Jackson screwed up his face then laughed. ‘Wish I could say I have the same passion. I’ve never had enough of a concentration span to last more than a few pages at a time.’
‘Maybe you’re reading the wrong books,’ I suggested, a little disappointed in my new friend. There was nothing less attractive than someone who didn’t read. Not that I was attracted to him, but he was, objectively speaking, gorgeous.
‘He’s not readinganybooks,’ Lydia said as I tried to unravel the hole I’d fallen down in my head. ‘Believe me, Em, I’ve tried but he’s allergic to fiction. The last book he read by choice wasThe Cat in the Hat.’
‘And Lydia reads a lot of fantasy,’ Jackson countered, dry as a bone. ‘Because Lydia thinks lifeisa fantasy.’
I grinned, pausing to check for traffic before we crossed the road. The twins didn’t bother, confident they could stop traffic without trying. ‘Aside from hating Charleston, do you two haveanythingin common? You don’t seem very alike for twins.’
‘You hear that, Lyds?’ Jackson called as his sister pulled out her phone to take pictures of an old, creepy-looking house. ‘Em doesn’t think we’re very alike.’
‘That’s because Em is smart,’ she replied without looking back. ‘And she’s smart because she reads.’
‘Please. I could give you a penny for your thoughts and still get change.’
‘And you’re not the dumbest person in the world but you’d better hope that person doesn’t die—’
‘Do you know the people who live in this house?’ I asked, diverting the conversation before an actual fight broke out.
‘No.’ Lydia shook her head and put on a dramatic voice, still snapping photos. ‘But everyone knows about the people whousedto live here.’
‘Lydia, cut it out.’
There was a mild warning in Jackson’s voice which only made me more curious. In the top-floor bay window, I saw a little girl’s face pressed up against the glass. She gave me a wave before dashing away out of sight.
‘This is one of the oldest houses in Savannah,’ Lydia said, ignoring her brother completely. ‘The Benjamin Wilson house. It was built in 1870 and it was the most expensive house in Savannah at the time. Then the city built the first free public school right across the square and like most richie-rich men, Mr Wilson was an asshole—’
‘An alleged asshole,’ Jackson corrected.
‘What’s he going to do, sue me? The dude is dead.’ She fluffed her hair before continuing with her story. ‘As I was saying, he was an asshole, and when he found out one of his beloved daughters was playing with the kids from the free school, he tied her to a chair in the attic and made her sit in the window to watch them play without her.’
‘Sounds like a charmer,’ I muttered, even the Savannah sun not enough to stop a shiver from prickling my skin.
‘That’s not the worst of it,’ Lydia replied. ‘Georgia was in the middle of a heatwave and he left his daughter all alone fortwo whole days. When he finally went back to let her out, she was dead. She died of heat exhaustion.’
‘That’s awful,’ I replied, thinking of the little girl I’d seen in the window. ‘Imagine having to live in a house with such a miserable history. Do you think the people who live there now know the story?’
‘No one lives here now,’ Jackson said. ‘It’s been empty for years.’
I looked back up at the window.
‘Empty? But I just saw someone in the attic.’
Lydia zoomed in on her picture and turned the screen around to show me. Not a single soul in any of the windows. I was sure the girl was waving at me when she took it.
‘They say his daughter still haunts the house,’ she whispered. ‘Some people say she’s appeared in their photographs or that she messes with your camera so the pictures come out all blurry but that’s never happened to me.’
‘That’s because the whole story is untrue,’ Jackson replied as I pinched the image outwards until it was a bunch of meaningless pixels. ‘The house was built in 1868, not 1870, and there are marriage licences and death certificates for both of Wilson’s daughters, filed years after your story was supposed to have taken place.’
‘Like rich people aren’t still out here falsifying records today.’
Lydia tutted and deleted the whole group of photos. ‘Jackson thinks he’s a history professor because he spends hours on Wikipedia and got a special badge at school one time.’
His nostrils flared and he pursed his lips. ‘It wasn’t a badge, it was a trophy, and I don’t think it’s so peculiar to be interested in the place where you live. Savannah is one of the oldest cities in the whole United States, we’re lucky to have so much history around us.’
‘My dad was a historian, wild to think he never told me any of these stories,’ I said, struggling to keep the tremor out of my voice, my eyes glued back on the attic window. ‘Are you sure no one lives here anymore?’
‘That’s about the only thing she got right,’ Jackson confirmed. ‘I sometimes work with one of the historic walking tours on weekends and they reckon the guy who lived there got sick of people gawking. He’s super wealthy, does something in finance I think. He still owns the house, I heard he uses it for storage, but he moved someplace else.’
