Page 9 of Home Before Dark

Maggie stood in the doorway, peeking inside.

“This could be your room, Mags,” I told her. “What do you think of that?”

Maggie shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s cold.”

I raised a hand, trying to detect a chill. The room’s temperature felt normal to me. If anything, it seemed a little warm.

“I’m sure you’d grow to like it,” I said.

The third floor, which was where Janie June took us next, was half the size of the second. Rather than an attic, we entered an open and airy study with built-in bookshelves covering two of the walls and two pairs of round windows that looked out over the front and back of the estate. They were, I realized, the tiny windows I had seen when we first arrived. The ones that resembled eyes.

“This was originally William Garson’s study,” Janie June said.

And it could now be mine. I pictured myself at the great oak desk in the center of the room. I loved the idea of playing the tortured writer, banging away at my typewriter into the wee hours of the night, fueled by coffee and inspiration and stress. Thinking about it caused a smile to creep across my face. I held it back, worried Janie June would notice and think she had the sale in the bag. Already I feared I had expressed too much excitement, hence the ever-quickening pace of the tour.

My wife’s feelings were harder to decipher. I had no idea whatJess thought of the place. Throughout the tour, she had seemed curious if cautious.

“It’s not bad,” Jess whispered on our way back down to the second floor.

“Not bad?” I said. “It’s perfect.”

“I admit there’s a lot to love about it,” Jess said, being her usual careful self. “But it’s old. And massive.”

“I’m less concerned about the size than the price.”

“You think it’s too high?”

“I think it’s too low,” I said. “A place like this? There’s got to be a reason its listed so low, plus the furniture.”

Indeed there was, which we didn’t learn about until the tour was over and Janie June was ushering us back onto the porch.

“Are there any questions?” she said.

“Is there something wrong with the house?”

I blurted it out with no preamble, leaving Janie June looking slightly stricken as she locked the door behind us.

Tensing her shoulders, she said, “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“No house this big has an asking price that small unless it’s got major problems.”

“Problems? No. A reputation? That’s another story.” Janie June sighed and leaned against the porch railing. “I’m going to be up front with you, even though state law doesn’t require me to say anything. I’m telling you because, let’s face it, Bartleby is a small town and people talk. You’ll hear about it one way or another if you buy this place. It might as well come from me. This house is what we refer to as a stigmatized property.”

“What does that mean?” Jess asked.

“That something bad happened here,” I say.

Janie June nodded slowly. “To the previous owners, yes.”

“The ones in that photo?” Jess said. “What happened?”

“They died. Two of them did, anyway.”

“In the house?”

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