The House on Serpent Lake (Ghost, Romance, Fantasy) (12 page)

“And?”

“Jeeze, give me a break. This is hard for me.”

Lindsay instantly softened. “What’s so hard, Shirley? I don’t understand. I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want someone to help me understand what’s happening.”

Shirley chewed her bottom lip.

“I’m either going crazy,” Lindsay said, “or there’s something going on at that house. After finding this—” she held up the bag— “I think it’s the house. Please, I need help.”

“Oh Christ, I guess you do.” But she said nothing more. Instead, she sighed and shuffled from one foot to the other.

No matter how she tried not to get her hopes up, Lindsay felt encouraged.

“Do you know that white-haired old lady from the first night? After we left the diner, she came up to us and muttered something about the house.”

Shirley didn’t reply for the longest moment. “What did she say?”

Lindsay told her, her voice quiet. “I just haven't been able to forget it, and I'd like to ask her what she meant. Do you know where I can find her?”

“You sure that’s all you want from her?”

“What else could I want?”

“People ostracized her for years, and I can’t let that start again.”

“Please, Shirley. Something’s going on in that house and I need to know what it is. Please help me.”

“Damn,” Shirley said again. Then apparently making a decision, she said quietly, “Yeah, I know who she is. She's my grandmother.”

“Your grandmother?” Lindsay hadn’t expected that
.
No wonder she was so reluctant.

“I can’t do anything today,” Shirley said, “but tomorrow I get off at five. If you’d like, we could talk then.”

After arranging to meet the next day at five-thirty in the park, Lindsay rushed home to tell Eric. She’d found the aftershave, proof of what had been happening. She just hoped he wouldn’t brush it off again.

Chapter Eighteen

As soon as she opened the door, Lindsay heard Eric’s voice from his second floor office. Still carrying the lotion, she hurried up the stairs.

His hair was ruffled as if he’d raked his hands through it, and for the first time, his desk was cluttered with papers. His computer screen showed a series of spreadsheets.

“Something’s wrong, Mark, either in your figures or mine.” His voice sounded harried, strained. “I’ve gone over the last three month’s entries several times and the numbers simply don’t match with yours.”

She waited silently in the doorway, respecting his work, yet nearly bursting with excitement.

Come on, Eric, get off the phone.

He had to believe her this time. At least be curious enough and open-minded to go with her to meet Shirley. After all, it was his ancestors and house.

He was still talking.

She must have made a sound because he glanced at her and held up his forefinger for her to wait.

She held up the bag to let him know she had something to show him. He nodded vaguely, then turned his attention back to Mark.

More waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to get anyone to talk to her, waiting for tomorrow to talk to Shirley, waiting, hoping her own husband would believe her.

She tried to curb her impatience. She went to the bathroom to freshen up, hoping that by the time she finished, Eric would be free.

He wasn’t.

She wandered through their bedroom, then downstairs. In the dining room, she stood gazing through the bay window to the forest in back of the house. Trees swayed gently in the breeze from the lake. Butterflies landed on wildflowers in the brush, and circling birds called to each other and landed on branches. Squirrels chased each other up and down the oak trees.

Nature. A beautiful thing.

Slowly, she began to relax, to feel at one with the woods and the creatures that lived there. She open the window wider and breathed in the warm moist air.

Then the air became heavier, almost as though a blanket of humidity settled on the house, but it wasn’t quite the same. She felt warm. Alive. Then a faint sound to her right caught her attention, the same sound she’d heard before, a slight vibration, a low hum. She could almost hear his voice.

“What?”

No physical answer, but she suddenly thought about a tree,
their
tree.

Now she was being ridiculous. No one had a
TREE
.

But standing at the window, she scanned the forest, looking, searching, then she spotted it again, towering above the other trees. The black ash.

As before, she felt an overwhelming affection for that tree, and this time nothing was stopping her, so she dropped the bag with the shaving lotion on the table and ran out the back door. She raced across the dirt road and into the thicket, dashing past the pines and oaks, not even noticing when brambles scratched her arms. She had to get to her tree.

