It looked as though there hadn’t been any activity on the property for years, many years. I could hear Race’s voice, “Don’t do it, Cammy.” I just wanted to see what was over the hill, maybe look through a couple of windows. He would have taken my hand and said, “Let’s go, curious cat.” And led me away, the way he had done so many times before.
I rolled the bike up to where the fencing stopped and stashed it behind a stand of birch trees. Then I pushed back a clump of lilacs, brushing their scent loose from the blooms as I squeezed through.
Three old cherry trees stood off to the side of the cottage on the hill and over the hill were two more cottages, a barn, and a small shed. All of the first floor windows of the big log house were too high to look into, so I dragged an old wooden crate from under the porch to a window and stepped up.
The glass was covered with a dry layer of dirt. I spit on my palm, cleaned a circle, and peered in. My eyes adjusted, and I saw floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books.
When something ran behind me, I jerked and the crate teetered. After I rocked back and forth a few times, I fell off the crate and landed on my butt, then I rolled to my back and kept going until I had done a complete somersault and was once again on my feet. I had the impulse to throw my hands in the air with a gymnastic flair, but I didn’t. From the corner of my eye, I saw a big fluffy gray tail disappear under the porch.
My tumble ended my exploration, and I was a little shaky as I walked back down the hill. I pushed the bike across the road and down to the lake where I washed the dirt off my hands. The water was icy cold and crystal clear. An aluminum boat was turned upside down on some rocks, just waiting to be used, but by whom?
I couldn’t get the property out of my mind. I turned around and looked across the road and up the hill at the big log house. The windows in the dormers were like eyes, watching me. Sounds creepy, but it wasn’t. It was as if they were watching over me. I sat on the beach, on a comfortable carpet of smooth stones and sand. Then I lay back, stretching my arms out to the side and looking up at the blue sky. I was so relaxed. A crisp breeze blew in from the lake, but the warmth of the sun felt like a light wrap that was gently draped on top of me. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
Over an hour later, I woke up and took more pictures of the building from the road before I rode back into town, and I didn’t see the girls along the way. When I passed the St. Gabriel Information Office, I turned the bike around and parked at the curb. Inside the office a woman sat at a desk behind the counter. She looked up from the book she was reading then asked with a less-than-enthusiastic tone, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, do you have information about the properties on the island?”
“That would depend on the property.” She looked back down at her book.
“There’s an old log building with some cottages on the other side of the island. It looks like it’s been empty for a long time.”
She didn’t look up when she asked, “You mean the old Lake Lodge?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t a sign. It’s a lodge?”
“Used to be.”
“When?”
She took a quick breath of irritation, removed her glasses, and set them on her open book that she had plopped down on the desk. Then she leaned back in her chair, folded her arms, and worked them back and forth underneath her ample bosom. “Closed up during the war.”
“The war?”
“Second.”
“That’s a long time. And no one’s opened it since?”
“Nope.”
“Who owns it?”
“There’s a caretaker out there, George Miller. Don’t know how much caring he’s doing, looks a wreck to me, but he’d be the one to pester about this.”
Pester, hmm.
“I didn’t see anyone around when I was… Is there a way to reach him, do you think?”
“Doesn’t have a phone. I could get him a message, I guess.”
“I’m staying at The Willows Inn. I’d appreciate it if you could let him know I’d like to talk to him. Do you have a pen and paper I could use?”
She grudgingly left her desk and slid a notepad and a pen across the counter. I wrote down my name, and my address and phone number in Texas, in case the message didn’t get to the caretaker before I left the island. I also wrote, Staying at The Willows Inn.
I pushed the pad back across the counter. “I’m Cammy.”
“Betty.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Betty, and thank you.” I turned to walk out and stopped. “Do you live on the island?”
“All my life.”
She didn’t seem too pleased about the fact, but it made me smile.
“Thanks again, Betty.”
I left feeling as though I wanted to go straight to the inn and wait by the phone, which made me regret that I didn’t have the cell phone that Race tried to talk me into buying.
When I got back to the inn, I found all of the girls asleep, so I took a cold bottle of water from the little fridge and Sara’s painting out to the balcony and put my feet up. Dinnertime came and went and they were all still dead to the world. I walked downstairs and down the street to Hausterman’s Bakery to see what Sara might know about The Lake Lodge.
“It’s haunted,” she said.
Dawn was right. What do you know?
“You don’t believe that.” I laughed.
“Don’t I?” Sara wadded up a towel and threw it at me.
“What makes you think it’s haunted?” I asked her.
“You’ve seen it, right?”
“Yes.”
“You just have to look at it and you can tell. And anyone who’s been around awhile will tell you it is. There’s stories about rooms being lit up and howling noises even though it hasn’t been lived in forever.”
“I love it. I think I could live there.”
“Don’t expect me to come and visit you.”
“I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” I teased and threw the towel back at her.
“Well, I am, so keep me out of it.”
The next morning the girls limped around the suite until they all settled on Sandi’s bed to lick their wounds.
