Page 67 of A Heart So Haunted
Right below it, it read:
*Father—deceased
Recipient of passage, no assets, building good condition
Granted by Stetson Treasurer Office, witness Sherriff Jonathan Kimbal and Judge Marshal Yearly
Water filled my lungs. Slowly, it filled my throat, my ears, and pressed deep against my brows. My palms began to itch. Deed still in hand, I cranked the ignition. Hadrian had existed. He was real. And I, inadvertently, was not hallucinating. This was the validity I’d wanted, right?
But it wasn’t enough.
I wanted more. I needed dates, pictures, and words on paper. Because a deed only proved that Hadrian had at one point been a real person. Solidified the man I’d seen in the maze of briars as he’d smiled at me.
What about his life? What did he do? How long had he lived? Did he have a job, did he live in the house until he died, or was he stuck there for other reasons?
A thought occurred to me. The other name the clerk had mentioned.
In my phone, I searched: Irene Blankenship. A job profile appeared, one for the Wasleck library on a recruiting website, the other for one of the university’s research committees. Then, something further down—a Reddit thread by a user namedIreneBlanketMonster178that started with, “So I’ve worked at the library for a while and … never heard of something like this before.… thoughts? …”
I did a U-turn in the middle of the street and started for the Wasleck library.
I opened the Reddit post in the library parking lot out of sheer nosiness. It might not have been the same person. I might have been jumping to conclusions or getting ahead of myself. Preconceived notions never did anyone any good, and that’s exactly what I was falling victim to.
I guess I didn’t care.
I opened the thread.
I don’t believe in ghosts but I’ve got a problem?
u/IreneBlanketMonster178:[MOD] 2.5 y ago
So I’ve never believed in ghosts, right? As a child, my parents were always very up front with my sisters and me. (No Santa, Tooth Fairy, Boogeyman. Our childhoods were fairy dust-less and Magic of Christmas No More.) So ghosts were piled into that category. We didn’t play with Ouija boards because, in our minds, lame. We only did Halloween for the candy and to time how fast each of us could run through a haunted house.
Life moved on. I graduated college. Parents moved out for a one-level home because knees started to hurt. I kept the family house. Got a job at the library while doing research, because money. Then this one lady came in—she came in religiously, always checked out four fiction books and one nonfiction book.
She owned an older home somewhere near the marshes. We started talking about ghosts somehow one afternoon. Then she let everything spill. She said she’d been hearing a child crying at night, and a woman would hover near her bed at least once a week. Said she’d seen the apparition of a dog in the backyard, all that fun stuff. And scratching on the walls? Said she couldn’t have family over because it happened at night all the time.
We got to talking about it, and she asked if I could come check out something she’d found at the house to see if I could tell where it might have come from. (No, I didn’t ask for pictures, but I should have at the time, I see the err in my ways, because she could have been a serial killer and lured me in so easily.)
I knew of the house from a few of the land directories. But when I stepped inside, the vibe changed. I’m talking I could feel the little hairs on my arms go up. Then she took me upstairs.
Not going to lie. I thought I was gonna get murdered (by her, not a ghost). Anyway—upstairs on the second floor, some wall was torn down. The place was probably built in the late 1700s? Idk. Think creaky. The house moans on its own, kind of thing. Then she showed me what she’d found on the inside of the wall she’d pulled down. Said she was taking off the “ugly beadboard” and spooked herself.
[attached image]
An electric current lurched through me. I knew, without opening the attachment, what it would be. My eyes jumped to the end of the thread:
I’ve never seen those symbols before? From any religion? And from where the house is, I went through all of the local info and couldn’t find anything about any cults in the area out of the ordinary? Does anyone know what it could be? Any leads helpful.
(13) Comments
Chapter Fourteen
With a sharp hiss, I locked my phone and climbed out of my car. I could read the comments later. The clock on my dashboard already threatened the library’s closing in a mere thirty-two minutes, so I needed to hurry if I wanted to find Irene—if she still worked here, anyway. My esophagus felt like it was peeling, my hands shaking a bit, as I hurried into the library. Its door jingled in welcome, and the first thing I saw was army-green carpet, heathered with red and navy spots.
I scanned the shelves to my right—mystery and romance and nonfiction—until I landed on a beige L-shaped counter at its center, separating the YA and middle grade from the rest of the sections. Standing behind the counter was a woman around my age, with high cheekbones, waist-length braids, and coal-black eyes, perked up from a monitor. Her mushroom-colored slacks matched her blouse; gold accents tinkled on her wrist and ears.
I gave a tiny gasp. Iknewthat face.
