“Hey, Peyton?” Ben’s voice echoed from the fourth floor. He hadn’t discovered the hidden antic entrance behind the tapestry. “Peyton, are you up here?”
With the camera in hand, I jogged down the steps and ducked under the tapestry. Ben backed away as I emerged.
“Whoa,” he said. “What are you doing up here?”
“Exploring the attic. I found a camera.”
“I can see that. What happened to your hand?”
I held it up so he could see the full extent of the bandages. “The chandelier got me. You were too busy having a conniption fit to notice.”
He didn’t take the bait, but he did give me a look that conveyed every bit of impatience he was harboring at the moment. “You shouldn’t be up here. We don’t know if it’s safe.”
“Is that why you came to find me?”
“No, I came to apologize.” He offered to take the camera then ushered me toward the steps to a safer level. “I know I’ve been in a funk since we got here. I guess everything just hit me at once. I’m losing you.”
When we hit the third floor, I nuzzled the back of his jacket with my forehead. “You’re not losing me. We can still be friends.”
“I don’t think it works that way, Peyton.” He urged me forward again when I stopped to look at a stone bust of a large woman in the hallway of the third floor. “Anyway, I was wondering if I could make it up to you. Do you want to go to lunch today? No divorce talk though. That’s a promise.”
“I would, but I already made plans with Theo,” I told him.
His brow furrowed together. “You’re going to lunch with a woman you met for five minutes? You don’t even know her.”
We reached the second-floor mezzanine, and I paused at the railing to get a look at the entryway from a different perspective. From up here, the floor below looked tiny. I wondered what the foyer would look like with hundreds of people arriving through the front door for some extravagant party hosted by the Abrams.
“Believe it or not, you can get to know someone by going out to lunch with them,” I quipped, nudging Ben’s shoulder to make sure he knew it was a joke. “Besides, she offered to do it in return for taking care of Sammy. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“You could have said you were busy.”
“But I’m not.” I trailed my fingers along the intricately carved wooden banister as we descended to the main level. “I don’t have work like you do, and if I stick around, I’ll only be in Jim’s way. I might as well get to know the town. That’s part of the reason why we came here, right?”
A car horn honked outside, and Ben craned his neck to check outside. “Does she drive a dark green Jeep?”
“She sure does.”
As Theo pulled out of the driveway, she checked Ben out in the rearview mirror. “He looks mad. Should we have rescheduled?”
“He’s fine. That’s just his face.”
Theo chuckled, piloting the Jeep through the slippery, winding road with one hand, as if this wasn’t her first time navigating tricky territory. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“How’s Sammy?” I said, eager to change the subject as we veered closer to mine and Ben’s divorce. “Is his foot okay?”
“He’s great,” Theo answered. “He made me change his bandage twice this morning. He said he was afraid of the germs, but I think it’s because he wanted me to use the Buzz Lightyear Band-Aids instead of the plain ones.”
“Well, Buzz Lightyear means business.”
Theo drove us to her favorite restaurant in town, a place called Fitz’s Pub that looked out on the frozen river. Inside was dark and broody, but the atmosphere was quite light. The host seated us at a booth by the window, and Theo handed me a menu.
“Everything here is good except for the jambalaya,” she said. “Actually, I’ve never had the jambalaya, but I have this weird feeling that the only reason restaurants ever put jambalaya on the menu is so they can get rid of all the old food they couldn’t sell from the day before. You know what I mean?”
“I don’t particularly care for jambalaya anyway,” I said, perusing the menu. Fitz’s Pub had a hearty selection of classic bar food like burgers and wings, but there were also some more interesting selections available. “What’s bangers and mash?”
“Sausage and mashed potatoes,” Theo answered. “It’s from Great Britain. Ireland does it too, I think. There’s lasagna and sushi on the menu as well. Fitz has a bit of everything.”
“Fitz is the owner?”
“And the chef,” Theo replied. “He’s been all over the world, and he couldn’t decide which cuisine to serve at his restaurant.”
“So he settled for all of them.”
“Exactly,” Theo said with a smile. “But he puts his own twist on every dish. Like I said, everything’s good here.”
The waiter arrived to take our drink orders. Theo didn’t hesitate to ask for an Irish coffee, so neither did I. Since we were so hungry, we ordered our food too, both opting for a burger served with fried leeks and mushroom sauce.
“So,” Theo said after she’d handed her menu off to the waiter. “Want to play twenty questions?”
“Twenty questions?”
“To get to know each other.”
“That’s a lot of information,” I said. “How about five questions?”
Theo tipped her chin down. “On one condition. You have to answer every question I ask you with absolute honesty. Does that make you nervous?”
Her eyes drifted to my fingers, which tapped a sporadic rhythm on the table top. I hid my hands beneath the table.
“Nope,” I said. “You go first.”
“Easy. What brought you to Falconwood?”
“We inherited the Abram Mansion.”
Theo’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “That can’t be the whole story. No one moves into a rotting mansion without doing some renovations first.”
I twiddled the paper wrapper from the straw between my fingers, shredding it to pieces. “According to my grandfather’s will, we can’t sell the house until we’ve lived there for at least six months. We wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.”
