Nobody's Home: A Tarker's Hollow Tale Page 4

  Had he always been this annoying?

  “Oh,” Jenna exclaimed.

  They turned to her. She was cradling one hand in the other.

  “What happened?” Adia asked.

  “I think it’s just a splinter,” Jenna replied.

  They bent over her as she pulled a tiny splinter from her own finger.

  A bead of blood rose to the surface of her skin, round and perfect.

  The room faded around the edges as Adia examined Jenna’s little finger. She could actually smell the blood, coppery with a hint of cinnamon.

  She had the sudden instinct to pop Jenna’s finger into her mouth.

  She blinked and took a step back. Jesus, what was wrong with her?

  “I’m okay,” Jenna was assuring Todd, who had done just what Adia wanted to do, and was suckling Jenna’s finger like a piglet on the teat.

  For some reason, the sight of it made Adia’s own blood ring in her ears with fury.

  “Okay,” Todd said at last, his voice grating her ears. “Let’s say I want to make an offer on this house, I’m going to deduct thirty percent for the busy street and then another fifty grand for the kitchen plus a little something for that rickety railing that just gave Jenna a splinter. Where does that leave us?”

  “I could get out a calculator, but we both know it’s fifty percent of the listed price.” Adia felt the filter that usually kept her unspoken comments in check beginning to slip.

  “You think you want a house, Todd,” Adia said, her voice icy. “But I’m beginning to get the idea that you like looking at houses and not buying as much as you like rubbing up against your girl and not fucking her. Call me when you’re ready for action.”

  She turned and opened the front door, gesturing them out. She was pretty sure Todd was gaping like a fish and Jenna had turned beet red, but somehow Adia couldn’t be bothered to look at their faces to be certain, let alone care.

  When the white SUV had pulled out of the drive, she locked up and decided to head home.

  Adia had never spoken to a client that way. She ought to have a pit at the bottom of her stomach.

  Instead, she felt wholly indifferent.

  She probably just needed that nap.

  8

  But instead of heading straight for her apartment and her bed, Adia found herself driving along the winding road that led into the Tarker’s Hollow College campus.

  Something about what happened at Ogden House was still bugging her, like an itch she couldn’t quite scratch. She needed to know if the things she had seen were real. So she was doing what she had done ever since she was a kid and needed answers.

  She was going to the library.

  The town’s Historical Library was housed in a wing of the college library. Surely they would have old pictures of Ogden House, if any such pictures existed. And if the pictures were different from her… visions, or whatever they were, then she would know it was all in her head. If the old pictures matched what she had seen last night, well, she didn’t really know what that meant.

  She parked and walked across the cobblestones to get to the doors.

  Good thing she was a real estate agent, otherwise it might be hard to explain why she was so interested in the house. She wondered fleetingly if the Tarker’s Hollow Historical Library would ever take its archives online so a person could search them in peace. They probably wouldn’t. Everyone who lived in this town was sentimental about it. There were people who collected the old milk bottles, issues of the town newspaper, she’d even heard that someone was collecting old keys.

  At any rate, the volunteer staff who ran the Historical Library seemed to enjoy being the stewards of the town treasure trove. Adia couldn’t see them giving up their gatekeeper status anytime soon. The guarded the materials so jealously it almost made her sense a conspiracy - like there was some big town cover-up only a chosen few were supposed to know about.

  She pushed the doors open and entered the main library. The view from the two story palladium windows was lovely, but Adia found herself squinting and heading to the glass door to the Historical Library.

  There were only a handful of people who ran the place on the weekend, a cute young guy whose name she could never remember, Dr. Helen Thayer, a formidable older lady who had lived in town for about a hundred years, and Mr. MacGregor, Adia’s handsome History teacher from high school.

  She hoped vaguely for the older woman. With the way her libido kept cresting when she thought of last night with William, she didn’t want to amp it up any further.

  “Hello, Adia. Here to look up a new listing?” Helen Thayer asked in a booming voice.

  Adia smiled in relief.

  “I wanted info on a house I showed to someone,” she replied. “The old Ogden House?”

  “Oh,” Helen’s eyebrows went up. “That’s an incredible house. The story was remarkable, and very sad.”

  “I know there was an incident, but I never got the details,” Adia replied, then shut her mouth, knowing that if she stayed quiet long enough, Dr. Thayer would tell her all she needed to know, and then hopefully make with the pictures so she could see whether the house looked the way it had in her…memory? Dream?

  Dr. Thayer didn’t disappoint.

  “The Ogdens were very wealthy, you know, they made their money in paper. The house was at the center of a one hundred acre estate that stretched way out of Tarker’s Hollow. There was an argument at one time about whether the tenant farmers could send their children to Tarker’s Hollow Elementary. But of course since Mr. Ogden owned the whole parcel the children were all enrolled at the school.

  “At any rate, the unpleasantness happened in the late 1800s. Mr. Ogden the elder had a beautiful summerhouse made down in the valley, but still in view of the main house. It was an open deck, like a stage, but with a roof over it and curtains hanging down like walls all around. They entertained there constantly. The whole house was full of people year round, but we have several pictures of the summerhouse. And maybe some pictures of the main house at Christmastime…”

  “Jerome” she called.

