Whispering Pines

by Mavis Applewater

  Interviewing Rishi was an arduous task, as the man was nervous in front of the camera. Faith peppered him with scientific queries, sensing if she could get him to talk about the scientific aspects, he would be much calmer. Getting him to talk about what happened in the kitchen proved to be an unnerving experience for her.

  Finally, she let Rishi climb out of his chair and proceeded to interview Jimmy. He proved to be a much easier, albeit annoying, subject. He prattled on and on about the history, and yes, he was certain that based on the evidence, a heinous crime had occurred. But no, the house wasn’t haunted, since such things do not exist. He refused to budge from his convictions, despite Faith presenting him with her own experiences and the experiences of others.

  “Cut!” Althea cried out when it looked as if Faith and Jimmy were about to come to blows.

  “Fine, you pompous ass,” Faith snarled, tearing the small microphone from her body. “I know what I saw.”

  “And I know what I haven’t seen,” Jimmy countered snidely.

  “Where’s Shawn?” she asked, suddenly filled with a sense of panic. She bolted from her chair and began searching for her missing lover. The bile rose in her throat when she discovered Shawn standing in the middle of the yard shaking and gasping for air.

  * * *

  “Shawn?” Faith’s voice dispelled the smell of burning flowers that was choking Shawn.

  She gasped sharply, her eyes finally focusing on the vision of Faith standing in front of her, caressing her shoulders.

  “Put the fucking camera down,” Faith ordered.

  “I’m good,” Shawn choked out, trying to catch her bearings. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to calm Faith. She blinked with surprise when she discovered everyone standing around her. She glanced up at the sky, noticing that the sun had dropped dramatically.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six thirty-five,” Althea said. “We’ve been filming for a couple of hours. Do you think you could go on camera and tell us what happened?”

  “Althea,” Faith snarled.

  “Down, girl.” Shawn almost laughed. “Yes, I can go on camera. Whenever you’re ready.” She brushed back her hair and plastered a smile on her face, trying to calm her coworkers. She blew out a terse breath as the camera started rolling.

  “I saw a series of jumbled images,” she said in a professional tone. “The garden being dug up, a team of policemen searching the basement, and then it changed. The captain was smashing furniture right here, while another man, his lawyer, Russell something, questioned him.”

  “What was he questioning him about?” Faith asked.

  “Why the captain was destroying their belongings if they were away on a trip,” Shawn said. “All the while he was shredding their clothing, the captain repeated that his wife was away on a family matter. Then he doused everything with kerosene.”

  “Detective Jessup explained that in her interview,” Jimmy said. “It was in the police report that he sold off or destroyed their belongings.”

  “He didn’t just destroy their belongings,” Shawn said. “He used every drop of kerosene he had available and lit a huge bonfire, torching not only their beds but the garden as well.”

  “Convenient that you can’t prove that,” Jimmy said.

  “Was I as annoying as he is?” Faith whispered.

  “At times,” Shawn teased, hoping to ease the tension. She sensed Faith was fighting against the urge to grab her and get the hell out of there.

  “Maybe—” Faith began to say, and Shawn held up her hand.

  “We have to try.” She looked down at her wrist and rubbed the bracelet, which was warm. “You know…” she muttered. “There was something else. I keep seeing a diagram or picture. I can’t get a read on it. I just know that it’s important.”

  “A photograph?” Delia asked.

  “No.” Shawn shook her head, the faint image still plaguing her. “It’s a drawing, technical in style, very faint. All I know is, it’s wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Delia asked. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Shawn said. “Just wrong. That’s all I know.”

  She looked past the crowd and spied Anna standing by the kitchen door.

  “Help us,” Anna pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. Then she vanished.

  Shawn rubbed her throbbing brow. Voices from the cemetery were mixing together, and suddenly, nothing was clear.

  “I need a break,” she said, her body swaying.

  “That’s it,” Faith announced. “We’re out of here.”

