The Haunting of Abram Mansion

by Alexandria Clarke

  I hushed Sammy as Theo made her way over to us from the counter, balancing her coffee, Sammy’s juice, and a tiny jug of creamer. When she set everything down, the jug tipped over, sending creamer across the table.

  “Damn!” She threw a pile of napkins over the spill before the liquid could reach mine and Sammy’s side of the table. “Of course. Can’t anything go right?”

  I lifted Sammy over my lap so that I could slide out of the booth. Then I coaxed Theo to sit next to him. “Just relax, Theo. I’ll take care of it.”

  I mopped up the rest of the creamer, tossed the soggy napkins, and got fresh creamer from Mason. As I set it on the table, Theo covered her hand with mine. “I truly don’t know what I would do without you, Peyton. You’ve been a literal lifesaver these days.”

  “How are you holding up?” I asked. “Did you spend the night at the hospital?”

  “We did, though I didn’t want to.” Theo poured creamer into her coffee then took a long sip and sighed. “Apparently, I went into shock. I hardly remember what happened.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to give you a refresher course,” I said, half joking. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet.”

  Theo shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Actually, there is one thing I wanted to talk to you about. Hey, Sammy? Would you mind sitting at the counter for a while? Ask Mason to give you some crayons and a coloring menu.”

  Sammy, who was too smart not to know that he was being sent away, rolled his eyes and crawled past his mother to get out of the booth. Theo watched as he hopped onto one of the stools at the coffee counter and blew a straw wrapper at Mason to get his attention. Mason pretended to get mad, waggling his finger as Sammy laughed and laughed.

  “He seems okay,” I said to Theo, “considering last night’s events.”

  “It’s like he didn’t see it happen,” Theo replied, her eyes on her son. “I swear I’m more messed up than he is. Do you think I should take him to a therapist?”

  “Hillary thinks we should all go.”

  “Yeah, but kids are different,” Theo said. “I don’t want to force him to talk about it if it’s going to make it worse, you know?”

  I watched Sammy turn on the milk steamer for Mason. “Maybe you should ask Sammy what he wants to do. He’s advanced for his age, you know. He can make his own decisions.”

  “You’re probably right.” Theo fiddled with a sugar packet. “But what about that thing at the top of the stairs?”

  A cold wave washed over me, as if someone had tipped an iced coffee into my lap. “What thing at the top of the stairs?”

  “Come on, you had to have seen it.” Theo checked to make sure no one was listening, then leaned in to whisper, “The ghost.”

  If there was a way to play this well, I hadn’t figured it out. I stared across the table at Theo for several long seconds, my face blank as my brain flashed through thousands of questions. Had Theo really seen Penelope with Sammy on the mezzanine? Did that mean everyone could see the ghosts in the Abram Mansion, or did they only appear to certain people when they wanted to? Or did Theo have the same weird ability that me and Sammy did—the stupid sixth sense or whatever you wanted to call it?

  “I’m not crazy,” Theo said, misreading my vacant expression. “I know what I saw. There was a woman holding Sammy’s hand right after Dylan shot himself. She was all blurry, but I swear she was there. Didn’t you see her? Tell me you saw her.”

  The last sentence sounded like a plea. Theo needed her assumption validated. Otherwise, she had to face the idea that maybe she was crazy… or hallucinating.

  “Theo,” I began gently, stretching my hand across the table to reach hers. “Last night was the worst thing you’ve witnessed in your life. It makes sense for you to have seen something you didn’t understand. You said yourself that you were in shock.”

  She pulled her hand away from mine. “This happened before I started losing it. Peyton, someone was standing with Sammy, and I have this weird feeling that—you know what? Forget it. You’re right. It’s crazy.”

  “It’s not crazy,” I insisted. “Tell me.”

  Theo sighed and looked out the window to watch the unbothered citizens of Falconwood go about their regular lives. “I have this weird feeling that the woman—whoever she was—somehow stopped Dylan from shooting Sammy. You saw him, Peyton. You and I both know he intended to hit Sammy when he pulled that trigger.” Her voice hitched, and she quickly glanced at the counter to make sure Sammy was still there. “Something changed at the last second. Something made Dylan shoot himself instead. He was too vain to commit suicide.”

