The Restoration Page 11

  The planchette made a sharp motion to the left. YES.

  “Did anyone come to visit you while you were ill?”

  YES.

  “Who came to visit you?”

  MOTHER.

  FATHER.

  EMMA.

  “Not Henrietta?”

  Terri could feel the planchette trembling under her fingers, as if the object couldn’t make up its mind.

  Finally, it moved to YES.

  “Henrietta did come to visit you?” Gertrude asked.

  YES.

  “Why didn’t you mention her before, with the rest of your family?”

  This time, there was no hesitation.

  HATE.

  Gertrude clicked her tongue. “Hate is a strong word, Niles. Henrietta is your sister. Why would you hate your own sister?”

  Look at how he treats his ‘friends’, Terri thought but did not say. The other two were getting something out of this, so let them. It was one night. She’d never get suckered into it again.

  MEAN.

  “What did Henrietta do that was mean to you?”

  NAMES.

  It didn’t mean anything to Terri, but Gertrude clearly had a lot more experience with this kind of communication. “She called you names?”

  YES.

  “Mean names?”

  That one was obvious, Terri thought.

  YES.

  Gertrude sagged, as though she’d been expecting something more dramatic. Like what? This was ridiculous. She couldn’t honestly expect to find out anything this way.

  “My brothers do that too. It’s called teasing. It isn’t meant to be mean, though it can feel that way sometimes. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  YES. And then, slower, SHE MEANS IT.

  “Did Henrietta do anything else mean to you?”

  PUSH.

  HIT.

  IGNORE.

  PULL.

  HAIR.

  Gertrude’s eyes met Terri’s. She looked startled, but to Terri, the only thing it proved was Henrietta had been a bratty kid. Nothing unusual about that. And why was she focusing on Henrietta anyway, if she believed Howard or Elizabeth had killed him?

  “I see,” she said. “That is pretty mean. I wouldn’t like her either.”

  NO.

  HATE.

  “Mom, that’s the woman who hired you, right?”

  Terri nodded. “Remember, though, this might not be true. We can’t prove it, and we’re not hearing her side of the story.”

  “Why would Niles lie?” her daughter asked, and she shrugged, not wanting to say in front of Gertrude that she wasn’t sure the whole thing wasn’t faked. It didn’t feel like Gertrude was the one moving the planchette, but there was no way to be certain.

  Gertrude cleared her throat. “Did Henrietta do anything nice for you?”

  YES.

  “What did she do?”

  CANDY.

  “She brought you candy?” Gertrude appeared to perk up at this, applying enough pressure to the planchette that her fingernails turned bright pink, but Terri wasn’t sure why. So far, talking to a ghost had been more boring than talking to a human being.

  YES.

  LOTS.

  “Where would she get lots of candy?”

  Terri groaned inwardly, and sure enough—

  STORE.

  “Did your parents know she was giving you candy, Niles?”

  The triangle quivered under their fingers. Then it shot from YES to NO and back again. “What does that mean?” Terri asked.

  “I think he doesn’t know, or remember. How often did she give you candy?”

  Why all these questions about candy? Next she’d be asking him for the servants’ grocery shopping list. Who cared? But the question triggered a flurry of activity on the board. Terri could hardly keep up with the letters until she figured out the pattern, and then it was easy.

  MONDAY.

  TUESDAY.

  WEDNESDAY.

  THURSDAY.

  FRIDAY.

  SAT—

  “Did she give you candy every day, Niles?”

  Terri imagined both she and the ghost were relieved when Gertrude cut to the chase. YES.

  “How did you hide this from your parents?”

  NO TELL.

  SECRET.

  NOT ALLOWED.

  LOVE.

  CANDY.

  During the strange conversation – strange mostly for how banal it was – Gertrude had grown pale. She turned to Terri, her eyes glistening. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask him? Not tell him, ask.”

