The Haunting

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “What do you mean by that, sir?” Grandfather demanded.

  “I mean those valuables could set a man up for a better life—one in which he wouldn’t be turned away from a dinner table because he wasn’t good enough.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “I’m just making a point, so to speak,” Mr. Slade said, and his narrowed cat eyes swept the room, coming to rest once more on the candelabra. “You—with your elegant house and fancy furniture and rows of expensive wines in your fine cellar—might not understand how a man with a simple life might feel. Someone like me should be treated with respect, too.…”

  I was shocked and horrified at Mr. Slade’s rudeness. “This is my birthday dinner, sir,” I told him. “It’s my own wish that my Grandfather and I share it in private.”

  The cat eyes turned on me as he smiled, It wasn’t a pleasant smile. It was so evil that I trembled. “Be careful, Miss,” he said. “You’re a treasure, too, and when men are at war anything is fair game.”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Slade,” Grandfather ordered. “Please leave this house.” Grandfather’s eyes blazed as he watched Mr. Slade saunter out of the room.

  With gallantry Grandfather seated me and filled my plate. It was difficult, but we pretended nothing unpleasant had happened and we were having a lovely celebration.

  I am afraid of Mr. Slade. He surely doesn’t mean us well. Now I fear he’ll do exactly as he threatened and steal everything of value in our house. How should we protect ourselves against him? I can’t think of a single way to do so.

  I dropped the book to my lap and grumbled aloud, “Morgan Slade, you were a rat!” But I picked up the diary again. I had to find out what happened.

  There was another, longer break in the diary. Charlotte’s next entry upset me more.

  Today was one of the worst days in my life. Old Glen Harper, who works on the Robeson plantation upriver, rode by to tell us that the Union Army was on its way.

  I saw Mr. Harper arrive, his horse all in a lather. I had been working in the vegetable garden, and I came running up to the house. I knew something must be wrong. Grandfather sent Mr. Harper on his way to warn others, then told me the news.

  “What shall we do?” I cried.

  Grandfather wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. “We knew the army would be coming,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to take care of you.”

  I realized his coat was torn at the shoulder, and the sleeve and front were spotted with a white powder. I stepped back to take a good look at him and saw a bruise on his cheek. “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “Slade attacked me,” Grandfather said. “He was running away and taking our family valuables with him. Your mother’s jewelry was in his pocket, and he carried a bag with the silver, too. The last thing he said to me was that he, and not I, would enjoy what remained of my wine.”

  Grandfather paled, and I felt him tremble. “Slade intended to take you, too, Charlotte,” he said quietly and shook his head sadly. But his eyes looked determined.

  I gasped in fear, but Grandfather stroked my hair back from my forehead and murmured, “Dear little granddaughter, I would not allow anything so vile to happen to you. Slade and I came to an understanding. He can keep the valuables—they are of no real importance—and he will not harm you.”

  I felt physically ill at Slade’s villainy. As Grandfather stepped back, his hands reassuringly on my shoulders, I saw an excited, almost frantic look in his eyes.

  “There’s a great deal I must tell you,” he said. “But not now. With the Federals so close by, it’s better if you do not know the answers yet.”

  “What answers?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

  Grandfather held out a book to me and said, “Keep this, Charlotte. Take good care of it.” It was his book of tales by Edgar Allan Poe.

  I stared at the book, familiar with its soft leather binding. The top of a bookmark protruded. Unfortunately, at the time I was not curious enough to open the book and note the page. I said, “You are being very puzzling, Grandfather. I asked you questions, and you gave me only this book as your answer.”

  “You’ll understand soon enough, Charlotte,” he explained. “If anything should happen to me … well, the answers to your questions are in these pages.”

  We could hear the thunder of hoofbeats on the road, and I cried out. I dropped the book into a pocket of my apron and clung to Grandfather.

  A small detachment of Union Army soldiers raced through our gate and up to the house. These were not professional soldiers in control. They were ragtag, and I fear that a few of them had been drinking. Three of the men waved guns. Some of them yelled and whooped. One held high a burning torch. It was a fearful sight.

