The Haunting (11 page)

“I’m hungry, too,” I answered.

The door to the butler’s pantry stood open, but the third door was shut. I tried the handle, but it was locked.

Jonathan nodded toward the low hum of voices in the entry hall. “If they’re going to be talking for
a while, we could borrow Grandma’s car and get something to eat. Would you like that?”

“I don’t think my parents will let me. We were about to drive to Baton Rouge,” I said.

The moment the words were out of my mouth I wanted to bang my head against the wall. What was the matter with me? Why couldn’t I be cool and smiling and say, “Sure.”
I don’t think my parents will let me
 … I sounded like I was five years old.

“Okay,” Jonathan said as if he didn’t care one way or another.

Maybe he thought
I
didn’t care. I had to say something to make things right, so I gulped down the tightness in my throat and added, “Maybe next time … if you still want to.”

“Sure, but I doubt there will be a next time. I mean, after your mother’s in this house at night just once—”

“If I try hard enough, I think I can talk her into coming back tonight,” I said.

He chuckled. “Tonight? Good for you. That’s fast work.”

I didn’t know what Jonathan thought was so funny. I continued, “I almost forgot what we came for. Which window did you climb in?”

Jonathan walked to a low-set window next to the back door and examined the bottom sash. “It’s right here,” he said. “This one where the cord’s frayed through. Nobody’s ever fixed it. There’s still a gap at the bottom.” He raised the sash as high as it would go, and it held.

The window’s been broken for seven or eight years, and it hasn’t been fixed?
The thought seemed
Strange. “Did you close the window when you left?” I asked, suddenly very curious.

Jonathan scrunched up his forehead, thinking hard. I noticed that, even with a wrinkled forehead, Jonathan was really good-looking.

“I can’t remember,” he answered. “I was only ten years old. I was scared out of my mind. I was moving fast. But I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t. Probably I stopped long enough to slam down the window ’cause I didn’t want to get caught.”

“Were your friends still waiting for you?” I asked.

Jonathan grinned. “No. They weren’t going to stick around any longer than necessary. Besides, their parents would have come looking for them.”

“I bet they gave you a bad time for not staying all night in the house.”

“They tried, but it didn’t last long because none of them were brave enough to do even as much as I’d done.” Jonathan leaned against a stained wooden table and studied me. “I’m sorry the house is haunted. We’d go to the same high school and we could get to know each other.”

I felt my face grow hot, I was so embarrassed. Girls in the books I read didn’t have any trouble talking to guys. Why couldn’t I? Finally I asked, “Do you live in Bogue City?” just to fill the silence.

“My dad’s an attorney here, and my mom teaches first grade,” Jonathan said.

“Does your grandmother live with you?”

He laughed. “Not on your life. Grandma’s too used to running things the way she wants them.
She likes to get her own way. I’m betting that she wears down your parents and gets Graymoss for her historical society.”

I spoke before I thought. “I wish she would.”

Jonathan tilted his head and studied me. “Don’t you like the idea of living here?”

I hedged. “I like Graymoss. I really do. But it’s hard to imagine what it would be like if a dozen or more kids were also living here.”

“You’re an only child? So am I,” Jonathan said. But he smiled and added, “Sometimes I used to wish I had a couple of brothers. Maybe having other kids in the family wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Maybe it would.”

Jonathan shrugged. “Like I told you, when the awful things happen in this house at night, your parents are bound to change their minds.”

“They wouldn’t believe me when I told them what happened in Placide Blevins’s bedroom. Mom thinks I’ve been influenced by Charlotte’s diary and things I’ve read about ghosts and that’s why I saw …” I stopped, but Jonathan prodded.

“Saw what? You can tell me.”

Jonathan’s nice eyes were deep and warm. I decided to trust him. “When we were in Placide Blevins’s bedroom there was a depression, like the body of a man, right in the middle of the bed. I saw it.”

“You’re telling me you really saw a ghost?” Jonathan’s eyes widened in amazement.

