13. 1960
“Who is that young man in the blue shirt, and why does he keep staring at us?”
“What? Who? Where?” Catherine stopped in the middle of the grocery store with her basket hanging over one arm, her heart suddenly feeling like a bird taking off in the middle of a windstorm. She tried to act calm, but she was pretty sure her mother could tell that she was a wreck. “What I mean is, which young man are you talking about?”
“I think he’s trying to get your attention. He waved.”
Catherine bit down on her bottom lip as she glanced across the aisle to find Jasper Holmes on the other side—not staring or waving, as her mother suggested, but looking as though he’d like to do a little of both. He also looked like a man who’d spent the whole day chopping down trees in the forest.
“He’s a patron from the library,” Catherine said. “I’ve helped him choose a couple of books.”
“That man?” Her mom tsked and returned her attention to the shelf of tinned fruit. “He doesn’t look as though he’s read a book a day in his life. You must be mistaken.”
“Mom, don’t be a snob.”
Her mom plucked a can of pears and set it in Catherine’s basket. “It’s not a good idea to encourage his type, love. Let Mrs. Peters direct his course of reading. She’ll know just how to depress his pretentions.”
Catherine tried to step in front of her mom, but she was too late. Jasper either heard the words or was able to read enough of her mom’s lips and expression to get the gist. With a grimace, he turned away.
“Now look what you did,” Catherine hissed. “You hurt his feelings.”
“Don’t be silly. Men like that don’t have feelings. They have urges.”
Catherine bit back a sigh as her mom continued grabbing groceries and loading the basket down. Every instinct told her to run after Jasper as he made his purchase and headed out the door, but she knew that would only make things worse. Jasper Holmes, for all his size, was more like a skittish deer than the bull in a china shop he appeared to be.
The library book currently jumping along in her pocket was all the proof she needed of that. It was her turn to leave a message in the margins, but she wasn’t sure how far she was willing to push him.
That she wanted to push him was clear. That he was willing to be pushed was becoming equally evident. But Catherine had never been good at knowing when to stop. She was more like a bull in a china shop than the skittish deer she appeared to be.
In fact, the messages from The Haunting of Hill House were so well known to her at this point that she had them memorized.
I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue front door with, perfectly, a white cat on the step. No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses, and just to make sure I would plant oleanders by the road.
This is me in about ten years. All I want is a house, acat, some oleander, and to be left alone. (Without the murder-y ghost bits that come later, obviously.)
Nice try. You’ll be happily married with six or seven kids by then.
Why, J. Is that a proposal??
No.
That was fast. You sound awfully sure about it.
Because I am.
If marriage is out of the question, does that mean we’re running away like Romeo and Juliet instead? I can tell you right now, I’m no Hemingway heroine. I’m not dying at the end of the book for the sake of a good redemption arc.
We’re not doing anything. It would be a crime for you to throw yourself away like that. You can do a lot better than me.
How much better? No one ever gave me a guidebook. Can he at least be a shy, well-read logger? I’m partial to those.
No. Can we please go back to discussing the book now?
And that was where she was stuck. The thing she wanted to say—that throwing herself away was her decision and her decision alone—got jammed every time she picked up her pen. And the thing she should say—that none of it mattered because every town she’d ever lived in came with a two-year expiration date—only made her feel depressed.
“By the way, how did your date with that nice William McBride go the other night?” her mom asked in a bright, obvious voice as they continued walking down the aisle. It might have been Catherine’s imagination, but she could almost swear the scent of pine needles and leather lingered in the air where Jasper had been standing only moments before.
William McBride hadn’t smelled like pine needles and leather. He’d smelled like Aqua Velva and desperation.
“It was fine. He tried feeling me up at the drive-in.”
“Catherine Winifred Martin!”
“What? I didn’t say I let him. Just that he tried. His sort always does.”
Her mom gave up on the pretense of grocery shopping and lowered her voice to a sharp hiss. “This is neither the time nor the place for that kind of discussion, young lady.” Then, with a reluctant smile, she said, “And don’t think you shock me with your brassy tongue. I was young, too, once upon a time. I know the sort you’re talking about.”
Catherine felt an answering smile of her own take shape. One of her favorite things about her mother was how primly un-prim she was under the surface, even if she refused to admit it. “Mom! Are you trying to tell me that Dad took premarital liberties with you?”
“Of course not. Your father is and always has been a perfect gentleman. But I know how young men like William McBride can be.” She paused before adding, “That young man who just left the grocery store, too. This is a small town, Catherine. People talk, and your father listens. Be very careful to ensure you control the dialogue.”
