The Haunting of Gillespie House

by Darcy Coates

  “Don’t worry about that then.” Mrs Gillespie sounded suddenly tired. “It would take most of the day to walk up and down our driveway. If anyone was trying to rob us, they’d bring a car.”

  “But I heard—”

  “There’s a door in the house that doesn’t close properly. It keeps drifting open and slamming in the wind. I’ve been telling Harold to fix it for years, but… ugh.” She stopped herself as if making a conscious effort not to criticise her husband. “Well, it’s not fixed yet.”

  “Oh.” I was starting to feel stupid. “There… there were some creaking noises, too…”

  “It’s an old house, honey.” Mrs Gillespie sighed. “The creaks are part of its nature. Unless you saw something or heard someone speaking, I think you’re safe.”

  The stupid feeling was increasing, but with it came a boiling anger. If there’s a door that keeps slamming, wouldn’t you tell me about it before leaving me alone in your house for a month? I could have had a heart attack, you stupid—

  “Is there anything else?” Mrs Gillespie’s polite tone carried an undercurrent of irritation.

  I searched the rooms! I risked life and limb to protect your damn house! “No, sorry for disturbing you. Have a nice, um, retreat.”

  She hung up without saying goodbye. I threw down my phone and let myself fall backwards, then vented my anger and stress with a strangled scream of frustration. I wished I could teleport back to my apartment, even with its weird smells and obnoxious neighbours… anything to avoid setting foot in the Gillespie house again.

  I did the next best thing: I pocketed my mobile, threw the candlestick towards the front porch, and set out on a walk to burn off some of my agitation.

  The clouds gave the yard a bleak ethereal look. I stopped at the top of the drop off, just as I had the night before, and looked down at the woods. The incline, dotted with boulders and waist-high weeds, looked strangely inviting, as though I could step onto it, and it would carry me in a smooth rush down to the embrace of the light-dappled trees.

  I turned back to the house and again saw the bay window, the only thing protruding out from the otherwise-smooth side of the house. The curtains were moving gently from the breeze, but I couldn’t see beyond them. I wished I’d asked Mrs Gillespie what was in there when she was on the phone.

  A spotty grove of anaemic trees poked out from behind the house. I hadn’t seen the complete yard yet, so I started walking towards the outcropping. Past the building’s back corner were two small sheds, and beyond those were a series of raised garden beds.

  I walked between the knee-high wooden boxes. Many of them still had stakes poking out of the ground, and layers of straw covered some, but clearly, nothing edible had grown in them in a long time. Still tethered to the stakes, shrivelled and brittle tomato stalks had been left to die. Even the weeds that had stubbornly grown through the straw looked as though they were one hot day away from death.

  It was far more depressing than the inside of the house. I reached the end of the rows and turned back to gaze at them. Someone must have spent hundreds to build the gardens. I couldn’t imagine how someone could just… forget them like that.

  Beyond the garden was a stretch of grass, then the trees rose out of the gully to border the edge of the property. Some sort of building was hidden behind the first cluster of trees; I could see a dark-grey stone pillar and what looked like a roof. Gravel crunched under my feet as I approached the structure to get a better look. The trees were stockier and grew more closely together than those in the forest, and I had to push through meters of the dense, scratchy branches before I reached my goal. Past the trees was a tall, dark wrought-iron fence. A little beyond that were rows of gravestones.

  I jumped away from the fence and became tangled in the trees again. I struggled, earning myself a series of scratches across my arms, but I managed to get out, back on the house-side of the organic divider. I stuffed my shaking hands into my jacket pockets as I looked from the looming house to the tree-hidden burial site.

  The house is big, I thought. Maybe it wasn’t always a private home. It could have been a school or a retirement building at one time.

  That made sense. I mentally counted off the number of bedrooms on the top two floors. The building was large enough to be a small hotel, even.

