Hauntings of the Heart

by Joselyn Vaughn

  “I probably set the record for taking the longest time to knit a scarf.” Leslie fingered the blue-gray length wrapped around her neck. “And the number of times unraveling it and starting over.”

  Edith and Dinah arrived, dragging the Elvis impersonator behind them, his sequined cape flapping like a trapped hawk. Minnie had to admit he looked exactly as the King had on stage all those years ago when he’d professed his love for her. Every detail was perfect, from his pudgy belly to his greasy hair. “Hey there, little lady,” he said, shaking loose from Dinah and giving a two-finger salute. His imitation wasn’t exactly bad.

  He squatted down to shake hands with Wendy and they heard a frightening rip. “I didn’t know Elvis wore boxers with hearts on them!” Edith exclaimed.

  Elvis jumped to his feet, yanking the edge of his cape over his posterior. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I wore this jumpsuit.”

  “Do you have another? We need you on stage in half an hour.” Minnie checked her watch.

  “I can stitch it up in two shakes.” Edith swished the cape to the side. “It’ll be right as rain.” She hummed a few bars of “Kentucky Rain.”

  Minnie directed them to her office for a sewing kit to repair his pants, with instructions to head to the back yard afterward to start setting up. Thankfully, they scooted right down the hall. She hoped the song didn’t stick in her head. She didn’t need any more “lost and alone” ideas running through her thoughts.

  “I’m glad you didn’t give up on the costume.” Minnie patted Leslie on the shoulder. “Some things take more time to get right.”

  “Like you and Gordon?” Leslie arched an eyebrow.

  “Now that’s hitting below the belt.” Minnie narrowed her eyes. Had Leslie heard the details of the lunchtime meeting? Minnie was surprised her phone hadn’t been beeping, complaining that her voicemail was full. She’d had it attached to her ear all afternoon making final arrangements for the benefit, so the gossip mongers—or rather, her friends—hadn’t been able to get through.

  A secret she’d kept for fifty years, and she’d blurted it out like it was her favorite color. What must Edith and Dinah think of her? She was one of “those” girls, the ones they’d sworn to each other they’d never be. Unmarried. Knocked-up and discarded.

  “Just trying to return the favor.” Leslie’s eyes twinkled.

  Uneasiness swirled in her stomach. So this was how it felt to be on the other side of her friends’ schemes. But all those times, they worked to bring two people together—like Mark and Leslie—two people who were meant for each other. Their time was now. Leslie had it all wrong. Gordon and Minnie’s time was long past.

  Gordon’s reaction had said it all. He’d forgotten. Had he even bothered to read her letters?

  “It’s not worth it.” Minnie pinched more cobweb from the ball, stretching the strands.

  Leslie shrugged. Her voice quieted. “I’m only going to say one thing, and it’s something a wise woman told me.”

  Minnie waved her hand, her fingers tangled in the cobwebs. “That’s enough of your buttering up.”

  “So you know what I’m talking about. About going after what you want.” Leslie crossed her arms over her chest. “If Gordon is the one, you should go after him.”

  “I’m too old for that kind of stuff. It’s not that simple.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute.” Leslie stopped to look around. “Where’s Wendy?”

  Minnie swiveled to check down the hallway. No Wendy and no reddish feathers.

  “Wendy!” Leslie called, poking her head into the parlor.

  There wasn’t any answer, but Minnie spied a feather in the entrance to the kitchen. She scurried down the hall and glanced through the doorway. Wendy knelt on the kitchen counter in front of the cookie jar, carefully extracting cookies and stacking them next to the jar. A chair stood jammed against the cupboards.

  “Wendy! Get down from there,” Leslie commanded.

  The little chicken glanced up and balanced another cookie on her pile. “I have to finish this.” She reached inside the jar for another cookie.

  “I don’t think so.” Leslie placed the ceramic head back on the cat’s body and lifted Wendy to the floor. “Come on, kiddo. Time to go trick-or-treating.”

  Gordon appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. As usual, Minnie felt him before she saw him. Her pulse bubbled as if her blood had been infused with carbonated soda. After all he’d done to her, why was he the only one who made her feel this way?

