Chapter Twelve
Poppy lifted her head from the rug when they all stood from their chairs.
Jillian smirked at her canine friend. “What a lazy dog you are, Poppy. Where were you when we were visited by the ghost?”
Poppy just cocked her head and looked at Jillian as if to say, I was right here where I belonged, hiding under the desk.
Jillian chuckled and teased her dog, “Scaredy cat.”
Poppy gave her a bark as if she was arguing that point.
“What a cool dog,” Dino commented. “It’s like she knew exactly what you said.”
Jillian looked over at him and explained, “She did know what I said. She’s helluva smart.
That’s why she hid when Claire came out.
” She knelt and patted Poppy’s head. “She protects me from real people though, so she isn’t afraid of that.
Ghosts on the other hand aren’t solid and she would probably prefer to avoid them. ”
“Well, I’m not a dog, but I feel the exact same way.” Dino smirked at Jillian.
Matthew looked back and forth at the two young people. “Maybe I’m too old to know for sure, but I think there’s some subliminal flirting going on here.” He chuckled.
Both Dino and Jillian snapped their gazes over to him.
Matthew stared at them and their startled expressions then he laughed. “Yeah, there’s a huge denial factor here. But someday, you will come out of that denial and see the truth.” He then gazed around at the kitchen as if he was dismissing that subject altogether.
Jillian scoffed at this, then she too, looked around the kitchen.
Matthew looked upward and spoke, “So Tilly my love, where is the cellar?”
A sudden sound startled them all. It was like something hitting the floor but not the floor where they stood.
Poppy headed over to a door on the far side of the kitchen and then she barked.
Jillian stared at her dog. Walking over to the door, she opened it and went inside.
“It’s a pantry,” she told the guys. Looking around, she couldn’t find any kind of door that led anywhere else.
She came back to the kitchen and began opening cupboards.
No sign of any kind of root cellar door anywhere.
She even went out on the back porch looking for another door that might lead them to the cellar. She found nothing.
The men watched her.
Dino actually followed her around as she searched.
Finally, she snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute. I have a blueprint drawing of the house from the realtor. Maybe the root cellar is on there.” She ran for the bedroom at the top of the stairs where the file was. She opened the door and rushed in.
Claire was there just casually lounging on the bed.
Jillian gasped and stopped in her tracks.
“You won’t find my sister, you know. I can’t let you,” Claire told her. Her eyes snapped with anger. She had one foot higher than the other and she was tapping her foot in the air.
Jillian raised her brow at her and though she couldn’t believe she was speaking to an actual ghost, she asked, “And why not?”
“Because if you find her then I will cease to exist,” Claire explained. “My time on earth, even in this form will be over and I’m not ready to depart just yet.”
“How so?” Jillian asked. “Like is there some rule about this?”
“Yes, in fact, there is. If you happen to find Tilly, the curse will be broken and time here will catch up with itself.”
“Then this place is caught up in some kind of curse,” Jillian said. “What happened?”
Claire shrugged. “I don’t really understand it myself but George said we’re caught in a time loop.’
“George? I heard this name before, who is he?”
“Never mind who he is. I’m here to tell you I can’t let you find Tilly!”
“What more do you have to do here anyway?” Jillian asked as she glanced around the room for the file. She finally spotted it on the table next to the window.
“I have to atone for my mistakes in life,” Claire told her.
“Then why don’t you help us find your sister?” Jillian asked. “Wouldn’t that atone for your mistakes?”
Claire smiled briefly. “No, it wouldn’t. That would only send me to hell. And that is something that I don’t want to see.”
“What do you mean?” Jillian asked.
“My sin was Cain’s sin in that we each killed our sibling.
Cain killed Able out of jealousy like I did.
I may not have done the deed myself but I am responsible for what happened to Tilly.
Our fates are linked to hell and while he doesn’t mind the fire and damnation, I would,” Claire explained.
“As long as Tilly’s body is lost, I’ll remain here on earth.
I must relive the same hell on earth that my sins created. ”
“Then it’s true,” Jillian muttered.
“What’s true?” Claire asked.
“Matthew told us that you would burn the Inn down again soon,” Jillian told her.
Claire nodded. “It’s that time. Every year on the day the Inn burned down it has to burn down again. It’s part of the punishment.”
“You have to relive the event that caused your death until the wrong is righted,” Jillian foretold.
Claire nodded. “I’m too afraid not to,” she admitted. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.
“What are you afraid of?” Jillian asked as she edged closer to the table where the plans were.
“I’m afraid of going to hell. Wouldn't you be?.And that is what’s waiting for me if the wrong is ever righted,” Claire admitted as she began to pace. “I would rather take the burning pain of what’s coming then go somewhere I don’t know. George says it’s the way it has to be.”
Jillian used the moment when Claire turned her back to shove the plans inside her shirt.
When Claire turned around to face her, Jillian told her, “I can’t help you with that.
Each of us must face the unknown when we depart this world.
I hope that you can find your salvation one day and that you can also find your courage to face what must be faced.
I don’t want to die here when the Inn burns down again. ”
Claire nodded sadly. “I would have chased you out somehow anyway. I caused the death of one innocent man. But I haven’t taken anyone else’s life but my own and Tilly’s.”
“And just how are you going to do that?”
Claire shrugged. “I don’t know. All I do know is that you can’t be here in three days, girl.”
Jillian thought for a moment then had to ask, “Do you know where Tilly’s body is?”
Claire stared at her for a moment and then shook her head.
“George said it didn’t matter where she was, only that she was still here.
” She walked to the door and turned to look at her, “By the way, George isn’t happy you are here and especially Matthew.
For your own sake as well as Matthew’s, please leave; before you can’t anymore.
” Claire then walked through the closed door and disappeared.
Jillian ran to the door, opened it and rushed out of the room. She knew they didn’t have much time.
Dino and Matthew were in the kitchen waiting for her.
“Where have you been? We were worried about you,” Dino told her.
“I ran into Claire,” Jillian explained as she opened the file and spread the blueprints out on the table.
Dino shook his head. “She’s quite the social ghost, isn’t she? So what did she want?” Dino quipped sarcastically as he began looking the blueprints over.
“She told me that she couldn’t allow us to find her sister. If we found Tilly then her time here would be over and she would have to leave. She’s more afraid of leaving here than she is of the burning hell she herself created when she burned the Inn to the ground. She relives that hell every year.”
Matthew shook his head. “Poor Claire, it didn’t have to be that way at all. If she’d only let us be happy, all of us could have lived a good life.”
“I can’t find the root cellar on this,” Dino said.
“What do you mean you can’t find it?” Jillian exclaimed. “It has to be there.”
“Well, it’s not.” Dino looked them over carefully. Then he threw them down on the table. “These are useless anyway. They were drawn up in 1992.”
“What?” Jillian whispered as she sat down in her chair. “How could that be? No one’s lived here since the 1980’s and the couple that tried to remodel the place didn’t come here until 2,000.”
Dino picked up the plans again and looked at them. “These plans were drawn by a George Walker.”
“How could that be?” Matthew asked.
“What do you mean?” Jillian asked.
“George Walker lived here when I came here in 1988,” Matthew told them.
“So why would it be so odd if he was the one that drew the plans for the house?” Dino asked him.
“George never said anything but I don’t think he knew how to read,” Matthew explained. “And there’s always the fact that he burned to death in 1989.”
Jillian shook her head. “Well, that would make it difficult to draw plans if you can’t read and you died like three years before the plans were drawn. Wouldn’t it?”
They all looked at each other in confusion.