Page 12 of A Very No Strings Halloween
That makes me laugh. “No. Never again. I’m going to the house in Middleborough.”
“Ohhhhh. You meanyourhouse? The one Lars left you in his will?” Chelsea is the coordinator for the home health-care agency I work for, so she knows all about Lars. She’s actually the one who assigned me to him a year and a half ago.
“Sort of. He had his lawyer create a trust for me so it wouldn’t have to go through probate.”
“Nice. I thought you said you ran outta there last time.”
“Yeah, I think I just got there too late in the day. When the weather was bad. And it’s just a drafty old house that creaks and moans, you know? For normal old-house reasons. But I got spooked. And the weather’s nice today, so I figured I’d give it another shot.” I slow down to turn onto the lane that leads to the property. I can’t help butsigh. It’s so pretty. Just a symphony of fall colors and the morning light hitting the water of the pond—my very own pond! “Oh my God, Chels, I can’t wait for you to see this place. The cranberry bog. It’s so beautiful. I mean, it’s surreal. But it’s really beautiful.”
“That reminds me, I gotta buy cranberry juice. I feel a UTI comin’ on.”
“Save your money—I can make you some!” I park my car in the driveway in front of the house. There’s a detached garage that I haven’t even looked inside yet. Popping in my earbuds, I open the car door, marveling at how still and quiet it is. I instantly feel ridiculous about being so scared the last time I was here. It’s so peaceful and wonderful. “You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m mainlinin’ coffee and replyin’ to five thousand emails. Keep talkin’. You at the house? Shoot me a picture.”
I do. I take a few steps back to get the entire two-story Colonial revival house in frame, with its wraparound porch and the shutters and the brick chimneys that extend from the ground past the roof on both sides of the house. “You can tell it was wonderful when it was first built in the late 1940s,” I tell her before texting the picture to her.
She’s quiet for way too long and then says, “Joel knows a really good but somewhat shady Realtor who could sell a pile of dirt to a prince. I’ll grab you his contact info.”
“I mean, it needs some work—obviously it hasn’t been lived in for decades. Lars said he hired people to update things back in the early seventies so he could rent the place out, but they never finished the job. Like, everyone he hired would just stop working there after about a week. ‘Damn hippies,’ he said. ‘No work ethic.’ So he took it as a sign that he should be more picky about who lives here. And I guess I’m the only one he picked. But it could be so perfect. Right? It has good bones. If you saw this onFixer Upperyou would be like,I cannot wait to see what Chip and Joanna do with that place.”
“Okay, honey, okay. What’s that shadow in the upstairs window?!”
“What?!” My heart is suddenly in my throat as I look up at the upstairs windows.
“Just kiddin’. I’m fuckin’ with you.”
I exhale loudly, my pulse still racing. “That is really not cool.”
I scan the entire area, turning on my heels because I have the strangest feeling I’m being watched.
A crow caws overhead, and I almost scream, then laugh at myself for being so jumpy.
Okay, there’s a little bit of mist rolling in, so that changes the atmosphere a little bit, but it’s still sunny. I face death on a regular basis at work. What do I have to be afraid of?
I walk up the steps to the porch and fumble with my keys.
“Why didn’t Lars sell the farmhouse a long time ago if he was living in a townhouse in Charlestown? Also why didn’t he leave you the townhouse in Charlestown?”
“Because he was renting it.” Opening the front door, I peer inside before entering. The air seems…stale? Heavy? Sad? Obviously that’s just my imagination. Air can’t be sad. It just needs to circulate. I step inside the vestibule, leaving the door open—to air the place out. “He, uh, Lars had the farmhouse built for his wife when they got married back in the late 1940s.”
I open the interior door to the front hall. I definitely don’t remember shutting this door on my way out last time, but of course it would close on its own if there are drafts. See? Logic. There’s a logical explanation for everything.
“It’s really sad, actually,” I continue as I look up the staircase in the middle of the center hall. The last time I was up there in the master bedroom I thought I heard someone crying and whispering, and that was when I bolted out of here. But it was probably just a breeze.
“Lars and his wife were young and in love, and he bought the property with a cranberry bog thinking they’d harvest cranberries, have a working farm, and raise a family here. He said his wife loved it so much and it was the happiest he’d ever seen her.” Thehardwood floor creaks with every step I take. I go into the dining room to open the windows. “But then his wife got pneumonia and died after living here for only a matter of months. Lars was too sad to live here without her, and he could never bring himself to sell the place.” I struggle with the window, which seems to be painted shut. “He hired people to maintain and harvest the cranberry bog, but nobody’s been living in the house and he hadn’t been back here in decades.”
The two front doors slam shut in quick succession, and I spin around, my heart racing even faster than it did when I heard the crow. “Holy shit!”
“What happened?!”
But of course the doors slammed shut. I didn’t prop them open. I hesitantly make my way back to the front hall. Nothing to see here, except for a closed door. Shaking my head, I cross the hall to the living room to try opening some windows in there.
“Nothing. Just a light breeze. It was nothing.”
“Ohhh-kaaayyyy.So did Lars ever remarry?” Chelsea asks.
“No. Never met anyone he cared about as much as her.”
