A Haunted House of Her Own
Tanya couldn’t understand why real estate agents failed to recognize the commercial potential of haunted houses. This one, it seemed, was no different.
“Now, these railings need work,” the woman said as she led Tanya and Nathan out onto one of the balconies. “But the floor is structurally sound, and that’s the main thing. I’m sure these would be an attractive selling point to your bed-and-breakfast guests.”
Not as attractive as ghosts…
“You’re sure the house doesn’t have a history?” Tanya prodded again. “I thought I heard something in town…”
She hadn’t, but the way the agent stiffened told Tanya she was onto something. After pointed reminders about disclosing the house’s full history, the woman admitted there was, indeed, something. Apparently a kid had murdered his family here, back in the seventies.
“A tragedy, but it’s long past,” the agent assured her. “Never a spot of trouble since.”
“Damn,” Tanya murmured under her breath, and followed the agent back inside.
Next, Nathan wanted to check out the coach house, see if there was any chance of converting it into a separate “honeymoon hideaway.”
Tanya was thrilled to see him taking an interest. Opening the inn had been her idea.
An unexpected windfall from a great-aunt had come right after she lost her teaching job and Nathan’s office manager position teetered under end-of-year budget cuts.
It seemed like the perfect time to try something new.
“You two go on ahead,” she said. “I’ll poke around in here, maybe check out the gardens.”
“Did I see a greenhouse out back?” Nathan asked the agent.
She beamed. “You most certainly did.”
“Why don’t you go take a look at that, hon? You were talking about growing organic vegetables.”
“Oh, what a wonderful idea,” the agent said. “That is so popular right now. Organic local produce is all the rage. There’s a shop in town that supplies all the…”
As the woman gushed, Tanya backed away slowly, then escaped.
The house was perfect—a six-bedroom, rambling Victorian perched on a hill three miles from a suitably quaint village.
What more could she want in a bed-and-breakfast?
Well, ghosts. Not that Tanya believed in such things, but haunted inns in Vermont were all the rage, and she was determined to own one.
When she saw the octagonal Victorian greenhouse, though, she decided that if it turned out there’d never been so much as a ghostly candle spotted on the property, she’d light one herself. She had to have this place.
She stepped inside and pictured it with lounge chairs, a bookshelf, maybe a little woodstove for winter.
Not a greenhouse, but a sunroom. First, though, they’d need to do some serious weeding.
The sunroom—conservatory, she amended—sat in a nest of thorny vines dotted with red.
Raspberries? She cleaned a peephole in the grime and peered out.
A head popped up from the thicket. Tanya fell back with a yelp. Sunken brown eyes widened, and wizened lips parted in a matching shriek of surprise.
Tanya hurried out as the old woman made her way from the thicket, a basket of red berries in one hand.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “We gave each other quite a fright.”
Tanya motioned at the basket. “Late for raspberries, isn’t it?”
The old woman smiled. “They’re double-blooming. At least there’s one good thing to come out of this place.” She looked over at the house. “You aren’t…looking to buy, are you?”
“I might be.”
The woman’s free hand gripped Tanya’s arm. “No, dear. You don’t want to do that.”
“I hear there’s some history.”
“History?” The old woman shivered. “Horrors. Blasphemies. Murders. Foul murders. No, dear, you don’t want this house, not at all.”
Foul murders? Tanya tried not to laugh. If they ever did a promotional video for the bed-and-breakfast, she was hiring this woman.
“Whatever happened was a tragedy,” Tanya said. “But it’s long past, and it’s time—”
“Long past? Never. At night, I still hear the moans. The screams. The chanting. The chanting is the worst, as if they’re trying to call up the devil himself.”
“I see.” Tanya squinted out at the late-day sun, dropping beneath the horizon. “Do you live around here, then?”
“Just over there.”
The woman pointed, then shuffled around the conservatory, still pointing. When she didn’t come back, Tanya followed, wanting to make note of her name. But the yard was empty.
Tanya poked around a bit after that, but the sun dropped fast over the mountain ridge. As she picked her way through the brambles, she looked up at the house, looming in the twilight—a hulking shadow against the night, the lights inside seeming to flicker like candles behind the old glass.
