by Steve Frech
He turned and walked out.
Once he had disappeared out of sight and I was no longer immobilized with fear, I ran to the door and locked it, fearing more visits from collectors. I went into the storeroom and began pacing. As bad as I had imagined things to be, they were so much worse.
I didn’t know who to turn to, until I was struck by a thought: maybe Thomas would help. If he cares for me at all, maybe he would help a little. It would mean so much, and I wanted to see him. I wanted him to comfort me. I decided then and there that I would see him.
I went through the back to the alley, where the bicycle was waiting.
The sky was overcast and the morning was still cool. I rode out of town and tried to think of what I was going to say to him but by the time I reached Willow Lake, I hadn’t decided.
I leaned my bicycle against the bushes, steadied myself, and walked to the front door. I wasn’t going to use the key, in case his wife was home. I hoped that I could speak to him on the porch without anyone noticing. I pulled the chain and moments later, Thomas answered. He stood there, blinking at me as if I were some terrible illusion, but then became enraged. He looked around the yard, violently pulled me inside, and shut the door. He wrenched me with such force that I stumbled into the living room. I could see out the dining-room window into the backyard. Mr. Whitlock was standing in the middle of the grass with his hands over his eyes.
Thomas hissed at me to get away from the window and pulled me back so that I was hidden from view. It hurt so much that I gasped and tried to twist away but he held me firm.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I was so stunned by his actions that I momentarily forgot my entire purpose for coming to the Nightingale House.
“I—I needed to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to discuss.”
“But I thought—”
“You shouldn’t be here! I told you my wife was becoming suspicious. My little shit of a daughter told her that she saw us on the Fourth of July.”
I couldn’t believe he used such foul language about his daughter. I didn’t know this man.
“Is your wife here?” I asked.
“No, she’s still in Boston, caring for her mother. Her health is deteriorating again, and she couldn’t handle the brat while taking care of her.”
This wasn’t the man I thought I cared for. This was a monstrosity.
“And you need to leave, right now.”
“I thought you cared for me.”
“Don’t be stupid, little girl.”
I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
From the backyard, I heard Mr. Whitlock call out, “Ready or not, here I come!”
Thomas threw open the front door. “You are leaving, now.”
He dragged me to the porch, down the path, through the open gate, and into the road. Once we reached the bicycle, he spun me around to face him and gripped my shoulders. “Now, you listen to me; if my wife finds out this time, it’s over. If she leaves me, it will cause a scandal and I’ll lose everything. I will not let that happen. Do you understand me?”
I couldn’t speak.
He shook me and said, “Say you understand me, you little bitch!”
I nodded, horrified.
He relaxed his grip but not his intensity. “Now, get on your bicycle, go away, and never come back.”
He turned, walked back into the house, and closed the door.
I stood there, trembling, and choking back sobs. I leaned down and picked up the bicycle. As I did, I saw his daughter, Katherine, hiding in the bushes.
Her face. She had seen him yell at me. She heard what he called me. She looked terrified and furious at the same time. I understood. She lived with that thing every day. She was afraid of him the first time I saw her. So was Mrs. Carrington. I could leave and never come back. They were forced to live with him.
I saw her lips move but couldn’t hear what she said. Shaking, I stepped over to the bushes.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I said, ‘Please go away. You make him mad’,” she whispered.
“I’m … I’m sorry.”
“Please, go away,” she whispered again.
“Katherine, where are you?” a voice playfully called.
I turned to see Mr. Whitlock come around the corner of the house. He saw me and stopped.
“Now, you’ve given me away,” Katherine said, pouting and disappointed.
Mr. Whitlock and I stared at one another.
Without a word, I picked up the bicycle from the bushes and rode off.
I didn’t return to the pharmacy. I rode around the countryside all day. When I returned home, Father was still in bed, asleep, and more whiskey from the bottle on the nightstand was gone.
I’m in bed now. I haven’t heard him get up. I don’t know what to do.
This journal is turning into nothing but sorrow.
25
“Hello, you’ve reached Dana Whitlock. I’m sorry but I’m unable to come to the phone, right now. Please leave your name and number after the beep and I will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks.”
Beep.
“Hello, Ms. Whitlock. My name is Daniel Price … I know this might sound crazy, but I’m actually calling to see if I could talk to your grandfather, Benjamin. I, uh, I live in Kingsbrook, in the Nightingale House where his grandfather used to work, and … I had some questions about Katherine Car … Well, I’ll be able to explain better if I could speak to him.”
I leave my contact info and hang up. I got their number by doing a ton of research on my phone and also paying some money to one of those ‘stalker-services’ online.
I try to do more research online, scrolling through the various links that lead to nothing of value.
I toss the phone onto the passenger seat.
