The Haunting of Blackwood House (10 page)

Neil caught up with her and tried to wrap a blanket about her shoulders. “Come on; we can talk about this later. You need to rest.”

An idea struck Mara, and she raised her hand. She’d cut herself when she’d grabbed the knife the night before, and blood was smeared over the fingers and the top half of the palm, though most of it had rubbed off when she’d scrabbled over the basement’s floor.
Did I touch the walls last night? I can’t remember. The marks look close to the right size…

“You said you weren’t hurt!” Neil’s anxious tone had returned with a vengeance. He swept Mara into his arms and, ignoring her protests, carried her back to the fire. “Sit still while I get the first-aid kit. Can you remember when you last had a tetanus shot?”

“It’s just a nick!” Mara called after Neil’s retreating footsteps. “It doesn’t even hurt! Jeeze.”

Mara scowled at the flames flickering in the fireplace.
How’d blood get on the walls? I don’t remember touching them, but then, I was panicked, so I very well could have. Poor Neil. They must have freaked him out pretty badly. No wonder he’s fussing.

Neil returned with the kit. She patiently let him clean, disinfect, and bandage the cut even though she thought a couple of Band-Aids would do the job just as well.

“There.” Neil tied the bandage off with a relieved sigh. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, I’m good now.” Mara brushed her fingers over the dressing and smiled. “Thanks.”

Neil settled down beside her, and Mara retrieved the bag of marshmallows from where she’d dropped it. They watched the flames for several minutes, both absorbed in their thoughts. Neil was the first to break the silence. “I’m concerned about the footsteps you heard last night.”

“I am, too.” Mara dug through the bag for a pink marshmallow. “I’ve been thinking about it. There are a couple of non-scary explanations. One, I could have been imagining it. I’d only just woken up, after all. Two, it could be a delusion brought on by some unknown cause. I had the house tested for gas leaks before moving in, but the results could have been wrong. Or there might be mind-addling mould. Or I could just be going crazy. I’ve heard that if you’re worried that you might be crazy, you’re fine, so I discounted insanity. But then, does discounting insanity mean I could be insane after all? I sort of got stuck in an infinite loop with that one.”

Neil laughed and ran his fingers through her hair. “Okay, other than that.”

“Right. Otherwise, the floorboards could be shifting in a very particular way to make it sound like there are footsteps. I can’t see that being the answer, though. It would be too much of a coincidence. The final option is, unfortunately, the most likely: that there was someone in my attic for two nights in a row.”

Neil continued to play with her hair, but a frown had settled over his eyes. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“But that leaves us with a tough pair of questions:
who
and
why
? If the house
did
have a stalker, I can’t believe he’s still in action today.”

“Maybe he passed the job on to someone else.”

“It’s possible, I suppose, but a heck of a coincidence that two people would obsess over the same building. And it still leaves us with the
why
. If they wanted to rob or attack me, they’ve had plenty of opportunities. And, more disturbing, we’ve searched for them—multiple times—without finding any evidence of occupation let alone an actual person.”

“And you’re a long way from any other properties,” Neil said. “They can’t be staying here; otherwise, we would have found signs. They can’t be driving to the house each night, or you’d hear the car. And it’s a hell of a commute if they’re walking or biking.”

“Maybe they have a house in the woods.”

Neil shook his head. “That makes no sense, either. There are no other pathways into this area, which means a squatter wouldn’t be able to get to town without using your driveway. And it looked like it hadn’t been travelled in years when we came to view the house.”

“Hmm.” Mara chewed at her thumb. “This is a tough one. Maybe they parachute in and teleport out?”

Neil chuckled. “Well, we can’t discount it.”

“Regardless of the
hows
, I’d like to stop it from happening again. We can start with buying a new padlock for that attic door.”

“I can do one better: surveillance equipment.”

Mara’s eyebrows shot up. “Come again?”

“I wanted to surprise you with it, but I guess now’s as good a time as any. A friend is getting rid of his generator and offered it to me. I can use it to get some basic power hooked up for you. Nothing flashy—not lights in every room or anything—but it would be enough to run a couple of bulbs and some security cameras. You can borrow my laptop for the next few nights, connect it to the cameras, and see into the attic twenty-four, seven.”

