The Haunting of Ashburn House (13 page)

Adrienne turned and saw motion.

Her mind, stretched thin and taut with fear, struggled to identify all of the shapes along the cluttered hallway. The tables, stands, clock, and shelves all took on a terrible importance, and they harboured strange shadows about their bases where neither the dim ceiling light nor the lamp could penetrate. Adrienne’s eyes darted over each object in turn, searching them, trying to locate the motion that had turned her heart to ice.

The hallway was empty.

She shifted forward an inch, hardly believing it, and caught the motion again. It was her own reflection in the mirror she’d hung opposite the lounge room. Adrienne exhaled and clutched at her chest, where her heart was beginning to beat again.

Behind her, Wolfgang’s growls settled into silence. She peeked at him over her shoulder and saw that the fur was starting to deflate and his ears weren’t clamped down so fiercely.

She turned back to the hallway and slowly, shakily regained her feet. As she picked up the lamp, the light glittered over the windows on either side of the door, and a mark on the left-hand one stunned her.

Is that…?

She moved closer, breath held, to examine the smudgy handprint.

That wasn’t there when I came inside.

Chills trickled through her. The print was a little smaller than her own hand, but the fingers were longer and thinner. The outline was created out of condensation that evaporated into nothing even as she watched.

“Who…?”

A quiet fizzling echoed from deeper in the house, but she didn’t realise what was happening until the lounge room’s light clicked out. A second later, the hallway’s light died, and she was once again stranded with only the lamp.

Wolfgang hissed when she ran towards him but didn’t try to fight as she scooped him up. She clutched the cat against one shoulder, gripped the knife between her teeth, took the lamp in her spare hand, and ran up the stairs. All she could think about was getting them into a room that only had one door and was small enough to light properly. Ashburn had never felt so gloomy before.

The portraits tracked her progress with silent glee as she ran past them. The lamplight caught on the paint, making them seem almost alive, as though they would shift and turn in their frames as soon as she took her eyes off them. Wolfgang’s claws punctured her shoulder as he clung to her, but Adrienne bit the inside of her cheek and held him tighter.

She kicked open the door at the end of the hallway and dived through. When she turned, she fully expected to see something following her down the hallway, but it was empty save for the eerily lifelike paintings. She closed the door with a hard shove, locked it, and lowered Wolfgang onto her bed. He shot her an offended glare then hopped onto the floor and began examining the new room.

Adrienne dropped the knife and lamp onto the bedside table then ran her hands through her hair. She was struggling to breathe. A mantra ran through her mind, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to believe.
It’s just kids. It’s just kids. It’s just kids. I hope.

She couldn’t remember any of her childhood friends being creative, clever, or dedicated enough to pull off some of the frights she’d experienced that night—certainly not without breaking into giggles or exchanging stage whispers.

What are you saying, Addy?

The townspeople joked that the house was haunted. They spread tales about incorporeal creatures whispering into their ears and spoke of seeing disembodied faces in the windows.

Whatever this is, it isn’t a ghost. Spirits can’t cut through shoelaces to turn the power off or leave wet handprints on the outside of windows.

But why would someone go to such effort to scare her? They hadn’t vandalised or burgled the house and were apparently trying not to be seen.

Is someone trying to frighten me away?

It was one of the simplest explanations. The cut lights and handprint were incredibly effective fear tactics. But the
why
stumped her. If there was someone in town who had been close to Edith—a carer or relative—they might have had a sense of entitlement to her estate. But all accounts suggested Edith had lived a solitary life.

Well, if someone is trying to chase me out, they’re going to have a tough time. I have nowhere else to go. Like it or not, Ashburn is my home for the immediate future.

Wolfgang, his examination of the room complete, leapt onto the bed and sat with his paws tucked neatly under himself. Adrienne settled beside him and buried her hand into his fur for comfort.

No one could get into the room without breaking through the door. She had a knife for self-defence, but the lamp’s oil wouldn’t last more than an hour. She suspected it was going to be another long night.

