At three pm the containers were off loaded and secured as close to the house as the drivers could get them. The family locked the gates and headed back down the hill to the slumbering town.
All of the guesthouses in Main Street were closed up. The kids were hungry and that was working on Joe’s nerves. Nadine was the only one who did not say anything at all.
“Why don’t we go to the supermarket, they have food, if not, we’ll just make hotdogs for tonight.” Cynthia suggested softly to her husband.
Joe nodded and drove to a supermarket close by.
“Stay with the boys, Nadine and I will run in.” Cynthia said and grabbed her mask from the center console.
Nadine did not say a word, she numbly got out of the mini-van and put her mask on just before she closed the door. She and her mother walked in step to the supermarket door where a security guard stood waiting with a hand thermometer and a bottle of sanitizer.
The supermarket was quiet, and the two women were able to get to the deli without too much of a delay.
The deli was a saving grace to Cynthia, they had all kinds of goodies, from fried foods, to fast food.
“What do you think?” she asked her daughter.
“Take a couple of pizzas Mum, and for Dad the rotisserie chicken and rice and some veggies to go.” Nadine said and pointed at the items.
“Perfect.” Cynthia said and stepped up to the counter to order.
Whilst the server was busy with their order Cynthia asked the man standing behind them.
“Excuse me, pardon me sir, do you know perhaps where we can accommodation for a few days? We just moved here and the house is not really habitable at this stage.” Cynthia said.
The man’s head perked up as Cynthia spoke.
“I have a friend who has a guesthouse. Where abouts are you moving in?” he replied as he took out his cell phone.
“Thomas Gardens, up the hill.” Cynthia said and smiled at the man.
The man froze and blinked hard a couple of times.
“Did I just hear you correctly? Thomas Gardens?” he repeated carefully.
“Yes, the property belongs to my husband’s family, and when they heard we want to leave the city they gave us the keys.” Cynthia replied, this time she was spoke carefully.
“Are you Thomases?” The serving girl asked as she handed the order over.
“We are.” Nadine replied and looked around her.
The stares in the store were starting to scare her, and she felt chills running up and down her spine.
“You know, there is another property up for sale on the other side of town if you’d be interested.” The man she spoke to earlier suggested.
“Oh no, really, it’s fine. The house needs a good cleaning but it’s lovely otherwise.” Cynthia had their food in her hands that was starting to shake.
“Okay, here, this is my buddy’s number, give him a call, he’ll help you for sure. Just tell Tim sent you.” The man said and showed Cynthia a number on his phone.
Nadine took her phone out and typed the number into her keypad and saved it.
“Thank you.” She said and gave the residents around her one last look before they scampered off to the tellers.
The Thomas women almost near ran out of the supermarket, away from the openly curious stares.
“Damn.” Cynthia said as she got into the van.
“You sound winded.” Joe asked with a soft smile as she handed him his food.
“Those people in there, I asked around for accommodation, Nadine got the number by the way, very nice people, until they heard we are moving in at Thomas Gardens. It was as if they fear it for some reason. And when they heard we are Thomases!”
“Daddy they looked at us as if we were crazy! The dude that gave me the number for the guest house actually had the audacity to tell Mum there’s a better property up for grabs at the other end of town!” Nadine interrupted her mother while she too, passed her brothers their pizza.
Joe listed to his women folk and just shook his head.
“My mother used to tell me stories about the place. I never believed any of them, they sounded so far-fetched you know?” he finally said and started eating.
“What kind of stories?” Brian perked up quickly.
“That in every generation the last hundred years, only one sibling survived this place if they stayed on the property. That’s why my mother said she and Uncle Samuel left after they got married. There was other uncles and aunts before my mother that left too, only came back to visit. That’s how she knew that she and Uncle Samuel had to go.” Joe told them reluctantly.
“Oh god, is the place haunted Dad?” James asked quickly.
“No my boy, it’s just stories. We’ll be fine, you’ll see.” Joe assured his kids very quickly, but from the looks on Luke and Cynthia’s face, he knew they did not believe him at all.
“Imagine, making a TikTok and there’s a ghost in the back ground.” Brian laughed and playfully tapped his sister’s elbow with his own.
