Margot focused on the front door a moment before turning back to the grand fireplaces, the crown moldings, the built-in bookcases, the coffered ceiling in the library, the sun-filled breakfast room, the handsome butler’s pantry. Her expression softened with sympathy for the place. The house was beautiful, just horribly neglected. Lonely. Forsaken. Its broken heart resonated in the torn look on her face.
The man took a breath and asked, “So that’s it? About the haunting, I mean?”
“Essentially.” The agent nodded. “I just didn’t want you to move in and hear the rumors from someone else. The last owners who lived here fell on some hard times, as you can see, and people are always looking for something to blame. I’m sure you see it all the time in your line of work, Dr. Spielman.”
The doctor nodded. “People can be superstitious.”
“Exactly.” The woman smiled, looking relieved. They were still on the hook. “The housing crisis hit everyone in the country pretty hard, and ghosts certainly had nothing to do with that, am I right?”
Margot seemed far from convinced. A broken beer bottle lay in the corner where a radiator should have been. “What happened to the last owners exactly?”
“Oh. Poor Mrs. Martin just couldn’t manage her expenses after her husband passed away. It happens every day. You’ll find stories just like it all over Cleveland.” The agent was then quick to add, “But Shaker Heights has recovered almost one hundred percent of its home values, and we’re seeing a real seller’s market. A house like this won’t sit much longer.”
Not willing to tip his hand, the doctor offered a thin smile. “We’ll need to discuss the plans with a contractor and talk it over together before we consider any offer.”
“Yes, of course. Take a day or two, but I wouldn’t wait too long. I’m hearing from my colleagues back at the office that we have several more showings lined up later this week. Buyers out of New York.” That was a lie, but the agent sold it well.
On their way out, Margot paused at the threshold. In the center of the carved mahogany door, the face of a cherub gazed out from the bronze knocker. It had been cast to resemble a little boy. On the plate below it, a faded engraving read, Rawlingswood.
“How did he die?” she asked softly, running a finger over the name.
“Pardon?” The real estate agent’s smile fell at the corners.
“The last owner. Mr. Martin? How did he die?”
“I believe it was a heart attack. Nothing unusual, I assure you.”
Her husband gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t be squeamish, Margot. Any old house will have seen its share of life and death. Isn’t that right?”
“Absolutely,” the agent agreed. “Some say it’s the history that gives an old house its charm.”
As they headed outside, the agent stopped and motioned back toward the house. “Uh, shouldn’t we . . . Didn’t you have a son with you?”
Margot sucked in air as though she’d been slapped. With all the talk of the haunting and moving, she’d lost track of him, and guilt stabbed her in the chest. Such a bad mother.
“Right. Of course.” Myron chuckled and stepped back into the foyer, shouting up the stairs, “Hunter? We’re leaving!”
The boy was standing in the middle of the bedroom with the stained mattress, facing the markings on the wall.
Natalie’s a Junkie Whore!
Even as his father bellowed from the staircase, a set of pencil markings held his attention. In a small, girlish hand, it read,
’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
’Tis the gift to come down to where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
“Hunter!”
“Yeah,” the gangly boy answered, tearing his eyes away from the odd poem. He emerged into the long hall and loped his way down the front stairs, shoulders slumped in the put-upon manner of a sullen teenager. “I’m coming.”
The agent closed and locked the door while the family headed down the winding stone walkway. Margot stopped to look back. The white cat she’d seen earlier sauntered out from under a bush and lay down on the front doorstep. It yawned and fixed her with a preternatural stare. She shook her head at the beast and then at the mansion behind it. It was more house than they’d ever considered possible. She gazed helplessly at the sprawling brick facade as though it were an oncoming train.
Fifteen leaded glass eyes glared back through the tall trees.
Her mouth formed a few words out on the lawn while her hand pointed up at a third floor window. Both the real estate agent and the husband followed her gesture to one of the four dormers at the top of the house. A window glowed yellow against the gathering clouds. A light had been left on.
The agent smiled and waved a hand to say she’d take care of it, but that, of course, was another lie.
3
The Rawlings Family
October 26, 1929
“Welcome! Welcome to Rawlingswood, my dear friends.” Walter Rawlings opened the door with a flourish to let in the first wave of dinner guests. His mustache gleamed with wax, and his waistcoat creaked with starch.
Andrew Carnegie’s cousin Ardelia strolled in with her mincing husband in tow. She handed her mink stole to the housemaid, Ella, without so much as a glance.
The middle-aged maid stood ill at ease by the door in her black-and-white uniform and passive smile. She hated Walter’s parties. So many mahrime gaje with such terrible manners. Ardelia’s husband folded his topcoat over his arm and presented it to Ella as though it were a gift.
“So good of you to have us, Walter,” Ardelia purred. She carried herself like royalty across the polished wood floor, making a cool appraisal of the imported rug, the crystal chandelier. Pedestrian, but what can you expect from a lawyer, or whatever it is that Walter does these days? her condescending smile said. “Now where is that gorgeous creature of yours?”
“Georgina’s seeing to little Walter. Always the doting mother. She’ll be down in a moment.” Walter cleared his throat with almost imperceptible annoyance at his absent wife and motioned to the sitting room on the left of the two-story entryway. “See that James makes you a proper cocktail.”
Three more couples arrived in short order, and soon the sitting room bubbled over with mingled voices, the clink of crystal, and the jazz record Walter had put on the Electrola. Jazz, like the liquor, was one of Walter’s little social rebellions meant to lend a certain edge to the party. The conversations kept safely to golf, interior decorating, the weather, and country club board elections.
No one mentioned the state of the stock market, although the specter of the week’s losses cast a shadow over the room.
It was a full twenty minutes into the revelry before Georgina finally made her appearance. Thin to the point of brittleness, she appeared ashen against the burgundy wallpaper, a ghost of herself to those who had known her before. Before Rawlingswood. Before her son. Her honey-blonde hair had grown thin and dull. The spark that had attracted Walter ten years earlier had dimmed beyond recognition. Georgina had been twenty-eight years old, hardly a girl, when they’d married, but she remained a small slip of a thing with the glassy blue eyes of a doll. She’d never managed to grow into the woman he’d expected.