Jennifer Crusie - Maybe This Time

“No.” Carter shook his head. “It was bad enough before Andie, when Aunt May died. Alice is scared to death that Miss J will kill somebody else. And it’s not just that.” He stopped and looked over at his little sister, sleeping like a ghost under her sequined comforter. “Alice loves Andie. Aunt May, we liked her fine, but Andie… If Andie dies, Alice really will go crazy. We can’t leave.”

“Andie’s not going to die,” North said, chilled by the resignation in the boy’s voice.

“You can’t stop them,” Carter said. “You don’t even believe in them.”

“If I take you to Columbus, will you be all right?” North said, grasping for something logical. “Will they follow you? These ghosts?”

“I don’t know. Miss J kills people to keep Alice from leaving, so I don’t think she can go. But they’ll never let us go. You don’t get it. We can’t leave.”

“You’re right, I don’t get it,” North said. “But I’ll figure it out. I know a lot more than I did when I got here, and I’ll figure out the rest. And then I’ll end it, and I’ll take you home to Columbus. Your life will be normal again, Carter. I’ll see to it.”

Carter looked back at the fire again. He wasn’t shaking anymore, he was warm again, but he didn’t believe anybody was going to save him.

I couldn’t have screwed this up more if I’d worked at it, North thought.

Carter looked up. “Thanks.”

“What?” North said.

“For trying to help.” He hesitated a minute and then he said, formally, “We appreciate it.” Then he climbed up into the other twin bed and settled in, his back to North.

“You’re welcome,” North said and thought, I’m getting you out of here, kid, and began to think things through, methodically and thoroughly, wishing he had a legal pad and his pen.

“There are ghosts upstairs,” Andie said to Dennis when she found him still working in the dining room.

“Which one?” Dennis said.

“Peter. They’re getting stronger. Where’s Isolde?”

“She went to bed,” Dennis said, shuffling through his notes. “Peter. Right. A man named Peter was murdered here. The official report was that he was found on a path, but gossip at the time was that it happened in this house, which is why he walks here.”

“Other people knew he was here?”

“I can’t find much,” Dennis said, pulling a very old book toward him. “But this was in the library here. It’s a journal from a governess who was here then. She admires him, but she says he’s very proprietary about the house. I’m assuming now that he’s dead, he still thinks he owns the place.”

“Wait a minute,” Andie said. “You believe in ghosts?”

“I saw them,” Dennis said.

Andie sat down beside him. “What did you see?”

“A beautiful woman.” His face lit up as he spoke. “Lots of curly dark hair, big eyes, beautiful smile.”

“That’s May,” Andie said. “She’s the kids’ aunt.”

“Another woman. And a man. Is this them?”

He pulled out three more papers, rough amateur sketches, but Andie recognized May in all her curly-headed glory, Miss J in her flounced skirt and hollow eyes, and Peter in his coat, standing with his hands on his hips, looking like he did own the place. Dennis had drawn them not with great skill but in great detail.

“That’s them, all of them.”

“I’ve seen ghosts,” Dennis said, wonder in his voice. “I was so afraid I was just hallucinating.”

“Well, there’s a chance,” Andie began and then looked at the drawings again. Lots of detail.

“These are really the ghosts?” he said. “Does May have those earrings, does the other woman have that locket, the man with that coat, that watch? I got the details right?”

“Yeah. You saw ghosts.”

Dennis closed his eyes, smiling. “All my life I wanted to see ghosts. This is wonderful!”

“No, this is awful. They’re dangerous, Dennis, they want the kids and the house and they kill people who get in their way.” She looked at the sketches again. “They might not be happy about this. I think you’d better leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Leave ghosts?” Dennis said, incredulous. “No, I’m here to help you. In fact, I might stay and study them after you’re gone, if that’s all right.”

“The housekeeper’s gone,” Andie said. “And it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t need a housekeeper,” Dennis said. “I can be the housekeeper, I’ll take care of the place for you, just let me study them. Can we have another séance tomorrow? I know Isolde is against it, but if I can just talk to them this time, like you do-”

“No,” Andie said, standing up. “If you see Isolde before I do tomorrow, tell her I need to talk to her before she leaves.”

“She can’t leave,” Dennis said. “There really are ghosts here.” He sounded as if he were saying, “The circus really is here!” with all the happiness and wonder of a little kid.

