The Haunting of Silver Creek Lodge Read online

  “This was written around the time Silver Creek was founded,” he said, placing the journal on a stand for me to read. “Be gentle with it. The pages are fragile. This particular founder was a hunter of ley lines. He came here looking for an intersection.”

  I played dumb. “An intersection?”

  “Yes, where two ley lines cross, it’s said to hold great power,” Charles explained. “People who believe in such power would harness the energy for their own means for rituals and the like.”

  I hadn’t read about any rituals yet. Did that mean someone was holding court in the safe room at the Lodge?

  “I thought you didn’t know much about ley lines,” I said to Charles.

  “I’m a librarian, sweetheart. I know a little about everything.”

  When Charles left, I buried my nose in the journal. The first several chapters were all about the founder’s relocation to Silver Creek. According to his autobiography, he was born in Scotland and sailed to America. His interest in ley lines began in his home country, but his sole purpose of traveling to the States was to find an unclaimed plot of land where two lines intersected.

  I’m getting close, one passage read. I can feel the energy rising. It makes my skin crawl, in a good way. The hair on my arm stands on end as the energy pulses through me. I’ve never felt anything like this before.

  I recalled standing outside the safe before Walter helped me open it, feeling the same pulse of energy as the founder described. The passage picked up in a new paragraph:

  It’s here! In the middle of the woods! I’ve pinpointed the precise location of the intersection. I can feel where the pulse is strongest. My God, the things I can accomplish with this energy will be endless, but I must protect this land. I must claim it and declare it and its powers to be mine. But how shall I ensure no one questions my claim to it?

  I skipped a few pages and discovered the answer. The founder told no one about the ley line intersection and declared the land as the perfect place for his home. He built a log cabin, one that eventually became the foundation for the Lodge. The founder had included a blueprint of the original building. As I studied it, I recognized the shape. It matched the part of the Lodge hidden behind Walter’s safe.

  The founder wrote in first person, so I had no idea who the journal belonged to until I flipped to the last page and saw a final signature scribbled in hasty cursive: Emory Driscoll.

  My stomach catapulted. Were Emory and Boyce related? I gently closed the journal, placed it back where it belonged, and made my way out to the checkout desk.

  “Charles?” I asked softly. “The journal you showed me belonged to someone named Emory Driscoll. Is that—?”

  “Boyce’s great uncle,” Charles answered. “Yes, indeed.”

  “Does that mean Boyce knows about the ley lines?”

  Charles’s lips turned up in a knowing smile. “What ley lines?”

  As I left the library, my head whirled with the possibilities. No wonder Boyce wanted to acquire the Lodge so desperately. His family had built it. He knew what lay beneath the foundation of the building. That’s why he played stupid when we showed him the safe.

  Thinking of Boyce must have conjured him out of thin air. From my car, stopped at the main light in town, I spotted his unmistakable designer coat and coiffed salt-and-pepper hair from behind. He waited outside the market and tapped his foot impatiently while he took a call on his phone. He rapped on the window of the market and beckoned to someone inside. The door opened and out came—

  “Bubbles,” I sighed.

  She carried a see-through, plastic grocery bag that contained a single box of tampons. With her head dipped low, she approached Boyce. He put a hand on the back of her neck and guided her up the street as if he were carrying a cat by the scruff of the neck.

  Hatred bubbled in my veins. When the light turned green, I had half a mind to hit the gas and run over Boyce. As I passed them, I looked in my side mirror and caught sight of Bubbles. She was close to tears, clutching the bag of tampons close to her chest as Boyce shoved her along. The bruises around her eye hadn’t healed yet, but the fingerprints on her neck were hidden by a thick knitted scarf.

  When it came down to it, we hardly knew anything about Boyce. He was the “unofficial mayor” of Silver Creek. He had money and a vested interest in the Lodge. He possibly knew about the lines, and from the looks of things, he was also Bubbles’s father. When I added it all up, I didn’t like the equation’s end result.