  He greeted everyone, as if a giant elephant hadn’t entered the room along with him. “Minnie, if you’ve got a moment, I’d like to talk,” he said.

  Minnie pretended she didn’t hear. She couldn’t talk to him now. She had a party to oversee, and she still needed to get into her costume. The guests would be arriving in less than half an hour. She grabbed the top cookie from the stack. “You can take this as practice.” She handed it to Wendy.

  Wendy grinned. “Thank you, G’ma.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Leslie mouthed. “Mark and I’ll be back for the party after trick-or-treating.”

  “We’ll see you then.” She waved as they headed for the front door. Gordon looked as if he wanted to say something, but she cut him off. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to finish getting ready for the party. If you could see if Edith needs anything for Elvis, that would be great.” She ducked past him toward the temporary safety of her apartment. In thirty minutes, she’d have the buffer of the benefit guests to keep Gordon and his questions at bay.

  Minnie ducked into her bedroom to put on her costume. She moved slowly, methodically, using the time to calm her frayed nerves and fortify her defenses. After painting whisker lines across her cheeks, she stepped back to inspect her attire. She’d pared down the full werewolf costume to a set of ears, fuzzy bracelets and anklets, a tail, and a long-sleeved tee shirt emblazoned with the words “Full moons make me crazy, or maybe it’s you.” The full, heavy costume wouldn’t be practical for the party.

  She emerged from her apartment to find Edith in a mini-dress, beehive wig, and go-go boots, with one of Elvis’s scarves draped around her neck, hovering by the kitchen. “There you are. What took you so long?” Edith tweaked one of Minnie’s ears. “People are arriving already. You’re supposed to be greeting people with Gordon as they arrive.”

  Minnie gave her a look.

  “Okay, yes. I know you’re stalling, but I’ve found the perfect place to hide the body, and Dinah brought the Tahoe. As long as you have a tarp in the garage, we’ve got him covered. But you do have to wait until he writes the matching check for the library.”

  Minnie laughed. What were friends for? She gave Edith a hug. “I can survive a couple more hours.”

  Edith shoved Minnie toward the front door, where a crowd was already milling. Barbara and Elmer, wearing Ghostbusters jumpsuits and “proton packs,” were sorting people into teams for their tours through the haunted house. Gordon was shaking a young vampire’s hand.

  After steeling herself with a restorative breath, she approached and recognized Dinah’s eight-year-old grandson, Boppy. The poor kid couldn’t get rid of that awful nickname. Hopefully, by the time he attended college, he’d be able to convince someone to call him Bryson. “Well, hello there, Count Dracula,” she said.

  Boppy jammed his fists on his hips, his cape swishing behind him. “I’m not Count Dracula. I’m Spiderman-Dracula!” He started making cartoon-like smashes and kapows, then finished it off with a hiss that bared his plastic fangs.

  “Oh, my.” Minnie looked up at his mother, who shrugged. “Hope you have fun. There’s tomato juice—I mean blood—in the dining room.”

  “Fantastic!” Spiderman-Dracula bounded toward the refreshments.

  Gordon leaned toward her. “I made the same mistake. I thought he was actually going to bite me.”

  Minnie ignored the tingling of his breath against her cheek. “You’d better be careful, he might. Are you supposed to be a ca
t burglar?”

  Gordon’s lips twitched. What was she supposed to think? He was wearing all black, including his hat, which he tipped to her. “Would a cat burglar wear a fedora?”

  Minnie shrugged and greeted the next group of guests.

  Gordon nodded toward her shirt during the next break. “There’s a full moon tonight.”

  “So I’ve heard.” She arched an eyebrow. “You’d better watch your step.”

  Gordon laughed. The sound was lovely. If only it had all been different. She sighed. A couple more hours and the benefit would be over, and she could put it all back in the past where it belonged.

  People continued to filter in. The common rooms were packed, and she’d seen Elmer and Barbara escort six groups through the tour. Elvis was crooning in the back yard. She’d heard Edith squeal at least a dozen times.

  “Looks like this shindig is quite a success,” Gordon said during another lull in the entrants.

