The House Guest

by Rosa Sophia

“What?”

  “You heard me. If you’re not comfortable with our relationship, you can go to Canada or Nevada or even Australia without me. I know we’ve been falling apart. Ever since you came back, you’ve been distant. I’ll understand if you’ve moved on enough to not want me anymore.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” Kat sat down on the edge of the bed. She had jumped out from under the covers naked. She was beginning to get chilly, now that her sudden burst of adrenaline had worn off.

  “I’m sorry. I must sound like a thirteen-year-old girl,” Jake said.

  “Actually, yes. Look, you’re going with me, right? I mean, if you want to, that is.”

  Jake sat up. “Why Canada, why Nevada?”

  “Why not?”

  “Seems like an odd choice.”

  “Whichever one it is, it’s far away from here, that’s what matters. Besides, I’d love to visit Quebec. And Las Vegas.”

  Jake laughed. “Which one is it, sweetheart?” He wrapped his arms around her, cupping her breasts with his warm hands.

  “Jake, come on, stop it.”

  “Which one, Canada or Nevada?” He grinned and kissed her on the neck.

  “Um.” Kat thought for a moment. She grabbed Jake’s hands and squeezed them in her own. “How’s Nevada? It’s warmer, anyway.”

  “Fine by me, but I’ve never been to a desert. Have you?”

  “Nope.”

  “What if we hate the heat?”

  “Then we’ll go to Canada.”

  “All right. Quebec?”

  “Indeed. I was thinking, though.” She turned and hopped the rest of the way onto the bed, curling her legs toward her chest. “I know of one person who’s always wanted to get out of this place, but never could.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Jake, I think Frank should come with us.”

  “Frank Ruth? You never did tell me what you guys talked about.”

  “We talked about a lot of things. I mean, it’s not as if we’re best friends or anything. I just think he should come with us. To get away. He’s stuck in that terrible building, completely poor, relying off money from his dead friend’s family.”

  “Are you sure it’s wise to take an old man cross-country?”

  “I think we should ask him whether he’d like to come with.”

  Jake shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “Will you really come with me?” Kat asked. There was a hint of desperation in her voice. She crawled atop him, kissing him.

  “Of course I will. I promise.”

  Other than the occasional fight, Jake and Katherine’s relationship returned to normal within a few days. They started planning their trip to Nevada. Kat had excitedly packed up all of their things within forty-eight hours. After combining their savings, they deduced they had enough to get them there, and rent a place while they worked on trying to sell the family homestead.

  When Katherine told her mother about their plan, the older woman begged them to move to Georgia, but they wouldn’t comply. Instead, they decided to pay her a visit on the way out west.

  Even if she ended up living in a cheap motel and working a minimum-wage job, Kat knew she would be absolutely fine. As long as she never had to go back to the Maslin house again.

  ***

  Kat knocked tentatively on the white door. Janis Crow answered a moment later, clad in a dark green terrycloth bathrobe. She quickly ushered Kat into the tiny kitchen beyond.

  “Come on in and have a seat,” Janis said. “I’m glad you could make it. I know we haven’t seen each other in a week or so.”

  “Are you this nice to all of your patients?” Kat sat down at the kitchen table and leaned against the scratched surface.

  “Clients, Katherine. Patients are for hospitals. Would you like some green tea?”

  “Sure.”

  Janis was at the counter, pouring steaming liquid into a couple of dainty teacups.

  As she poured the second cup, she said, “I read the papers the other week. That got reported pretty darn fast.”

  “You’re telling me. Jake and I had numerous reporters come to the house, even stopping us on the streets. People still think I killed Allen Ryman, even though ballistics and blood splatter investigations proved otherwise.”

  “Well, you know,” Janis said as she set the cups on the table, “people are always interested in morbid subjects. The story of a young woman disappearing is never quite as enticing as a story about a murderer. Unless, of course, the story of the young woman involves a murderer.”

  “Let’s not go there.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. Would you like some cookies?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Janis shuffled to the other side of the kitchen and took the cookie jar over to the table. She set it down and removed the lid. “Help yourself. I’ll be right back.”

  When Kat was left alone, she took the time to observe Janis’s kitchen, which was just as creative and unusual as her office. A plastic witch on a broom hung in the window, its crooked nose pointing toward the glass. Various cartoons and pictures hung on the wall or the fridge, some of them paintings by Renoir.

  It was a great relief for Katherine to be sitting in this kitchen. There was something comforting about it that almost canceled out everything that had happened in the past few months. But in the back of her mind, all she could think of was John Maslin’s dead body. Even as she seemed so happy, so ready to turn from her past, she still couldn’t forget the image of the axe coming down on a defenseless child, a child whose desires had been enough to condemn him.

  “Here we are.” The cheery voice startled her, and she jumped. Her knee hit the bottom of the table and she winced. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Janis’s concerned expression. “Are you all right?”

  “I hit my knee.”

  “I scared you.”

  “I’m easily frightened.”

  Janis sat down across from Kat, frowning. “Do you have trouble sleeping?”