— § —

Adrienne woke to sunlight cutting across her face. She felt groggy and sore and tried to roll over, only to discover her legs were draped over the edge of the bed. She moaned, shifted fully onto the mattress, then flinched as something heavy fell and clinked on the floor.
The knife.
Wolfgang sprawled beside her, contorted so that his head was upside down, and deep, rumbling purrs serenaded her.

The previous night felt like a bizarre dream. She’d sat on the bed’s edge with every intention of staying awake through the night but had fallen asleep even before the lamp’s flame died. Judging by the sun’s angle, it was several hours past dawn.

“Why’d you let me sleep so late, buddy?” She scratched under Wolfgang’s chin, making him shiver happily. His purrs were easing away her anxiety and stress. It was as though he were saying everything was good with the world again, and it was hard to argue.

Her problems weren’t gone—far from it—but with the sunrise, she’d been given twelve hours of daylight to figure something out.

“I’m going to have to figure real hard, Wolf.” She stared at the ceiling but kept her fingers stroking his fluffy cheeks. “Last night took stuff past simple coincidences and into legitimate-threat territory. Best-case scenario, this town has some really dedicated pranksters, and I’m going to have to talk to their parents. Worst-case scenario…” The rural snow-bound family, butchered with a mattock and not found for days, flashed into her mind again, and she grimaced. “Well, anyway, I’m thinking the original plan is still my best option. What d’you think?”

The original plan—to document everything, be cautious, and research what she could—was truthfully less of a
best
option and more of an
only
option. But Wolfgang didn’t need to know that.

True to form, the tabby didn’t respond. Adrienne inhaled deeply, huffed the breath out, and rose.

Her shoulder ached, and she had to feel the little droplets of dried blood to remember Wolfgang’s claws had dug in there. A small headache lingered in the back of her skull, a remnant of the stress, and her hip and leg muscles were stiff from where they’d been draped off the bed, but otherwise, she felt surprisingly good. Not even an icy-cold shower could break her new enthusiasm.

She fed Wolfgang and boiled Edith’s half packet of pasta. There wasn’t any sauce to go with it, but that didn’t bother her. While she ate, she walked through the building and checked the windows and doors. She wasn’t surprised to find them all closed and intact. Whoever came onto her property at night didn’t seem to care about actually entering the house.

Once she’d finished eating, she went outside to check on the damage to the fuse box. She’d had no qualms about searching her home, but stepping outside was another matter. The window beside the door was now clear, but she couldn’t forget the handprint with its long, narrow fingers pressed into the glass.

Adrienne stood on the porch for a long minute before stepping into the grass and circling around the house. The fuse box waited at the side, half-hidden behind weeds and shrubs, and Adrienne swallowed an unpleasant lump in her throat when she saw it.

The shoelace was still threaded through the lock hole. She bent close to examine it in case it had been undone and replaced, but she recognised the complex, lumpy knots she was so fond of.

They turned the power off without touching the fuse switches. How?

She slowly, painstakingly untangled her knot. The sun beat down on her back as she worked at it, and she was sweating by the time the lace came free. She opened the lid, flicked all of the switches up to restore power to her house, then slammed it closed and turned to survey the woods.

If the stranger had an alternate method for cutting her power, there was no point in locking the box again; it would just delay her when she had to turn it back on. Adrienne knelt and returned the dirty lace to her shoe.

She would have to ask Jayne how else the power could be cut. The fact that she could turn it back on meant the wires were intact, fortunately. Jayne had said one section of the house could be blown by a bad appliance, but that didn’t explain how they could all be knocked out in a matter of seconds.

Adrienne sighed, filed the problem into her increasingly full mental box labelled “How and Why?” and turned towards the woods.

She’d overslept that morning, courtesy of a disturbed sleep the day before, and the sun told her it was late morning. She needed to move quickly if she wanted to chase all available threads of enquiry.

She hiked Ashburn Walk quickly, running down the steepest slopes and jumping over the edge of the stairs rather than zigzagging down them. She counted through her tasks as she walked, and she tried to prioritise her time.

She wanted an update on Marion’s condition. Visiting again didn’t seem like a smart option, but she hoped that, in a town as small as Ipson, news would spread quickly and someone could tell her how her friend was faring.

