I felt woozy as Anita struggled with my stays. She’d tied them too tightly this morning, and her old fingers were having a difficult time working the knots.
Oh, but to be free of these heavy garments! At last the skirt fell to the floor, and I stepped out of it and sat on the bed obediently as Anita continued her work. I was down to my petticoats and still sweating as if I’d run a mile in the middle of the summer afternoon.
“You’ve got the fever. You’ll have to stay in this bed, ma’am. Leave it all to me. I will take care of those girls. Betsy and Annabel will be just fine.”
They were not fine at all, I thought to myself.
Too often, they whispered to one another. I imagine they plotted against me. Just as Alice and I plotted against our mother. Wretched cow of a woman! At least the girls had a father who loved them and stayed with their mother despite her flaws. Mr. Loper certainly loved them more than he had ever loved me, and he showered them with affection. He brought them gifts and rained kisses down upon them daily.
But they whispered all the time. I did not like that. Betsy and Annabel and all their whispering and giggling. Were they laughing at me? I began to suspect the horrible truth. Our daughters knew about me, they knew my secret.
They knew their mother was not who she said she was, and they would eventually tell the world. It’d been bad luck to have girls. Better to have boys, I thought. I may have loved a boy. Alice and I believed every word to come out of our mother’s mouth even though we hated her immensely. Indeed, Alice and I spent much of our time plotting against her.
It had not been my idea to poison the kitten. I did not want to believe that. If I was now Alice, and I was, I could place the blame on Lavinia. Lavinia cut the rope that dropped the bag and crushed Mr. Kennedy. It had been my sister's idea. She was full of bad thoughts and intentions. She whispered them into my ears day and night. Night and day.
Not me. Never me! Mr. Loper would have to believe me. I was Alice Loper! Not Lavinia!
My sister’s gray face mocked me from the mirror on the vanity table. Kill them. Kill them while they are small.
“Go away! I am Alice now! You are dead!” I resisted her repeated urgings, but I feared the day would come I could no longer resist her. I feared the day I would not be able to refuse. I feared the day when I shed this Alice skin and became Lavinia again.
When Alice and I first met Mr. Loper, we had a bit of fun with him. It was easy to do since we were twins. Alice would pretend to be me, and I would pretend to be her, and he would court us both. Being twins, it was an easy ruse, one we were quite skilled at, but in the end, I outsmarted my sister and my mother.
And I outsmarted Mr. Loper.
Alice thought for sure Andrew Loper would be hers. That she would marry the very wealthy Mr. Loper and leave me behind with Mother. To my surprise, our mother agreed that indeed Mr. Loper should marry Alice and not me. Why she would choose her side was beyond me as both my sister and I believed our mother hated us equally. Alice thought herself so clever! I wondered what she must’ve done to garner that endorsement.
Alice and Lavinia Tinsley were not the prettiest girls in Boston, but we were clever. Of the two of us I was the cleverest. I was the clear winner for in the end, I had taken what was mine. It was easy to do.
Because of my past experience, I knew taking a life was far easier than I could have imagined. No! That was Lavinia, not me! I was Alice, always and forever.
Oh, sister, it had been so easy to kill you.
When Alice had no more air, when her eyes bulged and I knew she saw nothing and her last breath released, I slid the ring off her finger and put it on my own. Where it had been every day from that day forward to this one. I rubbed it now to remind myself of my prior victory.
Go away, Alice! You are dead and I am alive!
Anita helped me to bed. I was so cold that even my bones felt cold. The shaking would not stop, and I thought perhaps I would vomit. Vomiting and shaking were both signs of the deathly fever.
Would I die too, along with my daughters?
I gripped Anita’s hand desperately and begged her, “Don’t let me suffer. I cannot suffer!”
“You ain’t gonna die or suffer, Mrs. Loper. You just have a fever is all, girl. You should rest now and let me tend to the little ones. I’ll be back soon with a bite for you to eat. You need to keep your strength up and you must drink some water to fight that fever. Stay right here in this bed and don’t get up now. You need your rest, child. No more talk.”
