The Ghostly Hideaway (5 page)

“Penny,” he called, where are you?”

“I’m here in the pantry. I was checking to see if we
had any meat left in the freezer to use for our Independence Day
celebration. I can’t find a thing that looks to be meat. I guess
we’ll just have to become vegetarians until we can go to a store. I
know Mr. Coy was having the electric bill paid automatically from
his bank account, but I’m almost afraid to put too much in the
freezer when the electricity could be turned off at any time for
non-payment. It seems that someone would have come looking for him
by now, doesn’t it? It sure does worry me. This is a nice place, I
enjoy living here and there doesn’t seem to be anyone who would
tell us to get out; but it still makes me think, what if?”

“I’ve been thinking along those lines myself and I
came in to tell you that I’m going for a walk and see if we have
any neighbors that I can find.”

“That sounds like a good idea; but be careful and
don’t get lost. I’ll expect you back long before dark.”

“Okay." Ed picked up a good-sized stick from the
fencerow to use as a walking stick and struck out across the field.
The road they came in on had ended in front of the house. He had
walked about a half-mile, he estimated, when his route suddenly
became a steep hill through dense woods. The wooded area was
crowded with trees and he had to turn sideways to get between some
of them. When he finally reached the top of the hill, he could see
a wagon trail that amounted to nothing more than a set of ruts
running along the top of the hill. He began to follow the rutted
trail that was a great deal easier than having to push himself
through the trees. He looked behind him and tried to keep in mind
the direction he was going in order to be able to retrace his
steps. Only the tops of Coy’s house and barn were visible from
here, but the road began a gradual descent at that point and they
were soon completely out of sight. He estimated, but it was
definitely a guess, that he had traveled almost a mile. If he
didn’t find a house or some people soon, he would turn back. With
the uphill climb and the dense woods, it had taken quite a long
time to get this far.

Finally, he did see a structure of some sort up
ahead and as he got closer, it did seem habitable. It was a large
house, three stories tall and when he knocked on the door an
elderly lady in a dust cap and apron opened the door—but she wasn’t
smiling.

“Who in the world are you and where did you come
from. I hope you don’t expect me to invite you in with all those
burs on your clothes and the muddy shoes.”

“Ma’am, my name is Ed Wroe and my wife, my three
children and I are staying at the Coy’s place down under the hill.
Do you know where that is?" He sure did hope she did; maybe she
could tell him.

“I don’t know anyone named Wroe or Coy,” she said
crossly. “You look pretty tuckered out. I can get you a drink of
water and you can set there on the front steps and rest if you want
to. Oh, my name is Lydie Thorne. I live here with my grandson,
Johnny. He ain’t to home right now. Prob’ly out huntin’. Wait
here." She returned after a short time with a glass of water and
offered it to Ed.

“Thank you, Miz Thorne,” Ed said as he drank
thirstily. “I wonder if you could tell me what the name of the
nearest town is. We got lost getting to the Coys’ and I’m not sure
which way to go to get some supplies.”

“Why are you askin’ me? Why don’t you ask the Coys?"
With that, she shut the door firmly in his face after she had
grabbed the drinking glass from his hand.

That wasn’t very friendly,
he was thinking as
he began to walk back along the muddy road.
I guess it was a
fairly reasonable question, though, come to think of it.

On the long walk back, he did think of one other
approach. They would look through the desk and the filing cabinets
for invoices and bills. Some of them should have business addresses
on them. That wouldn’t give them directions, but if they knew the
name of the place, they could ask people how to get there.

When he got back home, he was tired, muddy, hungry,
and thirsty. And it took almost an hour to get all the burs and
stick-me-tites off his clothes. He told the family about the
unneighborly neighbor lady (he wasn’t sure ‘lady’ was an apt word,
either) and they all laughed. Then he made the suggestion he had
thought of on the way home about checking any bills and invoices
they could find for the names of nearby towns and they got into it
at once. They found several businesses with Fordsville addresses
and a few from Hartford so that helped some. He got the atlas from
the SUV and looked up these towns on the map of Kentucky. They
didn’t appear to be too far apart and not that far from
Owensboro.

