All Things Lost (44 page)

     I had been painting and thinking for about an hour when I heard footsteps in the hall. My back was to the door so I just called out as I painted.

     “Is it
break
time?” I asked, thinking it was Adam, Steve or Kane. There was no answer and suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I carefully laid the brush down on top of the ladder and twisted around to look. There was no one in sight. “Hey, that's not funny. Who's there?” There was still no answer so I climbed down the ladder and stepped into the hall. There was no sign that anyone was on the third besides me but I was positive I had heard footsteps. Voices drifted up from the staircase from two floors below so that someone was still down there at least. Maybe Kane was playing a trick on me. He knew I believed that something was in the house. I took another look around the hall. It was then that I noticed the door to the cupola was slightly ajar. Had it been when I came upstairs? I wasn't sure since I hadn't been paying attention.

     I took a few hesitant steps towards the stairs but suddenly decided I was being foolish. I threw back my shoulders and strode purposefully down the hall and yanked the door open the rest of the way. I looked up the narrow steps. There was no sign of anyone. I decided to put this to rest once and for all. I started climbing the stairs, quickly at first and then slowing gradually as I neared the top. Finally, I stopped just short of where the stairs cleared the floor, my head just out of sight. I screwed up all my courage and forced myself to peek up over the edge of the floor. I almost laughed out loud with relief. The tiny room was empty, of course. I took the last few steps almost lightheartedly and admired the view once again.

     “Back to work,” I told myself and turned to go down the stairs. I glanced down and froze with my foot on the first step. She was standing at the foot of the stairs looking up at me, a look of immense sorrow on her face. She had been pretty once and could have been now but for the weight of sadness that marred her features. She wore a long dress, dark and drab with no ornamentation at all, and her hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She looked different from the last time I saw her, older and more haggard, but I knew who it was. It was the woman from the portrait I had found in the storage room. And now I knew that it was a portrait of
Amalie
.

Chapter 25

     I stood on the top step of the small room, seemingly paralyzed; staring down at a woman I knew had been dead for over a hundred years. My entire body wanted to scream out in sheer terror but, somehow, as long as she held me in that mournful gaze, I couldn't. I don't know how long we stood staring at one another. Something in her eyes told me that she was almost as surprised to be seen as I was to see her.
Almost, but not quite.
Gradually my racing heart began to slow as it became obvious that she meant me no harm. It almost felt as if she was trying to tell me something, but if she could speak she had chosen not to, at least for now.

     Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she turned and moved away from the door. As soon as she was out of sight I felt released from the spell of her gaze and I felt myself collapse into a clumsy pile on the steps. I didn't even know I had screamed until I heard a commotion on the stairs and hallway below me that sounded like the entire combined
US
armed forces were storming the house. Adam, Steve and Kane skidded to a halt in front on the door that led up the steps to where I was lying.

     
“Killian!”
Adam yelled, fear in his voice, as he took the steps two at a time. He knelt next to me. “Are you hurt? Did you fall?”

     I shook my head no, but I still hadn't found my voice.

     “What were you doing up here anyway? What happened? Why did you scream?”

     I simply looked at him with wide eyes, unable to speak. He scooped me up and carried me carefully down the stairs as if I was nothing more than a rag doll. Once back on the first story he laid me carefully down on the floor, cradling my head like you would a baby.

     I looked up at him and then took a deep shuddering breath.
“
Amalie
.”
I said in a strong, clear voice that surprised even me.

     “What? What about her? Did she hurt you?” Steve demanded. He and Kane had followed Adam and me down, both wearing concerned expressions.

     I shook my head no again and sat up as I took another deep breath. Suddenly the story just flowed out me: how I had heard the footsteps and thought it might be Kane playing tricks on me, how I'd seen the door to the cupola open and had decided to go up to prove to myself that there were no ghosts, and how I had seen
Amalie
, long dead, at the foot of the stairs, staring up at me with those indescribably sad eyes.

     “It felt like she was trying to tell me something, but I don't know what,” I finished and looked around at the three faces staring down at me. Steve's expression clearly said that he believed me and could have almost been described as excited. Kane looked plain scared, taking frequent furtive glances over his shoulder as if he expected to find someone there. Adam just looked skeptical. It was his face that I looked into the longest.

     “It happened, Adam. I saw her,” I insisted. It was suddenly terribly important that he believed me.

     “Or maybe you just wanted to see her,” he suggested gently.

     “Are you saying I made it up?” I demanded. I was surprised at how much it hurt that he didn't believe me.

     “Come on Adam,” Steve said quickly, “You know what the stories are, what the workers have been saying. You heard Killian scream just now. You can't sit there and tell me you're still a skeptic. I think we've gone beyond that now.”

     “I just have a hard time…” Adam was cut off abruptly as a huge bang resonated throughout the upper floors. We all jumped and looked upward at the ceiling.

     “What was that?” Kane asked in a squeaky voice. He now looked as if he just wanted to leave.

