Landlocked Lighthouse (Locked House Hauntings Book 1) Page 6

I glanced down and I realized I was standing in a small puddle of blood. My blue shoe had turned a muddied red. I could see in the flapping slit on top my blood soaked sock pretending to be a bandage.

  “Sit.” She took both my shoes and carefully unwrapped my sock. “This is pretty bad. Just a sec.”

  The hair on my neck stood. I was in trouble now. She was on the phone. I considered leaving, but the dog was hooked to the IV and she had my shoes. She cleaned out the slice between my toes, and then a big man came into her office. He was in a suit, holding a large briefcase. He walked past the children and into her exam room without any hesitation. The briefcase flipped open and legs dropped down from it. It stood like a table, inside was a series of needles and scalpels.

  “I’m sure you’ve never met Dr. Thomas, but here he is. I don’t stitch people.”

  Dumbfounded, I sat there with my foot in his hands as he numbed and stitched.“Hi.” I said like a tiny, squeaky child.

  “Listen, you need to come in and get real injuries stitched up. Don’t hesitate. I’m gonna leave you my card, and you just call and I will fix you.” Dr. Thomas wrapped my foot. “No charge. Pay me back someday if you want when something pans out. We have seen you with those two kids. I don’t know what kind of trouble you are in, but I don’t care. Let me help.”

  “It’s just been rough. Times are tight.” Troubled. That’s what they call me.

  “Is your truck dead? I see you making that old horse drag you around again,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He left almost as quickly as he came, giving me brief instructions to keep it clean.

  “How does he know me?” I felt flustered.

  Taffy laughed. “Don’t you remember us giving you that food?”

  Once she mentioned it, I did remember he was there, loading up the cart. “Well, yes…”

  “I like you. I have been keeping an eye on you since then. You don’t seem to come to town much anymore though, so I worried that things were getting really bad.”

  “I sold the farm, and my husband got a better job… across the mountain.” I said. “I don’t have a phone, I can’t call you guys.”

  Taffy said, “Look, you are in trouble. We can tell. You should try to get welfare, or something, anything. I worrying about you! You’ve lost what, fifty pounds?”

  Sixty-five. Sixty-five pounds since I moved to the farm. I went from round and jolly to thin and tough.

  She stared at me. “I’m gonna try to save your dog. But you need to save yourself and your kids. You come back here if you need anything. Anything at all.”

  An hour or so later, I wasn’t surprised to see the cart stuffed to the brim with clothes and food. We had three new pairs of shoes, the red tennis shoes I now wore had lions on the sides. I wasn’t surprised at all that Annabelle’s had lambs.

  Tony though, Tony had a bear on his shoes. And I knew I would have to go find that picture.

  13

  I lifted Zippy out of the wagon and carried her into the foyer. She was sleeping soundly, and her breathing was markedly better already. My foot ached. The kids helped me carry the food into the kitchen and for the first time in years we had a full fridge. We ate hamburgers, and I fried them on the stove. They were so delicious and satisfying both Tony and Annabelle fell asleep before I could even clean their dishes. I carried them both to the Lamb room and tucked them into that big, soft bed.

  I removed their shoes (lamb and bear) and set them by the door. Then I slipped them into the fresh clean pajamas I found in the cart. That doctor must have spent the whole time shopping while we waited for Zippy’s IV to be finished. It was satisfying to know I had a friend if need be.

  It wasn’t dark yet. I dumped the clothes they had given me on my white comforter with the red sheets. I didn’t rummage through them. Instead I tightened my lion sneaker and went up the stairs. Come on, lets go. Bring me the bear.

  At the top of the stairs, I wavered. I felt eyes on me. I turned to glance at the ceiling and all the mirror eyes pointed at me. Each one reflected my own eyes back at me. The hairs on my arms came to life as I stepped back, pressed against the wall at the top of the stairs. I swear for half a second, the one with the sword chandelier, that very gargoyle sneered.

  I turned and fled into the hallway and suddenly it was over. The top of those stairs, that place was bad. I shuddered and told my heart to settle. I spook easy. I’m paranoid. I’m insane.

