August: A Ghost Story

I nodded, doing my best not to think this woman slightly unhinged.

"So," she continued, "to avoid becoming too accustomed to each other, and because she threatened to leave him if he didn't comply, they had the place built rather eccentrically. Like a duplex. A bedroom for him, a bedroom for her, a dining room for him and one for her. Both bathrooms are the third doors from the landing on either side of the house and they connect to the respective bedrooms up there." She pointed up to a gabled terrace that ran along the front of the house over the broad porch. "Notice the walk up there?"

I looked up and then back to Emma, awaiting her reason for pointing it out.

She smiled, as if watching some imagined scene playing out in her head, and then looked back to me. "The captain added that after they'd been married three years and he had the spare dining room at the back of the house converted into a nursery." "Did he?" I said, doing my best to feign interest.

"They ended up having seven children together," she said. "Most of them are buried in a little plot at the back of the property."

"Plot?"

She smirked. "Some houses around here come with in-ground pools, some have saunas. Yours has a stream that's been dammed up to form a swimming hole, down there," she pointed to a small path. "And behind the house, a cemetery plot."

I nodded. "Creepy."

"Not really, it's beyond the orchard, you can't even see it from the house. I guarantee you won't even know it's there, except on Memorial Day."

"Memorial Day?"

"Yes, lots of people in town are tied to this place by blood or marriage. They bring flowers out to put on the graves. Don't worry, they aren't a bother, and it's only for a few days."

Something in me twitched and I smiled. Sixteen years in Los Angeles and I'd forgotten that in certain parts of the country it was considered "no big deal" to let complete strangers wander around on your property from time to time.

I cleared my throat, doing my best not to dwell on the oddity of having a cemetery on my property. "So," I said, "seven children, huh?"

Shrugging, she said, "Yeah." She cast one last look at the house while flipping her keys on their key ring twice. "Some people, I guess, do get along eventually." After a second, Emma floated back to reality. "At least he thought they got along." I cocked an eyebrow. "How do you mean?"

"Captain Collins was killed in a fire, the barn," She pointed over to the wooden barn with its charred stone foundation. "Story goes she locked him in and torched the place back at the turn of the century. Brave girl, huh?"

With that, Emma smiled, put her little car in gear and waved as she drove around the circle-drive and through the tree-lined way to the main road; a small cloud of dust kicking up behind her.

I suddenly felt a sense of abysmal loneliness envelope me. Turning to look at the house I realized it was dark and lifeless looking on the inside, and after staring at it steadily for a time, I felt that it was watching me. Perhaps it was judging me. It was so big and I was so small and in my hands were the keys and the gift basket with the soaps and the coffee and the candles all wrapped in pink ribbon and cellophane.

A rumble of thunder reminded me about my car and I shrugged a chill away. I set the gift basket down on the driveway, opened the barn door, drove my Mustang inside and grabbed my overnight bag from the front seat. Making sure it was locked, I walked out, closed the barn door, picked up the basket and trudged toward the big front doors, juggling keys, gift basket, luggage and purse as I went. I climbed the steps of the wide front porch just as a sudden flash of lightning erupted from the sky and a sharp crack of thunder followed causing me to jump. Then the rain started, and I looked out at the storm from the porch.

Safe from the rain on the porch I looked out and up at the dark gray clouds. They had seemed to come out of nowhere and the lightning and thunder that had been distant only moments ago were now close and threatening. Images of a fire caused by that evil-looking lightning flashed irrationally in my head and, when I turned to the large oak double-doors, I realized something was carved skillfully into the painted white woodwork over the door.

"Accipere quam facere praestat injuriam."

The letters were slender and elegant. Not weathered or faded in any way. I knew it was Latin but wondered for a moment what it meant. After searching my memory banks for a few seconds I gave up. Latin phrases were not my forte.

In the gray light of the storm, the words seemed very welcoming and comforting to me. I took the ring of keys up and found the one master key. It was old and rusty but it worked in the lock easily. I pushed open the front door and entered my new house.

