by Mia Sheridan
Haddie’s new room was much smaller, but spic and span now that she’d spent the morning cleaning it, and the shared bathroom—though rusty and under about seven layers of grime—was in working order.
They’d found the livable space after wandering what felt like an endless labyrinth of hallways and corridors, some doors still locked from within. Scarlett had mentally added a locksmith to her list of professionals to call, eyeing the antique glass doorknobs that featured large keyholes. When she’d bent and squinted one eye, pressing the other to the small opening, she’d discovered that a keyhole cover concealed her view.
The door to the attic stairs had stood wide open, that rainbow light shimmering on the walls, and drawing them toward its source. It had felt right the moment they’d entered.
Temporarily, she’d set them both up in what would be her bedroom and then started cleaning as soon as they’d woken up and disentangled themselves from the sleeping bags and blankets they’d snuggled under to camp on the floor. There were repairs over repairs to make, walls to repaint, fixtures to replace, furniture to buy, but for now . . . it was livable and that’s all they needed to get the more major work underway. Which was a boon because before they’d arrived, she hadn’t been sure the place was habitable, or whether they’d have to rent somewhere nearby as the remodeling work was being done. This attic space was going to save her a good amount of money—money that could be well used elsewhere.
At the thought of money—the money—a spear of guilt pierced her stomach, but she ignored it. She’d gone down this route. Too many times to count. She’d made her choice and she wasn’t going to spend the rest of forever beating herself up over it.
She focused back on the room around her. Yes, this space would be perfect once there were events at Lilith House that would spill out to the surrounding grounds, some of which might go late into the night. She’d considered the idea of having a small house built on the property, but this was better, and she’d be spared another expense. The expansive attic space was practically soundproof with its thick walls and solid-wood floors, and being so far away from the main floor of the house. Another white noise machine or two, and she and Haddie would still have their own quiet privacy.
Scarlett had contacted a handyman in Farrow, the town beyond Lilith House, and he was supposed to be by that afternoon. She wasn’t sure of the extent of his skills, but she hoped he could at least get the water running in the kitchen, tell her if the wiring seemed sound, and recommend a company that would do the heavier lifting of the substantial renovation she had planned, and a landscaping company that would help beautify the grounds.
The grounds were crucial to the success of the business she had planned.
Scarlett gave the top shelf of the closet another swipe, her hand bumping into something that slid backward, hitting the wall with a soft clink. Frowning, Scarlett went up on her toes, reaching blindly for the item, her fingers meeting what felt like cool metal. She gripped it, bringing her hand out and holding the item up in front of her.
A silver crucifix, darkened with tarnish.
Scarlett frowned, turning the item this way and that, taking in the fancy scrollwork, the lifelike metal rendering of Jesus, and the gemstones decorating all four points. They appeared to be diamonds, but Scarlett figured they were probably just cubic zirconia. Who would have left something as valuable as a diamond-encrusted crucifix behind?
For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, a chill moved down her spine. She had the strange urge to drop the crucifix as though if she held it too long, it might scald her flesh. She’d thought of this place as a haunted house just the day before, and this discovery definitely did nothing to diminish the creep factor.
Just as she was about to toss it right back on the top shelf where she’d found it, she caught sight of something at the top of the cross where two winged angels were entwined. She brought it closer, studying the dark red substance staining the grooves of their wings. She used a fingernail to dig a speck of it out, looking at that too. Was that . . . it looked like dried blood. “Creep factor, officially heightened,” she mumbled.
Scarlett placed the crucifix back on the highest shelf, pushing it all the way into the corner. For a moment she just stood there, considering . . . wondering if the creep factor might translate into good marketing. She’d read there were vague spooky legends about the canyon nearby, and of course, the fire in what had been a small chapel that killed the young women and staff who’d once lived here was absolutely tragic. But she hadn’t thought about using any of those stories to her advantage. She hadn’t thought about whether it could be an advantage at all . . . but maybe. Or was it obscene of her to even consider using the story of the lives lost on this property and whatever spooky tales may exist about the area for financial benefit? Scarlett stepped down off the stepstool. Probably. She’d have to learn more about the area and think about all that later. Because at the moment, there was nothing at all to market anyway.