  “Yes, Helen.” Mr. MacGregor popped his head out of the little office in back.

  His first name was Jerome?

  “Can you find me the pictures of Ogden House?” she asked.

  “Of course. Hello there, Adia, getting ready to sell Ogden House, eh?” Mr. MagGregor asked, his eyes crinkling with a friendly smile.

  Adia’s cheeks burned as she silently cursed him for being so handsome.

  “Maybe,” she ventured.

  He nodded and headed to the shelves on the far wall.

  “At any rate, it was Midsummer’s Eve when the tragedy happened. The summerhouse caught fire. It burned to the ground, Mr. and Mrs. Ogden the elder died in the flames, as did their ward, Delilah, and neighbor’s boy, Fitzroy Pegram.

  “Since Mr. Elder the younger had been missing for some time, there was no one for the house to be passed on to. Eventually, it was sold.

  “The next owners were there until the 1950s. That was the Guernsey family and they made their money in the shipyard,” Dr. Thayer continued happily.

  Mr. MacGregor walked over with a box in his hands.

  “Here’s what we have,” he said.

  He lifted the top of the box and they all leaned in to see what was inside.

  The first photograph was the house. It was incredible to see it in the middle of a field. The forest wasn’t overgrown then and there was no new construction to the north, no freight rail track to the south. There was only the mansard roof against the sky and a large garden. Adia held back a gasp when she saw the boxwood labyrinth, just as it had been last night.

  The next picture was of a group of people. The men stood, the women sat on chairs in front of them. Adia recognized the mantel behind them as the one in the back parlor.

  The wallpaper had the pattern that she recognized, though of course she couldn’t tell if it was red, since the photo was black and white.


  She scanned the serious faces, wondering what it would have been like to live at Ogden House in those days.

  Suddenly, there was ice water in her veins.

  Staring up at her from the photograph was a pair of tortured eyes.

  William.

  She was struck with the realization that he had seemed familiar to her when they first met. Of course he had - she had been looking at his picture that very day. It still hung above the mantel at the house, probably kept there by the Guernseys and the owners that followed them because it was a cool piece of Tarker’s Hollow history.

  Mr. MacGregor made a move to flip over the photo.

  Adia slapped his hand down without thinking.

  “Oh,” he said involuntarily.

  “S-sorry,” she stammered at the same time. “But who is that person?”

  Dr. Thayer leaned over and looked at the man she pointed to.

  “Why that’s Mr. Ogden the younger, the one I was telling you had gone missing,” she said.

  “What was his first name?” Adia managed to choke out of her suddenly dry throat.

  “William - William Henry Ogden,” Dr. Thayer said with satisfaction.

  9

  Adia gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white.

  Her heart drummed a frantic tattoo, and she pulled her sunglasses on against the harsh rays of the late afternoon sun.

  She’d run out of the library. Mr. MacGregor tried to call after her, but she had booked it to her car and taken off.

  Now she just had to make it home before she collapsed, and let herself think about the fact that she was half in love with a man who was long dead.

  Was he a ghost?

  She pulled up before the old Victorian that had been divided into apartments, dragged herself out of the car, and headed for the front porch.

  She didn’t relax until she had made it up to the second floor, which was all hers.

  Adia looked listlessly at the kitchen. Normally she’d be ready for dinner by now. But cooking, even just microwaving a frozen dinner, seemed like the last thing she wanted to do.

  Instead, she paced the pine floor.

  Flashes of William haunted her, she could still feel his hands on her body. He was real, he wasn’t a ghost. Her clothes were ripped. Ghosts couldn’t rip clothes. Could they? She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience in that area.

  Everything was so bright. Adia pulled the shades down to darken her surroundings a bit. As the sun began to dip to the horizon, she was gripped with a fierce desire to go back to the house. The pull was so strong she was halfway to the door before she realized what she was doing.

  You are not going back to that house, Adia Booth, she told herself sternly.

  She marched herself into her bedroom, peeled off her clothes, and pulled a plain white nightgown over her head.

  She slid under the covers, and watched as the glow beyond the window shades faded from pink to black.

  Her body throbbed with the need to find William.

  He doesn’t exist, whatever happened, it wasn’t him, it couldn’t have been.

  He was some kind of hallucination, triggered in her subconscious by seeing him in that picture that hung over the mantel.

  But her nipples were hard against the cotton of her nightgown and her sex was pounding. She’d never felt anything more real.

  She closed her eyes and she could see him, gazing up at her from between her legs.

  Her hand slid down of its own accord to draw a teasing path against her panties.

  God, what he had done to her.

  Then he’d crawled up to hold her and caress her, the evidence of his own unsatisfied desire pulsing against her hip.

  She remembered him stroking her hair and nuzzling her neck. Her hand went to the sore spot there. The ache had been getting worse all day.

  She remembered waking to the sound of the train. But it had been the freight train, not the residential rail.

  What had happened in between?

  Was she still a virgin?

  Adia was usually furious with herself for being a virgin. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had chances to lose it. But now she was old enough it had become a thing. Which made it all the more impossible to pick a guy and get it over with.

