A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery)

by Merabeth James

  The Ravynne family streak of resilience ran deep in Meg, Charlie thought…the very kind that had brought them all through one disaster after another. Some Charlie knew about and some she didn’t want to know about. One could only take so much.

  The miniscule apartment remained a problem though and every day became a dance party as each tried to stay out of the other’s way. Thankfully, Meg had taken over the kitchen chores allowing her to spend even more time staring, impotently, at her laptop in the small eating alcove that served as her office.

  Then one day (Meg and Freddie had left after breakfast not wanting to disturb her), Charlie’s muse bestirred herself again and her fingers flew across the keyboard until she had three chapters to show for it. Of course, there would be rewrites, plenty of them, but still. She smiled and made herself a cup of tea, then decided to reward herself with a little Internet surfing and the chocolate bar she’d been hoarding for just this occasion.

  She had barely started, when she saw it! “Like this can’t be for real or even legal, ” she murmured, as she quickly scanned the text above and below the picture of a house that was certainly not the all American house next door. It was a dark, brooding, mysterious Victorian monstrosity, quite probably riddled with termites, deathwatch beetles (though she wasn’t sure they had such things in the States!), mold, mildew, mice…and even rats. She laughed. Let's hope there were no rats! If there was anything bigger than a mouse, and there probably was, she’d never get Meg to agree to what she was thinking about doing. She must be crazy. And she knew she wouldn’t have to look far to find others that thought so too. But the house was gorgeous if you liked that kind of thing. And she did. Loved it, if truth be told. But what would Meg say?

  She didn’t have long to find out. She was so engrossed, she hadn’t heard the door open and close. Didn’t know Meg was home till she leaned over her shoulder and squinted at the screen. “What are you looking at so intently?”

  “Just the most beautiful house ever. Look at it, Meg. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Meg studied the house that could have devoured twenty of her little cottage in Shrewsbury and never burped. Dripping with broken gingerbread, towers fronting both sides like dark sentinels, it looked like the Addam’s family home on steroids. “It’s quite large, isn’t it?” she managed to say around the little bubble of worry that had lodged in her throat. “It says something about a contest. What are you thinking of doing and tell me you are only joking when you say it.”

  “Well, we both agree about one thing lately. This place is too small. I need a place to write. You need a kitchen bigger than a pea pod, which reminds me, you need a place to garden. I’ve seen you across the street grooming the Parks Department’s flowers, wondering when they’d catch you and I’d have to come haul you out of jail, like I haven’t done that all too recently with that sister of ours.”

  “They needed dead heading or they wouldn’t keep blooming,” Meg mumbled defensively.

  “Yeah, right! Bottom line we need some space and this just might be the answer,” Charlie said with a too bright smile.

  “But the upkeep alone. We could never afford it. I mean you’ve got some money from your books and I will have some after the divorce settlement, but get real, Charlie. That place is a money pit as big as the Grand Canyon."

  “Well, no point worrying about details like that right now. We haven’t won it yet.”

  “And that means what?” Meg asked worriedly.

  “This town is running a contest to unload the house and pay off its back taxes, which have been piling up for sometime,” Charlie told her.

  "I never in all my life heard of such a thing.”

  “We have to write an essay explaining why we want to live in this house and enclose a check with it.”

  “Ah, hah! How much are they trying to scam out of everyone?” Meg asked.

  “‘Scam’ sounds a little judgmental, Meg. I’m rather surprised at you. After all, the back taxes have to be paid, a town can’t run on air, and the check is for…$100,” she told her, dropping her voice on the last part.

  Meg sniffed loudly. “You’re going to do this and I know I’d be wasting my time trying to talk you out of it. Sogo ahead. This won’t be the first time you’ve done something really stupid.”

  Charlie looked at her sister for a long moment. Maybe this new attitude she’d encouraged, had some severe drawbacks. “Look. I know how this all sounds. But I think this is an opportunity we can’t turn down. If it's meant to be, it will happen. Besides, what are the odds that we’ll win? Have either of us ever won anything in our entire lives?”

