Chapter 14 #2
“Do you know why it was sealed after the Traeger murders?” Jennie knew the stories her mom had researched. The lost art, the possible safe with money in it. But hearing from an aged local might bring a new perspective.
Gladys waved her right hand limply in dismissal.
“Oh, there’s all the rumors. My father swore he’d heard that Leopold Traeger had a pile of Monets stored in the attic.
Some say the only treasure in there are copies of all the land deeds Traeger held because he owned the bank.
They’d be worthless now, of course. Others say the only things inside are old furniture, antique relics from back in the day.
No one would be foolish enough to seal up a house filled with treasure for no one to find.
What would be the point of that? Especially when Leopold’s will intended for Newton Creek to benefit from his profits long term.
He wanted to be remembered as the cornerstone of this town.
Too bad that failed. Newton Creek is but a whisper of what it once was.
The Great Depression made sure of that.”
Gladys had summarized the theories behind Traeger Hall, which coincided with what Jennie had read in her mother’s research.
Only her mom had included a few other artists besides Monet.
Which, if true, begged the question of how a lumber baron like Leopold Traeger of Wisconsin would have had enough connections to the art world to bring a haul of valuable art to Newton Creek.
“Do you . . . ?”
Jennie hesitated. She didn’t want to push her luck by asking the poor, grieving grandmother too many questions.
Yet there were so many repercussions to consider.
Not just for Zane and Milo, but now with the threat to his sister, Hannah.
But Allison Quincy had her own family. She had relatives.
Now that she’d been discovered at the sawmill, they might have an opinion about opening the Hall.
“Do you think it would be a bad idea if the Hall was opened?”
Gladys shook her head, leveling her sight on Traeger Hall.
“I think it would be better if the place didn’t exist anymore.
Or is the house just the shell of something much deeper?
” Her question speared Jennie, who swallowed hard.
“Maybe,” Gladys added, “Traeger Hall is not the reason for all the darkness around Newton Creek.”
“What is the reason then?” Jennie asked, genuinely curious.
Gladys looped her thin arm around Jennie’s, hugging it tight as if pretending for a moment that Jennie was Allison back from the grave.
“People, Jennie Phillips. People are the ones who create the darkness. Traeger Hall is just the place where they lock it up so it can’t get out.”
Everything bad happened at night. That was when monsters woke up, when poltergeists came out to exact revenge, when memories posed as nightmares and replayed without asking “Are you finished watching?” like a polite streaming service would.
At least during the day, a person could distract one’s mind and manipulate life to follow a path that steered clear of the frightening.
Jennie hadn’t left the Traeger property after Gladys pulled away in her car, going at least twenty miles under the speed limit and barely able to see over the steering wheel.
Instead, she’d been lured up the hill to Traeger Hall, as if an invisible force were pulling her there.
With dusk fast approaching, it went against her comfort and security to face Traeger Hall in the dark.
Whispers drifted in and out of the trees that dotted the overgrown front lawn.
Whispers of the past, the voices of those who had died here.
Jennie could almost hear them audibly. The words muttered were unintelligible but still heard.
She craned her neck to look up the two stories of the mansion made of brick.
Every window was merely an outline, multicolored bricks filling in the space where panes of glass used to be.
The front door that had once stood majestically was blocked in, and the stone stairs that led up to it were filthy from years of disuse and neglect.
Jennie meandered to the right of the building and paused in front of the bell tower.
It reminded her of a squat version of Rapunzel’s Tower from the popular fairy tale.
It rose one story above the mansion, built of matching brick, with the large copper bell, its patina green from oxidation, hanging quiet and still.
Who in their right mind built a bell tower attached to their home?
Leopold Traeger, that’s who.
Jennie lowered herself to the dying autumn grass, crossing her legs like she did years ago in school.
Darkness was thoroughly setting in now, and part of her was anxious to return to her car and drive back to Newton Creek and her rental house for a cup of decaf coffee.
But something held her here. Something that linked her to this place—to its history—though she couldn’t identify what it was.
Was it the lure of art and treasure?
Did it have to do with fulfilling her mom’s dream of exhuming the Hall’s secrets?
Was it because this place was connected to her father and her still unresolved issues concerning him?
She wanted to move on. She ached to move on.
Jennie wanted God to make her messy beautiful.
To infuse life with hope and peace. There were scriptural promises that said He would.
Then there was the reality of life as well as the confirmation from the culture around her that she was perhaps misguided and naive for believing that God was somehow good.
Jennie plucked a blade of grass and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger.
She stared up at Traeger Hall. “You were a house of horrors, weren’t you?
” She thought of the mansion’s history, the murders, and the ensuing mystery, the whodunit speculation .
. . Jennie could feel the horror in the earth beneath her.
Bad things had happened here. Things no one spoke of, and now no one remembered.
Traeger Hall was more than just a house that had witnessed murder. It was a house of monsters. So how could anything good come from opening it?