Shaker Town (Taryn's Camera Book 4) (7 page)

M
aintenance tried to assure her it wasn’t her fault.

“You’re just lucky you weren’t sleeping or taking a shower,” Bert, a heavyset fellow with meaty hands and a head full of wiry, gray hair, barked. “These things can get bad real fast.”

Taryn was lucky she’d remembered to throw on some clothes before dialing the front desk. She’d opened the window to let the smoke out before she remembered she was still stark naked and dripping bathwater, leaving a trail of bubbles back to the bathroom.

Although there wasn’t any real damage to the room she’d have to move to the other side of the building, just to give them a chance to check everything out. It didn’t take her long to throw everything into her suitcases and the men helped her lug them across the hall. “You need anything?” Bert asked, a little softer now.

“I could use some caffeine,” she answered.

“I've got a Coke machine by the office. It's on me if you want,” he offered.

Taryn accepted gratefully and climbed into the park's golf cart.

As they roared off into the night Taryn took another look up at the building. Her window was still open; the curtain fluttered in the breeze. And a pale, lonesome face gazed down at her and watched.

“
A
t least you’re okay,” Matt sighed into the phone. “You’re lucky, though, that you weren’t out when it happened.”

“I know; I’ve thought about that,” Taryn admitted. Losing her stuff would’ve been awful but the historic building burning to the ground would’ve been worse.

She hadn’t told him about the figure in her room or the sounds that alerted her to the fire in the first place. She was sick and tired of thinking about ghosts. Sometimes she just wanted to move on to something else. They’d never been a part of her life until a year ago and now it felt like they were all she thought about.

“Any chance you can come up and see me?” she asked and then felt instantly guilty. He’d taken more than a month off back in the fall. And it wasn’t like she was clingy or needy. She just missed his company.

“I looked at plane tickets for the end of the month,” Matt replied. “I might be able to make it then. I’ll know tomorrow when we have our meeting.”

Matt didn’t think his department could run without him. He was probably right. She could have taken a day or two off and gone to Florida to see him but Taryn just wasn’t really into the area where he lived. The suburb outside of Orlando was nice, and he had a good little house she felt comfortable in, but it was blazing hot even in the spring and she always felt like she was swimming through the air. Matt preferred his house to be dark, too, to help keep it cool so the curtains were always pulled tightly together. When Taryn was there she felt like she was living in a cold, dark cave.

On the plus side, he did enjoy cooking and she always left having gained at least three pounds.

“I meant to tell you,” Matt broke in, interrupting her thoughts. “I had a dream about you last night.”

“Was it a dirty one?” she teased him.

“Not that time. It actually disturbed me.”

“Yikes. What was I doing?” she asked with interest. Matt’s dreams were normally abstract, a collection of colors and scenes that had no real plot or direction.

“You were running, crying,” he worried in a strangled voice. “I could see you and hear you but couldn’t get to you. There was someone after you.”

“Well that doesn’t sound nice,” she tried to joke, but felt unsettled. “Did you see what he looked like?”

“No, faceless I guess. What bothered me was–“ he stopped talking and laughed a little strangled sound.

“What?” Taryn pressed. He couldn’t stop
now.

“Oh, it’s strange. I could see you running and I could see him after you but for a second it was like I was him. And I could feel what he was feeling.” Matt stopped talking again, took a drink of something, then continued. “He wanted you. He wanted to touch you, grab you, put his hands everywhere. But there was rage, too. I’ve never felt so angry myself but it was just consuming him. He wanted to tear you apart. And I felt that.”

“Geeze, Matt,” Taryn laughed nervously. “Are you hiding something from me?” Although it was kind of funny to think of cool-as-a-cucumber Matt trying to hurt her.

“Oh, God n-no,” Matt stuttered, aghast. “I’ve never felt like that in my life, not even when people cut me off in parking lots and you
know
how mad that makes me. This was something else. It just lasted for a teeny second and then I was awake. But I felt terrible, like it was my fault he was chasing you. I don’t know. I didn’t like it. It’s been on my mind all day.”

“There’s nobody after me here,” Taryn assured him. “Everyone is real nice and I don’t think anyone is going to be chasing me any time soon. I know how to scream, anyway, and can kick like a mule.”

“Yeah, well, still…” Matt, who had pulled her out of more scrapes than either would like to admit, was not entirely convinced. “Just watch yourself. Evil comes in many forms and you of all people should be aware of that.”

T
aryn’s new room looked pretty much like her other one did, sans the big black smudge above the desk and lack of suffocating smoke smell.

She knew she should be worried about the building but she was also concerned that they’d try to dock her pay for what had happened, despite the fact the park director had assured her it wasn’t her fault. “It happened a few months ago to a television set in the room across the hall from you,” Virgil told her cheerfully. “Wasn’t a thing in the world you did.”

Still, she felt responsible. She did not want to be known as the woman who burnt down Shaker Town.

They’d offered to move her to a room in The Trustee’s Office and while she liked the idea of being close to the food, it was also
too
close to everyone else. There would always be a constant flurry of activity there and she wasn’t feeling into that at the moment.

The figure in her other room…it was just a ghost. Ha, she laughed aloud. A year ago to see such a thing and have the thought of “he’s just a ghost” run through her mind would’ve had her questioning her sanity. But she’d seen a lot since then and learned even more. Not all ghosts are real; some are just residual energy. Not all ghosts are aware of what’s going on around them; they were just out there minding their own dead business.