  “Burn the house!” one of the men shouted.

  But the officer in charge held up a hand and reined in his horse. The men stopped their horses behind him. “You, sir,” the officer said to Grandfather. “Are you the landowner here?”

  “I am,” Grandfather said.

  “Is there anyone inside your house?”

  I couldn’t bear to see them burn our home. I have never been so terrified in my life. I burst into tears. Grandfather reached into the inside breast pocket of his coat—for his handkerchief, I am sure—but one of the soldiers raised his gun and fired.

  Grandfather clutched his chest and dropped to the ground.

  The officer yelled at his men, but I paid him no attention. I rushed to Grandfather, holding him in my arms, trying to lift his head from the sharp gravel on the drive. “Don’t die!” I sobbed. “Please don’t leave me! I need you, Grandfather!”

  “The house,” he whispered. “Charlotte, you must—”

  His words stopped as blood bubbled up in his throat. Sobbing, I finished what he had wanted to say. “I must save the house. Yes, Grandfather, I will save the house.”

  Somehow I managed to lay him down gently and climb to my feet. My dress and apron were stained with dirt and blood, but I pulled myself as tall as I could stand and looked into the eyes of the army officer. “You have killed an innocent man who would have done you no harm,” I told him. “That was not an act of war. You and your men are nothing better than drunken murderers.”

  The soldier who had shot Grandfather spoke up. “I thought he was reachin’ for a gun.”

  “My grandfather was the only family I had left,” I said to the officer. “You’ve taken him away from me. Are you going to take my home away, too?”

  The officer looked troubled. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “They were killed in an accident two years ago.”

  “You have no other relatives?”

  “A distant cousin of my mother’s who lives in Baton Rouge,” I replied.

  The worry lines on his face deepened. “This cousin—will she take you in? I have a daughter your age. You can’t stay here alone.”

  I glared at him with all my might, and I hoped he could feel my hatred. “My age doesn’t matter,” I said. “I will send for my mother’s cousin, but until she comes I can do whatever is needed. I beg you to grant me this one reprieve. Do not burn my home, sir. There is nothing valuable inside. That has all been stolen already. Just leave the house standing.

  The men looked from me to their officer. I stood still, waiting patiently while he frowned, his anguished thoughts showing on his face.

  “Leave the house be. Ride on,” he called to his men. He spurred his horse and headed for the road.

  Some of the soldiers grumbled their dissatisfaction, but they wheeled their horses and rode after him.

  “I hope you are sorry for the horrible crime you have committed,” I shouted as a fresh wave of anger boiled up within my heart, but of course they couldn’t hear me.

  As soon as the men had ridden out of sight I ran to Grandfather, cradled his head in my arms, and cried until dry sobs shook my body and there w
ere no mate tears.

  Some of our farm help had come out of hiding, waiting patiently until my storm had passed. They moved forward, helping me to rise. They lifted Grandfather’s body, carried it into the house, and placed it on his bed.

  After what Grandfather had told me, I was desperately afraid of Slade. “Is Mr. Slade gone?” I asked.

  “There’s been no sign of Mr. Slade since earlier this mornin’,” John answered.

  “Was he here when Mr. Harper arrived with the news?”

  “No’m. As I said, we haven’t seen him since this mornin’.”

  I glanced at the top of Grandfather’s dresser. Normally it held a carved wooden box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The box was gone. So was the pair of oil lumps with silver and teak bases.

  I left the bedroom and walked down the stairs, going from room to room. All the silver was gone, as was the crystal. Heartsick, I realized that Mr. Slade had done just as he had threatened. He’d stolen all our family treasures and mementoes. I hated him all the more.

  Upstairs, my mother’s jewelry box had vanished, and with it her silver-backed brush, mirror, and comb.

