My Peculiar Family

by Les Rosenthal

  Agatha

  The story of:

  Lucy, the Grieving Daughter

  Scott Thomas

  I have never told a soul of what I saw that night in the spring of 1875, when the moonlight wrapped around the house as if the arms of a ghostly lover, and the shrieks of a fox echoed through the woods like the sounds from a murder. The duration of my silence is not to imply that there have not been, in my acquaintance, confidants worthy of my trust and secrets, mind you. It has more to do with the peculiar nature of the thing I bore witness to. Impervious to my efforts to blot it from mind, the horror has taken up residence in my dreams and revisits again and again like a pale, round moon rising nightly from behind shadowy trees.

  Why, you may ask, do I now reveal what I saw? Perhaps I have grown weary with containing it, or I am compelled in the way that a historian is to record an event of significance. Though, I hate to think what is wholly implied or indicated by the particulars.

  It happened in the damp springtime of the year. The land was repairing after a long fierce winter, and, showery and dour as it was, the world seemed more grey than green. The roads were rivers of mud, and the trees, still awaiting their leaves, looked cruel and stark, a fence of dark bones around our little New England village.

  Mother was in her 68th year at the time. Her hair had gone silver, and gravity sought futilely to soften the tight cast of her face by drawing at the skin. She was in her mourning black, that afternoon, sitting in the finest parlor in the handsome chair that her most recent husband had thought of as his throne. She sat there quietly with a queer look on her face, her pale hands clenched in her lap while one of the servants brought in a tray of tea. My aunt, Charlotte Willingham, a spinster and younger sister to my mother, also sat by the hearth. It had proved damp and chill enough for a fire following the funeral.

  “Such a terrible thing, Agatha,” Charlotte said, sniffling. She dabbed at an eye with a handkerchief. “Well, the poor fellow has not left you wanting, bless him.”

  Mother stared ahead, her filmy right eye like a grape made of mist, and droned, “I shall never want again.”

  It was true. Her third husband had left her in a most wealthy circumstance and with a fine house as well. Even so, everyone thought it a pity that the poor woman had suffered so much misfortune, losing all three of her husbands. The first was my own father, and I can hardly remember him, because I was such a young girl when he died. I have heard that his death occurred in a very strange way, though I have found no relation willing to divulge the actual manner or circumstances. The second, Edward Hebbard, who acted as kindly as any parent could toward me, was found dead on the road with his head bashed, and it was supposed that he had been thrown from his horse. He, like my blood father, left mother a good sum of money.

  John Stillwell, a wealthy merchant, had been a widower when he met mother, and she charmed him straight off. While callous and critical in her regard for my sisters and myself, the woman could contrive an engaging manner if it suited her. Mr. Stillwell had been a lonely sort after his wife and only son perished in a fire, and so it took little time for mother’s persuasive spell to take hold. Within weeks the fellow asked for her hand, and she was only too glad to give it.

  Stillwell’s demise was an inexplicable thing, however, for he gave every impression of being a relatively happy sort in the days that followed, despite his having endured my mother’s moods (once there was no longer a need for her to maintain an air of pleasantness). I was therefore astonished when one of the hired men found him with his throat cut in the barn, a gory razor in his hand.

  I sat for a time with mother and my aunt, and we had tea as the rain turned to drizzle and as drizzle turned to mist and as mist turned to dusk. I spoke very little, ever fearful that my mother would scold me for uttering something foolish, and mostly stared at the flames. I had yet to witness the production of a single tear by the widow.

  Outside the windows, the landscape was losing shape as low mist and the dimming sky poured together like water and ink. A bloated white moon crept up behind the hills and leafless trees. The sad day had fatigued me, so I excused myself and had just started toward the door when a high, shrill cry came from somewhere outside.

  Mother hardly blinked, though my aunt startled notably and said, “What in heaven’s name was that?”

  “It sounds to be a fox,” I replied. “They make an awful noise.”

  Mother gazed at me coldly, her hazy eye eerily glazed by the light of the fireplace. “Oh, what do you know of anything?” She snarled at me. “Empty heads speak empty words. Now, off to bed with you!”

  “Yes, Mother,” I said, and I slipped out of the room.

  * * *

  It was a grand old house full of fine woodwork and shadows. I could tell what stair I was on, even in the dark, by the sound it made, though that evening I had a candle in hand as I headed up for my chamber. In the upper hallway I spotted a person standing outside of my mother’s room with the door slightly open. It was Anna, one of the servants, and she shut the door hastily and straightened once she took notice of my approach.

  Anna was a young woman with a round face and nervous little eyes. She looked at me almost pleadingly, her fingers knotted in her apron, and I could tell that something was troubling her.

  “What is it, Anna? Are you unwell?”

  She looked down for a moment before finding her voice.

  “Oh, Miss Lucy, you’ll think me silly if I tell.”

  I gave a comforting little laugh. “I hardly think so, Anna. What is it?”