  Here I ran upstairs (frightened) simply because the ceiling had gargoyles. I panted, desperate to find a room with a bear because my son was given shoes. Go to bed you dumb girl. I almost did. I almost went to bed like an embarrassed dog with my tail between my legs.

  But as I turned I saw the squirrel door was open. Gotta close it or the kids might go in there. My feet tiptoed forwards and I shut it. My hand was still on the doorknob. I saw the great room. Five steps later I was in it. To the left was the blackbird room; to the right were two doors, the bear and the stag.

  In the center of the great room, there were four large gargoyles holding up a glass table. Two sat on end tables, carrying light bulbs over their heads. One hung from the light in the ceiling, dangling down with a raunchy laugh.

  I flickered all the lights on and I must have hit a motion switch because the ceiling shifted and a giant table lowered. It set itself down upon the gargoyle-held glass as I stared. A pool table. In the center of the felt was a picture of them all tangled together. Lion, Lamb, Stag, Blackbird, Squirrel, Bear and Wolf. I had yet to find the wolf.

  Are there traps in here? I wondered to myself. I guessed I wouldn’t know until I sat and slit myself into pieces.

  I won’t though, I won’t sit here.

  The bear door called my name so I tried the handle. But it wouldn’t budge. I tried to push it with my body. Nothing. I tried to pull the door towards me just a smidgen so the latch would have room to move. Nothing.

  This door was locked. “Little bear, let me in.” I knocked. I didn’t think it would do anything. “Open sesame!” But sometimes, I don’t do things because I think they will work. Sometimes, I do things because I want to.

  I turned to the stag and bowed graciously to the beast. “Will you? Won’t you?”

  The door opened smooth as butter and in I went.

  The Stag room, much to my surprise was a nursery. Gorgeous stags were carved into a wooden rocker, two matching wooden bassinets, and a little mobile of stags in a circle hung from the center of the room. As I flicked the lights I found that the mobile was also a chandelier, lighting up brightly with dark stag shadows leaping on the walls. Everything in this room was a dreamy, satiny white.

  A smile crept across my lips. It was absolutely darling. I could almost hear a baby’s tiny giggle.

  I turned to the crafted changing table and I rifled through the drawers. Come on now, don’t let me down you pretty red pen! I found a stack of crisp and clean white cloth diapers. Next to them were sparkling silver diaper pins in a little white bowl.

  The other two drawers were empty. I flipped through the diaper stack in case in the picture was in between them, and I found nothing.

  I turned to the two cribs and looked inside them. The first carved bassinet had a little wooden stag carved out of pine sitting on the pillow. I could see the corner of a picture. I pulled it out without disturbing the majestic steed on the satin pillow.

  The back of the picture was a carefully drawn stag. Next to it was written, “Peace and Harmony.” Eyes burned into me and I glanced up and looked around. I didn’t see anyone, but my hairs had risen and my heart was pounding. The bassinet had a word carved on the end, Chessa. The other bassinet had the word Alawn. Names perhaps? I looked back down at the drawing of the stag. The red pen had written underneath the words Peace and Harmony,

  “These two never deserved it.”

  On the other side was a picture. Two little babies slept curled together in the Stag room. They had been placed on the carpet, their tiny naked bodies curled up clos
e to each other. A photo shoot, I assumed. It would have been downright adorable except that someone had circled the rocker with a red pen. I inspected the rocking chair in the picture, but I couldn’t get it. Why was it circled? I looked up at the chair in the room and decided to examine it more.

  I contemplated it for a while and then I looked back in the picture. Suddenly it struck me.

  This was not the chair in the picture.

  14

  I lay under the crimson silk sheets, naked, with the giant mahogany lion carved and standing over my head. I felt safe here in this room. My foot was aching, but other than it’s dressing, I was naked. I guess at this house I sleep naked.

  Concerned racked my body. A spider crawling on me? My body jumped to full alert. The upstairs had booby traps. But that wasn’t what struck fear into my heart. No, it was something bigger.

  I think my husband had left me. When was the last time we went this long without talking? I didn’t even know when his payday was. I hadn’t seen him in a few days (weeks?) at this point, and he had not tried to contact me or send us money. What if I was in this alone? How would I feed children and pay the electric bill? I have no plan.