A higher priority, though, was to find out if anyone in the town had an abnormal obsession with Ashburn. The culprit could be someone who had developed a fixation on the building as a child and grown into a not-quite-mentally-right adult. It could be someone who felt entitled to the land in some way; perhaps their parents had helped build the house. Or it could be someone who simply wanted a home on the mountain and was prepared to go to great lengths to buy the property cheaply.

No matter the cause, Adrienne hoped the perpetrator would have left breadcrumbs. They might have talked about Ashburn a little more than was normal or dropped hints to friends. If she spoke to enough people, she felt she had a good chance of finding something.

But she didn’t have any leads on where to begin her enquiries, so she decided to combine that goal with another priority: learning about Ashburn’s history.

Once she reached the main road, Adrienne followed it until she found the library in one of the side streets. It was a surprisingly modern and clean building though not especially large. Ferns hung in baskets around its door, and the coat of egg-blue paint was just messy enough to make Adrienne think it was a volunteer job.

She used her fingers to brush her hair back, hoping she didn’t look too windblown after the dash down the forest path, then slipped through the front door.

The library was cool and blissfully quiet. The reception desk sat against the right-hand wall near the door, and a row of tables and comfy chairs were set up under the windows to the left. Past them, rows of shelves filled the rest of the room. They’d been arranged carefully but weren’t very full. Beth’s comment about the library being starved for recently published books seemed accurate.

Adrienne approached the front desk and waited for one of the two librarians to notice her. The taller of the ladies turned, and her face lit up with a flash of recognition.

“Oh! Adrienne!” Sarah hurried forward, a stack of books clasped under one arm and her eyes wide with surprise. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t see you come in.”

“I almost didn’t recognise you.” Adrienne laughed. “You look so different!”

Sarah kept her long, sandy hair out of her face with a hairband, and large glasses magnified her eyes. The suit she’d worn when visiting Ashburn had been swapped for a cardigan and slacks, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. Adrienne liked the new look.

“Jayne says I look better with contacts.” Sarah adjusted the glasses self-consciously as the hint of a shy smile appeared. “But these are more comfortable.”

“They suit you.”

The second librarian, an older woman with a dark perm, shot them a warning glare. Adrienne lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. Have you heard from Marion today?”

“Oh.” Sarah’s sigh deflated her whole person. “She’s, um. She’s not feeling very well. Jayne and I tried to visit this morning, and Beth visited last night, but she doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“I’m really sorry,” Adrienne said. It was an impulsive statement, but Sarah seemed to understand. She took Adrienne’s upper arm and steered her towards the back of the library, where they could talk without incurring the wrath of the older librarian.

“It’s not your fault,” Sarah said after checking over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t going to disturb anyone. “Jayne told me you helped look for her. That was so brave.”

Adrienne shrugged awkwardly. “Not really. Do you know what’s wrong with her? Has her mother taken her back to the doctor?”

Sarah shook her head with a tight-lipped grimace. “Kris is… um… she’s not…” She paused to gather her thoughts then continued in a rush. “Kris is really, really strong. And I think she expects everyone else to be the same. When she heard that Mar had thrown her mirrors away—” She stopped herself and shot Adrienne an anxious glance.

“It’s all right; I knew. It was very kind of Jayne to give them to me.”

“Okay, good.” She exhaled and shrugged. “Well, Kris wasn’t happy with that at all. Apparently, she bought new mirrors, and Marion smashed them, so she bought even more, except this time they’re break-proof and she glued them to the walls.”

Her friend’s expression showed that she didn’t approve of Kris’s methods. Adrienne agreed. After seeing how strongly Marion had reacted to just the mention of mirrors during her visit, she could only imagine how distressing it would be to have them permanently fixed in her room.

“Is there anything I can do?” She already knew the answer, but Sarah’s hopeless shrug was still crushing.

“She has our numbers,” Sarah said. “We’ve been friends since we were toddlers. I know she’ll call when she’s ready to talk. Until then, maybe the best thing we can do for her is to give her some space.”