  “Usually. Ever since I got back home after August thirty-first, I’ve been a wreck. Luckily, that dream I told you about stopped. But now I just dream about the murder and I can’t get comfortable anymore. I’m a coffee addict.”

  “What about flashbacks?”

  “Yeah, I get those. Last night, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and thought it was my grandfather. When Jake came in the bedroom, he found me curled up against the wall by the bed, muttering to myself. I don’t remember what I was saying. It’s happened a lot. I hear footsteps, and I think it’s either Phillip or Julie. I start screaming or something. Sometimes I panic so much I end up hurting myself. No amount of sleeping pills can calm me down. I’ve been living on coffee, except for the nights I actually manage to sleep.”

  “Do you realize what this could mean, Kat?” Janis reached her hand across the table and rested it on Kat’s wrist.

  “What?” She clutched her cup of tea.

  “Have you ever heard of PTSD?”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder?”

  “So you have.” Janis leaned back.

  “You’re not saying…” Kat looked across the table and saw a deck of Tarot cards sitting in front of Janis, which was what she had left the room to retrieve.

  “Kat, I think you need medication and a lot of therapy. This Nevada trip you mentioned on the phone might not be such a good idea.”

  “But a trip can be therapy, right?”

  “Driving can be very stressful.”

  “I know that,” Kat snapped. She suddenly felt like a teenager again.

  “Don’t get angry at me. I’m only trying to help you.” Janis’s expression was completely calm. She had dealt with the anger of her clients many times before. “Let’s just relax,” she suggested. Then she took out her Tarot cards.

  “I don’t really believe in that stuff, you know.”

  “That’s all right. Just try to, okay? You have to open your heart and your mind in order to experience the bes
t outcome. I believe that goes for almost anything in daily life.” Janis shuffled the cards and set them down on the table—three of them, all upside down and facing Katherine.

  “What are those for?” Kat inquired, feeling a little stupid afterward.

  “This is your past, present and future,” Janis explained, pointing to each card in turn. “Gather all your intentions for tonight, everything you’ve worked for in the past and everything you need in the future…then turn over the cards. All right? Try to believe,” she added, when she saw Kat’s skeptical expression.

  She stared at the cards for several long moments. She tried her best to do as Janis had requested, hoping that somehow this would benefit her.

  “What do you mean, everything I need?” she asked abruptly. Janis pulled a curl of red hair out from under her glasses and leaned forward.

  “What do you need to do now that all of this is over? What is your desire for the future? That is the energy you have to put into the cards.”

  Kat almost laughed, but she stifled it. “Okay.” She touched her fingers to the first card and said, “I want to get out of Pennsylvania. I want to get away from…I mean, I’m not running away, I just feel like I’ll only be able to repair myself if I’m somewhere else, like Nevada or something. I need to start a new life and be happy for once.”

  “Turn over the first card.”

  Katherine did so. “The Sun?” She had to lean forward and turn her head so she could see it. It was upside down. The picture on the card showed a beautiful woman on a horse, raising a sword to the bright star above.

  “Ah, major arcana. Very nice.”

  Kat rolled her eyes. “Why, may I ask, are you making me read tarot cards?”

  “I’m not making you,” Janis said, laughing. “You haven’t touched your tea,” she observed. “Drink it, it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Now you’re making me drink tea.” Kat scrunched up her nose and frowned, then sipped her tea. “It’s just perfect, I’ll have you know. Are you going to tell me what in the world the Sun is, besides the obvious?”

  To Kat’s surprise, Janis’s eyes slipped shut. There was a thoughtful look on her pudgy, wrinkled face. “The sun represents something beautiful, Kat. Happiness that is almost ecstasy. But in your case,”—her eyes snapped open—“the card is upside down.”

  “So? That’s your fault for dealing it incorrectly.”

  “If you hadn’t noticed, all the cards have the same back. From the other side, you can’t tell if it’s upside down or not. There’s a reason for that. When a card is dealt upside down, it means the opposite of what the card normally stands for. I would appreciate it if you would stop rolling your eyes. This will not only help you, but it will allow me to see where you’ve been in life.”

  “Let me guess. You’re psychic.” Kat widened her eyes, made an O-shape of her mouth, and wiggled her fingers dramatically.

  Janis’s eyebrow went up, as though she were contemplating the sanity of her client. “You know, you should be happy. I’m not charging you for this session.”

  “Gee, thanks. Please continue, Madame Butterfly.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Janis looked up from the card. “You weren’t very happy, were you?”

  “Well, not really.”

  “You wanted to get out of your apartment and—”

  “How did you know I lived in an apartment?”

  Janis smirked. “You told me.” She shook her head in disbelief, and then continued. “You wanted to move to a farm, correct?”

  “Yeah.” She had really been hoping she hadn’t told Janis about the apartment.

  “And you found your chance. Why do you think your grandparents let you have that house?”

  “Phillip wanted to keep it in the family. There were fewer chances of people snooping around if I got hold of the house. But he hadn’t realized at the time that I meant to snoop from the first day I got there. He didn’t know about my dream.” Kat yawned.

