Almost an hour later, Claire heard a movement in the kitchen and looked up in surprise as the adjoining door opened. Cole stood in the doorway, plate and glass balanced as he let the door swing closed behind him. He had changed out of his formal clothes and looked years younger in his jeans and sweater. Claire realized his position and wealth had always given her the impression he was much older than she. Now, watching him sit in the chair next to hers and carefully set his plate down, Claire could study him a little more closely. He was a little older, but not more than five years, and although his face had lines etched around his eyes and mouth, she doubted he was much over 30.
Why would a man as successful as he obviously was choose to leave his company, even for a few weeks, to pour money into a venture like this one? The location wasn't ideal, the house was not renowned for any characteristic architecture or any historical value, and already disasters had plagued the project. What had made him want to see the job completed? So much so that he had moved to live in the unfinished building suffering the unpredictable plumbing, heat, and constant noise of construction.
“So what movie are we watching, anyway?” Cole asked in a whispered tone.
“I’m not sure anymore. It’s gotten a little ridiculous. Is the pizza still good?”
“Better than any I ever make. I’m a terrible cook at best. What about you?”
She smiled at the question, knowing full well he had already heard of her mistakes in the kitchen.
“Why, I’m quite a gourmet myself. I can make a mean grilled cheese.”
The television unexpectedly made a loud popping noise and blinked off.
"What the?" Ben asked, going up to the old set.
Cole got up as well and walked over to the set. Ben grasped the set and rotated it. A thin plume of smoke drizzled from a seam in the plastic at the back of the set, and the sharp smell of hot plastic spoiled the air.
"The thing's shot.” Ben said frowning, waving away the smoke in a careless gesture. “Better to pitch it and buy a new one. I think it would cost more to get it fixed than replace it. I don't think they even make this kind anymore."
Noel frowned, and rose from the couch to bend over his shoulder. "No more movies, I guess."
"No, it doesn't look like it. At least we got to see one. I really wanted to see "Godzilla". Haven't seen one of those since I was a kid," Ben replied.
Bill laughed. "I don't think you're missing much."
Claire silently agreed as Noel took out the movie and put the disk in its case.
"Claire, why don't you get your cards? We'll play a few games of poker if anyone's up for it."
"I'm up for it, but I can guarantee I'll win. You have a terrible game face,” Ben said, giving Noel a sly grin.
"Fine! Claire and I will be on a team. We'll skunk you," Noel retorted.
"Bill and I had better be getting home," Amy interrupted. "We have to go shopping for china patterns tomorrow."
Bill rolled his eyes but followed her to the door. Claire was smiling at the exchange until she got a closer look at Amy's face. She looked tense, her color a shade paler than usual. Her hands betrayed her as well; the slight trembling revealing how much unease she was feeling. Claire remembered what she had said the first time she had come to Talitha and was not surprised. To see her normally even-tempered friend so distraught made Claire more concerned for all her friends’ safety. The house was having an impact on all of them, it seemed.
Claire went obediently up the stairs while Noel walked Amy and Bill to the door. Claire paused on the landing to watch the car lights disappear behind the massive hedges, the stained-glass casting blood red tinting across the stair steps.
A shiver ran up her spine. It was so isolated out here. No lights from the city touched the sky and while others were waiting with porch lights bright for hungry little costumed ghouls, they were locked up in this massive fun house with its own kind of spirits.
She tucked the cards into the loose pocket of her pants and headed back down the hall. She had hit the switches as she passed and the stairway was bathed in light. The foyer below looked even grimmer since the workers had begun scraping off layers upon layers of wallpaper; the colorful swatches scattered like dying leaves upon the tiled floor.
She ran her hand along the banister as she walked, picking her way down the stairs. At the curve she paused, a sound above her causing her to turn quickly for the source. As she turned, the lights blinked out and she yelped, momentarily blinded as her eyes adjusted to the dark. A chilled gust struck her from behind, like a draft from a freezer, but stronger, stirring the loose strands of her hair, washing over her. Just as suddenly she felt a pain, sharp and hot on her shoulder, and her feet slipped on the thin carpeting as though the threadbare runner had been replaced with a paper-thin sheet of ice. Her hand which had been lightly resting on the wooden support grew numb, and she lost her grip, her body tumbling forward. She hit the curve of the railing once with her ribs before falling to the side. Then she struck something else, no someone, and they fell together, stopping at the landing with a resounding thud. The arm around her was tight and strong, and she gripped it for a moment before they drew apart.
Her eyes had not quite adjusted to the dim light filtering from the dining room, but knew it was Cole. Even without light she would have known from the faint scent of his soap or aftershave.
He leaned over, wincing. "Are you all right? Don't move until I can get a light on out here. Damnit! What happened to those lights?"
He fumbled up the stairs, the switch clicking loudly in the silence with no corresponding light.
Finally, the lights came on from one of the bedrooms, and he gingerly picked his way down the steps.
The pain in her back dulled into an ache, and she slowly stood. She felt herself sway, and lowered back to the step, nausea rising in her throat.