  But last night, William… He had looked so happy, so tender when he realized.

  Well, if he had been a young man in in the 1800s he would want her to be a virgin, wouldn’t he?

  Adia felt an instant of pride before reality crushed her again. It was impossible. She was remembering it wrong, it couldn’t have happened.

  For once those goofy bastards in the office had been right - going to that house had been the act of a mad woman, and she wasn’t going back again.

  She closed her eyes and after a long time, sleep came to her.

  10

  William awoke from his death-like slumber, the taste of the girl in his mouth.

  Adia… Doe eyes, sun warmed skin, chocolate mole accentuating perfect pouting lips.

  He ran his tongue over his canines, remembering.

  Curling his body around hers, nuzzling the hollow of her neck as he lulled her to sleep.

  Teasing himself as she slept by mouthing her nape, sliding razor sharp incisors against the velvet of her skin without penetrating.

  And then the instant when his tooth had broken the surface - by accident, he’d told himself - and he’d tasted the ambrosia of her blood.

  A drop, tiny as a seed, tasted as profound as a planet. The scent, the sight, the salaciousness of claiming her in this way, while keeping her pure in the other had intoxicated him.

  Then, sliding his tongue against his own incisor enough to make a small cut, he’d slathered the invisible mark on her skin with his own sweet essence, tasting the exquisite flavor of them combined: old and new, innocent and depraved.

  Dear god, what had he done?

  It was nothing, a scrape.

  Surely she wasn’t his changeling from such a small thing.

  But he could already feel the tie between them.

  William had always wondered what it would be like. He’d imagined a pleasant tug on a silken leash.

  Instead, he felt her distance now as if a thick rope were taut in his hands, tearing his flesh.

  Thoughtlessly, he yanked on the spiritual tie between them, desperate for slack enough to give him relief. He felt her stutter and stir on the other side.

  Good girl. Come to me.

  11

  Adia chased William through the Boxwood maze in front of Ogden House as the sun dipped below the horizon. Every time she was about to catch him, he would vanish around another corner, laughing playfully at her. She knew she was dreaming, but it still felt so real. Like she might be able to actually touch him if she could just catch up to him.

  She rounded another corner and found herself stepping out of the maze, William nowhere to be seen. The sights and sounds of revelry from the summerhouse beckoned her, and she approached, her bare feet making small impressions in the soft grass. The summer breeze stirred the curtains surrounding the structure, and Adia could make out at least a dozen figures in the warm glow of the oil lamps that lit the inside.

  Before Adia had reached the party, a young woman stepped out of the woods on the other side of the summerhouse. Her hair was fiery red, her skin a perfect porcelain. The woman strode purposefully toward the gathered merrymakers, the look on her face sending a shiver through Adia’s dream-self.

  Adia watched as the woman entered, joining the silhouettes behind the wafting fabric curtains of the open structure. The sounds of music and laughter quickly turned to screams. A jet of blood spattered the curtain nearest to Adia.

  She struggled to run, to wake up, anything to escape this horror. But she was stuck in the dream, rooted to the spot.

  One by one, the screams cut off. Another young girl, this one with ringlets of golden hair and panicked green eyes, darted from the summerhouse. She made it only a few feet when the
red haired woman burst out behind her, moving almost too fast for Adia to follow.

  Adia looked on, unable to move, as the red haired woman opened her blood-soaked mouth wide to reveal a set of wicked fangs before sinking them into the throat of the blonde who’d tried to run. The attacker dragged the helpless girl back into the summerhouse as her life-blood drained away.

  A moment later, the redhead re-emerged, this time carrying two of the oil lanterns from inside. She stepped away from the structure and tossed one of the lanterns onto the roof, where it shattered, splashing oil and licking flames along the cedar shingles. Once the fire had begun to spread, she walked a few yards and threw the other lantern. This one caught even faster than the first.

  Satisfied with her gruesome handiwork, the woman pivoted on her heel and headed back into the woods.

  Adia regained control of herself and collapsed in the cool grass. She had never seen such horror, never even heard…

  But that wasn’t true. She’d heard about this very night. At the library, Helen Thayer had told her all about the fire that claimed the Ogdens. It was no wonder that no one escaped the blaze - they were all dead before it even started.

  It wasn’t a freak accident that killed them. It was that horrible woman.

  Suddenly, a strange feeling came over Adia, like someone had tied a rope around her middle and pulled with all their might. Without warning, Adia found her dream-self running into the woods. She looked back over her shoulder, expecting to see the raging fire, but all that lay behind her was more woods. Wherever she looked, in any direction, the dark forest surrounded her.

  She was lost.

  She stumbled forward, unsure where she was headed, but unable to resist the pull she felt. A thick mist rose from the loamy soil, obscuring her vision.

  Behind her, something panted and slavered.

  Something big.

  She didn’t dare turn back, but instead tried to move faster.

  The drumming of heavy paws on the ground behind her, growing closer with every stride, was enough to distract her from her footing. She tripped on the gnarled roots of a sycamore and heard a howl of glee as the ground came up to meet her.