Love Notes from Vinegar House (18 page)

I could hear loud breathing, and it wasn’t mine.

There was the sound of the dresser drawers being roughly pulled out and the chink of metal. I thought of the stolen notes in my drawer in the next room. Did the ghost know about the notes? I should never have taken them. I opened my eyes and peered out from under the chair. Another flash of lightning lit the room and I watched in horror as Rumer scuttled to a different hiding place as a figure approached the wardrobe. I thought the nearly instant clap of thunder that followed masked her frightened shriek, but in the silence that followed I could hear more heavy breathing and then a grunt.

I heard footsteps leave the bedroom and the
clunk, clunk, clunk
of something being quickly dragged down the stairs.

Then someone called out, “Hello? Freya? Rumer?”

It was Luke.

I scrambled out of my hiding spot and fumbled to the hallway.

“Are we having dinner tonight or am I on rations?” he said with a grin.

I held a finger to my lips. There was the sound of something being dragged on the floor downstairs then the front door slammed.

“What–?”

“Has it gone?” Rumer asked as she crept into the hallway.

“What’s going on?” asked Luke. “Who was that?”

“That,” said Rumer, “was the ghost of Vinegar House.”

“What’s going on?” Luke repeated.

“I think it was a ghost,” said Rumer. “An unhappy ghost.”

The door to the Blue Room slammed shut behind us.

Rumer jumped. “See!” she said.

“Just a draft,” I said, hoping I was right. “I need to see the attic. I need the torch.”

“Which means we all have to go,” said Rumer. “I’m not sitting here without the torch. Wouldn’t you rather just go downstairs and lock the doors. In case the thing comes back?”

“Good idea,” I said. “You go down and lock the doors, and I’ll go to the attic.”

“But–”

“Luke will go with you.”

I didn’t stop to argue but moved along the hallway and up the stairs to the attic.

Another thing you should know about me is that sometimes when I get an idea in my head then I act on it straightaway, just so I don’t have a chance to change my mind.

It wasn’t until I reached the stair landing that I realised Luke and Rumer were right behind me.

“How did they unlock the door?” I said.

“Ghosts don’t worry about doors,” said Rumer.

“The door’s open,” said Luke.

The attic looked like my bedroom on a bad day – a mess. The neat tower of boxes had toppled to the floor. Old clothes and toys were thrown about in a colourful jumble. And standing in the middle of the room was the locked chest, which hadn’t been opened.

Luke gave a low whistle, and Rumer picked up a few things, then put them down again. When I leaned against the floor-length mirror an idea hit me like a jolt of electricity. I knew where the key to the chest was.

“Wait here,” I said, then I took the torch back to the Blue Room, grabbed the trinket box from the dressing table, and took it back to the attic.

“Don’t do that again!” complained Rumer. “It’s too dark!”

I pulled a small key out of the trinket box – the same trinket box I had knocked over in the Blue Room all those years ago. I fitted it to the padlock on the trunk and the lock sprung open. I threw the lid back to reveal some old photo albums and letter bundles tied up with kitchen twine.

“Boring,” said Rumer. “Shine the light over here, Freya.”

“Use your phone,” I said. Then I realised Rumer’s phone was under water at Bluff Beach.

“Very funny,” she snapped.

“Are there any other torches?” asked Luke.

We moved in a knot of three to the library where we found a torch each. I locked the front door while Rumer rolled her eyes at me and said, “As if that will keep a ghost out.” Then we all returned to the attic.

While Rumer searched through the chaos, Luke went downstairs again to try the phone, and I checked out the letters from the chest

“What a mess!” said Rumer. “What was it looking for?”

“
It
was definitely human,” I said. “A ghost couldn’t make this mess.”

“Heard of a poltergeist?” said Rumer.

“Where were you tonight?” I asked Rumer.

“You know where I was,” she said. “I was hanging onto a boat in the middle of the ocean.”

“Why?” I asked.

“None of your–”

“I need you to tell me the truth,” I said.

Rumer flicked a strand of hair from her face. “Why?” she said finally.

