Feeling foolish, she pushed on the accelerator a little harder than she needed to as she sped out of the drive. In the rearview mirror the house looked sad, abandoned, neglected. It didn’t look haunted by an evil spirit or negative forces. But Taryn knew, without a doubt, that there was something at unrest within the walls and on the grounds and this was one job that wouldn’t be easy to leave behind.
The town of Vidalia, (she’d never get used to saying that name without smiling) was a small one that had tried unsuccessfully to grow into something it wasn’t. There were a few pretty historical buildings on Main Street, however, and it was a picturesque place with its green hills and valleys circling it. The town obviously took pride in itself, as evidenced by the cheerful flowers and trees that were planted along the streets downtown. She wished there weren’t so many vacant storefronts with “For Rent” or “For Sale” signs and empty boxes stacked up inside them that were visible from the road, but that was, unfortunately, becoming a familiar sight.
Still, while the department stores and mom and pop shops of yesterday might be gone, there was still a restaurant on Main recommended by the hotel desk clerk, which she decided to try out for supper. The name, Chester’s, didn’t make her feel confident in its gourmet selections, but the building was a beautiful turn of the century (that would be the last century, not the current one) brick with original masonry work inside.
She wasn’t the only one eating supper out that night, and several of the tables were filled with elderly couples and families with small children. The sturdy wooden tables, covered with thick plastic checkered tablecloths, were far enough apart she didn’t feel like she was sitting on top of people and she chose a seat by the window. Always prepared to eat alone, she kept a book in her purse for these occasions, as reading was much better than staring into space or, God forbid, making conversation. However, right now she did kind of feel the need for human companionship.
A teenage boy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and a wide smile took her order, after telling her it was fried catfish night and that the special came with a piece of pie. (Good enough for her!) Once he left, she settled into her thriller and alternated between watching the people pass by outside and catching up with the heroine in her book. The cars out the window were more exciting, to be honest, and she’d read the same passage four times before she realized she wasn’t retaining any information.
When her waiter came back with her sweet tea, he hesitantly stood there for a moment longer than he really needed to and then blurted, “Are you the artist painting the old house?”
“Yes I am,” she replied, smiling. With his thin frame and long hair and wire-rimmed glasses, he could have been a younger, more awkward version of Matt. She remembered when he looked a lot like that.
“Yeah, I thought so. My sister works over at Mama Joe’s, the restaurant? You eat there sometimes and she told me. I hope that’s okay,” he said in a rush, the tips of his ears a little red.
News traveled fast in small towns.
“You over there at Windwood Farm?” a young woman at the next table asked. She had three children, all under the age of seven, and was doing her best to keep them in their seats with their food on their own plates while she glanced over at Taryn. The woman was alone and Taryn felt bad for her. She looked like she had her hands full, especially since the youngest kept trying to throw mashed potatoes at what was presumably his sister.
“That’s me,” she answered, painfully aware that everyone in the room had stopped talking and was watching her. “Hello,” she gave the room a general wave.
“You wouldn’t catch me going out there by myself, that’s for sure,” the woman snorted. But she did it with a smile and not in a condescending way, so Taryn smiled back.
“Well, it’s really pretty out there,” she said diplomatically. “Very peaceful.”
“Sure, if you don’t count the ghosts,” the woman laughed and Taryn was only moderately surprised to see several people in the room nod their heads in agreement.
“So does everyone think it’s haunted then?” she asked, figuring that she might as well use the situation to her advantage.
“Anyone who has any sense at all,” an elderly gentleman called from the other side of the restaurant. “You don’t want to be messing with what goes on in that place, I tell you that. There’s some real action out there. I’m seventy-five years old and I seen something there once that I’ll never share with nobody.”
Taryn was disappointed that he wasn’t willing to spill the beans, but the look on everyone’s face revealed that they might have had similar stories. “It’s an interesting place for sure.”
“It’s the girl’s bedroom that’s the worst,” the woman confided once everyone went back to their meals and the conversation picked up. “I been up in there, just once, when I was a teenager. I even thought about taking something from there, you know, like a souvenir? I know that’s awful, but I was young. There were some keys on the dresser, though, and they were real old. I thought, why not? Nobody needs them now. Minute I touched them, all hell broke loose. I heard a crying and a buzzing and I don’t know what all else. I took off out of there like a bat out of hell. Never went ghost hunting again. I don’t care what them shows tell you on TV. It’s nothing to mess around with.”
Taryn shivered, imagining the room the way it looked now, untouched. No wonder nobody had done anything to it. “I heard something similar. What do you think is going on there?” She didn’t want to tell her about the pictures, no matter how much she wanted to share it with someone else.
“I think it might be the girl who died in the house. Maybe her spirit is just hanging on and she don’t want nobody touching her stuff,” the woman laughed. “I don’t blame her, I guess. I’m kind of particular about my own. But the whole place just feels sad, you know? Like you want to cry right along with it.”
