“Is it true?” I ask. “About Ned?”
“Who told you?”
“I heard two women talking about it at the grocery store. They said the police searched his house this morning.”
Donna sighs. “There are too many damn gossips in this town.”
“So it is true.”
“He hasn’t been arrested. It’s not fair to assume he’s guilty of anything.”
“I’m not assuming anything, Donna. I like Ned. But I heard them say there was another girl. Before Charlotte.”
“That was just a rumor.”
“Who was the girl?”
“It was never proved.”
I rock forward until I’m practically face-to-face with her. “You rented me the house. For weeks, he was working right above my bedroom. I deserve to know if he’s dangerous. Who was the girl?”
Donna’s lips tighten. Her friendly Realtor mask is gone and in its place is the worried face of a woman who withheld the vital detail that a killer might have been working inside my house.
“She was just a tourist,” says Donna. As if that made the victim less worthy of consideration. “And it happened six, seven years ago. She was renting a cottage on Cinnamon Beach when she vanished.”
“The way Charlotte vanished.”
“Except they never found Laurel’s body. Most of us assumed she went swimming and drowned, but there was always a question. Always these whispers.”
“About Ned?”
She nods. “He was working in the cottage next door to hers, renovating a bathroom.”
“That’s hardly a reason to be considered a suspect.”
“He had her house keys.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“Ned claimed he found them on Cinnamon Beach, where he scavenges driftwood for his sculptures. Laurel’s rental agent spotted the keys on the dashboard of Ned’s truck, and she recognized her agency key ring. That’s all the police had on him, just the missing woman’s keys, and the fact he was working right next door to her cottage. They never found her body. There was no evidence of violence in the cottage. They weren’t sure any crime at all was committed.”
“Now there has been a murder. Charlotte’s. And Ned was working right there, in her house. In my house.”
“But I didn’t hire him. Arthur Sherbrooke did. He insisted Ned had to do the renovations.”
“Why Ned?”
“Because he knows the house better than anyone. Ned used to work for Mr. Sherbrooke’s aunt, when she was still living there.”
“That’s the other gossip I heard today. Is there some question about how the aunt died?”
“Aurora Sherbrooke? None at all. She was old.”
“These women seemed to think Ned had something to do with the aunt’s death.”
“Jesus. The goddamn gossip in this town never ends!” The starch suddenly seems to go out of Donna and she slumps back in her chair. “Ava, I’ve known Ned Haskell all my life. Yes, I’ve heard the rumors about him. I know there are people who simply refuse to hire him. But I never thought he was dangerous. And I still don’t believe he is.”
Neither do I, but as I leave Donna’s office, I wonder how close I came to being another Charlotte, another Laurel. I think of him swinging a hammer in my turret, his clothes powdery with wood dust. He is powerful enough to strangle a woman, but could such a killer have also created those sweetly whimsical birds? Perhaps I missed something darker about them, some disturbing clue to a monster lurking inside the artist. Are there not monsters inside each and every one of us? I am all too well-acquainted with my own.
I climb into my car and have just buckled the seatbelt when my cellphone rings.
It’s Maeve. “I need to see you,” she says.
“Can we meet next week?”
“This afternoon. I’m on my way to Tucker Cove now.”
“What is this all about?”
“It’s about Brodie’s Watch. You need to move out, Ava. As soon as possible.”
* * *
—
Maeve hesitates on my front porch, as if summoning the courage to enter the house. Nervously she scans the foyer behind me and finally steps inside, but as we walk into the sea room she keeps glancing around like a frightened doe, on the alert for attacking teeth and claws. Even after she settles into a wingback chair, she still looks uneasy, a visitor in hostile territory.
From her shoulder bag she pulls out a thick folder and sets it on the coffee table. “This is what I’ve been able to track down so far. But there may be more.”
“About Captain Brodie?”
“About the women who’ve lived in this house before you.”
I open the folder. The top page is an obituary, photocopied from a newspaper dated January 3, 1901. Miss Eugenia Hollander, age 58, dies at home after falling on stairs.
“She died here. In this house,” says Maeve.
“This article says it was an accident.”
“That would be the logical conclusion, wouldn’t it? It was a winter’s night, cold. Dark. And those turret steps were probably only dimly lit.”
That last detail makes me glance up. “It happened on the turret staircase?”
“Read the police report.”
I turn to the next page and find a handwritten report by Officer Edward K. Billings of the Tucker Cove Police. His handwriting is exquisite, thanks to an era when schools demanded perfect penmanship. Despite the poor-quality photocopy, his report is readable.
The deceased is a fifty-eight-year-old lady, never married, who lived alone. Prior to this incident she was in excellent health, according to her niece Mrs. Helen Colcord. Mrs. Colcord last saw her aunt alive yesterday evening, when Miss Hollander seemed in good spirits and had eaten a hearty supper.
At approximately seven-fifteen the next morning, the housemaid Miss Jane Steuben arrived and was puzzled that Miss Hollander was not downstairs, as was her habit. Upon climbing to the second floor, Miss Steuben discovered the door to the turret stairs open, and she found the body of Miss Hollander crumpled at the foot of the staircase.
