Walter looked up at this, eager to discuss the construction of his castle. “We shipped in most of the lumber, but a few of the larger beams and all the paneling came local. I had a carpenter select a few old-growth timbers from the land they were clearing nearby. You just couldn’t get this type of wood for a decent price, not with all the construction going on.”
A few of the dinner guests took their cue to compliment the wood carvings and grain. It’s quite lovely. Knotty oak?
Ninny nodded, contemplating the wainscoting surrounding them, then shut her eyes a moment. She swayed ever so slightly in her seat to a rhythm only she knew—a faint singing that resonated in the wooden bones of the house.
Plant the trees round, round the cathedral.
One to the north, east, south, and west.
In the Grove, I hear angels singing
Songs of the Lord and those that rest.
Georgina lifted her eyes from her plate, afflicted. “Forgive me. I think I hear Walter Junior fussing upstairs. Will you all please excuse me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Georgina! Ella has things well in hand,” Walter said with a warning in his voice. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried escaping a dinner party.
“I don’t hear a thing, love,” the banker’s wife said and offered her friend a sympathetic smile before turning back to the guest of honor. “So tell us, Miss Boyd, what about this place brought you back? What is this about the dead?”
The old woman’s eyes misted a moment, remembering the voices, hearing the warning bells. The heat of a long-forgotten fire burned in the back of her mind, mingling with the sounds of men on horseback and women and children screaming. We are not armed! Please! Let us be! There are children here!
Georgina lurched out of her chair. “I really must go check on little Walter. I won’t be a moment.” She slipped out of the dining room before her husband could protest.
“Please forgive my wife, everyone.” Walter’s face reddened with his irritation. “She’s been a bit out of sorts these past few weeks.”
“Can you blame her? After what the papers have been saying?” the long-silent doctor’s wife blurted out, and the unspoken contract between them all was broken. The papers. The market. She glanced furtively around the room, seeking forgiveness for her faux pas.
Walter cast her a hard glance and cleared his throat, unwilling to discuss his own unease at the sudden downturn in his fortunes. His palatial home had been built on borrowed money and dubious investments. Creditors had been calling the house.
“Well, I think we would all be well served to just remain calm and go about our business,” her husband said with the authority of a banker, scolding her with his eyes. “The stock market has been known to fluctuate. The last thing this country needs is a panic. Don’t you agree, Paul?”
“Absolutely.” The banker nodded.
Walter joined in the agreement and took another healthy swig of scotch. Don’t panic. He’d overextended himself on several business ventures in recent years, including a small bank, and those were just his legitimate investments. You don’t climb the hill from the tenements to Shaker Heights without bending a few rules. That’s what he told himself.
“Oh, will you listen to you two? Our guest of honor certainly could not care less about the stock market,” Ardelia chided them all and turned back to Ninny. “I must apologize for these bores, my dear. Please go on.”
Ninny looked up from her untouched soup at the wealthy woman. Dressed in a maid’s plain clothes, the old Shaker sat uneasily among the fashionable diners assembled there. “How shall I go on?”
“Please, Miss Boyd. Do tell us why the dead are restless.” Walter tipped back his cup, eager to change the subject.
“I fear . . . they died the wrong way,” the old woman said softly. Her gaze wandered out the window to the street beyond the trees. The same road had run through the heart of the Center Family settlement eighty years earlier. The ghost of the old gathering house reflected in her pooling eyes. It was burning. Flames ripped up into the sky as timbers cracked and fell. The floorboards above them shifted and creaked nervously.
Georgina reappeared in the doorway and hurried back to her place at the table. Her cheeks were flushed pink where she had pinched them hard and splashed cold water onto her face. “Forgive me, everyone. What did I miss?”
“We were just asking Miss Boyd about the poor souls that died the wrong way.” Ardelia grinned, pleased at the intrigue. “Was it murder, Miss Boyd?”
The old woman’s clouded vision fixed on the road outside as though she could see the chaos of that night. The children running. The Elders with their hands raised in protest. She flinched at a remembered gunshot.
“God left this valley years ago. He abandoned these trees, these stones, the ground beneath our feet.” She leveled her eyes at Georgina trembling in her seat. “I pray you all do the same.”
4
The Spielman Family
May 5, 2018
“Somebody tried to warn you, huh?” The contractor motioned to the graffiti scrawled over the woodwork in the living room. Murder House! 666! “We doin’ an exorcism?”
The Spielmans led the fat man holding a clipboard into another room. It had been a week since they’d gotten the keys. Their all-cash offer had been so low they both were still dazed that it had been accepted at all.
The man let out a low whistle. “You sure you don’t want a full gut?” he asked halfway through the tour. His voice rasped and rumbled like a chain saw. A cloud of stale cigarette smoke followed him as he circled the breakfast room. “Might be cheaper in the end.”
“We’re sure,” Myron said with a stiff smile. He and his wife had squabbled over that very point in the foyer right before the contractor had shown up. It’s all cracked and warped, sweetie. Do we really want to spend a small fortune and be stuck with cracked plaster?
Near tears, his wife had bit back, You dragged us all here, Myron. You picked this creepy house. You saved all that money on the deal. Now let me make this nightmare a home, okay? Please?
“Drywall just isn’t the same quality as hand-laid plaster. Our decorator is set on keeping as much of it as possible,” Margot explained for the second time and shot her husband a look. Just be on my side for once. Her stiletto heels clacked loudly over the floors, leaving tiny dents in the wood. Her eyes darted to the corners of each room as though expecting something or someone to jump out at her. She tightened her fists and pressed on. “The kitchen of course will have to be taken down to the studs and expanded. I want these walls down. It needs to be much more open.”
She strode from the breakfast room past the butler’s pantry and into the humble kitchen at the back of the house, explaining their plans for custom cabinetry, double sinks, a wine fridge, a microwave drawer, recessed lights, a massive island to seat seven, and another island for food preparation.
“Are you familiar with the Home Network show Dream Kitchen?” Margot turned to the fat man, who was furiously writing down his notes. In the sudden absence of her chatter, he glanced up and nodded. “Well, that’s the feel we’re going for. Marble and natural wood. Classic. Early American.” The vision of the perfect kitchen smoothed the lines in her forehead. If they could just get the house right, everything would be okay.