Hill House Revisited
Here's the story in its entirety, so you don't have to go backwards to earlier posts to read the first two installments. I'd love feedback and have asked questions at the end for anyone who feels inclined to answer them. Thanks.
Ian had never told Abigail that he had a Great Aunt Theodora. As a matter of fact, no one in the family ever had. She’d been caught completely off guard the day before Ian’s funeral when this Theodora woman had called to say she’d heard the news and wished she could make it to the funeral, but that she wasn’t going to be able to come. The call had barely registered, as Abigail had been so out of it at the time and had received so many similar calls, she hadn’t paid much attention. By the time the second call came, three months later, she had all but forgotten the first one. When she heard “Theodora,” she hung onto the phone trying to remember if her parents had a friend named Theodora, someone they’d be appalled to find she couldn’t remember. The jolt to her memory didn’t come until Theodora said, “Ian was my favorite nephew, you know.”
She then went on to say how sorry she was that they’d never met while Ian was still alive. She’d like them to get to know each other. Wouldn’t Abigail like to come visit her down in Winston-Salem? It was such an odd request, this relative stranger inviting Abigail to visit. Her curiosity was piqued. And it was piqued even further when the warm, elderly voice on the other end of the phone warned her not to mention the conversations to other members of Ian’s family. As she put it, she’d been “excommunicated” sometime back in the fifties or sixties.
That had been nearly a year ago, and they’d had a number of phone calls since then. Abigail could only think to describe them as having been “delightful,” making her sound as though she’d just stepped out of a nineteenth-century novel, she knew. Theodora seemed to inspire one to sound that way, though.
She was an extremely interesting person, full of life and living, despite her age, the sort of person Abigail hoped to be one day, the woman who shunned the notion of sitting in a rocker and knitting all day as soon as she hit age sixty. Almost every family has a Theodora, someone who doesn’t quite live life “by the rules,” but Abigail couldn’t understand why Ian’s family, usually so accepting of anyone and everyone would have hidden her away. They were the sorts to take great pride in having such a character as a member of their own clan, especially one, who as far as she could tell, was somewhat famous. Theodora should have been a great topic of conversation for them at parties.
It made some sense that Theodora’s parents, being of their generation, had disowned her when she’d gone off to live with her lover in the 1950s, something that just wasn’t done, not if you were from a proper New England family such as theirs. Still, why would anyone care now? Why wouldn’t they have accepted her back in the fold, especially since her parents were long since dead and gone? But then Abigail had to acknowledge that the whole ghost hunting thing might be a bit much for any family, let alone a proper New England one.
The relationship that had cost Theodora her parents hadn’t even lasted. She and her lover had split up, due to one of those arguments in which irreparable damage is done, just before Theodora had gone off on her first investigation with Dr. Montague. Some within the family speculated that the investigation with Dr. Montague was what had caused the real rift in the family, not the live-in lover, and that the lover had been an excuse, since the two events had seemed to overlap. The twenty-five-year-long association she’d shared with the doctor as two often-sought experts on hauntings and the paranormal offered a far better explanation for cutting her out of the family than did a misguided, less-than-two-year-long indiscreet love affair that could have been easily forgotten.
***
Janet hadn’t thought about Aunt Theodora in years. Her father’s sister had been the youngest member of the family, an adopted child, as a matter of fact. Theodora’s parents, good friends of Janet’s grandparents, had died in an accident, and Janet’s grandparents, whose children were all grown or nearly grown by then, had been given custody of the little six-year-old.
From what Janet had gathered from the tales told when she was a child, the young orphan had never really recovered from the death of her adoring and adored father. She was quite a handful for her adoptive parents, who were by no means old by today’s standards, but who had been considered to be getting older and slowing down by then. Everyone felt that what Theodora had needed were young, energetic parents with firm hands to keep her in line.
Not knowing what else to do with her, she’d been sent off to boarding schools, hoping they would instill some discipline, but the schools had seemed to bring out the worst, not the best, in her. The details were sketchy, though, and Janet had never really been able to get anyone to tell her what that had meant. Eventually, talking about Theodora had become taboo within the family, which had meant no one talked about her publicly, although plenty of whispering went on behind scenes, and Janet and her brother and sister had made up so many stories themselves about “Wild Aunt Theo” as they called her, that Janet found it hard these days to recollect what was true and what wasn’t.
She’d never had anything against Theodora herself. She and her siblings had all adored their wild, crazy, and flamboyant aunt, really more like a sister, since she was only seven years older. She’d taught Janet all the stylish dances and had convinced her that girls should wear their hair short, no matter what the fashion. Why waste time with all those hundred brush strokes required of long hair? And washing long hair was such a nuisance.
Theodora may have been disowned when she’d moved in with Robbie, but Janet had always felt her grandparents had just been looking for an excuse to be rid of the child who’d always been a problem. She was never mentioned by them again, and that’s when the whispered discussions began. All Janet had known was that she’d moved to New Mexico at some point, but that was about it. She’d already begun to drift away from her aunt by then, having a family of her own and was really too busy to care too much about the details of the life of a family member who’d always been a misfit. Ian had been drawn to her, as all children had been, but her children were always quick to catch on, and it hadn’t taken too long for him to stop asking for her at family gatherings. Janet was sure he’d eventually forgotten all about her.
****
Abigail and Theodora had spent many of their phone conversations discussing Theodora’s fascinating life. It seemed so interesting compared to Abigail’s predictable and now empty, often very lonely, one. Although originally from Wallingford, like the rest of her family, Theodora had chosen the South for her retirement. She’d been drawn to Winston-Salem during the seventies when they’d been there to investigate a house “way out in the boondocks in Kernersville,” a small community east of the city. She lived now in the heart of the city, on Academy St., within walking distance of Old Salem, her favorite section of town. She was full of tales of all the ghosts in Old Salem, most of whom no one else believed existed, except some of the researchers from Duke who’d come stay with her on occasion.
These conversations were more than intriguing to Abigail. She so badly needed a vacation, so it wasn’t so surprising that just shy of a year after their first conversation, she decided to take Theodora up on the offer. A trip to North Carolina would be cheaper than her longed-for trip to Bermuda, which, living on a shoe string as she currently was, she’d probably never make. She’d always loved Ian’s family – honestly, preferring them to most of her own family members – so it was nice to discover a member she’d never met, and she was sure they’d have a wonderful time getting better acquainted.
****
Janet knew she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that Abigail hadn’t adjusted well after Ian’s death. No one talked about it, though, and Janet found herself following suit, despite the fact she was worried about the constant dark circles under the young woman’s eyes. Abigail seemed to be under the impression that she should face life as a stalwart soldier. She closed herself off to the family. She’d shed maybe three required tears at the funeral, but that was the only time she’d cried in the company of others.
At times Janet wanted to shake her. It was almost unbearable to watch her marching efficiently through life, carrying on with all home and business tasks, not once letting down her guard. Janet wanted to tell her it was okay to break down and weep, necessary even. Abigail was worried about Thomas, but Janet told her Thomas would understand. It was better for a son to see his mother’s sorrow, evidence of how much she’d loved his father. Janet didn’t really know how to do it or what to say, though, and she honestly didn’t really want to be the one to do it, so she did what they all did: pretended Abigail was doing so well and wondered how long they would all keep pretending, how much longer everyone was going to ignore the dark circles under the eyes, the quick temper that had begun to develop, the inability to concentrate during normal conversation.
****
Abigail’s mother had agreed to take Thomas for the five days she’d be gone. Thomas hadn’t been too happy about this. He much preferred to stay with her in-laws who spoiled him rotten, in a way her mother never did. However, she couldn’t tell anyone in Ian’s family she was visiting Theodora. Besides, her mother had begun to hint that she never got to see Ian, that Abigail seemed to spend all her time with Ian’s family. This wasn’t true. Abigail knew she wasn’t spending much time with any family members, but she was too drained these days to argue. She hoped an extended period with Ian would appease her mother for a while.
After dropping off Thomas, she realized she still had quite a bit of time before she needed to head to the airport. She decided to stop by Borders to pick up a copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, the book that had made Aunt Theodora famous. Years before, she’d seen the movie based on the book but didn’t remember too much about it, having never been a huge fan of horror movies. Ghost stories had always seemed silly to her, even at age ten, sitting around Girl Scout campfires after dark. The book was short enough. She’d probably finish it on the plane, especially since she had a two-hour layover in Baltimore.
She was disappointed. Not in the book, which, surprisingly, spooked her quite a bit, but more in the fact that she was barely given any information about Theodora. Of the two young women, Theodora was obviously the more exciting. Eleanor, who received center stage, had so evidently been a real drip. The only exciting or brave thing she’d ever done in her life, it seemed, was steal a car that was half hers anyway. And her chanting of “journeys end in lovers’ meeting” was just plain embarrassing.
Dr. Montague was a pompous ass. Abigail couldn’t warm up to him, either. He and his dreadful wife deserved each other. Typically of someone of his sort, he arranged this whole little experiment and then so often wasn’t around when Eleanor and Theodora really needed him. Abigail couldn’t imagine what Theodora had seen in him to make her keep working with him for twenty five years.
