The House Page 11

  A headline caught her eye: minister's family flees HAUNTED HOUSE.

  She'd lived in a haunted house as a child.

  The knowledge came to her not as a revelation, not as a sudden memory breakthrough, but casually, gently, as though it were something she'd always known and often thought about and had just been reminded of by the tabloid. She reread the headline, stared at the obviously fake photograph of a clergyman, his wife, and his daughter looking up at a dilapidated house over which towered a huge horned demon.

  Now that she was actively seeking them, memories of her early childhood seemed to be seeping slowly back into her consciousness. But she was no longer sure she wanted to know about life before her adoption. She was curious, of course, but that was balanced by a growing feeling of dread, the impression that there were things in her past she was better off not knowing.

  She could see the house in her mind: a dark Victorian mansion located in a clearing in the woods. The surrounding trees were giant, old-growth redwoods, so it must have been in Washington, Oregon, or northern California. As for why the house was haunted, the specifics of it, she had no idea. She knew only that there was something frightening about the house, something she'd sensed even as a young child.

  She could not remember having any brothers or sisters, but there'd been another man living with them, hadn't there? An uncle? One of her dad's old army buddies?

  She could not remember his precise relation to them, could not recall his name, but she could see him in her mind, a nattily dressed man with a thin mustache.

  She didn't think he was British, but something in her memory of him reminded her of an elegant English actor whose name she did not know.

  There had been another child, but she had not lived with them, had only come over to visit, to play.

  Dawn.

  The girl from down the way.

  The girl she'd promised to marry.

  Laurie remembered her now, remembered her name, but her appearance was confused with that of the girl from the alley, the girl in her dreams. Dawn was the one aspect of her previous life that had not been submerged and buried, that she had not entirely blocked out, but in her reminiscences, the girl had been another hippie kid who lived down the street from where she remembered growing up, and Josh had known her as well. She realized now, though, that her memory had transferred the girl from one place, one time, to another. Dawn had been from before. Before her birth parents had died, before she'd been adopted.

  In her mind, she saw Dawn standing between two redwoods, smiling at her, beckoning her toward the forest.

  The dimensions of the scene expanded as she mentally reconstructed details of the memory. She had not been allowed to go into the woods surrounding the house.

  Her parents had instilled within her a fear of the forest, and she'd been aware of the dangers lurking therein since before she'd been allowed to play outside the house. Dawn knew perfectly well that she wasn't supposed to go into the woods, but the other girl tried to lure her in anyway, cajoling her, calling her names, promising her fun, excitement, and lifelong friendship.

  Laurie hadn't succumbed--not this time--but Dawn had not quit trying, and it had been a constant battle between her parents' orders and her friend's desires.

  Had Dawn had a hand in her parents' deaths?

  For some reason, Laurie thought she had. What a small child could have to do with the murder of two adults she did not quite understand, but the feeling was there anyway.

  The murder of two adults?

  Yes.

  This was getting a little too creepy.

  Laurie finished her coffee, tossed the paper cup into a wastebasket next to the entrance of a small cafe, and tried to concentrate on the here and now, focusing on the street, on the shops, on the people walking by, trying not to think about her newfound memories.

  An hour ago, a half hour ago, she had never even considered the fact that she might be adopted. It was not something that had ever crossed her mind. Now she was recalling a whole other history of herself, a back story she'd never known existed that was already sending out repercussions through the years.

  There was too much here, too much to sift through.

  She couldn't think about it all right now. She needed time to sort things out.

  She arrived once again at The Shire. She'd walked around the block, and she pushed open the door and went into the bookstore. Josh was with a customer, a Doug Henning look-alike, but he excused himself and hurried over when he saw her, a worried frown on his face. "Are you all right?"

  She smiled weakly. "I'm fine. Go back to your customer."

  "He can wait."

  She felt the tears welling up in her eyes. Biological relation or not, he was her brother, the only brother she'd ever known, and while he might be a flake and a screw up in many ways, she was lucky to have him, and she couldn't ask for a better or more caring sibling.

  She reached out, hugged him. "I love you," she said, the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I love you, Josh."

  He hugged her back, held her tight. "I love you, too."

  Matt was waiting on the porch when she arrived home.

  Her first instinct was to drive on, not stop, keep going and not return until he was gone, but though her hands were shaking and she felt like jelly inside, she forced herself to park the car, get out, stride purposely up the walkway. She fixed the most angrily resolute expression possible on her face.

  Matt moved down the steps toward her. "Laurie--"

  "I don't want to talk to you," she said firmly.

  "I came to apologize."

  "You are no longer in my life, there is no connection between us, you have no reason to apologize to me."

  "Yes I do, because--"

  "Please leave," she said. She took out her key, unlocked and opened the door.

  "Laurie!"

