Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

The truck motored around the cul-de-sac as Ruari steered on autopilot. He’d just met the most beautiful woman in the world. Her warm, toffee-colored eyes and shy, transcendent smile lifted his dull mood like the first snow after a dreary autumn. For a moment, he could feel the stirring of change in his soul, like a fresh wind. When she’d shaken his hand he’d felt a sizzle of something sing through his body. He couldn’t recall meeting anyone else who’d made him react like that.
 

I wonder if she’s single? Whoa, tiger, he thought. She’s probably got someone special in her life. Well, I’ll take care of the dishwasher and at least see her a second time. Maybe I can find out if she’s single somehow.
 

He swerved abruptly to avoid a cat dashing across the road and slammed on the breaks to make the stop sign. Back to business, he thought, coming back to earth with a jarring thump. He looked at his list of stops for the rest of the day and groaned internally.

Chapter 12

Wandering around her house with a goofy smile on her face, Marianne tried to gather her thoughts about her library visit. Meeting Ruari seemed to have temporarily short-circuited her ability to focus on research and mercifully made her forget her early morning nastygram. She forced herself to look at her notes and get back on track for the day. Oscar seemed content sunning himself on the couch, deeply involved in a cat bath. On the spur of the moment, she got out a selection of piano music and left it on the top of the upright next to a vase of flowers from the garden.

“I’m going out for a while today,” she said to the empty living room. “If you want to play something, please help yourself.” As before she couldn’t tell if she’d been heard or not.

She locked the door behind her and headed up to town, her backpack sliding into place on her right shoulder like an old friend. The trees were such beautiful shades of deep summer green, and the smells of cut grass and earth filled her nostrils. She breathed in a happy sigh.

 
Ruari’s face stole into her thoughts occasionally, making her smile.

The Maple Hill Library was located in an old fieldstone building at the north end of Main Street. The brass plaque on the outside said it was on the Register of Historic Places having been built in 1781 by a locally prominent citizen. There were actually three buildings connected to the library, the stone one and two much more modern cement and wood structures nearby. The stone one had library services and a smallish meeting room. The other two held the modest collections of books and periodicals, the small historical society and its collection of reference materials and a conference room/town hall meeting room.

Marianne went to the historic society room and checked in with the librarian. Mrs. Caldwell, a retiree of indeterminate age above sixty, with sharp eyes and artificially bronze colored hair, gave Marianne a nickel tour of the resources: old volumes of local history, family names, maps and periodicals and modern compendiums of cemeteries in the county, and local place name histories among other things. She seemed reluctant to allow anyone to handle her materials. She clearly took her role as guardian of local resources very seriously. Marianne did her best to seem professional and responsible.

Two pre millennial looking computer terminals hulked on a couple of desks in the corner, and Marianne wondered fleetingly if they even had Internet. Then she remembered the “WiFi” sign on the library window and figured they must have a landline for these ancient terminals. The whole room looked like it contained the sad, mismatched leftovers from an estate sale or three.

Marianne pulled out a heavy wooden chair and set out her research things. Her search last night on the Internet had turned up relatively little. Tax records indicated several previous owners and multiple tenants were noted in a fledgling landlord-tenant association registry. The first owners were a George and Anne Rutherford from 1925 to 1965, followed by a Markus Bordman until 1971. The house was then bought by Selwyn Thomas whom she assumed was Lily Thomas’ husband. The Thomases registered an Adam Sullivan as their first tenant who lived there for five years, and then a Mr. and Mrs. Sundergard who occupied the house for about eight years. After that there was a string of other names both couples and singles who never seemed to stay longer than three years and usually less than two. The tenant registry ceased abruptly just before the millennium for unknown reasons.

Well, Marianne thought, the ghost problem might have originated before the string of short-term occupations and maybe explained the lack of retention. But it was better not to make any assumptions.
 

Mrs. Caldwell reluctantly disengaged from a cataloging project to show her the local newspaper, both on the shelf and those photographed and preserved on microfilm. Mercifully, it was a relatively short, weekly publication, only twelve pages. She started with the most recent issues and methodically began looking for mentions of any of the renter or owner names. She had trained herself to skim accurately and was fairly quick. Taking notes on things that caught her eye, she learned something about local politics, events, and people in the process.
 

