A Summer of Fear: A True Haunting in New England (7 page)

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it trusts you. Maybe you’re motherly to it. It’s seeking comfort and your energy is providing some. But it’s also draining you. You’re pale, you’re weak, you’re disheartened. It will feed off this and more. You must be careful.”

Elsa sent me home with several black candles, two crystals, and sage to burn in all the corners. She also recommended I get some salt and make a line around my room, added protection to keep it from crossing over. The last thing she gave me, this item for free, was a book of candle spells. “Your energy,” she said confidentially as two young women dressed as Goths entered the store, “is being wasted. You have power and you don’t know it. White magick, the only real magick, is for you. Honor what’s inside of you. Train it. Cultivate it. It will make you stronger in mind and heart.”

I
t started raining on the drive back and once I crossed over the New Hampshire line the drops were so large I could barely see. I pulled over into the rest area, much like I had on my last trip, and waited it out. In the meantime, I called David and talked to him.

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I bought sage today and black candles and a white candle and some gemstones but I’m still scared. I don’t want to go back.” I found I was crying into the phone and it mortified me. The last thing he probably wanted to deal with was a crazy, emotional woman.

“I know you don’t,” he said softly. “And I don’t like the idea of you being there alone. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; there’s something there and it’s targeting you. You can’t live like that. I don’t think I’d be able to.”

“I never thought I’d be this scared,” I sniveled. “You have no idea how much I don’t want to go back, how much I just want to leave everything and get on the interstate and start driving. The idea of pulling up to the house, getting out, walking up those stairs…I don’t know that I can do it!”

He let me cry for several minutes and the two of us sat there in darkness together, both on opposite ends of the country but feeling close.

“I can’t leave,” I said after the tears had slowed down. “I’m such a failure. I made a mess out of my last job. I’m making a mess out of this one. I haven’t made friends, my boss doesn’t like me, I’m miserable. I wanted this to work, I really did! I can’t go home. I can’t go home and face the fact that I can’t keep a job.”

“But you weren’t fired from your last one,” he pointed out. “You quit. And it was the best thing to do. Anyone would’ve done it.”

“Oh, I’d have been fired eventually,” I said darkly. “I just quit before they could do it. It’s ME, David, me.”

“Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe you shouldn’t have worked so soon after what happened. You went up there feeling fragile, feeling emotional. You were already in a state.”

“You think I’m just hearing things that aren’t there? Like some kind of manifestation of my thoughts and emotions?”

“No, no,” he said hurriedly. “I just mean that maybe…maybe it came out because you were a little weak.”

I sniffed again, new tears starting to form. Everything felt like my fault.

“I wish I could come up there,” he said at last. “I’d like to visit. I’ve never been to New Hampshire. It’s someplace I’ve always wanted to go.” I knew this was his way of saying he’d like to see me.

“I wish you could, too,” I said. “I wish someone else could hear and see these things. I feel terrible to be reacting like this but I just don’t know what to do. And you could also see my fabulous butt. Over the last year I’ve gained ten pounds and now I have a rear end to be proud of.” We both laughed and the mood was lightened.

David didn’t treat me like I was crazy or overreacting; he believed me. So did my mother.

“Just come on home,” she advised. “Don’t stay there if you don’t want to.”

“I can’t, Mom, I have to stay. I need the money.”

“I’ll give you some,” she all but pleaded. “We’ll figure something out. Just come back home for the rest of the summer. We can spend more time together before you leave.”

But as I turned out of the rest area and started on the long drive back, I thought more about my reasons for staying. It was true I needed the money. I’d spent my savings (little as they were) just by driving up there and the taking care of little things my first couple of weeks. I had nothing to take with me to Wales other than the student loans I’d be getting.

But it was more than just the money. I’d made a commitment to work the job, I’d told everyone back home I was leaving, and I’d emotionally prepared myself to leave for the summer and start on my next adventure.
This
was my adventure. I couldn’t turn back now. Grad school didn’t start until the middle of September. I’d applied for tons of jobs back home and been turned down for everything, despite my pretty good resume and degree. I couldn’t just admit defeat and go home with my tail between my legs and kill time for the next three and a half months. To go home now would like giving up, like saying I couldn’t hack it. I’d already left one job recently because of the conditions; I couldn’t do it to another.