  “Simon!” I called into the Lodge when I arrived home. “We are not, under any circumstances, going into business with Boyce. You have no idea what I just found out about him—”

  Keith popped out from behind the new support beams he was installing along the banister of the staircase. “Hey, Max!”

  “Hi, Keith,” I said, tightening my lips. “I didn’t realize you’d be back working so soon. Is Simon around?”

  “He’s in the kitchen,” he answered. “What did you find out about Boyce?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, pretending to be unbothered as I hung up my coat and took off my snowy boots by the door. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Keith set aside a screwdriver and turned his attention to me. “Why don’t you want to go into business with Boyce?”

  “Don’t worry, Keith,” I said casually. “You won’t be out of a job. We’ll find a way to pay you.”

  “I’m not worried about that.” He drew out a hammer and tapped it against his palm. “If you don’t go into business with Boyce, it’ll be a big mistake.”

  “Thanks for your advice, but this is something for Simon and me to discuss.”

  Keith pushed his tongue into his cheek. “Simon wants Boyce to invest. You’re the only one who thinks it’s a bad idea.”

  I took a step back, startled by his accusatory tone. “I’m sorry, are you married to Simon?”

  “No, I—”

  “Then this isn’t your decision,” I finished. “I like you, Keith, but you need to mind your own business. Boyce isn’t the great man you think he is.”

  “I know exactly what kind of man Boyce is,” he said defiantly.

  “Did you know Bubbles was his daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever noticed the bruises she’s always sporting?”

  He shrugged. “She gets in a lot of fights with other kids.”

  “To cover up what’s actually happening at home,” I told him. “He’s abusing her. You still think he’s a good man?”

  Keith’s jaw unhinged, and he didn’t formulate a response. My blood boiling, I left him that way to let the news sink in and went to find Simon.

  At first glance, Simon didn’t appear to be in the kitchen. I released a sigh of frustration. This wouldn’t be an easy conversation, and I wasn’t in the mood to chase Simon around the Lodge. As I turned to leave, a small whimper echoed from the corner.

  Simon huddled in a ball behind the kitchen table, his good leg tucked as close to his chest as possible. The other stuck straight out in front of him. His crutches lay askew. The whites of his eyes shone, and he trembled violently.

  “Simon!” I shoved the table out of the way and dropped to my knees. “What happened? Did you fall?”

  His jaw chattered as he tried to speak. Tears ran down his cheeks.

  “I saw…” he began.

  “You saw what?” I asked softly. “What, honey?”

  His finger lifted to point across the room. “I saw Casey.”

  15

  No matter how much I tugged at Simon’s sleeves, he wouldn’t uncurl himself. Finally, I sat next to him, wrapped my arms around him, and rested my head on his shoulder. Several minutes later, the tension in his body unwound. He let go of his knees, his breathing evened out, and he calmed slightly.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” I asked softly.

  Simon buried his face in my shoulder. “It was horrible.”

  “It’s over,” I whispered, stroking his ha
ir. “It’s gone. Everything’s okay.”

  “I came in to make tea,” Simon said hoarsely. “He was standing by the stove, staring at me. He had lesions all over his body. His skin was peeling off.”

  “Krokodil,” I muttered and shook my head.

  Also known as desomorphine, Krokodil had been a favorite drug of Simon’s parents. It was highly addictive, and when it was illicitly produced, the drug contained toxic contaminants. When injected, Krokodil could damage skin, blood vessels, bone, and muscle, resulting in a zombie-like appearance of those who abused it. The last time we’d seen Casey alive, he was no more than a bag of bones held together by a few stray pieces of flesh. Since they had been identical twins, it was like seeing the devil’s side of Simon.

  “He begged me to save him,” Simon murmured. A stray sob escaped from between his lips. “He said I owed him because I didn’t save him the first time.”

  I took Simon’s head between my hands and made him look at me. “Casey’s death was not your fault. Neither was his addiction. He was a product of his environment.”