After a quick supper, they all retired. Chrissy went
to sleep staring at her beautiful little bouquet. No matter the
good care she gave them, they were still beginning to die and it
upset her terribly.

“You’re still beautiful to me, little
forget-me-nots,” she said aloud. “I think when I can’t keep you
alive any more, I’ll press you in a book and let you dry. That way
I can still keep you.”

Next morning two more incomprehensible events
occurred. Two dressed rabbits were in a pan of water on the kitchen
table and Chrissy had a new bouquet. These flowers were lilies of
the valley, the little white bells on a slender green stalk with
the long, green leaves. Whoever brought them had brought a cup of
fresh water from the bathroom and set them again on her night table
by her bed. A heavy book from the library downstairs was there also
and the forget-me-nots were neatly pressed between the pages. That
was just something so sweet that she simply could not ascribe it to
any other than a wonderful, living person. “Thank you,” she
whispered, breathlessly.

“My goodness Edward, when did you do this?" Penny
had found the rabbits when she came down to fix breakfast.

“Do what, Penny?" Ed was coming in from milking the
cow.

“Where did you get this meat? It looks like rabbits
or something. I didn’t know you had been out hunting; and where did
you get a gun?”

“I don’t have a gun and I didn’t do this." Ed was
incredulous.

“How did these get here, then? Oh, Edward, it’s
happening again. This is so unfathomable; so totally
unbelievable.”

“It sure is mysterious. Andy asked me yesterday if
today would be the fourth of July and I told him it would be but I
didn’t know if we would have any meat to grill or not. They must
have heard me when I mentioned that if I had a gun, I’d kill some
rabbits to grill. And here they are. It sure is wonderful, but it
sure is a puzzle.”

Penny was thoughtful for a moment. “Ed, I’m going to
make another wish. I truly wish—“

“Are you sure you want to do this, Penny? You may
have been right when you cautioned the children about wishing for
something frivolous.”

“This isn’t frivolous, Ed. I wish whoever was doing
these nice things would let us know who he is so that we may be
properly grateful.”

“I can certainly agree with that and yet if he
prefers to remain anonymous, we shouldn’t force him to reveal
himself, should we?”

“I know we don’t any of us want to believe in the
supernatural, either. But we still can’t begin to explain how
things like the picture album materialized inside the house even
with it locked. Or how the suitcases were taken out of the locked
car. We can’t prove it wasn’t ghosts any more than we can prove it
was. I just don’t know what to think any more.”

That afternoon, they cooked the rabbit on the grill
and added some barbeque sauce. It was absolutely delicious. They
mentioned several times how much they appreciated their benefactor
regardless of his ectoplasmic status.

It was fully dark before they finished eating and
they were about to go inside when they heard the first ‘blop-shoo’
of a fireworks display. They swiveled their heads until they saw
the flash and heard the boom of the first thunder-ball explode in
the sky somewhere in the general direction of the Thorne Place, Ed
thought. In a few seconds, they heard the detonation of the second
thunder-ball. After that, the sky was illuminated by a fireworks
display as grand as almost any they had ever seen. The red
pinwheels, the blue and gold stars, the scarlet wands that faded
into green and ended in little bursts of light at the ends of each
spoke, the golden rays that ignited into little twisting, twirling
‘worms’ hissing and sputtering until they faded into nothing. They
were beautiful and the pyrotechnic show sure did finish off their
Fourth of July picnic perfectly.

The next evening they continued their routine of
reading from the journal. They had completed the first two years of
the journal and were starting on the third. The first entry they
read began the tale of the illness of Lorraine. Three days after
that they read about her death. Her grieving husband had
written:

*

My beautiful sweetheart, how could you
leave me? We’ve been together sixty-two years and now you are gone
from my life. My darling, how can I go on without you? How can I
continue my life when you, my life, my reason for living, have
faded away into only memories? Even the long time we had together
was not long enough. Only eternity would give us the length of time
we need to be a part of each other. You are a part of me still, my
sweet one; you are my heart, my will to go on, my only thought and
my only desire; except to be with you again. Oh, that God would let
me come to you now but I know that will only happen when my life is
no longer needed here on earth. I pray that will come soon.

