same way that I know another will soon be coming.
I’ve learned to listen when Lionel tells me these things.
On Henry’s second day with us, he came rushing in through the front door, hot on Trevor’s heels. I thought at first they might simply be playing a game. But it was evident soon enough that Henry was chasing the child. Trevor was just trying to keep distance between them. I continued dusting the banister; the same banister over which my husband took his plunge, pretending to pay the boys no mind as they bustled around me.
Henry cornered him at the rear of one of the upstairs hallways. I kept my distance and stayed out of sight, but I maneuvered close enough to be able to hear their heated exchange.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Henry!” Trevor pleaded.
“You don’t? You tell me it’s normal to hear voices coming out of the well and then you think that I’m just going to drop it?” Henry fired back.
“I told you. It’s not voices. It’s one voice. My mother. Sometimes she calls out to me. I don’t want to say any more about it.”
“Calls out to you how?”
“None of your business!”
The standoff continued in such manner for several more rounds, with Henry trying to pry information out of Trevor that the younger child simply did not wish to share. A ghost in the well? I had no knowledge of such a thing. I had never seen or heard any woman by the well. And Trevor’s mom, at that?
I cleared my throat and stepped out into the hall. Henry and Trevor shot guilty looks my way, as if I had caught them doing something improper. I knew enough to be aware that they were wondering how much of their exchange I had overheard.
“Run along, Trevor,” I said, and he was all too happy to oblige.
“No, wait! I’m not done with him,” Henry said.
“I think you are,” I responded. I tried to keep my voice even. I had to approach this delicately. “There will be time for you two later. You and I need to talk, Henry. There’s some things that I think you should know.”
2
For one long moment, which was pregnant with all the possibilities and expectations that two people feeling each other out about the supernatural can conjure up, Henry and I just stared at each other from opposite sides of the hallway. Trevor was long gone by the time we spoke.
“What is going on in this wacko house?” Henry asked.
“I wish I knew exactly,” I said.
“Are you going to be all mysterious and spooky, too, then?” he said.
I laughed. “Not on purpose. I’m just realizing that not even I know everything that is going on, and for so long I thought I knew so much. I overheard your argument. I heard what you said about the well.”
“You must think that we’re nuts,” he said.
“No. I believe you. I’ve seen and heard my fair share of strange things here, but never a woman in the well. It would therefore be foolish of me to believe that I have all the answers.”
He kicked absently at the carpet and studied one of the busts that decorated the hallway, a bust that was cast in the likeness of some Drury ancestor or other. “But you must have some of the answers.”
“I believe so.”
“What were those noises I kept hearing last night, then? It sounded like a bunch of kids running up and down the hallway. Trevor keeps talking about dead orphans. And what about that little blonde-haired girl sitting by the banister last night that nobody else seems to have noticed?”
At the mention of the orphans, it felt like somebody had just punched me in the stomach. I let out a sharp breath of air and had to use one hand against the wall to steady myself. The room threatened to spin out of control and send me crashing to the floor in a heap. If I was maybe just a bit closer to the banister myself maybe I could have just taken the plunge and gone off to join my Charles and not worry about all of this anymore.
Typically, I tried not to think about those orphans, particularly the little blonde haired one that used to sit by the banister.
I tried equally hard to forget the way Lionel had looked that Halloween night so long ago, that satisfied glint in his eyes, those blood splatters on his brown tweed suit, that axe dragging behind him.
“What is it?” Henry said. “Are you okay?”
“I just need a moment to collect myself, is all,” I replied. I waited until my breathing returned to normal and it no longer felt like my heart was going to try to evacuate on its own.
He stood there, bouncing from foot to foot, unsure if he should try to do something for me. I think I still creeped him out a little bit, though, and the thought of approaching me and maybe even having to touch me did not appeal to him at all. I couldn’t blame him. To him, I must be just some strange old woman in a strange old house where strange things keep happening.
