The Hauntings Of Sugar Hill: The Complete Series

by M. L. Bullock

  Be careful, Avery. The spirits of Sugar Hill aren’t through with you yet.

  I shivered at the memory of our earlier conversation. She didn’t like what I was doing either, but I didn’t mention that to anyone.

  “I was hoping Patty would join us. I haven’t talked to her in a while. In fact, I haven’t seen her yet. It’s like the woman has turned into a ghost,” I joked. “Dolly Jane says she isn’t here. Is that true?” Apparently, my joke wasn’t appreciated because nobody smiled. It was true, though. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Dolly Jane’s mother since my arrival at Sugar Hill. “What?” I asked Reed, who was giving me the look that said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you just put your foot in it.”

  “Patty has been drinking again, Avery. She’s gotten so bad that she stays gone half the time. Dolly Jane’s father left a month ago, which doesn’t sound like a bad thing. He’s a worse addict than Patty. There were rumors that he was abusive to Patty, and maybe also Dolly Jane.”

  “What?” I cast an eye at Arnold Lee, who was watching me carefully. “How come I didn’t know about this?”

  “Because we were on our honeymoon, and then Jessica disappeared. I figured you had enough to deal with,” Reed said softly.

  I wasn’t going to let him off the hook on this one. This was the kind of thing a Matrone should know about, but I didn’t want to hammer that out in front of Danforth or Lucas or Arnold Lee. “When she does come back around, I would like to have a word with her,” I told him in a low voice.

  “I’ll make sure you do.”

  Arnold Lee wiped his face and looked up at his father. “Can I go outside and play?”

  “Sure, but stay close to the house. Don’t go near the pond, Arnold Lee.”

  “I won’t, Daddy.”

  The bright-eyed child bounced out of the room, completely happy and unafraid of whatever might lurk in the gardens of Sugar Hill. But then again, he knew very little about what used to walk in the shadows here. It was gone now, right? I felt a tinge of worry in my stomach but kept a pleasant smile on my face. Once again, I thought of Arnold Lee’s grandfather. I would always remember the first time I met him. “You can call me Handsome.” Little did I know then, on that car ride from the airport to Belle Fontaine, that Handsome Cheever would play such an important role in my life and in the Dufresnes’ future.

  “What is the plan for this evening, Avery?” Lucas asked, sounding nervous and a bit unsure. He didn’t smile again and appeared unhappier by the minute, but I attributed his unhappiness to all the drama with Alice Marie.

  “I thought we would start with this.” I placed the antique watch on the table. “Dolly Jane did some exploring for me earlier and found this pocket watch.” I handed it to Reed, who opened it and had the same reaction I did.

  “Jessica? Is that her? I can’t tell in this light.”

  I nodded in agreement, “It sure looks like her, and the watch belonged to Dominick.” Reed offered the watch to Danforth, but he refused to touch it.

  “I’ll wait until we gather in the ballroom if you don’t mind. Wicking takes it out of me nowadays.” Danforth sighed as if just the mere thought of handling the pocket watch wore him out. He looked tired and not well.

  No, he’s not well at all.

  “Tell me about wicking,” I asked, curious to hear more about Danforth’s supernatural skills. “If you don’t mind. It sounds a bit mysterious. Is it like dousing? Do you use metal rods, or does your ability rely on direct touch with the object?” I was tired of playing nice. Time to get the facts.

  “That’s what the old-timers call it. Wicking or handling. No, not like dousing. Entirely different practice.”

  “I’ve never heard of wicking before Reed tried to explain it to me. How does it work?”

  He sipped his tea before answering. “Wickers handle objects like books or personal belongings. We pick up on things, like how the person may have felt or what they were thinking about. My mother had a real knack for it, but my father never approved of the practice. I think he worried that she’d find out about his misdoings if you get my drift. My father was a man of many secrets.”

  “Misdoings?” Lucas laughed at the description, but Danforth didn’t think it was too funny.

