I cracked the door open and saw a young boy in the hallway, talking to a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties, although she wore very old-fashioned clothing.
She smiled at the boy as I heard them talking about him being afraid.
“Master Andre, your father made it clear you aren’t to be in the servants’ quarters,” she chastised, but there was affection in her voice.
The young boy, who appeared to be only five or six years old, nodded sadly. “Okay, come on,” she said and, taking his hand, led him down a flight of stairs that didn’t exist in the current building. In fact, the staircase occupied the same space as the elevator I’d taken to reach this floor.
I slipped out of my room and followed them to a room at the foot of the stairs that was clearly the boy’s nursery. “Okay, I’ll play one game of Old Maid, but then you must go to sleep,” the nanny said.
The boy smiled and rushed to a small cabinet under one of the windows. That was when I realized this was the maintenance room I’d seen before taking the elevator up to the third floor.
The nanny and the boy laughed as he beat her at the old card game. Neither of them noticed the shadowy figure emerge from a room down the hall and stop in front of the door, staring at them as they played.
From my vantage point in the hallway, I could feel anger emanating from him, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he felt it so strongly. The nanny was clearly doing her job, entertaining the kid until she could get him back to bed, and he seemed more at ease than when upstairs.
“I told you bedtime was strictly at 7 p.m. You are to have the child in bed and to be in your room and not come out for any reason!” the man bellowed, causing both the boy and the woman to jump.
She stood and nodded at the man. “Master Andre had a nightmare, sir. I was simply consoling him until he could—”
“Silence, woman. I didn’t give you leave to respond. Leave us, and I will handle this like it should’ve been!” he demanded.
The woman looked at the child, who was hunched over the cards. “Sir, if you allow it, I’ll put Master Andre to bed.”
“I said leave!” the man screamed, causing the woman to shriek and move toward the door.
As soon as she was in the hallway, the door slammed shut behind her, and I could hear the man shouting and what sounded like him hitting the boy.
The woman reached out to grasp the doorknob and go back inside when another woman appeared and put a hand over hers. When the nanny, her face still panicked, turned, the other woman shook her head. “You will only make it worse for him,” she said and, taking the nanny’s hand, pulled her up the stairs.
I followed the women back to what I assumed was the servants’ quarters, since that was what she’d said to the boy, as they lingered at the top of the stairs. “You can’t interfere.Just try to make sure the boy isn’t ever in a situation where his father will be angry.”
“Will he be okay?” the nanny asked.
The woman nodded. “I’ve been a maid here for just under a year. He’s, well, he has a heavy hand with the boy, but he’s gone a lot.” The woman hesitated, then sighed. “You should know he struck the last nanny, and she left and sued him. He paid for her silence, but you should be careful with that one,” she said, and looked down the stairs where I could now hear the wails of the little boy.
The women didn’t move when the seething man flung the door open and emerged from the room, not even when he looked up the stairs and saw them. His eyes narrowed to slits, but he simply turned and went back to what I assumed was his bedroom.
I woke and sat up in bed. What had I just seen? I ran my fingers through my hair and felt the still tender area where I’d hit my head in the fall the night before.Could concussions lead to wildly vivid dreams? That must be it, I thought, trying to explain away my unsettled feeling.
I dug through my pockets and found the business card the attorney had written the caretaker’s number on, and gave him a call.
When his voicemail answered, I decided to leave a message. “Hello, Mr. Beacroft. This is Evan Garland, from yesterday. Thank you for taking me to the hospital. By the way. I’m fine now. Anyway, I wondered if we could set up a time to meet and discuss the estate. I have a lot of questions.”
6
Cary
The calming of thespirits the night before had worn me out more than I’d anticipated. As a result, I slept much later than usual and didn’t hear the phone until it was too late to answer.
I stumbled out of bed and went to the bathroom, where I splashed water on my face in an attempt to wake up more, before returning to deal with my phone.
When I checked my missed calls and saw the name Evan Garland on my caller ID, I groaned. “Well, so much for having some downtime before the drama starts,” I said to myself.
I quickly listened to his voicemail and sighed when he said he had lots of questions. I was sure he did. Not the least of which was what had attacked him when he entered the manor. I decided to caffeinate myself before dealing with the man.
My coffee machine was on automatic, but since I usually got up around six, and it was closer to noon, I knew my coffee would be concentrated and cold since my maker automatically turned off around ten thirty.
Oh well, at least there would be caffeine. I sipped the not-so-great liquid, found my center, and using my third eye, focused on the world around me.