  Maybe if I knew how to write, sing or dance. Or if I had learned a trade skill and had become a carpenter. Maybe if I had finished a degree of some sort, the paying kind.

  But I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have even known where to start with such things. My grandest, greatest plan was having a farm. Growing tomatoes aplenty and selling my wares at a street stall. Until the moment I owned a farm, I had been quite the gardener. I was absolutely convinced I would make money. The summer before we sold ourselves to the farm, I had grown fifteen tomato plants. I grew more tomatoes than I could even put in jars or give away. We ate hordes of pasta and tomato soups and pizzas trying to shrink the stockpile. We moved into that farm with eighty-five jars of tomatoes still awaiting our bellies.

  But that farm, it grew nothing. We planted hopes, we planted dreams. I tended and cared, weeded and watered, fertilized and hoped. By the end of that summer, the jars were empty, and so were our bellies, and so was the bank account. The next summer was worse; I did odd jobs trying to scrape up a hundred bucks for seeds so I could start plants. The seedlings didn’t make it, few even bothered to poke their planted heads out of the soil. Of the fifty I had planted, ten sprouted. Of the ten that sprouted, two survived. Of the two that survived, I had zero tomatoes.

  This was farming for me. Wanna make a small fortune farming? Start with a large one!

  Husband’s pay kept getting smaller, and our struggles got larger. No wonder he left me. If he left us. I didn’t even know where he was. His apartment, no idea. His job? Not sure. What he did with his long days? No idea.

  Once I got a phone, I would call him and ask (if I had his number). If I got a phone. How could a single mother like me get a phone? I should stop picture hunting and start cleaning. Once this place sparkled, it’d be sold. Then I’d have the cash to do… whatever I did next. If I was alone, then I’d figure out my next move. If I was not alone then I guess, I’d move with him. Go find a new house in a neighborhood. Hopefully with room for Zippy. If Zippy survived this house.

  I crawled my naked body out of bed and wandered the house until I found her. Zippy ol’ dog, how do you do? She was running in her sleep on the floor in the Lamb room (Faith, Innocence, and Resolute Spirit) with my two wonderful children sleeping in their beds.

  I curled up next to her and she awoke with a start. Her teeth bared, but then she relaxed as she knew me. I laid my head on her chest and listened to her lungs. Her breathing was steady and strong. She licked at my face and she felt like her old self. Her happy self.

  I wondered, briefly, if I had a happy self, what would I look like?

  I went back to my room, the Lion room. The silky red sheet danced around my skin as I closed my eyes. I wondered if a mirror shard hid in my bed. Am I going to get up to check for the boogie man? Am I not a grown woman? What is with these childish fears! That mirror was shattered. There probably wasn’t even a shard in the bed upstairs. I had pulled a broken slice of mirror from my foot and the pain confused me.

  This house makes you lose time and see things that don’t exist. It’s this house.

  I awoke dressed in a white dress with a red heart at the neckline.

  I heard the babies crying. Two little voices with twice the little cries. I walked up the stairs (the landing at the top didn’t catch me this time.) I never even glanced at the gargoyles mid battle above me. I walked past the great room and into their room, the Stag room.

  They were both screaming in tiny newborn unison. That itty-bitty cry of two tiny babies. I didn’t even bother glancing at them though, for their nurse was hanging from the chandelier. Her head was cocked to the side, and she appeared perpetually shocked. Did she not know that she was about to hang herself? Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open. My skin prickled as my eyes swallowed her image.

  I felt rage bubbling up inside me. Not because she hung herself, what could I have done about that? But I was furious that she looked shocked. Pay attention to what you are doing! How many times had I yelled that at her? Pay attention! Stop losing things! Pay attention.

  And there she was surprised. She forgot she’d hung herself. She forgot! Did she loose footing on the chair after she tied that noose? The rocking chair sat slightly away from her dangling toes. Did she not see her own death coming? While my children, my sweet twin babies screamed, I stood on the chair, her body pressed to mine. I slapped that dumb expression right off her face. You’re dead. Pay attention! Look dead dammit.

