Rachel was leaning forward into my space. I scooted back towards the foot of the bed.
“There are treasures here, you know. I’m sure of it. Treasures to prove that Eddie Hanna had married Audra Schilling in a secret wedding. I’ve heard of a secret will, too. All this should belong to his family.” It made me wonder about Rachel’s mindset. First, she said Eddie had a woman who loved him in town and Audra’s love was fake. Now, she said that they were secretly married. Which was it?
And, while she didn’t say it, I rather heard the words “to me” in them. Rachel knew exactly who she was.
I stood up.
“I haven’t heard anything about treasures,” I said. “I’m just here to catalog books. Which takes a lot of mental effort. I’d really love to settle in for the evening and do a little reading.”
Rachel glared at me. She shook herself a little as if she’d let herself go more than she expected.
Thunder crashed above us while rain hammered at the window.
To think I’d rather be alone in the house with the storm than be with Rachel.
“I suppose we all deal with the dullness of this place in our own ways. I really do want to know what you found in Sydney. Perhaps tomorrow at breakfast.”
“Maybe,” I said.
She walked out the door, passing me a little more closely than I’d like, but she left.
Once she was gone, I turned the key in the lock and leaned against the door. I had a chance to notice how quickly my heart was beating, how quickly I was breathing. I was definitely more frightened of her than I had been of the ghosts.
Chapter 26
Thunder kept me awake most of the night. I’d drop off only to hear a clap that shook the very stones of the Manor, along with my bed. I was glad I had the electric lantern sitting on the nightstand. At some point in the night the rest of the Manor lost power. I knew because I woke and felt someone standing in my room. I tried to turn on the lamp which wouldn’t light.
My heart beat too quickly and my hands shook. I nearly knocked the lantern off the nightstand in my haste to find it.
I got the impression that someone was standing over me, even thought I smelled the faintest trace of cigarette smoke.
I fumbled with the lantern some more, looking for the switch but not being able to press it. It was a nightmare.
It ended when the light finally came on.
I looked around but I was alone in the room.
As I breathed in, trying to calm myself, I wondered if there was another generator for this part of the building or if this section was just left in the dark when storms came up. It seemed to me as if artists would need light to work by.
At some point the storm calmed and the sky turned pinkish gray. By that time my nose ached from straining for the scent of cigarettes again. All I got was a lungful of Rachel’s perfume and the lavender that permeated this wing.
The ghosts, at least, weren’t playing games out in the hallway, for which I was grateful. For all that I might sit and talk with the young Audra, I still wasn’t sure I liked the idea of actually seeing ghosts. Saying the words, even to myself, made my heart flutter, and not in a good way.
The gray was receding to pure pink when I finally rolled over and exhaustion claimed me. At least on a Sunday I could sleep all day if I wanted to.
I was awakened perhaps two hours later by someone banging on my door. I pulled a pillow over my head, not wanting to get up. The person at the door, likely Rachel, wasn’t going away.
“Who is it?” I called out, still not getting out of bed.
“Aren’t you ever going to get up?” It was indeed Rachel and she sounded far awake.
“No,” I yelled back. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d let me go back to sleep.”
“I don’t want to eat alone in the dining hall,” she called. “Please?”
I sighed. She was moving around out there, sort of stamping her feet.
I wanted to tell her to go away, leave me alone, and do whatever she wanted but just not with me, but another part of me, the part that had been raised to be a polite girl, was already swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and shuffling to the bathroom.
The part of me that spent much of my adult life in the South was worried that I hadn’t let her in. I told that part to shut up. Rachel didn’t deserve that much niceness.
I threw on my jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and took my key. I opened the door and Rachel almost fell inside, on top of me.
She righted herself from where she’d nearly fallen, clearly having been leaning against the door, kicking it from time to time, probably to make sure I really was getting up. She carried an electric lantern to light our way.
I closed and locked the door behind me.
Rachel hurried down the stairs first and I followed. Pat and Bob were in the kitchen.
“Just bagels, cold cereal, or fruit this morning,” Pat said. “Jimmy has gone to see about getting the fuses fixed. He’s been making calls all morning.”
“Great,” I said.
Rachel said nothing.
I took a soda from the fridge. It was cool but not cold.
Rachel sighed before grabbing one herself with the air of someone completely put out. She hurried into the dining room, already lit with the electric lanterns that were always at the ready down there.
“I can’t see why they didn’t have another generator to back up the first one.”
“And if someone sabotaged it, then that would could have been sabotaged, too,” I said.
Rachel shrugged.
We both had cold cereal with milk that was quickly becoming room temperature. I wondered how long the milk would last. Probably better for us to eat that up then than to have to toss it.
I was just finishing my Pepsi when Rachel spoke after leaving me to eat in silence.
“I need to show you something I found.” She had been busy picking at her food and sighing. Now she stared at me intently.
There was something slightly off.
“What?” I asked.
“In the schoolroom. I was looking through those boxes of books. There’s a lot of finds up there.” She seemed very keen.
