The Inn (5 page)

A
nnabel heard the woman scream as she steered the SUV back up the driveway. There was a small red car parked at the inn now, and a man standing near it holding two suitcases, and a woman a few feet away, screaming and pointing toward the woods.

Annabel hopped out of the car.

“What's wrong?” she called.

“She's covered in blood!” the woman was shrieking

The man was trying to calm her down. “Priscilla, come back here!”

Annabel looked in the direction the woman was pointing. She saw nothing.

She approached the woman. “Can I help you? What did you think you saw?”

The woman turned a pair of frantic but obviously exhilarated eyes to her. “Was she a ghost? Does she walk the property?”

“I don't know who you're talking about,” Annabel told her.

The man had joined them. “We saw someone coming out of the woods. . . .”

“A woman,” his companion added. “She's gone now. When I screamed, she bolted back into the woods.” She frowned. “I shouldn't have screamed. I know better than that. We can sometimes scare ghosts as much as they can scare us.”

Annabel looked at the couple standing in front of her. They were obviously guests arriving at the inn—“ghost tourists,” as Millie had called them. They had English accents. They'd apparently come a long way to experience the Blue Boy's ghosts.

“Well,” Annabel said, “I can't tell you anything. It's my first day here. My husband and I just moved here.” Her gaze moved up to the front porch of the inn. “But I'm sure my grandmother-in-law can tell you whatever you need to know.”

Cordelia was standing there, her face set like stone. She must have heard the woman's scream.

The couple hurried up to her, jabbering about ghosts. Annabel heard the old woman start to reply, but she didn't care to listen to what she had to say at the moment.

She decided she wanted to do a little exploring herself.

Her groceries would keep in the car for the moment. It was cold enough out. She started off across the grass in the direction the English woman had been pointing. If she had been alone in her claim of seeing something, Annabel would have dismissed her as a fanatic. When you come to a place
wanting
to see something, chances are you would. The human mind was susceptible to suggestion. Hadn't Annabel thought she'd seen Tommy Tricky earlier?

But the man said he'd seen somebody as well. So chances were they really did see somebody. Chances were it was a real person, and the woman's hysterical scream had indeed frightened the visitor away. Annabel hoped she found someone out there, so she could bring her back and introduce her to the English couple, and to Cordelia.

She wanted an end to ghost stories. She had no desire to be part of a place that depended on crazies coming to stay there. Annabel had been in a crazy house. She did not want to surround herself with lunatics and delusional people.

She'd had enough of that.

She pushed her way into the trees. A broken, brittle branch on the ground snapped as she stepped on it.

Jack was wrong not to tell her about the inn's reputation. Very wrong.

But if he had, she would likely have refused to come. It would have been too much for her. So he'd kept the knowledge from her, understanding how it would freak her out.

Annabel was going to tell him that he was wrong, and she was going to add that they were going to put a stop to the stories immediately.

Perhaps some terrible things had happened at the inn. But she and Jack were not going to make their livings from exploiting those tragedies.

Annabel stopped. There was something sticking out of a clump of dead leaves in a little clearing up ahead.

Something white.

As Annabel approached, she saw it was a stone.

A stone marker.

On which was inscribed a name.

 

C
INDY
D
EVLIN

 

This was her grave!

In that second of realization, a hand reached out from behind her and clutched Annabel by the shoulder.

“W
elcome to the Blue Boy Inn,” old Mrs. Devlin said, as she escorted them into the old house.

Priscilla was peeved. Mrs. Devlin had insisted they must have just seen a hiker. The Blue Boy Inn had no ghosts outside the house, she said, and certainly none that walked around with blood on their faces. Priscilla was deeply disappointed. She hoped this place, unlike so many of the others, wouldn't be a rip-off.

“Leave your bags there, by the door,” the old woman said to Neville. “I'll have Zeke or my grandson, Jack, carry them up to your room.”

“We'd like Sally Brown's room,” Priscilla said.

Mrs. Devlin gave her a wan smile. “And you shall have it.”

Neville returned the smile. “I suppose you get a lot of crazy ghost hunter types staying here.”

Mrs. Devlin was nodding as she led them into the kitchen. “We're listed in all the guidebooks as a ‘haunted inn.' It keeps people coming.”

“And how often do guests see apparitions?” Priscilla wanted to know.

