The Haunting of Winchester Mansion

by Alexandria Clarke

  “I’m not sleepwalking, Bodhi!”

  “Baby, you probably aren’t even aware that you’re doing it.”

  I yanked my arm away from him, tucking it into my chest to keep the bloodstained shirt in place. “I’m not crazy.”

  His amber eyes softened. “I never said you were, but when I got down here, you were screaming your head off like some kind of lunatic. Then you passed out—just went completely limp out of nowhere—for no reason. Something’s going on with you, Bailey. And this—” He choked up as he indicated my ruined wrist. “—did you try to hurt yourself?”

  “No!” I insisted. “I told you. It wasn’t me.”

  “Then who made this mess?”

  I didn’t have an answer for him. He already thought I was losing my mind, and telling him that I’d seen a strange figure in the doorway before passing out was surely to confirm his theory. My silence, unfortunately, didn’t work to my advantage either.

  “I want you to see someone,” he declared. He took my uninjured arm, swung it across his shoulders, and lifted me from the floor.

  I leaned heavily on him as we picked our way through the minefield of demolished glass. “I don’t need a psychiatrist, Bodhi.”

  He carried me into the nearby bathroom and set me down on the closed lid of the toilet. He washed his hands in the sink. “I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do, but you can’t honestly believe that this hasn’t evolved into a full-blown problem. I’ve been ignoring it for a while, but ever since we arrived in Black Bay, something’s changed.”

  “You’ve been ignoring what for a while?” I challenged as Bodhi disappeared into the kitchen. He came back with the first-aid kid, balanced it on the countertop, and popped it open.

  “You’re different now. Ever since—”

  “Are we actually talking about this?” I interrupted. Bodhi wouldn’t look at me. He busied himself with the first-aid gear, unwrapping the shirt from my arm to check if the bleeding had stopped yet. “Are we, Bodhi?”

  “Ethan was telling me that the psychiatrist in town is really easy to talk to,” he said as he cleaned my wrist and unwrapped a packet of butterfly closures.

  “Why are you talking to Ethan Powell about my mental state?”

  He pinched the edges of my skin together and secured it with a bandage. “You think I want to see you like this, Bailey? I know we’ve been distant with each other, but that doesn’t mean watching you walk around like someone in a trance, hurting yourself, doesn’t eat me alive. I care about you. I can’t believe that I even have to say that.”

  “Sometimes, Bodhi, it doesn’t feel like you care.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Bodhi’s carefully constructed mask fell for a fraction of a second, and I saw the hurt in his eyes. Hurriedly, I added, “And by the way, I have been talking to someone.”

  Bodhi paused in applying the butterfly stitches. “Really? Who?”

  “Milo.”

  “Milo. Milo? As in the guy who sold us the house?”

  “Yes, that Milo.”

  He didn’t bother to disguise his scorn as he asked, “Is he a psychiatrist?”

  “Is Ethan Powell?” I shot back.

  Bodhi smacked the last bandage into place. “Real nice, Bailey. You won’t talk to me, but you’ll blab our entire life story to some random stranger in town. That’s just great.”

  “You won’t talk to me.” I snatched a roll of gauze from him and began wrapping it around my arm on my own. “And he’s not a stranger.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean he actually listens to me,” I said, ripping off a piece of medical tape with my teeth and securing the gauze. “These days, I see Milo more often than I see you.”

  Bodhi went still. The first-aid kit fell off of the counter, spilling a box of Band-Aids across the checkered tile floor. “Are you—?”

  “Am I what?” I demanded, confused by Bodhi’s inexplicable paralysis.

  His next words dropped from his mouth like a poison dart, piercing my soul and contaminating my very being. “With Milo, Bailey. Are you sleeping with Milo?”

  I stared up at him. “I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

  “I didn’t hear a no.”

