A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) (20 page)

But the Annie that met them in the breakfast room with the coffee pot in her hand was not the ‘Annie’ they knew. She was quiet and unsmiling…her greeting was perfunctory at best. “We’re sorry, Annie. We didn’t know it would turn out like that,” Meg began.

“I didn’t have to go, did I? It was me own fault,” she muttered and went back to the kitchen.

“Now what are we going to do?” Meg asked.

“Good question. Let’s give her a little time,” Charlie began just as Rayne stormed through the hall door. “If you think I am going to spend one more night in this….this place…you are both crazy. And if you don’t get rid of that
thing
you conjured up, your guests will be dropping like flies from heart failure! Now, if one of you will come with me to my room, I’m packing!”

Charlie began to reassure her, but Meg was quicker. “I know that what happened last night must have scared the bejabbers out of you. It’s all my fault. I must have summoned him, unintentionally, of course. I really was only hoping for Breanna and not expecting even her, but he’s gone now. Probably back in his room, where he’ll stay. (hopefully, she muttered to herself) Believe me, Rayne, that’s my last seance. I promise I’ll never hold one again!”

Rayne plunked down next to them and smiled ruefully. “Okay. You’re my sisters and I won’t leave you to deal with
whatever
that was alone.”

Charlie smiled back at her. “Some day we will all think we had a great adventure, survived, and lived to laugh about it.”

Rayne looked at her pointedly. “Like that is
ever
going to happen! How’s Annie doing?”

“Mostly just mutters and shakes her head. Though she did manage a rather strained ‘good morning’,” Charlie told her. “Sh-hhh! Here she comes!”

Annie stood in the door with her hands on her hips. She looked from one sister to the other, till her gaze rested on Meg. “I’m not goin’ to mention what happened last night. But I will not be settin’ one foot inside this house after dark ever again and I will be out the door as fast as me old legs can carry me if you ever have one of those things…whatever you be callin’ them…again.”

“That means you’re going to stay?” Meg asked, hardly daring to hope.

“I’ll be a stayin’. Who’d take care of the lot of you, if I don’t?”

There was a collective sigh of relief. “Well, in that case, Annie, what’s for breakfast,” Rayne asked with a wobbly smile.

***

After breakfast, Rayne retired to her room for a nap…Meg headed out to the lake where she was clearing brush, and Charlie grabbed her coffee mug and returned to her keyboard, wondering how she was going to concentrate with so much going on. She had barely settled in her seat, when her door was flung open and Zack strode in.

She had heard the expression ‘heart in her throat’ and hadn’t believed that was anatomically possible until now. She swallowed hard before she said as playfully as she could manage, “Come to catch the wizard behind the curtain?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he looked around slowly, then turned his gaze on her. “Despite what I said last night, I can’t believe even you could create what we all saw. So, what’s going on, Charlie? You’re going to tell me everything,” he said as he moved closer, then bent down till his face was just inches from hers.

“And why would I do that?” she asked feeling a rush of heat that she was very much afraid would turn into a full blush. “I don’t even like you.”

He laughed then and straightened. “Maybe because I have an interest in your welfare? And your sisters’?”

“You have heard the expression ‘when hell freezes over’? That’s exactly when I’ll believe anything you say,” she told him with a smile. “But, since you are staying here, maybe it’s time you knew. Meg and I call him Old Thumper. I’m rather surprised you haven’t heard him by now, since you are almost right over his room.”

“The locked rooms with the tissue in the keyholes. I’ve had a look inside. Creepy place. Left just as it was when they hanged themselves…what… three years ago?”

“Give or take. He’s kind of a demonic spirit and haunts this house. Meg and I can usually hear him coming…his cane”

“Old Thumper! I get it. And Breanna?”

“She’s been visiting us ever since we first got here. And there’s a ghost cat named ‘Cloud’ that usually sleeps with me each night.”

“Lucky cat,” he seemed to murmur, though she couldn’t be entirely sure. He raised one black brow and said, “None of which you cared to tell me about?”