  She spun as a top spins on the floor. Her body dancing in the air, her face still vacant and lost. Both babies grew quiet. Did they enjoy this morbid mobile? For a moment, I wanted to grab her and claw her eyes out. But instead, I stood there on the chair, watching her body spin, my ears ringing. I turned and picked up the twins. One in each arm. Chessa and Alawn. Sweet peace, and sweet harmony. Children of the Stag. They squirmed, their tiny baby breath smelling sweet as milk. But no more tears.

  Chessa on my right and Alawn on my left, I walked through the great room, pausing to wink at the gargoyle hanging from the lamp.

  It was at this moment that Zippy bit my fingertips and whimpered. My body trembled and jerked awake. She growled and whined, nipping my fingertips and jumping back from me. My right hand dangled at the edge of the bed. It was so dark it took me a moment to grasp where I was. I was tucked in the lion bed, the crimson sheets kissing my naked skin.

  She nipped me again, whimpering, then she yelped and growled.

  It was too dark. I couldn’t tell what she was doing. I turned to lean to her but a weight on my chest hindered me. My left hand reached up and cold stone pressed against my lips. It was delicious, whatever it was. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the kiss while the dog nipped my right fingers. My left hand groped for the cold and heavy kisser on top of me.

  Zippy jumped up on the bed, snarling. It was dark but her teeth snapped shut near my face. The kissing ended and a pang of intense loneliness turned in my belly, and suddenly I slept.

  Tony and Annabelle came running into my room and awoke me with their chattering. “Have you seen Zippy? Do you know where she went? I wanted to play with her!” Annabelle was giggling, but Tony was much more somber.

  “Is she dead? I can’t find her. I think she is dead.”

  “She is not dead! She is hiding! We are playing and she is hiding!” Annabelle sounded confident and excited.

  “Well, I’ll come help you I gotta get dressed.” And with that, they chattered down the hallway, giggling.

  I helped them look, but we did not find her that day. After lunchtime, I gave up calling her name and instead spent my time cleaning the pool. There were many leaves in at the bottom of the empty pool so I set to work carrying them out. Once I had gotten all the leaves cleaned out I got a bucket of hot water and scrubbed the walls until the green murky algae scraped off. Finally
I set to work on the hot tub. I needed to get this place cleaned up so we could sell it and leave. I didn’t like it here. That’s what I decided. I didn’t like how I kept finding pictures, and dreaming of that white dress. Who set up those slices of mirror in the Squirrel room? Clean up, get out. The kids stuck around by me, doing their part, sweeping up the porch and dusting off chairs. When they grew tired they sat and colored. Happy, hard-working farm children.

  I scooped out the leaves from the hot tub when and I found a gargoyle. I panicked and became afraid to touch it. Time stood still, and suddenly I was wearing the white dress with the red heart on the neckline. I stared into the mirrors and they stared at me. The sun rose and then fell, the moon spun past me and then the sun rose again. I could hear her saying Mama and I turned and there she was. She had wanted pancakes. Yes, you may have pancakes, tell the chef to make them.

  Then it reversed, and the moon swung past and the sun curled back and my lungs expanded with breath. Annabelle was standing next to the hot tub staring down at me. “I think she is back,” she said in a low whisper. Tony was staring at the gargoyle.

  “I’m right here.” I said.

  Annabelle handed me a drawing and the two of them ran away.

  There was a woman in a dress with a red heart. Next to her stood the gargoyle. In red Tony had written, “Monster Mama.”

  15

  At some point that day, with the dog missing, I wondered if it was safe here. The kids sat on that little counter behind me while I cooked up hot dogs and chili. Zippy was missing. She’s a farm dog! Farm dogs are tough, and smart. They go off on adventures of their own. And yet, at the same time that voice in the back of my head whispered alarms. A sick farm dog didn’t go adventuring. She was fighting for her life.

  All the same, if you couldn’t find the dog, you couldn’t find the dog. An uninvited tear trickled down my face and I knew I was gonna bawl my salty tears into this chili while my tiny four-and-three-year-olds looked on. I fought it best I could, and the tears may have escaped, but the wailing cries stayed hidden in my heart. Zippy was a part of that farm.