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“That’s very kind, but I don’t plan on disturbing you too much.”
“I’m just letting you know.” Hibbs paused in a way I can only describe as ominous. “You might need my help during the witching hour.”
I had been on my way back to the car, but hearing that stopped me cold.
“What do you mean by that?”
Hibbs put a thin arm around my shoulder and pulled me away until Jess was out of earshot. Then, in a low voice, he said, “I just want to make sure Janie June told you everything you need to know about that house.”
“She did,” I said.
“Good. That’s good that you know what you’re getting yourself into. The Carvers weren’t prepared for the place and, well, the less said about them the better, I s’pose.” Hibbs gave me a genial slap on the back. “I’ve kept you long enough. Go on up with the missus and take another gander at your new house.”
Then he was gone, turning his back to us as he strolled away to his cottage. It wasn’t until we were back in the car and navigating the corkscrew of a driveway that I was struck by the oddness of the conversation.
“Hibbs asked if we knew what we were getting into,” I told Jess as Baneberry Hall rose into view, just as grand as I remembered. “At first, I thought he was talking about the Carver family.”
“I’m sure he was,” Jess said. “What else could there be?”
“That’s what I thought. But then he told me the Carvers weren’t prepared for the place, and now I’m wondering what he meant by that.” I brought the car to a stop in front of the house and peered upward at the pair of eyelike windows on the third floor. They stared back. “Do you think something else happened here? Something before the Carvers moved in?”
Jess shot me a look that was unmistakably a warning to drop it.
“The past is in the past, remember?” she said. “Starting now, we only focus on the future.”
With that future in mind, I left the car, hopped onto the porch, and unlocked the front door. Then, with a flourish, I helped Jess out of the car, lifted her into my arms, and carried her across the threshold. A romantic gesture I never had the chance to do when we got married.
Our courtship had been a whirlwind. I was an adjunct professor teaching a class on New Journalism at the University of Vermont. Jess was there getting her master’s in elementary education. We met at a party hosted by a mutual friend and spent the night discussing Truman Capote’sIn Cold Blood. I’d never met someone like her—so carefree and bright andalive. Her face lit up when she smiled, which was often, and her eyes were like windows into her thoughts. By the end of that night, I knew Jess was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
We got married six months later. Six months after that, Maggie was born.
“You want to officially christen this place now or tomorrow?” I asked as I set her down in the vestibule.
“Now,” Jess said with a wink. “Definitely now.”
Hand in hand, we moved deeper into the house. I stopped a second later, caught short by the sight of the chandelier drooping from the ceiling.
It was on, glowing brightly.
Jess noticed it, too, and said, “Maybe Hibbs left it on for us.”
I hoped that was the case. Otherwise it meant that the wiring problem Janie June had promised to look into had gone unattended. I didn’t worry too much, because by then Jess was tugging me toward the curved staircase, her smile naughty and her eyes bright with mischief.
“So many rooms,” she said. “Perhaps we need to christen all of them.”
I willingly followed her up the steps, the chandelier suddenly forgotten. All I cared about was my wife, my daughter, and the wonderful new life we would have inside that house.
I had no idea what Baneberry Hall really had in store for us. How, despite our best efforts, its history would eventually threaten to smother us. How twenty days inside its walls would become a waking nightmare.
Had we known any of that, we would have turned around, left Baneberry Hall, and never come back.
Three
It’s almost dark when I bring my truck to a rattling stop in front of the wrought-iron gate. The sky has the same purple-black hue as a bruise. On the other side of the gate, I can faintly make out the rise of the gravel road as it begins its climb through the woods. Atop the hill, barely visible through the trees, is a patch of dark roof and a sliver of glass reflecting the wan light of the rising moon.
Baneberry Hall.
The house of horrors itself.