  Here was her chance. Maybe Gertrude had nothing better to do than ask this board tedious questions all day, but she had work to do. If she got to the point quickly, she could show the woman her theories were wrong, and then Gertrude wouldn’t have to stay with them after all. Perhaps Niles would leave them alone too. It was worth a shot.

  “Did your mother kill you, Niles?”

  Gertrude’s eyes widened. No, she mouthed, but Terri pretended she hadn’t seen.

  NO.

  “How about your father?”

  NO.

  “Henrietta? Did Henrietta kill you?”

  NO.

  The table shuddered under their hands. At first, Terri thought Gertrude was doing it to get her attention, but a glimpse of the woman’s face put that to rest. Her eyes bulged, and her skin was the color of curdled milk.

  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

  “Who killed you, Niles?” Terri raised her voice to be heard over the roaring in her ears. “Tell us.”

  The light fixture above them swayed back and forth, faster and faster.

  NOT DEAD. NOT DEAD. NOT DEAD. NOT DEAD. NOT DEAD. NOT DEAD. NOT DEAD.

  “Of course you’re dead. You died decades ago.”

  “Terri, stop!” Gertrude yelled.

  The light bulb above them popped, plunging them into near darkness, and Dallas screamed. Terri gritted her teeth, keeping her fingers pressed to the planchette. She was going to end this, once and for all. “Haven’t you seen Henrietta when she comes to the house, Niles? Haven’t you noticed how old she is? Even if you’d survived your childhood, you’d be dead by now.”

  The table tilted abruptly to one side, almost sliding the board to the floor. It rocked back and forth, like a teeter-totter.

  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

  “Were you murdered, Niles?”

  NO.

  I AM ALIVE.

  Another bulb exploded in the kitchen, and from elsewhere in the house, Terri could hear glass shattering. “You’re not alive. We’re alive. You’re dead.”

  Now her daughter was shrieking for her to stop as well, but Terri tuned her out and kept going. If this brat insisted upon hanging around, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  “If you’re alive, where is your mother? Your father? Where is Emma? Why don’t they live here anymore, Niles? Why did they leave you?”

  The moaning came from the speaking tube again, but it was louder than ever before. Between that, Gertrude and Dallas yelling at her, and the sounds of breaking glass, Terri was afraid the spirit wouldn’t hear her. She raised her voice as loud as she could.

  “The only one of your family that’s alive is Henrietta, and she’s an old woman! Everyone else is dead. You are dead!”

  Papers fluttered on the counter and went flying. A cold wind swept through the room, moving Dallas’s ponytail so it smacked Terri’s uninjured cheek.

  The Ouija board
continued to spell out NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO until it flew out from under their fingers and hit the opposite wall, splintering.

  “Let go, Niles,” Terri hollered. “You’re dead. Go to the light. Go to the light!”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d said that last bit, but she’d seen it in a horror movie once, and it sounded good.

  The heavy stockpot containing what was left of the cioppino hovered above the stove before soaring toward them. It slammed into the wall inches from their faces, splattering all of them with red stew. Then it dropped to the table with a thud.

  The chaos ended as abruptly as it had begun. Torn papers drifted to the floor. One light bulb sputtered and flared, illuminating a godawful mess. Dallas and Gertrude stared at her, their expressions alternating between terror and fury, stew dripping from their noses and eyelashes. Terri had to fight the urge to laugh.

  “I think that went well,” she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Over the next few days, Terri experienced what persona non grata really meant. It was almost enough to make her regret she’d tormented Niles – almost, but not quite. She was tired of having their lives revolve around a sixteen-year-old brat. A dead sixeen-year-old brat, but still.

  Her daughter and Gertrude had started an exclusive club where they’d talk to each other but not to her. Long after the last of the cioppino had been scrubbed from the kitchen walls, they continued their silent treatment, as if Glenvale now served as a bizarre version of high school. Well, fine. Let Gertrude deal with Dallas’s moods and sullenness, the pervasive whines of “I’m bored” that were bound to begin any day now.

