The Haunting of Alcott Manor, page 15
part #1 of Alcott Manor Series
"What would happen?"
"You could end up lost forever in a world that isn't your own. A memory that should be lost to the past, but refuses to stay there.”
Gemma felt her lips part in a slow opening. For the first time, she wondered if her clearing work would be enough to fix the problems of the manor. She watched the mental replay of how Anna jumped when she had touched her and felt herself fall down a descending spiral of doubt.
"How do you know this?”
He shook his head as if what he had to say was hard for even him to believe.
"I've seen it happen over the years. People are here one minute, but the next time I see them, they're trapped in one of the house's memories. The people—I've caught glimpses—they look paralyzed, out of place, usually in the background of a scene somewhere. I can't imagine what sort of hell that must be for them, to be trapped like that in such a traumatic event. Benjamin, Anna, all of them are trapped there until justice is found. Time moved ahead without them.”
She pushed her fingers along the stress that held tight to her forehead. She gripped the three books more tightly in her other hand.
How in the hell was she supposed to clear this?
"This job isn't exactly turning out the way I thought it would.”
"I imagine not. I'm sure the sight of Benjamin didn't help that, either. How did you stumble upon him?"
“I was in Anna's room when I heard noises like something was hitting the floor. Sort of like a mix between a bang and a slap.”
“The books.” Henry glanced at the three slender books that were still in her hands.
“Yes." She placed them on the floor beside her, she’d forgotten she still had them.
Henry ran his fingers over the gold titling of the top book: Floriography—Interpreting the Language of Flowers. Gemma thought of all the flowers in Anna’s life and how she was so passionate about them. "He ripped open a hole in the bookshelf.” She couldn’t believe that she was actually talking about a ghost’s actions.
“Did he attempt to hurt you in any way?” Henry ran his hand along her face.
“No. Actually, I don’t know, I— He charged me and I saw that…face, and how he physically ripped the back of that bookshelf. I ran—” She forced the panic from rising too far. "I don't even know why I saw him. I've never seen ghosts."
He stared at her with that not-quite-smile, a mix of kindness and concern. The one that said he didn't wish this Benjamin encounter on anyone. His silence was patient. “A lot has changed for you over the past few weeks.”
She shrugged and listened to the distant waves that crashed just softly enough that she had to concentrate to hear them.
“Accidents can change things for people,” Henry said. “Was there an impact to your head?”
She nodded slow and sure, and lightly touched the right side of her head.
“So, you didn’t see ghosts before the accident, but after the accident, you do.”
“That must be it.” Her voice caught unexpectedly. “I don’t want to see ghosts.”
Henry placed his hand on her back and slid it gently into her hand.
“Something happened, didn't it?”
She took a deep breath and enjoyed the sensation of his hand around hers, realizing just how long it had been since she had really relied on someone for support. She had been busy taking care of everyone else: parents, clients, and of course, the divorce. She hadn’t been around anyone who could be strong for her. “Just a hard memory.”
He tilted his head as if to suggest he knew there was more. The glide of his index finger over her knuckle ignited a connection between them that made her feel alive. Somewhere between free and vulnerable. But insulation had become her habit, and she wanted to hide how he affected her.
Safety first.
If only she could. He saw her, understood her, and she wasn't yet willing to let that go. She leaned into the stillness between them.
He was so giving of himself to her in a way that roused the essence of her soul, bringing her forward such that she felt whole and like herself again. From the moment they'd met, there had been something special between them, a connection that now seemed foolish to deny.
She worried about the conflict with work. They differed in terms of how to restore the manor. She didn't know that she would be able to find the mystery suicide note that he wanted. That conflict might find new life when she set about her clearing work tomorrow instead of searching for the note.
And if she were honest with herself, she'd admit that she was still a little concerned that Henry might be like Preston. Perfect on the outside, but really not on the inside, where it counted.
She thought of the manor, and how it needed to move forward, how it needed to let go of the tragedies and mistakes of yesteryear. Just like the manor, she needed to know that tomorrow would be better than yesterday. She wondered if trust was the only step toward a cure.
“I’m not trying to pry.” He leaned back on his elbows.
“I know.” She looked down at her hands.
“I just want to help.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “I appreciate that. I enjoy talking with you, I do.” And she did. Even when their conversation had been mostly sparring with one another, she found their exchange dynamic, attractive, and exciting. “What do you want to know?”
“What happened that made you feel so afraid of ghosts? Not that any of us are comfortable with them.”
She drew in a deep breath. She wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but she now felt even more vulnerable, as if she didn't have skin or muscle to protect vital organs. “I, um. I’ve never told anyone that story before.”
“I understand.” One dark curl had fallen onto his forehead and nearly reached the edge of his eyebrow. His expression was dark and fierce. She could tell that he knew how ghosts could be, how they could destroy almost everything that you were.
“Gemma, if you want to talk with someone about what happened, I’m here for you.”