Chapter Five:

It was dark inside. I leaned over and flipped the light switch nearest the door but nothing happened.

"Well, here's a good start to things."

From what I could see I was in a large entrance hall with a big chandelier overhead and lots of old paintings adorning the walls.

A central staircase led from the large entrance hall up to a small landing. It then split, going up to two separate galleries with four doors on either side of the house. Over the landing was a large portrait, a woman seated in a chair with a man standing very stern and straight beside her. The woman looked quite beautiful with her hair done back and a nice Victorian style dress with lace at the collar and at the cuffs. The man stood with his jacket over one arm, a gaudy waistcoat over a simple white shirt. I smiled at his rather grumpy look and gave a mock salute.

"I bet you had a bug up your ass your whole life."

At the base of the stairs were two large doors on either side of where I stood. I leaned over and saw that two narrow hallways led behind the stairs to a corridor with at least four more rooms at the back of the house.

I walked over to the door on my left and found the key that fit the lock. I tried the lights in there to the same effect. No power in the house.

Before closing the door I took in the furnishings.

It was what someone might have called a front parlor back in the day. There were several stuffed chairs and a fireplace with a nice woven rug in front of it. No television, no stereo, nothing but a bunch of old magazines in a rack and shelves-and-shelves of books. I closed the door and moved back to the main entrance hall where I'd dropped my bag along with the gift basket.

I dislodged the bath beads and the scented candles from the cellophane and ditched the basket at the bottom of the stairs. As I climbed the stairs with the bath beads under my arm and my overnight bag over one shoulder, I took my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and switched it on. The phone buzzed and indicated a lack of signal and I cursed and switched it off.

"Great," I said as I veered left on the landing. I walked along the gallery leading toward the front of the house, finding what the agent had said was the master bathroom door.

I tried the knob. Locked.

I tried three different keys before I figured out which was the master key. The bathroom was spacious with a white marble floor and copper fixtures on the large cast-iron tub. Immediately I stripped off my jacket and tank top and hung them on a hook I found just beside the door. I sat on the lip of the bathtub and cranked the hot water spigot.

With a sharp groan the water spilled out.

I pushed the metal plug into the drain and left my hand under the faucet until the water was nearly scalding.

As the tub filled slowly, I went over to and unlocked the door that led to the master bedroom. It wasn't large but a pair of French doors led out onto the whitewashed balcony.

The sun was dipping low in the sky and a golden glow was playing across the window. I closed the door and, topless, I walked back out onto the gallery with the keys jingling in my hands. I ambled back to the first two doors along the corridor. Behind door one was a coat closet stacked with shoe boxes, some of them very dusty and old.

I had an impulse to go rummaging but I figured it could wait until the next morning. I closed the closet door and moved to the next.

Door number two opened into a small room with a large wooden desk and several bookshelves; obviously a study.

I stepped inside and ran my fingers along the edge of the desk. It was clean and tidy.

Ms. Collins must have had a maid come through, I thought.

I walked over to the bookshelves and brushed my fingers along the spines of a collection of large black ledgers with numbers along them. The numbers started at '78 and went on to '99. The last book on the shelf was labeled '00. I took it out, flipped through to find that the pages were only filled through the first through months of that year.

"The best laid plans of mice and men..." I said softly, and put the book back in its place. I pulled out the one that read '78, it was obviously the oldest on the shelf. I flipped it open. It was hand-written in a very fine masculine scrawl.

September, 1878~ Daniels and I are both optimistic about the annual yield. Irrigation problems from the previous three seasons have been righted and crops appear to have stood up well against...

I flipped to the inside cover of the ledger and found the name of the man who had kept it.

"George A. H. Collins, a record of crops and seasons anno. 1878."

I suddenly felt something, like a slight breath on my ear.

I jumped and dropped the ledger on the floor. Just as I bent to pick it up I remembered the bath and rushed out, letting the door to the study latch behind me. I made it back into the bathroom just in time to prevent an overflow.

The light filtering in through the open doors was getting rather dim, the storm blackening the afternoon sky to that of late evening. I decided to light the candles but paused when I realized I was without a lighter or matches.