She stood and was surprised to find him much taller than she’d thought. “There was no reason you needed to know until now. Meg and I feel a sense of responsibility towards Breanna. She has made herself known to us and seems to need our help to find whatever it is she’s searching for. Perhaps it’s peace…perhaps it’s justice,” she told him with quiet intensity, as she stared deeply into his dark eyes.

“Perhaps it’s both. So, that explains the seance. Which didn’t exactly do much that I could see except scare everyone into apoplexy. Myself included …or almost. But there was one thing. Breanna seemed to be talking to her brother, Devon, as though he was in the room with us,” he told her, as he seemed to be studying her lips with an intensity of his own.

“Meg and I caught that, too. If she wasn’t speaking to Devon’s spirit that, for some reason, we couldn’t see, that leaves two possibilities.”

“Which are?”

“Devon is either Adrian or you!”

“Me!” he exclaimed with a laugh that held no humor Charlie could detect!

“You! Now if you don’t mind I have a book to get back to and you should probably do the same. Good day, Mr. Mallory. Don’t slam the door when you leave,” she told him, purposefully turning her back, though it took almost more will power than she had. She could feel the heat from his eyes boring through her skin, and she almost turned around, but then she heard the door slam violently and knew it was too late. She sighed. That was probably a good thing, right? she asked herself, without having a clue how to answer her own question.

***

The next few days only seemed ‘normal’ if nobody looked too closely! Annie seemed distracted…Rayne slept with all her lights on and her mom’s talismans under her pillow and Zack wasn’t seen at all.

Then the knocker sounded and another dozen white roses arrived. The card read simply:
You are my heart.
Meg carried them into the kitchen and plunked them down on the table, then sat looking at them with her elbows propped up next to them. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s ‘heart’ before,” she told Annie, who was slicing carrots next to her. “These are really beautiful, but I think I’ll stick them outside. If I keep them in the house it makes me feel like he’s in here, too, which would not make me sleep any better. Not that I’ve been doing so much of that lately. Have you ever had a secret admirer, Annie?”

“The likes of me?” she scoffed. “Who’d be wantin’ this old soul?”

Meg took a slice of carrot and nibbled along its edge. “You know, I never really noticed before, but if you did something with your hair”

“That’s more than enough of your foolishness,” she said with a laugh. “I’m an old woman set in me ways not needin’ a man to muss things up.”

“You’re not so old and with the right clothes and some makeup, you could be pretty…really pretty. Wouldn’t you like someone besides just your dog for company?”

“Seems good enough for you,” she retorted with a snort. “Your ‘secret admirer’ seems the persistent kind. What do you suppose he’ll be doin’ next?”

“I don’t want to
suppose
. I just wish he would admire someone else. Preferably someone not living in this house,” Meg said with a sigh. “Wait till Charlie sees these. She has too much on her mind already and this won’t help.”

“Then why be tellin’ her? No point in a stirin’ the pot, I say. If she didn’t hear the delivery boy, we won’t be a tellin her a thing, will we?” Annie said with a wink and a tap to the side of her nose.

Meg smiled in agreement, as she helped herself to another piece of carrot.

Rayne congratulated herself on her latest marketing ‘stroke of genius’! She would hold an Open House and invite everyone of consequence. There were people she knew and people Adrian knew, who could be persuaded to come with a little arm twisting. Something she’d seen Adrian do on more than one occasion.

And then there were the politicians and people of influence in Merritsville. People like the Tax Assessor, a Mrs. Blaine, who might be inclined to assess Hensley Hall at a reasonable rate, considering its state at the time of the contest. Of course, the press, such as it was, would be there. She would hire a professional photographer to take pix that might be useful in one context or another. Since Meg and Charlie had no objection other than the expense, which Rayne pooh-poohed with “”You have to spend money to make money’”, a date was decided on and invitations sent. The little town was abuzz with excitement.

Rayne busied herself with ‘list making’ and ‘delegation’, which quite ‘taxed’ her energy. Then one night, having restored her energy enough to go dancing with Adrian, she returned home late. A full moon rode a trail of feathery clouds as the black Jaguar pulled through the wrought-iron gates and up the drive. Moonlight filtered through the canopy of trees, casting a web of lacey black shadows on the drive in front of them. A night wind stirred restlessly.