By the time she’d picked up her rental car and was headed west on I-40, she’d come up with plenty of questions for Theodora. Mention had been made, of course, of the domestic arrangement that had estranged her from her family, but Abigail wasn’t the least bit satisfied due to the lack of details. She decided Jackson must not have been a big fan of details.
Theodora, on the other hand, boded to be an extremely detail-oriented person. Her directions were excellent, and Abigail found her cute little yellow house with its front porch (obviously de rigueur in this part of the world) with no trouble. It being a beautiful fall evening, she found Theodora waiting for her, sitting out on one of the porch’s gliders, the porch light shining brightly.
She stood up and gave Abigail an exuberant welcome, as if they’d been long-time friends, offering, despite her age, to take one of the two bags Abigail carried. She was a woman who, in her seventies now, was still stunning. You could tell that in her youth she’d radiated sex and beauty, the kind of girl who so often bewitched the boys with whom Abigail was madly in unrequited love. Abigail had never really been able to blame the boys for being so bewitched, since she was usually half under these girls’ spells as well. Theodora moved sylph-like up the stairs and led Abigail into the second of two bedrooms that had obviously once been the attic.
“Welcome to my guest suite,” she announced, as she placed Abigail’s small carry-on bag on the floor. “The bathroom is through that door,” she pointed to a door on the other side of the four-poster bed, which stood in between it and the door through which they’d entered. “It connects to the other bedroom, but I have no other guests this week, so you’ve got all three rooms to yourself. Feel free to spread out. The other room is bigger and has a desk and sofa in it, but this one has the more comfortable and queen-sized bed, so I thought you’d prefer it.” She left Abigail to “freshen up.”
It was a cute little room, basically just big enough for the bed, the dresser, and a couple of bedside tables, thoughtfully laid out with vases of flowers and magazines that might be of interest to a visitor. The closet was completely empty, as were the dresser drawers. Abigail unpacked her suitcase and stored her things in them, made a quick trip to the bathroom, and joined Theodora back downstairs for the gin and tonic she’d been offered by her hostess.
****
It was odd for Abigail to have left town without telling Janet where she was going, but Abigail had, after all, been acting odd these days, so Janet wasn’t completely surprised. She wished Thomas had been left with her, though. The little boy needed a loving, stable environment, and some positive male role modes, as often as these things could be provided, and, although she prided herself on being extremely tolerant and nonjudgmental (after all, hadn’t she accepted Ian and Abigail?), she couldn’t help thinking that his other grandmother, with her constant complaints about her ex-husband, just didn’t give him that.
Still, the secretiveness was bothering her. Not only had Abigail not told her where she was going, she hadn’t even bothered to tell her she was going anywhere at all. If Janet hadn’t decided to do something she rarely did, calling her daughter-in-law at the office to see if they could plan some time to get together, she never would have known Abigail was out of town for a few days. Her calls to the cell phone were obviously being ignored.
Of course, this probably meant nothing more than that Abigail had a new man in her life, someone she didn’t yet want to share with the family. They’d most likely decided to take a long weekend away together. Janet found nothing inherently wrong in that. It had been a year since Ian’s death, and a new man would be a sign that Abigail was moving on. The problem is, Abigail hadn’t shown any other clear signs of beginning to move on with her life. She certainly hoped this wasn’t just a new way for Abigail to ignore her feelings, to stay preoccupied with something new and exciting. She worried about any man who might be showing interest in a woman who was in such a fragile state. A “rescuer” who turned “manipulator” would not be good, in fact would be terrible, for Abigail right now.
****
Abigail took a seat on the glider next to Theodora’s, ready to bombard her with many questions. Theodora, however, had a very different agenda. She was far more interested in Ian and Abigail than she was in discussing Hill House, Dr. Montague, and her life prior to the incident. Nonetheless, she was extremely patient with Abigail, providing her with thorough answers to all the questions.
Anyone listening would have thought they made quite a pair: Abigail was racing through everything as if they only had one hour to unveil all the mysteries of the book she’d just devoured. Theodora rocked the glider slowly and methodically, carefully considering every question asked, and responding as though neither one of their lives would ever end.
Finally, she said, “Look, that really wasn’t the most interesting of our cases. Unfortunately, it just happens to be the one everyone knows, because Ms. Jackson decided to immortalize all of us, even poor Eleanor, who really should have been allowed to rest in peace. I could share with you some stories that are far more interesting than Hill House.
"Dr. Montague and Shirley Jackson had a real falling out over some of the details (funny, thought Abigail, since there hadn't seemed to be many of those) in that book. As most writers do, she got many of them wrong. She assumed so many things she shouldn’t have. And then, of course, once we all decided not to talk to her, at Dr. Montague’s request, she just blatantly made up stuff. Today, we’d probably all sue her, but in those days, we just laughed about it.
“At this point in time, I can’t really say I blame her. After all, the bare bones of the story are good ones, and she weaved magic with them. I’m just saying that much of it was more fiction than truth.
“For instance, Robbie and I didn’t have our big argument as a result of my choosing to go to Hill House. We’d quarreled about three weeks’ prior, and I’d moved back to Connecticut from Santa Fe. I was living on my own. And in the book, Luke is portrayed as somewhat of a mindless playboy, ordered about by his family and made to come live at Hill House. The truth of the matter is he was the one who insisted a family member ought to be in the house when strangers came to visit, and he decided he’d be that member. I still don’t know how she could’ve botched that.”
Abigail was surprised to hear all this. “But the house itself? I mean, the fact it was haunted, that was real, right?” A year ago, she would have thought this a ridiculous question, but her opinions concerning ghosts and haunted houses were rapidly changing.
“That house was full of ghosts, my dear, no doubt about it. More so than most of the houses I’ve encountered.”
Theodora was determined to get Abigail out of Hill House and into one of her other houses. There’d been many. They’d actually gone to England and the Caribbean a few times, despite the fact Dr. Montague wanted to limit his research to the U.S. And she laughed as she remembered some of the hoaxes they’d encountered.
“In one house, the husband was hoping to scare his poor wife into leaving. Before we arrived on the scene, he’d actually gone walking around dressed in a sheet, passing by the doors of the rooms in which she sat or lay in bed. He had a friend who would climb onto the roof and rattle chains. All I could think was that he’d seen the movie Gaslight one too many times. His wife’s family was completely convinced, though, which just goes to show what people are willing to believe.
“Anyway, I’m sure they didn’t even give you any peanuts on the plane. You must be starving. Let’s go in and eat.”
At dinner, she turned the conversation back to Abigail, eager to learn the details of the life shared with Ian, how they’d met, what their little boy was like. Abigail hadn’t had this sort of a conversation in ages, and she found herself struggling with many different emotions: sadness, enjoyment, fondness for Theodora and the eager way she leaned forward, listening intently…
She had met Ian at a large dinner party hosted by a friend of his and a friend of hers. She was one of the requisite females invited by Valerie to sit across from one of the requisite males invited by Michael. Unfortunately, the young man chosen for her had been a complete idiot. The older man, sitting next to him, however, had been completely endearing. Quite obviously, the older woman sitting next to Abigail who’d been chosen as his companion thought so, too. The three of them had stayed quite late, discussing books and music, Abigail’s two favorite subjects.
She’d been completely surprised when Valerie had approached her cubicle at work a couple of weeks later and asked if she could give Abigail’s number to her husband’s friend Ian. She had wavered somewhat. Ian had been 43 at the time, and she only 26. She hadn’t known the exact numbers, of course, at the time, but she had been aware that he was nowhere near her own age. In the end, flattery had gotten the best of her. She couldn’t believe someone so smart and so funny was more interested in her than their other dinner companion, who had seemed far more glamorous, impressive, and well-read than she’d ever be.
They’d hit it off tremendously from the first date. She couldn’t get enough of his conversations, and their dates weren’t accompanied by the all-too-familiar anxieties typically associated with dating. None of the “does he really like me or is he just lonely and can’t find anyone better?” nor the “should I return his call or let him call me again?” not even the “should I take him up on his offer to spend the night with him?” Everything just felt right and happened as one would expect it to happen. She wasn’t the least bit surprised when eight months after they’d met, he’d asked her to marry him. He said it had taken him too many years to find his other half, and he wasn’t about to let her go.
Abigail and Ian’s first year of marriage hadn’t turned out to be a bed of roses, though, more like a rock garden tended barefoot. He’d wanted to have kids right away, understandably, and she hadn’t. She hadn’t even been sure she’d wanted to have kids at all. She’d told him she’d gone off the Pill, but still had secretly been taking it. It was difficult to remember to take it while hiding it, though. She was constantly missing days, so it wasn’t really a huge surprise when she wound up pregnant.
