Haunted

Page 4

That was exactly what she was going to do.
But she didn’t. She didn’t move. Because she saw…
The silvery movement in the night.
She blinked, but it didn’t go away. And it wasn’t the darkness, or the reflection of the lights, or a combination of the two. It was something, vague in shape, silvery-white, hovering, moving. It came from the side of the bed, where she should have been sleeping, and it was coming toward her.
She panicked totally. Her vocal cords were frozen. She stared, breathing out desperate little choking sounds, since she could find no voice. It came closer and closer. She felt ice trickles into blood and limbs and then…
It was almost touching her. She felt her hair move…pulled? Cold seemed to slap her right across the face. And she could have sworn that she heard a whisper, mocking, scornful. “Silly little girl! He’ll only kill you!”
Then again…her hair…lifting. On its own, in the grip of the vague, silvery-white substance. A substance that whispered or played havoc with the breeze. There was no breeze. She had closed the doors.
At last, she found voice, movement, and energy. She let out an hysterical, chilling scream, and ran.
She didn’t run for the bed and Roger—she headed straight for the door out of the Lee room. Jeannie wrenched at the knob so hard she nearly ripped it from the wood. The door itself flew open, and banged wickedly against the wall. This had no bearing on her. She barely heard it. She kept screaming, tore along the landing, and down the elegant, curving masterpiece of a stairway to the ground level below.
Matt Stone had chosen to stay in the caretaker’s cottage, fifty yards to the left of the main house. It had been his home for years before his grandfather had died, leaving Melody House—and the responsibility for its upkeep—to him. He had only moved into the main house recently because it had become easier on the upkeep side, and, he had to admit, he had come to like it. The grand master suite he had chosen afforded a lot of comfort. Big bedroom, dressing room, office or entertainment space, and it kept him right on top of whatever was going on with the property.
He liked the caretaker’s cottage, too. Since it had been falling apart so badly due to years of neglect he had rebuilt and refurbished it with every modern convenience. In contrast to the painstaking care they had used in keeping the main house historical, the caretaker’s house was far more state-of-the-art.
When he had given in to allowing the Lee room to be used as a honeymoon suite, he had opted to spend the night in his old haunts.
He had been sound asleep, however, when the scream brought him bolting from bed.
Despite the quiet tone of their small town, as sheriff of Stoneyville he was accustomed to being awakened in the dead of night. Therefore, he was up, into his jeans, and streaking across the patch of lawn that separated the caretaker’s cottage from the main house in a matter of seconds, the key to the huge oak front door in his hands. He burst into the house less than two minutes from the time he had heard the scream.
There was a light on in the foyer; there always was. Just as soft lights eternally flooded the front porch. He was prepared for anything when he burst through the door.
Or, at least, he had thought that he was.
Maybe not.
There was no apparent danger. Instead, there she was, the blushing bride, standing at the foot of the stairway, shaking and screaming in her altogether. Jeannie was a pretty girl, perfectly toned from months industriously spent at the gym in order to look perfect for her wedding day. Hard not to look, but he forced his eyes to hers first, then cast his gaze anxiously around, scanning the area for any hidden threat that might be the reason for this scene. Seeing nothing, his mind working in milliseconds, he wondered if the groom had somehow turned out to be a homicidal maniac or a simple wife-beater. Either choice seemed doubtful.
“Jeannie?” he said, his voice deep with calm and authority. Normally, he would have walked to her, set an arm around her shoulder, and patiently determined the cause of her distress. But she was standing in his foyer stark naked and screaming. “Jeannie, please, talk. What the hell…?”
By that time, her husband was rushing down the stairs as well. He was still half-asleep, and Matt would have sworn in any court that the young man appeared as bleary and stunned as anyone could possibly be. Certainly not fresh from a fight with his new bride.
“Jeannie!” Roger cried out in shock.
Matt crossed over one of the velvet cord barriers into the parlor and swept an antique throw from the fragile old love seat, striding across the room to cast it around Jeannie’s shoulders. She had stopped screaming, but she was still shaking like a leaf, eyes wide, dilated.
Roger, still dazed, and definitely horrified, thanked him briefly. Then he stared at his bride again, confusion once again reigning in his eyes.
“Jeannie, what is it?”
At last, she turned to focus on him, her expression blank at first, then filled with tension. “You didn’t see it? You didn’t feel it?”
“Jeannie, I was sound asleep! What are you talking about?”
