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My eyes wandered to where he’d just been cleaning, and I could see “RIP ASHLEY 2003-2022” in bright orange spray paint, soap still dripping down the wall over it.
“Um, it was pretty uneventful,” I said lazily as I grabbed my purse and got out of the driver’s seat, shutting my door behind me. “Who’s ‘Ashley’?”
The man looked at me with a dumb expression.
“Ashley?” he asked with an inflection that told me he must have shut his brain off entirely while he was cleaning.
“Ashley,” I reiterated as I gestured over to the spray paint he had been trying to remove.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, smacking a palm to his forehead. “You know, I don’t rightly know who ‘Ashley’ is—or was, I suppose. Teenagers jump the fence all the time and throw parties on the property by the looks of it. It’s not the first time I’ve had to scrub graffiti off the walls, and you should have seen the mess when Mr. Silver first bought this place! Hoo-wee! Took me ages to get all the cigarette butts off the ground.”
“I see,” I responded with a nod. The explanation made sense, and I remembered being a teenager always on the lookout for cool places to sneak off and drink, but it was pretty cryptic for just being vandalism.
“It’s part of the reason Mr. Silver decided to hire someone on,” the groundskeeper explained as he fished a large keyring from his back pocket. “He figures with someone on the grounds keeping the lights on, it might deter the kids from thinking they can hang out around here.”
He looped the keyring around his wrist before jutting his hand out toward me. “Name’s Theodore, by the way, but you can call me Ted or Teddy. Really, you can call me whatever you want, just don’t call me ‘late for dinner’!” He chuckled.
I shook his hand politely. “Logan, but it sounds like you already knew that.”
Ted shook my hand more firmly than I expected. “Either way, it’s nice to meet ya. Want some help with your bags?”
“Thanks, but I think I got it,” I answered as I lugged my suitcase out of the trunk and extended the handle. At least it had wheels to make it easier to pull around.
I waited patiently for a moment while Ted located the key he was searching for. “Well, alrighty. Just holler if you change your mind.”
He led me up the stone stairs toward the front door, and I admired the woodwork as he fumbled with the key. Up close, I noticed that the gold knockers on the door matched the gargoyles at the end of the drive.
“The original owners must have been really into some creepy stuff,” I said with a snicker, trying to make light conversation, and Ted let out a hearty laugh in response.
“You have no idea,” Ted responded as he managed to unlock the door and shove it open. “Come on in, but watch your step.”
He held the door open for me to drag my suitcase in, and a foyer absolutely filled with taxidermy immediately met me. The tall windows on either side of the door flooded the massive entryway with bright afternoon light, and the marble eyes of long-dead animals stared me down as I shrugged my purse off my shoulder to set it on top of my suitcase. Pheasants were mounted on the wall, posed mid-flight alongside fish of all shapes and sizes, and a bear stood tall on the floor of the entryway. When my eyes passed over a bobcat posed with its claws out, I could swear I saw its ears flick, but when I snapped my gaze back to be sure, it was as still as the rest.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ted asked as he jammed the keys back into his pocket. He reached over to a hook that hung next to the doorway and removed another keyring, smaller than his own, and passed it over to me. “Them’s your keys while you’re here.” Each key was wrapped in a different colored rubber guard to differentiate between them. “Green one is for the front door, red’s for the gate out front—you’ll see a chain and padlock for it down there—and if I recall correctly, yellow is for the shed out back if you ever need to get in there, which I doubt you will. Thing’s full of junk, but there’s a generator. If the power ever goes out, you can just switch her on. And, uh…” He paused for a moment, trying to recall what the final key was for. “You might have to double-check with Mr. Silver what the blue key is for. I can’t seem to remember.”
“Thanks,” I said as I attached the keyring to my lanyard next to my own car and house keys.
“How ‘bout a tour?” Ted asked with bright eyes.
As much as I knew I was capable of exploring on my own, the man was clearly excited for the company, so I thought I’d indulge him. He might have some information about the house that could be useful for my project.
“Sounds great,” I said as I readied myself by grabbing my phone from my purse and shoving it in the back pocket of my jean shorts. “Should I take off my shoes?”
“Up to you, sweetie,” Ted responded. “I don’t because I’m in and out all day, but I’m always sure to wipe my feet. Mr. Silver just had a housekeeper come in and get the place spic-and-span for you, so I’ll leave the choice of shoes in your hands. Place’s basically yours for the month, so make yourself at home.”
I shrugged in agreement and chose to pull off my checkered slip-ons, happy to free my feet after the long drive. I figured I’d move straight to unpacking my stuff after Ted’s tour, anyway.
“This is the foyer in here, leads straight into the living room,” Ted began, gesturing about. “I can’t speak to the origin of the stuff in here. It all came with the house when Mr. Silver bought it. I offered to have a truck come out and remove some of the junk, but I was told he’d rather check it out himself and auction anything of value. Not a bad idea on his part. I wouldn’t know ‘value’ if it bit me in the face, truly.”
The taxidermy extended all the way into the living room and finished with a massive moose head mounted above the elaborate fireplace on the center of the back wall.
“Someone must have liked to hunt,” I said in awe as I took it all in.
“Or collecting. Like I said, I’ve got no idea where any of this originally came from, but it sure is neat to look at.” Ted walked forward into the living room and stood right in the center. “Here’s basically the center of the house. You got your east wing,” he pointed to his left, my right, “and your west wing.” He pointed to his right, my left. “East wing is where you’re going to find most of the bedrooms and bathrooms, and the west wing is where you’ll find the kitchen, dining area, and library.”
I couldn’t help but smile. This place was extremely cool, and I couldn’t wait to explore on my own.
“Easy enough,” I said as I spun around to take everything in. Spiral staircases began at each side of the foyer, leading in both directions to meet in the middle in a sort of indoor-balcony situation. The living room was actually very comfortable, with black leather couches surrounding the fireplace and tall bookcases full of antique knick-knacks, old books, and other decorative odds and ends.
