The Haunting

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  With the whispers stroking, pulling, and pushing at us, we staggered out the front door and collapsed on the porch.

  I waited until Lydia had caught her breath, then said, “Come to the barn with me. We’ll sleep on the straw.”

  Without a word, Lydia followed me.

  The next day we packed my belongings and moved to Lydia’s home in Baton Rouge.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  There wasn’t much more to the diary. I found a folded, yellowed sheet of paper tucked between the last pages and opened it. A grown-up Charlotte Blevins Porter had written about hiring a caretaker to keep Graymoss in good condition. Apparently Cousin Lydia had left a sizable amount of money to Charlotte when she died, and Charlotte had added to it from her own income to set up a fund to care for Graymoss.

  I have done my best to discover the answer Grandfather said I would find in Favorite Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte wrote. But, to my sorrow, I have failed. I do not understand why there is an evil presence in Graymoss. There must be a reason, as there must be a way to get rid of its terrible power. Now and then people have arrived and have tried to send the evil away, but none of them succeeded. Each of them—even a woman well practiced in voodoo magic—has fled the house in terror. Its reputation has spread, and now no one will even go near Graymoss. All I can do is arrange to keep the house as Grandfather had wanted it to be and hope that someday the evil will leave.

  I closed the diary and leaned back in the rocker. “Wow!” I said. “Mom wants to fill Graymoss with kids? She has got to read this!”

  I tried to be honest. I admitted to myself I was jealous. But was it wrong to want my parents for myself? I’d hate sharing them with a noisy pack of little kids.

  It looked as if I wouldn’t have to. I couldn’t help smiling at the situation of the ghost—or whatever it was—in the house. As far as I was concerned, the yucky old thing was welcome to Graymoss—at least for now. I’d be in my own home in Metairie with Jolie and a stack of good books.

  I could hear Mom and Grandma coming up the stairs, so I went to the top landing to meet them.

  “I think you and Derek are behaving very foolishly,” Grandma was saying, so I was afraid that Mom had won the argument.

  “We’re simply going to look at the house. That’s all,” Mom said.

  My hopes rose. That was all she needed—just look at the house … and the plaster ceiling decorations that turned into horrible faces, and feel the cold winds, and hear the voices whispering … Charlotte hadn’t told her diary if she’d ever found out the word the voices whispered, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the ghosts were going to keep Mom and Dad out of Graymoss.

  “Hi,” I said, and held out the diary. “Mom, you really need to read Charlotte’s diary.”

  Mom looked at her watch. “I will. But later, not now.”

  “No, now. Really. Before you keep making plans.”

  Mom was only half listening to me. “We’ve got so much to clean out here. People save so many, many things.” She stopped as she reached the landing and asked, “Have you read all of the diary, Lia?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Good. Then while we’re going through Sarah’s dresser drawers, why don’t you tell me what Charlotte wrote?”

  Grandma turned into the large bedroom on the right. Mom followed her, and I trailed behind.

  “I think you’d better read it yourself,” I said. I was sure that Charlotte’s own words would be more effective than any retelling I could do.

  Mom pulled out a drawer and began taking out slips and stockings and things and stacking them on the bed. “We can put these into big plastic bags,” she told Grandma, “and give them to the Goodwill.”

  “Mom …”

  She didn’t even look up. “Lia, honey, I told you I haven’t got time to read it now. You and I are flying back home tomorrow, and I want to help your grandmother as much as I can before we leave.”

  I sighed and sat on the far edge of the bed. “Okay then. I’ll tell you what Charlotte wrote. But don’t talk. Just listen.”

  Mom and Grandma didn’t say anything. They just kept shaking things out, looking them over, folding them again, and putting them in stacks.

  So I told Mom about Charlotte’s grandfather being shot and the foreman disappearing with all the family’s valuables. Then I lowered my voice and tried to sound scary as I described Charlotte’s first experience with the evil in the house.

