Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) (10 page)

“So does that actually pay money?” he asked with genuine interest, moving a little closer.

“No, I mostly get paid in geese these days, but the eggs are good on the black market,” she replied.

He looked a little taken aback at first and then decided to laugh. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked that. I’m not even allowed to talk about the kind of money I make,” he confided, then leaned a little closer to her. “But you wouldn’t believe it, really. Almost six figures last year.”

“Wow,” she said drily. “That’s great.”

“Yeah,” he nodded enthusiastically. “If more people knew that then everyone would be trying to become one. It’s all in you know, though.”

“Hmmm.”

Before he decided to share any other pertinent information, she figured she ought to make her move. “Well, good luck with your business. I’ve got to get back to my room.”

As she rose up out of the water, she was painfully aware of her small bathing suit and the way it was riding up her backside. If she tried to fix it, though, it would draw attention straight to it and she didn’t want him ogling her any more than he already was. His eyes bored into her chest as they said goodbye.

“Well, listen, I’m going out for dinner tonight and if you’d like to join me
—” he started.

“I’m sorry,” she cut him off with what she hoped sounded like genuine regret. “But I’ve got other plans. I’m sure I’
ll see you later.”

Grabbing her towel and room key, she sailed out the door and scooted on down the corridor to her room, thankful she didn’t have far to go.

He was probably harmless and dinner might have even been fun on some levels, but she just couldn’t do it. She had made friends on the road before and it always ended a little sadly for her since the friendship never lasted. She would move on or he would move on and that was the end of that. Lack of permanency depressed her, so she tried to avoid situations that reminded her of that fact every chance she got.

F
eeling lighter in step after a good night’s sleep, Taryn packed her bags for the morning and drove to the diner for breakfast. She was happy to see Tammy working when she walked through the door and she threw up her hand in a quick wave. Tammy smiled and pointed to her section and Taryn nodded in agreement and slid into a booth.

“I talked to Granny,” Tammy whispered when
she brought the laminated menu over to her, looking over her shoulder at the manager behind the counter. “You know, about the house? She said she remembered a few things about it that might be helpful. A few things that you might want to know.”

“Yeah, well, I could use anything you could throw my way, that’s for sure,” Taryn muttered.

Tammy looked at her sympathetically. “You’ve been seeing things, haven’t you?” she asked.

Taryn nodded. “You could say that. Hearing them and feeling them, more accurately.”
She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone else about the photographs yet. They felt too personal.

“My granny said you might. Some people are more sensitive than others, that’s what she says.
But the house and what haunts it? It’s because of the old man that lived there, the one from a long time ago, back from when she was a little girl. He was awful, she said. Nobody much cared for him. I don’t know what he was meant to have done but nobody did a whole lot of grieving when he died if you know what I mean. She said that everybody said that when he finally kicked the bucket, most folks thought it was just as much from meanness as it was from a heart attack or whatever. She thinks it’s his ghost that haunts the place and that’s why the place is so mad, because he was always so mad. So she told me to tell you to be careful, to stay away if you can help it. He was never any good. And that even in death, he’s probably pretty awful.”

“Yeah, well,
I’ve got a lot of work to do yet. Unfortunately, I can’t stay away. But I appreciate your help,” Taryn said warmly, honestly grateful for any information she was able to gather at this point.

After she’d eaten her short stack of
pancakes and sausage and finished off two glasses of apple juice, she was leaving a couple of dollars under the plate when Tammy poked her head back from around the kitchen door again, a stack of dirty dishes in her hand. “Hey, I forgot something I was supposed to tell you!”

“What was that?”

“It might not be important, but it was about his daughter. She died real young, eighteen I think, but nobody knows how. Some kind of weird illness, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Didn’t look like murder or anything, you know, checked out with the coroner, but folks were suspicious. They talked about it for a long time. Just thought you should know,” she shrugged, and then disappeared again.

Taryn thought about this on the long drive back to Windwood Farm.

O
f course, she knew he’d had a daughter. Reagan had mentioned it on the first day and she’d been in the bedroom and had seen her things. In fact, her bedroom had been left a virtual shrine, unlike the other rooms which were all but cleared out of everything. She’d never seen anything like it before. It hadn’t escaped her attention that nearly every corner of the house was void of articles of the past except the daughter’s room which was horror movie intact with relics that should have been looted by vandals more than fifty years ago. And perhaps some of it had been carried off a little at a time. She had no idea how much of it was really left since there was nothing to compare it to. But the fact remained that a lot of it really did still linger…Why? Was there really a thin veil covering that room that separated it from the rest of the house? A veil that kept anyone from disturbing it?

The afternoon went by without a hitch, but she felt uncomfortable, watched. She was unable to get into the painting like she usually did and even the quietness around her, which she usually found peaceful and even a little cathartic, bothered her. It felt pressing, probing, and not quite right.
The batteries in her CD player died in the middle of her favorite Allison Moorer CD and that made her mad and threw her off just as she was working on the maple leaves. She ended up turning on her car radio and risked running her battery down just so she could listen to some music. The background noise helped and made her feel less alone, although what passed as “country” music today left a bad taste in her mouth and sounded more like what she listened to in the 80s on the pop stations.

