“So, there is a ghost.”
By Darcy’s count that was Jon’s fourth time saying those exact same words. Darcy had a feeling that wasn’t the last time she was going to hear them today, either. She’d promised him this would be just a normal sort of vacation for them and now, not five minutes in, that promise had gone out the window.
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” she told him. “Unless, of course, you want to tell the kids we’re going back home and ruin their fun.”
She waved a hand in the direction of the 3D laser tag room here in the ‘Little Bit of Everything’ fun center—“Where the Fun is Always On!”—daring him to say they could leave now. Colby and Zane were racing through a glow-in-the-dark maze in there with other kids, all of them shooting at each other with toy guns that used beams of light to strike sensors on their gaming vests. She and Jon were sitting at one of several little tables in the main area of the place, where parents waited for their kids. The four of them had already played two rounds of mini golf together, and now the adults were sitting, and talking, while the kids wore themselves out having even more fun.
It gave them the chance to talk about what Darcy had seen. A single ghost, that had come and gone. Darcy was trying to explain that there were ghosts in lots of places. Just because she’d seen one didn’t mean she would get involved with a new mystery.
Probably.
“Okay, look,” Jon said after a long moment of silence. He set his Styrofoam coffee cup aside to reach across the table and take her hand. “I know that this is going to be a thing no matter where we go. I know my beautiful wife has this amazing talent to see…you know. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And, I mean, there’s…you know…everywhere in the world, right? Anywhere someone has died, there’s a chance of there being a…you know. Right?”
Darcy gave him a knowing smile. He was intentionally avoiding the word ‘ghost’ because there were still parents and kids walking everywhere. No need to get anyone upset and thinking they were some kind of nuts. Her husband was a smart man, who loved her just the way she was. He didn’t care what other people thought of her, but he wasn’t going to make a scene, either. She was definitely fine with that.
“It’s sort of like that, Jon. Yes, there are…you know…everywhere in the world, but they aren’t like, everywhere. Usually, they only haunt a place when they have some unfinished business to deal with. Something serious. So, I’d be willing to bet this woman I saw on the stairs is there because something went wrong in her life. Something big. She has something left to do.”
He squeezed her hand, and his blue eyes held hers. “So…I guess we’re going to have to solve a mystery while we’re here?”
Darcy shook her head. “I was just thinking about that, and no. This trip, no mystery solving. No spirit communications. The…you know…is there, and I admit that I’m curious about her, but she didn’t ask for my help. She didn’t reach out to me when she realized that I could see her. All she did was smile and move on. If she needed help, I’m sure she would have asked.”
“So, you’re just going to let it be? Wow. That’s very unlike you.”
“I know, right?” she smiled at him, and with her free hand picked up her soda for a sip through the straw. “Usually I’m the first one diving into a mystery. Not this time, though. This time, Darcy Sweet is officially on vacation.”
“Unless the woman you saw comes asking for help.”
“Well, if that happens I’ll worry about it.”
He played with her fingers for a moment before asking, “Were there any signs the place would be haunted?”
“Signs?” She wasn’t sure what he meant. “Like what? It’s not like ghosts hang out banners announcing their presence. It doesn’t work that way.”
“No. I know that. I just meant…did you see any articles online about murders at the Hideaway Inn when you were booking our vacation? Unexplained deaths, anything like that?”
“For Pete’s sake, Jon, I wasn’t looking for that stuff. I was just looking for a fun place to spend a few days. I never gave a thought to looking into the history of every Inn I found on Expedia.”
“Hmm,” he murmured. “Well, let’s fix that now.”
Letting go of her hand, he reached into his pocket for his cellphone.
“Jon, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to look up the history of the Hideaway Inn. If there were any kind of mysterious deaths there I’ll bet it will be all over the internet.” He tapped at the screen on his smartphone and swiped down a list of results when it came up, humming the whole time. “You know, they never do this in horror movies. I feel like if they took a few minutes to do a Google search before the action started, they’d save themselves a lot of trouble. Cabin in the Woods, Psycho, Don’t Blink, all those movies. I mean, check the Yelp reviews, for crying out loud.”
