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George was a veritable font of information about local quirks and perks. When he heard where I was staying, he’d clapped his hands together like a little kid and demanded to know all of the details. When I gave him nothing but a confused smile, he told me that “the Lassiter place” had quite a reputation. “Everybody knew” that the house was rife with ghostly lights and strange noises. Before Lindy’s husband bought the place, teenagers used to sneak out to the property and dare each other to knock on the door and call out for the original owner, John Lassiter.
“You’re saying my house is haunted?” I asked.
“More like cursed,” George told me. “Ever since poor John Lassiter built it for his wife-to-be in 1900. He was one of those confirmed bachelors who suddenly decide to get married in their fifties. His fiancée was young and fickle. Elizabeth Early didn’t really want to marry John, so she kept finding reasons that the house wasn’t ready. She wanted the kitchen to be east-facing, she wanted a water closet, she wanted gingerbread and bits of flotsam all over the eaves. Finally, her father put his foot down and told her to quit stalling and put poor John out of his misery. The morning of their wedding, they woke up to find Elizabeth had run off with a peddler.”
“Tacky.”
“But effective,” George conceded. “John never heard from her again. He died a few years later, alone in that little house. He could have sold it. There were plenty of young men who would have given him good money for a pretty house to offer their brides. But he wouldn’t budge. He didn’t want a happy couple living in his house when he was so alone. And ever since he died, any couple who has lived together in that place has either died or had a marriage so miserable they wished they were dead.”
“So there’s no such thing as divorce in backwoods ghost stories?” I deadpanned.
“Laugh all you want, smartass. The only reason you’re renting the house is that Lindy Clemson’s husband died unexpectedly. It’s cursed, I tell you.”
“Lindy told me she was getting a divorce.”
George blanched, as if he regretted revealing the information. He cleared his throat. “Well, in her case, it’s a little bit of both.”
“How could it possibly be both?”
“Things are different here, honey. This is Kentucky.”
“Oh, fine, so my house is cursed.” I sighed. “What are the terms?”
“Terms?”
“Every curse has terms. You know, sleep a hundred years and kiss a prince, you’re in the clear, that sort of thing. So what did John want from the couples who lived in his house? How can they get back in his good graces?”
“I don’t think he set any terms.”
I sniffed. “Well, then it’s more of a jinx than a curse.”
“Semantics.”
“I will try not to provoke the spirits of the epically lovelorn while I’m in town,” I promised.
“See that you don’t, sweetie.”
The Travel Wok—When Pepper Spray Just Won’t Do
2
There it was again!
The soft thump down the hall had me sitting up in bed, blinking into the black quiet of my room. My sleep-blurred brain tumbled to George, his stories about poor, lovelorn Mr. Lassiter, and the possibility that said deceased bachelor could be wandering around my house in spectral form.
This was what I got for going to bed so early. My internal clock was all wonky. Thoroughly chastised and toting Tupperware and a bowling-ball-sized chunk of monkey bread, I’d found myself back in my house with nothing to do. No dishes to prep. Nothing to chop or sauté. No pans to wash. No knives to sharpen. The highlight of the evening was tripping and falling flat on my face as soon as I walked into the living room. The coffee table seemed… off. I remembered it being a little farther away from the couch. Then again, I was still adjusting to, well, everything, so who was I to think I’d already mentally mapped the living room?
I settled for more sleep. It seemed the more I slept, the more I needed to sleep. My body had been running on fumes for so long it was as if it was soaking up all the rest it could because I couldn’t be trusted to sleep decently again when I went back to my life. The house was so quiet, a far cry from the traffic noises and sirens that bounced around my city apartment. I didn’t need a white-noise machine here. The silence of the house seemed to wrap around me like a sweet cocoon, helping me ignore my ailing stomach and table bruises.
The only hitch in my “sleep the month away” plan was that the extreme quiet made every creak, every groan, of every board echo like a gunshot. I didn’t know much about old houses, but it seemed this one spent a lot of time settling. At times, it almost sounded like footsteps falling softly against the hardwood floors—ridiculous, as I’d triple-checked the locks myself, a habit I’d carried with me from Chicago.
The Clemsons’ debris was strewn across the house like broken toys. Lindy left a bunch of men’s plaid flannels and Clemson Construction T-shirts in the closet. A manly bar of plain yellow Dial still occupied the little soap dish in the master bath. When I opened the coat closet, I had to dive out of the way to avoid the avalanche of blueprints and graph paper that came tumbling from the top shelf.
And now, on top of these depressing relics, I had to deal with things that went bump in the night? I tilted my head, like a dog listening for its master, and it happened again. The weird noise echoed down the hall. It didn’t sound like the house creaking. This time, it really did sound like footsteps, distinct movements on the floor. As if someone was walking around in the kitchen.
Slowly, my hand slid down the side of the mattress, reaching for the Louisville Slugger I kept under the bed in my apartment. But of course, it wasn’t there. Why would I bring a weapon to a nice, safe country cottage?
Something in the other room hit the floor with a muted thud, sending a cold, watery flash through my belly. I’d seen Straw Dogs. I knew this scenario wouldn’t end well for the out-of-towner.
