The Haunting (7 page)

“Derek! Hush!” Mom said. She had already rolled down the window to talk to a portly, balding man who was strolling down the sidewalk.

“Sir,” she called, “we’re looking for a plantation house called Graymoss. Do you know of it? Can you tell us how to find it?”

The man stepped over to the car and bent down, peering through the open window at the three of us. He seemed satisfied at what he saw and stuck his arm through the window to shake hands. “The name’s Walter Mudd,” he said.

“Glad to meet you,” Dad told him, and introduced himself, Mom, and me.

“So you’re looking for Graymoss,” Mr. Mudd said. “Well, you came to the right place. Everybody around here knows of Graymoss. But nobody’s asked about the place for a long time. You don’t look like the kind of folks that used to come.”

Dad enjoyed interesting situations, and he liked to strike up conversations with people. His philosophy was that each person was different. Each one had something new to talk about. I didn’t always agree with Dad. He was nice to everyone and he was usually upbeat. People liked him.

“What kind of folks were they?” Dad asked Mr. Mudd.

“Couple of ghost hunters came—at least that’s what they called themselves,” Mr. Mudd said. “Then a few years later somebody wrote about Graymoss for one of the state magazines. And five years ago Hannah Lord—she’s president of the Bogue City Historical Society, has been for years—anyhow, Hannah wrote to some TV producer about Graymoss being haunted and how it would make a good TV show.”

“So the producer came?”

“No. Nobody came. He didn’t even answer Hannah’s letter.”

Mom smiled. “How do we get to Graymoss from here?”

Mr. Mudd studied Mom. “Are you just curious about the place, or do you have business there?”

“I’m the new owner,” Mom said.

Mr. Mudd’s eyes widened with excitement. He gave a little hop and glanced across the street where an old-fashioned red-and-white barber pole
stood in front of a barber shop. It was easy to see that he could hardly wait to hurry to the barber shop and begin spreading the news.

“You take this road about one mile to a cutoff,” he told us, “and turn to the right. About another mile further you’ll see a gate—it won’t be locked—and a drive. The house is at the end of the drive.”

“I understand there’s a caretaker. Will he be there?”

“Old Charlie Boudreau? Oh, sure. Charlie takes his job seriously. He’ll be on hand.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mudd,” Mom said. “I guess we’ll soon be neighbors.”

Mr. Mudd started. “Neighbors? You don’t mean you’re thinking of living there?”

“That’s exactly what I do mean,” Mom answered.

“But … you must have heard about the haunts and the murders.”

I eagerly leaned forward. “Murders? What murders?”

“I don’t have all the details,” Mr. Mudd said. “But over the years I’ve heard plenty of stories about folks seeking shelter in the dead of night and found the next morning dead of fright.”

“They’re stories. That’s all they are—stories,” Mom said. “We have great plans for Graymoss.”

“Like what?” Mr. Mudd actually licked his lips in his eagerness to be first with the news.

Dad spoke up. “Before we make any definite plans, we’ll have the house thoroughly checked by engineers for structural defects.”

“They won’t find much wrong, if anything,” Mr.
Mudd replied. “Those old plantation houses were built to last, if they were properly cared for. Cedar and brick. The columns are brick plastered over. Good hardwood floors on the insides. No problems with termites. Needs paint here and there, but …” He stopped and then added, “But there’s no way you can live there. Not with the goings-on in the house.”

Mom opened her mouth as if she were going to argue, but she apparently thought better of it because she said, “We’ll see, Mr. Mudd. Thank you for your help.”

Mr. Mudd stepped back, Mom rolled up the window, and Dad drove on down the road. I twisted around to look back, and there was Mr. Mudd trotting as fast as he could go across the street toward the barber shop.

Dad followed the directions Mr. Mudd had given us, and in just a few minutes we turned into the drive that led to Graymoss. Beyond an ornate wrought iron gate the drive was lined with huge oak trees, their branches dripping with long fingers of the gray moss that seems to feed on the trees. There weren’t as many oaks as at the famous plantation Oak Alley, and the rows weren’t as long, but the house that stood at the end of the drive was stately and gleaming white in the sunlight.