“Well, to be fair, most of those movies were made before cellphones existed. They didn’t have the great Google machine.”
“True, but we do now.”
Darcy watched him doing his research, loving the sight of her husband doing what he was good at. The caring police officer, digging until he found the truth about whatever was bothering him. Jon was a good man, and he chose to be a police officer to help people. Sometimes she imagined him in shining armor, riding a white horse, coming to the rescue of those in need.
Sometimes, he was the guy sitting across from her, searching through online articles to help his wife…
“Huh.”
Jon’s single word of surprise broke her out of her thoughts. His finger was hovering in midair over his screen. “What is it?” She asked him. “What did you find?”
“Uh, well. I found an article from the 1990s that says before it was an Inn, the Hideaway was a manor estate for some guy named Orson Bylow.”
“Okay. Their website did say the place used to be a mansion. I knew that part. That’s the whole point to them keeping some of the rooms like they used to be. It lets guests see the grandeur of a bygone age, or whatever. I don’t think it said who used to live here, though.”
“Well, I’m betting there’s a reason they left that off the website.” He set the phone on the table and turned it around for her to see the page he’d found.
Darcy looked at the information on the page, scrolling down to read more, her frown deepening with each new detail.
It was a magazine article about unsolved mysteries in New England. Ghost stories, basically, meant to entertain the reader. Each one was given only a paragraph or two, just enough time to give the basic details. Darcy had even heard of a few of them. In fact, there was one here about the Pilgrim Ghost of Misty Hollow, her own hometown.
Halfway through, she found the part about the Hideaway Inn.
In the early 1800s, a man named Orson Bylow had lived there with his wife. They owned most of the land around as part of their estate. One winter’s night in December, just before Christmas, a neighbor passing by on his way to town heard screaming from the estate. When he rushed up the driveway to find out what was going on, he witnessed Mrs. Jennifer Bylow jumping out of the third-floor window to her death.
Although, as the article explained, there was speculation that she didn’t jump. Some people thought she was thrown from that window. Rumors flew, fueled by a history of domestic violence between Jennifer and Orson Bylow. The police responded to investigate and when they arrived, they found the third story room locked from the inside, and with the security chain still in place. The room only had the one entrance—not counting the window. There couldn’t have been anyone else in the room with her when she died.
That certainly seemed to make it a suicide. But people who were going to commit suicide didn’t usually scream about it. They were calm and resigned to the fate they had chosen for themselves. So why did her neighbor hear her scream?
For that matter…why did she jump in the first place?
“Since then,” Darcy read, “there have been several reported sightings of a woman in black walking the staircases up to the third floor, possibly on her way to jump to her death again and again, over and over.”
She felt a tingle run up her spine. She might have spent her life around ghosts, and stories just like this one, but that didn’t make them any less chilling.
“So you agree,” Jon said when she passed him back his phone. “This sounds like a real mystery to me.”
Darcy did agree. A locked room, and a suspicious death, and people who thought they’d seen a ghost. She reached across the little table and swiped Jon’s coffee, wanting something to warm her up and chase away the sudden chill she felt. She told herself it was just the cold outside, but she knew better. Her gift lent her a sort of sixth sense. A knowledge about things she shouldn’t know.
The goosebumps crawling up her arms were telling her there was something wrong in the Hideaway Inn.
Even so, it wasn’t her problem. The ghost of Jennifer Bylow had been in that place all this time. Nearly two hundred years now, and except for a few appearances on that staircase for unsuspecting guests, she hadn’t ever reached out to anyone for help. Including Darcy, she should add, who could see her clear as anyone. If the ghost wanted help for whatever her issues were, she could speak up. Until then, Darcy Sweet was on vacation.
“You’re sure?” Jon asked her. “I know you, my beautiful wife, and I know that you don’t take these things lightly. You’re always there when someone needs help, whether they’re alive or dead.”