As she always did whenever someone mentioned death or dying, Anita made strange signs with her fingers, as if to ward off the darkness she feared. Little did she know, I was the darkness she should fear. Darkness lived inside me. I wasn’t sure if there was a heaven or if there truly was a hell but no doubt I deserved entrance to the latter.
I must’ve fallen asleep while waiting for Anita to return. And when I woke, I was covered in sweat. My usually neat bun had collapsed, and much of my wavy hair was stuck to my neck and face. I needed water. Time had certainly passed because it was dark in my room. We were in the middle of the storm, yet I heard no thunder and I saw no lightning, but the rain continued. The relentless, never-ending rain.
Mr. Loper would never return. Perhaps my husband had abandoned me after all. Perhaps he could no longer live with my secret. I had done my best to persuade him he was wrong but there was no talking to him.
“Anita,” I whispered in a hoarse voice. “I need water. Help me, Anita.” My eyes were burning, and I could barely see. I tugged at the collar of my flimsy gown and if I had the strength, I would have ripped it from my body. My flesh was so hot I was certain I would burn. I deserved to burn. Burn in eternal hellfire.
I managed to stumble to the small table next to the door of my bedroom. There was a pitcher that usually held water. There was a scant amount in it but no cup. I poured water into my hot hand and put it to my lips. I slurped like a dog and with the remaining drops rubbed my face with the water. Having recovered my voice slightly, I called again, “Anita? Where are you?”
There was no answer. Where was my servant? And Andrew? Would Mr. Loper never return? I was by myself. All alone in this horrible place that had too many rooms and too many memories.
Then I heard a child crying.
Betsy? Annabel? I could not tell. Why would they be crying?
“Anita? The children...why are the children crying?”
There was no answer except for the rain which continued to pound against the windows and the roof. No answer except for the sound of two little girls crying for their mother.
I began to walk down the hall.
6
Chloe
It felt as if I barely crawled into bed when I felt it shaking. Naturally it was the bane of my existence, the Ghost a.k.a. Joey. “Oh, God. Go away. Why are you in here? I’m pretty sure I revoked your permission to snoop around my room.” My barrier must be down.
“There’s a ghost in the house, and she’s a crazy bitch! Do your thing, Chloe! Get rid of her.” I slung the covers back and shielded my eyes with my hand as Joey glowed next to me. Clearly, he was excited about something. He was always a bit luminous, but especially if he was afraid or happy or anything extreme. That’s a good word for him. Extreme. Tamara lovingly called him extra from time to time, but I wasn’t as generous as she was.
“Pipe down, please.” I pulled the covers back over my head, determined to grab forty winks. I hadn’t slept much last night. I should’ve called Tamara right after the hoopla began with Lynn and her father Jack, but I was trying to be a good friend. At least I didn’t call the cops. That whole situation was just too weird. Note to self: never spend the night at Lynn’s again.
Not to mention Trey and his weirdness. It was like he was a whole other family and that black, pulsating aura...and clowns everywhere. So many pictures of clowns, the old-fashioned kind with the sad eyes and overly painted frowns. Trey told me they belonged to his mother, but like his cous
in Lynn, his mother was nowhere around.
“Get out of my room! Seriously. How did you get past my barrier, Joey? Go bother Tamara!”
Joey’s voice warbled slightly, giving it a strange underwater sound. “I thought we were friends, Chloe. Tamara ain’t here, now be quiet! That crazy ghost is looking for me! She keeps sneaking up on me, calling me Andrew. Scoot over.”
I wrapped my blanket around tighter. “Who is Andrew? One of your dates? Don’t you dare get in my bed with me! What do you mean, Tamara’s not here?” Joey slid under the blanket with me and tried to cuddle. “Cut that out! You’re freezing me—don’t touch me!” I reached for the lamp, but it didn’t come on. The alarm clock wasn’t on either. “Is the power out? What’s going on? I told you to stop touching me.”
