The Haunting of Abram Mansion

by Alexandria Clarke

  The screamer did not respond except to take a deep breath and resume the constant, earsplitting note. The volume grew as I followed the sound. At last, I broke through the dead branches of a thick hedge and found the empty swimming pool. In the deep end, where the dead leaves had gathered near the drain, stood Della—eyes wide and blank, chin tipped toward the moon, and her cheeks drawn in tight lines to accommodate her dropped, screaming mouth. She kept her arms by her sides, as if they were bound to her body with a length of rope, but her fingers were spread wide and long as if she was suffering from a constant electric shock.

  I ran to the deep end and jumped into the pool. Della screamed all the while, blasting my ear drums as I took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Della! Wake up! Della, it’s me. It’s Peyton!”

  But the older woman went on screaming, her eyes wide with terror. Tears brewed in the corners of my eyes. Like Sammy, I suddenly felt the need to sob uncontrollably. Without reason, I wrapped my arms around Della and squeezed her in a tight hug. All at once, the screaming stopped and Della’s body fell from its rigidity. I caught her as she collapsed.

  “Della?” I said, rocking her gently. “Are you okay?”

  Basil burst through the hole in the hedge, and Ben limped in a few seconds later. When Basil saw Della in my arms, he jumped into the pool and ran to us. “My dear! Della, what’s the matter?”

  Della lifted her heavy eyelids to watch all three of us peering at her. “Wh—where am I?”

  “You’re at the Abram Mansion,” I told her.

  “Ben and Peyton’s house,” Basil clarified. “The Abrams don’t live here anymore. Darling, what happened? Why were you screaming?”

  I steadied Della as she got her feet back underneath her, though I didn’t let go until she gave me a sturdy nod.

  “I fell into the pool,” Della said. “It was an accident. I couldn’t get out. That’s all.”

  “You were screaming for at least a minute,” I told her, “and you looked like you weren’t—I don’t know—here.”

  Della patted my hands. “What a silly thing to say. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I’m not so sure I do.” Della went to Basil and rested her head on his shoulder as he wrapped a comforting arm around her. “Are you ready to go home?”

  “Yes, let’s get you to bed,” Basil said, guiding his wife into the shallow end and up the steps. He kept a steady hand on her at all times. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  “I fell into the pool,” she repeated with the exact same inflection. “It was an accident.”

  “All right, my dear.”

  I followed them up to the main level of the garden, letting the older couple get a head start as I hung back to wait for Ben.

  “What the hell was that?” Ben whispered. “No way she just fell into the pool and started screaming like that. Why was she out here anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “You should have seen the way she was standing out here when I found her. It was like something had possessed her.”

  He hushed me as we all met back at the kitchen. As Basil helped Della into her coat, Sammy munched on his peanut butter sandwich. Inexplicably, he was calm. The only evidence of his freak-out were the tear stains on his collar.

  “We’ll be right back, Sammy,” I told him. “We’re going to walk Basil and Della out.”

  Outside, I helped Basil get Della situated in the passenger seat of their small car. Ben dropped a USB device into the cupholder. “That’s the work for today,” he told Basil. “Look it over if you get a chance. I hope you feel better, Della.”

  Della waved weakly in thanks.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked Della in an undertone as Basil made his way around the car to the driver’s seat. “Was it the house? Did you hear the voices?”

  “I’d like to go home now,” Della replied. She pulled her door shut, forcing me to move out of the way. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As they pulled out of the driveway, Theo’s car rumbled in. Basil waved to her through the windshield as they passed each other, and Theo waved back. As Theo parked in the spot the Gordons had just vacated, Ben kissed my cheek.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” he said. “Hey, Theo.”

  “Hey, Ben,” she said, getting out of her car. “Sorry for the trouble. I didn’t mean for Peyton to be babysitting all day.”

  “Eh, you can have her,” Ben joked. “I’ll be in my office.”

  As Ben went inside, Theo hugged me hello. “How is he?”

  “He’s eating a sandwich in the kitchen,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Iffy,” she admitted as I led her inside. “Thanks for calling Officer Spaughton by the way. I’m not sure how long he would’ve stayed if you hadn’t. Can we talk up here? I don’t want Sammy to hear this.”