I wondered what she’d been doing looking through the books in the schoolroom but was rather afraid to ask. If Jonathan or Nathan had been there I would have said something. Heck, even if Jimmy had been sitting at the far end of the table I would have asked her. But not alone.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“I’m sure,” I said. “But I was hoping to go back for a walk now that it looks like it’s clearing up.”
Rachel shook her head. “No.”
She stood up, coming around the end of the table, and pulled at my arm, like a three-year-old with her mother.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. She pulled me until my arm burned with her grip.
“I need to show you something,” Rachel insisted.
I got up slowly, concerned about her. I didn’t particularly want to go with her. No one else was around so far as I knew. Jimmy was down in the basement. If something happened, he wouldn’t hear me, at least I didn’t think he would.
Rachel grabbed the lantern and pulled me along now that I was standing. I walked slowly, dragging my feet the entire time.
We exited the dining hall and entered the narrow corridor that led to the main entryway. The house settled around us.
The place felt empty. Even emptier than usual. It was as if even the ghosts had deserted me.
The gray light made the main entry look neglected and lost. I noticed a small door towards the back, nearly hidden by the ornate stairwell that was now open. It gaped like a dark maw. I realized that must be the stairs down to the basement. At least if Jimmy came up at the right time, he might hear me scream.
Rachel pulled me towards the stairs going upwards. I hurried to keep up, making sure I stayed to the side nearest the wall.
Stray thoughts about angling myself to push her
over the edge of the rail flitted through my mind. I couldn’t believe I was thinking thoughts like that even if I was thinking in terms of self-defense.
Rachel led me up the second flight of stairs to the third floor. She’d worked higher in the house than I had and this didn’t feel familiar, although I remembered touring this part of the house with Nathan.
The floorboards creaked and groaned under our weight. This time, instead of thinking of ghosts, I was thinking of mundane cares like whether they would hold my weight at all. The ghosts and visions no longer seemed so ominous.
Rachel led me to the right and then into the schoolroom. The boxes were still there. The place seemed even more crowded with boxes than I’d thought before.
Rachel appeared familiar with the room, pushing aside two boxes to slide between them onto a sort of pathway through the room.
The windows that lined the room were tall. They had curtains on them which were of a dark fabric that hung crookedly, letting in some light. The day was still gray but at least it wasn’t raining. My trained eyes searched for water damage around the windows. I couldn’t remember if I’d done that the other day or not. I think I’d been more worried about rats up in the schoolroom, what with all the boxes.
Rachel was well ahead of me, moving through the narrow pathway, clearly intent upon something.
I could easily turn and run then. Perhaps back to the kitchen, to Pat and Bob. I couldn’t imagine how that would look though. What if I was wrong and she didn’t know anything about the bankbook? What if this was just Rachel being Rachel?
“Here,” she said, pointing at a box.
I caught up with her and looked down into the open box. It had sat open for years, the cardboard broken and worn, as if it had been opened and closed repeatedly and then left to rot. Several old leather journals sat there, tied with ribbons. They looked black, but that was discoloration, I knew.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Journals,” Rachel said. “All of Old Man Schilling’s journals. He wrote everything down. There are ledgers in the bottom as well. Two of them. One a sanitized version of the other. It shows all his criminal activity!”
Rachel was practically bounding.
I opened one of the journals carefully. The handwriting was cramped and decisive. Not at all like the letters I had read earlier. I could well believe that it was Schilling’s journal. The page I scanned talked about his concerns that the mine wasn’t producing as it had.
I looked a few other pages but nothing stood out.
“Fascinating,” I said. I looked at Rachel again.
“Keep going,” she insisted.
I raised an eyebrow.
Rachel grabbed the book and turned towards the back. Then she handed it to me. “There.” Her finger landed on one line.
“Those lost in the mines included Hugh McLeod, Ryan Murray, Miles Fletcher, one of the Laird boys, can’t recall which, and both Boyd boys. It was up to me to tell the families. Mrs. Boyd about fell into my arms in a faint.”
I looked up at Rachel. “I read about the mine incident online.”
“I bet,” Rachel said.
“So?” I asked, wondering what she was getting at.
“Don’t you see it?”
I shook my head.
“Nathan’s last name is Murray. I bet he’s related, and that he’s here to destroy everything. It’s why he’s always on me to work harder.”
I wanted to suggest that perhaps Rachel would get more done if she was actually working on her antiques and not searching through the books which were my purview. However, I wasn’t sure she was stable enough to listen to me if I said something like that. I was reminded again of Jonathan’s toxic mold thing. Maybe we were both crazy.
“I think Murray is a pretty common name,” I said. It was in the U.S. It probably was in Nova Scotia, given how it was settled by the Scots.
Rachel shook her head. “I thought that’s what you were checking at the historical society.”
“No.”
She sighed and then pushed past me, nearly throwing me over the boxes, and left the room.
Without the electric lantern it was pretty dark in the room. The only light came from the places the curtains didn’t quite cover.