  I turned back to the graveyard, my initial shock waning in the face of morbid fascination. Instead of trying to press through the dense trees again, I followed the edge of the wood, occasionally catching glimpses of iron between the branches. About twenty paces along the trees thinned, and I was able to reach the fence without much struggle.

  The gate stretched at least three feet above the top of my head, and elaborate ironwork swirls and patterns wove down its length. I looked through the bars at the graveyard; beyond the gravestones, a mausoleum rose like a miniature black cathedral, its tar-darkened doors fastened shut with a wooden plank.

  The tombstones stood about it in no apparent order. I counted at least a dozen, but more could have been hidden behind the mausoleum. They were all old. Some were cracked; others were nearly toppling over as the ground under them bulged. Two had the entire top halves snapped off, though I couldn’t see where the tips were.

  “Wow…” I whispered, wishing I’d brought a camera.

  The gate was old. Rust ran down it in dark streaks, but it wasn’t bolted. I pushed against the left side and was rewarded when it moved inwards with a drawn-out screech.

  Dirt, leaves, and grime had built up around the base of the gate, and it jammed after moving a foot. The gap was just wide enough for me to fit through, so, casting one final glance at the back of the house, I slipped into the graveyard.

  It felt surreal, as though the air inside the gated grounds were heavier. I watched my feet as I stepped between the graves. Unlike the rest of the property, the spaces around the tombstones seemed impervious to weeds. The dry earth cracked in places, and a few errant patches of grass poked out of it, but there were no other plants or greenery.

  I looked at the name etched on the nearest stone and stopped short. Phillipa Gillespie, it read, its lines faded almost to obscurity.

  Is this the Gillespies’ relative? The year of death was nearly two hundred years old. Maybe they inherited, rather than bought, the house.

  The second gravestone had the surname Tonkin, but the one after that belonged to another Gillespie. I moved through the graveyard quickly, checking name after name. I found twelve Gillespies and four Tonkins in total.

  A private graveyard, then. I turned towards the house. The highest parts of its roof were barely visible over the tops of the trees. They must have lived in there over quite a few generations.

  As I walked through the gravestones a second time, I noticed something strange. The birthdates were varied; some were as old as 1795, and the most recent was 1882. All of the death years were the same, though: 1884.

  I stalked through the graves, looking for some discrepancy, but there was none. The days and months differed, but every person in that graveyard had passed in the same year.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  A glint from the direction of the mausoleum caught my eye—a plaque was attached to the door. I approached it and leaned on the thick, rotting wooden plank barring the doorway as I rubbed at the tarnished bronze with my blouse sleeve. It was difficult to read in the poor light, but after some squinting, I was able to make out the inscription.

  Here lies Jonathan Gillespie

  1840 - 1884

  May the Lord have mercy on us all

  “Mercy…” I frowned at the script. “Why would they need mercy when he’s the one that died?”

  My skin prickled with unease, and I removed my hand from the wooden barricade, suddenly uncomfortable with touching the tomb. The clouds had grown thicker, darkening the sky. Still, I didn’t think the poor light was entirely down to the weather. I must have been in the graveyard for close to an hour, and the sun would soon be skirting over
the mountain’s edge.

  I didn’t regret leaving the tombstone-laden field, and I was careful to close the gate behind myself so that it wouldn’t drift open during the night. Whatever was within those wrought-iron constraints was better off staying there.

  A cold wind snapped at me as I hurried around the outside of the house, barely sparing a glance at the locked room’s window. I didn’t stop until my foot hit the candlestick that had become lost in the long grass around the porch. I cursed, massaging my stubbed toe, then picked up the bronze rod and continued into the house.

  Turning on the lights didn’t do much to chase out the shadows, but at least I could see my way into the kitchen. I hadn’t paid much attention to my body while I was in the graveyard, but the sight of the fridge made me realise I was starving: I’d missed lunch thanks to the slamming door.

  Despite Mrs Gillespie’s reassurances, I didn’t want to return to the upper level, especially with the light dimming, so I left the candlestick on the table. I was pleased to see it matched the chandelier nicely.