  “Faith,” Althea said.

  “No, it’s too much,” Faith said. “You’ve been pushing her on back-to-back shoots for over a year, and I didn’t help by dragging her back here. We’re done.”

  “Faith,” Shawn whimpered. “I can do this. I just need a little breather.”

  * * *

  “Wow, this is certainly a major step up from last time,” Shawn said as she glanced around the new and improved van. “I saw the old one out front. No wonder she hid this one out of sight. It’s like a small television studio.”

  “It is,” Faith said. “Althea scored some major perks for this special. They can probably edit and put the entire project in the can right from here.” She led Shawn towards the back of the large vehicle. Shawn gasped as she opened the door to reveal the small, but comfortable bedroom nestled in the back of the converted RV.

  “No wonder she isn’t bunking down at that cheap hotel with us,” Shawn groused.

  “In Althea’s defense, she did put together the impossible project,” Faith said, guiding Shawn down onto the bed. “You said you needed a breather. Take a nap, and if you still aren’t feeling good, I meant what I said, we’re out of here.”

  “Stay with me?” Shawn asked.

  “Gladly.” Faith kicked off her shoes and curled up beside Shawn.

  She held Shawn in her arms, pleased that she quickly drifted off to sleep. Faith had known this trip was going to be stressful. She feared returning to the manor. Still, in her heart, she felt it was something she needed to do. When she discovered that Shawn would be by her side, she was elated. Now, she wished that Shawn had stuck to her original plan to stay as far away from Whispering Pines as possible.

  Then again, there was the nagging feeling she had experienced since her first visit. For some unknown reason, she wanted to give Anna and Catherine peace. She often wondered if it was because she felt their pain. She was blessed to be alive at a time when homophobia wasn’t the extreme hardship for her that it had been for women like Anna and Catherine.

  Shawn snuggled closer as she slept. Faith absently stroked her hair as she pondered the question everyone was asking. Just where do you hide your wife’s and sister’s bodies after you hack them up? The question plagued her, since she initially assumed that the good old captain would have buried them in the garden or somewhere on the property. Police and family searched those areas for over eight decades and found nothing. And Shawn was convinced that the bodies were in the house. If she had learned anything from knowing Shawn, it was to trust Shawn’s instincts.

  * * *

  Shawn was still sound asleep when Faith slipped from her grasp. She made a trip out to the rental car and then changed into more comfortable clothing.

  “Althea can bite me,” she said as she finished dressing in the large RV. She stepped out into the darkness to find the crew mingling about the porch area.

  “Give me a drag,” she beckoned to Carey, who was lingering on the porch, smoking with Rishi and Delia.

  “Sure,” Carey said, handing Faith her cigarette. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I don’t.” Faith spied the blueprints spread out on the floorboards of the porch. “I used to.”

  “Me, too.” Carey sighed. “I had to bum that one off of one of the grips.” Her brow furrowed as she stared at the blueprints. “I thought this was it, but I don’t see it.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Faith said as e
veryone else seemed to abandon interest in the blueprints. “What are we looking at?” She took a long drag, her head spinning slightly from the effects of not smoking for many years.

  “I thought this was what Shawn was talking about,” Carey said. “That first drag is a bitch, isn’t it?”

  “No kidding.” Faith coughed and handed the cigarette back to her sister. “Now I remember why I quit. So what are these blueprints for?”

  “This house,” Delia said.

  “This house?” Faith asked in disbelief “I haven’t seen a lot of blueprints in my day, especially a set this old, but no way is this Whispering Pines. There isn’t a structure on the roof, the porch is smaller, and what’s that?”

  “The closet in Anna’s bedroom,” Delia said. “And you’re right, these plans aren’t accurate, and no, we don’t know why.”

  “What closet?” Shawn inquired as she climbed the porch steps.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” Faith asked with concern.

  “Much better.” Shawn smiled slightly and took her place by Faith’s side. “You were right, I’ve been pushing myself too hard. I feel completely recharged.”