I would tough it out. I would be okay.

The rain stopped but, once again, the fog set in. This time, though, it was horrendous. The fog was so thick on the road I slowed down to an excruciating 45 mph and then to an even slower 30 mph until I felt as though I was creeping along the asphalt. As the only car, it was dark and lonely and I couldn’t see beyond my hood. I crept along at a turtle’s speed, watching the white line along the shoulder to reveal curves to me. If not for the line, I wouldn’t have known when to veer my car to the right or left. It was my saving grace. The fog swirled and dipped and cast shadows on the car and in the air. It even seemed to creep inside the air vents and claw at my face and neck as the coolness sent chills up and down my arms and legs. What should have been a two hour drive at most took nearly four. By the time the farm house came into view I was shaking, cold, wet, and tired.

The house was dark, a giant shadow against the dense, thick air. There weren’t any lights on and my window peered down at me from the night sky, a sentinel. Any other time I would’ve found the house beautiful, inviting. I loved farm houses. I dreamed of living in one someday. But this one…this one was a nightmare.

I put my hand on my door handle and made to get out, but found myself rooted to the seat. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. I was physically unable to get out of the car. The thought of going into that house and spending the night in its viscosity, enclosed by its clamors, was too much. I could feel the bile rising up my throat and threatening to come out with a might. I forced it back down, gagging on its bitterness. In frustration, I laid my head on the steering wheel and cried. I was a loser, a baby, an insane woman who couldn’t even manage to walk up a flight of stairs and deal with a few thuds and what in all likelihood could be animals trapped in the walls. I beat myself up for several minutes while the tears flowed. I wanted David, I wanted my mother. I wanted to sleep through the damn night. Then, without another thought, I pulled myself together, turned the car around and drove to the other side where the interns were living.

A light was still on and the two guys were up watching television. “I’m sorry,” I apologized as they led me in. “I just got spooked. It took a long time to drive back tonight from Boston, the fog is awful, and I just can’t stay in that house tonight. To tell you the truth, I’m a little spooked because I forgot to leave a light on. Can I sleep on your couch?”

“Sure,” Trent shrugged. “No problem.”

Jeff brought me his sleeping bag and a pillow and began setting up the couch for me. I felt silly, but not as silly as I thought I would. At least I would be able to sleep.

As Jeff worked, Trent sat down in one of the easy chairs and studied me. Finally, he laughed out loud. “Honestly, from what we’ve heard, we’re shocked you’ve lasted as long as you have. We’ve all talked about it.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded. Jeff was finished so I slipped my shoes off and perched on the edge of their saggy sofa. It smelled faintly of spilled beer and something sweet I couldn’t put my finger on, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“I worked here last year as a counselor for the kids. The chick who had your job last summer? She came down here in the middle of the night, her second week, just like you did. I was down here hanging out, playing cards. She looked terrified. Had a baseball bat in her hands. Shaking like crazy she was. Said she couldn’t take the noises. Said she wasn’t going to go back there again.”

I looked at both Trent and Jeff, stunned. Jeff nodded his head in agreement, as though collaborating with Trent’s words. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said. “Everyone knows that house is haunted. We were just talking about it last night. There’s even some kind of weird-ass story they used to tell kids about. About a blind girl who sits in the basement, in a chair, and just stares at the wall.”

The guys laughed but I didn’t think it was funny.

I was
furious
. I’d asked Janet if anyone had heard anything about the house or had any experiences there and she’d shrugged me off as if I were a fool. And now these guys were acting like everyone was familiar with the ghosts of the farm house, like it was common knowledge weird stuff went on in there. I didn’t believe in the blind girl story, but obviously there was enough action in the house that it had spawned a tale like that. Couldn’t she have at least been honest with me?

I
resisted the urge to bring up my newfound information with Janet. I spent the next two nights on the interns’ couch, however. They didn’t seem to mind me bringing my pajamas and hanging out with them. Although I wasn’t able to read or work on my book or do anything private, at least I had company. I still didn’t feel as though we’d made friends with one another yet, but we were getting used to each other and that was something.

