Chapter 14
The Traeger Sawmill looked as forlorn, if not more so, as Traeger Hall.
Jennie stood on the creek bank, away from the yellow tape that still cordoned off the area where Allison’s body had been found.
Part of the tape had come loose and blew in the evening breeze like a yellow ribbon with black lettering.
But this was no celebration. Allison was dead, and she’d not just drowned in the creek.
She’d been murdered. The very idea sent chills through Jennie and grabbed at her emotions, clogging her throat with tears.
She couldn’t fathom the feelings that must be coursing through Zane at the discovery of his son’s mother’s remains.
One thing Jennie had learned long ago was that, in spite of family dynamics and the dysfunction of relationships, death still brought with it mountains and valleys to traverse. Grief had many faces.
And then there was the mansion. Jennie shifted her attention to Traeger Hall, which stood on the hilltop, a crypt of memories and stories.
Opening it would be like entering a time capsule, one that had waited more than a lifetime.
What had happened during the days leading up to its windows being bricked and mortared?
Who had been the last person to walk out of Traeger Hall, perhaps watching as the bricks were placed at the entrance as a permanent guard?
The notion that Allison’s death could be tied to Traeger Hall beyond just her body being found near the sawmill unsettled Jennie in ways she couldn’t quite define.
Maybe Zane had been right. Maybe it was better to open Traeger Hall and then summon the courage to face the monsters.
The unknown monsters that lurked around corners and in closets, as well as the monsters that were known all too well, those that taunted and prevented one from sleeping.
But keeping the Hall closed forever meant the monsters couldn’t escape, right?
Or if she demolished the Hall, would that destroy the monsters altogether without the need to face them?
“What happened to you, Allison?” Jennie heard herself whisper aloud.
There was no one there to hear her. Just the trickle of the creek as its significantly smaller presence tried to remind onlookers that it had once, until just a week ago, flowed wide and deep.
Deep enough to successfully hide Allison’s body for seven years.
Deep enough to support an entire sawmill at the end of the nineteenth century.
Jennie turned at the sound of tires crunching on the gravel near the dilapidated sawmill’s main building.
It was where she’d parked her own car when she came here to get away.
To be alone. To think. But it seemed that everywhere she went, someone came along to disturb her peace.
She stifled a sigh and debated climbing the hill toward Traeger Hall to get away, but then decided against it.
She’d be smart to post some No Trespassing signs.
An elderly woman exited the car. Her shoulders were curved from age, her spine bent, osteoporosis maybe.
Her gray hair was tightly permed and close to her head, and she wore a blue blouse that hung over darker blue polyester pants.
Jennie found her anxiety diminishing some at the sight of the elderly woman.
The woman had to be in her eighties. A retired individual was unintimidating, and Jennie could hardly be upset with her for trespassing.
Jennie wove her way around the cordoned-off area and up an embankment to the gravel drive.
The newcomer, looking very fragile, stood near the steeper part of the bank where part of the mill wheel still remained.
The area that had been disturbed by the authorities was still visible, though Allison’s body had since been taken away.
“Hello?” Jennie approached the elderly woman with caution so as not to frighten her.
The lady turned and gave a tiny smile, which was outlined with bright pink lipstick. “Oh, hello,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here.” The woman’s golden-brown eyes were pleading as though she didn’t want to leave.
“You’re welcome to stay,” Jennie said, offering her hand. The elderly were vulnerable. She knew what that felt like, and every part of her wanted to make this woman feel safe. “I’m Jennie Phillips.”
The woman took Jennie’s hand, and her skin was papery soft and cool. “Jennie.” She said the name as if trying it out. It sounded soothing coming from an elderly woman. “I’m Gladys Quincy.”
Quincy . . . Allison Quincy.
Jennie must not have hidden her surprise well enough.
The sadness in Gladys’s smile verified the relation before Gladys spoke.
“I’m Allison’s grandmother. I came here to see where she .
. . where she spent her last moments.” Tears glistened in Gladys’s eyes, and Jennie stood beside her as they both turned to look down at the creek bed, at the clay and silt and the rotting mill wheel.
