by Etta Faire
Good idea.
I really wasn’t expecting that reaction, and so quickly too. I stared at his words a second. Were we breaking up? Another text came in while I stared.
Dinner tomorrow at my place?
I texted back a “yes” with way too many exclamation points. This was going to end in one of two ways. The same way it had 12 years ago or with amazing make-up sex. Of course I was hoping for the latter, which I decided he must’ve been hoping for too. It had to be why he’d suggested dinner at his place. But like most things in life, I could also have been reading way too much into it.
Later that evening, when I finally got home after work, Gloria and Jackson were already waiting for me in the living room. I was surprised to see Gloria so soon. Most ghosts needed at least a week after a channeling to materialize again. She was nearly transparent, though. So I could tell she was still very weak.
“We had a long talk,” Jackson said, in the fatherly voice he knew I hated. “And we’ve decided. Some things just aren’t worth the effort. Gloria knows what happened that night and who did it, and that’s enough.”
“You’ve decided?” I replied, my voice even snippier than I’d intended. “That’s nice of you. What about me? Don’t I have a say in this?”
Jackson went to open his mouth, but I cut him off.
“And here’s the weirdest part. I’m the only one of the three of us with an earthly life left to lose, and I’m the only one brave enough to do this?”
“That’s the point.” Gloria sat down on the settee, the red fabric taking over her color now. Her voice was so low I could barely hear it. “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you or anyone else. I was able to remember that night in the channeling. Thanks for that. It’s enough. I don’t need justice for my murder.”
I sat down beside her.
“This investigation just seems to be a little more dangerous than we thought,” Jackson added. “Myles and Bill Donovan did this, but it might be too dangerous and tricky to prove it.”
I stared at the ceiling, unwilling to let them know they had a very good point.
Gloria sat forward. “I’ll still do the channeling to take you to the memories I have from the summer of 1954, don’t worry. You know, when I saw the weird birds.”
I coughed on my own spit. “I didn’t know you actually saw the weird birds in person.”
Her voice was mumbled. It was like listening to someone whispering. And unfortunately, I wasn’t sure I was catching everything she was saying.
“Nettie and I were 15 at the time. I’ll never forget it.” Her voice cut out here and there. “My aunt was an amateur bird watch… She was the first one to see them and point them out when we were walking along the lake. She had no… what kind of birds they were. Ugliest things… ever seen. Beaks that looked like thick… We saw the girl… attacked. And we saw the hero dog, too.”
The hero dog?
I almost fell off the couch and landed on Rex who was sleeping at my feet. A couple months ago, in an article from 1954, a young woman was attacked by birds while walking through the woods but was saved by a hero dog… that looked just like my dog, down to the little scar on his nose.
I knew it was a crazy idea but something told me if I just got a glimpse of that famous bird dog up close, I’d know for sure if it was Rex.
I took her up on her offer and told her how impressed I was with her bravery that night.
“You weren’t Nettie Jerome’s frog cousin. Not at all. You were strong and quick-thinking. You did everything you could have.”
She smiled. “It was good to remember, in a way.”
“And, I disagree that this is too tricky or dangerous. The people responsible should be held accountable. Plus, your family has a right to know what happened. I found your sister, by the way.”
Her face brightened to almost full color. She turned to Jackson then back to me. “June? What’s she like? How’s she doing?”
“I haven’t been able to talk to her yet,” I admitted. “I left my number. So we’ll see. But I lived that night with you, Gloria. That was a brutal attack. Your family deserves to know the truth, and the people involved shouldn’t get away with it.”
Jackson shook his head at me.
“I’m done treading cautiously.” I continued, this time to my ex. “You always told me to go with my gut when it came to ending this curse. And I think a huge part of it involves uncovering the secrets of this town, and making things right.”
It was a lie. I actually had no idea how to end this curse, but it shut my ex-husband up for once. Gloria disappeared, and he didn’t say a word the rest of the night.
Note to self: Mention that curse more often.
Chapter 13
A Calling
My mother was less than apologetic when I finally got a hold of her later that weekend, making me realize, as we both aged, there was a bit of a role reversal going on in our relationship.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for a week. A week. I was worried sick,” I said.
“Brenda and I flew into Cabo for a few days, spur of the moment. She owns a timeshare there and you know how expensive cell phone coverage is in Mexico.”
I paced the dining room as I talked. “No, Mom. I actually have no idea. I don’t go to Mexico. You don’t go to Mexico. We’re not a spur-of-the-moment, go-to-Mexico kind of a family. We’re a plan-things-out-for-years kind, and then decide it’s actually not a good idea.”
“I don’t like your tone. Should I call back when you remember how to talk to your mother?”
I ignored her. “Stop evading my questions. That’s a big spur-of-the-moment thing to do. Don’t you think you should have called and told me about it?”
She didn’t answer.
Apparently, I was getting the silent treatment now. I went on. “And Brenda is over a lot.” I stopped myself from telling her that Brenda was a bad influence, but she clearly was. “I noticed she’s even on your answering machine now.”
“Of course she is. She lives here.”
