The Haunting

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  Mom faced Mrs. Lord, eye-to-eye. “Can you give me the name of one single person who died of fright in this house?”

  For just an instant Mrs. Lord stopped behaving like a commanding general. “In my research I was unable to find any documentation of the deaths. However—”

  Mom wasn’t about to give up. “Then can you tell me the names of those who have seen or heard this evil and are able to describe it to me?”

  Mrs. Lord sucked in her breath, her chest heaving like an inflating balloon, and a smug smile spread across her lips. She looked at her grandson. “Tell her, Jonathan,” she said. “Tell Mrs. Starling exactly what you went through.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  We all turned to stare at Jonathan, who didn’t seem to mind a bit. He even took a step forward. “I hope you understand I was just a kid when it happened,” he said. “I was ten—almost eleven—and some of the guys started daring each other about who was brave enough to spend a night in the haunted house … uh, Graymoss, that is. And, well, you know how kids are.”

  Jonathan didn’t begin his story by talking to all of us, as most people would. He directed what he said to Mom, as if she were the only one who needed to be convinced. For a few seconds I sort of wondered why, but I soon forgot everything else but Jonathan’s story.

  “Some of the guys came with me, but only as far as the gate. It was locked, so I climbed over and walked up the road to the house. Twice, strands of moss hung so low from the oak branches that they swept across my face, and I jumped and yelped.

  “Luckily I had a flashlight, because it was awfully dark, with the moon mostly behind the clouds. The flashlight kept me from catching a foot in some of the nits in the road.”

  Jonathan paused and grinned, ducking his head. “I was glad I had that light in any case, because I was really scared. I mean, there’d been a lot of talk about strange stuff going on around the house at night, and my friends weren’t any help. They had a lot of fun scaring me before I left them to start up the road. As I came close to the house it loomed up like a monster. I stood just outside the veranda and almost stopped breathing as I stared into the windows for a long time. I just listened and waited.”

  Jonathan stopped talking for a moment, and I couldn’t stand it. “What did you see in the house? Were there lights? Faces? What?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lia,” Mom said firmly. “I think we’ve heard enough of the story for now.”

  “Please let him finish,” Mrs. Lord said. “Go ahead, Jonathan.”

  “Sure,” Jonathan said, and glanced quickly at his grandmother. “It’s just that when I think about it … well, sometimes I …” He looked back at Mom, took a deep breath, and continued. “I walked up on the veranda, slow and careful. I didn’t want to make any more noise than I had to.

  “I tried the front door, but it was locked. I knew it would be. So then I walked around to the back of the house and tried the kitchen door. It was locked, too. There were dark shapes around me that I couldn’t figure out. I was really scared.”

  He cleared his throat. “I almost gave up and went home right then, but I saw that a window next to the kitchen door was open about an inch. I tried it and noticed that the lock was broken. I pushed it open and climbed through.

  “I used my flashlight to make my way through the kitchen into some of the other rooms. I looked around for something comfortable. I mean, if I had to spend the night, I didn’t want to be crammed into some hard chair. There was a big wing chair in a room with a lot of books in shelves along one side—”

  “The library,” I interrupted.

  “I guess you could call it a library,” Jonathan said. “I sat down and turned out my flashlight because I didn’t think the batteries would last all night long. I knew I’d better save them in case of an emergency. The house was dark and quiet, and I started getting sleepy. Then all of a sudden a book came flying out of nowhere and hit my leg.”

  Jonathan’s eyes widened and he leaned forward. “Nobody else was in the house, just like I said, but something threw a book at me.”

  “What book was it?” I whispered. I held tightly to the gris-gris and to the Favorite Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “It doesn’t matter, does it? What I’m saying is that something threw that book, and then all sorts of things started happening.”

  “I don’t think—” Mom began.

  “Tell them, Jonathan,” Mrs. Lord said, looking even more pleased with herself.