She’d been somewhat afraid Ian was going to leave her or that he’d been having an affair until the day she told him she was pregnant. He was thrilled, and things between them improved immensely. He was extraordinarily deferential while she was pregnant, and he took such good care of both Thomas and Abigail, once the baby was born. She’d found herself falling in love with him all over again. And, of course, like so many women, once she’d had the baby, she’d realized she really did want children, or at least, wanted this child.
"But it didn’t last,” Abigail sighed between forkfuls of food. “Nothing good ever does, does it? And the least of my worries at the time was that my husband would die of a brain aneurysm. I barely even knew what one was.”
“Funny. A brain aneurysm is what killed Luke Sanderson, you know. And at such a young age,” she said. Abigail hadn’t known, of course. She hadn’t even known who he was until today, and she didn’t know he was dead.
“And I can completely understand your attraction to an older man. Dr. Montague was eighteen years older than I was. You must have figured out by now that he and I were more than just investigative partners. It was perfectly natural, you know, the two of us spending so much time alone together in empty houses. And his wife, well, no one could stand that woman for very long. She was the one person whose character Ms. Jackson managed to get right.
“As much as I hate that old cliché, he certainly knew how to make me feel like a woman. You know exactly what I mean, don’t you? He refused to divorce her, though, said he was old-fashioned, didn’t believe in divorce, turning his back on obligations. He wouldn’t listen to my arguments that he wasn’t so old-fashioned as to believe in fidelity. He always said to me, ‘Fidelity, my dear, is not an old-fashioned value. Read your Old Testament.’
“Mrs. Montague wasn’t around much. When he and I were alone in those houses, I could almost pretend she didn’t exist. She’d often show up unannounced, though, which always infuriated me.”
Abigail could tell how true this last statement was by the anger on her face now, even after all these years. She hoped the shock on her own face wasn’t apparent. Dr. Montague had been a know-it-all old fuddy-duddy, nothing at all like her Ian. How could someone like Aunt Theodora possibly have had an affair with someone like that? And how dare she make any kind of connection between Abigail’s husband and that man?
Aunt Theodora must have noticed Abigail’s discomfort, though, as she quickly decided to leave Hill House again. “You know, I knew Ian when he was a very little boy.” Abigail raced right out the front door of the haunted old house with her, forgetting her shock and anger. She loved to hear stories about Ian when he was a child. “He was extremely bright, even then. Funny he grew up to be a professor, because we all called him ‘The Little Professor.’ He was reading by the time he was four. He absolutely loved Aesop’s Fables. He once said to me, ‘It’s called allegory, Aunt Theodora. Animals don’t really do all those things, but it’s fun to pretend they can.’ Doesn’t that brilliantly capture the advanced cognitive abilities that were stuck in the same brain with the imagination of a four-year-old?”
They spent the rest of dinner talking about Ian and Thomas. Apparently, Abigail’s son was very much like his father. Abigail knew this from other members of Ian’s family, but Aunt Theodora’s perspective was unique. Ian had been frozen forever for her at age five, which was the last time she’d seen him. Her vision of him hadn’t been clouded by watching him grow and change and witnessing what he’d become.
By the time Abigail climbed into bed that night, she was missing both Ian and Thomas. This was the first time she’d been away from Thomas since Ian’s death, and she was beginning to realize how dependent she was on her little boy to keep her from being eaten alive by grief, left to wander around in the gloomy caverns of its massive stomach. That night, as she lay there exhausted but unable to sleep, she was sure she could feel all the cracks still left in the broken heart she thought she’d been so carefully mending for the past year.
Despite thinking it wasn’t possible, she must have fallen asleep, because she was most definitely woken up by the noise. It was coming from the door that led into the bathroom. At first, in her groggy state, she thought it was a dog scratching at the door. Rolling over with an automatic “no,” it took her a minute to realize she hadn’t lived with a dog in years. Then she realized where she was. Theodora didn’t have a dog, either. Could it be a cat she had yet to meet? Theodora hadn’t mentioned one.
Fully awake now, Abigail propped herself up on her pillow and listened. When the scratching, which seemed to be coming from both the bottom of the door as well as from the vicinity of the door knob, turned into a light knocking, her rising sense of dread determined this definitely wasn’t a cat. Nor was it a mouse.
She felt the way she always had as a child when she awakened in the middle of the night from a nightmare, terrified that the loud beating of her heart echoing in her ears was a giant climbing the stairs to get her. She’d learned never to cry out, though, because her sister, lying in her bed across the room would mock her, spending the next few nights doing her best to terrorize her before they went to bed. Thus well-trained, Abigail didn’t make a sound now. She listened until the scratching and knocking stopped, squashing the urge to hide under the covers, as she heard soft footsteps descend the uncarpeted steps that led down to the first floor.
In the morning, Abigail realized Theodora must have been having a little fun with her. The thought crossed her mind that this was an odd way to treat a houseguest, but Theodora seemed to be someone who liked a good practical joke. Yesterday, she’d confessed to Ian’s aunt that the ghost who’d come and thumped at Eleanor’s door in the book had spooked her to the point she’d jumped when the flight attendant had come to ask what she’d like to drink. Theodora had laughed and told Abigail she’d experienced so many instances of something like that in her life she barely remembered it had happened at Hill House. Abigail had set herself up perfectly for a practical jokester.
As Theodora showed Abigail around town that day, though, she made no mention of it. She didn’t even drop the sorts of hints you’d expect from someone who’d played such a joke. Nothing in her conversation lent itself to getting Abigail to confess something weird had happened, enabling her to either feed into her guest’s concerns, extending the joke, or to laugh, confessing her antics. Abigail got none of that, not even when she was giving one her insider’s tours of Old Salem, providing details of each and every one of the ghosts she’d encountered there. This would naturally have been the ideal time to ask Abigail if she'd ever seen a ghost.
Abigail was wiped out, yet again, by the time she went to bed that night. To top off her poor night’s sleep the previous night and walking all around Old Salem, Theodora had insisted on asking more questions about Ian, which had drained the last drops of energy from her body. They’d also enjoyed a heavy meal at The Salem Tavern, and she’d drunk one too many glasses of wine.
She should have fallen right to sleep. Instead, she found herself wide awake under the covers and wishing she were home. Home, with Ian snoring beside her and Thomas sleeping in his crib in the next room. Only about a quarter of her brain seemed to be intent on getting to sleep. The other seventy five percent was focused on being angry with Ian for leaving her here with the monumental task of raising a child on her own. This was soon followed by guilt for having such thoughts. Finally, there were auditory synapses, fully alert and waiting for more scratching noises.
The noises didn’t come, though, and sleep eventually did. She woke up in desperate need of the bathroom. While fumbling for the light switch, she heard something yet again, coming from that bathroom door. It was so faint. Someone was whispering, quietly giggling.
“Ssshhh,” was barely audible. “Abigail’s sleeping.” Then, “Abigail, please let me in.” More laughter. More vague, unintelligible whispers and hissing.
She turned the light on just in time to see the door handle twisting against the lock she’d firmly pushed in before climbing into bed. The twisting was frantic; the whispering became unbearable as she lay trembling, praying for her life to the God she didn’t believe existed. When the manic efforts to open the door eventually subsided, she waited for the footsteps she was sure she’d hear descending the stairs. They didn’t come.
Only a brainless babysitter in Jason’s Elm Street Halloween would have left the bed to go into that bathroom. She lay in agony, wishing she had a bed pan, wishing the clock didn’t read 2:48 a.m. Finally, she admitted defeat. She had no choice but to make her way around the bed to the bathroom. Her bravery could be contributed to the fact that she partly believed Theodora would be there when she opened the door. Another part suspected she'd find nothing, which is exactly what happened. She hurriedly did what needed to be done and rushed back to the safety of the bed, forgetting to flush the toilet.
The next day was a glorious fall day, the sky a brilliant blue, making a perfect backdrop for the reds, yellows, and oranges of the leaves. Theodora took her out to Tanglewood Park. She felt as though she’d been wandering around in a blurry movie, and today, someone had finally fiddled with the focus button, bringing everything sharply to life. Still no mention, however, from Theodora of any ghosts in her house. She was completely enchanting and vivacious, enjoying the day and the park even more than Abigail did, despite her familiarity with it. She certainly didn’t seem like the kind of elderly woman who would be trying to scare her houseguest to death.
Abigail dreaded bedtime that night and kept Theodora up well close to midnight. She didn’t seem to mind, though, not seeming to be the least bit sleepy herself. It was Abigail, this time, who turned the conversation to Ian and then did nothing but talk about him and two of them for close to two hours. She found herself crying months’ worth of unshed tears by the end of it.
She’d been afraid to talk so much about him since his death, afraid this would happen, but somehow, sitting here with Theodora, it didn’t seem to matter. It seemed like the perfect outlet for her grief. Theodora was very patient and understanding, until she finally mentioned that all this must be exhausting and that Abigail ought to get to bed, since they had plans, due to the beautiful weather, for a day trip up to Asheville the next day, and they needed to get some rest for that. Abigail had become a huge fan of Thomas Wolfe when she was in college and had always wanted to go to Asheville. Now, however, she realized she couldn’t care less. She didn’t want to spend another night in that bedroom. She didn’t want to rest up for a long drive. She wanted to stay right down here in the living room until morning. Being a polite and obedient guest, however, she said nothing, heading up as Theodora turned out all the lights in the living room and kitchen.
