by H. P. Bayne
Sully felt eyes drilling into him, and he chanced a glance at the window. She was still there, still hovering. Waiting.
“I have no doubt,” Leo said. “What about my sister? What do you recall of her?”
“She was a lovely girl, full of energy. She sure doted on you, sir.”
“I recall,” he said. “I wondered more what you remembered of her disappearance.”
Mrs. Carr had been holding her cup in long, knotted fingers. Now she raised it to her lips and took a long, measured sip. Sully suspected the move was more to buy time than to combat thirst.
Finally, she brought the mug down and inhaled.
“It was a very hard time for all of us. Mr. Garver was heartbroken. I tried to shield you from as much as I could by keeping you occupied with activities and projects. I didn’t want you to see him like that. I didn’t want you near him. He was greatly changed by what happened. I worried for a time he might try to take his own life.”
A pause in the conversation had Sully wondering whether the call had been dropped. Then a sound came through the phone, as if Leo had stood to move around. Sully could picture him beginning to pace, the way he had in the courtroom between questions.
“Mrs. Carr,” Leo said a moment later. “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to answer me honestly. And don’t be afraid to speak the truth in front of the boys. They’re aware of my past. I want to ask you how much you knew of my father’s behaviour.”
Mrs. Carr stared into her mug. “How do you mean, sir?”
“I think you know what I mean. He beat us. Badly.”
The housekeeper nodded tightly, though Leo wasn’t there to see. “I know, sir. Of course I knew. One would have had to be a simpleton not to see.” Her eyes shot to the phone. “You have to believe, sir, I did what I could. I tried to speak with him in his quieter moments. But it wasn’t my place, as he reminded me. I spoke to Mitchell too, but he also told me it wasn’t for me to interfere. I am sorry, sir. I truly wished I could have done more.”
Her mouth opened, but Leo cut in. “I’m not placing blame. I was merely wondering what you might recall. My father told the police my sister was taken, but that isn’t what happened.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“The last night I saw her, my father beat her viciously. I could hear it from down the hall. Shortly after, I saw him carry her into the woods behind the house. She was limp in his arms. Mrs. Carr, I never told anyone—that’s my cross to bear. But I am convinced my father murdered my sister and concealed it.”
The housekeeper said nothing.
“Mrs. Carr?”
“What is it you would like me to say?”
“Did you know? Did you suspect?”
Another sip of tea before answering. “I knew less than you did, sir. I didn’t know of this beating, nor anything of her being taken from the house as you say. As to what I suspected ….” She trailed off, the turmoil clear in her face. Her eyes scanned the room, darted to the corners as if expecting to see someone there.
Leo’s voice cut into the silence. “Mrs. Carr?”
The housekeeper’s eyes snapped back to the handset atop the table. “Sir, it does no good now. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead.”
“What does it matter? As you said, he’s dead. It’s many years too late, but I want to help my sister. I’m asking for your assistance in getting to the bottom of this. As I said, my memory is foggy. I have a vivid recollection of that last night, but I worry about its accuracy. If you could help me—”
The housekeeper stared at the phone as if it were a bomb, her eyes filling moment by moment with an increasing amount of panic. “How will this help?”
“I want to find her body. Maybe if I can find her, I can help her find rest.”
“There is no rest, sir. Not in this house. Can you not see that? Speaking ill of the dead draws them closer. They surround us here, every moment. It’s a dark, dark place, sir, and I don’t want to darken it further.”
“Ma’am, if you know something and you’re hiding it, you’re just as guilty of obstruction as I am.”
Mrs. Carr set her cup on the coffee table as if it had sprung to life in her hands. “I know nothing, sir.”
“But you do suspect.”
She clenched and unclenched her hands a few times before answering. “If you’re asking if your father was capable of what you’re suggesting, yes, I believe he was. But he didn’t do it. It wasn’t him.”
“Why do you say that, ma’am?” Quiet, calm, the tone belying everything Leo Jacob must be feeling.
