The Halloween Bet by Knox Abby

Author:Knox, Abby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Author Abby Knox, LLC
Published: 2019-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Blake

I keep up with her running commentary throughout the tour. I don’t believe any of it to be true, but I have to admit, Dahlia is pretty convincing. Was there ever any doubt she would be?

I stay close behind her, considering whether I want to choose the perfect moment to make her jump. Would she throttle me? Probably.

Maybe I could pretend I see a ghost, just for a laugh.

None of it seems right though. She’s having too much fun, and she barely pauses to breathe while she’s throwing so much information at me.

“…and then as Esther’s health deteriorated, the sightings increased in frequency. She saw people at the windows at night…”

“Tricks of the light.”

“…strange objects left on her porch…”

“Neighborhood kids playing tricks on her.”

“…and odd sounds coming from the basement…”

“Foundation quirks. Squirrels. Mice. Birds stuck in the chimneys. Water leaks.”

Dahlia has no idea how beautiful she is in the lantern light as she guides me through the master bedroom and the guest bedrooms. She’s switched her topic from the home’s history to talking about her plans to restore the house to its original look, down to antique furnishings in all the rooms.

We stop at one of the guest rooms. Some branches of tall tree, wild looking in the moonlight, butt up against the window on the far wall. Leaning against the opposite wall is a huge ornate mirror that was never hung on the wall.

“Some people might agree with you that all the phenomena has a rational explanation. And there was a time where Mrs. Milton herself might have dismissed all these things. But after several years of incidents, she had gained a bit of notoriety and wanted to turn her house into a bed and breakfast. You know, to use the haunting to create a source of income. But the town council at the time refused to change the zoning to help her out. It’s sad, but she never got to see her dream materialize,” Dahlia says.

“Because she turned out to be completely nuts?”

“She wasn’t nuts, it was just nobody believed in her, and soon she stopped believing in herself. When I moved back here, I became interested in local history and I visited with her frequently. She really was a wealth of knowledge. I’m glad I got to know her as a person, too. She was so kind, and always had cookies waiting for me whenever I’d come to visit. By that time, she got a full-time nurse in the house and the unexplained phenomena quieted down. Some people said it was because the nurse got her medications straightened out. Or maybe the ghosts finally decided to leave her alone.”

“Is that why she gave the house to the tourism department? Because you went to visit her?”

Dahlia shrugs like it was not a big deal. “She was a lot of fun to talk to. It made me sad that I hadn’t gotten to know her sooner. If I hadn’t transferred away, maybe I could have helped her write a book about her memories.

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