The Haunting of Alcott Manor, page 4
part #1 of Alcott Manor Series
“Look at that rose garden on the side. Do you see a funny glow around it?” Janey asked.
“Where?” Her dad frowned in the direction she pointed, and Gemma made a mental note to get him to the eye doctor. It might be time for a checkup.
She also observed the new lines that had appeared on his face almost overnight. He'd aged about ten years since her mother died.
“Over there, to the right and toward the back. It’s filled with red roses, and they’re huge.”
“Oh, look at that, the roses are blooming now. There’s a woman in a wide straw hat to the side of the house, over there clipping the flowers,” he said. “Your mother did love that rose garden."
Gemma pushed the home button on her phone: 10:45 a.m. “Oh, Pop, it’s almost time for the meeting. Tom ought to be here soon. Let’s pull the car to the front of the property and call him. I don't want to be late.”
“All right, Gemma-bean, don’t you worry. We’ll work this out. Just like old times.”
He looked out of the second story window at the three people who had walked around the far corner of the property. The driver he recognized as Glenn Stewart with Stewart Historic Renovations. Glenn and his wife had worked tirelessly on his family’s home for the past year, even in the face of the manor's resident ghost and other paranormal problems. He owed them a great deal for their perseverance.
He also recognized Janey, Glenn's right hand. The redhead was new to him. Her hair was a deep red, more auburn, with a few lighter streaks from the sun, he guessed. That color was unusual in this town, where most women were blonde. She wore her hair loose around her shoulders and the wind played with it, teasing at it like a cat playing with yarn.
She made a point to stand straight, tall, and bold, as though she faced a challenger when she turned to the manor directly. Her chin tipped up and her shoulders were forced down and back. For a moment, he thought she had looked straight at him while he stood there in the second story bay window. There was a connection between them, an unexpected spark. He'd felt it pulse through him.
The great lawn stretched between them like a physical extension of the house, and he wondered if the manor was connecting them. Maybe it was allying them in an unexpected partnership, teaming them together to attack an ambitious goal.
He'd seen the house act as a conduit in that way before. It drew people in, almost as though they had been handpicked to come into the home. Sometimes they never left.
The group climbed into their car, and he watched while it idled. Slowly, the car rolled forward. Unintentionally, it seemed. Without purpose. They'd be at the house soon, discussing renovations and shortened timelines. He gripped the windowsill—the renovation had to work out this time. The house was on its last life. If they failed at this renovation, he would lose the house that had been in his family for generations. He couldn’t let that happen.
From his elevated perspective, he saw what they didn't—the red pickup truck that sped toward the intersection. Their gray sedan that continued to roll. Unknowingly, he guessed. They must have been looking at the manor. “No…” His hand curled into a fist and banged on the glass. “No! Stop!”
The red truck ignored the stop sign and hit the gray car on the driver's side between the front and back seats. There was no horn, only the sickening shatter of glass and the crunching of steel.
Then…quiet.
Chapter 5
Tom Watson stood silently next to Glenn Stewart’s hospital bed while he slept. Tom's short, straw-colored hair curved outward at the top with too much fullness and the length was too short, just as Gemma had always known it to be. In fact, most of her father’s West Point and Army buddies had hairstyles that were too short.
Tom and her father had served in the military together, and their friendship was more like a brotherhood. They would have done anything for each other, and had. It was because of Tom that her father had even known about the Alcott Manor restoration opportunity.
She didn’t know how much her dad had told Tom about his financial problems, so she didn’t mention anything about that to him. But she had thanked him for letting her dad know about the job.
“The stuff they give him for the pain is a little heavy for him. So, he sleeps a lot. But I’ll let him know that you came by.” She felt silly standing next to someone she hardly knew while wearing only her hospital gown and white, waffle-print robe. She hadn’t checked her hair lately, but she was pretty sure she was a fright to behold. She tried to fluff the back of it where it had been flattened from the pillow, but all she felt was a matted mess.
The door to Glenn Stewart’s hospital room swung open, and a nurse backed into the room. “Time for your medicines, Mister Stewart,” she sang. Her maroon pants clung too tightly to every curve and spread of her figure.
Her black, short-sleeved top was covered in koi and Gemma wondered distractedly why the manufacturer used this deep shade of red for the fish when a brighter red or orange would have been more accurate. Then again, the outfit would have to coordinate, and no one wanted to see anyone's lower half covered in bright orange. “Black would have worked. But I guess black and orange aren’t exactly comforting colors for a hospital,” she mumbled. “White’s passé. Maroon it is.”
“Pardon? Oh! I didn’t realize you had company, Mister Stewart. How nice.” The nurse smiled and nodded in a polite greeting. “I’m Layla Alcott, and I’m his nurse until this evening.”
Gemma squinted at Layla’s name tag. She elbowed Tom and pointed at it. “Her last name. Alcott." She kept her voice softer than a whisper and hoped Layla couldn't hear her. She also hoped Layla was on the restore side of the family argument and not the sell side.
He rubbed his arm where she’d jabbed him.
