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

by Merabeth James

  “I’ll take you to what we found down by the gates. We’ll continue to search for Meg. I know you think you have Brittany’s disappearance nailed on some stranger who picked her up near town, but it didn’t go down that way. And, Meg’s disappearance is connected. I suggest you call in whatever you have for a forensic team and get busy. Might as well start by putting that dog of yours, that I presume isn’t a mascot, to work. Charlie, get something of Meg’s and let’s see what the dog can find.” Zack said with a calmness he was far from feeling.

  Which turned out to be zip. Meg’s trail was everywhere just as she had been everywhere, while Brittany’s trail led from the bench to the house and stopped. Annie had joined the search. She seemed old and fragile for the first time. “We’ve got to be findin’ her,” she told Charlie and Zack. “She be like me own daughter. I couldn’t be bearin’ it!”

  “Zack, what are we forgetting? What is right in front of our eyes and we’re not seeing it? I can feel it…something's close. So very close,” Charlie said, as they all returned to the house.

  He didn’t know how to answer her, but he could feel it, too. Something was close…a something very dangerous.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Meg struggled awake. It was dark, her head ached and she wondered where she was. And then she remembered. With Devon. Surprisingly, the tape was off her mouth, and she opened it for her loudest scream ever, when Devon whispered close to her ear. “I wouldn’t do that. I could make your time here very unpleasant not to mention what I could put in your precious sister’s soup.”

  He was lying on the bed next to her with his head propped up on one elbow. She could feel the heat from him seeping through the blanket. “You wouldn’t!” she told him with an emphatic shake of her head. Which really hurt! She’d have to remember not to do that again.

  “You really don’t think I would, do you? You don’t believe I killed anyone, but I did. We have time for me to tell you exactly the what, how and why, Meg.

  “You see, this isn’t the first time I’ve been back home. I came here three years ago. I missed my sister. It was like a hollowness inside my very soul, where she used to be. Amazingly, I still had a soul back then or half a one. I remember being shocked at how the place looked, a tangle of weeds and ruins. I knew they were both still alive…had asked in town…and wondered who would be the one to answer the door. . What would they say when they saw their son after almost forty years? The one they thought was dead.

  “She answered the door…mother. She blinked several times and then her mouth twisted in that way she had. She knew me. ‘Hello, Mother,’ I said, 'will we be having the ‘fatted calf’ for lunch?’ She was unamused, but then I don’t remember her ever being otherwise. She would have closed the door in my face, but I pushed past her. Then looked at her. Really looked at her! The fastidious ‘Lady of the Manor’ was unkempt would be the kindest way to phrase it.

  "I found Father in the kitchen asleep at the table. He was an old man…shrunken like a badly washed wool sweater…wizened. His mouth gaped open. A dribble of spit made its way past his loud grunting snores. Lord Hensley, I knew what the servants had called him, a molester of children, murderer of women and father of me.

  “I sat next to him and watched a fly crawl across his face. The room grew dark and still I watched. I could have awakened him, but I wanted that moment, between dreams and reality, when he didn’t know which one I was.

  “Then he stirred and smacked his lips and opened his eyes. They widened and widened and I said, ’Surprise, Father. It’s not a nightmare. It’s your ‘Disappointment’ back for a visit.”

  “That moment wasn’t nearly as gratifying, as I had dreamed it would be. I could see a slyness come into his eyes. I asked him then where my sister was. His expression shifted from crafty to terrified…then sad…then angry. It was hard to keep up. Hatred and anger won the battle. He shouted as loud as he could, ‘What are doing here? Going to piss your pants again?’

  “It seems he never forgot that one time. I would have killed him then, but he hadn’t answered me. I needed to know where Breanna was and he was the only one who could tell me. Mother came in then and I watched them whisper together, then I left the kitchen and took the back stairs to my old room.

  “It was stripped bare except for my butterfly cases. I loved to collect beautiful things, mostly butterflies and moths. Breanna hated it, but she still went with me at night to stalk the giant silk moths. Have you ever seen a lunar moth, Meg? All pale green, quite large and oh so lovely,” he told her as he stroked one finger, softly, along her jaw line.