“I don’t know that I like them,” I informed David as I ate supper at the tavern. I took to calling him when I ate sometimes. It made me feel like we were having dinner together. “But at least they’re people to hang out with.”

“Well, sometimes you need the company,” he agreed. “Hey, I looked at flights. Where’s the best place for me to fly into? Manchester?”

It was his idea to come and visit me. We’d agreed upon the Summer Solstice, thinking it might be fun to spend this holiday together and do something interesting, like going for a midnight hike.

I was really looking forward to seeing David again. He was now my closest friend, my confidante, and I was depending on him. Over the past few weeks he’d become my lifeline. When I was feeling especially scared or alone I’d reach out to him in my mind, focusing on his voice or a memory or something he’d said to me and like a balm I’d feel almost instantly better. I didn’t want to share this with him for fear of scaring him off, but I thought I might even be falling in love with him a little bit. I was rational enough to understand it was probably due to my own seclusion and the fact that I was in need of companionship, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.

O
n the third night, the interns decided to play some drinking games. I wasn’t opposed to drinking; in fact, I rather liked alcohol. But it had been awhile since I’d played any kind of alcohol-related games. I mostly liked to do my drinking quietly over a conversation or at a concert. These guys were hardcore about their recreational drinking, however, and took it very seriously. They brought out balls and cups and all kinds of contraptions and after about half an hour I was feeling sick to my stomach and silly. I might have only been twenty-five, but I was feeling every bit my age and at that time twenty-five felt
old
. I couldn’t drink as much as they did, or as quickly. I was already feeling like I was going to vomit so Lord only knew what the hangover would be like. Janet was probably about ready to kill me with my constant headaches and stomach problems. I certainly didn’t need to exacerbate things and damage our sticky, tenuous relationship.

I could put up with the drinking, though, and excuse myself from the hilarity of the juvenile stunts. When three of the interns brought out the weed, though, I knew it was time to call it quits. Having the alcohol on the resort’s property was one thing. I’d thought about bringing in my own bottle of wine or Baileys to help me sleep at night, but marijuana was pushing it. I didn’t want to sound like a goody two-shoes, but I also didn’t want to get in trouble, either. I was a long way from home without anyone to bail me out and the last thing I wanted was to get fired or end up in jail. I’d never smoked pot before and the idea didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. We were already drunk; how much further from reality did we really need to get?

Besides, the evening was wearing thin and these people didn’t feel like real friends. They weren’t trying to get to know me and only seemed to be tolerating my presence. The sensitivity Elsa had spoken of rang true. The interns didn’t really even like me; they weren’t sure why I was there and neither was I. I was a sixth wheel. I tried, it didn’t work out.

Ghosts or not, I excused myself from the cabin and decided to brave the farm house again.

The day before, I’d gone into town and picked up some Tylenol PM. I took it now in an attempt to put myself to sleep. It worked to an extent, I certainly fell asleep fast enough, but it didn’t keep me there. The noises almost immediately woke me up. They were insistent, predatory tonight. The pacing back and forth outside my door was louder, heavier, and even more frantic. The pauses, which usually came after every few steps, were nonexistent. I felt the fear crawling on me, almost strangling me. The effects of the medication heightened my sense of awareness; the drowsiness made me weak.

Trembling and with exhaustion, I finally sat up in bed and said, very sternly, “Please leave me alone. It’s been a long night, I’m tired, and I just want to go to sleep.”

I’d no sooner laid back down when I heard the faintest of whispers wafting through the walls. They were muted at first but gradually grew louder until I could make out actual words.

“Don’t bother her,” the first one said. It was toneless, even, neither male nor female.

“Leave her alone,” the second one echoed, the sound bouncing off the walls and closing in around me.

“Let her go to sleep…”

Shutting my eyes in panic, I squeezed back some tears and prayed for sleep to come.

J
anet took me to lunch the next afternoon. “I’m worried about you,” she said. “You don’t seem happy.”

“The noises are keeping me up at night,” I explained. “The ones I told you about? I’m having trouble sleeping. And I guess I’m a little homesick.”

