Chapter 8 #3
“The tour. The house is a museum now. It’s a perfect example of a farming mansion of the time. I know the van Tassels get all the fame because of the famous book, but the Vinkes did the real work around here growing the crops and raising sheep and cattle. It’s really interesting stuff.”
“Wow.” Esmie picked up the brochure and flipped it open, glancing over the text and pictures. It did look interesting, and she did need to get on the property. It was a golden opportunity. “I guess I know where I’m going next, huh?”
She checked the price and found it a perfectly reasonable fifteen dollars.
She was a little disheartened that Kate said the Vinkes didn’t have anything to do with the Headless Horseman, but she thought Aaron’s instinct would prove true.
The horse would surely have headed for the nearest food, drink, and shelter, and that was, according to the plat map, the Vinke estate.
“I’m so glad you came in this morning, Tilda.”
Smiling, she looked up from the brochure and, on impulse, reached across the desk for a shake. “Miss Kate, I am, too. Thanks so much for your help.”
The good lady shook, smiled, and nodded.
Esmie took back her hand, waved the brochure, and left the library feeling like she had a direction.
She’d intended to get the information and wait for midnight to meet up with the guys, but so much better if she could just go to the estate and find the head herself, then meet them with it in hand. Wouldn’t that be a trip?
Grinning, she pulled up the Uber app, changed to her current location, then requested a ride to the Vinke estate and waited.
The ride would cost more than the tour would, which ground her gears, but she had little choice.
Her feet wouldn’t put up with much more walking around today.
She had to save them for the lone walk back into the woods by the church tonight. She had to be alone for that part.
When her Uber arrived, it was driven by a lovely girl of color with natural hair, a large wad of neon green chewing gum, and a beautiful necklace with an ivory crescent moon pendant.
“The Vinke estate, huh? Tourist?”
“That obvious?” Esmie asked as she climbed into the back of the little Honda.
“I know the type. Around here, you’re either a Revolutionary War buff or a Headless Horseman buff. You either want to see the Vinke estate, for the history, or the old covered bridge, ‘for the history’,” she finished, making air quotes with her fingers.
Grinning, Esmie put on her seatbelt and asked, “So which are you?”
“Local.” The girl—Tatiana, if the name from the app could be trusted—glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. “Looks like you’ve had some trouble. You okay?”
“This?” She gestured at her face and huffed. “Tripped into some gravel. It hurt worse yesterday. It’s a lot better today.”
“Uh-huh. Honey, if I know one thing, it’s that no man is worth the aggravation.”
She blinked. “Huh?”
“Leave him, sweetheart. He ain’t worth it.”
Light dawned. “Oh! Oh, no, there’s no—I’m single. Painfully so, actually.” That was nothing but the truth. Her last boyfriend… well. Joyfully in the past. “I literally fell in the gravel. Face first. That’s what I get for running. I should know better.”
Tatiana looked at her, eyes narrow, then seemed to approve of what she saw. “Well, as long as you’re alright. If you need any help, you just let me know.”
“Thank you. I promise I’m safe.”
With three Headless Horsemen who kidnapped me to the Between and with whom I’m working to find the real Headless Horseman’s head to free us all, she thought but didn’t say, for obvious reasons. But she grinned a little and looked away from the serious, probing eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“So, just here for tourist season?”
She shook herself. “Yes.” It was sort of true. “I thought I’d do a little sightseeing while I was on the East Coast.” Again, sort of true.
“It’s definitely the time of year for it.” She turned into a long driveway with a large sign declaring this the Vinke Estate, Established 1758. “Here we are. The tour is really good here. Way better than the haunted walking tour they do down by the old covered bridge. There are actual facts here.”
Esmie grinned. “You may be a local, but you’re also a history buff.”
Tatiana smirked. “Guilty. Get outta here.”
“I’m out, I’m out.”
She crawled out of the little car and waved goodbye as it sped back down the drive, then turned and looked up at the tall, straight house with its tall, straight pillars.
It was definitely colonial style, and very well preserved.
She looked around the expansive yard, toward what surely must be a decorative barn, and off into the crops that marched into the distance.
Was this still a working farm, or were the crops for show?