I pause, remembering the nights Captain Brodie led me up those same stairs by flickering candlelight. I think of how steep and narrow that stairway is, and how easily a headlong tumble can snap a neck. On the night Eugenia Hollander died, what was she doing on those stairs?
Had something—someone—lured her to the turret, just as I have been lured?
I focus once again on Officer Billings’s precise handwriting. Of course, he would conclude her death was merely an accident. What else could it be? The deceased woman lived alone, nothing was stolen, and there were no signs of an intruder.
I look at Maeve. “There’s nothing suspicious about this death. That’s what the police believed. Why did you show me this?”
“I was looking for more information about the dead woman when I found a photo of her.”
I turn to the next page in the folder. It’s a black-and-white portrait of a pretty young woman with arching eyebrows and a cascade of dark hair.
“That photo was taken when she was nineteen years old. A beautiful girl, wasn’t she?” says Maeve.
“Yes.”
“Her name appears in a number of society columns published around then, in connection with a variety of eligible young men. At twenty-two years old, she became engaged to a wealthy merchant’s son. As a wedding gift, her father gave her Brodie’s Watch, where the young couple planned to live after their marriage. But that marriage never took place. The day before the wedding, Eugenia broke off the engagement. Instead she chose to remain a spinster, and she lived alone in this house. For the rest of her life.”
Maeve waits for a response, but I don’t know what to say. I can only stare at the photo of nineteen-year-old Eugenia, a beauty who chose never to marry. Who lived
out her life alone in this house where I am now living.
“It’s strange, don’t you think?” Maeve says. “All those years, living alone here.”
“Not every woman wants or needs to get married.”
She studies me for a moment, but she is a ghost hunter, not a mind reader. She cannot possibly imagine what happens after dark in this house. In that turret.
She nods at the folder. “Now take a look at the next woman who lived in this house.”
“There was another?”
“After Miss Hollander died on the stairs, Brodie’s Watch passed to her brother. He tried to sell the house but couldn’t find a buyer. There were rumors in town that the place was haunted and it had already fallen into disrepair. He had a niece, Violet Theriault, who’d been widowed at a young age. She was in some financial difficulty so he let her live here, rent-free. This was her home for thirty-seven years, until her death.”
“Don’t tell me she fell down the stairs, too.”
“No. She died in bed, presumably of natural causes, at the age of sixty-nine.”
“Is there a reason you’re telling me about these women?”
“It’s all part of a pattern, Ava. After Violet died, there was Margaret Gordon, a visitor from New York who rented Brodie’s Watch for the summer. She never returned to New York. Instead she remained here until she died of a stroke, twenty-two years later. She was followed by Miss Aurora Sherbrooke, yet another tenant who came just for the summer, decided to buy the house, and lived here until her death thirty years later.”
With every new name she reveals, I flip through the photos in the folder, seeing the faces of those who came before me. Eugenia and Violet, Margaret and Aurora. Now the pattern becomes apparent, a pattern that leaves me stunned. All the women who have lived and died in this house were dark-haired and beautiful. All the women bore a startling resemblance to…
“You,” says Maeve. “They all look like you.”
I stare at the final photo. Aurora Sherbrooke had lustrous black hair and a swan neck and arching eyebrows, and while I am not nearly as pretty as she was, the resemblance is unmistakable. It’s as if I am a younger but plainer Sherbrooke sister.
My hands are icy as I turn the page to Aurora’s obituary in the August 20, 1986, edition of the Tucker Cove Weekly.
AURORA SHERBROOKE, AGE 66
Ms. Aurora Sherbrooke passed away last week at her home in Tucker Cove. She was found by her nephew, Arthur Sherbrooke, who had not heard from her in days and drove from his home in Cape Elizabeth to check on her. The death is not considered suspicious. According to a housekeeper, Ms. Sherbrooke had recently been ill with the flu.
Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, Ms. Sherbrooke first visited Tucker Cove thirty-one years ago. “She immediately fell in love with the town, and especially with the house she was renting,” said her nephew, Arthur Sherbrooke. Ms. Sherbrooke purchased the house, known as Brodie’s Watch, which remained her home until her death.
“Four women have died in this house,” says Maeve.
“None of these deaths were suspicious.”
“But doesn’t it make you wonder? Why were they all women, and why did they all live and die here alone? I’ve gone through the Tucker Cove obituaries back to 1875, and I couldn’t find any men who died in this house.” She looks around the room, as if the answers might lie in the walls or the mantelpiece. Her gaze stops at the window, where our view of the sea has receded behind a curtain of mist. “It’s as if this house is some sort of trap,” she says softly. “Women walk in but they don’t walk out. Somehow it charms them, seduces them. And in the end, it imprisons them.”
My laugh is not entirely convincing. “That’s why you think I should leave? Because I’ll end up a prisoner?”
“You need to know the history of this house, Ava. You need to know what you’re dealing with.”
“Are you telling me these women were all killed by a ghost?”
