Chapter Eight Ashley
EIGHT ASHLEY
Gram had left the house to Ashley and Malcolm, split fifty-fifty.
Gram’s attorney, Brian Reyes, read the will, the language cold and legal, as they sat in his neat office with dark wood paneling, the shelves stuffed full of heavy law books.
Malcolm was beside her, turning back and forth in his swivel chair like a little boy who couldn’t sit still.
Gram’s funeral had been two weeks ago, but even after burying her, seeing the coffin lowered, Ashley couldn’t believe it was real. Gram’s lawyer had offered to meet with them sooner, but Ashley had put it off; it seemed like a final step that she hadn’t been ready to face.
She and Malcolm had started packing Gram’s clothing into cardboard boxes destined for the church rummage sale.
Ashley had been hesitant to get rid of any of it: putting Gram’s shoes and dresses into a box meant she was really and truly gone, not coming back.
But the truth was, it was just too painful to have Gram’s things filling every hook and hanger, her empty shoes on the mat by the front door.
Was there anything more heartbreaking, really, than empty shoes molded to the feet of a loved one now gone?
Ashley struggled to concentrate as the lawyer explained that the house was paid off in full, taxes for the year taken care of.
There was also a savings account Ashley hadn’t known about and some stocks, amounting to nearly thirty thousand dollars.
That was to be divided equally between Ashley and Malcolm.
“Wow,” Mal said. He looked at Ashley. “You didn’t know about this?”
“No,” she admitted.
She found it odd. She and Gram had always lived so close to the bone.
Now here she was, being told she’d inherited the house, and some money she’d had no idea Gram had.
The room was too dark. Too stuffy. She felt like she couldn’t get enough air. The blinds on the window were closed and thin slivers of light illuminated specks of dust dancing in the air behind the desk. Ashley stared at them, squinting. They seemed to be pulling together almost, making a pattern.
“There’s more,” the lawyer said. “There’s also the matter of the property at 84 Main Street, Boone’s Ferry, Vermont.”
“What? What property?” Ashley’s head snapped up and something immediately caught her eye.
She watched a shape taking form in the glittering dust.
It was a person.
Ashley blinked.
There was the unmistakable outline of a person standing behind Brian Reyes.
“A four-bedroom residence with half an acre of land,” Brian continued, consulting the documents on his desk. “Tax appraisal is a little over three hundred thousand.” The words floated around her as her attention held on to the looming form.
“No way,” Malcolm said. “No freaking way. Gram owned a house in Boone’s Ferry?”
Perhaps if Ashley had looked through the papers in the trunk Gram had pulled from the storage area behind the wall in her bedroom, she might have learned this.
But she had shoved everything back into the trunk, slid the whole thing back into the storage space behind the wall, and slammed the door that night, after they’d come to take Gram’s body away.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to open it back up and look through whatever was in there, despite Malcolm’s pestering.
Logically, she knew the old trunk of papers hidden behind the wall wasn’t responsible for Gram’s death. But she wanted nothing more than to take it out on a boat to the deepest part of the ocean and drop it down where no one might ever find it.
Ashley continued to stare at the form behind the lawyer.
A woman.
Was Gram there, some ghost version, smiling at them?
Ashley shook her head, closed her eyes and opened them, sure it would be gone, but it wasn’t. It was becoming sharper. More focused.
“Yes,” the lawyer said, looking down at his papers. “Apparently it belonged to her parents, Thomas and Margaret Endicott, and she inherited it after her mother’s death. She’s left it to the two of you, again divided fifty-fifty.”
This wasn’t Gram standing behind Brian Reyes.
She swallowed the scream she felt building in her chest.
No. It couldn’t be.
She was done with all of this.
She closed her eyes, took in a jagged breath.
Malcolm exhaled a little hiss of air that came out strange and squeaky, like a release valve. “Ho-ly shit,” he said. “We own two houses now?”
Ashley shook her head in disbelief, looked helplessly at her brother. If she didn’t look at the vision in the sunlit dust, it would go away. It wasn’t real. She knew that.
The lawyer went on. “She’s been renting it out for years.
The tenant’s name is Josephine Banks. She pays rent of one dollar a month, and there is a contract stating that Ms. Banks is to live in the home either until the time of her death or until she chooses to move.
You’ll own it, but she’s to be your tenant.
It’s an unusual arrangement, but it is legally binding. Of course, you’re free to consult—”
“A dollar a month?” Malcolm said. “Seriously?”
The lawyer nodded slowly, raising his brows.
“Who the hell is Josephine Banks?” Mal demanded.
The lawyer straightened his stack of papers, shrugged his shoulders. “I’m afraid all I know is that she’s been your grandmother’s tenant for the past fifty years.”
Ash’s attention held on to the figure that still stood in the room, as clear and real and solid as Brian in his chair.
Its face was a pulpy mess, torn open, the scalp peeled back revealing the white bone of the skull.
The figure opened its mouth to speak, its jaw coming unhinged.
A bubble of blood came out of her mother’s mouth as she hissed out the word: “Listen.”
Ashley staggered to her feet, mumbled something about needing some air, and lurched out of the room.