It was advice like this that always made Catherine want to throw off the shackles of her upbringing and force her mother to step out into the sunlight with her. She didn’t want to control the dialogue. She didn’t want to eat grapefruits for breakfast and date men like William McBride. She wanted to live her life the way her father did.
That was the quiet part that no one in their family said out loud—how much richer his life was than theirs, how much fuller. Every day of his life, her father woke up knowing that his orders would be carried out to the letter. At work, because of his rank. At home, because that was simply how things were done. Yes, her mother found ways around it in tiny acts of rebellion, things like a shade of lipstick that was a little too red or the pack of cigarettes hidden behind a yellow box of SOS pads under the sink, but how was that living? How was that fair?
Catherine was allowed to have a job for the sole reason that being a librarian was one of the few feminine professions her father approved of. He didn’t know that Catherine used her position to check out every new horror book that crossed her path, or that she spent her breaks with her head bent over the gory, macabre tales of H. P. Lovecraft and Daphne Du Maurier. He had no idea about the copy of a brand-new book called Psycho in her bag, or how she planned to stay up late reading it.
And he definitely didn’t know that she was carrying on a flirtation with a local lumberjack in the margins of yet another horror novel—this one rife with ghosts and horrible visions and strange writings on the wall.
Catherine looked at her mom through suddenly clear eyes. She was such a beautiful, vibrant, extraordinary woman—or rather, she could have been, if she didn’t have to hide her beautifully crooked smile behind her hand.
“Don’t look at me like that, Catherine,” her mother said. “I don’t make society’s rules. I only follow them.”
Even that—the sharp, intelligent mind that could interpret every twitch of Catherine’s stare—was extraordinary. And it was being used to, what? Get mustard stains out of cloth napkins? Continue in a relentless pursuit of the perfect little black dress?
“Do you think you can finish the shopping without me?” Catherine suddenly asked, shoving the basket into her mother’s hands.
Her mom accepted the basket, but not without another of those shrewd looks. “Why?” she asked sharply. “Are you going after that young man?”
Catherine drove her hand into her pocket and fingered the familiar edges of The Haunting of Hill House. The library copy had been fairly new when they’d gotten their hands on it, but their repeated correspondence meant that the pages were already starting to show signs of wear. They were careful not to leave anything incriminating behind, but if someone ever found these books in the library, that person would have one heck of a story to unravel.
“Yes, actually. I am. His name is Jasper Holmes, and he’s my friend.”
“Catherine…” her mother warned, her lips tightly pursed.
“I know. Control the narrative. Don’t let Dad find out.” Hide who I am for the sake of a man who’s never once tried to see me. She got up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss onto her mom’s talcum-scented cheek. “It’s all right, Mom. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to sneak around to meet up with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“Catherine!”
She waggled her fingers in a playful farewell and dashed out the door before her mom could say more. There was a good chance she’d be forced to endure a womanly heart-to-heart later, followed by a list of even more ways to lead a double life of espionage under her own roof, but that was a small price to pay for freedom.
Especially since she knew exactly which direction Jasper had gone.
“There’s no use looking. I haven’t put it back yet.”
Catherine watched with satisfaction as Jasper jumped, grunted, and did his best to tamp down his reaction to finding her standing on the other side of the library shelf. She was a good six inches shorter than him, so she had to stand on tiptoe to peek at eye level, but she didn’t mind. He looked so scared to see her—and so happy—that she had to choke back her giggle. Never had a man shown such an endearing conflict of emotions whenever she entered his sphere. He liked her, but he didn’t want to like her—and even better, he didn’t know how to stop himself from either reaction.
Catherine had never known that kind of power before.
“But you always put it back in the mornings,” he accused as his hand dropped from the shelf. Like her, he spoke in the hushed whisper that both the library setting and Mrs. Peters required. He must have noticed her struggling to hide her smile, because he narrowed his eyes. “You’re supposed to be at the grocery store.”
“I had to leave. I find broccoli to be tedious.”
“Of course it’s tedious. All Cruciferae are tedious. They take up too much space and attract more pests than any other vegetable. Most amateur gardeners don’t find them worth the effort.”
At this terse recitation of gardening facts—the most words he’d ever said to her out loud—Catherine’s grin only widened. “You seem to have awfully strong feelings about broccoli.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I have strong feelings about everything.” He stuck out his hand. “Give me the book. It’s my turn.”
Even though he was standing on the other side of the library bookshelf and the copy of The Haunting of Hill House was tucked safely in her pocket, she jumped back. “Not yet. I’m not done talking about vegetables. I’d like to know what else you find offensive about them.”
He scowled. “I don’t find all of them offensive. Just that particular type.”
