The Curse of Hollister House

Saturday

Gracie and I arrived at the library to find the reading room packed with men and women anxious to find out their assigned Harvest Festival duties. As a child and a teen, I’d attended the festival as a visitor, but I’d never stopped to consider the hundreds of man-hours that went into making the event happen. Hope started off by thanking everyone and reminding them that the festival was an important fund-raiser for the town as well as an important income-producing weekend for the small businesses that lined the main drag where the event was held. She briefly went over all the various volunteer duties, including the haunted barn, food vendors, kiddie carnival volunteers, and the pumpkin patch, among others. She sent around a clipboard with dates and times and asked everyone to sign up for whichever duties they were interested in. There was also a column for those of us who were flexible and willing to be used where needed. That is the column where I signed my name. My schedule was a lot more flexible than that of most of the men and women in the room, so I figured I’d be flexible too. There was a space to indicate times I was not available, and I entered Monday morning from ten to twelve, when I’d be at Naomi’s training class, and Tuesday and Friday afternoon between two and six, when I would also be at the shelter. By the time the assignments were handed out, I ended up with a spot on the decorating committee tomorrow in the late morning and an early afternoon at the barn that would be used as a haunted house, a three-hour shift selling tickets at the barn on Friday night from seven to ten, and a four-hour shift manning a booth at the kiddie carnival on Saturday morning from ten to two. Suddenly, I felt like I had a full week. Being busy, I realized, was a state of being I was very much ready for.

Once Gracie and I had received our assignments and we’d both made small talk with a group of people we knew, we headed back to the lake house. Gracie planned to use the afternoon to finish winterizing her garden with Tom’s help, and I’d decided to clean and organize the attic with Alastair’s help. The room under the rafters really was the place I felt the most comfortable. It was still where I most wanted to spend time every day. I supposed this deep-seated appreciation for the space had been rooted in childhood, but I was happy to say that the feeling of peace and contentment I found while sitting in the window seat overlooking the lake was the same feeling of peace and contentment I’d found as a child.

“I wonder why Gracie has all this glassware up here,” I said to Alastair, who was sitting in the window watching me struggle to lift and move boxes with my injured hand. “It seems if the glassware is functional, she’d have it in the kitchen, and if she no longer was interested in using it, she’d donate it to the women’s auxiliary at the church.”

“Meow.”

I shoved the box aside. “Yeah. I guess I should ask her.” I glanced out the window. Gracie was working just below it, so I opened it and leaned out. “I’ve come across several boxes of glasses. Is there a particular reason you’re saving them?” I called down.

“Blue glasses of various sizes?” she called back up.

“That would be them.”

“The kitchen used to be blue, but when I redecorated, the blue glasses and dishes no longer matched. I just stuck everything up in the attic.”

“Maybe we can donate them to the women’s auxiliary at the church.”

“That’s a good idea,” Gracie said.

“Do they still hold a rummage sale once a month?”

“They do. They use the money for little extras, like flowers. Just push the boxes aside, and I’ll help you carry them down later. I can drop everything off tomorrow after services.”

I pushed the boxes out into the little hallway and continued to open and close boxes, which I then either pushed into the hallway for donation or stacked against a wall to keep.

“What are you doing?”

I turned around and found Paisley standing in the doorway.

“Paisley! I didn’t hear you come up the stairs.” I glanced around the cluttered room. “I’m cleaning the attic, so I have more room to move around.”

“Can I help?”

I noticed the hope in the young girl’s eyes. “Sure. As long as you have on something you won’t mind getting dirty. It’s pretty dusty up here.”

She grinned. “I don’t mind the dust. What should I do?”

Good question. I looked around the room until I noticed a box I knew was filled with old clothing. “We are going to donate a lot of this stuff to the church auxiliary. These three boxes are full of old clothes. If you want to help, you can go through the boxes and try to pare things down a bit. Maybe we can donate two boxes of clothes and keep one.”

Paisley crossed the room. She opened the box. “What sort of things are you looking to keep?”

“Anything that is particularly interesting. When I was a kid, I used to play dress-up with the clothes in those boxes. Many of my Halloween costumes came from there as well. If you find anything like a formal dress a princess might wear or a leather vest befitting a pirate, keep it. If it is an old T-shirt or boring wool slacks, toss it. If you aren’t sure, ask me.”

