The House on Serpent Lake (Ghost, Romance, Fantasy) (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Her sister was getting ready for her dancing date at Reindeer Lake with her fiancée, Galen Halidor, and Frida had been in a frenzy all day. Did her new cocktail dress look grown-up enough? After Papa’s heavy scowl, Mama had vetoed the black strapless, but had given in when Frida pleaded for a navy blue long-sleeve sheath with a vee neckline. It hugged her body more than Papa wanted, but after all, she argued, she was eighteen now and going to her first adult dance. She certainly didn’t want to look like a child.

Berina hadn’t met Mr. Halidor, hadn’t even seen him. She had been away the past couple of months taking special art classes in Duluth. Papa refused at first, saying at sixteen, she was too young to stay away from home for two months, but since her mother thought the opportunity would enrich her life, she’d been allowed to go. And if she kept up her grades during her senior year, she could attend next summer as well.

Berina listened as Frida chattered about the corsage Galen would bring, hoping he’d picked up her hints about her dress color. But no matter what, she said, she’d proudly wear it since HE would have given it to her.

Finally, with Tilly, Elsie, Mama, and Berina all helping her get ready—the last minute scramble of pressing out dress wrinkles, picking the right hose shade, her pumps polished after dying them to match her dress—all she had left was to take out the bobby pins and comb her hair, slip on her dress, finish her makeup, and wait.

Berina couldn’t wait to see him, this man her sister had fallen for. As the oldest Peterson girl, Frida had dated, of course, but had never talked about marriage. Until now.

Papa approved of the new clerk. As the town’s bank president, he said Galen showed promise and was an outstanding young man, the kind of man suitable for his daughter. He was sure, he told the ladies, the young man would propose soon.

Getting married was all Frida talked about, and now, finally, Berina was going to see him. Would she think him as handsome as her sister said?

When he drove up, Mama made Frida stay upstairs in her room, but Berina hurried down the steps to peek out the parlor side window to the driveway. A shiny blue car, a Dodge she thought, since Papa had a newer Dodge, with the chrome sparkling in the sun. He must’ve spent all day washing and polishing it to impress the family.

When the door opened and he emerged, her world changed forever. Everything else—the grass, the trees—faded away, and she could see nothing but him. Like a god from one of her mythological books, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, and his image sealed itself into her mind, her soul.

He towered over the car. A Viking, like Papa’s ancestors? Hair the color of the sand on their beach, straight nose, full lips, but it was when he glanced up at the window and saw her that she forgot to breathe.

Mortified at being caught, she felt a hot flush spread all the way to her hair. But she didn’t move away.

He grinned, and she was lost.

Squawking crows invaded Lindsay’s dream. She opened her eyes to the parlor bright with sunlight, an open book on her lap. She had fallen asleep while reading on the divan. Noooo! She didn’t want to let go of Galen, didn’t want to lose sight of him.

Maybe if she fell asleep again, she could go back to the dream, back to the way his eyes sparkled with amusement when he’d looked up at the window, the way the gentle breeze from the lake ruffled his hair, and the way his full lips curved when he smiled.

She closed her eyes and willed herself back to the dream, but all she could see was that last glimpse of him when he’d spotted her at the window.

Her?
She meant the way he had looked at Berina.

The dream was obviously Berina’s first sight of Galen, but why was she dreaming about them? And why she was seeing Galen through Berina’s eyes?

Fragments of the old memories surfaced, nearly identical to the dreams she’d been having, and she sat up. She had wondered if she was picking up psychic impressions from Frida, but instead, they must be from Berina.

But would impressions explain the physical contacts she’d experienced since moving in? No matter how Eric had tried to explain them away, she knew in her heart they were real.

And what about her first glimpse of the house with Eric? She had felt as if she were coming home.

How was that possible? While she wouldn’t have chosen to be involved in either sister’s life, there must be a reason this was happening. Who could help her make sense of it all?

She headed for the kitchen and made a tall glass of iced tea.

“You need an exorcist,” Shirley had muttered in jest that day at the park.

Maybe the idea wasn’t so ridiculous after all. Perhaps not an exorcist, but someone who might have some knowledge of what was happening to her.

Lindsay felt hungry, so she boiled an egg and made egg salad. If Eric were home, he’d want an actual supper instead of a cold sandwich.

She ate her dinner in front of the TV. While scrolling through the channels, a young man and woman in a black and white movie caught her attention and she stopped to watch. They were stepping cautiously through an empty room in an old building, each carrying some type of hand-held equipment, searching for something.

“Is anyone here with us?” the woman asked.

Suddenly, the man and woman looked at each other with surprise and delight.

“Did you hear that?” the woman asked. She glanced at the apparatus she was holding. “I hope it caught the voice.”

Voice? Intrigued, Lindsay kept watching and realized they were searching for ghosts. And using their equipment, they said they could actually communicate with the spirit. Was it a movie?

She kept watching until the end, and when she discovered it was a semi-documentary about ghost hunting, she sat up, her sandwich forgotten.

An actual organization that took ghosts seriously enough to search for them! Maybe one would be interested enough to help her.

How to contact them? How did she find anything in today’s world? Her laptop!

She ran to her bedroom and, even though she felt a little ridiculous, entered a search for ghost hunting. When several pages appeared, she sat back, astounded at all the information and links. Eagerly she clicked and read, but most were for a popular TV series. That wasn’t what she wanted, so she tried again, growing more excited with each find.

After several attempts, she entered Minnesota paranormal societies. When she found several, she felt so excited she entered the number on her cell phone. Just as it began to ring, she hesitated. Eric wouldn’t approve and would likely get very upset at the idea.