Taryn nodded. “Yes, I know. I talked to someone else about it, too.”
“Shame, though,” she said as she turned back to her meal. “It’s a real pretty place. Could be fixed up. You know, if someone could really live there. The ‘Devil’s house.’ That’s what we always called it. Cause only the Devil hisself could stand to live in it.”
It wasn’t just that the people of Vidalia thought there were ghosts in the house—they all seemed to accept the fact and be okay with it. That was kind of unusual within itself. It was the fact that although almost everyone she’d met so far (okay, all three of them) had some kind of experience with the house, there was a kind of respect for its energy in that they all appeared to be in agreement to the extent that now people simply stayed away.
“The people who lived in the house, they died eighty years ago,” she’d pointed out to the mother the night before.
The woman had looked at her like she had two heads. “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she said in response. “You grow up hearing about the stories and about the people who lived in a place, they might as well have died yesterday. Don’t matter that nobody alive right now never met them. The past ain’t really that long ago. It’s still alive.”
Taryn thought there might be a study somewhere in this idea and if she had more time, she might try to write a grant proposal and find the funds to do it herself. The house and its history was a part of Vidalia and its former residents were as known and talked about now as they probably were eighty years ago. History really did live on, no matter what happened in the meantime.
The “Devil’s house.” She wondered what the Stokes County Historical Society thought about that. She still resisted the idea of it being evil but it was probably safe to say that most of the people who knew about the house were probably in favor of its reputation. She wondered how they’d feel about Reagan demolishing it. Would they be glad it was gone? Sad they were losing a local landmark? People could be funny about these things. Unlike most local haunted houses, though, Windwood Farm was respected, almost revered for its haunting. That alone set it apart.
&n
bsp; When Taryn pulled up into the driveway this time, she didn’t get out and walk to the house and go inside. She didn’t unload her paints and set up outside in the yard. Instead, she stood in the driveway for a few moments and studied the land. Many of these older families were buried in family plots nearby rather than in local cemeteries. It was possible this family was as well. Scanning the property, she looked for a rise that might indicate a small graveyard and it wasn’t long before she saw something that stood out.
Behind the barn, which had seen better days for sure but still stood somewhat regally with its dilapidated roof and with only one door off its hinges, was a knoll with what could be a rusty cow gate peeking through the tall grass. She lamented over the fact she’d worn her sandals and not her boots today, it had stopped raining after all and the ground was dry, but on her way she stopped and picked up a long stick just in case she encountered anything that slithered and hissed. Spiders and ghosts, she had decided she could handle. Snakes? Not so much.
The gravel road that led up to the knoll was well-maintained, probably thanks to Reagan’s efforts at developments. The gravel was white and fresh and it was easy to walk on. White powder drifted up and landed on her soft leather sandals with each step she took, coating them with a fine layer. Her legs had already taken on a fine tan that summer and her shoulders felt good in the morning sun. It actually felt nice to be out for a walk and she enjoyed the exercise, despite the fact that the rise was turning out to be more uphill than it had looked from the car. She decided then and there that she needed to get out more and devote more time to physical activity. “Damn, I’m more out of shape than I thought I was,” she muttered to herself. “Gotta tone up or something.”
It took about ten minutes to reach the knoll and with a few pokes of the stick, she discovered that she was right, it was indeed a gate. It was also padlocked, she saw in disgust. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just covered with grass and weeds, it was also covered with brambles and that presented a different problem: bees and thorns. Trying to protect herself from both getting scratched and stung, Taryn ducked and cursed until she had cleared off enough to successfully climb over it and hop to the other side.
Barbed wire enclosed a small yard of what was probably only about eighty square yards, by her estimation. At first, the tall grass and shrubs made it difficult to make anything out and she was afraid she might have been wrong. A few rustles caused her to jump back a few feet, sure that snakes were coming to get her, but it turned out to be a rabbit.
She had freaked herself out long enough and was about to turn around and climb back over the gate when she noticed a glimmer of white reflecting from the sun. It was a small headstone, no more than a foot tall, and mostly covered in black algae from years of neglect and morning glory, but the small patch of white marble that was still visible gave it away. Pulling off a patch of morning glory, the bright blur of flowers blinking merrily at her (how could such pretty little blooms really be considered a weed?) she squatted down at the tiny grave and tried to make out the shallow indentions. There were only three lines of inscriptions:
Clara Joyce Bowen
1903- 1921
Daughter
Well, she figured, that about summed it up. This was the daughter and she was eighteen years old when she died. How much more information did you need? Other than how she died, of course. Taryn felt a little melancholy at her sad little grave. The small headstone, tilted at a weird angle, covered in black gunk, strangled in weeds (albeit pretty ones, but still). Nobody cared. She felt the pangs of a panic attack forming deep inside her, the cold claws starting to scratch at her stomach and rise up into her throat. It wasn’t his headstone or his grave, or his cemetery. He didn’t have a place. His ashes were scattered over a hillside in eastern Tennessee years ago. He was gone, carried off by the wind. It wasn’t the same thing, she told herself. This was Clara. She’d been dead a long time. The world was starting to feel too big around her, too wide, too airy. She grasped the headstone and the moss felt slimy under her hand. The coolness brought her back.