  “Good.” Faith sighed in relief, resting her hand on Shawn’s shoulder. “Well, now I have to ask the same question, what closet? Shawn and I never saw a closet in that room.”

  “The door was closed,” Delia said with a shrug. “You must have noticed that the house, despite the years of neglect, is still in very good condition. Whoever built the house was a master craftsman. The interior is pristine.”

  “Except for the hatchet marks in the kitchen,” Shawn said, finally glancing down at the plans. “This is what I saw. This is the drawing I saw in my vision.”

  “Come off it,” Jimmy said as he approached the group. “Who cares if there’s a closet?”

  “Bite me,” Faith snapped. Shawn snickered at her lover’s antics.

  “Careful, babe, he might just take you up on that,” Shawn said. “Delia, I never saw a closet door.”

  “As I was trying to explain,” Delia said, “the door is flush with the wall. You can’t see it. You have to push on it to open it. The workmanship is amazing. The only reason I knew there was a closet in that room was because of the blueprints.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Carey said. “There are built-in shelves and drawers. It’s really creepy.”

  “As opposed to the rest of this place?” Faith asked wryly.

  “All of the drawers had been pulled out, and it looked like it was ransacked,” Carey said. “Like a house that has been burglarized, only the thief didn’t leave anything behind.”

  * * *

  “Why leave so much space?” Rishi interrupted Shawn’s thoughts. “For only one closet, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” Shawn absently whispered, beads of sweat forming on her brow. The images were bombarding her, none lasting long enough for her to gain a clear picture.

  “‘I won’t work for a man who beats his wife,’” she said.

  “Admirable, but what has that got to do with anything?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yo, Jimbo, focus here,” Faith said curtly. “She isn’t speaking for herself. Shawn, are you okay?”

  “We need to go inside,” Shawn said. The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

  “Better tell Althea.”

  “Are you sure that you’re okay?” Faith repeated. Shawn fought against the wave of anxiety that was threatening to consume her. Jim raced off to find the producer. Shawn could sense that, despite his bravado, he was eager to finish up and get as far away from Whispering Pines as possible.

  “This is not going to be fun,” she mumbled. “I’m so close I can feel it.”

  “Okay.” Faith caressed Shawn’s back.

  “He can feel it, too,” she added in an ominous tone.

  “Peachy,” Faith whispered, her hand never leaving the small of Shawn’s back.

  Shawn failed to respond; her mind was filled with disturbing images. She tried to shut out the din from the real world and focus on the past. She was only dimly aware that the crew had set up and the cameras were about to roll.

  “Anytime you’re ready,” Althea said.

  “Go ahead,” Shawn replied absently. “This drawing is what I saw in my earlier vision.” She bent over and picked up the old blueprint. “Ms. St. James, I need a quick lesson in early twentieth-century architecture.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” Delia said.

  “First, why would someone leave this much space between the rooms and the wall of a structure?” Shawn asked, fighting the hostile energy that was surrounding her.

  “They wouldn’t,” Delia said. Shawn approached the front door. “Not then, and certainly not now.”

  “Do you think whoever drew this plan built this house?” Shawn asked. She reached for the doorknob. She jerked her hand back when an eerily cold gust of wind assaulted her.

  “No,” Delia said. All eyes watched Shawn reach again to grasp the doorknob.

  Shawn was filled with anger when the door refused to open. “Come on, you bastard, you can’t keep us out forever,” she hissed, pressing harder against the door.

  “Well, this is getting us nowhere fast,” Faith said after almost everyone took turns trying to break into the house. She glanced over at Delia St. James, who was sporting a mildly amused look. “What?”

  “If he doesn’t want you to get in, you won’t,” she said.

  “Fine,” Faith said. “Any suggestions? It’s cold, dark, and by the way, someone’s watching us.” She pointed beyond the porch roof to an upstairs window.

