“Everything okay, hon?” he asked.
She said it was and gave him a rundown of what she’d found out, and they had a good laugh at that, all the shopkeepers rushing in with their stories once they realized the tourism potential.
“Didyoufind anything?”
“I did indeed.” He flourished a file folder stuffed with printouts. “The Rowe family. Nineteen seventy-eight. Parents, two children and the housekeeper, all killed by the seventeen-year-old son.”
“Under the influence of Satan?”
“Close. Rock music.” Nathan grinned. “It was the seventies. Kid had long hair, played in a garage band, partial to Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. Clearly a Satanist.”
“Works for me.”
Tanya took the folder just as the phone started to ring. Caller ID showed it was the inspector. She set the pages aside and answered as Nathan whispered he’d start dinner.
Therewas a problem with the inspection—the guy had forgotten to check a few things, and he had to come back on the weekend, when they were supposed to be away scouring estate auctions and flea markets to furnish the house. The workmen would be there, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. And on Monday, the inspector left for two weeks in California with the wife and kids.
Not surprisingly, Nathan offered to stay. Jumped at the chance, actually. His enthusiasm for the project didn’t extend to bargain hunting for Victorian beds. He joked he’d have enough to do when she wanted her treasures refinished. So he’d stay home and supervise the workers, which was probably wise anyway.
Itwas an exhausting, but fruitful, weekend. Tanya crossed off all the necessities and even a few wish-list items, like a couple of old-fashioned washbasins.
When she called Nathan an hour before arriving home, he sounded exhausted and strained, and she hoped the workers hadn’t given him too much trouble. Sometimes they were like her fifth-grade pupils, needing a watchful eye and firm, clear commands. Nathan wasn’t good at either. When she pulled into the drive and found him waiting on the porch, she knew there was trouble.
She wasn’t even out of the car before the workmen filed out, toolboxes in hand.
“We quit,” the foreman said.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“The house. Everything about it is wrong.”
“Haunted,” an older man behind him muttered.
The younger two shifted behind their elders, clearly uncomfortable with this old-man talk, but not denying it either.
“All right,” she said slowly. “What happened?”
They rhymed off a litany of haunted-house tropes—knocking inside the walls, footsteps in the attic, whispering voices, flickering lights, strains of music.
“Music?”
“Seventies rock music,” Nathan said, rolling his eyes behind their backs. “Andy found those papers in my office, about the Rowe family.”
“You should have warned us,” the foreman said, scowling. “Working where something like that happened? It isn’t right. The place should be burned to the ground.”
“It’s evil,” the older man said. “Evil soaked right into the walls. You can feel it.”
The only thing Tanya felt was the recurring sensation of being trapped in a B-movie. Did people actually talk like this? First, the old woman. Then the townspeople. Now the contractors.
They argued, of course, but the workmen were leaving. When Tanya started to threaten, Nathan pulled her aside. The work was almost done, he said. They could finish up themselves, save some money, and guilt these guys into cutting their bill even more.
Tanya hated to back down, but he had a point. She negotiated twenty percent off for unfinished work and another fifteen for the inconvenience—unless they wanted her spreading the word that grown men were afraid of ghosts. They grumbled, but agreed.
Thehuman mind can be as impressionable as a child. Tanya might not believe in ghosts, but the more stories she heard, the more her mind began to believe, with or without her permission. Drafts became cold spots. Thumping pipes became the knocks of unseen hands. The hiss and sigh of the old furnace became the whispers and moans of those who could not rest. She knew better; that was the worst of it. She’d hear a pipe thump andshe’d jump, heart pounding, even as she knew there was a logical explanation.
Nathan wasn’t helping. Every time she jumped, he’d laugh. He’d goof off and play ghost, sneaking into the bathroom while she was in the shower and writing dirty messages in the condensation on the mirror. She was spooked; he thought it was adorable.
The joking and teasing she could take. It was the other times, the ones when she’d walk into a room and he’d be standing or sitting, staring into nothing, confused when he’d start out of his reverie, laughing about daydreaming, but nervously, like he didn’t exactly know what he’d been doing.