  As I talked, Mom stopped working and looked at me. Her mouth kind of twisted, and her eyes crinkled, and when I stopped to take a breath, she burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” I really felt insulted.

  “The faces you were making,” Mom said. “When you told about the faces in the plaster moldings, you scrunched up your eyes and waggled your tongue.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, you did.” Mom came around the side of the bed and hugged me. “Lia,” she said, “you can’t possibly believe some silly tale about ghosts.”

  “Yes, I can,” I insisted. “Charlotte wrote about what she saw. And other people saw and heard the same things. Her mother’s cousin, for one, and some of their field help, and people who came to get rid of the evil.” I pulled the sheet of paper from the diary and handed it to Mom. “Just read this much. Okay?”

  Mom did. She handed the paper back to me and smiled. “There may have been some kind of mass hysteria involved,” she said. “Or rumors that everyone believed because they wanted to be frightened. I refuse to go along with this silly business about some kind of scary evil because there are no such things as ghosts. We don’t believe in them.”

  “Maybe you and Dad don’t, but—”

  Mom went on. “In any case, you can see that it was important to Charlotte that the house be well cared for. I can’t think of a better way to care for it than to fill it with love and children—children who have been unadoptable and who badly need a home and parents to love them.”

  Mom’s gaze got kind of dreamy. “Once there must have been fields at Graymoss that were productive with crops, and a vegetable garden, and fruit trees, and even a woods. It would take a lot of hard work to put things in order again, but we could give the land new life.” She clapped her hands again, which I wished she wouldn’t do because it was embarrassing behavior for a woman her age. “Your father is every bit as excited about this as I am,” she added.

  I glanced over at Grandma, who was tenderly holding a small cameo pin. She had tears in her eyes, and I realized how sad she must be to have lost her mother. For once I was on Grandma’s side. “Tell us about the evil, Grandma,” I said.

  “I told you I experienced it once. Once was enough.”

  “Then tell Mom just what it was like,” I said.

  Grandma put the cameo back in the jewelry box. “It makes no difference. Your mother’s old enough to do what she wants to, and she and Derek are bound and determined they’re going to live in Graymoss.”

  “But—”

  “They’ll live there for one night, and that’s all,” Grandma added. “One night will be enough to change their minds.”

  I persisted. “Did you hear the whispers or see the faces on the ceiling?”

  “It doesn’t matter, does it?” Grandma grumbled.

  Mom and I were both watching Grandma, and she frowned at us. “Out of curiosity I stayed in the house until it grew dark,” she said. “It was then that I felt it.”

  She stopped, so I asked, “Felt what?”

  “The chill, the strangeness, a sudden dimness. A window in the library must have opened because a wind blew through the room. It seemed to wrap around me, and I thought that I heard …” She shook her head, as though she were trying to clear her mind of unhappy memories. “Never mind. I don’t know what I heard. There’s no point in going into details. I ran from the house, jumped into my car, and drove to the nearest town. That’s it. Are you satisfied?”

  “Well, not exactly, but …” I turned
to Mom. “Now do you see?”

  “I see that my mother read Charlotte’s diary and fell under its spell. The things she expected to happen did. It’s a classic case of—”

  “Mom! Sometimes I wish you weren’t a psychologist! You try to make everything fit into a pattern. You don’t want to admit there’s an evil something haunting Graymoss, but there is!”

  Mom laughed again and scooped up an armful of Sarah’s things. “Ghosts! Creatures that go bump in the night! Boo! I’m scared!” she said. “What’s the matter with the two of you? Where’s the courageous spirit for which the women of our family have always been noted?”

  She carried the bundle of clothing downstairs, but her question remained and started me to thinking. “Grandma,” I asked, “did your mother ever visit Graymoss?”

  Grandma looked away. She seemed embarrassed. “Once or twice,” she said.

  “Great-grandmother ferried planes during World War Two, and saved somebody in Alaska during a blizzard, but she was afraid of Graymoss?”

