Be Still, My Love

by Deborah J. Hughes

  Nancy laughed out right at that. “Heavens no. I’m just trying to understand it … why places are haunted, why ghosts exist, and what can we do about it.”

  “So, the book give you any ideas?”

  Nancy shook her head. “Nothing I would dare try on my own. This stuff really makes me a bit nervous even though I am rather fascinated with it.” Nancy stood, crossed the room and closed the door. “If someone comes in, they can ring the bell. I want to tell you something, and I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

  “Is it about what happened to your daughter up in the turret room?”

  Nancy sat back down beside me and gave a little sigh. “I don’t like to talk about it much because I don’t want rumors to get out of control. But, yes, it’s about what happened to my daughter Kate.”

  “When?”

  “About a year after we moved here. My twin daughters, Kaitlen and Lauren, were sixteen when we bought Sea Willow Haven. The Morgans called this place the B&B by the Sea but we didn’t like that. Anyway, the girls were quite excited about our plans for making this into a resort, Kate much more so than Lauren. For a pair of twins, they are like night and day and before you ask–no, they are not identical.” Nancy sank back against the cushions, her eyes distant, remembering. “Lauren is a socializer, wants to be around people all the time but it took us almost a year to get the place ready to open to the public. Lauren thought it was boring here. Kate, though, is an introvert. She liked the peace and quiet.”

  “Where are they now?”

  Nancy’s face saddened though her eyes shone with pride. “Lauren is attending university in Miami, Florida. She loves it there. Kate is attending a university in Virginia. I believe Kate would come home after graduation, she’s studying business and financial management, if it weren’t for what happened up in the turret room.” Nancy’s eyes took on a lost look. “I miss them terribly. It took Jack and me almost ten years to have children. I suffered a couple miscarriages in the beginning and then just couldn’t seem to conceive again. We did the in vitro thing and the girls resulted. We were so happy, so excited to have them and now they have moved away from us and we are again alone.”

  I patted Nancy’s hand. “They must live their lives, but you are still part of it, Nancy.”

  Nancy gave a small smile. “Yes, but it is such a small part these days. Lauren loves Florida, she’s studying interior design. She’s talking about moving to California after graduation.”

  “But she will come visit.”

  “Yes … occasionally.” Nancy’s eyes watered. “It isn’t near enough. And when they have babies … my grandchildren will be too far away to see often.”

  “It’s the way of the family these days.” I agreed with Nancy that it was a sad fact of life that many families lived far apart from each other.

  “They’ll understand someday when their own children are grown and moved away, but by then, Jack and I will be gone.” Nancy sighed again. “Having them so late in life, it takes time from us that we could have had with them … with the grandkids.”

  “May I ask how old you are, Nancy?”

  “I will be fifty next year, Jack turned fifty last month.”

  I was surprised at that because Nancy looked much younger than her age. “Well, I would not have guessed you older than forty-three and only then because I knew you had grown kids, in college no less.”

  Nancy laughed at that and some of the sadness melted away. “Tess, you are a treasure!”

  I grinned back at her and then touched her hand. It was time to get serious. I wanted her to tell me her story about the turret room before we were interrupted. “So tell me.”

  “Well, Kate likes to read and her favorite room was up there in the turret. She went there quite often. One afternoon she fell asleep and when she woke up, the door at the bottom of the stairs was locked. Kate said she wasn’t worried at first, she was sure one of us would find her. So, she went back up to the room and read some more. But when nightfall came and we didn’t find her, she got worried. She said she went out on the little balcony area to see if she could see anyone walking around outside. Hank was working for us by then and he thinks the world of Kate, she used to follow him all over the place. Hank has more stories to tell than anyone I know. Anyway, she didn’t see anyone and when she tried to get back inside, that door was locked as well. By this time, Kate figured someone had to have locked her out because the only way for the balcony door to lock is if someone turns the bolt. The weather turned bad and a storm blew in. Kate huddled next to the door out of the wind and waited for rescue.”

  “Did any of you realize she was missing?”

  “Not at first. As I said, Kate often took off somewhere to read and she was seventeen by this time. We weren’t really worried about it. But when dinner came and went and none of us had seen her, we did start a search.” Nancy rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. “Hank was going to check the turret room but when he found the door locked, he figured she wasn’t up there. When the storm blew in we got really worried.” Nancy rubbed her eyes. “Kate said that while she was out on the balcony, she began to feel panic. She said she was scared to death and she didn’t know why. She crawled over to the short wall and peaked over the edge and that is when she thought someone touched her from behind. Kate said she tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound.”

  When Nancy said that, it reminded me of my own experience out on the balcony. At least I understood that the feelings racing through me, overpowering me, were those of a girl long dead. Kate probably had no idea what was happening to her or why she felt so threatened. I did not doubt that Kate had probably tapped into the energy of that poor girl who had flung herself from the balcony. Even I had felt fear … Kate must have been terrified.