  “Yes. Misdoings.” Was he talking about adultery or something else? I didn’t have the courage to ask.

  I urged him to continue to talk, “Tell us about your mother, Danforth. Did wicking come naturally to you?”

  “It did come naturally. Too naturally at times. In the beginning, my mother would give me small things like empty spools of thread or a bobby pin, things left over from her quilting club. What a competitive group of women that was, I can tell you.” He crunched on some ice before he continued. “She’d say, ‘Tell me if Irma stole my shears, Danny. Tell me the truth now.’ They were silly questions, but I took pride in knowing these things in the beginning. But then, I began to realize her wicking had weakened as mine strengthened. That’s why she was always on me to tell her things. It works that way, I think. Wicking can weaken if there are others around with similar gifts.” As he took his eyes off the remaining ice in his glass, he saw that we were watching him, wide-eyed and anxious to hear more. Danforth usually kept his past to himself, so this was a rare treat. I blamed the loosening of his tongue on the bourbon he’d undoubtedly enjoyed before coming to dinner. I was tempted to pour him another one.

  “My mother began to depend on me more and more, she had to know everything. Everything about everyone. It became very tiring, her constant searching for knowledge, and I had to leave. Like so many Dufresne women, she went a little mad. The gifts make us mad. I suppose it’s wrong not to include the men too, right? I am a bit mad as well. But mother resented my abilities. Resented that I could see the Lovely Man and she could not. Resented that I had the knowing, and she did not. No matter what she did, she could not revive her gift. Finally, I had to move away from home. She hated me in the end, and became obsessed with harming me. It became too much after a while, and wicking can be something of a trap.”

  “What do you mean, Danforth?” Reed asked. “Are there horrible side effects? You say you saw…him?”

  “Yes, I have seen him, but he doesn’t serve me. I think he just wanted me to know he was around. There aren’t side effects to speak of but it can be a great temptation. So much so that it can cause a person to do stupid things, like taking things that aren’t theirs.” He eyed me and the pocket watch. “Sometimes the past is best left alone, Avery.”

  “I’ll be happy to leave the past alone, but I want my friend back!” I snapped at him, my temper rising quickly.

  “And are you willing to sacrifice us to find this woman, a woman who isn’t even a Dufresne? I can tell you what your Aunt Anne would say. She would have said no way, no how. Just ask our sister…oh, I’m sorry. I forgot about Vertie.” Danforth put his glass down and stared me in the eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “I’m not sacrificing anyone.”

  “Hey! This was my idea,” Reed said sharply. “Not hers, Danforth. There will be no sacrificing. We’re just looking for Jessica.”

  The older man tapped the table thoughtfully but didn’t drop his eyes. “We’ve been lucky so far, you know. These family ghosts demand a high price, Avery. A high price, indeed.”

  Lucas had had enough of this conversation. “I agree. No, please hear me out. My father is dead. He gave his life to set things right. It feels wrong to tamper with the spirits of Sugar Hill now.” His hurt expression broke my heart. I hoped he didn’t believe that I would willingly sacrifice him or his son. “My dad was an honest man if I ever saw one and a good man. Jessica should have left things alone. Sugar Hill and Thorn Hill are not safe places to explore if you’re sensitive to the supernatural.”

  I agreed with them, but that didn’t make the idea of giving up taste any sweeter. “It’s too late now. She’s gone. What’s done is done,” Lucas said. We sat in silence for a
few minutes.

  Then Danforth leaned in and asked in a near whisper, “And what about the Lovely Man, Avery? The power of the ring has been broken, I believe that, but have you considered that it is only broken here in this present time? In the past, Ambro—I mean, the Lovely Man—is still in power. He still woos the women of this family with promises of love and fortune and revenge. He is still tending his Lovely Garden, as the older generation called the graves of the Matrones. Do you think he doesn’t know what’s happened to the ring, that the power has been broken? He knows, and he will not be happy about it. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt it if he tried to show himself to you again. Or someone else. Or has he already?” He cast his eyes to the doorway where Dolly Jane paced while talking to Summer.

