia was sleeping in. All the rooms were empty. Tossing her hands in the air, she gave up and meandered down the stairs to the kitchen. On the counter she saw the note from Olivia,
“Went for a walk, made coffee. Be back soon.”
Next to it was an ice-cold cup of coffee. She must have made this a while ago, Mariah thought as she took it to the microwave to reheat it.
She took a long swig of the coffee, and promptly ran to the sink to spit it out. It tasted horrible. Maybe it was from being reheated, but the coffee was so bitter. Mariah set the cup in the sink and walked over to the tea kettle instead. As she was turning the stove on to heat the water, the front doorbell rang. Knowing who it likely was, she hurried to the door. Pulling it open she quickly assessed the situation. Two female police officers stood on her porch, each looking at Mariah like the prime suspect in a crime. Mariah wondered for a moment if she should close the door and call a lawyer, but she did nothing wrong. How was it her fault that two people had died on her property in the span of a week.
The officer with light brown hair, that was strategically pulled into a tight low bun, spoke first. She sounded nice enough, but the look in her eyes told Mariah to tread carefully. She asked about exactly what Mariah had been expecting, first, Johnny and then the nun, who she now knew was named Margaret.
Mariah listened as they went over the process of the investigation and what she could expect as far as looking around the property. She didn’t see how any of this was necessary. Johnny obviously jumped off the roof, killing himself, and Margaret, well that was a tragic accident, she hoped. There was still the small tickle in her mind that the ghost might have pushed her down the stairs or scared her enough to cause her to fall. But what were the odds that a sharp, rusty old spoon would be buried right where she landed?
The officer must have sensed Mariah’s thoughts, because her next question took her completely by surprise.
“Miss Litback, do you have any reason to suspect these deaths were not accidental, or self-inflicted?” the officer, Mrs. Watkinson, asked slowly so no words were miss spoken.
Mariah stared into the officer’s hazel eyes, wondering how she could answer this question without totally lying. Just then, a loud smashing sound resonated from up the stairs behind her, followed by yelling and the sound of glass shattering. Mariah turned to run to her staircase, but the officers beat her to it. Mariah found herself pushed to the side as both officers barreled into the front entryway, guns drawn and raced to the stairs. As they ascended to the second floor, one after the other yelled, “Police. Show yourself,” several times with no response.
Mariah followed slowly behind, not wanting to accidently get herself shot by spooking the officers. After they cleared the second floor, they pro
ceeded up the stairs to the third. Rounding the corner of the hall they slowly approached the doll room. The door was cracked open, and there was just the faint sound of crying. Mrs. Watkinson slowly nudged the door open with her foot, then peeked in. She lowered her gun and entered the room to Mariah’s surprise. She had been sure it was those teenagers again, so when she saw Olivia sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by shattered dolls, Mariah was at a complete loss for words.
Mrs. Watkinson kneeled down by the mess, looking for answers. Olivia lifted her tear-soaked face up to look at Mariah. She was there physically, but mentally Mariah could see she was somewhere else. This had not been the first time she had spaced out and woken in a strange area of the house, in a strange situation. Vandalism, however, was not on the list of possibilities that Mariah had in her mind. Mariah stood watching the officers speak to each other. Olivia sat in silence with tears slowly running down her cheeks, and pooling on her shirt.
Officer Watkinson got to her feet, her partner returned her gun to the holster, and they followed Olivia out of the room and downstairs to the sitting area. Olivia sat on the couch, still and lifeless. Mariah had no idea what to even say to the officers. She had no idea what was happening.
“Miss. Litback, do you care to explain what is going on here?” she said and cleared her throat. “Are you dealing drugs from this residence?” Her partner wandered off toward the kitchen.
Mariah stood frozen to the floor, heat rising in her face as she tried to think of what to say. Of course, she wasn’t dealing drugs, as for Olivia, Mariah had questioned her about drugs once before so it could be a possibility. Not wanting her friend to get into any trouble, Mariah shook her head to indicate no. After a moment, the other officer returned holding a tied-up trash bag and the mask, of all things. Mariah knew right away that the bag held her clothes she had tossed after Johnny died. The mask was just a creepy remnant of the house. What did the officer have in her mind?
The Secrets of Oakley House Page 10