The Ghostly Hideaway (4 page)

“We’ll need to break them in a saucer before we cook
them to be sure they’re not too old to use. There’s no way to know
if they’re fresh or not. Well, I think there is a way to tell, but
I don’t remember how to check. I was thinking last night that it
sure would be nice to have some eggs—but I didn’t say it aloud.
Honestly, I didn’t. I promise I never said a word about it." Penny
wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was absolutely getting
stranger and stranger all the time.

They worked outside almost all of the day and by
nightfall, the front yard at least looked presentable. A few
flowers that hadn’t been choked out by the weeds were growing and
when the dead blooms had been picked off and the weeds pulled, the
flowerbeds looked much better. All the mud and dirt, dead leaves
and sticks that had accumulated on the porch had been removed and
the shutter and swing that had been hanging had been repaired.

Some canned chili with cheese grated on top had been
warmed up for their supper and tasted fine after their afternoon’s
activities. Chrissy offered to clean up the kitchen and Candy stood
on a chair by the sink and ‘helped.’ Penny wandered into the
office/library and finding a clean rag in the linen closet began to
do some dusting. She cleaned the desk and the tops of the wooden
file cabinets, the other tables, and wooden chairs. In addition to
the big office-type desk in the middle of the room, an
old-fashioned roll-top desk stood against one wall. She began
dusting this and, as curiosity reared its head, she found herself
rolling up the lid to see what its contents might be...

Inside she found a big checkbook with names on it:
Clifton C. Coy and/or Lorraine M. Coy. "These
must be the
people who own this property." Somehow, she almost felt like an
intruder for the first time. Not knowing their names made it easier
to dismiss them as actual people. But now she knew whose place they
were occupying. She saw one more important-looking book. She picked
it up and saw that it said ‘JOURNAL’ on the front of it. She
glanced inside even while she told herself she shouldn’t look at
something that was sure to be quite personal. It looked like a
man’s handwriting and sure enough at the bottom of the first entry,
it was signed: C.C.C. The entry was dated almost three years
previous. Penny shoved it back in its cubbyhole and hurriedly
pulled the lid back down.

She was still thinking about it when she went up to
bed; but she hadn’t shared its discovery with the others. She
wasn’t just sure why, but she hugged the knowledge to herself for
the time being.

As they climbed the steps to their bedrooms, Candy
yawned sleepily and said around her yawn; “Wouldn’t it be nice if
we had some fresh milk for breakfast. I sure do miss our milk."
Nobody even noticed what she had said or that it was almost a
wish.

Until morning. The first thing they heard when they
awoke—or perhaps that’s what awakened them—was the rooster crowing.
The second sound was somewhat unfamiliar for city people but they
recognized it from television shows and commercials. It was a cow
mooing. When they went out to look, it was standing near the back
porch with its bag and udders distended with milk. It took some
trial and error but Ed did manage to get her milked. The nearly two
gallons of milk looked rich and creamy and they were all anxious to
try it. It turned out to be delicious.

“I wonder who this cow belongs to. She looks well
fed and cared for. I guess someone will come looking for her after
awhile. But we’ve got one bunch of milk to enjoy, don’t we?”

“I don’t know who it belongs to, Daddy, but I
suppose I wished for it last night. I didn’t really mean to wish
for it. I was just thinking out loud, I guess. Anyhow it sure does
taste good.”

But as the days went by, no one came to claim the
cow or the house and the Wroe family was beginning to feel right at
home. They put the cow in a stable in the barn and fed her corn
from the crib that was built into one end of the barn. The chickens
continued to provide eggs and the twins shelled corn to feed them,
too. They had seen absolutely no one except each other since the
night they had become stranded there.

Ed began to explore beyond the fences around the
house and barn. He discovered a small orchard that was also in dire
need of tending. Some pests were beginning to invade some of the
fruit trees and having found some pesticides and sprayers in a
floored storage bin in the barn, he began to spray and tend the
trees. It looked as though there could be apples, peaches, and
pears in the fall.