  “Listen to me, Theo.” This time, I took both her hands and held them over the table top until she looked at me with teary eyes. “You’re looking for the reason behind a miracle, and your head is filling in the gaps for you. Do yourself a favor. Appreciate that Dylan is gone and that you still have Sammy, because what happened last night was a miracle. Focus on that.”

  She squeezed my fingers and allowed one tear to drop from her eyelashes before wiping them away with a fresh napkin. “You’re right. Sammy matters most, and so do you, Peyton. You matter most too.”

  22

  On the following Monday and Tuesday, Theo called the elementary school to inform them that Sammy was sick and unable to attend classes. Sammy was fine. He didn’t have a hint of a sniffle, and when Theo told me she had also called out of work two days in a row, I realized what the real trouble was. On Wednesday morning, I showed up at their apartment over the local bakery to see what I could to do solve it.

  Theo answered the door with a look of surprise. “What are you doing here? It’s eight o’clock in the morning. Aren’t you usually at the Black Cat by now?”

  “I thought I’d swing by here instead and check on Sammy.” I lifted the box of fresh breakfast sandwiches that I’d bought from downstairs as an offering, and as she accepted them, I took the opportunity to squeeze past her and into the apartment. “Oh, Sammy! Where you at, dude?”

  “He’s sleeping,” Theo answered hurriedly, depositing the breakfast sandwiches on the kitchen counter. “I told you earlier. He’s been sick for the past two days. He’s only just started to feel better—”

  Sammy burst from the bedroom that he and Theo shared and sailed into my arms. His cheeks were pink, his eyes were healthy and glowing, and there was no breathiness to his voice when he said to me, “Hi, Peyton! Guess what me and Mom are doing? Playing hooky!”

  I swung Sammy up to my hip. He’d had a growth spurt in the last couple of weeks, so his feet knocked against my knees now. The lengthening of children always struck me as sad and exciting at the same time. Sammy was finally starting to look his age, but it came at the expense of losing his cute, compact figure.

  “Playing hooky, huh?” I ticked Sammy around his neck, and he ducked his chin with a giggle to ward me off. “Do you know what that means?”

  “Yeah, it means I don’t have to school and Mama doesn’t have to go to work. But” —he hushed me— “don’t tell anyone because it’s a secret.”

  I glanced over the top of Sammy’s head to see Theo doing her best to hide her guilty expression. It wasn’t working.

  “Okay, fine!” She tossed her hands in the air. “We’re playing hooky. Sammy’s not sick. Are you happy now?”

  I set Sammy on the ground and ruffled his hair. “Hey, buddy. Let me talk to your mom alone really quick?”

  “Sure.” He beckoned me toward him, and I leaned down to his level so he could whisper in my ear. “She hasn’t gone to bed for three nights in a row. She sits by the window over there.” Subtly, he jerked his head in the direction of the window that looked out onto the parking lot of the bakery. “I think she’s scared.”

  “I’ll talk to her about it,” I whispered back. “Get out of here, squirt.”

  I patted his butt as he ran off. Once he was ensconced in the room and the sound of cartoons emanated from under the door, I straightened up to address Theo.


  “What did he say to you?” she asked. Her posture—arms crossed, shoulders hiked up to her ears—was defensive. “Whatever it was—”

  “He says you’re scared,” I reported. Hopefully, Sammy wasn’t listening from the other room, lest he think I was betraying his trust by relaying his whispers to his mother. “That you haven’t been sleeping at night. Is that true?”

  Theo sank into the worn-out armchair she got off Craigslist for fifty bucks and leaned her head over the back of it to stretch her neck. “Can you blame me? First, Sammy almost gets kidnapped. Then his own father tries to kill him before shooting himself right in front of all of us. Before that, Sammy ran off at every chance he got. I feel like every time I let Sammy out of my sight, something terrible happens.”

