The Haunting of Pitmon House

by Michael Richan

  He was interrupted by the sound of a loud buzzer.

  “I’ll get it,” Robert said, turning from Eliza and walking back to the hallway, disappearing into it within seconds.

  “That’ll be Donette,” Granger replied. “She’s joining us for dinner.”

  “Joining us?” Eliza asked, surprised. “Are you going to ask her for Nick’s journals over dinner?”

  “No, I’ve already asked,” Granger replied. “I told her your whole story. She said she wanted to meet you first.”

  Eliza suddenly felt too casually dressed, and she wished Granger had shared this bit of information with them before she left Spring Green.

  Rachel seemed to read Eliza’s reaction, and she reached over to her. “You’ll do fine,” she said, reassuringly. “I’ll help.”

  Robert returned with a tall, large-chested woman. She walked along beside him with confidence, an oversized purse hanging from her arm, which she dropped on a chair as she approached the kitchen island. She was dressed in a tight-fitting black shirt that hugged every curve, and leather pants.

  As Robert made the introductions, Eliza noticed a shiny object in Donette’s left hand. She raised it, and Eliza could see it was a small metal pipe.

  “Do you mind, Granger?” Donette said, holding up the pipe. “It’s a cherry blend, nothing obnoxious.”

  “No, I don’t mind, unless anyone else does?” He looked around the island. No one spoke up.

  “Fine then,” Donette said, producing a lighter from her pocket and puffing the pipe to life.

  “Wine?” Robert offered.

  “If memory serves,” Donette replied, “you always had the best wine. But it’s been a long time, Robert. You were just a tyke when I saw you last.” She held out her hand at waist level. “Too young to pour wine back then.”

  “He excels at it now,” Granger said, jumping in, “and I assure you the wine has only improved over the years. Give it a go.”

  Donette nodded, and Robert poured her some. She sniffed at it carefully, then swirled it around, sniffing again as the red coated the sides of the glass. Finally she let a little of it slip into her lips, and she pulled the glass away, setting it down on the counter.

  “Exquisite,” she said calmly. “Heavenly.”

  Eliza wondered how long before they’d talk about Nick’s journals. The conversation drifted from wine to cheese, and on to the baked ziti recipe that Granger had been struggling with for years. Soon Donette and Granger were going at it full speed, back and forth like old friends.

  Dinner was ready quickly, and they all sat at a large table nearby. Large bowls of salad, pasta, and bread were passed. Eliza took a lot of the salad and tried to resist the pasta, but Granger was having none of it. He came around with a grater and personally administered the cheese he’d been raving about to each person’s plate.

  She had to admit; it was good. Very good.

  The wine began to mix with the casual conversation, and Eliza felt herself relaxing, even laughing occasionally at the stories Granger and Donette were telling. It didn’t take long to warm up to the woman, who was seated directly across from her.

  “Coffee?” Granger asked, as people finished. “Espresso?”

  “No, too full,” Rachel replied. “I’ll have to work a double shift tomorrow to burn off the calories, Granger.”

  “These aren’t cheap carbs!” Granger said. “Retain them as long as you can!”

  That made Donette laugh and soon the entire table was laughing again. Eliza could feel the awkwardness of meeting new people dissipate rapidly. Granger knew this dinner would do that, she thought.

  Finally, Donette turned to her. “So, Eliza, tell me about yourself.”

  “Uh, well, I work at House on the Rock with Rachel,” she started.

  “Oh, that place,” Donette said. “Nick used to hold such strong opinions about it!”

  “All the haunted stuff?” Rachel asked.

  “No,” Donette replied, “he hated the kitsch. I know that’s why people like it, but he hated that type of thing. Taliesin was more his style.”

  Eliza wasn’t about to let that stop her. “My father died a few years ago, so I’m raising my brother, Shane. He’s almost fifteen. He’s the one in the hospital.”

  “Was your father gifted?” Donette asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Eliza replied. “It wasn’t something we ever talked about.”