  I leaned against the back of the couch in the foyer and crossed my arms. “What is it you don’t want him to hear?”

  “That guy in my apartment?” she said. “That was Dylan Miller, and you’ve probably already guessed that he’s Sammy’s father.”

  “It crossed my mind,” I told her, “but I can’t see you with a guy like that.”

  Theo paced across the floor runner that led from the front door to the kitchen stairs. “Things were different back then. I was young and stupid. I came from a cookie-cutter lifestyle where my parents set everything up for me. When I met Dylan, he made me feel adventurous and daring. It wasn’t long before I ended up spending all of my time with him, and it wasn’t long after that he started mistreating me.”

  A lump grew in my throat. “I’m sorry, Theo.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, though it obviously wasn’t. “When I got pregnant, I knew I one thing: I couldn’t let Dylan near the kid. One night, when Dylan was high off his ass, I ran away. I did my research. I found a town that was so small and insignificant that you couldn’t find it on a map unless you had a magnifying glass.”

  “Falconwood,” I confirmed.

  “I changed my name,” Theo said. “I dropped off the map, and I raised Sammy by myself. I didn’t think Dylan would ever find us.”

  “How did he?”

  “I still don’t know.” She squeezed the bridge of her nose as if she were trying to keep tears from falling. “He wouldn’t tell me. Remember when I found that two hundred dollars in my mailbox? It was from him.”

  “What? Why would he give you money?”

  “He says he wants to make up for the past,” Theo said. “He found out about Sammy, and he wants to be a part of his life now.”

  “You said no, right?”

  “I said hell no.” She stopped pacing to lean her head against my shoulder. “What am I going to do? I don’t feel like Sammy’s safe as long as he’s around.”

  I rubbed her back, doing my best to comfort her. “Sammy will never be alone. He’ll either be with you, with me, or at school with his teachers. Dylan can’t get to him.”

  “But he knows where we live,” Theo whispered against my sweater. “He knows I lied to him all those years ago.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, cradling her close. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  But as Theo cried quietly into my shoulder, I thought of Sammy’s outburst in the kitchen and began to wonder if this was just the start to all of our problems.

  17

  When Basil returned to the mansion the next day to continue his work with Ben, it was without Della by his side. He sported dark circles under his eyes and his step lacked its usual bounce. When he arrived, he attempted to slip past me and into Ben’s study, but I followed along behind him.

  “How’s Della?” I asked him. “She didn’t want to come today?”

  “She’s fine,” Basil reported, walking briskly through the corridors. He’d been to Ben’s office so often now, it was as if he too lived here at the mansion. “I’m not sure what Della’s told you about her mental health conditions—”


  “She’s implied a few things.”

  Basil stopped short and pivoted on his heel to face me. “This house makes her unwell. I told her that years ago when she first discovered it, and I reminded her of it again last time. It doesn’t matter who owns the house or how many times it’s renovated. You could tear it down and rebuild it, and still Della would be trapped in its thrall.”

  “It’s just a house, Basil.”

  “Not to her.” He resumed his swift pace. “If you care about my wife’s health, I would encourage you not to invite her around here again. I mean no offense. You and Ben are still more than welcome to visit us at the airstream. In fact, neither of you have anything to do with this at all. It’s simply the house.”

  He knocked on the door of the office, and Ben popped his head out. “Hey, Basil. I didn’t hear you come in. Are you ready to work?”

  “Ready as ever,” Basil said, saluting Ben as he receded into the office. Basil added to me, “I do my best to take care of my wife, Peyton. She’s been so well ever since she stopped coming to this place. Please make sure the process is not reversed.”

  “Of course,” I stammered. “I want Della to be okay.”

  “Then we’re on the same page.” Basil tipped his head in acknowledgement. “If you’ll excuse me, we have a lot of work to do. Della is resting at home, though she expressed interest in visiting the Black Cat later. If you happen to see her, kindly remind her to check in with me every once in a while. I tend to worry.”

  “Sure thing, Basil.”