She gave him back his coffee and smiled at the love she could hear in his compliment. It meant a lot to her that he understood her so well. “I am sure. For this week, my family comes first. No mysteries. No…you know whats. Nothing but a good time with you and the kids and the snow and the quiet—”
A loud buzzer chimed from the laser tag room, cutting her off, and the doors opened and a knot of kids came pouring out, screaming and laughing and cheering their victories. Their two were right at the front, flushed faces and wide eyes telling Darcy that they were ready to do it all over again.
So much for ‘quiet’ and ‘kids’ going together in the same sentence, she thought to herself. Those two were having so much fun. This was a really good idea, and she was glad that Jon had agreed to this trip.
An unexpected yawn overtook her, and she had to cover her gaping mouth with her hand.
Jon laughed, and Darcy found herself laughing with him even though her cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment. “Stop it!” she told him. “I don’t know where that came from. I just couldn’t stop it.”
“I know. You’ve had a long day.” Jon gave her a wink as Colby and Zane came racing up to the table, begging to go again, and to do the trampoline room next—a whole section of the fun zone that had trampoline pads lining the walls and the floor with ramps and slopes and hurdles to jump over.
“Well,” Jon said, making his face appear dramatically sad. “I thought maybe we should go back to the Inn and make sure we didn’t use up all the fun at once…”
“But Dad!” Zane said immediately, “I still have lots of space left for fun. Really. I promise I do!”
“Yeah, Dad,” Colby was quick to add. “Plus you have to come in with us to do laser tag. You are absolutely going to love it. Bet I can score on you a dozen…no, wait…two dozen times!”
“Well…” Jon tapped a finger against his lips, pretending to think about it.
“Please!” both kids begged in chorus.
Darcy used her cellphone to take a picture of the two of them practically hanging off Jon, pleading that this wouldn’t be the end of the amazing day they were having. That was going to be a keeper, along with the one of Zane laying down on the eighth hole of mini golf to use his golf club like a pool cue to knock his ball in the hole.
Another yawn hit her, one big enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“Hey,” Jon said to her, gently this time. “Why don’t you go back to the Inn and lie down for a couple of hours. The kids and I got this covered.”
“Yeah!” Zane cheered. “We’re covering the whole place!”
“That’s not what he meant, little brother,” Colby told him. “But it’s fine with me too, Mom, if you want to go back to the Inn for a little bit. We can meet back here, right? There’s a little restaurant at the other end of everything.”
Darcy tilted her head at her daughter. She’d always acted so grown up, even more so now that she was an actual teenager. Yet here she was, just as eager as Zane to spend the day with laser tag and skee ball. She wasn’t ready to give up being young. Not yet.
“You’re sure?” She said it more to Jon than she did to Colby, but it was still her daughter who answered.
“Go on, Mom. We got this.”
“Yeah,” Zane echoed. “Got this. Got laser tag! Pew, pew! Pew, pew!”
Darcy looked back at Jon, her eyebrow up in a silent question.
He shrugged. “I may have taught him the sound a laser gun makes. That’s what dads are for, right?”
That was true. Being a parent wasn’t all about teaching kids how to do math or save money. You needed to teach them how to make good sound effects when they played, too. Darcy got up and kissed the top of her husband’s head. Her kids would be in good hands with a man who was still young at heart, even if he had gray in his temples.
In a place like this, the kids could easily burn up two hours playing. They wouldn’t even know she was gone. In fact, they were already rushing back to get in line for the next laser tag game before she could tell them goodbye. At least Jon waved to her and blew her a kiss. For the next few hours, she was on her own.
Outside, it had started snowing again, and everything was beautiful. This was such a small town, dependent on tourism to stay alive just like Misty Hollow was. Darcy would never want to see a giant play center like this one in the middle of her town, but she was glad it was here. She wanted a quiet vacation, but her kids wanted fun things to do. This place was perfect for both.
She got in the car and started the engine, and let it warm up a little before heading out. The snow came down harder as she drove, reflecting red and blue and green from the Christmas lights of the houses she passed.
Darcy smiled. Life was good.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it. This was new.
This was different.
Something was wrong.
