“You’re going to work in Tynemouth?”
Chris was sitting at the breakfast table, absorbed in a book, when Augusta broke the good news. She hadn’t wanted to tell him she’d applied until she knew for sure whether she’d gotten the job or not. It had only been three days since her interview when the call from Jill came, letting her know that the position was hers.
This was big. This was confidence-boosting, life-affirming big. The job at the Old Jail had been a step in the right direction after years of working soul-crushing retail jobs, but it hadn’t been anything like this. At Harlowe House she would be responsible for projects, making decisions and working hands-on with collections. No more giving tours to bored tourists and cleaning gum off the walls. It had all fallen into place so perfectly that she could still hardly believe it. That’s why her heart fell at Chris’s apathetic reaction.
She was leaning against the counter, a mug of rapidly cooling coffee in her hand. “Yeah, why?”
He gave a shrug. “I dunno. It’s just kind of far away, isn’t it? How are you going to get there?”
He did have a point. Augusta had always been able to walk to work. There was no way she could afford a car, but she was unwilling to let her dream job slip through her fingers. “I’m sure we can figure something out. It’s going to be good money, like, really good money.”
This caught Chris’s attention. “Oh, yeah?”
“Like almost double what I’m making now, and I won’t have to work Sundays.”
Leaning back and putting his book down, Chris finally looked at her. “That’s great. Maybe we can go on a vacation next year or something. Put some money toward fixing up the back deck.”
“Maybe.” She took a sip of her coffee. She wasn’t sure why it rubbed her the wrong way, but she didn’t love that Chris was already planning out how they were going to spend her new salary. Most of it would be going to pay off her student loans, and she wanted to start putting some into savings, too. “This is a really big deal. If it works out here, I could actually be a curator of a house museum someday.”
“Look at you, Miss Fancy Curator. Great job.” Chris gave her one of his rare, big smiles, and she remembered why she was with him, how good it felt to make him smile.
A heavy autumn rain had subdued the bustling streets of Tynemouth, turning the wet air gray and heavy. Puddles formed in the uneven stone steps as Augusta texted Jill that she was outside and waited for her to come down and open the door.
Jill greeted Augusta with a big smile. She was just as impeccably put-together as the first time Augusta had met her, with her pin-straight bob, cherry red lipstick and chic linen shift. “Your first day! Come on in and let’s get you set up!”
Carefully shaking out her umbrella and wiping her shoes, Augusta stepped inside. The house was cool and quiet, the gray skies and amplified sound of rain on windows making it cozy.
“If you want to drop off your stuff in the kitchen, I thought we might start with a tour of the house?”
Augusta hung up her raincoat to dry, stuck her yogurt in the fridge and then glanced around. Besides the hum of the kitchen appliances and a phone ringing somewhere upstairs from the offices, it was silent. Even the traffic was muted from the rain.
“Is it always so quiet on Mondays?” she asked.
“It’s quiet compared to the days when we’re open to the public, but usually Sharon is around. We also have a few other staff members that split their time between Harlowe House and the archives in Boston, so it can get busy if we have a lot of projects going on. Sharon is out today, so it’s just you and me. On Wednesday, you’ll meet all the tour guides.”
After Augusta took a peek at her office—her own office!—Jill started the tour. “We’re really trying to do more to tell the stories of everyone who lived in Tynemouth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, not just the upper class, white population. Immigrants were coming from Boston and the population here was incredibly diverse.”
Jill flicked on a light and led her into a surprisingly modern space, complete with gleaming hardwood floors and pristine white walls. “This would have been the ballroom back in the 1800s, but now we have rotating exhibits in this space featuring local artists. Last summer we even had a bluegrass band perform. Our director of community outreach works out of our Boston office, but you’ll see him sometime. He’s responsible for putting these events together, and occasionally he’ll ask for objects from our collection to highlight in the exhibits, usually to draw a parallel between the history of the area and the current art scene.” She gestured to a display featuring a collection of embroidery hoops. “Like this one—we did a spotlight on local fiber artists, and used some of the baskets and embroideries from our collection. Do you think you’d be interested in helping pull objects for exhibits like that in the future?”
“Definitely. That’s amazing.” Augusta leaned over to read the placard on one of the hoops before they moved on.