“Oh, Derek!” Mom cried. “It’s wonderful! It’s picture-perfect!”

The house was a tall two stories. Verandas, supported by rows of tall columns, wrapped around both the lower and the upper story. Steps from the curving drive led to the center of the lower veranda. Beyond, deep in shadow, was a massive
wooden front door. On either side and on the second story, sheer curtains hung at windows that were also shaded by the wide verandas. There were patches here and there where brick showed through worn spots on the columns.

“A little plaster, a new coat of paint,” Dad said. He sounded excited.

“Oh, Derek!” Mom cried again. “I’ll open the gate. I can’t wait to see all of the house!”

I patted the spot where the bag of gris-gris lay under my shirt. Under my trembling fingers I could feel the pounding of my heart. Whatever made me think that
I
could face the evil that haunted Graymoss?

F
rom around a corner of the house came a tall, lean man in overalls. Wisps of white hair stuck out from under his broad-brimmed straw hat. I guess he had heard our car. As he stood next to his pickup, he looked at us with curiosity.

“Are y’all lost?” he called.

Mom hopped from the car. “No,” she said, and walked toward him. Dad and I joined her, and she introduced us. “You must be Mr. Charles Boudreau,” she added.

He nodded. “Folks around here just call me Charlie. You can call me Charlie, too. That’s what I’m used to answerin’ to. I’m the caretaker here.”

Mom smiled like a little kid at Christmas. “I’m the new owner of Graymoss, Charlie.”

“What happened to Mrs. Langley?”

“Mrs. Langley was my grandmother. She died and left Graymoss to me,” Mom explained.

Charlie removed his hat, leaving a damp halo where his hair stuck tightly to his sweaty scalp. “I’m mighty sorry to hear she passed on,” he said. “I only met Mrs. Langley once, but she sent checks regular, right on the dot.”

“I’ll keep the checks coming,” Mom said. “Even after we move into Graymoss, we’ll still need your help.”

“Move in?” Charlie stared in surprise. “You surely ain’t planin’ to live in the house, are you?”

Dad spoke up. “Why not? It seems to be in fair condition. It shouldn’t be too hard to make it livable.”

He turned to get a closer look at the house. The deep veranda, dim and cool in the morning’s heat, beckoned invitingly. I suppose Dad felt it, too. All the veranda needed was a porch swing and a table that would hold lemonade glasses and a stack of good books.

Turning back to Charlie, Dad asked, “Are you concerned about repairs that might be needed on the house?”

Charlie clapped his hat back on his head. “Some repairs are probable, but I’m not talkin’ about repairs alone. The inside kitchen’s impossible. You wouldn’t want to try cookin’ in it. There’s no gas in the house, and no electricity, and no indoor plumbin’. There’s a four-hole privy out back—at least what remains of it. I wouldn’t try to use it, if I was you.”

“Yuck!” I blurted out. “No real bathrooms? We can’t stay here tonight!”

Mom looked surprised. “We have no plans to spend the night. We’ll be driving back to Metairie.”

“If the structure’s sound, indoor plumbing can be added,” Dad said to Charlie. “Also electricity.”

Charlie slowly shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I don’t think y’all are gonna want to do that on account of nobody can set foot in the house after it starts turnin’ dark.”

Mom sighed. “I suppose you’re referring to those silly stories about haunts roaming through the rooms.”

“You’re the first person I’ve met who called the haunts silly,” he answered. “Most people don’t see anythin’ funny about gettin’ scared out of their wits, especially those folks who got themselves frightened to death.”

“Tell us about the murders,” Dad said. “You’ve been working here a long time, so you must have been the one who found the bodies.”

“Not me,” Charlie said. “None of that stuff happened since I started working here back in sixty-nine. If I’d come across a dead body, I wouldn’t be here now.”

“So these were just stories you’d heard,” Dad said.

Charlie shrugged. “Everybody knows about ’em.”