  The office door closed in my face before the words had fully made it past my lips. I gazed at the wood grain, picking shapes out of the squiggly lines. Never once had I experienced this side of Basil. He was strict and cold, whereas before he had always given off a goofy vibe of comfort. Did he blame me for Della’s breakdown yesterday? Technically, Della had returned to the mansion at my request, before Ben and Basil started working together. Perhaps Basil thought it was my fault that she was in decline.

  Despite Basil’s clear indication that I should leave Della alone, I went looking for her. I drove out to their plot of land and knocked on the door of the airstream first but received no answer.

  “Della?” I called, rapping lightly on the window. “It’s Peyton. Just wanted to drop by and make sure you were okay.”

  There were no signs that anyone was home. Against my better judgement, I cupped my hands to the window and peered inside the back of the airstream, where the bed was. It was neatly made with the blankets tucked over the pillows. Della was not resting, nor was she present in the airstream at all. Had she headed to the Black Cat already? Basil had made it sound like she needed the morning to recuperate. For good measure, I walked the perimeter of their land, checking the greenhouse and Della’s herb garden—which she tended to even in winter—for signs of her. She was nowhere to be found. Finally, I left the Gordons’ place and drove to the Black Cat.

  “Hey, Mason,” I said, peeling off my gloves as I approached the counter. Mason was busy constructing a cat and a koi pond out of steamed milk foam on the surface of two adjacent cappuccinos. “Have you see Della Gordon around? Did she happen to come through today?”

  “Nope,” Mason said, his brow furrowing as he shaped a tiny fish with professional hesitance. “She’s usually in here every day around nine o’clock, but she didn’t show. With anyone else, I’d worry, but Della does this on occasion.”

  “Does what?”

  “Disappears.” Mason shrugged and accidentally decapitated his koi fish. He set down the milk. “Damn. Anyway, you didn’t know?”

  I sat on one of the high stools at the counter as Mason gave up his foam art and automatically started working on my usual order. “That Della randomly vanishes? No, I didn’t. What’s that all about?”

  “I only know rumors,” he said. “As long as the Gordons have lived in Falconwood, Della goes missing for a few days each year. No one knows where she heads off to. Some say she camps out in the mountains because she misses being in the wilderness. Others are less kind.”

  “What do the others say?” I asked, leaning in.

  Mason checked to make sure none of his other customers were listening before he replied. “A few think Della’s been to rehab. A few more think she admits herself to a mental health facility to maintain her state of mind. Either way, everyone suspects their marriage isn’t as keen as it seems.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I told him. “Have you seen them together? They’re the definition of peas in a pod. They take care of each other.”

  “I’m not saying I believe any of it.” Mason clutched a hand to his heart. “Basil and Della are always so sweet when they come in here. But you have to admit it’s strange… don’t you think?”

  “Maybe,” I murmured, watching espresso dribble into a fresh cup. “Or maybe there’s something we don’t know about the Gordons.”

  Mason fired up the steamer again. “You said it, honey.”

  After a quick meeting at the library to tidy up some loose ends regarding the new Falconwood website, I headed to Sammy’s elementary school thirty minutes before the teachers opened the pickup loop. Theo’s debacle with Dylan yesterday had me on edge. I kept expecting to see his ugly sedan pull around the corner and tail my bumper. In any case, I wanted to make good on my promise to Theo that Sammy would never be alone, so I parked on the curb just outside the loop and waited for school to let out. Last night, after we had put Sammy to bed in one of the guest rooms, Theo and I sat up for hours to talk about the situation.

  “I can’t believe he found us,” she had said. The glass of bourbon I’d given her was pressed to her forehead, and the ice-cold condensation dripped down her temple. “When I left him, I left everything. Do you know what this means?”

  “That he’s a stalker?” I answered sharply. “It’s the only way he could have tracked you down.”

  “He wouldn’t confirm it, but I’m guessing he asked my parents where I was.” She groaned, set the glass down, and rolled over the back of the couch so her legs were sticking up in the air. “I am so stupid.”

  “Why would your parents have told him where you were?” I asked her, sitting like a normal person beside her. “Don’t they know the situation?”