  “I can understand that,” Donette said, reaching for her wine glass. “I’m not gifted, myself. Here I am, sitting at a table, surrounded by people who can jump into the River and see the most amazing things, but I can’t do any of it. Of course, I heard about it my entire married life, before the gift stole my husband away from me. Perhaps your father wanted to spare you pain, and that’s why he didn’t talk about it with you.”

  “I don’t know,” Eliza replied. “Impossible to know, now.”

  “Not impossible,” Donette replied. “I thought you all could contact the dead?” She looked around the table. “Isn’t that what you do?”

  “You know that’s not exactly how it works,” Granger said gently.

  “I was led to believe that’s exactly how it works,” Donette replied, her voice rising. “It’s up to the ghost, isn’t it?” she continued, turning her attention back to Eliza. “If it wants to communicate or not, correct? Sometimes ghosts conveniently don’t want to talk, isn’t that right?”

  “I can’t tell you why Nick has never tried to communicate with you, Donette,” Granger said.

  “Has your father ever tried to talk to you, since he moved on?” Donette asked Eliza. “A word? Maybe a breeze or a knocking? Anything?”

  “Not that I know of,” Eliza replied. “Since he wasn’t very communicative when he was alive, it doesn’t surprise me he hasn’t got anything to say now.”

  “But have you tried?” Donette pressed. “Reached out, held a séance or whatever it is you call it, to see if he would appear to you and tell you things?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Donette asked. “I’ve tried to contact Nick for more than a decade now. I’ve exhausted every one of these gifteds, hoping to get just the slightest hello from that man, and not one of them can rouse him. You’d think someone who was so forthright and liberal with the use of his gift would factor in a way to talk to his abandoned wife, wouldn’t you?”

  Eliza wasn’t sure where Donette was headed with things. “I don’t know.”

  “You should try your dad,” Donette said. “Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe, if they were active in life, they clam up when they die. And maybe your dad, who didn’t have much to say when he was alive, regrets it now and would like to tell you some things. That might make sense, huh? The idea that the active ones in life will talk to you in death sure does seem to be bullshit, isn’t that right, Granger?”

  Granger shook his head slightly. “Donette, I…”

  Eliza cut him off. “I don’t appreciate you speaking about my father so cavalierly,” she said to Donette. “Maybe he has something to say, maybe he doesn’t. My reasons for contacting him or not are my own. My brother is tied down to a hospital bed ten miles from here, under constant sedation. That’s what I’m worried about, not my father, not whatever problem you’ve got with your husband.”

  Donette placed her wine glass next to her plate and took a long breath. “You’re right,” she said calmly. “I apologize. You don’t deserve my badgering.”

  “Can you help us?” Eliza asked. “He’s getting worse by the day. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong; they’re basically useless. Rachel’s Tapura identified the object that has infected him, and it has something to do with Pitmon House. From what Granger tells me, your husband was the one with the most knowledge of the place. We need your help.”

  Donette raised her eyes to Eliza. “It killed him. You do realize that, don’t you? I would love to help you, but who helped my husband? Who saved him from that place? Perhaps the way I can help you the most
is to refuse.”

  “It’ll mean my brother’s death,” Eliza replied.

  “And it’ll mean the death of any of you,” Donette said, pointing her finger around the room, “who pursue this!”

  “Donette,” Granger said, “you don’t know that for sure. If we can pick up where Nick left off, maybe we can figure out what he wasn’t able to; maybe we can resolve what’s going on at Pitmon House, and finish what he was trying to accomplish.”

  “I held onto his books,” Donette said, “hoping that somehow it would make him want to contact me, like they were some kind of connection. I got so angry when he didn’t reach out, I wanted to burn them — and let me tell you, I came damn close several times. After all that has gone on since then, I think the one thing that sticks with me is how dedicated and focused he was on trying to crack that place. I abhor that kind of single-minded destructiveness now. Look what it got him. You’ll get the same if you follow in his footsteps. If I give you his books, it will just make me an accomplice in your deaths.”

