Griffith Tavern (Taryn's Camera Book 2) (12 page)

“Losing her husband at a young age,” Taryn agreed.

“Yep, that,” he said. “Hard having a baby in those times, too.”

Taryn and Daniel looked up sharply. “Baby?” they echoed.

“Oh yes, a baby. Not real sure what happened to it. Pretty little thing, though. My Grandpap said my Granny knitted it booties.”

“So there’s a descendent roaming around somewhere?”

LeRoy’s eyes twinkled. “T’would appear that way, wouldn’t it? But I just don’t know.”

LeRoy stopped talking then and closed his eyes. His head was starting to droop a little and his hands were shaking. Taryn, sensing the end of the story, exhaled. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “When she died, did she leave a lot of money?”

“Not that I know of,” he replied softly. “She wasn’t in debt or anything but there wasn’t nothing screaming riches either. Some other folks took over, tried to keep it up, but it was never the same. When I was a young’in I remember it being an inn for awhile and a tavern but it was just another place to go. Nothing special about it. Nothing like it would’ve been a century before.”

“I wonder how she was able to keep it going like she did, with business so slow,” Daniel mused.

“Lots of people wondered the same thing,” LeRoy clucked his tongue. “Running a business back then wasn’t a whole lot different than it is now. Always been hard work.”

“I hear that,” Taryn agreed.

“And what do you do, missy?” he asked.

Taryn did her best to give him an abbreviated version of her career and what some of her duties consisted of.

“And you got no man to help out with any of it?” he asked carefully when she was finished.

“No sir. My husband passed away several years ago. We were a team while he was alive, though.”

LeRoy shook his head. “No wonder the house calls to you.”

B
ack in the parking lot Daniel gave Taryn a quick, slightly awkward, hug. “I’m sorry about your husband,” he said shyly, his cheeks a little flushed. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” she shrugged. “It’s not something I normally go around announcing. I think the visit went well, though. I liked LeRoy.” She didn’t exactly want the afternoon to turn into a “poor Taryn” love fest. That would’ve been uncomfortable for both of them.

“Yeah, yeah, it was great! Just hearing someone talk about the place, and not having to read about it in stuffy archives, has made me excited all over again. Wouldn’t it be great to bring back some of its former glory?!”

Taryn allowed Daniel to carry on and talk for the next few minutes while she leaned up against her car and thought about LeRoy’s stories. She’d already considered the fact Permelia might have latched onto her because they were similar in some regards, but it still didn’t explain what she wanted out of Taryn. Perhaps it was nothing more than to acknowledge her, to get her story out. But Taryn was no writer. Her college professors could attest to that.

Daniel was mid-sentence, going on about how wonderful the tavern would look with new floors, when she interrupted him. “I’ve seen a ghost,” she proclaimed in a hurry.

“What?” he asked, confusion spreading across his face. “Just
now
?”

“No, not just now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just
have
to talk about this with someone other than my friend and, well, you’ve been elected. I’ve been seeing things. At the tavern, in my room at the B&B…” She let her voice trail off, not sure she wanted to talk about Miss Dixie and what her “talents” were.

“Wow. That’s awesome. Of course I believe you. I’ve felt a few things at the tavern myself, but never saw anything.”

“Really? What did you feel?”

“Hard to explain I guess. Like someone was watching me mostly. And once I thought I heard someone screaming. It dug right down into the pit of my stomach. The sound, I mean. Just horrible. But I talked myself out of it, told myself it must have been from somewhere else and the sound just carried. What’s going on with you?”

“The stuff I’m seeing in my room? I think it’s connected to the tavern. I think Permelia is trying to tell me something. Now do you think I’m crazy?”

Daniel’s eyes widened. “Hell no! Me and my friends? We’re totally into all of that. And LeRoy said she might feel a connection with you. Do you think that’s it?”

“Yes, I do,” Taryn consented. “I think she’s trying to tell me something or wants me to do something. But I have no idea
what
that may be.”

“Then it sounds like we have a mystery on our hands!” Daniel announced with glee.

“Well, Shaggy, go tell Fred and Daphne and we’ll sort it out!” Taryn smiled wanly. “I guess we’re the ‘meddling kids.’”

“Can you tell me what you’ve seen?”