“This house changes people. It finds weaknesses and worms its way inside. It poisoned your father, your mother, my husband. Now, Mr. Braddock and Dr. Abraham. It takes time, years even, but it finds its prey and doesn’t let up until it has complete control.
“Something dark walks that house, Mr. Jacob. And it won’t rest. Not ever. So I won’t speak ill of the dead. They belong to the house now, and it won’t ever let go.”
8
Dez was reasonably certain Mrs. Carr had taken a decade off his life.
His heart thundered in his chest and his stomach churned as he considered what she’d just said. He felt Sully’s eyes on him but he didn’t turn to meet them. He didn’t need the sympathy. What he needed was a military-grade GPS system, a snowmobile and whatever other equipment would be required to get himself and Sully the hell away from here and back to the safety of Kimotan Rapids.
Mrs. Carr had supplied everything she could to Jacob. Sully told Jacob they’d call him later and disconnected.
While Leonard Jacob had asked his questions of the housekeeper, it seemed Sully had some of his own.
“You know,” he said.
Whatever niceties she’d shown while on the phone with Jacob disappeared as she fixed Sully in a hard stare. “About what?”
“About the house. What’s inside it.”
Mrs. Carr stood and carried her mostly empty cup to the sink to dump the dregs. “I was speaking to Mr. Jacob, not to you.”
Sully was stubborn when it came to ghosts. He had to be. Rarely did they cut him a break until he’d gotten them what they needed. Dez knew all about it, having been dragged along behind numerous times. Now Sully stood and walked to the kitchen, closing the distance to Mrs. Carr.
“How much do you see?” he asked.
“I’m not speaking of this.”
“Have you seen her?” He’d accentuated the final word, leaving no doubt in Dez’s mind whom he was referring to.
Mrs. Carr had to know what he was getting at. “Who?”
“The woman who haunts this cottage.”
Mrs. Carr took a step toward Sully and glared up at him. “There is no woman. Mr. Braddock was right about you. You belong at Lockwood with the rest of the freaks.”
Dez fired off the couch and cleared the distance to the kitchen in three quick strides. He guessed his anger was clear because the housekeeper took a quick step back.
“What did you say?” he growled.
Sully laid a hand on his arm, fingers wrapping around his triceps. “Dez.”
Dez wasn’t about to physically attack anyone. Unlike Mrs. Carr, he had a moral code guiding him. Still, he was far from finished. “You know damn well what’s in that house. You just finished saying it to Jacob. Don’t you dare turn it on Sully. He’s not crazy. He sees it. He’s seen it for years. Whether or not you choose to talk about it doesn’t change the fact it exists.”
“You won’t draw it to you by talking about it,” Sully said. “The ghosts, maybe. But the thing in the house, whatever it is, it’s not like the others. I get the impression it’s not even human.”
Dez gave up glaring at Mrs. Carr to peer at Sully. “What is it?”
“I don’t know if there’s a word for it. I’ve dealt with poltergeists before. Some of them were people once, some weren’t. All of them are driven by some sort of emotion, though, usually anger or fear. I don’t sense that from t
his thing. It doesn’t have emotion. Emotion is human. It’s beyond that somehow. It’s—” He stopped, uncertain how to continue, how better to explain.
“It’s a demon.”
The words from Mrs. Carr had Dez wheeling back to face her. “A what, now?”
“A demon,” Sully said.
“Yeah, I heard. I meant …. Holy hell.”
“That about sums it up.” Sully’s lips quirked into a half-grin. “I don’t know if I believe in hell or demons, but I do know there are things out there I can’t explain in the same way I can explain ghosts. Whatever it is, it bleeds evil, enough to affect the thoughts and actions of people who have lived alongside it.” He turned to Mrs. Carr. “You feel safe in the cottage though.”
The way she stared at him showed she hadn’t stopped disliking him. But she nodded anyway. “I don’t understand it, but I’ve never felt it here. The house has a heaviness to it. Always has.”
