The Red House 2: The Curse is Broken Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Mary Heath

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and for review purposes. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  The Curse is Broken

  CHAPTER 1

  After Jesse and Martha can see one another, I keep watching them expectantly. Jesse laughs. “Why are you looking at us like that for? Do you think we are going to disappear or something?”

  I nod my head. “Well, aren’t you? The curse is broken. Shouldn’t you be walking into the light or something?”

  Martha looks around. “I don’t know. I don’t see it. Maybe it takes a while for it to show up?”

  Jesse looks around the barn himself. “I really don’t know how this is going to work.”

  I hear gravel crutching outside. I go to the barn door and look out. “Oh, crap! It’s Eli! He is bringing Noble home!” I turn to Martha, running my hands over my hair. “Oh, gross, I have Robert yuck in it!” I look around for something to get it out with.

  “Here, go dunk your head in the water trough; then brush it with this brush!” Martha helps me wash the nasty out of my hair; then she runs Noble’s brush through it quickly. I turn and look at her. “How do I look?”

  Martha looks at Jesse, who shakes his head sadly. “Like you were smacked around and nearly choked to death. You have bruises all over your face and marks around your throat. He will know someone attacked you.” I try rubbing at the marks around my throat. If I can hide those, maybe I can convince Eli that I fell! Martha reaches down and rips a strip off of her skirt.

  “Here, get this wet and wipe the blood off your neck then wrap it around your neck like a scarf! Hurry. I hear him coming!” Martha looks at Jesse. “Do something! Go slow him down!”

  Jesse disappears. Then I hear Noble start kicking like crazy in the trailer. I try to go see what is going on, but Martha stops me. “It’s Jesse; he is spooking Noble to distract Eli for a few moments. He won’t hurt him.” I don’t like the idea of anyone scaring my horse. Martha cleans my neck and face. Then she rips a wider dry piece off her skirt again.

  “Martha, don’t ruin your skirt!”

  She smiles. “Look, its already repaired! That’s a perk to being a ghost -- your clothes stay exactly the same.”

  She looks me over, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but that’s about all that I can do.”

  I look over to where Robert’s mangled body is still lying in several pieces on the floor. “What about that?” I ask her.

  “Oh, shoot! Even in death that man is still a pain in my butt!” She looks around. “There! Go get that old horse blanket and throw over him.” I hurry and snatch the blanket off the wall then toss it over his body just as Eli leads Noble through the door! Noble snorts and tosses his head, still obviously upset from Jesse’s spooking.

  “Hey, handsome boy, what’s the matter?” I speak soothingly to him. Eli comes around from the other side.

  “What happened to you?” he asks, frowning. He takes my chin in his hand, turning my face this way and that way, looking at the bruises and my busted lip. “Who hit you? Did that loser Jesse come back after you? Did he do this to you?”

  I jerk my face out of his hand. “No! Jesse would never hurt me or any other woman! I just fell, that’s all!”

  Eli shakes his head. “I don’t think so, Shelby. That is a slap mark on your cheek. The bruise is in the shape of his hand. Now who hit you?” Eli had me by the shoulders, looking fiercely down at me. I’m not sure what to say now. He clearly isn’t buying my “I fell” story.

  “Eli, just stop it! Let go of me!” He drops his hands by his side and turns away. “I swear you attract trouble worse than Noble attracts horseflies!”

  I take Noble’s lead rope from him and lead him into the stall. I pour in some feed and he settles down to eat his dinner.

  “Look. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to, but you better come up with a better cover story than you fell because your mom and my dad will see right through that.”

  I groan. “Your dad is here, too?”

  He nods his head. “Yeah, and even better than that, so is Officer Logan.”

  Oh, double crap! “I’ll just stay out here until he leaves,” I suggest.

  Eli folds his arms across his chest. “He is here to see you. Now what are you going to do?”

  I glare at him. “You could help me, Eli! Instead of just taking up space!”

  He walks over to me. “Fine. I’ll help you. Tell me who hit you and I’ll help you; that sounds fair enough to me.”

  I stare at him helplessly. “Eli…I can’t tell you that,” I whisper.

  He puts his arm around me. “So you admit that someone did hit you?” I nod my head slowly. I don’t have any other choice.

  “Who, Shelby? I want a name…now!”

  Tears fall from my eyes as I look up at him. “I can’t tell you, Eli!” I can’t believe I am crying but I feel so trapped! I am sick of being trapped in this mess alone! Finally, I have had enough! If he wants the truth, I will show him the truth! Let him carry some of this on his extremely-broad shoulders! “Ok, Eli, are you sure you want to know? You better be really sure because there is no going back once I show you.” He frowns but nods his head.

  I walk over and fling the blanket off of Robert’s mutilated body and I watch as Eli recoils in shock and horror. “Who is that?” he almost yells at me. I sit down on a bale of hay then pat the space beside me.

  “You better sit down, Eli. What I am fixing to show you may come as a bit of a shock.” He walks over, still staring at the body on the floor. “Jesse? Martha? Please show yourselves. I’m done doing this on my own.”