So for the next half hour Taryn and Daniel sat on the grass in front of the nursing home and talked about what was going on. She skirted around her experiences with Miss Dixie but left out little else. Daniel interrupted her a few times, wanting more detail, but for the most part he listened intently, his eyes widening at the appropriate places. When she was finished, he fell back on the ground and gazed up at the clouds.

“Geeze,” he breathed. “That would’ve scared the shit out of me. All of it. But it has to mean something. Still, I’ve not come across any ghost stories with the place. You’re the first, other than what I’ve felt. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“No, I don’t think it is,” she agreed.

“Have you always seen ghosts?”

“Well, sort of. It’s complicated.”

“I have time. Care to explain?”

She hesitated and then went for it. “When I was a kid I saw a little dead girl. Only, I didn’t know she was dead at first. That came later. She showed me where she had died and then just kind of disappeared. It made my parents nervous and I promised I wouldn’t talk about it.”

“And nothing else?” he pressed. “I mean, not that
that
incident isn’t enough. Just wondering if anything else pops out at you. Seems kind of off for that to happen and then quit until now.”

“My friend who owns a kind of new age shop down in Kentucky said the same thing. He thinks whatever I have may have gotten stronger around my last birthday. I repressed it, I think,” she explained. “If things did happen then I ignored them. Maybe explained them away until they just stopped happening altogether. But, sometimes I wonder…”

“What?”

Taryn pursed her lips and struggled to find the words. “I played games as a young child. And in hindsight I wonder if maybe they weren’t
really
games. Like, when I was two, I used to pretend there was a ghost in the corner of the room. Always the same corner, always the same room. I’d see it when I visited my grandmother. She told me I’d pretend to hide and ask her to go ‘get’ the ghost. So, to humor me I guess, she’d run over to it and shout, ‘Go away ghost, go away!’ Then, after a few tries I’d do the same. But she said sometimes I looked genuinely scared and there were moments when she wasn’t so sure I wasn’t actually seeing something.”

“Yeah, that’s possible,” he agreed. “Maybe you were and your young mind didn’t know how to process it so you made a game out of it.”

“And, for years, I had an imaginary friend. A Chinese girl named Julie.” Seeing the look on his face she laughed. “Yeah, I know. It was probably the only name I could think of. It lasted for almost three years, up until I was about five. I can vaguely remember talking to her, playing with her, pretending she was there. Only…” Taryn shivered a little, remembering. “Only thinking back I can actually
see
her face. Maybe it’s just something from a movie but sometimes I’m not entirely convinced I made her up.”

“What happened to her?”

“One day she told me she couldn’t stay any longer and she had to leave me, but that she would always love me,” Taryn replied, blushing.

“So she dumped you,” Daniel mused. “Yeah, that’s odd. Maybe there is something to that.”

“I don’t know,” Taryn shrugged. “Those are the only things I can think of. Definitely nothing like what’s happening now.”

“Sounds like enough, though,” he said. “And hey, what about Permelia’s baby? That came out of left field.”

“Yeah, seriously,” she agreed. “Maybe the baby died? It happened a lot in those days. If it had survived then you know we would’ve heard something…”

They were both silent now, lost in thought.

“Listen, I feel bad about you being up here by yourself. Some of us are going out tomorrow night. Why don’t you come? It will be fun!”

Taryn smiled. She didn’t know if it was a pity-ask or not but she appreciated the thought. “I don’t get out much. Where are you going?”

“There’s a bar in the next county over. Moe’s. They play good music on Friday nights. We just go and have a few beers. Listen to the music and talk. You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to,” he proclaimed in a rush.

“I’m not opposed to alcohol,” she laughed. “I might not be the young whippersnapper I use to be but I can still drink. I’ll try to make it if I can. I still have some work to do at the tavern. And I appreciate you asking. I do.”

S
leep was a catastrophe. She shouldn’t even have tried. With nothing on television other than over-priced aprons on the home shopping network Taryn resorted to working on the painting for most of the night. As a result, by the time morning rolled around, her excitement at heading to the tavern and painting in general was low. She felt cranky, out-of-sorts, and depressed and just wanted to crawl back into bed and go to sleep. But, the sun was out and the day promised to be a pretty one. Seemed a shame to waste it sleeping.

