The Blacker House

by Nicole Mulloy

  “Well, they’re going to Aunt Maggie’s for Halloween weekend, right?”

  Kate stood silent for a moment, trying to get her mind around the idea they were contemplating. “It’s crazy. Can we do it? What if we find something?”

  “I guess we’ll decide that when it happens.” Seth looked uneasy. Still, Kate felt glad to have Seth on her side.

  “I guess we can’t go on like this. Somebody’s going to get hurt. Mom and Dad wouldn’t believe any of this. Besides, what could they do?” Kate mumbled, almost to herself. She finally looked up at Seth. “Alright, let’s do it. I can’t believe we’re going to dig up the dirt room.”

  “You’re going to dig in the dirt room?” Marie’s voice suddenly chimed in from the doorway. She stood in the threshold wearing violet pajamas dotted with tiny red roses. With her hair in sleepy disarray, and her delicate features skewered up in curiosity, she looked like a sleepy little angel padding into the room, but Kate knew better.

  Marie, even at her tender age, was a bargainer. Entirely too smart for her age, Marie knew when she was in possession of valuable information. She knew this little snippet was worth a bundle. Seth and Kate would pay dearly for her silence.

  “What happened in here?” she asked innocently.

  “Look, Marie,” Seth said, trying to reason with the ten-year-old stick of dynamite. “Kate and I are doing something important, okay, something that’s going to help this whole family. It’s vital that you keep this stuff to yourself.”

  “What do you mean? What are you guys up to?” she asked. “Are you really going to dig out the dirt room?”

  “No, it was just a joke. We’re not doing anything in the basement,” Kate said with a trite laugh. “You should go back to bed. You look tired.” Kate grabbed Marie by the shoulders and attempted to maneuver her out the door.

  “Don’t touch me, Kate. I know you guys are up to something and I’m going to tell Mom and Dad that you’re digging out the dirt room unless you tell me what’s going on,” she said, quietly stamping her tiny foot on the floor.

  “Okay, you want to know?” Kate said, angry now. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We think there are dead bodies buried in the basement and their spirits are haunting this house. The spirits threw all the furniture out the window, they’re giving Lucy and me nightmares. They’re the ones keeping Seth up all night. They’re the ones who make this whole freaking house so darn creepy. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Marie, stunned by the sudden influx of precious information, stared at Seth with big scared eyes. “This house isn’t haunted,” she said with obvious little confidence.

  “You want to bet?” Kate responded.

  “How come I haven’t seen anything?” she said with a slight quiver in her voice.

  “I don’t know. It seems like only a few of us are being affected , but that may change. You might be next,” Kate said.

  At this, Marie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I think they’ve already come after me,” she said as the tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “What do you mean?” Seth asked, crouching to see Marie eye-to-eye.

  Marie choked down a sob. “I keep hearing something in my closet at night. It’s like an animal or something trapped in there. I can hear its breath and sometimes, I can hear its claws scratching on the door.” She continued to cry softly as she relayed her story. “At first, I would get Mom or Dad to come in and check my closet, but it’s always empty. Now, Mom and Dad won’t come in and check. They tell me that it’s just my imagination.” She whimpered and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “But it’s not my imagination. I hear them almost every night and even when I don’t hear them, I still stay up all night and wait, just waiting for it to start.” It was a rare moment, seeing Marie so defenseless and scared. Kate felt sad for her, even after the stunt she pulled with Chris earlier that evening.

  “You know what, Marie?” Kate said, squatting too, so that she looked up at her tiny sister.

  “What?”

  “Seth and I are trying to put an end to this haunting. And if you tell Mom and Dad what we’re doing, they’re not going to understand. What’s more, they’ll try to stop us.” She paused to let this sink in. “We were thinking that, maybe, if we dig up the dead body in the basement and give him a proper burial, that the haunting might stop. The spirits might rest and leave us alone. Don’t you want that?”

  Marie nodded yes.

  “Then, you have to keep this a secret, okay?”

  “Okay, I will,” she said with a sniffle.

  “Do you promise?” Kate asked.

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly, the three heard the door to their parents’ room open. Seth gently pushed his sisters out the door of the guest bedroom and into the hallway. He had just closed the door to the cold, empty room when Mom appeared in the hallway. She looked sleepily at her three kids, standing outside the guest room, at midnight.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “I keep hearing talking.”

  “Nothing. Jacob just had a bad dream and it woke us all up,” Kate said. She had lied to her mother so often, it came easily.

  “Must have been some dream. You all woke up?”

  “Jacob woke Marie up. And she came upstairs to get me, because Jacob was really upset. And then, we accidentally woke up Seth.” Kate knew she was over-explaining.

  Mom looked at Kate skeptically, knowing something was up. But it was too late and she was too tired to worry about it. “Go to bed,” was all she said. She turned back into her bedroom and closed the door.

