- - - - -
Theresa looked at her ashen husband and wondered for the umpteenth time what she saw in him. His tea cup rattling against its saucer and his crazy professor hairdo didn’t exactly lend any saving grace to the overall picture of Kenneth Westman either. Still, she loved the dumbass. What are you gonna do? He had won her heart over back in college with his adorable goofiness and his passion for things that nobody else ever cared about, her in particular, so here they were 10 years later; married to all hell and back. Only today Ken wasn’t his usual calm controlled self. He had come storming through the door like a mad man looking for his shadow and had scared the crap out of her.
She watched him noisily sip his Earl Grey tea and spill more than he swallowed.
She didn’t know what to believe about his wild tale of what had transpired at the Cromwell house earlier today. Ghosts? Winds? Most likely his desire to find the supernatural had somehow excited him beyond what his mind could handle in that spooky house and he had had a nervous breakdown, the poor thing. She worried about his heart. His father had died from a heart attack two years ago and now here was stressing himself out over a goddamn ghost. Jackass… She promised herself to book an appointment for him with Dr. Jacobi first thing tomorrow morning. Men… You marry them and become their goddamn mother.
She took the cup from his trembling hands, put it down on the table and stroked his back. “So what now hon?”
He looked at her and something in that stare of his alarmed her more than she was willing to admit. “I… I don’t know. I mean, shit Tess! I can’t even explain it! It all sounds so fucking stupid now afterwards! Like I just imagined the whole damn thing.”
She massaged his neck, trying to unknot all that tension under there. “Sshhhh hon, be quiet for a while. I don’t know what the hell happened back there, but whatever it was ain’t gonna get you here. Imagined or not.”
Kenneth cocked an eyebrow at her. “You think I really just dreamt the whole thing, don’t you?” His intense gaze settled on hers, probing her with mild accusations.
“Well, it’s not like I think you dreamt it really. It’s just that maybe you think you saw something that your mind was expecting you know. Kinda like a self fulfilling prophecy or something.”
She could tell he didn’t think he had dreamt it. His face hardened and she felt his back stiffen under her touch. “It wasn’t a fucking dream Tess! Just as clear as I see you I saw those… those damn little girls. It was… Ah fuck! I do realize it sounds like I’m nuts. I mean Jesus Christ and Mary, mother of all saints, Tess! The whole thing still gives me the creeps.”
He stood up suddenly and started pacing back and forth on the floor in their little living room. Scratching his temples frantically like he always did when he was stressed out. He stopped in front of her, holding out his hand. “Like this! This is how clear I saw it all Tess! Like I see you and me and this room. And it wasn’t even what I saw, it was the feeling of just… I don’t know… dread. Like something was just wrong there you know? Like all pains and sorrows and fucking terrors of the world came together and formed this… this goddamn ball of fear and knocked me over with it. You know me Tess! It’s not like me to get all hysterical like this!”
And that was true. She had never seen him this upset. Not at any of his parents’ funerals, not when their house burned down eight years ago and not even when she lost their child, five months pregnant. Sure, he had cried with her on all those occasions but he hadn’t been beside himself with emotions like now. This was a totally different Ken, and she didn’t like it much. Didn’t like it at all. “Are you going back?” she asked him as he started pacing again, “I’ll go with you.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. “Never! What are you, nuts?” He sat down on the couch with a heavy thump. “I mean… I am going back. Have to go back… Jesus…” He trailed off, relaxing a little.
Theresa went back to kneading his back and shoulders. “Whether you saw something or not is besides the point Ken. You know, I’m worried you’ll have a heart attack right then and there if you stress yourself out like this. I don’t want you being alone there!” And she realized she really didn’t. She had a funny feeling about this now. God knows she had been tired of the house already way before today. It had been the topic of Ken’s conversations, or rather monologues, many a times before. But back then it had always been with a positive excitement about the place. He had been dying to go there, dig in and just lose himself in the Cromwell mystery for as long as she could remember. His interest for serial killers and other psychos had never really disturbed her, all men needed a hobby, but she had always felt uneasy about this house for some reason. When he had gotten that phone call last week about finally being able to go there, she had not exactly celebrated.
He let out a sigh. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. Not about the heart attack I mean. About not going alone. God forbid I step through a board in the attic or something and can’t get out on my own. I’ll bring Lou on early. Good?”
She looked at him and smiled. “Yes hon, that would be great!” Step through a board in the attic my ass. He just didn’t want to go back there alone. She didn’t blame him and was happy he at least had pretended to humor her rather than put up a fight about it. Lou was an alright guy too. He didn’t share Ken’s interest for morbid mysteries but loved old houses, always and forever redoing his home by taking down a wall here and retiling a bathroom there. Ken was going to hire him on eventually anyway, to fix that old place up. Might as well do it sooner. “He won't mind starting earlier than planned, right?”
Kenneth looked at her, smiling now. “I think that will excite him Tess. He's in between jobs anyway. And if any goddamn ghosts show up, he’ll at least back my story, right?" He stood up again. “I just don’t understand the whole thing with the girls? It was like they were angry at me. Everybody knows Samuel murdered them and hid their bodies. The fact the dumbass cops never found them doesn’t mean they’re not there somewhere. And I don’t…”
“Wait a minute!” Therese sat up, all warning bells ringing, “You’re not there to dig up little girls, are you? 'Cause I’ll tell you right now…”
Kenneth cut her off. “No no! Nothing like that sweetheart! Chill... Jesus… I’m just saying that I don’t see why the Cromwell girls would be such bitches in the afterlife. One would think that they’d welcome the chance to be discovered somewhere in there and finally be properly buried. You know? Laid to rest?”
Theresa just shook her head. He really was convinced he had seen a ghost. Or rather, two ghosts. “Whatever Ken. I don’t want to hear from Lou you are digging up that whole property looking for some dead girls’ bones, you hear me?”
Ken seemed to realize now finally that Lou was going to be as much of a spy for Tess as a backbone for him, so gently he resigned. “Yes dear. I hear you. Loud and clear.” He leaned over and kissed her.
He smelled of sweat and dirt but it was somehow a quite pleasant smell. A working man’s smell… She had missed that in him lately. She kissed him back. “Promise you’ll be careful hon.”
He looked into her eyes with a mischievous smile “I promise. Cross my heart and all that shit.” Then he showered her in kisses and she could feel her good old Ken coming back from wherever he had been hiding today. He laid her down on the couch and held her close. “I love you Tess. I am sorry if I scared you.”
She smiled back at him. “Well, you did, you know. It’s OK. Don’t do it again or I’ll beat your stupid ass!”
Outside the rain started to fall and they laid down on the couch just holding each other. It almost felt like back in college again, on his crappy dorm room bed. Just Tess and Ken. The world was right again.
- - - - -
On Jacaranda Drive the rain was beating down relentlessly. The Cromwell house was dead silent again, apart from the heavy drumming against the boarded up windows and the repeated rapping of the door to the back porch, hanging off its one good hinge, left to the mercy of the wind and hitting the doorpost with every gust.
The darkness that had descended inside the house shifted slightly and the door was slammed shut like a heavy coffin lid.
The shadows moaned and stirred, as if something had upset them, and then gently settled again.
Upstairs, in one of the rooms – where once a chair had been, water found its way in through a crack in the window. As the drops hit the wooden floor, dripping from the sill, they froze – leaving a little blank sheet of ice beneath the window.
The house went back to sleep.
