“Oh, it’s all wonderful. Welcome to Twilight Ridge, Miss Pearson.”
Katie smiled as she took the key. She gave that book of photos one last glance, and then turned away to go back out to the parking lot for her bags. She was going to have fun on this vacation, and she was going to ignore anything that had to do with the dead, or ghosts, or the mysteries of other people.
Chapter 5
Before bed, a little walk around the town seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t that late, after all. The sun was still up.
The people of Twilight Ridge were keenly aware of the stranger in their midst. She got more than a few glances, and she saw people whispering to each other behind cupped hands, but she didn’t mind. They smiled when she smiled, they said hello when she did. Nobody was rude to her. Even Emily, the waitress at the diner, had been polite, if a little odd.
So she wandered up and down the streets, stopping to look at buildings or houses that were old or interesting in the way they had been built. Every single place here seemed to have a character all its own. None of it was the cookie-cutter construction she was used to seeing in the city, where you might have entire neighborhoods built on the same exact design squeezed in between highrises of glass and steel.
After a short little while she found that she was actually enjoying herself. She even stopped to talk to a few people that were more than happy to discuss the history of their house, or their business, or how their ancestor had actually come here straight from England to settle into Twilight Ridge. Back in the 1800s, apparently, the town had been growing by leaps and bounds.
So what happened? Katie would ask.
No one had a good answer for that, and sometimes it stopped the conversation altogether.
As she was walking down one of the short side streets a soccer ball came bouncing across a lawn and rolling down the sidewalk, right to her feet.
Katie bent down to pick it up, rolling it around in her hands. She hadn’t played soccer since she was a kid, but now she smiled and looked around for the ball’s owner.
No one came to claim it. The yards around her were empty, no kids, no grownups. Not even a dog in sight.
She rolled the ball in her hands and bounced it off the sidewalk a few times. This ball had been played with, a lot. Someone had loved this ball. There were scuffs on the black and white pads. As she turned it more she saw a name written in marker. It was faded, though. Whoever it had been was too obscured to read.
“Oh, thank you,” a woman said to her suddenly.
Katie looked up to see her rushing off her front porch, a simple dress flapping around her legs. There was gray in her hair and lines around her eyes. She frantically reached out for the soccer ball as she got closer. Katie handed it to her.
“This was my son’s,” the woman said, looking down at the name on the ball. “He loved this so much. He really did.”
There were tears in her voice as she spoke. Katie began to realize that her son wasn’t here anymore. The ball was a treasured keepsake of a woman with a broken heart.
The woman took a deep breath and hugged the ball to her chest as she nodded to Katie. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad I could find it for you,” Katie told her, because she had no idea what else she could say.
“I never let this out of the house,” the woman said, almost as if she didn't hear Katie at all. “I keep it close because it’s the last thing I have to remember him with. I don’t know how...I just don’t know how it got out. I must have been careless.”
Now her eyes focused on Katie, and she blinked in surprise. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on like that. I must have left the front door open earlier when I had company. Thanks again for finding this. It means so much to me.”
She turned and walked back across her lawn, and Katie could hear her talking quietly as if she was speaking directly to her lost son through the soccer ball.
Katie watched as the woman went up the steps and into her home, and closed the door behind her.
Well, it was starting to get later than she thought, and if she was going to go into any of the places selling antiques to even look around, then she was going to have to get going now.
She took a single step.
And the soccer ball was rolling down the sidewalk toward her again.
It couldn’t be the same one, she thought to herself, but as it rolled closer she bent down and caught it and picked it up to find that yes, it was. The same scuffed panels, the same faded name that she couldn’t read.
She looked up to the house where the woman had gone. The door was open.
Well, that explained it, then. Ha. For a moment she’d thought there was something ghostly going on. Something weird. She wasn’t here for weird.
Knowing how important the ball was, she went up to the open front door and knocked, and waited, and then when no one answered she set the ball down inside the door and closed it.
She went to leave.
When she turned around, the ball was on the front lawn.
Katie didn’t move. She didn’t dare take a step toward a ball that belonged to a dead child and now was following her no matter where she--
Three kids came running from across the street. The first one picked the ball up in his hands while the other two shouted “that was no fair” and “against the rules” and then they were all racing back to their yard to play again.
Katie saw now that it was a different ball. This one had white and red panels, not black. She laughed quietly at herself, and stuffed her hands in her pockets, and started up the street again. She was starting to see ghosts at every turn. After a few too many haunted houses in her life she supposed that was only natural, but she sure didn’t want to be that person who jumped at every single--
She heard the door to the house opening behind her.
Without looking back, she started walking faster.
She walked by a museum that had been closed since three o’clock in the afternoon. That might be fun to check out tomorrow, considering the rich history that existed here in this town. She was only starting to get the barest sense of all that, from the stories people had told her about their houses and yes, even those photos that Maggie had shown her.