The old woman stopped at the roughhewn kitchen table, steadying herself against it with her hands. “Some of them report a sighting or two. I make no guarantees.”

Priscilla snorted. “Well, there have been so many killings in this house. I'd imagine the spirits are very restless here.”

Neville sighed. “She's a true believer, I'm afraid,” he told Mrs. Devlin.

“A cup of tea?” the old woman asked.

Both accepted, and she gestured for them to sit at the table.

“I take it you're not a believer then, sir,” Mrs. Devlin said, looking over at Neville as she poured steaming hot tea into two delicate china cups, balanced on saucers.

“Not really. I'm here for the fun of it, and because Priscilla would only go with me to Florida after a week of ghost hunting in New England.”

Mrs. Devlin pushed the cups of tea toward them with her bony, spotted hands.

“Thank you,” Priscilla said, taking hers and lifting it to her lips.

“Well,” Mrs. Devlin said, sitting down at the table opposite them, “I suppose there must be restless spirits here. You're right, young lady. There have been an awful lot of deaths in this house. More than our share.”

“So you've never seen any ghosts?” Priscilla asked, setting down her cup into the saucer and leaning slightly toward the old woman.

“I don't think I'd recognize them if I did. I've been here a very, very long time. Sometimes it takes someone unaccustomed to the place to pick up on things.”

Priscilla nodded. “That's true. I've read about that phenomenon. You live here with the spirits and so you're on the same vibration. You don't see them. But those who come in from the outside can pick up more easily on things.”

Neville laughed out loud. “What a bloody rationalization! Fanatics like you, my dear, can come in and claim they see things simply because you're on a different vibration!”

Priscilla shot him an angry look.

Neville grinned, reaching over to pat her hand. On her pinky she wore an opal ring. It was supposed to attract spirits. “I use the word
fanatic
with great affection, my dear.”

“Zeke has seen some ghosts,” Mrs. Devlin told them.

Priscilla looked back over at her. “Who's Zeke?”

“Our caretaker. He's been here nearly as long as I have. He's seen things. You should ask him.”

“Oh, I certainly will.”

“I should also tell you,” Mrs. Devlin said, standing up again, with some difficulty, “that my grandson and his wife have just arrived. They will be living here with me now, taking over the care of the place. Zeke and I have gotten too old to do it all by ourselves anymore.”

“Is that the lady who drove up while we were outside?” Priscilla asked.

“Yes.”

“She went off into the woods,” Neville said. “I guess looking for the woman who was hiking.” He smirked. “To apologize for Priscilla screaming her head off, I imagine.”

“I tell you,” Priscilla insisted, “her face was covered with blood.”

“Perhaps she scratched herself in the thicket out there,” Mrs. Devlin said. “Or it was mud. It gets very swampy a few feet into the woods.”

Priscilla sniffed. She wasn't entirely convinced that what she'd seen had not been a ghost.

“Anyway,” the old woman continued, “I haven't yet filled in my granddaughter-in-law about some of the more distressing chapters in the inn's history. I didn't want to frighten her too badly on her first day. And since you've obviously read everything there is about the Blue Boy Inn, I'd appreciate you not bringing it all up with her. At least, not quite yet.”

Neville made a face in surprise. “You mean to tell me, her husband brought her to live here without telling her about the history of this place?”

Mrs. Devlin pursed her lips. “We decided it was best to tell her when she got here.”

Neville laughed. “Because otherwise, no sane person would ever have come.”

A tight smile stretched across the old woman's face. Priscilla took it to mean that Mrs. Devlin was saying,
Ah, but my granddaughter-in-law isn't sane
.

“You must be tired from your drive,” Mrs. Devlin said, lifting an old copper key off a nail on the wall near the sink. “I'll show you up to your room.”

Priscilla and Neville stood to follow her.

“So were the killers of any of those who were murdered here ever found?” Priscilla asked as they headed back out into the hallway.

“Most of the deaths here were simply tragic accidents,” Mrs. Devlin said, leading the way through the narrow, musty corridor, not looking back as she spoke.

“Well, that poor man whose head was never found,” Priscilla said. “That was no accident.”

“No, I suppose it was not,” the old woman replied. “Andrew McGurk died here before my time. My husband's father owned the place then.”

“And the little baby who disappeared,” Priscilla asked, “except for her arm?”

