The Spite House(46)
“Does it have anything to do with some kind of memorial?” Eric said.
She stopped and stared a moment. Her first instinct was to ask who from town he had been talking to, but she suppressed this. It would sound defensive. He had just expressed willingness to stay. She didn’t want to say or do anything to make him second-guess his decision. At the same time, she didn’t want to overshare, and didn’t like being thrown off course. Who could have mentioned the memorial to him? Surely not Dana. Lafonda, then? She asked that question about the Renners yesterday, and tried to sound innocent in doing so, but Eunice knew that it meant something was on her mind. Should Eunice sit down with her, try to talk it through, or remind her of her role here and why she shouldn’t step beyond it? What if that talk didn’t go well, and she found she couldn’t trust Lafonda anymore? It had taken months to find someone with Lafonda’s exact qualifications and disposition. Eunice wasn’t sure she had time to find a suitable replacement at this point.
“Emily Steen mentioned it to me,” Eric said. “I wasn’t going to bring it up, but after last night and after what you just said, I feel like I have to.”
Millie Steen. Of course. Why did Eunice suspect anyone else? Lafonda of all people? Getting so close to her goal was making her paranoid. Making her think someone or something was destined to undermine her. If she didn’t assert some control over her suspicions, she was liable to run off the very few people she needed with her. Right now, that short list included Eric Ross.
“Follow me,” Eunice said, and took him off the trail and toward a naturally footworn path leading to the perimeter thicket.
“The memorial is related to what I was already going to tell you, just so you know,” Eunice said. “I appreciate you trusting me with some of your family’s history already. I’m sorry for not reciprocating until now. And I’ll ask your forgiveness in advance for leaving out some things, but I need you to come by some answers on your own. If I tell you too much it can bias you about what you think is present in that house. Does that make sense?”
“I think it does,” he said.
“Good,” Eunice said, and looked ahead. The trees appeared to part the closer they got to them. They approached what almost looked like a wooded tunnel. An opening hidden in plain sight, seldom entered yet never too far from her mind.
She began, “At the time of the Civil War, here in the Hill Country, there were many German-Texans, most of whom were abolitionists and Unionists who didn’t want to fight their country. A group of them from just northeast of here stopped in Degener on their way out of Texas. Twelve men and boys headed to Mexico to avoid conscription. They were promised a place to sleep and supplies by a man they trusted, my great-great-grandfather, whose name I never speak, who I hope is sitting in the hottest pot in hell right now. He turned them over to a group of Confederate guerrillas. This was in the summer of 1862, around the same time that a similar thing was happening in Comfort and other parts of Texas.
“The Confederates hanged them all. The youngest to die was fourteen. It was a tragedy and a crime, and we’ve been trying to make amends for it ever since. I wish I could say we were motivated only by doing what’s right, but there’s an element of self-preservation to all that my family has done in the many years since.”
They were surrounded by trees now. A small, round clearing was coming into view ahead of them and in the center of it was a tall stone slab.
“Those men and boys who died that day have plagued my family since,” Eunice said. “Really, I believe they’re present all over the town. It wasn’t just my ancestor who took part in that murder, so it makes sense they would haunt all of Degener. And I have my theories about spirits, how one might attract another, then over time those two attract a small group, and then possibly a larger group. Just like the living, with a relative handful of people starting a settlement where others eventually see that they can thrive. Oftentimes, here, you may notice people glance to the side like they think someone’s there, when there isn’t. You’ll see them look up like they thought they heard someone talking to them. I’ve made an afternoon out of people-watching at the park on a warm day, counting how many times someone shivers for no apparent reason. Frankly, it’s made it easier for me to keep some of the local history secret, so guests in the spite house find out its history on their own. People in town respect me enough to obey my wishes, but I also think they’re simply scared to say the wrong thing and cause a spirit to haunt them with the same tenacity as the ones who haunt me.
“Others took part in the killing, but it was a Houghton who betrayed the spirits who cursed my family. Those other men must have been faces in a crowd to them, but my ancestor was someone they believed a friend. The betrayal is clearly the thing they can’t forgive. They don’t have any power to attack any of us in my family while we’re alive, but as we’re dying, well, it’s hard to describe. They come to us then and the worst part is that we—I—don’t know if it’s over when we die, or if they get to keep torturing us forever after. I have my suspicions. My mother, in her advanced age, convinced herself that she could avoid the spirits altogether if she ended it quickly enough. She waited for me to leave her alone one day and shot herself in the head. When I found her later, the look on her face was … she must have seen something just as she pulled the trigger, right when it was too late to stop herself. I can’t believe the fear imprinted on her face after she was already dead. I believe many things are possible, but not that. I have to tell myself that to remain sane.”