Chapter Twenty-Nine

chapter twenty-nine

June 21, 2019

My father and I spent the afternoon in the rose garden. He’d gotten it into his head that it should be pruned, so despite the heat, we donned heavy leather gloves and went to work with the pruning shears we found in the garage. We shaped the bushes, deadheaded, and trimmed errant runners. It felt good to have work to do: a physical task to keep us occupied. We took breaks for cold beers and to stand back and admire our progress. “I think Gram would be pleased,” I said.

“I wish I could see a picture of what it looked like back in the hotel days,” my father said. “My guess is that your great-grandmother and grandmother didn’t make many changes. I bet it looks pretty much the same.”

“It’s strange to think about,” I said. “The rose garden and springs being here this whole time. The hotel burned, Sparrow Crest built. Lexie used to say she wished the roses could speak and tell stories.”

Ted smiled. He’d found Lexie’s stash of pot in an old cigar box up in the attic. He lit up a joint, and together, we smoked it sitting on the old bench in the gazebo. I hadn’t smoked pot since college. He asked me, “Do you think you’ll keep Dracula’s castle?”

“My and Lexie’s summers here were such a huge part of growing up. I feel like they shaped the person I turned out to be. This house and I… we’re bound. I don’t feel like I can sell it,” I said honestly. “Gram wanted it to stay in the family. I feel like I owe it to her, to me, and Lexie, too, to keep it.”

“Will you move out here? Pick up and leave your life in Tacoma? Your practice?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I looked at him. “What do you think I should do?”

He barked out a laugh. “You’re asking me for advice?”

I laughed with him, but then said, “Yeah, I guess I am.”

It was funny, here was this man I’d spent years trying to change. And now, sitting here with him like this, I realized he was exactly the way he should be. I really didn’t want him any other way. I felt like we got each other in the way only family could. I trusted him, felt like I could be vulnerable with him. And, crazy as it seemed, I actually wanted his advice, valued his opinion.

He thought a minute. Rubbed his beard in a philosophical kind of way. “A part of you is always going to be here. You, Lexie, your mother, your grandmother and aunts, great-grandparents—you’re all as much a part of this place as this rose garden; as the mortar that holds the stones of that old house together.” He looked at me. “Does that make any sense at all?”

I nodded and hugged him.

We went into the house and raided the kitchen, then went into the living room, where I put on one of my sister’s old-time records, Fats Domino. I closed my eyes, floating from the pot. A part of you is always going to be here. I knew he was right. He was right about Lexie, too. I felt her here—her presence was so strong.

She used to say we were two halves that made a whole, the yin and the yang. For better or for worse, the times that I’d felt most whole, most like myself, I’d been with my sister.

When I went up to my room, I grabbed the binders I’d bought and pulled the boxes over to the bed. I started with the ones Terri had been going through.

She was just looking for a photo, I told myself.

But what if she’d been looking for something else? And the photo was just a cover-up?

Stop it, I told myself. You’re being paranoid.

I began pulling things out of the boxes and sorting them: more journal pages, which went into the red binder, sorted by date as best I could. There was one that I found particularly unsettling:

June 2

Something was in the house last night. There was water on the floor. Wet puddles leading from the open door and up the stairs.

Had there really been an intruder? If so, who? Or what?

Something was in the house last night.

I kept digging through the box and came across the birth certificates of my mother, Rita, and Diane. Obituaries for Rita and my mother, and prayer cards from their funerals. I put each of these into plastic sleeves and into the binder I’d dedicated to family documents.

I opened up an old leather-bound diary with a cracked spine. The pages were wrinkled and mildewed, like the book had gotten wet. The ink was blurred, washed away in places. I made out a name on the front cover: Mrs. Ethel O’Shay Monroe. My great-grandmother. I flipped through it, but could only read bits and pieces: a trip my great-grandparents took to the Brandenburg Springs Hotel, a woman named Myrtle with a sick husband, a sick baby, the building of Sparrow Crest. Most of the diary was illegible.

I set the diary aside, continued digging. At last, I came to a worn blue envelope—one I was sure Terri had pulled out and set aside. I opened the envelope and found several newspaper clippings, the first about the hotel fire.

Samuel Claiborne, a bellboy at the hotel, was first to see the flames and has stated that he witnessed recently widowed Mr. Harding in the halls with a can of kerosene shortly before. Claiborne broke down the door to the Harding suite, and was able to rescue the Hardings’ infant daughter.

The Hardings had a daughter! A girl who lived. Why hadn’t Shirley told me about her?

