“They were dated. Thick and plain. Nothing like the clothing girls wear today.”
Addison folded a pillow next to Luke’s and leaned back. In her dream, the colors were muted and drab, like she was viewing the scene through a filter. The one exception had been the vibrant yellow color of the girls’ dresses.
“I just thought of something that seemed insignificant until now,” Addison said. “Months ago when we visited Roxy’s gravesite, I saw two young girls at the cemetery. They were wearing matching yellow dresses and chasing each other around a headstone. I remember wondering why they weren’t with their parents, why they’d been left alone without supervision, and why they were dressed in short sleeves with no jackets during such a cold time of year.”
“Did you ever see their parents?”
Addison shook her head. “I watched them for a few minutes. They caught me staring and stopped. One of them waved.”
“What did you do?”
“The sun was in my eyes. It was so bright, I could hardly see anything. I closed my eyes. Not for long. A few seconds. When I reopened them, the girls were gone.”
Luke squeezed Addison’s hand. “I think you just figured out what you were supposed to remember.”
CHAPTER 4
Months earlier when Roxy’s remains were discovered and she was finally laid to rest at the local cemetery, Addison thought she would visit Roxy’s grave on occasion, if for no other reason than to let Roxy know someone was still thinking of her after all these years. She’d never visited though, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she no longer felt Roxy’s presence like she once did. Roxy never appeared to her again after the night Addison had set her free. She was gone now, and she wasn’t ever coming back.
Addison often wondered if that was what happened to spirits after they crossed over. She also wondered whether or not a person could return. She doubted it. Most likely there were higher laws in place, laws governing the living, shielding the dead from the undead, except for the near-death experiences some people claimed to have on occasion.
Still, dead was dead for most people.
Except Addison.
Addison stood in front of Roxy’s grave and canvassed the area, trying to recall the exact spot where she’d first seen the twins.
“Anything?” Luke asked.
She shook her head. “It happened so fast, I’m not sure about the exact location now. I thought it would all come back to me once I got here. It isn’t.”
The truth was, she wasn’t sure how to make them reappear again, or if she even could. Twenty minutes passed. No sign of the children.
“What about the general direction of the headstone when you saw the girls?” Luke asked. “Any ideas?”
Addison lifted a finger and pointed, her eyes coming to rest on a tall, column-like monument mounted on four-sided, square pedestals. “I want to say it was somewhere by that obelisk.”
They walked together, pausing along the way to read the names on every tombstone they passed. Five rows later, still nothing. No Vivian. No Grace. And no surnames beginning with the word Rose.
“We don’t even know if the girls are actually buried here,” Addison said. “What if we have it all wrong?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“What if the headstone they were running around belonged to one of their parents instead?”
“Let’s say you’re right and we should shift our focus, we still don’t know what names or dates we’re looking for. In your dream, did anything indicate what year it was?”
She considered the question and nodded. “The car.”
“What car?”
“Right before I saw the girls, a car drove by. It was an older model Ford. A two-door. If I had to ballpark when it was manufactured, I’d say the mid-seventies.”
“Okay, and how old would you say the girls were?”
“Ten or eleven.”
He pressed his thumb to his fingers, calculating the results. “I’m only estimating here, but if the girls were eleven in the mid-seventies, their parents might still be alive.”
“Then we’re missing something. There has to be a connection to this cemetery, a reason they were drawn here.”
He frowned. “Wish I knew how to help you.”
“This is what Vivian wanted me to remember, Luke. It has to be. There isn’t anything else.”
Or was she simply wrong about the whole thing?
She was beginning to doubt herself, doubt the dream she had.
“We’ll keep looking until we find something.” He stepped in front of her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “Why don’t you try to relax? We’re not in a hurry. Close your eyes and let your mind wander. See what happens.”
He stepped away, crouching in front of a newer-looking tombstone in the next row.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Thought I saw something a second ago.”
“What?”
“Can’t say for sure. A shiny piece of metal in the grass. Don’t see it now though.”
He might not, but she did. “It’s there, about a foot to your left. See it?”
He swished his fingers along the thick, jade blades of grass, until he clasped the object in his hand. “Huh.”
“What is it?”
“A belt buckle on a string. Looks like it slipped off of something, maybe a bouquet on the headstone. When the flowers wilted, it must have slid off.”
The buckle was gold plated and rectangular in shape. A brown, circular stone about the size of a quarter was inlaid in the middle. “It must have belonged to the man whose grave this is.”
Luke glanced at the headstone. “Cliff Clark. Born May 1945, died December 2014.”
“December. Right around the time we were here and I saw the twins.” Addison stuck her hand out. “Can I see it?”
Luke placed the buckle in her palm. The moment her fingers grazed its surface, the cemetery swirled around her and everything went black.
CHAPTER 5
The darkness evaporated like a fine mist until the air was clear again. Addison looked around. She was no longer within the safe confines of the cemetery. No longer with Luke. She was in a room, and judging by the rancid combination of bleach and disease streaming through her nostrils, it was a hospital room. She clamped two fingers over her nose, opting to breathe through her mouth until her stomach settled.