  I checked the barn and discovered that Mr. Slade hadn’t taken our buggy or his horse. I didn’t understand his thinking. All I could deduce was that he had been afraid of meeting up with Union soldiers on the road and had cut through the woods on foot. I sent John to ride to Baton Rouge to inform my mother’s cousin, Lydia Hartwell, that Grandfather was dead and I had need of her help.

  I went back upstairs, washed Grandfather’s body with warm water and soap, and dressed him in his best suit of clothes. Then I washed myself from head to foot and changed into clean clothing. The bloody dress and apron I had worn I threw into the fireplace in my bedroom and lit the kindling to start the fire. Clothing was hard to come by, but I could never wear that dress again.

  At the last moment, just as the fabric began to smolder, I remembered the book tucked inside the pocket of my apron. I pulled at a corner of the apron, dragging it from the flames, and quickly tugged the book from its pocket. I tossed the apron back into the fire and stamped out the few sparks that burned on the hearth.

  One corner of the book’s cover had been singed, and it smelled of smoke. The bookmark had fallen out and was gone. But I carried the book to the window and looked through it carefully, page by page. I think I had hoped that if Grandfather had meant to give me a message in the book he would have hidden a scrap of paper within its pages. Or perhaps he had underlined words in a type of code. But I could find nothing. Perhaps the page in which the bookmark rested had contained the clue I needed. But through my carelessness I had lost the bookmark and had no way of knowing on which page it had rested.

  In the waning light of the day I sat in Grandfather’s bedroom with my mother’s prayer book open in my hands and tried to pray for Grandfather’s soul, as was right and proper. But shadows grew deeper, and the house seemed to be filling with soft and secret sounds. I lit a lamp, then leaned back in the chair, hoping for a few moments of rest and peace. But as I glanced upward, the designs in the molding turned into tiny faces with mean mouths and hard eyes. Unable to look away, I glimpsed sharp teeth and tongues that curled and split like serpents’ tongues. A breeze lifted the curtains at the window, hissing frigid air into the room. The little eyes narrowed, and the. tongues waggled, whispering words I didn’t want to hear. A horrible sense of evil wrapped around me, twisting about my throat.

  I tried to breathe, but I was suffocating. I gasped. I panted. With all my strength I clutched the arms of the chair and thrust myself upward, yelling, choking, coughing.

  Whatever courage I had was completely gone. Aching with shame, I knew that I would be unable to do the proper thing and sit with Grandfather’s body. I couldn’t stay in this house alone another minute. I tore down the stairs and out through the back door with whispers twining around my legs and shadowy fingers plucking at my hair and arms.

  That night I slept in the barn.

  There was more in the diary about Graymoss and about Placide Blevins’s funeral and about Cousin Lydia Hartwell, who was a dumpling-shaped, humorless, elderly widow who unenthusiastically and out of duty, according to Charlotte, offered her a home.

  What has happened to Graymoss? In the daylight my home seems as warm and welcoming as it has always been. But at night strange, unearthly things happen. Freezing winds blow through the house, doorknobs rattle and turn, and voices hiss and whisper around me. They are saying something—some word repeated over and over—but I can’t make it out. I don’t want to. All this is not my imagination. Until Cousin Lydia arrived, I made the barn my sleeping quarters.

  The few workers who had stayed with our family thought I had become unsettled because of losing Grandfather. They didn’t believe me when I told them what I had seen and heard. At their urging, I arranged for Grandfather’s immediate burial in the family crypt, hoping that they were right in telling me that soon all the bad feelings in the house would be gone.

  That night I tried going to bed in the house again, but once more the eyes goggled at me and the mouths opened in whispers, ravings, and screams. I grabbed my quilt and, barefoot, ran to the barn.

  Amos, the tall, strapping fellow who grooms the horses and drives the carriage, told me that he would prove to me that what I heard and saw was only in my mind. I could stay in the barn that night, and he would sleep in the house.

  With all my heart I hoped he was right. But it didn’t surprise me when not long after nine o’clock Amos flung the back door open and came tearing down the steps, yelling so loudly that some of the others came running.