  Minnie nodded. This was beyond her wildest dreams. The library might receive sufficient funds to start an endowment, after all.

  * * *

  During the small breaks between arrivals, Gordon admired the way Minnie’s face brightened at each person she recognized. She made each guest feel as if she had been waiting exclusively for them to grace her doorstep.

  He enjoyed greeting all the people he remembered, but mostly, he loved watching Minnie work her magic. Pride in their community poured out of her. He felt it himself, and wondered how many people had showed up for the benefit solely because Minnie was the hostess. It had certainly moved to the top of his list of reasons for being here.

  The flow of arrivals finally began to lighten, and Gordon suspected it was because the entire town had already crammed into the bed and breakfast and surrounding grounds. “Would you like some water?” he asked Minnie. “I think our duties here are done.”

  “Sure, but I can grab a bottle on my way to check on Elvis. I need to make sure Edith hasn’t drunk so much she thinks she can sing a duet.” Minnie started to shoulder her way through the crowd when Josie screamed.

  The entire crowd swiveled to the staircase where Josie stood with her hands up in the air. Silence fell over the dining room and parlor. Gordon wondered if this was part of the show the ghost hunters had put together, or if Josie was actually sensing something.

  “I feel a presence,” she keened. “This way. This way.” She bounded up the stairs, her proton pack bouncing against her back.

  From the look on Minnie’s face, he guessed Josie’s outburst wasn’t anything she had expected. Minnie plowed through the crowd, and he managed to stay right on her heels. They hurried up the stairs, Gordon staying only a step behind Minnie’s swishing tail.

  At the top of the stairs, Josie stopped dead. She flung her arms out to her sides and clotheslined Minnie. Gordon caught her before she tumbled down the stairs. He wished he’d been in exactly this place for the last fifty years, catching her each time she fell.

  “It’s…it’s…” Josie pressed her fingers to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. “There!” She ran to the end of the hallway, bowling through a tour group and scattering miniature ghosts and goblins in her wake. She plowed into the room at the end of the hall—the room that had been his parents’.

  When Gordon and Minnie caught up to her, she was circling the middle of the room, eyeing the ceiling, her hands out to her sides as if she planned to catch something. Gordon hoped she wasn’t calling down the plaster. He’d cleaned up enough this week.

  Minnie watched her for a moment, then jerked her head. “Do you hear water running?”

  It couldn’t be. Gordon leapt for the bathroom. Water seeped out from under the vanity. He flung the cabinet doors open, and water sprayed in his face. He grabbed for the pipe and wrapped his fists around the leak. The water ceased battering his face, but he could feel the pipe crushing under his hands.

  How had they missed this? He ducked to examine the pipe. Pristine white PVC. It was a new pipe? How could it be leaking? He reached for the water shutoff, but the knob broke off in his hand. What the…?

  “Minnie! Quick! I need towels and a bucket.”

  Minnie jumped over his feet and snatched a metal bucket from beside the Jacuzzi. She tossed him the towels and he stuffed them around the pipe, then wedged the bucket underneath. If they were lucky, it would prevent any water damage. Gordon backed away from the sink gingerly. Somehow he worried a flinch or a funny look would induce the water fountain again.

  Minnie disappeared to find Mark, who had arrived at the party a few moments before. Josie spun around the room, chanting about the things she could feel. Gordon had a healthy dose of skepticism about the whole ghosts and goblins thing, but if Josie was faking this, she deserved to win an Oscar.

  “Brokenness. Brokenness. Heartache. Circle.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Dark post.” She dropped to her knees, pressing her palms against her temples. “Dark post.”

  The hair on his arms stood up; even he was starting to feel the darkness. He edged toward the hallway. He knew all about the darkness in this room. They’d found his father at the writing desk by the window.

  Other guests peered through the open doorway. “Here! Here!” Josie yelled when Elmer called her name. He bumped the Spiderman-Dracula kid into a decorative table as he and Barbara barreled through the door. The boy became tangled in his cape and the table crashed to the floor. Gordon managed to catch the porcelain vase perched atop it before it beaned the little boy on the head.