Finally, she stood before the massive old ash and wanted to hug the crooked trunk. Instead, she slowly circled the circumference, searching, knowing something important was there.

She had to find it.

Finally, slightly above her head she saw it, a carved heart about seven inches high, aged to a faded gray so faint it was barely distinguishable from the trunk, its curves misshapen by time and tree growth.

But it was still there!

She stared, caressing each curve with her eyes, not quite believing it had survived the tragedies of their lives.

With wonderment and delight, she reached up to touch it, then on tiptoes, ran her finger around the heart, feeling the bumpy scores of the knife, longing for the connection once more.

And the initials in the middle.
GH loves …
then an initial she couldn’t quite make out, then a ‘P.’ It was so bumpy from time and the elements that she couldn’t be sure, but it had to be an ‘F.’ Galen Halidor loves Frida Peterson.

Galen. She could almost see his hands working steadily in the bark, curving here, chipping there. And when his eyes met hers, he smiled, such a warm loving smile …

Her eyes misted, then the joy turned to sorrow, a grief so constricting she couldn’t breathe. Tears sprang and overflowed, but still she didn’t lift her fingers from the heart. Just to touch where he had touched, and she almost remembered …

“Lindsay? What are you doing out here?” Eric’s voice broke the enchantment. “Are you crying?”

Flustered, Lindsay dropped her arm and swiped her eyes. “I don’t know.” She glanced back in confusion at the tree. She didn’t know what she was doing or why she was crying. Still, the feeling of intense loss continued.

Insects buzzed around them. A dragonfly darted in front of Lindsay, its transparent wings powerful enough to hold it steady in front of her. After seeming to study her, it dashed off. Souls of the dead, she’d read. Another Native American legend.

Eric slapped a mosquito on his neck.

“Let’s get you out of the woods.” He put his arm around her shoulders to urge her forward.

She looked back. Couldn’t he see the heart?
GH loves Frida.
But how could she have known the heart was there?

“Did you see it?”

He kept walking. “See what?”

“The heart. GH and FP. I’m sure it’s Galen and Frida.”

He shrugged. “Probably. After all, they were engaged.” With that, he dismissed it.

“But Eric, I knew it was there.”

“You’re getting fanciful again, and I don’t have time to discuss it with you.” Glancing at her stricken face, he soothed. “I don’t know. Maybe you heard someone talking. Listen, I have to call Mark back. Something strange is going on.”

“Eric, you need to listen. This is important, as important as your phone call.”

They entered the house. Lindsay told him about the shaving lotion and meeting Shirley at the park. She didn’t tell him she’d discovered their house was haunted; she knew that would be too much right now. Even so, he made listening noises, but she knew he wasn’t paying attention. He retrieved a light beer from the fridge and headed for the stairs.

“Eric, please. Will you go with me to see Shirley?”

As if he were humoring an imaginative child, he stopped. She could almost see his eyes roll.

“What for? I don’t need anyone to tell me about my family.” He started to climb again.

“You’d better listen. Things have been happening to me, and they’re not all my imagination. I wasn’t going to tell you like this, but I found proof this house is haunted.”

“For God’s sake, Lindsay. That’s ridiculous, and I don’t have time for it right now. Someone’s embezzled most of the company’s funds, and if I can’t come up with a solution, the company will go down.
We’ll
go down. Besides,” he said, halting to look down at her, “we’ve been over it before.”

“But Eric, if you don’t believe me, go to the library. This house is actually in a book about haunted houses.”

“I have enough to worry about right now, real things, not the product of someone’s imagination.”

“It’s not my imagination. That smell I’ve been telling you about? It’s real. I found it!” She ran to the dining room for the lotion and showed him the bottle.

“What’s that suppose to prove? Maybe Grandpa used it, or maybe one of his friends. Hell, it could even be from one of my aunt’s suitors. These old houses hold smells.”