“Can you break your chee-chee?” Loretta asked as she cupped her hands over her crotch.
“Oh, god, I hope not.” Dawn groaned and sat on a bag of ice.
“Every one of my body parts is cursing me.” Sandi was perched against a mound of pillows that were propped against the headboard.
“Who’s ready to take on another continent of baked goodness? Let’s try French today,” I suggested.
“Would someone shoot her, please?” Marni asked without a bit of movement, eyes closed and flat on her back.
The phone rang and Sandi picked it up from the nightstand, answered it, and said, “Cammy, it’s for you.”
“What did you do last night?” Loretta asked and looked at me suspiciously.
I raised my eyebrows, grinned, and took the phone from Sandi. “Hello…. Yes, this is her…. I was wondering if it might be for sale…. Can I see it?…. Today?…. When?…. Great, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thank you…. Goodbye.”
I hung up the phone and asked, “Who wants to go look at a lodge?”
More moans.
“Okay, I’ll see y’all later.”
I grabbed my camera and jacket and was headed out the door when Sandi asked, “What lodge?”
“The one we saw yesterday. The big log building,” I answered.
“The haunted mansion?” No one can sneer like Dawn.
“Yes, my dear, the haunted mansion,” I said and closed the door behind me.
CHAPTER NINE
One of Those Dreams
A bike is a necessity on St. Gabriel Island. If you have to rent one, so be it. But eight or eighty you should try to get-a-pedaling if you’re at all able.
I rode down to the bike rental shop and paid for another day, and then I set out to ride the opposite direction on Shoreline Dr
ive than we had ridden the day before. But traveling west around the island, I discovered, had me riding against the wind, and I was feeling some fatigue in my thighs. No matter, I was going to see The Lake Lodge.
When I arrived at the front gate, the lock and chain were gone. I lifted the latch and pushed the bike around the wooden steps that were sliding down the hill and collapsing into the earth. Steps that at one time would have guided guests up the hill to the porch.
Looking up at the front of the lodge and through the sun’s glare, I thought I saw someone standing at the center dormer window and wondered if it was the caretaker I had talked to on the phone. I put down the kickstand on the bike and stepped over and around the birch branches that had fallen from the railings. More branches were on the porch, some in piles but most were scattered here and there.
I knocked on the door and then heard something behind me. When I turned around, I was facing a man, George Miller, I guessed. He wore a dark green felt hat that was pulled down on his forehead and cast a shadow over intense blue eyes. His hair was evenly salt and peppered and was trimmed neatly at his neck and sideburns that framed high cheekbones. His wrinkled face couldn’t hide that he had probably been a real heartbreaker in his day. He was only half a head taller than me, but I suspected by the slight curve of his shoulders that he had been over six feet tall when he was younger.
“I’m here to look at the lodge.”
“Yup.”
“The haunted lodge, you know some people think it’s haunted?”
“Yup.”
I held out my hand. “I’m Cammy.”
“George.”
His large hand swallowed mine up, but it felt light, cool, and soft. He grasped my hand briefly, and then he stepped back, looked at the door, but said nothing.
“Can I go in?”
He nodded.
I turned the knob and felt the decorative embossing of the metal on my palm. I stepped through the doorway and into a large space with high ceilings, the lobby.
An oversized set of French doors and a ginormous fireplace, the kind you can stand in, were on the wall to the right side of the room. A wide staircase and another set of matching French doors were on the left.
“Can I take pictures?”
He nodded. George Miller hadn’t been chatty on the phone, but I quickly learned he was definitely a man of few words.
A grouping of furniture was in the center of the room in front of the fireplace—sofa, chairs, side tables, and a big square coffee table. The furniture was wood framed with upholstered cushions or old pressed wicker, dyed a deep forest green. A thick coat of dust covered every piece. But all was in perfect order as if only yesterday the place had been filled with people. Underneath the seating area was a massive hooked wool rug with a pattern of vines and flowers.
“Are those trillium flowers on the rug?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“I’ve never actually seen one, except in pictures. I think they’re beautiful.”
“Yup.”
From April to mid-June trillium grow on the island, and I had just missed them. Under the rug were pumpkin pine floors.
“Would the furniture stay?” I asked.
“Don’t know where it would go.”
I chuckled at the joke, but then realized George wasn’t trying to be funny.
The lobby was open to the second story, and the staircase led up to a railed walkway that bordered the opening to the second floor. The railing was the same style as the one on the porches, but it was perfect, not a branch was missing. A hint of lacquer finish still shined from beneath the dust.
Beyond the railing I could see guestroom doors on each of the walls that surrounded the walkway. From the ceiling of the second story, a birch branch chandelier dropped down over the center of the lobby.
I took a series of pictures of the room from the front door, to the set of French doors and then to the fireplace on the right wall, to the back wall and the check-in desk, and finally, to the staircase and then to the other set of French doors on the left wall, and back to the front door.
When coaxed gently, the French doors rolled into pockets in the walls. Through the doors on the right was a dining room with a dozen square wooden tables, each set with four chairs and arranged down the center of the long room. Sideboards were on either end of the space and both cabinets had mirrors mounted on the wall above them.