This is infuriating. I need my computer but that’s at the house, so it’s out of the question, and unlike every other author I’ve ever seen at Starbucks, I don’t own a laptop. I’ll have to go to the library or a Kinko’s or some other place that has computers that you can rent for an hour.
I start the car, put it in drive, and begin rolling forward, but slam the brakes.
What am I doing? I’ve got something so much better than the internet. Something that should be able to tell me everything I want to know, and he’s right here in Kingsbrook.
*
“Mr. Price!” Mr. Howard waves cheerily from the porch of the Kingsbrook Historical Society as I walk up the path.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I reply, shaking his hand.
“My pleasure.” He leans in. “Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I got a phone call, asking me if I was open this late. It sounded urgent.”
“It is. I need your help.”
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
“I need to know everything you can tell me about the Nightingale House.”
*
He leads me through the first floor, past the display cases, to what was once the kitchen, but has started morphing into an office/storage room. Boxes rest on the counters, while papers and binders sit by the sink.
“Please, have a seat,” he says, motioning to the small table by the window, overlooking the perfectly manicured backyard. “Would you care for some coffee?”
“Thank you. That’d be great.”
He opens a cabinet and takes out two coffee cups.
“So, what is it you’d like to know?” he asks, taking a pot from a coffee machine that’s so old, it looks like it would be perfectly at home with the displays out front and pours two cups.
“I’m trying to find out everything I can about the Carrington family. Specifically, about the disappearance of their daughter, Katherine.”
His face lights up as he sets a cup in front of me and has a seat at the table. “Quite possibly Kingsbrook’s darkest hour.”
“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it when we w
ere here that day.”
He looks offended. “I wasn’t sure you knew, and you were here with your daughter. I didn’t want to upset her. Besides, why would I bring it up?”
I can respect that. “Okay, but I really need to know, now.”
“Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?” He’s about to take a sip but stops. “Are you writing a book about it?”
I could tell him “no” and that my reason for asking is that last night, I saw a girl who has probably been dead for over a hundred years in my basement.
“Yep. Writing a book.”
It’s so much easier to lie when the person you’re lying to offers the perfect cover.
His smile lets me know that I’ve come to the right place.
“Now, there’s not a whole lot out there,” I say. “I’ve found some newspaper articles online but they don’t offer much beyond the fact that she disappeared from the train platform, no one found her, and then Thomas Carrington died of some sudden illness in the Nightingale House shortly after.”
He gives me an amused, almost smug smile. “Well, that was the story that was printed. They would never publish what really happened.”
“I’m sorry … What ‘really happened’?”
“Thomas Carrington killed himself; he shot himself through the head in the bedroom of his home. Well, I guess it is now your home.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “That was the rumor.”
“It was a hundred and twenty years ago. How could you possibly know that?”
“Mr. Price,” he says, setting his cup down and regarding me as if I’ve now truly insulted his honor in some way. “My family is as old as Kingsbrook, itself. They’ve lived here since the beginning. However, since I don’t have a family, I’m afraid the line stops here, which is why I started the Kingsbrook Historical Society.” He holds out his hands to indicate the entire house. “My family has been witness to everything that has happened in Kingsbrook and that history has been my obsession for decades. I used to beg my grandparents, and especially my great-grandmother, Patricia Fleming, to tell me stories about the town, and in her lifetime, the disappearance of Katherine Carrington and the death of her father were the story of the town.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I apologize. I had no idea.”
He relaxes. “No. I suppose you’re right. It was only gossip.”
“Please, tell me.”
He runs his finger around the rim of his cup as he organizes his thoughts. “Well, as I was saying, my family has lived in Kingsbrook since the beginning. I was born here in 1952, well after all the era that Kingsbrook was a getaway from the wealthy came to an end, but I still loved Kingsbrook. I knew I never wanted to live anywhere else. The town, its people — even from a young age, I was obsessed.”
I desperately need him to get to the point, but I don’t want to interrupt. I wait for him to savor another sip of coffee before continuing.
“When I heard about The Carrington Affair—” he leans in “—that’s what Gran-Gran called it, I had to know everything and she was more than happy to tell me. She was Kingsbrook royalty in her day. She was the daughter of the Mayor … and an unrepentant gossip.” He smiles. “But that was fine with me. I loved hearing her stories.” He chuckles. “Ironic that hearing about Kingsbrook’s ghosts made the town come alive in my imagination.” He picks up his coffee.
“So … what happened?”
“Oh, right, right, right. I’m sorry. There I go, again,” he says, taking another quick sip before setting the cup down. “According to Gran-Gran, Thomas Carrington was not the most respected member of Kingsbrook society.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there were things that were looked down upon, such as the fact that his own family had cut him off due to his behavior. ‘Playing the field’ was the polite term for his behavior at the time. Some said that he charmed Abigail into marrying him because of her family’s wealth. That’s what supported them. Gran-Gran said he was rude, arrogant, and he could be ‘a very unpleasant fellow’, which were harsh words, coming from her. According to Gran-Gran, everyone knew that it was an unhappy marriage.”
