Deepwood: A Haunting

by C. K. Brooke

His guarded expression told me he knew exactly what I’d been experiencing at twenty-seven Deepwood. And I decided, right then, that I wasn’t going to let him leave without giving me some answers.

  The sun was setting, and I wondered when Horst would be returning from work. Time was feeling scarce as I stepped nearer to him. “Why has no one stayed?” I asked.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. We stood so close now, I could make out every strand of his beard. Rather unexpectedly, it struck me how young he was. The beard, the deep eyes had made him seem at first middle-aged, when really, up close, he could be no older than me.

  Our eyes met. For the first time in years, it felt like I was actually being seen—not ignored, not half-glanced at, but really acknowledged. My senses escalated.

  When he spoke, it was a whisper. “It would be a shame to see you go, Mrs. Weber.” Howard’s gaze darted to the trees around us, as though someone might be listening in. “But I know she’ll make you leave.”

  “What if I don’t want to leave? And who is ‘she’?”

  He breathed the name: “Sharon.”

  Chills pricked my neck and arms, and all the way down to my legs. “Howard, tell me.” I shivered in the November breeze. “Did Sharon die in my house?”

  He didn’t answer the question. “I’m warning you, pay her any attention and she’ll only torment you more. In fact, I’m not helping by discussing it. I should be going.”

  “Wait.” I placed a hand on his wrist, short of begging him not to leave. “She’s already stealing and breaking my possessions.” I could barely believe I was confessing it aloud, and had a name to go with the—entity, or whatever it was—solidifying that this was really happening. “I’m lucky if I get two hours of sleep before waking in a fit. My husband won’t talk to me anymore; he thinks I’m delusional. How can it get worse?”

  His sorry expression chilled me. “Believe me, I’ve seen…occurrences there. Ambulances. Accidents. People even rumored to have been institutionalized. She gets into your head,” he stepped in, “until you don’t know the difference between your nightmares and reality anymore.”

  Although his words terrified me, I was spellbound by his proximity, the warmth of his breath grazing my cheek, and above all, the empathy in his gaze, almost as if he would comfort me if he could. Finally, someone understood, and could help me make sense of it all.

  “Why does she do it?” My voice was weak. “What happened to her?”

  When he exhaled, I knew he knew everything.

  But before he could respond, we were blinded by the glare of headlights. An engine interrupted our conversation as my husband pulled his car into the driveway, tires crunching over the gravel. Howard checked himself and moved back. I felt a physical dullness overtake me, and I knew whatever our connection had been lost.

  The engine shut off, and so did the headlights. Horst took his sweet time unfolding himself out of the vehicle.

  “Hey,” I called.

  He looked up. At first, he wore no expression. Then he spotted the man standing beside me, and lumbered his way in our direction.

  Howard held out a hand before Horst could speak. “You must be Mr. Weber.”

  Horst took his hand in his beefy grip and shook it with unnecessary firmness.

  “Horst, this is Howard,” I told him, “our neighbor. I caught him on his evening walk and wouldn’t let him go.” I forced a laugh, and didn’t miss the subtle clench of my husband’s jaw. “Anyway, Howard, sorry for keeping you.”

  “Not at all.” He smiled at me softly, sympathetic.

  “Have a good night,” grunted Horst as the man left, resuming up the sidewalk as dusk waned into night. I noticed the quickness of his pace, giving away his eagerness to distance himself from our property.

  There came a gaping silence. I cleared my throat, preparing to break the ice. “Howard’s lived on Deepwood for a long time.”

  Horst rubbed the five o’clock shadow on his chin.

  “He was just sharing some…information about our house.”

  “Hmm.” He was either indifferent or annoyed; I couldn’t tell which. “You uh, just met?” He glanced back at his car in the driveway. Studied it.

  Talk to me. Talk to me and not the damn car. “Yeah. So, what would you like for dinner? You want to go out?”

  “I’m pretty tired, honestly.”