“I’m just going to change this IV bag for his medicines.” Layla took the half glasses that hung around her neck and rested them on the near-end of her nose. Gemma figured Layla to be in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, too young for librarian glasses.
Layla pushed a series of buttons and the IV machine beeped and squealed. “Come on, now.” She pushed one button repeatedly until the squealing stopped.
“Everything okay?” Tom asked.
“Oh. Technology and I don’t have the best relationship. I swear, it sees me coming and it acts up just to irritate me. I always win in the end, though, don’t I, Mister Stewart?” She patted Glenn on the chest, and her rounded pink cheeks rose with an angelic smile.
Gemma’s heart softened at Layla's kind touch to her father. “Your last name…”
“Are you by chance related to the family that owns Alcott Manor?” Tom spoke over her.
Layla squeezed the IV bag several times. “I sure am. A direct descendent of the Alcott originals. Not that I ever saw any of Benjamin Alcott’s riches.” She winked and her eyes twinkled. "Though I wish I had. Workin' to pay the bills is about all I do these days. My husband’s business isn’t doing well. Anyway, I do have some ownership in the estate that was passed down to me from my grandparents. We're trying to restore it again—at least, our half of our family is. Which is good, because if we can get it fixed up and get some revenue from it—you know, tours and such—I would probably see some of that. That would really help.”
Gemma stepped away. She didn't want to tell Layla, but she wasn't sure how they were going to get the manor restored now.
Layla flicked a syringe with her finger three times and inserted it in the IV tube. “My girls like to look at the house from the beach, but we don't go inside. I just feel too uncomfortable about it. Too many people have died there. We need to burn some sage or something to, you know, get rid of all that negative energy.
“Now, my husband…” Layla rolled her eyes. "He just can't get enough of the history of that place.
“He goes over there any chance he gets. He's not for the restoration, though. We don't really talk about it. And he’s not an Alcott. He's a Cardill. Which is also an old Charleston family, but I kept my maiden name when we married. I just couldn't bear to part with it.”
“I’m part of the team that is restoring the property,” Tom said.
“Well.” Layla put her hand to her chest. “Are you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tom ran his hand through his hair, and it got puffier on the top. "It’s an important piece of our history, and I think it can be saved.”
“Is he—a part of your group?” Layla rested her hand on Glenn’s chest again.
“Yes, ma'am,” Tom said.
“He’s my father.”
Layla clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Shame. That house… I'm serious. Someone needs to clear the energy there.”
“He’s going to be okay?” Tom asked.
“Complete recoveries happen every day, even when you least expect it. I've seen it so many times.” Layla dropped the empty syringes into the red sharps box. “Now, once he recovers, he’s not going to go back to work for a while. I can tell you that. You'll have to do the house without him. After he leaves here, he’ll need to continue his recovery at home with in-home nursing care." She typed on her computer keyboard.
“I’m praying for him. Now I’ll pray for y’all, too. Your team might just be able to work miracles over there. We sure could use them.” Her voice was even and cheery, not fake or syrupy, and it rode smoothly on a paved road of hope and encouragement.
Gemma thought about what a special gift Layla had to embody such positivity in the midst of so much tragedy and suffering.
“We will.” She breathed deeply with the peace she knew she borrowed from Layla’s optimism.
“Thank you, Layla. We’ll take all the prayers you’ve got,” Tom said.
Layla smiled and finger waved while she backed out of the door with her cart full of equipment.
Tom took Glenn by the hand and squeezed it. “It’s just unbelievable. First your wife dies, and now this accident. This property is cursed.”
His tenderness brought tears to Gemma’s eyes. “We’re all going to be fine, Tom. Listen…” She bit her lip before she said it and paused, just to be certain—even though there wasn't really another choice for her, not given the sort of person she was, the sort of daughter she was.
Nerves poured over her stomach like a bucket of freshly melted ice, and she waited for the chill to pass. “Why don’t I move ahead with this project? You and I could work together. I'll need your help. Our family has a lot riding on it. Somebody has got to see this through for them.”
Tom nodded through his own tears, his expression struggling to remain stoic. He was worried. Very worried. Of course, so was she, but she wasn't going to admit it. Not out loud. And not to Tom.
“Okay, that’s good. I appreciate that.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You know, I was raised in the restoration business. I could hammer a nail into a piece of wood without splitting it before I could ride a bike.” She added a laugh to make Tom feel more comfortable, but her voice sounded shaky and scared. She cut the laugh short and cleared her throat.
“We’ve been friends for a lifetime.” Tom still held her father's hand.
“He’s going to be okay.” Gemma could tell that seeing her dad like this made Tom feel his own mortality too much. Her dad did look pale, lying there in that hospital gown. But she knew he was going to be a new man once he recovered from this. She could feel it in her gut. If there was one thing she’d inherited from her mother, it was a good gut.
She cleared her throat again and shifted into her entrepreneurial mode. It was time to accept responsibility for what had to be done.
“I need two things from you right now. First, I want you to double the number of workers and the hours that they’ve been working. We’re short on time, long on work, and I’m not missing this deadline.”