All Abigail could think of as she lay in bed that night was that once she made it through this night, she only had one night left. She wasn’t stuck living here with a crazy old woman (which was what Abigail’s mind had turned Theodora into once again, the minute she’d crawled into bed in this horrible room), who seemed hell bent on scaring her into a loony bin. Abigail had decided Theodora wasn’t trying to kill her, because that could easily have been accomplished by now. Her life obviously wasn’t at stake, just her sanity, and she was determined to keep it in tact.
She hadn’t even fallen asleep yet when the scratching began. It started slowly and lightly, but then began to pick up its pace. She pretended not to hear it. The more she pretended, however, the more insistent it seemed to become. Now it was scratching and knocking and thumping. When it got no response from her, the doorknob moved frantically again, someone desperately twisting it to get inside the room. Abigail tried to cover her ears to block out the noise, but she was shaking too hard and the noise was too loud. Something fell to the floor. The doorknob. Whatever it was could now get into the room. Abigail was all the way under the covers by now, having abandoned all brave notions that Theodora couldn’t be intent on killing her. She waited and waited to hear footsteps, to feel something pounce on her, for Theodora to burst out laughing at her very cruel joke. Nothing happened.
Finally, her anger got the better of her fear. She threw back her covers to find no one standing there. She stomped around the bed and picked up the doorknob that had fallen to the floor. The door was still shut. She pushed against it, but it wouldn’t open. Someone was standing there, resisting her forceful attempts, keeping it firmly closed. If it were Theodora, she was awfully strong for someone her size and age.
“Theodora,” Abigail said, in tears. “I’ve had enough! Leave me alone!” In response, all she got were whispers and laughter. She crawled back into bed, where she spent the next two hours shivering and crying.
She was ready to pay the $100 it would take to change her flight back home the next day when she woke up, after a few hours of fitful sleep, and discovered the doorknob was back on the bathroom door, which she climbed out of bed to discover she had no trouble opening. She packed her bags and came downstairs ready to confront Theodora, who, looking well-rested and happy, was packing a picnic lunch for their trip. She looked up at Abigail, surprised, when she, more timidly than she’d intended, asked,
“Is this house haunted?”
“Why, have you seen a ghost? You look as though you have.”
“Not seen one, but heard one,” Abigail informed her.
"Lucky you, then. When I bought it, I was told it was haunted. It is, but I don’t know how anyone ever knew. The ghost is extremely shy and forlorn and has never really wanted to come out to play. I’ve barely seen him. He must find you attractive,” and she laughed.
“It’s not very funny,” Abigail said, flatly.
“Oh dear,” she said. “He’s really scared you, hasn’t he?”
“Yes.” Abigail was crying all over again.
*****
Janet wished she had a better memory. She knew her grandparents had never even gone to the trial, but she couldn’t remember how the rest of the family had responded. It had been so unfair. Yes, the trial had been all the way out in New Mexico, but still, these were the only parents Theodora had ever really known. Their behavior towards her was so uncharacteristic of them. They were always so open and loving, spoiling their grandchildren and seeming to enjoy life so much. Janet couldn’t understand what made them behave so bitterly towards a daughter whose only real crime had been to follow her heart by moving in with her lover.
Janet had always felt that the lack of family support was what hurt Aunt Theo’s case, but, of course, no one was allowed to talk about it. She’d always regretted not having flown out there herself, but she’d been in the midst of raising a family and taking care of a home. Someone should have been there to defend her, to let everyone know she was basically just a mixed up kid in a woman’s body.
****
Theodora addressed Abigail’s tears with kindness and warmth and told her she had nothing to fear. The ghost was a man who’d died in the prime of his life, out riding his motorcycle one day. He kept coming home to look for his wife who’d moved shortly after his death. Surely Abigail could relate to that story. She shouldn’t let ghosts frighten her. Most of them were harmless. Abigail wanted to believe her, but something bothered her about this story. The voice that had whispered her name had definitely been female, and how would this ghost know her name? Besides, she was sure she’d heard more than one ghost.
“What was the wife’s name?” she asked, hoping by some fluke her name had been Abigail. It wasn’t, though. Her name had been Michelle.
Her explanation was convincing enough, and Abigail didn’t really want to spend that $100, so she decided to stay after all. They had a wonderful day in Asheville, Theodora engendering so much warmth and affection from complete strangers both at the Thomas Wolfe homestead and the Biltmore Estate that Abigail found herself wondering how she could ever have doubted her. She was so wrong to think this woman had been trying to terrorize her. Maybe she was even wrong in believing she’d heard a ghost. Maybe she’d dreamt it all or was just suffering from some grief-induced phenomenon that was causing hallucinations. She’d heard this sort of thing could happen. They had a delicious picnic in the gardens at Biltmore, and she felt refreshed and much happier by the time they arrived back in Winston-Salem.
When she woke up that night, it was because she could hear Ian laughing. He was laughing and telling her how wonderful she was, just has he had done in the early stages of their romance. But someone was laughing with him, and it wasn’t Abigail.
She opened her eyes to see them standing there at the bottom of the bed. Ian, in all his handsome glory, was just as she’d remembered him. And there was Theodora beside him, only she wasn’t the Theodora Abigail had been visiting the past few days.
The same smile and the same twinkle in her eyes were there, of course. The same charm. The same sexual energy. But the wrinkles were gone. The gray hair was now jet black. Her smooth, un-aged hands were pressed playfully against Ian’s chest. They were both laughing at some private joke, oblivious to the world around them. He planted his hands on both her cheeks, just as he’d always done with Abigail, and pulled her to kiss him. She pulled away, though, put a finger to her lips, then turned and pointed at the bed.
He stopped for a minute, looked at Abigail without seeming to see her, and then turned his attention back to Theodora. Laughing once more, he insistently grabbed her and kissed her. She didn’t resist him, but rather, fell against him, her thin body engulfed by his thick one. They held each other for an eternity, and then she turned back to Abigail again and whispered,
“You know, Abigail, journeys end in lovers’ meeting.”
****
Janet wished they hadn’t all just pretended everything was okay with Abigail. She’d tried to convince her daughter-in-law not to move to Oregon, but Abigail wouldn’t listen. She came back from her trip down south and said she needed to get away, go somewhere new and different where there were no memories. Janet guessed she could understand that, but she just didn’t understand why it had to be so far away. Abigail’s college roommate had married a man out there, and she assured Janet they’d take good care of her until she was settled, but Janet had to admit, she had her doubts.
She was more worried than ever about Abigail after that little vacation she’d taken. She came home finally able to show her despair over Ian, and everyone was quite relieved about that. However, when Janet asked her about her trip to North Carolina, Abigail just told her it hadn’t been what she’d expected, and then she started obsessing about Aunt Theodora, which had brought back memories and feelings Janet had kept buried for a long time. No one knew how she’d found out about Aunt Theodora.
Janet had explained to Abigail how Aunt Theo’s boyfriend, the one she’d gone to live with in New Mexico, had strangled her to death. Nobody in their family was there, of course, when he was acquitted on the grounds of self defense. He claimed she’d come at him with a knife, in one of her fits of jealous rage. After all, the neighbors had heard the fights, and Theodora, living in sin, was quite obviously, in the eyes of all those cowboys out there, a wicked woman. Everyone in Wallingford talked about it, except the family. Janet had read the newspaper accounts, like everyone else, but no one dared mention it to her grandparents. Eventually, people just forgot.
Abigail seemed to have Theodora confused with some woman in a book, a book that had been written after Theodora had died. She refused to listen, or to believe Theodora had been dead for so long, though. Janet certainly hoped she and Thomas would be all right out there in Oregon. Members of their family didn’t tend to do too well living out West.
QUESTIONS:
1. My two main goals when writing a ghost story are ambivalence and surprise. I think of ghost stories sort of has the magicians of writing (i.e. "I'm going to distract you over here and make you think this is what's happening, but what's really happening is -- surprise! -- this"). I expect readers to interpret them in their own ways and try not to make my own interpretation too obvious. Do you feel I accomplished this, or do you think I've got too much in here that tells the reader how to interpret it (as well as how to interpret Shirley Jackson's story)?
2. I also want to scare without blood and guts gore. Was it the least bit scary to you?
3. I originally wrote this story as two first-person accounts, Abigail's and Janet's. I changed it for this post (and if you were paying close attention, you may have caught a few areas in which I may have missed a few "I's" or "we's" or whatever. I thought the third-person account would help make it more ambivalent. Do you think it works, or do you think it might have been better in its original?
4. If you've read The Haunting of Hill House, did this work for you? If you haven't read it (after you've put it at the top of your TBR list), could you tell me if it was too confusing for someone who hadn't read it?