“That’s not funny, secondly, that’s enough about ghosts. Nadine, let me have that number so that we can get into a bed.” Cynthia snapped at him.
“I’m only kidding ma.” He said, his smile fading by the second.
“I know, but that’s enough, you are freaking Luke out.” Cynthia replied and nodded at her youngest son in the far back, his face was as pale as a sheet, and he had not even eaten a slice of his pizza.
He opened his mouth, but not a word came out.
“Are you all right Luke?” Nadine asked him and quickly stood up to go to her little brother’s side.
“I… I… I…” he stammered.
Joe looked at the boy and then he repeated his wife’s request to Nadine.
“Your phone please.”
The guest house owner was only too happy to give them accommodation for a few days. He did not ask questions over the phone, he just gave them directions to his guest house.
The Martini Guesthouse was the closest to the Thomas Gardens. The owner, Martin Feldman, met them at the gate and hurried them in through.
Cynthia had a sneaking suspicion Tim had already contacted him by the way his face lost color with every child that got out of the mini bus.
“I have separate rooms available for each of your kids.” He said behind his mask.
“It’s all right, I think the youngest might want to share with his sister. Do you have meals available or is there a restaurant open in the area?” Cynthia replied quickly before Joe could open his mouth.
“I will arrange with my cook to come in if you wish to eat here.” Martin nodded quickly.
“We would appreciate that. We won’t be around much with all that is happening at the house, but breakfast and dinner would be delightful.” Cynthia said to him.
“Ah, Thomas Gardens. It used to be a gorgeous place when it was still being taken care of.” He told them and handed each of them a key.
“Oh, do you know it?” Joe asked curiously.
“No, I know of it. My grandfather used to tell me stories about that place, how he earned his first wages working in the gardens.” Martin said and showed them into a corridor with their rooms. “Please do not hesitate to call me if you need anything, I will get dinner at one of my other friends and just add to the tab, you can sort that out once your place is ready.”
Joe thanked him with a wave, it seemed that Martin himself was scared of touching people so he gave them a smile and walked away.
“What an odd man.” Cynthia said to Joe.
“It’s an odd town Mom.” Nadine commented, looked at the number on her key and went to her room.
The Thomas family was up and getting ready to go at 8. 30 am the next morning. The cleaning company had promised they would be ready to start at 9 am.“Can’t I just stay here Dad?” Luke had begged his father as he rushed them to the minibus.“I’m sorry Luke but no. I need everyone’s help with this, you are going to have to help your brothers outside. You do understand that the gardening services are not open yet.” Joe told him.“Neither is the cleaning services but you got them out anyway,” Luke argued. “We need to move in, I need to get back to work by Tuesday, and by then, everything needs to be done. Are we clear?” Joe said to his youngest impatiently.“Yes, Dad,” Luke said and very reluctantly got into the bus.The ten-minute drive to the Thomas Gardens seemed to take only a few seconds. Luke’s heart was pounding in his chest. He had seen a lot of people the previous day, and all of them had signaled him to be quiet before they vanished right before his eyes. None of the
The front lawn was massive, or it looked massive until Brian tried to mow it. He kept hearing scraping noises, and every time he glanced back over his shoulder he saw stone set in concrete. There were parts that he could mow but after the fifth scrape, he decided against the lawn mower and signaled James to shut his machine down.The two boys had split the front lawn in half, Brian was to do the part closest to the house, whereas James was to do the area closest to the fence. Brian had thought he was getting the best deal since the area he had given James had a lot more obstacles, a lot more trees, and bushes.The two met in the center of the lawn. “What’s the matter?” James asked his brother.“I keep hitting concrete,” Brian complained.“I have a lot of boulders out there, and rocks. It’s tricky.” James admitted.“Maybe we should use the weed whackers first, get the grass shorter before we ruin the mowers, and have to do the whole yard with
The cleaners took two rooms at a time, but even with all their equipment and with the family’s help, there was no way they were going to make the two days deadline that they had been set. Every single piece of furniture in the house needed to be deep cleaned, and that took a lot of time. The boys carried the furniture outside the house; to the patio they had cleaned up, where the cleaning team tackled them with steam cleaners and anti-deodorants.Sky had finally convinced the rest of the team to join them on Monday, but so far, they had only been able to do the first two bedrooms, the bathroom in the hall, and the living room. Not to mention the other bathroom that was discovered in the first bedroom when they had removed an old closet from the room.The carpets had dark rust-colored stains in most areas of the house. Sky was about to say it looked like they were cleaning a crime scene but she saw the fear in her cleaner's eyes as the Thomases worked around them, so she kept her thoug