Tom sniffed and wiped a tear with his fingertips.
“That means you have one crew working six a.m. to six p.m., and the second crew works from six p.m. to six a.m. All exterior work gets done during the day. I don’t want to hear about anyone falling off the roof at three in the morning because they couldn’t see where they were going.
“Second—and I realize this sounds strange—I want you to find someone who can get rid of ghosts. A shaman, a medium, someone along that vein. Preferably someone who doesn’t have an affinity for the spotlight. Have them come out to the house and ask them to get rid of whoever is haunting the place. Okay?”
His eyes were glued to Glenn, though he nodded with a sigh. “Okay. We’ll get this damn house wrapped up on time.”
“Good,” she said. “And let Henry Alcott know that I'll be there tomorrow.”
With luck, they would pull this off. Yes. That's it. With luck.
The next day…
“Well, what are you going to do if you don’t work this job?” Gemma asked her dad while they pushed him on a gurney through the bustling hospital. She dodged harried visitors who were distracted with their own concerns. “Once you've recovered, you can't just sit around. You’re too young for that.”
“When I'm finally cut loose, I’m going to head home to rest for a while. I need some time.” He patted her hand, which she had placed on his shoulder.
“Are you sure you don't want to recover in Charleston? It’s warmer here, and the Alcott project would give you something to focus on.”
The automatic door opened, and Gemma walked alongside her father into the crisp, early spring air. Car horns blew in the distance.
She knew he needed more time to feel like himself again; car accidents were life changing events. She just didn’t want him so far away—he was all she had left. He’d been right when he told her they should just settle into one project, spend some time together, and enjoy life for a while. You never knew what tomorrow would bring.
“Where’s your bag?” She looked around.
“Janey took all my stuff.” He faced his daughter. “Gem, I’m sure you could do with a rest yourself.”
“I don’t do nothing all that well, Pop.” She scrunched her face to let her dad know her displeasure. “Besides, I’ll enjoy this. Maybe you could come down after we’ve met the judge’s deadline and help outline the next half of the project? I don’t want you to spend too much time by yourself.”
Her dad squeezed her hand. “I’ll have family around, and I won’t be alone. And I’ll be checking in on my precious Gem.”
She kissed him goodbye and waved to the transport until it left the last of her sight. The scent of orange blossoms carried on the breeze, and she felt a tug from somewhere deep within her gut. It was like the call from a jealous lover who wanted her back. She recognized the insistent command. It was the manor. She'd heard its signal twice before now.
The winds slipped around her, silky and gentle as a lover's tempting caress, and she stiffened her resolve.
The upheaval that rode on the appearance of calm.
Something or someone in the manor wanted her there; she could feel it. That someone was either the new beginning her father wanted for her or the darker spirit of Benjamin Alcott that she feared waited for her.
Chapter 6
Gemma wheeled her black suitcase down the rest of the tree-canopied dirt drive. Bits of dry dust from the path kicked up in the breeze, and she tasted the bland on her lips. Due to the delays of the accident and the arrival of the PGA golf tour in town, she'd lost her room at The Elliott House Bed and Breakfast. Every hotel in town was booked. She would have to stay at the manor for a couple of weeks, at least until the tour left and people cleared out.
One, two, three, four, five…
She mentally counted her steps toward Alcott Manor and tried to connect with it.
To her, houses were like people. They had a history, a personality, a public and a private side. They had positive attributes that needed emphasizing, negative aspects that needed minimizing, and even wounds that needed healing. When she restored a house, she had to address all those areas. That meant she would have to learn everything there was to know about Alcott Manor, inside and out, and she wasn't looking forward to it.
Six, seven, eight.
She focused her steps into more of a determined march toward the manor, and tiny bits of shell crunched beneath her black boots.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
The sun was setting behind her, and its rays cast a golden warmth on this majestic piece of architecture. What should have been a photo-perfect sight didn't strike Gemma that way. Properties undergoing restoration work as this one was typically carried the energy of new life, rebirth, and excitement. Alcott Manor didn’t. Troubled memories were lodged to the brim in the fibers of this home, and they detracted from its beauty.
The same white van she'd seen on the day she'd approached the manor with her father was parked out front. Private Eyes was imprinted on the side, just above a pair of binoculars and the scripted line Confidential Workplace Security.
“Good. They’re still following Pop’s instruction.”
She ran her hand along a pillar on the porch and sensed a dark, downward pull toward the ground. This house was deeply and fully anchored to the land. Not by good things, but by tragedy.
She'd seen it a long time ago on older restoration projects that she'd worked on with her mother. A house that had weathered a significant difficulty became defined by its energetic imprints. The house was stuck at that point in time, so to speak, such that any future events were flavored by the negative ones. Bad luck, some people said. Negative energetic imprint, Gemma said.
With Alcott Manor, her theory was that when Anna Alcott died on this property, her death set off a chain of events that cursed the land and would destroy people’s lives for over a hundred years.
It was likely that there were many deeply negative experiences that had rooted themselves here, and the effects of Anna's death upon the land might not be the only problem. No job was so simplistic as to have only one issue.
