But the grounds would have to wait until after I brought the gasping-for-life Victorian back to health. I halted on the pavement and pointed to the basement window. Brad moved past me and knelt down, squinting at the weeds and dirt surrounding the foundation. He stared at the stick in the sill for a minute, patting his fingers to his lips.

“It’s nothing more than a twig, really. I’m surprised you even noticed it. Let’s have a look inside.” He stood and walked toward the back porch.

“You don’t need me down there, do you?” I called.

He gave me a wry glance. “You’d probably know better than I would if anything is out of place.”

He was right. I hustled after him, though I dreaded another glimpse of the cistern and its gruesome contents. At the mere idea, my breath flew into hyperdrive.

We crossed the kitchen and neared the cellar door, my only goal to make it downstairs and back without losing my cool.

Nearly gasping, I slid back the bolt.

What was I so afraid of? It wasn’t as if there was really a body in the cistern. The most we might find besides lumpy concrete would be a little dirt if someone had tried crawling through the window.

I stood aside and let Brad go first.

We approached the bottom. Each riser yelped, as if screaming a warning.

I shot a glance at my feet, convinced that someone was hiding behind the staircase. I could almost see a gnarled skeleton hand grabbing for my ankle through the open space at the back of the step.

My ears started to ring.

I gripped the rail.

All I could think about was jumping piggy-back onto Brad.

Before I could act on the impulse, Brad reached the concrete and pivoted toward me.

“Tish.” The urgency in his voice had me convinced some ghoul was ready to attack.

I whipped around on the narrow step, ready to defend myself from whatever supernatural force came at me through the staircase.

The momentum from my spin carried me to the opposite rail and my hip bounced off the ancient wood. Flailing, I tried to catch hold of a rail or beam but grabbed only air.

Time shifted into slow motion as I tipped backward. Through the steps I got a clear view of the stony cistern. The window above it flashed strobe-like as each riser crossed my line of vision. Brad grabbed at my arm, but I fell through his grip.

I heard a thud and realized I’d landed spread-eagled on the basement floor.

13

Pain shot up my leg.

Brad lifted me to a sitting position. “I would’ve caught you, but that funky little spin threw me off.”

“Why’d you say my name like that? I thought the boogeyman was behind me.” I tried for a smile, but flinched instead.

“I was worried you were going to pass out. Your face was all white.”

I held my ankle, rocking and rubbing the twisted joint. It finally registered that the little squeaky sounds I’d been hearing came from my own efforts not to cry.

“Here. Let me take a look,” Brad said.

He manipulated my ankle, sending me into star-punctuated spasms.

“Okay. That’s enough,” I squealed.

This couldn’t be happening. I needed all my limbs intact. There was no time for debilitating injuries or whacky hallucinations. I had to get the job done and move to the next project, before I fell in love with Rawlings . . . or whomever.

“Help me up.” I held out my hand and Brad pulled me to my good foot. Spirals of color flared in my side vision. There had to be a broken bone in there somewhere. Sprains didn’t hurt like this.

I gritted my teeth. “I think I can walk.”

Brad guarded my back as I hobbled up the stairs using one foot and the handrails. I crawled across the kitchen floor, content to lean against the cupboards for lack of a chair. It was one of the few times I regretted traveling light through life. A big, soft, sink-down-in-fluff-up-to-my-chin love seat would really fit the bill about now.

Brad stood above me in the empty room.

“Well,” I croaked, “you’ll have to investigate on your own. It might be awhile before I can make that trip again.”

“I’d feel better if we got that looked at,” Brad said. “There’s a walk-in clinic just north of town. Tell me where your keys are and we’ll take a drive.”

My foot hurt too bad to argue with him.

A somber display of bare forest and gray fields rolled past as we drove. Brad’s easy chatter about area history and childhood escapades kept my mind above the ankle.

He pulled into the circle drive of a brick-and-vinyl-sided building, popped Deucey into park, and set out for a wheelchair.

With Brad as my entertainment committee, the wait in the lobby flew by. A nurse wearing a smock smattered with coconuts and palm trees ushered us into an exam room. A few minutes later a man in his late fifties entered.

