by B. Groves
The doors to the parlor were closed. She made her way into the living room and found nothing out of the ordinary.
She walked back out of the living area with her finger —once again— on the emergency button on her phone, and made her way down the hallway.
She checked each room and closet. No one was there. All the windows and doors—besides the front door—were secured.
She went through the kitchen and decided it had to be a breeze or loose hinges on the front door.
That was the only explanation she could think of on why the door would close on its own.
Claire sat down on one of the bar stools trying to calm her frazzled nerves.
She checked the time and winced. It was already mid-morning and she needed to unload her car.
She placed the butterfly brooch on the counter and wondered why this piece of jewelry was so important that Rose had to leave it on her bed with a note for Claire.
What did this even mean? She questioned.
It was an expensive piece of jewelry, but she was sure there were things she would find in the safe deposit box much more valuable.
Claire checked her responses on her Facebook page before she headed back outside to unpack her car knowing this mystery had to wait.
She swiped her phone and tapped on Facebook.
Fifty responses? Jeez. She never usually had that many unless there was a new release she was promoting.
She clicked on the comments and as she read them a bone-chilling shiver ran from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
“It’s beautiful! But, I would swear there’s a face in the second the floor window.”
“I see it!”
“Me too! Did you inherit a haunted house?”
“I couldn’t live in one.”
“Me neither.”
“I see it. It looks like 2 eyes and mouth with a small head.”
Claire put the phone down the countertop with a bang. Her eyes were almost bulging out of her head as she searched every corner, every window, and any shadowy places inside the kitchen.
The surrounding silence was deafening. There was a clock above the stove, but the time stopped and therefore no tick-tick-tick to break the lack of noise.
She sat up straight in the chair and tried to remember the words her grandfather always told her as her breath came out in small gasps. There was nothing there in the nighttime that wasn’t there during the daytime.
She swallowed a few times and an image of her brother came to the forefront of her mind.
It couldn’t be.
No, she thought with a shake of her head. There is no way…
But, what about the noise she heard earlier? What about the door closing on its own?
Was that a breeze? Loose screws?
Claire gulped and tried to get a hold of herself.
This is ridiculous. This was nonsense. This is an old house. This is a big house. They make weird noises. That’s what old houses do. That’s where legends and myths are born from homes like these with questionable pasts.
And, what her followers saw in the picture… a reflection of sunlight, Claire tried to convince herself.
Claire needed to unpack her things. She needed to ignore the comments on her Facebook page and move in. Whether she liked it or not, this was her home now and she wanted to start fresh here in Lingate.
More comments came off her alerts, but this time Claire didn’t check them.
She had unpacking to do.
She had so many questions about her past, about Rose, about her parents, and most of all, about her brother.
7.
C laire put aside her questions to unload the trailer and her car. She grabbed two or three cardboard boxes at a time and had to balance them precariously in her arms so she wouldn’t trip over the steps that led to the porch.
She had little to unpack from her move to North Carolina. She sold or donated all her old furniture, and basically moved to Lingate with only the clothes on her back.
Of course, she kept what her grandparents left her. All their family heirlooms, pictures, and knick-knacks tagged along. She hated her grandmother’s little porcelain doll collection, but she kept them for the memories. She would swear up and down the dolls eyes moved whenever she walked past them and now that she owned them, she planned on keeping them in the box and in the back of a closet.
The other items weren’t so bad. She had some of her grandfather’s tools, pieces of clothing, and dishes her grandmother loved to cook with.
Those were the two people who raised her. Adopted and raised her with nary a complaint and never resented that they had to start over as parents even though they were beyond the age to raise a young child.
She would never let their memories falter.
She placed the last box inside the foyer, she closed the front door—double checking it this time—and collapsed on the couch trying to catch her breath.
All her stuff was out of the trailer and ready to be stored inside the house.
She checked her phone and found it was late afternoon as the sun dipped behind the trees. Her stomach rumbled from lack of food as she sat there and stared at the shadows that were creeping out from the corners of the room.
Claire needed to find food.
Claire didn’t feel like driving to find a fast food place. She made a disgusted face when she thought of the decaying food in the refrigerator.
She had to eat something.
She groaned from her aching muscles as she pulled herself from the sofa and walked into the kitchen.
She remembered the mason jars and smiled.
She opened the pantry and found spaghetti sauce labeled in three of the jars.
Claire was surprised by the fruit and vegetables stored in mason jars on the shelves in the pantry. Did Rose do her own canning, or did she buy them? Mary and Clay weren’t the types to can, but they loved their little garden in the backyard of Claire’s childhood home.
She checked the pasta and it seemed okay.
She grabbed the tea bags knowing the tea would be fine to drink and thought a nice glass of iced tea would be more satisfying than mere water.