By late afternoon she’d worked her way back in time to the 1970s. A few of the tenants’ names turned up in passing either during or after their occupancy of the Violet Lane house. Adam Sullivan turned up in an article about the local chapter of the Electricians Union with a picture, and she frowned. The article reported on the awards and honors given to its members. In spite of his nice clothes, he had a kind of blank-eyed stare that made her think of rapists or killers in their mugshots. She wrote ‘creepy’ next to his name and made a note to investigate him further.

Later, the obituaries of the couple who’d first rented the house under the Thomases caught her eye. The Sundergards had died tragically in a car accident, leaving behind two children in their teens. Although they were no longer renting at the time of their deaths, Marianne wrote ‘deceased—ghosts??’ next to their names. Maybe their children lived locally, or Kelly and Sarah knew them through the grapevine.

As for the owners, Selwyn Thomas had been a local benefactor, contributing to the maintenance and partial restoration of a couple of historic sites including the library and the theater. He and his wife, Lily, had been in several community theater productions, and Lily had served on numerous boards locally. There had been no obvious mentions of mysterious or disturbing events related to the house itself.

Mrs. Caldwell came over to inform her sternly that the historical records center was closing at 4:30. Marianne stretched her aching back and returned her resources. On her way out, she made an appointment with the librarian to come back the next day to keep working. She would pursue her basic research on Markus Bordman and the Rutherfords tomorrow and see what turned up.

The muggy heat hit her like a wet slap when she stepped out of the climate controlled library atmosphere. She walked back toward her street, slowly adjusting to the temperature. Based on looks alone, Adam Sullivan fit the profile of the angry ghost at her house, she reflected. And the dead couple fit the profile of male and female ghosts. Selwyn Thomas’ obituary in the late nineties had spoken glowingly of all of his accomplishments and contributions to the community. Mr. Thomas, the thespian, didn’t seem the type to wig out over her paint job, and Mrs. Thomas hadn’t struck her as someone who had been married to an abusive man, so she ruled out Selwyn. She sighed. There was always the possibility that people on her list but not in the paper were her ghosts. Historic research was all about finding pieces of a puzzle and fitting them together till they told the most likely story.

Marianne resolved to call Mrs. Thomas this evening and ask her about her renters and about the other people who had owned the house. Hell, she could ask her if she knew her house was haunted—and if she knew who it was!

After an early dinner she scrolled down her contact list for Mrs. Thomas’ number and pressed send. The phone on the other end rang for what seemed like forever, and Marianne imagined a very old lady slowly making her way to the one phone in her house.

“Hello?” A quavery, elderly voice said.

“Mrs. Thomas? It’s Marianne Singleton. I’m renting the Violet Lane house from you in Maple Hill?”

“Oh?” She seemed to think for a few minutes.

“I called you last week when I moved in,” Marianne prompted.

“Oh, yes.” Lily Thomas sounded stronger, more certain.

Marianne took a breath and plunged on, trying not to talk too fast and lose her listener. “Well, I wanted to let you know that I’m doing some painting. I’ve got the bedrooms in the back done. I also cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and found out the dishwasher doesn’t work. The handyman from the agency came round today and said it needed new parts.” She felt a distant thrill when she remembered meeting Ruari that morning.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Marianne could picture her frowning. “Tell him to send me the bill. SueAnn Talmadge has my address. I’m glad you’re painting. It hasn’t been painted in a very long time.”

“I would love for you to come and see it when I’m done,” Marianne invited. “Oh, and the Cavarelli’s boy next door is helping get the yard back in shape.”
 

“Thank you, dear. I’d like to see it. You’re certainly fulfilling your end of the bargain! Is everything going all right?” She said a little anxiously after a pause.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Mrs. Thomas, did you know…are you aware… I think your house is slightly haunted.” Marianne temporized, unsure of the old woman’s reaction.

“Slightly haunted?” She repeated, sounding a little guilty.

