Haunted (Michael Bennett 10)

She said, “I dozed off for just a moment. I hope you don’t mind.”

I chuckled, thinking about the four-hour nap that lasted “just a moment.”

We sat and chatted for a few minutes over coffee and a doughnut. I hadn’t seen her so excited about something in a long time. She really needed to be out of the city.

She was still awake and taking in the scenery as we passed through the town of Linewiler. The sun was just coming up, and pine trees lined the road on both sides as far as the eye could see. The lush greens and blues of the lakes interspersed through the forests were like an anti–New York City poster. It was beautiful.

I saw the mailbox on the main road and made the turn to our rented house. It was an old Victorian home, and it sat right on the edge of a lake that had three different streams flowing into it.

It didn’t take long for the first kid to stir and start to wake the others.

From the back of the van Ricky said, “It looks like a haunted house.”

Bridget said, “We should name it.”

Mary Catherine had the perfect name: Mildew

Manor.

Chapter 37

For a change, everyone chipped in on the effort to unload the car and get us settled into the house. I realized that part of it had to do with each kid wanting to claim a particular bedroom. But this was not a Manhattan apartment. This was a real live house that had an incredible six bedrooms plus a foldout couch in the living room.

I stepped out onto the front porch with Mary Catherine and draped my arm around her shoulder to pull her close. We just stared out across the beautiful lake. The only other houses were almost a mile away on the other side. White pines and candlewood pines lined the lake, making an almost impenetrable wall of forest. It was spectacular.

Eddie stepped out onto the porch, followed by the other kids. He held a laminated sheet he’d found in the kitchen containing facts about the house.

My brainiac, who was normally subdued, couldn’t hide his excitement. “The house was built in 1904 and includes a full acre on the lake.”

Chrissy asked, “What’s the lake’s name?”

Eddie hesitated with the pronunciation, then gave it his best shot. “Lake Nimicadiota.” He paused for a moment and added, “It means ‘Fish Lake’ in some Native American language. But no one knows exactly who named it.”

Seamus said, “We’ll call it Lake Nim.”

Mary Catherine looked at Eddie and said, “Does that paper give us any other facts about the lake?”

“There are three separate streams that feed the lake, and in the summer it rises from the melting snow in the foothills. All three streams have trout, and the lake itself has an abundance of bass and other freshwater fish.”

I smiled at the way he so carefully read the information off the page.

Ricky jumped up and down and said, “Trout—that’s great.”

It was good to see Ricky take an interest in something other than cooking.

Then the young man said, “You can sauté trout in olive oil, and it’s supposed to be phenomenal.”

Seamus said, “You can pan-fry or deep-fry them, too.”

Now Trent stepped in. “You like to fish, Gramps?”

“Back home—I mean in the old country—I fed my family many a time with my skill at fishing. We would stand in the icy waters of the streams coming down from the hills, and I could fill my bucket with fish.”

I had to say, “I thought your dad was a baker. Didn’t he feed the family many a time?”

Seamus just gave me a sharp look. Then he said, “We all had to feed the family.”

Mary Catherine stepped into the brawl. “I fished back in Ireland, too.”