  “Oh…okay.” Look at me! “Should I cook something?”

  “I had a late lunch.”

  I followed him up the stoop, through the front door and into the house, holding my breath until he switched on a light. This was the most we’d spoken in weeks. I couldn’t bear to let a weak appetite stem the flow.

  We went into the living room, where he made a beeline for the sofa. He parked himself down, leaning into the cushions. As he lifted the remote control from the coffee table, I moved in front of him, blocking the signal. “Just to let you know, I changed the sheets this morning.”

  He regarded me blankly.

  “Upstairs,” I hinted. “On our bed?” I slid off my coat, angling my face away, suddenly feeling shy. “You don’t have to sleep down here every night, y’know. There’s plenty of room if you wanted to…”

  “Is there any more beer?”

  “I think I saw a can in the fridge door.” I looked down. “I can get it.”

  “Nah, don’t worry yourself. I’ll grab it when I get up.”

  I wrung my peacoat in my hands. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, so I left the living room to wash up and change out of my work clothes. When I came back down to see if he wanted to hang out, Horst was fast asleep on sofa. He hadn’t gotten his drink. He hadn’t even switched on the TV.

  I stood, watching the gentle rise and fall of his burly chest, and wondered when we’d become such strangers. I blinked, remembering myself, and went to the linen closet off the end of the kitchen. I pulled a wool blanket from the cedar shelf and draped it over him, just as he began to snore.

  Awake that night, I tried to recall the sensation of Howard Byrne standing near me, his green irises delving into mine. But my thoughts kept drifting back to Horst asleep on the sofa, his dark hair limp and slightly thinning, lines of age beginning to materialize beneath his eyes.

  All night, I heard someone weeping in the vacant bedroom across the hall. For hours I listened, paralyzed. Only with the coming of daylight did the cries grow fainter, until they died out completely with the sun, and the house was engulfed in blessed silence. Thank God it was Saturday, and I didn’t have to get up for work. When I heard Horst beginning to move around in the kitchen, I finally fell into a restless sleep.

  It appeared my husband and I were on speaking terms. Possibly.

  I’d gotten myself together in time for lunch, and went downstairs to hear the clink of silverware and the sound of the fridge door shutting. I found Horst at the bistro table, eating a sandwich. The mayonnaise jar sat on the counter with a used butter knife on top, the bag of deli ham wrinkled and open. He drew a sip from his glass of milk as I pulled a few slices of bread from the loaf and set them on a plate of my own.

  Horst wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Good afternoon,” he said pointedly.

  I spread a dollop of mayo on the bread, already feeling terse. Ask me, I silently dared him. Ask me why I slept so late.

  “Sleep well?”

  “No.”

  He took a bite of his sandwich and scanned the newspaper.

  “That’s yesterday’s,” I informed him, laying down a fold of black forest ham over my bread.

  “I know,” he replied through a mouthful. “They got the weather wrong. They predicted sleet but it was dry as a bone.”

  I topped off my sandwich with the second slice of bread. “Why are you looking at newspapers? You have a smartphone. It’s called the weather app.”

  “Those things aren’t any more accurate than a newspaper.”

  “They’re updated hourly.” I carried my plate to the table and sat across from him. We ate
without speaking, me burning to know how he’d managed to sleep through Sharon’s weeping all night, him poring over the newspaper as if trying to ignore me into nonexistence.

  I could no longer stand it. If I didn’t ask him, I’d burst. “Did you hear anything last night?”

  “I was out like a light. Hey, Home Depot’s offering two years without interest on propane grills. Stainless steel.”

  “You’re looking at grills? In the middle of November?” He slid the ad toward me, but I pushed it away. “Horst, listen to me.”

  He sighed.

  “Horst, I need to be able to tell you—”

  “If you’re about to say you think you heard someone in the house again last night, Cecily, save your breath, because we are not having that conversation.”

