You’re in my House!

Madeline strolled through the library of her beau­ti­ful home perus­ing the books that were on the shelves. She loved being in the library. It was relax­ing here. It cleared her mind. The house had been busy today with lots of clean­ing. Madeline observed the work being done to make sure that every­thing was sat­is­fac­to­ry. While watch­ing every­one con­cen­trate on their duties, Madeline decid­ed to come to the library to look for a book to read. One of the ser­vants was metic­u­lous­ly dust­ing the mahogany. Madeline decid­ed to com­mend her good work.

“You are doing a fine job, young lady.”

“Oh, thank you…” Donna, a vol­un­teer for Friends of the Prescott House, turned around to see who was com­pli­ment­ing her. The room was empty.

“Frankie!!” Donna was not deal­ing with this today. “Frankie!! It’s hap­pen­ing again! Come here, quick!!”

Madeline was won­der­ing what in the world this woman was scream­ing about.

“My word. You do need to calm down.” Madeline pro­ceed­ed to look at the books where she found a nov­el that piqued her inter­est. As Frankie came in to see what Donna was yelling about, a book fell to the floor.

Donna let out a scream. She turned to Frankie, point­ing at the book on the floor. “Did you see that? Did you?!”

Madeline turned to look at the two women star­ing in her direction.

“My good­ness. I just dropped my book. Pardon me if I fright­ened you.”

She picked up the book and placed it back on the shelf.

“I will see myself out. You, ladies, should get back to work.”

Madeline walked past the two women with their mouths gaped open in shock. She was going to find her hus­band Reginald and let him know about the strange behav­ior of the servants.

Donna spoke first. “Please tell me you saw that book go back on the shelf.”

Frankie’s eyes nev­er shift­ed from their focus. “I saw it. Did you feel that cold breeze? It’s 94 degrees out­side today.”

The two women looked at each oth­er, unable to speak.

Madeline quick­ly ascend­ed the stairs to the attic to speak with Reginald. She would nev­er under­stand why he liked being in this dark, dusty attic. But, Madeline knew that he would be there sit­ting on the rock­ing chair, star­ing out the win­dow, and smok­ing his pipe.

“Reginald! We real­ly must do some­thing with the ser­vants. They are act­ing strange­ly and I am quite cer­tain that one of them might be mad. Why, they may be dangerous!”

Reginald turned to look up at his wife. “I’m sure they are fine, dear. Is the house in order?”

Madeline began to calm down. “Yes. It is immaculate.”

Reginald turned back toward the win­dow and resumed puff­ing on his pipe.

“Well, then. I’m sure every­thing is fine. Maybe the young lady is preg­nant or some such thing. Probably just a case of mild hysteria.”

Madeline con­tem­plat­ed this and decid­ed he could be cor­rect. “I sup­pose you are right. What are you look­ing at, Reginald?”

Reginald’s brow was fur­rowed. He had been in deep thought all morning.

“I’m look­ing at the world, Madeline. It is chang­ing. Things do not look the same and I am strug­gling to under­stand what is going on.”

Madeline looked around her at the musty items sur­round­ing them.

“Why don’t you come down­stairs to the par­lor and look out the win­dow there? It is so much more pleas­ant than this old attic.” She looked around disapprovingly.

“I like it here, dear. It’s qui­et. I can think clear­ly. Have we got­ten any mail? A let­ter from James, perhaps?”

James was the only son of Madeline and Reginald.

“No, we have not. We have not received any mail for a long time. James hasn’t been by for a long time either…no let­ter or any­thing. It has been an eter­ni­ty since I have laid eyes on him!”

Reginald con­tin­ued puff­ing his pipe.

“That it has. That it has. Things seem a bit pecu­liar. I just can­not seem to put my fin­ger on it.”

Madeline began to wor­ry. “I do hope James is alright. Do you think that some­thing has hap­pened to him? We would get word of such a thing, wouldn’t we?”