It was probably true that every place in New Hampshire had some sort of long history to draw on. These were some of the oldest places in the country, after all. Not all of that history was good, as she well knew, and some of it was downright evil. Still, those who forgot history were doomed to repeat it, as they said. Besides. In her line of work an understanding of history was key. You couldn’t rebuild a house to what it used to look like if you didn’t understand the historical context it had come from.
When she found the first house with a sign out front saying “Antiques for sale inside,” she was excited to see what they might have. It was just someone’s house, as it turned out, and the “antiques” were all displayed in the front room. Chairs and battered end tables were most of what was there. She thanked the nice woman who came out to show her around everything and then left.
The next place she found was exactly the same. This time she was met by a man in a t-shirt and a bathrobe drinking a cup of coffee as he tried to convince her that paying seven hundred dollars for an old chair with a broken leg was a real bargain because it used to sit in the state office building.
He grumbled at her under his breath as she walked out.
Well, this was going to be a bust all around, apparently. At least she could head back to the Harper Inn and have some alone time with her and a phone and Riley. She was really starting to miss him, and she wished again that she had just postponed her trip a few days to wait for him. Her schedule was open-ended after all. If she wanted to spend the next month right here in Twilight Ridge, then that was exactly what she could do.
Although, from what she’d seen so far, she had no reason to think she would ever want to spend that much time here.
She kept walking, stopping to look at the church but not
going in, and passing right by the library--she had no reason to want to be in there at all.
The gristmill caught her eye over past the tree line, but there was thick forest all around the town, and she wasn’t sure how to get from here to there. Wandering around the woods aimlessly and maybe getting lost out there appealed to her even less than looking through history books in the library to find out why a woman from the 1800s could have been her twin.
Katie was just trying to get her bearings to head back to the Inn when she found another place offering antiques for sale. With a sigh and a shrug, she decided to try one more time.
She was glad she did. This home had a separate room with a side entrance to show off their antiques. Instead of old furniture that may or may not have come from someplace historic, she found shelves with knickknacks neatly lined up, and jewelry items behind glass cases, side by side with silverware and ceramic dishes, all of them tagged with a little description.
Even the prices were reasonable.
The woman who showed her around was pleasant and not at all pushy. She was a convincing saleswoman, laughing casually about how interesting this piece was, or how wonderful these plates would look on a dinner table or as a showpiece above a mantel.
Katie browsed through furniture and lamps and paintings, and the shelves of different items, for over an hour. Before long she had purchased a pair of crystal candle holders. There were other things that caught her eye, including a few pieces of furniture that would really dress up any space.
She paid for her candle holders and promised to be back tomorrow to look for more. The woman thanked her and then asked where she was staying.
When she heard it was the Harper Inn, a shadow crossed over her face.
“Is there something wrong with the Inn?” Katie asked. When it had just been Emily the waitress she’d chalked it up to nothing more than small-town politics, or rumors, or such.
Now, she was beginning to wonder.
The woman folded Katie’s check and slipped it into the pocket of her slacks. “Maggie Harper runs a fine place,” she said, sounding like a tourism advertisement. “She’s just an odd lady. Keeps to herself. Sometimes, that rubs people the wrong way in a town like this.”
Sure, Katie thought. There it was again. Small town folks with small town problems. Well. If that was all it was, then Katie wasn’t going to worry herself about it.
Especially since she was only planning on staying for one night. But hey, if everyone in town were going to make such a big stink about a woman owning an Inn and not being a freaking social butterfly, maybe she’d just have to stay for two nights and show them all what she thought of small-town foolishness.
Humming to herself, she walked up the street with her candlesticks in a plastic bag. She was already looking forward to talking to Riley and telling him all about the eccentric people she’d found here.
Chapter 6
Riley had talked to her for two hours straight while she laid back on the deep mattress in her pajamas. Some of it had just been normal day-to-day stuff, about how his current construction job was going, and the weather, and the gossip about what was happening around town.
Some of it had been so racy that Katie had trouble getting to sleep after hanging up. When she did, her dreams had been very...pleasant.
Waking up in the morning had been hard for her. She didn’t want to climb out from under the fluffy comforter. The bed was amazing, even if the springs sang to her every time she rolled over. Now she really was glad she’d stopped here in this little out of the way place. She decided, after a shower and getting dressed for the day, that she was going to have another walk around and see what the place had to offer. Maybe she would stay another night, after all.
* * *
Breakfast at the Harper Inn that morning was freshly scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. A breakfast after her own heart. There was fruit, too, bananas and apples and plums but she wasn’t really feeling like anything too healthy today. The other guest of the Inn sat across from her stuffing his face, smiled once, and then left. Obviously, he was in a hurry to get to whatever he had planned for the day.