“Rumer!”

“Gerard,” she said. “I was supposed to meet with Gerard. He’s staying at Homsea with his parents for the holidays. We’ve seen each other every day since I got here. It’s a secret. We promised our parents we’d take a break. They just wanted us to concentrate on school this year. Luke knows about us. He saw us one night down by the tree house.”

“Gerard,” I repeated. “The speedboat …” I remembered pointing out the boat to Luke when we were sitting in the tree house.

“It’s his father’s boat,” said Rumer. “And when he didn’t come this afternoon …” She shrugged. “I thought I’d take the dinghy and meet him. And then I lost an oar. And then, when I tried to get it, I fell out of the boat. You know the rest.”

“But what about Luke?” I asked.

“Luke?” She laughed. “What about Luke?”

I untied a bundle of letters. The top envelope was not addressed to anyone. It just held the distinctive letter
R
I’d come to know.

“Have you seen these before?” I asked.

Rumer took the notes from me and looked at them by the light of the torch. “Not these ones,” she said after a moment. “But I have some in my bedroom. They just, kind of, arrived. They’ve been arriving, under my door, since last week.”

“Did Luke write these?”

“Luke?” She laughed. “Luke did not write these, Freya.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I asked him. I had to know because … well … I didn’t want him thinking that I was interested in him.”

“Oh.”

“I thought it was you,” she said. “I thought you were playing a practical joke. So I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to think I cared.”

“I would never do something like that,” I said hotly.

She looked at me carefully. “No. No, I don’t suppose you would,” she said. “Then, I don’t understand …”

She unfolded a letter and began to read it by torchlight, while I pulled out a photo album. The first few pages showed a happy blond baby with curls; then later photos of the baby as a toddler, school photos and finally a Rumer look-alike proudly showing off a baby bump.

“What have you found?” asked Rumer, holding out her hand for the album.

I handed it over, and she looked carefully at the photo.

“That’s my mother,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That’s me,” she said, pointing to the bump. “These are her letters,” she said slowly.

“But these letters are addressed to–”

“My mother’s name was Rebecca,” said Rumer. “My dad’s name is Lawrence. R and L. I can’t believe he wrote these to her. They’re … they’re … so … personal.”

“Still no signal,” announced Luke as he climbed the attic staircase.

I suddenly realised that Luke Hart had not hooked up with my cousin Rumer and my heart did a happy dance.

“The dining room’s a mess. The cupboards are all open–”

“The silverware!” I said.

“You think it was a robbery?” asked Rumer.

“I wonder what else they’ve taken?” said Luke.

“You mean the ghost?” said Rumer.

While Luke and Rumer squabbled about the robber/ghost, I pulled out a flimsy blue envelope. Inside was a letter on tissue-thin writing paper. I held the torchlight close to shed light on the page.

A wave of sadness – so fierce that I felt like falling – crashed over me.

“So why is this stuff all locked away?” asked Luke.

“Rumer,” I said.

“Who knows,” said Rumer with a shrug.

“Rumer! I think you should read this,” I said. I held out the letter.

Rumer threw back her head and took a deep breath then she looked at me coolly. “Can we get something to eat? And I need to get out of these clothes. I’m freezing.”

“Rumer!”

Luke shook his head at me, but I followed my cousin down the stairs.

“The stupid TV isn’t even working, so we can’t watch that. I’ve got some movies on my laptop,” she said. “Maybe we can watch something on that after dinner –”

“Rumer!” I grabbed her arm and she swung around, the torchlight making her face look ghostly white.

“What!” she demanded.

“Don’t you want to read this? It’s from your mother. She says she loves you.”

Rumer shrugged. “Sorry, cuz. What do you want me to say? My mum left and then she got herself killed, end of story.”

Rumer got some dry clothes from her bedroom, then made me wait outside the bathroom door for her as she got changed.

“I might as well use that water,” she said.

The sound of the pipes clanging as she topped up with hot water sent a shudder through me and I called out a few times to her just to hear her voice. Luke went downstairs to see what had happened to the spaghetti sauce. After ten minutes, Rumer emerged in her black T-shirt and PJ pants.