Inside the house, Penny took careful stock of all
their food supplies as well as cleaners, laundry and bathroom
supplies and other necessities. They had enough of everything to
last for maybe a couple of weeks yet, but after that, it would be
necessary to find a store and replenish their larders. They had
almost no meat left but the canned vegetables were still plentiful.
They could become vegetarians if it came to that.

She had begun to sneak into the library whenever she
felt she had some time without too much chance of interruption. She
was fascinated by the journal Mr. Coy had kept. She had begun to
read it from the beginning and she was determined to read it as it
was written: chronologically—without peeking at the end. She had
checked the date on the last entry, however, and noted that it had
been written only three days before their arrival. Mr. Coy had
begun writing in this book on September 19, 2002, almost three
years earlier. Today she was reading December 24 of that first
year.

*

Well, tomorrow is Christmas and I don’t
have a gift for Lorraine. There just wasn’t enough money. Our
social security checks that go directly to the bank barely cover
the electric bill and our food. I’m glad I had them take out the
electric bill automatically when it comes due. That saves us a trip
to town every month especially in weather like this. I hope we stay
well. It would be awful if we had to try to get to the doctor or
hospital. God has given us a lot of gifts, so I guess we just need
to turn Christmas into another Thanksgiving and forget trying to
give each other things. We both have birthdays coming up next
month. I’ll be eighty-two and she’ll be eighty. I’ll have to make a
way to go to town just in case there’s some news from the sheriff
about our great-niece, Penelope. If she’s still alive and if he can
find her. We’ve had so many happy years here in our Kentucky
Hideaway, Lorraine wants Penelope to have this place when we’re
gone if we can find her. Lorraine wants so much to see her if
possible before she dies. And so do I. She was such a cute little
girl. The sheriff had found out enough to know that our nephew and
his wife died in a car wreck nearly thirty years ago and that our
great-niece, Penelope, had been brought up by her mother’s sister.
The sheriff is going to check further thinking that she might have
taken her aunt’s last name. They might even have adopted her. Well,
time to turn in. Goodnight. CCC

*

Moisture formed in Penny’s eyes as she finished
reading. “Just think how many years they had together and they
still felt the need to be considerate and caring toward each
other.”

“Who are you talking to, Mom?" Chrissy had caught
her and Penny decided it was time to share the journal with the
rest of her family.

“I found this in the old roll-top desk. It’s like a
diary, sort of; it’s just a few thoughts about each day as it
ended. It’s very sweet. The man who lived here before we came wrote
it, I guess. I wonder where he is.”

“What do you suppose the ‘CCC’ stands for?” Chrissy
wondered.

“It stands for ‘Clifton C. Coy’ and his wife’s name
was ‘Lorraine.’ I found a checkbook in the old desk, too.”

“Mom, I think it would be nice to start at the front
and every night read the journal entry for one day aloud to the
whole family. What do you think, Mom?”

“I agree. I think that would be a nice way to
remember the people who had kept this place. Without them, we
wouldn’t have had a place to stay. Yes, I like that idea a lot!"
Before long, though, they were reading two or three and sometimes
four days’ entries in the evenings. They would become so caught up
in the lives of the Coys that they felt they actually knew them. It
was obvious that they were a devoted and loving couple who cared
about each other deeply.

Chrissy was daydreaming that night after they went
to bed. “I wish we had some pictures so we could know what they
looked like. I’ll bet Lorraine was beautiful. Maybe someday I’ll
have somebody who will love me that way.”

When Chrissy awoke next morning, she had completely
forgotten about her wishes from the night before. But someone (or
some thing) hadn’t. On the night table by her bed was an old dusty
family picture album. It was open to a page that showed a bride and
groom in clothing from the nineteen thirties or forties. Chrissy
was thrilled by the picture album and it took her a few moments to
notice the little bouquet of forget-me-nots beside it. When she did
find them, she had the oddest little fluttering in her stomach; and
she didn’t know what to make of it. She found a small coffee mug
and with water from the bathroom, she watched the wilting flowers
come back to life. But how on earth did they get there? How had the
picture album materialized on her nightstand? She sat on the edge
of the bed and thought about all the strange happenings since they
had arrived. They had wished for their suitcases—and they had
appeared on the front porch. They had wished for gas in the SUV and
they had found it with almost half a tank. They had wished for eggs
and milk and discovered the hen house and the next day the Jersey
cow showed up. But all of those things had happened
outside the
house.
Now things were happening
within the house.
And
they always locked the doors when they went to bed. What in the
world was going on? How on earth could these events be explained?
How were their conversations and their wishes being overheard and
fulfilled?

