Latham's Landing (2 page)

I faced front again, and sure enough, there
it was, Latham’s Landing.

It was unimpressive, at first glance. There
was more of that stonework fence, this one right on the water.
Sandy gunned the motor, and we glided right up into a little
landing made of the stuff. Despite that the house was over fifty
years old, the stonework looked in good condition.
Maybe the
Historical Society kept it up
?

Sandy and I took off our shoes and stepped
into the water. It was cool, but not cold. The brown sand felt nice
between my toes.

We walked the raft up on shore and tied it to
one of the stone columns—there were six—leading up toward the
house. There was enough wind that I worried it might blow back onto
the water and drift away, even though Sandy said that was
ludicrous.

As I strapped on my backpack, I thought to
myself that it seemed darker here, despite the sun was still
shining. But maybe that was just the cold breeze. It was coming
around the edge of the house like a blast.

I hurried up the stone steps after Sandy.
When we got to the front door, Sandy used a key to unlock the small
padlock, and we went inside.

She shut the door behind us, and we both
looked around, though the electric lights she tried to turn on
didn’t seem to work. But this was an old house, one built when
daylight was used to light the house during the day, and so there
were many windows, enough to see well enough through most of the
room. I expected there to be some kind of furniture, maybe the
decayed remains of some of the elegant stuffed chairs I’d seen in
framed pictures this morning on the walls of the bed and breakfast.
The décor in those pictures had been extravagant and opulent. These
many years later, all of that furniture was gone. There were darker
spots on the walls where pictures had once hung, some of the faded
wallpaper peeling.

We walked through the foyer and up the wide
main staircase. Our feet made tracks in the dust, kicking up so
many particles I sneezed.

“
This is the main floor. Come on, let’s
look for the kitchen.” Sandy flashed a smile, boldly walking toward
a door near the staircase.

I followed warily. The house was interesting
enough, though dated from the turn of the century when it had been
built. The workmanship was amazing. The wood trim was all carved,
the ceilings were high, and despite the dust, it was easy to see
that some care and a lot of money had gone into constructing the
house.

We looked for a room resembling a kitchen,
but didn’t see one, though we did find a room with cabinets that
might have been a larder once.

“
Why is there so much dust on
everything?” I asked, making tracks in the dust on a shelf with my
fingers. “Doesn’t the society maintain this? Frankly, I expected
something more like a museum.”

“
It’s off the beaten path,” Sandy
replied, looking into a closet. “There’s nothing around here for
miles, really. The locals know about it, but there’s barely a
mention of it on the Internet, mostly because of it being private
property.”

“
I thought the historical society owned
it,” I replied, confused. “And I didn’t want to ask in front of
Fred, but how did you get permission to come here? It’s obvious
that this isn’t the tourist trap you originally sold me
on.”

Sandra turned to me, obviously irritated.
“The Society enforces the house being off limits, which is why they
keep it locked. But there’s nowhere near enough money to restore it
to its glory days, not to mention all the furniture was sold off to
pay Latham’s debts—”

“
You said he was rich.”

“
He was. But he went a little crazy in
his old age and spent a lot of his money on weird stuff. Then the
Crash happened in 1929, and he lost everything. He died
here.”

I turned to her, creeped out even though I
wasn’t surprised. “How?”

“
Hung himself. They say it was from one
of the balconies.”

I shivered. “Let’s not go there then.”

“
Just come on.”

We finally made it to the third floor, at the
top of the house. There was a balcony there, and the view from it
was spectacular, almost panoramic. Visible were the surrounding
hills of the right side of the lake, a field of sheep grazing in
the sun off to our far left. In spite of my earlier vow, I stood
drinking in the view at the railing as the minutes passed,
entranced.

“
Let’s sit for a while,” Sandra
offered, sinking down into a weathered wrought iron chair. “This is
so beautiful, and the sun’s perfect.”

We watched the lambs playing with their
mothers for a little while, laughing at their antics. After, we
pretended this was our house, that we were great ladies, and that
we were taking our afternoon repose in anticipation of a grand ball
tonight. With hot sun on my face and Tina beside me, it was
impossible to believe that this balcony had ever been witness to a
suicide.

The sun and air was so amazing we both fell
asleep, dozing just a little. When we woke up, it was almost five.
I panicked a little, but told myself it wasn’t a big deal. Sunset
wasn’t for hours yet.

“
Should we think about getting back?” I
asked, wincing at my slight sunburn.

Sandra was at the northern end of the
balcony. “We haven’t seen everything yet, Tina. Look out
there.”

I looked where she was pointing and saw a
long bridge leading out from the base of the house to what looked
like another island. Ah, this was the one I’d seen pictures of…

“
There’s the bridge I saw in the
pictures. What’s that at the end?”

“
That’s the infamous Sea Room. Latham
had it built for his bride, because she said this house was too
large, too far up in the air, and complained she wanted to be
closer to the water.”

“
It’s a bedroom?”

“
It’s a bedroom, and nothing else,
really, but there’s nothing written about it. Just that she asked
him to build it for her, and he did. I added that in about how she
wanted to be closer to the water.”

“
Well, doesn’t the lake flood that
place when the snow melts in spring? It seems like it would be
underwater, not just close to it. The bridge can’t be more than
five feet above the water.”

“
This is a man-made lake, made by
Latham. And he made sure it wasn’t going to flood, not unless he
wanted it to.”

Before I could ask her what she meant by
that, she got to her feet. “Come on, let’s go. It’s way past
lunch.” Her tone turned teasing. “And we wouldn’t want to worry
Fred!”

I laughed with her, following her back
through the door.

That’s where the trouble began.

