Page 7 of Grotesque

I ’d finally worked up the courage to text my mom that I had made it up to Glamis. If something strange was happening, I wanted someone to know where I was.

I’d texted Quint too. He’d responded quickly, like he had been waiting for me to reach out. That had been three days ago.

Quint: Want to grab dinner this week?

My thumbs hovered over the keys. I couldn’t help but feel that the incident with the moths had been some sort of warning. That I had cut it too close coming in late the other night.

Me: How about brunch?

There was a slight pause as three dots flashed up on the screen, disappeared, and then came back.

Quint: Brunch is perfect. There’s a spot called Two Eggs that’s excellent. Should I pick you up?

Me: Sounds great! Is today too soon?

Quint: Not at all. 11?

Me: Perfect! I’ll meet you there.

Unease clogged my throat as my stomach churned. I’d been at Glamis for less than a week and already my nerves were raw and bleeding. I couldn’t breathe until I was off the grounds, hauling ass down the road like a bat out of Hell. How was I going to make it an entire year?

I’d done my best to ignore the strange tapping on my window at night. The tapping that had grown ever more insistent the more I refused to acknowledge it.

I wasn’t due to meet Quint for another hour, but I couldn’t stand another second alone in the manor.

I also couldn’t continue to maneuver through its empty halls blindly.

I needed to know more about its history.

A place that old surely had some stories to tell.

I needed to know why, of all people, Macky had left it to me .

A quick Google search had me punching in the address of the local Bristol library, and thirty minutes later I was standing out the front, looking up at its stately, brownstone facade.

Rogers Free Library was beautiful, if a little less grand and a little more moss and lichen-covered than it had been when first constructed.

I examined the photo of the original building – built in the late 1800s, apparently – proudly displayed inside the front entrance.

The passage of time was so very evident between the pristine, multi-story building in the image, and the worn, single level structure before me.

Not like Glamis, which had been built even earlier, yet seemed untouched by the decades. Huh.

I paused over the threshold. What a strange thought to have.

I approached the front desk hesitantly. “I was wondering if you had any records on Glamis Manor?”

Color drained from the librarian’s face. She touched her pointer fingers to the back of her ears before placing them delicately over her keyboard. “Nothing in the collection, but plenty of stories to tell. The place is haunted.”

“What do you mean ‘haunted’?” No way I was living with a fucking ghost. Though, that would explain the overbearing presence and constant sense of having company.

The woman, Beth, according to her desk plate, shrugged.

“No one really knows. Some people think it’s the ghost of a man who was murdered there when the house was originally built.

” I opened my mouth to interject but she held up her hand, “Let me finish. Others think it might be a vampire. I know that sounds crazy but, whatever it is that lurks up there isn’t good. ”

Putting the murder to one side, the town sounded as cooky as Macky.

“You shouldn’t be asking about that place. It makes for terrible gossip.”

“I just moved in. My grandmother, Maxine Harris, left it to me.”

Beth whistled. “That’s quite the legacy to leave to just one person. Was Hampton not able to answer your questions?”

“Hampton? Who is that?”

“He’s the groundskeeper. He started working for Maxine a couple of years ago. Nice fellow, doesn’t talk much, but as far as I know he’s still employed. I’d heard Maxine passed, but I didn’t know she had any family. Never mentioned them. We sort of expected the place would finally fade away.”

I nodded, tucking that information away for later. That explained why the manor had been fully stocked when I arrived. Possibly. Groundskeepers typically took care of everything outside of the house.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. For nothing, I added mentally.

“If I were you, I’d sell the place. That or put a match to it.”

My stomach flipped. “That bad?”

Beth nodded. “Too many strange happenings around Glamis. The people that go in either wind up mad or dead. Not trying to scare you, but it’s true. Maxine seemed sweet enough, and forgive me for saying this, may she rest in peace, but there was always something off about her.”

This was the first person that wasn’t a family member to say she was a little off. Maybe Mom hadn’t been overreaching with her tall tales.

“I can’t sell it. Not yet.” I waved my hand in the air. “There’s too many legalities behind it.”