  “I’m not a moth, Devon, please let me go,” she begged desperately.

  “You’d make a lovely moth, Meg…just lovely,” he whispered softly, as his warm breath fanned her cheek.

  “Then you’d pin me through my heart and let me mummify in a glass case? Thanks but no thanks!”

  “Did you know that my father’s cane has a hidden sword? Of course, you didn’t know, how could you? He told me he used it to pin his collection through their hearts. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe, in my case, it didn’t fall at all.”

  She searched his eyes for mercy and found only a cold detachment, as he continued in a silken whisper, “I was telling you about my room when we got off on a tangent. As I said, it had been purged of any trace of me, but Breanna’s room was just as she left it. I pulled off the dustsheet that covered the bed and stretched out. I called to her. Begged her to haunt me. I stayed in her room…hung her portrait over the mantle and waited.

  “I would hear him come down the hall some nights…the thump…thump…thump of his cane. No longer an affectation or a conceit. He needed it now. I wanted him to open that door. What a surprise he’d have, I thought. I had taken to wearing Breanna’s clothes. Not that they fit. But they made me feel like I was a part of her again. That I was whole!

  “I was there nearly a week, when I found him drunk in the kitchen. In the shadows…in her clothes…I must have looked enough like her to make him believe she was back. ‘Go away,’ he screamed. ‘Leave be!’ With prompting of one kind or another…I’ll spare you the details…I pieced together what had happened to my sister.

  “But as a prelude to that, I’ll tell you about that last night. We were out together in the moonlight as we often were when we were younger, but that night we were making our final plans to leave forever. I had stolen enough money to get us a start somewhere else, anywhere else, when we saw him cutting through the brush, stealthy as a cat. There had been two girls murdered and another one missing. We knew he was capable of anything. Even that. We followed him to the ruins of the old Brent Farm. We saw him down in the cellar with Terri, Breanna’s latest missing friend, but he saw us, too. I shoved Breanna ahead of me and told her to run.

  “But he caught me and pulled me down into the cellar. Told me he would make a man of me yet…told me to rape her. I threw up and he hit me with his cane until I lost consciousness. When I came to, the cellar was empty and I went to look for Breanna. I found her locket lying in the dirt, but I never saw her again. Not until the night of your séance, Meg. Which was why I agreed to attend. She hadn't come when I called her, begged her, but she came for you.

  “Sitting in the kitchen forty years later, he told me he would never have harmed her, but she ran from him and fell. Hit her head on a rock. He buried her in her white dress…the one he made his victims wear before he raped them with his cane. His cane. The symbol of Hensley power. It had belonged to his father and his father before him. He used it to assault them over and over… brutally…viciously. But he wouldn’t tell me where he buried Breanna. It was his last pathetic victory over me.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police and tell them everything and why did you run?” Meg asked because she had to know.

  “Simple, really. He told me that he would tell the cops that I was the guilty one if I breathed a word about what he had done. And they would have believed him. He had that mu
ch power in town and my own reputation…whether earned or not. would have sealed my fate. I still had the cash I’d stolen and I hitched a ride with a nice elderly gentleman right outside of town. He was headed for the east coast and glad of the company.

  “I asked Father why he had done the things he had done and I can remember what he said even now. He said, ’I had to…had to or I would have raped my own daughter! May the devil take my soul.

  “I remember murmuring ‘He already has’ but I made the mistake of getting too close and he saw it was me. Even after three years I remember his words. He screamed at me, ‘It’s you, is it? Dressed up like the sissy girl you’ve always been. I hated you for not being the son I wanted and I hated you even more for being what your sister wanted. You should have stayed dead. I was glad when your body came back. Glad do you hear me!’