  I stood up, clutching the counter to prevent myself from falling over. I was still shaking from the night’s events, but that didn’t stop me from pushing past my husband and into the hallway. I climbed the stairs, gripping the banister to steady myself. At the top, I paused and looked over my shoulder. Bodhi watched me from the ground floor.

  “You don’t deserve the relief of hearing me say no. Good night, Bodhi.”

  Sleep refused to take me for the remainder of the night. I stayed awake, lounging on the balcony outside the master bedroom until the sun crept over the edge of the horizon, and read through the first of Caroline Winchester’s journals.

  Bailey and Bodhi: Flipping Out

  All right, flippers. I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog, so please forgive me. My inbox is loaded, which is why I haven’t been able to accept any new mail, but I promise to go through all of your messages in the next few days! I’m sure the majority of you are wondering what kind of hilarity has occurred during our renovation of the Winchester house over the last couple of weeks, but before we get to that, I need to propose a question.

  Let’s go into this with an open mind, shall we? You’re going to need it. What I’m about to share with you is straight out of the Twilight Zone. You might think I’m crazy or you might think I’m making all of this up. For my sake, please try to consider the possibility of this being real. Is everyone ready? Here goes nothing.

  I think the Winchester house is haunted.

  Are you laughing yet? Rolling your eyes? Wondering if I’m pulling your leg? I don’t blame you. In all honesty, I don’t even know if I believe it myself, but there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation for all of the weird crap that’s been happening around me. Check out the attached pictures of the office. The room is demolished, and I was there when it happened. The twist? I didn’t touch anything. And I swear I saw someone standing in the doorway. A girl, maybe.

  This isn’t the first eerie thing that’s happened. Bodhi’s keys keep disappearing. The piano plays itself, and not in that “on display at a department store” kind of way. I’ve seen things levitate in midair. And don’t even get me started on the basement. Hands down, it’s the creepiest room in the house. The back of my neck prickles just thinking about it. I swear there’s something down there. Like an aura. Or a presence.

  So I’m begging you, flippers. Hit me with your best conspiracy theories. Have any of you had a brush with the paranormal? If so, how did it all turn out? I’m open to any and all stories, advice, cleansing rituals, etc. Do I burn sage? Hold a séance? Please help!

  Does anyone have a Ouija board?

  Bailey

  My cursor hovered over the “publish” button on the blog post. How many Flipping Out fans would I alienate with my plea for information? Would they think it was just a ploy to get more readers? My absence from the blog had already taken its toll, and I couldn’t afford to lose many more followers. It took forever to build up an online presence, but losing it all could happen in a matter of minutes. Nevertheless, I needed answers. I clicked publish.

  “Knock, knock.”

  I looked up from my seat on the kitchen counter, where I’d been munching on leftover bagels, cream cheese, and a bowl of red grapes. Milo hovered just outside the back door, which I’d propped open so that the cool breeze might gush through the musty house.

  “Hey,” I said. Instinctively, I smiled, but when the image of Bodhi’s face from the night before reared its ugly head, my expression faltered. Thankfully, Bodhi was away for the morning, buying materials in town. “Come in.”

  He stepped over the threshold. His cheeks were flushed, and he brought an inherent warmth into the kitchen, as though he collected sunshine like a solar pan
el and reflected it upon the others around him. I didn’t care what Bodhi said. Spending time with Milo was refreshing, like taking a dip in a cool lake on a summer’s eve. Even in the mysteriously sentient Winchester house, Milo managed to lighten the mood.

  “How are you?” he asked, plucking a grape from the bowl and popping it into his mouth. He took my hand, stretching my arm out to examine the length bandage. “Did you get hurt again?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Did you have a disagreement with a hacksaw or something?”

  “Not quite.” I chewed on my bagel, looking Milo over. “Milo, if I tell you something, will you promise not to automatically assume that I’m insane?”

  He leaned against the kitchen counter, rolling the sleeves of his shirt past his elbows to rinse more grapes in a colander in the sink. “I don’t make promises that I can’t keep.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine then. Never mind.”