  “No, actually,” she said. “As you might have imagined, my parents weren’t particularly fond of my rebellious stage. When I told them I was pregnant, they demanded I marry Dylan because” —she used air quotes— “‘we weren’t those kind of people.’ They said it was my only option. Getting rid of it was a no-no, and having a baby out of wedlock was the biggest social faux pas where we lived.” She put on a Southern Belle type of accent. “The gals at the country club will have a field day when they hear about this!”

  “You didn’t tell them what a loser Dylan was?”

  “Love is a tricky thing, Peyton,” said Theo sardonically. “As is pride. Between the two, I was paralyzed. Too ‘in love’ and too proud to admit to my parents that I’d been wrong. They never met Dylan, but they were determined to make me ride out the consequences for my actions, and I sure as hell wasn’t doing that by marrying him.”

  “And you never considered the other way out?”

  “I did,” Theo said pensively. “But it wasn’t for me. My parents raised me religiously, and though I eventually stopped going along with it, I still feel something that ties me—ties all of us—to a bigger picture. I had to keep Sammy. I wanted him, even if I didn’t want Dylan, and it’s worked out better than I could have ever imagined. I love the person I’ve grown into because of the challenges of raising Sammy on my own. If I hadn’t done all of this, I don’t think I would like myself much at all.”

  “You’re pretty amazing,” I agreed, “but what are you going to do about Dylan?”

  “As soon as he showed up, I had half a mind to pack everything up, move out of Falconwood, and disappear again.” She ran her fingers through her long hair, separating the intricate tangles. “Then I realized Fal
conwood is mine and Sammy’s home. Dylan is the one who doesn’t belong here, and hell if I’m going to let him chase me out of the one place I’ve felt most comfortable.”

  “So you’re standing your ground?”

  “Damn right I am.” She clinked her bourbon against my glass of water. “But I need your help to do it. Dylan’s not going to give up easily. If I don’t have a team to support me—you, Ben, Hillary—”

  “You can count on me,” I had assured her. “I won’t let anything happen to you or Sammy.”

  Near dawn, Hillary had come by the mansion to make sure Theo and Sammy were all right. Theo and I had fallen asleep on the couch, and Sammy slept soundly through the night in the guest room. Hillary had valiantly escorted them home, then checked the block to make sure Dylan wasn’t hanging around in his creepy car. It was only after Theo and Sammy left that I realized nothing spooky had happened that night, despite Sammy’s presence in the house. In fact, Alyssa had been quiet the entire time Sammy was at the mansion, and the only blip in my radar was Sammy’s weird outburst during Della’s simultaneous freak-out. My head kept trying to connect the two occurrences, but there was no immediate path from Sammy’s cry fest to Della’s screaming fit. All I could do was let Officer Spaughton walk Sammy and Theo out to their car and promise to pick Sammy up later.

  Now, as I waited in the elementary school’s parking lot, it occurred to me that perhaps one of the safest things for Sammy and Theo would be for them to move into our house until Dylan left town. Were it not for the ghost child that haunted the east wing, I would have invited them right away, but considering Sammy’s sixth sense, it didn’t feel like the best idea. I hated being in such a position, where one choice could either help or hurt my friend and her son in a dramatic fashion. The last thing I needed was for Theo to catch on to what Sammy experienced at the mansion.

  As the end of the school day grew closer, the usual swarm of parents’ cars and minivans came around the corner. I quickly pulled into the pickup loop so I could be first to pick up Sammy, but when the bell rang and the kids poured out of the building, Sammy wasn’t among that group. I was forced to pull out of the pickup loop, make the U-turn, and try again. With every additional pass, my heart hammered faster against my rib cage. This had happened once before when Theo picked Sammy up, but today was different. Theo and I had agreed last night that I would be the one to fetch Sammy today, and there were no texts on my phone to inform me of altered plans. I dialed Theo, but she didn’t answer, so I dialed Hillary’s number next. Before she answered, Sammy’s little head finally popped up out of the crowd. With a surge of relief coursing through me, I hung up the phone and opened the door for him.