“I’m not touching you, cover hog.”
Completely awake now, I snatched the covers away from him even harder at the same time I reached my hand into the nightstand drawer beside me. I always kept a flashlight just in case there was a power outage. We had far too many of those lately, and I enjoyed none of them.
Being immersed in darkness in this house always put me on edge. I couldn’t say why, but it was as if ghosts preferred the darkness, and as I was a medium, they always came at me when there wasn’t light around. Note to self, if I’m ever a ghost, I won’t be afraid of light.
It didn’t matter a bit, and this was my family home. None of my family had wanted me to know about it. My grandmother sure never spoke about it. Hindsight was 20/20 as they say. I recalled she worked really hard to keep me in the dark when it came to my family’s lineage. Until my mother died, I never even knew there was such a place as the Ridaught Plantation. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why it was such a big secret. So, what if the locals referred to it as the Dead House? There were certainly dead people here, including one very irritating Joey.
Maybe there was some sort of weird family secret I had not yet uncovered. I loved the Ridaught Plantation more than I expected. Just knowing my mother had been here, that once upon a time, she’d roamed these halls and investigated each room, made me love the family home despite the odd apparition. This was my inheritance.
“Go check it out!”
I guess that meant I inherited Joey too. The truth was he was starting to grow on me, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He’d run over me like he ran over Tamara. Silent lightning popped outside my bedroom window, and it illuminated the room in a strange blue light.
“It’s so cold in here.”
I clicked on the flashlight and waved it around the room. “That’s your fault. Dead people are always cold, and you know it, so quit touching me. Last warning, or I start calling you the Ghost again.”
“You promised you wouldn’t. Oh, no! She’s coming this way. I can feel her. Shut up, loudmouth. She’ll hear us in here.” Joey’s eyes were wide with fear, and like a child, he ducked his head under the covers. Hiding beneath the blanket did little good since he was glowing like that crazy glow worm toy I used to have. I wondered what happened to that thing.
My body experienced an unexpected wave of the chills, and like Joey, I put my head under the covers. I flipped off my flashlight and decided against going to investigate. What was the point?
There was a ghost in the house, and it wasn’t Joey.
The floor creaked outside my door. It wasn’t unusual for that particular board to creak, but it was unusual for there to be ghosts hanging around in my room. They didn’t usually like coming into my sanctum. I worked hard to keep them out. Between saging and crystals and meditation, my room was normally a peaceful oasis compared to other parts of the house, like the attic, and sometimes the back of the property. I still saw lights from time to time, but the Reaper came once in a while and collected them. We never spoke, but I caught sight of him from time to time. At least the Reaper no longer came inside the house.
The creaking stopped, and I heard a woman whispering.
No, not whispering. She was humming a song, a lullaby. A baby cried quietly, but she shushed the child and continued her song. The words were faint at first, but I picked up the tune quickly.
Sleep my child and peace attend thee
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night...
“She’s going to find me!” Joey whined as he gripped me in his cold embrace like I was some sort of good luck charm. “Don’t let her get me, Chloe!”
“Get off of me and shut up!” I said as I swung at him with the flashlight. Naturally, it passed right through him. It was funny how he could turn his physical presence off and on at will. Sometimes he was as solid as me, other times, he was just a whisper of an image, like a hologram from Star Wars. Joey was the strongest ghost I’d ever known and the friendliest. Most of the spirits I encountered were creepy. At least Joey was almost human.
“Aw, thank you.” He smiled sweetly and glowed again. With a disgusted snort at his obvious mind reading, I slung the covers back and flicked on the flashlight. The bright light filled up the room, but I kept the beam focused on the door. One of us had to be the grown-up in this situation, and as always, that was going to be me.
Andrew? Look...I found the baby...
The ghost continued to hum and whispered her strange, heartbreaking lullaby but it didn’t bring me peace at all. Not in the least. I glanced back just in time to see Joey’s light flicker out and my quilt flatten as he vanished.
