Jekyll Island: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 5) (22 page)

“
You
have to pardon my driving,” Amy warned her. “My boyfriend says I drive like a crazy woman.”

Taryn, who white-knuckled her door handle, grimaced. “You’re fine,” she said through clenched teeth.

Oh dear God
, she silently prayed,
please let us make it to the airport alive
. “I appreciate you giving me a ride up here,” Taryn said aloud instead.

“I normally only work half a day on Tuesdays so this worked out well for me,” Amy continued, her cap of blond hair blowing back from her face. She had the window of her Buick LeSabre all the way down, her tanned arm holding a cigarette and resting on the doorframe.

“My flight doesn’t get back until tomorrow night at about 11:00 pm,” she apologized. “If you want to I can stay at a hotel and then just ride back to the island with you the next morning.”

“It’s okay,” Amy shrugged. “I’ll pick you up and just stay with my boyfriend that night. He lives in Brunswick. I stay with him a lot anyway. We have some friends who rent out a warehouse space and we like to jam with them. You know punkgrass?”

Taryn nodded that she did but had very little to add. She didn’t know any of the groups, except for The Tillers, and unlike most musical genres it wasn’t something she was familiar with and felt comfortable discussing.

With Amy’s vintage capris, man’s western shirt, handmade necklace and earrings, and designer purse Taryn felt like she might be out of her league. In high school it had been the cheerleaders, rich girls, and football players who she’d had to compete with for popularity. As an adult, those seemed to be replaced by the hipsters. It was odd to her that these adults seemed to wear the same clothes she did, have similar musical tastes, were oftentimes artists such as herself, enjoyed old movies, and yet still seemed to live on an entirely different planet from her.

“So how did you wind up working at the hotel?” Taryn asked, hoping to take her mind off her nerves. Amy tailgated and then quickly passed the cars she rode on, paying no mind to whether she was passing them on the left or right as she erratically swerved all over her side of the interstate.

“I worked at a gift shop for awhile,” Amy shrugged. “The pay sucked and I wanted something better so when the assistant job came open I applied. I had good references.”

“Do you like it?”

Amy snorted. “I have a degree in Hospitality Management, which is more than I can say for my boss. I don’t dislike it, but it’s a pain in the ass working for her. And the pay is shitty.”

Taryn heard that a lot, regardless of company or position. It didn’t seem like anyone was getting paid enough anymore, whatever “enough” actually
was
.

“I’m sorry,” Taryn offered sympathetically.

“So what do you think about our resident ghosts?” Amy asked and then followed the question with an immediate, “Fucking asshole!”

Taryn jumped, startled, and then realized Amy was screaming at the car in front of them who had slowed down to a turtle-like 85mph. When Amy laid on her horn for several seconds and continued to rage obscenities Taryn winced and fell farther down into her seat, embarrassed. She didn’t mind a good curse word now and then (she, herself, was partial to “hell” and “damn it”) but this was overkill.

Once Amy moved around the offending vehicle and was able to lay back on the gas she relaxed. “Sorry. So yeah, the ghosts?”

Taryn didn’t exactly feel comfortable about opening up to the possibly insane woman beside her. Instead, she remained noncommittal. “Oh, they don’t seem to bother me.”

Amy managed to look disappointed. “Really? Because after I read about you online I thought you might be able to come down here and wipe them out.”

“I, uh…” Taryn stammered. “I’m not a ghostbuster or exorcist or anything like that.”

“I know,” Amy laughed, a thin, brittle sound that didn’t sound pleasant. “I just always figured that they wanted something. None of us have ever been able to figure out what that was.”

Well
, Taryn thought,
that was common enough ground for the both of them
.

While she was there Taryn figured she might as well ask her about the meeting that was supposedly once held on the island. “Hey, do you know anything about the meeting held there a long time ago? The one about the federal reserve?”

“Ha ha! Don’t let Ellen catch you talking about that,” Amy warned her. “Seriously. She is dead set on nobody bringing that shit up. But yeah, it totally happened. Everyone knows. Why? You think it has something to do with the ghosts?”

“I don’t know,” Taryn answered honestly. She recoiled as Amy barreled down on a rusty pickup and came within inches of rear-ending him before slipping over into the right lane and quickly exiting off. “It was a long time after the fire so it seems unlikely, although Adena Cottage
is
haunted. So I’ve heard,” she added swiftly.

“Yeah, you never know, though,” Amy mused. “They could’ve gotten the ball rolling sooner.”