  “All right, I’ll do my best,” he relented, playfully tossing a grape at me. “What’s up?”

  I caught the tiny fruit, absentmindedly massaging it between the palms of my hands as I wondered how best to put my conundrum into words. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Whoa. That came out of left field. Why do you ask?”

  “Some weird stuff has been happening to me here.”

  He tapped his hands on the side of the sink to shake off the excess water then tipped the colander of grapes into the bowl I was eating out of. “Well, I don’t know about ghosts precisely, but I’ve always thought that energy was a real thing.”

  I popped the skin of a grape between my teeth, enjoying the sweet rush of fruit juice across my tongue. “What kind of energy?”

  “You know. Vibes, auras, cosmic energy. Whatever you want to call it.”

  “What, like chi? Prana?”

  “Why not?” he asked. He filled two water glasses and handed one to me. I nodded my thanks. “Don’t you feel something when you first meet someone? Maybe it’s just me. I can tell right away whether or not I’m going to like a person.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Not to mention, there are places where reality just feels a bit altered,” Milo went on, sipping water between sentences. “Rooftops in the early morning. Empty parking lots. Laundromats at midnight. Your own bedroom at five a.m.”

  I looked sharply at him.

  “Ring a bell?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders. “Energy.”

  I thought of the baby mobile dangling above my bed. “But can energy move things? We keep losing things in the house.”

  “I imagine energy manifests in different ways depending on the situation. Do you mind?” He lifted a bagel from the package. I nodded, and he began frosting it with cream cheese. “For instance, some people believe that poltergeist activity doesn’t have anything to do with noisy ghosts at all. Things disappearing, objects levitating, electrical interference, unexplained noises—”

  A shiver ran down the length of my spine, but I tried not to flinch as Milo casually called out everything wrong with the Winchester house.

  “People think occurrences like that are actually psychic manifestations due to stress or anxiety,” he explained. “That type of energy comes from a living person who doesn’t realize how or why they’re channeling it.”

  Before I could fully digest this information, the steady hum of Bodhi’s truck sounded in the front yard. I dropped my handful of grapes, hopped off the counter, and shoved Milo toward the back door. “You need to go.”

  His bagel dropped from his grasp, smearing cream cheese across the unfinished flooring. “All right, but why, may I ask, are you suddenly acting like I kicked your dog?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said as I nudged him out of the kitchen.

  “Was it something I said?”

  “No. Bodhi’s mad at me. It’s just easier this way.”

  He hesitated in the doorway. “Is everything all right? Maybe I should stay.”

  I heard the key turn in the front door lock. “Please, Milo,” I begged. “Just go.”

  I watched through the blinds of the window above the sink as Milo sprinted away through the garden, vanishing within the greenery just in time. Bodhi wandered into the kitchen, dumping his keys and a plastic grocery bag full of hardware next to the coffee maker. When he saw me, he paused. Looked at the bagel in my hand. The bagel on the floor.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  He nodded toward the second bagel. “Hungry?”

  “Dropped the first one.”

  “Whatever.” Bodhi cleared his throat and pointed over his shoulder. “Ethan’s here.”

  Somewhere in the front yard, Ethan cursed as he hauled construction material out of the flatbed of Bodhi’s truck. I resisted the urge to chuckle. “Okay.”

  He sighed and combed through his curls with his fingers. His hair was getting long. Usually, I cut it for him, teasing him for not having it done himself, but he always claimed that he had better ways to spend his time and money than in a barber shop.

  “Is this how it’s going to be, Bailey?”

  He took a hesitant step across the kitchen, then another, until he was close enough for me to see the laugh lines around his mouth. When I didn’t scurry off, he lifted one hand and brushed a strand of hair away from my face, the calloused tips of his fingers ghosting across my cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “For what?”

  There were so many things to be sorry for.

  He rested his forehead against mine. “For the way I spoke to you last night. For accusing you. For being so wrapped up in this house.”