Yet, she reasoned, he was in California. If she could find an organization interested in her home and get them out to the house before Eric returned, she’d do it.

After contacting three, two as far away as the Twin Cities, describing in an online form what had been happening and why she thought her home was haunted, two contacted her within the hour. Over the phone, she described in more detail the flickering lights, the noises when no one was there, and the Bay Rum scent. She didn’t mention the dreams or the personal contacts with the spirit.

The teams from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area were booked until the next month, but Lindsay didn’t want to chance Eric would be home, so she booked with the smaller organization in Cass County. They’d be out for the interview and investigation the next evening.

Now to wait.

Finally, she might get some answers.

Chapter Twenty-Five

They were holding each other in the parlor, and she was sobbing, helpless against the upcoming marriage that would take him forever from her arms, and he begging her to stand with him, to tell the truth of their love. Even though she knew she would lose him forever, she couldn’t hurt the family that way, not after they had taken her in after she had been abandoned. Even though Frida had only been five and Berina three, she had hugged Berina and forever afterward, loved her as a sister. Berina would be eternally grateful to all the Petersons for loving her.

Galen kissed her again, and this time, she kissed him back with all the desperate passion she had held inside. She allowed him further liberties, she, longing to know the joy of love fulfilled before it was lost, helped him free the buttons of her robe. He caressed her breasts and she closed her eyes in ecstasy, but just before they became one, she heard Frida, shouting and running down the stairs. Galen jumped up and stood over her, to shield her, then … an explosion so loud her ears rang, another one, then another, blood, so much blood. She reached for him as he lay in all that blood, holding him, desperately trying to pass some of her life force to him. After two barely audible words, he sighed and was gone …

Lindsay’s own screams jerked her awake. Her heartbeat pulsing in her temples, she sat up, her frantic gaze seeking Galen. Sobbing, she reached for him, desperate to hold him, to feel him next to her one last time, but … there was nothing.

He had gone. Disappeared.

So had the parlor.

She scanned the room. What was happening? Where was she?

As her eyes adjusted in the moonlit night, her sobs dwindled to gulps and she began to see. Her novel on the bedside table. Amber numbers glowed on a digital clock. 5:20 a.m. She stared dully at it until the realization of who and where she was slowly returned.

It had been a dream, but not the one she had hoped for. This soul-wrenching horror left her suspended between two worlds.

But the love she’d felt still lingered, love such as she’d never before known.

And he had died in her arms.

As dawn lightened the room several hours later, she was still awake. She hadn’t dared to go back to sleep, afraid she’d dream about his last moments again. Even now, the loss was so crushing she could barely take the next breath.

“Oh, Galen …”

She had to see him once more, had to look into the eyes that had seen into her soul.

She ran to the attic and to the portrait she had painted, and as soon as she entered, the room filled with the scent of Bay Rum. All her senses opened to receive him as the morning glory opens to the sun.

“Yes, yes …”

Her gaze caressed his image, hungrily taking it in, letting it fill her center. She traced the curve of his lips and closed her eyes, wanting to feel his warm mouth on hers once again, on her breasts, and she wanted more—the fulfillment of his body next to hers.

But that was never to be.

Weeping, she fell to her knees and curled onto the floor. Warmth surrounded her, the familiar scent comforting her like a favorite blanket. She drew it in and, like a child grieving over a lost treasure, cried herself to sleep.

Sometime later, the musical jingle from her cell phone downstairs woke her. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, not even her husband, so she let it ring, hoping it would stop. But after her cell quit, the landline in the kitchen rang and rang until the voice mail picked it up. It was Eric, his voice worried.

She sat up, and while she had no energy to rush downstairs, she called him back a few minutes later.

“Sorry, I was asleep.”

“You don’t sound well. Is everything all right?”

She’d stayed up to finish a novel, she told him, then fell asleep. And how was he? How were the proceedings going? That was all it took for him to launch into a monologue about the company, and even though she had a difficult time responding, he seemed satisfied with her occasional one-syllable responses. After a short while, he signed off with a quick “love you.”

Too drained to bother dressing, Lindsay brewed coffee, but after the first cup, the acid rose in her throat. She made some dry toast and opened a diet soda, knowing the fizz would settle her stomach.

She took her glass, and simply holding and munching the toast, sat at the dining table and gazed at the black ash
.
From her vantage point, she could only glimpse the top, but knowing it was there drew comfort.

Why were the dreams, if they were dreams, coming more frequently now? To have dreamed about Galen’s death was something she never wanted to experience again.

Why he still lingered in the house, she didn’t know. She had read about the white light people saw after death, and if it were true, why hadn’t he passed through it?

So many questions. But one of the most puzzling was how she, Lindsay, who had never been out of California, wound up with Eric at that house in Minnesota—and a ghost.

It all seemed so ridiculous. Some of the old feelings from her childhood intruded, and even though she knew the initials were real, she couldn’t help the doubts that stole her reasoning and made her wonder about her sanity.

Maybe the investigative team would be able to help her, at least witness if there truly was a ghost and it wasn’t all her imagination. She hoped they could answer her questions. If they could, would the dreams stop?

They had to; she didn’t know if she could survive another night like the one she’d just experienced.

Yet she’d give everything in her life to feel him next to her just one more time.

Why, Galen? Why is this happening to me?

Something about the dream … something she needed to know, but it was just beyond her grasp.

Then she remembered. His last words. Two of them. What were they? If she could remember, she might know why all this was happening.

She heard a sound—a male voice, faint, as if from far away—the same words from her dream:

“I’ll wait.”