The Bell House

by Lori Titus

Jenna related the story of the accident. Henry had fallen down a sinkhole. It literally opened up beneath him. It would take an autopsy before they knew if the heat of the oil killed him or if he’d simply drowned.

  “The doctors don’t even want to tell your mom,” Jenna said, “though I don’t know what the alternative is because she has already been asking for him.”

  “Mama would,” Raquel said. She sighed. “I can’t come back to South Carolina right now. I’m too new on my job to leave. Listen, I know you don’t want to be left to do this, but I trust you, Auntie. At this point, you might make better decisions for her than I would anyway.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jenna replied. “She’s not my favorite person right now.”

  “There’s reasons for that,” Raquel said. “Don’t forget that she did this to herself.”

  “Trust me, I won’t.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Raquel asked. “You have your own things to think about, I know...”

  “Sure.”

  “Who is taking care of Henry’s arrangements?”

  Jenna had to put down the phone for a moment, not sure if she wanted to laugh or cry hysterically.

  THE MORNING AFTER HENRY’S death was bright and cold. Jenna stayed inside. She wasted as much time as she could. She made French toast and coffee for breakfast and lounged in her nightgown until sometime past ten thirty. She went to her computer and read over her manuscript. She liked the flow of her words so far, but for the time being, Patricia Bell had abandoned her.

  The television didn’t offer any comfort. No matter what she put on, the voices seemed to echo into nothingness. She didn’t feel engaged by anything.

  Quite truly, she felt numb.

  She considered calling her mother-in-law or Amanda, but decided against it.

  Why was she surrounded by death?

  Years before, Jenna remembered seeing a psychic on television talking about death. The woman said that there was a darkness that surrounded those who had loved ones very close to death—a blackness that covered them but did not belong to them personally. When you love someone, your spirit is tied to them in ways both spiritual and metaphysical, she explained. There are two bonds that are closest of all: those between spouses and those between mother and child. Those who have both of these bonds broken in close succession suffer the most. As the loved one’s energy is taken by death, part of the surviving person dies as well. This is not something that has been recognized by Western science, but we do know that there is a difference in the bodies of those that experience such grief. Cases of weakened immune systems and depression are common. And of course, there are many accounts that have been related by surviving loved ones affirming the feeling that some part of their own energy passed on with the dead.

  Jenna, while intrigued with the theory, had said that it was nonsense at the time. Now, she was not so sure. It had come to the point that Jenna was beginning to wonder what was wrong with her. Why were all of these things happening? Her mother’s passing could be expected. She was an elderly woman, and thankfully had led a full life by the time she became ill. Stephen’s death had been an accident.

  Since both their mothers had passed, Jenna had hoped to find common ground with Diana. She realized from the beginning that they were different, that some old wounds between them might never heal. But the truth about Diana was clear now: she’d never really cared for her as a sister or even as a person. It saddened her. That was a different kind of death and a small loss considering other things that she had suffered.

  With Diana’s well-being so compromised, Jenna was going to have to think hard and long about what she did. Despite the fights they’d had, she felt a need to try to be fair to her sister.

  Henry’s death, however, was nothing more to Jenna than a keen annoyance.

  DIANA LEFT A KEY TO her house under a mat by her back door.

  The house was dark when Jenna entered, and she felt the need to open windows and turn on the heat. It felt as cold as a deep freeze.

  In the kitchen, blood stained the wood floors, turning the boards dark red.

  Shivering, she went towards Diana’s bedroom.

  There were certain household chores Diana never missed, and making her bed was one of them. Pillows were neatly lined up against the headboard. The room was claustrophobically small. To the right was a small dresser with a few items scattered across the top: a watch, a pair of hoop earrings, a sterling silver alarm clock, and a tube of clear lip gloss.

  The closet had a door, but it stood open. Several pairs of work boots and sneakers were wedged at the bottom.

  She felt like a voyeur going through Diana and Henry’s personal things. But she had no choice.

  JENNA HAD NEVER SEEN Henry in anything other than either jeans and a t-shirt or his uniform and work boots. She counted three uniforms and seven pairs of jeans. She did find a decent pair of dress slacks at the very back of the closet along with a white shirt and black tie. Surely the man had one suit? She thought in disgust. If so, her search did not reveal one.

  There was a pair of men’s black leather loafers, and Jenna realized with quiet disdain that they had never been worn before. She picked them up and placed them on the bed along with the other items she’d procured.

  She took her time going through the dresser and finally found her sister’s address book.

  Jenna had to smile at how patently old school and Diana-like it was for anyone to keep a handwritten address book with numbers scrawled across the pages in her sloppy, slanted writing. There were very few numbers that Jenna kept on paper anymore as most were stored on her phone or computer. But Diana had a certain distrust of technology, and she had never bothered to learn how to use a computer.

  She was a little surprised to find her own phone number amongst them. There were also numbers for her mother, one of the cousins from the opposite side of the family, and a few mutual acquaintances that they’d both known through the years. She took note of her Cousin Constance’s number, which she had lost before she married Stephen.

