“How?” Maya asked.
Madeleine gave a rueful laugh. More glass shattered downstairs. “They keep me very busy. Don’t you know that idle hands are the devil’s workshop? We Stephensons love good works. Father made enough money from his tonic medicine that we can afford to do good works, lots of good works. We volunteer at church. We organize and operate a soup kitchen. Eleanor founded the garden club, and we are its executives. We volunteered to help organize the annual 4th of July parade and our church’s annual Christmas and Easter pageants. So many others that I’m forgetting now.”
Lily seemed incredulous. “That sounds like a lot, but you can just say no sometimes, right?”
“Just say no?” Now it was Madeleine’s turn to be incredulous. “Say no to my sisters? To the people we’re helping? I would never do that. I never did that.”
“So what happened between you and Allegra?” Maya gave a fleeting moment’s thought to her friends downstairs before concentrating again on Madeleine. She reminded herself that they would all get through this. Another shriek emanated from downstairs. This one sounded like Penny.
Madeleine looked away briefly. When she looked at Maya and Lily again, Maya thought she saw shame.
“Allegra wanted more. She had this mad idea of us going away together. We’ll be together for the rest of our lives, my love, she said. We’d only graduated from the academy. How could we support ourselves?”
“But I thought your family had money. Didn’t your father leave you any money?” Lily asked.
Madeleine nodded. “He did, but I couldn’t touch any of it until I was twenty-five years old or until I married, whichever came first. I’d have to wait seven years before I’d get the money, and I didn’t want to marry. Who would I marry?”
“Yeah, but you and Allegra could…” Maya started.
“We could what? We have no money.” Madeleine was becoming impatient, agitated.
“Could you have gotten secretarial jobs or something?” Lily said.
Maya decided that they needed to tread carefully. They didn’t want to scare Madeleine away. Her grip on Maya was loosening. The temperature in the room was almost normal.
Madeleine laughed. “You don’t understand. I’m not good enough for her. She was willing to give up so much for us to be together. I wanted to give up nothing. I don’t want to live in some tiny, cold water flat. I don’t. I didn’t want to leave the only home I’d ever known, the only family I’d ever known. I would have been no good to Allegra.”
“But you loved her,” Lily said.
“It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for me to give up everything.”
Maya exhaled. She felt sorry for Madeleine but wondered what had happened to Allegra, the one who dared to dream that two women could have made a life together in the early part of the 20th century. Some did, albeit very few. Madeleine didn’t leave her home in life. She didn’t even leave it in death. None of the sisters did. Maya was beginning to suspect they were protecting Madeleine’s secret, and it had cost them all dearly.
Madeleine shook her head. “I told you. Allegra is the fearless one. I would have been no good to her. She never forgave me. I didn’t see her after the day I told her I wasn’t leaving with her. I heard a year later that she’d become engaged to Clyde Atwell. They moved west out to California. I heard nothing of her after that. I helped with the war effort. I traveled the world with my sisters. I went anywhere but near her. My sister told me it was all for the best.”
“Which sister told you that?” Lily asked.
“Nelly, of course.” Madeleine sounded less agitated now and more resigned to what had happened between her and Allegra.
Maya was about to ask a question when she felt Lily nudge her.
“What?” Maya said.
“I don’t think she’s here anymore, not really here with us,” Lily said.
Indeed, Madeleine suddenly looked remote. She got up from the bed and went to the door. “Will you excuse me? I have so much to do. Nelly and Rosie need my help.”
“Wait!” Maya shouted.
Before Lily could say anything, the connection between Maya and Madeleine broke, and she vanished. Maya breathed heavily. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. She grabbed at the covers.
“She’s gone.” Maya gasped. “She’s gone.”