  After asking Marie again if she promised to keep their secret, Seth and Kate walked her to her bedroom. Whereas Lucy’s room was simple and sparsely decorated, Marie’s room was the ultimate girl pad. The walls were painted a pretty pink with tiny, flower decals embellishing the corners. A pink bed with a lacy canopy owned the middle of the room. Every open surface in the room, her dresser, nightstand, bookshelves, was covered with porcelain dolls in fancy costumes or teddy bears in flowery hats.

  Marie crawled into the large bed, looking very small and scared. “Will you check my closet before you go?” she asked shyly. Seth pulled open the closet door and inspected the interior. “Nothing but clothes. Goodnight, Marie.” Seth smiled tiredly then left.

  Kate suddenly felt strangely maternal toward her littlest sister. She walked over to Marie and sat on the edge of the bed. “Will you be alright?“

  “Yeah. Thanks, Kate,” she said as she pulled the covers up to her chin. “Can you leave the light on?”

  “Sure. Goodnight, Marie.” She shut the door. Halfway up the stairs, Kate realized that she had completely forgotten about her frightened boyfriend. She hurried the rest of the way.

  Seth stood over Jacob, who was still wrapped in a blanket on Kate’s bed. The shivering had stopped, but he still seemed jumpy.

  “Where have you been?” Jacob demanded.

  “Damage control. Tell me what happened, Jacob,” Kate said, putting an arm around his back.

  “I was just lying there, kind of dozing. You know, not really asleep, but not fully awake. And I thought I heard something moving in the room, but I couldn’t wake up to look, you know?” He stopped and swallowed hard. “Then, I heard the window opening. I felt the breeze.” Kate felt Jacob shiver under the thick blanket.

  “I tried to sit up to look, or to turn on the light, but I couldn’t move. I was, like, paralyzed. It was as though somebody was holding me down to the bed. I was stuck laying there, just listening. Then, I heard things moving in the room. I heard them being tossed out the window. Then, I heard them smashing on the ground below. It was just little things at first. Then, I heard the dresser drawers starting to slide out, but I still couldn’t get up.” Jacob stopped and stared at his hands, which he was wringing frantically.

  “Go on, Jacob,” Kate encouraged.

  “Then, I felt the bed starting to move, like I was going to be thrown out the window too. That’s
when I could finally move. I just jumped up and ran out of there as fast as I could.” He was breathing hard now, remembering the awful episode. “So what did you find down there,” Jacob asked Seth and Kate. “Let me guess. All was in order, not a thing out of place, right? Am I going crazy?”

  “Actually, it’s just like you said,” Seth said. “Everything is on the lawn. Your bed is in the middle of the room. Just like you said.”

  “I’ve got to get out of this house. I don’t know how you people can live here. I mean, there’s something out to get us,” Jacob said, looking back and forth at Seth and Kate.

  “They’re certainly out to get you,” Kate said. “They’ve been more aggressive toward you than anyone.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel great. Thanks, Kate.”

  “Well, it’s true. Did you know that an old man threw a shoe at him the other night?” Kate asked Seth.

  “Really?” Seth pondered that for a moment. “What did he look like?”

  At this point, Jacob impatiently interrupted. “Look, I’ve already been through that with Kate.”

  “I wonder why they hate Jacob so much. Is he a threat to them?” Seth paused to think about this.

  “I’m not sure I can stay in this house tonight,” Jacob said softly.

  “Listen, they’re probably done scaring you for the night,” Kate said, feeling very protective all of a sudden. “After all, they did let you get off the bed, right? They didn’t throw you out the window.”

  “That’s true,” Jacob said. “But I’m staying up here with you, Kate. And you’d better set your alarm so I can get out of here before your folks get up. Otherwise, they’ll throw me out the window.”

  “We need to get all that stuff out of the yard before Mom and Dad wake up. So, put on some clothes and a jacket.”

  “Uh, Seth. All my clothes are in the yard,” Jacob said. “Can I borrow something of yours?”

  It took them twenty minutes to collect the contents of the guest room and move them back into place. The hardest part was maneuvering everything up the stairs without waking anyone else. Kate picked up the broken pieces of the mirror and dumped them directly into the trash, hoping Mom wouldn’t notice it was gone.

  The rest of the night passed without incident. Jacob and Kate slept little. She felt a great sadness lying next to him. She loved Jacob still. There was something familiar in his touch, his smell, but she knew the relationship was over and that hurt. She clung to him tightly, feeling sure that this would be the last time she ever held him.

  *

  Jacob’s college friend was expecting him at noon, so Kate and Matt left the house early. They would have to miss church that morning. Mom was not happy about that.

  The long drive to Columbus was remarkably silent. Kate was exhausted, physically and emotionally. The events of the night before had drained her. Neither she nor Jacob felt like talking. Jacob eventually drifted off to sleep.

  The good-bye at Burger King was relatively quick. Kate cried again, as she hugged Jacob’s neck tightly. They promised to be true. They promised to write. They promised to love each other forever. And when they finally parted, she felt that both were somewhat relieved to be away from the other.