  “But you’ve got to have heard it,” I exclaimed, all pretenses dropped now. “Weeping! Someone was weeping.” My hands had begun to tremble. “It kept me awake until dawn!”

  He lifted the newspaper and turned the page. “Maybe we have a very depressed neighbor.”

  I clenched my teeth. “It wasn’t a neighbor. I heard it coming from the spare bedroom.”

  “And did you go in to investigate?” he asked mildly. Mocking me.

  “Are you kidding? I was too horrified to move!”

  “Sleep paralysis.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at me, like a detective solving the case. “You were dreaming. It may have felt lucid, but the fact that you were paralyzed means your body was still asleep.”

  I was growing angrier by the second. “I never fell asleep to begin with,” I growled.

  He set down the newspaper between us forcefully. “You see? This is why I am not having this conversation with you.”

  My face seared as he resumed eating his sandwich calmly. I had been nothing more than a minor interruption.

  Furious, I shoved my half-eaten plate aside and left the kitchen.

  My resolve was strengthening. The need to take action consumed me. One day at the office, I took a break from working to go online and Google the church nearest to my house.

  Father Theodore was the resident priest at St. Anthony’s Parish. His photo on the website’s staff page portrayed a kindly older man with wiry gray eyebrows, but there was a subtle ferocity in his gaze, which I trusted. I dialed the parish office and left a message with the secretary for Father Theodore to call me back.

  I went home for lunch the day he came by. I had to schedule it during the workday, or else Horst would’ve flipped to find a Catholic priest sprinkling holy water all over the house. He surely would’ve thought I’d lost my mind.

  Father Theodore blessed every room, reading scripture aloud and cleansing the space with his holy water. When he was through, I thanked him, and he gave me a special blessing before I saw him safely out the door.

  He was driven off the road on his way back to St. Anthony’s.

  I rushed to meet him at the ER as soon as the parish secretary informed me. I was beyond grateful to find the priest mostly unscathed, but the car was no longer drivable. No other motorists had been on the road with him; there was no explanation for why his car had swerved, seemingly of its own accord, into the ditch. The police had suggested black ice, but the temperature hadn’t dropped below freezing.

  “Father, I feel terrible.” I was near tears at the sight of the fresh red welt shining on his forehead. “This is my fault.”

  “My child,” he placed a bony hand over mine, “this was the devil’s work. Not yours.”

  Howard chuckled when I relayed the story to him.

  At the look on my face, he straightened. “Of course, it’s awful, what happened to the priest,” he amended. “But I wish you would’ve told me what you were planning to do. Priests are powerless to cast her out.” We walked downhill, our pace leisurely. “He isn’t the first holy man to have been summoned there. All they seem to do is aggravate her.”

  “What about those paranormal investigators?” I tried. “Or a psychic?”

  He shook his head adamantly. “Definitely not them. I’ve seen it myself; they invite her to make her presence known. She feeds off of their attention. Call them only if you wish to see more activity than usual.”

  I groaned into my gloves. “Then what should I do, Howard?”

  “Leave,” he offered simply.

  My steps slowed.

  “I don’t want you to,” he added. “But it would be selfish of me to tell you to stay, merely because I like your company.”

  I blinked. “You do?”

  He surveyed me, a hint of color in his cheeks. “More than that, I fear what might happen to you if you stay. You saw what happened to Father Theodore. It’s a miracle he’s all right. But I don’t want you to be next.”

  I thought I might actually melt. I was losing myself to a foreign mesh of feelings, comprised mainly of pleasure and guilt. Not only was someone looking out for me, but Howard believed me. He had answers too, and secrets, I could tell. I yearned to be close to him and far from him at the same time.

  “Horst and I…” I glanced down, breaking our gaze, “spent a long time looking for a home. After years of renting and wandering, we’re finally settled someplace. It’s ours. This was supposed to be our ticket out of financial strain.”

  Howard waited for me to continue.

  “I think that’s why he refuses to believe anything might be wrong with the house. It’s not that he particularly loves it. But this decision was supposed to,” I dropped my voice, “save us, do you understand?”