  The problem was that even with all the names and numbers listed, there was no way of knowing whether these people were kin to Henry.

  If memory served, Diana told her once that Henry’s people were from Virginia and that though his parents were gone, he had a brother and sister whom he rarely communicated with.

  Jenna decided that she’d have to take the address book with her. She didn’t have the patience to sit in this dreary house while she pored over the pages. The bedroom was eerily dim. The entire house possessed a feeling of gloom despite the bright hour.

  You’d think the damn house was allergic to light, she thought. Sunshine only penetrates as far as the porch or the tree line before it is repelled.

  Uncertain, she continued to search through the heavy armoire beside the window.

  There hadn’t been any talk of Diana coming home, but she assumed (despite her doctor’s assertions) that this would be an eventuality. No one had told her to get her sister’s clothes, but she did, hoping she could get it over with now and not have to come back again.

  Diana had simple clothes, but she had more of them than Henry, which made it easier to pick. She had a favorite jogging suit that was red with gray piping, and she took that out along with a t-shirt, underwear, and a plain, black bra. White sneakers and socks would complete the outfit.

  Just as she was about to close the drawer, Jenna’s fingers struck something hard.

  She reached in and pulled out a diary.

  There was no lock on it. As she opened the book, she saw that it was in Diana’s writing. The date told her that Diana had kept this journal when she was a teenager.

  She stuffed the diary back in. The last thing she needed was to read the juvenile ramblings of her unbalanced sibling.

  An envelope fell out and floated onto the floor beside her.

  Jenna sighed.

  She picked the envelope up. It was old and yellowed, but what caught her att
ention was the date: November, 1989.

  That, and the fact that the handwriting belonged to Travis Bell.

  SHE SAT DOWN ON THE edge of the bed and unfolded the paper, which was so soft that it felt like skin beneath her fingertips.

  Dear Bugaboo,

  I am writing this to you because I am too ill to come see you.

  I haven’t told your sister or Louise, but I am living in a rest home outside Charlotte. My health has declined and I’m told I may not be here much longer.

  There are some things that I need to tell you. It’s not meant to scare you. But I do need to prepare you for what may happen.

  Back when I met your mother, we talked about this. She was fascinated by the stories, though I can’t tell how much of it she took to heart or if she ever passed any stories onto you. I have never told Louise anything about this because she doesn’t believe in spirits. It’s part of that Catholic upbringing of hers. And because I knew it would upset her mom, I never told Jenna about it either.

  First of all, I can see things that aren’t natural.

  Not since I was a child, though from what I am told the ability was probably already there, latent. I was almost killed in the war, and once they shipped me home, I was different.

  I came back to the house I was raised in, and suddenly there were people there that spoke to me. People I had never seen before. I knew that they were dead. They taunted me. It seemed they were able to follow me wherever I went.

  It wasn’t until I actually started to go through my mother’s old scrapbooks that I saw who they were and knew them by name. They were our ancestors.

  I confronted my mother, but she refused to tell me anything. She said that I was sick, that I needed to get professional help.

  But my sister, Helena, knew everything.

  She had been a sensitive since the time she was little. I remember when we were young that she would tell me ghost stories and that she had seen and spoken with spirits. At some point, she stopped talking about it, and it became a memory, a story from the past.

  Helena said that there was a legend about the Bells. That something awful happened to one of our ancestors and now our kin do not rest easy.

  I haven’t time to tell the whole story. But here is what you need to know.

  Depending on how they died, who they were, and what place they went to after death, a spirit can come back much the same or as a horribly different person. And when they come back different, they want blood.

  Many of these spirits are looking for a way to get back into the world of the living. There is no easier portal than through flesh. And the flesh of a living relative is even better.

  I hope that you won’t think that these are the ravings of a crazy old man. I have all my faculties. I may be ill, but my mind is whole.

  Please make sure you tell Jenna as well, and give her this letter if you have to. I want both of you safe. Once I am gone, I will be with the others.

  I love you.

  Travis Bell

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jenna put the letter down on the dresser, not believing her eyes. And then she picked it up and re-read it. There was no doubt in her mind that her father wrote it. But how was she supposed to believe it?

  She folded it back up, hating the touch of the paper against her fingertips. Gathering the items she had set aside for Diana and Henry, she went out to her car.

  JENNA DID NOT REMEMBER her father as the man who grew old and sick enough to write such a letter. After her parents split, she only saw him two more times. She remembered him as a troubled man, stern but loving. Though they talked over the phone and sometimes exchanged letters, she always could tell there were some things that he didn’t want to talk to her about. The decline of his health was one of them.

  Because of that, without meaning to, Travis had removed himself from Jenna’s life in a fundamental way. Jenna didn’t take it as an affront to her; she knew Travis well enough and understood that he hated showing any weakness to her.

  And when she’d still been a girl, he’d only shown as much of it as he was willing to.