“Neil.” Mara clasped his face between her hands and stared into his bright-blue eyes. “You’re brilliant.”

The eyes crinkled into a smile. “You like it?”

“C’mere.” Mara flipped over to straddle his lap. In the same motion, she pulled his head down to kiss him. He moaned and kissed back. His hands circled her waist, cautious and careful at first then eager as he held her close. Mara felt herself turn to liquid under his touch. His lips felt too good; she tangled her fingers in his hair as his tongue played across her mouth. His hands roved over her back, feeling her through the sweater, then pressed her tight to him. She arched into him—then froze as an upstairs door slammed. The simple sound brought a stab of the same terror she’d felt the night before, like a primal Pavlovian response.

Neil pulled back. “Was that—”

“Just the wind.” Mara let her hands rest on his chest, which rose and fell rapidly.

Neil’s hands stayed on her back, but his eyes flickered over the room. The tension had returned to his arms. Mara gave him a final, gentle, lingering kiss on his cheek then slipped off his lap. “Guess we need to focus on the task at hand. There’s only so many hours in a day.”

“Yeah, and we’ll have to move quickly to get everything set up for tonight.” Neil shifted forward to throw more wood on the fire, and Mara tilted her head to one side as she admired his back.

“Hey, that reminds me: why’d you come in this morning? You said you read something.”

Neil shot her a glance then turned back to the fire. “That’s right. But you’ve had a horrible night. I don’t want to throw this on you as well, so let’s talk about it later. It’s not even important, really—”

“Oh, come on; I’m curious now. Tell me.”

Neil settled into the chair beside her but kept his eyes on his hands. “Yesterday, when you found that photo of your grandfather—”

“He’s really more like my great-great-grandfather.” Mara intertwined her hand with Neil’s. “But yeah, I remember.”

“Do you also remember saying you wouldn’t care even if he’d built Blackwood?” He gave her a tight smile.

Mara gaped at him. “You don’t mean—no, you’re joking—you’ve got to be joking. You can’t possibly be saying—”

“I did some research last night. Victor Barlow built Blackwood House.”

“What the—” Mara flopped back in the chair and stared at the walls surrounding her.
My house. My home. Built by
him
?

“It’s one heck of a coincidence,” Neil said quickly, seemingly trying to move Mara past the shock. “Apparently, he bought this plot of land from the government in the late eighteen hundreds. You might already know, but he was a woodcutter before he became a spiritualist. He built Blackwood over five years or thereabouts.”

“Cripes,” Mara whispered. She tightened her grip on Neil’s hand. “Tell me everything. How long did he stay here?”

“Eight years altogether. Three years after the building’s completion. He, uh…” Neil cleared his throat. “Robert Kant, the serial killer, murdered him.”

Mara took a moment to let that fact sink in then bared her teeth in a dark, bitter smile. “Good.”

“Is it?” Neil looked worried again.

“It’s a fitting end for him, huh? If he’d been any good at his job, his precious spiritual friends could have warned him about what was coming. But they didn’t, and he paid the price. How’d Robert kill him?”

“Uhh…” The worried look was intensifying. “He stabbed him in the basement.”

“Nice, nice. Did Victor die quickly? Or did he, like, bleed out over a few hours, or…?”

“Mara, sweetheart, precious lamb, darling kitten. Do you really need to know
that
?”

She pouted. “I can see you’re not as excited by this news as I am.”

“I doubt even Hannibal Lecter could rival your delight, but regardless, it’s way too morbid for me. Did you think that maybe that stain in the basement isn’t from a burst pipe, but blood?”

“Ooh, yeah—sweet!”

“No, Mara, it’s awful!”

“Let’s go check it out again. Victor’s last moments, immortalised on my own basement wall!”

“Mara, no! Bad Mara! Down, girl!” Neil clutched Mara about her waist and tugged her back against him when she tried to rise. Mara laughed and let herself go limp in his arms. He smiled and pulled her closer so that she sat in his lap and could lean against his shoulder.

“Okay, all right; I’ll leave it be. Sorry for weirding you out.”

“Sorry about your house’s history.”