  “Theo, you can’t keep Sammy out of school just because you’re scared of what might happen to him.” I sat on the mismatched ottoman and playfully swatted her knees as if to admonish her for her actions. “The one good thing about what happened is that Dylan is no longer in the picture. Sammy isn’t in danger, and he needs to go to school.”

  “He hates it anyway,” Theo said. “The kids still bully him, God knows why, and the teachers won’t do anything about it. I picked up his homework from the school and taught the lessons to him myself for the past few days. He does so much better when he’s homeschooled.”

  “Maybe, but you can’t homeschool him every day,” I said. “You have a job, remember? One that you need to keep in order to afford this apartment. I’d invite you to stay at the mansion, but—”

  “I couldn’t ask that of you.” She glanced through her fingers at me, and the hope on her face was obvious. She wanted me to insist on her and Sammy moving in with us. “It’s too much to put on you.”

  “I would do it in a heartbeat,” I assured her. This was true, but with all the ghostly action going on at the mansion, I wanted Theo and Sammy to be far away from it. Sammy was especially prone to witnessing the dead’s jaunts. “But even with the renovations we’ve completed so far, a lot of the house just isn’t safe. Sammy has the tendency to wander, and I would blame myself forever if he ended up getting hurt in our home.”

  Theo’s shoulders buckled as she blew out a sigh. “Yeah, Sammy’s pretty oblivious when it comes to judging the danger of a situation.”

  “Besides, going to school is good for him,” I said. “It’s unfair that he gets bullied, but he needs regular social interaction. If you keep him cooped up at the house—sure, he’ll be Mama’s little boy forever—but he’s not going to learn how to cooperate with kids his own age. Homeschooled kids go on field trips and do all sorts of stuff to make sure they’re learning social skills too. I love how much you love Sammy, but you can’t be his best friend for the rest of his life. Believe me, once he hits puberty, you won’t want to be.”

  That got a laugh out of her. She swung her legs into my lap. “You’re right. I can’t be afraid of letting Sammy out of my sight, but it’s a hard habit to break. I feel like I’ve been looking over my shoulder for Dylan ever since I moved away from him. I’ve always been overprotective of Sammy.”

  “Well, now that Dylan’s gone, maybe it’s time to take a breath,” I suggested. “The biggest danger to Sammy is gone, you know? You can relax. Let Sammy figure things out on his own.”

  “I want to,” Theo said, threading her fingers through her long, shiny hair. “But he also just watched his own father die. I have no idea how to handle that. I still think it might be a good idea to get him to a therapist.”

  I pulled on her pinky toe until the joint popped. “Then take him to a therapist. There’s no harm in trying it out. If Sammy feels uncomfortable, he’ll let you know.”

  “I think I will,” Theo said.

  “And, uh, what about the whole ghost thing?”

  She winced as I cracked the knuckle of her big toe. “I don’t know. I keep thinking it’s too crazy, you know? Like maybe my mind hallucinated the whole thing as a coping mechanism. God, maybe I should be the one to go to therapy.”

  “You should both go.” I didn’t know what the best thing for Theo was, but finding out that the Abram Mansion was haunted by its previously murdered occupants probably wasn’t on the list of things that would make Theo feel better. “At least try it out. It couldn’t hurt, right? You have nothing to lose.” I checked my watch. “I better get going. I only meant to stop by for a couple of minutes.”

  Theo nudged my midsection with her foot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.”

  “I never mind seeing you two,” I said, “but I’ve been trying to catch up with Della Gordon for a while now, and my best bet is to find her at the Black Cat for breakfast.”

  “How is Della?” Theo asked. “I heard around town that she had another episode.”

  “Is that common knowledge? Her, um, mental disorder?”

  “Pretty much.” Theo got up to inspect the breakfast sandwiches I’d brought for them. “No one talks about it specifically, out of respect for Della, but the whole town knows that she’s had some trouble in the past.”

  I tugged on a loose thread of the armchair, trying to weave it back into place. “I’m worried about her. The last time I saw her, she seemed kind of… off.”

