Shaker Town (Taryn's Camera Book 4) (4 page)

The image was as plain as day, her features distinct. The fact that she hadn’t been there at all that afternoon and that Taryn was able to see right through her were the only clues that she was a ghost.

O
ne of Taryn’s favorite parts of the day was when, while getting dressed in the late morning, the sounds of Dustin’s wife Lydia doing the first musical show drifted down the tree-lined path that ran through the heart of the park and filled her room. Thanks to the meeting house's glorious acoustics Lydia’s voice, which would’ve sounded like an angel’s under ordinary circumstances, was magnificent under the high ceilings. It resounded through the walls and shot outside where each beautiful note wrapped around every leaf, through every tree limb, and even filtered through the windows of the other buildings so that visitors would stop, listen, and hold their breaths until she finished.

Taryn generally liked to sleep in and considered anything before noon as “early.” Her work allowed her to set her own hours, but the early morning sun and late afternoon rays were truly the best lights to work with. Of course. The Shakers had risen at 4:30 am in the summer time and only slightly later in the winter; it would've been dark when they got up regardless. Sometimes Taryn was just going to bed at that time.

At the first few notes, Taryn crawled out of bed, threw on her thick white bathrobe, and wandered over to the window where she leaned against the glass and gazed at the undisturbed meadow. It was empty now, freshly mowed, and peaceful. Difficult to believe just a few nights before Taryn had watched the ghost woman all but dance through it and disappear. Although Lydia and the meeting house were a good ten-minute walk from her lodgings, Taryn could hear her as plainly as if she were in the next room, the sounds of the Shaker anthem, “Simple Gifts,” grabbing hold of her heart and squeezing just a little.

It had been a long time since Taryn had painted multiple buildings and she wanted to make sure she did it well. Everyone from the tourism board to the guests and governor himself would be seeing her paintings, and probably scrutinizing them, and she didn’t want to let anyone down.

Of course, staying there at Shaker Town was more of a vacation than anything, if she was totally honest with herself. People traveled from all over the state to eat in the famous restaurant that served vegetables grown right there on the site, to sleep in the comfortable Shaker-style beds in the renovated buildings, and to see the craft demonstrations. They boasted many events throughout the year including a fund-raising bike trek, ghost tours, candlelight tours, concerts, and more. She was lucky that not only did she get to be there for free–
they
were paying
her
.

Taryn was enjoying this time of year, when everything felt, looked, and tasted fresh and clean. Although it was cool in the mornings all the way up until noon and she had to wear long sleeves and a jacket to stand outside at her easel, as the day wore on she was able to shed these and enjoy the warm sunshine on her back. The daffodils had popped up with the irises and grew around the fence posts and in clusters in the meadows.

On slow days when there were only a few stragglers or elder hostel groups following brightly-colored umbrellas she liked to close her eyes and imagine she had the place to herself. She could hear the bees buzzing around the blossoms, hear the faint rumble of airplanes high in the sky, and catch the calls of the horses and cows out in the field–and that was it. After a few months of turmoil, stress, and dealing with the aftermath of what happened in Georgia (including having to give testimony at a stressful but mercifully short trial) she was glad for the peace.

Unlike other places where she’d worked, the employees there at Shaker Town seemed to genuinely like what they were doing and enjoyed being there. She'd hung out with some of them while they were on their break and so far she’d only heard the normal complaints–aching feet, unruly kids, sore throats from talking so much, etc. She’d been a tour guide at a historical home in Nashville during her college years so she could sympathize with all those things. But, unlike the situations at her previous place of employment, she didn’t hear these guys complaining about small pay scale, demanding and unreasonable bosses, uncomfortable costumes, and lack of respect. So that had to be saying something. The only main complaint she had was that the closest business for her to make a mad chocolate dash to or rent Redbox from was a ten minute drive away in the small hamlet of Burgin.

T
he day was over for the employees yet some were still lingering, trying to unwind before driving back to Harrodsburg, Perryville, Danville, or Lexington. Taryn had originally been lying alone on her quilt by the pond, reading a book, but was soon joined by Dustin and his wife Lydia, George who worked maintenance, and Julie–resident bartender. Since it was a Friday night they’d be having happy hour out on the patio soon, along with live music, so Julie was resting before she started setting up. Taryn had only met the petite, tanned MA student once before but liked her bubbly, youthful personality. Taryn was prone to silence, enjoying solitude to the point of it being a flaw, so surrounding herself with others who were more outgoing was sometimes necessary. George was a middle-aged man originally from Delaware, a state Taryn sometimes totally forgot even existed. The only thing she knew about it was that she occasionally got collection notices from credit cards with it as the return address.

“Long day today,” Dustin sighed, leaning back on his forearms and gazing at the sparkling water before them. Lydia nodded, taking care with her voice. Despite the great acoustics, the sheer amount of talking she had do to throughout the day left her throat raw.

“I’ll say,” George grunted, tossing a rock into the water and watching it make small ripples.

