by Olsen, Lisa
“Just… take care.” Sara didn’t trust the guy as far as she could throw him, but she could see how he appealed to Joanie. Good looks, money and a certain charm would go far with her, and she might even appreciate his intensity. “If you need anything, and I mean anything, give me a call, I’ll come out and get you, day or night.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Joanie smiled across the table. “But I can take care of myself. God, this bacon is fantastic, does it always taste this good?”
“It’s bacon,” Jack replied, as if that was self explanatory.
“Well, I have been missing out,” Joanie crammed another piece into her mouth and wiped it with a napkin. “I’d better motor though, I want to make sure I’m fresh as a daisy when he gets here, not smelling like a pork belly.” A few hurried bites of eggs and she was gone with a clack of heels on the tile floor. It was enough to make Sara’s stomach ache in sympathy; Joanie might think her food strategy was sound, but she could practically guarantee she’d be regretting it on the long car ride to the seashore.
“So, it’s you and me today, kiddo, what do you want to do today?”
“Dig for worms?”
It took Sara a moment to find a reply for that. “Ah, any particular reason why you want to dig for worms today?”
“I decided to keep my own worm farm, and then I can go fishing whenever I want to.”
“You know they sell worms at bait shops for that.”
“Will said part of the fun is digging your own worms.”
One of Will’s ideas, she should have known. “Then why do you need a farm? Why can’t you dig them up whenever you want to go fishing and have fresh worms?”
A roll of the eyes was given. “What if I can’t find any on the day I want to go fishing?”
He had her there.
Full of plans for the proposed worm farm, they set out into the back yard, the night’s rain rendering the ground soft and the worms plentiful. An hour later and there was more mud on Jack’s clothes than the bucket they’d found in the old stables, but he seemed pleased with the process. Sending him up to hose off before Mrs. Poole got a look at him and had a heart attack, Sara was surprised to find Joanie sitting on the window seat in the library, her face melancholy as she stared outside.
“Hey, I thought you’d be long gone by now. What happened?”
“He didn’t show,” she sighed, still looking out the window.
“Did something come up? I’m guessing he’ll want to reschedule,” Sara suggested gently, unused to the forlorn quality to her friend’s voice.
“I don’t know, he didn’t call and I’m too chicken to phone him and ask what gives.”
Too chicken? That didn’t sound one bit like Joanie. “I’m sure something suddenly came up and he’d much rather be impressing you with his charm and wit. But either way it couldn’t hurt to give him a quick call, and see what happened.”
“I don’t know,” she wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees glumly. “You don’t think that makes me look too desperate?”
“For making sure he’s alright? Not at all,” Sara reached for her hands, pulling Joanie up. “What’s desperate is sitting there by the window like a dog, waiting for him to show up.” Joanie’s brows drew together at the analogy, and she let herself be dragged to the study.
“I could call the inn, see if he’s still in his room or if he left already,” she allowed. “My cell has lousy reception here. How do we call the inn out here in the sticks? Is there like an operator or do I pick up a can and a string?”
“For that I should make you hike to the village in those heels,” Sara muttered. “Use the phone, there’s a directory right next to it on the desk.” Assuming it was still current, though she couldn’t imagine there being that much change in the little village. Watching as Joanie made the call, Sara gave her a supportive thumbs up, but her good cheer crashed and burned as she followed the one sided conversation and Joanie’s brow furrowed in worry.
The furrow grew from a pucker of concern to a full fledged frown as Sara watched. “Huh,” she said finally, hanging up the phone.
“What did they say?”
“He checked out.”
“Checked out as in, he isn’t staying there anymore? That makes sense; he said he was taking you to the coast today.”
“As in left the inn before anyone was at the front desk this morning. They found his key and some cash in an envelope in his room and his car is gone.”
“That’s odd.” Sara had the feeling it’d be hard to shake the developer and now he was simply gone without a word?
“I guess I’m not going,” Joanie’s shoulders slumped in defeat, and Sara drew her into a one armed hug.
“I bet he’s got a really good explanation for this. I’ll bet he’s even the type to show up with a gift and some serious groveling once he frees up some time, too.”
“I don’t know, why wouldn’t he call and let me know? Why leave me waiting around like a tremendous loser?”
“You said it yourself, the cell reception sucks around here. Maybe he’s not in a good place to call just yet?”
“Yeah whatever,” she muttered in disgust. “Who needs him anyway?”
More sour grapes… Sara took the opportunity to jump onto that bandwagon. “Maybe this is for the best anyway? He was kind of a jerk the last time he was here. I was just sorta putting up with him for your sake last night.”
“Maybe,” Joanie murmured distractedly. “But it’s a little strange, don’t you think? He just up and disappears like that? We were up really late last night; it had to be a pretty huge emergency to get him up and out before the innkeepers were even up. What if something, you know, happened to him?”
“Something like what?”
“I don’t know. There’s something strange about this place. Not only here but in the village too. I feel like I’m being watched all the time. What if someone decided to disappear him?”
Sara knew Joanie didn’t like the idea of being rejected, but that was taking it a bit far. “Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid? Occam’s Razor – the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. He probably had to leave suddenly for business. The guy was all about business.”