On a lark,
to get out of her funk, she tried walking around the house, taking pictures of the exterior, and frequently (excitedly) checking her LCD screen. The pictures came out looking ordinary, however, without any furniture or figures showing up who shouldn’t be there. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Had it just been a fluke? A one-time thing? Maybe it
was
just a flaw in her camera after all…She really was completely alone. Not that she wanted a repeat of what had happened on the staircase, but it was a little upsetting that not even the ghosts wanted to communicate with her.
Maybe I shouldn’t have shouted at it
, she thought.
Then again, it did break windows at me and try to suffocate me?
Maybe she was wrong in thinking that they weren’t ghosts. Maybe everyone else in town was right.

Nothing happened that day, nothing she could really vocalize or tell anyone about, but there was a moment when she turned her back to the house to load up her car and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up at attention. She could have sworn someone was watching her and as she packed away the last of her equipment she felt the air give around her, almost as if the house itself was breathing a sigh of relief.

She was torn between feeling relieved and feeling disappointed when she left. Part of her was terrified at what was going on. When she’d been inside the house, she’d been petrified; afraid. Listening to Tammy talk, she questioned her own sanity about even returning to the farm day after day to work out there alone. Like any sane person, she didn’t want to be accosted by an evil spirit or awful dead guy who been buried for more than seventy-five years. So that part of her was relieved that nothing else was happening.

But the other part of her was disappointed. That part actually wanted to see a little more. That part was almost proud that, for whatever reason, she’d been chosen (or whatever) to see the images in the photographs. That part of her felt a connection with the home and the farm and wanted to learn more about what was going on. That part of her thought that maybe, if she could see a little more, then perhaps there was hope that her own past could be brought back to life.

Feeling foolish, she pushed on the accelerator a little harder than she needed to as she sped out of the drive. In the rearview mirror the house looked sad, abandoned, neglected. It didn’t look haunted by an evil spirit or negative forces. But Taryn knew, without a doubt, that there was something at unrest within the walls and on the grounds and this was one job that wouldn’t be easy to leave behind.

T
he town of Vidalia, (she’d never get used to saying that name without smiling) was a small one that had tried unsuccessfully to grow into something it wasn’t. There were a few pretty historical buildings on Main Street, however, and it was a picturesque place with its green hills and valleys circling it. The town obviously took pride in itself, as evidenced by the cheerful flowers and trees that were planted along the streets downtown. She wished there weren’t so many vacant storefronts with “For Rent” or “For Sale” signs and empty boxes stacked up inside them that were visible from the road, but that was, unfortunately, becoming a familiar sight.

Still, while the department stores and mom and pop shops of yesterday might be gone, there was still a restaurant on Main
recommended by the hotel desk clerk, which she decided to try out for supper. The name, Chester’s, didn’t make her feel confident in its gourmet selections, but the building was a beautiful turn of the century (that would be the last century, not the current one) brick with original masonry work inside.

She wasn’t the only one eating supper
out that night, and several of the tables were filled with elderly couples and families with small children. The sturdy wooden tables, covered with thick plastic checkered tablecloths, were far enough apart she didn’t feel like she was sitting on top of people and she chose a seat by the window. Always prepared to eat alone, she kept a book in her purse for these occasions, as reading was much better than staring into space or, God forbid, making conversation. However, right now she did kind of feel the need for human companionship.

A teenage boy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail and a wide smile took her order, after telling her it was fried catfish night and
that the special came with a piece of pie. (Good enough for her!) Once he left, she settled into her thriller and alternated between watching the people pass by outside and catching up with the heroine in her book. The cars out the window were more exciting, to be honest, and she’d read the same passage four times before she realized she wasn’t retaining any information.

When her waiter came back with her sweet tea
, he hesitantly stood there for a moment longer than he really needed to and then blurted, “Are you the artist painting the old house?”

“Yes I am,” she replied, smiling. With his thin frame and long hair and
wire-rimmed glasses, he could have been a younger, more awkward version of Matt. She remembered when he looked a lot like that.

“Yeah, I thought so. My sister works over at Mama Joe’s, the restaurant? You eat there sometimes and she told me. I hope that’s okay,” he said in a rush, the tips of his ears a little red.

News traveled fast in small towns.

“You over there at Windwood Farm?” a young woman at the next table asked. She had three children, all under the age of seven, and was doing her best to keep them in their seats with their food on their own plates while she glanced over at Taryn. The woman was alone and Taryn felt bad for her. She looked like she had her hands full, especially since the youngest kept trying to throw mashed potatoes at what was presumably his sister.

“That’s me,” she answered, painfully aware that everyone in the room had stopped talking and was watching her. “Hello,” she gave the room a general wave.

“You wouldn’t catch me going out there by myself, that’s for sure,” the woman snorted. But she did it with a smile and not in a condescending way
, so Taryn smiled back.

“Well, it’s really pretty out there,” she said diplomatically. “Very peaceful.”

“Sure, if you don’t count the ghosts,” the woman laughed and Taryn was only moderately surprised to see several people in the room nod their heads in agreement.

“So does everyone think it’s haunted then?” she asked, figuring that she might as well use the situation to her advantage.

“Anyone who has any sense at all,” an elderly gentleman called from the other side of the restaurant. “You don’t want to be messing with what goes on in that place, I tell you that. There’s some real action out there. I’m seventy-five years old and I seen something there once that I’ll never share with nobody.”

Taryn was disappointed that he wasn’t willing to spill the beans
, but the look on everyone’s face revealed that they might have had similar stories. “It’s an interesting place for sure.”