There was another short article clipped from a yellowed newspaper:

Flemming family takes out-of-state doctor to court in dispute over the Brandenburg Springs property

Walter Flemming of Lord’s Hill is legally contesting the sale of the Brandenburg Springs property, which was the site of the Brandenburg Springs Hotel and Resort. The property was apparently deeded to Dr. William Monroe of Lanesborough, New Hampshire, after winning a poker game with the former owner of the hotel, Mr. Benson Harding. Flemming, whose daughter Eliza was married to Mr. Harding before her tragic drowning at the hotel, contests that the land should legally belong to the child of Benson and Eliza Harding, Shirley Harding, now just one year old.

“It’s all she has left of her parents,” Mr. Flemming stated. “The property should stay in the family.”

Mr. Benson Harding took his own life shortly after turning over the hotel property to Dr. Monroe.

Shirley Harding is being raised by her grandparents, Walter and Eureka Flemming of Lord’s Hill.

The final newspaper clipping was a wedding announcement from June 21, 1951:

Miss Shirley Harding, granddaughter of Mr. Walter Flemming and his wife, Eureka, of Brandenburg, was married to Mr. Christopher Dufrense of Chickopee, Mass., on June 17. The ceremony took place at the Brandenburg Methodist Church and was officiated by Reverend David Thorn. The bride was given away by her grandfather, Mr. Walter Flemming. Best Man was Mr. Stephen Dickerson of Chickopee, Mass., and Maid of Honor was Miss Margaret Monroe of Brandenburg.

My mind whirled. Shirley, Ryan’s grandmother, was the daughter of Benson and Eliza Harding, the owners of the Brandenburg Springs Hotel. And their family had contested the sale to my great-grandparents.

Shirley must have known who her parents had been and what had happened to them.

Did she also believe the springs and land were wrongly sold? That Sparrow Crest should be hers? Did she grow up believing that everything my grandmother had should all rightly belong to her? Was that why she couldn’t stay away from Sparrow Crest, the springs, and my grandmother?

Had Terri come to find these papers, to take them, so that I wouldn’t learn the truth?

How much did they all know? What were they trying to cover up?

Fats was singing “I Hear You Knocking” on the turntable downstairs. Over the music, I started to hear knocking, actual knocking on the front door. I wasn’t sure it was real, but it was. I went downstairs, wishing I wasn’t still so stoned. Whoever was out there was trying to open the door, the knob turning in place.

“Ted?” I yelled up the stairs, hoping for a little backup. But either he couldn’t hear me, or he was too caught up in his artwork to tear himself away.

The wall phone in the kitchen began to ring, the alarm-like jangling of the bell startling me. I stood between the ringing phone and the door. Torn, I moved up to the door, peeking out the window. No one was there.

I went for the phone. “Hello?”

There was no answer. But someone was on the line. I could hear them breathing.

“Who’s there?” I said. No response. The line crackled and hummed, made strange, underwater noises. Then, a faint whisper: Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Again, there was another loud knock at the front door, and I jumped. I slammed the phone on its cradle, made my way back into the hall. Heart pounding, I crept up to the door, and peeked out the window.

Again, no one was there.

I unlatched the door and flung it open. Nothing. But then I looked down. There were wet footprints leading to and from the door, along the path to the pool.

I turned, yelled for my father again, and got no answer. Where the hell was he? No time to wait or go searching upstairs for him. I went to the hall closet and grabbed the speargun from where we’d stashed it behind coats and boots. I grabbed one of the spears and pulled the elastic band to load it as he had shown me, then walked back to the door. I stood there on the threshold, pointing the speargun into the darkness as I searched the driveway and yard for movement.

Had I imagined the knocking? I may have imagined the sound, but I wasn’t imagining the wet footprints. Just to be sure, I dropped down to my knees, touching the damp stone on the front step. No. This was real.

No folie à deux.

I stood up, forced myself to move forward, away from the comforting light and noise of the house. With heavy legs, I followed the wet footprints, not at all surprised when they led me right to the gate to the pool.

Back in the house, the phone was ringing again.

Raising the speargun, finger on the trigger, I pushed the gate open, cringing at the loud screech.

“Hello?” I called, stepping through the gate onto the flagstone patio. “Who’s there?”

An oddly sweet smell was coming from the pool, all mixed up with the metallic tang of rusted metal, the sulfurous stench of rotting eggs.

At a small splash, I caught a glimpse of movement in the pool out of the corner of my eye. I turned and aimed the speargun at whatever I’d just seen, but there were only ripples now. “Who’s there?”

Lexie. Please let it be Lexie.

Let the wish I made come true: Bring her back to me.

I held my breath, waiting. There was nothing. No splash, no movement, only stillness.

The pool pulled me closer, the blackness sucking me in. I went right up to the edge. The lights from the house behind me were enough to cast my shadow, and the water gobbled it up.