“Go with me tomorrow. We’ll stop at the library and I’ll show you the book, then we’ll find out what that old woman knows. After all, you left when you were a child. Don’t you want to know?”

“I don’t have time for this nonsense. Right now I have to try and save the company—and my job.” Without another word, he hustled up the stairs.

Lindsay’s cheeks flamed. She stared after him. While he’d kept his voice calm, she couldn’t help but feel as if she’d just received a reprimand. This was the first time he’d ever spoken to her in that tone and she had to swallow her anger.

From above, the door closed. Firmly. Dismissing her, as if he were the father and she an irritating child.

His job was important, she always understood that, and right now it must be in a crisis, but wasn’t she just as important?

If only he would have said, even placatingly, he had to devote his time to the job right now, but as soon as he could, he’d help her discover what they could about the house, she would have understood. And felt better. Even if he had a rational explanation for everything that had happened, she would have known it was important to him simply because it was important to her.

Obviously it wasn’t.

She set the lotion on a hall table and wandered back to the dining room, back to the bay window.

Not only did he not believe her, but he’d scoffed at her, made her feel ridiculous, just like everyone in her past with whom she’d shared her stories. She never imagined he would let her down like that. She thought they were closer, had thought he believed in her honesty and integrity as she believed in his.

But what about his physical withdrawal from her? He hadn’t shared that with her, hadn’t considered her feelings enough to talk to her about what he was experiencing. They were beginning to live like two roommates, each with his or her individual problems, living their separate lives with no emotional ties to each other.

Oh Eric, what’s happened to us? Why can’t you have enough faith in me? Why can’t you trust that I love you enough to overcome anything?

Outside, the sunshine lit the trees, shrubs, and underbrush with gold, but even that didn’t help. Lindsay felt as if something precious had just died.

She stood several more minutes, then from deep inside came a spark of determination. She’d find out everything she could about the family and the house. She’d talk to Shirley and her grandmother tomorrow. And if Eric didn’t believe her, that would be okay. She vowed to learn the truth for herself, knowing that even if it wasn’t important to anyone else, she needed to know for herself.

Feeling a new strength, she took a deep breath and decided to go back to town, to shop for some bookcases and some lavender body lotion. Or to simply walk around the park, to sit on one of the benches and watch families enjoy the lake.

Just as she gathered her handbag, Eric ran down the stairs.

“Mark needs me in California. I’ve booked a flight out of Minneapolis, so I’ll need you to take me to the Brainerd airport. If we hurry, I can catch the next shuttle.”

Chapter Nineteen

She didn’t even stay to watch his plane leave; instead, she dropped him off with a perfunctory kiss. He looked questioningly at her a moment, but she didn’t smile.

“Have a good trip,” was all she could manage, then she hit the gas.

After her dinner of a hot beef sandwich in Crosby, Lindsay headed home, but once she pulled into the driveway, she felt edgy and wasn’t ready to settle in for the night.

She dropped her keys and handbag on the porch swing and walked to the shore.

Finding a small stone, she kicked it toward the water, kicking again and again until it hit the water with a soft plop. She watched the ripples grow and dissolve.

On the way to the airport, Eric had said very little, only that he didn’t know how long he’d be gone. He gave her the hotel number where he’d be staying.

How could he have left without acknowledging how upset she was? She knew his work was important, but didn’t their marriage deserve equal consideration? Couldn’t he have said something about working out everything when he got back? Anything to show he cared?

Maybe she was being selfish. Maybe she had to set aside everything she was going through and be a supportive wife to him. But she thought she had been. What else could she do? Right now she didn’t seem to know anything—only that she felt miserable.

And now she had her own problems, problems Eric didn’t want to recognize. Or believe.

She searched the sandy beach for pebbles large enough to throw, and after pitching several, she searched again for a couple of rocks. She threw one after the other, finally gaining satisfaction when the last one about the size of her fist hit the water with a loud splash.

Now she could take a deep breath.

She headed for the house but her steps slowed. Something felt wrong. She walked further. The air seemed to swell and undulate like it does when a character in a movie is dreaming.