“Great,” the librarian said in a patient voice with a warm smile. “What could I help you with?”
“Uh. Yes! Right! I saw on the internet that you have a historical archive for the town here?”
Grace tried to tell herself that she wasn’t here just because she was dying of curiosity about the entity haunting (was that the right word?) Hilltop House.I’m doing research. I’m doing research when I should be on the hunt for more furniture.
But maybe I’ll learn some cool facts about the town to put in the hotel’s brochure. Or when I do my sponsored senioractivities, maybe we’ll plan an outing to the library. Yeah. It’s worth an hour or two of “research.”
“Historical archives? Yes. Mortimer Ashcroft,” the woman replied, nodding.
For a minute, Grace was puzzled. The lady’s lanyard bore a tag that saidLouisa A.and a shiny pink book sticker that read, “Ask me about my TBR.”
“I’m sorry?” Grace asked.
“Mortimer Ashcroft. He’s a local historian and author. He keeps the archives in great shape. You can browse on the second floor if you’d like. If you want me to help you narrow down something specific, I can put in a call to him.” The librarian gave her an encouraging smile and pointed up the curving wooden staircase.
“Do you have much information about the town before the 1900s?”
“Oh, my. I think Mr. Ashcroft might be able to help you if the archives can’t. The town really began to expand in the 1920s, with some significant bumps in the 1950s and 1980s.”
“Are you a native?” Grace asked with a smile.
“No, my husband is, though. His family has been here since the 1860s. Anyway, there are some land records and newspaper clippings from thePine Ridge Gazette. It’s still published today, just had its 150th anniversary.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Grace nodded, awkwardly patted her hair, and realized she should have brought a pen and paper. Maybe the library had some up in the archive area. If not, she could take notes on her phone.
GRACE FOUND HERSELFgrowing increasingly fond of the little town as she scrolled backward through the microfiche editions of the Pine Ridge Gazette.
Such a charming sense of community. Such a peaceful place. There was little mention of crime or strife, and she found herself lost in the ‘Golden Age’ of Pine Ridge. She read about the groundbreaking for the college campus in the sixties, the new movie theater opening in the fifties, the USO canteens, victory gardens, war bond drives, rubber drives, paper drives, and church bazaars in the forties, the paper mill closing down in the late thirties, the town’s paper and lumber boom in the teens and twenties... But there was very little about Hilltop House.
Finally, she found a small mention of the Hilltop House Hospital for tuberculosis patients. Shellshocked soldiers. The microfiche flipped back, and her notes got longer, a giant email draft with hundreds of names and dates that she might ask Nyx about, or tell her clients about.
“Wait.” Grace looked up and noticed with a start that the lights were lowering outside—the sun had shifted to the west. It was late in the afternoon! But that wasn’t the only startling thing. Names and photographs of a few people in particular stood out—because they kept repeating.
Gloria White.
Later, Gloria White-Creighton. She seemed blurry in some photos and not in others, but when Grace could force her eyes to focus, the girl never changed in appearance.
And she’d been killed in an accident at the White Pines Estate back in the 1920s. So how come she was still hosting a weekly book club?
Had to be a granddaughter, Grace thought, trying to calm her sudden spike in breathing.
Manny Finklestein was another one. His machine and bicycle repair shop had opened in 1902. Now it was an auto shop, aused car dealership, and a car rental place. And the same hulking figure had been in pictures about the place for years—at the opening of the Rotary Club, the opening of the car lot, spotted at the Fourth of July picnic...
Gotta be a grandson. Generations of Whites, Finklesteins, and Minegolds... But they all have the same first name. Never seem to age.
She gulped.
The creepy feeling she had in the woods near her house, the one she got when she was in town the other night, intensified to the point where she rose and paced around the empty room, wondering if she was going insane, or if she should leave this town, this house...
Oddly enough, she wanted to go back to Nyx, and she wanted to find something of his human life, a present of sorts to make him more... human.
He’ll never be human, Grace.
But he took on a more human shape the longer we talked. And he can write. Maybe he can speak if he gets better.
He’s dead. He’s not going to get better. Maybe he could... Crossover? Is that the term they use?
God, I don’t know.