  “Dinner,” I coached myself as I plundered the fridge and pantry, “then a shower, then reading, then bed. Don’t let the house get to you. This is fine.”

  I found a red tapered candle in one of the draws while I was looking for skewers, so I lit it and stuck it in the candlestick. Its floral scent eased my anxieties as I watched the candle burn and ate my dinner in silence.

  SECOND NIGHT

  The slamming door woke me from disturbing dreams. I sat upright with a muffled shriek, and something heavy fell into my lap. I looked down and saw the book I’d been reading. I must have fallen asleep between pages. My bedside table lamp was turned on but did little to dispel the room’s shadows.

  Pressing one hand over my thundering heart, I kept still and listened to the house. It was breathing again; a pipe rattled somewhere behind me then fell silent. The floor groaned as though weary of bearing its weight. More disturbingly, the scratching noise was back: it scraped, ground, and rasped through the walls around me, setting the hairs on my arms to stand up. The rogue door, at least, had returned to being silent.

  It sounded so much louder than the first time, I thought as I made a conscious effort to slow my breathing. I guess because it’s on this floor. It really sounded like it was coming from just behind me, though.

  I felt too jumpy to stay in bed, so I got up, wrapping my dressing gown about myself to protect against the icy night air, and pulled my slippers on. The floorboards groaned under my feet as I approached the room’s door and opened it.

  Moonlight fell through the window at the end of the hallway, and I drew near to it like a moth to a lamp. The window overlooked the dead gardens, which had become a maze of shadows and dark stakes in the night-time. Beyond them, I could see the crop of trees that hid the graveyard. I stood there for a while, leaning on the sill and watching the light and darkness play across the ground in response to the trees’ swaying. I half-closed my eyes, and I might have believed I was seeing people walk through the woods.

  “Enough of this.” I rubbed at my arms. “Either go back to bed, or do something productive.”

  The scratching sound was still echoing in my ears, so I made for the stairwell. It was a risky climb down in the dark, but I made it to the ground floor without breaking my neck. I followed the now-familiar path to the kitchen and turned on lights as I went. A quick search through the pantry turned up cocoa powder and sugar, so I put a saucepan of milk on the stove to heat.

  I’d intended to drink the hot chocolate while I read, but when I sat at the table with my book cradled in my spare hand, I found I couldn’t focus on the words. I slammed it shut with a sigh.

  The candlestick, with its half-burnt candle, caught my eye.

  Why not? I lit the wick and held the bronze pole in front of myself with my right hand, carrying the drink in my left, and strode into the dining room. Let’s explore the house in the dark. We’ll make it a proper gothic adventure.

  The building felt completely different at night, and I looked on it with fresh eyes as the flickering light illuminated a small golden circle around me. Through the dining room, through the suffocatingly empty ballroom, and into the library, I took the chance to appreciate the building afresh.

  Something stood out to me as I drifted from room to room. It had been a quiet awareness in the back of my mind since I’d first arrived, but it wasn’t until that night, while I was surrounded by smothering darkness, with the only sounds being produced by my footsteps and the house’s breathing, that it struck me as strange. The house was neglected, and although the furniture was clean and modern and the living areas were clutter free, there was a peculiar absence of evidence that a family lived there.

  I hadn’t seen a single photo of the Gillespies, not even in the master bedroom. There were no knick-knacks or trinkets, no paintings on the walls, and no furniture that looked as though it were loved. Every single object in the house served a practical purpose, like a hotel room before the guests had unpacked their luggage.

  “What does that say about the Gillespies?” I stopped in front of an empty stretch of wallpaper partway down the hall. It was exactly the sort of place that a painting—like one of the gorgeous oil portraits upstairs—would fill perfectly. In fact, as I leaned closer, I thought I could see a square of the wall slightly darker than the rest, as if a painting had hung there for many years before being taken down.

