Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) (7 page)

Once, on a job site in Georgia
, she’d been painting a picture of an old plantation home. Most of it was no longer erect, but the local historical society received a grant to restore it. They had brought in Taryn, along with an architect, to create images of it.

Taryn didn’t care for working with other people
, but the architect was a young man her own age, just out of college, and he was friendly. He, too, preferred working on his own, so their paths didn’t cross much and, when they did, it wasn’t unpleasant. They’d both shared a love of history and the antebellum style of the home. Both were equally glad it was being restored.

Two weeks into the job, Taryn arrived onsite and found him standing outside, staring at the crumbling porch. He had a look on his face that was a cross between bemusement and horror. She touched his shoulder and he jumped into the air in shock.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I must have been thinking.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked, feeling foolish because everything was obviously not okay.

He led her to a weeping willow tree and both sat down under it, the house in plain view in front of them. It was a beautiful structure with four large columns (signs of wealth) and a porch that had, at one time, stretched the length of the front. Even in its decay, she saw beauty in it and what it could be again one day.

“I crawled in through one of the back windows this morning,” he said softly. “I know it’s not safe, but well, you know…”

She nodded. Of course, she did it all the time. She had also done it here to this house, too.

“It was so quiet and peaceful. I walked around to the front of the house, real careful with my footing, and stayed where I knew the foundation was solid. There’s a mantle in there that just blew my mind. Can’t believe how perfect it is, considering that half the house is falling in.”

Taryn let him talk without interruption, despite the fact that he kept taking long breaks in his speech.

“I wasn’t inside for more than ten minutes, when I heard this sound. I wasn’t sure what it was at first. It sounded like music. I thought maybe you were here and had your car radio on. I don’t know. But something didn’t feel right about it. Then, I realized it was coming from inside the house. And it wasn’t a radio at all, but a piano.”

The house was devoid of furnishings. There was no piano anywhere near it. They were at least five miles from the nearest inhabited house.

“Are you sure?” Taryn asked tentatively, but she knew he was certain of what he heard.

He nodded. “It went on for a few minutes and I just stood there and listened. It was maybe the most beautiful piano music I’ve ever heard. It felt as close as if I could just walk into the parlor and see someone sitting there, playing. And then it stopped. I thought it was over, but that’s when the laughing started. A high, feminine laugh. A woman’s for sure. It echoed through the rooms, like the sound was being soaked into the walls.”

“What did you do?”

“I got out,” he shrugged. “I couldn’t do it.”

Taryn knew he was confident in what he had heard. She knew he wasn’t making the story up. She had spent many hours there in the house by herself and had felt like someone was watching her, listening to her talk to herself sometimes. But she’d never seen anything. She’d never heard anything. Sitting there under the tree with him, she almost felt disappointment.

S
he spent a productive day at the house, her experiences from her previous visits not repeated. She even tried walking around, taking more pictures, but they came out like any other picture she’d ever taken.
Maybe it’s just my imagination
, she thought to herself. She probably
did
need more sleep.

The house felt quiet, at peace. In fact, the day was amazingly calm and still. It was a day straight out of a summer calendar: the birds were chirping, the butterflies flew about, the bees buzzed, and the clouds were fat and white against the bright blue sky.
With her sandals kicked off and the grass curled up between her toes, Taryn was at a rare ease with herself. She listened to Bruce Robison and Tift Merritt while she worked, alternating their CDs and singing along when the spirit moved her.

The sketching went amazingly fast and within the first day she had most of the house outlined to her satisfaction. She enjoyed standing outside and working in this park-like setting and appreciated the fact that even though there were adjoining farms on either side of her (well, one was being developed as she worked) she rarely heard the sound of any kind of passing vehicle.

As she sketched, she thought about the house’s former tenants. What had they been like? Had they thrown parties, celebrated a lot, worked hard? And what about the poor girl who had died? Taryn hoped she hadn’t suffered much. The scent of decay and death were still overpowering at times, but she was starting to think that perhaps the house was picking up on some of the tragedies it had seen over the years: first Robert’s wife and then his daughter.

Taryn also appreciated the fact that the Stokes County Historical Society had contracted her at all. She could use the money
especially since she wasn’t completely sure her car was going to hold up much longer. And the hotel wasn’t bad either; at least, not as far as hotels went. The swimming pool was actually kind of nice and the free breakfast was more than just cereal and bananas. And then, of course, there was the added bonus of it having indoor corridors—
always
a sign she was staying in a swanky place.

But she wasn’t sleeping well and she was tired.
Taryn’s dreams had bothered her over the past few nights; however, ever since she arrived in Vidalia (and what about that town name?). The previous night (morning) she dreamed she was falling into something dark and then awakened to the sound of crying. She was sure it had been someone else’s cries at first, but since the dream had shaken her so much, she wasn’t positive it hadn’t been her own tears that woke her up.

And then there was the dream of being suffocated and
unable to move. That was the worst one. It caused her to thrash about in her bed, as though held by ropes. She’d woken up struggling with her pillows and had slept with the TV on ever since. It might mean she was hearing used car commercials all night, but at least it offered her light and noise.