5. I've been told in the past that the humor in my ghost stories doesn't work, that it's too jarring. Agree that it doesn't work here? Disagree that it does work here?
Ian had never told Abigail that he had a Great Aunt Theodora. As a matter of fact, no one in the family ever had. She’d been caught completely off guard the day before Ian’s funeral when this Theodora woman had called to say she’d heard the news and wished she could make it to the funeral, but that she wasn’t going to be able to come. The call had barely registered, as Abigail had been so out of it at the time and had received so many similar calls, she hadn’t paid much attention. By the time the second call came, three months later, she had all but forgotten the first one. When she heard “Theodora,” she hung onto the phone trying to remember if her parents had a friend named Theodora, someone they’d be appalled to find she couldn’t remember. The jolt to her memory didn’t come until Theodora said, “Ian was my favorite nephew, you know.”
She then went on to say how sorry she was that they’d never met while Ian was still alive. She’d like them to get to know each other. Wouldn’t Abigail like to come visit her down in Winston-Salem? It was such an odd request, this relative stranger inviting Abigail to visit. Her curiosity was piqued. And it was piqued even further when the warm, elderly voice on the other end of the phone warned her not to mention the conversations to other members of Ian’s family. As she put it, she’d been “excommunicated” sometime back in the fifties or sixties.
That had been nearly a year ago, and they’d had a number of phone calls since then. Abigail could only think to describe them as having been “delightful,” making her sound as though she’d just stepped out of a nineteenth-century novel, she knew. Theodora seemed to inspire one to sound that way, though.
She was an extremely interesting person, full of life and living, despite her age, the sort of person Abigail hoped to be one day, the woman who shunned the notion of sitting in a rocker and knitting all day as soon as she hit age sixty. Almost every family has a Theodora, someone who doesn’t quite live life “by the rules,” but Abigail couldn’t understand why Ian’s family, usually so accepting of anyone and everyone would have hidden her away. They were the sorts to take great pride in having such a character as a member of their own clan, especially one, who as far as she could tell, was somewhat famous. Theodora should have been a great topic of conversation for them at parties.
It made some sense that Theodora’s parents, being of their generation, had disowned her when she’d gone off to live with her lover in the 1950s, something that just wasn’t done, not if you were from a proper New England family such as theirs. Still, why would anyone care now? Why wouldn’t they have accepted her back in the fold, especially since her parents were long since dead and gone? But then Abigail had to acknowledge that the whole ghost hunting thing might be a bit much for any family, let alone a proper New England one.
The relationship that had cost Theodora her parents hadn’t even lasted. She and her lover had split up, due to one of those arguments in which irreparable damage is done, just before Theodora had gone off on her first investigation with Dr. Montague. Some within the family speculated that the investigation with Dr. Montague was what had caused the real rift in the family, not the live-in lover, and that the lover had been an excuse, since the two events had seemed to overlap. The twenty-five-year-long association she’d shared with the doctor as two often-sought experts on hauntings and the paranormal offered a far better explanation for cutting her out of the family than did a misguided, less-than-two-year-long indiscreet love affair that could have been easily forgotten.
***
Janet hadn’t thought about Aunt Theodora in years. Her father’s sister had been the youngest member of the family, an adopted child, as a matter of fact. Theodora’s parents, good friends of Janet’s grandparents, had died in an accident, and Janet’s grandparents, whose children were all grown or nearly grown by then, had been given custody of the little six-year-old.
From what Janet had gathered from the tales told when she was a child, the young orphan had never really recovered from the death of her adoring and adored father. She was quite a handful for her adoptive parents, who were by no means old by today’s standards, but who had been considered to be getting older and slowing down by then. Everyone felt that what Theodora had needed were young, energetic parents with firm hands to keep her in line.
Not knowing what else to do with her, she’d been sent off to boarding schools, hoping they would instill some discipline, but the schools had seemed to bring out the worst, not the best, in her. The details were sketchy, though, and Janet had never really been able to get anyone to tell her what that had meant. Eventually, talking about Theodora had become taboo within the family, which had meant no one talked about her publicly, although plenty of whispering went on behind scenes, and Janet and her brother and sister had made up so many stories themselves about “Wild Aunt Theo” as they called her, that Janet found it hard these days to recollect what was true and what wasn’t.
She’d never had anything against Theodora herself. She and her siblings had all adored their wild, crazy, and flamboyant aunt, really more like a sister, since she was only seven years older. She’d taught Janet all the stylish dances and had convinced her that girls should wear their hair short, no matter what the fashion. Why waste time with all those hundred brush strokes required of long hair? And washing long hair was such a nuisance.
Theodora may have been disowned when she’d moved in with Robbie, but Janet had always felt her grandparents had just been looking for an excuse to be rid of the child who’d always been a problem. She was never mentioned by them again, and that’s when the whispered discussions began. All Janet had known was that she’d moved to New Mexico at some point, but that was about it. She’d already begun to drift away from her aunt by then, having a family of her own and was really too busy to care too much about the details of the life of a family member who’d always been a misfit. Ian had been drawn to her, as all children had been, but her children were always quick to catch on, and it hadn’t taken too long for him to stop asking for her at family gatherings. Janet was sure he’d eventually forgotten all about her.
****
Abigail and Theodora had spent many of their phone conversations discussing Theodora’s fascinating life. It seemed so interesting compared to Abigail’s predictable and now empty, often very lonely, one. Although originally from Wallingford, like the rest of her family, Theodora had chosen the South for her retirement. She’d been drawn to Winston-Salem during the seventies when they’d been there to investigate a house “way out in the boondocks in Kernersville,” a small community east of the city. She lived now in the heart of the city, on Academy St., within walking distance of Old Salem, her favorite section of town. She was full of tales of all the ghosts in Old Salem, most of whom no one else believed existed, except some of the researchers from Duke who’d come stay with her on occasion.
These conversations were more than intriguing to Abigail. She so badly needed a vacation, so it wasn’t so surprising that just shy of a year after their first conversation, she decided to take Theodora up on the offer. A trip to North Carolina would be cheaper than her longed-for trip to Bermuda, which, living on a shoe string as she currently was, she’d probably never make. She’d always loved Ian’s family – honestly, preferring them to most of her own family members – so it was nice to discover a member she’d never met, and she was sure they’d have a wonderful time getting better acquainted.
****
Janet knew she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that Abigail hadn’t adjusted well after Ian’s death. No one talked about it, though, and Janet found herself following suit, despite the fact she was worried about the constant dark circles under the young woman’s eyes. Abigail seemed to be under the impression that she should face life as a stalwart soldier. She closed herself off to the family. She’d shed maybe three required tears at the funeral, but that was the only time she’d cried in the company of others.
At times Janet wanted to shake her. It was almost unbearable to watch her marching efficiently through life, carrying on with all home and business tasks, not once letting down her guard. Janet wanted to tell her it was okay to break down and weep, necessary even. Abigail was worried about Thomas, but Janet told her Thomas would understand. It was better for a son to see his mother’s sorrow, evidence of how much she’d loved his father. Janet didn’t really know how to do it or what to say, though, and she honestly didn’t really want to be the one to do it, so she did what they all did: pretended Abigail was doing so well and wondered how long they would all keep pretending, how much longer everyone was going to ignore the dark circles under the eyes, the quick temper that had begun to develop, the inability to concentrate during normal conversation.
****
Abigail’s mother had agreed to take Thomas for the five days she’d be gone. Thomas hadn’t been too happy about this. He much preferred to stay with her in-laws who spoiled him rotten, in a way her mother never did. However, she couldn’t tell anyone in Ian’s family she was visiting Theodora. Besides, her mother had begun to hint that she never got to see Ian, that Abigail seemed to spend all her time with Ian’s family. This wasn’t true. Abigail knew she wasn’t spending much time with any family members, but she was too drained these days to argue. She hoped an extended period with Ian would appease her mother for a while.
After dropping off Thomas, she realized she still had quite a bit of time before she needed to head to the airport. She decided to stop by Borders to pick up a copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, the book that had made Aunt Theodora famous. Years before, she’d seen the movie based on the book but didn’t remember too much about it, having never been a huge fan of horror movies. Ghost stories had always seemed silly to her, even at age ten, sitting around Girl Scout campfires after dark. The book was short enough. She’d probably finish it on the plane, especially since she had a two-hour layover in Baltimore.
She was disappointed. Not in the book, which, surprisingly, spooked her quite a bit, but more in the fact that she was barely given any information about Theodora. Of the two young women, Theodora was obviously the more exciting. Eleanor, who received center stage, had so evidently been a real drip. The only exciting or brave thing she’d ever done in her life, it seemed, was steal a car that was half hers anyway. And her chanting of “journeys end in lovers’ meeting” was just plain embarrassing.
Dr. Montague was a pompous ass. Abigail couldn’t warm up to him, either. He and his dreadful wife deserved each other. Typically of someone of his sort, he arranged this whole little experiment and then so often wasn’t around when Eleanor and Theodora really needed him. Abigail couldn’t imagine what Theodora had seen in him to make her keep working with him for twenty five years.