For the next half hour, Taryn did her best to clean off the gravesite. She left the morning glories because they were the only thing close to having decorations or flowers on the grave and she straightened the headstone to as close to upright as best she could. The algae would have to stay until she could find something to clean it off with, maybe vinegar? She was always reading about people cleaning everything with vinegar. She’d have to Google that. At any rate, she figured she’d taken her chances there long enough with the snakes and that now she might be pressing her luck and better head back down to the house and start her real work.
With a little bit of regret, she said goodbye to Clara and started back to the gate. She felt the oddest sensation of someone watching her as she climbed over it, but was too scared to turn around and look back. Instead, she simply scrambled over and then hurried back down the road a little bit faster than she had come up it.
On the way back down, it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen any other graves in the graveyard. Why? Why hadn’t he been buried with his daughter? Why hadn’t she been buried with her mother? Had she simply overlooked the other graves? In her zest to clean off the grave, had she just not seen the others, or had they all fallen over and crumbled and been overtaken by nature themselves?
Exploring the graveyard was unsettling to her, but not in the way the activity inside the house had been. She hadn’t been scared at the headstone, just sad. There wasn’t anything evil near the grave, although she’d certainly felt a presence as she was leaving.
While she was painting the last of the steps leading up to the porch, she couldn’t help but think about her own death. Who would be around to clean off her grave, other than the person getting paid to do it? Her grandmother had been dead forever. Her parents were gone and it wasn’t the sort of thing they would have thought of, except maybe on the major holidays when they were supposed to because of some sort of traditional obligation. She didn’t date, and not because of lack of opportunity (although that had been the case recently) but because she just really couldn’t trust herself to. The last few times she’d tried relationships, she’d become so obsessed with the dumbass in question that it had been disastrous, so she’d sworn off men altogether until she was able to pull herself together. A trunk full of self-help books were gathering dust.
Matt. Matt would clean off her grave. The thought gave her comfort.
Or maybe she’d just get cremated and ask him to sprinkle her ashes around the ocean. Nah, she wrinkled her nose as she dabbed a spot of white on a column. She wasn’t big on water. Not on big bodies of water anyway. Swimming pools were okay, but she wasn’t that great of a swimmer. Not that she would care when she was dead, but it should be a place she liked. Something symbolic. That’s what people did when they were cremated, right? She just thought the ocean because he lived next to it and the location was convenient for him.
The problem was, there wasn’t a place that was meaningful for her. Her grandmother’s house had sold. Her apartment was…an apartment. Her parent’s house had never been a home for her, and at any rate it sold a long time ago. There was no “family estate.” She didn’t grow up vacationing anywhere. She’d been working since she was eighteen, and although there were lots of places she liked, she never stayed in one place long enough to get attached to it. The hillside in Tennessee wouldn’t do. She hadn’t been able to go back. It was his, not hers.
Of course, she did like her Aunt Sarah’s place up in New Hampshire. She visited there, once, when she was eight. It was on a lake in the middle of the state, near Conway. She remembered the mountains and a big farmhouse. She couldn’t remember much about Sarah herself, other than the fact she’d been kind of quiet and a little bit of a recluse. Her mother called her a hippie. They’d stayed a week and Taryn spent the time running around and climbing trees and playing in the attic with a vague feeling of someone watching her. It wasn’t a bad feeling; rather, she kin
d of liked it. She’d always wanted to go back, but they hadn’t. Sarah still sent a card every Christmas, but they hadn’t kept in touch much, which was a pity since she was the only family Taryn had.
Taryn sighed. Now she felt depressed. Thinking about family always did that to her. She’d also messed up both the porch and the column and had linseed oil dripping up her elbow and down her toes. Awesome.
Giving it up for the day, she packed it all in and considered the work portion of the day a loss, although the fun part of the day had at least given her a grave and that was something, not to mention the pancakes.
Before getting into her car, however, she had a change of heart and turned back to the house again. It was only a little after two o’clock and there was plenty of day left. She hated to give up that early. “I’m going out of my ever-loving mind,” she sighed as she walked back up to the house, the oil slipping through her toes and mixing with the gravel dust. “Only a moron would do this again.”
There was no reason why she shouldn’t try to go back inside the house, other than the fact that something had tried to scare her out of it the last time she ventured in through the doors. On the other hand, there really wasn’t a reason why she should go into the house, except for the need to satisfy her curiosity.
“It’s just a house,” she said to herself as she stood on the front porch and stared at the door. “It can’t hurt me. Ghosts can’t hurt me. Whatever is in there has never killed anyone, just scared them. I cannot be scared.”
Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) Page 8