When we went back inside, we were faced with
a hallway with one door. When we followed it and went through the
door, we came out on another balcony, instead of back to the main
bedroom and central staircase. This balcony had a view of the left
side of the lake. I was surprised to see a few trees near the base
of the house, but otherwise only water, gently lapping a foot below
the house’s base

We both laughed, and went back the way we’d
come, saying we’d been idiots to pick the wrong way. This time we
climbed a flight of stairs, then descended one, and ended up on the
northern end of the house, on a very small balcony. This one showed
us a slightly closer version of the sheep we’d been admiring. What
it did not do was lead us back the way we’d come.

I was starting to panic again, but Sandra
retraced our steps until finally we were standing on the original
balcony.

“
My fault,” she said apologetically. “I
went in the wrong door. There are doors on either end of this main
balcony. It should’ve been the left one, not the right
one.”

We went through the left door, on the left
side of the balcony, and sure enough, we came out where we were
supposed to be.
Whew.

We went downstairs to the main floor. Again,
something was different.

“
I don’t remember there being a door
over there,” Sandy said curiously.

Before I could stop her, she was through it.
I bolted after her, and then smacked into her, stopped only a step
inside.

“
This is the kitchen,” she whispered.
“This is where it happened!”

I looked around, seeing a large table in the
center, an old cast iron stove, and a ton of cabinets. On the table
was a small pile of plates, all mismatched.

The table was covered with a heavy layer of
dust, as was the floor. The plates were not covered with any dust
at all.

I looked at her, she looked at me, and we ran
for the exit. We both slipped in the dust, tripping over our own
feet, and made it out the front door, shrieking to each other to
move faster.

“
We should lock the front door!” I
yelled as we ran across the lawn.

“
Fuck it, we’ll be back tomorrow!” she
yelled, not looking back. “I want to get out of here before it gets
dark!”

I slowed to a walk and cracked a smile, about
to tell her that it was only six at most. When I glanced down at my
watch, my mouth fell open. It was eight-thirty. In addition, by the
gloom falling over everything, darkness was almost on us.

We made it to the raft, and waded into the
water, forgetting to take our shoes off. The water was ice cold.
Sandra and I jumped in quickly. She started the engine, and we
roared out of the harbor breathing sighs of relief.

The journey back seemed to take forever. We
had the boat motor at full throttle, but it seemed as if no matter
how far we went, we weren’t getting any closer to land. The sun
dipped lower and lower on the horizon. We gave each other panicked
looks in the deepening darkness, wondering if we’d be able to see
the dock or if we’d run aground on the rocks. I remembered Fred’s
spotlight and brought it out, though it wasn’t full dark yet. We
made it to the dock just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Fred
was there to greet us.

“
Damn fool women! Didn’t I tell you to
start for home before dark?”

“
We did,” Sandy replied grumpily. “It
took us over an hour to get back. It took only a half-hour to get
there this morning.”

“
The tides are like that,” Fred said,
nodding as he stowed the raft. “You can’t trust ‘em.”

“
Thanks for waiting for us,” I said
with relief.

“
All I could do,” Fred said, with a
shrug. “I don’t go on that island except in the daytime. So if you
hadn’t come back, I‘d have waited as long as I could and then left
a light on here for you.”

Sandy and I walked wearily up to the bed and
breakfast. Of course, the kitchen was closed for the night.

So we drove into the nearest town, about
fifteen minutes away. The diner there was closed, too. But there
was a bar there that was alive, if not hopping.

“
God, it’s good to eat!” I said,
stuffing my mouth with French fries. “I’m starving!”

“
I don’t get how we lost track of time
so badly,” Sandy said musingly, sipping her beer. “Sure, we mixed
up the doors. But that took us what, a half-hour at most to find
the right one? We lost three hours somehow, Tina!”

I knew one thing. “It’s a sign,” I said with
surety. “We’ve seen enough, Sandy. Let’s cut this trip short and
head back upstate. We can find a place with a pool near a mall and
shop, watch movies, and lay in the sun for the rest of the week.
Let’s have a real holiday vacation. Enough ghost hunting.”

“
I’m not hunting ghosts,” She said
irritably. “I wanted to see with my own eyes what was out here. And
I’m not going until we’ve seen that other island, the sea
room.”

“
Fine, but that’s it, one more day,” I
said vehemently. “I’ll go out with you tomorrow morning, and we’ll
check it out. But I want to be on the road before dinner, okay? We
can stop somewhere on the way.”

Sandy looked at me for a moment and then
nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

About ten am, we again got in the raft. Fred
left us a note to be careful, that he’d be gone for the day, but
just to leave the raft when we got back, and he’d stow it that
night.

Soon, we were back near Latham’s Landing.
This time we continued around the house, not stopping at the
harbor. As we motored past, it was easy to see that part of the
house was actually submerged. The lower floor had a row of windows
that were right above the water, and the bottom part of the house
was under lapping waves.

“
Did the water rise overnight?” I said
in wonder to Sandy. “What the hell?”

“
Latham did it,” Sandy replied. “His
wife died somehow, but I gathered it was some kind of tragic
accident.”

“
Did he kill her?” If she said yes, I
wouldn’t be surprised.

“
No, because he went crazy afterward
with grief. Then he raised the water in his lake and flooded the
house’s first floor, most of it just guest bedrooms and sitting
rooms. Yet he continued to live here. Some said that he would go
out to his little island place and meet with her ghost at night.
Lights were seen sometimes through the years at night at his main
house by locals. And the Sea Room sometimes was said to be so
bright it looked like it was burning—”

I turned to her, suddenly angry. “Sandra, out
with it. You seem to know a hell of a lot more about this house
than I saw in the short blurb in the picture book we both looked at
yesterday morning. And that museum that was supposed to give us
info closed down more than a year ago. So how do you know all
this?”