“Eh.” Mara patted Neil’s chest. “Honestly, I’m sticking to my guns. What happened a century ago is no longer important. Victor built this house. Victor died in this house. I didn’t know either of those facts when I bought it, and it didn’t bother me then, so I won’t let it bother me now.” She closed her eyes as Neil brushed stray hair out of her face. “Blackwood has nothing to do with Victor anymore. This is
my
house.”

The words escaped her before she realised how closely they echoed the red-stained message in the upstairs bedroom. She shivered, and Neil pulled her closer with a gentle cooing noise. “You’re still cold. I shouldn’t have excited you like that. Just rest for a minute, my darling.”

“Pfft.” Mara grinned at Neil. He felt good and warm and cradled her gently, and his heartbeat was steady in her ear. “I don’t need coddling. But I’ll allow it. Just this once.” She closed her eyes and enjoyed the touch of his fingers along her jaw and neck. “Love you, Neil.”

“Love you too, Mara.”

Mara crossed her arms and scowled. “These prices are ridiculous. Can’t we just get a webcam?”

“If we’re going to do this, we may as well do it properly. I’ll cover them.”

She turned on Neil, ignoring how uncomfortable she was making the pimply sales assistant who hovered behind them. “No. No more handouts, Neil. Don’t think I didn’t notice how modern and clean that generator is—your ‘friend’ wasn’t really throwing it out, was he?”

Neil raised his hands to pacify her. “It’s fine. I’m the one who wants to install the cameras. Let me take care of it—”

“I’m not looking for a sugar daddy. I’ll pay for them.”

“We’ll call it your birthday present.”

“Ah, ah!” She jabbed Neil’s chest. “No! You said working on the house would be my birthday present!”

“Okay, make it your Christmas present, then.”

“It’s
September
.”

“I like to shop early.” Neil shrugged blithely as Mara narrowed her eyes.

“September is way too early for Christmas shopping. Isn’t that right, Barry?”

Barry, the sales assistant, blinked at her. “Uh, uh…”

“C’mon, Barry; back me up here.”

Barry’s eyes darted to the muscled, six-foot-four Neil. He swallowed. “I dunno…”

Poor Barry. He has no idea that Neil is the safe one.
Mara turned back to the row of surveillance cameras with a huff. “Well, regardless, these prices are stupid. It’s
my
house; I’m getting a webcam, and I’ll punch anyone who disagrees with me.”

“Uh, sure; webcams are over here…”

Neil went outside to make a call while Mara picked out and paid for a cheap webcam. The checkout lines were long, and it was nearly ten minutes later when she pushed out of the store and saw Neil ending his call. He smiled brightly as she approached.

“Ready to go home?” Mara asked.

“Actually, I was hoping we could visit someone first.” Neil opened Mara’s door despite her objections then rounded the car to get in the driver’s seat. “And before I tell you who, I want to remind you that you promised to occasionally compromise.”

Mara squinted at him as she buckled up. “What’re you planning?”

“I called Jenny. I didn’t tell her much, but I think she guessed we were having problems with the house. She said she didn’t want to see the building go back on the market, so she bent a few rules for us…”

“Okay, that’s promising. I like bending rules.” Mara could imagine Jenny, already sweet on Neil, being more than happy to cut through red tape.

“She gave me the contact details for the last occupants. Well, their
daughter
, Chris, specifically.”

“Wow, seriously? It’s been twenty years. Wouldn’t the details be out of date by now?”

“They were, but the people at the number I called were able to give me the daughter’s mobile. So I called her, and she agreed to meet us.”

“Seriously? You managed all of that? I was in that store for no more than ten minutes. You’d make a killing working in a call centre.”

Neil beamed at her. “You’re okay with it, then?”

“Hm.” Mara pursed her lips. “I guess there’s no reason
not
to meet. But I reserve the right to yell at her if she tries to say there was a ghost.”

“She was only eight when they moved into the house, so she might not remember much, but I’m hoping she can tell us about the building—whether she heard anyone walking through the attic and things like that.”

“That’s clever thinking. We might pick up some clues from her. At the very least, she can tell us why they left their dinner on the table.”

