Neil scowled at me. “Why not?”
I really didn’t have a good reason, other than I didn’t want to drag the hairy, slobbering beastie all over Hell’s half acre in the middle of BFE nowhere on a ghost hunt. Atlas was not the peaceful, short-haired lapdog I’d agreed to a few weeks back when the Phillips men ganged up on me about getting a pet. That was the last time I’d let them go to the humane society without me.
Granted, he was a sweet tempered dog, but while his size and youthful exuberance were endearing, he stank, shed, slobbered and made his presence known every second he was in the room. Bad enough I had to deal with his mountains of poop on my own turf. No way did I want to road trip with them. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I took a deep breath and lied my ass off. “Leo’s allergic.”
Neil hopped down out of the truck and offered me a hand. “So?”
“Whaddya mean, so? He can’t be around dogs, so therefore, Atlas can’t come.”
Neil stared down at a grease spot on the concrete floor. “Sure he can. We’ll just keep him outside.” At my look, he clarified, “The dog, I mean, not Leo.”
“Neil—” I didn’t whine, but it was a close thing.
My husband held up a hand. “Do you want to pay to board him?”
Appealing to my thrifty nature. Low blow, Slick. My shoulders sagged and I uttered a defeated, “No.”
“Then he’s coming with us.” Neil slammed the gate of the truck to punctuate his declaration.
Damn. “You know what this is starting to remind me of? Four people and a dog driving out into the middle of nowhere to chase a ghost—we’re living a freaking episode of Scooby Doo.”
Neil grinned. “Too bad we don’t have a Volkswagen Bus. So, are you Daphne or Velma?”
I felt neither pretty nor smart. “I want to be Shaggy. Not the new generation Shaggy, either. The one who got stoned with Mama Cass and the Harlem Globetrotters.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Neil said.
Chapter Five
“So, tell us what you know about this place,” I prompted Leo as he passed the salad bowl to Josh. Atlas followed the motion of the steak platter around the table with his soulful brown eyes, but obeyed when Neil told him to lie down.
Leo’s face lit up as he sprinkled fresh grated parmesan over his rotini. “It’s got terrific bones and quite a bit of potential. Big rooms and large windows with a great view of the river. And the history will make a body swoon. It was originally a lock house for the D&H canal, built in 1828. Almost 200 years old, can you imagine?”
“What’s a lock house?” Josh asked between mouthfuls of steak.
Neil spooned broccoli onto Kenny’s plate and ignored the face his son made. “Back before cars and trains, people used canals to transport things like coal and lumber upriver. The boats were pulled by teams of mules or horses. Locks were used to help raise a boat between two different water levels. A lock house is where the man who operated the lock lived.”
Leo added, “Of course, the expansion of the railroads took business away from the canals. Mother Nature had the final say though because winter weather, floods and droughts all slowed canal transportation to a crawl. Railroads were much more reliable. That particular lock was abandoned in 1898, when the old lock keeper died and no one bothered to replace him.”
“So is he the ghost?” Kenny asked.
Leo smiled but shook his head. “Afraid not. The place sat abandoned from the late 1900’s to the middle of the twentieth century. The reported hauntings date back to the sixties, when the original lock house was expanded. The account I gleaned from the matron at the local historical society said the husband died after the wife first saw the bean nighe.” He pronounced the last phrase ben-neeya, with a passable Gaelic lilt.
“Bean nighe,” I said, and something niggled in the back of my brain. My own ancestry was peppered with Scottish immigrants, though mostly several generations back. My mother’s mother, who had died when Marty was still in diapers, had been fresh off the boat and full of wondrous stories of the “auld” ones—the fairy folk. I was pretty sure I’d heard of a bean nighe before, though I couldn’t put it in context.
“According to my source, she’s a harbinger of death.” Leo’s eyes glinted, his passion for history fully engaged.