For the first time in her life, she wanted to tell someone what happened on that terrifying night when she almost died. Someone who wouldn't make fun of her. Someone who would believe her. Someone who understood.
She wanted to tell Henry.
He held very still, his eyes deep with understanding, fierce with protectiveness and present with care.
She began to tell the story she hadn’t talked about since it happened all those years ago. “We traveled as a family to a home that my parents were restoring. I was about ten, I guess. My mother wasn't wild about having us kids there since it was an old and haunted house.
“At night, we stayed in a hotel across town. But one evening it was late, and my parents needed to work. They couldn't leave us at the hotel alone, so they had my brothers and me sleep in the den. We were just going to rest for a few hours and then go back to the hotel as soon as my parents were finished.
“It was about three thirty when I woke up to the feel of something brushing along my back. I remember thinking that I must be swimming, floating on the water, the waves moving me.
“Then I couldn't breathe. I coughed to clear whatever it was, but it just got worse. When I opened my eyes, I was on the floor in the middle of the room. He must have dragged me there. I felt these hands around my neck, choking me. I couldn't scream, I couldn’t breathe.”
She ran her fingers along the front of her neck and swallowed against her tight throat. “It was only because I kicked the floor with both feet that my parents came running. I was unconscious by the time they got to me.”
"Good God.” He ran his hand over the top of his head.
"At the hospital, they diagnosed me with a fractured larynx. There were these large thumbprint-shaped bruises on the front of my neck." She drew the shapes on her skin. “They gave me a white board and asked me repeatedly to write down who had done this to me. I just kept writing ‘no one’ and ‘I don't know’.”
"Who was it?"
"My brothers recalled how strange it was to see me writhing on the floor, gagging. They thought I was having some sort of fit. My mother was the only one to see the ghost who attacked me in my sleep. She said it was a young man in his twenties, sort of overweight, who wore a black vest and a gray button-down shirt.
"My parents did some research and discovered that a man who fit the description had lived in that house fifty years earlier. He caught his wife in bed with another man and he strangled her to death. Then he shot himself in the house.”
A log shifted in the fireplace and she jumped.
Henry stroked her arm gently. “Anyone who had been through that would be afraid of ghosts.”
“It was a long time before I spoke again. And an even longer time before I worked on a haunted property.” She gestured to the room around her.
“That’s understandable.” He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re braver than most to take on this project.”
His comment gave her spirits a lift. Most clients wouldn't have understood at all. Most wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. “My mother always said that when a ghost roams the earth plane for that long, they forget all or most of reality. They just relive those one or two moments that condemn them to this life. Like Benjamin, I guess." She breathed in, tipped her chin, and tried to open her throat. “Like the manor.” She hadn’t meant to let it slip that it was her mother who saw the ghosts in her family. She hoped that didn't make a difference to Henry since he was still the client.
“Unfinished business. That's what I've always heard,” he said.
She nodded. “Something didn't work out the way they wanted it to and they keep reliving it, trying to get it to work out differently. It’s why I chose to incorporate this clearing work into my design business. Sometimes, when the clearing is deep enough, a ghost can move on. Which is best for everyone."
"That it is." He squeezed her hands again.
“We all need to move forward.” She stopped talking for a moment and realized how much time she had spent reliving the horrors of her breakup with Preston.
“Is everything okay?" He tilted his head to catch her eye.
“Yes.” She exhaled and suddenly felt better than she had in a while. Maybe because she had gotten an old nightmare off her chest. Or maybe it was her realization. “I was just thinking about where I’ve done that in my own life. Going over and over a scenario that didn't work out well.”
“Your ex-husband.” He said it in a been-there-done-that kind of way, and she knew he must have his own history that haunted him.
“Mm-hmmm.” It hadn't occurred to her that she would ever have had anything in common with Benjamin—or any other ghost, for that matter.
“A hard thing to overcome. I do wish you hadn’t had to go through all of that. Though I, for one, am glad that the two of you are finished business.” He kissed her hand. “You’re safe now. With me. We'll figure this out together.” He gestured toward the rest of the house.
She wasn't sure if he meant that in a just-for-the-job sort of way, or an I’d-like-to-explore-what’s-next type of meaning. But it had been too wild of a half-day to figure anything else out tonight. So, she exhaled slow and deep and tried to root herself in the now.
The violins sputtered into their full haunted glory on the other side of the wall. He pulled her close, and she admitted that she did feel safe with him. She laid her head on his chest and enjoyed how good it all felt: the way he held her firmly against him, the solidness of his chest beneath her, and most of all…the trust.
Chapter 19
Gemma looked out at the ocean, sipped her morning tea, and reflected on everything she had witnessed the night before. There was Anna and Benjamin, how she wanted a divorce and how he needed her to be the perfect wife. And, of course, Benjamin after his death. She remembered the gaping hole in his face, and a shiver traveled up and down her entire body.
Henry approached with his coffee and ran his hand along her back. "Chilled?"