Delphina had set out a nice breakfast spread and Taryn did her best to eat as much as possible. She also tried to respond to her chirping questions about LeRoy and the nursing home, even though she was too tired to feel sociable.

“In some ways I’m glad my dear husband didn’t stick around here to get sick and end up in one of those homes,” Delphina sighed. “Of course, who knows what kind of shape he’s in now,” she added quickly.

“I guess we all hope we don’t have to go to one, although this one seemed nice,” Taryn agreed as she bit into an apple cinnamon muffin.

“They all look the same to me. He was always afraid of being dependent on someone else,” Delphina continued. “Didn’t even care that much for me waiting on him.”

“Delphina, do you have any idea where he might have gone?” It seemed so strange he would have just upped and left after all those years of marriage without a word.

“A few ideas I suppose. He always wanted to go out west and see the Tetons, visit Montana. When I think of him, that’s where I imagine he is. Somewhere exciting.”

“I feel bad for you. I mean, I don’t pity you,” Taryn added quickly, feeling thoughtless. “I just feel bad that you’re all alone. And that he would do that and leave you behind.”

“We all have our secrets, dear. We all have our skeletons in the closet. He had his. How well can we really know anyone?” Delphina whispered, her frail old hand stopping to glide over a small teacup on a sideboard. “I don’t know where his spirit is now but I hope it’s peaceful somewhere.”

With that, she walked out of the room and Taryn didn’t see her again for the rest of the day.

T
he call from Miranda came as she was driving out to the tavern. She’d been expecting some sort of follow-up after her visit to the nursing home.

“I hear your visit went well, sweetie,” she cooed into the phone.

Taryn knew it was wrong to talk on the phone and drive–that’s why she put her phone on speaker. And she knew it was still bad, and probably illegal, but she hoped (probably like everyone else did) she wouldn’t get caught.

“I think so,” she called downwards into her lap as she sped along the asphalt. “I had a nice time. Thank you for doing that for me.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. He enjoys visitors. Listen, I did something else. I hope you don’t mind,” she chirped. “We did have a little bit of a family tree on Permelia. It isn’t much, just some names, but I went ahead and emailed them to you.”

“Wow, thanks!”

“Now these aren’t going to be direct descendants you understand,” Miranda warned, “since they didn’t have any children, but these are the names of a brother and a sister. If you know anyone who has genealogy skills you might get lucky.”

Taryn sat back in her seat, a little stunned. “Well, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Really.” She started to tell her what LeRoy had said about the baby but for some reason bit her tongue. She wanted to ruminate on that some more.

“Of course, we’d do it ourselves, but we’re very busy here you understand and since they don’t have anything to do with our own town…”

“No, that’s fine. It’s okay. I’ll find someone,” Taryn assured her.

When she clicked off and turned on the radio she found Iris Dement singing “Sing the Delta” on NPR. The slow, bluesy melody and her strong vocals filling the car with passion. With a new enthusiasm, Taryn turned the knob up as loud as she could stand and sang along. The day wasn’t shaping up to be so bad after all.

I
t had rained earlier and now the sunlight was making everything look bright and crisp around the tavern. This was usually the kind of day Taryn loved to paint in. Painting wasn’t what she had in mind, though. She’d left all her paints at the B&B and, instead, brought nothing but Miss Dixie and a spare memory card. (And hiking boots this time because you could never be too cautious.)

After lovingly taking her out of the camera bag (“Hello there, old girl”) and slamming the car door shut she turned and faced the poor old building. If anything, it looked more wretched in the bright sunlight which did nothing to hide its flaws and mistreatment. Now that she knew more about its history, her feelings for it were personal. They had a connection now.

With solid resolution, Taryn marched across the damp grass, grasshoppers and tree frogs skipping out of her way. She talked to herself as she walked.

“Okay, obviously you want something from me and I’m going to try to help you, like you asked. And by ‘you’ I don’t know if I’m talking to a ghost-you or a memory-you or a house-you so you’re going to have to work with me a little bit on this one.” The tavern remained still.

When she reached the front porch she stood in the tall grass, hands on her hips, and surveyed the tavern. “I wish I knew where to start, but I don’t. Unless you have some sort of buried treasure around here to reveal to me I don’t know what I can do for you. But I’ll try.”

