Chapter 3
Three weeks later
Thora let her father have the rug he wanted. She graciously contacted all the former partial owners of the property, asking
if anyone wanted anything from the house. She was more than willing to part with plenty of stuff, namely the fucking bells
in the Bell Room and the taxidermy in the Bird Room.
The Junk Room was ostensibly the primary bedroom of the house, but it served as the Williamson family storage unit instead.
Much of the so-called junk was from Woodhill House, when Thora’s grandfather cleared out its furnishings during the remodel
he began and never finished, passing away less than a year after his brother George. Filled floor to ceiling with furniture,
antiques, and no small amount of garbage, the Junk Room made finding anything difficult. Not that anyone other than her mother
had asked her to find anything.
She set her suitcase in the Bird Room, then locked eyes with the barn owl on the mantel. “Hi, Barney,” she said to the stuffed raptor. Her little brother, Brett, in his rather finite creativity, had named the owl back when he and the boy cousins slept in this room.
Better the Bird Room than the Bell Room. There, the mantel over the fireplace, as well as the shelves on the walls, were all
lined with bells. Big old school bells that would have called children in from recess. Dainty little dinner bells that would
have alerted fancy people that their chow was ready. A set of handbells tuned to play melodies. And more. Who was the Williamson
collector of bells? She didn’t know. But of course as kids, she and her brother believed that a ghost known as the Bell Phantom
haunted the room. If you ever heard one of the bells, it meant you were about to die. An older cousin told them this tale
at one family Thanksgiving, and later on it was their job to pass it on to Mack and her younger brother, Mikey.
Adult Thora couldn’t shake that old ghost story. Nor did she want to. These stories made staying at Juniper fun, and deeply
informed the writing she planned to do. Plus, ghost stories always evince greater social anxieties around death. First came
the original sin: the genocide of the local Indigenous people. Later, the Adirondacks became a popular place for tuberculosis
patients to wither away. At that same time, the area’s own Typhoid John took down visitors fever by fever. Death was always
nearby at Juniper. Those bells were always ringing for someone.
These stories, though mired in deep tragedy and injustice, inspired her in a macabre and whimsical way.
It was perhaps the selfish reason why she was so hell-bent on keeping Juniper in the family.
Given the chance to catch her breath, she was ready to finally devote herself to the novel that had taken up residence in her imagination years ago.
It would be the first in a series. An adventure story for kids, set at a spooky camp in the woods modeled on Juniper.
Fictionalizing the best parts of her childhood with even more ghosts and monsters than she and her cousins had ever dreamed
of would be an ideal job. She could make her name. Not in the same realm as Bryony Brooks, but in the realm of her childhood
icons Bruce Coville, Lois Duncan, R.L. Stine, and Mary Downing Hahn. And she finally had the time to set pen to paper.
And what a time to do it: early October, with trees heading into peak color. Woodhill’s population temporarily swelled with
leaf peepers, as it did in the summer with hikers and paddlers. Thora had about a month to enjoy Juniper before the cold would
get to her, and then she’d likely retreat to Mack’s house for the harshest months. She knew she could theoretically stay at
Juniper for the winter if she confined herself to the Great Room and the kitchen, with the “improvements” Lee had made without
the family’s permission. But Thora wanted that shit gone. Surely there was a way to winterize the house that didn’t make it
look generic. A project for next summer, perhaps.
She did a walk-through of the rest of the house. The ever-present slight campfire scent of the building was an instant comfort.
This was her sanctuary now.
There was so much she would eventually need to do.
Houses going to auction could not be inspected, so she wasn’t sure of the magnitude of Juniper’s problems. But the tin roof was sound, the plumbing and electrical were functional.
The broken stairs were repaired. She wasn’t happy about Lee’s work on the house, but she had faith that he took care of any major structural issues.
He was an asshole, but he didn’t mess around with safety like that.
She climbed the stairs to the attic. Taking up the full footprint of the house, the space was filled with rows of institutional-looking
beds, originally for cooks, maids, and other people in servitude to the Williamsons. In her time, no one ever wanted to sleep
up here—always too hot in the summer—but they sometimes dragged the mattresses downstairs to accommodate everyone staying
on site. After the flying squirrel incident, she suspected there were more creatures who made their homes in the old mattress
ticking.