Rummaging through my overnight bag, I knew I wouldn't find anything. "Great. I'm going to have to bathe in the dark."

A large creak sounded in the dimly lit room and I jumped. In the corner there was a large linen cupboard. I hadn't noticed it there before but it was slightly cracked, the door swinging slightly loose on its hinges.

"Hello?" I stepped away from the cupboard and grabbed my leather jacket off the hook by the door, covering myself. "Is someone in there?"

It was quiet except for the shallow slap of little water droplets falling from the tub faucet into the water. I took a tentative step toward the door.

"This isn't funny, you know. I can call the cops." I reached out slowly, carefully and caught the cabinet door and pulled it open.

It was empty except for a few moth-eaten towels on the shelves. I sighed heavily, feeling very stupid. I just about closed the closet door when I saw something clear at the back in the corner. Something small, wedged in a crack at the back of the cabinet.

I reached in and pulled out the little book of matches, causing the back of the cabinet to fall away revealing a hidden compartment. I reached in and took out a parcel wrapped in oil cloth and covered in dust.

I took up the matches; they were very old looking, with the strike strip across the front and very faded lettering. I tried to read it in the dark but I couldn't manage.

I walked over, grabbed one of the candles, carried it across the room, and set it up on the sink.

The match struck, I lit first the one on the sink and then I went back and set the other candle down on the floor near the bathtub.

I turned the matchbook over. The print was faded but I was sure it looked like two big letters, done up in a grand design. "Initials maybe?"

Picking up the little parcel I turned it over in my hands and untied the little leather strap. When I unfolded the cloth I found two journals with gold leaf pages. They were of supple brown leather; gold lettering was embossed on the covers of both. G.A.H. Collins

I flipped through the first book. The handwriting was orderly and cramped, just like that in the ledgers in the study, however all the entries were made without exact dates or preambles, some began with simply a month and a year, others were made without apparent regard for date or even the printed horizontal lines for text, written hurriedly in a scrawl that at times seemed impaired -- the lettering lopsided and irregular.

I flipped and found the journal also held a number of illustrations, some beautiful and bright, some very dark and sinister. On one page I found a picture of a boy leading a cow along a lane lined with trees, his head down in contemplation. I flipped the page and found on its opposite side one that appeared to be a depiction of a hellish legion of uniformed soldiers, their faces gaunt and bloodless, their eyes blank and empty, arms outstretched as if beckoning from beyond the gates of hell. I flipped the page hurriedly, reading the first line of the entry there.

"Horrid dream last night, Fredericksburg..."

I steeled myself and turned back to look at the uniforms of the soldiers depicted. They were indeed clad in the uniforms of the civil war, officers and infantrymen, behind them the gaping maws of cannon belching fire and smoke. By the flickering candlelight, it seemed as if the charging soldiers moved. I leafed quickly away from the drawing and picked another passage at random, one that looked more stable with the penmanship stately and ordered. I began to read.

"Aug. 1881 -- In the night I dreamt of the seaside. I recall a deserted stretch of beach marked by but one set of footprints. A girl in the sand taking the sun, her bathing things tossed asunder along with any sense of immodesty.

"She lay in the sand, the sun's rays warming her body as, with half closed eyes, she relished the sensation.

"I was not on this stretch of beach with her, however, and though I could see her it was as if I managed from a great distance through a spyglass as I moved across the sea, my course set for this shore and this woman sunning nude in the nearly pristine sand. Confusion reigned inside of me for I was not aware of any ship or sea-craft and as I approached this vista of paradise the sky seemed to grow darker and darker with my approach.

"The sun was eclipsed by me and the girl in the sand looked up into the sky at me as the heavens about me seemed to open up and begin a sudden summer downpour upon her. The lightning flashed, striking the beach around her and the thunder rumbled with angry menace.

"The girl, though frightened by the sudden tempest I'd brought, stayed her ground, holding herself to the beach as the rain soaked her naked body and the wind blew harshly at her. All this while she watched me in my place in the clouds, her eyes daring me to allow the storm to worsen, challenging me, her expression was the very essence of defiance.