I buried you, Lorraine, in the little
graveyard on the hill near the big spreading oak tree beside the
baby we wanted so much. Perhaps in death you can hold him and love
him as you were precluded from doing in life.

Rest in peace, my beloved. I shall have
no peace until I can be with you again. Our Kentucky Hideaway is so
lonely without you. CCC 15 January, 2005

*

Everyone had been deeply affected by the words of
anguish written by the hopeless old man. This was evidenced by the
break in his voice as Edward read the passage, the tears flowing
freely down the faces of the three girls, and even Andy’s lips
trembled as he said, “That sure was sad, wasn’t it, Daddy?”

Suddenly, from upstairs came the sounds of someone
sobbing her heart out. They all five heard it and unconsciously
looked to be sure everyone was still in the living room and not
upstairs. The weather that had been so perfect the night before for
the fireworks display had turned nasty during the day and now they
could hear the wind rustling and complaining through the trees
outside and it looked as though the rain might fall as splashing
teardrops any minute.

The rain came and the wind increased in velocity and
volume until the elements drowned out the heartbreaking sounds from
upstairs and when their noise finally abated, the sobbing sounds
from upstairs had ceased. No one was anxious to go up to bed that
night, but when no more sad sounds were heard for some time, they
finally went up to bed.

The whole family seemed subdued and less than
cheerful the next morning, but they resumed their routine.

“Chrissy, what do you think about cleaning up the
Coys’ bedroom today? We have most of the rest of the house in good
shape; dusted, vacuumed, walls wiped down, windows washed (inside
and out on the first floor) and draperies and curtains cleaned.
We’ve cleaned the upholstery the best we can, cleaned out the
refrigerator and freezer, taken everything off the shelves in the
kitchen and pantry and cleaned them. We’ve scrubbed the stove and
the oven and even scrubbed the porches. Your father has worked on
the outside of the house, repairing the front and back steps, the
swing and the shutters, and he’s even done some work to the storage
shed, the hen house and the barn. That bedroom is the only thing
that hasn’t been cleaned. I don’t see any reason to leave it any
longer, do you?”

“No, I don’t, Mom. I say, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Right after breakfast, they took the vacuum, dust
cloths, cleaning rags, window cleaners and went to work.

“One thing I keep wondering about is why there are
no windows on this side of the house. I looked at it from the
outside the other day and there’re no windows at all on this entire
side.”

“That is odd. It makes it awfully dark particularly
in your bedroom, Chrissy. You don’t have any outside view anywhere.
It’s a good thing you’re not claustrophobic.”

They picked up all the dirty clothes in the Coy’s
bedroom and Chrissy took them down and started the washer. They
stripped the bed, made it up with fresh linens, and put the
coverlet back on it. It looked really nice. They washed the
windows, (the two at the front of the house), vacuumed, dusted; and
took the curtains down washing them carefully by hand because they
looked extremely fragile. When they got the curtains back up to the
windows, all the clothes folded and put away and all the drawers
shut properly, the room looked especially nice. There was one
corner that seemed quite dark and melancholy, but they didn’t have
an extra lamp to set there. Instead, they set an old rocker in that
corner and left it alone.

When Ed got home, he agreed that it did look much,
much better and he thought the spirits, ghosts, or whatever would
have to agree. Penny had even gone to the fencerow out near the
storage shed and picked some sprays of honeysuckle and put in a
vase in the room and it seemed to cheer it up a great deal.

That evening, Penny was again looking through the
picture album that had been left on Chrissy’s nightstand earlier.
For reasons she couldn’t fathom, she kept returning to the picture
of the older woman, the young man, and the little girl. Her
attention was drawn again to a shadow or something dark on the back
of the young man’s left hand. It looked almost identical to the
mark on her father’s hand but it had been his right hand and this
was a left hand.
Oh, now wait a minute. A picture was a mirror
image, wasn’t it? That spot would be on the right hand. Oh, now
that sure is weird, isn’t it?
Penny lifted the album to get a
better stream of light and suddenly the picture was shaken loose
from its place in the album and fluttered to the floor landing on
its face. Chrissy saw it drop and went to pick it up for her
mother.