Neil had his smartphone out and was busy Googling the apparition. His eyebrows went up as he read aloud. “The Scottish equivalent of the Banshee, the washer woman at the fords is a messenger from the otherworld. She can be found by the water, washing blood from the death shroud for the person doomed to die, all while singing her wailing lament. Typically, the bean nighe is the twisted soul of a mother who died in childbirth and is cursed to carry out her prophetic role until the day her life would have otherwise ended.”
“Creepy,” Josh muttered, looking over his father’s shoulder as he took his plate to the sink.
I grabbed Neil’s wrist and angled the little screen until I could see it clearly. The pencil sketch drawing was of a small cloaked figure with a large hooked nose and stringy dark hair. Her face was weather-beaten and creased with age, her hands gnarled from her grisly work. Other than her face and hands, the only distinguishable feature was a pair of enormous low hanging breasts. I could easily see how such a creature could maybe discourage a potential buyer. “Well, no chance of mistaking her for anyone else. Does it say how to get rid of her?”
Neil took the phone back and scrolled through the information on the website. “No, but it does say if a mortal sneaks up on her and takes her breast into his or her mouth, they can claim to be the child she lost and be granted a wish.”
Dead silence.
“Nasty,” Kenny finally said.
I looked to Sylvia, who’d been quietly poking at her salad. “If that ever comes up, it’ll be your department.”
“Gee, thanks.” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
The chatter died down as we cleaned up after dinner and I helped the boys pack their overnight bags.
“Listen to Aunt Penny and Uncle Marty. I’m counting on you guys to help them with baby May. My cell phone will be on, so text me if you need anything. ”
Apprehension filled my hollowed-out chest. Could I really do it, just up and leave Kenny and Josh? Would Marty be able to handle them for an entire week? Sure, they were growing up, but I’d never been apart from them for more than the duration of a sleepover or camping trip. A week seemed way too long. “You guys are really okay with this?”
Josh nodded and Kenny hugged me. Not quite as long as he hugged Atlas, who drooled down the back of his t-shirt. “I’ll miss you, boy.”
I tried not to take offense that I ranked lower than the dog in his estimation. He’d miss me plenty after a week of Penny’s cooking, which was subpar at the best of times.
With the boys safely ensconced at Sylvia’s, I locked up the house and reluctantly made my way to the Prius. Neil had already backed the truck out of the garage. Atlas’s enormous head lolled out the window. Leo’s beat-up Tercel, which was held together with snarky bumper stickers and a prayer, idled down the street.
I tried not to wince at the sight of my forlorn Mini sitting in the driveway. The hybrid smelled of fresh herbs and citrus, not coffee and cleaning products. Panic clawed at me but I tamped it down. So what if I was homesick before we even turned the corner? This trip was for my business and my marriage. I could suck it up and deal.
“Inhale the positive and let go of the negative.” The dulcet tones of Sylvia’s shaman, or whatever he was, droned from the speakers. He made an audible sniff the way I did when I was searching the fridge for rogue milk spills. “Accept what the universe provides. It’s yours for the taking, but you must be open to receive it.”
That sounded like the beginning of a rather lewd come-on to me but Sylvia did as he commanded and her shoulders relaxed. I needed a bottle of red and some Xanax for the same result.
“Want me to drive? Between the lulling
tenor of the guru’s voice and her innate calm, I worried she’d fall asleep behind the wheel. She wasn’t a coffee drinker. How the hell would she stay awake?
“I’m good.” She smiled at me as we turned out of the development, the very picture of tranquility.
I muted the meditative master. “So, about the bean nighe. That doesn’t sound like a ghost we can oust for the hell of it.”
Sylvia chewed her lip. “From what I’ve read, a ghost is a soul with unfinished business here on earth. And from what Leo said, the bean nighe is a childless mother.”
“Which is why the whole sucking on the breast thing, pretending to be her baby, is supposed to grant you a boon,” I said even as my mind chanted, ick ick ick.
Sylvia nodded. “Right. And from what I’ve read, the only successful way to help a soul move on is to break the tie that binds it to this plane of existence.”
There was a hangnail on my right hand that drove me to distraction. Though I knew better, I popped it in my mouth and tried to work the little bugger off. “So, what are you suggesting?”
