The house was perfect—a six-bedroom, rambling Victorian perched on a hill three miles from a suitably quaint village. What more could she want in a bedand-breakfast? Well, ghosts. Not that Tanya believed in such things, but haunted inns in Vermont were all the rage, and she was determined to own one.
When she saw the octagonal Victorian greenhouse, though, she decided that if it turned out there’d never been so much as a ghostly candle spotted on the property, she’d light one herself. She had to have this place.
She stepped inside and pictured it with lounge chairs, a bookshelf, maybe a little woodstove for winter. Not a greenhouse, but a sunroom. First, though, they’d need to do some serious weeding. The greenhouse conservatory, she amended—sat in a nest of thorny vines dotted with red. Raspberries? She cleaned a peephole in the grime and peered out.
A head popped up from the thicket. Tanya fell back with a yelp. Sunken brown eyes widened, and wizened lips parted in a matching shriek of surprise.
Tanya hurried out as the old woman made her way from the thicket, a basket of red berries in one hand.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “We gave each other quite a fright.”
Tanya motioned at the basket. “Late for raspberries, isn’t it?”
The old woman smiled. “They’re double-blooming. At least there’s one good thing to come out of this place.” She looked over at the house. “You aren’t… looking to buy, are you?”
“I might be.”
The woman’s free hand gripped Tanya’s arm. “No, dear. You don’t want to do that.”
“I hear there’s some history.”
“History?” The old woman shivered. “Horrors. Blasphemies. Murders. Foul murders. No, dear, you don’t want this house, not at all.”
Foul murders? Tanya tried not to laugh. If they ever did a promotional video, she was hiring this woman.
“Whatever happened was a tragedy,” Tanya said. “But it’s long past, and it’s time—”
“Long past? Never. At night, I still hear the moans. The screams. The chanting. The chanting is the worst, as if they’re trying to call up the devil himself.”
“I see.” Tanya squinted out at the late-day sun, dropping beneath the horizon. “Do you live around here, then?”
“Just over there.”
The woman pointed, then shuffled around the conservatory; still pointing. When she didn’t come back, Tanya followed, wanting to make note of her name. But the yard was empty.
Tanya poked around a bit after that, but the sun dropped fast over the mountain ridge. As she picked her way through the brambles, she looked up at the house looming in the twilight—a hulking shadow against the night, the lights inside seeming to flicker like candles behind the old glass.
The wind sighed past and she swore she heard voices in it, sibilant whispers snaking around her. A shadow moved across an upper window. She’d blame a drape caught in a draft…only she couldn’t see any window coverings.
She smiled as she shivered. For someone who didn’t believe in ghosts, she was quite caught up in the fantasy. Imagine how guests who did believe would react.
She found Nathan still in the coach house, measuring tape extended. When she walked up, he grinned, his boyish face lighting up.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Ten grand and we’d have ourselves a honeymoon suite.”
Tanya turned to the realtor. “How soon can we close?”
The owners were as anxious to sell as Tanya was to buy, and three weeks later, they were in the house, with the hired contractors hard at work. Tanya and Nathan were working, too, researching the house’s background, both history and legend.
The first part was giving them trouble. The only online mention Nathan found was a secondary reference. But it proved that a family had died in their house, so that morning he’d gone to the library in nearby Beamsville, hoping a search there would produce details.
Meanwhile, Tanya would try to dig up the less-tangible ghosts of the past.
She started in the gardening shop, and made the mistake of mentioning the house’s history. The girl at the cou
nter shut right down, murmuring, “We don’t talk about that,” then bustled off to help the next customer. That was fine. If the town didn’t like to talk about the tragedy, she was free to tweak the facts and her guests would never hear anything different.
Next, she headed for the general store, complete with rocking chairs on the front porch and a tub of salty pickles beside the counter. She bought supplies, then struck up a conversation with the owner. She mentioned that she’d bought the Sullivan place, and worked the conversation around to, “Someone over in Beamsville told me the house is supposed to be haunted.”