the hall to bathe. So she was stuck with it. After placing a vase of yellow dahlias on her night table—trying to brighten things up—I skedaddle out of there.
Coming down the shadowy hallway, just before I get to the landing, it happens again. I’ve never told nobody, but there’s a reason this house spooks me. Even before Rosalyn died, I had some strange experiences here. I’d be by myself, maybe downstairs in the kitchen, and I’d hear something upstairs plain as day, clomping around. For the longest time I didn’t think nothing about it, so I’d go barreling up the staircase like a fool, thinking a squirrel or coon had gotten in. I never found a thing, not even in the attic. What was more peculiar, the noises didn’t happen for a while, and enough time went by that I forgot about them. I’d come and go without looking over my shoulder for shadows, or jumping at the least little sound from dark, empty rooms. That changed last year, after Rosalyn died. Her funeral was held at a big fancy church in Atlanta, but the next day, the family and her friends came to Moonrise for a smaller service. They wanted to bury her ashes in the garden she’d loved. I’d only been to burials in the cemetery, not a person’s backyard. But I was raised to pay my respects to the dead, so I went.
The service turned out to be real nice instead of weird like I expected. They didn’t have a preacher, but Linc read a passage from the Bible and a pretty poem. Each of them said something nice about Rosalyn, then threw a handful of her ashes into the hole Noel had dug for that purpose. It’s way in the back of the gardens, beneath a magnolia that Rosalyn planted. When everybody finished, Noel refilled the hole, then put some rocks on the mound so it wouldn’t look so raw. Afterward, Emmet had a catered supper for everybody. I didn’t stay for that but came back the next day to straighten up. I was wiping the kitchen counters when I heard it again, upstairs in one of the empty rooms. Thump, thump, thump. That did it. I just threw down my dishrag and hightailed it out of there. And didn’t go back for several days, either.
Since then, there was only one other time I thought I heard the haints, and that was the day I first met Helen. It was over a week ago now, the official beginning of the summer season. I’d been on the phone with Helen on and off all day, tracking her trip from south Florida to Highlands. She and Emmet were driving separately so they’d both have their cars up here, and Helen had a couple hours’ head start. She didn’t know Emmet’d asked me to be at Moonrise when she got here. A house that old had too many quirks for anybody to figure out on her own, he said, especially after such a long trip. So when Helen called to say she’d cleared Atlanta, I headed over here. No cleaning since I’d done so already, but I brought her a welcome basket and some zinnias from my yard.
As I did earlier today, I’d laid a fire in the master bedroom and started down the hall when I heard a noise. Since I hadn’t heard anything strange here since the day after Rosalyn’s service, my knees went weak and my breath caught in my throat. I stood just short of the stair landing while a shiver ran up and down my spine. Oh, great, I thought. The new wife will be here soon, and who shows up to welcome her but those dad-blamed ghosts?
That’s when I realized the noise was coming from outside the house, not inside. From where I stood on the landing, I could bend down and see beneath the stained-glass inset over the front door. And when I did, I felt like a pure-tee fool. A car was parked out front, behind my truck, and what I’d heard was the slamming of car doors. It was a little gray Honda, and a woman stood beside it, peering all around. She must’ve made that racket getting something out of the trunk. Even though it was a tad earlier than I expected her, the new mistress of the house had arrived.
I remember how I watched her curiously, glad to have a chance before opening the front door and meeting her eyeball-to-eyeball on the steps. It turned out to be a stroke of luck, because it gave me time to put on my best poker face. One thing for sure: Helen wasn’t anything like I expected. Despite Kit and Tansy’s gossiping, I expected her to be more like Rosalyn. I couldn’t have been more wrong. At my first sight of Helen Honeycutt, I knew she was as different from the last lady of the house as any two women could be.
For one thing, she looked almost like a teenager standing there, the wind from the lake blowing hard enough to flatten her clothes against her, toss her hair every which way. Not many women could wear their hair that way, cut short and choppy with streaks of blond shot through it, but it suited her. She had a dark tan and a really good figure, like she exercised a lot. I expected her to be pretty and she was, but in a whole different way from Rosalyn. Rosalyn held herself like a queen, and turned heads wherever she went. I figured Helen turned a few heads, too, but for different reasons.
When people don’t know they’re being watched, they act more like themselves. That afternoon, Helen stopped just before she got to the stone steps leading up to the front door, and I got a better look at her. In spite of her sassy swing, she looked so anxious that I pitied her. Her sunglasses were pushed to the top of her head, and she was staring at the house with real curiosity. By the way her face lit up, I figured she was thinking, Good Lord, what a mansion. If she’d had any idea what she was getting herself into, though, she should’ve been thinking, Oh, shit. Get me out of here!
THE GANG’S ALL HERE
My eyelids are so heavy that I dare not lean against the headrest. If I do, I’m liable to be asleep before we’re halfway up the driveway. I steal a glance at Emmet. Brow furrowed, his attention is focused on keeping the Jeep within the ruts of the narrow drive. Without taking his eyes off the road, he says, “You enjoyed the trip today, didn’t you, baby?”
“I had a great time,” I reply, but he doesn’t hear me so I have to repeat myself. Speak up, he’s always reminding me. Look directly at the camera with your chin lifted, and don’t mumble. If your audience can’t hear you, you’ve lost them.
“I’d never heard of the Biltmore Estate before,” I tell him, and glance over to see that indulgent half smile of his.
“No, sweetheart,” he says patiently. “The ‘before’ is unnecessary. Try it, and you’ll see what I mean.”
Dutifully I intone: “I’d never heard of the Biltmore Estate.” It sounds better with the “before,” I start to say, but don’t. I can’t expect him to help me if I’m going to argue about every little thing.
As though reading my mind, he says, “I’m not doing this again when the others are around, Helen. That’s why I stopped earlier. They already think I’m an asshole without giving them more ammunition.”
I smile and place a hand on his arm. “Oh, Emmet. Your friends might think you’re an asshole, but they still adore you.”
Emmet snorts, then turns his attention back to his driving. Both of us are right, I think, on all counts: His friends adore him, even if he is difficult at times. And he shouldn’t have corrected me in front of them, even though I’d asked him to. Begged him to, actually. Ever since the station manager called to say they wanted to expand my spot to a half-hour show, I’ve been in a panic. I’d just gotten comfortable with my seven minutes on the noon show, gotten to where I handled it pretty well, even when they threw this at me. Who would’ve ever expected “Fit to Eat,” my gimmicky little spot where I transformed fat-laden dishes into healthier ones, to be such a hit? The viewers couldn’t get enough of it, and suddenly I was in demand. Or, as Emmet put it, a hot item. At first I’d balked, terrified at the prospect of facing the camera for a whole show. Only after Emmet agreed to coach me did I think I could do it. I insisted that he be merciless in pointing out my shortcomings; otherwise, how would I learn? He didn’t want to see me humiliated, did he? After kissing my cheek, the smooth-talking devil said that I’d given him an impossible task because I was perfect, but I couldn’t afford to listen to his sweet talk. How about my tentativeness,