Reginald broke his con­tem­pla­tion to turn to his wife. 

“Oh, my dar­ling, yes, I am sure we would. I did not mean to put dark ideas into your pret­ty lit­tle head. I am just lost in thought. James is busy work­ing in New England. As a teacher, I am sure he lacks the funds for train fares. We will hear from him soon.”

Reginald knew some­thing was amiss, but the last thing that he want­ed to do was upset his wife.

“Here, have a seat next to me, and let’s relax. The qui­et will soothe your nerves.”

Madeline sat beside her hus­band in the oth­er rock­ing chair. Reginald was right. Rocking does soothe the soul. They qui­et­ly looked out the win­dow, Reginald at the world below and Madeline at the bright blue sky.

Donna and Frankie quick­ly went to search for Grant, the pres­i­dent of their orga­ni­za­tion. They found him out­side paint­ing the porch. Grant turned to look at the women as they came out­side. They both looked pale.

“Hey. Are you two alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Donna and Frankie looked at each oth­er. Frankie turned to Grant. “Donna and I both saw it, Grant. A book in the library came off the shelf and then float­ed back into place. We saw it with our own eyes!”

Donna chimed in. “Before that, I heard some­one tell me that I was doing a good job. I turned to thank them and there was no one there. No one!”

Grant had heard these sto­ries before.

“You two are work­ing too hard. Have you been paint­ing? Do you need some fresh air?”

Ghost sto­ries had been float­ing around about the Prescott House for as long as he could remem­ber. Grant was a skep­tic, and any bangs or knocks, as far as he was con­cerned, were just the nois­es of the house settling.

Frankie was annoyed. “No. No, we have not been work­ing in paint. I’m seri­ous, Grant. Something is going on in there and we need to get to the bot­tom of it!”

Grant climbed down the lad­der. He was fin­ished paint­ing the porch. All it need­ed was a cou­ple of rock­ing chairs. There were two up in the attic that would be per­fect. Grant could bring them down and put a new coat of white paint on them. Then he would be done for the day.

“What do you want me to do? Call Ghost Hunters in? I’m sure there is a per­fect­ly good expla­na­tion for everything.”

“There is. The house is haunt­ed.” Donna didn’t like not being believed and espe­cial­ly not being tak­en seriously.

Grant did not want to upset them.

“Look, if any­thing else hap­pens, we will look into ask­ing those para­nor­mal inves­ti­ga­tors, or what­ev­er you call them, to come in and look around. OK? But for now, I am going to go to the attic and bring down those rock­ing chairs. Would you like to help me?”

Donna and Frankie agreed to help, and the trio head­ed to the attic to retrieve the chairs. As they walked up the steps to the attic door, Grant detect­ed an odor in the air.

“Do either of you smell pipe smoke?”

The two women stopped and began sniff­ing. Donna and Frankie agreed that they indeed did smell a pipe. Grant was irritated.

“If I find some­one up here smok­ing, I will NOT be hap­py. Our job is to pre­serve the home, not burn it down!”

He quick­ly opened the door and stepped into the attic. The three of them stopped dead in their tracks as they watched the two emp­ty chairs slow­ly rock­ing back and forth and then abrupt­ly stop­ping. The smell of pipe smoke hung in the air.

Grant could not believe what he was see­ing. “I think I am going to wait on the chairs. I can do those next week.”

He turned to Frankie and Donna, “Let’s go back downstairs.”

Donna quick­ly turned around, “I’m out.”

The three left quick­ly and closed the door.

Reginald turned to his wife. “How odd! I believe you may be right, dear. The help does seem to be act­ing strange.”

Madeline nod­ded her head in agreement.

“Those were the ladies I was talk­ing about ear­li­er. I believe they are drink­ing on the job.”

The cou­ple went back to enjoy­ing their slow afternoon.

Be sure to watch for the con­clu­sion of “You’re in my House!” next week!