“More on the upper levels,” Sully said.
Her eyebrows crawled up her forehead. “I never go near the attic. Not even the third floor if I can avoid it.”
“Figured,” Sully said. “We found a window open up there. Did you open it and forget about it?”
“I didn’t forget.” She lifted her chin. “A terrible odour comes from one of the rooms sometimes. I opened a window to air it out, but something came over me. I-I felt if I didn’t get out, I would die.” At the stutter, her voice dropped. “I didn’t have the nerve to go up again to close it.” Her eyes skittered off of each of them before focusing in on her mug.
“The bedroom?” Sully asked. “Second one on the right on the east side of the house?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you know anything about the room? Did Miriam ever use it?”
Mrs. Carr froze, as if something had just occurred to her. “Mr. Garver. I’d see him up there sometimes. It was the eeriest thing. He’d stand in the room, staring out at the hall. First time I saw him like that, I thought I was seeing a ghost.”
“And the smell? Did you notice it then?”
She nodded again. “Always when he’d stand there, I would smell it.”
Dez didn’t want the answer but asked anyway. “Did it smell like something dead?”
“No, I know the smell of death, decay. It’s something else. Best I can describe it is the odour of rotten eggs. I pointed it out to Mr. Garver once. Of course, the first concern was the possibility of a gas leak. But there’s no natural gas on the property and no lines running anywhere near. He called to ask. And Mr. Braddock didn’t install gas while he was here, either. There’s no explanation for it. But I looked it up once, and I read demons can carry the odour with them. Sulfur.”
Sully leaned up against the counter. He’d grown pale, and Dez suspected his new posture was as much about keeping him upright as for comfort. “And you’re sure you’ve never sensed or smelled anything like that outside the main house?”
“I can’t say. What I do know is I’ve never felt it inside this cottage.”
Sully’s gaze shifted without appearing to focus on anything. Dez knew he was thinking through what was going on. For his part, Dez was happy enough not knowing.
Even so, they were here for a reason. The sooner they did what they’d come here to do, the better. Once they left this property, he planned on never returning.
“Mrs. Carr,” he began. “Sully’s seen a woman around this cottage. We need to know if you’ve ever noticed her.”
The housekeeper studied Dez a moment before answering. “I have. Not well enough to describe, but I’ve caught glimpses. Sometimes I see a bit of a white gown. Other times, a swish of wild black hair. I’ll see it for a split second out of the corner of my eye or in a reflection against a window or a TV screen.”
“Does it bother you?”
“She’s never done anything to me. Her presence here may not be entirely natural, but she’s nothing compared to whatever haunts that house. If I were to guess at it, I’d say she probably feels safer here than there. Can’t fault her for that now, can I?”
Dez crossed his arms as he eyed the woman. “If you believe all of this, why’d you make out like Sully’s crazy?”
She mirrored his pose, arms folding across her chest. “I may believe it, Mr. Braddock. It doesn’t mean I want to. His coming here, it dredges things up. People of his sort, I firmly believe, attract these things. Whenever he came to stay as a child, the house would be unbearable after, for days. It’s like a simmering pot that suddenly heats up and boils over. I hated it when he visited.”
Dez met Sully’s eye to see how he’d taken it. His face showed no sign he’d heard.
“Ma’am,” Sully said at last, eyes staying where they were. “I’ve seen Miriam Garver around her brother. She stays with him because I think he’s the only one she feels safe with. But she needs to find peace. So does her mother.”
His eyes shifted to Mrs. Carr. “The woman haunting this cottage is Miriam’s mother, Lilian. She was murdered. The reason I know she was murdered is because I can see her. People who’ve died wrongful deaths are the only ones I can see. I think if I can free Lilian from this place, she can find her daughter, and they can cross over together. But something’s holding her here, and I think it’s the thing in the house. I know how to help ghosts, but I don’t know how to stop whatever that thing is. I might need your help.”