  I sat in wide-eyed horror as I pondered his words. Danforth was right. I never thought I would agree with him, but he was completely right. It was possible that the Lovely Man already knew we had defeated him, but he wasn’t defeated in the past. Could he come after us now? If so, he might be able to reach one of the Dufresnes. I’d certainly seen him, and he’d used Reed to spook me.

  “Forgive me, Avery and Reed. I’m not feeling quite myself. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to go to my room and freshen up before we get started. Did you say seven o’clock? In the ballroom, correct?” His change of tone surprised me, but I was ready to be out of his presence. I had a lot to think about.

  “Yes, Danforth. Thank you.”

  “All right. I’ll be there. I’d better take this with me.” Using a napkin, he picked up the pocket watch and left.

  “I should check on Arnold Lee,” Lucas said unhappily as he left Reed and me alone with the pizza “bones” and dirty plates.

  Reed said, “That didn’t go as well as it might. But I think it was pretty good for a Dufresne party. No one got drunk, and no one died.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder. “So, you really think this is a bad idea? It’s not too late to call it off, Reed.”

  “I think it’s the only way you’re going to know what happened to Jessica, but you can’t guarantee anyone’s safety. You know that, and so do they.”

  “So, we’re all just pawns in some paranormal game?”

  “No. I think we all have choices. We’re not pawns at all.”

  “I feel like I’ve been trapped here in this house forever, and we’ve only been here a day.” I shivered at hearing my own description. What would that be like, being trapped in Sugar Hill forever? I couldn’t imagine, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Jessica knew all about it.

  And I had to set her free. No matter what the cost.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mike DeLuca

  “When was the first time you saw a ghost?” Becker’s voice surprised me. We’d grabbed subs for dinner and crashed in the hotel, neither one of us saying much. I left Avery a message but hadn’t heard back from her. My back felt stiff. Long drives killed my joints nowadays. Too much time on the road. Way too much time on the road. That’s the price you pay for fame and fortune, Megan used to say. At least she’d been right in that.

  “I had my first experience at the community college library in my hometown, twenty or so years ago.” I closed the blinds to shield my tired eyes from the glare of the setting sun. Sunset was my favorite time of the day.

  “No kidding? Like Ghostbusters? Isn’t that where they saw their first ghost?”

  I snorted at the comparison. “That’s fiction. What I saw was the real deal, and it wasn’t an apparition of an old lady hanging out by the card catalog. This thing, I’d say it was a shadow creature, it tried to push me off a ladder. You know the feeling of being six feet up and having a ladder sway beneath you?”

  “What? Seriously?”

  I put the television on mute. “Yeah. It was a temporary summer job. It wasn’t much pay, but enough to live on between semesters. Not to mention it was a quiet gig, and I liked that. I still had dreams of becoming a veterinarian back then. Like I said, the job was pretty easy. We were to do some small repairs, basic maintenance like change out the light bulbs and install new cabinets and bookcases. It was just me and one other college kid, Paul something or other. We had to work in the evenings because there were a ton of students there during the day. One night, we were screwing down a new bookcase. This thing was huge, a wooden monstrosity that went from floor to ceiling. Paul had this thing about heights, so I had to go up the ladder.”

  “Kind of like you do now?” Becker joked as he popped the top on a can of soda.

  Funny how I hadn’t put that together until he mentioned it. Man, Megan was right. I wasn’t in touch with myself at all.

  “True. I didn’t have that fear or phobia before that night, but it has stayed with me even after all these years. Man, I will always remember that experience. The library had an eerie vibe to it that night. I felt like eyes were watching me every minute. I don’t remember that happening before. I kept looking around, thinking I’d catch whoever it was staring at me, but there wasn’t a soul in the library that night. Even with the lights on, that place cast a lot of shadows.”