“There. Just because I’m not allowed to be your sugar daddy doesn’t mean I can’t be useful.”

Neil took them out of town. The houses were gradually replaced by trees, which occasionally parted to give them a view overlooking a lake.

“Where’re we meeting her?” Mara asked.

“She gave me directions to a cafe that overlooks the water. Apparently, it’s a popular stopping place for families that travel through the area. Shouldn’t be far now—”

They rounded a bend in the road. Ahead was a large shack-like structure with a dozen picnic tables arranged haphazardly on one side and a grassy parking lot on the other. Mara thought it looked precariously close to the cliff’s edge, as though a solid gust of wind could send it tumbling into the lake.

Neil parked, and they rounded the building to the eating area. It was empty save for two families, an elderly couple, and—at the table closest to the overlook—a lone woman. She waved to them.

“Chris?” Neil asked as he shook her hand. “Thanks for meeting us. This is my girlfriend, Mara.”

Mara shook the woman’s hand as well. Chris looked younger than twenty-eight and had a pale, pinched sort of face, but her smile seemed genuine. “No problem. Sorry for dragging you out here instead of inviting you home. My pop’s going into Alzheimer’s, and I don’t want to remind him about Blackwood if I can avoid it.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” Neil said at the same time as Mara asked, “Why not?”

Chris blinked at Mara then laughed delightedly. “Wanna dive right in, huh? Okay. Let’s.” They slid into their seats—Chris on one side of the table and Mara and Neil on the other—and leaned close together as though it were a discussion that couldn’t survive eavesdroppers. “Before I share my side, I want to know—how long have you been in Blackwood?”

“Uh…” Mara counted the days and was surprised at how few there were. She felt as though she’d already been staying there a month. “Today’s the third day.”

“Wow. And it’s already bad enough to call me?” Chris propped her sharp chin on her laced fingers as her eyes darted between them. “My family made it a solid two weeks before running.”

“Why?” Neil’s troubled expression had returned. “What happened?”

“A whole buncha stuff. My parents—bless ‘em—tried to shield me from most of it, but I still saw plenty. At first there were footsteps and slamming doors in the night. No one thought much of it at first. There were five of us: my mum, my pop, and my two younger brothers—though James was only a baby at the time—and we all thought it was one of the others making the noise. Then there was that infernal rocking chair that wouldn’t stay quiet. Dad eventually threw it out.”

Neil frowned. “We have a rocking chair, but I can’t say it’s been loud.”

That’s right
;
he hasn’t heard it yet
. Mara opened her mouth to say something but decided to let Chris continue her story instead.

“Mum says she felt cold spots and sometimes even presences. But she only told me that years after we moved, so I don’t know how accurate it is. What else? Uh, sometimes the tap water would run red.”

“Rust,” Mara said, and Chris shrugged.

“Could be. My younger brother said he heard crying at night. I remember my parents arguing a bunch, but I’m not sure about what. Mum was convinced our house was haunted, and she tried to call local priests, but none of them wanted anything to do with it. One thing that really freaked us out was the master-bedroom door. It had scratches over the wood. Dad sanded them off on our second day in the house, but on the tenth, the marks were back.”

“Seriously?” Neil’s face looked calm, but he’d clasped his hands on the table, and his knuckles bulged white from the tension. “We’ve seen that door. You’re saying the marks… reappeared?”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same door? Because Pop destroyed it. When the marks came back on the tenth day, he pulled the door off its hinges, took it out to the backyard, and chopped it into little slivers. I remember being really scared. My pop was a meek, nerdy accountant—he never even yelled at me when I misbehaved. And there he was, down to his undershirt and pyjama bottoms, dragging this huge axe towards the door with a look of such intense… ugh, what’s the word? Hatred? Malice? My mum locked the door and didn’t let him back in until he calmed down, which was hours later.”

Neil was chewing at his lip, so Mara wrapped her arm through his to calm him. “Well, we’ve got a door in the master bedroom with scores across it. You don’t know how they could have gotten there?”

Chris shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Might’ve been a vandal after you left. What else happened?”