Mrs. Devlin paused near the stairs. “For the life of me, I don't know where Zeke or Jack are,” she said, evidently done with speaking about murder and death and ghosts.

“That's all right,” Neville said, grabbing their bags. “I don't mind hauling them myself.”

The old woman frowned. “Not a good way to treat our guests. I apologize.”

They started up the stairs.

“But please,” Priscilla said. “Tell me about the baby.”

“I had just arrived here,” Mrs. Devlin said. “Had just married my husband. And I suspect, in that case, it was a kidnapping gone wrong. The mother was a rich heiress. She was running away from her father, and some goons were after her. I think they thought taking the baby might get them quite the ransom.”

“But why would they cut off the poor thing's arm?” Priscilla asked.

“You'd have to ask them,” Mrs. Devlin said.

They had reached the top of the stairs.

“Here's your room,” the old woman said, unlocking the door.

They stepped inside. It was small, neat, low-ceilinged. Mustiness pervaded everything. The four-poster bed was small, carefully made. A three-drawer dresser stood beside the single window. Except for a straight-backed chair, that was all the furniture in the room.

“And Sally Brown?” Priscilla asked. “The girl who died in this room?”

“Before my time, too,” Mrs. Devlin said. “But what my mother-in-law told me was that poor Sally got word that her fiancé had died in Germany. This was during World War I. And so she slit her wrists. That was the cause of the blood on the walls.”

“But her body was never found,” Priscilla pointed out.

“I was told Sally ran outside to bleed out,” the old woman said matter-of-factly. “I suspect bears and coyotes finished off her remains.”

Neville shuddered. “Such a delightful history.”

“Even if they weren't all murders,” Priscilla said, “these were very traumatic deaths. Suicides make for some of the most frequent ghosts.” She looked over at Mrs. Devlin. “Do many people report seeing Sally?”

The old woman nodded. “Yes. Many do.”

Priscilla smiled.

“Then I'll let you get settled,” the old woman told them. “I've made some rabbit stew if you'd like some for dinner. Otherwise, there are some decent restaurants up in Sheffield.”

“Thank you,” Neville said.

Mrs. Devlin left them alone.

“It was a ghost I saw out in the woods,” Priscilla said. “I know it. I'll bet it was Sally Brown!”

Neville flopped down on the bed. Dust puffed up into the air.

“I don't think I could eat rabbit stew,” he said.

Priscilla was examining the wallpaper for bloodstains. “We're going to get what we paid for here, I'm certain of it.” She looked over her shoulder at Neville. “We're going to have a major close encounter with the spirit world here. I can feel it in the air!”

Neville could only groan.

A
nnabel spun around to see who—or what—was behind her.

“Jack!” she shouted.

Her husband was grinning sheepishly. Standing beside him was the hunched-over figure of Zeke.

“I didn't mean to scare you, baby cakes,” Jack said.

“Well, you did,” Annabel replied.

“I'm sorry,” he said, trying to take her hands, but she pulled them away.

“What is this, Jack?” Annabel pointed down at the ground. “This stone?”

The name seemed to glare up at them.

 

C
INDY
D
EVLIN

 

“That's my little sister,” Jack said, very quietly.

“You never told me you had a sister,” Annabel said, her voice harder than she meant it to be. “Never, in all our years together.”

He looked at her. His eyes shone with pain. “It's always been difficult to talk about Cindy,” Jack told her.

“She was a very sweet little girl,” Zeke offered. “Such a tragedy.”

Annabel looked from them down to the grave marker in the leaves, then back to them again.

“Why is she buried here, in the middle of the woods?”

Jack smiled sadly. “She's not buried here. That's just a stone Dad put up to remember her by. To give us someplace to come to.”

“Her body was never found,” Zeke explained, his old yellow eyes finding Annabel's.

“What happened to her?”

Jack took in a long breath, and then let it out very slowly. “She just disappeared. She—must have gotten lost in the woods or something. There was no trace of her.”

“Except—” Zeke began to say.

But Jack shot him a look that shut him up.

“Except what?” Annabel asked.

Jack hesitated. “We found blood. A lot of it.”

“She was a sweet little girl,” Zeke added. “The sweetest, really.”

“I'm sorry to hear this,” Annabel said. “I wish you had told me about her before.”

Jack sighed. He made no response.

