Tymber Dalton (4 page)

He hoped the candles he’d left burning around the pentacle downstairs didn’t fall over and catch the house on fire.

Still three hours until daylight.

Peter wished he’d never let himself get talked into this ridiculous plan. Where was everyone else? Scared off. He was the only one who stayed behind and tried to complete the ritual.

And they left him hung out to dry.

The footsteps stopped outside the closet door while Peter silently sent up every prayer he could think of. His heart echoed through his empty soul, each beat thundering in his brain.

Was he alone again? He couldn’t tell, not with the blood pounding in his ears.

When he dared open his eyes four hours later, daylight peeked beneath the door. He contorted himself around enough he could press a cheek to the floor and peek through the gap.

No feet—ghostly or otherwise—lay in wait on the other side.

With a huge sigh of relief he opened the door, walked to the landing, and looked over the banister. Downstairs the candles had melted to puddles of wax and gone out. A slight smell of smoke hung in the air, like a campfire, probably hunters somewhere in the woods nearby.

He’d fetched his satchel from the bedroom. He would
not
spend another night alone in this house. He didn’t care how much grant money he gave up by giving in, it wasn’t worth it.

Maybe he should drop all this nonsense. It might be best to go to church and forget about demons, ghosts, and spirits altogether. He hadn’t believed in that nonsense before. Ironically, now he did.

Halfway down the stairs the pain hit, a twisting, searing stabbing in his side, and an enraged phantom voice screamed in his head. He dropped his bag, and it tumbled down the risers, spilling the contents. With every step it got worse, finally driving him back up to the second-floor landing.

He waited a few minutes and tried again with the same result.

No escape that way. He could jump out a window if he had to, but he was
not
trying those stairs again.

He looked around and found a coil of rope in the hall closet. That would work, he could lower himself down.

He secured it to the banister and made a loop in the other end. He threw one leg, then the other over the railing. He started to place the loop over his head in preparation of putting his arms through it when his foot slipped.

The lasso tightened around his neck, snapping it when he hit the end of the slack. He swung there, gently turning, until one of his cowardly cohorts returned three days later.

The coroner ruled it a suicide and closed the case. Peter Michaels had no family. The county buried him in the nearby Oriole cemetery in an unmarked grave near George Simpson’s tombstone.

Still, the land remembered.

1965

Shelly lay awake in bed, Jim softly snoring next to her. First-night jitters, she supposed. Jim had stayed in the house before and could easily sleep. Her insomnia couldn’t be from the rumors she’d heard from her sister, Jill.

Could it?

The house needed a lot of work, but they’d been lucky to get it so cheap. Then her sister opened her big mouth.

It seemed the house had a checkered past and frequently changed hands. Something about the original owner killing his family, or disappearing, or something. No one quite knew for sure. Jill said she’d read about it when organizing the old newspaper archives at the library.

Shelly rolled to her side and stared out the window. Maybe the baby made her nervous. Her hand drifted to her still-flat midsection. Only two months along and fortunately not getting sick, but she didn’t need any extra stress. If it hadn’t been for the cheap price and excellent terms, they never would have bought the place. Jim insisted they’d be able to turn around and resell it at a huge profit with very little investment. She trusted his judgment. He promised her she would only have to do what she felt like doing, that he’d shoulder most of the work. She felt guilty, and he was so good-natured about it, but he reassured her about his dreams for the house and how much money they would make.

The ceiling above them creaked, startling her. It came from the turret overhead. Jim made a noise in his sleep and continued snoring.

He could sleep through an explosion.

Shelly sat up, wide awake. Outside, whip-poor-wills called back and forth to each other while a symphony of crickets harmonized in the bushes below their second-floor window. It wasn’t warm enough to need a fan yet, and the screen kept the bugs out. She kicked off the sheet and tuned her ears.

Another creak, farther away, over the hallway ceiling.

Intellectually, she knew there was no one upstairs, but the sound still unnerved her. She went to the window and looked out over the pasture where movement at the edge of the woods caught her eye. She strained until she made out the ephemeral sight of several men escorting a young woman or a girl, maybe in her teens.
God, what are they wearing? They look like something on TV!

She turned to get Jim’s attention when her eyes fell on the open doorway. A man, wild-eyed and dangerous-looking, stood there with a whiskey bottle in one hand, a knife in the other.

“Jim!” she screamed.

Before she fainted, she swore the intruder simply vanished.

When he brought Shelly around, Jim was forced to slap her to stop her hysterics.

“What is wrong with you? Shelly, calm down!”

She looked at him and sobbed. “I saw them, outside, dressed like Spanish explorers! And in the doorway—” She looked where she saw the man standing. “I saw him, Jim! This wild man, he had a knife and a bottle of booze!”

“Shelly, there’s no one here.” He tried to soothe her. “Sweetheart, it was a bad dream, that’s all.”

She frantically shook her head. “No, it wasn’t! I know what I saw! I want to go to Jill’s, right now. I’m
not
sleeping in this house!”

By the time they arrived it was three o’clock in the morning, and Shelly felt foolish. Jim gently chided her, blaming it on her condition.

When he returned to their house—alone—about an hour before dawn, he made himself a pot of coffee and waited until light. The tall, dewy grass soaked his pant legs but he trekked across the pasture to the path where Shelly saw the figures.

There were no tracks.