“You’re in charge for now, squirrels,” she said aloud. “But I will come for you eventually. Any loud parties and I’m calling
the cops.”
The squirrels declined to reply.
“Just kidding, I won’t call the cops. But I can trap you and release you near two dogs who will make your lives miserable,
so don’t get too comfortable.”
She still hadn’t been in the basement, which at one point was a garage; she’d leave that job to a real inspector. Just looking
at the basement door gave her the willies.
That ornate brass knob on the basement door, molded with the face of the mythical Green Man, peered at her placidly. As a
kid, none of them knew who the Green Man was. His visage became, naturally, the face of the ghost who haunted the basement.
For a house that had only ever been held by one family, they sure did invent a lot of ghosts for it.
When the time came to deal with the basement, she’d leave it to the experts.
Nothing important was down there. Her rumbling stomach was much more urgent.
She set to unpacking her groceries in the kitchen.
Before she put everything in the fridge, she gave it a thorough scrub.
The same with the cupboards. Inside she found a dusty set of dishware.
As she washed the dishes, she thought of the meals she’d eaten during her summer stays. Spaghetti with sauce out of the jar.
Grilled cheese sandwiches. It was less than ten years ago, but the nostalgia was strong. One summer, Cody was even there,
back when she loved that golden young man. Lee had been there, too. Somehow, when she searched her memories, Lee Halliday
was always fucking there. He was the price of admission for tearing Cody away from his summer studies. Cody and Lee held their
summer camping trips sacrosanct, and Thora had offered them Juniper. She looked back at that time with a mixture of fondness
and regret. She had been so carefree.
And she should be now. She was still young, free as a bird, and in the position to build a radically different future than
she had once envisioned for herself.
Thora prepared a big salad. When she realized she had made enough for two people, she put half back in the fridge before dressing
it. It was honestly difficult to remember George wasn’t here. His absence was somehow palpable enough that she wanted to feed
it.
She walked through the Great Room and out to the long covered porch, which was big enough for three picnic tables and a row
of Adirondack chairs. It was already chilly in the fading light, and she wore a knit hat and sweater. As she ate her dinner,
she tried to slow her spinning mind.
No distractions for the next five days. She could get up to cousin shenanigans over the weekend.
Her only connection to the outside world right now was a little satellite gizmo of George’s, the kind backcountry hikers used to alert their loved ones to their location.
She vowed to send Mack proof of life every day on that device, but otherwise, she needed to be left alone.
“I’ve always told everyone you could make conversation with a wall,” Mack said, “and now that’s literally your plan?”
Sure, she’d make conversations with the walls, and the squirrels, and the trees creeping ever upward toward the sky. Something
good was sure to come of it.
Thora had turned on the strings of Christmas lights that hung in swags between every porch post. Someone always said they
needed to replace them with something more permanent. Yet the sterile beam of a halogen floodlight could never replace the
warm and festive glow of the year-round lights.
As it got darker, Thora basked in that glow. She read something about how a state of boredom invited true creativity. She
was letting her brain empty out, letting her tongue fall silent, and letting the ideas flow.
Before she could reach that flow state, the crunch of tires on the driveway interrupted her peace. Soon after came the headlights,
peering through the trees as the car meandered toward the house.
It must be Mack, Thora thought, worried she was lonely. Thora would tell her that she was fine and send her home.
But the car pulling up to the house was not Mack’s. It was George’s old truck, a bulbous vehicle out of a black and white
television show.
Thora’s chest tightened. It must be George. Could he have faked his own death? Did he think three years of absence would make
the rest of the Williamson clan forget him?
She descended the stairs to meet the truck.
The headlights cut out, and she could see the lone figure in the driver’s seat. It was too dark to make out the face. Tears began streaming down her face, at the thought that somehow George hadn’t died alone at Juniper. That extra food in the fridge could be his after all.
When the figure stepped out from the truck, the built-up tension in her came out as a scream.
It wasn’t Uncle George at all. It was Lee Fucking Halliday.