“Rumer–”

“I’m starving,” she said. “Are you getting changed?”

We didn’t talk about Rumer’s mum for the rest of the night. We did talk about who had ransacked the house, though. Rumer finally gave up on the idea of a vengeful ghost.

“Where’s Mr Chilvers?” asked Luke. “I thought he was coming back this afternoon?”

I explained the phone call from Grandma and what I thought her message had been.

“It was Mr Chilvers,” said Rumer. “I told you he was creepy.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“There was something about his eyes,” continued Rumer, ignoring me. “Maybe he was an escaped criminal? Maybe he planned this all along?”

“Mr Chilvers was a farmer,” I argued. “Besides, he knew we’d be here. I don’t think our burglar was expecting anyone to be home.”

We argued about the thief over dinner. Luke found Mrs Skelton’s house keys lying near the front door, and Rumer insisted this proved that the intruder was definitely Mr Chilvers – that all the evidence pointed his way.

We checked the doors a million times to make sure they were locked, and then watched a movie on Rumer’s laptop in the TV room. We went to sleep – Rumer on the couch and Luke and I on a chair each – with the fire crackling and the wind gusting rain against the windows. Deep into the night I woke to the sound of the clock chiming out the quarter hour and noticed Luke poking the fire and putting on another log of wood. I lowered my eyelids half-mast and watched as he tucked my blanket closer about me. I closed my eyes as he touched my cheek softly with his fingers and I couldn’t help the smile that curved on my face. I wondered who had left the love notes under Rumer’s door and why. Then I slipped back into sleep until I woke to the sound of a car horn tooting early the next morning.

Grandma Vinegar was home.

Through the TV Room window I could see Grandma ordering a taxi driver to be careful with her luggage. Mr Chilvers was nowhere in sight.

“Quick!” I shook Rumer’s shoulder, then Luke’s, who snored in protest. “Come on, come on, Grandma Vinegar’s home!”

I cleared the dishes from the coffee table and hurried into the kitchen, stacking them neatly on the sink. I grabbed the dirty spag bog saucepan and shoved it into the oven of the new stove – I’d clean it later.

The front door rattled and Grandma Vinegar called out, “Freya! Rumer!” Then I heard her say, “Where are my keys, Livinia?”

I brushed my hair with my fingers and tried to smooth down my clothes. By the time Grandma came through the front door we pretty much had things under control.

“Haven’t you got appointments? Why are you home?” I babbled.

Grandma took one look at me and said, “Oh, my goodness, Freya, what has happened here?” and I realised I wasn’t fooling anyone.

Mrs Skelton came through the door carrying the tapestry beauty case. “It’s freezing in here,” she grumbled. “What’s all this mess?”

“I knew it,” said Grandma, triumphantly. “I told you, Livinia. I knew I shouldn’t have left the house yesterday. I could feel it in my bones … What has happened? Have you heard from Mr Chilvers? Is the power out?”

By now Luke and Rumer were standing sleepy-eyed at the TV room door. Grandma took one look at them, ordered Mrs Skelton to make a pot of tea, then ordered the rest of us back into the TV room. While Luke stoked up the fire, Rumer and I sat on the couch and Grandma prowled about the room like a nervous cat.

“I’m afraid Mr Chilvers and I have had a falling out,” she said briskly. “An issue about his wages. Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

Luke sat down on a chair.

“We had … words when we arrived in Port Eden. It seems Mr Chilvers was after a pay rise, although we’d already agreed I would look at a pay increase at the end of the next financial year … Then he took off with the car. I thought he may have come back here …” she said with a lift of an eyebrow. “I couldn’t get a taxi back until this morning. It has cost me an absolute fortune. So, no Mr Chilvers?”

Rumer shook her heard but Luke and I looked at each other.

“There was … somebody here last night,” I said with a little cough. “They ransacked the house. I’m not sure what they’ve taken – the silver definitely. It was too hard to check out in the dark.”