  The thing was, aside from giving her the cold shoulder, they both appeared to be happy. Terri had stumbled upon them in the garden several times, chatting and laughing, but they became silent as a mortuary when they saw her.

  She didn’t care about what Gertrude thought of her, but she did care about Dallas. While she refinished the estate’s hardwood floors, her eyes burned as she thought about the lost potential of ‘their summer’ and what a joke that had turned out to be. Several times she’d considered sending Gertrude home, or somehow tipping Henrietta Vandermere off and having her do the dirty work, but it was Dallas who kept her from doing so. Her daughter would see right through any excuse she provided to the jealousy and inadequacy that festered in Terri’s heart. She’d never forgive her.

  Thus, the ostracism dragged on. She’d haul herself to the kitchen for a glass of cold water and some supper, only to find Gertrude there, fussing over something that smelled amazing. Sometimes Dallas would be keeping her company, and Terri would linger as she made yet another peanut butter-and-honey sandwich, thinking that this would surely be the day when her daughter would break down and talk to her again. But so far, that hadn’t happened. They continued to talk through her and over her, as if she weren’t there at all. Was this what it was like to be a ghost?

  Cruel remarks sprang to her lips, about how she wouldn’t eat any of the crap Gertrude made if you paid her (what was wrong with processed food, anyway?), and how both of them were choosing their undead little friend over her, but she left the room before she could make the mistake of voicing them. Glenvale was high school, and she’d survived high school the first time with her sanity mostly intact. She’d had no inkling she’d have to repeat the fun and excitement in her mid-thirties, but she remembered well how to beat the silent-treatment game. She who is the most silent wins.

  Not everyone left her alone. Terri often felt someone watching her as she did her work, and glimpsed the dreaded Niles out of the corner of her eye. A smell accompanied him sometimes, the nondescript medicinal smell of sickness that hadn’t changed much over the ages. It reminded her of hospitals and palliative care, not of someone dying in their bed at home. She continued to steer clear of his room, intending to leave it until the end, along with the attic.

  Then there was the woman. The woman had begun to show up a day ago, startling Terri into thinking Vandermere or one of her assistants had arrived, until she’d noticed the clothes. Corsets and wasp-waisted day dresses; jodhpurs, jackets, and hats that looked like they’d sauntered off the pages of Horse and Hound magazine. When she wasn’t dressed for riding, the woman’s hair was styled in a waved bob, making her look like a 1930s valentine come to life.

  Elizabeth? Terri thought, unsure who the woman was. Her presence was more disconcerting than Niles’s, even though Niles had been the one who’d mauled her cheek (which was healing nicely, finally). The woman held her head tilted at an unnatural angle, with her ear nearly touching her shoulder, and an expression of equal parts disgust and loathing upon her face. Terri couldn’t figure out what she had done to provoke this reaction, unless it was yet more fallout from the doomed séance. Which hadn’t been her fault in the first place. Gertrude never should have brought a Ouija board to Glenvale – that was like turning up at a knife fight with a flamethrower. What had she expected to happen?

  Terri ignored it all. The persistent snubs from her own child, the unwelcome spirits, the irritation that was Gertie. She shut it out, and as she engrossed herself in her work, at times she felt a bit of relief. This was her destiny, bringing beautiful homes back from the dead. This was what she should have focused on all along: her work, not what the Vandermere family may or may not have done in the past, or what secrets the house may or may not conceal.

  Thy Work Be Done, indeed.

  She never imagined it would be Glenvale’s ghosts who broke the silence, but break it they did.

  The fourth day of Operation Cold Shoulder dawned as drearily as the others. Cloud-covered skies and oppressive humidity. Terri worked in Emma’s room. It was a natural progression, but she’d also moved the bedroom up on her list in the hopes it would encourage Dallas to talk to her. However, her daughter had just moved her things to a different room.