  Not everything, then.

  “I love you,” he murmured. “Don’t you know that? It hurts me to see you this way. I can’t stand it. I only suggested you see a psychiatrist because I really do think it might help you cope, Bailey. Just meet with her. Hear what she has to say.”

  I thought about what Milo said about poltergeist activity. Maybe the odd vibes in the Winchester house were my fault after all, amplified by the thoughts that haunted my dreams at night. Meeting with Black Bay’s shrink would do me no harm, other than dulling my shiny badge of pride. Maybe, if therapy sessions became a regular thing, I could convince Bodhi to come along eventually.

  Ethan cleared his throat, causing Bodhi and I to split apart like shrapnel, and came into the kitchen. “I apologize for eavesdropping, folks. Bailey, if you like, I can make a call to Doctor Marx and have her work you in this afternoon. She’s a lovely woman. Easy to talk to. I spent a lot of time in her office after my father died. There’s no shame in it.”

  I looked at Bodhi, who nodded encouragingly.

  “All right, Ethan,” I finally agreed. “Call up Doctor Marx.”

  Doctor Marx was a well-preserved woman in her sixties who claimed to have postponed her retirement due to the fact that she was the one and only resource for mental health questions in the tiny town of Black Bay. She was tall and thin, wore a dress that I’d seen in the window of a Black Bay boutique and deemed too tight-fitting for my own figure, and sported impeccable winged eyeliner. In addition, she spoke with a tiny hint of a mid-Atlantic accent, as if she had watched a few too many Katharine Hepburn movies in her youth. As I took her through the last ten years of my life in exquisite detail—I figured if I was going to dive into therapy then I might as well commit—she listened carefully, didn’t interrupt, and jotted notes on a clipboard. But the scratch of her ballpoint pen across the paper and the steady drip of her desktop Zen waterfall lulled me into a sleepy daze, and I fought to keep my eyes open as Doctor Marx finally said her piece.

  “Now I don’t want you to worry,” she began, removing her glasses from her nose. I wondered if she really needed them or if she simply thought they tied together her ensemble. “But from the sound of it, you are experiencing some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  The Zen fountain bubbled.

  “PTSD?” It wasn�
��t the first time I’d considered it, but the concept was still daunting.

  Doctor Marx nodded. “Hallucinations, night terrors, triggers. In fact, it sounds like you’ve been suffering for quite some time now. It likely began shortly after your daughter passed away. Do you feel you found closure after Kali’s death?”

  My stomach clenched. My voice shook. “Does any mother ever find closure after the death of her child?”

  She reclined in her office chair, crossing one long leg over the other. “The world changes for them, no doubt. Are you familiar with the five stages of grief?”

  “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Doctor Marx.”

  “Even so,” she said. “Sometimes we get stuck in one of those stages, which prevents us from making it to acceptance.”

  “So I’m stuck in depression.”

  “It sounds to me as if you never found a healthy enough environment to recover in.” Doctor Marx checked the notes on her clipboard. “No close family or friends due to the fact that you moved around so much. You only had your husband to lean on, but he was suffering from the same trauma that you were. Therefore, he was unable to help you. It’s a common misconception that all marriages fail after the death of a child, but the couples that stay together talk with one another. They communicate. It’s not a guessing game. And from what you’ve told me, all you and Bodhi do is guess around each other.”

  “So my marriage is failing?”

  Doctor Marx shook her head. “Another conversation for another day, Bailey. Unfortunately, our time is up and I have another client waiting. For now, I want you to focus on yourself. Don’t shut Bodhi out, but don’t pester him to let you in either.”

  “In other words, do exactly what I’ve been trying to do.”

  Doctor Marx opened a desk drawer, extracted a prescription pad, and began scribbling. “There is no guaranteed cure when it comes to mental health. In the end, you have to decide to take the steps toward getting better. Meeting with me was a great first step.”