“I don’t believe anyone died of fright in this house, because I know that ghosts don’t exist,” Mom told him firmly. “Whatever local stories and legends have built up about Graymoss are simply imaginative hysteria.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Charlie said. “Except that the stories about the evil are for real, all right. Stay until after dark and you’ll see for yourself. Just don’t ask me to stick around.”

Mom impatiently looked at her watch. “I’d like to take a look at the interior of the house, Charlie. Do you have a key?”

“I sure do,” he said, and pulled a ring of keys from the back pocket of his overalls. He held it out to Mom, pointing at two of the keys. “Front door and back door. I woulda got May—that’s my wife—to come to dust and sweep if I’d known you was goin’ to visit. She cleans once a month or so just to keep things in order. The cleanin’s not too regular since people don’t live here.”

Mom began walking toward the veranda. “I’d like to meet May. I’d be happy if she’d continue her help with the house, too. Do you think she’d be agreeable?”

“Oh, May’s almost always agreeable,” Charlie said. “It’s just that she don’t like bein’ in the house, and she’d never stay past late afternoon.” He shrugged as Mom, Dad, and I began to climb the steps to the veranda. “It won’t matter anyhow, because if you stay here till it grows dark, you’ll change your plans in a hurry.”

Before Dad opened the massive front door, he turned to look at Charlie. “Do you want to come with us? Show us around?”

“No, thanks,” Charlie answered. “You ought to be able to figure out where you are and where you’re goin’ pretty well by yourselves. I’ve got to finish the work I started in the vegetable garden.”

“Oh! You’ve kept up the garden?” Mom did that happy clapping hands thing again. I winced.

“May and me have been growin’ our own vegetables here for quite some years,” he said. “I hope that’s all right with you.”

“Of course,” Mom said. “I’m counting on a big vegetable garden—one that will feed a very large family.” She glanced at Dad and giggled.

“Oh,” Charlie said. “You’ve got more’n one kid.”

“We will have,” Mom said, and giggled again.

I was totally embarrassed. I wanted to tell Charlie, “It isn’t what you think. She’s talking about adopting children.” But then I thought,
Why should I worry about what Charlie thinks? We won’t be here anyway. No adopted kids. No living in this haunted house. So why bother?

Charlie might have been puzzled, but he didn’t ask any more questions. “When y’all are through with seein’ the house, you can bring me back the keys,” he said. “I’ll show you the outbuildings. There’s the barn, which you probably noticed, and a root cellar, and the summer kitchen. All part of the property, except that the summer kitchen’s about to fall down. No fault of mine. It just wasn’t built to last, like the house was.”

“What’s a summer kitchen?” I asked.

Dad answered my question. “Cooking inside the house added a great deal of heat in the summer, so cooking used to be done outside in an outbuilding.”

Mom was having trouble hiding her excitement. I knew how badly she wanted to see the
house. “Thank you, Charlie,” she said, and turned to Dad. “Please open the door, Derek. Hurry!”

The massive door swung open on dry hinges with a whining, grinding noise. It startled me so that I jumped back and grabbed the railing that edged the veranda.

“Been meanin’ to oil those hinges,” Charlie called. “I’ll do that tomorrow.”

I took a deep breath, rested my hand on the bag of gris-gris under my shirt, then followed Mom and Dad into the house.

The entry hall was spacious, with a curving stairway that swept up the right side of the hall to a second-floor landing.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, Derek!” Mom cried.

“Some of the paint on the paneling is peeling,” I said. “And look over there. The wallpaper is curling up.”

“That doesn’t matter. Paint and wallpaper are easy to replace,” Mom said. “Come this way. There seems to be a dining room on this side.”

I lagged behind as Mom and Dad hurried into the dining room. I tried to imagine the scary things that had happened to people in this house, but with sunlight streaming through the windows it was hard to believe they had actually taken place. I began to wonder if Mom was right and the stories were imagination or hysteria or whatever else a psychologist would call them.

The dining room was immense, with a long mahogany table that had room for lots of extra leaves. Mom hugged Dad and squealed, “It’s big enough for a very large family! How perfect can it get!”