Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set

by James M Matheson

  “Oh, a little vacation? Well, you certainly picked a great time of year for it. It’s the off season up here...oh, wait. I’m back to assuming you aren’t from here. That’s rude of me.”

  Katie laughed. She liked this guy. She didn’t even know his name yet but she was already having fun just talking with him. He made her want to open up. “Actually, I’m from out west. Oregon. I’m Katie Pearson, by the way.”

  “Mason Fieldman,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. When he did, Katie saw the large wristwatch he was wearing. It was a big, heavy thing, the kind with a windup dial instead of a digital display. “So what is it you do, Katie? What made you need a vacation so badly?”

  “I flip houses for a living,” she said, ready to explain that to him, since most people had no idea what that entailed. He surprised her instead.

  “Now there’s an interesting profession. Taking old houses and making them great again to sell to new owners. Wow. I would dearly love to hear more about that.” With a nod of his chin, he indicated the other chair at her table. “You think I could join you? You must have some great stories to tell.”

  She wasn’t really sure if she should, because she was almost positive he was hitting on her, but what could it hurt? Just a little conversation over coffee. She wasn’t going to avoid men for the rest of her life just because things were going good with Riley.

  When she smiled and waved graciously to the empty chair next to her, Mason eagerly picked up his coffee and came over to join her.

  They were there for what turned out to be hours when Katie finally checked the time on her cell. They’d talked about their respective professions, and where they were from, and why coffee was better than tea. Although, the chai that she had ordered was excellent and she was definitely stopping here again before she left.

  She found herself telling stories about some of the houses she had refurbished in the past, and how much she made on average with each one, and things like that. If he noticed how she was less talkative about some of the more recent homes she had been involved with, he didn’t say anything. She had no intention of telling him everything about some of those places. Nobody needed to know about her brushes with the paranormal.

  Mason was a fascinating man. For a while, Katie almost forgot that she wasn’t single.

  Almost.

  “You know,” he said to her as he drained the last of his refill and took out money from his wallet to pay for the tab--his and hers--I would love to talk to you some more about what you do. Maybe write an article about it.”

  “I don’t know...” She wasn’t into publicity. She liked to keep her life private. On the other hand, Katie found that she wasn’t exactly against the idea. Sitting here, talking about it with him, made it all sound very interesting. “Well, I think I’ve decided to stay in town for another night after all. Maybe we could talk tomorrow?”

  “How about this afternoon instead?” he asked. “I have something I need to do for the next few hours but what do you say we meet back here around four and you can try that espresso I was telling you about?”

  “The not-very-good espresso?” she laughed. “Well I am on vacation, so I guess I can be a little adventurous.”

  “Then it’s a date,” he said with a cheery smile.

  He was up from the table and leaving the café before she could mention the fact that she had a steady, amazing boyfriend.

  Of course, she could have mentioned Riley at any time while they were talking. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been a dozen openings. Three simple words was all it would have taken. I’m seeing someone.

  So why hadn’t she said it? What was it about Mason Fieldman that had her feeling like a mischievous teenager sneaking out with a guy she just met?

  She’d just have to tell Mason about Riley tomorrow.

  In the meantime she had to let Maggie Harper know that yes, she would definitely be staying another night.

  Chapter 7

  Still no cell service.

  She’d promised to let Maggie know by lunchtime if she was staying longer, and here it was well after noon already. Walking back to the Inn was going to talk a half an hour, probably. She would just have to hope her room was still available.

  Or, she could go in the public library and ask to use their phone.

  The path back to the Inn took her past the library, which was what made her think of it. The building looked out of place in this town among all the other, older buildings. It was made of red brick, completely square, front to back. The sign out front gave the hours and the name of the town’s librarian along with his phone number.

  It was open hours right now. Smiling and whistling to herself, Katie went inside. Hopefully she could make the call to Maggie and continue hitting the antique stores in town.

  Inside everything was silent and musty. It had the look and feel of every library Katie had ever been in. There was no other place like this in the world. Books had their own smell, and older books even more so. It was kind of nice. It had everything that e-readers didn’t.

  There were shelves of books lined up and down the room, and a tall counter on the other side gleamed with polish. Behind the counter sat a tall, thin man with graying hair hanging limply down to his shoulders. When she noticed him, he was already staring in her direction.

  “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “Do you have a phone I can borrow? I’m staying at the Harper Inn and I need to call the owner.”

  He continued to stare at her.

  “Um. You know, Maggie Harper? The owner of the Inn?”

  The man stood up from behind the counter, still without saying a word.

  “Sir? Do you have a phone?”

  Reaching behind the counter, he brought up an old, black, rotary-dial phone with a long coil of cord between the base and the handset.

  Then he put the phone on the counter, and pushed it toward her, and sat back down.

