The Invited(81)

Helen nodded sympathetically, said, “That’s too bad. People should be fixing up the old farmhouses, not tearing them down.”

“It’s a rotten shame, if you ask me,” Aggie continued, still moving the old bells around. “The Gray place, it had history. Some of it a bit dark, mind you, but that house, it had character.” She leaned down, gave Mulligan a pat on the head. The dog leaned into her. “Isn’t that right, Mulligan?” Then she looked up at Helen and asked, “Why were you looking for it, anyway?”

    “I’m doing a history project. A family tree of sorts. I’m trying to trace any living relatives of the woman who used to live on the land my husband I bought in Hartsboro. Apparently, Ann Gray was her granddaughter.”

Aggie shook her head. “Terrible what happened. It’s kind of local legend around here. The worst crime ever to happen in Elsbury—well, the only crime really, if you don’t count a few breaks-ins and the gas station being robbed.”

Mulligan squeaked his toy, and Helen leaned down to give his ears a scratch.

“Do you know any details about what happened?”

Aggie gave a deep sigh. “Oh, sure. I guess everyone around here knows just about every gruesome detail…Sam was an alcoholic, for one. And the farm was going under. It was the family farm and it fell to him to keep it going, but he couldn’t manage. He’d sold off most of the cows, even subdivided the back acreage and sold some off, but he still wasn’t able to pay the bills. Not that those are excuses for what he did, but they provide the background.”

She’d moved over to a desk and was neatening a pile of old photographs now—sepia-toned portraits of people no one could name.

“It was a murder-suicide, right? Did it happen in the house?”

Aggie nodded. “He shot his wife, then himself. Right in the living room. She was an odd one, his wife. Some said she was crazy. And of course it didn’t help that she went around calling herself a witch.”

“A witch?” Helen practically shouted. “Really?”

Aggie nodded. “She actually made a little business out of it, you know. People would come visit her in her parlor and she’d read their tea leaves, palms, do spells to help them with love or money. She even self-published a little book about the spirit world and divination. If only she’d been able to see her own future, to know what was coming and find a way to stop it.”

“Maybe it doesn’t work that way,” Helen mused. Maybe it’s like everything else, she thought; it’s hardest to see what’s right in front of us.

“I guess not. A shame, though. Just terrible. He shot her right in front of their kids.”

    “Do you know what happened to them? The kids?” Helen stepped closer to Aggie. “Are they around here still?”

“The poor things—neither of them could have been much older than ten when it happened. Jason. That was the son’s name. And the daughter, let’s see, I can’t say I recall her name. They didn’t stick around. Went off to live with relatives.”

“Do you know where?”

She shook her head. “Afraid not. Out of state, I think, but I’m not sure.” There was a pause. “You know, it’s a funny coincidence, but that mantel you noticed when you first came in? It came from the Gray farmhouse.”

“You’re kidding.”

“My husband and I managed to salvage a few things out of it before the contractors tore it down—some shelves, all the doors, and the mantel. We’ve got a set of shelves and a couple of doors left, too.”

Helen went back to the mantel, touched the wood.

Right in the living room, Aggie had said.

Shot right in front of the mantel, Helen imagined.

“My husband, Phil, always said that whole family was cursed. I’m not sure I believe in curses, but you have to admit the poor Gray family had more than its fair share of horrible things happen.”

Runs in the family, Helen thought.

Closing her eyes, Helen could almost see it: the mantel covered in knickknacks and family photos of Samuel, Ann, and their two children smiling into the camera. Then everything splattered in blood. The screaming of the children.

“I’ll take the mantel,” Helen said, before she could think it through. “It’ll be perfect for my living room.”

Aggie smiled. “One second,” she said, and went back into the room the classical music was coming from. When she came out, she was carrying a thin paperback book. “I’ll throw this in with it,” she said.

Helen looked at the title: Communicating with the Spirit World, by Ann Whitcomb Gray.

“Wait…this is Ann’s book?”

Aggie nodded.

It was one of the library books she’d been holding on to all summer. Her head spun at the thought of it—that a book written by a direct descendant of Hattie had been sitting on her kitchen table for weeks, a book she’d turned to to help her understand what was happening between her and Hattie.

    Aggie smiled. “I’ve collected a few copies and I pull them out for the right customer. This copy goes with you.”

“Thank you so much,” Helen said as she flipped to a chapter toward the end, read:

    Spirits, like living people, can come with an agenda. Some come in peace, just seeking to make contact with the living, especially those they have a connection to. For others, it may be more complicated than that.