“What are you so surprised about?” I asked him. “You told us about the ghostly things that happened to you.”

For just a moment Jonathan looked flustered,
but he pulled himself together. “You’re right. I just didn’t think that you … Go on. Did anything else happen?”

“A book fell out of the bookcase onto my shoulder.” I held out
Favorite Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

Jonathan’s look of amazement quickly turned into a cynical smile. “What kind of game are you playing, Lia?”

I stared at him in surprise. “Game? What are you talking about? You asked me to tell you what had happened to me, and I trusted you and told you.”

Jonathan walked to one end of the kitchen and back again. He stopped and put his hands on my shoulders. “Okay, Lia,” he said. “I didn’t figure you out right. What you just told me about the book was so much like what had happened to me it kind of took me by surprise, that’s all. Come on. Let’s go out on the veranda. I’d like to get out of here.”

As he took my left hand and began to lead me toward the back door, the bag of gris-gris swung freely under my shirt.

“Jonathan,” I began, but whatever else I’d planned to say flew out of my mind. I yelped as the window slammed down with a bang.

J
onathan grinned down at me, and I realized I had wrapped my arms around him in a strangle-hold. “I’m sorry,” I said, and backed away as quickly as I could.

“I’m not,” Jonathan answered, and his eyes twinkled. “Any time you get scared and want to do that again, I’m available.”

“I guess all our talk about ghosts and evil things made me jumpy. I shouldn’t have been spooked by a broken window sash.”

“I meant what I said,” he told me. He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “This is my dad’s business card, but it’s got our home phone number on it, too. Call me if you need me.” He smiled warmly. “Call me anyway. Let me know when you’re coming back. Okay?”

I smiled in return and dropped the card into the
pocket of my shirt. “Okay,” I said. I hoped Jonathan couldn’t read my mind to know I thought it was more than okay. It was great, terrific, tremendous, fantastic.

Mrs. Lord’s voice warbled, “Jonathan? Where are you?”

“Gotta go, Lia,” Jonathan said. He strode ahead through the dining room and into the entry hall. I followed happily. Broad shoulders and long legs … Jonathan looked great coming or going.

Mrs. Lord was pleasant as she said goodbye, and Mom seemed calm, so I guessed neither of them had become too upset about the other’s plans for Graymoss.

We watched the Lords drive away; then Dad looked at his watch. “Let’s take a quick look at the outbuildings before we head back to Baton Rouge.”

“Wait a minute,” Mom said. She dug through her purse, then handed it to me to hold. “My tape measure—I just remembered that I left it upstairs.”

“I’ll get it,” Dad said, but Mom shook her head.

“I know right where it is. I’ll only be a second.”

As soon as Mom went back into the house, Dad looked at his watch. “It’s going to be a long second,” he said, and chuckled. “She’ll take another look at the bedrooms and count how many bunk beds will fit, and think about wallpaper. We might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

But, as we settled down on the top step, Mom ran through the open front door. She leaned against the side of the house, breathing rapidly.

Dad got up and smiled at her. “We didn’t expect you to set a speed record.”

I saw something in Mom’s face that Dad hadn’t noticed. “What scared you?” I asked her.

As Mom looked at me the fear in her eyes changed to a kind of tenderness. “The same thing that frightened you, honey,” she said. “The diary, the stories, the rumors … the power of suggestion. That’s all it was.”

“But, Mom—”

“Lia,” she said, “I understand
why
you were frightened. I—I gave in to the feelings myself.”

“You didn’t say what you saw, or what you heard, or—”

“And I’m not going to. Subject closed.” Mom walked ahead of us down the front steps and handed the house keys to Mr. Boudreau, who was waiting for us on the drive. “I’d like to get duplicates of those keys,” she said.

Mr. Boudreau nodded. “Wait a little while afore you go to the expense,” he said in a doomsday voice. “You might not be needin’ ’em.”

Mom just shook her head and didn’t say anything. I guess she felt she had argued enough.

