“I have enough money in my savings to get us through the next couple of months,” Ben proposed once he’d caught his breath. “I can afford to let myself have a few weeks of vacation.”
“I don’t want you to spend all of your savings,” I said. “What about the renovations anyway? Without a steady income, we can’t continue fixing up the house.”
Ben clicked his tongue. “Is that such a bad thing? We’ve repaired most of the parts we use on a daily basis. Why should we keep going?”
“It was your idea,” I reminded him. “We were going to fix the house up and sell it for more money at the end of the six months. Do you want to give up on that now?”
“I’m assuming you don’t.”
“Not really.” As the bacon sizzled, grease jumped out of the hot pan and singed my forearm. I hissed and wiped it away with a wet dish towel. “I had plans for the money from the house sale.”
“Mm.”
I turned the heat on the bacon down and gingerly flipped each piece. They were seared nicely on the other side, with crusty blackened bits just the way I liked. Toast, on the other hand, was not quite as tasty burned, so when the toaster started smoking, I accidentally shoved Ben out of the way with a little too much gusto to reach it. He clutched his side and let out a short grunt.
“I’m sorry!” The bread was far beyond burnt, so I left it in the toaster to check on Ben. “I forgot for a second. Are you okay? Did I break it again?”
Ben tentatively rubbed his ribs. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean it.”
Something else hid behind the look on his face, and it wasn’t his frustration with my lack of tact. “What’s bothering you?”
“The left side,” he said, lifting his shirt to show me his bruised midsection. The worst of it had faded, but his skin was a canvas of pink, blue, and yellow. “These ones aren’t feeling much better—”
“I meant what’s bothering you in your head,” I said. “I can tell something’s wrong.”
Though the coffee pot hadn’t finished filling, Ben shuffled over to the cabinet with the mugs, drew two of our favorites out, and poured servings for the both of us. “No cream, just sugar, right?”
“You know how I take my coffee,” I said. “Stop deflecting.”
Ben stirred a teaspoon of raw sugar into my black coffee, clinking the spoon absentmindedly against the mug. “To be honest, I don’t like talking about money with you. Before all of this divorce stuff started happening, I didn’t care that you weren’t working. All I wanted to do was take care of you because I knew we were in it together. Now, every time you mention money or refurbishing the house, it’s like you only care because we’re splitting everything after the divorce.”
My jaw dropped open. “Ben, no. Is that how you really feel?”
He lifted his shoulders. By now, the sugar granules had surely dissolved in the coffee, but he kept stirring. “You said it a minute ago. You have plans for the sale of the house, but I’m the one paying for the renovations. If we were planning to stay together after this, would you care how much money we might make off this place?”
I chewed on my lip. Thinking back on it—on my intentions for the money we earned once we sold the mansion—Ben had a point. I was so accustomed to Ben’s sharing, I’d never considered he might feel as though I was taking advantage of him. It wasn’t fair to him. He was doing all the work, pulling in all the money for both of us, while I did whatever I wanted without contributing to anything at all.
“You’re right,” I said.
Ben, stunned, finally stopped stirring. “I am?”
“Of course.” I gave him a quick hug and playfully tugged one of his curls. “I never meant to piggyback off of you all this time. I keep telling myself I’ll get back into photography and make money that way, but I haven’t been walking the walk.”
“You should ask Della if she has any contacts,” Ben suggested. “She’s your friend, right? I’m sure she would be happy to help.”
I set the table for two and turned the bacon out onto a plate lined with paper towels. Distracted by the conversation, I’d let it go too long. It was burnt beyond my liking now. I sighed and put new bread in the toaster. “I don’t think Della takes many jobs anymore. I’m not sure if she’s in touch with any of her contacts.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” Ben said as he set out utensils. A minute later, he rescued the bread at the perfect moment. The toast was golden brown and just crispy enough. He set out my favorite passionfruit jam, and we took our seats. “I’ll tell you what. If you ask Della about a photography lead, I’ll call Basil about his book.”
“You will?”
“Don’t sound so excited,” he warned, layering a piece of toast with jam before setting it in front of me. “I didn’t say I would take it. It just means I’ll consider it.”
I squeezed his hand. “That’s good enough for me.”
After breakfast with Ben, the house began to close in on me. I itched to get away from the wooded seclusion of the Abram Mansion. Ben’s foray around the kitchen had left him exhausted, so he fell asleep in his room soon after we had finished eating. I cleaned up our dishes and threw away the bacon that was too burned for us to consider keeping for leftovers. All the while, a strange humming sound buzzed around my right ear, like a fly that took a particular liking to me. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but there were moments it became more pronounced. When I reached for the rattling drawer to put away a chef’s knife, the buzzing became downright irritating. I clapped my hand to my ear and shook my head. Tinnitus, if that’s what it was, did not run in my family.