“Not when he was with me. No, think about it, Sara. This place doesn’t give you the creeps, not even a little bit?” Sara didn’t answer, not wanting to bring her own fears into the mix. “And what is with all the banging? I hear it all night long on the pipes, how do you get any sleep?”
“That’s part of living in an old house with colorful history.”
“Well, could we skip the history lesson and call a plumber?”
“I don’t think calling a plumber would be much help.” Waffling back and forth on whether or not to say anything, Sara decided to confide in her friend about some of the other goings on in the house. If anything, it might get her mind away from Cole’s rejection. Launching into a brief overview of the local legends, she glossed over her own experiences, making light of them instead of dwelling on how creeped out she’d been at the time. In the light of day, they seemed less threatening anyway. So she’d had a couple of weird dreams and Jack had a ghost for an imaginary friend; stranger things had happened. Nevertheless, Joanie’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, until she erupted, not wanting to hear any more.
“Are you serious? This place is haunted? Oh hell no, I am not staying here, that was so not in the brochure!” she paced agitatedly back and forth.
“Don’t be such a baby. Nothing bad has happened to any of us; it’s just a harmless ghost. If the banging bothers you, then try sleeping with earplugs.” Or have another drink, she thought to herself.
“Did you just call me a child? You’re the one keeping secrets and you expect me to be okay with this? What’s happened to you, Sara?”
“What do you expect me to do? Run screaming from the house? I repeat, nothing bad has happened to any of us. This is just a quirk, like not running the vacuum when there
are too many lights turned on or having to flush twice. I signed a paper saying we’re living here and this is where we’ll stay until someone proves to me it’s a bad idea.”
“Well, I’m not gonna,” Joanie muttered, stalking off.
“Wait, you’re really leaving?”
“No, not until I find some answers,” she called back over her shoulder.
*
“What is this?” It was late afternoon when Sara looked up from her desk, spending most of the day busy making calls to get workers out to give her bids on the repairs needed for the house. So far she had appointments set up for the electrician, plumber, carpenters, painters, flooring contractors… the list went on and on. When Joanie showed up grinning like the Cheshire cat, Sara wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“This, is what I call getting some answers,” she pulled off the brown paper with a flourish, revealing a smooth slab of wood, decorated with elegantly painted letters and numbers on one side, a smaller piece of wood fastened to it with string.
“A ouija board?” Sara hadn’t seen one in years, not since junior high and a Screamfest on TV.
“Can you think of a better way to talk to a ghost?”
“Where did you get it?”
“I saw it in the village the other day. This is our key to figuring out what your dead granny wants once and for all,” she tapped the wood with a red lacquered nail.
“Okay.” Sara was game, not that she particularly believed in them, if only to get Joanie to calm down and drop it. “It’s been a while since I used one, don’t we need a few more girls and a pint of schnapps?” she teased.
“Make that a bottle of tequila and I’m right there with you. But we can do it ourselves, we don’t need anyone else. The old guy at the shop said we just need two for it to work.”
“The old guy at the shop… because he’s an expert at this?” Sara raised a single brow before looking down at the board. She’d never seen one like that before; it for sure wasn’t manufactured by Parker Brothers. “What are these markings on the back?” Unpainted, but carved into the wood itself, the strange symbols formed a circle across the back of the board.
“Those are some kind of protection thingys. The guy at the shop said it would keep whatever’s out there from getting to us or something, I wasn’t listening to that part of it ‘cause he had bits of lettuce stuck in his beard, and it was grossing me out to look at him.”
“Lettuce in his beard?” Was she making it all up?
“Yeah, he said it was a witch’s board or something, I don’t know. Look, are we gonna do this or not?”
“Sure, alright. Since you’re the expert, what do we do? Set it on the desk between us?”
“Hey, Mom?” Jack wandered by, ducking his head into the study. “My laptop’s acting weird, can I use yours?”
“Sure, but take it up to your room. Joanie and I are going to play a game. Actually, you can play too if you want to. We’re going to talk to the dead,” Sara gave him a playful wink, thinking he might get a kick out of it.
“What’s that?” he frowned, looking at the board which was covered with letters, numbers and the words yes and no.
“It’s a Ouija board for talking to ghosts. Pretty neat, huh?”
“No, it’s a witch’s board,” Joanie insisted. “That makes it way more likely to work. Have a seat, squirt, it’s easy to do.”
“I don’t want to,” Jack took a step backwards and Sara offered her hand to him.
“Don’t be silly, sweetie, it’s a game, it can’t hurt you.”
“I don’t want to,” he repeated, taking another step, and another. “And you shouldn’t either,” face etched with worry, he pleaded with his mother.
“Why not? You want to be the only one to talk to ghosts, huh kid?” Joanie snorted.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. If you call, maybe someone else’ll come. Someone bad.”
“Someone bad like who?” Sara frowned, not liking the fear she saw on Jack’s face. “Honey, have you seen any scary ghosts in the house?” Jack shook his head, eyes still on the board. “Then what makes you think we’ll find someone bad?”
