Ghost country

Chapter 1
Chapter One

Chapter Description: The beginning

Chapter One

Like I already said, the day Lucy and I moved into the house in Marshville, Connecticut on a nice, sunny Saturday. Nothing looked old on the outside of the house. There was a fresh coat of red paint, the shutters have all been replaced, and there wasn’t even a rotten board of the porch. The last owners bought the house as a fixer-up-?er. Even now, I say it was a nice house.

I specifically remember Lucy getting out of the car, and smiling up at the house. For some reason, the image of her looking away from the house and at me, with her shoulder-length red hair framing her face, her full, red lips with a dimple close by, jade green eyes separated by that perfectly pointed nose, just staring at me in that instant, with that white, multiple story brick house, with the blue shutters and the new porch on that newly mown, green hill, it was just picturesque. For God’s sake, it even had a gleaming rain gutters.

I wish I still had a picture of that tiny, little second. It seems unfair that that single, small happy moment would be followed by so much.

“Oh, Ted, I told you there were a few good looking haunted houses left. Wow, it’s so big...Maybe we could rent out a couple of rooms. You know, after we’re done...Oh, breaking it in,” Lucy had placed her index finger on her chin and wrinkled her forehead as if she were thinking intently on what we could’ve done. She grinned and I leaned over and kissed her.

I picked her up and carried her in my arms and ran up the hill and jumped three-steps at a time up the stairs and through the threshold. Inside there was a coat and shoe rack, but we didn’t bother to take off either. Further along, there was a threshold that lead to the living room on the left, a couple feet farther than that was a staircase up to the second floor, and at the end of the hallway was a door to the kitchen.

We still kissed while I carried her into the living room and I laid Lucy on the couch that was under the window and...That was when I had heard a noise. Almost the sound of children, but at the time I hadn’t figured that out.

“Umm, Ted? I kinda... don’t feel like it anymore, let’s go check out the rest of the house,” Lucy had said, blushing for some reason. Right then, I just thought that she expected someone to come by. I hadn’t even considered her being nervous; after all, we’ve had sex plenty of times over the course of our six-month marriage, not as though it were twenty years, but still...

“Sure, baby, we’ll go check out the rest of the house,” I caressed her neck and shoulders and led her into the dining room where it had a long, cherry wood table that sat a dozen seats, two at the ends and five on both sides. On top of the silk table cover on the center of the table was a candle stick with three lit candles. And on the ceiling was a beautiful silver chandelier.

God, it was good to be an heir. My father had recently passed away, and luckily, he hadn’t had the chance to marry the gold digging tramp that he was seeing and I got all his money. Well, I guess not all of it. Lucy had pressured me into donating at least a million dollars to some charity thing. She kept on repeating that, “You know, Ted, what goes around comes around,” crap and eventually I succumbed. I gave a million to the Red Cross and another million to some feed the children thing. Lucy put out like a snap of my fingers after.

We went around the table, still in each other’s arms, almost in a dancing motion and entered the kitchen, which was state-of-the-art everything. A brand new oven, microwave, dishwasher, fridge/freezer. A marble counter top with a stainless steal sink. In there, Lucy got even more timid.

She backed away from me shyly and opened up the fridge, then the freezer. “Oh, look, we don’t have anything to eat. Why don’t I run to the store and I’ll go get something from dinner while you check out the rest of the house.”

“Luce, did I do something? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Ted, I’m just starving, right now.”

“Oh, well are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

“No, no, no. You stay here, check out the rest of the house. I know how much you’ve been waiting for this sorta thing. Besides, I never heard of a ghost popping up in front of two people,” she twirled her finger around, just a little thing she used to do to get a point across, “You’ll have better luck if I’m not around.”

After that, she grabbed her car keys and almost ran out of the house. What got into her? I thought as I sighed and left the kitchen. I went into the hallway and up the stairs.

There were actually five stories in the house, the basement, which was just for storage at that moment, the first floor, where the living room, kitchen, dining room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom are. On the second floor, there was the master bedroom, another bedroom, bathroom, and a balcony to look out at the water. The third floor was all just a blank space, and the top was just a small ten by ten foot room with a trap door.

I climbed up the stairs up to the second floor, then pulled the ladder down from the ceiling and climbed into the third floor room. It was basically just for structure. You could see the pillars of wood all around in the bare, square space. I was just about to climb the wooden latter up to the small room, but something caught my eye.

Two wooden chests in the corner. The chests were the same color of the walls so it was an easy miss for anyone. I went over to the duo and found they were unlocked. I kneeled down and blew the dust away from them and found both had a strange insignia. One had a dull, blue bear, with one paw raised, and the other, a dull pink horse on its hind hoofs. Just as I was about to open the bear chest, I decided to wait until Lucy got home. Both chests were easily fifty or sixty pounds, luckily the ladder down to the second floor was at an angle, so I could easily get both down there.

I put both chests in the living room. Then, I decided to take a nap since I knew it would take Lucy a while to get back, she does like to stock up and splurge a bit. Going up the stairs and walking into the master bedroom, I was very happy at what I saw. A flat screen of one wall, and the king sized bed on the opposite, next to the door to the master bathroom were a dresser and a closest. On the dresser there was a bowl of rose petals and I smiled. Just a gift from the realtor, I suppose. We had gotten along with the guy quite nicely.

Lying down on the bed, I had no dreams. It was three hours before Lucy got home and yelled my name. I always thought it was very lucky that I was such a light sleeper.

I’d raced downstairs and found Lucy struggling with the screen door while carrying her bags of grocery. Lucy, as environmentally conscious as a vegan, bought a bunch of things that wouldn’t decompose in some pit of garbage somewhere.

I opened the door and grabbed a couple of bags from her, “You alright, babe? You were acting weird before.”

She nodded, “Yea, I felt weird, for a moment. But when I got out of the house, I felt better again. Hey,” she poked my ribs and grinned, “Maybe it was the ghost.”

“Speaking of ghost, I actually found two dusty chests up in the attic, how about after dinner we take a look at them?”

“Really? Don’t you think someone else would’ve taken them out if they were valuable or something?”

I shrugged and said, “I haven’t really thought of it.”

“You never do, Ted.” Lucy just shook her head and placed the grocery bags on the counter. “Well, I guess we’ll just to see what’s in them.” She raced to the hallway and got to the chests before I did. I heard an “Aww!” in the living room before I got in it. Lucy was in there with an opened chest holding up old, pink child’s dress. “Ted! Isn’t this adorable?”

“Yea, it is. Is there anything else in it?” I asked.

“Yea, there are a few more dresses, a few toys, a couple of books, and a lot of letters.” Lucy said shuffling around the dust and sneezed. I kneeled down to other chest and opened it. Lucy looked over my shoulder and saw a blue and white sailor suit with a clich? Donald Duck hat to go with it. Underneath were more little boy clothes, toys, and a few more books.

“These look like they’re from the early 1900’s, but I’m not sure, I’m no expert.” I stated to Lucy.

“Who knows, maybe we’ll get to see the owner’s ghost and we can ask them. Now come on,” she said rising from the ground, “We still have to make dinner.”