The awkward pause between us grew longer as I tried to process this new conversation I was having with my mother. Our conversations usually went something like this: Hello, Carly, I’m very bored with my life, so I called to pry into yours. When can I expect grandchildren? I’ve been eyeing a pair of light blue stretchy pants on clearance in the grandmother section of Macy’s…
Whatever this new conversation was, it was unchartered territory. My mother was no longer my mother anymore. She had secrets. She went to Cabo. She had her own life.
“So, Brenda is living there now? What does that even mean? Are you guys… I mean, is there something you want to tell me?”
“Are you asking if I’m a lesbian?”
I plopped down at the dining room table. “No, I mean… Well, since you brought it up, are you? Actually, don’t answer that. I know you’d tell me if you were.”
“Because gay people must announce to straight people that they are gay.”
“That’s not it. We used to share stuff…”
“Well then, I must’ve missed your big coming-out-straight announcement.”
“Okay, stop,” I said. “It’s not a big deal if you are.”
Her slight country accent was back. She got that a lot when she was angry. “Brenda and I are friends who enjoy each other’s company. End of story. I realized you had a very good point when you left in such a huff to head back to Wisconsin. I, too, only have one life to live and I get to live it my way. Life is too short to worry about how others see you. You have no control over that anyway. Be happy…”
I let my mind wander while my mother tap danced on her soapbox. I didn’t need to listen. I was the one who wrote that speech when I left Indianapolis. No doubt once she was finished, she’d somehow figure out a way to ask how close to marriage and kids I was.
But she didn’t, and after a while, I got sick of hearing about margaritas and how cold Brenda was in Mexico even though it was 75
.
“Look, Mom, I’ve gotta…” My eyesight flickered. It was like I was blinking when I wasn’t. I closed my eyes, a little worried about myself. But I knew from past episodes, it would go away in a second.
“And you know how I get after I’ve had more than one mai tai,” my mother said, like I actually did know or care. She certainly liked to talk about drinking more than she used to. Brenda was her Nettie in life.
I opened my eyes. The flickering was gone, but the room spun a little and I felt a headache coming on. I grabbed the table to steady myself and got up, then walked to the living room to lie down on the couch. The temperature felt like it had suddenly dropped by about twenty degrees. I snatched my super soft throw blanket from the back of the settee on my way by and draped myself in it. “I have to go, Mom.” I mumbled into the phone through chattering teeth. I plopped on the sofa, almost missing the cushions.
“But I haven’t even told you the part about the worm. I drank a to-kill-ya worm.”
“Tequila,” I corrected her pronunciation.
“I’m pretty sure it was trying to kill me.” She chuckled. “I didn’t really drink it, but Brenda tried to dare me.”
I said good-bye to my mother and pinched the bridge of my nose to help the flickering a little. After another minute, just when the throbbing made it seem like my head might explode, it stopped. Everything was normal again.
I was just thinking that maybe another channeling wasn’t such a good idea when I heard a loud thud in the hallway that led to the basement.
“Rex,” I called, looking around the living room. It was quiet, way too quiet. And I was surprised to hear a quiver in my voice as I yelled his name. He was an old dog (supposedly) and my mind went to the worst case scenario. Of course, Jackson was nowhere to be found. When I needed him, he never materialized, but try to fool around on the couch with your boyfriend, and there he was, critiquing things.
I stepped out onto the veranda without even grabbing my coat, almost slipping on the ice. “Rex?” I called. The sun was barely visible through the clouds. The wind smacked my face, making my nose water. I went back in and was just about to check upstairs when I heard something by the second staircase down the hall again. The only staircase in the house that led down.
“Jackson,” I called, slowly walking down the hall toward the noise. “Rex.” No one answered. I knew where the noise was coming from, even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself. The basement.
I’d only ever been down in the basement twice the whole time I lived at Gate House, and that included the first time I lived there, when I was married to Jackson for seven years.
I listened by the door and heard a definite loud thump coming from down there. Even though logically I knew it couldn’t have been Rex, I still went back to the kitchen and grabbed the key for the basement out of the key cabinet. I also grabbed one of the mace canisters I kept in strategic places around the house ever since the incident with the stripper murders.
I flicked on my flashlight app on my phone, one of the only things it was good for because cell phone reception was pretty much nonexistent at Gate House then swung open the door at the back of the hall.
To strangers, the door appeared to lead to a very small closet. I knelt down on the floorboards, running my hands along the planks to feel for the keyhole. After unlocking it and finding the almost-hidden handhold, I lifted up the trap door and an instant smell of must and mold floated around me from the dank basement underneath.
“Rex,” I called into the dark pit coming off my floor, but it sounded more like a whisper. I shined my light around the walls and the pitted concrete stairs that led down. I didn’t see a light switch, something I probably should already have located in the house I owned.
I stopped myself. What in the hell was I about to do? Rex wasn’t down in this pit of secrets.
Still, I felt compelled to check. Something made me think I should go down there to make sure.
The banister swayed under my very light touch. Slowly, I inched my way to the bottom of the stairs, my eyes darting left and right like I was in a horror movie.
