Bailey
The Wilson house is fairly small, snug, and full of memories.
I love old houses like these. Every creak step and notch in the floorboards holds a memory, and for the Wilsons, that’s over three decades of marriage and cohabitation.
I run my finger over the squeaky clean mantle above the seldom used fireplace. I’m sure it’s just for show. I can’t imagine needing a fire ever in a state like Louisiana, but I sure do like the idea of cozying up in front of a fireplace and reading a book on a cold, snowy winter night.
I chuckle to myself at the thought of snow–having never seen it in real life–and go about my business.
I’ve set up a little workstation in the study off the living room, which is nothing more than a desk, a crammed bookshelf, and a large safe that takes up most of the tiny room. Robert likes to hunt and fish, and it shows. I eye the boxes of bullets, thankful they’re covered in years’ worth of dust, as I sit down at the cluttered desk and search for Robert’s file in my tote bag.
Sighing, I study his surgery notes for the hundredth time, trying to make sense of the trauma to his leg. It doesn’t make sense to me. This couldn’t have been caused by a fall… maybe from fifty feet in the air, but I doubt the old man is in the habit of climbing trees.
I run my fingers through my hair and glance out the window. I have a view of the marsh, and it’s a cloudless, moonlit night. In the distance, I can see the joists connecting the freshly framed third floor at the new Gregory house, and my mind drifts to Tanner.
I had him look over Robert’s X-ray. He reviewed the surgery notes as well.
His reaction was so strange… especially for a first responder. He’s seen injuries worse than this out in the field as the fire chief and told me all about them with marked enthusiasm.
I’m not squeamish, but this….
I rub my eyes. I’m not used to working night shifts, and this is my first overnight at the Wilson house. Helen went to bed an hour ago in the master suite while Robert is asleep in the guest room.
I wonder how Layla filled the sleepy downtime during her long nights at the old house. Being awake while the rest of the world sleeps is an odd sensation that wraps itself around me like a snake slithering over my skin. Every echo of pipes and soft brush of the cypress trees gliding over the metal roof sounds… different. Wholly changed in the moonlight. It’s like I’ve walked into a different realm, a different space and time entirely.
I need to stop reading fantasy books, I think.
Another rub of my eyes and my legs start to twitch. I need to move, or I’ll fall asleep, so I walk throughout the first floor, then the second, checking on Robert before making my way downstairs an hour later to do… whatever.
I end up on the back porch sipping a diet soda, letting the caffeine seep through my veins.
My mom used to tell me stories about the marshes. She used to whisper about the spirits who clung to the wetlands, waiting for a final tide to rush them away to eternal peace.
And, she spoke of the demons who haunted the shallow waters. Demons who preyed on those reckless enough to travel too far into the wetlands.
I smile to myself as I watch the fireflies dart through the bushes at the edge of the yard. This place–this marshy area of the Mississippi–has been my home forever, but tonight I’m seeing it in a new light.
I believe in ghosts, but not the demons Mom talks about. Her stories are the same told generation after generation to keep children from getting lost or eaten by alligators.
Night time here is… serene. It’s just me and the fireflies.
I sip my soda as I walk along the edge of the yard with my bare toes in the cool grass. This is a rare kind of summer night. Warm, yes. Still and humid? Of course. But there’s a slight, uncommon chill in the air that makes all of the downy soft hair on my body stand on end in the best way as I skirt the property line.
I’m several hundred yards away from the back porch when something large skitters away through the encroaching woods, and I halt.
Helen has been complaining about the racoons and opossums. I used to leave crackers and stale cookies out on the back porch at the Gregory place for them. It was my little secret.
I turn back to the house, but movement catches my attention through the trees, and I pause.
A gentle breeze ripples through me, sending a chill licking down my spine. From where I’m standing, I can just make out a slight incline where the marsh begins. Moonlight reflects off the water as my gaze sweeps over the marsh and up the rise, where I can just make out the outlines of the cemetery.
I hadn’t realized how close the Wilsons live to Penny’s old place.
The headstones are just a shimmer of gray in the moonlight against a sea of deep, endless greenery, but there’s something else.
My spine locks up, and my shoulders square on their own accord as someone walks between the headstones. They’re nothing more than a shadow, but I swear… I swear there’s someone running their hands over the top edge of each stone as they move in like a ghost.
A twig snaps behind me and I whirl.
“Oh, honey! I didn’t mean to startle you!” Helen holds her hands out, her lips pulling back in a cringe. “I thought you might have been sleepwalking!”