At the moment, the place was only barely livable.
And likely haunted.
By benevolent spirits, if any at all, please and thank you.
Scarlett picked up the bottle of glass cleaner which was on the floor with the other sprays, sponges, scrub brushes, and old rags and took it to the window, misting some on the thick windowpanes and beginning to wipe them clean.
Through the glass she spotted Haddie in the dress she’d picked out that morning. Scarlett smiled, always enchanted by her girl’s penchant for dresses, the frillier the better, clothing that seemed so at odds with her almost . . . somber personality. To see the way pink satin or white eyelet—or in today’s case, blue gingham—made her daughter’s green eyes widen with delight never ceased to bring forth a grin from Scarlett. She smiled now, watching as Haddie moved forward, stepping slowly into the trees. Her smile faded and she raised her hand to knock on the glass, to attempt to get her daughter’s attention, to call her home, when she saw Haddie bend down and pluck something from the ground. A yellow flower. Haddie was being a little girl, collecting wildflowers. She’d never had a yard before. To Haddie, this must feel like one giant park.
Scarlett bit at her lip for a moment, conflicted as she stared at her child through the glass, watching her from afar. In some ways, it felt like a metaphor for her relationship with Haddie. She knew most mothers had a hard time letting go, but Scarlett had always had this vague sense that she couldn't hold on to Haddie even if she tried. It would be a useless attempt. In some way she couldn't explain, not even to herself, she knew Haddie existed on a plane all her own. She could walk beside her daughter through a mist she had no name for, she could love her fiercely—and she did, oh she did—but there was too much inexplicable distance between them to ever truly grasp the whole of her.
It worried her. On some level it broke her heart because she suspected she wasn’t enough for Haddie. Her very deepest fear was that she wasn’t the mother her child needed.
Haddie turned her head slightly and Scarlett drank in the angelic perfection of her. Even from this distance, Haddie was beautiful. Otherworldly. Not like Scarlett, who was pretty enough in an ordinary sort of way, but not stunning like her child. A beloved little alien girl who had somehow come through her but was not of her.
She brought her knuckle to the window, hesitating again just as her skin touched the cool glass. And yet . . . Haddie had always been a cautious child—overly cautious if anything. It wasn’t her physical safety Scarlett obsessed over. So then . . . why not let her explore their new property a little? Haddie wasn’t perfect, no seven-year-old was, but she’d always understood boundaries. She wouldn’t venture far—it wasn’t in her nature—and she’d likely be back in ten minutes, her fist full of flowers, a rare look of carefree happiness on her lovely face. At that thought, Scarlett’s lips turned up. Slowly, she dropped her hand as her daughter slipped into the darkness of the trees.
CHAPTER TWO
A prickly bush caught on Haddie’s pretty dress
and she stopped, using her hand not holding the yellow flowers to pull out the thorn. The branch fell away as she continued on through the trees of the forest that stretched out behind the house.
Lilith House. Mommy had said they could change its name, but that felt wrong to Haddie. The house already knew its name. And anyway, even if someone changed her name—if they called her Emma or Sarah or something else—she’d still be who she was. Changing a name couldn’t change anything else about a person or a thing. Haddie was very sure of that.
Mommy had funny feelings about the house, but Haddie didn’t think her mommy knew why. Maybe it had to do with her friend who ran away from there, and the fire that happened afterward. She’d heard Mommy talking to Aunt Merrilee about the girl named Kandace when she thought Haddie was sleeping. Haddie wasn’t sure if the house was bad or not, but she got a heavy feeling in her bones when she looked at the doors at the end of the second-floor hallway. She didn’t know if the house was mad or sad. She couldn’t tell what the house was saying because it was still only waking up. Lilith House was confused, the same way Haddie sometimes felt when she blinked her eyes open after a dream and didn’t know where she was.