  “I snapped his neck. and left him slumped over the table, then went to look for her. She was in her room with the drapes pulled. In the dim light she looked like her old self. She knew I wasn’t Breanna. ‘Leave me alone, Devon!’ she said. ‘What did you know?’ I asked her. I came closer and closer and could hear her breath quickening…the thud …thud ..thud of her old heart. ‘What did you know, Mother?’ I asked again. Finally, she screamed it. ‘I didn’t want to know. I took a pill and went to sleep. What your father did, I didn’t want to know.’

  "So I said, ‘But you did. You knew he went to my sister’s room and you did nothing.’

  “I’ll never forget what she said, ’For goodness sake, Devon. He was impotent! What real harm could he have done? And he left me in peace. I gave him his ‘heirs’ and wished him luck with you. After that, what he did with you both was out of my hands!’

  “‘And heart, I told her, if you ever had one.’ Then I killed her, too. Then hanged their bodies from the banister with a suicide note…a rather short, but romantic one. After that, I stayed around until the grocery boy…who knew they even had one!…made his fortnight delivery. I left the back way, when he came through the house. But I would have left anyway. I was beginning not to like the night at Hensley Hall…began to believe he was trying to come back, but told myself I was being paranoid. There couldn’t be such things as ghosts or Breanna would have come to me when I begged her to.

  “I had been living as Breanna, by then, for several weeks and it gave me comfort. Made me feel complete. So I began a new life and Anna Banner was born. I lived as her for three years, going from place to place, finally, working for Mrs. Stanford, where I ‘inherited’ Tavish after she died. I even worked at a she-male club for a short time, was a little long in the tooth for it, but I had talent and I learned a lot about reinventing myself into whoever I needed to be.

  “I needed ‘Anna O’Leary’ and that is how we ended up here, Meg. Lying next to each other in the same bed,” he laughed mockingly. "The pity is I cannot love you as you need to be loved. I am way too damaged, because of what I’ve done. What I’ve become. A monster in my own right. You are my heart, Meg. Breanna was my soul.“

  Meg had listened with a mixture of horror and empathy. Empathy won out. “They were the monsters, not you!” she said with tears running down her face. “Tell me about Cloud? You had Breanna’s locket so you must have buried it with him under the rose bushes. Why?”

  He smiled wistfully. “Father killed him because he no longer had Breanna to protect him. He threw his body behind the tool shed and I found him there. I loved that old cat. I buried him with Breanna’s locket and a lock of my own hair so he wouldn't be alone. It felt like I was burying them both, when I shoveled the dirt over him.

  “My father was, and is, an evil…evil man. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that dead my father would be even more powerful than he was when alive. Your séance proved that. And even more unfortunately, his evil has the power to infect me. I have to go fix Charlie and Zack some supper. I hate to sedate you again so soon, but you know the alternative. Same choice as before?”

  She couldn’t do more than nod and swallowed the bitter draught with a shudder.

  “Good night, Meg,” he said tenderly, stroking her hair as he waited for sleep to claim her. “You really are the only woman I have ever loved since my sister. I love you for your warmth, your tender heart and your nurturing spirit. We had fun, didn't we Meg? You loved Annie, I know you did.”

  "I did love Annie and I…."

  "No, don't say it! You only pity me and I don't want that from you!" he told her fiercely.

  Meg groaned. Her first and only secret admirer was a "weird duck" with a 'mother complex', but she really did love Annie and now Devon, not as a mother but as his friend…someone she could never turn her back on.

  ***

  Charlie was huddled at the kitchen table with Zack sitting next to her, as Annie brought them a fresh pot of coffee. “Looks like you two won’t be touchin’ a bite, though you should. You need to be keepin’ your strength up. For Meggie’s sake.”

  Charlie threw back her head and screamed, “I know that, Annie! Dear God, I would trade places with her this minute if I could! I would move heaven and hell for my sister and that’s what’s so awful. Not knowing what I can do. Just sitting here… waiting! Waiting for what? She could be hurt….someone could be hurting her right now and I can’t do a damned thing about it!”

