The Haunted

Twenty-five

“We’re moving,” Claire said flatly.

“We can’t—”

“Can’t what? Sell the house? Oh, yes, we can. I don’t want to hear any more of your rationalizing bullshit. I’m not spending another night in this place. We’re taking the kids, and we’re going to my parents’.”

The police had just left, after several hours of questioning and investigation, and the four of them were gathered in the living room, sitting on the couch and the love seat, though Claire didn’t feel comfortable even doing that. She wanted no part of this house, and even if they had to unload it at a loss, even if they had to live in an apartment, she wanted to get rid of it. There was no way she was going to live in a place where someone had killed himself. And in such a gruesome way. Neither she nor the kids had seen the body—she had not allowed Megan or James to even look out the window when the covered gurney was wheeled out—but they all knew what had happened, and the very thought of such violence made her queasy.

The fact that this was the second person to have died here in the past few years was even more disturbing. Of course, when you came down to it, unless you were moving into a new home, someone had probably died in virtually every house in the country, especially in those that were more than fifty years old. These days, a lot of people died in hospitals, but in her grandparents’ day, most people had probably died at home.

Their house was not merely haunted, though. It seemed to be a death magnet, attracting people who were about to die or wanted to kill themselves, and there was no way in hell she would allow her children to be exposed to such an influence. Beyond the immediate fears, it was only a small stretch to imagine that influence expanding to include violence against others rather than just oneself. It might seem ridiculous to imagine Julian stabbing the kids in their sleep, or Megan or James beating their parents’ brains in with a baseball bat, but she was not willing to take any chances.

“I understand how you feel,” Julian said. “I don’t think it’s good for the kids to be here, either. I think you should pack up, and I’ll take you guys over. But—”

“No ‘buts’!” Claire shouted at him.

“But I think I should stay here,” Julian finished.

“What the hell for? You’re just being an asshole! We need to get out of here! All of us! Right. Fucking. Now!”

She was aware that she was swearing in front of the kids, something that she had never really done before, something both she and Julian had always taken pains to avoid. She was aware, also, that they were staring at her in shock because of it. But the most important thing at this moment was to get far away from the house as quickly as possible, and she was willing to do whatever she needed to do to make that happen.

“I think I might be able to—” Julian began.

“You’re not going to be able to do shit! It’s over. We’re done. A man just killed himself in our garage. We have ghosts walking down our hall. There’s nothing to do but get out.”

She hazarded a glance toward Megan and James. Neither of the kids looked surprised by news of the ghost, but they looked both frightened and worried, and that made her wonder whether they’d witnessed more than they’d told her. She faced them straight on. “Have either of you … seen anything here before?” she asked carefully.

“I want to go,” James quickly responded.

“Me, too,” Megan said emphatically.

“Yes.” Claire nodded. She stood. “Come on,” she told Julian. “Let’s go.”

She actually wasn’t sure how long she could spend at her parents’ house before their smothering drove her out, but even if she had to endure a week or two of her mother’s nagging or her father’s complaining before they found someplace else to stay, it would be worth it.

She was not going to live in a place where a man had committed suicide.

“I’ll drop you off,” Julian said. “Then I need to come back and clean up—”

“The blood?” Megan said, horrified.

“No,” he assured her. “The police’ll do that. I just need to check things out and make sure everything’s okay.”

“And then you’ll come over to Grandma and Grandpa’s.” James’s voice was at once insistent, worried and hopeful.

“We’ll see,” Julian said, but Claire could tell from the expression on his face that he had no intention of doing any such thing.

“Stay if you want,” she said, her mouth set in a hard, straight line. “But we’re leaving.”

When she arrived at her parents’ house just before dawn, after calling ahead to explain the situation and tell them that she and the kids were coming over to stay for a while, both her mom and dad thought that she and Julian were separating. Especially when Julian dropped them off and unloaded the luggage but did not remain himself. Neither of them said anything in front of Megan or James, but they both brought it up when the kids went into the guest rooms to unpack their suitcases. Her mom was worried, her dad happy, and though she told them, specifically, that there were no marital problems, she could tell they didn’t believe her.

Claire understood why. She and Julian were not a perfect couple; they fought like everyone else. And back in Los Angeles, they’d gone through some pretty rough times. But they had never slept apart, not once since getting married, and even to her this felt emotionally like a separation. Her anger toward Julian only emphasized that feeling. She was furious at him for continuing to put himself in danger, even as she was afraid for him—and worried that the decision was not completely his.

But all of this she kept hidden from her children and her parents. She had to be strong right now.