Chapter Nineteen
Meanwhile, downstairs
Julie finished getting ready for bed, but she wasn’t that tired yet. Neither was Penny, so they went down to the living room to hang out with Eddie, Steve, and Jason for a little bit and discuss the case. Jason was still skeptical that the ghosts were still in the house. Steve had no doubt they were still around. Eddie was increasingly convinced that some kind of curse or spell had trapped the sisters and Richard in the house, but he didn’t know the type or who cast it. He needed that information in order to break it.
“I wonder if the violence we’ve witnessed and heard about is because they’re trying to break free?” he said as a pot of tea steeped, and he pulled out a bag of cookies. “Chocolate and black pepper cookie? I made them a couple of days ago.”
Julie didn’t know what she believed about the ghosts. She just knew she had to make sure they didn’t come back if they were gone and deal with them if they were still here. She sat on the sill of the bay window stroking Abner and Athena. She wondered what they would say if they could talk. Abner purred as Julie petted him. Athena didn’t do that much purring, but meowed if Julie stopped stroking her soft fur.
Penny picked up the bottle of Stephenson’s Herbal Healing Tonic that Eddie had placed on the coffee table. She blew some dust off of the bottle and read the label.
“Says it’s got a special blend of vibrant Native American herbs and roots…” Penny said.
“Peyote, maybe.” Steve snickered and stroked his beard.
“And it’s got alcohol in it, too,” she added as she took a sniff of the still sealed bottle.
“That would keep you happy if you drank enough of it,” Julie said.
“And drink enough of it a lot of people did,” Eddie said before taking a bite of one of his cookies. A couple of crumbs fell to the floor.
Athena rolled over onto her back. Julie took that as a signal to rub her belly. “I followed up with that librarian Miranda, and she gave me more information about the Stephensons, specifically about the fortune their dad made selling patent medicines. Those medicines were so popular at one point, it was like they were printing money.”
“But how could they get away with saying that this stuff had Native American herbs and roots?” Penny asked.
“Easy,” Steve said. “When was that tonic sold?”
Penny looked at the label again. “I see a year on here. It says 1898.”
“You could put anything on a label back then and no one would be able to disprove it. The people buying the stuff didn’t know anything about Native Americans except whatever stereotypical crap that passed for the truth back in the day,” Eddie said. “And besides, the Food and Drug Administration wasn’t founded until early on in the 20th century, and, even then, they didn’t have meaningful power until much later.”
“Duping large numbers of people was so much easier then.” Julie sighed. “No Google. No social media. Not a lot of ways to check stuff out.” Athena rolled over and jumped off the window sill. She paused on the other side of the coffee table and licked one of her paws.
“You sound almost wistful that those days are gone,” Penny said.
“You got a recipe for snake oil you want to sell?” Jason asked. He had a crumb on his chin that he grabbed and popped into his mouth
Julie shook her head no. “That’s not it. People back then were just much more innocent.”
“Gullible. Credulous. Naive,” Steve said.
“Yes, all right, Mr. Thesaurus.” Julie waved her hand toward him like he was an annoying gnat. “What I mean is that people back then had the capacity to be awed by just about everything because they had s
o little exposure to so many things.”
Athena left the living room. Abner sprang from the window sill and followed her out.
“I don’t know.” Penny put the bottle of tonic back on the coffee table. “Seems like a lot of that innocence easily slipped into ignorance. ‘Innocent’ people did a lot of bad shit back then.”
Eddie picked up the bottle and gave it a gentle shake. The liquid sloshed about. “A lot of people ended up innocently doping their children with stuff like this, you know, to stop them from teething or crying or whatever. Some of these tonics had opium in them.”
Of course, Julie knew all this, but she liked thinking that there was a time and place where there could be innocence that didn’t slip into ignorance, as Penny put it. Just once she wanted to see a place with that perfect innocence unsullied by dangerous ignorance, when people didn’t do horrific things all the time.
“Well, all I know is the sooner we can crack the code to get rid of these ghosts for good the better. They’ve worn out their welcome.” Penny yawned and looked over at Julie. “Maybe we should get back upstairs. We can check in on Maya and Lily and see how they’re doing.”