  She turned to look at him. "Obviously, you don't know me at all. Even after all that time together. Let me spell it out for you: I don't forgive and forget. We're not going to be friends; we're not even going to be acquaintances.

  At this point, we do not have any relationship at all. It's over. You get one chance with me, and you blew it. I don't give second chances."

  He stared up at her.

  She glared back.

  "Then I guess here's your key." He looked at her dejectedly with that hurt, wounded expression that had always made her feel sorry for him and want to mother him, but she refused to fall for it this time, refused to give in.

  She held out her hand, accepted the key, and walked inside without looking back.

  Her hands were still shaking as she closed the door, and she turned the lock and threw the dead bolt, leaning against the frame, not wanting him to see her pass in front of the window. She waited. A minute. Two minutes. Three.

  She hadn't heard him leave, hadn't heard any sound at all, but she figured he had to have left by now and she hazarded a look around the corner of the curtains.

  He was gone.

  She had to admit that part of her was gratified that he'd come crawling back, but she was not even remotely tempted to start up with him again. Whatever they'd had was dead and could not be rekindled. He'd killed it. As painful and awkward and horrible as it had been, though, she was glad he'd stopped by. She felt stronger now, more sure of herself, and for the first time, she was happy that the relationship had ended.

  The phone rang during dinner, and Laurie let the machine pick up. It was Josh, but she still wasn't in the mood to talk, and she listened to his message as she ate her asparagus.

  She tried to arrange what little she remembered from her pre-adoptive years chronologically in her mind but was unable to do so. Her memories remained fragmented disjointed images, out of context, with only a vague dread linking everything together. She didn't know what was happening to her, what was going on, but she had the feeling that there was something here under the surface, an overarching connection between the past and the present that she couldn't see
and wasn't sure she wanted to know about.

  She went to bed early, tired.

  And she dreamed of the girl.

  Norton Carole's ghost would not go away.

  Norton had never believed in ghosts, had always considered those who did to be naive, gullible, and superstitious, the type of people who could be easily separated from their money, but he had had to change his tune.

  Carole's ghost would not go away. He remembered, years ago, taking a group of graduating students on a senior class trip to California. They'd gone to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Sea World, and in San Diego they'd visited the Whaley House, the first two-story brick home in California. The house was supposed to be haunted, and there was corroboration by generations' worth of witnesses who had claimed to see and hear ghosts, but he'd felt nothing. Some of the girls § had gotten scared, one boy had refused to go upstairs, and all of the students later said they'd felt the "vibes" of the place, but he had put it all down to the power of suggestion and had dismissed it. There were no such things as ghosts, he told them.

  But there were.

  He knew that now.

  Carole's ghost had shown up the day after her burial.

  The funeral had been held at the Presbyterian church adjoining the cemetery, and every pew had been filled.

  There'd been their friends and her friends and his friends, as well as assorted acquaintances, neighbors, and coworkers, and the whole thing had been nearly overwhelming.

  He was not a social man by nature--Carole had taken charge of that aspect of the marriage--and this was the time when he felt least like being sociable, felt most like being alone, but he was thrust into the role of host, having to meet and greet, accepting condolences and offers of support, repeating endlessly that he was all right, he was okay, he was coping.

  It had rained during the burial service, but a canopy had been set up over the gravesite and while the mourners were forced to stand a little closer together than was comfortable, they had remained dry despite the downpour.

  Afterward, people followed him to his house, repeated their condolences, gave him casseroles and Jell-O and flowers and cards. It had been after eight before the last person finally left, and he'd gone directly to sleep after that, not only because he was exhausted, but because he didn't want to be alone, didn't want to have time to think.

  In the morning, Carole's ghost was in the bathroom.

  He thought at first that he was hallucinating. She was naked and standing in front of the sink, apparently looking at herself in the mirror. She had the appearance of a stereotypical apparition: her form was visible but transparent, a pale see-through representation of solid matter.

  He walked into the bathroom --and she disappeared.

  Despite himself, he felt slightly chilled. His lack of belief in anything beyond the physical, material world was strong, but even if its origin was in his own mind, seeing Carole's form after her death was a little unnerving.

  He looked around the bathroom, checked behind the shower curtain, and, satisfied that there was no one there, walked over to the toilet to take a leak.

  His mind was probably playing tricks on him, he decided.

  He was so used to seeing Carole that his brain had filled in the blanks, putting her where he expected her to be.

  But she'd never stood in front of the sink naked. Not in all the years they'd been married.

  It was the stress, he told himself, the shock. It was making him see things that weren't there.

  She was waiting for him ten minutes later in the kitchen.

  Still naked.