“I’m so sorry,” Jennie breathed. It took everything in her not to put her arm around the delicate woman next to her. Gladys was barely five feet tall. A stiff wind would probably blow her away.
“You’re the one who found Allison, aren’t you?” Gladys asked, her voice ending on a higher pitch with a quivering vibrato that was customary with old age.
“I am.” Jennie shuddered again at the memory, not bothering to mention that actually it was a boy who’d found Allison.
Her son. Zane had said Milo had autism, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t impact the boy, who struggled with emotional disassociation.
If somehow Jennie could bear Milo’s distress, she would do so.
Regardless, she knew she would never forget the moment she saw Allison’s skeletal remains.
It was a real-life horror movie. She didn’t want to admit to Gladys that she’d already had nightmares because of it.
“Thank you for finding her.” Gladys patted Jennie’s arm.
“For eight years I have prayed for Allison. In my heart, I knew she had probably gone home to be with the Lord, yet I still hoped to see her at least one more time.” A tear trickled down her wrinkled cheek.
“A mother should never have to bury her child, but a grandmother? It feels as though death played a wicked trick. I’m ready to go be with my Lloyd—my husband who passed twenty-one years ago—and to see my sister and my parents. So many relatives and old friends.”
Gladys turned and looked up at Jennie. “When you’re my age, you’re ready to go.
But Allison had a baby boy, our Milo, and she had Zane.
He’s such a good man. He treated Allison well, and with her need for adventure, well, my granddaughter didn’t deserve him.
Zane was willing to do right by her and Milo, and I get where my son and daughter-in-law were coming from as Allison’s parents.
They wanted Allison to marry, to give that baby a solid family.
I don’t think it would’ve lasted, though, to be honest. Allison and Zane were so young; they didn’t share the kind of deep love like Lloyd and I shared.
You can just tell when you see a couple, you know? ”
She met Jennie’s eyes with frank honesty.
“You can tell if that lifelong love is there or not. Zane was a good man, while Allison was impetuous and full of spirit, but oh how I loved her.” Gladys clicked her tongue and drew a shuddering breath even as the tears flowed more easily.
“Nothing was ever the same after Allison disappeared.”
Jennie bit her bottom lip and followed Gladys’s line of vision over the creek and toward Traeger Hall. The bell tower affixed to the mansion’s side was an architectural anomaly that looked out of place.
Gladys continued, “Some folks have said they heard a distant bell ringing the night Allison went missing.”
Jennie nodded.
Gladys lifted a shaky hand and pointed toward it. “Now you tell me how that bell would ring if the place is all fortified like a castle and no one can get inside to ring it!”
Jennie waited, but Gladys didn’t continue. Dare she ask? Jennie didn’t want to upset Gladys any further, and yet . . . “Do you think Traeger Hall had something to do with Allison’s disappearance and . . . her death?”
Gladys swallowed, her thin lips making a fine line.
“The mansion itself? No. Its ghosts? I would bet my retirement on it.” She looked at Jennie, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses.
“Now, I’m not saying some spirit wafted down and killed Allison, but this place—” she clicked her tongue again—“since I was a little girl, this place has had an unhealthy aura around it. Like it was asleep, and someone needed to wake it up.”
“And you think Allison woke it up?” Jennie ventured.
Gladys drew back, shaking her head. “I don’t think she woke it up.
I think she disturbed whoever wanted to keep it asleep, that’s what I think.
‘Leave it alone’—that’s been the warning given about Traeger Hall for generations.
Leave it alone. How else do you explain a mansion being intact after a century and no one ever breaking in?
It’s because of fear. And superstition. Except for a few over the decades who got a bee in their bonnet, who tried to break through the bricks.
They either gave up or got caught. With every generation, there seems to be that one person who can’t let the mystery go—in spite of the warnings.
And that was my Allison. She thought she was some adventurer or .
. . what do they call those folks who dig up history? ”
“Archaeologists?” Jennie offered.
“Yes. That’s it. Allison wanted to know not only what happened to the man and his wife who were murdered there back in the 1800s but why the place had been sealed like a tomb.”