  “Just that one prize in high school for the most unusual Halloween costume, but only because of that freak accident. The one you told me never to mention again, remember?”

  “Sorry. I did say that. Anyway, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll check all this out and see if it’s for real. If it is, we’ll do it. It says here that the place has ten bedrooms, not counting the staff quarters. It would be perfect for a B&B, or we could take in boarders! You can have your nice big kitchen, a yard for Freddie to run about in, and I can have that little tower room on the right with a view of the beautiful garden I know will flourish under your green hands.”

  “Oh please! At least I know where I can get the fertilizer! Okay, count me in,” Meg said with a sigh. “But about that kitchen thing. I really…really hate cooking!”

  The 'cooking thing' would be one more wrinkle they would have to iron out, Charlie thought with a grimace, then remembered. Neither one of them liked to iron either!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Charlie began her homework. Checking on the Internet, she learned all she could about the small town called Merritsville from its database. It had a population of 50k plus, as of the last census, mostly of Scotch-Irish descent, but liberally sprinkled with other ethnic groups. A decent percentage had, at least, a high school education and the crime rate was low. So far so good, she thought. Time to start the essay.

  At first, she’d felt at a loss. It seemed her capricious muse had logged off once again. Why did she want to do this thing so badly anyway? It wasn’t remotely sensible, quite probably not even sane, as Meg told her often enough, but there it was. It wasn’t a likable house. It had way too much presence to be likeable. It was a house one either hated at first sight, feared all the way to one's toes, or loved.

  Suddenly, she had an 'Ah, hah!’ moment. She had fallen in love with the old house from the first moment she saw it! Impossible as that sounded, it was only too true. It seemed fated somehow, though she wasn’t all that sure she even believed in fate. Or hadn’t so far. And when she told Meg that she loved the house and it needed her, she had expected her to laugh, but instead she had only looked at her for a long moment and nodded.

  While she was working through the essay's third rewrite, Meg suggested they call the tax assessor’s office, directly, and see what they had to say. There had been no phone number or address listed on the Internet. In fact, it had clearly stated that no one was to contact them directly, but when had that ever stopped her? A quick Internet search turned up Merritsville’s Tax Assessor’s phone number. With Meg’s ear pressed close to the receiver, she made the call.

  The voice on the other end was both coldly polite and clearly impatient. “We posted all the pertinent information, which, if you had bothered to read, stated you were not to contact us. I was quite…quite sure we had made that abundantly clear. Just follow the steps and send in your entry …or entries. You are certainly welcome to send more than one, as long as you enclose a separate check for each. I don’t believe I caught your name?” a Mrs. Brown intoned nasally.

  Charlie blurted out the first name that came to mind…Maggie Snow…one she sometimes used when she went undercover. After some subtle prodding, heavily laced with the ‘deference due’ one in Mrs. Brown’s quite possibly overpaid position, she learned that the previous owners had died and left no known heirs to take on the “responsibility of the e
state”. The couple had been in “considerable arrears”, but the assessor’s office “out of the generosity” of their hearts had let it slide, since the family had been of “political importance at one time”. The house had been empty since their death more than three years ago, so the tax bill was now “quite a significant amount”.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Brown conceded with a forced brightness that made Charlie grit her teeth. “The estate will need some repairs. But it was built mid Nineteenth Century, back when they really knew how to build, so I’m sure the basic structure is quite sound. Of course, I am no expert in such things and, since we are practically giving it away, it is being offered strictly ‘as is’. It was neglected quite shamefully, but I’m sure with a little money and some elbow grease it will be a stunning asset to our little community once again!”

  Charlie had been hoping for at least the owner’s name, but knew the direct approach wouldn’t work with Mrs. Brown. “I’m sure the Wilsons did all…”

  She could practically see Mrs. Brown’s superior smirk. “The Hensleys,” she corrected her with a snap, then caught herself. “I don’t believe their name is relevant. It is the house we are talking about.”