  Eli looks at me, his brows raised into his hairline. “Shelby, who are you talking to?” he asks, looking more freaked out by the second.

  I nod my head to where Jesse and Martha are now standing. “I was talking to them…”

  If I were in any other situation other than the one I am currently in, I would have laughed at the look of confused terror that battled for control on Eli’s face when he looked to where I pointed. Jesse and Martha had not quite become solid yet, and you could see right through them.

  “Boo?” Jesse says with a grin.

  Martha turns a peeved eye to Jesse then smiles at Eli. “Please ignore him; he has no manners at all. I’m Martha and I believe you already know Jesse?”

  Eli looks at me with wide eyes and I just shrug. “Yeah, the house came with a few tenants that weren’t exactly on the lease. The really fun part is this isn’t even all of them.”

  I stop and scrub my face with both hands, wondering where in the world to start in my explanation of all things ghostly in my life. Deciding maybe the very beginning would the best place, I begin. “Okie dokie, as you already know this is Jesse Barrows and this is Martha Mitchell. What you don’t know is they are your dad’s however many greats grandparents.”

  I watch as Eli looks from me to Jesse and Martha then begins to turn a few interesting colors, but t
he last one really concerns me because it’s a sickly gray color.

  “Oh, dear, Shelby, you better get ready to…” Martha’s warning comes a few seconds too late because Eli’s eyes suddenly roll to the back of his head and he slumps sideways, knocking both of us to the floor!

  Both Jesse and Martha jump and help to get Eli off of me. I never would have guessed he would have been so heavy. Martha once more rips off a piece of her skirt to soak it in the horse trough. I am really starting to see the usefulness of the ever -repairing garment. She folds it, placing it on Eli’s forehead, patting his cheek gently. Jesse stands back, making some comment about weak men of this time. I open my mouth to tell him off about it when Eli groans. Martha quickly backs away to give him some distance.

  “Hey…are you ok?” I ask as he opens his eyes slowly, looking somewhat confused to be lying on the ground. Then I see it all come rushing back to him because he looks quickly around the barn as he quickly tries to sit up.

  “Careful!” I caution as I put my hand on his shoulders to slow him down.

  “Where are they?” he asks, still searching the area with his eyes.

  “They’re still here and they are my friends, so be nice. They can’t help being ghosts, but you can help being rude.”

  Eli climbs shakily to his feet, still looking a tad bit pale, and sits back down on the bale of hay. “They truly are dead then?” he whispers.

  I nod my head. “Yes, and it’s a long tragic story that I will gladly fill you in on later, but right now I need your help. You did promise that if I told you who hit me, you would help me, remember?”

  Eli looks over to the body on the floor. “Was he dead before he looked like that?”

  That gets a resounding “yes” from all three of us.

  Martha approaches Eli slowly, holding out her hand. “Please… help Shelby. She has done so much for Jesse and me that we will forever be in her debt.” She stops just short of touching Eli’s shoulder. Her hand hovers right above as if seeking his permission before touching him. She must have seen something in his eyes because she lowers her hand until it rests gently on his shoulder.

  Eli raises his head and for the first time he looks Martha in the eye. “Ok, I’ll help.” Getting up, he walks to the barn door. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  “I have no idea.” Then he walks out. I look over at Jesse and Martha once the barn door closes.

  “Well, that went better than expected,” Jesse quips. I shake my head at him and sit back down on the bale of hay. It seems to be the only thing I know to do.

  Martha sits down next to me and pats my hand. “Eli will think of something, Shelby. Don’t worry.” She tries to reassure me but it doesn’t work. I keep straining my ears listening for the sound of pounding feet coming down to the barn to arrest me for…for…something! A weird hissing sound from under the blanket has me jumping to my feet in horror, expecting to see Robert rising up once more, but instead the blanket settles flat on the floor. I look at Jesse for an explanation.

  “The body is gone. It was only here for as long as Robert’s spirit held it here. Once he left it had nothing to keep it here any longer.”

  I walk over and pick up the corner of the blanket, carefully pulling it up until I can see that it truly is gone. There isn’t any sign of it left. No blood, no gore, nothing. My shoulders slump in relief. “Thank God! At least that’s one thing I won’t have to explain if Eli can’t stop Officer Logan from coming down here.”

  “Do you think it was wise bringing him into this?” Jesse asks.

  I look at him with a frown. “Who? Officer Logan? That wasn’t exactly my doing, Jesse.”

  “No, I was talking about Eli.”

  Oh…that. “I’m sorry…I was at maximum overload. I couldn’t take handling this by myself anymore.”

  Jesse’s frown grows even deeper. “I’m sorry…I thought we were all in this together. I guess dead people don’t count?”

  I level my best Mama look on him. “That is not what I meant and you know it. Don’t be childish.” I am not going to be dragged into another stupid argument. I just don’t have it in me at the moment.

  Martha comes to my defense. “Jesse, of course she didn’t mean it like that! We can do a lot of things for Shelby, but there are a lot of things we can’t do. Like what Eli is doing at this moment. She needs someone who is actually living to help her.” Jesse doesn’t respond. He just walks over to pet Noble, who still acts a little nervous around him.