  Amos shook as he talked and hung on to a fence rail for support. “Miss Charlotte is right! There’s somethin’ horrible inside that housed he cried.

  “Ghosts?” somebody asked.

  “Worse than ghosts,” Amos answered. “And there was a voice sayin’ somethin’.”

  “What did it say?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Amos said. “I didn’t stay long enough to make it out.”

  Bill and Peter glanced at the house with interest. Peter took a step toward it.

  “Don’t you try goin’ in there, ’less you want your heart scared right out of your body,” Amos warned.

  But Bill grinned, and Peter laughed. “Mr. Blevins was a good man,” Bill said. “We don’t expect his ghost to harm us none.”

  “It’s not Grandpa’s ghost!” I insisted. “It’s something else—an evil, horrible presence.”

  Bill chuckled. “This is somethin we gotta see,” he said. “Might be a story worth talkin’ about for years to come.”

  He and Peter walked through the open back door of the house and shut it behind them while the rest of us watched.

  We didn’t have long to wait before they came running out of the house, colliding with each other in the doorway, struggling to escape. Their faces were twisted in fear, and all they could say was, “Amos was right. Stay away from that place.”

  John arrived the following afternoon with Cousin Lydia in her buggy. She looked the house over and declared that it was a fine specimen of Greek Revival and, if enough good help could be obtained, she wouldn’t object at all to moving to Graymoss to live.

  I tried to explain about the evil that crept into the house each evening as daylight ended, but it didn’t do any good. Lydia was horrified at the idea of sleeping in the barn and insisted on sleeping in the house in a proper bed. I warned her again of what to expect, but she sighed, rolling her eyes. “This is what comes of the books you are reading,” she said. “Make-believe tales and stories are not the proper thing for young ladies to put into their impressionable young minds.”

  She took possession of Poe’s book, “for your own good,” as she said, and hid it somewhere within the house.

  I didn’t search for it. In a way I was glad not to have the book near me. It seemed, in some strange way, to be tied into the terror and evil that had taken over Graymoss.

 
That night, as darkness crept across the land, I lit every candle and lamp within the house, hoping to keep the evil at bay. Lydia scoffed at my “wastefulness,” snuffing out as many candles as she could reach. She led the way upstairs, insisting that she had had an exhausting day so we would retire early.

  As she reached the third stair from the top, her legs suddenly shot out from under her and she tumbled backward. Bracing myself against the banister, I broke her fall, and we sat on the stairs together, both of us shaking like saplings in a strong wind.

  “The lamp!” she cried.

  “It’s still in your hand,” I reassured her. “The oil didn’t even spill.”

  Lydia looked at me strangely. “The stairs are too highly polished. They’re slippery.”

  I shook my head. “They haven’t been polished for over a year. We don’t have enough help, and I’ve been working in the fields, so I haven’t had time.”

  Lydia took a couple of deep breaths and pulled herself to her feet. “Be careful,” she said, and led the way to the upstairs hallway, taking one deliberate step at a time. What happened to Lydia to make her fall? I have no idea.

  When I reached my bedroom I didn’t undress. I didn’t even remove my shoes. I sat in the small lady’s slipper chair near the fireplace and waited, ready to flee the house. From the next room I could hear Lydia’s rhythmic snoring.

  Then I began to hear something else. I could hear the whispers curling around the banisters and up the stairway, creeping down the hallway and sliding under the door of my room. The faces in the moldings pinched themselves into shapes that were even more horrifying than before and waggled their split tongues at me. The whispers became words, wrapping around me, but I was too frightened to listen and understand them.

  I jumped to my feet just as a horrible scream shook the house. The whispers quivered in the air and withdrew with tiny chuckles, as Lydia slammed open her bedroom door. Racing to join her in the hallway, we nearly collided. She wrapped me in a stranglehold, her eyes so wide and fearful, they were almost rolled back in her head.

  “Down the stairs!” I shouted at her, struggling to break from her grasp. “Come with me! Come!”