  All heads jerked up, and people gasped as they spied the shadowy image looming there.

  “It isn’t reading on film,” Jasper said, tapping his camera.

  “Of course not,” Jimmy said. “It’s just a trick of the light.”

  “What light?” Faith taunted him. “We have the only lights. There’s no power in the house except for the cables the film crew ran through. Tell me you don’t see her?”

  They were standing toe to toe, their faces turning red.

  “A pissing contest. Goodie,” Shawn intervened, slipping between the two of them. “Not going to help. Unless we can get inside, this project is over.”

  “Don’t even say that,” Althea said.

  “Dr. Kapoor?” Shawn felt slightly queasy. “I noticed you didn’t try to help us. He’s afraid of you. Care to tell us why?”

  “No,” Rishi said. All eyes studied him. “Fine. There was a rumor in my family that we might be his descendants.”

  “I’ve heard that he had fathered children overseas,” Delia said. “No one ever proved it. You matched the DNA, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Rishi nodded. “Yours, your brother’s, your mother’s, and my own.”

  “And we’re related?” Delia said with a warm smile.

  “No question about it,” Rishi said, blowing out a heavy sigh. “I’m a living, breathing reminder of the captain’s dirty little secret.”

  “Not his only one,” Shawn said. “The captain had many secrets that would have led to his fall from grace. True, in this day and age, it isn’t a big deal,” she added, noting the hurt look on Carey’s face. “Still, he isn’t living in this century. Would you do me a favor and try to open the door?”

  “I don’t know what good it would do,” he muttered, moving closer to the front door. Everyone was stunned when he turned the knob and the door easily swung open.

  “I don’t understand,” he gasped, looking down at his own hand, clearly surprised at how easily the door opened after so many people had tried to force it open.

  “He’s afraid of you,” Shawn said again. “Less and less with each passing moment, but for now, we can get inside.”

  “Okay, who’s ready to go back into the funhouse?” Faith asked. Her words were met with silence. “Fine, none of us wants to go inside, but we have to. Shawn, where to?”

  “Roll cameras,” Al
thea instructed as the group huddled together and slowly entered the manor.

  “Anna’s bedroom,” Shawn said. “It’s the safest room in the house, and I want to see this closet.”

  Suddenly, the lights blinked on and everyone froze. “I thought the power was off?” Jimmy scoffed.

  “It is,” Delia said. “If we ever get out of here, you can check with the power company.”

  Shawn smirked at Jimmy as she finally began to ascend the staircase. Kyle followed closely behind her with his camera, while Jasper followed with the rest of the entourage. The front door slammed shut, the temperature dropped, and once again feet stopped moving forward as nervous gazes darted around the empty house.

  Shawn pinched the bridge of her nose as doors opened and closed. Still nothing made sense. Jumbled images invaded her thoughts. She continued climbing the staircase. In her mind, she saw the captain’s return, and Catherine grabbing the gun. She had seen this before, but nothing led to the violent events of the following morning.

  Shawn coughed out a small laugh upon entering Anna’s bedroom and seeing the fire burning in the fireplace.

  “It’s like they’re waiting for us again,” Faith said. “Hey, Jimbo, got an explanation for this?”

  Delia snickered along with the others as she walked into the room and ran her hand along the wall. She pressed down, opened the closet, and then stepped away, allowing Shawn and the others to look inside. Shawn ignored the closet; her focus was on the wall.

  “‘I have something to show you,’” she repeated the words invading her thoughts. “‘Hurry, he’s returned.’” Shawn tried to grasp the words and images. “‘What trickery is this?’” she continued, running her hands along the wall. Her breathing grew labored as she felt the very small indentation that had gone unnoticed for almost a century.

  “This is the only room we could have found it,” she said, knowing that the captain, for whatever reason, was unable to enter the bedroom. She pressed. Nothing happened. She pressed harder, and her body trembled as the latch finally gave way.