“Okay.” Adrienne glanced through the shelves towards the seating area of the library. Half a dozen patrons lounged there while they read, and a couple more were browsing. It felt surreal to see people living their lives so normally when hers had turned into a wreck of confusion and mystery and indecision. She rubbed at the back of her neck. “There’s something else I’m hoping you can help me with.”

Sarah’s flat expression picked up. “Yes?”

“Do you keep copies of any old newspapers?”

“Oh! Um…” Sarah chewed her lower lip. “Some. Not recent ones, I’m afraid. Ipson used to have its own newspaper written and printed by the Pearson family. Gregory Pearson was the last editor, but he passed away about forty years ago, and his son shut the printing press down soon after. It was a labour of love and never made much money, as far as I can tell. Since then, the town has brought in the national papers as well as the local papers from two nearby towns, but we don’t have one of our own.”

“I was hoping you’d have some papers from when Edith was a child.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “To find out how her family died. Of course! Let me think—that would have been at least eighty years ago—so our town would have been producing its papers around that time. Yes, we should have copies of most of them. But they’re in storage and not arranged very well, I’m afraid. We inherited them from a… a… collector.” She cleared her throat and added in a whisper so low that Adrienne could barely hear, “He was really more of a hoarder, to be completely honest.”

“That’s fine! I’m just glad you have them. Would it be okay if I had a look through them?”

Sarah took a step back to peek around the shelves. None of the patrons had moved since the start of their conversation. She gave Adrienne a nervous little smile. “I’ll help. I don’t think Pam will notice if I take my break a little early.”

Sarah led her back to the reception desk. The other librarian, Pam, was returning books to their shelves, so Sarah unlocked a door behind the desk and ushered Adrienne inside.

“I’m not really supposed to bring patrons in here,” she whispered. “You won’t tell, will you?”

Adrienne mimed zipping her lips, and Sarah beamed. Adrienne had the distinct impression that this was the most excitement the other woman had experienced in a long time.

The room seemed to be a sort of storage area. There were no windows, but a single uncovered bulb hung from the ceiling. Industrial shelves covered all walls, and a small table sat in the centre. Sarah paced through the room, mouthing words as she traced the rows of filing codes with her fingers. She stopped near one of the box-filled shelves at the back of the room and knelt to read the labels on the lowest crates. “Here they are. What year did you want to start with?”

Adrienne did the math quickly. Assuming Edith was in her nineties when she passed away, and her family had been murdered when she was eight or nine, which was the oldest she appeared in the portraits… “Let’s start in the mid-1920s. We might need to cover a few years, I’m sorry to say.”

“No problem at all.” Sarah smiled as though she meant it as she pulled one of the boxes out. “The papers were weekly, as I recall, so there won’t be more than fifty-two in a year.”

Adrienne nodded as she helped carry the box to the table. “And we probably only need to look at the front page of each paper. A local family’s murders aren’t likely to be buried inside.”

Sarah pulled the box’s lid off. A small puff of dust exploded out with the motion, and she waved it away as they peered inside. The papers were badly yellowed, and some looked stained. Sarah carefully pulled a bundle out, laid them on the table, and flipped through. “They’re not in chronological order, but at least they seem to be from the same year. Want to work through a stack each?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Adrienne took out a pile of her own and scanned the first paper’s headlines. "Crop Blight Returns: The McGregor Family’s Grief." "Young Crime: Officer Stacey Expresses Concern Over Increased Incidence of Loitering."

The paper, the
Ipson Chronicle
, seemed to feature local news exclusively… of which there was very little. Each paper was between three and five pages long and occasionally included a eulogy, a house-for-sale notice, or a birth notice as the town’s population shifted.

They worked in silence, scanning a paper’s headlines before placing it into a separate pile. Occasionally, there was news of a violent crime—most often, a fist fight outside the pub—but the only reported deaths were accidental or due to old age.

Once the first box had been read through, Sarah refilled it with the papers, returned it to its spot on the shelf, and brought out a new box. The papers inside had been exposed to water, and some of the ink had bled. Adrienne was still able to read most of the articles, but it slowed her progress.

They were nearing the end of the year 1929 when Sarah gasped. Adrienne looked up, hopeful. “Did you find it?”

“It’s not a story about the murders—but it’s about the house. Here, read it.”