I walked carefully to the other side of the pool, hands wrapped tightly around the speargun. I heard the telltale screech of the rusty hinges on the front gate. I spun in time to see a dark figure moving slowly toward me across the pavers beside the pool. I almost called her name. But this was not Lexie. It was someone much taller.

“Stop! Stop right where you are!” I shouted.

“It’s me, Jackie! It’s Ryan,” he said, freezing and raising his hands above his head like a criminal. “Jesus, is that a crossbow?”

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, not lowering the weapon.

“I was worried about you. I came to check to make sure you were okay.”

“I didn’t hear your car. I didn’t see any lights.”

“I walked over,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation. I was worried.”

“So you took a twenty-five minute walk uphill in the dark?”

“Walking helps me think. I thought the air would help clear my head. But seriously, Jackie, why are you pointing a crossbow at me?”

“It’s not a crossbow, it’s a speargun. Are your feet wet?” I asked him. I moved closer to him, trying to see if he’d left footprints.

His hands were still in the air. “Jackie, you’re starting to really freak me out.”

I took a step back, realizing I sounded like a crazy person. But I didn’t lower the speargun.

“I’m a little freaked out myself.”

A serious understatement.

“Can you please lower that thing?” he asked. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I could make out his pale, worried face. His furrowed brow. His feet looked dry.

“Tell me again why you’re here. Why you decided to come sneaking around this late at night.”

“I came because I was worried! I haven’t been able to stop thinking about our talk this morning. That maybe Lexie was right. I stopped by Edgewood and talked to my grandmother about it. I really listened to her for the first time. She says there’s something dark down in the pool, something that’s been gathering force for a long time. And that the people who die in that water are trapped there forever. I know it sounds crazy, and I’m not saying I understand any of it, but—”

“Oh, I understand.”

And I did. Suddenly, it all made sense.

I thought back to all the interactions I’d had with him since returning, the spooky stories he’d told me, how dangerous he said the house and pool were.

“You do?” He looked astonished.

“I know who you are.”

“Who I am?”

Pathetic, him playing dumb.

“You’re the great-grandson of Benson and Eliza Harding, the couple who owned the hotel.”

He said nothing. He didn’t deny it, but he wasn’t ready to admit to it, either. He took a step back, his eyes on the speargun.

“You didn’t want me to find out. Your mother came here today to try to make sure I didn’t, to get rid of any evidence.”

But I caught her before she got the chance.

Everything was falling into place. There was no haunted swimming pool here. No ghosts creeping out of the water. Only a family who wanted what they believed was rightly theirs.

“My mother? What?”

“It all makes sense now! God, I was such an idiot. How could I have trusted you?”

He shook his head. “Jax, I don’t understand what any of this—”

“You, your mother and grandmother, you think this land, the springs, all of it, should belong to you! That my great-grandfather got it unfairly, which maybe he did, but it doesn’t make what you’re doing right.”

“What I’m doing?” He was acting totally dumbfounded, an innocent wrongly accused. “What exactly are you accusing me of here, Jax?”

“Trying to scare me off like this. That’s what you did to Lexie, too, isn’t it? Tried to scare her? Fill her head with crazy stories about the pool, about the curse. You probably even got some girl to play the dark-haired woman. Some girl who’d come creeping out of the pool. Was she the one who broke into the house? Came sneaking around when Lexie was in bed? Or maybe that was you?”

The chills I’d had being out here alone were replaced by the heat of rage. Sweat formed on my forehead and arms. My hands shook from gripping the speargun so tightly.

“I would never do anything like that! That is crazy, Jax. Stop and listen to yourself. You’re not making sense.”

Fury burned through me. No way was he going to turn this around, to make me the crazy one!

“I can’t believe you messed with Lexie like that! Manipulated her. Used her illness to your advantage. God, were you getting her drunk on vodka, too? Was it you who talked her into going off her meds?”

“No!”

I shook my head. “When we were kids, you were desperate to impress her, you followed her anywhere she asked, gave her those little notes. You were crazy about her, Ryan.”

He nodded. “I would never have lied to her, then or now. Lexie meant the world to me. So do you. Please, Jax.”

I was crying now, which made me more furious. “I can’t believe I listened to those creepy stories you and your grandmother told me, and really started to believe them. I read Lexie’s journal entries like they might actually be real.”

I’d lost all perspective.

The gate squeaked open again. My father appeared behind Ryan. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking from Ryan to me and the speargun. “I heard shouting. You okay, Jax?”

“Fine,” I said. “Ryan’s just leaving.” My hands were shaking, and my body was covered in sweat.

“But I—” Ryan said.

I stepped forward, aiming the speargun right at his chest, “Just fucking go!” I shouted.

Ryan nodded, and slowly backed away, hands in the air. I kept the speargun on him the whole time. He turned once he got to the gate, and scuttled off without another word.