  The guy was really beginning to creep her out, just sitting there and staring at her. For a minute she entertained the idea that he was a ghost and she’d walked into a haunted library but of course, that was just silly.

  Wasn’t it?

  Sure it was. He was just a guy in a library.

  She picked up the handset, but then she hesitated, staring down at the faded plastic dialer. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to use the thing--even if it had been a while since she’d seen one, they weren’t that hard to figure out. She just realized she didn’t know the number to the Inn.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the man, letting the phone droop in her hand. “Do you know the number to...?”

  He slid a piece of paper across the counter to her. While she’d been staring at the phone he’d already been writing out the number to the Inn for her.

  “Um. Thanks.” She read the crisp, precise handwriting on the square of paper, and dialed the numbers one by one. She smiled at the man as the phone rang in her ear. He didn’t smile back.

  “Harper Inn,” Maggie’s voice said in her ear. “How may I help you today?”

  “Hi, Maggie, it’s Katie Pearson. I just wanted to let you know that I will definitely be staying in town for another night. Is the room still available?”

  “Absolutely, it is. Oh, I see on my caller ID that you’re at the library. Be sure to say hello to Franklin for me. He’s been the town’s librarian for as long as I can remember.”

  Katie looked up at the man with the long white hair, and held the mouthpiece for the phone away from her face a little. “Maggie says hello.”

  Franklin nodded, and continued to stare at her.

  Maggie was still talking in her ear. “The books you want are in that far corner room. Franklin will know which ones.”

  “Books?” Katie asked, confused at the sudden turn in the conversation.

  “Certainly. The town’s history is all right there.”

  Ah. Now she understood. Maggie still wanted her to read up on the dead woman with her face. “That’s nice, and all, but
I really don’t want to...”

  “You just can’t appreciate the history of a place until you’ve seen it in pictures.”

  “Sure, but...”

  “Well, I have to rush. So much to do, so little time, as they say. You and I should sit and talk tonight. You can tell me everything you learned. Oh, it will be so exciting to hear your viewpoint, since you know all about buildings and such. There’s some really old houses in town.”

  Katie started to argue again, but it was true that she was interested in some of the buildings. Some of them were obviously a century old or more. That sort of thing always interested her.

  Maggie was saying goodbye and hanging up before Katie could get another word in. With a sigh, she put the handset back down in the cradle. “I guess,” she said to Franklin, “that I’d like to see the books on your town’s history.”

  When in Rome, she said to herself. She definitely did not want to get caught up in another crazy ghost story, or buy into another house sight unseen on her vacation. It couldn’t hurt to look at some pictures in a book, though, and some of the buildings here really were interesting...

  Franklin unfolded himself from his chair and walked around the end of the counter, moving off toward a corner of the library without ever once looking back to see if she was following. A narrow door led into a small room, with waist-high box shelving units around three of the walls. A table sat in the middle with chairs around it. Overall, it looked unused. Katie got the impression that not a lot of people ever came in here.

  When she looked up to thank Franklin he was already gone, back over in his chair behind the counter, staring at the front door and waiting for the next person to come in.

  She couldn’t suppress a shiver that sent goosebumps up her arms. The man was weird with a capital ‘W.’ Maybe that was what came of sitting alone with books day in and day out.

  She looked around the shelves, not really sure what she was looking for. Whenever a book seemed interesting she would slide it out and put it on the center table. A few were really, really old. Weathered leather covers peeling along the spines, pages yellowed with age. There were holes chewed into some of them where insects had burrowed.

  She sat down and pulled one of the books over at random, opening to the first page.

  It was actually kind of fun, delving into the past of a town in New England, where the modern history of this country actually started. Now that she was actually here she had to say she was glad she had taken Maggie’s suggestion.

  At first she only found information on the area in general, and some of it she already knew from high school history classes. New Hampshire was the granite state, President Pierce was born in New Hampshire. The first potato planted in the United States was planted in New Hampshire. The woman who wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb was from this state. By the third book she was bored and beginning to lose interest.

  The next book was probably the oldest one she had found on the shelves. The cover had been impressed with a design outlined in gold ink, but the color had faded over the years until it was hard to make out what it was supposed to be. It was old enough that some of the history of the town had probably been happening firsthand when it was printed.

  Katie took the cover by the edge.

  It wouldn’t open.

  The pages must be stuck together, she thought, or moisture had gotten into it, or something. She pulled harder, trying to pry it open, not wanting to be bested by a book. This was weird...

  With a final tug, the book flew open.

  A plume of dust sprouted all around her, rising from the fluttering pages, getting into her eyes and her nose and her mouth. It tasted sickly sweet and she swallowed some of it before she could gag it out and suddenly it was like she couldn’t breathe.

  She had to get out of there. She needed air. Fresh air. Rubbing her eyes and coughing, trying to get a clean breath, she ran out of the reading room and then out of the library and into the street.