The same feeling hung in the forest, but something else had pulled Haddie here. The shadow of the thing she’d seen darting through the trees as she’d stood in the window of her room. The thing that kept drawing closer and closer as if it wanted to get a look at the new people who had moved into Lilith House. It’d come right up to the burned-up building—the place that made Haddie’s bones feel like lead—in the back before disappearing into the trees once more. It was like it was curious about them.
Haddie was curious too.
She stepped gingerly over a cluster of wild mushrooms, careful not to touch them because she felt their heaviness, glancing over her shoulder when she heard a soft crunch. Whatever was moving behind her slipped into the shadows. She only got the impression of darkness and the sharp edge of a horn or a tusk. Haddie’s heart thumped and she swallowed, trying to pull forth the weight of the thing. Not the weight of its body, the feeling wasn’t about that. Haddie didn’t have a better word for the sense she got about things. She only knew that when her bones got heavy, when her whole body felt full-up with the weight of a person or a thing so that she couldn’t even move, that there was badness in it. The opposite of her mommy who felt as light as a feather to Haddie. So light that when Haddie was around her, she sometimes felt like she was floating. Her mommy was good and . . . light. As weightless as the sparkly bubbles Haddie blew with the big yellow wand Gram gave her.
She stood still, trying, trying to measure the weight of the thing behind her, but could not. Something was wrong. Or . . . different. She couldn’t get a sense of what and that made Haddie’s skin prickle even while her curiosity kicked up.
What are you? Why can’t I feel you?
She’d experienced this before. Sometimes with people she passed on the street, and once with a little boy who was in her music class. Mostly, she got it with very, very old people. Sometimes those old people died very soon after, like Mrs. Klaus in the apartment building where she used to live. She wondered if the thing behind her was very, very old and about to die.
She stepped forward, and the thing followed. She bent down to pick a white flower with a black center growing in the shade of a giant tree, adding it to the yellow ones clutched in her fist. Mommy would like these. That worried look she got on her face sometimes when she stared at Haddie and didn’t know Haddie could see her would vanish momentarily. Mommy would smile and put the flowers in water on the windowsill the way she did when Haddie used to bring a rose home from Gram’s garden, and their new house would feel a little more like home.
As Haddie stood straight, a slow drumming sounded behind her along with words, said in a low, scratchy voice. It wasn’t singing . . . but more like the way the men in the church had sounded at Mrs. Klaus’s funeral as they walked with smoking sticks down the aisle behind her casket.
Haddie didn’t know what the words the thing behind her meant, but they made her bones heavy. They made her bones so heavy they ached. The words were bad words. They meant something bad and terrible. Haddie barely noticed the flowers drifting to the forest floor as, trembling, she turned around to face the thing saying the words she didn’t know but could feel. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as the drumbeat and the words grew quieter, moving away from her in the other direction, deeper into the cool darkness. Whatever had been following her was leaving.
Haddie stood still for several moments, the ache in her bones subsiding. Movement to her right caught her attention and she turned to see a red fox staring at her, its head cocked to the right. The red fox felt light. It didn’t mean her any harm. She wondered if the dark thing did. Haddie let out a slow breath, turning toward Lilith House and making her way back to her mother.
CHAPTER THREE
Scarlett set the box of dishes on the kitchen counter and wiped her hands down her thighs. That was the last of the boxes, all they’d shoved into the trunk of her SUV before leaving their small rental apartment in the Playa Vista area of Los Angeles. The moving truck would arrive in a few days with their beds, mattresses, and a few other pieces of essential furniture. But all their other possessions now resided inside Lilith House. Or . . . Sunnyside Manor. Only, it was as though the house had silently declared its original name to her, planting it in her brain, because she couldn’t stop thinking of it as such.
