Lisa Miscione - Twice

Something in the far corner of the room was covered with a white sheet. As she approached, a gust of wind traveled through the house with a low groan. Lydia felt a little flutter of fear and was glad when a second later she heard Jeffrey’s footfalls on the stairs. She’d had too many people leaping out of the dark at her in the last several days; she was getting a bit skittish.

“Where are you?” he called.

“The room at the end of the hall.”

“Find anything?” he said as he entered.

“Not yet,” she said, walking over to the sheet and yanking it.

The sheet came down in a cloud of dust to reveal a bookcase filled with the same leather-bound volumes Lydia remembered seeing at the Haunted Library. She scanned the titles embossed in gold on the bindings.

“Christ,” said Jeffrey. “How many volumes could you fill with the history of Haunted?”

“Looks like about thirty. Three centuries’ worth.”

The books, all titled History of Haunted, New York , were shelved in order by decade dating back to the 1700s and ending in the early 1900s. Some of them were slim, no thicker than a hundred pages.

“Fascinating.”

“You know,” Lydia said, “all these books have exactly the same binding. So did all the books in the Haunted Library.”

“So?”

“When’s the last time you were in a library and all the books were the same?”

“I haven’t been in a library since Quantico,” he said with a shrug. “In fact, I’m not sure I even remember how to read.”

She picked a book off the shelf at random and turned to the title page.

The History of Haunted, New York

1800-1810

by

Maura Hodge

“Voodoo priestess-slash-author,” said Jeffrey, leaning over Lydia’s shoulder.

“Looks self-published.”

“Didn’t Eleanor say that Maura had been commissioning writers and historians to document the history of Haunted?” said Jeffrey.

“Yeah, I guess she’s been publishing the work as well. Or at least binding it. That must be why all the books have the same package.”

Lydia grabbed another volume and saw that it, too, was written by Maura Hodge. In fact, after a few minutes of inspection it appeared that Maura had written them all.

“Wow, that’s stamina for you,” said Jeffrey.

“No. That’s obsession.”

“She’s obsessed with Haunted? Doesn’t seem like much of an obsession.”

“With the past. Remember how Ford said that the person who killed Tad Jenson and Richard Stratton was enraged? And how Maura’s grudge was over one hundred and fifty years and had nothing really to do with her immediate world so she couldn’t muster the rage it took to commit those crimes?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, look at this. I mean, to write all these books, she must have lived for this town and everything that happened here. She must think about it every day. For Maura Hodge, the past is right now . It’s more present for her than the present, living in this place, isolated from the world, harboring her grudge against Eleanor and the Ross bloodline, planning her vengeance for Annabelle Taylor. For Christ’s sake, she named her daughter after Annabelle.”

“So… what? Because she wrote a few books that means she killed Tad Jenson, Richard Stratton, Eleanor Ross, and took Lola and Nathaniel?”

“Or her daughter did. She must have been fed that hatred like mother’s milk.”

Jeffrey could hear that edge in Lydia’s voice that brooked no argument.

“I don’t know,” he said anyway. “It seems weak.”

Lydia shrugged and crouched down, looking at the books on the bottom shelf. She slipped one out and stood, flipping it open to the title page:

“ ‘ The Legend of Haunted, New York: The Murder of Innocents , by Maura Hodge,’ ” she read out loud. She turned the page and saw the dedication: “To Paul, the only pure soul.”

“Who’s Paul?” asked Jeffrey.

“When we were here last, we talked to her about Paul-Eleanor’s brother, remember? She said something like: ‘He was the only one of them that was any good.’ Remember that? Remember how soft and wistful her voice became?”

It was a fairly light volume and Lydia flipped through, scanning the pages, with Jeffrey looking over her shoulder. She read over the legend as Marilyn Woods had told it to her. Much of the text was rambling, clearly unedited, with poor grammar, fraught with typos. There were some crude line drawings of Hiram and Elizabeth, of the Ross house, of the shack where Annabelle had lived with her five children. There was a striking drawing of Annabelle Taylor and Austin Steward, the lines dark and dramatic, Annabelle’s hair a wild mane of black curls much like Maura’s. Lydia came to the final chapter, called “The Curse.”

The curse of Annabelle Taylor is alive and flowing through my veins. For years, I was electric with the purpose of continuing Annabelle’s quest for vengeance. But I grew weak when J left me. I thought that they had won and I had lost everything. I felt the cold disapproval of Annabelle herself, felt her anger in my blood. She hated me and my weakness so much that she took my only child from me. I wanted to die in my failure. Then a miracle occurred .

On a night in the fall when the harvest moon hung bloated in the sky, much like the night that Annabelle lost her children, Austin Steward came to me. And he made love to me as he had made love to Annabelle; he said her name over and over. Nine months later I gave birth to my only daughter. I named her Annabelle .

“Okay,” said Jeffrey. “So Maura thinks that the ghost of Austin Steward visited her and impregnated her with Annabelle.”

“It would appear that way,” said Lydia.

“There must be something in the water in this town. These people are nuts.”

“Who do you think she’s talking about when she writes, ‘when J left me’?”

Jeffrey considered it. “I have no idea, and unfortunately, everyone who might be able to tell us is either dead, missing, or nuts.”

“Not quite everyone.”

“ Ivery nearly lost my job after your last visit, Ms. Strong. I’m afraid I have nothing left to say to you.”

“Ms. Woods, with two dead bodies, a missing detective, and two missing children, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice.”

“You’ve come to the wrong place,” said the librarian. “I don’t know anything that’s going to help you.”

“Then tell me who does.”

The librarian shook her head hard from side to side and pressed her mouth into a thin, hard line.

“Where’s your boss?” probed Lydia. “Where’s Maura Hodge?”

“I have no idea.”

“You are aware, Ms. Woods, that if you try to impede the progress of this investigation and we later learn that you knew something that you didn’t reveal, you could be charged as an accessory to murder?”

Jeffrey turned so that Marilyn Woods wouldn’t see him roll his eyes. Lydia’s statement, of course, was a lie. It would probably have been a lie even if she was a cop. It had sounded pretty convincing, though; he’d give her that.

“Don’t give me that crap,” said Marilyn. “I watch television. I know my rights.”

Jeffrey heard Lydia sigh. She was dwarfed by the large desk that Marilyn sat behind, which elevated her by about two feet above Lydia. The librarian stared down at Lydia behind thick glasses and a hard expression that seemed as immovable as stone. She looked more like a judge than a bookworm.

“I thought if anyone could be counted on to help us find the truth, it would be you, Marilyn.”