So, Taryn did what she did best. She started with the front porch and, once again, worked her way around the building, snapping pictures as she went. Although she’d already done this once, and twice if you wanted to count the time her camera wasn’t with her, this time she tried to capture the energy and anything else she might be able to pick up as she worked.

She didn’t just take pictures of the whole structure; she zoomed in on the details. Like a person, a building was the sum of its parts. Every little element was important. Taryn never forgot this and neither did Miss Dixie. It was part of what made her a good photographer and a lot of what made her an excellent painter.

As she snapped photos of the windows, the ivy, the storm cellar door (she wasn’t going down there–that was just too much), and the back awning, she tried to imagine Permelia and James getting up at dawn and preparing meals, sweeping off the steps, greeting visitors. She imagined the sounds of hoof beats as they trotted down the dirt drive, ready to deliver mail to those who had been waiting for weeks, or maybe even months for word from back home.

She stood at the back and observed the towering second floor and imagined a faint light in Permelia’s window, a lantern or something, and its paleness flickering in the dark. What would James have felt, outside in the night, looking up at this window and knowing that his wife awaited him? What were the sounds here? What would guests have heard? Horses bellowing in the distance, chickens clucking (there was an ancient chicken coop in the back, after all), pots and pans rattling through the open windows? Guests laughing, singing, calling to one another from across the lawn?

What would people have
seen
? The building had changed, but the view hadn’t, not really. Someone who had stood in this exact location one hundred years ago would’ve felt the same ground under their feet, looked up at the same sky and moon, seen the same things she was seeing now–minus the modern additions, of course. She tried to capture that, too. Therein laid the bulk of Taryn’s talent: the ability to see and feel what decades and even centuries separated her from.

Once she’d circled the perimeter she let herself back inside. Although no longer afraid the place was going to fall in on her, she did watch her step and tread carefully. Daniel and Matt would not be pleased if she wound up in the hospital. Again.

Soft shadows played on the hardwood floors and while most of the rooms were dark, either from having their windows boarded up or being overgrown with vines, she’d come prepared for that with her mini flashlight. Of course, things weren’t going to look
exactly
the same as when Permelia’d been running the place. It had gone through several hands since then. The walls were papered over who knew how many times, there was some hideous green shag carpet in one room that smelled horrendous and looked worse, and (now that she got a closer look) it appeared electricity was even installed somewhere along the way.

But that wasn’t the point.

With any luck, Miss Dixie would pick up on the old energy, the one
under
the layers. That was Miss Dixie’s talent. Things may change, but nothing ever really died. She’d already learned that. You can cut your hair, get a tan, and change your outer appearance but what forms inside your mind never truly goes away–it just found a cupboard or box to hide in. (Still, a good dye job never hurt when it came to your mental health.)

She wanted to check her LCD screen after each shot but restrained herself. She’d force herself to wait until she returned to her room. If she looked now, it might either freak her out or cause some kind of chasm which would stop whatever was going on–if anything
was
happening at all. There was always a chance Miss Dixie wasn’t picking up on anything.

Taryn knew she was, though. From the moment her foot hit the second floor landing the hair on the back of her neck had stood up at point, like little icy fingers were tugging at it. The feeling began at the nape of her neck and carried upwards in a wave until her entire head was tingling, the curls in her hair almost bouncing. There was a viscosity in the air up there not caused by being closed in or shut off from the rest of the world. You could taste it; it was sour, musty, and had just a tinge of bitterness. And yet…it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

She’d originally thought the floors too rotten to wander past the landing but now she took her chances. By stepping lightly and walking around the softest parts she was able to explore the upstairs.

As Taryn wandered through each of the small rooms, presumably former guest rooms, and aimed Miss Dixie into the darkness, the thickness grew warmer and thicker until it enveloped her in a cocoon. It was comforting in a sense, this swallowing, and she almost felt as though she were floating now, carried along not by her feet but by the stale, hollow air she traveled through.

Was she dreaming? Taryn didn’t think so. She knew she was awake and yet had the oddest sensation of not being in control of her movements. The dull headache that usually played at the edge of her temple subsided. Her joints, often stiff and throbbing these days (probably from hunching over at her computer and canvas) were fluid. The sense of euphoria that became her shroud was similar to the one she’d briefly experienced while on the morphine the hospital gave her after being whacked in the head over the summer.