By the time she’d picked up her rental car and was headed west on I-40, she’d come up with plenty of questions for Theodora. Mention had been made, of course, of the domestic arrangement that had estranged her from her family, but Abigail wasn’t the least bit satisfied due to the lack of details. She decided Jackson must not have been a big fan of details.
Theodora, on the other hand, boded to be an extremely detail-oriented person. Her directions were excellent, and Abigail found her cute little yellow house with its front porch (obviously de rigueur in this part of the world) with no trouble. It being a beautiful fall evening, she found Theodora waiting for her, sitting out on one of the porch’s gliders, the porch light shining brightly.
She stood up and gave Abigail an exuberant welcome, as if they’d been long-time friends, offering, despite her age, to take one of the two bags Abigail carried. She was a woman who, in her seventies now, was still stunning. You could tell that in her youth she’d radiated sex and beauty, the kind of girl who so often bewitched the boys with whom Abigail was madly in unrequited love. Abigail had never really been able to blame the boys for being so bewitched, since she was usually half under these girls’ spells as well. Theodora moved sylph-like up the stairs and led Abigail into the second of two bedrooms that had obviously once been the attic.
“Welcome to my guest suite,” she announced, as she placed Abigail’s small carry-on bag on the floor. “The bathroom is through that door,” she pointed to a door on the other side of the four-poster bed, which stood in between it and the door through which they’d entered. “It connects to the other bedroom, but I have no other guests this week, so you’ve got all three rooms to yourself. Feel free to spread out. The other room is bigger and has a desk and sofa in it, but this one has the more comfortable and queen-sized bed, so I thought you’d prefer it.” She left Abigail to “freshen up.”
It was a cute little room, basically just big enough for the bed, the dresser, and a couple of bedside tables, thoughtfully laid out with vases of flowers and magazines that might be of interest to a visitor. The closet was completely empty, as were the dresser drawers. Abigail unpacked her suitcase and stored her things in them, made a quick trip to the bathroom, and joined Theodora back downstairs for the gin and tonic she’d been offered by her hostess.
****
It was odd for Abigail to have left town without telling Janet where she was going, but Abigail had, after all, been acting odd these days, so Janet wasn’t completely surprised. She wished Thomas had been left with her, though. The little boy needed a loving, stable environment, and some positive male role modes, as often as these things could be provided, and, although she prided herself on being extremely tolerant and nonjudgmental (after all, hadn’t she accepted Ian and Abigail?), she couldn’t help thinking that his other grandmother, with her constant complaints about her ex-husband, just didn’t give him that.
Still, the secretiveness was bothering her. Not only had Abigail not told her where she was going, she hadn’t even bothered to tell her she was going anywhere at all. If Janet hadn’t decided to do something she rarely did, calling her daughter-in-law at the office to see if they could plan some time to get together, she never would have known Abigail was out of town for a few days. Her calls to the cell phone were obviously being ignored.
Of course, this probably meant nothing more than that Abigail had a new man in her life, someone she didn’t yet want to share with the family. They’d most likely decided to take a long weekend away together. Janet found nothing inherently wrong in that. It had been a year since Ian’s death, and a new man would be a sign that Abigail was moving on. The problem is, Abigail hadn’t shown any other clear signs of beginning to move on with her life. She certainly hoped this wasn’t just a new way for Abigail to ignore her feelings, to stay preoccupied with something new and exciting. She worried about any man who might be showing interest in a woman who was in such a fragile state. A “rescuer” who turned “manipulator” would not be good, in fact would be terrible, for Abigail right now.
****
Abigail took a seat on the glider next to Theodora’s, ready to bombard her with many questions. Theodora, however, had a very different agenda. She was far more interested in Ian and Abigail than she was in discussing Hill House, Dr. Montague, and her life prior to the incident. Nonetheless, she was extremely patient with Abigail, providing her with thorough answers to all the questions.
Anyone listening would have thought they made quite a pair: Abigail was racing through everything as if they only had one hour to unveil all the mysteries of the book she’d just devoured. Theodora rocked the glider slowly and methodically, carefully considering every question asked, and responding as though neither one of their lives would ever end.
Finally, she said, “Look, that really wasn’t the most interesting of our cases. Unfortunately, it just happens to be the one everyone knows, because Ms. Jackson decided to immortalize all of us, even poor Eleanor, who really should have been allowed to rest in peace. I could share with you some stories that are far more interesting than Hill House.
"Dr. Montague and Shirley Jackson had a real falling out over some of the details (funny, thought Abigail, since there hadn't seemed to be many of those) in that book. As most writers do, she got many of them wrong. She assumed so many things she shouldn’t have. And then, of course, once we all decided not to talk to her, at Dr. Montague’s request, she just blatantly made up stuff. Today, we’d probably all sue her, but in those days, we just laughed about it.
“At this point in time, I can’t really say I blame her. After all, the bare bones of the story are good ones, and she weaved magic with them. I’m just saying that much of it was more fiction than truth.
“For instance, Robbie and I didn’t have our big argument as a result of my choosing to go to Hill House. We’d quarreled about three weeks’ prior, and I’d moved back to Connecticut from Santa Fe. I was living on my own. And in the book, Luke is portrayed as somewhat of a mindless playboy, ordered about by his family and made to come live at Hill House. The truth of the matter is he was the one who insisted a family member ought to be in the house when strangers came to visit, and he decided he’d be that member. I still don’t know how she could’ve botched that.”
Abigail was surprised to hear all this. “But the house itself? I mean, the fact it was haunted, that was real, right?” A year ago, she would have thought this a ridiculous question, but her opinions concerning ghosts and haunted houses were rapidly changing.
“That house was full of ghosts, my dear, no doubt about it. More so than most of the houses I’ve encountered.”
Theodora was determined to get Abigail out of Hill House and into one of her other houses. There’d been many. They’d actually gone to England and the Caribbean a few times, despite the fact Dr. Montague wanted to limit his research to the U.S. And she laughed as she remembered some of the hoaxes they’d encountered.
“In one house, the husband was hoping to scare his poor wife into leaving. Before we arrived on the scene, he’d actually gone walking around dressed in a sheet, passing by the doors of the rooms in which she sat or lay in bed. He had a friend who would climb onto the roof and rattle chains. All I could think was that he’d seen the movie Gaslight one too many times. His wife’s family was completely convinced, though, which just goes to show what people are willing to believe.
“Anyway, I’m sure they didn’t even give you any peanuts on the plane. You must be starving. Let’s go in and eat.”
At dinner, she turned the conversation back to Abigail, eager to learn the details of the life shared with Ian, how they’d met, what their little boy was like. Abigail hadn’t had this sort of a conversation in ages, and she found herself struggling with many different emotions: sadness, enjoyment, fondness for Theodora and the eager way she leaned forward, listening intently…
She had met Ian at a large dinner party hosted by a friend of his and a friend of hers. She was one of the requisite females invited by Valerie to sit across from one of the requisite males invited by Michael. Unfortunately, the young man chosen for her had been a complete idiot. The older man, sitting next to him, however, had been completely endearing. Quite obviously, the older woman sitting next to Abigail who’d been chosen as his companion thought so, too. The three of them had stayed quite late, discussing books and music, Abigail’s two favorite subjects.
She’d been completely surprised when Valerie had approached her cubicle at work a couple of weeks later and asked if she could give Abigail’s number to her husband’s friend Ian. She had wavered somewhat. Ian had been 43 at the time, and she only 26. She hadn’t known the exact numbers, of course, at the time, but she had been aware that he was nowhere near her own age. In the end, flattery had gotten the best of her. She couldn’t believe someone so smart and so funny was more interested in her than their other dinner companion, who had seemed far more glamorous, impressive, and well-read than she’d ever be.
They’d hit it off tremendously from the first date. She couldn’t get enough of his conversations, and their dates weren’t accompanied by the all-too-familiar anxieties typically associated with dating. None of the “does he really like me or is he just lonely and can’t find anyone better?” nor the “should I return his call or let him call me again?” not even the “should I take him up on his offer to spend the night with him?” Everything just felt right and happened as one would expect it to happen. She wasn’t the least bit surprised when eight months after they’d met, he’d asked her to marry him. He said it had taken him too many years to find his other half, and he wasn’t about to let her go.
Abigail and Ian’s first year of marriage hadn’t turned out to be a bed of roses, though, more like a rock garden tended barefoot. He’d wanted to have kids right away, understandably, and she hadn’t. She hadn’t even been sure she’d wanted to have kids at all. She’d told him she’d gone off the Pill, but still had secretly been taking it. It was difficult to remember to take it while hiding it, though. She was constantly missing days, so it wasn’t really a huge surprise when she wound up pregnant.
She’d been somewhat afraid Ian was going to leave her or that he’d been having an affair until the day she told him she was pregnant. He was thrilled, and things between them improved immensely. He was extraordinarily deferential while she was pregnant, and he took such good care of both Thomas and Abigail, once the baby was born. She’d found herself falling in love with him all over again. And, of course, like so many women, once she’d had the baby, she’d realized she really did want children, or at least, wanted this child.