  “Okay. There was a kind of wind that blew through the room. I knew that there wasn’t even a breeze that night, let alone something stronger. Then I heard whispering, like someone was saying a certain word over and over and over.”

  I gasped and managed to ask, “What word?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mom said. “Let’s drop this story right now.”

  But Jonathan acted as if he didn’t hear Mom. He said to me, “I don’t know what the word was. I probably could have figured it out if I’d listened carefully, but I didn’t try because I made the mistake of shining the beam of my flashlight up to the ceiling. That’s when I nearly dropped dead of fright, because there were all these horrible heads making faces at me—sticking out their tongues and whispering. I jumped up and ran back to the kitchen, and all the way I could feel something like fingers pulling at my face and hair.”

  Mom’s nose and cheeks had turned pink, and her eyes sparked with anger. I knew she was having trouble keeping her feelings under control. She stepped up to face Jonathan, who gulped and stepped back. “Let me guess what comes next. You climbed out of the window and ran home.”

  Jonathan nodded. “That’s about it.”

  “And told your story to your grandmother.”

  “And to my parents and my friends. I guess I told it to anyone who’d listen.”

  I suppose Mom could see that Jonathan had thought we’d be an eager audience because he looked puzzled and hurt that she hadn’t appreciated his story. She softened and even managed a smile. “Jonathan,” she said. “You were ten years old at the time.”

  He sounded defensive. “Old enough to know and remember what I saw.”

  “Of course you were,” Mom said. “But you had heard the stories about the house over and over before that night, hadn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you said that your grandmother had told you what Charlotte had written in her diary.”

  “That’s right. Are you trying to tell me I imagined everything I saw and heard?”

  “You were swept into your experience through the power of suggestion. You were frightened. You were receptive. You saw and heard and felt exactly what had been described to you.”

  “It really happened,” Jonathan insisted.

  “You think it did,” Mom said, firmly but gently.

  Now it was Jonathan’s turn to get exasperated. “What’s the difference between it happened and thinking it happened?”

  “One’s based in reality. One isn’t,” Mom explained.

  “I still don’t—”

  “Thinking it happened, when it didn’t, affects only you,” Mom said. “It means the experience won’t be repeated by others.”

  “But there were others.”

  Mom’s voice had a calm, patient tone. I hated it when she was deliberately calm and patient with me, and I knew Jonathan probably didn’t like it either. “The bottom line, Jonathan, is that we don’t believe in ghosts,” Mom said.

  She turned to Mrs. Lord, who had stopped looking smug, and told her, “We can’t be frightened away from Graymoss. We have great plans for it. When the house has been modernized, with new paint and wallpaper, and we’ve moved in with our daughter and new family of adopted children, Derek and I hope that you’ll come to visit.”

  Mrs. Lord’s face twisted painfully. “This house could provide a treasure trove of history.”

  Mom smiled broadly. “This house will provide a home for our wonderful children.”
/>   How about me? I thought. Why doesn’t it matter what I think?

  Mrs. Lord hadn’t given up. She got busy telling Mom something, so I nudged Jonathan and said in a low voice, “Would you please show me the window with the broken lock?”

  We worked our way back to the kitchen, which was bright with noon sunlight. Every crack in the plastered walls and every smudge on the fireplace stood out in detail. The large room had cupboards on its outside wall, and three doors on the wall that faced it. “I wish there was food in this place,” Jonathan said. “I’m hungry.” He opened a door to a pantry lined with shelves, but the shelves were empty.

  “I’m hungry, too,” I answered.

  The door to the butler’s pantry stood open, but the third door was shut. I tried the handle, but it was locked.

  Jonathan nodded toward the low hum of voices in the entry hall. “If they’re going to be talking for a while, we could borrow Grandma’s car and get something to eat. Would you like that?”

  “I don’t think my parents will let me. We were about to drive to Baton Rouge,” I said.