  She set to work dismantling a lovely wooden window seat in desperate need of repair. When she removed the rotten boards, she discovered there was a hidden nook where Emma had stored a number of treasures: an antique sparrow brooch wrapped in an embroidered handkerchief so delicate that it felt like it would crumble under her fingertips; a mother-of-pearl tussy mussy for carrying a small bouquet of flowers to ward off unpleasant smells; and a small, leather-bound book. The book tumbled onto the floor at her feet when she revealed its hiding place, and as Terri stooped to pick it up, a feeling of foreboding caressed her. Which didn’t make any sense, as the book was likely just a Bible.

  But it wasn’t.

  She opened the creaky book and found line after line of elegant script. It seemed like she’d found Emma Vandermere’s journal. A lock of dark hair, glossy and wavy, fell into her hand as she turned the pages. It could have been anyone’s, but she instinctively knew it was Niles’s. Without thinking, she lifted it to her nose, but whatever smell he’d had, it was long gone.

  Aware that she had no right reading the diary, and that she had no claim to anything she found during the restoration, Terri still couldn’t help herself. Though she scoffed at Gertrude’s theories and never-ending obsession, she was intrigued by the mystery of these unquiet spirits.

  Had Niles been murdered? Had Emma known her own days were numbered? Terri sank down on the bed and began to read. It wasn’t long before she found something troubling about the deathly ill male heir.

  My little pussycat has gone missing, and its absence breaks my heart. It is the fourth creature who has suffered such a fate in as many months, and I am certain I know the identity of the culprit. For years, I have warned Mother about Niles’s curious behavior, even telling her about the abomination I discovered in the cellar, but she refuses to listen. He is ill again, and she coddles him so, never accepting how dangerous he is. She believes he is as meek as a little lamb, but any animals we have
adopted into this house would beg to differ. They know the truth, as do I.

  Freezing fingers traced a path up her spine again, and Terri felt a cold draft that appeared to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. They’d believed Niles was a victim – either a young man murdered while too ill to defend himself, or one cut down in the prime of his life by a treatable condition. But Emma’s words told a different story. There were few things that bothered Terri more than the abuse of animals, but those who hurt animals were capable of hurting people too. Animal cruelty was often a training ground for serial killers.

  She recalled how Niles had looked the night he’d attacked her, his angelic features twisted and contorted into something demonic, his teeth sharp and pointed when he’d hissed at her. Could she believe someone like that was capable of making kittens disappear? Without a doubt.

  Who would believe her, though? Dallas and Gertrude had fallen so hard for the victim story, she wasn’t sure they’d believe his own sister.

  I had suspected Niles knew I was aware of his behavior and his foul collection of oddities in the cellar, and now I have proof. He has taken to following me, ensuring I do not have a moment alone with our parents or even Henrietta. He appears to be fearful of Henrietta, but what hold she has over him, I do not quite understand. The last few nights I awoke to feel that he had cloistered himself in here and was watching me slumber. I hate to think for what purpose! I have come to sleep with my epee alongside me, and though it is an impractical weapon, in my capable hands it should suffice.

  Terri shut the volume for a moment, marking the place with her finger, fighting to collect her thoughts and catch her breath. She kept picturing Emma awakening to find someone was in her room, watching her. Though he had been her little brother, how terrifying that must have been. Had she heard his breathing? How had she known it was Niles? Scootching back on the bed so her back was pressed against the headboard, Terri surveyed the room. Though Emma had been the eldest daughter, her bedroom was one of the smallest, and from the photographs she’d seen, it had been packed with stuff. The woman’s sporting equipment, musical instruments, including a Stradivarius violin whose price would have been astronomical today, dressmaker’s dummy, and armoire full of fine clothing wouldn’t have left much room for Niles to maneuver, but would have provided him with several objects to hide behind. Emma also had a walk-in closet that was its own separate room, a rarity in those days. Her brother could have concealed himself in there while he waited for her to fall asleep.