She shook her head. “Nothing yet. We need to know more about this specific ghost and figure out what makes her tick.”
The hangnail gave, though it left a bloody divot on the side of my nail bed. “This is so far beyond my realm of understanding. I feel nuts even having this conversation, you know?”
“Believe it or not, I do. Did I ever tell you about my great aunt Stefania?”
I shook my head and she continued. “My grandfather was an American and he met my grandmother after World War II. She’d been a nurse in France and it was a total Florence Nightingale thing. Anyway, they fell in love, got married and after the war ended he returned to Norway with her. Almost exactly nine months later, my grandmother died giving birth to my mom. Stefania was the midwife who did the delivery. She was nineteen when my mom was born and engaged to a man from her village. Her parents were already gone and her sister had just died and there was my mom, motherless and my grandfather torn up with grief. He wanted to come back to the states, to take my mom and put it all behind him. Stefania couldn’t lose the only family she had left, so she broke her engagement, married my grandfather and they came to America together.”
“She sounds remarkable,” I said, meaning it but unable to see the connection with our ghost.
“There’s more. Stefania couldn’t have children of her own. She had my mom of course, raised her like her own daughter, all while telling her about her sister. Then, the day after my mom graduated from college, she announced she was going back to Norway for good. Her duty to her sister was done. And she still loved him, the man she’d been engaged to all those years before.”
“Wow.” It was an idiotic thing to say but it was all I had on tap.
“Yeah. My grandfather was stunned. I mean, they’d been married for twenty five years and then she’s going to up and quit for an old love. Sounds nuts, right? But Stefania didn’t see it like that. She knew her sister was the love of his life and she’d left the love of hers to do what her sister couldn’t, take care of her family. She put her happiness on hold for a quarter of a century for them.”
I was almost afraid to ask because this was by no means a happy story. “Was he waiting for her? The man she loved?”
“He was,” Sylvia said. “That whole time, he waited for her to come back. And she never did.”
“What? But you just said—”
“She was killed in a car accident on the way to the airport.”
Good God. “You’re making this up, right? It’s like the plot to a new Nicholas Sparks book or something.”
Sylvia snorted. “He wishes. Nope, it’s all true. Sad and true. But that’s beside the point.”
Tears burned to escape, for these poor people who’d lived and died before I was born. What was wrong with me? I was never so emotionally volatile. Damn it, I refused to cry, so I stared at Sylvia and waited for the punch line without blinking.
“Stefania comes to me sometimes. Talks to me, guides me, watches over me. That’s why I believe.”
****
My first impression of my in-laws’ new acquisition was a massive dark shape on a hill overlooking the river. The Prius bounced along the rutted and partially washed-out drive as we followed Neil’s taillights across the small wooden bridge that spanned a narrow brook. The stream there ran down from the mountain behind the house and fed the river the way a drone tends the queen bee.
We pulled up alongside Neil and disembarked. Cool night air wrapped around me, chock full of a bevy of springtime scents like new leaves, damp grass and rich soil. A million stars twinkled above our heads. The place felt almost primitive, so far from the concrete jungle it could be another world.
A haunted world. Echoes of Sylvia’s story about her long dead great aunt reverberated through me. Her tale had struck a chord in me, maybe because I’d had conversations with my mother since the day she died. I’d never thought about her end of it though, figured it was just my mind supplying her imagined responses. I shivered and Neil released Atlas from the truck, then moved closer and wrapped his arms around me.
“Cold?” He pulled me tight against his warmth.
“A little.” I looked around to see where the others were. “I would have preferred to ride with you. Even with that smelly beast in between us.”
“That bad, huh?” He rubbed up and down along my arms for warmth.
“I love Sylvie to death, but you’re my best friend.” Besides, Neil would have been playing AC/DC or Queen instead of the Zen master and his creepy breathing soundtrack, which only added icing to the delectable man-cake.
“Good to know.” Neil bent to kiss me just as someone flicked on the floodlights.