"Even in sleep, now. I see her and she is taunting me.

"It is odd that I should have dreamt of the beach. It is four years since we left San Francisco and the ocean behind. Recalling that day, I remember her crying as the train left the terminus. It had been her home and I was forcing her to leave it. I gave her no solace. No attempts at solace would have done any good."

There was the sound of creaking floorboards outside in the hall, I looked up and listened but in a second I went back to reading, flipping a page to find an undated entry. This one, though made in the same diary, was obviously from a much later date. Possibly written just after reading the preceding passage -- it was short, and the handwriting jagged and unkempt.

"After ten years, I sometimes catch in her face the expression of longing. She longs to go back; to be among people and not isolated in this place. She longs to be away from me. She hides it but I see it. And I hear it, also. In her speech, when she talks of the beautiful sunset on the hills and of the sweeping of cloud shadows over the ocean of hard ground, there is something unsaid, but I hear it. She doesn't know that I know. She would never tell me."

I was aware of a sudden chill in the room. I looked up to see the door from the hall had managed to open, as though a draft had managed to blow up through the house. The candlelight flickered. There was no one there.

With a shrug, I put the book aside and stuck the matches into my jacket pocket and removed it, hanging it on the hook by the door. On an impulse I looked onto the gallery before shutting the door. There was not a sound inside, only the light patter of the rain and the sounds of rolling thunder.

Chapter Six:

The steam from the hot bath made the air heavy and humid, the bath beads added a faint scent of lavender.

As I slipped into the water, lying back to let my hair dip below the foamy surface, letting the water lap gently against me, I closed my eyes and began to ponder things.

An hour ago, I thought, I was technically homeless.

Now I lived in what was basically a mansion. It was old and run-down, but there was something comforting about its size and apparent cleanliness.

Whomever Emma had hired to keep the place up, they did a good job.

I let the water drain out of the tub a little bit after a few minutes and added more from the hot spigot.

I rubbed the water over my neck and shoulders, letting it soothe the place where the seat-belt had dug into me for several days. Then I worked up a lather with the bath beads and began to wash the skin over my breasts and stomach. The warm water felt really very good. In fact, it felt better than good. I suddenly found myself staring at the ceiling thinking of ways to help myself relax.

It wasn't long before my hands found their way down over my stomach. I ran the tips of my fingers over the little tuft of hair I kept demurely trimmed above my pubis. Along the sides of my outer labia I could feel the slight bumps of fresh stubble slowly growing. Had I a razor handy I would have taken care of them, but as I had none...

My fingers rubbed along the edges of my opening as I thought back to the biker who had nearly run me down in the street.

What was it about him?

I hadn't seen his face but for some reason he was burned in my brain. I closed my eyes and tried to replay the image of him in my head. His broad shoulders and obviously solid but slender torso under his worn leather jacket, his faded blue jeans, his brown leather boots with buckles...

"Climb on!"

I look into blue eyes under wild black hair.

Holding his leather clad arm out to me, as he straddles the shiny black mechanical monster between his strong thighs.

Our eyes lock for only an instant before my gaze falls away from him. I'm shaking my head to his invitation.

I feel his gloved hand grab my bare arm.

Looking down, I realize that I'm naked in the middle of the street. All the town looks upon the scene with mouths agape and breaths heavy.

The men are all erect at the site of my nakedness. The women, mothers, hiding their children's eyes as if they are appalled, but their attentions too are transfixed. They are watching the demon biker.

He pulls my naked body to his; I can feel the gentle sucking friction of the leather against my skin.

My chest is pressed to his. His hands are firm against my back. "Climb on," he says, quietly but with authority. "I won't tell you again!"

I felt the heat in my groin building as I kept my eyes closed and my hand moving over my outer lips, teasing myself.

Straddling the large motorcycle, with my hands around his middle and my breasts pressed tight against his back, I can feel the slightly raised lettering proclaiming him a "Hell's Angel."