Jason stood up and stretched. “You might interrupt them in the middle of … something.”
Julie winced inwardly. She’d blown it with Maya, but she still smiled goofily whenever she thought of her. She’d always wonder what might have been if only she’d been more decisive about getting Gabi out of her life, if only she’d kissed Maya when the opportunity was there, if only she hadn’t let that opportunity slide away. She looked at her phone. There it was. A new text from Gabi asking if she could come by for “some fun.” It hit Julie that she hadn’t even thought of her for a few days. Maybe she was finally getting her out of her system. The text message reminded her how much she enjoyed their time together, even if it was the equivalent of cheap Chinese food, good while you were eating it but left you hungry an hour later. A text came through from Maya, but it was gibberish. Julie wondered if Maya was sitting on her phone and butt-texting her.
Penny broke Julie’s reverie. “I doubt you’d walk in on anything very interesting,” she said.
“Why?” Steve drained the last of the tea from his mug. “They seemed pretty flirty.”
“Yeah, sure, but they seem like they’d keep it strictly professional for now. But we won’t know if we just mope around here all night. Come on, Julie. Let’s go upstairs and tease the potential love birds.” Penny walked toward the hall but let out a scream as she stumbled and fell back into the living room. It was like she was pushed back at the threshold. “What the…?”
“You put something special in her tea, Eddie?” Jason joked.
“Nope. It’s just rooibos tea.” Eddie went over to help Penny up. “You all right?”
Julie shivered. “Guys. It’s gotten very cold in here all of a sudden. And do you smell that? It’s that smell of burned flowers again, and it’s strong.
“Aargh! My video camera is upstairs,” Penny said.
“They’re back, aren’t they?” said Jason, sounding disappointed.
“Yep, you were unsurprisingly wrong,” said Steve as he moved swiftly to the threshold between the living room and the hallway. He stuck his arm out into the threshold, triggering a loud scream. He drew his arm back quickly and shook it as if he had just been stung by a hoard of bees. Eddie pulled him back to near the sofa, knocking over his mug in the process. The mug was empty but hit the coffee table leg and shattered.
Jason asked, “What’s going on?”
“It’s like an electrified fence. It’s them. The ghosts,” Steve said.
To Julie, Steve sounded a bit fearful, which was surprising considering his many years of paranormal experience. Then again, if Steve was starting to be afraid, then maybe there was something to really be afraid of.
“Maybe if we run at it really fast we could break through it,” Jason said. He walked several paces away from the threshold and launched himself like a track star.
“No, Jason!” Julie shouted as he eluded her grasp.
“I don’t wanna be here anymore,” he yelled. “I don’t wanna get trapped here.”
“Just hold on. We’re gonna figure this out,” yelled Julie as Jason ran as fast as he could into the threshold and let out a scream. He bounced back in agony and fell to the floor. Julie took a seat near him and took his head onto her lap.
“Oh, that hurt so bad. Oh God, that hurt,” said Jason as he rocked back and forth and rubbed his arms. “It’s like being burned and frozen at the same time. Ow. Ow. Ow.”
A sound like someone slipping through a vacuum seal and letting loose large amounts of static electricity rattled through the air..
“What the hell is going on?” Penny said.
“I think I like it better when there’s just one ghost to deal with,” Julie said.
Now a low hissing sound, like a balloon slowly losing air, pervaded the room.
Julie looked toward the threshold. She and Jason scrambled to their feet as a man’s head attached to a male torso emerged from the invisible barrier.
“That looks like Lily’s uncle,” Penny whispered.
The specter moved purposefully. His legs hadn’t materialized, yet he moved.
As before, Julie was creeped out by his eyes—the dark hollow spaces on his face that shimmered. Penny fumbled to get her phone out and start recording some video.
“At least this will get me something,” she said. She paused before she started recording. “Hey, I have a garbled message from Maya, too. Do you think they’re in trouble?”