  “Maybe,” Eliza said. “Maybe not. You’ll be killing my brother if you don’t; that’s a definite. He will die if I don’t do something.”

  “How do you know that?” Donette said. “Maybe it’s clinical. Maybe it’ll pass.”

  “We’re not getting anywhere,” Eliza said, becoming frustrated, turning to Robert, who was seated next to her. She felt Robert’s hand under the table, taking hers, giving her a squeeze. She knew it was intended to calm her, but she felt anything but calm.

  “So you’d deny us the opportunity to save Eliza’s brother,” Granger said, “because you think we can’t handle it? Is that it? Or is it something else, Donette? Is it really just your anger with Nick, and his failure to communicate with you? I think that because we’re gifted, like Nick, you feel you should punish us. None of what Nick did, Donette, was my fault. Or yours.” He pointed at Eliza. “And especially not hers. Or her brother’s.”

  Donette lifted her glass and finished off the last inch of wine. After she swallowed, she slowly replaced the glass next to her plate and took a big sigh, as though expelling the air was somehow purging herself. “No,” she said calmly. “Not her brother’s.”

  She rose from the table. Eliza felt panic, worried that their source for information was about to walk out the door. Instead, Donette walked to the chair where she’d dropped her bag, and brought it back to the table. Once she was seated again, she opened the purse in her lap and removed a black Moleskine journal. She set it down next to her wine glass and closed her purse. Then she looked up at Eliza.

  “Please, tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

  “You are,” Eliza said.

  Donette slid the small book toward Eliza. “That’s it. That was the journal he was using when he died. There are others, and I suppose we could talk about them if necessary, but everything about Pitmon House should be in that one. The first date in it is well before he started on it.”

  “Do you know how he became involved with it?” Eliza asked as she reached for the book.

  “He didn’t say,” Donette replied, “and of course I’ve never read it. Couldn’t make out anything beyond the date.”

  Eliza slipped the elastic from the journal and opened it. On the first page at the top was 9/14/87, and as she glanced down the page she could tell that Nick’s penmanship was going to present a challenge. She wanted to jump in and begin reading immediately, but the first couple of sentences didn’t make much sense.

  “Thank you,” Eliza said, replacing the elastic and setting it down. “I’ll make sure you get it back.”

  “I’d much rather you promise me you’ll deliver it in person,” Donette replied. “That way I know you’ll have to stay alive to keep your promise.”

  “In person, then,” Eliza said.

  “We’ll make sure that happens,” Robert said.

  “You better believe it,” Granger added.

  Donette shook her head. “Words,” she muttered. “Nick left me with only words. Make sure you don’t.”

  ●

  “Phenomenal,” Granger said, looking over Eliza’s shoulder as she examined Nick’s journal. The dinner had finished and Donette had left over an hour earlier. Since then, they’d all crammed around Eliza as she perused the book, everyone trying to get a glance. Most of it was in Nick’s hard to read handwriting, fairly dense. Eliza complained about not being able to make sense of most of Nick’s scrawls, but Granger seemed able to comprehend a good deal of it. When Eliza turned a page revealing a rough schematic of the house, it elicited gasps from the entire group.

  “This is incredible!” Granger said. “Look, he’s laid out the entire house.”

  “Not the entire house,” Robert corrected. “Just the ground floor.”

  “Yeah,” Eliza said, closest to the pages and best able to read Nick’s writing. She pointed to a note written next to Nick’s rendition of a staircase. “Do not go past the landing,” she read. “Surprised I can read it! Does that mean he didn’t go upstairs?”

  “Sounds like a warning,” Rachel said.

  “I think we’d need to read the entire text to know how to interpret this drawing correctly,” Granger said. “It was probably meant to augment what he wrote, not the other way around.”