“Great!” Jill motioned for Augusta to follow her as they left the ballroom. “Just through here,” she said, as they passed through a narrow hall. “Not as modern as the staff kitchen, but I’m kind of jealous of the tiles in here.”
It was easy to see why. Gleaming white tiles with bright, purple ink depicting every manner of country scene lined the back splash and countertops. It was a visual feast, like something right out of a French home-and-garden magazine. “We’ll just scoot through the butler’s pantry,” Jill said, leading the way.
After the light and airy kitchen, Augusta wasn’t prepared for the dark room they entered next. “Watch your step here,” Jill instructed. “We don’t usually take tours in here unless they specifically ask or it’s a VIP, like a descendant. The step is uneven and the lighting isn’t great.”
Jill pulled a string and a single bulb buzzed to life in the middle of the room. “What was this room used for?” Augusta asked.
“We’re pretty sure it was the original kitchen when the house was first built in the seventeenth century, but by the time the Harlowe brothers were living here it had long since gone out of use. It was probably used as extra storage or a pantry.” Jill sheepishly gestured to some bins in the corner. “We, uh, might stash some stuff in here, too, on occasion.”
There really wasn’t much to see in the room. The rough-hewn walls were covered in chipped white paint, and the floor was packed dirt coated in some kind of concrete, like the bottom of an empty swimming pool. At the far end, what had once been a fireplace large enough to stand in was now just a gaping recess.
“How are you with spiders?” Jill asked. “Because we have a lot of them in here.”
Augusta shrugged. “They don’t bother me.” She had done some pest management at the Old Jail which involved setting out sticky traps and tracking and recording all the insects in them. It had forced her to get over any squeamishness in a hurry.
“Well, I’m not a fan,” Jill said with a shudder. “Let’s head upstairs.”
Augusta was just turning to follow her when a wave of dizziness overcame her. She shot her hand out against the wall to steady herself before she stumbled. Cold from the wall seeped into her skin and rooted in her bones. Closing her eyes, she cursed herself for not eating a better breakfast.
When she opened her eyes again, she was still in the same dark room, but sensing something above her, she looked up. Bunches of dried plants and flowers hung upside down from the ceiling beams, quivering in the still air. She could smell their dry sweetness, could make out every brittle leaf and petal. The formerly empty fireplace now glowed with use. From somewhere beyond her sight came the sound of a woman’s voice, humming.
What the hell was happening? Some museums employed holographs or 3D projections to replicate historic settings, but Jill had been quite clear that this wasn’t an exhibit space, and Augusta was pretty sure that she would have mentioned if Harlowe House had that kind of technology.
The roots of her hair lifted, and she was excruciatingly aware of every inch of her skin prickling in response to the closeness of the humming. Slowly, she turned her head, certain that she would see the source of the sound. There was someone there—someone who wasn’t Jill. She could sense their presence, smell the sweet, floral scent of their perfume and the salty tang of perspiration under it. But then, just as suddenly as the room had changed, it was all gone again, leaving her in the musty darkness. The dried herbs and flowers that just moments ago had hung above her had vanished, and the humming had stopped.
She shot an alarmed look at Jill to see if she had noticed the dramatic change, but Jill was already ducking back through the low door and moving on to the next room.
Augusta looked back over her shoulder again; everything was back in its place, from the plastic bins to the electric light. Shaking her head, she hurried to catch up with Jill. She really should have eaten breakfast that morning, more than just a glass of orange juice and a slice of unbuttered bread. She had a job, responsibilities, and she had to make sure she was taking care of herself. But even as she forced herself to follow Jill, she had a sinking feeling that the hallucination hadn’t had anything to do with calories, or the lack of them.
“So.” Jill plopped a stack of books and binders onto the table. “This is totally not required, but it’s probably a good idea to read through some of these and get a sense of the history of Harlowe House. You’ll pick up a lot as you work, but this will provide a good baseline.”
Jill had insisted on picking up lunch from the sandwich place down the street, and they were sitting in the small staff kitchen eating while Augusta flipped through binders. The rain had tapered off, leaving heavy humidity and an overcast sky in its wake. Since her strange episode that morning, Augusta hadn’t felt any more light-headedness or had any disturbing hallucinations, but she still forced herself to bite into her sandwich, chewing slowly.