He followed the path and found the clearing he’d heard about. There was a stone grave marker for George Simpson, a few rotting wooden markers, and some piles of rocks. Supposedly an old burial site, Spanish or Indian or something. Definitely creepy but no signs of recent visitors.

He returned to the house. In the kitchen he noticed a smoky odor, like he’d been close to a campfire. He sniffed his clothes, but it wasn’t him. The smell wafted through the room. He worked his way around the kitchen and stopped in front of the basement door. He didn’t have a flashlight, but the bulb over the stairs was working. Wouldn’t be too bad if he left the door open. He went down the stairs and threaded his way around the various piles of their belongings, stored until they could get them sorted, and to the back wall and the shelves full of books.

The smell originated in that area, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. He circled the room, with his nose in the air, coming to a stop at the bookcase. It wouldn’t move. Out of frustration, he wedged his fingers behind it and heaved, determined to tip it over. He’d clean up the mess later, but he had to find the source of that smell.

Putting his entire weight into it, it still wouldn’t budge. It was solid.

“I’ll pull all the damn books out,” he muttered and started to do just that when a hot gust of air and a smoky smell overwhelmed him. Jim scrambled backward as a ghostly figure stepped out of the bookcase. Too scared to cry out, he turned and tripped over a box, hitting his head on a coffee table, then striking the cement floor.

Jill’s husband found him that evening when he went to check on him. The coroner ruled it an accidental death. Which, of course, it was.

But the land remembered…

PART II:

NOW

Ohio

March, present day

Deep in thought, Sami stared out the kitchen window at her two horses grazing in the pasture. A loud crash, followed by Steve’s swearing, shattered her calm.

“Goddammit!” he yelled from down the hallway.

Her hopes of a quiet morning evaporated with his temper. “What’s wrong?” she called without moving from the sink. She didn’t want to know.

She didn’t really care.

She heard more crashes, like he was turning his office closet inside out. “I can’t find my box of notes!”

Shaking her head, she walked down the hall and stood outside his office door. If she didn’t, she probably wouldn’t get a moment’s peace.

I’ll stand here, out of the line of fire. Probably should consider a long morning ride, or cleaning the barn.
She found both options preferable to listening to yet another of Steve’s angry diatribes.

“Which notes?” she asked.

She’d guessed right about the closet. He’d scattered several banker boxes across the office rug, tops off, contents strewn everywhere.

Her appearance in the doorway startled him. “I had three red spiral notebooks I made notes in for that horror novel. I’m working on the sequel. I need them.”

Despite his accusatory tone, she managed to keep her voice calm and neutral. “How long ago?”

“What?”

“How long ago did you last see them?”

“Uh, a month, maybe.”

“Down in the basement. Under the stairs. Box marked ‘Sequel.’” She turned.

“Why the hell did you put them down there?” he yelled.

I’ll be damned if I’m cleaning up that mess
. “
I
didn’t, Steven Corey.
You
did. You wanted to make sure you didn’t lose them after Matt got you the contract.” She turned on her heel when she felt his hand on her arm. It was darn near frightening. He still moved as quickly as a cat.

“Sami, I’m sorry.” He looked sorry, too. Eyes appropriately downcast, the sad, hangdog stare.

The look that used to work on her.

“I know, Steve. You’re always sorry.” She shook off his grip and walked away.

* * * *

The horses greeted her at the pasture gate and found her guilty of carrying concealed vegetables. She produced the carrots and rewarded both geldings with scratches.

“Hiya, fellas. Feel like a romp?”

They followed her to the barn. She groomed Mutt, her Appaloosa gelding. She’d pony Jeff, the buckskin, behind her. While saddling Mutt, Sami’s anger slowly dissipated. It took longer after each fight.

Their marriage approached the seven-year mark, and whether it was Steve’s stress over his publishing contracts for his latest book series, or something else, he had changed.

She didn’t think he was drinking again.

She
hoped
he wasn’t drinking again.

Then again, if he was, it’d make her life a lot simpler, because she could quit waffling about whether or not to file for divorce and just get it done and get on with her life.

“I’m so sick of this shit!” she yelled at the sky. She adjusted the cinch, still stewing over Steve’s latest outburst.

Over the past couple of years his temperament had changed. He was argumentative, surly, quick-tempered. She’d grown tired of his tirades.

Tired of begging him to touch her. So tired in fact, she’d quit trying to seduce him over two months ago, hoping he’d notice her lack of interest.

He hadn’t.

She didn’t think he was cheating on her, unless you called his relationship with his writing “cheating.” He was just…

Pulling away.

She’d also grown tired of chasing.

Mutt stood still while she mounted and collected Jeff’s lead. Gently nudging Mutt with her heels, they moved out across the pasture to the trail-striped woods behind the house.

The morning air still felt comfortably cool, refreshing, a hint of dampness from morning dew still not evaporated in the heavy shade of the oak and buckeye canopies shading the trails. When the path leveled out and widened, she urged the horses into a brief gallop, letting them stretch their legs before reining them in to a slower trot.

“Why do I even put up with this crap?” she asked the horses. They had no answers.

She married Steve for better or worse, but better seemed a lot better early on, even when they were broke and he still drank. Maybe it was stress related, too much pressure.

But being raised in a family where simple disagreements frequently ended in someone led from the house in handcuffs and someone else being treated for a black eye, the last person Sami would tolerate crap from was her husband.

Steve hadn’t always been like that. In the beginning he’d been calm, quiet, gentle.