  “She was sensible,” Grandma insisted, and loudly snapped Sarah’s jewelry box closed. “Not afraid, sensible.”

  “How about her mother—Elizabeth—who stayed in San Francisco during aftershocks and fires to help people trapped in the great earthquake? Wasn’t she brave enough to do something with Graymoss?”

  Grandma frowned at me. “Elizabeth was a legend in bravery. If she stayed away from Graymoss, she had a perfectly good reason.”

  “Charlotte didn’t go back, either,” I said. “All those brave women—except they were afraid of Graymoss.”

  “Oh, ho! And I suppose you wouldn’t be?” Grandma snapped.

  I thought a moment and smiled. “I’d be scared, all right, if what happened to Charlotte happened to me, but I want to see Graymoss, in spite of what’s there. I really do.”

  Mom walked back into the room. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Lia,” she said, “because your father and I have planned a visit to Graymoss on Saturday. I’d much rather bring you with us than leave you with Jolie’s family. I don’t want to impose on the Lynds.”

  I clutched the diary tightly and hugged it to my chest. I was going to visit the plantation where Charlotte had lived! I was going to find out if what she had written about the evil in the house was true.

  And, best of all, I wasn’t afraid—at least not runaway afraid of Graymoss like the Women Who Are Exceptionally Brave in our family—because I planned to go to the house prepared. First I would swear Jolie to secrecy. Then Jolie and I would search the Metairie Public Library for books that would tell us how to deal with ghosts.

  Mom read Charlotte’s diary in the plane on the way home. I watched her face, hoping for some sign of alarm or worry or fear. But her expression didn’t change. When she had finished reading, I clutched her arm. “Well? What do you think now about Graymoss?”

  “I’m so excited I want to sing and dance and jump up and down—right here on this plane,” Mom said.

  I groaned and looked around quickly, hoping no one had heard her. I leaned closer, lowering my voice. “Cut it out, Mom,” I said. “I mean really. What do you really think?”

  “I really am excited,” Mom said. “The interior of the house must be beautiful, with large rooms and high ceilings. And I can’t wait to see if the building itself is structurally sound. You’ve seen the drawing—the wide verandas, the tall columns. Oh, Lia! What a wonderful gift my grandmother has given me. Your Dad and I can carry out our dream.”

  It was difficult to keep back the tears. “What about me?” I demanded. “I’m part of this family, too, aren’t I? You know what I think about moving away from Jolie and living in a place full of kids. I told you when you and Dad were first talking about what you’d like to do someday.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mom said, “you may not realize it now, but you’ll be enthusiastic, too, when you discover how wonderful a big family can be.”

  “A big family in a haunted house,” I muttered.

  Mom patted my hand as though I were five years old. “Lia, dear, I see why Charlotte’s writings found a receptive audience in you. You want the house to be unlivable.”

  “No, I don’t. Well, yes, I do. I mean—”

  Mom went on. “Charlotte must have been highly imaginative, just as you are. Remember—she said she liked to pretend to see faces in the moldings?”

  “She couldn’t have imagined all that she described.”

  “Couldn’t she? She had just had a traumatic experience in seeing her beloved grandfather shot. Her parents had died, so they weren’t on hand to provide stability for her. Her cousin Lydia wasn’t the least bit sympathetic or lovable. Charlotte was vulnerable, so her overactive imagination took control.”

  I shook my head. “Then what about the workers who saw and heard what she did?”

  “That’s easy,” Mom said. “The power of suggestion.”

  “Her cousin Lydia was terrified.”

  Mom nodded. “I know. But what I don’t know was how much of the sounds and sights that frightened the poor woman were generated—probably unconsciously—by Charlotte herself.”

  I grumpily folded my arms across my chest and slid down in my seat. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  Mom was silent for a few minutes. Then she asked, “Lia, do you really want Graymoss to be ‘haunted’?”