“This is really the only thing I would ask you to read,” Jill said, tapping the cover of a slender folder. “It lays out the family tree and who was who. It will be helpful to get a grasp of what generation owned what things in the house.”
Augusta flipped it open, tracing her finger down the sprawling tree, starting in the 1600s and going all the way to the present day. “So there still are living descendants?”
Rolling her eyes, Jill licked some mustard off her finger and put her sandwich down. “Yes, and you didn’t hear it from me, but they are the worst. They show up unannounced all the time, looking to take friends on ‘behind the scene tours’ and expect us to drop everything. They have a picnic at the house once a year, but the public isn’t invited. I guess since we don’t have royalty in America some people like to imagine that they’re above everyone else because of their bloodline.”
Augusta nodded absently as she studied the chart. It was an impressive tree, with so much information corresponding to each name, and she felt a pang of jealousy that anyone could claim ancestry going back so far. She was an only child without much extended family and had grown up knowing little about her own family history.
Her finger stopped on a name, and a jolt of recognition passed through her, even though she was sure she’d never seen it before. Unlike the others in its generation, this one didn’t have any information—no birth date, no death date, nothing. “Who was this?” she asked.
Jill leaned over to look. “Margaret Harlowe,” she said. “She was the only sister of the three Harlowe brothers. We don’t know a lot about her, or even if she really existed at all, since she doesn’t show up in any censuses.” Jill shrugged. “Unfortunately, that’s kind of the case with a lot of women in the historical records—they got married and took new names, moved away, or they just slipped through the cracks. We do have a portrait in the dining room that we think is her, but we aren’t even sure about that.”
Augusta moved on, and Jill told her about each of the brothers and what they contributed to the narrative of the house. “Once you get your sea legs, we should chat about a possible exhibit you’d like to research and help curate.”
The binder nearly slipped from her hand. “Are you serious?”
Jill laughed. “Yeah, I’m serious! You didn’t think you’d just be sitting around and working on spreadsheets, did you?”
“Well, no. I guess I just didn’t expect to take on such a big project right away.”
Jill’s expression softened. “Augusta, we’re really excited to have you here. Your references had nothing but great things to say about you, and you bring a lot of knowledge and valuable experience to Harlowe House.”
Augusta ducked her head, glowing. She’d never felt particularly valued at a job before, and this was the job of her dreams.
They were interrupted by a knock on the doorframe. Jill looked up and broke into a smile. “Hey, Reggie.”
“Hey there.” The man in the doorway had light brown skin and a dazzling white smile. With a T-shirt tucked into faded jeans and silver streaking his dark hair, he looked like the quintessential dad from a Hallmark movie. He returned Jill’s smile before his glance landed on Augusta. “A new face! I don’t think we’ve met,” he said, sticking out his hand.
“This is Augusta, our new collections manager extraordinaire.” Jill turned to Augusta. “Reggie is our properties manager. He splits his time between the properties, so you’ll see him on days when we’re closed to the public, working on projects.”
“Or on days when there are doughnuts,” Reggie said, looking around hopefully.
“It’s your turn to buy the doughnuts,” Jill reminded him. “What’s up? I thought you were in Boston today?”
“Something keeps setting off the silent alarm in the basement,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s a faulty wire or mice, but I keep getting alerts from the security company. Guess I’m going to go crawl around with the spiders and have a look.” He patted the flashlight on his belt and gave Augusta a wink. “The excitement never ends around here.”
After he left, Jill and Augusta finished up their lunches. “You said something about a possible portrait of Margaret Harlowe?” she asked Jill. For some reason, the lonesome female name on that branch of the family tree had piqued her interest.
“You want to go see her?”
Augusta nodded. She was more than a little curious about this woman who may or may not have existed.
Jill led her to the dining room. A large, polished oak table dominated the space, blue-and-white porcelain laid out on it as if just waiting for a family to come and sit down for a meal. Portraits dotted the green-papered walls, the gilt frames winking in the soft lamplight. Jill drew Augusta’s attention to a small portrait at the far end of the room. “That’s her. Or at least, we think that might be her, judging from the style of her dress. We have pictures of Jemima Harlowe from the time, and she would have been much older than the sitter here.”