That was all right by Katie. She wasn’t here to make friends. Just see the sights for a day, maybe two, and then get back to her trip.
She gave Maggie high praise for the food before getting up from the table. The owner of the Inn seemed very happy to hear the compliments. Katie was going to help clear the dishes, but Maggie wouldn’t hear of it. “Go on, now,” she said. “I’ll hold your reservation for tonight until lunchtime. Just in case. I’m sure you’ll want to stay another day after Twilight Ridge gets under your skin.”
Katie was sure that was meant to sound heartening. A bit of a sales pitch meant to encourage tourists to stay longer. For some reason, for her, it just sent a chill down her back.
She forgot all about it as soon as she stepped out into the warm sunshine of midmorning. The fresh air filled her lungs when she took a deep breath. She heard birds singing away in the trees. Everything seemed so alive. She got the sense of things happening all around her in the sleepy little town.
Time to go have some fun.
There weren’t all that many streets to figure out, and most of the shops and things were either on Main Street or just around the corner. She’d discovered that last night. Everything was within walking distance, but she was trying to see everything all over again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything in her impromptu tour yesterday. After an hour of exploring her feet were sore.
After visiting two more antique shops she came away with an amazing set of stoneware dishes and a dresser with glass knobs that the nice man selling it to her promised to have shipped to her address in Oregon. For a reasonable fee, too.
She had found that dressing a house when it was for sale was as important as fixing it up. People wanted to see themselves living in the house right from the first moment they laid eyes on it. Show people an amazing house with bare floors that had “potential” and they might walk away without making an offer. Show them the same house set up with furniture and wall art and decorative items, a place that already looked like a home, and nine times out of ten the same people would make an offer on the spot.
She thought about going back to that one shop last night, where she found the candlesticks, but somehow the woman had put her off. It wasn’t even so much what she had said, because she hadn’t really said anything bad about Maggie or the Inn. It was more what she hadn’t said. Or maybe, the way that she hadn’t said it.
Anyway, she found several items that she loved at those other stores. If the rest of her trip was as successful as her little side trip to Twilight Ridge had been, then she was going to have to rent a warehouse to hold all of her purchases.
With her new dishes in a thick plastic bag she walked up the sidewalk, the irregular paving stones making her watch her footing with each step. She nearly missed the coffee shop squished in between two houses while she was making sure she didn’t twist her ankle.
It was the aroma of the coffee that caught her attention. She looked up, and through the window she could see a few round tables with red and white checkerboard cloths over them. There were enough people in there to make the tiny space appear crowded, sitting by themselves or with one or two others, drinking from tall ceramic mugs of coffee or tea.
Well. This town just continued to surprise her.
Stepping inside set the little shopkeeper’s bell over the entrance door to ringing as she looked around for a place to sit. There was a free table over in the corner and she made a beeline for that. A plastic-coated menu was nestled between the sugar dish and the salt and pepper shakers. Coffees, teas, and a few side dishes like french fries and poutine were listed. Not bad for a place this small.
When the server came over to take her order Katie asked for a Vanilla Chai, hoping it would be as good as the ones she was used to back in Oregon.
“Interesting choice,” the man at the table next to her said. �
��Most people who come here for the first time try the espresso.”
Katie turned to look, surprised that he was talking to her out of the blue like this. Most people didn’t just strike up conversations with complete strangers.
He was kind of cute, and about her age, and if she was maybe looking for someone to start a one night stand with, he would definitely have fit the bill. Bright green eyes, an unruly shock of brown hair, a casual sort of business attire doing very little to hide an athletic body. Every warm-blooded girl’s perfect type.
Lucky for her, Riley was still waiting for her back home, and a phone call to him tonight was all the companionship she would need. Her cell phone still wasn’t working, but when she left Twilight Ridge for the next town down the road that would change.
Still, there was no reason not to be friendly.
“How do you know,” she asked, “that it’s my first time here?”
“I know every face in this town,” he told her. “I’m in Twilight Ridge a lot.”
“Is that so? Well, then let me ask you. Is the espresso here any good?”
His smile got bigger as he shook his head. “No. It’s terrible. But don’t tell the owner I said that. He likes to give me my drinks for free because I’m a reporter. I don’t want to ruin that for myself.”
“Oh?” Katie asked, turning in her chair to face him. “You’re a reporter? What brings you to this little part of the state?”
“I’m researching the history of places like this in New Hampshire. You know, dying little towns that are learning to remake themselves into tourist attractions to keep from drying up completely and blowing away.”
Funny, Katie thought to herself. That was almost exactly what she’d been thinking herself. “That sounds kind of exciting.”
He shrugged and sipped at his mug of coffee. “What about you? What brings you here?”
“I’m just taking a break from my usual work, actually.”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 38