  He could read between the lines. I saw it in his face.

  “I can’t talk him into packing up and leaving and starting all over again, just because I think our house might be haunted. How would we explain that without sounding crazy? And if we can’t resell it, what happens then? How could I even pass it onto another buyer in good conscience?”

  “You’re a noble woman,” he remarked. “And it sounds like your husband isn’t very sensitive.”

  “He used to be,” I sighed.

  Howard paused. “I meant…perceptive. To spirit activity.”

  The December air was brisk, but I was suddenly burning up in my layers.

  “Everyone is perceptive,” he expounded. “Correction: everyone has the capability to be. But some are more naturally aware than others. Take you and me, for instance. We can detect Sharon’s presence. Your husband, on the other hand, blocks himself, so long as he always has an explanation to satisfy him.”

  “Wait a second. Are you saying I can block her? If I can just convince myself there’s a logical explanation—?”

  “You already know the truth. You cannot hide her from yourself, Cecily.”

  “So you’re serious.” I searched his face. “You really think the only solution is to leave.”

  He didn’t argue.

  “Horst will never agree.”

  Howard shrugged. “Let him stay.” He tipped his cap to me in farewell and crossed the street. From the sidewalk, I watched him go, unable to wrap my mind around his proposal.

  I go, Horst stays?

  The scent of cinnamon and pine still lingered on my old Christmas wreaths. I figured I’d get one more year’s use out of them before replacing them. I wasn’t exactly in the holiday spirit that season, but I think I felt compelled to decorate out of sheer determination to communicate to Sharon that I was staying put. Howard might have advised me to go, and perhaps I was a fool for not heeding him. He’d seen the revolving door of spooked residents coming and going from number twenty-seven, after all. But I wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.

  I hung wreaths over the doors on the inside as well as the outside, and tied a bright red ribbon strung with artificial poinsettia petals over the balustrade on the bannister. The oven beeped, letting me know it was preheated, and I took a break from the box of decorations to pop the sheet of cutouts I’d prepared into the oven. After closing the oven door, I set the timer on the microwave and went back to the foyer to resume unpacking.
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  Heavy footsteps tackled the stairs. I braced myself, praying it was Horst and not some sort of apparition.

  “Smells like a candle shop down here,” he remarked. I exhaled with relief.

  “Speaking of candles…” I rifled through the sparse remainder of items in the box. “I can’t seem to find the one my mother gave me.” I turned to look at him. “The one in the shape of a Christmas tree, with all the little wax lights?”

  “It’s not in there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Huh.” He glanced vacantly out the front window. “You know, I think I remember putting another box of Christmas decorations out in the shed.”

  “You’re right.” I set the wads of tissue paper down. “The nativity scene must be in there too, because I don’t have that either.”

  I was somewhat surprised when he pulled on his leather jacket. I hadn’t even had to ask.

  “You’re going to look?” I wanted to know.

  “Yup.” He unraveled his scarf from the coatrack.

  I smiled. “I’ll go with you.”

  He helped me into my winter coat, and I stepped into my white galoshes. Snow and slush coated the ground outside, and the yard between the house and shed was sodden.

  We headed across the yard and into the shed. I had to wait for Horst to change a lightbulb before we could see anything. Once the little space was illuminated, I was daunted by the number of boxes we still hadn’t unpacked.

  “One of these days,” he nudged a tower of cardboard, “we’ll go through all this junk.”

  “Maybe not on such a cold day.” My teeth chattered as I scanned the labels on each box, until I finally recognized the letter X. “There.” I pointed to the one with X-MAS scrawled across the side in Sharpie. I began to take down the boxes atop it, and Horst came forward to assist me.

  We didn’t put the shed back in order before leaving. It wasn’t well-insulated and the cold was too bitter to withstand. We switched off the light and our boots crunched over the snow as we walked back, me in front, Horst behind, holding the box.