Taryn considered this. Amy was right, of course. Who knew
when
the men had started action– if the meeting was even real? What if the first meeting had been during that New Year’s Eve?

Taryn could see a jet taking off less than a mile ahead of them and let out a huge sigh of relief.
Land, land!

Amy, who seemed to assume Taryn had nothing interesting left to share, turned up her CD player. The rollicking song was part rockabilly, part traditional bluegrass and she knew every word. However, not only did she sing along with the words–she added her own hand gestures and dance moves right there in her seat, frequently removing her hands from the wheel and turning sideways to serenade Taryn.

For the love of God woman
, Taryn screamed inside her head,
look at the damn road!

Just when she thought they were going to go the way of Dottie West and die in a car crash mere yards from their final destination, Amy pulled up to the unloading area and unlocked the doors. “Here you go my dear!” she shouted over the music. “Just text me when you leave! I’ll drop you off and head on over to Steve’s!”

As Amy was pulling away and Taryn was dragging her carry-on through the lobby Amy’s boyfriend’s name registered with her.

Steve
? Was Amy dating the valet? Nothing surprised her anymore.

Well, most things didn’t anyway.

By
the time she landed, picked up her rental car, and was on the road it was already 4:00 pm. Since her hotel was out of the way, Taryn decided to head straight to her aunt’s house. As it was, it would take her at least an hour to make the drive and she was running out of daylight. Because the house’s electricity wasn’t turned on, and it was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, should something happen Taryn didn’t want to find herself stuck there after dark.

Along the way, Taryn stopped at a K-Mart and bought a cheap flashlight, some batteries, a few snacks and drinks, and bug spray. She had no idea what she’d find once she arrived, but she wanted to be as prepared as possible.

A good part of the drive to Sarah’s house was on a busy highway. Although it was picturesque with the mountains off in the distance, there were lots of cars sharing the well-maintained road with her. She turned up her Patty Loveless “Classics” CD and loudly sang along with “Timber, I’m Falling in Love” and “You Can Feel Bad (If it Makes You Feel Better)” as she sped along the scenic highway. Unlike Amy, however, she refused to do any choreography while driving.

When she turned off the main road, however, and got on the county version things got bumpier and lonelier. Taryn lowered the volume and tried harder to concentrate as she dodged potholes and barking dogs and kept her eyes peeled for the bends that seemed to come out of nowhere.

She passed extraordinary covered bridges, mom ‘n pop grocery stores, and gas stations that didn’t have “pay here” options at the pumps. These were all mixed in with new Shell stations, showy Chinese restaurants with dazzling paintings of the Great Wall on the signs, and modern homes with RVs in the driveway that cost more than her college education. Like most places she visited, this part of rural New Hampshire was a land of contradictions.

Sarah’s house was the only building on her road and, of course, was at the very end.

The driveway was unpaved and, thanks to an early afternoon rainstorm, black with mud. As Taryn turned off onto the ethereal lane she felt she was entering another dimension. The giant trees closed in around her, towering over her and her little Camry and managing to block out all the sunlight. As she inched along the narrow gloomy road she prayed she wouldn’t get stuck. The woods enfolding her were dense and soundless; she rolled down her windows and couldn’t even hear the songs of the birds, just the purr of her car’s engine and the muted melody rising up from her radio.

Up ahead she thought she saw something big and black on the edge of the road. As she drew near she was almost certain it lumbered into the woods. A bear? It was possible. Sarah had talked about seeing them.

“Just don’t feed them,” she’d warned a young Taryn. “That’s when you run into trouble.”

The driveway wound on for more than two miles, an eternity when she couldn’t drive faster than 10 mph. At last, however, she came to a small rise. With one final push on the gas, she heaved the car forward and the road suddenly opened into a generous meadow, wildflowers and thigh-high grass waving in every direction. The soaring mountains with their abundance of foliage and wildlife encircled the acreage, acting as a natural barrier to the outside world.

Sarah’s farmhouse stood in the middle of the meadow, its familiar porch with the timeworn steps and splintering wood bringing tears to Taryn’s eyes. She could almost see her aunt sitting in one of the rickety rocking chairs, a bowl of green beans in her lap, stringing them and tossing the bits into a strainer.

Taryn had spent some of her happiest childhood memories between this house and her grandmother’s place. As Taryn grew older they’d stopped visiting Sarah for some reason, but she’d still kept in touch with her aunt over the years. Sarah’s house was one of the first places she thought of when she needed solace or to remember where she came from.

