Seven Turns: A Ghost Story/A Love Story

The old woman had been right. It really was a short distance to the end of town. Just past the feed store and a few more storefronts, what served as the business district of Woodley ended and the residential district began.

Three or four blocks of gracious old homes with wide porches stood at comfortable distances from one another along the oak-shaded street, here. Past these, where the trees stood back and gave way to the early morning sunshine, the road simply ended at a wide, sagging metal gate. Beyond the gate, a rutted dirt road faded off into a grassy field. To Cally’s right, another road (“Gardens Road” said the battered old street sign) ran past more old homes, but no trees lined this road. The houses here faced across Gardens Road directly into the sunny field.

To her left, as Bree Dawes had promised, Cally could see through over-arching branches of two ancient crape myrtles to the broad white gable wall of a house. A gravel drive, flanked by a pair of masonry columns with pineapple-shaped lanterns at their tops, curved between the trees into a parking area mostly overgrown with lawn grass. Several cars and an old, red pickup truck were parked there under the massive oak tree shading the barn. Cally turned her car through the pineapple-flanked gate to join them.

Three horses ran to the fence separating the parking lot from the meadow, tossing their heads as if to greet Cally when she got out of her car. One of them was white, and she wondered if it was the elusive creature Errin had been chasing the night before. She left her car door unlocked, leaving two suitcases lying on top of the boxes for later, and took only a small bag and her computer case out of the car.

She made a point of taking a long look at Vale House as she approached it along the flagstone walk. If she really was going to write a book about a haunted bed and breakfast, she thought, it would be a good idea to remember her first impression of this one. The grand white house did not look very haunted, though, despite the internet stories she had read about it, and it certainly did not at all resemble the fictional house on the cover of her book.

Vale House did not face the street, but faced east into the meadow like the houses on Gardens Road. White clapboard siding gleamed in the sun, and a freshly painted green tin roof stretched over all. The wide, covered porch looked nothing but cheerful and welcoming, with its deeply cushioned wicker chairs and two drowsy cats sitting on the railing. It was certainly a much bigger house than any of the others in the town, but it didn’t even look pretentious, let alone atmospheric. Though, for what it was worth, Cally did glimpse a single pale figure regarding her from one of the windows above the second-floor belvedere. That was something, anyway.

Before she reached the bottom step, a woman came running out onto the porch, letting the wooden screen door bang shut behind her. One of the cats, a skinny, wide-eyed calico, jumped off the railing and ran down the steps into the shrubbery. The old gray tom slept on. The woman was about ten years older than Cally, her good-natured round face framed with dark silver curls hanging halfway to her shoulders. She was drying her hands on the apron she wore over a flower-print dress. “You must be Ms. McCarthy!” she called down the steps. “We were expecting you last night. We were worried about you. This town is hard to find!”

“You can certainly say that again,” Cally agreed, ascending the wooden steps. “I should have called, but I was so tired, and I couldn’t get a signal.”

The woman met her halfway up the stairs and took her bag from her hand. “Let me get that for you. I’ll get Ignacio to bring in your other things...” She looked at Cally’s car and her mouth fell open when she saw the stacked boxes visible through the rear windows.

“All I need is this one, for now,” Cally said.

The woman carried Cally’s small bag to the top of the porch steps, then turned and extended her hand. “I’m Bethany Chase,” she said. “I take care of things around here. Mr. May is down at the pond and I’ve reminded him he promised to meet with you today.” She pushed the door open for Cally. Inside the entry hall, an antique kneehole desk had been set up across a wide fieldstone fireplace. A man dressed in a dark suit stood quietly in front of the desk, and Bethany walked around him to set Cally’s case down beside the fireplace fender.

“I’m afraid breakfast is already over,” she said, and Cally wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to her or to the other customer waiting there. “But there’s some Danish left if you’re hungry.”

“It’s OK,” Cally assured her, “I just had a granola bar.” The man in the suit said nothing.

Bethany laughed. “Well, if you change your mind... Here you are.” She flipped open a large registry book and ran her finger down the page. “You’ll be staying two weeks, is that right?”

“To start,” Cally said, glancing back at her heavily packed car. “I might be staying longer, if I start writing. I mentioned this on the phone. That will be OK, won’t it?”

“Oh, yes, of course, it will be more than OK.” She turned the book around on the desk and handed Cally a pen. “We’re all very excited about having you staying with us! Just sign here.” Cally signed next to her name, where small print stated she would pay for her stay with her credit card on record. She hoped she was telling the truth.

The man standing at the desk beside her continued to wait patiently, gazing silently at two large pictures in massive frames above the fireplace mantle. Cally followed his gaze: the naïve-style portraits depicted a serious-faced woman and a smiling older gentleman in antebellum dress. Bethany nodded and explained. “Those are Ian May’s grandparents, Lionel and Isbel May,” she said, affecting a tour-guide demeanor with hands folded across her stomach. “Some people believe the White Lady who is sometimes seen haunting the upstairs hallway might be Isbel.”