But this one knew
she
was there. He could sense her, feel her. She’d known that while she was helpless in the bathtub.

But, then again, he (or maybe it was a
she
but Taryn didn’t think so) had helped her. Of course, he could have just been trying to keep his building from burning down and didn’t give a flip about her…

Was it possible there were
two
ghosts? She thought maybe there was. For that brief moment she'd been aware in the tub, she'd known vicious fear, something that paralyzed her on a primal level. But the figure in her room had just surprised her, made her curious.

Shaker Town was old. Lots of people had come through it. It would be more of a surprise if it wasn’t haunted than it if was.

Miss Dixie stared at her from the middle of the bed. Even in the shadows of the early morning she looked taunting and accusatory at Taryn. “Pick me up,” she seemed to cry. “Turn me on and you’ll get the bigger picture.”

“You never give me any answers,” Taryn complained aloud, but still picked the camera up, the weight somehow comforting. “You just cause a lot of problems.”

But ghost hunting seemed to have become Taryn’s second job, and one that was starting to become more necessary. Letting out a deep breath, Taryn slung the strap over her shoulder, stuffed some snacks in her knapsack, and slipped on her sandals. She had work to do, in more ways than one.

T
here was always a lull at some point in the day, usually around lunch, when the tourists went off to unpack their picnics or eat in the restaurant and the park got quiet. It didn't last long but it was nice while it did. 

Taryn used this time to do a little more exploring and put Miss Dixie back to the test. Although Taryn had only really picked up on the one picture, so far, now that she’d seen a few things she hoped she might get more.

She’d start with the biggest building at the park, the Centre Family Dwelling.

The building, back in the day, would've been a sight to see. Not only was it imposing, it contained fairly stunning design ideas. Probably housing nearly one hundred Shakers at once, it still had the separate doors for men and women. Interior walls had “borrowed light” which allowed in air and sunlight. It also had a dumbwaiter, separate stair cases for the sexes inside, food storage rooms, a large dining room, and a kitchen with all the latest nineteenth century technology for food preparation.

When she walked through the front entrance she could hear laughter back in the old kitchen but there wasn’t anyone in the front of the building. There were some interesting rooms down there but while she still had the energy she wanted to start at the top.

The stairs were hard on Taryn’s legs so she took them slowly, willing herself not to sublux her hip or, worse, dislocate it altogether. The Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome could and did do that frequently and today it was making her joints hurt worse than usual so she was trying to be easy on herself, especially her hips and legs which seemed to hurt the worst. She had just turned thirty-one a month before but felt twice that.

The top floor was deathly quiet, not a soul to be seen or heard.

Before that could change she quickly turned Miss Dixie on and began walking through the rooms, paying careful attention to zoom in on the beds, the chairs, and anywhere a person might turn their attention to. As someone known for being messy Taryn was hypnotized by the Shakers' fastidiousness. Mother Ann had even lectured the Believers to “be neat and industrious; keep your family’s clothes clean and decent; see that your house is kept clean, and your victuals is prepared in good order” and to not lose anything, waste anything, or carry debt. With their pegs for everything and cleanliness-is-next-to-Godliness mentality they were truly Matt’s kind of people.

Taryn fantasized about selling or donating everything she had and living Spartan-style in a tiny house she could take on the road with her but knew that wasn’t realistic. What would she do without her record or cowboy boot collections?

Even though the Shakers hadn’t had an official church, per say, the cavernous rooms with their hushed quietness and tidiness reminded her of a chapel. The click of her camera was so loud that it echoed, making her jump once. She slowly moved from one room to another, aiming and shooting until she’d covered the top floor. One piece of furniture struck her as both sweet and a little funny; a large cradle rested in the middle of the floor, a blanket and pillow inside. Although she could have easily fit inside it, it wasn't made for a large baby...they'd used these adult cradles for the older Shakers who were sick or disabled and needed comforting.

When the bell rang to signify the commencement of the singing, Taryn smiled. Lydia was off so it was a male voice that filled the course between the two buildings when she started on the floor beneath her. His voice was a rich, even baritone and though she’d learned most of the songs on the program since her arrival she still appreciated the stunning beauty of the voice and lyrics. If there was anyone left in the building, now, they’d make their way out and find themselves in the meeting house. It was hard to ignore the singing.

She stopped in what was set up like a children’s room and gave herself a moment, just taking in the tiny wooden toys and small beds and chairs. Did children’s cries echo in here, after being taken away from their mothers and fathers? She tried to imagine a child who’d lived in the same room as their parents suddenly tugged away and cast alone in a strange room with other children they didn’t know. Had it been frightening or exciting, a new adventure for them? As religious as they’d been the whole “go forth and multiply” hadn’t pertained to the Shakers. It was only through bringing in converts or taking in orphans that they’d been able to sustain their population.

Even though Taryn hadn’t been close to her parents, she’d still mourned them when they’d died; she’d felt like an orphan. They were
good
people, just distant. She’d preferred living with her grandmother but couldn’t imagine the idea of being torn apart from them while they were living. What had it been like for the children here, to see their parents on the other side and not be able to go to them, hug them, stay with them?

Taryn imagined that those rules were frequently broken, probably by the mothers.