“Yes. I think there are some ghosts here.” Marianne tried putting it another way.

“Yes, I believe there are,” Mrs. Thomas stated, sounding unsurprised.

Marianne said incredulously, “You know?”

“Well, not everyone notices, so, I don’t like to mention it.”

“They’re kind of hard not to notice!” Marianne couldn’t help herself. “A really angry male ghost threw paint on my wall twice and shouts at me periodically. Then there is a woman who plays my piano when I’m not here. I’ve had bad dreams or outright nightmares nearly every night since I moved in.” It was hard to keep the outrage out of her voice.

“Goodness! I’m sorry to hear that.”

Marianne closed her eyes and counted to ten mentally before saying patiently, “Mrs. Thomas, do you have any idea who these ghosts are—or were?”

Mrs. Thomas was silent long enough for Marianne to wonder if she’d wandered away from the phone, but at last she said reluctantly, “Well, I can’t be sure. It might be Anne and George. We bought the house from Mr. Bordman, Lucas? Mark? He was a very strange man, an insurance adjuster, you know. Our first tenant Arnold Sullivan was a very angry man. Selwyn always dealt with him, but he made me uncomfortable. I was glad when he left. I’m not sure what happened to him.” She paused while she thought some more. “We rented to the Sundergards for a long time. They were a nice family, but they died, you know. They could be your ghosts.”

Marianne made notes on her pad, jotting down Mrs. Thomas’ imperfect recollection of the names. “Okay, is there anyone else you can think of?”

“No, not really. I think everyone else we rented to is either still alive or left town, and I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Thomas. Just so you know, I’m doing a little research on the house, trying to figure out who might still be here. I’m hoping to convince them to move on. I hope you’re okay with that?” Marianne could just imagine Mrs. Thomas saying she rather liked them.

“Heavens no. I don’t mind. It would certainly be easier to rent the place if they were gone! You won’t hurt them, will you? I don’t think they mean anyone any harm.”

Marianne wasn’t at all sure Angry Guy didn’t mean her harm but let it pass. “No, I just hope to ask them to move on to heaven or the afterlife or wherever they would be happier.”

“Well, if you’re sure, that sounds all right.”

Marianne rang off and sat staring at her notebook. She wanted to talk to Grandma Selene and wondered if her grandmother was back from her visit with friends. She pressed send on the right number in her cell address book and waited while it rang and rang. She left a brief message when the answering machine came on.

At least since she’d started her “homework,” she’d felt a lot less scared about being in her own house. Having invisible, dead roommates was very strange. The piano playing wasn’t so terrible, but the anger, anxiety and nightmares were not fun at all.
 

Her watch indicated that it was only 6:30. The afternoon sun was coming down the hall from the bedroom end of the house. There was plenty of daylight left, and it was too soon to go to bed. She toyed with the idea of getting the next room ready for painting. She had a tendency to get wrapped up in whatever research project she had going and forgetting everything else. Standing in her bedroom, she realized that she also had a pile of laundry that needed to get washed. In the interest of avoiding painting and keeping her daily life going, she collected everything she wanted to wash and put it in a basket.

She unlocked the basement door and flipped on the light below. Kelly said I was brave, so I can do this. Sarah said the woman’s ghost was stronger in the basement, not the Angry Man’s. I’m only going to be down there for a few minutes to get the laundry loaded, and then I’m coming right back up.

She picked up the basket and made her way downstairs and began loading the laundry. An untraceable anxiety stole over her, urging her out of the cellar. Something bad had happened down here, she was sure of it. Without thinking she glanced toward the area on the other side of the coal bin and threw clothing and towels into the basin faster. She had just turned the knob and heard the water start when she heard the basement door shut followed by a click. Then the lights went out.

Chapter 13

Her heart leaped in alarm as she ran for the stairs. Tripping on the treads in the dimness, she reached the top. Frantically groping for the doorknob, she turned it only to realize the bolt was locked. She felt for the bolt mechanism on this side and met only flat door. It was only lockable from one side, and she was on the wrong side. She felt for a light switch on this side of the door and found only gritty, peeling paint. There was only one switch, and it was on the other side.