  “I never liked libraries. So sterile and severe.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Interesting. Paul left to get me a new battery for the power drill. I had to go out to the truck to grab one. While he was gone, the lights in the resource room where we were working began to flicker. I couldn’t understand that because we’d just replaced the ballasts and bulbs. I had to climb down to check it out, but it was as dark as a cave in that back room. I couldn’t see a thing, so I had to wait until my eyes adjusted to the dark. I called for Paul a few times, but the jerk didn’t answer. I finally said screw it, I’ve got to get down.”

  “Sounds intense. Hey, no wonder you don’t like heights. Did you fall? What did you see?”

  “No, but it’s a miracle I didn’t. That shadow thing, I thought at first maybe it was a cat, it began to circle the bottom of the ladder. It kept going around and around. The room was pitch black like I said, but this thing was even blacker. It gathered up into a ball and growled at me, and when I heard that, I knew I was in trouble. I got about halfway down—these were ten-foot ceilings—and the whole ladder started shaking. The legs rocked back and forth like I was riding a bucking bronco. I shouted at the thing, but it didn’t do any good. Just when I was about to fall, Paul came back into the room and flipped the lights on. Everything stopped. The first thing he asked me was why I turned the lights off. I told him what happened, but he didn’t believe me. Not at first, anyway.”

  “Dang. Definitely intense. I thought I had an awesome first-time ghost story. Did you see it again?”

  “Yeah. I saw that thing twice after that. Thankfully, I wasn’t on a ladder again. The third time was the charm because I quit and left Paul to finish the job himself. He saw something, though, I have no doubt about that. He saw something, but he didn’t want to tell me about it.”

  Becker reached for a fresh pair of socks. “You know, if people were honest, I think we’d hear about a lot more supernatural encounters. But it’s like some big secret. I mean, who hasn’t seen something they can’t explain? It’s like second nature to whisk things away. No, I didn’t see that. No, that didn’t happen. That can’t be right. You know how clients process these things. It’s like a coping mechanism, I think.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed as I leaned back on the pillow. “Tell me about your first-time ghost story, as you so eloquently put it.”

  “Nothing like yours. I saw my grandfather after he died, Grandpa Dave. He was in the garage sitting in his old car, a 1968 hardtop Chevy Camaro. He wasn’t a nice guy when he was alive, and he sure as heck didn’t like people tinkering with his car. Grandpa Dave let me know in no uncertain terms I wasn’t to touch his ride. Even after his death. I got the message.”

  “No doubt, you would. What was he doing?”

  “After he passed away, my friend and I went to check out the car. I just wanted to sit in it. It wasn’t like I really intended to dr
ive it out of the garage. Jack, my bud from the neighborhood, decided to be a wise guy and light a cigarette in the car. Suddenly, the doors locked all by themselves, and these weren’t electronic locks. They were the old-fashioned kind that you had to press down. Both doors locked, whoomp, whoomp. Man, I’ll never forget that sound. I looked in the rearview mirror, and there was Grandpa Dave. His eyes were completely black, and he had this horrible frown on his face. Deep, black creases around his mouth, like he’d etched the lines with a grease pencil to make himself look more terrifying. Rotten old bastard. Jack and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The locks eventually worked, and we got out of there, quick, fast and in a hurry.”

  “Shoot. What did Jack say after? Surely, you guys talked about it.”

  “Not a dang thing. He didn’t want to talk about it.” There wasn’t much to say after that, and I felt exhausted. It was still light out, too early for bed, but I couldn’t move another inch.

  “Hey, Mike?”

  “Huh?” I said as I closed my eyes. I was so tired, tired but anxious. I was ready for tomorrow to arrive. Tomorrow I’d be walking into Sugar Hill, and I’d be that much closer to finding out what happened to Jessica.

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?” I asked as I opened one eye. I knew what he was getting at. Thanks for letting him come. Thanks for trusting him when the whole world was against him. “Driving the whole way here and letting you sleep? I’d be surprised if you slept at all tonight.”

  “No, not that. And for your information, I can sleep anytime, anywhere. You should know that by now.”