Darcy was asleep almost as soon as her head hit her pillow in the room. She woke an hour and a half later, feeling rested and refreshed. The beds at the Inn were unbelievably soft. There was a pillow-top mattress cover that had done wonders for her back and her shoulders and—yes, she was going to say it—her soul. Maybe she wasn’t the young girl she used to be when her adventures in Misty Hollow began, but was she really so old now that she needed afternoon naps?
She told herself she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. She just needed a little pick-me-up and the nap had definitely done it for her. But now, Jon and the kids were waiting for her to pick them up and she needed to get going. The owner had been at the front desk on her way in, and he’d promised to give them a tour of the place before dinner. Darcy was really looking forward to that. She didn’t want to miss it because she slept too long.
This Inn must have been beautiful when it was a mansion. The woodwork in the hallways and the rooms was stunning. The rugs weren’t original, they couldn’t be, but they were all designs that would have fit in perfectly two centuries ago. She could only imagine how much time it took to maintain a place like this, dusting, washing, repairs and upkeep. Not to mention the expense. It made her wonder how Maxwell turned a profit. Maybe it was busier in the summertime than it was this close to Christmas.
Slipping her socks and sneakers back on, she shook her head at herself. She was not going to be curious about anything on this trip. Not the ghosts, not how this place was run, none of it. She was just going to enjoy this time with her family. She’d promised Jon that’s how it was going to be, and she was going to stick to that promise.
She snatched the keys to the car up from the dresser as she started humming a song to herself and opened the door, stepped out into the hallway—
And nearly ran through the person standing there.
The tall, gaunt man was transparent and ghastly pale. His clothes were from a bygone era. The short collared white shirt and rough brown trousers would have been a common sort of fashion in the middle of the nineteenth century. His eyes were wide and blank on his unshaven face as he stared at her.
A ghost with a five o’clock shadow. It was so unexpected she almost burst out laughing.
The ghost smiled at her with crooked teeth as if he really could see her with those empty eyes. Sweeping an arm across his middle, he bowed to her…
Took a bad step with his left foot…
And tripped.
Reflexively, Darcy threw a hand out to catch him before her mind told her don’t be a total dufus. For Pete’s sake, he’s a ghost!
She watched as the man fell right through the floor, arms flailing, mouth open wide in alarm. It was like watching Charlie Chaplin take a pratfall in an old black and white silent film. Maybe it shouldn’t have been funny, but it was. This time she couldn’t help it. She snickered behind her cupped hand.
Up he popped through the floor again, dusting off the front of his trousers as if a ghost could get dirty from falling down—no, falling through—a floor. He looked up at Darcy and shrugged, as if he was embarrassed.
Then he turned without moving his feet, floating an inch above the floor, and moved toward a door at the end of the hallway with a Christmas wreath nailed to the center of it…
And bounced off as if he had really hit it.
Darcy laughed again. It wasn’t a mean laugh, it was just that seeing a ghost act like he just ran into a door…she didn’t think she’d ever seen anything like this. A clumsy ghost! In life, this man must have been a total klutz for it to carry over into his afterlife like this.
The ghost rubbed at an imagined pain in his forehead, and then glared at the door. Putting out a hand, he grabbed for the doorknob, and mimicked the motions of opening it. Of course the door didn’t open, but he went through it as if it had.
Doors didn’t stop ghosts. They could pass through anything, short of a line of salt or a few other things Darcy knew about. This ghost was just clumsy.
Or maybe…crazy?
So. First there was the ghost of Mrs. Bylow on the stairs, and now this ghost up here wandering the halls and literally bumping into things. Well, this place was old, and it wouldn’t surprise Darcy to know there were more than a few suspicious deaths that had left ghosts here. Old houses had a soul of their own sometimes, and lots of stories to tell.
This ghost didn’t ask for her help, either. In fact, their meeting had been completely accidental. He hadn’t hung around to talk. If he didn’t want her help, then she wasn’t going to offer it. She was on vacation.
She went down the hallway in the direction of the stairs, humming that song to herself again. When she was almost there, she passed the open door to the Inn’s library. They’d seen it on the way to their room earlier, and of course Darcy had glanced in. She couldn’t resist the allure of books. This library was a bibliophile’s dream.
