She yelped and sprang back up to her feet, clutching the book. Oh my God! For a moment, she froze with fear watching the yellow tongues above the blue gas flames in the grate. They reminded her of teeth.
Taking a deep breath, she reached to turn the knob that activated the jets of gas. But as quick as the flames had started, they stopped before her fingers even touched the brass knob. Her heart was going a mile a minute as she stared at the grate and the brickwork surrounding it. This was dangerous! The fireplace shouldn’t be starting and stopping like that, all on its own.
The curtain at the side of the window billowed out catching her attention. It fluttered in the air, held aloft by some invisible hand. Myra stood riveted to the spot, barely breathing. Oh my God! Something was there. The curtain jerked up and down, like it was boldly taunting her.
She flinched at the rumbling growl and hiss next to her leg. Myra looked down to see the cat’s back arched, every hair standing on end hissing at the curtain. Her paw spiked out, batting in the air before she raced across the room and through the front foyer.
Myra’s knees trembled. She turned slightly and inch by inch, she backed away. Her gaze never wavered from the dangling curtain. When her foot thumped on the leg of the coffee table, she barely stopped herself from toppling over it, her feet moving fast to keep from falling.
She puffed air quickly, standing still and glaring at the curtain. After a few moments, she was able to control her breathing and her teeth clenched tight. Frig! If she’d fallen, she may have done some serious harm to the baby! Enough was enough.
Barry’s words about this ‘thing’ feeding on fear flitted through her head. Her hand flew up to clasp the tiny crucifix hanging around her neck. “The Lord is my Shepherd. He maketh me to....”
Her eyebrows drew together, trying to remember the rest of that prayer. Shit! She could picture Sister Mary Arthur’s plain face, her lips barely covering her horsey teeth as she recited it. She should have paid more attention to the words and not the teeth.
She took a deep breath, her voice booming, “The Lord protects me! He’s on my side! Get out of my house, whatever you are!”
Her eyes opened wider when the curtain faltered, slipping down lower and lower. It was working! She made the sign of the cross over her head and shoulders, once more stepping back towards the entrance. “Please God...”
The curtain flopped down, waving slightly and coming to a complete standstill. Beside her, the cat let out one last growl before stalking off to the kitchen.
Myra let out a long sigh, closing her eyes. She hadn’t even known she was holding her breath. Her legs were wobbly when she walked through the dining room. The smell of lilacs drifted in the air, and she felt calmer breathing it in. It had worked! Whatever had been in that room playing with the curtains hadn’t liked her prayer nor the crucifix hanging around her neck.
She moved in a daze, still totally smoked by what had just happened. She unplugged the kettle and poured the water into her mug. She was about to use the spoon to stir and punch the flavor from the bag when she felt the baby.
Her eyes flashed wide and her hand jerked to her stomach to press gently. It was like someone was lightly scratching her, deep inside. She’d read about this and hadn’t expected it for another couple of weeks.
It was the quickening—the baby moved deep inside her being. Tears burned the back of her eyes as she stood there in silent wonder. First contact from Isabella.
Chapter 13
Barry had traded vehicles with Alex that afternoon. Alex’s taxi was a minivan and Barry needed one for this errand. He wheeled into his laneway, well aware of the extra two feet of scotch pine hanging out the back hatch. Myra had made a thing about a big Christmas tree when she’d first seen the place...he couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she saw this one!
He parked the vehicle and turned the headlights off. It was only five p.m. and already dark outside. Yeah. That made sense. It was December twenty-first, the longest night, the Winter Solstice.
He went to the back of the van and began to haul the great beast of a tree out of the tight space. A low light from the dining room window beamed on the snowy front yard, highlighting some of the newer flakes in a myriad of magical sparkles. Barry smiled. A white Christmas, a tree and family coming over for Christmas dinner...what could be better?