“Rex!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the walls of the basement.
I didn’t hear anything, which was not surprising. How was my dog going to get down here, anyway? Unless someone or something brought him down here.
It was pitch black in the basement, despite the tiny window along the top of one of the walls. And it was freezing. I looked around for a light, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, willing warmth to my body. I coughed on some dust floating around in my beam of light.
I remembered there was a lightbulb hanging from the middle of the room somewhere, and I somehow got myself to move forward to look for it. Each step felt like it could be my last. The string overhead swept over my face and I screamed like I’d been stabbed in the head before realizing what it was. I pulled the light on, but my flashlight was actually better at illuminating the room.
The basement was entirely done in bricks, with strange archways that were oddly decorative for something so unfinished. Birds with stuff in their mouths adorned each archway, maybe a stick or a snake or a bone. I shined my flashlight against the back wall where a couple bookshelves had been stored, then I moved toward the old 1950s refrigerator in the corner that I was never, ever going to open.
I looked around for my dog, but there weren’t many places to hide here. A washing machine and dryer were off to the side, where Mrs. Harpton probably did my laundry twice a week. Bless her heart. If she hadn’t done it, my options would’ve been come down here and do it myself or go dirty. And we all know which option I would have chosen if cornered to do so.
“Rex?”
No one answered.
“Not funny, Jackson,” I said, like every other victim in a horror movie, right before they discover the mysterious noise was not, in fact, their friend playing a trick on them.
The lone rocking chair at the back of the room rocked back and forth even though no one was in it like it was taunting me. I almost bolted up the stairs, but I reminded myself I was a strong medium… who dealt with ghosts all the time. It probably wasn’t Rex down here, but whoever it was obviously had something to tell me, and I should take the time to listen.
“Hello. Who’s there?” I asked. “I am open to your message.” I rolled my eyes at my own cheesy words.
A chill passed through my shoulder, with almost slicing precision. And it didn’t feel friendly. I turned quickly with the intention to run back up the stairs and abandon whatever stupid impulse brought me down here in the first place but my legs wouldn’t move, despite the fact my brain was telling them to get going. I was frozen in my spot. I went to scream, but I also realized I couldn’t form sound. It was like sleep paralysis, only I was most definitely awake.
I heard barking at the top of the stairs. Rex. I tried to call for him, but couldn’t. He barked again and again, growling now, demanding I answer. And suddenly, my legs, which were still in the middle of trying to run, were given the freedom of movement again and the jolt of unexpected momentum sent me soaring forward awkwardly like a cartoon character. I tripped over my own feet, stumbling onto the concrete floor, hard. “Rex,” I said, able to talk now. “I’m down here, boy!” Pain shot up my leg and over to my back as I crawled to a standing position again, hobbling toward the sound of the barks, almost tripping over a book at my feet.
I picked it up, feeling years of grainy dust coating my fingers. Apparently Mrs. Harpton didn’t maintain the basement nearly as well as the rest of the house. A fact no one on Earth blamed her for. I quickly wiped off the dust and scanned the title.
A Crooked Mouse
Chapter 14
Collect Them All
It was one of the missing scrapbooks. I rushed up the stairs with it, fumbling and tripping onto the concrete stairs, which made my still-hurting leg hurt even more. Rex barked wildly the whole way like he was cheering me on now, and I practically launched myself at
him. I hugged him tightly, thankful he was okay. I was okay. I quickly shut the basement entrance and locked it, vowing never to go in that creepy place ever again.
I ran back down the hall and over to the living room, practically throwing the scrapbook onto the coffee table before sitting down to examine my leg. Nothing seemed broken. I took one deep breath after another, trying to get my heart to calm down, already. I hadn’t died. I was safe. Crisis averted.
As soon as I calmed down, I opened the scrapbook, still puzzled over how I’d found it in the first place. Was that scary episode an indication of how the house was going to show me stuff? Because next time, I was going to politely decline.
But I had to admit, I was happy to have another scrapbook. My third one in what I was starting to call the “Crooked Collection.” I had a feeling the house was encouraging me to collect them all, like incredibly sad Happy Meal toys.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen once I had them all, but I kind of guessed that maybe I’d be able to lift the curse that had been plaguing Gate House and possibly other families in Landover County for generations. The scrapbooks seemed to go along with an old nursery rhyme:
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house
So far I’d found the ones titled: A Crooked Man, A Crooked Stile, and now A Crooked Mouse.
It was pretty obvious to me that Henry Bowman, Jackson’s great grandfather, had to be the crooked man. He’d built his fortune in New York off a chain of brothels, even putting the prostitutes’ unplanned children to work producing clothing and such for his business. I also guessed that the money he earned from that had to be the crooked sixpence in the rhyme. The crooked stiles were a little trickier. I guessed they were somehow this house. The manor had twists and turns, fireplaces without chimneys, and doors that went into walls. There seemed to be many crooked stiles that allowed spirits to come and go as they pleased but prevented living beings from following them. The stiles also could have been the deaths in Potter Grove that didn’t happen the way they were said to have, like their “stiles” leading into the afterlife were crooked.