By Thursday evening the crew was glad to put Thomas Gardens behind them. They had worked harder than they ever had, it was the weirdest experience too, being instructed by a fourteen-year-old and the parents just followed along too.The family was settled in, and glad to be done with the guesthouse. The rumors were spreading from the crew and the family’s last dinner at the guest house had been most uncomfortable.Each of the children had their own bedrooms. Nadine had taken the first bedroom closest to the door with the bathroom, Luke had picked his room the day they had walked through the house, which was the second bedroom. James had the bedroom at the end of the hall and Brian had taken the bedroom that was opposite James’s and next to the old study. The room that used to be the study became Cynthia’s office. Not that she needed one, but then again, who knew when a mother needed some alone time?The bedrooms were sorted out and packed the way the kids wanted them. Brian displayed
Joe felt like he had barely slept when the alarm went off on his phone. Cynthia took her arm off her husband and looked at him. The two of them had a chat the previous night when they had come back to bed.Now she looked at him, the strain was evident on her husband’s face.“Did you know the extent of the hauntings?” she asked him carefully as he turned to look at her.“No. No one told me anything at all, just that there were rumors, but if we stuck together, we’ll be all right. I don’t even think they knew that the main house was an issue.” Joe replied thoughtfully.“What do you mean the main house?” Cynthia asked with a frown.“I’ve overheard conversations between my mother and uncle when I was younger, they wanted to demolish something on this property, so I’m guessing there are other houses here too, somewhere on this property. Uncle Samuel never went back to any of the other houses. He tried to sell the property a few times, but no one stayed for very long. Now I know why.” Joe r
Saturdays would normally be the family’s day off, Joe would not have any need to go into the office, normally the kids would rest after a hard week at school, and Cynthia would go with Nadine later in the morning for their spa session.But, they were not living in normal circumstances and even though there was no need for Joe to go into the office, he was still a week behind. The best thing about the previous night was that there was nothing going bump, there was no music played, and the temperature did not even drop the slightest.The only thing that did not change for Thomases in their new environment, was old habits. Brian started first, after making sure his entire family was up, he carried his two massive speakers outside, cranked up the volume, and let the entire town know that the Thomas household was Mayor classical country fans.The windows vibrated to the sound of Johnny Cash's baritone, but that was all right with Joe, he rather dreaded the moment it was James and Luke’s tu
Slowly but surely the left portion of the property started showing its true colors. Brian could hardly believe that under all those branches was a tiny circle, set out in stone, that had concrete benches all around the perimeter. And around the circle were actual flower beds, old, overgrown, rock hard, but flower beds, and dotted in the flower beds were old concrete bird baths, the basins completely covered in moss. None of the boys knew how long it took them to clear the area that led to the first house. But all of a sudden there was the boundary wall, set out in stone. Brain came to his senses and looked around him. They had cleared everything around the boundary, all the grass was mowed, and the edges were clean, how was it possible that they did not see the house all this time that they were working? Brian turned towards Luke, who was wiping sweat off his brow with the t-shirt that hung from his belt. “Do you think we have permission to go in?” Brian asked Luke carefully. “Yea
For three days every evening at dinner, the boys were asked who was pacing the halls at night. For three days the boys denied ever getting out of bed. On the fourth day, without anyone’s knowledge, Joe decided to set up cameras in the hallways. He too was getting tired of the footsteps in the hall and the whispers in the kitchen every night when everyone was supposed to be asleep.His wife and kids had gone to town to put up flyers to ask for help with the garden. The boys had gotten permission from the elderly ghosts to bring outsiders into the garden but there had been a couple of conditions, all of which were stipulated on the fliers of course.The family got home and almost instantly the boys ran off to what they discovered was a house with a big number one painted next to the front door. The number was dainty and had all kinds of curls and swirls to it, so much so that the brothers had a very interesting argument about whether it was a flower or a number.The house itself was col