She started toward the front of the house where a few customers were milling about, then saw the little farmer’s market off to the left of the house. Working farm, then. Nice. Aaron would have put his MBA to good use on a place like this.
Nodding, she headed for the little knot of customers.
A sign on the red front door indicated the tours ran every hour starting at 10:00 AM with the last one starting at 7:00 PM.
An hour long tour? What on earth could they talk about for an hour?
Surely they didn’t drag people out into the fields, did they?
She pulled out her phone. It was almost two o’clock already. Jesus, the day was getting away from her. She’d have to get a move on, but she couldn’t until after the tour. If the tour even told her anything. What could it possibly tell her about the Hessian’s horse?
Maybe she was wasting her time. But something, some niggle in the back of her mind, told her this was where she was supposed to be. So, she stood with the rest of the people, paid for her ticket, and then got in line when the lady in period-appropriate clothing gestured for their attention.
“Good day, ladies and gentlemen.” The costumed woman smiled and clasped her hands before her beautiful dress.
“I am Merel Vinke, daughter of Gerrit Vinke, who owns all the land from the van Tassel estate to the south to the river in the hills up north, from the battlefield east of town to the old mill to the west. My father was the proud provider of most of the corn, wheat, and fresh vegetables to this town for over fifty years, my brother after him, and my nephews and grand nephews after them.” She gestured broadly around the porch.
“This land is still owned by my ancestors to this day.”
That was interesting. Esmie wondered if they still carried the name Vinke, or if it had, at some point, passed along a matriarchal line and was thus changed to some other male line’s name.
“Today, we will take a tour of the house, the barn, and the family cemetery plot, after which you’ll have free rein of the farmer’s market and the gift shop.
I hope you’ll have fun and learn a lot about the history of my family and this town.
Now, if you’ll please remember, this is a museum.
Most of the furnishings are antiques, some of which have been in the home for hundreds of years.
Please don’t touch anything or lean against anything. Alright?”
A murmur of okays and alrights agreed with this entreaty.
“Wonderful. Now, if you’ll all follow me….”
Esmie followed and listened as they went through the entryway, the kitchens, the dining room, the cellar, even the pantry.
She enjoyed the lovely refurbished wallpaper and the original harpsichord in the drawing room, the gorgeous velvet settee in the salon, and the antique writing desk in the study.
She held on through all the rooms upstairs, through talk of morning ablutions in chamber pots, giving birth in the same beds being slept in, and the various odd things mattresses could be stuffed with.
She even found interest in the attic levels where the servants’ rooms hid, though it was stuffy and overwarm up there, and she longed for the lower floors again, fanning herself with the brochure she still held from the library.
She even paid close attention in the barn, despite being completely bored with talk of farm implements and horse tack and hay and vermin.
She wished Jerome was here. His sense of humor would be just the thing to liven up the boringly agrarian part of the tour.
It wasn’t until they were up in the loft that she heard something which made her ears perk up.
“This is, of course, where I spent all of my time journaling about my favorite horse, Blackie. It was obviously a soldier’s horse that was injured in the big battle,” the faux Merel Vinke said mournfully, “but no one ever came for him, so I patched him up, tamed him, as he was quite wild, and kept him for the rest of his days. I was the only one who could ever ride him. Even my father couldn’t. ”
It couldn’t be. Like awakening from a dream, she raised her hand.
“I’m sorry—could you repeat that?”
“Of course, my dear. Even my father couldn’t ride my favorite horse. He was quite feisty.”
“Not that part.” She tried not to sound too eager, but her heartbeat sounded like a bass drum in her ears and her heart felt like it was clogging her throat. “Sorry, but the bit about the battle.”
“Ah,” the guide said, nodding. “Well, the horse limped in from the east, riddled with holes. I knew at once he was one of the soldier’s horses, so I took the reins and began treating the wounds, assuming the soldier would come for him in time.
But no one ever came. His poor soldier must have fallen in battle.
” She shrugged. “Since I was the only one who could ride him, my father let me keep him. He was my loyal steed all his days.”
Esmie nodded, shifting from foot to foot. “Right, right. That’s fascinating stuff. Where… uh… where did you get that information? Not to break character or anything,” she hurried to say.