Claire brought out a mason jar of spaghetti sauce and popped the lid.
She sniffed it a few times. She didn’t know if she could trust the smell because she knew little about canning. She thought the jars may have been sitting in the pantry for too long.
Sighing, she decided not to take a chance with the jars and would toss their contents. She would keep the jars and learn how to can when she had time.
Such a waste, she thought as she dumped the sauce down the drain and ran the disposal.
Oh well, it looks like plain pasta with some spices and iced tea.
It was one night, Claire thought. She could deal with it.
Then, she’d make a quick trip to the store the next day and pick up a few odds and ends to keep her going until she could make a grocery list and go shopping.
She found coffee in a cabinet and set up the coffee pot for the next morning before she ate.
She found a tea kettle and boiled the water for tea. She checked the sugar for bugs but found the container sealed. The sugar was good, and thank goodness for that because she needed flavor in her drinks.
She found a soup pot and boiled water in that for the pasta.
She went over to the spice rack and picked out some spices to put in the pasta since she was eating it plain.
Claire decided she would settle in the for the night after she ate. The unpacking and exploring of the second floor could wait until the next morning.
As the pasta boiled away, Claire thought about where she would sleep. She didn’t feel comfortable using Rose’s room. She felt she would be invading the woman’s privacy if she slept there. It was a ridiculous thought, but she decided it would be best to leave the room empty.
She decided before she left the house the next day to return the trailer, she would find her old bedroom and sett
le there. That conclusion lightened her mood and she felt better moving into this huge house.
Claire made her pasta dish, and let the tea bags sit inside the kettle until the water turned a deep caramel color.
She thanked a higher power when the fresh ice dropped from the icemaker on the door of the refrigerator and didn’t have a horrible odor.
She knew it was wrong to eat in the living room, but she didn’t want to stay in the kitchen with only her phone for company.
This house was too quiet, and it was time for some noise to break the monotony of the silence.
She found napkins and walked her dinner down to the living room.
She’d forgotten about Rose’s table tray and didn’t feel so bad about eating in the living room.
She placed it all in front of her and grabbed the remote control. She pressed the buttons until she figured out how to work the remote.
She had a limited selection of channels until the cable company came out to hook up her cable and WIFI.
Today was Monday and she made the appointment for Thursday if she ran late while driving down to Lingate.
Now, she regretted making the appointment so late in the week because she was stuck with a local channel showing a gospel choir singing about how wonderful it would be to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Claire chuckled and ate her pasta.
Not bad for being so plain, she thought. It’ll do.
She drank her iced tea and remembered reading that Southerners drank sweet tea by the gallon. She was betting she could find better quality than what she was having tonight around the town when she was ready to explore one of the many restaurants and cafes opening their doors from the explosion of economic development that Lingate had been enjoying over the last ten years.
After Claire ate, she walked the dish back to the kitchen and hand washed it, along with the soup pot.
Darkness was settling in. She glanced at the window only finding her reflection staring back at her and not the view of the forest at the edge of the property.
It was still early, but she wanted an early start the next day to unpack her things and get settled in.
Her list of “things-to-do” grew to where she needed to type in reminders on her cell phone.
Grabbing her sweats from her suitcase, Claire changed in the guest bathroom, brushed her teeth and heard the heater kick on with a clicking noise from the vent. She reentered the living room and stood up on the couch, raising her hand high in the air feeling the heat caressing her fingertips.
She smiled thinking she would turn down the heat and fall asleep next to a fire in the fireplace. The fire would add a nice ambiance to this strange new home.
Claire stepped down from the couch and walked over to turn down the thermostat.
She knelt in front of the fireplace and swept out the soot, putting it in a bucket sitting next to it.
She placed the log, the kindling, and the newspaper inside.
On top of the fireplace was a pack of matches, and Clare struck the match to light it.
She didn’t need to play with it long before the log caught fire and a warm glow bathed the living room in a soft orange light.
She sat on the floor for a few minutes basking in the warmth and watched the orange and yellow flames before she climbed back on the sofa to sleep.
Her mind was in turmoil from all the questions she had. Her anger at her paternal grandparents and Rose was inflating inside of her from secrets kept from her for so many years.
Why did Rose send her to live with Mary and Clay?
They told her it was right after they stopped trying to find David’s body.
Why?
Why wasn’t she able to mourn her brother when she was whisked away to New Jersey?
Claire sat and watched the shadows of the room dance from the flickering flames of the fire.
She felt calm enough sleep.
She would accomplish nothing by sitting by the fire. Her memories of that time with her brother were a fuzzy mess inside her mind.
Bits and pieces were surfacing, but there was still much she needed to investigate to find the answers she wanted.
Tonight, she would sleep on the sofa and the next day she would find her bedroom and move in there.
She didn’t check her comment section on her Facebook anymore.
