Page 9 of The Ghost of Ellwood
“Well, I’ll be. This is you, ain’t it?” The woman turned the paper around and pointed to the largest photo on the front.
I stepped closer to get a better look. Sure enough, there was a photo of me—a professional author shot I had done last year—and the headline read:Bestselling Author Ben Cross Moves To Ivy Grove.
Damn. Word spread fast in this town.
“I thought you looked familiar,” she said, walking over to a table near the window. After rifling through several stacks of books, she held one of them up to show me. “You wroteBloody Rage. I tell you what, my nephew loved this book. When it got made into a movie, I swear he went and seen it a million times.”
It was a relief to see that book and not one of the more criticized ones.
“That’s great,” I said. “I’m glad he enjoyed it.”
“Would you mind signing it for him?” she asked, patting her shirt pocket before doing the same to her pants. Not finding what she was looking for, she then snatched a pen from the counter. “It’s not every day a bestselling author walks into my store.”
After signing the book, I quickly browsed the shelves, not finding anything of interest, and left. I lived ten minutes away and had chosen to walk instead of drive, so I began the trek back home.
Home. It had a nice ring to it. Ivy Grove felt more like home in the five days I’d been there than New York ever did.
The crisp air held a slight warmth to it, as if summer wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet. By the time I reached the residential neighborhoods, a thin sheen of sweat covered my brow and my shirt stuck to my back.
My mind wandered to the stories I’d heard over the past few days while in town. Turned out, Ivy Grove was a notorious hot spot for tourists because of the dark histories surrounding many of the Victorian homes.
Redwood Manor, according to a group of teenagers who I’d overheard one evening in the coffee shop, was nicknamed ‘the mad house,’ because, supposedly, a woman who lived there in 1890 had gone crazy one night and killed her two young children. Other stories followed that one, all revolving around people who had lived in the house and were met with grim fates.
“It’s cursed,” one of the boys had said. “They say you can sometimes see Mrs. Shaw in the window, wearing a black veil as she mourns her dead husband.”
“That’s why she killed the kids, right?” a girl asked.
“People say grief drove her to it. But I think the land is haunted. Bad soil, you know?”
“Maybe she played with a Ouija board to communicate with him, and she ended up releasing an evil spirit,” another boy said. “That happens all the time.”
It made for a good story. I had jotted down ideas in the notes app on my phone to use for a possible future book. Inspiration could be found anywhere, even in a coffee shop at nine at night.
It made me wonder what the locals said aboutmyhouse. I had yet to hear anything, but with a place as old as mine, I was certain there were stories.
Caroline had clearly been spooked by something. Maybe I’d delve into the manor’s history someday.
As my house came into view, I admired it for the millionth time. Sure, it needed some work, like a new paint job, and the hedges in the front yard needed to be trimmed, but everything was coming together nicely. I had finished unpacking and had organized most of my stuff.
All that remained was the items left over from past owners; most of it was furniture, but Caroline had told me about items stored in the attic as well, which was the one room I hadn’t gotten around to looking at yet. I also needed to take note of any necessary repairs. Last thing I wanted was to be walking across the floor and end up falling through it.
Something moved in the upstairs window.
I froze on the path leading up to the house and focused on the spot where I could’ve sworn I’d seen someone standing.
Nothing was there.
“Come on, Ben,” I said, scoffing at myself. “Just your mind playing tricks on you.”
As I entered the house and went down the hall toward my office, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. Followed. In the corridor, I stopped and looked behind me, expecting to see someone there. I’d thought I’d heard a second set of footsteps.
Again, I was alone.
My hair stood on end, and a chill having nothing to do with the temperature in the manor settled in my bones.
I’m being ridiculous.
Sitting at my desk, I shoved away the irrational thoughts and clicked on the document I’d been working on. After re-reading where I had left off in the story, I continued.