  The people passing by on the sidewalk must have thought she was crazy, standing there bent over, hands on her knees, coughing and sneezing and just concentrating on getting air into her lungs. A smell like burning garbage lingered up in her nose and even when she was able to stand up and shake it off and laugh at how ridiculous she must look, the smell remained.

  As she stood there, looking back at the library, a little thrum of pain blossomed at the back of her skull. From how hard she was coughing, she guessed.

  Although, the headache stayed with her as she went back inside the library. She was definitely done here, but she still needed to go back in for her bag with the dishes. She’d had more than enough of looking through history.

  It was time to leave the past in the past.

  Chapter 8

  Back in the reading room, she found Franklin putting away the books she had been looking through, including the really old one that had spread all that dust when it opened.

  That’s what she decided it must have been. Just dust. After all, what else could it be?

  The pain throbbed behind her eyes when she thought about it. She set the whole thing aside because she’d already decided she was done with it all.

  “Um, sorry for the mess,” she told Franklin. “I had to run out for a minute. For some air. I was going to put them back. I promise.”

  He looked at her once, shoved the last book back in place, and then slipped by her to walk out of the room.

  As he went, he finally spoke to her in a voice dry as gravel.

  “You were looking in the wrong place.”

  Then he was gone, and she was alone in the room again.

  “Well,” Katie muttered to herself. “He’s not creepy at all.”

  She picked up the bag of plates where she had left it under the table and was about to get the hell out of there when her gaze fell on the one book he’d left out. It was still on the table, open to a section near the end. Almost like he’d left it there for her. One side had a picture on it. A reprint of an old photograph.

  The same photo from the book in the Harper Inn. Four women standing around a grave, one that had her exact same face.

  Without realizing what she was doing, Katie sat down in a chair and pulled the book closer. In this book the photograph was labeled. Everyone was named, left to right, and she put her finger under the name that corresponded to the woman who looked so much like her.

  “Dorathea Snidge,” she read out loud. “Okay, that’s an unfortunate name, but why do you look like me?”

  She read through the paragraphs opposite the picture, and then turned the page and kept reading. A story began to form in her mind, hidden among the author’s very descriptive language. History unfolded itself for her.

  Dorathea was married to the town’s original founder, Ebenezer Snidge. She had married him when she was in her early teens, much younger than would have been proper to marry today. He was...old, even when she met him.

  They were the first family to settle here in Twilight Ridge. Ebenezer invited friends to join him, four other men and their young brides, and together they started carving out a life in what used to be Abenaki Tribal land. Five families, five wives. Those would be the women in the photograph.

  Including the woman in the grave, the one who died unexpectedly. That was how Maggie had put it, Katie thought, or something like that.

  There was a photo on one page of Dorathea standing next to a tall, thin man. She’d grown into a young woman by this time. The man with her could only be one person. His face was gaunt and his gray hair was swept straight back from his temples to fall against his shoulders. His eyes were narrow and close together, washed out of all color even in the black and white photo. He was much too old to be with a woman that young.

  Ebenezer Snidge.

  He was a rich man for his time. Most of the money to start the town had come from him personally. The author of the book made sure to mention specifically that Ebenezer had paid for a church to be built in Twilight Ridge. He was a man of
deep faith. A true believer in God who wanted his town to be a perfect paradise.

  As much information as there was on Ebenezer there was hardly any on Dorathea Snidge. That shouldn’t be too surprising, Katie supposed, because at that time everything had been completely male-dominated. Women weren’t ever mentioned unless they did something completely out of the ordinary--good or bad. She got the feeling that this was something more than that. It was like Dorathea was intentionally being left out of the town’s story for some reason.

  Then she turned another page, and found out why.

  Ten years after Twilight Ridge was founded, Dorathea was put to death for being a witch.

  Katie sat back, blinking her eyes as she read that again, and then again. This was New England, and things like the Salem witch trials were a real part of history. Why should she be surprised that this woman had been accused of witchcraft?

  Because it was just ridiculous. That was why. She might believe in ghosts, and other spooky stuff, but she didn’t believe in witches. This was silly.

  Only this time, the woman who died was wearing her face.

  That kind of changed her feelings about it.

  She read more, turning page after page to find all the information she could on Dorathea. She had to piece a lot of it together from scraps here and there, and also from what wasn’t being said, but the story kept going. Dorathea had given birth to a child. An infant son who died shortly after he was born.

  Dorathea had been accused of raising him from the dead.

  Her husband, Ebenezer, threw the first stone.

  Near the end of the book was another photograph of the cemetery. This time, there were more headstones.

  Katie squinted down at the photo, and then slowly brought her finger up to the page, and counted the graves.

  There were five of them. The wives of the founding fathers, all dead and lined up in a row. Dorathea’s was in the center.

  Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, was the caption of the photo.