  “Kate said she was sure she was going to go flying off the balcony. She didn’t know why she felt that way but that is what she thought was going to happen. She said something kept pushing at her back. Terrified of being pushed over the edge, Kate lay down on the cold stone in the rain and prayed for help.” Nancy shivered, rubbed her arms. “I don’t know what made me think about checking the turret room because when I found the door locked, I too figured she wasn’t up there. But, I found the key, opened the door and went up there anyway. I saw Kate’s book lying on the floor so I knew she’d been up there. I started to turn away and the balcony door suddenly slammed open and I saw Kate lying there on the threshhold.” Nancy’s eyes watered. “She looked like a drowned rat and I thought … I thought she was dead.”

  I rubbed Nancy’s arm. “It must have been awful for both of you.”

  Nancy nodded. “It was.” She reached up and tidied her hair. I noticed she did that when she was nervous. “Soon as Kate realized the door was open and she saw me, she crawled to me and flung herself into my arms so fast I barely had time to react. She was hysterical. After that night, we made the turret room off limits and have kept the door locked.”

  “Did you have any other activity up to that point or was that the first thing you noticed of an unexplainable nature?”

  “Well, we all got nervous from time to time, you know, that shivery feeling in your back that makes you turn around? But until that incident, nothing occurred to make us scared. We’d heard about the place being haunted, of course, and how the Morgans had sold the place because their own daughter refused to live there any longer.”

  “The Morgans’ daughter had a similar experience? Do you know how old she was?”

  “The Morgans have three kids. They were all quite young when they bought the place and they did live here quite peaceably for years. But when their middle child, Angela, turned seventeen, that is when things started happening. I never asked the Morgans about their experiences but Modesta was working for them by that time … she started working here when Angela was fourteen. Anyway, Modesta said she did not recall any of the children being locked in the turret room.”

  “So what things started happening
when Angela turned seventeen? Did Modesta know?”

  “They would hear a girl crying. They heard footsteps walking. One night they heard a scream, I guess it woke everyone up but they never discovered where the scream came from. Angela was dating a boy at the time and because she was so scared, her parents were letting him stay here at the house … in a separate room of course. Anyway, I guess the boy woke up and saw someone standing in his room. When he yelled at whoever it was, he disappeared. Then he got shoved down the stairs one night when he went for a drink. Didn’t hurt him too bad but he wouldn’t stay after that. Angela was so terrified she refused to stay here any longer and went to live with her grandmother. The rumors got around and people wouldn’t come stay. The house was vacant a couple years before they sold it to us.”

  “Modesta didn’t stay here either? Or Hank?”

  “Oh yes, Modesta stayed. She is not scared of the ghosts. Well, not enough to leave. She stayed to keep an eye on the house and managed a small staff that came in during the day to help keep the place clean and maintained. Hank lived in the cottage you are staying in and helped with the grounds and maintenance work. But he left after a year and came to us for a job a few months after we moved in. Jack and I were happy to have his help.”

  “So Hank isn’t afraid of the ghosts either? He hasn’t experienced anything?”

  Nancy gave me a considering look. “Well … Hank doesn’t like me to tell people, but he says he has heard things … a voice on the beach, a woman crying … he’s even had doors shut on him. Though they’ve never been locked afterwards.” She leaned close. “Don’t let him know I told you that. It embarrasses him.”

  “How about you and Jack? Have you experienced anything yourselves? Obviously you are not frightened enough to leave.”

  “Jack and I love it here. We aren’t going to let a ghost chase us off. Besides, things have calmed down quite a bit since Kate and Lauren left. The incident with Rena and Peter getting locked in the cellar is the first major thing to happen in a long time.”

  “Hmmm.” I fell into a thoughtful silence and then something, a pattern, began to reveal itself. “Maybe young girls being here is what triggers the events.”

  “Because Abigail was eighteen when she died?”

  “Her name was Abigail? Do you know the boy’s name as well?” There went my half-formed theory that the story I was writing was about the girl who died here. My character’s name was Sarah.

  “His name was Nathan. He was almost twenty-one. His father was a local fisherman and his mother worked at a small café down on the wharf.”

  “You know all that?” Where did she get all that information?

  Nancy laughed at my expression. “I read the newspaper articles about their deaths. Nathan’s article was a little paragraph, I almost missed it. But when Abigail died, the whole story was repeated. In fact, it made headline news. After all, Abigail’s father was a very wealthy man. One of the wealthiest in the area at that time.”

  “Did he sell the place right after Abigail died?”

  “No. He kept the house for several years. Eventually he sold it to a couple from Connecticut who bought it as a summer vacation home but they came only a few times. There were no rumors of it being haunted when they owned it. The Morgans bought the place from them. As I said, they lived here for almost ten years without noticing anything of a ghostly nature. But that changed when Angela turned seventeen though things started happening a short time before then.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Well, Modesta said that the crying was heard by everyone in the family. Angela’s boyfriend, her older brother, and her father all heard cries of distress from the beach. Though not all at once. Matter of fact, her father was so convinced someone was out in the water needing rescuing that he went out in his boat to check it out. Of course, he found no one and there were never any reports of missing persons.”