  “Don’t worry about Jesse; he will come around and understand once he has time to think about it,” Martha whispers as she squeezes my shoulders.

  I shake my head. “Doesn’t really matter if he does or not now -- the ghosts are out of the bag.”

  CHAPTER 2

  I finally hear footsteps and Martha looks through the barn wall then smiles. “It’s only Eli.”

  Once more my shoulders slump in relief and the breath I didn’t realize I was holding swooshes out. He opens the barn door, looking around cautiously.

  “What did you tell them? Did Officer Logan leave?” I ask. Eli is watching Jesse who is back to his Casper mode of semi-transparent and I know he is doing it just to freak Eli out. I roll my eyes.

  “Look, ignore him. He is acting like a two hundred and five-year-old child right now,” I advise.

  Once more Eli looks at me with wide eyes. “Two hundred and five?” he asks in a near whisper.

  “Two hundred and six actually, young man. I have had another birthday,” Jesse comments smugly from Noble’s stall.

  “That’s really impressive, Grandpa. Tell me, does your old bones hurt when you fade in and out? I bet that ghostly arthritis must be a real pain.”

  I clap my hand over my mouth to try and stop the giggle that nearly erupts when I hear Eli give Jesse a taste of his own medicine. The look on Jesse’s face is priceless… a little scary…but priceless.

  Jesse glares at Eli. “I don’t have arthritis; I am in perfect health.”

  “You know, Jesse, I’m no medical doctor, but even I know that ‘dead’ and ‘in perfect health’ do not go hand in hand.”

  Jesse opens his mouth to respond, but I step in. This could go on for days, knowing these two.

  “Ok, enough! I think our time would be better used to figure out why you two haven’t poofed out of here.” I fill Eli in on the whole Jesse, Martha, Robert curse thing. Once I have told him the whole story, starting with me finding Jesse in my barn and ending with Robert’s attack, he actually looks at Jesse with something close to pity in his eyes.

  “Duuuude…that truly sucks.”

  Jesse accepts Eli’s sympathy with a nod of his head, which surprises the heck out of me. I ask Eli what he thinks the hold-up is to them crossing over.

  “I don’t think the curse is broken, Shelby. I hate to say it, but getting Jesse and Martha to reestablish their relationship was too easy and it doesn’t make sense that would be the cause of the curse. I think it has to be something deeper than that.” All four of us look at one another and say…

  “Robert.”

  “If Robert is the key to breaking this curse, then we are truly out of luck. There isn’t any reasoning with him. His mind is gone,” Martha advises with a sad look.

  I look at Jesse, who suddenly has gone very still and quiet. “Jesse? Are you ok?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “That’s my fault, that his mind isn’t what it should be. I did that to him. I drove him insane.”

  Martha reaches over, taking his hand. “My love, you didn’t know what you were doing at the time.”

  “No, Martha. I knew exactly what I was doing. Don’t try to make excuses for me.”

  “Well, you couldn’t have known how it would impact the situation now. So let’s start with ideas on how we can break the curse without Robert’s help,” I suggest. We all start thinking; then Eli asks Martha if there was ever any goodness in Robert.

 
The fact that she has to think for several long seconds doesn’t speak well for the man. But finally she nods her head.

  “Robert had a very rough childhood. His mother was very stern. He really had no idea how to show love or compassion because it was never shown to him. I tried so hard to soften his heart, but I fear he only wanted me because Jesse did. But I did see brief moments of tenderness in him, shown to the children. Those moments were few and far between because I think he felt that to be seen showing love or affection would show him to be weak in some way. To answer your question, I think there was a tiny part in Robert that actually wanted…needed…to show love.”

  Eli looks at Martha in confusion. “Not to be crossing any lines here, but what makes you think Robert only wanted you because Jesse did? You’re a beautiful girl and you seem to have a sweet personality from what I have seen so far. Why wouldn’t he want you for you?” That earns him a scowl from Jesse and a sweet smile from Martha.

  “We had nothing in common. I was as different from Robert as a cow is to a cat. It was as if we barely spoke the same language sometimes. He had dreams and aspirations that I just didn’t understand, and that angered him. All I wanted was a home and a family. I didn’t need all the social climbing and grand things that seemed to be so important to him. He had a hatred toward Jesse that was unearthly and unreasonable. I never did get him to tell me why he hated him so. Once I gave birth to Jackson, and he looked so much like Jesse, I honestly think he started losing his mind right then.”

  “There has to be a way to either reach that tiny part of Robert or break this curse without him. Personally, after my dealings with him I say we find a way to break it without him. The less I see of him, the happier I will be,” I say with a small shudder.

  “It may sound overly simple, but has anyone tried talking to him? Just telling him straight out what the deal is?” Eli asks. Jesse, Martha and I look at each other and laugh.

  “Eli, trust me; that wouldn’t work. Robert would love nothing better than to know he was the one keeping all of them here. I don’t think it would be wise to arm him with that information.”