"But it didn’t last,” Abigail sighed between forkfuls of food. “Nothing good ever does, does it? And the least of my worries at the time was that my husband would die of a brain aneurysm. I barely even knew what one was.”
“Funny. A brain aneurysm is what killed Luke Sanderson, you know. And at such a young age,” she said. Abigail hadn’t known, of course. She hadn’t even known who he was until today, and she didn’t know he was dead.
“And I can completely understand your attraction to an older man. Dr. Montague was eighteen years older than I was. You must have figured out by now that he and I were more than just investigative partners. It was perfectly natural, you know, the two of us spending so much time alone together in empty houses. And his wife, well, no one could stand that woman for very long. She was the one person whose character Ms. Jackson managed to get right.
“As much as I hate that old cliché, he certainly knew how to make me feel like a woman. You know exactly what I mean, don’t you? He refused to divorce her, though, said he was old-fashioned, didn’t believe in divorce, turning his back on obligations. He wouldn’t listen to my arguments that he wasn’t so old-fashioned as to believe in fidelity. He always said to me, ‘Fidelity, my dear, is not an old-fashioned value. Read your Old Testament.’
“Mrs. Montague wasn’t around much. When he and I were alone in those houses, I could almost pretend she didn’t exist. She’d often show up unannounced, though, which always infuriated me.”
Abigail could tell how true this last statement was by the anger on her face now, even after all these years. She hoped the shock on her own face wasn’t apparent. Dr. Montague had been a know-it-all old fuddy-duddy, nothing at all like her Ian. How could someone like Aunt Theodora possibly have had an affair with someone like that? And how dare she make any kind of connection between Abigail’s husband and that man?
Aunt Theodora must have noticed Abigail’s discomfort, though, as she quickly decided to leave Hill House again. “You know, I knew Ian when he was a very little boy.” Abigail raced right out the front door of the haunted old house with her, forgetting her shock and anger. She loved to hear stories about Ian when he was a child. “He was extremely bright, even then. Funny he grew up to be a professor, because we all called him ‘The Little Professor.’ He was reading by the time he was four. He absolutely loved Aesop’s Fables. He once said to me, ‘It’s called allegory, Aunt Theodora. Animals don’t really do all those things, but it’s fun to pretend they can.’ Doesn’t that brilliantly capture the advanced cognitive abilities that were stuck in the same brain with the imagination of a four-year-old?”
They spent the rest of dinner talking about Ian and Thomas. Apparently, Abigail’s son was very much like his father. Abigail knew this from other members of Ian’s family, but Aunt Theodora’s perspective was unique. Ian had been frozen forever for her at age five, which was the last time she’d seen him. Her vision of him hadn’t been clouded by watching him grow and change and witnessing what he’d become.
By the time Abigail climbed into bed that night, she was missing both Ian and Thomas. This was the first time she’d been away from Thomas since Ian’s death, and she was beginning to realize how dependent she was on her little boy to keep her from being eaten alive by grief, left to wander around in the gloomy caverns of its massive stomach. That night, as she lay there exhausted but unable to sleep, she was sure she could feel all the cracks still left in the broken heart she thought she’d been so carefully mending for the past year.
Despite thinking it wasn’t possible, she must have fallen asleep, because she was most definitely woken up by the noise. It was coming from the door that led into the bathroom. At first, in her groggy state, she thought it was a dog scratching at the door. Rolling over with an automatic “no,” it took her a minute to realize she hadn’t lived with a dog in years. Then she realized where she was. Theodora didn’t have a dog, either. Could it be a cat she had yet to meet? Theodora hadn’t mentioned one.
Fully awake now, Abigail propped herself up on her pillow and listened. When the scratching, which seemed to be coming from both the bottom of the door as well as from the vicinity of the door knob, turned into a light knocking, her rising sense of dread determined this definitely wasn’t a cat. Nor was it a mouse.
She felt the way she always had as a child when she awakened in the middle of the night from a nightmare, terrified that the loud beating of her heart echoing in her ears was a giant climbing the stairs to get her. She’d learned never to cry out, though, because her sister, lying in her bed across the room would mock her, spending the next few nights doing her best to terrorize her before they went to bed. Thus well-trained, Abigail didn’t make a sound now. She listened until the scratching and knocking stopped, squashing the urge to hide under the covers, as she heard soft footsteps descend the uncarpeted steps that led down to the first floor.
In the morning, Abigail realized Theodora must have been having a little fun with her. The thought crossed her mind that this was an odd way to treat a houseguest, but Theodora seemed to be someone who liked a good practical joke. Yesterday, she’d confessed to Ian’s aunt that the ghost who’d come and thumped at Eleanor’s door in the book had spooked her to the point she’d jumped when the flight attendant had come to ask what she’d like to drink. Theodora had laughed and told Abigail she’d experienced so many instances of something like that in her life she barely remembered it had happened at Hill House. Abigail had set herself up perfectly for a practical jokester.
As Theodora showed Abigail around town that day, though, she made no mention of it. She didn’t even drop the sorts of hints you’d expect from someone who’d played such a joke. Nothing in her conversation lent itself to getting Abigail to confess something weird had happened, enabling her to either feed into her guest’s concerns, extending the joke, or to laugh, confessing her antics. Abigail got none of that, not even when she was giving one her insider’s tours of Old Salem, providing details of each and every one of the ghosts she’d encountered there. This would naturally have been the ideal time to ask Abigail if she'd ever seen a ghost.
Abigail was wiped out, yet again, by the time she went to bed that night. To top off her poor night’s sleep the previous night and walking all around Old Salem, Theodora had insisted on asking more questions about Ian, which had drained the last drops of energy from her body. They’d also enjoyed a heavy meal at The Salem Tavern, and she’d drunk one too many glasses of wine.
She should have fallen right to sleep. Instead, she found herself wide awake under the covers and wishing she were home. Home, with Ian snoring beside her and Thomas sleeping in his crib in the next room. Only about a quarter of her brain seemed to be intent on getting to sleep. The other seventy five percent was focused on being angry with Ian for leaving her here with the monumental task of raising a child on her own. This was soon followed by guilt for having such thoughts. Finally, there were auditory synapses, fully alert and waiting for more scratching noises.
The noises didn’t come, though, and sleep eventually did. She woke up in desperate need of the bathroom. While fumbling for the light switch, she heard something yet again, coming from that bathroom door. It was so faint. Someone was whispering, quietly giggling.
“Ssshhh,” was barely audible. “Abigail’s sleeping.” Then, “Abigail, please let me in.” More laughter. More vague, unintelligible whispers and hissing.
She turned the light on just in time to see the door handle twisting against the lock she’d firmly pushed in before climbing into bed. The twisting was frantic; the whispering became unbearable as she lay trembling, praying for her life to the God she didn’t believe existed. When the manic efforts to open the door eventually subsided, she waited for the footsteps she was sure she’d hear descending the stairs. They didn’t come.
Only a brainless babysitter in Jason’s Elm Street Halloween would have left the bed to go into that bathroom. She lay in agony, wishing she had a bed pan, wishing the clock didn’t read 2:48 a.m. Finally, she admitted defeat. She had no choice but to make her way around the bed to the bathroom. Her bravery could be contributed to the fact that she partly believed Theodora would be there when she opened the door. Another part suspected she'd find nothing, which is exactly what happened. She hurriedly did what needed to be done and rushed back to the safety of the bed, forgetting to flush the toilet.
The next day was a glorious fall day, the sky a brilliant blue, making a perfect backdrop for the reds, yellows, and oranges of the leaves. Theodora took her out to Tanglewood Park. She felt as though she’d been wandering around in a blurry movie, and today, someone had finally fiddled with the focus button, bringing everything sharply to life. Still no mention, however, from Theodora of any ghosts in her house. She was completely enchanting and vivacious, enjoying the day and the park even more than Abigail did, despite her familiarity with it. She certainly didn’t seem like the kind of elderly woman who would be trying to scare her houseguest to death.
Abigail dreaded bedtime that night and kept Theodora up well close to midnight. She didn’t seem to mind, though, not seeming to be the least bit sleepy herself. It was Abigail, this time, who turned the conversation to Ian and then did nothing but talk about him and two of them for close to two hours. She found herself crying months’ worth of unshed tears by the end of it.
She’d been afraid to talk so much about him since his death, afraid this would happen, but somehow, sitting here with Theodora, it didn’t seem to matter. It seemed like the perfect outlet for her grief. Theodora was very patient and understanding, until she finally mentioned that all this must be exhausting and that Abigail ought to get to bed, since they had plans, due to the beautiful weather, for a day trip up to Asheville the next day, and they needed to get some rest for that. Abigail had become a huge fan of Thomas Wolfe when she was in college and had always wanted to go to Asheville. Now, however, she realized she couldn’t care less. She didn’t want to spend another night in that bedroom. She didn’t want to rest up for a long drive. She wanted to stay right down here in the living room until morning. Being a polite and obedient guest, however, she said nothing, heading up as Theodora turned out all the lights in the living room and kitchen.