The room was much bigger than she would have expected. Easily thirty feet by forty feet, completely open with shelves lining each of the walls, full of books from one end to the other. There were soft chairs arranged in the middle, with a table in between and a reading lamp. There were no windows here, and no clocks either. It looked like the perfect place to lose track of time altogether.
The variety of books impressed Darcy, too. There were leather-bound books with faded spines, and she could see several books on travel displayed with their front covers facing out to catch people’s attention. There were also several sections of more modern paperback novels for light reading. She was definitely looking forward to exploring the selection later. Maybe after the kids had gone to bed. She had no doubt she could find something in here to read. Several somethings, in fact. She could take a couple back to the room to read in bed…
Darcy’s train of thought was interrupted when a haze began to form in the far corner of the room, over by some of the older looking books. It was a misty sort of light that settled low to the floor, floating there for a moment before it brought itself together, drawing inward until it took on the shape of a person.
The light faded, leaving a shadow of a short, elderly woman with gray hair tied in a bun and a long dress that fluttered constantly in a breeze that wasn’t there. A ghost had just entered the library. Darcy didn’t dare move. She watched as the spirit scanned the shelves slowly before reaching up to touch the brown leather spine of a one old, thick book. Her fingers caressed it almost lovingly.
Then her head snapped around toward Darcy, and her eyes flared brightly in the shadows of a lean, wrinkled face.
Darcy blinked, and the flash left two tiny afterimages on her retinas. When she could open her eyes again without them stinging, the ghost was gone. There was an odor that lingered on the air after her. It smelled like…hate.
Three ghosts in the same building? Were they unrelated, Darcy wondered, or were they maybe connected somehow? This many apparitions in one place couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? With slow steps, she went to the corner, and put her hand through the spot the ghost had occupied not two minutes ago. It was cold in a way that was not natural. There was something else, too. Her gift was trying to tell her something. She opened herself to it, really tried to listen to it. She sensed…something wasn’t right.
Something felt wrong.
She thought back to the news article Jon had found online. It didn’t say anything about multiple ghosts in the Hideaway Inn. It had only mentioned Mrs. Bylow’s death and the many sightings of her on the stairs over the years. Shouldn’t there have been more information online about the Hideaway Inn, if there were other ghosts? Suspicious deaths, or murders, or anything like that. There should have been something.
Maybe they just hadn’t looked far enough. They stopped at the first story they found, instead of scrolling further. Darcy hadn’t wanted to do any ghost investigating on this trip. No mystery solving. She wanted to give the family a normal Christmas vacation where ghosts weren’t coming out of the woodwork and where people weren’t trying to kill her or Jon. A vacation where they could just relax and have fun.
She smirked, and shook her head. She should have known better. After all, this was her family she was talking about. Peace on Earth wasn’t usually their luck.
Still, none of these ghosts had asked for help. Each of them had made eye contact with her, and they knew she was here. If they wanted her help, they would ask.
She should just leave it at that.
She really should.
Or…should she?
Honestly, would it hurt to do a little sleuthing on their vacation? She didn’t have to do anything about it. She would just be looking for answers about the ghosts, and she had to admit she was curious. With Jon’s police investigation skills, he could easily do another online search to see if there were more stories about this place out there in the internet.
Besides. Mrs. Bylow’s murder was decades ago. Nearly two centuries. If all the ghosts were connected somehow then it meant they all died that long ago. Even if she found answers to why they were here, what would it matter? It was ancient history. It was nothing that would affect their vacation time.
With a sigh, she turned away from the fading cold spot in the library and made her way down the stairs. For now, she was going to go pick up Jon and the kids. That was what she was going to do right now.
She walked through the main room on the first floor, noticing that Maxwell Bylow had added to the decorations while she slept. There was spray-on snow across the bottoms of the windowpanes now, and Christmas lights strung between the wall sconces, and four mistletoe sprigs taped to the front of the check-in counter. Nobody was going to be able to kiss under those!
Well, there were still the ones in the doorway, she thought with a smile.