Carver family.”
“I’m sure he was,” Jess said. “What else could there be?”
“That’s what I thought. But then he told me the Carvers weren’t prepared for the place, and now I’m wondering what he meant by that.” I brought the car to a stop in front of the house and peered upward at the pair of eyelike windows on the third floor. They stared back. “Do you think something else happened here? Something before the Carvers moved in?”
Jess shot me a look that was unmistakably a warning to drop it.
“The past is in the past, remember?” she said. “Starting now, we only focus on the future.”
With that future in mind, I left the car, hopped onto the porch, and unlocked the front door. Then, with a flourish, I helped Jess out of the car, lifted her into my arms, and carried her across the threshold. A romantic gesture I never had the chance to do when we got married.
Our courtship had been a whirlwind. I was an adjunct professor teaching a class on New Journalism at the University of Vermont. Jess was there getting her master’s in elementary education. We met at a party hosted by a mutual friend and spent the night discussing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. I’d never met someone like her—so carefree and bright and alive. Her face lit up when she smiled, which was often, and her eyes were like windows into her thoughts. By the end of that night, I knew Jess was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
We got married six months later. Six months after that, Maggie was born.
“You want to officially christen this place now or tomorrow?” I asked as I set her down in the vestibule.
“Now,” Jess said with a wink. “Definitely now.”
Hand in hand, we moved deeper into the house. I stopped a second later, caught short by the sight of the chandelier drooping from the ceiling.
It was on, glowing brightly.
Jess noticed it, too, and said, “Maybe Hibbs left it on for us.”
I hoped that was the case. Otherwise it meant that the wiring problem Janie June had promised to look into had gone unattended. I didn’t worry too much, because by then Jess was tugging me toward the curved staircase, her smile naughty and her eyes bright with mischief.
“So many rooms,” she said. “Perhaps we need to christen all of them.”
I willingly followed her up the steps, the chandelier suddenly forgotten. All I cared about was my wife, my daughter, and the wonderful new life we would have inside that house.
I had no idea what Baneberry Hall really had in store for us. How, despite our best efforts, its history would eventually threaten to smother us. How twenty days inside its walls would become a waking nightmare.
Had we known any of that, we would have turned around, left Baneberry Hall, and never come back.
Three
It’s almost dark when I bring my truck to a rattling stop in front of the wrought-iron gate. The sky has the same purple-black hue as a bruise. On the other side of the gate, I can faintly make out the rise of the gravel road as it begins its climb through the woods. Atop the hill, barely visible through the trees, is a patch of dark roof and a sliver of glass reflecting the wan light of the rising moon.
Baneberry Hall.
The house of horrors itself.
My father’s warning echoes through my thoughts.
It’s not safe there. Not for you.
I chase it away with a call to Allie, announcing that I’ve made it safe and sound.
“How does the place look?” she says.
“I don’t know. I still haven’t unlocked the gate.”
Allie hesitates a beat before replying. “It’s okay to have second thoughts.”
“I know.”
“And it’s not too late to change your mind.”
I know that, too. I could turn around, head back to Boston, and accept my mother’s offer to buy Baneberry Hall sight unseen. I could try to be okay with never knowing the real reason we left that long-ago July night. I could pretend my parents haven’t lied to me for most of my life and that those lies haven’t become part of who I am.
But I can’t.
It’s useless to even try.
“You know I need to do this,” I say.
“I know you think you need to do it,” Allie replies. “But it’s not going to be easy.”
The plan is for me to spend the summer getting Baneberry Hall in shape to be sold, hopefully for a profit. It won’t be a complete renovation.