Mrs. Carr shook her head. “Any attempt to take on the evil in that place will be for you to make. I’ll have nothing to do with it.”
“Mrs. Carr, please, listen—”
“It took my husband. It devoured his mind until there was nothing left of the man I knew. I won’t let it take me too. If you plan on waging war against it, you’ll be doing it without me.”
Dez took a small step forward. “When you said your husband needed to leave because of health problems, it was his mental health you meant, wasn’t it?”
She peered at him a few seconds before nodding. “He was going mad. He was spending more and more time in and around the main house, finding reasons to go inside. He seemed to settle when he returned to the cottage, but he was still irritable, angry even. It wasn’t like him at all. Over time, he began talking to himself, muttering nonsense.”
“Did leaving here help?”
“A little. Dr. Gerhardt at Lockwood tried to help him.”
Dez turned to Sully in time to see his eyes snap to Mrs. Carr’s face.
“No offence intended, ma’am,” Dez said. “But Gerhardt wasn’t much help to anyone.”
“I’ll agree with you on that point,” she said. “John didn’t improve much at Lockwood. He had good days, but as suddenly as they came, they’d fade. He was in a terrible state, and nothing could be done to help him, it seemed.”
“What happened to him?” Sully asked, quietly.
Mrs. Carr trained a hard gaze on him. “He took his own life.”
Sully nodded and scanned the ground. “I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Carr carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Long time coming, I suppose. One might say he weathered the evil in that house better than many who were corrupted by it.”
Dez remembered John Carr sufficiently to say his nasty temper didn’t count as a glowing example of resisting evil, but he thought better of voicing it. “So you don’t doubt Lowell and Kindra did evil things. You just doubt the reason.”
“I didn’t see them the way you profess to, but if what you say is true, then it wasn’t them to blame. Whatever the thing is occupying the house, it worked through them. I’d bet my life on it.”
Dez smirked at the choice of words. “Given the house’s history, I’d avoid making statements like that.”
9
Dez wanted to stay in the cottage. That much was very clear to Sully.
Were it up to him, Sully would easily make the same choice and put up with Mrs. Carr’s glares, frowns and snide comments until the storm broke.
But their job didn’t give them the op
tion.
Nor did Mrs. Carr.
“You should get back to the house before it gets dark,” she said from her spot on the sofa, near enough to the fire to prod it back to life should it start to go out.
Dez lost a shade of colour. “I don’t think our going out there now is such a good idea.”
The housekeeper pushed a log over to expose the flames beneath to the air. “I won’t have him staying here. Not given the things he brings with him.”
Dez appeared to be preparing to mount a protest, but Sully cut in first. “Let Dez stay here at least.”
Dez wheeled on him. “What about you?”
“I can handle it.” Sully wasn’t sure he could back up his statement, but he’d sure as hell try. He understood fear. The malevolence to this property had a mind of its own, and it had instilled fear in both Dez and Mrs. Carr. Sully too, if he were being honest. But of the three of them, he was best equipped to fight should it come down to it.
“No way,” Dez said. “Not on your own.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Dez didn’t argue the point further. He simply went to the front entrance and started to slip into his boots. Sully smiled at the top of his brother’s head when he bent to do up the laces. One thing Dez feared more than the evil side of the paranormal world was bad things happening to the people he loved. His protective nature could be a thorn in Sully’s side at times, but it was also the quality he loved most about his big brother.
“You sure about this?” Sully asked once Dez had finished with the boots and stood.
“Nope. But we don’t really have a choice, do we?”
Sully offered what he could of a comforting smile before putting on his own boots. When he stood, Dez was firing a glare at the side of Mrs. Carr’s head.
“Come on,” Sully said. He patted Dez on the back, then opened the door to head out into the storm.
They locked arms, Sully steering them to the left to where he recalled John Carr’s trees were planted. Mrs. Carr had used them as a guide to get them to the cottage; Sully hoped they’d be as useful getting them back to the main house.