“Okay.”

I returned to my work on the other side of the room while Paisley began sorting the clothes. She’d started by making two piles, one to donate and one to keep. That was a good idea because it afforded her the opportunity to take a second look at everything as she put the piles back into the boxes. While she did that, I started moving the furniture I knew Gracie would want to keep toward the back of the room.

“I love this.” Paisley stood up. She held an old gown with a full skirt that had belonged to some long-ago ancestor in front of her.

“I used to wear that dress all the time when I was your age. Whichever Hollister it belonged to must have been petite because it wasn’t all that long on me. Either that or someone hemmed it at some point.”

Paisley twirled around. “It seems like something someone would wear to a ball. Someone like Cinderella.”

“I used to play Cinderella when I was a kid. I’d make Archie wear a vest Gracie had made for him, and he would be both my fairy godfather and my coachman.”

“Archie?”

“The family cat at the time.” I glanced at Alastair. He was still watching us, but he hadn’t moved from his place in the window.

“What about a prince?”

I smiled. “I had a friend named Cass, and sometimes I would give him some of my best trading cards to be my prince. Other times I’d dress up the dressmaker’s mannequin and twirl it around the room.” I glanced around the room. “There used to be a large hanging chair up here that I would use as my magical carriage.”

“Do you still have it?”

I bit my lower lip. “I’m not sure. I guess we can look for it. It was this egg-shaped thing that hung from the top. You could slip in through one side and sit on the cushion.” I didn’t see anything that stood out as being egg-shaped, but there was a lot of stuff stacked in the attic, and most of it was covered. I headed toward the back of the room. I didn’t find the chair, but I did find a box of old photo albums. I picked the first one from the top.

“Who’s that?” Paisley had come up behind me, and now she pointed to a photo of my parents. “The lady looks just like you.”

“That’s my mother, and the handsome devil next to her is my father.”

“They don’t live here anymore?”

I slowly moved my head from left to right. “No. They don’t live here. They were killed in a car accident when I was four years old. Aunt Gracie raised me, which is why I grew up here.”

I slipped down onto the floor, crossing my legs in front of me. I slowly turned the pages of the old album, desperately trying to remember people I simply couldn’t. Sure, I was able to pull up small frames of memory, but the pictures in my mind were totally devoid of emotion.

“How was it being raised by someone who was not your mother?” Paisley asked after a while.

That seemed like a mature question to be coming from a ten-year-old.

“I don’t remember a lot of things from that time. I was only four, but I do remember being sad and scared. But then Aunt Gracie brought me up here and showed me all the magical things she had stored. I spent a lot of time up here pretending, and then, as time went by, things got better. I remember my childhood as being a happy one if that is what you are asking.”

Paisley sat down next to me. She leaned her head against my shoulder. “My grandma is going to raise me when my mom dies.”

I turned slightly to give the child my full attention. “I know you said your mom was sick. I didn’t realize she was dying. I’m so sorry.”

“Everyone is trying to protect me. They keep saying that the doctor is waiting on a miracle to help him know what to do to make Mom better. At first, I wasn’t worried, but then I heard Mom and Grandma talking. They didn’t know I was listening. Mom was telling Grandma that there was nothing more the doctors could do. She was telling her that it would be up to her to take care of me when she was gone. Grandma kept trying to tell her not to give up. She said they just needed a miracle and everything would be fine. I don’t think Mom believed her, though. She was crying like her heart was breaking.”

Oh, God. Now my heart was breaking. I fought the tightness in my chest. I knew that what I said at this point was probably going to be important, but I had no idea what it was going to be. I decided I had to speak from my heart. “I don’t know what is going to happen with your mother, but I do agree with your grandmother that sometimes when all hope seems gone, depending on a miracle is really all you can do.” I looked down at my hand. “During those first awful days and weeks after my car accident, the doctors told me I would never again have use of this hand. They said that all the nerves had been severed and I would never even be able to use my fingers.” I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers. “But see, they were wrong. Everyone said that it is a miracle that I have any use of my hand at all. My doctor said there is no medical explanation for the fact that my ability to use my fingers and manipulate my hand is slowly returning. Do you know what you have when something that is impossible happens?”