All Abigail could think of as she lay in bed that night was that once she made it through this night, she only had one night left. She wasn’t stuck living here with a crazy old woman (which was what Abigail’s mind had turned Theodora into once again, the minute she’d crawled into bed in this horrible room), who seemed hell bent on scaring her into a loony bin. Abigail had decided Theodora wasn’t trying to kill her, because that could easily have been accomplished by now. Her life obviously wasn’t at stake, just her sanity, and she was determined to keep it in tact.
She hadn’t even fallen asleep yet when the scratching began. It started slowly and lightly, but then began to pick up its pace. She pretended not to hear it. The more she pretended, however, the more insistent it seemed to become. Now it was scratching and knocking and thumping. When it got no response from her, the doorknob moved frantically again, someone desperately twisting it to get inside the room. Abigail tried to cover her ears to block out the noise, but she was shaking too hard and the noise was too loud. Something fell to the floor. The doorknob. Whatever it was could now get into the room. Abigail was all the way under the covers by now, having abandoned all brave notions that Theodora couldn’t be intent on killing her. She waited and waited to hear footsteps, to feel something pounce on her, for Theodora to burst out laughing at her very cruel joke. Nothing happened.
Finally, her anger got the better of her fear. She threw back her covers to find no one standing there. She stomped around the bed and picked up the doorknob that had fallen to the floor. The door was still shut. She pushed against it, but it wouldn’t open. Someone was standing there, resisting her forceful attempts, keeping it firmly closed. If it were Theodora, she was awfully strong for someone her size and age.
“Theodora,” Abigail said, in tears. “I’ve had enough! Leave me alone!” In response, all she got were whispers and laughter. She crawled back into bed, where she spent the next two hours shivering and crying.
She was ready to pay the $100 it would take to change her flight back home the next day when she woke up, after a few hours of fitful sleep, and discovered the doorknob was back on the bathroom door, which she climbed out of bed to discover she had no trouble opening. She packed her bags and came downstairs ready to confront Theodora, who, looking well-rested and happy, was packing a picnic lunch for their trip. She looked up at Abigail, surprised, when she, more timidly than she’d intended, asked,
“Is this house haunted?”
“Why, have you seen a ghost? You look as though you have.”
“Not seen one, but heard one,” Abigail informed her.
"Lucky you, then. When I bought it, I was told it was haunted. It is, but I don’t know how anyone ever knew. The ghost is extremely shy and forlorn and has never really wanted to come out to play. I’ve barely seen him. He must find you attractive,” and she laughed.
“It’s not very funny,” Abigail said, flatly.
“Oh dear,” she said. “He’s really scared you, hasn’t he?”
“Yes.” Abigail was crying all over again.
*****
Janet wished she had a better memory. She knew her grandparents had never even gone to the trial, but she couldn’t remember how the rest of the family had responded. It had been so unfair. Yes, the trial had been all the way out in New Mexico, but still, these were the only parents Theodora had ever really known. Their behavior towards her was so uncharacteristic of them. They were always so open and loving, spoiling their grandchildren and seeming to enjoy life so much. Janet couldn’t understand what made them behave so bitterly towards a daughter whose only real crime had been to follow her heart by moving in with her lover.
Janet had always felt that the lack of family support was what hurt Aunt Theo’s case, but, of course, no one was allowed to talk about it. She’d always regretted not having flown out there herself, but she’d been in the midst of raising a family and taking care of a home. Someone should have been there to defend her, to let everyone know she was basically just a mixed up kid in a woman’s body.
****
Theodora addressed Abigail’s tears with kindness and warmth and told her she had nothing to fear. The ghost was a man who’d died in the prime of his life, out riding his motorcycle one day. He kept coming home to look for his wife who’d moved shortly after his death. Surely Abigail could relate to that story. She shouldn’t let ghosts frighten her. Most of them were harmless. Abigail wanted to believe her, but something bothered her about this story. The voice that had whispered her name had definitely been female, and how would this ghost know her name? Besides, she was sure she’d heard more than one ghost.
“What was the wife’s name?” she asked, hoping by some fluke her name had been Abigail. It wasn’t, though. Her name had been Michelle.
Her explanation was convincing enough, and Abigail didn’t really want to spend that $100, so she decided to stay after all. They had a wonderful day in Asheville, Theodora engendering so much warmth and affection from complete strangers both at the Thomas Wolfe homestead and the Biltmore Estate that Abigail found herself wondering how she could ever have doubted her. She was so wrong to think this woman had been trying to terrorize her. Maybe she was even wrong in believing she’d heard a ghost. Maybe she’d dreamt it all or was just suffering from some grief-induced phenomenon that was causing hallucinations. She’d heard this sort of thing could happen. They had a delicious picnic in the gardens at Biltmore, and she felt refreshed and much happier by the time they arrived back in Winston-Salem.
When she woke up that night, it was because she could hear Ian laughing. He was laughing and telling her how wonderful she was, just has he had done in the early stages of their romance. But someone was laughing with him, and it wasn’t Abigail.
She opened her eyes to see them standing there at the bottom of the bed. Ian, in all his handsome glory, was just as she’d remembered him. And there was Theodora beside him, only she wasn’t the Theodora Abigail had been visiting the past few days.
The same smile and the same twinkle in her eyes were there, of course. The same charm. The same sexual energy. But the wrinkles were gone. The gray hair was now jet black. Her smooth, un-aged hands were pressed playfully against Ian’s chest. They were both laughing at some private joke, oblivious to the world around them. He planted his hands on both her cheeks, just as he’d always done with Abigail, and pulled her to kiss him. She pulled away, though, put a finger to her lips, then turned and pointed at the bed.
He stopped for a minute, looked at Abigail without seeming to see her, and then turned his attention back to Theodora. Laughing once more, he insistently grabbed her and kissed her. She didn’t resist him, but rather, fell against him, her thin body engulfed by his thick one. They held each other for an eternity, and then she turned back to Abigail again and whispered,
“You know, Abigail, journeys end in lovers’ meeting.”
****
Janet wished they hadn’t all just pretended everything was okay with Abigail. She’d tried to convince her daughter-in-law not to move to Oregon, but Abigail wouldn’t listen. She came back from her trip down south and said she needed to get away, go somewhere new and different where there were no memories. Janet guessed she could understand that, but she just didn’t understand why it had to be so far away. Abigail’s college roommate had married a man out there, and she assured Janet they’d take good care of her until she was settled, but Janet had to admit, she had her doubts.
She was more worried than ever about Abigail after that little vacation she’d taken. She came home finally able to show her despair over Ian, and everyone was quite relieved about that. However, when Janet asked her about her trip to North Carolina, Abigail just told her it hadn’t been what she’d expected, and then she started obsessing about Aunt Theodora, which had brought back memories and feelings Janet had kept buried for a long time. No one knew how she’d found out about Aunt Theodora.
Janet had explained to Abigail how Aunt Theo’s boyfriend, the one she’d gone to live with in New Mexico, had strangled her to death. Nobody in their family was there, of course, when he was acquitted on the grounds of self defense. He claimed she’d come at him with a knife, in one of her fits of jealous rage. After all, the neighbors had heard the fights, and Theodora, living in sin, was quite obviously, in the eyes of all those cowboys out there, a wicked woman. Everyone in Wallingford talked about it, except the family. Janet had read the newspaper accounts, like everyone else, but no one dared mention it to her grandparents. Eventually, people just forgot.
Abigail seemed to have Theodora confused with some woman in a book, a book that had been written after Theodora had died. She refused to listen, or to believe Theodora had been dead for so long, though. Janet certainly hoped she and Thomas would be all right out there in Oregon. Members of their family didn’t tend to do too well living out West.
QUESTIONS:
1. My two main goals when writing a ghost story are ambivalence and surprise. I think of ghost stories sort of has the magicians of writing (i.e. "I'm going to distract you over here and make you think this is what's happening, but what's really happening is -- surprise! -- this"). I expect readers to interpret them in their own ways and try not to make my own interpretation too obvious. Do you feel I accomplished this, or do you think I've got too much in here that tells the reader how to interpret it (as well as how to interpret Shirley Jackson's story)?
2. I also want to scare without blood and guts gore. Was it the least bit scary to you?
3. I originally wrote this story as two first-person accounts, Abigail's and Janet's. I changed it for this post (and if you were paying close attention, you may have caught a few areas in which I may have missed a few "I's" or "we's" or whatever. I thought the third-person account would help make it more ambivalent. Do you think it works, or do you think it might have been better in its original?
4. If you've read The Haunting of Hill House, did this work for you? If you haven't read it (after you've put it at the top of your TBR list), could you tell me if it was too confusing for someone who hadn't read it?
5. I've been told in the past that the humor in my ghost stories doesn't work, that it's too jarring. Agree that it doesn't work here? Disagree that it does work here?
posted by Emily Barton at 7:24 AM
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