  “I should have done better,” Simon said, crying freely. “I shouldn’t have let him go out on his own—”

  “He was a grown man who made his own choices,” I replied. “He learned those behaviors from your parents. It was not your fault.”

  “I told him to leave,” he said. “When he showed up at our house that night, looking for help, I told him to go and never come back. Then he walked into traffic.”

  I cradled Simon’s head against my chest and rocked him until his sobs subsided. “You did everything you could for your brother. Addiction ruined his life, and he didn’t want to live like that anymore.”

  His fingers clutched my waist. “Ever since we got to the Lodge, I’ve felt like he’s been watching me. I’ve seen him out of the corner of my eye or watching me from the second-floor balcony. Now, he appears right in front of me. Is this what happened to you?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Yes, the Lodge made me see things, too.”

  “It’s contagious,” he declared. “Whatever illness Lily brought with her.”

  “Lily’s not sick,” I said. “She’s dead.”

  Simon finally looked at me. His eyes were red with tears. “What are you talking about?”

  I adjusted my position so his weight wasn’t so heavy across my legs. “I have to tell you something about the Lodge. I found out about these things called ley lines—”

  “Ley lines? What are you talking—?”

  “I’ll explain if you don’t interrupt me,” I told him, and he fell quiet. “Ley lines are points of energy that extend all across the globe. When they intersect, the power produced is tenfold…”

  So I shared the new knowledge I’d acquired with Simon. Once it was all out in the open—everything from the ley lines to the ghosts to Boyce’s obsession with the Lodge—Simon’s terror morphed into confusion.

  “Are you sure?” he said when I had finished. “It seems a bit…”

  “Ridiculous?” I asked. “I thought so, too, but can you think of a logical explanation for all of this?”

  “No.” He rubbed his temples. “What are we going to do about Bubbles? Do we need proof before we report it to the police?”

  “I’m afraid if we report it, we’ll make a bigger mess of it than it already is,” I said. “Boyce could deny it.”

  “Besides, the police chief is a member of the Gentlemen’s Club,” Simon added. “Boyce probably has him in his pocket already.”

  “And if someone reports Boyce, he could come down harder on Bubbles,” I said. “I don’t want her to get hurt anymore, especially because of us.”

  “Then we need proof,” he said. “We’ll get it. Somehow. I won’t let a kid suffer if we can stop it.” A moment of silence passed while we both thought the same thing: Simon couldn’t save his brother, but he would do his best to save Bubbles. The moment passed, and Simon asked, “So Lily is really dead?”

  “I sure am.” Lily appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. She looked at me. “You told him, huh?”

  “He saw his brother,” I explained. “His dead brother.”

  Lily gave an understanding nod. “I see. Wow, the two of you are both in tune with the energies here. That’s pretty wild.”

  “Why?” Simon asked, suspicious.

  “It’s rare for it to affect someone so much,” she explained. “Most people who have stayed here in the past ten years never realized they were rooming with ghosts. Maybe one or two had reactions and fled the scene.”

  Simon used the table to lever himself off the floor. “I need some time to process this. Where’s Keith?”

  “Fixing the banister.”

  “I’ll get him to drive me into town. We can pick up more supplies.”

  “Don’t mention Boyce to Keith,” I advised Simon as I handed him his crutches. “The kid’s obsessed with him.”

  Simon waved to acknowledge me. I waited until he and Keith left the Lodge before turning to Lily.

  “I think he took that rather well,” I said.

  She appeared doubtful. “If you say so.”

  With a pop like a bursting bubble, she vanished. Whether she willed herself to appear and disappear randomly like that was a mystery. As more time passed and the energy from the ley lines grew wily, Lily seemed to have less power and control over her existence.

  I let a sigh escape and poured a cup of tea from the kettle Simon had let boil over. Our lives were a mess of tangled lines and relationships. Every time I went looking for answers, I only got more questions.