The town of Falconwood was covered in yet another fresh coating of snow. It came in waves. One day, the dead grass poked its ugly little stems up to fight for a look at the sun, and the next, it was once again smothered in a blanket of snow. The worst part was in between these steps in the process, when the snow was stomped into half-melted ice. It was cold and wet, and no matter how thick your socks, it seeped into your boots to make your toes shrivel up. As I cleared a path to the car and swept snow from the windshield, I felt a chill on the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the weather. Someone was watching me. I scanned the woods, almost expecting to see a pair of glowing eyes staring back at me from the darkness, but there was no one there. Then, I glanced upward, toward the attic of the house. Someone was standing in the window, looking down at me. I waved. The curtains fluttered, and the figure disappeared.
With a shiver, I got in the car and drove away. No matter how many times Alyssa made her presence known, I couldn’t get used to it. Ben was completely oblivious to her. He never mentioned the whispers or the strange sense that someone else occupied the house other than us. Maybe Alyssa’s appearance in the window was what made me drive to the Falconwood library. I’d been meaning to check their newspaper archives for news on the Abrams, but it always slipped by the wayside. Since I had a few hours before I had to pick up Sammy, I figured I might as well hold up my promise to him and look into Alyssa’s death.
The Falconwood library was small, and it catered mostly to the town’s younger demographic. A reading circle took up the majority of the main room. Children’s books lined the shelves along the border. The books for adults were confined to the outer limits, lined up along the walls so you didn’t have to disrupt the inner sanctum if you wanted to find fiction that did not pertain to Harry Potter. I cruised through the shelves, scanning the titles for anything that might give me a hint into the Abrams’ lives, but I only came up with one book about the “historic” town of Falconwood. As I read the back cover, the librarian—a tall man with round glasses and a slight hump to his back—came by to return a few books to their places.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” he asked. “I’m a wealth of knowledge.”
“Yes, actually,” I said, tucking the Falconwood book beneath my arm. “I was wondering if you have anything regarding the Abram family or the mansion. Newspapers, maybe?”
“You must be Peyton,” he said. “I’m Baylor. It’s nice to finally meet the new owner of the Abram Mansion. I can understand why you’re interested in it. The place has a pretty dark past.”
“You know about it?”
“A little,” Baylor replied. “I’ve been working in this library for over fifty years. I remember the day we lost Percy.”
“It must have been hard on the town,” I said. “I know how much he meant to all of you.”
Baylor bowed his head. “It was quite the blow, not only to the people, but the businesses as well. Percy invested a lot of his money in Falconwood. It took us a while to get our feet under us again. The library suffered too. Percy was our best contributor.”
“How did you get back on your feet?”
“Lots of fundraisers,” Baylor said, stretching his long arm up to return a book on local plants to the top shelf. “Falconwood loves fundraisers. Anyway, I can show you what we have left of our newspaper archives, but it’s not much. We hired someone to help us go paperless a few years ago, and the guy turned out to be a total idiot. He claimed he lost the majority of our information before he could digitize it.”
I followed Baylor toward the back corner of the library. “Who was the guy?”
“Some out-of-towner,” he replied, reshelving books as he went. He knew the library so well, he did not pause to make sure the books were in the correct places. “He was desperate for work, so we gave him a chance. Falconwood is big on giving people chances, even when it seems like they don’t deserve them. Come on in.”
He ushered me through a back door and into the library’s belly, where there were shelves upon shelves of adult books waiting for their chance to be read. “Here’s where we keep the good stuff,” Baylor joked. “The kids’ books are more popular. You know how it is. These days, everyone’s got an e-reader. Here’s what’s left of the newspapers.” He pointed to a small, sad pile of yellowing papers. “I think there are one or two articles about the Abrams that survived. Let me know if you need anything else. Just close the door on your way out.”
“Sure thing.”
Baylor left me to discover the back end of the library on my own. I sat on the floor and pulled the pile of newspapers toward me, flipping through the corners to check the date on each one. According to what I’d been told, Percy Abram killed himself roughly forty years ago. Only two newspapers had dates that fit appropriately, one from 1973 and one from 1978. I carefully extracted them from the pile. The crisp pages threatened to tear as I separated them. As I unfolded the one from 1978, I realized I’d hit the jackpot. The front page featured an enormous picture of Percy Abram, along with a detailed obituary and personal piece. Percy had been a handsome guy despite his thin face and pointed chin. I’d always expected him to wear three-piece suits and expensive watches, but the picture featured him in a wrinkled golf shirt and chinos. It must have been taken before his wife left him because he wore a wide smile with the slightest gap between his front teeth.
The article told the story Falconwood wanted to hear about Percy. It detailed Percy’s charity work and highlighted some of the town events that had occurred at the Abram Mansion. The journalist who’d covered the story spoke mournfully of Percy’s “hiking accident” that resulted in his death. Della once told me the police had found a suicide letter in the mansion, but the people of Falconwood chose to believe a less-intense version of the story. Oddly enough, the article didn’t mention Penelope or Alyssa at all. It was as if Percy’s wife and daughter had never existed. I wondered why the journalist had excluded those details. Was it out of respect to Percy, since many believed his wife had left him for another, taking their daughter with her? That was another aspect to the story that didn’t add up. Where was Penelope? Had she found happiness with the other man in her life? If her daughter was truly the dead spirit wandering around the Abram Mansion, I doubted it.