“Gah!” I threw my hands up to block out the brightness, the intensity of which came up just short of surface of the sun.
“Sorry!” Leo called, not sounding at all sorry. “I thought it would be nice to see while we unload.”
Good plan. In retrospect, arriving at a supposedly haunted house at night wasn’t the smartest decision, but it was done and we could only go forward.
“Let’s just bring in our bags tonight. I’ll take stock and we can deal with the rest tomorrow.” As always, Neil made a plan of attack and was prepared to execute it.
I humped my overstuffed suitcase up the walkway toward the house with Atlas hot on my heels.
“Stay, “I commanded at the front door. As usual, he ignored me and trotted inside.
“Damn dog,” I muttered and followed him in.
It had been impossible to tell what the house look liked in the dark but inside was a different matter. Rustic log cabin motif—not the newfangled McMansion type, but real Little House on the Prairie action—with just enough outdated sixties flair to make the place a total train wreck. The entry was empty save for some dust and cobwebs. There was a spiral staircase that led up to a loft above, a hallway to the left, living room dead ahead. The kitchen was on the right and I decided to get that over with first. My hopes weren’t all that high but the heart of the house still managed to be a mangled disappointment.
I took in the peeling linoleum that had probably had a pattern once upon a time but had faded to mottled beige over the years. The tattered pale yellow and blue gingham window treatments hung limply from a bent metal frame. The cabinets were a battle-scarred brown that blended with the log walls but still managed to look ugly as sin. It smelled musty and abandoned, with a faint whiff of mouse.
“Is it all this bad?”
Leo shook his head. “I concentrated mostly on the bedrooms. Come on, I’ll show you.”
We met up with Neil at the foot of the stairs. “You guys are in here. I did the best I could to get it ready and the beds are new, the sheets clean.”
The bedroom he led us to was in the back of the house, but had its own door to the outside, which Atlas bounded to. I peeked into an adjacent room and spied a small avocado colored bathroom. Thankfully, the room was c
leaner than the rest of the place, the floors swept and mopped, the corners cobweb free.
Neil opened the sliding glass door and the scent of damp air mingled with lemon-scented disinfectant and fresh sheets. The steady thrum of the roaring river filled the space.
“Much better than camping,” I decreed. “Thank you, Leo.”
“Anytime, laundry hag.” He shut the door behind him, closing us in this magical little space that was apart from the world at large.
“He hasn’t sneezed once,” Neil remarked casually.
I was so caught up in the view off our private deck that I only made a soft, “Hmmmm?”
Neil took my chin and urged me to face him. “Leo isn’t allergic to dogs, is he?”
Busted. “Well, not exactly.”
His shoulders slumped in a defeated gesture. He didn’t say a word, but he was thinking so loudly I could hear it all. Shit, this wasn’t how I wanted to start out.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to bring the stupid dog.”
The look he gave me was tinged with frustration. “It’s not about the dog. You just up and lie to me as a matter of course, like it doesn’t mean anything. You don’t trust me anymore, not with your thoughts or feelings or your body. That’s what hurts.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again without the half-assed explanation tagged on.
Without another word, Neil stepped out onto the deck and disappeared into the night.
Chapter Six
“No coffee?” I gaped at Leo in horror. This had to be a cruel joke. But no whiff of hot java reached me.
“I’ve been going up to the diner.” He shrugged casually, looking ready for a photo shoot in his oatmeal colored linen shirt and pressed jeans.
Seriously, who irons his jeans?
I, on the other hand, could give the bean nighe a run for her money in the scary department. Though I’d left the door unlocked for his return, Neil hadn’t come back and I’d tossed and turned in the new bed all night, guilty, sick and scared. The fear had nothing to do with the ghost. She at least hadn’t popped up. No, I was afraid of what I’d do next to hurt Neil. But though my mind and stomach churned until the sun peaked above the rolling hills to the east, I still didn’t know how to clean up the toxic waste that had infected my marriage. Could I ever make things right with Neil?
The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag: All Washed Up: (Book 3 in the Misadventures of the Laundry Hag series) Page 5