By then, Penny Sawyer, in a terry robe, her graying hair frizzled around her handsomely constructed face, arrived. She stood in the frame of the front door, left open when Matt had come bursting in.
“What in the Lord’s name…?” she queried.
Penny managed Melody House. She kept accounts, and ran the tours. She loved the place, probably more so than Matt himself. She had worked as an historian for Matt’s grandfather, and slipped right into the role of managing the place after his death. She was like an aunt to Matt, as well as being incredibly efficient, and all but married to the place.
There was only one area in which they disagreed. And Matt silently grit his teeth then, certain that this episode was about to lead in that direction.
“Apparently, our bride has had a nightmare,” Matt said quietly.
“Nightmare!” Jeannie shrieked. She must have heard the shrill tone of her own voice because she fought to control it. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“So what exactly was the problem?” Roger asked, an underlying irritation rising beneath his concerned exterior.
“I think I should get some brandy,” Penny said.
“I think Jeannie should get some clothes on!” Roger said, his anger starting to crack through.
“Clothes?” Jeannie said. She stared down at herself and realized that she was covered in nothing but the antique quilt.
“I’ll make tea with brandy,” Penny said decisively.
“While she’s making the tea, Jeannie, you can run up and get dressed. Then we can all sit down and you can explain just what you’re doing,” Roger said, a thread of anger in his voice.
“What I’m doing?” Jeannie repeated, frowning. “Roger Thomas, I was scared to death, don’t you understand?”
“Scared enough to run around naked?”
Matt could have groaned aloud. He shouldn’t have been swayed to allow the Lee Room to become a honeymoon hang out. He glared at Penny. She had talked him into it, reminding him that they needed the money for Melody House.
Penny shrugged innocently, giving him one of her knowing looks.
Melody House was reputed to be haunted. Matt always saw the rumors as simply par for the course. The main house was well over two hundred years old. It had survived the American Revolution, the Civil War, and every manner of conflict in between. As he well knew, nothing that old went without a certain kind of history. And apparently, most of the world wanted to believe in things that went bump in the night. People couldn’t just look back on the personal tragedies of the past with sorrow—they just had to make something else out of them.
Matt simply didn’t believe in ghosts. He’d worked in the D.C. area long before he’d taken up working in his old home haunts, and he knew that the things that living men and women did to one another could be so violent, barbarous, and cruel, that there was simply no reason to worry about those who were long dead and buried.
“Go up and put clothes on!” Roger said, his voice almost a roar.
Jeannie, blue eyes still huge, stared at him in rebellion and defiance.
“I am not—get this straight!—not going back up to that room. Ever! There is a ghost up there, and it—it threatened me.”
Matt shook his head, praying for patience. He looked up at the bride and groom. Wow! How quickly there was trouble in Paradise.
“Jeannie,” he said patiently, “there are no such things as ghosts. Hey, I’ve lived here most of my life. I’ve spent nights in the place with no electricity, you know, in the pitch dark. I swear, there are no ghosts. I would know.”
He had tried to say the last lightly. He knew, however, that his voice had an edge. He was sick to death of the whole ghost thing.
“Look what you’ve done,” Roger said to Jeannie. “Great. Really good honeymoon we’re going to have here—you’ve just really pissed off Matt Stone.”
“Sorry, I’m not angry,” Matt said quickly. “I just don’t believe in ghosts. Jeannie, it was a big day for you. I’m sure for you both…I’m not saying that anyone is totally inebriated, but come on, now, you both had a hell of a lot to drink. You’re wired, Jeannie. Excited. Hey, it was the wedding of the century, huh? You don’t have to go back into the room. We’ll get your things. And you and Roger can finish out your honeymoon in the caretaker’s cottage, how’s that? I can clear it out in a matter of minutes, while Penny makes tea.”
Jeannie spun around again. She looked as if she wanted to run from Roger’s side and come flying into his arms.
Don’t do it, Jeannie, don’t do it! He pleaded silently.
“Not one of you has suggested coming up to see if there is something in the room,” Jeannie said indignantly.
Matt lifted his hands. “I’ll go up to the room.”
He strode past the newlywed couple on the stairs. As he neared the upper landing, he could hear Roger whispering angrily to his wife. “Ghost, hell! You’re a little exhibitionist. You’ve had a bit of a thing for Matt Stone your whole life, you know, Jeannie. What, you just had to have an excuse for him to see you naked?”