  “That’s not the only reason, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your grandmother. She wanted her husband to let you have the house.” Janis’s eyes closed again. “How did she convince him? She had already told him about her dream and he already knew you had come from somewhere else, though he was less than inclined to believe it. Perhaps it was because he loved her? Perhaps the reason he didn’t turn Allen in for killing her was not because he didn’t want to go to prison, but because he wanted to protect his wife’s memory. If he never saw or heard anything about her unnatural death, he could remain in denial. He wasn’t trying to protect Allen. He was trying to protect a memory, a part of his mind.” When her eyes opened again, it wasn’t to an agreeable audience.

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s possible, even likely. Something about her always captivated him. Perhaps, in the end, it was not he who was in control, but Julie. You already know Stark’s son was Julie’s killer. What you don’t know is how Phillip reacted when he caught someone killing his wife.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “It was in the paper.” Janis smirked again. “The Sun represents only partial success in this position. You were lonely, unhappy, and torn.”

  “Lonely? I wasn’t lonely.”

  “One can be lonely in company, as I’m sure you know.”

  “But I had Jake.”

  “You may have had him, but did you talk to him? Did you tell him everything that bothered you?”

  “Not everything.”

  “You bottled things up and didn’t release them. I’m guessing your artwork suffered as well?”

  “I haven’t gotten much painting done. There was that fake one, of course. They never did figure out who forged the confession painting.”

  Janis nodded knowingly. “Are you ready to pick up the second card?” she asked. Kat reached for it. “Set your intentions. This is the present,” Janis reminded her.

  Katherine turned over the card. “What’s the Universe? Besides the obvious.” This card had a picture of a nude woman dancing through a pale blue evening.

  “Since it isn’t upside down, it shows us that you are being liberated. All of your past is joining with your present and finally coming into sync with,”—Janis shrugged, looking toward the ceiling, then back at Katherine—“with your life as it is now. Perhaps you’ll go to Nevada. Sometimes this card has something to do with travel.”

  “It had better. And I think I’m going to bring someone from the past with me.”

  “Who?”

  “Frank Ruth, my grandmother’s brother. I guess he’s my great uncle? Or something.”

  “Oh,” Janis said, nodding.

  “I’m ready for the last one.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Kat picked up the card. When she did, she gasped and dropped it.

  “Oh, relax.” Janis picked up the Death card and carefully placed it in its line-up on the table.

  “Relax? Are you kidding?”

  “Kat, I don’t care what all the movies say, when you’re doing a tarot reading and you come across the Death card, it simply stands for change.”

  “Yeah, death!” Kat jumped from her seat, shaking.

  Janis followed her into the living room and put an arm over her shoulder. “No, no. It very rarely means actual death.” Kat slumped down on the couch and Janis sat beside her, gently rubbing her back. “Death is the biggest change of all, therefore it is used to represent all the others. The card you chose proves you are being transformed. All that has happened, and all that is happening now, will lead to your separation from the past. If you follow on your current path and do what feels right and what makes you happy, you’ll be fine. Do you see what I mean?”

  “I’m never doing Tarot again,” Kat muttered, grumpy. There were several long moments of silence. She eventually slumped against Janis’s shoulder. There was a fire crackling before them, dimly lighting the small living room. “Have you ever felt like you’ve known someone f
or longer than you’ve ever been alive?” Kat asked.

  “Yes,” Janis said. “She’s right next to me. And I know she’s not insane. Now, you get some sleep, okay?”

  ***

  It took about a month for the Maslin house to sell, probably because of its sudden negative reputation. In the end, a large Texan family moved in. They were extremely pleased to find a nice neighborhood just behind their small section of woods. They even tore down all the trees to get a view of the houses. Their next project was to knock down the barn, of course, because it was too unsightly for their liking.

  It was goodbye, stone—hello, plastic siding. Despite the fact Katherine wanted to leave, she still would have cried if she’d known what the new owners had done with such a beautiful old house. No one bothered to tell those happy suburbanites that five people had been murdered and buried in the vicinity. If truth had reigned, the house would have never sold. All in all, it was better that the out-of-towners never found out.

  In the place where Earl Woodworth was bludgeoned to death with a fire poker, children played with their Legos and stuffed animals. They pretended the fireplace in the summer kitchen was a little house. They didn’t know they were frolicking over a recently exhumed grave.

  The wood floors all through the house were carpeted. The kitchen was redone and the old iron stove was taken out. The wooden floors in the kitchen were replaced with new ones, all sparkling and waxed periodically by a maid.

  The gardens were perfect as well, and the lawn reminded the neighbors of a golf course. Needless to say, the Texan who bought the place was a landscaper.

  After all the cleaning and making over of the entire house, the family still managed to miss a few things. Up in the attic, in a secluded cubbyhole, was a box.

  It was marked:

  Our Guest. August, 1960.

  It had once been closer to the steps, right off the entryway to the attic. But just as it had seemed to appear out of nowhere in the first place, it managed to move as well. It was behind a few old boards, hidden in a space so dusty and dark that the chances of anyone finding it on a routine trip to the attic were slim indeed. Katherine hadn’t moved it and neither had Jake—but someone had wanted it hidden.