“I’m Dr. Phillips.” He smoothed down the back of his long white cover-up and sat on a stool. He wheeled over to my place on the table and took my dangling bare foot in both hands. “A little swelling. Some discoloration. Most likely gave your sciatic nerve a good twang. That’ll cause a buzz in your leg that could take a few weeks to settle down. I’ll write you a prescription that should help calm things.”

“How soon before I can walk on it?” I asked.

“I’d give it a few days.” He squinted at my foot and craned for a closer look. “Let’s have you remove your other shoe.”

Brad helped do the honors.

The doctor compared the soles of my feet. “There’s some discoloration on your good foot as well. Where do you live, Patricia?”

“Almost right downtown Rawlings. And please call me Tish.”

“You may have been more bruised from your fall than you realize. Or . . .” His brow wrinkled. “No, it couldn’t be.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“I served as a missionary doctor near Bangladesh a good number of years ago. Saw a fair number of people suffering from arsenic poisoning, from water right out of the village wells.”

My eyes widened.

“I’m not saying that’s what this is. You may want to consider a water filter system, just to be safe. If the bruising doesn’t clear up in the next week or two, come back in for testing.”

I gave a laugh of relief. “I’m sure it’s not arsenic poisoning. I only drink bottled water. I read all about the township wells before I moved to the area.”

“Like I said, just keep an eye on things.” Dr. Phillips wrote the prescription.

Brad and I rode back to my house in near silence, stopping at Goodman’s Grocery to fill the prescription.

Brad helped me into the house. I downed a pill with a glass of purified water the moment we walked in the door.

“Let me get you situated,” Brad said. “Then I’ll go downstairs and check out that window.”

He saw that I made it to my humble portable bed.

When he left, I lay on my cot taking short little gasping breaths, waiting for the drug to do its job. I wondered all the while what Brad would find in the cistern.

Why would someone prop open my basement window, anyway? There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the house, no valuable electronics, not a dime in cash lying around. The most anyone could hope for was the thrill of sneaking in and out of a “haunted house.” But after the strange crew of trick-or-treaters I’d gotten the other night, it wouldn’t surprise me if a couple of them had become daring.

I leaned up on one elbow and stared out the big front window. Across the street, the neighbor lady was at it again, raking, clipping, and sprucing up her lawn. I had a big job ahead if I was going to compete with her neat-freak yard.

I gave a little chuckle despite my pain.

Just wait ’til spring. The woman wouldn’t know what hit her. She might be the reigning queen of the block when it came to fine flora, but I’d unseat her in a heartbeat with my guaranteed curb-appeal strategy.

That is, if my injury didn’t put me back too far. To stay on track, I had to get the upstairs finished by Christmas. Then I could get to work on the first floor. And if Lloyd & Sons ever got back on board, their portion of the basement renovation should be completed by Valentine’s Day. That would leave me three months to finish up the cellar plus do the exterior. By the time June rolled around, I could get the furniture in and be ready for the first buyers of the season.

I groaned and lay back down on the cot. Unfortunately, the way I felt, there was no chance that would happen.

The pain seemed to come in waves, starting at my ankle and washing up to my hip. I transported my mind elsewhere and joined Jan Hershel on the beach in Cancun, or wherever she was healing from her marriage-gone-sour. I reclined on the wooden lounger next to hers and listened to the crashing surf. The sun beat down on my gimpy leg, heating it through, soothing the pain.

Total relaxation.

The ocean breeze kicked up. A puff of white dust landed on my baby-oiled skin. I looked over to see where it had come from. Jan was covered in the white stuff. She scraped at it and beat at it, but it stuck to her like . . . concrete.

I jerked upright on my cot, grateful for the sharp pain that snapped me back to the gloomy Michigan afternoon.

Hold it together, Tish, I chided. Jan Hershel is not buried in your cistern.

In fact, nobody was buried in my cistern. And why my line of thinking kept heading in the body-in-the-basement direction was beginning to be a source of concern. If I weren’t in such a rush to get out of Rawlings, I’d consider taking a full-time job to keep my mind off the past, present, and future.