  Meg tugged urgently at Charlie’s arm. “Ask her where they died?” she whispered.

  Cupping her hand over the receiver, Charlie mouthed with a touch of annoyance, “What did you say?”

  “Ask her where they died?” Meg persisted.

  So Charlie asked and was told, “Why would that be pertinent? They died quite peacefully in their own home of natural causes. After all, they had been quite elderly and it was totally expected. No surprises…none at all!” Mrs. Brown said with exaggerated emphasis. A prickling awareness shot up Charlie’s spine, just as Mrs. Brown excused herself and hung up.

  Meg sighed. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Charlie let the ‘what?’ she didn’t want to ask escape her.

  “Ghosts is what! The place is bound to be haunted, though I suspected as much from the first moment I saw it. No wonder they’re raffling it off in some cockamamie contest. Who in that town would buy the place if it has the reputation I think it has? No wonder they didn’t list the address. Anyone driving into Merritsville would soon find out the place is haunted and be out of there on the next bus!”

  “They drove in, they wouldn’t take a bus out, would they?” Charlie asked wryly. “You are really beginning to enjoy all this, aren’t you? We haven’t sent the check in yet. It’s not too late to call the whole thing off, if that is what you really want.”

  “Haunted mansion…ghosts…things that bump you in the night, are you kidding? You know how I love that kind of thing!” Meg told her with what came dangerously close to a giggle.

  And Charlie did know. How could she forget? At eight, Meg had begun holding séances in the attic. At first she had been the only one there, until she talked her non-believing sister into attending. She remembered Meg, her head wrapped in a silk scarf she'd pilfered from their mother's dresser, concentrating on conjuring up the spirits, who had seemed totally disinterested in being conjured! Then one night, not long after they had persuaded their babysitter to let them see a Dracula movie on TV, Meg summoned up a vampire. Or thought she had.

  Charlie had never seen her so scared. And when she hadn’t been able to put her vampire back in his box, or wherever she hoped to stuff him, she asked their cook for garlic cloves. If Mrs. Porter wondered why Meg had developed a sudden craving for garlic, she never asked and, most importantly, never told their mother.

  Meg had tied the garlic in a wool scarf and wore it around her neck… night after night. Though she loved Meg dearly, she didn't love sleeping in a room that reeked of garlic! In fact, she had developed a strong dislike for Italian food that scarred her to this day…so she had decided to take charge of the situation.

  It had been a stroke of genius! She had staged the vampire’s death. At midnight, with a full moon lighting the dark deed, she’d wrestled a black yard bag full of grass clippings to the ground and thrust a wooden stake through its ‘heart’. It had all been a lot more work than she’d thought, but with Meg watching from their upstairs window, it had seemed worth it at the time. She’d spiced up the vampire’s death with a few blood-curdling shrieks that brought lights on all over the neighborhood, including their mother’s. She had been forced to lay low for what seemed like hours, before she could safely sneak back inside.

  She had expected to find Meg awaiting her conquering heroine, but had found her fast asleep, the raggedy-eared teddy bear she’d been ‘too big for lately’ clutched close to her heart. Freddie. Why hadn’t she remembered that before? Now ‘Freddie’ was a shaggy white dog, who comforted Meg and had been the catalyst in changing her life.

  “Yoo hoo! Earth to Charlie. I’m still here, remember me? Anyway, I was asking, while you weren’t listening, what do we do next?”

  She tugged a lock of Meg’s honey gold hair. “We’ve got a name now…Hensley…and a little research should give us an address.”