  The moment the words were out of my mouth I wanted to bang my head against the wall. What was the matter with me? Why couldn’t I be cool and smiling and say, “Sure.” I don’t think my parents will let me … I sounded like I was five years old.

  “Okay,” Jonathan said as if he didn’t care one way or another.

  Maybe he thought I didn’t care. I had to say something to make things right, so I gulped down the tightness in my throat and added, “Maybe next time … if you still want to.”

  “Sure, but I doubt there will be a next time. I mean, after your mother’s in this house at night just once—”

  “If I try hard enough, I think I can talk her into coming back tonight,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Tonight? Good for you. That’s fast work.”

  I didn’t know what Jonathan thought was so funny. I continued, “I almost forgot what we came for. Which window did you climb in?”

  Jonathan walked to a low-set window next to the back door and examined the bottom sash. “It’s right here,” he said. “This one where the cord’s frayed through. Nobody’s ever fixed it. There’s still a gap at the bottom.” He raised the sash as high as it would go, and it held.

  The window’s been broken for seven or eight years, and it hasn’t been fixed? The thought seemed Strange. “Did you close the window when you left?” I asked, suddenly very curious.

  Jonathan scrunched up his forehead, thinking hard. I noticed that, even with a wrinkled forehead, Jonathan was really good-looking.

  “I can’t remember,” he answered. “I was only ten years old. I was scared out of my mind. I was moving fast. But I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t. Probably I stopped long enough to slam down the window ’cause I didn’t want to get caught.”

  “Were your friends still waiting for you?” I asked.

  Jonathan grinned. “No. They weren’t going to stick around any longer than necessary. Besides, their parents would have come looking for them.”

  “I bet they gave you a bad time for not staying all night in the house.”

  “They tried, but it didn’t last long because none of them were brave enough to do even as much as I’d done.” Jonathan leaned against a stained wooden table and studied me. “I’m sorry the house is haunted. We’d go to the same high school and we could get to know each other.”

  I felt my face grow hot, I was so embarrassed. Girls in the books I read didn’t have any trouble talking to guys. Why couldn’t I? Finally I asked, “Do you live in Bogue City?” just to fill the silence.

  “My dad’s an attorney here, and my mom teaches first grade,” Jonathan said.

  “Does your grandmother live with you?”

  He laughed. “Not on your life. Grandma’s too used to running things the way she wants them. She likes to get her own way. I’m betting that she wears down your parents and gets Graymoss for her historical society.”

  I spoke before I thought. “I wish she would.”

  Jonathan tilted his head and studied me. “Don’t you like the idea of living here?”

  I hedged. “I like Graymoss. I really do. But it’s hard to imagine what it would be like if a dozen or more kids were also living here.”

  “You’re an only child? So am I,” Jonathan said. But he smiled and added, “Sometimes I used to wish I had a couple of brothers. Maybe having other kids in the family wouldn’t be so bad.”

  “Maybe it would.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “Like I told you, when the awful things happen in this house at night, your parents are bound to change their minds.”

  “They wouldn’t believe me when I told them what happened in Placide Blevins’s bedroom. Mom thinks I’ve been influenced by Charlotte’s diary and things I’ve read about ghosts and that’s why I saw …” I stopped, but Jonathan prodded.

  “Saw what? You can tell me.”

  Jonathan’s nice eyes were deep and warm. I decided to trust him. “When we were in Placide Blevins’s bedroom there was a depression, like the body of a man, right in the middle of the bed. I saw it.”

  “You’re telling me you really saw a ghost?” Jonathan’s eyes widened in amazement.

  “What are you so surprised about?” I asked him. “You told us about the ghostly things that happened to you.”

  For just a moment Jonathan looked flustered, but he pulled himself together. “You’re right. I just didn’t think that you … Go on. Did anything else happen?”

  “A book fell out of the bookcase onto my shoulder.” I held out Favorite Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

  Jonathan’s look of amazement quickly turned into a cynical smile. “What kind of game are you playing, Lia?”