"You are hurt. Just hold on." He sat next to her. "Hey, Ben, get a light in here!"
Ben and Noel came into the foyer, their faces flushed in the dim light. Ben hit the switch in the library and carried out the table lamp from the desk. Noel looked guilty as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and if Claire hadn’t ached so much, she would have been amused.
"What happened? Jesus, we heard noises but thought you were looking for something. Are you all right?"
Claire looked at Cole's face, pale and serious, down to his hand which shown wetly in the yellow light.
"She's bleeding. Help me get her down."
Ben ran up the stairs and picked Claire up easily in his arms. She held him tightly around the neck and watched over his shoulder as Cole limped behind them, wincing as he put weight on his weaker leg.
"Noel, find the first aid kit in the pantry. It should be on the top shelf. Ben, take her to the bathroom."
He went in front of them, switching on lights, pausing to get a clean washcloth from the kitchen.
Claire was faintly embarrassed as Noel pulled her sweater over her head, but grateful her bra was a modest one. She felt her face flush as Cole leaned in close, and she breathed in the scent of soap and shampoo from his beautiful hair. Beautiful! Now she actually was losing her mind.
The sting of the alcohol was almost a relief when it pulled her from her embarrassing thoughts. Cole quickly cleaned the wound with before bandaging it securely with a small piece of gauze and tape.
"It's long but shallow. Shouldn't leave a scar."
Ben looked sick in the bright lights. Claire knew he had a weak stomach and now that the emergency was over, she watched as he excused himself hastily and ducked out of the room.
"You're awfully good at that," Noel observed, watching Cole's deft fingers.
Cole grinned. "I've had a lot of practice. My friends in college had more scrapes, stitches, and bruises than anyone I've ever known. They played a rough game of football."
"Well, they certainly taught you good techniques."
Claire leaned against the sink, the warmth starting to creep back into
her face. It was bad enough she had been attacked on the stairway and had collapsed in the arms of her employer, but now they were speaking around her as though she were a child.
Cole finished the dressing and washed his hands. "Do you want to go see a doctor? Just to have it looked at?"
Claire shook her head and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face.
"What did you cut yourself on?"
"I don't know. I just felt a pain on my back as I was coming down the stairs. That's when I fell. That's what caused me to lose my balance." She frowned at his disbelieving expression. "Well, something obviously hit me! What else could have cut me like that? And through my shirt to,” she said, pulling the offending garment over her head. “What were you doing on the stairs?" She knew her voice had the shade of suspicion in it, and she felt a mild sense of shame because she knew for a fact he had nothing to do with her fall.
He seemed to catch her implication but his voice was mild when he responded. "I came into the foyer, and the lights went out. I tried the switch, but nothing happened. I was going upstairs to turn on the lights up there when you fell."
"I didn't really fall,” she said, her voice more unsteady than she would have liked. "Someone hit me from behind. I don't know with what, but it left that." Her fingers touched the bandage beneath her shirt lightly, feeling the sting still.
His expression was unreadable, his eyes dark and unsmiling. She felt a sudden urge to shake him. To force him to admit the truth.
"You know something is going on in this house. Something isn't normal here." Her voice was sharp.
His response was almost inaudible. "Yes."
Chapter Eleven
When Claire got home from class on Monday, Noel was waiting for her in her bedroom. She had laid out Claire's favorite sweats and had two cartons of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, spoons ready.
"How was class?"
Claire sighed and dropped her bags. She had avoided any chances of being alone with Noel for the last three days. She knew uncomfortable questions would be raised after the events on Halloween, and she knew Noel would be doubly curious about her relationship with Cole.
"Class was fine." She peeled off her damp clothes and slipped on the others relishing the warmth of the fleece against her skin. The damp from the recent rain showers had made the day seem like one endless walk in the fog, and she was relieved to be inside, even if it had to be inside the dreaded walls of Talitha. She sat on her bed, crossing her long legs under her and took the offered carton of ice cream.
"I'm going to be so glad to graduate. I'm sick of exams. I've got two next week." Noel stopped and took a bite.
"Yeah, I've got one. My head is so full of all that meaningless information. I'm trying to get this paper done by tomorrow. I think I've just got to proof it tonight and write out the bibliography..." her voice trailed off as Noel pinned her with a sharp glare.
"Let's cut the B.S. What's going on, Claire? You've had me worried these last few weeks. You're losing weight, you’re distracted, tired all the time, and won’t talk about any of it! You keep acting like you're just clumsy, or not paying attention, which isn't like you.” She sighed in frustration. “And then you fell down those stairs! I just don’t know what’s going on anymore.” She gestured broadly. “And Cole! What the heck is that deal? You seem to have something going with him, and we hardly even know the guy."