  I could feel my face turn red. Of course I wanted Graymoss to be haunted. I wanted it to be filled with scary and weird things. I wanted Mom and Dad and me to go back to our home in Metairie and leave Graymoss alone—at least until I was grown.

  But I couldn’t tell Mom that. Instead, I muttered, “That’s a crazy question.”

  “I’ve talked about the dream your father and I have had for a long time, and I guess I’ve taken it for granted that you’re a part of that dream. Maybe I haven’t paid attention when you’ve made negative comments. I just assumed that you’d come around to our way of thinking when we eventually were able to provide a home for kids no one has wanted to adopt.”

  “How many kids are we talking about?”

  “At least a dozen. More, I hope. Eventually two dozen. I’ve talked to the right people about the idea, and if we just had the proper environment for the children—”

  I tried another argument against the idea. “It costs a lot to raise children. You’d have to be a millionaire to have enough food and clothing for so many.”

  Mom smiled. “There are government funds for adoptive parents of hard-to-place children. It’s possible that we could use those. With the legacy that comes with Graymoss and the income from Dad’s job, we could swing it.”

  My feelings spilled over, and I blurted out, “A dozen kids running and yelling and fighting and tearing up things. You’d spend all your time with them.”

  I could hear the disappointment in Mom’s voice. “The children wouldn’t be out of control. I’d be there to supervise, to set rules and boundaries, and to help them develop social skills … and, most of all, to give them some of the love and care they need. Just what I do for you.”

  I didn’t have to answer, because two flight attendants stopped at our row with their cart and everyone got busy.

  Was I so wrong because I wanted a normal life like everyone else? The food that was served sat in front of me. I bit into my sandwich, but the oversized bun was dry and tough and hard to swallow.

  I wanted to read Charlotte’s diary again, so Mom let me borrow it. I planned to read it—but only after Jolie had. Jolie came over. I told her what Mom and Dad wanted to do with Graymoss. Then I gave her the diary to read while we sat in my room. I fidgeted and squirmed while she made little noises at the scary parts, twisting her longish blond hair back and forth.

  Finally, after she’d read the entire diary, she stared at me with wide eyes and asked, “Are you really going to Graymoss on Saturday? Really?”

  “Really,” I answered.

  Jolie sighed. “I’d be too scared.”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t say I wasn’t scared of what might be in that house,” I admitted. “But I do want to find out.”

  “What if … what if the evil that hides there and comes out at night harms you?”

  “I’ll protect myself.”

  “Protect yourself against a ghost? How?”

  “That’s what I have to find out,” I said.

  “What if the evil thing hurts you first? Even kills you?” Jolie asked.

  “It can’t. Ghosts can scare, but they can’t kill people.”

  “Yes, they can,” Jolie said. “I read about it. They have records of a ghost that pushed a man over a cliff, and one who disguised himself as a woman’s husband and led her into a cave, where she fell into a pit and drowned.”

  “Ugh! Stop it!” I said, but I thought uncomfortably of Cousin Lydia and her fall on the stairs. Had she been pushed? If Charlotte hadn’t caught Lydia, what might have happened to her? I shivered.

  “Would you come to the library with me right now?” I said. “Since we’re driving to Graymoss on Saturday, I have to learn as much as I can about ghosts before then.”

  I’d expected Jolie to get excited about the ghost hunt, but instead she looked at me with tears puddling in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.

  “Oh, Lia,” she cried, “you’re my best friend. I don’t want you to move away.”

  “We won’t. When Mom and Dad find out that the house really is haunted by evil, they’ll give up their idea.”

  Jolie’s lower lip turned down. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t lose me,” I reassured her.

  Jolie nodded, the tears dropping onto her lap and making dark spots on her shorts. “But you’ll be in the house while the evil is there. Graymoss isn’t haunted by some wispy spirit in a long white dress that floats off when someone gets near,” Jolie said. “I read what Charlotte wrote, just like you did. Whatever is in that house is evil and dangerous. The people who ran away from it had good reason.”