“In fact,” Annabel went on, “I wish you had told me a lot of things before we came here. Such as all the deaths and murders that took place at the inn over the years. When did you think you'd tell me, Jack? You must have known I'd find out as soon as we got here.”

“Who told you about all that?” Zeke asked.

Annabel shifted her eyes over to the old man. “The woman at the market.”

“Ah, that Millie, she's a busybody,” Zeke grumbled.

“I was hoping Gran and I could tell you, in our own way,” Jack said.

Annabel looked down at the little white stone marker. “You knew I wouldn't come if I had known this place had such a lurid history.”

Jack took her hand. “Babe,” he said softly. “We're no strangers to lurid histories, you and I.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Annabel asked.

“Just that . . .” Jack seemed to search for the right words. “We needed a place to start over. And I think the Blue Boy Inn needs to start over, too. You and I . . . we want to put our pasts behind us. So does the Blue Boy.”

She frowned. “That's not likely, with all these ghost tourists seeking the place out.”

“It's true that there have been some unfortunate tragedies here,” Jack admitted. “But the town made way more of them than they were. Over the course of more than a hundred years there have been some deaths here. Some perfectly peaceful. Some not so peaceful. That's to be expected anywhere that's been around for as long as the Blue Boy. But the locals like to tell stories, and every new death here has been woven into a never-ending tale. Legends of ghosts and death curses sprung up. And the tourists started coming.”

Annabel was still looking at the marker for Cindy Devlin.

“If she got lost in the woods,” Annabel asked, “why was there a lot of blood?”

Jack sighed. “The police chief thought maybe a bear got her. There had been sightings of bears not long before she went missing.”

“And where was the blood?”

Zeke stepped forward. Annabel had almost forgotten he was there.

“On the back steps and down the path,” the old man said. “I found it. We'd been calling for Cindy all morning, when she wasn't in her bed. And then I went around back and found the blood. . . .”

“My father speculated she got up in the night for some reason,” Jack said, his voice thick with emotion. “And she went out back and that's where the bear spotted her. . . .”

“But why was her body never found?”

Jack shrugged. “The police scoured the woods for her. The bear must have . . .” He couldn't speak. “She was so little, you know.”

Annabel reached up and touched his cheek. She had been so upset about not being told about all this history that she hadn't been very compassionate. This was his
sister
that Jack was talking about. This was a childhood tragedy that had apparently scarred him so badly he'd never been able to speak of it before.

“I'm sorry, Jack,” Annabel said, stroking her husband's bristly cheek.

“We thought we'd find
something
of her,” Zeke piped in. “But nothing. Just the blood.”

“And then,” Jack said, finding his voice, “the town went and turned it into another example of the murder curse on the Blue Boy Inn, adding poor little Cindy to their long list of ghosts that haunted the house.” He shook his head. “I never told you, sugar cakes, because I've always hated that part of the Blue Boy's history. As far as I'm concerned, we're putting an end to it.”

“Good,” Annabel said. “We stop marketing the place as a haunted hotel. Get it out of those guidebooks. Debunk the ghost stories whenever anyone asks about them.”

“That's a mighty fine sentiment,” Zeke said. “But without those ghost tourists, I'm not sure you have a business. What else could bring people out to the middle of nowhere to a rundown old house?”

“So we change the place from rundown to fabulous,” Annabel replied. “We modernize. We renovate from top to bottom. Make it comfortable and loaded with amenities. We are on some gorgeous property here. In the spring and summer these woods will be in full green bloom. And in the fall I can only imagine how magnificent the colors will be. I'd love to redo the gardens, make some paths, maybe put in a Jacuzzi. We'll make this place the perfect getaway destination. We won't need ghosts to sell it.”

“I think you have the right idea, babe,” Jack said.

Zeke gave them a crooked smile. “Not sure what Cordelia will think of ripping the place up.”

Annabel felt her back stiffen. “She asked us to come here, didn't she? She wanted us to take over the place. If she wants this place to stay in business, she'll agree. Otherwise, none of us can afford to keep this house going. We'd have to put it on the market. . . .”

“Oh, no,” Zeke said. “I know Cordelia wouldn't want to do that.”

“Then it's settled,” Annabel said. “We're going to make this an entirely new place, with an entirely new reputation, aren't we, Jack?”

“We sure are, sugarplum,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into him.

Overhead a crow screeched in the bare limbs of a tree.