“Henry, what can you tell me about your parents?”
I could see that my words caught him by surprise. He was expecting an answer to his question about the orphans. He was not anticipating me to change the subject so abruptly, and in the direction of something so raw and emotional for him. For a moment, I saw a defiant fire blazing behind the embers of his eyes.
“There’s a lot I could tell you about them,” he said. “Like how I loved them. Or how I lost them. Or how they sent me to live with my piece of crap Uncle Milton and his piece of crap wife, at least until they sent me here. You might have to be more specific.”
I tried to choose my words carefully. “I meant, what do you know about their relationship to this house?”
He looked at me for a moment the same way people looked at Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Mormons, when they knocked on the door. That same kind of detached skepticism. “They have no relationship to this place. Why would you think that they did?”
He knew less than I had thought.
He inferred meaning from my hesitation. “Did they? Is there something that I don’t know?”
“Your mother, Emily, she-”
“How do you know her name?”
I tried to smile at him, tried to make it maternal and loving. It probably came out more like a grimace, and more sardonic and angst-ridden. “The last time I spoke to her-”
“Wait, you knew her?”
Before I could say another word, another voice rang up the hall from behind us. It was a voice that I knew well. I turned to face my master. Esau’s voice boomed across the walls like a tidal surge.
“That is quite enough, you two. Helen, would you come with me, please?”
I didn’t have the same relationship with Esau that I once had with his father, but I could not refuse him any more than I had the other. I bent my head demurely, and followed Esau to his personal study.
3
Esau guided me into his private parlor and closed the swinging French-style doors closed behind us. I waited there near the entrance as he made his way to a wet bar in the corner and poured himself a drink. I noticed a curious bounce in his step and his movements, as though a great excitement had taken hold of him. The air smelled of the lemon-scented polish that I used weekly to bring out the best possible shine in the mahogany wood furniture that adorned the room.
“Scotch?” he said, without turning to face me.
“No sir.” I did not bother to tell him that I had always hated the taste of whisky.
He turned to face me, decanter in hand, and seated himself behind the large oaken desk. He had filled the glass a little more than halfway, and now sipped his Scotch with obvious pleasure. He smiled up at me and gestured to one of the plush chairs that faced him from across the desk.
“Do sit down, Helen, there’s no need to stand there like that.”
I took the seat that he indicated, feeling no small bit like a cornered rat. There was a curious gleam in his eyes, and I waited for an outburst that did not come.
“Tell me, Helen, why are you trying to scare our young charge with such macabre tales?”
I took a deep breath. There was no simple way to have this conversation. I h
ad long avoided even hinting at my experiences with the paranormal at the estate for fear of my reputation, and for what Mr. Drury was likely to think of me. The last thing I needed was for him to let me go, to tell me I was no longer needed here, and to then go about the task of how to spend my twilight years. Everything I had was wound up in this estate; my home, my income, my life’s experiences.
“The last thing I would want would be to frighten the boy,” I replied, after a moment of careful mental deliberation.
“Ghosts? Supernatural events? But these are all things that have frightened children for centuries.”
I thought that over. “He brought it up first, sir. I think he has been having strange experiences since coming here.”
He laughed. “Since coming here? He only showed up last night.”
“I have had similar strange experiences, Master Esau. I only wanted him to feel less alienated.”
Now it was out. For better or for worse, I had opened the door to his questioning of my sanity. I waited for him to latch on to that little bit of information, to attempt to pry more specifics out of me. And I was already wondering how much would be appropriate to tell him. He leaned back in his chair, and sipped his drink again. He looked down into the glass and swirled the whiskey around, watching it as it went in circles, as if pondering a great mystery.
“Why did you have to mention the boy’s mother?” he said, now looking back up at me, a very pointed and interested expression on his face.
“Why shouldn’t I?” I said. “Is the topic off limits?”
He pursed his lips. “I suppose there are