So, fine. “Lilith House it is,” she told the walls of the estate. Haddie had been right. You couldn’t just change a thing’s name.
She turned, heading out of the kitchen toward the stairs when she caught sight of a man, standing stock-still in the foyer, his gaze fixed on her, expression filled with what could only be described as hostility. She let out a startled breath, bringing her hand to her chest. “My goodness, you scared me.” She released a nervous laugh as she shook her head, attempting to shrug off the fear that had spiraled through her veins. “You must be Louis. Thanks for coming.” No thanks for not knocking and scaring me half to death. And mean mugging me before we’ve even met.
The man narrowed his eyes even further. “I’m not Louis. Who are you?” he demanded.
Scarlett frowned, unease lifting inside her. She eyed this stranger. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Handsome in a rough sort of way, though maybe the roughness could mostly be attributed to his expression and surly attitude. “Excuse me? This is my home. Who are you and why are you here?”
“Your home?” He glanced around as though he might be checking whether or not he’d stepped inside the wrong dwelling.
Perhaps he’d mistakenly ended up at this abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhere when he’d meant to end up at another.
Scarlett cleared her throat. “Yes, my home. I bought Lilith House and moved in yesterday. Now I think you better tell me who you are and why you’re in my house, or I’m going to have to call the police.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and held it up, her thumb poised to dial 9-1-1. She glanced at it, suddenly noticing she had absolutely no service.
“There are no cell towers in Farrow,” the man said. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Uh, no,” she said, looking stupidly at her phone again as if he might be lying and those three bars would suddenly appear.
He stared at her for several beats before a muscle in his cheek ticked. “In any case, I am the police.” He let out a long breath, running a hand through his short dark hair. “Deputy West.”
“I see.” She lowered her eyes to his T-shirt and downward to his jeans, landing on his boot-clad feet and then raising to his eyes once again. Green. While Haddie’s eyes were a pale sea-glass green, this man’s eyes were the green of pine trees in a sunlit forest. Beautiful. His lashes were thick and curled upward. Too pretty for a boy. Too soft for such a hard-looking man. Yeah, he was handsome, she’d give him that. But she didn’t trust handsome men—in her experience, it was too easy for them
to lie.
Or maybe she was just gullible.
Anyway.
“Off duty,” he explained, and it took her a moment to re-follow the trail of the conversation. He’d obviously read her unspoken question as to his lack of a uniform.
“Is it typical that members of the police department around here walk into private residences without knocking?”
“Sheriff’s department. And I hadn’t heard that anyone bought this place.”
Scarlett returned her useless phone to her pocket. “Was I supposed to make an official announcement to the authorities?”
That muscle tic again and a slow release of breath. “We got off on the wrong foot. I apologize for entering without knocking. I saw your car and, well . . .” His words dwindled. Thought someone was breaking in? she surmised would have been the end of that sentence if he’d finished. He walked toward her and though she was tempted to step back, she held her ground. Deputy West extended his hand. “Welcome to town.” His tone conveyed anything but congeniality.
“Gee, thanks,” she muttered. She eyed his hand warily and then reached out her own. His hand enfolded hers easily, his skin browned and slightly calloused, fingers masculine and sturdy. An unwanted shiver moved through her blood. “Scarlett Lattimore.”
He nodded once, dropping her hand. “Just you?”
“What?”
“Just you living here?”
“Oh, um, no. I have a daughter, Haddie. She’s seven.”
He kept watching her as if waiting for her to continue, noting, she was sure, that there was no Mr. Lattimore. Much to her dismay, heat rose in her cheeks, and she hated herself for it.
Being a single mother is not a scarlet letter. Though if it was, she’d been aptly named to play the role.
A knock sounded at the door, causing Scarlett to jump, bringing her hand to her chest again. God, she must seem like a scared deer. “Come in,” she called, a little too exuberantly.