Cally wondered why there must always be a Lady in White. Why didn’t ghost ladies ever wear red? Or yellow, or navy pinstripes? Even Isbel May, in her faded portrait, wore purple. Maybe, she thought, when someone died, their fashion sense died with them.

She took a quick look around the entry hall of this reputedly authentic haunted house. Morning light spilled into the room through the screen door and the leaded glass sidelights flanking it. A magnificent stairway with a white, hand-carved railing, dominated the room. Its lower steps widened as they reached the polished floor, as if to embrace all who entered. If conventional wisdom were to be trusted, Cally knew, stairways in old houses were all but fated to have a ghost or two running up and down them. This one, however, gleamed in the sunlight and did not appear to be at all conducive to a good haunting.

Beyond the staircase, a doorway almost as wide as the entry hall itself opened into a dining room with a linen-covered table. The far wall of this room was composed almost entirely of tall windows whose antique lace curtains blew gently in a breeze that admitted bird song and the scent of jasmine. That room, also, could not possibly harbor any self-respecting spectre. Perhaps the house’s dark spirits all lurked behind the heavy, carved oak door at the right of the Hall?

“We currently have only two other guests,” Bethany was saying as she closed the book and opened a small drawer on the side of the desk. “A nice couple from Tennessee who are on their way to the outer banks, and also Ian May’s daughter and her husband, who are staying with us this week while Foster gets some business done in Blackthorn. We’ve given you the Rose Room. It’s not haunted, that I am aware of, but it has a nice, big writing desk we thought you’d find useful.” She took a key from the drawer and showed Cally the picture of a rose on the fob. “I’ll show you the way.”

“Please,” Cally said, “feel free to wait on your other customer first. I can wait.” She smiled and stepped back to let the man in the suit have Bethany’s full attention, but was startled to see he was no longer standing there.

Bethany stood with the key in her hand for a moment, giving Cally a long, considering look. Then, as she opened her mouth to speak, the oak door across the hall from the desk opened and a woman emerged. Her heels clomped sharply on the polished floor as she strode across the hall, extending a well-manicured hand, festooned with rings and bracelets, to Cally.

“Welcome to Vale House!” she said. She seemed to be about the same age as Bethany, but was much taller with a smart, short-clipped hairstyle colored a brassy ash blond. She wore tan slacks at least a size too small for her, and an equally ill-fitting beige blouse. “I’m Joan,” she said. “I’m the marketing manager here. So you’re the famous author?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m famous, really.” Cally reached out to accept the woman’s hand, but was only able to brush her fingertips before Joan withdrew her hand and turned to look at Cally’s small bag beside the desk.

“Is that all you brought?” she asked. “Where’s your luggage?” She turned toward the front door and shouted “Pedro! Get the customer’s luggage!”

Even as she was in mid-shout, a slender man with brown eyes and bronze skin came running up the porch stairs and into the room, being careful not to let the screen door bang shut behind him. “Just making sure,” he said, smiling at Cally. “The two large suitcases in the back seat, right? But not the boxes?”

Cally started to tell him that was right and to please lock her car afterward, but Joan interrupted, shouting at him “Rose Room! Un-da-lay! Chop chop!”

He crossed the Hall to pick up Cally’s small bag from beside the fender. “Thank you!” Cally called after him as he disappeared up the stairs with it.

“Some people have no concept of customer service,” Joan muttered at Cally. “I don’t know why Ian keeps him around. If it wasn’t for me, the staff here would walk all over him.” She cast a disapproving gaze all around the sunny hall, letting it come to rest on Bethany. “And turn some lights on! This Hall looks like a funeral parlor!” She turned on her heel and went back to the room from which she had come. “I have to get back to my own work,” she added, slamming the oak door shut behind her.

Bethany did not turn on any lights to compete with the sunshine in the room. “Joan takes her job very seriously,” she said as if apologizing to Cally. “Well, then, let’s get you to your room so you can get some rest!” She put the key in her apron pocket and headed toward the stairs.

“Is Joan Mrs. May?” Cally asked, following.

Bethany started to laugh, but quickly covered her mouth and glanced at the closed door. She grinned at Cally over her hand. “No! Oh, no. Though she would like to be, I am sure. Ian May is a widower.” Her expression changed back to a gentle smile. “His wife passed away many years ago now. It was a real tragedy. He never really got over her. Their love was like some kind of tale from a story book.”

“That’s sweet,” Cally said perfunctorily, though she didn’t, personally, believe in that kind of fairy tale, any more than she believed in any other kind. Not anymore.