The wind sighed past and she swore she heard voices in it, sibilant whispers snaking around her. A shadow moved across an upper window. She’d blame a drape caught in a draft…only she couldn’t see any window coverings.
She smiled as she shivered. For someone who didn’t believe in ghosts, she was quite caught up in the fantasy. Imagine how guests who did believe would react.
She found Nathan still in the coach house, measuring tape extended. When she walked up, he grinned, boyish face lighting up.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Ten grand and we’d have ourselves a honeymoon suite.”
Tanya turned to the agent. “How soon can we close?”
The owners were as anxious to sell as Tanya was to buy, and three weeks later, they were in the house, with the hired contractors hard at work. Tanya and Nathan were working, too, researching the house’s background, both history and legend.
The first part was giving them trouble. The only online mention Nathan found was a secondary reference.
But it proved that a family had died in their house, so that morning, he’d gone to the library in nearby Beamsville, hoping a search there would produce details.
Meanwhile, Tanya would try digging up the less-tangible ghosts of the past.
She started in the gardening shop, and made the mistake of mentioning the house’s history.
The girl at the counter shut right down, murmuring, “We don’t talk about that,” then bustled off to help the next customer.
That was fine. If the town didn’t like to talk about the tragedy, she was free to tweak the facts and her guests would never hear anything different.
Next, she headed for the general store, complete with rocking chairs on the front porch and a tub of salty pickles beside the counter.
She bought supplies, then struck up a conversation with the owner.
She mentioned she’d bought the Sullivan place, and worked the conversation around to, “Someone over in Beamsville told me the house is supposed to be haunted.”
“Can’t say I ever heard that,” he said, filling her bag. “This is a nice, quiet town.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” She laughed. “Not the quiet part, but…” She lowered her voice. “You wouldn’t believe the advertising value of ghosts.”
His wife poked her head in from the back room. “She’s right, Tom. Folks pay extra to stay in those places. I saw it on TV.”
“A full house for me means more customers for you,” Tanya said.
“Well, now that you mention it, when my boys were young, they said they saw lights…”
And so it went. People might not want to talk about the true horrors of what happened at the Sullivan place, but with a little prodding they spun tales of imagined ones.
Most were second-hand accounts, but Tanya didn’t care if they were true.
Someone in town said it, and that was all that mattered.
By the time she headed home, her notebook was filled with stories.
She was at the bottom of the road when she saw the postwoman putting along in her little car, driving from the passenger side so she could stuff the mailboxes. Tanya got out of her own car to introduce herself. As they chatted, Tanya mentioned the raspberry-picking neighbor, hoping to get a name.
“No old ladies around here,” the postwoman said. “You’ve got Mr. McNally to the north. The Lee gang to the south. And to the back, it’s a couple of new women. Don’t recall the names—it isn’t my route—but they’re young.”
“Maybe a little farther? She didn’t exactly say she was a neighbor. Just pointed over there.”
The woman followed her finger. “That’s the Lee place.”
“Past that, then.”
“Past that?” The woman eyed her. “Only thing past that is the cemetery.”
Tanya made mental notes as she pulled into the darkening drive. She’d have to send Nathan to the clerk’s office, see if he could find a dead resident who resembled a description of the woman she’d seen.
Not that she thought she’d seen a ghost, of course. The woman probably lived farther down the hill. But if she found a deceased neighbor with a similar appearance, she could add her own spooky tale to the collection.
She stepped out of the car. When a whisper snaked around her, she jumped.
Then she stood there, holding the car door, peering into the night and listening.
It definitely sounded like whispering. She could even pick up a word or two, like “come” and “join.” Well, at least the ghosts weren’t telling her to get lost, she thought, her laugh strained and harsh against the quiet night.
The whispers stopped. She glanced up at the trees. The dead leaves were still. No wind. Which explained why the sound had stopped. As she headed for the house, she glanced over her shoulder, checking for Nathan’s SUV. It was there, but the house was pitch-black.
She opened the door. It creaked. Naturally. No oil for that baby, she thought with a smile. No fixing the loose boards on the steps either. Someone was bound to hear another guest sneaking down for a midnight snack and blame ghosts. More stories to add to the guest book.