  She steeled herself. “Well, I was in the Mistress’s chamber making up her fire when I heard a beast out in the woods and went to have a look out the window. The sound seemed to have come from over near the barn, and so I looked in that direction, but with the mist and the moonlight the way it is, well, things have a queer look about them, and I’m not quite sure what I saw, though it gave me a fright nonetheless.”

  I took her hand so that she might feel anchored and safe. “What was it?”

  “A figure, I think, a man. He came out from where the mist had swirled up outside the barn, and he looked to be moving toward the house.”

  “Was it someone known to us?”

  “I couldn’t say, my eyes being what they are, and it being night and with the moon and mist, like I said. But, he was moving sort of funny, whoever it was, almost limping or walking like a drunk who might at any moment fall to the ground. A sort of shuffling walk, you might say.”

  “One of our hired men, perhaps?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  I asked, “Where did he go?”

  Anna shuddered. “That’s what bothered me the most, Miss Lucy. I watched him as best I could, but I’d lose sight of him when he passed through shadows, and then he’d appear again in the mist. It went on like this until he was quite near the house, and then the haze hid him, and I waited to see him more, but he was gone.”

  The poor servant was shaking. I told her that there was nothing to get upset over, reassured her that it had to be one of our men returning to the house after tending the horses and that the fog had played a trick on her. She seemed somewhat better and resigned to return to her tasks, and I slipped into my mother’s room to have myself a look.

  I went to the window and cupped my hands around my face lest the glare from the fireplace distort my view. There was indeed something odd about the night, the way the cool light played on the low, quietly seething mist, but there was no sign whatsoever of any strange figure, limping or otherwise.

  On my way out of the room I noticed something at the edge of the fireplace, a fragment of one of mother’s gowns, apparently, lying there on the hearth. I bent to pick it up. Yes, I recognized the color and the pattern. It was from the garment my mother had been wearing the evening when her husband took his life. It struck me that I had not seen that gown since, and this piece, while partly burned, was stained with something that looked very much to be dri
ed blood.

  * * *

  I went to my room and was very glad to be away from my mother and to have the dreary day behind me. The prospect of sleep seemed terribly appealing, so, I was quick into my sleeping gown and fast in bed, snug beneath covers.

  While the long, dreary day had left my body feeling quite tired, my mind was still busy with thoughts. Certain moments remained in my consciousness, such as the almost imperceptible little smirk on my mother’s face when the casket was lowered into the ground. And when I closed my eyes I could still see the frightened look in Anna’s eyes, and thought about the burnt piece of gown I had found by the hearth in mother’s chamber. These things unsettled me and held sleep at bay until exhaustion finally won out.

  I slept for a time, peacefully enough as far as I can tell, and it was late when I awoke. The house was quiet and still, and there was no wind to speak of. The moon had moved high into the sky, and its eerie radiance was slinking through the windows to make curious shapes of the furnishings in my room.

  I have mentioned that it was quiet, so much so that the unlikely sound of a woman’s short shriek caused me to jolt up in my bed. I wondered at first if it had been a fox, but it seemed to have come from somewhere within the house, on that very floor, in fact. So, I slid into my slippers and moved to the door, opening it a crack. I listened. No wind. No voices. No more shrieks, though there was something... I could not quite make it out at first, though it seemed to be coming from my mother’s chamber.

  I knew the house well enough that I did not require a candle, and as I have noted there was a good deal of moonlight that night, and a window at the end of the corridor allowed a fair measure of bluish illumination. As I drew nearer to my mother’s room I heard gurgling and rasping sounds. I opened the door.

  Mother was on her back, sideways across the bed as if she had been sitting on the edge before being pulled back by the hair. Her feet and ankles were sticking out over the mattress, and a dim figure was bent over her on the other side in front of an open window. The moonlight slanting in glimmered on the gory straight razor in the horror’s pale hand.

  Hearing me enter, the assailant looked up, and I saw the terrible face. I could not tell the features very well, for they were coated in dirt that the damp mist air had soaked to a consistency of potter’s slip which ran down like melting shadows.

  I screamed as the figure spun toward the window, just as I spun for the door, my eyes aware of the scene just long enough to see my mother’s feet and legs jerking spasmodically. I did not even make it to my own chamber’s door before collapsing in a faint.

  * * *

  Well, there you have it, my dreadful secret memory, my peculiar bit of family history. They found my mother with her throat deeply sliced and a razor in her hand, and it was thought that in her grief she designed to join her recently deceased husband by taking her own life. No one thought there could be any other explanation nor questioned the little drops of mud on the floor by the bed. I told no one of what I saw.

  Perhaps this telling will free me of the dreams that haunt my sleep and the inexplicable dread that takes hold of my nerves when the round moon stares and mist waltzes like ghosts in the quiet New England night.

  My Peculiar Kickstarter Family

  Adam T Alexander

  Maggie Allen

  Eagle Archambeault

  Kevin Barrett

  Robin Bayless

  Traci "Dead Redhead" Belanger

  Ellen Belanger

  Paula Berinstein

  Jessica R. Bernard, M.D.

