Adam's Thorn (32 page)

“Trying to distance yourself,
Ali?”

“Too bloody right.”

Barbie started laughing.

“Ah ha!” Ali crowed again. 
“You’re laughing!  Things did get hot and heavy between you and Adam, and you
liked
it!”

Barbie took pity on her friend. 
“Okay, to be fair, your plan kind of worked.”

“Yes!  Details.”

“No details.”  At Ali’s groan of
disappointment, Barbie added, “Let’s just leave it as Adam and I are seeing
each other while I’m here.”

“Whoo hoo!”

Wryly, Barbie looked at the phone
before putting it back to her ear.  “Happy much?”

“Ecstatic!”

“Good.”  A sound caught Barbie’s
attention, and she glanced out the window.  “Oh, Mr Parker and Mrs Hubble have
arrived.  I have to go.”

“For massages?  Really?”

“They’re going to look at the old
photos I have here, and hopefully Mr Parker will tell me some more about the
mystery grave.”

“Creepy.  Have you heard anything
else weird during the night?”

“Last night I slept like a log.”

“I bet.”  The smirk was evident in
Ali’s voice.

“You have no shame.’

“That’s what Ghost says, but he
likes it.”

Barbie laughed.  “I gotta go,
Ali.  I’ll catch you later.”

“Bet your arse on it.”

Barbie was waiting by the door
when Mrs Hubble and Old Man Parker came up onto the veranda.

Swinging open the door, Barbie
held her hand out to Old Man Parker. “Thank you so much for coming, Mr Parker. 
I really appreciate it.”

He smiled, shaking her hand in a
surprisingly strong grip.  “My pleasure.  I’ve been looking forward to meeting
you.”

Mrs Hubble proffered a plastic
covered plate.  “Just a little nibble for afternoon tea, dear.”

“Why, thank you.  So sweet.” 
Taking the plate, Barbie stepped to the side.  “Please, come in.  The lounge is
on the right.”

Old Man Parker headed down the
corridor and turned unerringly into it, a sure indication that he’d been in the
house in the past.  When Barbie and Mrs Hubble entered the lounge behind him,
it was to find him looking up at one of the old photos on the wall.

Placing the plate of homemade cake
on the table, Barbie came up beside him and pointed to one of the photos of a
young girl with a slightly wicked smile.  “I’m guessing that’s Great Aunt Penny
when she was young?”

“Yep.”  Old Man Parker nodded.  “I
remember Penny when she was young. A little wild, her poor mother trying to
teach her the ways of a proper lady.”

Huh, maybe Barbie had more in
common with Great Aunt Penny than she’d realised.

Old Man Parker moved to an old
photo of a straight, unsmiling man with a handlebar moustache.  “This was
Penny’s father, Harold Declan.  A strict, hard man.” 

Barbie studied the photo while Old
Man Parker moved around the room.  Harold Declan looked like he’d never laughed
a day in his life, so where did Great Aunt Penny get her wild streak?

“This is Penny’s mother.”  Old Man
Parker waited while Mrs Hubble and Barbie walked up behind him.  “Sweet as they
come, but she had steel in her spine when needed.”  He  smiled.  “You didn’t
want to cross her.  I remember her berating me when I was climbing the tree and
fell out into her daises.  Scared the heck out of me.”

“Daisies?”  Barbie looked at him. 
“I didn’t see any daisies growing here.”

“Oh, Penny was never one for up-keeping
the garden once her mother passed away.”  He grew serious.  “Let the gardens
go.  When everything died, she simply hired some of the neighbourhood boys to
rake it all up into a pile and burn it.”

“Wow.  Seems a little extreme.”

“Penny did her own thing.”

“I know her brother didn’t stay in
contact, some old family argument with her father, I think my Dad said.”

Mrs Hubble glanced at her.  “You
don’t know much about Penny, do you?”

“Dad told us a long time ago that
the family drifted apart sometime before the First World War.  That’s all we
know.”

“The Declan line is very
stubborn.  Penny’s brother, Lance, had a huge row with his father to do with
his choice of bride, and Lance left.  Neither side attempted contact.  Mr Declan
never tolerated anyone crossing him, didn’t really know the meaning of the word
‘forgiveness’.”

“How sad,” Barbie murmured.

Old Man Parker ran one hand
lovingly across the old piano.  “Penny used to play this a lot.  I could hear
her whenever I rode past on my pushbike.  Used to play in the evenings for her
mother, then, when she passed away, she’d play for herself.”