"No, I was just thinking about what I saw last night. Who I saw last night.”
“Ah. Anna and Benjamin? Or—"
“Yes.” She scrunched her nose. “And Benjamin's face. What happened to it?"
He gazed at the horizon as though he knew the question was coming, as though he wasn’t excited to answer it. “As the story goes, they were escorting him to the gallows to be hung, and a man from the crowd shot his face clean off—or most of it.”
“Shot him in the face.” She scrunched her nose.
“No one knows who it was. Or if they did know, they didn't talk. The town believed that Benjamin had killed his wife. The shooter could have been anyone who wanted to punish him for that.” His tone was weary, as though he had heard or told the story a hundred times.
“Shooting someone in the face, that kind of violence is personal, like an act of revenge. If it was just someone from the community who hated him for killing his wife, they probably would have been satisfied just to watch him hang. Whoever shot him wanted to kill him himself,” she said.
“She had two younger sisters. Her father was known to be overprotective of her, even into her adult years,” he said.
“Yes, a father would.” She thought of her own father and how protective he had been of her as his only daughter. She searched the windows on the backside of the house for the face she never wanted to see again. He wasn’t there, though she felt an awareness from the house, a connection with it she didn't want. “An open and shut case.”
“The trial only took two days. They hung Benjamin on the third. Of course, he was shot on the third, as well. Only man in the history of South Carolina’s justice system to be shot and hung on the same day.”
“They hung him even after he’d been shot?” Gemma wasn't a fan of Benjamin’s. He was a shallow, self-absorbed murderer who thought nothing of destroying another person’s life if it served his own benefit. But even she thought this was harsh.
“To make an example of him,” he said grimly.
“I guess so.” She envisioned an angry crowd cheering when he was shot. And then cheering even louder when he was strung up without a face. She shivered again and turned her focus to the expanse of the summer green lawn. It was time for her to do a deeper clearing. One that would move Benjamin on. “Where was Anna shot again?”
“Down there. To the right and in front of the ocean, before the steps.” He pointed to the end of the green.
“Would you mind showing me specifically?” Gemma pointed in that direction. “I’d like to clear those imprints.”
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then closed it. As if he realized an objection wouldn’t do any good. “Be my guest.” He accompanied her over meadowsweet grass that was too high to surround such a majestic property as Alcott Manor.
“We need to get someone out here to cut this now that the weather is getting warmer,” she said. “Though I recommend leaving the larger landscaping projects until last because we want to start preparing for this to be the beautiful estate that it will be.”
“It’s just here.” He stopped shy of a patchy place of small rocks and white sand. The area baked in full sun, but it didn’t burst with green like the rest of the lawn.
“Just as I thought.” She rubbed her hand along her jaw. "This land is damaged. Nothing will grow here.”
"Nothing ever has."
She held her open palm over the land to feel what couldn't be seen. There was a heat in the land. “It’s going to take several steps to heal this, so I'd like to start with—” A dark red liquid bubbled thick and slow. It spread over the marred land in a puddle that crept toward her feet. She curled her hand toward her body.
Had Anna’s blood risen to her touch just like the rest of the house?
Henry followed her line of sight and pulled her away from the blood that seemed to reach for her. "The anniversary of Anna's death is soon, so the memories will come more frequently now.”
She held her hand over her mouth while the thick red substance crawled along the ground. When she finally let herself breathe again, it came quickly. “History always repeats itself with a ghost,” she said. “Benjamin will kill again. Just as he’s done before.”
Henry didn’t say anything but he walked her away from the blood, trying to keep it from touching her, she knew.
"The scene I saw upstairs showed a man who had political aspirations and a wife who wasn't playing along. He might have killed her just for that. Politicians don't like to be publicly humiliated.” With her just out of its reach, the blood receded.
She summoned her strength, surveyed the roses, then stepped cautiously and far around the immediate area where Anna had been killed. “I think we should plant a new rose garden there, exactly where it happened, as well as one on the other side. There.” She pointed directly across the emerald lawn.
“If we do two large rectangles and fill them with roses, that would create symmetry. We can carve a path through the rectangles, maybe a winding one. It should be like a golden square, and we’ll measure the winding path inside of the square according to the Fibonacci sequence.”
She marked off the elongated shape with her steps. Benjamin would kill again, she knew it. She had lived through it with another ghost. That ghost had killed once—twice if you counted how he killed himself. Then he’d tried to kill her. He would have, too, if her parents hadn't intervened. It’s just what ghosts did. She rubbed the front of her throat.
“The center should hold a plant from Anna's original garden and a new plant. A little of the old to honor Anna and the roses she loved so much, and some of the new to celebrate the healing that’s taking place.”
He laid his hand on hers with a touch so gentle she only felt the sparks. She glanced at Henry to see if he felt it as well.
“That's a very kind way to honor her while marking the path forward.” His thumb traveled over her skin and sent chills up and down her arm.