  Clearly, the Gillespies didn’t have the world’s happiest marriage. They were both businesspeople, driven and hard-working, and simultaneously pulling in different directions. What were their evenings like? Did Mr Gillespie retire to his meticulously clean study while Mrs Gillespie walked the empty hallways, cleaned out her wardrobe, or worked tirelessly to eliminate any hints that feeling, breathing human beings inhabited the house?

  It felt both cruel and crazy that such a rich, soulful building, with its multitudes of rooms and an attic full of decadent furniture, should be dehumanised like that. Maybe it’s a deliberate choice by Mrs Gillespie. Maybe the house was too human.

  I wandered into the library and took my time strolling through the U-shaped room, admiring the bookcases. They seemed to be from the original furnishings; they were a rich, dark wood that shone prettily in my candlelight. They stretched to the roof, offering hundreds of shelves waiting to be filled… or maybe to have their books returned.

  A shimmer of movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned too quickly, and the candle flickered and nearly went out. I froze, waiting as the flame regained its strength, scanning the area that had caught my attention. It was the corner of the inside part of the U-shape. To my left was a straight line to the door that led into the hallway. If I went ten paces to my right, I could turn left again to face the second door.

  That suddenly struck me as strange. Why was there an indent in the room that was ten paces wide? What was in that inside section?

  I put my half-empty cup of cocoa on the floor, walked around the bend in the library, then exited through the second door to get back to the hallway. I walked the distance between the two library doors, expecting to find a storage closet between them, but it was an empty stretch of wall. Even when I ran my hand across the paint, I couldn’t detect any sort of ridge or indent that would suggest a hidden door.

  Back in the library, I scowled at the shelves. There had to be something behind them; there was no point in taking so much room out of the library unless it served a purpose. But if a room was hidden behind those walls, it didn’t seem to have a door.

  I put my candle on the ground beside the cocoa then went to one of the shelves and tried to pull it out. It was fixed in place, either by bolts or cement. I went to each shelf in turn, tugging them so fiercely that I was frightened of pulling a chunk out of the wall, but the only thing my efforts got me was a splinter in my palm. I sucked at it furiously as I regarded the blocked-off area.

  “What the hell’s wrong with this house?” I asked it
. “Locked rooms, and now rooms without doors at all?”

  I made to turn away, but a hint of movement attracted my attention again. It had come from the same corner where I thought I’d seen it before. I picked up the candle and moved in to get a better look.

  A narrow gap, a centimetre at most, existed between the two shelves that overlapped across the corner. I raised my candle to it and stared into the black depths. There, so close that I could have touched it if the bookcases hadn’t been in place, a wide, manic eye stared back.

  My mouth opened involuntarily as my body locked up in shock. I dropped the candlestick and heard the metal ring as it hit the wood floor. The blackness that had been pressing upon me all night overwhelmed me, pouring around my body and threatening to drown me in its icy embrace; then I started stumbling through the black, hands stretched out ahead of me, desperately seeking the exit before the thing in the darkness caught me. My hand hit a wall, and I stumbled then began rubbing my palms across it, searching for the light switch as I became convinced I could hear footsteps creeping through the room, gaining on me, nearly on top of me-

  Then I found the switch, and light filled the room. I turned, hands raised to protect myself, but I was alone. The candlestick lay on the floor, still wobbling its way to stillness, its molten tip leaving a splattering of bright-red wax on the floor. The shelves all stood in place; the room inside remained closed.

  My idea to explore the house with only the candle suddenly seemed ludicrous. I ran from the library, turning on every switch I passed, lighting up the house like a Christmas tree. Back in my bedroom, I grabbed my mobile off the bedside table and dialled Mrs Gillespie’s number. It rang twice before her smooth voice answered.

  “Thank goodness,” I blurted, “There’s someone in the house.”

  “—right now, so please leave a message.” The recording finished its greeting then gave a long, angry-sounding beep. I gaped for a moment, at a loss of what to say, then hung up.