“What was the rush?”
“Is that your second question?”
“No, it’s a follow up to the first. Think of it as question one-B.”
Theo was insistent, but she wasn’t invasive. Though I’d agreed to the game, I had a feeling she would give me a pass if she asked a question that was too hard for me to answer. Then again, she’d started with the hardest question.
“Ben and I are getting divorced,” I said. “And the mansion is the last thing we have to deal with before we’re able to sign the papers.”
Theo’s wince of sympathy was the best reaction to our divorce announcement I’d received. While everyone else challenged my decision, questioning why I would let go of such a great guy if there was nothing inherently wrong with the relationship, Theo accepted our separation as fact right off the bat.
“That’s tough,” she said. “And kind of mean. You couldn’t find a way around it?”
“Ben didn’t want to bother with getting lawyers involved,” I told her. “Since I was the one who sprang this on him, I figured I should go along with his decision.”
One of Theo’s perfectly angled eyebrows arched toward the ceiling. Her eyes were the same mossy green as Sammy’s, though he didn’t take after her in many other respects. While Sammy was the blondest of blonds, Theo had dark brown hair. Their noses came to the same cute point at the end, but the similarities ended there.
“Do you disagree?” I asked her.
“Kind of,” she answered. “You served him divorce papers for a reason. That’s not an easy decision to come to. Sounds like he’s using the Abram Mansion as a way to keep you around.”
“I know he is.”
The server returned with our Irish coffees. I leaned over my mug and let the steam rise to warm my cold nose. The bold scents of dark roast and Irish cream tickled my nostr
ils. When I finally took a sip, it burned in all the good ways.
“My turn to ask a question?” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Is Sam’s dad still in the picture?”
Theo sucked on her teeth and nodded like I’d caught her with a difficult question as much as she’d caught me. “No, he’s not. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I moved away from him. Let’s just say he wasn’t the type of man you’d want around a child.”
“How old is Sammy? Five?”
“He’s six,” Theo said, watching my reaction. “I can see you doing the math in your head. Yes, I had him when I was eighteen. It was a complicated time in my life, and I wasn’t taking care of myself like I should have. Getting pregnant with Sammy was eye-opening. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know what might have happened to me.”
“So there’s more to the story?”
“There is,” Theo confirmed. “But I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I guess we all have things we don’t want to talk about.”
After lunch, we left Fitz’s Pub so Theo could show me her and Sammy’s favorite areas of Falconwood. We shopped along the major avenue, walked to the frozen river, and visited the dog park. Apparently, Sammy was dying to have a puppy, but Theo was afraid she wouldn’t have the time to take care of one. As a compromise, she took Sammy to the dog park once a week to fulfill his doggy desires. I learned more about Theo and Sammy as the day wore on. Theo worked as a part-time receptionist for Falconwood Dentistry. Currently, she was taking online courses to get her business degree. The part-time job afforded her enough money to scrape by and let her bow in and out as needed to accommodate Sammy’s schedule.
“It’s the best I could ask for right now,” she told me as we strolled toward the school to pick Sammy up. “I don’t want Sammy to be stuck in daycare all the time. I like to keep an eye on him.”
“Otherwise, he finds trouble?”
“You guessed it. Hi, buddy!”
Sammy came tearing out of the school with his Power Rangers backpack bouncing around his shoulders. He ran up to Theo, wrapped his arms around her waist, and buried his face in her sweater. Theo stroked his fair hair.
“Everything okay, Sam?”
“I love you,” he sighed into his mother’s sweater.
“I love you too, little dude.”
Sammy unearthed himself and grinned up at me. “Hi, Peyton! Look at my foot!” He lifted his boot in the air. Beneath the rubber, I couldn’t see a hint of his bandages.
“Wow, I like your boots.”
He stomped in the slush. “It looks cooler when I’m barefoot. Hey, can we go to your house? I want to say hi to my friend.”
Theo squatted to zip up Sammy’s coat and put his mittens on. “We talked about this, remember? Peyton and Ben are the only two people who live at that house. Your imaginary friend needs to move out.”
“She’s not imaginary,” Sammy protested. “She lives there.”
“How about this?” I said. “Why don’t you come over so I can show you around? You can look for your friend, and if she’s not there, you have to promise not to sneak out in the middle of the night again.”
“Deal!” Sammy said with a tiny triumphant fist pump. “Let’s go!”
Jim and his construction crew were still hard at work when Theo, Sammy, and I pulled into the front yard. About ten guys stood on the roof, hammering and power-stapling away like they all needed a good therapy session. As soon as we got out of the car and went up the steps, Ben—wearing a bright yellow hard hat— jogged out to meet us.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, spreading his arms as if to gather us all and prevent us from passing. “What are you doing here?”
“I invited them,” I said. “I’m going to show them around the house. Sammy wants the grand tour. Isn’t that right, Sammy?”
Sammy, quiet in Ben’s presence, gave the smallest of nods.
“You can’t do that,” Ben said. “It’s too dangerous. We’ve got guys on the roof, and we don’t know if the rest of the house is structurally sound. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.”