“A miracle?”

“Exactly. I don’t know why some people get miracles, and some don’t. To be honest, I’ve always struggled with the big questions. But I do know that if you define a miracle as the existence of something that should not have happened but did, then from my own experience, I know they are possible.”

Paisley wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “So even if the doctor thinks there is no hope, that doesn’t mean that a miracle can’t happen?”

“Exactly. And even if it doesn’t, even if your mom’s time here on this earth is up, I also know it is possible to find happiness despite the circumstance. I was happy here with Aunt Gracie, and I bet you can be happy with your grandmother. I’ve never met her, but I have a feeling she is nice. Very nice.”

Paisley nodded. “She is. And she smells good too. Like vanilla.” Paisley looked down at my hand. She ran a finger over my scar. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really. Sometimes it gets tingly, and that can be irritating, but the doctor said it is my nerves coming back to life. I might always have to deal with the tingly feeling, but if I can regain full use of the hand, it will be worth it.”

“So you can go back to work?”

I slowly shook my head. “No. I’ll never again be able to play the piano at that level. But it will be nice to be able to do other things like pick up a pin that has dropped to the floor.”

“Can’t you use your other hand to pick up a pin?”

“Well, sure. It’s just that… Oh, never mind. Let’s just say the more I can wiggle my fingers, the happier I’ll be.”

Paisley hugged me. “I’ll pray for a miracle for you too.”

I had to admit I was surprised by that. I hugged the girl back. “Thank you. I appreciate that, and I’ll pray for a miracle for your mom.” I slowly stood up. “In the meantime, I guess we should get back to this.”

Over the next couple of hours, Paisley and I worked side by side. We chatted and laughed, and I shared memories that were ignited by the contents of almost every box we came across. It was good to revisit the time in my life when I supposed I’d been happiest. I didn’t remember much of anything about the first four years of my life, and once I’d committed to a life as a concert pianist, happiness had been replaced with obsession, but for a while, as a child and a teen living here at the lake, I’d been happy. Really, really happy.

“Look at this,” Paisley screeched, breaking me out of my daydream. “It’s a piano.” She pulled the sheet aside and tapped out a few keys.

I crossed the room. “This is the piano I first learned to play on. Eventually, Gracie bought the piano that is in her living room now, but it was on this old piano where I first fell in love with the melodies that surged through my soul.”

“Can you play me something?”

I glanced down at my hand. “Oh no, I can’t. Not anymore.”

Paisley frowned. “Why not? Did you forget how?”

“No, I didn’t forget how, but my fingers, while on the mend, don’t work as well as they used to.”

Paisley ran her hand along the keys. “Can you do that?”

“Well, sure.”

“Will you?”

I took a deep breath. Would I? Well, that was a question I didn’t want to answer.

“Please.”

I pulled up the old bench and sat down. Paisley sat down beside me. I ran my fingers over the keys. “Happy?”

“Will you play a song? It can be an easy one. Mary Had a Little Lamb? That’s the song everyone starts with.”

“Okay, one song. One easy song.” I played John Lennon’s Imagine.

“Wow,” Paisley said. “That was so good. Play another one.”

“We agreed on one.”

“I know. But it was so good. And you were smiling. You liked it too.”

Did I? Was it even possible to find joy in music once again, given my limitations? Imagine was an easy song to play even with fingers that wouldn’t always cooperate.

“Please,” Paisley said.

“Okay. But I’m going to need your help.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Really?”

“Really. Sit here on my left side.”

She moved to the other side of the bench.

“I’m going to play the right side, and you play the left.”

“But I don’t know how to play the piano.”

“This song is easy. Just four notes that repeat in the same pattern. Here, I’ll show you.”

Somewhere during that afternoon, while Paisley and I came up with a way to work together to create what I thought was some pretty great music, I found the fire I thought had died. When I was a child sitting at this piano, I’d played horribly, but I’d played from a place of love and connection. Somewhere along the way, that love and connection had been replaced by dedication and the search for perfection. I’d enjoyed my career while I’d had it, but when I’d shut out the imperfect melodies created by the music in my soul in favor of mechanical perfection, I’d lost the connection to my heart. Maybe, after all this time, it was waiting to be found once again.