Chrissy had no answers, but she took one more long,
lingering, look at her little bouquet of forget-me-nots and taking
the album she hurried downstairs. The rest of the family was as
dumbfounded as she was and as fascinated by the pictures. In those
photos, they could watch the years go by and see the changes in
Clifton and Lorraine. One photograph of Lorraine showed plainly
that she was pregnant. Though they looked quickly through the rest
of the pages, and then, again more slowly and thoroughly, there was
never a picture of a baby.

Toward the end of the book, they found a snapshot of
an older woman, a young man, and a small girl. But it was obvious
it was not the Coys. From the journal entries, Penny deduced that
it was probably their niece, Penelope, and her father and maybe his
mother. At least that seemed the most logical assumption based on
family resemblance and apparent age differences.

Then Chrissy brought up the question that was
bothering her. How did the picture album get on her nightstand?
They all looked at each other in bewilderment. This had to mean
that someone (or, again, some thing) had been in the house while
they were all asleep with the doors locked. This made them think
again of the suitcases that had been retrieved from the locked car.
None of them wanted to think about ghosts but the car
had
been locked and the house had been fastened up tight, too. Ghosts
were a figment of the imagination, weren’t they? Or were they? Who
could have heard their wishes? Who could have known how to fulfill
those wishes?

As if on cue, one of the doors on the upper floor
banged loudly startling everyone so that they jumped as though they
were shot. Of course, they didn’t believe in ghosts. But how else
could it be explained? Chrissy still didn’t tell them about the
forget-me-nots. She didn’t see how knowing about the flowers could
shed any light on the situation. They continued with their daily
routines but each of them was keenly aware of the questions in
their minds about the inexplicable events of the two weeks since
fate had stranded them there.

“Hey, Dad,” Andy was excited. “Is tomorrow really
the Fourth of July?”

“Yep, it sure is, Son. However, we can’t have much
of a celebration. We won’t have any fireworks, firecrackers, or
anything like that; and we won’t have hot dogs since we’ve already
eaten all those. However, we’ll have a good time. We brought the
grill, we had some charcoal and lighter, and we can look in the
freezer and see if there’s any meat in there to grill. If I had a
shotgun, I’d see about killing some wild rabbits to grill. I saw
some the other day but I couldn’t get them without a gun. Anyway
we’ll have a good time.”

A week had gone by since the picture album magically
appeared in Chrissy’s bedroom. Nothing had happened since that time
that couldn’t be explained logically; but there sure wasn’t any
simple answer to that riddle. It bothered Ed a lot to think that a
person had been in his eighteen-year-old daughter’s bedroom without
any of them being aware of it. He thought it might be easier to
blame it on a ghost but he just couldn’t bring himself to accept
the ghost theory.

He wondered, too, exactly where they were. He had
taken the atlas out of the car but he couldn’t be positive which
exit they had taken off the U.S. 60 By-Pass and after that, the
rain had made it a total blur. He wasn’t even sure he could find
his way out to the main road, whatever that road was. It would be
almost laughable if it weren’t so serious. He was going to have to
take a nice long walk and see if they had any neighbors at all.
They hadn’t seen anyone since they’d been here and that was almost
three weeks. It had been over three weeks since Mr. Coy made the
last entry in his journal. That meant no one had come around to see
about him, either, for that long. Surely, they weren’t that
isolated. At any rate, they needed to know. Maybe he’d do that
right now. They had just had lunch and he knew several hours of
daylight remained before dark.