Great, I was all by myself and about to face off with a ghost woman and her crying baby. I wracked my brain for meditations or visualizations that would protect me. I didn’t sleep with my crystals, although it felt like an oversight at the moment.
I slid out of bed as quietly as possible. Clutching the flashlight in a death grip, I reached for the doorknob. I reached slowly because I wasn’t exactly sure what I planned to do.
I am a medium. I can do this. This woman needs help. I have to help her.
I can do this. I am a medium...
It wasn’t much of a mantra, but it was the only thing I could drum up on short notice. Joey suddenly flickered beside me, his eyes riveted on the door. At least he wasn’t shining too brightly. He had a serious expression on his face, and I glanced at him quickly before I suddenly grabbed the doorknob and snatched it open.
Immediately my flashlight failed. Either I needed new batteries, or the ghost had siphoned off the power.
Before me was a woman in white. She kind of floated, bobbing a few inches off the floor she did not touch with her feet. Her gown was voluminous, an old-fashioned type with three-quarter sleeves and lots of lace around the neck. Her hair was extraordinarily long, but the top portion of it was tied back and away from her pale face. Her hair was pitch-black, her skin glowed slightly, and she had the appearance of a young woman.
At least she wasn’t bloody. There’s that at least.
The spirit did not look at Joey or me, but she knew we were present. She wasn’t watching us but the baby she held in her arms. I couldn’t see the baby, only the white blanket it was wrapped in. She cooed at the infant who’d mercifully stopped crying. She whispered her lullaby and continued to float, bobbing up and down like she was floating on water. Her strange motion was making me seasick.
“Excuse me,” I began as Joey slid back and behind me. How did I ask her if she needed help? How can I help you? I asked her in my mind, but she didn’t answer or indicate she heard me.
“Close the door, Chloe,” Joey warned me, but I couldn’t move an inch. I’ve never been frozen with fear before, but that was what I was experiencing at the moment. I still had the light pointed at the spirit, and to my surprise, the flashlight beam flickered on briefly. Apparently, that was the wrong move to make because her head began to turn toward me ever so slowly. I could see more than a profile view now.
We were face to face with only a few feet between us. She wasn’t floating anymore, and what I saw made me want to scream my ever-lovi
ng head off.
Her face was rotting. I mean, dead-rotten. Half of it appeared decomposed, with bits of bone showing. The entirety of her face was whitish gray, and her lips were black, as were her eyes. This woman didn’t want my help. She wanted something else. Without even thinking about it, a terrified scream erupted from my mouth, a loud and piercing shriek. Joey and I were screaming in unison.
Joey was jumping up and down beside me, and I instinctively tossed my flashlight at the ghost, who had begun inching toward us.
Then out of nowhere, all the lights came on, and just like that, the menacing figure vanished. The air crackled with electricity. The hallway was full of brilliant light, as was my room, although I was pretty sure I hadn’t been able to turn my lamp on earlier. Someone must have been looking out for us. Thank goodness the ghostly apparition had vanished and taken her baby with her.
That’s when I saw Tamara coming down the hall toward us.
What if it wasn’t Tamara and it was the ghost again? Joey must’ve been thinking the same thing because we stepped away from the door and were still screaming when she entered my bedroom.
7
Tamara
“What in heaven’s name is going on here? What are you two doing?” My hand was on my chest as I tried to still my beating heart. It was pounding like a freight train, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it if they didn’t stop screeching.
Joey and Chloe faced one another as if to ask who should tell the story, but neither one of them said a word.
“What is it? What happened?”
Joey glowed as he paced back and forth and shook his hands furiously. “It was horrible! And I do mean horrible! I told you there was a ghost in this house! Nobody ever listens to a thing I say. She keeps chasing me and calling me Andrew.” He stopped his pacing and flopped down on Chloe’s bed, but whatever power he had he was losing because the bed didn’t move, and his luminosity began to fade.
Always Dead (Welcome To Dead House Book 2) Page 5