Megan and James were in the two small guest rooms at the back of the house, which meant that she would have her old bedroom back. It was her mom’s sewing room now, but there was still a twin bed against one wall, maintained for emergencies, and Claire brought her own luggage in and closed the door. She sat down hard on the bed, taking a deep breath, thankful, for the moment at least, to be alone. She had never been even remotely religious, but this entire situation had caused her to examine her core beliefs in a way that she hadn’t since …

Since Miles died.

Claire looked out the window at the gradually lightening sky. What did happen to people after they passed away? It seemed pretty obvious that lives were not merely extinguished, that some of them, at least, lived on in another form. But nothing about that implied a coordinating higher power, though she wished it did, and the idea of an anarchic afterlife filled with ghosts trying to return to the order and comfort of this world left her feeling low. She thought of Miles, wondering, for what was probably the millionth time, what had happened to him after death. She had always liked to think that he was still with them, hanging around. The idea had been consoling to her, but it was no longer, and when she considered everything going on at their house, she thought that maybe she preferred for him to have simply stopped living. The idea made her depressed, and she was grateful when Megan and James pushed open her door and came into the room.

“Are you going to work today?” Megan wanted to know.

“I have to,” Claire said.

“Can we stay here at Grandma and Grandpa’s?” James asked.

“Of course,” she told them. “You can even invite your cousins if—”

“No!” they both said in unison.

“Okay. But I don’t understand why—”

“No!” they repeated.

“Fine.”

She moved her suitcase to the floor by the foot of the bed, and together they went into the kitchen, where her mother had already started making French toast for breakfast.

Julian met her for lunch at her office, and the meeting was surprisingly awkward. It was as though they were actually separated, and though, after the fight they’d had this morning, such a feeling was understandable, it still made the encounter stilted and odd.

He brought Chinese takeout, which they ate at her desk, and of course they talked about the kids. She told him that both Megan and James were upset, but that being at their grandparents’ house rather than home seemed to make them feel more secure. He was glad of that and seemed relieved, as though it was something that had been weighing heavily on his mind, but when she broached the idea that he should sleep tonight at her parents’ house as well, he quickly changed the subject.

As it turned out, the police would not clean up the loft, but they recommended a cleaning service in town that would wash floors, scour walls and remove all traces of blood from the site of a murder, suicide or accident. Julian had contacted them earlier this morning, and they were scheduled to come by in an hour. He had no idea how long such a process would take, but he’d been assured that with the steam cleaning and chemical solvents they employed, the loft would be spotless.

“And after that, you’ll come to my parents’,” she said.

There was a long pause. “I’m going to stay.”

“Still?” The anger was audible in her voice. “Why?”

He shrugged, as though it was something he could not explain and perhaps didn’t understand himself. Claire felt chilled, and she looked into his eyes, searching for a trace of anything unfamiliar, wondering once again whether he had been contaminated or corrupted by whatever was in that house.

“Julian—” she began.

“I don’t know why.”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

He shrugged again, and what frightened her more than anything was the realization that she knew of no way to get through to him.

Shortly after he left, she received a call from one of the school district’s attorneys, wanting to talk settlement in the Cortinez case. She switched easily to lawyer mode, grateful for the distraction. She’d done a pretty good job of laying out her case for them at the hearing, if she did say so herself. She’d kept a few big guns in reserve, just in case, but she’d always thought this could be settled without a trial, and she’d purposely spelled out her best and strongest arguments in the hopes that they would see that if they took this all the way to trial they would lose. Apparently they had seen it, and after hanging up, she called Oscar and set up a meeting with the district and its lawyers for tomorrow at ten.

It seemed weird, doing such prosaic work when everything at home was so crazy, but it was also calming, in a way, and it kept her from dwelling on the events of the previous night and the impossible situation in which she now found herself.

On her desk was the stack of books and monographs Oscar had given her, the raw material of his curriculum. She was convinced there was a connection between those atrocities of the past and the violence that had happened at her house, though the exact linkage remained elusive.

Soon she wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore. Soon the house would no longer be theirs, and someone else would inherit all of the responsibilities.

But could she do that, in good conscience? Could she fob off the house on some unsuspecting sucker when she knew the horrors it contained?

She began sorting through Oscar’s materials, finding several monographs and one book that she had not yet read. There was work still to be done on her few pending cases, and she knew that should be her priority, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a short break and … look. Glancing over at the clock, she decided to give herself a half hour, and she picked up the book, flipped to the back and started scanning through the index, thinking that there were probably a lot of details that even the most exhaustive historical accounts left out.