  In those years, between her ninth and twelfth birthday, Jenna became aware of the growing distance between her parents. She started to ask more questions about her father’s past. He shared stories about his sister, Helena, a pretty girl who liked to tell stories to scare the other kids in the neighborhood. He refused to talk about Vietnam, other than to describe the day he suffered the head injury that nearly took his life. He told some old stories that were town folklore. Chrysalis was nothing if it wasn’t a place full of stories. He told her about the wolves living on the edge of town that changed form into men and walked amongst the townspeople at will. He even told her a story about a warlock and his apprentice who sought out young witches, and killed those that answered their call if they did not possess a true talent for magic.

  Along with those stories were the ones that were real, but Jenna had wished were not: stories of people in decades past who disappeared at night only to be found dead in the woods days later. Men who became demons covered by white cloth at night, carrying torches, and wrapped in the vehemence of their hatred, committed murder in the dark and then traded in their gear for the respectable clothes of businessmen, shopkeepers, and clergy in the morning.

  The one story she could never get him to tell was one she always heard other children sharing whenever adults were not present. She asked him to tell her the story of Weeping Willow, the girl who killed herself, her ghost forever waiting to kill another in her place. Jenna only asked that one time, and his expression scared her badly enough that she never asked again.

  Travis had lived with Jenna and Louise in a home he’d bought with his own money a year before he married. It was new, not tied to any of the old memories of his ancestral house. But there was bitterness and cold wrapped into the walls of this home. He carried it with him, beneath his skin, in his memories, and part of it had soaked into the mantle of the place.

  Jenna imagined that she could hear whispers from other lives, other people. She could swear they were not from the house itself but clung to the edges of her dad’s skin as if they wanted to taste the air that he breathed. She wrote a story in school about a man who wore a coat made of ghost whispers woven into old wool. It had garnered praise from her teachers and a worn, almost suspicious look of pride from Travis.

  One cold autumn day, twelve-year-old Jenna stood in her front yard with her back against an old oak tree. Travis stood a few paces back from her, pretending to be interested in kicking rocks across the yard that he’d lined up with the toe of his shoe.

  “I don’t understand, Daddy. Don’t you love Mama anymore?”

  He looked towards the house for a moment and then back at his daughter.

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked.

  Jenna shrugged, shoving her hands into the pockets of her red sweater. “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Well, that’s how I loved your mom. From the first time I saw her, I knew that she was going to be the woman that I married. And all these years, I have never stopped loving her. There’s no use in even comparing anyone to her, because no one else can be her.”

  “She’s pretty mad at you right now. Shouldn’t you be telling her this?”

  Travis gave her a knowing smile. “It doesn’t really help, baby. It just makes everything that I did to her worse. She was the best woman, the best lover I ever had. And one day, you will understand what that means. Because you think you know now, sweetheart, but you won’t really get it until you grow up and fall in love with someone.”

  “Maybe I’ll never get married,” Jenna replied petulantly.

  “Oh yes, you will. Some lucky bastard will snap you up.”

  “Daddy . . .”

  “Not gonna turn me in for cussing, are you?”

  “No.”

  They both laughed.

  “I don’t know. You don’t want to fight for her?”

  “For wh
at, honey? When Louise makes up her mind, it’s done. And the bad thing is I don’t even blame her. Because if she had done to me what I did to her, she would have been gone a long time ago.”

  Jenna shook her head. “I think you’re crazy.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Travis agreed. “What’s this nonsense about you not getting married, though? I don’t even want to hear that. You’ll have some man running home to you. Probably some guy named Curtis or Ricky or something.”

  Jenna wrinkled her nose. “Curtis? Ricky? Ugh.”

  “All I can tell you is, don’t look for someone like your old man.”

  “Well, if a guy can love you at first sight and say a girl is just about perfect and he’ll still cheat, what do men want?”

  He laughed. “Baby, if I had that answer we’d be living in a palace somewhere, and I wouldn’t be three steps away from getting kicked out of my house. You might as well ask me about the chicken and the egg or whether there really are UFOs.”

  Jenna sighed. “Well, I mean, what can you tell me about men?”

  He smiled. “I’ll teach you how to drive. As soon as you’re sixteen, you’re my official driver. I’ll teach you how to shoot. And if you need to dump a man somewhere, if you find the right place, you won’t even have to bury him.”

  “Daddy!” Jenna cried, her voice carrying through the yard. She slapped his arm. “That’s awful!”

  He laughed. “Well, yeah, but it’s true. One of the things you’ll find out as you get older. The truth is rarely pretty, and sometimes it is downright ugly.”

  “WHERE IS MY SISTER?” Jenna asked.

  The nurse recoiled a little from her spot behind the counter, taking a quick glance at her computer. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “I’m Jenna Bell McBride. Diana Bell is my sister.”

  “She’s not on our floor anymore,” the nurse said carefully. “She’s up on four.”

  “Is that a bad thing? Has her condition worsened?”