It was cold.
Meat-locker cold.
Wherever she was, she wanted out.
The room was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from a dull light bulb screwed into the end of a silver lamp that coiled out several feet from the wall like a detachable hose on a shower faucet. Next to the lamp was a bed, and on top of the bed, a man. He looked old. Addison guessed somewhere in his upper seventies. His eyes were closed like he was sleeping, even though her instincts told her it wasn’t sleep he’d succumbed to.
He was dead.
She didn’t know how she knew it.
She just did.
An elderly woman hunched over the side of the bed, weeping, her bowed head twisting left to right. She clasped the deceased man’s hand, begging him not to go, not to leave, not yet. His lifeless hand slipped from hers, sagging onto his lap, and she cried out, “Open your eyes, Clifford! Look at me … please!”
Her pleas had come too late.
Several seconds passed. The woman faded from view like she’d been nothing more than a hologram. Addison’s attention was drawn to the other side of the bed, to Vivian and Grace standing side by side, both peering down at the man.
Vivian smoothed a hand across the man’s cheek and said, “It’s all right, Daddy. It’s all over now.”
The man’s eyes thrust open and he rose up, but his entire body didn’t rise with him. His physical body remained still and flat against the bed while his spirit body detached—something Addison had never witnessed before now. He lifted himself into a standing position and glanced back, gazing upon his mortal self for the last ti
me. When he turned around again, he looked different. Younger. Like he’d aged in reverse, his spirit body becoming strong once more, free of the wrinkles that plagued him in his later years. And that wasn’t the only change. No longer was he dressed in a paper-thin, dingy, gray hospital gown. He was clothed in white. A shade of white so piercing Addison struggled to gaze upon him without holding out a hand to deflect the blinding rays.
She took a step forward, her eyes fixed on the man who she now recognized. He was the man from her dream. The man behind the wheel of the vintage car.
A beam of light blazed through the open door into the room. The man hesitated for a moment. A look of peace spread across his face, and he smiled. He understood what was coming, what he needed to do next.
Grace yelled, “Daddy!”
The man didn’t react, behaving like he didn’t notice she was there. She attempted to latch on to the end of his trousers, but Vivian grabbed her from behind, pulling her back.
“No!” Grace yelled. “Daddy, please. Don’t leave me, Daddy, stay here! Stay with us! Please!”
He floated toward the light. A moment later, he was gone. Grace sagged to her knees, and Vivian bent down, wrapping her arms around her sister.
“Why did he have to go, Viv?” Grace whimpered. “I thought he was going to be with us now. You said he’d be with us.”
“He will be, Grace,” Vivian replied. “He will be soon. I promise.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t like this place.”
Vivian extended a hand. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
The image of the girls faded, and the room disappeared. In a split second Addison found herself back at the cemetery, the belt buckle no longer in her hands. Luke hovered over her.
“What is it?” he asked. “What did you see?”
She steadied her breathing and turned, looking once more at the name on the headstone next to her. “I saw the night Cliff Clark died.”
CHAPTER 6
Luke placed a container of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy ice cream in front of Addison, along with a spoon, and sat across from her at the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” Addison asked.
“Ice cream.”
Addison peeled off the lid, digging out a hefty scoop. “Yes, but why?”
“Because it’s your favorite, and because you need it, and because chocolate fixes everything.”
She raised a brow. “Everything?”
“Okay, almost everything. You were quiet on the ride home. Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?”
Addison nodded. “The belt buckle must have belonged to the girls’ father, Cliff Clark. When I touched it, I found myself inside one of his memories. Well, not one of his memories exactly, a memory from the night he died.”
It wasn’t the first time touching an object had granted her access to a person’s past. She’d experienced it before, a few times as a child, and more recently at Grayson Manor. The experiences were always unpredictable, never the same—always leaving Addison with more questions than answers.
“How do you know Cliff Clark is Vivian and Grace’s father?” Luke asked.
“They were there, in my vision. Grace called him Daddy.”
“The two graves next to Cliff’s had the same surname: Clark. They’d been there a lot longer though. I’m guessing they’re his parents.”
“If the girls’ father and grandparents are buried at the local cemetery, there’s a good chance the manor is in the area too.”
Luke nodded then added, “If the girls are also dead, wouldn’t they be buried near their father?”
“Good question. Here’s another one. In my vision, I saw Cliff die. I literally watched his spirit body detach from his physical body. Seconds before he crossed over, Grace tried to get his attention. He didn’t seem to hear her. Why didn’t he? I mean, if they’re dead and he’s dead, why couldn’t they communicate with each other?”
Luke tapped a finger on the table, thinking. “He crossed over. They didn’t. He was free to move on, and they might be stuck here. Do you have any idea how he died?”