“What about the daughter?”
“Gran-Gran never really knew her, but when she disappeared, the rumors swirled that he had something to do with it.”
“Why?”
He shrugs, again. “His past. He was known to be a little violent. Gran-Gran had heard that after he was drunk with a young woman, Abigail forbade liquor in the house. Anyway, Gran-Gran said it all seemed so strange. As I said, there were rumors that he had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance, but there was no proof.”
“What about the rumor that he killed himself?”
“That one, Gran-Gran sounded more certain about.”
“The paper said that he was found dead in his room.”
“Of course it did. Out of respect for Abigail, it would never print that Thomas Carrington shot himself. That sort of thing simply wasn’t done in those times. Afterwards, Abigail Carrington left Kingsbrook. She wanted nothing else to do with the town. She even left Nightingale House abandoned. She passed in 1927.”
“Did your great-grandmother—”
“Gran-Gran.”
“Yes, did your … Gran-Gran ever tell you if there were any rumors as to why Thomas Carrington killed himself?”
He rolls his eyes, not out of exasperation, but in a way I’m pretty sure his … Gran-Gran did while relating her narratives. “She sure did. The rumors ranged from a sense of guilt over killing his daughter to the absurd idea that he was murdered by a loan shark. Most of the people who believed he killed himself thought he did it out of grief.”
“What did your Gran-Gran think?”
“She was certain he did it because he was caught in an affair and Abigail was going to cut him off.”
“She was sure he was having an affair?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say who?”
“Well, once again, rumors, but there was a whisper that he was carrying on with a young woman. She was the daughter of a pharmacist. The whispers really started flying around when she and her father disappeared from Kingsbrook right after he died, never to be heard from again.”
“Did anyone know her name?”
He glances up at the ceiling as he searches his memory. “Gran-Gran told me once … Her last name was something like … ‘Walker’ or maybe ‘Hooper’, I think. I can’t really remember. I do remember that her first name was ‘Rebecca’.”
The blood drains from my face.
“Mr. Price? Are you well?”
I stand up. I have to get back to the house.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Howard.”
“Of course … Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. You’ve been a great help.”
*
The porch light of the Kingsbrook Historical Society goes dark as I get in the car and close the door.
I turn the key and the motor comes to life.
The Nightingale House is ten minutes away. I can do it in five.
I need to get to the Writing Room, because a whisper in that bookcase once told me, ‘Rebecca’s here’.
September 18th, 1900
No. Please. No.
26
The door to the Nightingale House slowly swings inward.
The lights are still on from when we left yesterday. I stand in the threshold, waiting and listening. There are no sounds of crying from the stairs and no dripping water.
I step inside, close the door behind me, and make my way to the kitchen.
The basement door is also still open. Without looking down into the darkness, I press it closed and go to the pantry. There, I find the small toolbox, tucked away on the top shelf. I bring it down and set it on the island counter. It’s one of those el-cheapo tool sets you find at Walmart that only has the basics: a few screwdrivers, adjustable wrenches, a boxcutter, a leveler you’ll probably never use. The
only thing I’m interested in is the hammer.
I take it from the toolbox and carry it into the Writing Room.
I stand in front of the bookcase, hammer in hand. I’m about to do something that may necessitate some very costly repairs, but I don’t care. I feel around the panels on the side of the bookcase, where I had pressed my ear against the wood and heard the whisper. I start knocking on the panels, listening for anything that sounds hollow.
Right there. Third panel up from the floor. It’s about waist-high.
I run my hand over it, trying to discern if there’s anything different from the other panels. I can’t really tell.
Thunk.
I quickly draw my hand back. I felt that. I felt the soft impact of something hitting the other side of the panel.
I steady myself, take aim with the hammer, and swing.
The panel cracks.
I swing again. Part of the panel bows in. There’s empty space behind it. I strike one last time. The head of the hammer splits the wood and disappears into the bookcase. I have to work it back and forth to dislodge it.
I place the hammer on the floor and get out my phone. I turn on the flashlight app and peer into the space behind the panel through the hole I’ve created.
There’s something in there.
I carefully slide my fingers into the opening, grip the panel, and pull. It comes away with a loud crack. The space is about the size of a shoebox.
I set the panel aside, reach in, and pull the object out.
It’s an old journal.
The cover is a faded blue, and there are brass plates mounted to the front and back. A clasp connects them, binding the journal shut. There’s an engraving on the front plate.
These Pages Hold My Thoughts and Fears
And the Dreams that I will Seek.
Wishes and Wonder You’ll Find in These
Beneath the inscription is a circular indentation with three small holes.
I read the inscription again.
It’s not complete. It doesn’t make sense. It’s missing the last line. I reread it, shaking my head. I’m just going to have to break it open.