A
t the end of the day, after loading everything into the car, Taryn slipped her sandals back on and went for a walk around the property. With the boards off the door and windows, the house appeared more inviting. The stones were polished and reflected the late afternoon sunlight; the wide front porch easy to envision a swing and rocking chair on and full of guests enjoying the evening after a hard day’s work. Taryn’s appreciated talent might have been in showing the world what the past looked like, but her real talent was in imagining what the past held. Sometimes, it wasn’t always welcomed. Sometimes it even hurt.

Staring at the contrast between the older part of the house and addition and holding her camera in her hands, Taryn felt the weight of the day on her shoulders. “Off to a good start,” she whispered. “Going well.” The house seemed to shimmer in the light, as if agreeing with her. A ripple of cool air sent chill bumps along her legs and up her arms.
She continued walking, but crossed her arms over her chest.

Behind the house, the air was lighter and it was a little easier to breathe. It was also less magical somehow. She turned on her camera again and looked at the pictures she had taken that day. They were all normal images. But the ones before them, those, well, they were the special ones.
Yep
, she thought,
still there
. She hadn’t dreamed them.
I’m not going crazy
.

It was
during this time of the day that she should be winding down and feeling good about what she had done, but it was usually by now when she felt the loneliest. She wasn’t due to talk to Matt tonight, although she knew she could call him and probably should, especially after what happened. The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that had plagued her for months and months was getting better there for a while, but she imagined she would always suffer setbacks.

When the last rays of light had fallen behind the barn
, she made her way back to her car and got in. She didn’t know why people were so afraid of the house; it just seemed sad to her.

It had been all she could do not to hop in her car and drive back to the house in the middle of the night to take more pictures
when she first saw them on her computer screen. She was giddy at the thought of capturing more images and being transported back into the past–creepy shadow guy that Tammy talked about not included. Miss Dixie, who had always been one of her prized (if not the most prized) possessions now took a place of honor in her hotel room. She set her next to her second favorite object, the television, so that she could keep an eye on both equally.

Once she calmed down, she paced back and forth across the hotel room’s multi-colored carpeted floor and had a good long talk with herself. What if this
was a one-time thing? What if it was just going to happen at certain times? Should she get back out there right away and take more pictures? And what time period were the pictures from? Well, that question was easy enough to answer. They had to be from the 1920s or 30s. Nobody had really lived in the house after that and the furnishings hadn’t looked 19
th
century. But why that time period and not anything before or after?

On a lark, she tried taking pictures of her hotel room, wondering if anything would show up that wasn’t supposed to be there, but they came back normal: just her messy clothes rack, cluttered sink, and shoes kicked off all over the floor. That had been disappointing
, but she figured it was probably better than them showing some of the other things that had probably gone on in the room before her stay (things she definitely didn’t want to think about if she was going to sleep on the bed).

In disappointment, she thought back to some of the other places
she’d worked in the past, like the old farmhouse in Vermont with its gables and wrap-around porch. It was missing the entire backside and hadn’t been lived in for almost fifty years. It was so homey, though, and inviting. She’d loved to see what it looked like in its prime. It was too bad her camera hadn’t picked up anything there. Or the house in Mississippi. If only the camera could have picked up on something there and Andrew could have seen the piano making the beautiful music…He’d never had that experience again after that particular house, no matter how many jobs he’d worked on as historical architect.

But she couldn’t think about Andrew right now or the other jobs they’d worked on together after Mississippi.

Taryn had spent her entire professional career showing her clients the past and helping them see, but this was the first time she’d ever been able to see for herself. Nobody had ever given that experience to her.

She did briefly wonder if she should contact Reagan or the members of the
Stokes County Historical Society and show them what she had, but this wasn’t a thought she entertained for very long. They’d either think she was crazy or, more likely, they’d be over there harassing her about it every day. No, she wanted to keep this to herself as long as possible. She didn’t like a crowd.

What she wanted was to take more pictures and see more stuff! What she wanted was to run around to every old building she could find and snap images like crazy, hoping to see things from the past emerge.

But she was afraid.

Since returning to the house, she tried capturing more images and they’d all come back normal. That had been a huge letdown for her. She hadn’t heard or seen anything unusual either, despite Tammy’s stories about the house being haunted and her previous experiences. That
was also disappointing. She didn’t want to see a ghost, if there were such things, but to be completely cut off like that once the door opened for her a little bit made her feel like she had done something wrong.

She appreciated the house and was even starting to love it, so she didn’t understand why it wasn’t revealing itself to her, or whatever you wanted to call it. If it was supposed to be so haunted, then why hadn’t she heard anything or seen anything? Why hadn’t Miss Dixie picked up on anything more? She’d been back inside almost every day since working there for the past week and a half. Once, and she was even a little embarrassed to admit it, she had even stood at the bottom of the stairs, and called out to the “ghosts” and given them “permission” to reveal themselves.

Nothing. Not even a “boo.”

Of course, she was a little concerned about her sanity but that wasn’t unusual. There were several counselors, a psychiatrist, an ex-boyfriend, and a family doctor who would say the same thing.

If it weren’t for the fact that she still had the feeling there was something unsettling about the farm and, of course, the pictures themselves then she might have just chalked the whole thing up to some mass hallucination and urban legend. Or something.