“If they are, they’re on their own,” said Steve as red welts from the ghostly barrier appeared on his arm.
The ghost walked through the living room heading for the study. He walked through Jason as if he wasn’t even there. Jason shivered violently and fell to his knees.
“So cold,” he whispered through frosted lips. He shivered violently.
Julie helped him back up. His skin was cold to the touch. She did her best to share what warmth she had until his teeth stopped chattering, and they all moved over to the entrance to the study to watch the ghostly scene unfolding. Richard paced and drifted around. Julie couldn’t tell if he was taking in anything.
Can he actually see anything through those weird-ass eyes? she thought.
Not for the first time, she wondered why the ghosts’ eyes were like that. She also wondered how Lily and Maya were doing.
Richard took a seat at what was once his desk. Penny was the first of the team to move into the study and recorded video with her phone as she moved around. Steve followed her carrying his audio equipment. Holding his EDI meter in front of him as though it could ward off anything bad that may happen, Jason went in, too. Julie glanced at Eddie, who held back.
“Maybe if we wedge the door open we won’t get trapped in here?” Julie speculated.
“You must be psychic, girl,” Eddie said with a snap of his fingers. He went over to the sofa. “Help me with this.”
They both got behind the sofa and pushed it toward the study door. They just about had it in place against the door when Eddie and Julie lost their grip, and the sofa pushed against them. Eddie lost his footing, falling down and banging his knee on the floor. He let loose a torrent of obscenities. Julie grabbed his arm and pulled him clear of the sofa just as it crashed into the coffee table. The bottle of tonic rolled on the floor. Both the sofa and coffee table were pushed forcefully into a curio cabinet that stood in a corner near the bay window. As the glass of the cabinet doors shattered, the door to the study slammed shut.
“Damn it!” Julie began banging on the study door. “Jason! Jason! We’re gonna get you out of there. Just hang on.”
She didn’t hear a response. In fact, she heard nothing. She pressed her ear hard and close to the door. No sound penetrated it. She knew it wasn’t that heavy, nor was it soundproofed. There was no reason she shouldn’t be able to hear any sounds.
“Eddie. Why
can’t I hear anything?”
Eddie had rolled up his pant leg and was shining a flashlight at his knee, which had a bright red scrape right over the kneecap. “What do you mean? You can’t hear anything where?”
“I can’t hear anything coming from the study. Jason’s in there with Steve and Penny. At the very least, I should hear the sound of Jason complaining.”
Without rolling his pant leg back down, Eddie hoisted himself from the floor and limped over to Julie. He put his ear against the door.
“You’re right,” he whispered. “I mean, there’s just nothing going on in there. Or that’s how it seems anyway.”
Eddie walked over to the windows and tried to open them. “No joy here. The locks don’t even work.”
“They’re broken?”
“Our ghost friends have overridden them. They’re in control.”
Julie slumped against the door and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. “Sometimes, I hate ghosts!”
The lights flickered, illuminating a living room that now looked more like an early 20th century one in an upper middle class home. Julie gasped. Eddie stared around the room. There was some sort of gathering going on. Julie recognized the sisters but no one else. There appeared to be about a dozen or maybe fifteen people in the room. Every one of them was dead yet here they were looking as vital as they had been in life. Julie was mesmerized. One of the sisters, Rosamund, was playing an upright piano in one corner. An unfamiliar woman and two men stood near the piano, laughing and singing. Julie didn’t recognize the tune. Eleanor sat in a chair with other guests seated nearby. A young woman dressed as a maid set a tray down on the coffee table. The tray had a teapot, teacups, and containers with sugar and milk in them. Next to that tray was another one, but more ornate and stacked with little sandwiches and cookies. Madeleine stood near the bay window, peering out, looking wistful. Then, she started with excitement and walked across the living room and out into the hallway. As she walked, she announced, “Allegra’s here!”
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