Augusta studied the young woman. She possessed a Mona Lisa–like quality, assessing the viewer with a cool, measured stare. Her dark curls were loosely pulled back, cascading down her shoulders. The tight-fitting sleeves and high-necked collar as well as the hairstyle certainly pointed to the portrait having been painted in the late 1870s or 1880s.
“Are there any photographs of the family?” Augusta asked. By the 1880s, photography would have been quite accessible, and she would have been surprised if a well-to-do family such as the Harlowes hadn’t had any photos taken.
“We do have some daguerreotypes and cabinet cards in the collection, but most of them are of the brothers. I think there are a couple of the exterior of the house, too. We can pull them out later if you’re interested.”
A thought struck Augusta. “Are there any of the interior? Like of the old kitchen?”
Jill frowned. “I don’t think so. Why?”
Just then Reggie stuck his head in again. “Sorry to interrupt. The sensor stopped, though I can’t figure out what was causing it to go off in the first place.”
“Must be the ghost,” Jill said.
“That’s about the only explanation I can think of,” he said, without looking up from typing on his phone.
“We have a resident ghost,” Jill explained. “He likes to hide important papers on us, turn off the lights, stuff like that. A few years ago, we even had a paranormal investigator from a TV show come in. They aired the episode and it was great publicity for the museum.”
“What did they find?” Augusta asked.
“That it’s an old house,” Reggie said with a grunt. “Cold spots, creaky floorboards and dust orbs.”
“Reggie doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Jill said. “He’s no fun.”
Augusta glanced at her phone and was surprised to find that it was already four thirty. She would have to leave right away if she wanted to catch the last bus before eight that night. But Jill and Reggie were bantering good-naturedly, and it was so peaceful and cozy inside. There was still so much more she wanted to explore in the house before she went home for the day, too. Sliding her phone back into her pocket, she decided she would figure out a way home later.
It was after five thirty when Augusta emerged into the crisp, overcast evening. Taking out her phone, she shot Chris a text asking if he wanted to meet her in downtown Tynemouth for a celebratory dinner. If he met her there, she wouldn’t have to call a car or wait for the eight o’clock bus.
She walked around the outside of the house in the gathering dusk, snapping a few pictures for Instagram. No reply from Chris. He was probably at the gym, or engrossed in a video game with Doug.
She was just about to go in search of a café so she could hunker down until eight, when Jill and Reggie caught her coming out the back door.
Jill looked surprised. “Hey, do you have a ride home?”
Augusta didn’t want to admit that her boyfriend wasn’t answering her texts, or that she was planning on sitting by herself for three hours. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just going to call an Uber or something if my boyfriend doesn’t get me first.”
“Well, we’re going to go grab a beer. You’re more than welcome to come. Reggie lives near Salem—he can drive you home after.”
“Or I can drive you home now,” Reggie quickly offered. “No need to come out if you don’t want to.”
Augusta fidgeted with her phone case. She’d envisioned celebrating with Chris, but he hadn’t answered, and she didn’t really feel like going home yet. Checking her messages one last time, she made up her mind. “Yeah, okay. I’d love to.”
It was almost eleven o’clock by the time Reggie dropped Augusta off. As she made her way up the carpeted stairs to their apartment, a knot tightened in her chest. She’d forgotten to check her phone until she was in the car and saw she had a text from Chris asking where she was. When she let herself into the apartment, Doug was nowhere to be seen, and the door to her and Chris’s bedroom was closed.
The light was off but she could make out the faint outline of Chris in the bed. Quietly as she could, she slipped off her shoes and changed into her pajamas.
The rustle of blankets. “Where were you?”
“I went out for drinks with people from Harlowe House. I texted you,” she added.
“Who?”
“Just some of the people who work there. Jill is the curator who I told you about, and Reggie is the building manager. They’re both married,” she added, knowing what his next question would be and hoping to avoid a confrontation.
Chris didn’t say anything, just turned back over in bed. She stared at his unmoving form for what felt like an eternity before finally getting ready for bed and resigning herself to a night of the silent treatment. As she climbed into bed beside him, she felt a pang of grief for the days when he’d hugged and tickled her and then fallen into bed with her, glad for her company. How long ago those days seemed now. Had she and Chris changed, or had time simply eroded whatever chemistry they had once shared? Either way, it was lonely to lie so close next to someone, yet feel so very far away.