“The kind that takes up too much space?”
“Yes.”
“The kind that demands regular attention?”
“Exactly.”
“The kind that causes nothing but bitterness and distaste any time you put them in your mouth?”
That one gave him a moment’s pause. It also caused his gaze to fall quickly to her lips before shooting back up to her eyes again. “I never said that.”
He didn’t have to. He’d revealed more in that brief flicker than in the entire past three months of literary correspondence. As much as Catherine enjoyed the slow pace of their communication, of the anticipation and excitement every time she saw that book on the shelf, the danger in knowing that anyone might stumble upon the copy and burst the iridescent bubble in which the pair of them were encased, she was too much a living, breathing woman to stay in that bubble forever.
A careful, quiet courtship was all well and good when you were reading about it in the pages of a book. She liked an epistolary novel just as much as the next girl—she’d thrilled over every page of Dorothy Sayers’s The Documents in the Case and had even managed to make it all the way through Anne of Windy Poplars—but there were times when a scribbled note wasn’t going to cut it.
This was one of those times.
“I haven’t had a chance to write a response yet,” she said with a knowing pat at her pocket. “But if you come with me, I’ll tell you what I was planning to put down.”
Jasper couldn’t have looked more alarmed if she’d brained him over the head with the entire shelf of Shirley Jackson books.
“Come with you where?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
She had to think fast. For one thing, she knew that she only had about thirty more seconds before Jasper made a break for it. It didn’t seem to matter that he was a tall strapping bear of a man with hands that looked as though they could crush baseballs, or that despite his rough exterior, he was incredibly intelligent with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of plants and literature. Nor did it seem to occur to him that he had Catherine practically eating out of the palm of his hand. She knew that one wrong move—or one loud sound—and he’d dash back out into the woods, never to be seen again.
For another thing, she could hear the heavy footsteps and even heavier breathing of Mrs. Peters heading their way. That woman could sense a man lingering in the aisles faster than a bat echolocating its way to dinner.
“This way.” She tilted her head toward the back of the library, where the stairs down to the basement stood. There wasn’t much down there but an unused coal scuttle and a big empty room they used to store old books, but like Jasper Holmes, that was a large part of its charm.
It was quiet. Tempting. And wholly underappreciated by the world at large.
He looked as though he wanted to argue, but he was even more terrified of Mrs. Peters than he was of Catherine. With a duck of his head, he followed her to the end of the bookshelf.
That was when Catherine made her move. Dashing out a hand, she wound her fingers through his, locking his palm in place. As expected, his hand felt rough against hers, his calluses formed through hard work and determination. Her own palms were silky smooth and slightly infantile, thanks in large part to the Vaseline that her mom insisted she slather all over her hands before shoving them inside a pair of cotton gloves before she went to bed every night.
Jasper must have felt the difference as keenly as she did because his whole hand flexed and tried to pull away.
“No, don’t,” she whispered as she began leading him toward the basement door. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
Jasper found nothing strange in this remark. He only ducked his head and followed her, his eyes watching for any sign of Mrs. Peters. The two of them fumbled and bumped as they made their way down the dark hallway and the even darker stairs, but no one came after them.
There were several light bulbs with dangling strings that Catherine could have pulled, but she didn’t want to risk it. Instead, she kicked aside a box of shiny new plumbing parts and wrapped her arms around Jasper’s neck. And then she read the one thing that was better than a new book: the soft, scared, hungry look in Jasper’s eyes.
So she kissed him.
As an attractive young woman whose adolescence had been spent around military youths who went weeks at a time without seeing any other females, Catherine was no stranger to kisses stolen in the darkness. She’d always liked the way a man’s lips molded to hers, the way their bodies, emboldened by her eager response, often did the same.
However, nothing could have prepared her for this kiss. The moment her lips touched Jasper’s, he sucked in a sharp breath that seemed to steal all the air from her lungs. And then she didn’t remember breathing again.
That oxygen must have been hitting her brain, she knew for a fact. She didn’t pass out or swoon, didn’t asphyxiate in the heated embrace of a man who was determined to prove he was no military youth. But as his mouth moved over hers, she became every clinging miss and shy damsel of romantic nonsense. She’d been the one to give herself to him, but he was the one who took, and she had literally no idea how much time passed before Jasper finally yanked himself away, his panicked expression discernible even in the shadows.
“Catherine,” he said, her name taking shape on a long exhalation. The sound of it contained censure and wonder, both of these things underscored by a longing she felt reverberate down to her very bones.