“Helen, I’m sorry,” I rush out, seeing the panicked look behind her eyes shifting to guilt. “I’m just trying to stay awake. I thought a stroll might do the trick.”
“Well, I’m having trouble sleeping myself and had the same idea, though I don’t ever walk out this far at night.”
She glances around nervously, letting out a shuddering breath. I look over my shoulder at the cemetery.
Maybe it was just a shadow because the figure I thought I saw is no longer there.
“You never walk in the marsh?”
“Oh, of course I do. I like to go and sit by the river sometimes, especially if Robert takes me out while he’s fishing, but never along the boundary between our house and the old Gregory property.”
“Why not?” I ask, following her as she turns around and rubs her arms like she caught a chill.
“Oh, no reason other than it’s always given me the creeps. The marsh just seems darker on that side, more wild.”
“Hmm, I suppose you’re right.”
“Did you walk outside often when you worked for Miss Penny?” We walk back to the house together.
“Not really. Sometimes, if the weather was mild, I’d sit out in the backyard with a book if she was having a particularly calm day, but I never….” I think about it for a moment. “Can I be honest with you?”
She nods, sitting down in the swinging chair on the back porch.
I lean against the porch railing and heave a breath, trying to organize the strange feelings I sometimes had while working in the old house.
“The Gregory property has a bit of edge to it, doesn’t it? I mean, some days, when it was just me and Miss Penny, I’d go downstairs to the kitchen to make myself some lunch, and I felt like–like I wasn’t entirely alone.”
“Mmm…” Helen hums, nodding her head.
“And… When Layla started working there, I felt that feeling even more. Like I wasn’t ever alone. Like I could look over my shoulder and find someone–something watching me from afar.”
“What did that feel like to you?” Helen asks calmly.
“That’s an odd question.” I chuckle, shrugging. “I guess… it didn’t feel threatening. Maybe… bored curiosity? That changed, though, when all the weird things started happening to Layla, and when we found out what Vera was doing to Miss Penny it got worse.” Chills erupt all over my skin. I shake them away. “Do you believe in ghosts, Helen?”
“Oh, of course. You can’t live in the deep south without holding some belief about the spirits that linger here.”
“Is your house haunted?” I ask, wiggling my eyebrows in her direction.
She smiles, but doesn’t laugh. “No. Not all the time. Spirits of all kinds pass through these parts on occasion. I’ve had weird things happen over the years. I had one spirit of a child that liked to mess with my balls of yarn. But nothing like–nothing like what lived at the Gregory house.”
I watch her closely. Her eyes undergo a great change as she sighs, toying with her wedding ring.
She licks her lips, her eyes sliding to mine. “Did Layla tell you anything?”
“About?”
“About… the house?”
“She would ask me if it was haunted. I thought maybe the night shifts were getting to her, like the last night nurse who ran out–”
“I want you to promise me something, Bailey.”
“Of course,” I say, catching an uncommon edge of desperation in Helen’s voice. She’s normally bubbly and chipper, the epitome of southern hospitality, but now?
Real fear shines behind her eyes for a split second as she says, “Do not step foot on the Gregory property ever again.”
“Why?”
“Just promise. That place is… scarred. It’s the deepest kind of scar, I’m afraid. I don’t think you’re safe there. And don’t go to the cemetery, either. Promise me–”
“I promise,” I tell her, even though I’m sure I’m not understanding her sudden insistence. I worked there for years. “I don’t have a reason to, anyway. Tanner prefers to pack his own lunch.”
She smiles at me, but it’s fleeting.
“That scary old house burned down, anyway,” I tease, trying to lighten her mood. Had something happened to her there? Does she know something I don’t?
“I’m not sure that matters,” she whispers to herself.
“What?”
The buzzer I gave Robert to alert me if he needed anything causes an alarm to chime on my watch. I flinch, startled by the synthetic sounds against the calming, hushed lullaby of the swamp.
“You should try to get some rest,” I tell Helen as I walk through the back door. But she’s not looking at me. Her gaze is resting on the far edge of their backyard, the same place I’d been standing when I caught a glimpse of the cemetery.
I ignore the nagging sensation in my brain that has been telling me to run… for years.
For years, since the moment I crossed the threshold of Miss Penny’s front door.
“Goodnight, Bailey,” Helen says, and her voice sounds… different. Lower, and more severe.
“Goodnight,” I whisper, bristling.
I remind myself I don’t believe in the stories my mom told me as a child, but if there are demons in those wetlands… Well, the Gregory property might be full of them.