  As Eliza looked at Nick’s sketch, she began to feel anxious. At first she thought it might be her desire to get started with the house, to discover what the journal could illuminate and get going, but the longer she looked at the schematic of the ground floor the more she realized her anxiety was because of what it lacked; the sense of incompleteness gnawed at her. It didn’t help that she couldn’t understand many of the sentences.

  “It’s missing so much,” she said, turning the pages to see if more drawings were in the book. There were no other attempts to illustrate the layout of the house. “That house is much bigger than this.”

  “Well, yes,” Robert said. “There’s a second story, at least. Right, Dad?”

  “Might be three,” Granger replied. “And a basement too, I’d guess.”

  “No, I mean he knew more than he drew,” Eliza said, trying to identify the feelings inside her head. “He deliberately didn’t draw the other areas of the house. He knew more than he drew here.”

  “You don’t know for sure,” Rachel said.

  “No, I know,” Eliza said. “Can’t you sense it?” She looked up to see the others exchanging glances, wondering what she meant. “He knew what the other floors were like. He chose not to draw them. You can feel it. I do, at least.” She tried to pin down where the feelings were coming from, and felt a wave of emotion pass over her. It was fear — pure, unadulterated fear.

  “It needs to be read,” Granger said. “Not skimmed like this.”

  “I agree,” Eliza said, closing the book. “It’ll have to be you, Granger. I can’t make out more than a word here or there.”

  “That’s because of your inexperience in the River,” Granger replied. “Once you’ve got more history under you, a lot more of this will make sense.”

  “You were his friend,” Eliza said. “You’ll understand where he was coming from. Once you’re done, you can tell us what you found out.”

  “Alright,” Granger replied, more than happy to take on the task. Eliza passed it over her head to where Granger was standing behind her, and he took it from her.

  “I’ll go through it tonight and tomorrow,” Granger said. “Why don’t you plan on coming back tomorrow night, and I’ll share with you everything I can extract from it.”

  Eliza felt Robert’s arm go around her shoulder to deliver a supportive hug. She instantly appreciated the gesture. The feeling of his muscles gently pulling her toward him felt reassuring. She allowed herself to tilt a couple of inches until she was resting on his body.

  “We’ll go through it all,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  He knows, she thought. He could sense the fear, too.

  “It’s late,” Eliza said, pulling h
erself from Robert and standing up. “We’ve got shifts tomorrow, Rachel.”

  “Yeah, guess we’d better head out,” Rachel replied.

  Eliza and Rachel thanked Granger for the meal, and they discussed plans to return the following night. They said their goodbyes and walked to the car.

  “You good to drive?” Rachel asked.

  “I’m fine,” Eliza said. “I only had a glass. You, on the other hand…”

  “Me?”

  “You had at least three. You don’t look the slightest bit fazed.”

  “I can hold my liquor better than most people,” Rachel replied. “Years of bar practice.”

  Chapter Nine

  An hour later after dropping Rachel off, Eliza arrived at home. Walking in through the front door always left her feeling a little melancholy; it was so silent without Shane around, she was even beginning to miss the messes he’d leave in the kitchen. Everything sat exactly the way she’d left it, as though the house had been in suspended animation since she was last there. It wasn’t how she knew the place to be; it had always hummed with some kind of life and activity.

  She turned on the TV but found nothing that engaged her. She went to her father’s old study and flipped on the computer; while it booted up she went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on to boil. Sponge was immediately at her feet, and she reached down to scratch his head. “In a second, buddy,” she said, but he was having none of it; he meowed insistently as she walked back to the computer and launched AOL. The modem hissed and screeched, and she walked back to the kitchen to feed the cat while it connected.

  All of her email was lame, but the tea was good, and she found herself turning off the computer quickly, deciding to walk up to her bedroom with the hot mug. It was dark, but she resisted the temptation to turn on the lights. Instead, she walked to the window, looking down into the yard as she sipped on the hot tea, its steam rising into her face. The moon was already out, and she glanced to the barn, wondering if its ghost would be active tonight.

  Ghost, she thought. That’s what it is, right? A ghost.