“Well, with everything going on, Mum wanted to move. But my pop had spent a lot on the place and insisted we could stick it out. Things just got worse, though—we were getting hardly any sleep and yelling at each other during the day. James, who was just a baby, cried incessantly. Then my other brother, Paul, started acting odd and saying things that didn’t make sense. He told me children came to visit him in the middle of the night. He called them the red children.”

“Bad dreams?” Mara asked.

“Guess they might’ve been. Mum says I started sleepwalking, though of course I don’t remember it. She also says things were moved around the house. There was a bunch of junk in the attic which we mostly threw out that turned up again after a few days, and no one’s sure who brought it back in.”

Mara was engrossed. She leaned even closer to Chris, despite the tension in Neil’s arm. “What made you leave? There was a whole dinner spread over the table.”

“Ha!” Chris slapped the bench, startling Neil. “Really? No one threw it out? Sorry about that. The last day was pretty crazy. Mum and Pop had been arguing a bunch, and James seemed even more unsettled than ever. So Mum cooked up this huge meal. I think she was trying to reunite us as a family or something. But we’d barely started eating when Paul excused himself. He said he needed to get something from his bedroom. But he didn’t come back and didn’t answer when Pop called him. Mum got really worried and went to look for him. She was barely out of the dining room when she started screaming her head off.”

For every inch Mara drew nearer, Neil seemed to shrivel back an equal distance.

“We all ran out, of course, and saw Paul at the top of the stairs. He was standing on the bannister. Not
beside
, mind, but
on
. He was a plump six-year-old; it’s a miracle the wood didn’t break. Anyway, he’d somehow found a length of rope and had one end tied to the bannister and the other around his neck.”

Chris flicked a speck of dirt off the table. “I’ve never seen Pop run so fast. He got to the top of the stairs in what seemed like less than a second and pulled Paul back just as he started to teeter forward. Good thing, too; the fall probably would have broken his neck. Mum was still screaming. The baby was crying. I saw Pop staring at Paul with this look of absolute despair. Paul’s eyes were blank. It was like the person inside had been sucked out and left nothing but a human husk. He didn’t seem to know where he was or what he was doing.”

Neil made a faint, anxious sound in his throat.

“Pop looked from Paul to us and back again then said, ‘We’re going.’ That was it. Mum took James, Paul, and me and bundled us into the car. Dad grabbed an armful of our clothes and our more important memorabilia. We stayed in a hotel room until we could rent an apartment. Then we sold Blackwood for a pittance and never went back—not even to collect our furniture.”

“Wow,” Mara breathed.

Chris shrugged and pulled a cigarette pack out of her pocket. She offered the box to Mara and Neil, both of whom declined, then lit one and took a deep drag. “My parents don’t like talking about it if they can help it, but I’ve caught snatches over the years. My pop said the house made him incredibly, irrationally angry—like he was always half a moment away from snapping. Mum says she never felt safe there. Once we were away from the building, Paul seemed to lose most of his memories of it, and James finally started sleeping through the night again.”

“Do you have any idea what could have caused that?” Neil’s voice was raspy, and Mara squeezed his arm in an effort to comfort him.

“I did some research afterwards, but I didn’t come up with any convincing theories. I’m glad we got out, though, considering its history.”

“You didn’t know about the murders when you moved in?” Mara asked.

“I didn’t—I was just a kid, remember—and Mum and Pop had only been told about the first ones. That murderer. Rob, uh—”

“Robert Kant.” Neil’s mouth was in a firm line. “What do you mean by
first ones
?”

“Well, he was just the beginning, wasn’t he?” Chris glanced between her companions and swore. “No one told you about the others? There’ve been a whole bunch of violent deaths in Blackwood. Some suicides. Some murders. If deaths could stain a place, consider Blackwood saturated.”

“The house is nearly a hundred and fifty years old,” Mara said, speaking carefully. “It’s a rural property that, for most of its history, would have been a long way from any hospitals. Of course you can expect a certain number of deaths to occur in it.”

“How many were there?” Neil asked, and Mara shot him a glare.

Chris shrugged. “I didn’t look into it very thoroughly. It was starting to weird me out, plus my research options were limited before the internet. But I was able to confirm eight deaths in addition to Robert’s murders.”