  Zack put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t beat yourself up, Charlie. You’re doing all that’s humanly possible. Chief Beasely is looking for both of them. I’m trying to trace Adrian. He’s the only possibility we have at the moment.”

  “Annie, I’m so sorry. I’m not being rational. I just feel like I…” She began to cry, great wracking sobs and Zack pulled her into his arms. “It’s all my fault. None of this should have happened. She didn’t want to do this in the first place. I should have listened to her, Zack!”

  “Remember you asking me about fate? This all was supposed to happen, though for the life of me I don’t know why,” he told her.

  “But it’s not your life that’s at stake here. It’s Meg! She’s so helpless…so Meg. I’ve always been there to protect her.”

  “I think you underestimate your sister, Charlie. I know we will find her and she will be okay.”

  Annie sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I have one of me feelings that she’ll be just fine. God help anyone who would hurt me Meg. If you don’t mind, I’ll be gettin’ on home now. It’s been a long and terrible day.”

  “Thank you for all your help, Annie. I don’t know what we would do without you. I know Meg feels the same way. Hope you feel better in the morning.”

  “I’ll take a bit of supper back with me if you won’t be eatin’ it. Me stomach is feelin’ less rumbly and I might take a bite later on. Good night,” Annie told them, as she loaded a basket and headed toward the door.

  Zack stopped her. “I’m not letting you go out there alone. I’ll walk you to your door and see you safely inside.”

  “Such a gentleman and me thinkin’ you be the very devil himself. Who’d be wantin’ the likes of me, but if you insist, I won’t be turnin’ you down. Fair gives me the shivers to be out in the dark these days.”

  As Charlie waited for Zack to return, she picked up her revolver from the table. What had happened to Meg so quickly that she didn’t have time to fire off a shot…hadn’t apparently even touched the gun? She had locked the door. She’d heard her. Was someone already in the house? They’d made sure everything was secured last night before they went to bed, but if someone wanted in….really wanted in…it would be hard to stop them.

  Freddie whined and Charlie looked at him. He seemed lost without Meg. They had tried having him track her, but it was hopeless. He had led them a merry chase everywhere. Mostly after squirrels. “Freddie, we’ll find her. She’ll be okay. We just haven’t looked in the right place yet.”

  Zack opened the door and came in. “You were saying?”

  “I was telling Freddie we haven’t looked in the right place yet. I was also wondering if someone had bro
ken in over night and been waiting till we left Meg alone. I’m going to check the house over again and see if there is any way someone might have gotten in.”

  “And I’m coming with you. You are not leaving my sight until all this is over. I almost lost you once and I won’t let it happen again,” he said as he moved to her side.

  “Always a passing hint…an oblique reference. Who are you?” Charlie found herself asking.

  “Is it really the time for this?” he asked, raising one dark brow.

  “Maybe the best time of all. I need something to keep me from going mad. I repeat. Who are you?”

  “I was there the night Paul was killed. On the opposite side…under cover. I saw him go down and I saw you cover his body with your own. There were bullets flying everywhere and you didn’t give ground. It was the bravest thing I ever saw," he told her, watching her, hating the pain he saw in her eyes…knowing he had just reopened a wound that hadn't healed.

  "But it didn't save him, did it? He still died. I should have been able to do more," she said in little more than a whisper.

  "I was there, remember? There was nothing more you or anyone else could have done. It was a miracle you weren't killed, too. I was a friend of Paul’s. He often talked about you…that you were working together and had fallen in love. Not a very wise thing to do.”

  “We knew that but…”

  “I know. He had plans for a life with you. I envied him with all my heart. Then that night, the good guys, if there are any in our line of work, rescued you and led me away in handcuffs. I never saw you again until I arrived here.”

  “Then you aren’t here by chance?” she asked.

  “Fate. Remember? What are the odds that I would ever find you again? Yet here we are,” he replied.

  “And in the middle of a very big mess. I think I do remember you. Dressed in your usual black. One of the bad guys. It was your smile I remember and your eyes. But you were the enemy….a drug dealer no less,” she said, trying to smile.