“Ben, this is my house too,” I reminded him. “You can’t tell me not to have visitors.”
“It’s fine,” Theo said, stepping in to defuse the situation. “We can come back another time when you’re more settled.”
“But what about my friend?” Sammy whispered, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Dude, no one else lives here,” Ben told him. “Maybe you can stop by in a few months when things aren’t so hectic.”
“What does hectic mean?” Sammy asked.
Theo took Sammy’s hand and gave me a one-armed hug while Ben peered on with a suspicious expression. “Thanks for having lunch with me, Peyton. We should do it again sometime.”
“Definitely,” I said. To Sammy, I added, “I promise you can come back to visit later, okay?”
“Okay!”
“I’ve gotta get back to work,” Ben announced. “Be careful driving out of here. I don’t want you to get a nail in your tire.”
“The Jeep eats nails for breakfast,” Theo replied coolly. “See you around, Ben.”
As Ben walked off, Sammy pointed to the very top of the mansion, jumping up and down with glee. “There she is! There she is!”
I shielded my face from the sun and squinted up, following the line of Sammy’s finger to one of the attic windows.
“Hi!” Sammy called, his arm waving wildly.
But there was no one standing in the window.
6
As the days wore on, I settled into my new Falconwood routine. Every morning, I asked Ben if he wanted to come to Black Cat Café with me. Mostly, he claimed he had too much work to do to go to breakfast, but on the rare occasion, he set aside his laptop and joined me in town. If I didn’t have Ben with me, I spent the entire morning at the café, researching online photography courses that weren’t outlandishly expensive. The way Theo multitasked—juggling work, school, and Sammy at the same time—inspired me to jump back into learning, especially since I didn’t have anything else going on. After researching programs, I’d meet Theo for her lunch break from the dentist’s office. After a few meals at Fitz’s Pub, we grew tired of burgers and fried leeks so Theo invited me over to her place instead. She and Sammy lived in a modest one-bedroom apartment above the town bakery. At any given time, the entire place smelled like chocolate chip cookies. We would make lunch and chat until it was time for Theo to go back to work. She always insisted I could stay in the apartment to continue my educational research, but I didn’t want to impose.
To kill time and get in some exercise, I made a habit of taking an afternoon stroll around Falconwood. Just beyond the perimeter of the town was a fairly flat hiking trail a few miles long. I did however many laps it took to clear my mind before returning to civilization. Sometimes, I’d see another hiker on the trail, but I smiled politely and pointed at my headphones whenever any of them tried to strike up a conversation. I wasn’t too committed to getting to know any of the locals other than Theo.
Once, Theo was running late to pick Sammy up from school. She called me in a complete panic, and she never actually got around to asking me to pick up Sammy for her. I offered before she could, and I met Sammy on the sidewalk outside the elementary school. I took him for an afternoon snack at Black Cat, where he enjoyed pretending his hot chocolate was a cappuccino “like what grown-ups drink.”
When Mason, the café owner, stopped by to check on us, he said to me, “Theo must really trust you. She never lets anyone babysit Sammy without a background check first.”
I laughed off the comment, but Mason shot me a meaningful look before he refilled Sammy’s plate of cheese crackers. It didn’t seem momentous for me to watch Sammy, but this town knew more about the Bakers than I did. I was just happy to have a friend in Theo, and by extension, in Sammy. He made me laugh more than I had in years, and he challenged me with weird questions only children th
ought to ask. In one conversation alone, he questioned what dreams were made of, where thoughts come from, and why lobsters don’t have eyebrows. After I failed to answer, we made a game of searching for the solution on the Internet, and it became our new favorite routine whenever we spent time together.
“Where did the moon get its name?” Sammy asked one time as he colored at the kitchen table while Theo and I made dinner.
“I don’t know, little dude,” Theo said.
“Ask Siri,” I told him, offering him my phone.
He wiggled off his stool to fetch the phone. “Hey, Siri!” he shouted. “Where did the moon get its name?”
“Okay. I found this one on the web for ‘where did the moon get its name.’”
Sammy squinted at the results before turning the screen back to me. “I don’t know what this means.”
I clicked on the first link and translated the information to something Sammy might understand. “The word moon comes from different words in Old English, Dutch, and German that mean ‘month.’”
“Oh, because the moon goes around Earth once a month!”
“Exactly,” I said, grinning.
Theo leaned against the counter, sipping a glass of red wine as she waited for her homemade spaghetti sauce to reduce. “Is this what you guys do when I’m not around?”
“Yes,” Sammy answered. “Peyton’s so cool, and Siri knows everything.”
“Scary thought,” I muttered to Theo.
Sammy clung to my arm. “Can you come over for dinner every night? Mama, can Peyton come over for dinner every night?”
“Slow down, buddy.” I picked Sammy up, turned him upside down, and shook him. His raucous giggles were so loud, the neighbors could probably hear. “If I’m going to come to dinner more often, you’re going to have to cough up whatever loose change you have in your pockets.”
The Haunting of Abram Mansion Page 8