The 1973 newspaper appeared bereft of information on the Abrams at first glance, but after scanning the pages, I found Alyssa’s birth announcement in a tiny article. Alyssa Elizabeth Abram was born on December 19th, 1973. Had she made it out of the Abram Mansion alive, she would be almost forty-six today, over ten years older than me and Ben. It was hard to process that she had allegedly been trapped in the mansion as a five-year-old for so long, so hard to process that I was starting to question whether the spirit at Abram Mansion was Alyssa at all. But if it wasn’t Alyssa, who else could it be?
“How’s it going?” Baylor had returned with more books to organize. “Find anything good?”
“Nothing too useful,” I said, stacking the newspapers again. “You’re right. There’s not much left back here.”
“Sorry about that,” he replied. “Wish I could be of more use. Listen, I heard you dabble in photography. Is that right?”
It was remarkable how much information could spread through the town, even to the ears of people I’d never met. “I do. Why?”
He handed me a flyer from the top of his book stack. “We’re looking for someone to photograph the town for our new website. Falconwood is such a nice place to visit, but no one knows we’re here.”
I examined the flyer, which advertised the job. The pay wasn’t much, and the town committee was looking for roughly two hundred photos around Falconwood. Nevertheless, it was an opportunity that hadn’t been open to me before. “I’m surprised Della Gordon didn’t already jump on this.”
“We asked Della,” Baylor said. “She said she didn’t take photography jobs anymore. She was actually the one who recommended you.”
“Really? She didn’t mention it.”
“Well, give it a thought,” Baylor said, “and let me know if you might be interested.”
“I am interested,” I assured him, “but I have to check on a few things first. My husband’s hurt, and I have a nanny gig that I have to keep up with. One that I’m a little late for.”
“No problem.” Baylor moved out of the way. “If you have any more questions about the Abrams, don’t hesitate to ask. I might be able to answer a few.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
On my way out of the library, I ran smack into Della in the parking lot. She carried a stack of books to be returned, but a little bump from me sent them sprawling into the fresh snow.
“Oh, my!”
“Sorry, Della!” I helped her collect the books before the snow could get them too wet and caught sight of one of the titles—Coping with OCD and Depression: When to Get Help. “Is everything okay?”
She snatched the book from my hand and flipped it over so the cover was no longer visible. “Yes, my dear.” She spotted the photography flyer tucked in my pocket. “Oh, did Baylor tell you about the job? Are you going to take it?”
“I’m thinking about it,” I said. “Thanks for recommending me. Should I give Baylor my portfolio? Not that I have a recent one.”
“No, he trusts my tastes,” Della replied. “And I trust your style. You should do it. It would be a good project for you to cut your teeth on. I’m happy I ran into you. Basil and I were wondering if you and Ben would like to come over for dinner tonight.”
“At your place?”
“That’s the plan,” Della said. “The airstream is small, but we have room for guests. Basil could show Ben the greenhouse. It might spike Ben’s interest in the project.”
“That sounds great.”
“Excellent! How’s six o’clock?”
“Perfect.”
I picked Sammy up, took him for an after-school snack at the Black Cat, then spent the rest of the afternoon with him at the apartment. I shared what little information I’d discovered about the Abrams from the library, but he wasn’t interested in anything other than Alyssa’s current state inside the house. He asked to visit her again, but I shot him down. I still didn’t think it was a good idea for Sammy to be anywhere near the mansion. When Theo got home, I bid them goodbye and headed downstairs. As I pulled out of the parking lot, a black rundown sedan cut me off
and careened down the road at top speed. For Falconwood, it was an unusually rude show of poor driving habits, but I put it from my mind. I only had an hour to get ready for dinner at Della and Basil’s.
“At their place?” Ben asked when I told him about our spontaneous dinner plans. “Don’t they live in a bus?”
“An airstream,” I corrected him, unwinding my scarf. The wind was brutal today, and my cheeks were burned pink. “People are doing that a lot these days. It’s cheaper and more sustainable. I think it’ll be cool to check it out.”
“If you say so.” He took the flyer from my jean pocket and smoothed it out. “What’s this?”
“A job I might take.”
He rolled up the flyer and tapped me on the nose with it. “Good for you! I’m glad you’re putting yourself out there.”
“Any news from Basil?”
“To be honest, I slept the whole day,” Ben said sheepishly, “but apparently, we’re going there for dinner tonight, so he can tell me more then.”
I eyed his messy hair and wrinkled pajamas. “We have to be there in an hour. Are you going to shower?”
“Why? Do I look like I need to shower?”
“Yes, actually.”
Again, he batted me with the flyer. “If you insist. Is this a formal dinner party? What are you wearing?”
“I don’t know. Something nice, I guess.”
“Something nice it is.”
Ben rolled off to the bathroom. I kicked off my boots and piled my coat near the door. I wanted a hot shower too, but the mansion was fickle about two faucets running at once. It would be better if I waited until Ben was finished, so I sat on the couch in the foyer and pulled the Falconwood website up on my laptop. It was a sad little site without much information and too many broken links. If Falconwood wanted to attract tourists, they would definitely need more than a few catchy photographs. A soft thump distracted me from my job research.
The Haunting of Abram Mansion Page 19