  A short time later, they had found out that a Walden Hensley had been one of the founding fathers of Merritsville, making his money in lumber and building his huge house in 1875 as a monument to his success. From his picture, he looked stuffy, arrogant and ruthless. His mouth had a cruel twist and his eyes seemed almost malevolent. He held a cane in his right hand like a scepter. He was someone no one would ever want to cross, both sisters thought. His wife, Ruth, was small, unsmiling and nondescript…a little colorless wren who somehow produced four strapping sons, whose parentage could never have been questioned!

  Searching the tax assessor’s online property records under the name ‘Hensley’, Charlie found the address: 3750 West Myrtle Trail. With Meg pressed close beside her, she Goggle mapped the house and brought up its satellite image. The house was enormous and surrounded by a number of outbuildings. The grounds looked wildly overgrown, but when they zoomed in for a closer look, the enlarged pixels made it impossible to see anything at all. “I suppose we should drive over there and check it out now that we know where it is,” Meg told Charlie with a sigh.

  “That would be the sensible thing to do,” Charlie agreed with a sigh of her own.

  “But if we go there, we will probably end up having more doubts than we have now.”

  “Probably.”

  “And then we’ll never do it. I vote we go ahead, as planned, and handle whatever happens,” Meg said brightly.

  Charlie sighed again. Now that Meg had given up the role of ‘devil’s advocate’, she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the change. She needed Meg to keep her grounded, since, quite probably, she wasn’t thinking too clearly just now. But the contest…the house…it all felt so right, how could it be wrong? Memories from the past ‘niggled’ briefly, but she squelched them before they took root. The past was the past and, granted, she had made her share of mistakes, but it was no use second-guessing herself at this point. “So, ’damn the torpedoes full speed ahead’?” she asked.

  “Yep! But…”

  Here goes, thought Charlie, Meg was beginning to have second thoughts before she’d even finished her first. “But what?” she managed to ask.

  “I’m fed up with men…all men, but you? You aren’t going to get involved or married or something and leave me hanging with all this?” Meg asked anxiously. “You always had a slew of guys asking you out in school, though you did turn most of them down, and you’re still attractive enough, when you don’t frown like that. I’ve always wondered why you never settled down, got married, and had a couple of kids. You’d make a great mother.”

  “Yeah, right. We both had such a great role model,” Charlie said dryly. She knew Meg was talking through her insecurities. Too many people had walked out on her in her young life, but she would never be one of them!

  “Well that takes care of the ‘kids’ part, but why never marry? You must have had your chances?” Meg persisted.

  Charlie’s eyes seemed to find som
e distant place. “I guess I’ve always been so busy looking after everyone else I didn’t have time. Besides, I wanted someone who would…could look after me. Not that I’d have let him, of course, but he would want to. That’s the point. He’d want to. And then there’s the love thing. I only came close once.” Her voice trailed away.

  “And? Who was he, Charlie?” Meg whispered, hating the pain she saw in her sister’s face.

  “His name was Paul and he’s been dead for more than three years. He was my love...still is,” Charlie said, slipping her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “And that’s a story I’ll never tell anyone.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rayne swung her long legs into the taxi, gave the driver the address and leaned back with a sigh. Just lately, the traffic, the people the noise had become, well, irritating. But there were compensations…museums, galleries, theaters, restaurants, clubs and the shopping. The fabulous shopping! But now that the initial ‘rush’ had worn off, she began to think there was someplace else she’d rather be, though she hadn’t the foggiest notion where that was.

  She laughed and the driver glanced at her, speculatively, in the rearview mirror. Out of all her siblings…half and otherwise…she was most like Charlie. They both had gypsy souls. Neither seemed able to stay in one place very long, though Charlie had been settled for the past 3 years? Now she and Meg had entered some contest to win a Victorian House of Horrors, as Meg described it in her latest letter.

  It was always Meg that wrote, keeping in touch with everyone…sort of like the family ‘town crier’. She sounded so much happier now. Apparently, the divorce had gone smoothly, though they were still trying to recover the money Mitch emptied out of their bank account on his way out of town. With no children, it would all be final soon and Meg would be free.