     “It sounded like several doors being slammed at once,” Steve said. His eyes were shining with barely suppressed delight. He took a few steps towards the staircase.

     “It's an old house…” Adam started, but once again he was cut off as the unmistakable sounds of footsteps sounded from above. “Someone's up there,” he said, moving quickly to his feet.

     “Yeah,
Amalie
,” I said, jumping up as well. “I just told you…”

     “Killian,” his voice was filled with impatience, but before he could say another word, we all froze in place. It seemed that someone was determined to convince Adam of the presence of something supernatural. The thin wail of a distressed baby floated into the room. We all stood stock still for several seconds until the footsteps upstairs began to get faster and more agitated. It sounded like they were heading for the staircase and none of us were ready to deal with what might come down. Kane was the first to bolt, followed quickly by Adam as he grabbed my wrist and started dragging me towards the door. Steve was the last to move, as he stared up the stairs, half hoping to see something and obviously half-terrified he would.

     We stopped only when we were all standing on the sunny front lawn. Kane's eyes were as big as dinner plates and he was hugging himself tightly as if cold, even though it was definitely not cold outside.

     “What the hell is going on?” Adam demanded angrily, as if one of us had planned and executed some sort of elaborate hoax on him.

     “I'll tell you what's going on,” Steve said, so excited he kept rolling up onto the balls of his feet and bouncing a little before settling back again on his heels. “The house is haunted and now you can't deny it anymore. Killian's seen the ghost and we've all heard it…her…them.”

     “Them?” Kane said quickly.

     “There were obviously two of them,
Amalie
and…and…a baby?”

     “This is ridiculous,” Adam growled. He seemed angrier with himself now than anyone else; probably at the way he had run. “I can't accept that there is the spirit of a dead person, someone who died a hundred and fifty years ago, still inhabiting this house. It's in direct opposition to everything I know or have been taught.”

     “Oh get over it, Adam,” Steve shouted with exasperation. “You believe in God, right? Of course you do, you have a very strong belief. And I know that you believe in life after death. Why is it such a stretch to believe that some spirits just get caught here for some reason?”

     
“Unfinished business?”
Kane suggested shakily. He was obvious still upset.

     “This isn't
Casper
,” Adam snapped.

     “Would you just stop it?” Steve said through clenched teeth. “I know this is hard for you to accept, but it's staring you right in the face. There is something in that house that we can't explain using traditional science. And for whatever reasons it's chosen to make itself known to us in no uncertain terms. Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn't hear that baby crying?
Or the footsteps?
Are you going to stand there and tell me you honestly don't believe Killian when he says he saw
Amalie
? He's never lied to you and he's never seen things before.”

       “His post traumatic stress disorder…”

     “It's been months since he's even had a mild episode and you know it. The house is haunted, just admit it.”

     Adam threw up his hands in frustration. “Ok, I admit there is something in the house that I can't explain...”

     “Will miracles never cease?” Steve muttered as Adam continued.

     “…But I refuse to be chased out by some dead woman and a colicky ghost. We came here to paint and damn it, I'm going to paint.” He turned sharply on his heel and stalked towards the house.

     
“Dad, no!”
Kane cried out, fear choking his voice.

     “She won't hurt him,” I said calmly. It was the first words I'd said since we'd run from the approaching footsteps. Kane and Steve turned towards me as one person.

     “How do you know?” Kane asked urgently.

     “I just do. You have to believe me. She wants to tell us something but I don't think she knows how.”

     “Tell us something?” Steve repeated.

     “Yes.”

     “What do you mean?” Excitement filled his voice.

     “I think there's something that she wants us to know, maybe something she wants us to do; I…I just don't know what.”

     “We have to talk to her!” he exclaimed.

     “If we talk to her will she go away?” Kane asked hopefully, his eyes glued to the front door.

     I shrugged, “I don't know that either.
Maybe.”

     “How can we talk to her?” Steve asked.

     I shrugged again.

     “
A
Ouija board?
A séance?
Maybe we should just sprinkle holy water around the house. Or wait! I know, we can go the whole nine-yards and just get that psychic that's always on TV to come and help put her to rest.” Kane's voice rose in pitch with every word, as if he were verging on hysteria.

     “A psychic maybe,” Steve said thoughtfully, as if Kane's suggestions had been serious. “How do you find a psychic?”

     “Judy,” I said.

     “Judy?”

     I nodded.

     “Asher's aunt?”

     I nodded again.     

     “What about her?”

     “She can talk to her.”

     “Judy could talk to
Amalie
?”

     I nodded.

     “How do you know?”

     I shrugged. “I just do.”

     “Killian, are you ok?” he asked suddenly. He took my face in his hand and tipped my chin up to look into my face.

     “Yeah, I'm fine.”

     “You aren't acting like yourself.”

     “I just saw a woman who's been dead for over a hundred years, Steve,” I said coolly. “How am I supposed to act?”

     “Can we go home now? Please?” Kane asked in a small voice.

     Steve dropped his hand from my face and turned to look at the car and then the house. “We all came in one car. Let's go get Adam.”