  As I went into the lobby to relax on the old leather sofa, I caught a glimpse of someone leaning on the railing up on the second floor. When I looked up, the fellow disappeared.

  “Hey!” I called, changing direction. “Get back here!”

  I started up the stairs, tea in hand and my eyes peeled for the elusive ghost. A flash of silver darted across the second floor.

  “I just want to talk,” I said as I reached the landing. “Please, come out.”

  The door to the presidential suite squeaked, and I spotted a boot disappearing inside. I headed down the corridor, knocked politely, and let myself in.

  We hadn’t been inside the presidential suite for weeks. Keith and Simon had made little progress in renovating it, simply because it was so large compared to the rest of the guest rooms. It was still bare. No carpeting, wallboard, or furniture to complete it, but the view from the high windows made the room attractive regardless.

  Out on the balcony, a man stood in the same position as I’d seen him on the stairs. He rested his elbow on the railing, crossed one foot behind the other, and gazed off into the distance, seemingly lost in thought. As quietly as possible, I went out to meet him.

  “Hello there,” he said before I could greet him. “You found me at last.”

  Tentatively, to not spook him, I joined him at the balcony’s edge. “You’ve been hiding from me.”

  “Not hiding,” he corrected. “Watching. Waiting.”

  In this form, he looked to be in his mid-forties. He wore thick-rimmed, tortoiseshell glasses and a hand-knitted, red sweater. He would look right at home resting on the leather sofa downstairs, next to the fire, with a thick book and perhaps an old pipe to smoke.

  “So you bought my lodge, eh?” he asked.

  “Your lodge?” I said. “Are you Earl?”

  He nodded solemnly and extended his hand. “Earl Driscoll. Pleased to officially meet you.”

  I shook his ghostly hand. Like Lily, he was solid and warm. His surname registered with me a half-second later. “Did you say Driscoll? As in Boyce?”

  A sneer lifted Earl’s upper lip. “It’s bad enough you have to bring that man around my property. You have to mention his name to me, too?”

  “I’m sorry, but—the two of you are related?”

  “He’s my nephew. Little bastard.”

  The snow piled on the railing melted against my skin, but I paid i
t no mind. “Does this have something to do with the ley lines?”

  Earl’s gaze sharply snapped to mine. “You figure that out, too, huh? Guess I didn’t do my job as well as I was supposed to.”

  “Lily asked me to look into the energy in the Lodge,” I explained. “It was affecting all of us too much to ignore it. Can you please explain what all of this means?”

  Earl sighed, turned around, and rested his elbows against the balcony. With a sad smile, he regarded the Lodge. “This place has history. Do you know it?”

  “Emory Driscoll built it when he discovered the ley line intersection,” I reported like a child presenting a homework assignment. “To prevent anyone else from discovering the ley lines.”

  “Emory Driscoll was my father,” Earl said. “He came to Silver Creek for the sole purpose of discovering those ley lines. When he realized how much power they brought to the land—”

  “He wanted it all for himself?” I asked wryly.

  Earl lifted an eyebrow. “He knew someone else might use that power incorrectly. You see, my father had a way with nature, and ley lines are a form of natural energy. My father interacted with the lines’ energy the way any gardener tends his plants. He cultivated the power of the ley lines, fed and fertilized it. In return, the energy favored him. Within a year, his wealth doubled. In five, he had more money than he could ever hope to spend in his lifetime. He used it to build up the town of Silver Creek and donated much to charity.”

  “But someone discovered the ley lines eventually, right?” I asked. “Didn’t anyone notice your father’s sudden success?”

  “His brother did,” Earl answered. “Benjamin Driscoll was the walking definition of greed. He refused to work or contribute to society, and yet he believed himself deserving of money and power. When my father grew wealthy, Benjamin grew jealous. He came to Silver Creek and demanded Emory share his secrets.”

  “What did Emory do?” I asked. The wind picked up. I began to shiver, but Earl’s story held me captive.