  I stared at him in surprise. “Game? What are you talking about? You asked me to tell you what had happened to me, and I trusted you and told you.”

  Jonathan walked to one end of the kitchen and back again. He stopped and put his hands on my shoulders. “Okay, Lia,” he said. “I didn’t figure you out right. What you just told me about the book was so much like what had happened to me it kind of took me by surprise, that’s all. Come on. Let’s go out on the veranda. I’d like to get out of here.”

  As he took my left hand and began to lead me toward the back door, the bag of gris-gris swung freely under my shirt.

  “Jonathan,” I began, but whatever else I’d planned to say flew out of my mind. I yelped as the window slammed down with a bang.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jonathan grinned down at me, and I realized I had wrapped my arms around him in a strangle-hold. “I’m sorry,” I said, and backed away as quickly as I could.

  “I’m not,” Jonathan answered, and his eyes twinkled. “Any time you get scared and want to do that again, I’m available.”

  “I guess all our talk about ghosts and evil things made me jumpy. I shouldn’t have been spooked by a broken window sash.”

  “I meant what I said,” he told me. He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “This is my dad’s business card, but it’s got our home phone number on it, too. Call me if you need me.” He smiled warmly. “Call me anyway. Let me know when you’re coming back. Okay?”

  I smiled in return and dropped the card into the pocket of my shirt. “Okay,” I said. I hoped Jonathan couldn’t read my mind to know I thought it was more than okay. It was great, terrific, tremendous, fantastic.

  Mrs. Lord’s voice warbled, “Jonathan? Where are you?”

  “Gotta go, Lia,” Jonathan said. He strode ahead through the dining room and into the entry hall. I followed happily. Broad shoulders and long legs … Jonathan looked great coming or going.

  Mrs. Lord was pleasant as she said goodbye, and Mom seemed calm, so I guessed neither of them had become too upset about the other’s plans for Graymoss.

  We watched the Lords drive away; then Dad looked at his watch. “Let’s take a quick look at the outbuildings before we head back to Baton Ro
uge.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mom said. She dug through her purse, then handed it to me to hold. “My tape measure—I just remembered that I left it upstairs.”

  “I’ll get it,” Dad said, but Mom shook her head.

  “I know right where it is. I’ll only be a second.”

  As soon as Mom went back into the house, Dad looked at his watch. “It’s going to be a long second,” he said, and chuckled. “She’ll take another look at the bedrooms and count how many bunk beds will fit, and think about wallpaper. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

  But, as we settled down on the top step, Mom ran through the open front door. She leaned against the side of the house, breathing rapidly.

  Dad got up and smiled at her. “We didn’t expect you to set a speed record.”

  I saw something in Mom’s face that Dad hadn’t noticed. “What scared you?” I asked her.

  As Mom looked at me the fear in her eyes changed to a kind of tenderness. “The same thing that frightened you, honey,” she said. “The diary, the stories, the rumors … the power of suggestion. That’s all it was.”

  “But, Mom—”

  “Lia,” she said, “I understand why you were frightened. I—I gave in to the feelings myself.”

  “You didn’t say what you saw, or what you heard, or—”

  “And I’m not going to. Subject closed.” Mom walked ahead of us down the front steps and handed the house keys to Mr. Boudreau, who was waiting for us on the drive. “I’d like to get duplicates of those keys,” she said.

  Mr. Boudreau nodded. “Wait a little while afore you go to the expense,” he said in a doomsday voice. “You might not be needin’ ’em.”

  Mom just shook her head and didn’t say anything. I guess she felt she had argued enough.

  We toured the vegetable garden, which brightened Mom’s spirits so much that she again began to make plans for an even larger garden. I remembered the year she grew zucchini. The vines produced so many we had zucchini in everything, including bread and cake. Ever since then, I’ve cringed when I’ve seen a zucchini. I hoped zucchini wasn’t on her list.