Page 60 of Haunted Ever After

“That’s what I’m asking.” They both turned back to the documents on the table, and Theo pulled out photocopies of records and handed them to Cassie.

“Original deed, in the name of William Donnelly.”

“No way! I’d been looking for that!” She seized it as though it would hold all the answers. But of course, it held zero answers. It was a land deed, in very fancy and almost illegible handwriting, granting Donnelly the land on which he later built the house. Which was great, but it didn’t tell her anything she couldn’t get out of A Haunted History.

“Warranty deed.” Theo handed her another piece of paper. “William Donnelly to Charles S. Hawkins in 1904.”

“1904. That’s when Charles and Sarah got married. But…” The chain of title was clear, even to Cassie, who didn’t know squat about real estate. Donnelly owned it, then C.S. Hawkins. Why did Sarah insist it was her house, if it was never really hers? There must be something she was missing.

She put the papers aside and turned her attention back to the photographs. Theo narrated as she worked her way through them.

“These came from all over. Some were from the newspaper, which was started in 1899, once Boneyard Key—well, Fisherton, as it was called then—was established. Like this one”—he plucked one from the pile—“I’m pretty sure that’s William Donnelly there. He was an architect, originally from Cincinnati, and he had a hand in designing most of the downtown area, as well as a few of the more prominent houses.”

“So why wasn’t it called the Donnelly House?”

“Alliteration?” Theo’s lips quirked up in a smile but Cassie couldn’t tell if he was serious, so she made a noncommittal hum. The photo in her hand was likely the oldest one in the folder, since the home looked newly built. A man—Donnelly, she presumed—stood at the garden gate, wearing pants and a long coat in the noonday sun. Cassie couldn’t imagine dealing with all those layers in the Florida heat. And before central air-conditioning? People must have been built differently back then. The wide brim of his hat obscured most of his face, but what wasn’t obscured were the roses. More cabbage roses, by the garden gate.

Cabbage roses. In 1899. Years before C.S. Hawkins bought the house and lived there with his wife, Sarah.

Something in the background caught her attention too. “What’s that?” She pointed at an out-of-focus smudge. She could barely see a peaked roof, but it was out on the water. Who would build a house on the…She let out a soft gasp as it clicked into place. “Is that the Starter Home?”

“Good eye.” He took the photo back. “Donnelly designed and built that too.”

“Wait, he did?” Sophie’s voice came from the other side of the room. “I’ve been telling everyone…Mr. Lindsay said in his book that nobody knew who built it.”

“Mr. Lindsay never asked me,” Theo replied dryly. “Maybe that’s the first part of the tour you can revise.”

“You bet your ass I’m going to revise it,” Sophie grumbled as she turned back to her reading.

“Anyway,” Theo continued. “The sand the Starter Home was built on proved to be unstable, so it wasn’t lived in for very long. The pier leading out to it fell apart years back, and of course there’s not much left now.”

They continued sorting through the photos, but this time Cassie took care to notice the Starter Home in the background. For many of the photos it looked the same, but eventually she could see the house begin to deteriorate. It seemed the damage occurred when a hurricane swept through; every time the Starter Home lost part of its roof or another stilt or two, the Hawkins House would lose some of the Spanish moss on the trees or entire branches. One photo even showed roof damage partially repaired; Cassie made a mental note to have her roof checked. Just to make sure.

Eventually, Cassie and Theo put the photos of the house itself in chronological order, lining them up side by side along the edge of the card table. There were a few non-house photos left in the folder. One was a posed studio portrait of a young woman with dark hair piled in curls on top of her head. Even though the photo was in black and white, her eyes were startlingly light—blue or possibly green. Cassie reached a hand up to touch her own messy bun. She didn’t look a thing like the woman in the photo, but there was something in the way she wore her hair. The shape was the same. And there was something in her expression that made Cassie feel like she was seeing an old friend for the first time.

“Sarah,” she said softly, and Theo nodded.

“Correct. That’s Sarah Hawkins’s wedding portrait.”

Cassie couldn’t take her eyes off it. All this time she’d been picturing Mean Mrs. Hawkins, a grumpy old lady who chased children with sticks. But before she was any of that, she was young Mrs. Hawkins. Young Sarah Blankenship, even. Her whole life ahead of her, with no idea that she would end up dying old and alone, haunting the house she had lived in for so many decades.

She put the photo down and picked up the matching photo: a wedding portrait of Sarah and a man who had to be C.S. Hawkins. But her mind rejected it at first. “Oh God,” she said. “He’s so old!” Mr. Hawkins had a white beard, dark brown eyes, and an expression that could only be described as hard. He didn’t look particularly happy in his wedding picture, but then again, neither did Sarah.

“Mr. Hawkins was definitely an older gentleman.” Theo sounded like he was doing his best to be diplomatic. “They were only married about a decade or so before he died. Heart attack, they say.” He shrugged. “Of course, they blamed it on Sarah. Gossip about him not being able to keep up with such a young and lovely bride.”

“Ew.” Cassie clucked her tongue. Based on these two in their picture, there was no way that this was any kind of a love match. She studied Sarah’s expression again. Resigned, sure. But there was something in the set of her eyes, almost pinched. Her hands were clenched tightly together in her lap, not holding on to her husband’s arm. His arm was around her, though; his fingers dug into her waist so tightly that Cassie could see wrinkles in the fabric, even in this old a photo.

She remembered the words on the fridge this morning: my man bad. He sure as hell looked it.

She put the photo down; she didn’t like the vibe it was giving off, and if there was one thing she’d learned about this town, it was that vibes were to be listened to. She cast her gaze across all the photos: the house, the wedding portraits, the cabbage roses. There was something, just in the corners of her brain, but she couldn’t catch the thought. It was like she was looking at a jigsaw puzzle; she knew she had all the pieces but she couldn’t see how they fit together.

God. Living in this town was becoming a bad scavenger hunt. What the hell was the prize at the end going to be?

She looked up at Theo. “I don’t suppose I could borrow these photos? Just for a little bit? Or make copies?” Maybe if she could spend a little more time with them, figure out what questions she could ask Sarah with her limited ability to answer, Cassie could discover what she was missing.

Theo was silent for a long moment. “Well,” he said finally, “that depends. How well do you think you’d be able to kayak in oh, say, three or four months from now? Follow-up question: How do the both of you feel about grave preservation?”

A groan came from the other side of the room, but a slow smile spread across Cassie’s face. “I think we can work something out.”

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