That sounded even sadder.  Barbie
had a sudden mental picture of a lonely old lady playing on the piano, the music
filtering through the empty rooms.

Remembering her manners, she
gestured to the sofa and armchairs.  “Shall we sit and have a cuppa?”

“Sounds lovely, dear,” Mrs Hubble
replied brightly.  “I’ll help you in the kitchen.”

It wasn’t long and they were
sitting back down, Barbie in an armchair, Old Man Parker and Mrs Hubble on the
sofa.

Old Man Parker sipped his tea,
nodding approval as he took a bite of Mrs Hubble’s cake.  “Ah, this is the
life.”

Mrs Hubble smoothed a paper napkin
on her lap before picking up her mug.  “Percy, you’d live on cake and tea if
you could.”

“Nothing wrong with that, Clare.”

Mrs Hubble rolled her eyes.

Old Man Parker looked across at Barbie. 
“I hear that Ghost told you about the graves and rose bushes?”

“Yes.  He said that two of the graves
belong to Penny’s Aunt and Uncle, who both died young.”

Old Man Parker nodded.  “Yep. One
died of pneumonia, the other of what they called a ‘fading disease’, which was
probably a form of leukaemia or something similar.  They couldn’t really tell
back then.”

Mrs Hubble took a dainty nibble of
cake.  “One of the graves is a memorial to the young man who went missing in
action in the war.  Really upset Penny, didn’t it, Percy?”

Old Man Parker nodded slowly.  “I
don’t think she ever really recovered.  Used to see her waiting at the gate on
and off, just staring into the distance.  Very sad.”  He took a bite of cake,
chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.  “Many a young lad came here looking to
court the pretty Penny Declan, but she never accepted any of them.”

“Wow, that’s really sad.”  Barbie
looked from Mrs Hubble to Old Man Parker.  “Did she have a photo of this lost
love?”

“Not that I heard,” Mrs Hubble
replied.

“Who knows?” Old Man Parker
shrugged.  “Penny never mentioned him after awhile.”  He looked at his mug. 
“Could do with a refill, love, if you have any left.”

Barbie quickly replenished the
mugs with fresh hot tea before resuming her seat on the armchair.

“You never heard about ghosts
here, did you?” Barbie asked curiously.

“Mrs Hubble’s eyes grew round.  “My
dear, whatever do you mean?”

“Spirits,” Old Man Parker stated. 
“The departed.”

“Goodness me!”  Mrs Hubble frowned
at Barbie.  “There are no such things as ghosts, dear.”

“I understand that Great Aunt
Penny mentioned ghosts to Gus.”

“Gus?  Pfft!  What would he know? 
Biggest gossiper in town.”

That Mrs Hubble could make that
statement with a straight faced amused Barbie.  “You don’t say.”

Old Man Parker lowered his mug. 
“Well…”

“You’ve heard something?” Barbie
queried.

“Percy, really-” began Mrs Hubble.

“Now, Clare.”  He raised one hand
to stop her protest.  “Gus might run off at the mouth a little, but he was
actually quite friendly with Penny, one of the few townsfolk she talked to. 
Now, I’m not saying this place is haunted, but I will say that towards the end
of her days, Penny became rather…uh…eccentric.”

“Mad as a cut snake,” Mrs Hubble
muttered.

Resting her forearms on her knees,
Barbie leaned forward.  “She told Gus she heard and saw things.”

“She refused to let Adam out here
when he wanted to look around, instead she called in some weird priest type
from somewhere and had the house exorcised.”

Mrs Hubble rolled her eyes. 
“Waste of time.”

“Granted,” Old Man Parker agreed. 
“Penny told Gus it hadn’t worked, she was still seeing things go past her
windows, hear things outside.”

Even though it was broad daylight,
Barbie felt a chill go through her.

 “She told Gus she’d find windows
open when she knew she’d closed them.”  Old Man Parker studied Barbie.  “You
ever have that problem?”

“It was a broken frame.”  Barbie gripped
her mug a little tighter.

“See?” Mrs Hubble nodded. 
“Perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Old Man Parker looked thoughtfully
at Barbie over the rim of his mug as he took another sip.

“I guess if Great Aunt Penny heard
things outside and believed the house was haunted, she’d think the same of the inside,
wouldn’t she?” Barbie asked.

“Have you heard noises, love?” Old
Man Parker watched her.

“Oh, you know…”  Barbie laughed
lightly.  “Old houses make noises.”