Beth’s finger traced over the space bar of her keyboard. Her large dark eyes narrowed with concern. “Just be careful. Stories’ gotta start from somewhere, right?”

I nodded. “Speaking of… the murder?”

“Oh, right. That,” she released a breath, her cheeks puffing out.

“Glamis Manor was built by Gerald Thatcher and Rosaline O’Connor – maybe, in the early 1800s?

You can do a quick search on the internet, but I’ll save you the trouble.

Anyways, something wasn’t quite right with Rosaline, just as soon as they’d moved in.

She started talking about how a monster lived within the walls.

Everyone thought she was crazy, of course, I mean, Gerald had built the house himself so he knew there weren’t monsters living anywhere inside.

Not that he would have believed in them if there were. ”

I blinked slowly, trying to keep up with the random tangents of Beth’s story. Just get to the point, I wanted to say.

“But then Rosaline started getting attacked at night.

She would wake up covered in scratches and bite marks.

Mmhm, actual teeth marks if you can believe it.

At first everyone thought she was doing it to herself, but then, how does one bite their own neck?

There was talk about institutionalizing her until one day everything just stopped.

“No more strange marks. No more raving about a monster.”

My brows furrowed so tight together I knew they were touching. “What happened?”

Beth threw out her hands. “She killed him. Took an axe to poor old Gerald and then hung herself from the balcony right after.”

What. The. Fuck.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Went from being normal, to mental, to that.”

I let out a long breath. If anyone had mentioned this story to me prior to moving in I don’t think I would have uprooted my life to take on the challenge. Millions of dollars to live in a haunted mansion where someone was murdered and a woman had hung herself? Fuck that.

Except…I couldn’t go home now. Not when I was already here. I had to see it through. It’s just a story…a horrible, awful, terrifying story.

“And the vampire?”

Beth looked over her shoulder, but we were still the only two people in this section.

“People get curious, you know. Couple of folks, teenagers and such, have gone up there and there’s been sightings of a creature with horns and big wings.

It’s the devil, if you ask me.” She crossed herself and sat back.

The thought crept in unbidden: is that what’s been watching me? I pushed it away, but the prickle of unease spread across my skin anyway.

Beth threaded her fingers together. “Glamis changed hands a couple times before Maxine bought it. As far as I know, she never had any trouble with monsters or ghosts. But it’s true something was different about her once she moved in.

I could never put my finger on it, but it always felt like she had some secret the rest of us weren’t allowed to know. ”

“Like what?” I pressed.

Beth shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe Rosaline’s monster was real, and she met it after all. Anytime anyone asked her about living in Glamis she always had this secret smile and would say it’s been nice. Other times she’d nearly bite your head off for asking at all.”

I audibly gulped as I backed away from the desk. “Was it lead poisoning maybe? Something in the ground, or the water up there?”

Once again Beth shrugged. “I don’t know if anyone has ever tested the place. They’re too afraid. Too superstitious. Once people started getting hurt while snooping around, everyone stopped trying to get answers.”

Had Macky gone crazy before or after she moved into Glamis? And if the house had something wrong with it, why did she choose to stay there instead of moving into one of her other properties?

“Um, thanks,” I said halfheartedly.

“Listen…”

“Sorcha,” I said.

“Listen, Sorcha. If anything strange starts to happen, don’t wait around to find out what it’ll do to you. You’re too young to be dealing with curses.”

I left before she could see how bad my hands were shaking. How could I admit that things had been strange since the moment I arrived? Who was I going to tell?

By the time I sat down across from Quint I was a nervous wreck.

His pleasant smile faltered. “You ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

A hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat. I rubbed at my neck and smiled instead, trying my damnedest to suppress it. “It’s been a long couple of days, what with moving into a new area. I haven’t been getting much sleep.”

Quint frowned. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The way he was looking at me, I wanted to. I wanted so badly to tell someone the truth of what was going on. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” I said.

“Try me.”

It wasn’t like me to spill everything to a stranger, but I couldn’t keep it in anymore. My restraint had gone out the window with the sleepless nights and before I could think twice about the effect my words might have, I was spilling them on the table, laying everything bare to Quint.