“I mean . . .” She said, trailing off.
“Maybe we should at least go see the house?” I suggested, looking for a way to prevent her rejecting this insane idea immediately. I was already envisioning the new addition to the store, my improved workshop, my furniture on display.
Her face cleared, the troubled furrow disappearing from between her brows. “Yes,” she turned back to Augustus. “Can we see the house?”
“Of course,” he said. “The house is yours,” he explained. He dug around in his pocket for a set of keys, leaned down to unlock a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a flat plastic bag. “In here is the deed, with both your names on it here”—he pointed to the line that listed our names—“and these are the keys.” My name was there, next to Addison’s on the deed to the house. It was surreal. Two sets of dark iron keys lay next to the document. “A little old fashioned maybe. Fitting, I’d say.”
“Great,” Addie said, reaching out for a set of keys. “Can you hold the deed for a bit? Maybe until we’ve had a chance to think? And talk.” She looked at me as she said this last part, and a warm thrill rose in my throat.
What a weird day.
“Let’s go check out the haunted house!” Daniel practically yelled, bounding to the door. “This is awesome.”
We headed back outside and without deciding out loud, the three of us began walking toward the end of the town center, where 54 Maple Lane sat dark and foreboding behind its iron gates on the hill.
‘Effin Creepy
Addison
We walked together past the town square and up the hill that led to 54 Maple Lane. As we got closer to the dilapidated iron gates that stood sheltered under the heavy drapery of neglected trees, I could see the old house standing beyond, quiet and still in the midst of the old overgrown property.
A strange little thrill went through me as I turned over the idea that this was my house. I’d thought I had a house in New York—an apartment, actually—but it had never really been mine. It had been Luke’s, and he’d decided to sell it without even consulting me. As a newly homeless individual, owning a house, even a dilapidated creepy house, was a big deal. But still, none of this made any sense at all. And I didn’t know the first thing about home improvement. Michael didn’t seem hesitant though.
The house was a Victorian, with a turret and a sweep of front porch that made me wish I could remember it better from my childhood. Today, it was gray and sad looking, with dark windows—some of which held cracked glass—and an eerie stillness hanging around it.
I didn’t remember ever being inside, though Mom said that I had spent a summer here when she opened The Muffin Tin—that Mrs. Easter had watched me and a few other kids from town. Including Michael. Mom said the house was somewhat dilapidated even then, and that Mrs. Easter moved out right after that summer, taking a smaller cottage in town. And since then, this place had sat empty—thirty years of neglect, and probably many more before that. There was no way a woman on her own—especially one in her sixties as Mrs. Easter would have been then—could handle all the maintenance required by a place like this.
Owning a home was something I’d imagined lots of times. But in none of my fantasies did the house sit, dark and foreboding, up on an overgrown hill behind a set of iron gates, and neither did my fantasy include any members of the Tucker clan. Luke, maybe. Although I was coming to see that there had been a lot of red flags in my relationship with Luke, and we were probably never headed in the direction of joint home ownership. Not really.
“Wow,” I heard myself breathe as we stood outside the gates, looking into the vine-covered yard.
“Yeah,” Michael said behind me. His voice was low, almost trepidatious.
Daniel, on the other hand, was practically giddy. “Let me see that key, Dad.”
As the boy fit the huge iron key into the rusty lock on the gate, Michael and I stared up at the old house, side by side. Having him at my shoulder made me feel a little better about approaching the house I’d thought of for so long as haunted and foreboding. Even if he was a Tucker, Michael was sturdy and strong. He wouldn’t let anything happen to us, and especially to his son. I wasn’t really scared, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to stay close to Dan as we checked out the place.
The house had been beautiful once, I could see that much. Three stories rose up from what might have once been lovingly tended gardens and a manicured lawn. The paint appeared a weathered and peeling grey now, but it might once have been lavender, with white trim and sage accents. The huge porch that spanned the front and one side of the house was grand, I thought, and I could almost imagine early townspeople resting there in rocking chairs, fanning themselves against the humid Maryland summers.
Daniel worked the lock, and after a moment, the gate opened inward with a groan I felt inside my bones.
What were we doing? Was this really ours?
Walking across the overgrown lawn of the house I’d always thought of as haunted felt a lot like trespassing, or tempting fate, at least. As we wound our way up what had once been a flagstone path to the front steps, the sun slipped behind gray clouds overhead and a distant rumble of thunder rolled in warning.
“Shit,” Michael breathed, and his voice was so low, I wondered if he’d meant to speak out loud.
“Dude,” Daniel practically sang with glee. “This is so effin’ creepy!”
“Language,” came Michael’s stern reply.
“Dad, I said—”
“We heard you. I don’t want to hear it again.”
I smiled, despite the creepy ambiance. Michael was clearly a good dad, and Daniel obviously respected him. I envied them a little. Like home ownership, I had kind of thought I was destined for parenthood at some point. I didn’t think people left children in trusts though, so my chances were probably pretty slim.
You could almost hear Dan’s eye roll at his dad’s reprimand, but he was too busy creeping his way up the front steps, wisely testing each to see if it might be rotted, to reply.
“You think this place is safe?” I asked, eyeing a hole in one of the risers skeptically. It was so shadowed beneath the overhang of the broad front porch that it was dark as night. I glanced back toward the iron gates behind us, part of me longing for the sunlight and open spaces of the town that felt centuries away now. A little chill ran through me.
“Wouldn’t they have had to check it before she could pass it on? Make sure it shouldn’t be condemned instead?” Michael asked.
I thought about that. He was probably right, it must be at least structurally safe. But could I actually live here? I was scared just standing on the front porch—I’d always been a little on the jumpy side. I did not see myself living here for six months just to sell the place. Though it would be a relief to get out of my mother’s house. I loved her, but Lottie Tanner had a way of suffocating people with attention. It was one of the reasons I’d gone to New York in the first place.
But my life in New York seemed to be over for now. Since Luke had sold the apartment, I was homeless, and though I had a bit of money saved up, it wasn’t enough to buy a place, or even put down the deposit on a rental.