“In any particular rooms?’ he
queried.

Her laugh died.  “Are there
particular rooms?”

His gaze was serious.  “Library. 
The children’s old rooms.”

The cold chill shivered down Barbie’s
spine.  “Oh, the shelf fell down in the girl’s room.  Old furniture.”

“All perfectly rational explanations,”
Mrs Hubble announced in a no-nonsense tone.  “Really, Percy, you’ll scare the
girl to death.”  Picking up the plate of cake, she held it out to Barbie. 
“Have another slice, dear.”

“Thank you, no.”  Barbie smiled
politely.

“Quite right.” Old Man Parker
downed the last of the tea ion the mug suddenly.  “Now, love, any other photos
I can help identify for you?”

Relieved to change the subject
from ghosts and unnerving happenings to something more based in reality, Barbie
retrieved the photo albums and brought them back.  They spent a happy and
interesting time flipping through the photos, Old Man Percy and Mrs Hubble both
able to identify most of the subjects, while Barbie carefully made note of the
names, places and roughly the years.

“What are you going to do with the
photos, dear?” Mrs Hubble inquired as they started upstairs so that they could
see the photos on the walls.

“They’ll go home to Dad, he’s the
family photo man.  I’m packing them soon.”

“So you’re really not keeping the
house?”

“It was never my plan.”

Old Man Parker gave the banister a
good tug.  “You’re getting a lot of work done.”

“It needs it.”

“It’ll make a  real nice family
home once everything is repaired and wallpapered.”

Minus ghosts and weird noises,
if one believed in them of course
.  “I’m actually having the walls
painted,” Barbie replied, “And all wood panelling will be repaired or
replaced.”

He nodded.

Upstairs they looked at the photos
on the walls, the older couple again able to provide identities of the
subjects.

Entering the library, Mrs Hubble
exclaimed, “Oh my, this is still a bit of a mess, isn’t it, dear?”

“What?”  Bewildered, Barbie
hurried to where the books were heaped untidily on the floor, some with the
flaps open, a couple tossed against the armchair.  “I don’t understand.  I
didn’t leave them like this.”

“Maybe the workers?” she
suggested.

“No, they haven’t been here since
Friday, and these books were all in the book case.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”  Barbie started
placing the books in neat stacks.  Worry bit at her, fear was undeniable.  “I
found Fred in here and took him out, and these books were in the bookshelf.” 
She glanced up to find Old Man Parker glancing around the room.

She followed his gaze, relieved to
find the window shut, but chilled to realise that the old ink pot on the desk
was now on the floor beside the desk leg, the nibbed pen stuck in the old
carpet, sharp point down.

Seeing the doubt in Mrs Hubble’s
eyes as she knelt down to help stack the spilled books, Barbie stood, not
wanting to bring her attention to the pen and ink pot.  “I’ll clean this up
later, I-”

A bang echoed through the hallway,
making the hair on her nape prickle.

“Probably something tipped over
that the workers left behind,” Mrs Hubble stated sensibly.  “They can sometimes
be careless.”

“Possibly,” Barbie admitted.

Mrs Hubble, Barbie and Old Man
Parker looked at each other as a soft thump sounded, then another.

Feeling a little more secure with
their company, Barbie walked out into the hallway and called out, “Hello? 
We’re up here.”  When there was no answer, she walked to the staircase and
peered down.  “Hello?”

Silence.

A thump, soft, muted, had her turning
quickly to stare down the hallway.  Mrs Hubble jumped and clung to Old Man
Parker’s arm, her eyes like saucers.

Barbie knew exactly where the
sound had come from, and she smiled reassuringly at them.  “Oh, that’ll be the
broken shelf spilling the dolls again.”

“My dear,” Mrs Hubble said, voice
quavering. “Why one earth would the dolls be on a broken shelf?”

Damn good question and one to
which Barbie felt slightly sick.

Crossing to the girl’s room, she
opened the door and looked in.  The sight that met her eyes had heart starting
to pound.

In the middle of the floor sat the
dolls, every single one that had been on the
repaired
shelf.  The
carpenters had fixed it on Friday, she remembered now, and the dolls - Oh God,
the dolls she’d stuck back on the shelf…

The dolls now sitting in a line in
the middle of the floor, staring sightlessly at her out of their glass eyes.

Old Man Parker looked over her
shoulder.  “Never did like those things.”

“They were on the shelf,” Barbie
said faintly.