Taryn hadn’t made up her mind about George yet. He was built like a truck–solid and strong with broad shoulders and the longest arms she’d ever seen. He seemed friendly enough but had a perpetual scowl on his face and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or just had a natural resting bitch face. 

“Hey, at least you guys can go home now,” Julie grumbled. “My day’s just getting started.”

Lydia patted the younger girl’s arm in sympathy and then laid her head over on Dustin’s lap. Lydia was pretty in a hardened way. Her hair, though tucked in a neat little bun, was dry and brittle from too many colorings and perms. (To be honest, though, considering what they all put their hair through in the 1980s they were lucky any of them had any left. Taryn shuddered at her old routine which consisted of holding one side out with a large pick, vigorously spraying it with Aqua Net, and then blow drying it until her head burned…all in the name of creating “wings.”) Lydia had the skin of a smoker but her eyes were bright green and sparkled when they landed on her husband.

“You get a fun job, though,” Dustin teased her. “You get to pour the booze.”

“Dude, drunks at Shaker Town are still drunks,” Julie lamented and they all laughed.

Being with these folks, who were much closer to her age, was a far cry from being around the kids she’d met in Georgia. Taryn had been sucked into that world, allured by the attention and youthful energy that made her feel alive and excited. She hadn’t had many friends in high school (just Matt, really) and the temptation to hang out with a group who wanted to have fun and hung onto her words was tantalizing, even if they were much younger than her. These guys, however, had all graduated from college, been in the workforce for awhile, and had real lives. They made her nervous since she’d always had trouble talking to people her own age, but she was trying to fit in with them. It was her loneliness that had gotten her into more than one scrape in the past.

“I, for one, didn’t think this day would ever end,” Dustin moaned. He slipped off his shoes and Lydia’s head shot up from his lap. While she pretended to gag and choke, everyone laughed.

“A little warning next time there buddy,” she sputtered.

“Sorry. Feet hurt,” he shrugged. “I must have been on the plant tour today because I swear every single person who came over to the farm just wanted to know what all the plants were.”

“I have everyone beat,” George grumbled. “Between the horse shit, the oxen shit, and the kid vomit I cleaned up today I could fertilize the whole south field.”

“You need signs,” Lydia pointed out to Dustin. “And George, you need a new job. Not enough money in the world...But if Dustin was hosting the vegetation tour then I must have been hosting the haunted one.”

Taryn, hearing her calling, perked up. “Yeah? You telling ghost stories? What did they want to know?”

“The usual,” Lydia shrugged. “Which buildings are haunted, has anyone been murdered here, have I ever seen a ghost? Etcetera, etcetera.”

“It's all stupid rumors,” George said, rolling his eyes. “I've been here five years and never seen a thing. Nothing that's scarier than a kid throwing a temper tantrum, that is.”

“Any place that’s been around this long, there are going to be ghosts,” Lydia retorted. “I’ve never
seen
anything, but I’ve heard some stuff.”

“I saw something once,” Julie shrugged. “I
think
I did anyway. After the kitchen closed down one night and we’d brought everything back in from the patio. I was carrying the cups back inside and saw a woman kind of, I don’t know, dancing I guess you’d say. In the road.”

“Couldn’t it have been a guest?”

“I thought so at first,” Julie said hesitantly. “But then….Oh, you all are going to laugh at me!”

“Probably. But tell us anyway,” George prodded, interested in spite of himself.

“You could see through her. It was only for a second or two and then she disappeared.” Julie's face was bright red, embarrassment flooding over her. Taryn could understand that. She also grew embarrassed talking about her experiences–and many of them were now well-documented for posterity's sake.

“I’m staying over there in the north forty in one of the shops,” Taryn added. “That building meant to be haunted?”

“We don’t want to scare you,” Lydia chided, frowning slightly at Julie.

“Oh good,” Taryn smiled. “Then you clearly haven’t heard of me or what I do. That’s refreshing.”

“Are you a ghost hunter?” Dustin asked, intrigued. “You can’t say something like that and not share.”

Taryn felt her face blush. She really
hadn’t
been trying to open that door. “We’ll talk later. I’ll save all the gory details for another day. But seriously…any stories I should know about?”

Lydia shrugged. “Well, you know. People did die here. Old age, sickness, suicide.”

“Shhh!” Dustin warned. “You know we’re not supposed to admit there was discourse amongst the Shakers!”

“Just one murder and it was a long time ago,” George said, breaking up the laughter. “I don't think the killer is still out there. He'd be more than one hundred fifty years old.”

“What happened?” Taryn asked.

“Oh, God, it was awful,” Julie shuddered. “Got whacked to death or something. Nobody knows. But the story is that he was found in pieces all over the park–an arm here, a leg there...And a big pool of blood in the–“

“Julie!” Lydia hissed.

“What?” Taryn asked, looking from one woman to the other.

“She doesn't want me to tell you that there was a big pool of blood in the bottom floor of your building,” Julie replied smugly. “They couldn't get it up. Been there, like George said, forever. Finally just replaced the wood.”

“Good Lord,” Taryn said, leaning back on her forearms. “So am I going to wake up to some guy wandering around my room, trying to find his head?”