It read “Engagements.”
This was it! A datebook! She had actually found one! She looked back into the trunk—she had found many, actually.
Kate opened the book’s cover to the first page—“Engagements, 1904.” So they were sorted by year. A quick scan of the pages told her it was a listing of dinner parties, galas, and other events hosted at Harrison’s House—who attended, the menu, and the occasion.
She was just about to grab the entire stack when Alaska began growling, deep and low in her throat.
“Oh, good Christ,” Harrison murmured. “Not this again.”
“I want her out of this house,” a woman said.
“That’s not really up to you,” Harrison said, louder this time. “You get out. This house is mine.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Kate wheeled around—she knew that Alaska’s breed rarely, if ever, growled. She saw that her dog was staring into the corner of the room, head lowered, eyes fixed, teeth bared. Kate’s mouth fell open. She had never seen the gentle Alaska bare her teeth at anyone. Or anything.
“What is it, girl?” she whispered. “What do you see?”
A coldness washed over her, as though the temperature in the room had dropped drastically. It didn’t feel like what had happened the night before—she wasn’t cold in her core. It was the room itself that had suddenly gone into the deep freeze.
Now Alaska was looking in her direction, staring with those yellow eyes, not exactly at Kate, but just beyond her.
Kate turned her head, following Alaska’s stare, and saw a dark figure, its shape shifting and moving, not distinct like a shadow, but as though it was roiling and undulating inside, like a cloudy sky just before a hailstorm.
Kate wanted to run, to tear down the stairs like she had done as a child, but she couldn’t move.
And then, hands were touching her throat, scratching at her neck, constricting, choking. Kate tried to cry out but could not find her voice. She tried to grasp the hands around her neck but it was like grasping thin air.
“Get off me!” Kate shouted, with as much breath as she could muster, attempting to push away whatever it was that had set upon her.
And then Alaska leaped on her, knocking Kate onto her back and barking savagely with terrible, guttural sounds—a wolf taking down its prey. But the dog wasn’t directing the aggression at Kate. Alaska was barking at Kate’s invisible attacker, snapping her jaws and thrusting her head forward into the air as though she were trying to take a bite out of something, or someone, Kate couldn’t see.
And then, all of a sudden, it was over. Kate lay there with her hands covering her face until Alaska stopped snarling. She peered out from between her fingers and saw the dog standing over her, calm now but alert, panting.
Kate sat up, threw her arms around the animal’s neck, and buried her face in the soft fur. Alaska broke free of Kate’s embrace and began pacing, settling at the door to the stairs. A couple of yowls told Kate all she needed to know.
“I’m right behind you, girl,” she said, scrambling to her feet. She looked around the room and rubbed her arms with her opposite hands. She reached into the trunk, pulled out the entire stack of datebooks, and hurried down the stairs, Alaska following close at her heels.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kate was pounding so quickly down the stairs that, when she reached the bottom, she ran into the opposite wall with a thud. She stood there for a moment, resting her forehead against it, filling her lungs with deep breaths, trying to quiet her racing heart. Kate felt just like she had when she was a little girl and she and Simon would scare themselves on the third floor on purpose. Was something more up there than just a child’s overactive imagination?
Kate didn’t want to find out. She shut the third-floor door and turned the key that Simon had left in the lock. Kate knew it was silly, the notion that a locked door could keep whatever was on the third floor out of the rest of the house, but she felt safer all the same.
She found Simon in the living room.
“What is it?” he said to her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Kate thought of telling Simon about what had just happened on the third floor and then thought better of it. She had no idea how to find the words.
“Look what I found,” she said instead, holding the stack of books out in front of her.
Simon stared at the datebooks, his mouth open. “I can’t believe it! Have you sifted through them?”
“I thought I’d do it after lunch,” Kate said as she set the stack down on an end table. “Do you have time to break free and go?”
A short while later, Simon and Kate were walking down the hill toward town. The early fall day was crisp and bright, and Kate could see the first whisper of color in the leaves on the maples that lined their route. The cool air felt good on her skin—calming, restorative.
Kate was turning phrases over and over in her mind, trying to find the words to tell Simon about what she had experienced earlier. She knew she had to say something—he and Jonathan lived in the house, after all. But she still wasn’t sure what had happened herself. In the end she just blurted it out.
“I think we’ve got a ghost on the third floor.”
“Is it Casper? Does that make one of us Wendy?”
“No, really. I’m not kidding.”
He looked at her. “Why? Did something happen when you were up there?”
“I think so,” she said.
He considered this as they walked. “You know,” he said, finally, “I wouldn’t be surprised. Jonathan and I have had experiences since we started the renovations—things that go bump in the night, so to speak. But we’ve never thought too much of it.”
“Why not?”
“The house has so much history. People lived and died there. So it’s really no surprise that there’s a spirit or two floating around. But the one thing to remember, Kate, is that they were all our people. Our relatives. Grandma Hadley, for one. If there are spirits at Harrison’s House, they’re family. They’re not out to harm us.”
“Except the lady in the portrait.”
Simon hooted. “Well, yes. Except that old shrew, whoever she was.”
Kate thought back on her experience earlier in the day. “I know what you’re saying about the ghosts being family, but this seemed sort of . . . I don’t know. Malevolent.”
Simon stopped her. “In what way? What happened up there, Kate?”
“I know this sounds really strange, but I felt hands around my throat. Scratching. And Alaska went insane, snarling and trying to take a bite out of whatever it was. She was in full attack mode. Had it been a person, she would’ve shattered bones with those bites.”
Simon’s face went white. “You’re kidding.”
Kate shook her head. “No, I’m not. It was really weird. And frightening. I felt like whatever it was was trying to choke me.”
Simon squinted at her, pushing her collar aside to look at her throat. He took a quick breath in, his eyes wide.
“What?” she asked.
He took Kate’s hand and marched her into the women’s clothing store on the opposite corner of the street. He led her back to the mirror outside the dressing room.