The fireplace shared a chimney with the one in the lobby, but it wasn’t quite as large. Across the room from the fireplace there were five windows on the exterior wall and two massive china hutches sat on either side of the window in the middle.
Looking up at the ceiling, I saw light fixtures that were likely original. I pushed the old-timey buttons on the switch plate as we entered the room, but nothing lit.
“Is there electricity?”
“Yup.”
“Is it turned off?”
“Yup.”
“It could be turned back on, then?”
“Yup.”
“Do you have electricity in your place?”
“Yup.”
Through the other set of French doors was a library, the room I had seen the day before. Floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books lined all four walls, framing the windows and a fireplace. Upholstered reading chairs, side tables, and a long wooden table with six chairs furnished the room.
Just outside the library at the end of a short hall was another door. Through that door was another large room lined with old oak dry sinks and a couple of old wardrobes. A long pine table was in the center. Despite the dusty film on the panes, sunshine was streaming through a big window casting a large pattern of light on the floor and on the furniture.
“What was this room?”
“Washroom.”
There was a door on the far wall and I had to make a decision. Would I go through it or return to the lobby? Have you ever had a dream where you’re walking around an unfamiliar house that never runs out of rooms and you get a feeling of excitement as you enter each one? It was exactly like one of those dreams.
My mind was whirling with the possibilities—guests booked in every room, rent the cottages, establish gardens, run a restaurant in the dining room and a gift shop in the library. And once I had enough income coming in, I could travel in the winter if I wanted to.
I decided to go back into the lobby to keep my bearings on the floor plan. I walked to the back of the room and to the front desk. Across the front panel of the long counter, was a puzzle of straight, thin twigs. The twigs were cut into varying lengths and each had been inlaid into a pattern of squares and diamond shapes of varying sizes.
A short section of the countertop was hinged so that it could be raised and passed through. I lifted it up and held it for George to follow me. He didn’t, so I set it back down.
A wooden shelf with little cubbies for guest’s mail sat on the back counter and mounted to the wall was a key rack with brass plates above each key. These were numbered one through ten. The number ten key was missing.
“Where’s the number ten key?” I asked George.
“Not there.”
The check-in counter butted up to the sidewall of the staircase and a door at the end of the counter led into a walk-in-closet sized room underneath the stairs. Inside I found a pile of old wooden snow shoes and some wooden crates filled with stuff wrapped in old brown paper. A steamer trunk sat in the corner. Also in the room, a clothes rod held old wooden and metal hangers, three of which were hung with old coats, a woman’s and two men’s. Above the rod a shelf held two hat boxes and a suitcase. I wanted to rummage through all of it but held back and closed the door.
I walked through the door on the back wall behind the counter. It led into the big kitchen. A fireplace on the near wall had a stone mantel and on the far exterior wall stood a long porcelain free-standing sink, a bank of windows, and a door to the back porch.
A large pine table, larger than the one in the washroom, sat in the middle of t
he room. The open shelves above and below the well-used maple counters were still filled with dishes, pots, and pans.
The old appliances all looked so proper standing on legs like pieces of furniture. The large white refrigerator had chrome hardware and sat against the wall by the kitchen stairs. The stairs were in the back corner of the room and would have been the servant’s access to the second floor. Two white and black stoves that each had double ovens, a warming drawer, and six burners were set against the right wall.
When I turned around to go through the door that I guessed opened up to the dining room, George was standing behind me. I was startled and I screamed. “Oh, hi,” I said with a nervous laugh. He hadn’t flinched and didn’t return my smile.
There were five doors that led out of the kitchen. One to the back porch, one to the dining room, one to the lobby (behind the check-in desk), and one to what had been the servants’ quarters that was at the end of a little alcove behind the kitchen stairs. Through the fifth door was a large storage room with a door that led to the washroom. The door I chose not to take when I was in the washroom the first time.
The storage room was lined with shelves that had more pots and pans, boxes, and crates filled with who knows what. In the servants’ quarters were two twin beds on one wall and a wardrobe on the other.
The kitchen stairs had a door underneath them. I pointed to the door. “What’s that go to?”
“Cellar.”
I opened the door. Without any lights, I couldn’t see anything but a black hole.
“That must be where the ghosts live. I’ll meet them another time.” I smiled and winked at George.
I walked up the kitchen stairs to the second floor and George was following me. At the landing I was facing the stairs that came up from the lobby, and from the railing I looked down onto the fireplace, the seating area, and the front desk. I followed the railing around the walkway that opened to the first floor, letting my palm drag along the birch branch handrail, wiping off a layer of dust.
The walkway that bordered the front exterior of the building had two sets of French doors. Both led to the second story porch that faced the lake. I walked outside and grabbed the railing. It gave a little, so I stepped back to take in the view of the water all the way to the horizon. Inhaling the lake air was like breathing energy, and I said to George, “I think I could fly right now.” I turned around and George hadn’t followed me out.
My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) Page 7