I made my way slowly and carefully out of the room. The hallway wasn’t lit but there were windows in the entry area that let in some light. I rested my hand against the wall, wondering about what Rachel had said. Was there any truth to it? Nathan had been strange about the bankbook.
I didn’t really believe he was doing something wrong. It was easier to think that Jonathan was on to something about mold or chemicals in the house that had all of us going crazy. Maybe I needed to stay somewhere else, even if it cost me money. At least I’d be sane.
The walls felt gritty and dusty against the palm of my hand where I brushed it along, feeling my way in the dim light.
The floorboards squeaked in random places. I walked carefully along them, listening to their sounds, wondering if Rachel had really raced down to the first floor or if she was waiting for me here with other crazy ideas. Maybe she’d push me over the railing of the catwalk because I didn’t believe her about Nathan.
Once again I reminded myself how crazy I sounded even to myself.
However, the only people I really trusted were the ghosts. Which said something about my slow descent into madness.
The bigger picture, I reminded myself. I felt insane because I couldn’t see the whole picture. I mean, perhaps I was mad, induced by some sort of toxic mold or a chemical which I had laughed off, but even so, that left a larger picture that I couldn’t see. I wasn’t making things up about the bankbook.
I wasn’t making up my missing phone or the missing walkie-talkie.
The journals might have answers. I’d need to read them. I wondered if Bethany knew about them.
Or Nathan.
I reached the stairwell and made my way carefully down. At least I could see the stairs through the pale gray light that came through the windows in the entrance area. Thank heavens for open entryways. I wouldn’t complain about the waste of space any more.
When I reached the ground floor I paused. The hallway back to the dining hall was going to be dark. Really, really dark.
I could try and open the main front door and perhaps walk around to the side door. No doubt Pat and Bob would have an electric lantern that I could use.
I hurried towards the glistening white doors. Behind me something creaked. I was turning even before I had registered the noise.
Jimmy was shutting the door to the basement. He hit a light switch that blended in with the walls near the basement door. Lights came on in the entry area.
“Thank heavens,” I said. “Rachel brought me up to the schoolroom and then she left with the electric lantern.”
It was probably a trick of the light but Jimmy’s eyes seemed to narrow slightly.
“What’d she want up there? You’re the librarian.”
I rolled my eyes. “She was going through the book boxes. She did find an interesting box of journals and ledgers. I’d love to sit down with them in my free time, so I’m hoping you can find someone bring the box down, just to the library. That way Bethany can get to them easier, too.”
Jimmy nodded. “I’m not really on today, you know.”
“It’s no hurry.”
“What else did Rachel say?” Jimmy asked.
“Crazy stuff, you know. Like trying to match the names of the deceased miners that were mentioned in the journal with people here. As if.” I gave a laugh.
Jimmy wasn’t laughing.
“What names?” He gave a hint of a smile, not the one he normally gave but one he might give if he didn’t feel like smiling, which clearly he didn’t.
“Just the last names of miners. Why is it so important?” I asked
Jimmy said nothing, almost glaring at me.
Then he grabbed my arm, harder than he should have. It hurt, probably more
because that was same arm Rachel had grabbed. What was it with these people?
“Show me.”
“Upstairs,” I said, pointing.
“Come with me,” Jimmy said, pushing me forward.
I had been worried about Rachel, a little afraid, but I was terrified with Jimmy. The change in personality was greater, for one thing. The other, more important thing was that he was clearly far stronger than she was.
I went up the steps, moving more slowly than I had but holding tight to the wooden railing on the wall.
“That railing is loose,” Jimmy said, shaking it for me. “See?”
I looked back at him. He grinned.
The smile no longer looked friendly. It reminded me of the crocodile in Peter Pan.
“I see,” I said, though I continued to hang on to it, even the safety of it was illusionary at best. If I screamed, would Rachel hear? If she heard, would she come? Better I should wish for Pat and Bob to hear me.
I paused for a moment on the second floor.
“She was worried about Nathan being related to the Murrays,” I said, putting my foot on the step to the third floor.
Jimmy barked out a single laugh. “Murray’s a friggin common name. What gave her that idea?”
I shrugged. “She wasn’t making a lot of sense.”
“Too bad,” Jimmy said.
I continued up the stairs slowly. At least he was taking me to show him the journals. If he wanted to hurt me then, well, at least I had time to formulate a plan of how to avoid the worst of it. The problem as I saw it was that I had no plan.
Chapter 27
The stairs felt shorter than they had before. My lungs were pumping harder than they should have, but I still wasn’t getting enough air. Was this how it felt to hyperventilate? The way Jimmy was acting, I worried he’d let me fall down the stairs and then let my lie there until I died, gasping at my last breaths.
Considering the age of the house, considering all the leaks that were being plugged, the air felt surprisingly stale. A good flow of fresh air was what I needed to breathe fully. I was certain of it. But there wasn’t anything. Just the weight of the dusty, unfiltered air that had probably been waiting a century for a pair of lungs to move it.
Ghosts from the Past Page 14