She appreciated her followers. They were almost like family to her now, but she didn’t want to deal with a supposed face in the window tonight.
Claire shivered from the thought and remembered Rose died in this house only months ago.
And, who knew what other family perished inside this house.
She thought of her lost little brother and wanted to cry, but held back her emotions.
He would have been twenty-six this year. A young life snuffed out before he had a chance to go to school, graduate, marry, have kids. It wasn’t fair.
All Claire could remember was a giggle, curly blonde hair, and round blue eyes.
Claire shook her head in remorse. Her grandfather, her parents, and her little brother all lost in tragic circumstances.
How did Rose manage to live with that for so many years? Alone, even.
Claire sighed and went to her box that contained her blankets and pillows.
She pulled them out and set up her makeshift bed while the fire crackled and sparked behind her.
She checked her emails and her data usage before plugging in her phone to charge and cringed at the data she used while she was on her road trip.
The cable company couldn’t come soon enough to hook up her WIFI, she thought and then laughed lowly.
She was still being cheap, although she didn’t need to be, she learned to keep her handbag away from impulsive purchases a long time ago.
Claire settled into the couch, and found it was the most comfortable piece of furniture she ever had the pleasure of sleeping on.
It was wide enough to use as a bed for one night where she could turn over without almost falling off.
She turned the TV to low, and after about another hour, she hit the off button.
She then drifted off to sleep.
Claire woke up with a start. She opened her eyes wondering why she was so cold. Thinking the fire must have gone out, she adjusted her eyes to her surroundings.
To her shock, she realized the house was illuminated with a murky, gray light.
Did she oversleep? Was the weather supposed to turn for the worse today?
She’d planned on getting up early to get a head start on her day, but she must have overslept.
Claire sat up and threw off the blanket. She rubbed her eyes and realized her eyes were blurry in her peripheral vision.
She shook her head trying to clear her sight. She rubbed her eyes repeatedly, but nothing was happening. The bleak color persisted, and the blurriness continued.
She threw her legs over the sofa and onto the floor, crying out when her bare feet touched freezing wood beneath her.
Claire pulled her feet back up to the sofa. She turned and looked around. She didn’t know what to do. Where was she?
She was in Kinsey House. The furniture, the fireplace, even the TV sat quietly in front of her.
She noticed another thing. Her breath. It came out in frosty puffs as she struggled to wake up.
What was happening to her? Why was it so cold in here? Did the heater break. It was a central heating system, and George told her it was less than five years old.
He said Rose had it installed when she couldn’t keep up with maintaining her fireplaces anymore.
Claire needed to check on the heater. She was feeling light-headed, and sort of dizzy as she bit her lip to put her bare feet back onto the ice-cold floor.
Her skin was clammy to the touch, and she wondered if she was coming down with an illness from sleeping in the freezing house.
She went to stand and again the dizziness clouded her mind making her fall back into the sofa.
Her heart was beating
hard in her chest, and it was hard to breathe.
She wondered if she should call an ambulance.
Claire swallowed a few times and tried to inhale deeply.
A pain started in her right arm. Right around her elbow and made its way up to her shoulder. Instinct made her grip her shoulder.
She looked down to see a bruise forming on her right elbow. The pain was almost unbearable.
Where did that come from? She asked herself.
Claire opened her mouth in shock when the bruise darkened and deepened in front of her eyes. The color turning from a yellowish blue to a deep purple.
This forced Claire to stand. She looked around in a panic and bewildered about what was happening to her.
She then found another pain in her ankle and bent over to see why there was a stinging pain shooting up her leg.
She tried to ignore the nauseous feeling forming in her gut when she saw her ankle was swelling.
Oh, God, she thought. What’s happening? What do I do?
Favoring her arm, and limping away from the sofa, Claire tried to make her way to the cell phone charging on a side table.
She needed help. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears, and her breaths were practically gasps now as she tried to reach her phone.
“Claire…”
Claire stopped dead in her tracks when she heard a voice behind her.
Absolute panic hit every nerve. What was that? Who called her name? Was that a child’s voice she heard?
Claire turned around. In the doorway, Claire thought she saw a small figure run away.
“Hello?” she called, her mouth going dry.
Despite her pain and her dizziness, she limped towards the doorway.
She heard light footsteps moving down the hallway. Their steps soft, but hurried.
“Hello? Who are you?” She asked.
Her breathing becoming even more labored, and struggling to hold back tears, Claire came into the doorway.
“Claire…”
“Who are you?” Claire cried out.
She looked around. The parlor doors were open, but the room was empty. Nothing was on the staircase.
Taking another deep labored breath, Claire forced her eyes to gaze down the darkened hallway.
Standing at the end of the hallway was a small figure. Claire wanted to scream, but the only thing that came from her throat was a whimper.