Claire said quickly, “Wait,” holding up her hands in a gesture of consolation. "Okay, okay. I know you've been worried, and I appreciate it. I really do. I'm sorry I haven’t said anything earlier, but I just didn't want you to think I was losing it." She paused and took a deep breath. "I’ll tell you what’s been happening, but I know it’s going to be almost impossible for you to believe. I haven't talked about this with anyone for years. I don't want you to make any comments until you've heard me out." She pulled her crucifix out of her sweatshirt and rubbed it absently. "When I was a kid, before I met you, my parents always said I had a lot of imagination. But more than that, I had imaginary friends I would see." When Noel looked like she would speak, Claire rushed on. "Wait! I’m serious. No one would believe me then; I was so little. But I told my mom, my dad, sometimes even my brothers about it. They always listened, but pretty much ignored it as my imagination. They thought it was funny or cute." She glanced down into her lap, frowning. "When I got older, and they saw that I was serious, I wasn’t giving up the idea that I was seeing these people, they kind of got worried. It wasn’t cute anymore. It was scary.” She found herself wringing her hands, and tucked them under her legs. “So, they did what they thought was best. When I didn’t drop it, they took me to a child psychologist to try to figure out if something was actually wrong with me.” She was silent for a moment and smiled with no humor. “Needless to say, it didn't work." Noticing her friend's confused expression, she tried to clarify. "See, I started out by saying they were imaginary friends. But they weren't pretend, not from my imagination, they were just,” she took a deep breath and shrugged, “people."
“People,” Noel said slowly. “What kind of people?”
“You know what I mean,” Claire responded, not wanting to say the word.
“Those kind of people,” Noel said, her eyes subtly widening. “And you’re not joking with me?”
“No,” Claire said slowly. “Noel, do you remember that time? The time in the abandoned house?”
Noel’s eyes darted to the window, and Claire could see the subject bothered her. “You mean when we were in middle school.” Noel’s voice was flat. It was a topic they didn’t discuss. Despite their closeness in later years, at that time they had just been part of a wider group of seventh graders that hung out after school in the park just across from the campus, playing basketball and tossing Frisbees in the sunshine. They were cocky and sure of themselves, foolish in their ignorance. They had started branching out when boredom had set in, separating into groups to wander the adjoining neighborhood, some of the more adventurous kids causing a little trouble as they went. Claire’s chosen friends had been a little edgier. One Friday, shortly after Halloween when the moon had hung in the sky like a chiseled pumpkin, they had broken into an already dilapidated house, determined to stay the night for the thrill of it. It had been a ridiculous “I dare you” prank that had changed their lives.
“I know you didn’t see it.” Claire looked at her calmly. “I didn’t expect you to believe me then, you didn’t know me well. But Noel, you know me now. And it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a panic. It wasn’t my imagination, or illusions, or hallucinations.” Her voice grew tight with emotion. “It was real, what I saw was real.”
“Claire, you said you saw…”
“I know what I said, and I know what I saw.” Claire bent her head, eyes on her now clinched fists. “And I know what I have seen here, and I can’t deny it anymore.”
Noel looked wide eyed at her friend. “You think it’s a ghost. You think this place is haunted.”
“I know it is.”
Claire retold her stories, her experiences in the house of Talitha. The mirrored words, the dancing figure in the ballroom, the bursting glass of wine, the attack in the parlor, and the horror of the final encounter on the stairs. She couldn’t read her friend’s face well enough to gauge whether or not she believed the stories, but just telling of her experiences let her analyze them more thoroughly.
“I’m not a kid anymore. I didn’t imagine the glass exploding. You saw it too. And you saw the ash in the parlor, the books tossed around in the library.”
“Claire, there’s got to be some explanation,” Noel began.
“I’m giving you one. I think it started early. I think it started with the shower that burned me. And there have been other things. The painting in my room, I took it down one night, and it was rehung the next morning.” She stood and paced a few steps to look out the window. “If it were just that, some things being moved around, noises at night, I wouldn’t mess with this. I can handle those things. B
ut when I got hurt, it really scared me. And with John…” she let her words die.
“So, if what you’re saying is true,” Noel’s voice was little more than a whisper, “what do we do about it?”
They agreed she would have to go to Cole with the information, but Claire did not feel even close to being ready for that confrontation. She knew she wasn't having a breakdown, but she had no way of proving that to him. And unlike Noel, he had no prior knowledge of her, no history to fall back on.
Although she still harbored suspicions about him and firmly believed he had some knowledge of the hauntings, she wasn't ready to stand up to him. She had tried on several occasions to get him to open up to her, and he had resisted at every turn. And to make matters even more complicated, she found her feelings for him to be increasingly difficult to define. He made her so angry with so little effort, yet she couldn't help but want to be with him. She had to admit a physical attraction. She liked to watch him when he was unaware of her, and she loved to listen to the deep warmth of his voice. She found herself blushing in his presence and feeling frustrated at her own behavior. It aggravated her that her fickle heart would decide now would be a good time for her to develop feelings for someone. Like a school girl, she had a crush on her employer, the same man who was not only the owner of the haunted house she lived in, but might be involved in whatever had caused the ghostly occurrences to start.
As evening descended, she, Noel, and Cole ate a quiet dinner. Noel tried to carry the conversation, but Claire was distracted, and Cole seemed content to spend most of the evening listening to them talking.
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