  Bill

  Brian "Bo" Bohannon

  The Booking Monkey

  Chad Bowden

  The Breen Family

  Floyd Brigdon

  Laura Brochard

  Tree Brock

  Jennifer M. Brown

  Sarah J. Brown

  Michael Burke

  Susan Carr

  Deanna Cates

  Kelly J. Cooper

  Shawn Crawford

  D-Rock

  Dantalion

  Elena DeGarmo

  Norah Dooley

  Amber Fallon

  Russell B. Farr

  Darth Troy Hahn

  HBComics

  Mark Hirschman

  Lauren Hoffman

  Elizabeth Inglee-Richards

  Amanda Johnson

  Erik T Johnson

  Tracy Johnson

  Juli

  Julia

  Kaiserin

  Wendy Klein

  Lisa Kruse

  "Laughs While Crying."

  Lennhoff Family

  Maria Lima

  Lou1492

  Marty Lloyd

  Shelley A. Lochman

  Johnny Maio

  Carol Mammano

  Roisin McCormac

  Kristi McDowell

  Mary McKenna

  Charlene Mehegan

  Sean Ian Mills

  Jennifer Monahan

  Barb Moermond

  Jay Mooers

  J.J. Morin

  David Mortman

  Simo Muinonen

  Yvonne Navarro

  Amanda Nixon

  Tina M Noe-Good

  Julia Perilli

  Ali R.

  Rhiannon Raphael

  RKBookman@Gmail.com

  Travis Roy

  Heather Salmon

  Tory Shade

  Silence In The Library Publishing

  Michael Smith

  Mary M. Spila

  Julia Starkey

  Wayne St. Jacques

  Margaret St. John

  Peter Thew

  Mike Scott Thompson

  Robby Thrasher

  Arthur Vincie

  Jen W.

  Thomas Werner

  Jo Whitby

  Kevin F Wilson

  About the Authors

  Brian Belanger is not an author, but he did help design the cover and edit My Peculiar Family, so we’ve added him to the list without telling him. Won’t he be surprised? Brian’s related to author Derrick Belanger (see below) and they run Belanger Books LLC, where they publish all kinds of fun and interesting books, like the one you’re reading now. He used to be known as Illustrator X on the wildly popular Sci Fi Saturday Night podcast, where he interviewed several of the authors in this anthology. Brian also designs book covers for MX Publishing and occasionally volunteers at the Boston Comic Con.

  Derrick Belanger is the co-owner of the publishing company Belanger Books LLC and is the author of the #1 bestselling book Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Peculiar Provenance which was in the top 200 bestselling books on Amazon. He also is the author of the MacDougall Twins with Sherlock Holmes books, the latest of which is Curse of the Deadly Dinosaur and edited the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle horror anthology A Study in Terror: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Revolutionary Stories of Fear and the Supernatural. His latest novella Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure Of The Primal Man is currently available as an ebook from Endeavour Press. Mr. Belanger also is a frequent contributor to the blog I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. Mr. Belanger resides in Colorado and continues compiling unpublished works by Dr. John H. Watson. www.belangerbooks.com

  Samantha Boyette was born in Upstate, New York and has traveled extensively in and outside of the United States. Currently, she resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York. She’s loved reading and writing since childhood and recently has become more serious about writing. She enjoys reading young adult and fantasy stories and really enjoys writing them. In the past few years, she’s written a few books and short stories and is in the process of editing them for submission

  http://samanthaboyette.com

  F Allen Farnham is a child of the Space Age who has always held a passionate interest in high technology. Impatient to live in a futuristic world, he eagerly consumed any scientific article or science fiction novel that promised a glimpse. Herbert, Heinlein, and Huxley are three of his chief influences.

  Farnham’s first novel, Angry
Ghosts, was acquired by Eirelander Publishing in 2009 and re-released on e-book under the title Wraiths of Earth, in 2010. The sequel, Black Hawks From A Blue Sun, was also released in 2010, and the follow up, The Exhausted Dead, was released in 2012. Of Mortal Creatures is the fourth installment of the Angry Ghosts series, released in 2015. Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Farnham now lives with his wife, Michelle, in Milford, New Hampshire

  Christopher Golden is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of SNOWBLIND, TIN MEN, and DEAD RINGERS, among many others. With Mike Mignola, he co-created the cult favorite comics series BALTIMORE and JOE GOLEM: OCCULT DETECTIVE. Golden is also an editor and screenwriter. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.

  Karen Gosselin is an illustrator who has done book covers for “Roby School” by Linda Chartier, and “Monkey See – Sea Monkey” by Matt Herring. In between doing artwork for RPG’s and concept work, she’s been writing here and there with the hopes of someday publishing, which she now has done by being part of this anthology. For more on her illustration and other artwork, visit https://www.facebook.com/KarenGosselinArtandIllustration42/ .

  Tracy Hickman is a NYT Best-Selling co-author (with Margaret Weis) of many Dragonlance novels including the original Dragonlance Chronicles, Dragonlance Legends, Rose of the Prophet and Darksword trilogies as well as the seven-book Deathgate Cycle. In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Tracy Hickman one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons in the realm of adventure gaming. He now works as Director of story development for The Void. https://thevoid.com