After dragging the bushy evergreen across the driveway and up the step, he thrust the door open. Before entering, he swung the tree so that it rested on the base and bounced it a few times on the veranda to shed snow and loose needles there, rather than on the floor inside. When he stepped into the foyer, tugging the tree after him, he looked into the dining room. Where was she?
“Myra?” His voice boomed through the hallway and into the kitchen.
She appeared, still in the navy waitress uniform, the short sleeves trimmed in a white cuff over her slender arms, hands resting on her tummy, walking slowly towards him. There was something mysterious about the look on her face. She wore a smile under eyes that seemed to shimmer with happiness.
It came to him in a rush. She’d felt the baby move. But behind that thought another followed quickly. There had been a threat to her, from something in the room next to him. He propped the tree against the wall and stepped over to her. He looked into her eyes while his hand rose to settle on her belly.
Her eyes opened wider, “Oh! There it is again. Did you feel it?
It never registered in his palm but he felt it in his mind, the tiny foot stretching and pushing against her womb. Isabella. His chest was light as air, feeling like he’d float up to the ceiling and burst if it got any bigger. “Wow.” He leaned down and kissed his wife, feeling the deep connection between the three of them.
Neither one of them noticed the cat slip out the front door that was still open. Neither one noticed the faint fragrance of lilac in air overpowered by the scent of the tree.
It was a lapse they’d regret later.
Chapter 14
Barry’s gut clenched tight. The pizza he’d had sat like a lump of lead when he opened the spare bedroom door. The last time he’d been in that room had been spooky as hell and he and Myra had a terrible fight. So no good memories about going in there again.
But there was no choice. They needed the Christmas decorations that were stored in that room. He stepped inside and immediately the hair on his forearms spiked high and tingled.
The room was only partially furnished and it was Stella’s stuff—an oak dresser with an antique pitted mirror mounted on hinges, and a single bed. Barry had stacked many cardboard boxes filled with seasonal items and other things they didn’t need immediately, along the wall. His shoulders shuddered in the chilly air as he looked around for the box of decorations.
It was in the corner, the outside clearly labeled in Myra’s handwriting. He strode over and picked it up from the floor, carrying it quickly in his arms past the bureau. An old woman’s face, it’s skin gnarled and twisted flitted on the mirror in the edge of his vision. He jerked to a stop and turned his head to look at it full on.
The only face that was there now was his own. His heart beat faster and his gaze flickered to the room behind him, reflected in the glass. The bed was to his left. He gasped seeing an area depress in the quilted comforter, like someone was sitting down on it. Whoever had been in the mirror before was now behind him, watching him from the centre of the bed! He could feel a disturbed rage emanate from that spot on the bed like a stench. How dare he enter her space.
He took a deep breath and turned around slowly, facing the bed. A shimmering outline of a woman faced him. This wasn’t the same figure from the first time though. Whereas Evelyn was a delicate and ethereal, this being was coarse and earthy.
Where her eyes should be were two black holes, and her face was rife with scars from past diseases. Her hair hung in a loose, grey tangle far down past her shoulders. She grinned at him with blackened, stained teeth as a hand with cracked yellow nails reached out
to him. A scent of rot infused the room.
Yup. Sure as shit, this wasn’t Evelyn! He stepped back, the lower part of his back bumping into the edge of the bureau. The thought of her hand touching him filled him with dread. She shouldn’t be there. She belonged in another dimension, one that he wanted no part of, not until it was his time. It wasn’t natural that she would be there.
Anger rose like bile in the back of his throat. This was his home. Stella had left it to him and no ghost or spooky antics were going to drive him and Myra away. They weren’t flesh and blood--they couldn’t hurt him, only scare the crap out of him. He’d had enough of the pranks and scare tactics.
“You have no place in this world. Go back to wherever you came from.” His voice was stronger and louder than he’d thought possible, considering how dry his mouth had become.
