Renae went into her pitch. “As you can see, you’ll definitely need a boat to come to and fro. There’s room down here to moor at least five, seven if you wanted to upgrade the dock over there.” She pointed at the splintered, rotting remains of the farthest dock.
Tobe Harper said, “That would be low on the priority list. We don’t expect to have much company out here.”
“Of course,” Renae said, changing tactics. “That’s the appeal of an island. It will be your private getaway. Come, let me show you the house.”
Their heels clacked along the dock. It ended at the mouth of a dark, narrow tunnel of trees. “It’s a little overgrown now,” Renae said, extracting a small flashlight from her messenger bag. “Those overcast skies aren’t helping much. It’s probably best you stay close to me and watch your step.”
Stepping under the canopy, the air instantly felt colder, sharper, with none of the humidity that had settled over Charleston since late May. Locals were more than used to it now. No sense complaining about something that was here to stay until September.
The flashlight’s beam waved back and forth as Renae navigated the rough terrain. Once upon a time, before she’d joined the real estate agency, there had been wooden steps hammered into the earth leading from the dock to the house. Now the timber, what wasn’t overgrown with wild vegetation, was desiccated with rot. The buzzing of unseen insects cut off the moment they entered the natural tunnel.
“I myself haven’t seen the house, except in pictures,” Renae said. Tobe and Daphne were close behind, seemingly unaffected by the uneven ground. For Renae’s part, even in flats, she found herself lurching forward and sideways with each misplaced step. “I can’t guarantee that we can go inside safely.”
“That would be a shame,” Daphne said, more to her husband.
She didn’t want to lose them now, not when they were so close.
“Then again, I could be wrong. These old homes were built like forts. I know everything was boarded up tight when the last occupants—left.” A spindly branch whipped across her forehead. “Oh!” Wincing, she looked up and again hushed. “Oh.”
The Southern Colonial seemed to come from nowhere. The immense old house covered the expanse of the entire hilltop, a peeling gray monolith from an era of lawn parties, philanthropic pursuits and southern gentility.
Daphne gasped. “Tobe, look. It’s bigger than I thought.”
The strange couple brushed past Renae in their anxiousness to see the house up close.
A cold current flowed through Renae’s stomach. This was the first time she’d ever set foot on the island, much less seen Ormsby’s estate in the flesh—or wood and stone. The square, symmetrical two-story Colonial resembled a ghost ship, its battered exterior barely surviving tumultuous years at sea. The paint had long ago been blighted by sun and rain. Tall tufts of grass, gone a dusty brown from lack of available sunlight, sprouted all along the house’s foundation, doing little to conceal warps in the woodwork and chips in the stonework.
Oddly, the central door, flanked by two sets of windows, retained the bright, crimson luster as if it had been painted just the day before.
What the h-e-double hockey sticks? Renae wondered.
The front of the house was framed by four Greek-style columns, all of them riddled with long, winding cracks. It looked like they’d have trouble holding up the roof to an aluminum shed.
Renae fumbled for the keys as she struggled to catch up with the Harpers. She nervously eyed the front porch roof, watching for the slightest sign of an imminent collapse.
Piles of withered leaves as high as her ankles scrunched and crackled as she shuffled forward. “Would you like to look around the outside before we go in?”
Tobe Harper considered it with an odd twist of his lips, then said, “Actually, I’m more curious about the interior. If you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all. Let me give this old lock a try.”
The door was held tight by an old padlock fastened to a thick, steel hasp and bracket. Without the key, it would take a welder to cut his way through.
Flakes of rust rained down on her hand when she pushed the key into the hole. At first, it wouldn’t turn. She gave it a little elbow grease, and was relieved to hear the tumblers click into place. With a heavy tug, she pulled the lock open.
“All of the window boards look to be in place, so I don’t expect to be greeted by any critters.” Daphne and Tobe were unfazed. Renae hoped her words had a ring of truth. The thought of bats or rats or some fat possum spilling out of the open door set her hair on end. “Here goes.”
She grasped the cut glass doorknob and turned. The swollen wood protested a bit, the door popping as it opened for the first time in a generation.
“Oh my,” Renae whispered.
They came upon a twisting wooden stairway leading to the darkness of the upper floor. She traced her flashlight from the foot of the stairs, along the wall and to the top of the raised ceiling.
They stepped inside, their footfalls echoing throughout the vast, empty house.
To their left was the great room with its built-in bookcases and dormant fireplace. To their right was a breakfast room, one wall adorned with beautiful, hand crafted cabinets and another, smaller fireplace. Aging, mismatched bits of furniture were piled in the corners of each room with no traces of dust. Chairs were stacked on a long, leather sofa, while a table lay on its side against a wall in the breakfast room.
Everything was immaculate.
The absence of warping wood, peeling paint and wallpaper sent tiny yet insistent shivers down Renae’s spine. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear they had just missed a horde of contractors by mere minutes.
Even the glass of the windows were as clear as still, spring air.
This isn’t right.
“May I borrow your flashlight?” Tobe Harper asked, jarring her from her momentary stupor.
“Uh, ye…yes.”
“We’d like to explore a little on our own, if that’s okay with you,” he said, taking the flashlight from her hand.
It’s more than okay with me, she wanted to say. “Sure, sure. I can wait right here if you like, or even outside to get some air.”
For the first time that day, he smiled. “Wonderful. You’ve been so helpful.”
He glided into the dark. She saw him reach for something in his jacket pocket, some kind of rectangular box that was about the size of his hand. It made odd clicking and chirping noises as he waved it around. His footsteps clacked through the breakfast room and into the belly of the great house.
Daphne placed a lithe hand on Renae’s shoulder.
“I think we should all stop at a liquor store when we get back to the mainland. I do believe you’ve just made a sale.”
Renae caught Daphne’s emerald gaze, seeing the mirth dance like the faint drops of a sun shower on a still pond. Renae couldn’t hold back a shiver so great, she felt as if her joints would dislocate. The stories told to kids and teenagers about the great haunted house on Ormsby Island weren’t true.
No, something far, far worse was present in Ormsby House.
Renae wanted nothing more than to be on Nelson’s boat, heading back for the coast. She was certain that even a shower with holy water couldn’t cleanse her soul, tainted as it now was in the presence of something she didn’t dare to understand.
Chapter Two
Eddie Home leapt from his bed, gasping. An empty bottle of whiskey keranged off the radiator.
His heart raced as if he’d just finished a hundred yard dash. His sweat stung his eyes and his head felt ready to split into quarters.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”
Untangling his foot from the sheets, he paced around the room, his fingers tugging at the wild curls in his hair.
A voice, faint, the echo at the bottom of a deep well, a remnant of a recurring dream, whispered, “Perfect.”
“Leave me alone! Just leave me the hell alone!”