Page 76 of Wildwood

I feel a little light-headed as I go into the kitchen to boil water. Our tea supply is rather pitiful, but I grab two dusty bags of chamomile and a jar of honey. Then, I wait.

Joan shows up five minutes later. She’s wearing the same jacket I saw on the video and is shaking a shiny, black umbrella.

“Hi. Everything okay?” she asks, walking over the threshold. I reset the alarm system after closing the door.

“I’m okay.” It’s hard to keep my voice normal. It sounds shrill. “Topher just left on a work trip. Want to sit in the kitchen?”

We sit at opposite ends of the kitchen table, where I’ve placed our mugs. My phone is on the seat of the chair closest to me, and I had pressed the record button when Joan knocked on the door. I don’t have any self-defense plans, but I can at least record our interaction, should anything go south.

“All I have is chamomile,” I say apologetically, my heart hammering. I take a sip and scorch my tongue.

“That’s fine. You’ve got a lovely home.” She’s tracing her finger along the edge of the mug, looking around the kitchen. It’s unsettling, seeing this charade. I would assume Joan knows the house quite well at this point.

I guess there’s no sense in beating around the bush. “I know you’ve snuck in here at night.”

It lands like a punch. She jerks her head toward me, eyes wide, then stands suddenly, knocking the table and causing her tea to slosh.

“What were you doing?” I ask. Suddenly, my voice isn’t shaking anymore. Her reaction shows me I do have the upper hand, if one exists in this situation.

“I . . . I . . .”

“I’ve got it on video. There’s a record.” Joan’s face shows a brief flash of anger. “But I haven’t shown anyone yet.”

She holds my gaze, almost defiantly, a few moments longer. Then everything in her seems to fold in on itself, and she crumples into her chair, with her face buried in her hands. Her body is shaking, with silent, shuddering sobs.

I know it’s dumb, but I walk around the table toward Joan and sit in the seat next to her. I rub her back and eventually the shaking stops. She sits upright and brushes her hair out of her face. Takes a steadying breath.

“I didn’t know what I married into.” She smiles ruefully and gives a short laugh. “I mean, I had some idea, I’m not dumb. People with all that old wealth . . . surely there was going to be something unsavory in their past. But I honestly didn’t know just how . . .” She trails off.

“How what?” I ask softly. The fierce, intimidating Joan now seems like a baby animal. I need to handle her delicately.

“How fucking evil they really are.” Her eyes slide to mine, finally making contact.

Joan takes a sip of her tea, exhales slowly, and tells me her story. She tells me how she met Julian in college. How he wooed her, how it felt like the world was their oyster. When they got engaged, he’d insisted she take his name, even though she had wanted to keep hers. But it was important to Julian that she carry on the Brook name. When they first moved to Newfield Village, Joan was initially taken with her extended family, though Stuart never fully warmed to her. But at first, she loved Madeline. Joan and Julian tried to start a family. She had a miscarriage. Then another. Then another. One day, Joan found a letter in Julian’s desk. She’d been looking for some important file. The letter was from Ezra. It said, “It’s time to come clean and admit what your family has done. It’s time those poor souls got justice. I have proof.”

“I confronted Julian about it,” says Joan. “I demanded to know what Ezra was talking about. But he refused to tell me. He said it was in the past and that he didn’t want to drag me into it. But he said he had to keep it a secret, otherwise everything they built was in jeopardy.”

“Someone was murdered here, right? A long time ago?”

Joan nods, almost imperceptibly. “Yes. But it was more than one person. Ezra’s letter said ‘those poor souls.’ And the Brooks played a role in it. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I know it was awful. Really awful.”

“I have this theory, I know it sounds crazy, but I think a person, an ancestor of mine, was executed for witchcraft. Maybe the Brooks were the ones to accuse her?”

“Witchcraft?” Joan says, a look of disbelief on her face. “Why would you think that?”

So, I tell her everything. The visions. The Ouija board. The story of the lost little New Jersey girl. The unequivocable fact that I’m being haunted.

“Oh my god.” She’s shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, you must have been so scared this whole time.”

“I was. But I’m not now.”

Joan laughs. “You are being haunted but you aren’t scared?”

“She’s not trying to harm me.”

“Why are you so certain she isn’t trying to harm you?” Joan cocks her head slightly.

“I think she knows I’m trying to help her.”