“Good night, Dennis,” Andie said, and went back upstairs to North.

“The kids are asleep in the nursery,” he said when she went into the bedroom where the gas fire was now burning. “I put the fire on in here, too.”

“I know you don’t believe, but the ghosts are real,” Andie said. “Dennis saw them, too.”

“Dennis was drunk on doped brandy,” North said.

“They’re real.” Andie sat down on the edge of the bed, too tired to be open-minded.

North pulled back the covers, and she fell back against the pillows as he climbed in bed beside her. “Let’s just get the kids out of here,” he said, putting his arms around her.

She curled against him, grateful he was there, even if he was clueless about what they were facing. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Do you have a plan?”

“I’ll have a plan tomorrow.” North kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep. You’ve had a rough day.”

“Tomorrow,” Andie said, wondering what the hell she was going to do tomorrow that was going to make any difference as she fell asleep in his arms.

The next morning, Andie met Isolde at the bottom of the stairs on her way to make breakfast.

“Dennis saw the ghosts,” she told the medium.

“I know, he told me,” Isolde said. “Fucking amateurs.”

“He wants another séance.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Don’t say that here,” Andie said. “Just help me exorcise the dead we already have.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Isolde said. “Did you see Dennis’s drawings? The woman had a locket.”

“Yeah,” Andie said, trying to remember.

“I think it’s the locket Alice is wearing.”

Andie stopped at the foot of the stairs. “She told me it was a treasure. Maybe that means she found it. Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“Dennis has the drawing.”

Andie picked up speed and went into the dining room where all Dennis’s work was still spread out. She sorted through the papers until she found the drawing of Miss J.

The drawing wasn’t great, but that was Alice’s locket.

“It’s the same one,” she said to Isolde and then realized Isolde wasn’t with her. “Isolde?”

She went out into the Great Hall and Isolde came out of the sitting room to join her, pale as death.

“What’s wrong?” Andie said.

“We have to call the police,” Isolde said, and Andie thought, Oh God, no, something really bad has happened this time, and tried to go into the sitting room.

Isolde stopped her.

“It’s Dennis,” she said. “He’s dead.”

Andie had gone into the sitting room while Isolde called 911. Dennis was sitting there on the green-striped couch, leaning against one of the green-striped bolsters by the arms, staring straight ahead, looking not that different from when he was alive except that he wasn’t blinking, but Andie knew instantly because there was no heh heh, no asthmatic cough, no lame jokes, nothing. So when she sat with him, and took his cold hand, and said, “Dennis, I’m so, so sorry,” she knew he wasn’t there. She just didn’t know what else to do.

North came in and said, “Isolde just came to get me. Andie, I’m so sorry,” and she knew how he felt, impotent to help her, because she felt the same way for Dennis. Then the EMTs arrived, and Andie stood back and let them work, letting North answer their questions, helping him when he didn’t know the answers, part of her still believing Dennis would wake up, that he’d come walking in from the kitchen later with some banana bread, saying, “This is really extraordinary,” and ask for a brandy. Then she went up to the nursery and found the kids sitting together in front of the fire, Carter’s arm around Alice, Alice’s arms around his waist, waiting for her to tell them why there’d been sirens outside.

“What happened?” Carter said.

“Dennis died,” Andie said, and Alice’s face crumpled.

Andie went over to the window seat and sat down, putting her arms around both of them. Alice reached out as she wept and wound her fist into Andie’s sweater, pulling her closer to Carter, huddling between them.

“They killed him,” Alice sobbed. “And he was nice!”

“He was good man,” Andie said, holding her close. “He died very quickly of a heart attack, and he didn’t suffer. I don’t think the ghosts killed him, Alice. I think he was really happy when he died because he’d seen the ghosts in the séance. He’d always wanted to, you know.”

“They killed him, they killed him,” Alice wailed.

“No,” Andie said, holding her close. “He wasn’t trying to take you away. Why would they hurt him?” Unless he’d found out something else about them…

“Why did he have a heart attack?” Carter said, no emotion in his voice at all.

“He’d been drinking a lot and the séance really excited him.” Plus he was doped to the gills on salvia. “Maybe he just had a weak heart.”

Carter had that stubborn look on his face. “He didn’t look sick. One of the teachers at my school had a heart condition and he was really pale all the time. Dennis looked healthy.”