“If it was just a ghost, I wouldn’t be so concerned.”
“What else would it be?”
She pauses to consider her next words. That hesitation only adds to my sense of foreboding. “A few weeks ago, I mentioned there are things other than ghosts that can attach themselves to a house. Entities that aren’t exactly benign. Ghosts are simply spirits who haven’t moved on because of unfinished business in this world, or who died so suddenly they don’t realize they are dead. They linger between our world and the next. Even though they’ve passed on, they were once human, just like us, and they almost never cause harm to the living. But every so often I come across a house that harbors something else. Not a ghost, but…” Her voice wavers and she glances around the room. “Do you mind if we step outside?”
“Now?”
“Yes. Please.”
I glance out the window at the thickening mist. I really don’t feel like stepping out into that damp sea air, but I nod and rise to my feet. At the front door I pull on a rain jacket and we both walk outside onto the porch. But even there, Maeve is nervous, and she leads me down the steps and along the stone path that leads to the cliff’s edge. There we stand cloaked in mist, the house looming behind us in the fog. For a moment the only sound is the crashing of waves far below.
“If he’s not a ghost, what is he?” I ask.
“Interesting that you use the word ‘he.’ ”
“Why wouldn’t I? Captain Brodie was a man.”
“How often does he appear to you, Ava? Do you see him every day?”
“It’s not predictable. Sometimes I don’t see him for days.”
“And what time do you see him?”
“At night.”
“Only at night?”
I think about the dark figure I saw standing on the widow’s walk when I came back from the beach that first morning. “There’ve been times when I may have seen him during the day.”
“And he always appears to be Captain Brodie?”
“This was his house. Who else would he appear to be?”
“It’s not who, Ava. It’s what.” She glances back at the house, which has receded to only a vague silhouette in the fog, and she hugs herself to quell her trembling. Only yards from where we stand is the cliff’s edge and far below, hidden in the mist, waves are pummeling the rocks. We are trapped between the sea and Brodie’s Watch, and the fog seems thick enough to smother us.
“There are other entities, Ava,” she says. “They may seem like ghosts, but they aren’t.”
“What entities?”
“Dangerous ones. Things that can cause harm.”
I think of the women who lived in Brodie’s Watch before me, women who died in this house. But doesn’t every old house have such a history? Everyone dies, and we all have to die somewhere. Why not in your own home, where you’ve lived for decades?
“These entities aren’t the spirits of dead people,” says Maeve. “They may take on the appearance of people who once occupied a home, but that’s to make us feel less afraid of them. We all think that ghosts can’t hurt us, that they’re just unfortunate souls trapped between spiritual planes.”
“What have I been seeing, then?”
“Not the ghost of Captain Brodie but something that’s assumed his form. Something that’s been aware of you and watching you since the moment you stepped through the front door. It’s learned your weaknesses, your needs, your desires. It knows what you want and what you’re afraid of. It will use that knowledge to manipulate you, imprison you. Harm you.”
“You mean physically?” I can’t help but laugh at this.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but you haven’t encountered the things I have. You haven’t looked into the eyes of…” She stops. Takes a deep breath and continues. “Years ago, I was called about a house just outside Bucksport. It was a mansion, really, built in 1910 by a wealthy merchant. A year
after they moved into that house, his wife tied a rope around her neck and hanged herself from the upstairs banister. After her suicide, the place was said to be haunted, but it was such a beautiful home, high on a hill with views of the water, that it was never hard to find someone willing to buy the place. Again and again it changed hands. People would fall in love with the house, move in, and quickly move out again. One family lasted only three weeks.”
“What made them leave?”
“The locals believed it was the ghost of the merchant’s wife, Abigail, scaring them off. They talked about sightings of a woman with long red hair and a rope knotted around her throat. People can learn to live with ghosts, even develop affection for them and consider them part of their living family. But this haunting was far more frightening. It wasn’t just the thumps at night or the doors slamming shut or the chairs rearranging themselves. No, this was something that made the family reach out to me in desperation.
“They had fled the house in the middle of the night, and were living in a motel when they called me. They were a family of four with two darling little girls, four and eight years old. They were from Chicago and they came to Maine with the idea of living in the country, where he’d write novels and she’d grow a vegetable garden and keep chickens in the yard. They saw the house, fell in love with it, and made an offer. It was June when they moved in, and for the first week, it was glorious.”
“Only a week?”
“At first, no one talked about what they were all feeling. A sense of being watched. A sense that, even when they were alone, someone else was in the room. Then the older daughter told her mother about the thing that sat by her bed at night, staring at her. That’s when the rest of the family began to talk about what they’d experienced. And they realized they’d all seen and felt a presence, but it took different forms. The father saw a red-haired woman. The wife saw a faceless shadow. Only the four-year-old saw what it truly was. Young children have no illusions; they detect the truth before we do. And what she saw was a thing with red eyes and claws. Not the ghost of Abigail, but something far older. Something ancient, that had attached itself to that house. To that hilltop.”
The Shape of Night Page 17