We toured the vegetable garden, which brightened Mom’s spirits so much that she again began to make plans for an even larger garden. I remembered the year she grew zucchini. The vines produced so many we had zucchini in everything, including bread and cake. Ever since then, I’ve cringed when I’ve seen a zucchini. I hoped zucchini wasn’t on her list.

Next we looked over what remained of the summer kitchen—a kind of shed with open walls, set on a cement slab, with some of the supports and most of the roof missing.

“Stay away from it, Lia,” Dad said, as if I’d had any intention of ever going inside it. “That place is an accident waiting to happen.”

The privy was a hopeless mess of fallen walls and collapsed roof. I didn’t want to look at it.

The barn was okay, I guess. At least, it wasn’t as beat up as the other outbuildings, and there weren’t more than a few gaps in the walls. But Dad said, “We don’t need a barn or stables. I suggest that we have the whole thing torn down and erect a good-sized toolshed and workshop in its place.”

Mom nodded. “Keeping horses would be fun for the kids, but it’s way out of our price range.”

So are all those kids
, I wanted to tell her, but I kept my mouth shut.

Mr. Boudreau shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against what remained of a dead oak, its top branches gone and its trunk nothing but splinters of wood pointing up to the sky. “Couple of these old trees could come out, while you’re at it,
if
you’re at it,” he said.

“No ‘if’s,’ ” Mom told him. “We’ll talk to the structural engineers who are going to examine the house. As soon as we get their evaluation, we’ll begin work on modernizing the kitchen and adding bathrooms. Then you and I will have a long talk about expanding the vegetable garden and putting playground equipment in this open field ahead of us.” She turned to Dad and smiled. “Do you think we could fit a baseball diamond in that far corner?”

Before Dad could answer, Mr. Boudreau shook his head and said, “I wouldn’t, if I was you. Kids
playin’ and yellin’ back there might be a bother to your renter.”

We all looked at him with surprise. “What renter?” Mom asked.

“There’s an old cabin on y’all’s property, back in the trees. You can’t see it good from here, but it’s there. Where the overseers once lived, I’m guessin’. The old wooden slave quarters fell apart years ago, but that cabin was built a whole lot better, and Ava Phipps has been livin’ there for a good long while.”

A tingle ran up my backbone when Mr. Boudreau mentioned the overseers. The last overseer had been Morgan Slade. That was where he had lived. The story in Charlotte’s diary was beginning to come more and more alive to me.

“Does anyone else know about this Ava Phipps living on the property?” Mom asked.

“You mean, like is Miz Phipps a squatter or is she livin’ there legal?” Mr. Boudreau asked.

“Yes. That’s what I mean,” Mom said.

“Your grandmother knew,” Mr. Boudreau said. “I guess you could say that at first Miz Phipps was a squatter. I mean, she come across this empty cabin, and she moved right in and stayed. I knew about it, but I wasn’t about to chase her off, considering her circumstances.

“I told Mrs. Langley when she came here to check on how things were going, and she and Miz Phipps sat down and had them a long talk. They was both a lot younger then, but Miz Phipps … well, she never was quite right in the head. Mrs. Langley was a kind woman. She didn’t turn Miz Phipps out, ’cause where would the poor woman
go? Mrs. Langley told Miz Phipps she could go on livin’ in that cabin and nobody would bother her.”

He looked at Mom questioningly, and she came through. I knew she would.

“Grandma was like that,” Mom said. “And I’ll be glad to carry out her wishes. Mrs. Phipps can live in the cabin, but I do want to talk to her. She needs to know what our plans are for the house.”

Mr. Boudreau just shrugged, as if he were positive those plans would never take shape. “Y’all got on the right kind of shoes for walkin’ in the field,” he said. “When you get into the field, you’ll see a kind of path that runs along the edge of the woods under the trees. Take it and it’ll lead you right to the cabin.”

We followed his directions to a narrow beaten path, and somehow I found myself leading a single file, with Mom behind me and Dad behind her. The path skirted the field and was shaded by the tall pines and thick vines and underbrush that were tangled together to create a wall of woods.