Agnes wrapped her arms around herself as she sat at the table. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop shaking and she didn’t think she’d ever be warm again. She noticed Clara was trembling too.
The sheriff opened his hand and let fall a small, circular object onto the table. Candlelight glinted on gold beneath the accumulated grime.
Agnes gasped. “It’s a ring.”
“And a mighty pretty one,” Deputy Ross said.
“Where did you get it? Was it…was it in the basement?” Agnes clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking.
Sheriff Tandy nodded. “Yep. It was under the skeleton’s foot. It has probably been in that place more than a hundred years if my hunch is right. Neither of you ladies noticed anything about what the body had on, the kind of clothes he might have worn?”
Both women shook their heads.
“I’d say he was wearing his uniform when he died–a blue uniform with brass buttons and that rusty old firearm beside him was used during the Civil War. Have you, by chance, heard the history of this old house?” The sheriff glanced at each of them.
Clara spoke first. “You don’t mean…” she paused and swallowed. “You don’t mean that we accidentally found the Union soldier that Lenora shot?”
Agnes felt as if her heart had landed in her throat. “So, this is where they put him? And, that ring—that’s Lenora’s ring that was supposedly lost when she and her servants buried him?”
“At first guess, I’d say so,” Sheriff Tandy muttered.
“The pieces all fit,” Deputy Ross said.
Agnes and Clara stared at the ring, then each other. “It’s kind of hard to take in,” Agnes muttered.
Clara’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Now, maybe they’ll stop haunting this place.”
Agnes jumped as the sheriff laughed. “Don’t tell me two smart women like you believe those old ghost stories?”
Agnes swallowed. “Well…”
The sheriff held up his hand. “Listen a minute.”
They did and heard a strange moaning sound. “Hear that? That’s the wind blowing across the chimney top.”
“There’s lots of pines and cedars on this place too,” Deputy Ross added. “The wind makes funny noises when it blows through them.”
“Add the history of this house, all those bad things that happened here, and there’s bound be some spooky stories. Everybody for miles around knows those stories; I grew up hearing them. I assure you that’s all they are—just stories that people like to tell when they sit around their fires at night.” Sheriff Tandy pushed his chair back, stood up, and pocketed the ring.
“I’ll be here in the morning, bright and early, and I’ll bring a medical team with me. We’ll remove that soldier to a police lab and take care of what should have been taken care of long ago. Will you two ladies be all right here tonight?”
Agnes and Clara spoke at the same time. “No!”
The sheriff grinned. “How about if I leave Deputy Ross here with you? Do you have a bed he can use?”
The deputy raised his eyebrows and sighed.
“Sure,” Agnes said. “We’d be much obliged if he’d stay.”
The lights came back on a few hours after the sheriff left. The deputy lay snoring in an upstairs bedroom. Agnes and Clara sat in front of the fireplace, staring at the flames. Maybelle dozed on the hearth and Candy slept on Agnes’ lap.
“Look at that,” Clara said. “Candy likes you.”
Agnes smiled. “And, she and Maybelle are not fighting. A miracle! Or, maybe being scared half to death bonded them.”
“It’s a mystery,” Clara said. “Who can understand the thinking of a cat or a dog?”
“You know what I’m going to do first thing tomorrow?” Agnes asked.
Clara giggled. “Call Mildred?”
“Yes. If she can’t cut her trip short and get back here, the house can stay empty, for all I care. She can keep my fee and I’ll take Candy home with me. I can’t wait to get back where people don’t do stupid things like buy haunted houses and thank goodness I don’t even have a basement.”
“I didn’t really believe in ghosts,” Clara said.
“Uh-huh. If you say so. There’s one thing for sure, though, I’ve learned my lesson. My little house suits me fine. I just wasn’t cut out to be a house sitter.”
They both jumped as a strange, wailing sound filled the room. Maybelle lifted her head and howled. The windows of the old house shook.
Agnes gasped. The two friends stared at each other.
“The wind across the chimney,” Clara said, her voice quavering.
Agnes wet her lips and glanced out of a window. “Of course.” She scooted closer to the fireplace. “The wind. That’s bound to be what it was.”
- The End
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