  I wondered why the ghostly events didn’t occur from the moment the Morgans moved in? And why didn’t the previous couple experience anything?” This really puzzled me. My experience with ghosts was that they often repeated highly emotional experiences over and over, haunting a place continuously, not when members in the family reached a certain age. Unless … maybe Abigail became attracted to the place when a girl close to her own age was living here. But, then, I’d never heard of that before. There had to be a trigger for the hauntings. But what?

  “I can see you are completely lost in thought,” Nancy said.

  “I’m trying to figure out why the haunting stops for a while and then occurs when members living here reach a certain age.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “For me it is. I’ve never heard of such a thing but that doesn’t mean it’s unusual.” I gave a long sigh for I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t have this figured out before it was time for me to leave.

  Nancy patted my leg. “Don’t fuss over it too much. You are here on vacation after all.”

  “The thing is, now that I’ve got myself involved with it, I can’t just let it go. I don’t think I’ll be able to anyway.” Besides, the spirits haunting this place knew I was aware of them. They knew of my ability to contact them. Knowing how important it was for those in the Tri-State to contact us, I didn’t believe for one minute they were going to let me finish out my vacation without making themselves known. Of that I was certain.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  After my chat with Nancy, I went back to the cottage, grabbed a book and tried to read for a while. But my mind kept wandering and after reading the same passage for the third time, I gave up and fixed myself a sandwich for lunch and ate it out on the patio. A few people were walking the shoreline and several waved to me as they passed by. I just finished eating my lunch when I spotted Raymond up in the garden near the dolphin fountain. He looked to be fussing with it somewhat. Other than dinner time, I hadn’t seen much of him and couldn’t help but be curious as to what he was up to. Besides, I wanted to talk to him, see if he had experienced anything of a ghostly nature since staying here.

  Raymond was lying on the ground, his arm stuck halfway inside the bottom part of the fountain’s rock wall when I got to him. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and jean shorts which showed off his long, tanned muscular legs. He waved at me with his free hand when I joined him. “What are you doing? Do you need any help?”

  “The pump stopped working and I’m trying to get the hose off so I can pull the pump out and see what the problem is. The hose doesn’t want to come free from the fountain attachment.” He scrunched his handsome face in his effort and then gave a satisfied grunt when he pulled the end of a black hose from the pump housing. “Got it.”

  “You must have a lot to do around here; I haven’t seen much of you during the day.”

  Raymond sat up and pulled the pump closer to inspect it. “Nance keeps me busy with a long list of things every morning.” He grinned at me, showing perfect white teeth. “Jack has learned to make himself scarce in the morning, the sly dog.”

  “What does he do all day then?”

  “Oh, Jack handles all the business matters in running the resort. He has other investments besides this place. That’s what he does … invests in real estate. He spends a lot of his time in his private office.” Raymond frowned. “The pump looks fine. But nothing is working, the fountain, the light … hmmm.”

  I perched against the edge of the fountain wall. “So what do you think about living in a haunted resort?”

  Raymond looked up, met my eyes. I stared back and remembered Mike’s beautiful eyes, that same dark blue. A pang of hurt pierced my heart and I looked away. “Well, I could ask you the same thing.”

  “True. I haven’t noticed too much so far. I did hear the distress call from the beach the other night. Kade heard it too.”

  Raymond looked back down at the pump, frowned then put it back together. “Yeah, I’ve heard it once or twice as well. Kind of freaks me out a bit. I don’t go to investigate or anythi
ng. I heard you went down to the shore.”

  “Yes I did. So the ghosts scare you then?”

  Raymond lay back down and began to reinstall the pump. “Nothing to be scared of really. A voice calling from the shore isn’t terrifying or anything … just freaky.”

  “Nancy tells me that you graduated from the University of Maine. Have you always lived here in Maine?”

  “No. I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island with my grandparents.” He paused to look at me. “You know my parents were killed when I was five?”

  “Yes, Nancy told me. I’m very sorry.”

  Raymond shrugged. “I don’t really remember them much and my grandparents were great to grow up with. When Nancy and Jack bought the resort, I was just starting my second year at UMO and it was nice having family close by.”

  “You don’t find this place a bit quiet?” Raymond looked the type to be around a lot of people. As good looking as he was, I wondered why he didn’t have a girlfriend and if he did, when did he spend time with her?

  “I like the quiet actually.” Raymond finished installing the pump. He stood, wiped his hands on his shorts and sank down on the wall next to me. “University life doesn’t leave for a lot of privacy. It’s a nice vacation to get away from all that for a while.”

  “No girl waiting in the wings?”

  Raymond grimaced. “I’ve had enough of that for a while.” Then as if he worried I might interpret that statement wrong, rushed on. “Not that I don’t want a relationship or anything but the girls …” He shook his head in exasperation. “They don’t leave me alone and then they fight about who is talking to me and who is touching me. It’s crazy.” He tilted his head, looked at me as if I could clear things up for him. “Why are girls like that? I thought the guy was supposed to do the chasing.”

  I had to laugh at that. “Not in this day and age. Besides …” It was my turn to give him the tilted-head, once-over glance. “You have to know how gorgeous you are, Raymond. Any girl with eyes in her head and who is free to do so is going to strut herself before you in an attempt to gain your attention.”