  This time, he definitely had chills. The nudity, for some reason, lent credence to the idea that the figure was Carole's ghost. That was one of the problems he'd always had with spirits. People who saw them always claimed they were clothed. Sometimes they were even supposed to be wearing hats. But that made no logical sense. Did the clothes die with the person? Were these the ghosts of their clothes that had accompanied them to the great beyond? Did ghosts somehow conjure up the appearance of clothing so as to not embarrass their earthly counterparts? It had always made more sense to him to assume that if there were such things as ghosts, they would be merely an unformed energy source with no definite shape. The idea that a human soul retained the physical appearance of the body housing it had seemed to him to be a ludicrously illogical idea.

  But Carole's ghost looked just like her.

  The ghost, again, was standing before the sink, this time the kitchen sink. It was facing him across the length of the room, and it smiled as he entered. He was still clinging to the thought that this was a trick of his mind, but there seemed to be a measurable decrease in temperature as he walked into the kitchen, and he did not think he was imagining that. From behind him came the familiar purr-meow of Hermie begging for his morning Friskies, and the cat jogged between his legs toward the plastic dish next to the stove.

  Halfway across the linoleum, Hermie stopped. He stared at the ghost, arched his back, hissed and ran away.

  Norton backed up slowly.

  Hermie saw her too!

  It was not a figment of his imagination, not stress or a hallucination. It was an honest-to-God apparition. He believed that now, and it scared the hell out of him.

  Outside the window, a bird flew by. He could see it through Carole's head, her insubstantial form obscuring not even the slightest detail of the scene outdoors. In books, it was only evil spirits that were frightening. People claimed to be comforted by the ghosts of relatives and loved ones, as though they felt they were being watched over by a guardian angel.

  Norton felt no such thing.

  True, he and Carole were probably not as close and loving as they should have been, but even intense hatred would not have accounted for the feeling he got from the figure across the room. It was like nothing he had ever experienced; the emotional knowledge that he was in the presence of something profoundly unnatural, a wrongness so concentrated and powerful that it permeated the room and everything in it, creating within him a sense of complete engulfing dread. The naked, smiling ghost looked like the shade of a human being, a weakened reflection of the person it had been in life, but its aura seemed to be that of something much deeper, much more inexplicable.

  It was still Carole, though.

  He knew that. He could feel it.

  And that was what scared him.

  The figure, still smiling, reached out to him . . . and faded away into nothingness.

  He'd taken a week off from work, using his two days of bereavement leave as well as three "personal necessity"

  days, but he was not sure that had been such a good idea. He felt restless during the day, the suddenly empty house seemed way too large, and he thought that he should have continued working in order to keep himself busy and keep his mind off Carole.

  And her ghost.

  She did not appear again until the following night. He was in bed, trying to sleep, trying not to focus on the unusual sounds he'd been hearing in the house, on Car ole's death or her apparent afterlife, on anything that he'd seen or felt, when, for some reason, he was compelled to open his eyes.

  And there she was.

  Still naked, the ghost stood on the mattress on Car ole's side of the bed, looking down at him. There was no indentation on the mattress, no indication that any weight was being put on the bed despite the fact that the ghost feet were clearly standing flat on the sheet. This close, the detail was amazing. He could make out on the see-through skin the heart-shaped birthmark just below Carole's right breast. Between the thatch of pellucid pubic hair was the faint suggestion of pale pink lips.

  He sat up, but she didn't disappear this time.

  His heart was pounding with fear. "Get out!" he screamed. "You're dead! Get out and don't come back!"

  He'd heard from one parapsychologist on some New Age pseudo-documentary that ghosts were people who were hanging around terrestrial life because they didn't know they had died and weren't ready to move on. He
figured it was worth a shot. "You're dead! Leave me alone!"

  But the ghost only smiled down at him, lifted her foot, pressed it into his face j--and disappeared.

  He'd seen her several times a day ever since. She was everywhere, all over the house, and he tried ignoring her, tried talking to her, tried yelling at her, tried praying.

  He tried everything he could think of to get rid of her, but she would not go away.

  He was getting desperate, and he considered calling a priest or an exorcist or someone from a tabloid TV

  show. He had to do something.

  She appeared that night in his dream.

  It was a kinder, gentler ghost in his dream. There was not that overwhelming sense of wrongness that he'd experienced in the presence of the figure in life. Instead, the ghost was the same as the real Carole--only dead.

  She was standing in a field, next to a haystack, the kind of haystack that wasn't used anymore, and she was pointing toward a far-off light in the darkness.

  "Return," she whispered.

  He knew what she was telling him to do, and goose bumps popped up on both his arms. She was telling him to return home, to the house in Oakdale, the house of his birth. He did not know how he knew this, but he did, and even as he accepted its dream logic he was fighting against the request.

  "No," he told the ghost.

  "Return," she repeated.

  Panic welled within him. Not because of Carole's ghost but at the prospect of returning to the house in Oakdale.

  "Return."

  Norton awoke, breathing hard, drenched with sweat.

  He sat up in bed, reached for the cup of water he always kept on the nightstand and drank it all. He hadn't thought about the house in Oakdale for ... hell, decades.