The hand rose higher, coming ominously close to his arm. But the face began to fade, the shimmering body becoming a misty vapor. The depression on the bed was no more. But a faint touch whispered along his neck and jaw, the icy chill of it making his blood run cold. The specter disappearing was a brief respite. This was its way of letting him know that.
The unnatural creepiness of the thing sank into his consciousness like a knife.
His jaw clenched and he strode out of the room, banging the door behind him.
“Barry? Is everything okay up there?” Myra’s voice called from the stairwell. Before he had a chance to answer, she spoke again. “Is Leia up there? I can’t find her.”
He snorted, rounding the newel post and starting down the steps. “Nope. No Leia.” Under his breath he muttered, “...just the normal, spooky shit.”
The tree stood in the corner of the living room closest to the hallway. It wasn’t ideal. They both would have preferred that it be in the dining room but that was out of the question with the family coming over for the big feast at Christmas. They’d need all the space they could get in that room.
He carried the box to the floor in front of the tree and set it down. “Maybe the cat’s hiding. The humongous tree and the smell of it may have put her off. Cats don’t like change in their space.”
Myra folded her arms over her chest stepping into the room. “I’m glad it’s in this corner of the room, far from the fireplace. You know, that thing started up all on its own earlier...and the curtain lifted.”
Barry opened the box and tugged the set of lights out purposely not meeting her eyes. That was two things in the space of as many hours that something had happened. Whatever ghostly thing at work here, it was ratcheting things up.
If only Stella had provided more information on how to control this. How had she done it for so many years? And with the baby to worry about as well...he sighed. Looking over to Myra, he said, “The fireplace lit up all by itself?”
She nodded. “And then the curtain started flapping like a flag in a thunderstorm!”
“Holy shit.”
Myra grinned. “Well, holy something or another. I said a prayer and it stopped.”
When he looked over at her, her cheeks were flushed pink and there was a shy smile on her lips.
She rolled her eyes and continued, walking closer to him and helping sort the tangle of brightly colored lights. “Well, not a real church type prayer...more like, ‘God’s on my side, so git!’ type thing, but whatever...it worked.”
He paused and couldn’t help the wide grin that spread on his face watching her. Myra was really something else! She was probably scared to death but she’d dealt with it. She’d even had her first mother daughter experience afterwards.
He winked and flashed a grin at her. “I especially like the ‘git’. Very celestial of you.”
She landed a punch on his arm but a soft giggle followed. “Yeah. It sounds hokey but whatever works, right?” She tossed the lights at his feet and started towards the back of the house. “I’m worried about the cat. She’s always at my feet and I don’t think she’s hiding because of the tree.”
He plugged the lights into the wall socket and began to string them on the branches. In the kitchen he could hear her calling for the cat and shaking the box of kibble. That and the sound of the fridge opening usually brought Leia on the run.
His jaw tightened. If it didn’t show up by the time they went to bed, he’d check that spare room in case it slipped in there when he went to get the lights. It was probably a good idea anyway, to make sure things were quiet. If not, he’d just tell it to ‘git.’ He shook his head and smiled.
****
A couple hours later, the cat was still missing and Myra was almost in tears. “What if it got out when you brought the tree in? The door was open for a while.” They were on their way up the stairs for the night but she double backed and unlocked the front door.
A whoosh of cold air poured in the front doorway when she stood there calling, “Leia! Here kitty, kitty.”
Barry went back down the few steps and joined her at the door, putting his arm over her shoulder, “Look, the cat first showed up from down in the cellar. Maybe it found a way in and it’s down there again.” He shook his head and sighed. “I should have thought of that earlier.”
He closed the door and nudged her towards the stairs. “You go up to bed. I’ll check the cellar.”
She smiled feebly and then turned, taking the stairs slowly. He could tell by her body language that she despaired of him ever finding Leia. Actually, he didn’t have a good feeling about it either but he had to try, at least go through the motions. The cat could have run to the street and been hit by a car for all he knew. But he’d check the cellar...just in case.