  “The readings are off the charts. The strongest we’ve seen yet!” Elmer exclaimed, his breath coming in gasps. He waved his EMP sensor around the room. His glasses slid down his nose, and he yanked them off and stuffed them in his jumpsuit pocket. “This place is definitely going on the register.”

  Barbara snapped pictures so quickly Gordon shut his eyes against the flashes. Blinking lights always made him a bit sick.

  “Shoot. My battery’s dead.”

  Gordon squinted through his eyelids. Barbara had shoved her camera into her pocket, so he figured it was safe to open his eyes again. He eased his damp shirt away from his chest, hoping the water wouldn’t ruin the paint on his costume.

  “The presence is so strong,” Josie said, slightly bemused. “It’s like a real person pouring forth her spirit.”

  Minnie and Mark finally pushed their way through the doorway. “I think you’ll find a pipe wrench handy,” Gordon said, eyeing the enormous wrench wedged into Mark’s Bob the Builder tool belt. Mark goose-stepped through the spreading puddle and knelt by the sink. The towel and bucket had barely provided a bandage to the leak. Gordon heard him mutter something inappropriate for the young ears gathered in the room.

  “But now, there’s hope!” Josie burst out. Her eyes popped open and she stopped spinning.

  “Are you a water diviner, by chance?” Mark called.

  Josie jerked her attention to the bathroom. “Sometimes the attractions can be similar. Why?” Then Josie saw Gordon’s dripping turtleneck. “Oh, dear. When I sense water, it’s different. This is…” She waved her hand. “This is people.”

  He figured with all the people crammed into the room, he could sense people too. But this leak had a supernatural feel to it. It gave him the creeps. There was no physical reason those pipes should have failed. What was going on here? Was the house reacting to his presence or Minnie’s pain? If so, to what purpose?

  Gordon helped Minnie usher the gawkers out of the room and back to the party. Elvis was starting another set in the back yard, and she urged them not to miss it. Mark squatted in front of the open vanity cabinet. The water had finally stopped flowing, but puddles still lurked inside the cabinet and on the floor.

  Minnie stood and brushed at her knees. Her pants were soaked from the calves down, and her tee shirt from her elbows to her wrists. She squeezed the fabric and water trickled out.

  “This one doesn’t make any sense.” Mark came out of the bathroom holding a curved piece o
f pipe. He turned it. “The leak was in the cold water pipe to the faucet. I bumped the drain when I crawled under the sink, and it fell apart.” He handed the broken piece to Gordon. “We replaced this stuff.”

  Gordon tipped the pipe toward the light and water trickled out. He put his hand up to catch the drips and caught something else. A ring slid out of the drain junk and dropped into his palm.

  “What’s that?” Minnie edged around Mark to peer into Gordon’s hand.

  Gordon’s heart jumped into his throat as an edge of the ring not crusted in gunk reflected the light.

  “A ring?” Minnie brushed Gordon’s arm and he almost dropped it. He closed it in his hand. “I wonder how long it’s been in there. I don’t recall any guests losing jewelry.”

  “It was my mother’s.” Gordon squeezed his fist. He pictured it gleaming on his mother’s finger, the signet in the center with rubies on either side. It had seemed to stand out whenever she wrote, catching the light as her hand moved across the paper. She’d lost it before Minnie left. He’d asked his mother for it to present to Minnie with his proposal, and she hadn’t been able to find it.

  “Your mother’s? How did you drop it in this sink?” Minnie asked.

  Gordon shook his head. “She misplaced it before we lost the house.”

  “It couldn’t have been in the drain trap for fifty years.” Mark wiped his hands on his overalls. “It would have flushed through long ago.”

  Gordon extracted a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the grime off the ring. “Mother couldn’t remember where she’d lost it. She only ever took it off to wash her hands.” As he cleaned the ring, the rubies began to glow again and the ‘A’ on the signet became evident. The same monogram had been embossed on the family stationary, embroidered on the linens, and engraved into the silverware.

  Josie edged closer to him and peered over his shoulder. “Wow. That’s beautiful, and strong.”