  The last few times I’d seen Della, she seemed straight up out of her mind. Like me and Sammy, Della also knew about the dead residents of the Abram Mansion, but the spirits affected her in ways that turned her personality upside down.

  “She’ll bounce back,” Theo said. “I’ve known Della for as long as we’ve lived here. She’s gone through a few rough spells before. Don’t worry about it, but make sure you’re available to her. Everyone loves the Gordons, but no one’s very close to them. Actually, I think you and Ben are the only two people they’ve ever invited over to have dinner at the airstream. They’re super private about their personal lives.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said, putting my jacket back on. I stole a bite of Theo’s breakfast sandwich. “Take Sammy to school and go to work. I’ll be there to pick him up this afternoon like always. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Thankfully, I never worry about Sammy when he’s with you.”

  “Good to hear.”

  For the past several days, Della Gordon had not shown up at the Black Cat Café for her usual breakfast and coffee. Nevertheless, I came each morning and sat for longer than I usually would have just in case Della decided to drop by. I finally got lucky. Just as I had resigned myself to another disappointment and was gathering my things to leave, the bell over the café door gave a cheery chime as Della walked in. She was positively glowing. The fading winter chill made her cheeks pink and bright, her eyes were clear, and her hair was kept away from her face with an intricate Dutch braid that made me jealous about my own lack of styling skills. She ordered from Mason, who beamed and patted her hand to welcome her back, then she turned around to search for a place to sit. I waved from my usual corner.

  “Look at you,” Della said once she’d made it over and hugged me tight. “Back to your usual schedule. Seems like things are finally looking up, am I right?”

  “They definitely are.” I looked Della over, taking in the new plumpness of her figure. There was something different about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “How are you doing? It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.” What I really meant to ask Della, I couldn’t say out loud. What had happened since she last left the mansion?

  “I am fabulous.” She swept her arms above her head, brought her hands together at her heart, and bowed to me, as if she was still in yoga teacher mode after a class she taught at the local community center. “I’ve never felt better actually. It’s like I’ve been renewed. It’s amazing what a little green juice and meditation can do, isn’t it?”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” I gestured her toward my table. “Do you want to join me? I’ve got plenty of space.”

  She glanced over the rest of my breakfast and my empty coffee cup. “Looks lik
e you’re about ready to leave. I don’t need to keep you.”

  “I can order another cup of coffee,” I said, urging her into the booth. “It’s worth catching up with you. Please?”

  Della unzipped her denim jacket and draped it over the back of the booth before sliding in. “I suppose I need a place to sit anyway.”

  I waited until Mason brought my new coffee and Della’s breakfast. Then I waited while Della dug into her veggie omelet. It was a relief to see her eat. The last few times I’d seen her, her face had become sallow. I much preferred this new version of Della.

  “Not to dive right in, but are we going to talk about what happened?” I finally asked her in a low voice when I couldn’t take the suspense anymore. “About what you told me regarding the Abrams?”

  “I heard what happened.” Della munched happily on her fries. “It’s tragic that young man couldn’t get his life together, but I suppose Theo and Sammy are much better off without him.”

  “I’m not talking about Dylan,” I said. “You told me that I had to find out the truth about Alyssa Abram so she could find peace… so that the voice in your head would stop following you around.”

  “Shh!” Della’s mask broke. Her fork clattered to her plate. “Don’t say that out loud.”

  I lowered my voice. “You asked me to track down Charles Rainer. I did that. You also told me to find you when I knew the truth about Penelope Abram. I’ve been trying to do that for days, but you’ve been incommunicado. Are you with me or not? Because I don’t think I can do this without someone by my side who understands what’s happening.”

  Della gulped her water. “I—I want to help you, Peyton. I can tell you’re making progress too.”

  “How?”

  “Because she’s been quiet lately.”

  “Who? The voice in your head?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Penelope Abram, isn’t it?” I guessed. “She’s the one who you’ve been talking to at the mansion. I can’t imagine there are more than two ghosts running around the place. What has she told you? Why does she talk to you but not to me? I’m the one—”