“Please don’t mess with that stuff, Mom. I like it here, I don’t want to have to leave,” the plaintive note in his voice tore at Sara’s heart.
“I know, I don’t want to leave either. We wanted some answers, that’s all. You might want to tell your friend that the next time she comes to visit.” Jack nodded, eyes still on the board. “Tell her… ask her to talk to me sometime and I won’t have to use the board. All I want to know is what terrible thing she thinks might happen if we stay here. Alright?”
“Okay.”
It suddenly struck Sara just how young Jack was. Sometimes she forgot he was only eight with all of his mature interests and knowledge. A boy of eight had every right to be a little wary of such things. “Okay,” Sara nodded. “How about you go wash up for dinner then. We’ll see you in there in a little bit.”
Joanie waited until Jack was out of earshot, shutting the door behind him. “So that’s it? We’re giving up?”
“We’ll do it after he goes to bed.”
“That works for me. It’s best if we save it for the witching hour anyway.”
“The witching hour?”
“Yeah, you know, midnight.”
“Alright, midnight it is.” By then Will should be back, and she was eager to see what he thought of the whole thing.
*
Only there was no sign of him all evening.
Sara kept expecting Will to turn up after dinner, then when she was getting Jack tucked into bed, and the whole time she was taking a bath in the big copper tub, she kept expecting him to try the locked door. Did hiring on some gardeners and equipment usually run past nine p.m.? Her experience was limited, but somehow she didn’t think so. Finding herself doing little more than pacing in her sitting room, Sara jumped at every little sound, thinking a dozen times over that she heard Will’s step outside her door. After the umpteenth time, she set out for Joanie’s room, knocking three times before Joanie heard her over the blare of music from her earbuds.
“Let’s get this over with now.”
“Now?” Joanie frowned, tossing her iPod aside negligently. Wearing creamy satin pajamas with matching marabou slippers, her rarely seen reading glasses slipped low on her nose. “I thought we were waiting for the witching hour?”
“I really don’t think it matters what time of day it is, she’s always around according to Jack, remember?” Sara couldn’t explain the restlessness, other than the urge to get it over and done with so she could get to bed. That, and maybe kill a little time so she didn’t have to sit around wondering what Will was up to.
“Yeah, okay. I left the board down in your office, do you want me to go and get it?”
“No, I’ll come with you; we can do it down there. We need a table to do it on anyway and the desk should work pretty well.” That and she didn’t want to think about inviting ghosts into the bedroom.
It felt strange slipping downstairs through the hushed house, almost as if she was sneaking around her own home despite the clack of Joanie’s high heeled slippers behind her. There was no sign of any of the servants, and the ground floor was completely dark. Rather than blaze the whole entry way with light and draw attention, Sara relied upon the natural moonlight filtering in through the leaded glass to light the way. Once inside the study she snapped on the lights though; no way she was going to hold a séance in the dark.
“Alrighty then, how do we get this sucker started?” Sara picked up the heart-shaped planchette, turning it over in her hands.
“Put that on the board, don’t you remember anything?” Joanie snatched it away, plunking it down and then placing her fingers along two of the edges. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths. Sara watched her with amusement, clearly Joanie was into it big time. What exactly was she expecting to happen? “Come on, put your hands on the thingy, let’s ge
t this show on the road,” Joanie chided without opening her eyes.
“Oh, right,” Sara did as she was told, lightly placing the tips of her fingers on the piece of wood. “Now we move it around, right?” The pointer started to move in a lazy figure eight, and she assumed Joanie was the one to get it started. It was almost hypnotic to listen to the light scraping sound as the planchette moved over the board and it took her several seconds to realize neither one of them were asking anything. “Is there anyone here?” she called out; more shocked than she realized when the pointer immediately went to the yes on the board. “You did that on purpose,” Sara muttered, only to have Joanie’s eyes pop open in surprise.
“I did not. Shh, let’s not waste this. Keep moving.” The pointer started up again in the slow pattern and it was Joanie who asked the next question. “Who are you?” The piece stopped at the letter G to Sara’s surprise.
“G… for Gemma?” she gasped, mouth standing open as it returned to the yes position. “Do you want to hurt Jack?”
No
“Do you want to hurt any of us?”
No
“But is Jack in danger?”
Yes
“Why?”
1
“One, one what?” Joanie frowned.
1
“Gemma we don’t understand,” Sara tried again. “Who wants to hurt Jack?”
9
“Again with the numbers,” Joanie muttered in disgust. “Maybe this board is broken?”
“Shh,” Sara chided, intent on the board. “Gemma is there a way to stop Jack from being hurt?”
Yes
“How?”
G-O
“Go,” Sara read aloud, brows drawing into a single dark line. “Gemma I’m not leaving until I understand the danger you say Jack is in. If I take him and go, will the danger follow him?”
?
“That’s not exactly a straight answer. Am I in danger?”
No
“Did something happen to Hughie?” Joanie interrupted on her own tangent.
“Who in the hell is Hughie?”
“You know, the guy I was supposed to meet this morning. Did something terrible happen to him?”