“He was attached to a machine in the hospital room. He was pale, his face an ashy white like he was sick, not just from dying, like he was afflicted or weak with a disease. When I saw him, he was already dead. He’d just passed away.”
There were too many questions and too few clues. She needed answers, needed to talk to someone who knew the Clarks’ history, someone old enough to tell her what happened to the girls. And she knew the perfect nosey neighbor to ask.
CHAPTER 7
Helen Bouvier coiled her fingers around the curved wood handle of her Birchwood cane and steadied herself. A couple minutes earlier, she’d jerked the living room curtain back a bit too fast and almost toppled over while trying to catch a glimpse of the approaching visitor walking down the dirt road in front of her house. The unwanted distraction, her neighbor Addison Lockhart, was someone she recognized almost immediately. With shoulder-length ginger locks that made Addison’s hair look like it was on fire when the sun’s rays hit it just right, her young neighbor was impossible to mistake.
The timing of Addison’s visit was off.
Way off.
Helen didn’t want visitors.
Not now.
The last time they’d seen one another had been a couple of months earlier when Helen popped over to see how Addison was doing. In truth, the inquiry about Addison’s welfare was a precursor to the real reason she’d stopped by—to find out if the rumor going around town about Luke taking up residency at Grayson Manor was true.
When he’d answered the door that morning clad in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt, the answer was obvious. Luke and Addison were living together, out of wedlock, no less. And if Luke’s not-so-subtle hand grazing across Addison’s left butt cheek when he passed her was any indication, they were most likely sharing the same bed too. Probably for quite some time. This revelation didn’t bode well with Helen. So when Luke had finally exited the room, she clamped a hand down on Addison’s wrist, yanked her to the side, and gave her a good scolding.
Addison had just smiled, and said, “These are different times now, Helen. Thanks for your concern, but I know what I’m doing.”
Knew what she was doing?
Women these days.
None of them seemed to have their heads screwed on right anymore.
“How could you know anything?” Helen had asked. “Your mother is dead, and your grandmother is off traveling the country. There’s no one here to guide you when it comes to these things.”
“I don’t need a guide. I’m a thirty-year-old woman, not a child.”
Thirty.
She’d uttered her age with pride, boasting almost, like she thought thirty was the intellectual equivalent of a woman twice her age. She had no ring on her finger, which meant no commitment. No shock there. Rare was the man who would spring for a ring when the cow and its milk came free.
…
The doorbell sounded, a kind of a hollow, repetitive gong that Helen had never grown tired of hearing over the years. The sound always made her feel like she lived in a palace in China, instead of a historical village in New York. She waited several seconds post-gong then shooed her long-time friend Milton toward the door.
Addison rounded the corner seconds later. “It’s good to see you again, Helen.”
After their last interaction, Helen questioned her sincerity. “You could have called first.”
“Why? I knew you were here. You’re always home.”
“Whether I’m home or whether I’m not is beside the point. Calling ahead is common courtesy.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll call next time. Okay?”
Next time.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter now. You’re here. Why don’t we both have a seat and you can say whatever it is you came to say.”
Addison nodded and sat, squeezing her legs and p
ulling down the hem of her short, bohemian tunic dress to keep from revealing more thigh than she had already.
Helen reached for the tea cup next to her. Intending to put the glass to her lips, she’d lifted it halfway before noticing just how bad her hand was trembling. She set the mug back down.
“Are you, okay?” Addison asked.
“Never you mind. Why did you stop by?”
“Because you’re friends with my grandmother.”
“Friends is a strong word. It would imply I have feelings of affection for Marjorie.”
“You do have affection for her. You’ve known each other since you were in your twenties.”
Helen didn’t understand why Addison was stalling, or why she kept fiddling with the hem on her tunic dress. “What does Marjorie have to do with you being here? Is something wrong? Is she all right?”
“I haven’t heard from her in a while. I’m sure she’s fine. She always is.”
“Then why bring her up at all?”
Addison crossed her arms in front of her. “I was wondering … it’s just … you seem to know most people in the area, and …”
“Oh, for goodness sake,” Helen said. “Are you going to make your point while I’m still alive to hear it?”
“What do you know about Cliff Clark?”
“It’s Clifford,” Helen corrected. “Not Cliff.”
“Oh…kay. Clifford Clark. What can you tell me about him?”
“He’s dead. What more is there to say?”
“How did he die?”
“What makes you think I know anything?”
The two stared at each other for what seemed to Helen like a ridiculous amount of time. Addison leaned back, the look on her face implying she was satisfied for finally uttering what was on her mind. But what a peculiar thing to ask. Why would Addison be interested in Clifford? He didn’t even live in their town, so how did she know him? And why was she prying into his death? It wasn’t significant. It was ordinary. Unfortunate, but ordinary nonetheless.
“I can’t imagine why Clifford interests you,” Helen said. “He didn’t live here, in Rhinebeck. As to your question about how he died, I might know a few things.”
Addison Lockhart 02-Rosecliff Manor Haunting Page 2