She’d always loved her aunt and the house. Sarah had understood her like few others. Sarah’s warm smile, youthful energy, and unorthodox ways had driven her mother (Sarah’s sister) mad. Sarah with her talk of spirits, of “energy,” of the beasts and fairy tales that might very much be real had been Taryn’s bedtime stories when she’d stayed there at the house.

And now Aunt Sarah was gone. She’d died sick and alone.

The waves of guilt nearly brought Taryn to her knees as she stood in the middle of the unkempt yard and stared at the rundown beauty in front of her, remembering all the things she’d lost: her parents, her grandmother, her aunt, her fiancé…

And how could she, someone who loved the past and tried to preserve it the best way she knew how, let something like this happen to her own aunt’s place?

Disgusted with herself, Taryn marched up to the porch, ready to do what she should’ve done a year earlier, and peered inside the windows. They were caked with dirt and cobwebs and these she brushed away with her hands. The interior still contained all of Sarah’s furniture, just as she’d left it. It was now covered with sheets, giving it the appearance of bulky ghosts. Lying await in a sea of antiques and magazines.

A complicated locking system hung over the brass doorknob but when Taryn gave it a push it dropped into her hands. With her flashlight ready she entered the foyer and began her exploration.

The house, which had always been full of laughter and Motown when Sarah was alive, was as quiet as a tomb. As Taryn shuffled through the deserted rooms and took stock of the damage done by neglect and the most recent storm she cried noisily, appalled by the mistreatment and her own delay. Over and over again she lectured herself aloud.

“You should’ve been here,” she snapped with bitterness. “How could you have let this happen?”

The worst of the damage was to the two guest bedrooms upstairs and the small nursery, which had always housed Sarah’s doll collection. A tree had, in fact, fallen in on the nursery. Although plastic had been nailed down to the roof and the limbs had been removed, there was still much that needed to be cleaned up. Several of the dolls now lay scattered in the middle of the floor, their porcelain faces smashed and shards of glass littering the ancient Persian rug. Water was still managing to find its way in, in spite of the effort that had been made to keep it out. Taryn knew from experience that if the roof didn’t get patched or replaced altogether, soon the entire house would suffer.

And those were just the things she could see. Who knew what kind of mold was growing in the walls and cellar?

Sarah’s room was miraculously intact.

Taryn stood in the doorway of her late aunt’s bedroom and smiled through her tears at the floral bedspread, Sarah’s delicate fairy collection lined up across her chest of drawers, the old-fashioned loveseat in the corner with the multi-colored handmade quilt neatly folded on the back, the ruffled throw pillow in the old rocking chair that had been brought in from the front porch…

Taryn felt guilty touching anything at all in the house, much less in that room, but she couldn’t help herself.

The heavy, antique vanity set that had once belonged to Taryn’s grandmother Stella was still resting on Sarah’s bureau. The silver was tarnished, but the glass was unspoiled. Taryn picked up the comb, brush, and mirror and gingerly placed them in her knapsack. Her aunt and grandmother wouldn’t mind. After all, the house had been left to her and she needed a reminder of the ones she loved.

As she was placing the padlock back on the front door, this time ensuring it was secure, the antique ring on her finger began to burn.

“Shit!” Taryn cried, dropping the lock on the porch with a loud “clang” and crying out in pain. She looked down at her hand and saw that her finger was turning scarlet, as though she’d been holding her hand in a pot of boiling water. “What the hell?”

When she inquisitively touched the band the pain ripped through her other finger, the ache simultaneously icy and searing. 

Unsettled, and for the first time consciously aware that she was physically alone and not just emotionally, Taryn bent down and grabbed the lock and secured it again–this time with haste.

Still nursing her painful fingers, Taryn leaped from the porch and began making her way to her rental, her shoes barely making a sound in the overgrown yard. The sun was beginning to set and Taryn was startled to realize that she’d been inside longer than she’d thought.

When she glanced at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was after eight ‘o clock she scoffed. “Oh, that’s not possible.”

She figured she’d been in there an hour, an hour and a half tops. Not more than the two hours her clock implied.

The ring on her hand continued to ache as she turned around in the patch of grass that served as a parking spot and began driving towards the gloom of the woods.

Even as a child, Taryn had always been painfully conscious of the feeling that someone or something at her aunt’s house had watched her. She’d felt it with nothing more than slight curiosity while she played, slept, and moved about the property on her endless adventures. It had never frightened her; indeed, sometimes she’d found it comforting.

Now, however, as the unseen eyes bored into her back Taryn trembled from the iciness and tapped the gas harder than she needed.

She was no longer the trusting, innocent child she’d once been. Not everything that watched her was benevolent.