There was a flashlight on the counter in the kitchen that he grabbed before walking over to the cellar door. He didn’t trust that place. It had a bad feeling about it and the lights were as likely to go off all by themselves as not. He opened the door and flicked the light switch, lighting the centre of the cellar and the rickety old stairs.
His chest fell when he stepped forward. If the cat was down there, it should have raced by him to get to its food in the kitchen, now that the door was open. But the only movement was the light bulb swaying slightly, hanging from the low ceiling. His grip on the flashlight tightened when he stepped down onto the packed dirt floor.
The furnace was a hulking monster taking up one section of the room. The flames flickered in the small crease around the firebox and there was a low thrum of its motor. The smell of heating oil and mold filled Barry’s nostrils.
“Here kitty. Are you in here, Leia?” His voice was barely above a whisper, looking around the room for the sight of anything light in color. When he stepped closer to the centre of the room a cobweb coated his cheek. His hand rose to swipe it away. Shit. The place smelled and felt horrible.
The bowels of the earth where evil churned. He shuddered. Now why had that thought popped into his head? It was all bad enough down there without his inner voice adding fuel to the fire.
He took a deep breath and pulled his shoulders higher, walking slowly to the far wall. There was a flicker of the light bulb and then everything went black. He gasped and jerked back for a moment.
After taking a deep breath, his fingers fumbled with the button on the flashlight and a beam of light lit the far wall. Even though he’d been prepared for something weird to happen with the light in the cellar, when it happened, it still made his heart hammer in his chest.
He swung his hand, aiming the light in all the dark recesses of the room. Nothing. He’d known that cat wasn’t here but—
Above him, there was a crash and the sound of glass breaking. His eyes almost popped out onto his cheeks as he stared at the ceiling, heard another set of thumps. His heart now thudding like a jackhammer, he scrambled back to the stairs, taking them two at a time. The door at the top was closed. He hadn’t heard it swing shut and for sure he hadn’t closed it!
At first the handle wouldn’t budge when he tried turning it. He gripped it tighter, pulling it towards his body, trying hard to get it to
turn. What the hell was up there banging around? What about Myra? He knew she hadn’t made the noise. A feeling of dread filled him.
The door latch made a loud click and immediately it swung open. Again, it happened on its own, even though he’d been giving it his all. A chill of foreboding skittered up his spine when he stepped out of the basement. The noise had sounded like it was coming from the living room.
He hurried down the hall and stopped short in the archway. Oh my God! It was impossible!
He blinked a few times and his jaw fell open. The Christmas tree was upside down! It balanced on a few thin branches pressing the floor and the thicker part of the trunk was only inches from the ceiling!
What felt like a bead of ice trickled down his spine. How the hell was the tree standing like that? Shit! He’d only been downstairs a few minutes! What the hell kind of entity was in this house? His heart raced and his legs felt weak, like he could collapse at any minute.
Myra’s footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him and he turned to face her, shaking his head in disbelief.
Looking past him to the evergreen, her eyes were round with fright and her fingers like talons dug into his arm. “Oh sweet Jesus!”
‘A cheap parlor trick. Don’t be afraid.’ Stella’s voice was soothing, a whisper in his mind.
With a crackling thud, the tree tumbled to the floor. Branches snapped and ornaments smashed under the impact. Both Barry and Myra jolted a step backwards.
Her head turned slowly and her face was blanched of all color, lips gaping wide. “Barry, I’m scared.” She stepped closer and clung to him. Her eyes were once more on the bushy spruce tree laying in the midst of silver tinsel and spun glass shards. She was stiff and shivering against him.
He was having a hard time holding himself up, let alone being strong for Myra but he had to. Whatever had flipped the tree upside down and then let it fall was gone. He could feel it deep inside, like a weight had lifted from his body.
The Ghosts of Centre Street: A Haunting of Kingston (The Hauntings of Kingston Book 3) Page 8