Both towers were lit and Rayne smiled. Charlie was waiting up for her. Since the seance, she never let her come home to a dark house. Rayne leaned back in her seat and sighed, her hand sought Adrian’s. “I don’t really feel like going in just yet. Why don’t we walk down to the lake?”

Adrian smiled, his teeth flashing whitely in the dark. “Skinny dipping, or do you have something else in mind?”

“I’m surprised you have the energy for either, considering.”

Without waiting for his reply, she slid out the door. The night wind teased her long dark hair and flattened her silk tank dress against her thighs. “This feels wonderful,” she said as Adrian rounded the car and slipped his arm around her shoulders, “with the full moon we can see the path through the trees and down to the lake. Come on! Maybe I’ll let you have your way with me, if you can catch me that is!” She was laughing as she broke free of his grasp and headed down the crushed shell path that was luminous with moonlight.

Turning her ankle, she swore petulantly, “Dammit! I can’t out run you in these heels, but if I take them off the shells will cut my feet to ribbons…not to mention what they’ll do to my pedicure.”

Adrian murmured, “I could carry you. Your knight and all.”

She laughed, “Then we’ll both go crashing into something. Give me your arm and I’ll be fine.”

The path wound deeper into the trees and shrubs. Though the center of this section had been bush-hogged, the area remained overgrown with brush, vines and trees that had been ornamental decades ago. They passed the rose arbor that Meg and Annie had pruned back, .the scent was amazing., even headier at night.

“I hope this isn’t too much farther,” Adrian muttered, as a mosquito whined close to his ear.

Rayne laughed again. “Just around that bend if I remember rightly, but everything looks so different in the dark. Look! There’s the lake and the bench next to it in that little patch of grass.”

The moon’s reflection floated like a fat silver coin on the black surface of the lake. A bullfrog croaked. Crickets grew quiet at their approach, then began to sing again. Lightning bugs blinked on and off, signaling to each other. It was an enchanted place. At least to Rayne.

“Is that white thing in the middle of the lake the ‘Folly’ you told me about?” Adrian asked, brushing, impatiently, at another mosquito.

“Yes, it’s the ruin of a miniature castle. The Victorians loved that kind of thing.”

“Seems like a waste of money to me. Hey, do you mind if I go back to the car and get my cigarettes? A little smoke might keep these bloodsuckers off me. Be back in a moment.” He was gone before she could answer, but she knew it was a rhetorical question anyway. And besides, he was beginning to get on her nerves. She was probably only still seeing him, because Meg and Charlie didn’t approve. That and the other thing. He was good in bed, very good, in fact, and she didn’t fancy the celibate life her sisters seemed to choose.

She stretched and pirouetted. Then reached for the moon. A primitive energy seemed to come up from the earth, through her feet, higher and higher. She kicked off her shoes and began to dance. Twirling and leaping, her hair fanning out around her like black silk, she was a child again, dancing in the moonlight, unfettered by life’s complications. Faster and faster she spun, until she fell laughing to the ground. Leaning back on her outstretched arms, she lifted her face to the moon. Maybe this was how her mother felt….pagan…part of the earth and the sky and everything in between. It was glorious!

And then she heard it. A sound that didn’t belong. A rustle, a snap, and she knew she was not alone. Her heart began to thud and she rose to her feet. Spinning in all directions, she looked around. She couldn’t see anyone, but the prickly awareness that teased its way up her spine and raised the hairs on the back of her neck told her someone was there, deep in the shadows, watching her.

“Is anyone there?” she asked, putting on her shoes and edging her way around the bench that stood between her and the path back to safety. “I know you’re there, so come out where I can see you?” she said, stalling for time. “We can sit down and….” She was off like a rabbit, .but, sadly, a rabbit in stiletto heels was not as fast as she would have liked. The rustles grew louder as, keeping to the shadows, someone gave chase. He was gaining on her easily. He could take the shorter route through the trees, while she was forced to follow the path. Suddenly, it occurred to her to scream. Screaming like a banshee straight from hell, she rounded a corner and ran into a very solid male form. Adrian.