“Well?” she responded. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
His only response was to stare at her. Emboldened by the glimmer in his eyes—and the fact that no one had come to the door demanding they account for themselves, Catherine reached up and turned on the light. They both blinked against the sudden flood of illumination, but she was the first to recover. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the book and the pen she always carried in case inspiration struck. She found the section she’d left off on and read through the last messages.
We’re not doing anything. It would be a crime for you to throw yourself away like that. You can do a lot better than me.
How much better? No one ever gave me a guidebook. Can he at least be a shy, well-read logger? I’m partial to those.
No. Can we please go back to discussing the book now?
Underneath that, she finally wrote the words she’d been longing to say.
There. Do you still want to talk about the stupid book?
She handed him both the book and the pen, trying not to smile as his eyes scanned the line. A soft grunt escaped him, but he didn’t look up as he rifled through the pages until he found what he was looking for: a new passage, a fresh page.
Catherine longed to peek over his shoulder to see what he was underlining, but if there was one thing she was learning about this man, it was that he required vast amounts of patience.
“Here.” He finished and handed her the book. Sure enough, he’d underlined a section about halfway through.
“We have only one defense, and that is running away. At leastit can’t follow us,can it? When we feelourselves endangeredwe can leave, justas we came. And,” he added dryly, “justas fast as we can go.”
Any other woman might have taken that as a commentary on her technique, but not Catherine. Not when it came to her Jasper. Her own emotions were running high, her blood pounding hot and heavy through her veins. She could only imagine how overwhelmed he must feel. He didn’t like to take up too much space under the best of circumstances. Under these circumstances, he’d grown practically invisible.
Fortunately, she knew exactly how to find him.
Hiding a smile, she settled herself on top of the box of plumbing parts and wrote.
I’m a nineteen-year-old librarian, not a house of evil and doom. Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?
You’re exactly like that house.
Is this where you call me terrifying again? Because I thought you liked that about me.
And I’m exactly like Eleanor.
You’re a young woman who spent the last decade of her life caring for her invalid mother? Strange. I didn’t pick up on that.
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, C.
Catherine had to hide her smile behind her hand when she read that one. An increasingly irritated Jasper Holmes was a sight to behold. He looked as though he wanted to wring her neck and also like he wanted to kiss her. Maybe even at the same time.
She also took pity on him. Mostly because she did know what he meant.
Eleanor is anxious. Driftless. Unmoored. At least, until she goes to Hill House and lets it suck her in. The house scares her, but she likes it. She likes the idea of giving herself over to it and letting it possess her. Even if it destroys her in the end, it’s a destruction she wants. Maybe even needs.
As soon as he read the words, he relaxed. He also handed her back the book without writing anything in it.
“You do know,” he said, sounding so relieved that she tucked the book in her pocket. She also took his hand again, this time letting herself glide her smooth palm over his rough one, enjoying the way his skin caught against hers. It was as if his very being was reaching out to her using any means at its disposal.
“Of course I know, Jasper. Why do you think I like this book so much?” She paused and lowered her voice before adding, “And why I like you?”
This time, he was the one doing the kissing. Catherine had no idea how such a large man could move so swiftly, but she was crushed against his chest before she even realized what was happening. The book wedged awkwardly between them, but neither one of them seemed to care as they fell deeper and deeper into one another’s arms.
She had no idea how long they might have stayed entwined like that—Catherine Martin and Jasper Holmes, Hill House and Eleanor Vance—if not for the scuttling sound of footsteps approaching the top of the steps.
“This is a terrible idea,” Catherine said as she jumped back. Jasper’s hand shot out and caught the book midfall.
“I told you that already,” he muttered. “You didn’t listen. I’m starting to think you never listen.”
She didn’t miss the adorable flush to his skin or the way he clutched the book like it was the most precious thing he’d ever held. She also didn’t miss the thump of Mrs. Peters heading toward the stairs.
“Not about the kissing, silly,” she said as she grabbed his arm and began dragging him toward the coal scuttle. There was a back door that led to the street from there—and, if they were lucky, to freedom. He tried to dig his heels in, but he was no match for her determination.
No man was, but most of them never had a chance to find that out.
She lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss on the roughest of his calluses. And then she pushed him out the door. “I only meant that we need a more secure place to meet.”
He hesitated. At first, she feared he was going to push back—against this thing they were doing, against her—but then he spoke.
“I know a place,” he said, blushing, his words slightly stammered. “It’s not much, just a little cabin by the river, but—”
A thrill moved through her. To be able to cause a man like this to blush so profusely, to bring such a strong, stoic being to his knees—it was heady stuff, and she wasn’t impervious to the power of it.
“Take me there,” she said before he could think the better of it. “A little cabin by the river is exactly where I want to go.”