For the first time she appeared sympathetic and compassionate. We talked about my mother, being so far away from home, and resort life. I could see the kind of person she was outside the office, outside of the job. Some people were different away from their responsibilities and duties. I knew that; I knew I was. It made me that much more homesick and sad for Angie, my former supervisor (and more importantly, friend) and our time together. At work Angie had been efficient, serious, and mostly no-nonsense except for the moments when she blasted 80s rock or Pink on the facility’s loud speaker before we opened or we took an extended lunch break to discuss the details of Anne Rice’s
Sleeping Beauty
series.

Outside of work, though, Angie and I had vacationed together in Ireland and England and had sneaked into crumbling abbeys after closing time, climbed the Tor in an attempt to locate the mystical Avalon, and gotten slightly tipsy at a restaurant overlooking cobblestones in Galway called The River Goddess.

I wanted to tell Janet the truth: that I just couldn’t continue to stay in the farm house, that things were too scary for me and that so far the isolation of living there alone and having few people to associate with outside of working hours was taking a huge toll on my mental well-being. But I couldn’t. All of those things made me feel pathetic and I was finished with feeling that way. Talking and writing to David was helping me gain my confidence back after having it shattered months before and I was looking forward to a new future, whatever it might be. I couldn’t let a few ghosts get in my way.

“I’m worried about how much I’ll have to participate in the resort,” I admitted at last. “When I took on the job I thought I’d have my weekends off but not too long ago you kind of made it sound like I might not.” I hated to rock the boat, but I needed to get that off my chest, at least.

Janet sighed. “Well, we
do
expect you to participate. You will have to eat your meals with us, participate in most of the evening activities, and stay most of the weekends. But most of the staff enjoy those things. You will, too.”

I fought the urge to cry.
No,
I wanted to shout,
I
won’t enjoy those things. I specifically asked you in my interview if I would be required to do them and you told me I wouldn’t. And now you’re reneging on that
.

But I kept quiet. This lunch, I felt, was her way of trying to do something nice for me. I didn’t want it to end in a disaster.

We rode back to the farm house in silence, Janet most certainly feeling better about having treated me to lunch and getting to know me a little more–me feeling more and more trepidation about the job.

O
n Friday I decided to save my money and not leave for the weekend like I’d originally planned. I’d contacted a hostel in Vermont but my funds were getting low and I needed to build a bigger nest egg. Instead, I decided to go to the movies.

It was nearly 11:00 pm when I left and the drizzle that was present when I entered the theater had turned into a torrent, creating a heavy fog on the road. I pulled over to a gas station before I knew I’d lose my signal and gave my mom a call to let her know how I was doing and that everything was okay.

“Where are you?” she called through the distance and rain. “I can barely hear you.”

“I’m in the car,” I shouted back. “I pulled over to call you. It’s raining really hard and it’s foggy. I’m on my way back.”

“Are you okay?”

I sighed. “I think things will be fine. It’s just–“

The phone beeped a couple of times and then went dead. I usually got a pretty strong signal where I was but the rain and fog probably threw it out. I waited several minutes and tried to call my mother back but couldn’t. Figuring I’d at least made an effort, I drove on, once again taking the roads at a turtle’s pace.

This time, I’d remembered to leave lights on inside so that I wasn’t returning to a dark building. Still, with the fog swirling around it and the torrential downpour soaking me to the skin it wasn’t the most welcoming of sights.

Once inside, I locked the back emergency exit and then made my way up to my room. I wanted to take a shower to help warm myself up but I didn’t like being in the shower after dark; I felt too vulnerable wet and naked and with no way to get out if someone came in on me. Instead, I wrapped up in a heavy robe and donned my slippers. After making myself a mug of herbal tea downstairs in the microwave I popped two Tylenol PMs and settled into my room with the Nanci Griffith CD playing. It was the only one that kept the worst of the noises at bay.

I was just about finished reading my latest Nora Roberts novel and almost dozing off when a loud noise startled me and caused me to drop the paperback to the floor. This wasn’t one of the regular sounds–this was most definitely the sound of someone banging loudly on the front door.

I quickly jumped up and looked out the window but the parking lot was empty, at least what I could see of it through the rain and blackness.

Figuring it might have been one of the interns, I hurried down the stairs. As I reached the second floor, the pounding on the front door echoed through the house a second time. “I’m coming!” I hollered, as if they could hear me through the thick wood and walls.