  “What was that all about?“ Matt asked as they pulled back onto the interstate.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “You guys break up?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh. Sorry, sis.”

  “Not a big deal.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.” She curled up into a ball on the seat and tried to sleep.

  *

  When they arrived home, she knocked on Seth’s bedroom door.

  “Come in.”

  She walked into Seth’s gigantic bedroom. Often, when Kate entered the ballroom, she felt the urge to spin around the room, as if waltzing in a passionate embrace, but this time, she didn’t feel like dancing. In fact, as soon as she entered the room, her stomach turned sour.

  “What’s going on, Seth?” she asked. The whole ride home from Columbus, she felt horrible. Three hours of horrible. Kate was tired of horrible. She decided she needed to change her focus and do something. “What are your thoughts on the basement.”

  He sat on the one piece of sitting furniture in the whole room, his rumpled bed. Ink glared at Kate, then turned around, showing Kate her butt. She then flipped her tail and settled down again into Seth’s lap.

  “My thought is that something happened here. Something bad.” Seth said, stroking Ink lovingly.

  “How could we find out something like that?” Kate asked, not sure she wanted to know.

  “Neighbors? Historical society? Maybe the Town Hall? We could look at the records and find out who owned the land before the Blackers. I’ve got midterms coming up so maybe you can look into it.” Seth paused. “By the way,” he continued, “did you and Jacob have a good time?”

  “Oh, you know. It was okay,” Kate said with a sigh.

  “Just okay?”

  “Yeah, just okay.”

  Seth smiled at her sympathetically. Nothing else needed to be said.

  21.

  “Girl, Jacob is so hot. Did I tell you that?” Lisa’s bright hazel eyes flashed. Homeroom was bustling with activity as everyone discussed the Autumn Ball.

  “Yeah, about a hundred times, Lisa,” Kate smiled sadly. “Honestly, I don’t know how much longer we’ll be dating.” She hated to say it out loud.

  Lisa’s jaw dropped. “You’re breaking up?”

  “Probably,” Kate said. “He’s not moving here. I can’t move there until I graduate. It’s just...I don’t know.”

  “But it was like that before. What changed? Was he mean to you? Wait, did he cheat on you?”

  Kate shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, I asked him and he didn’t really answer…and,” Kate lowered her voice, “he just keeps pushing me to have sex, and I keep telling him I’m not ready. I just want to make out, but he thinks every time we kiss he’s going to get the whole enchilada.”

  Lisa giggled. “Is that so bad?”

  “Yes, I mean, it’s annoying.” Kate propped her elbow on the black laboratory countertop and rested her chin on her hand. “The main thing is that we just didn’t really get along anymore. The spark, or whatever, was just kind of gone.”

  “Oh, Kate. That’s so sad.”

  “It’s okay, actually. Long-distance relationships stink. They really stink.”

  “So,” Lisa said with a slight smile, “can I have Jacob?”

  “He’s all yours.”

  *

  Kate decided she needed action to clear her head. Her top priority became researching the house. Kate hoped that Patrick would want to come along on the search. The thought of being down in a city hall basement storage room, among thousands of boxes, full of names of dead people, gave her the creeps. She figured it would also be a good chance to talk to him, maybe get some information about this Ashley girl that he brought to the dance.

  Luckily, he was up for it. After school, she hopped into Patrick’s car and they drove downtown. He parked at a meter in front of the courthouse and they walked up the long sidewalk which led to the oversized front door. She noticed that Patrick opened the door for Kate and stood to the side while she entered. Very gentlemanly, she thought, impressed.

  The records, were indeed, in a dusty basement. Filing cabinets stood in long lines across the front of the room. Behind that, were rows upon rows of boxes, stacked four or five high, thousands of boxes forming a cramped, confusing maze.

  Kate approached the filing cabinets, which the clerk told her would have the listing of all properties in the city. From there, they had to find the box to determine who owned the land before the Blackers. Apparently, Huntington, West Virginia, had yet to put any old information onto computers.

  They were both still wearing their school clothes, Kate in a short blue skirt and black tights with her favorite black boots. Her black tights were getting dust
y just being down there. As Patrick took off his gray trench coat, she noticed he looked rather nice in a green collared shirt and tan pants.

  “Why do you always wear that trench coat? You have such nice clothes on under there, but I never see them,” she said as she opened a filing cabinet. It was full of large blue books.

  “Well, you have a purse. I have my coat. It’s where I carry all my stuff.”

  “What stuff?” she asked, and was immediately sorry that she did. Patrick picked up the coat and started emptying his pockets onto a table. From one pocket, he removed his small notebook, a pen, keys, an open package of mints, several torn movie tickets, a handful of lint and his ipod. From the other pocket came several pieces of folded-up paper, a pocket knife, his phone, a package of gum and about twelve broken crayons. Kate watched with amusement as more and more stuff came out of his pockets.