Passions Read online

  Bobby’s wife was tired of the bulky jeep and wanted something nicer to drive through town. The trade was a blessing for both of them. Bobby had a happy wife, and Chloe had a car that could handle the mountain terrain.

  The rest of the previous evening was spent putting her clothes away and moving her bedroom furniture around to her liking. Besides the books, there was nothing else to sort or organize. And there was certainly nothing to clean yet. She’d only been there a few days and for once, she was careful not to let dirty dishes pile up in the sink.

  She stared at the new blank chapter and sighed. Maybe a shower would do the trick. She could wash away everything that was bothering her and start fresh.

  She came out of the bathroom smelling sweetly of magnolias, her hair in a wet tangle down her back. But, even after a steamy bath, it changed nothing. She still felt confused, paranoid, and a little like she was losing her marbles through the cracks in the floorboards.

  She lay in bed clad in her bath towel and stared at the ceiling as if it held all the answers she needed. In that moment, more than ever, she wished that her aunt were still with her today.

  Aunt Mary Anne never had the perfect words to say, but she was a comforting presence, like a second mother or young grandmother. When Chloe was upset over something silly, she offered a turkey sandwich or chocolate sweets. It was a superficial response to a troubled child, but it worked. After guzzling down so much chocolate that she felt sick, Chloe completely forgot what she had been worried about.

  Her aunt spoiled her, plain and simple. But the older she became, the more a perfectly made sandwich did not look so much like a Band-Aid anymore. It was a cure-all for inadequate childcare. Maybe that’s why her family stopped taking so many trips to the mountains.

  It seemed like every other weekend was spent at the cabin until she was about halfway through junior high, and then her family stopped going for nearly a year. By the time her mother was ready to visit her sister again, Chloe wasn’t interested in spending a weekend in a place that didn’t have cable.

  Chloe remembered asking her mother why they couldn’t visit Aunt Mary Anne one weekend before the attraction of sleepovers became too much to resist. Her mother’s response was that Aunt Mary Anne was too busy. But as time went by, Chloe caught tail ends of phone conversations and heated discussions between her parents.

  She heard things like “Mary Anne has lost her mind” and “Mary Anne can’t be serious about this”. It was only when they stopped talking about her that Chloe’s mother decided to visit again.

  Looking back now, it must have been out of pity rather than a genuine desire to visit. Chloe wondered if Rosie felt the same way about Mary Anne’s sanity. That card game night was coming up soon. Maybe she’d go just to talk to the old woman about her dearly departed aunt and discover what was going on.

  Even as an adult, she didn’t know the full details of why her aunt was put into an assisted living home. Whether she checked herself into the home down in Savannah was another mystery entirely. Did it have something to do with the hushed whispers behind closed doors and the rumor that this cabin was haunted?

  Lying in bed, letting the dampness of her hair soak her feather pillow, she began to feel the loneliness harder than ever. She knew that living out in the middle of nowhere was going to be very different than living in the city, but she never imagined that it would be this different. She had no friends to call up for a chat, no work to eat up most of her day, no exciting new restaurant or store to visit in town. All she had was this cabin and Mr. G.

  The ache in her chest didn’t ease at the thought of her resident ghost again. He only came around at night when she was asleep. A lot of good that did her now. It was still a long while to go until the sun went down and even then, he never appeared to her.

  In the meantime, she could initiate her own investigation.

  She didn’t know much about the supernatural, but from what she understood, a ghost was a spirit of a dead person that did not move on into the afterlife for whatever reason. Maybe this Mr. G had some unresolved business in the world of the living and was stuck in Limbo until it was finished. But who was he?

  Chloe could almost feel the light bulb materialize above her head and flicker to life. She knew just where she might find the key to his identity. She quickly dressed into something comfortable and tied up her sopping hair so it didn’t get in the way, pulling it back tight until the strands tugged against her scalp in protest.

  She roamed around the upstairs level, searching for the pull cord into the attic. Finding it inside the guest bedroom, she gave a firm yank and released years of dust and light debris onto her clean hair and shoulders. She’d sweep up later and probably take another shower. But, right now she needed answers. The situation was still too ridiculous and absurd to believe, but Chloe was falling into the craziness of it all too easily.

  Chloe unfolded the wooden ladder and ascended the steps into the attic space. The odor of mildew threatened to clog her sinuses, but she pushed through the cloud of dust to peer into the dim light. An octagonal window flooded the room with gray tinted light, washing over a few dozen boxes labeled in black marker. Dust coated the floor, and she could see the dark speckles of rat droppings all around. How long had it been since another living soul was up here?

  She crawled on her hands and knees, unable to stand up straight in the cramped space. The labels did not give her many clues as to the contents. Some were labeled “Tax Records” when they were actually filled with antique dolls or toys that looked to have been made a century ago.

  Rifling through every box, she stumbled upon children’s books, more toys, vintage china, and then finally found a box that contained family photos and albums. It was a treasure trove of family heirlooms, and Chloe could feel her heart skip beats as she ogled each precious piece. Who touched these things last? Who did they once belong to? What tiny hands played with these dolls decades ago?

  She flipped through some of the photo albums a little carelessly, growing impatient with the lack of clues so far, but soon Chloe’s eyes snagged on a photo she couldn’t easily set aside. It was a picture of her aunt and mother outside the cabin. It had to have been taken at least fifty years ago, but the bright smiles were the same as she remembered. Chloe felt nostalgic tears sting her eyes as she gazed at the two sisters embracing one another.

  Her mother appeared very young in this picture, perhaps no more than six years old, and her two front teeth were missing. Mary Anne was at least ten years older, but her aunt’s hair was a tangled mass of curls atop her head. They both looked precious.

  Chloe had always wanted a sister, even when she was older. Envy grew in her each time she witnessed the special bond of sisterhood amongst her friends and even with her mother and aunt when she was young. Chloe never understood the kind of connection that sisters or siblings shared, but she wished desperately that she did—if not for her own sake, then for her stories. Some of her heroines had sisters or older brothers, and when it came time to write those stories, Chloe would be at a loss to describe such a relationship.

  With a sigh, she designated two piles for her search. One was for photos she found that she’d want to take downstairs and possibly compose into a scrapbook. This pile contained pictures she wanted to cherish or ones that might yield a clue. The other was for all the other pictures she didn’t deem important at all.

  The first pile grew steadily as she discovered pictures of her mother, her aunt, and grandparents. Hidden between these family portraits were photos of the cabin that predated the turn of the century. She found old frames that held the likenesses of men straight out of the Civil War and pencil portraits of women with haunting stares. Some were dated on the back; others were not.

  Then she found something that she didn’t expect to see in a box of photos. There was a scattered stack of documents at the very bottom of the box, buried beneath all the pictures and cameos.

  This box also happened to contain the true ta
x records, as well as the original land deed for the property and cabin. Most of it was gibberish to her; legal talk and swirly calligraphy upon delicate parchment. Many of the documents looked like they belonged in a museum. Dates she read were as far back as 1790 when the original deed was drawn up in what she assumed was her ancestor’s name.

  It was all very surreal, to discover such a jackpot of family history. Perhaps there was a historian in Carter Lake that she could contact regarding these priceless documents. If nothing else, she could trace her lineage back to the very beginning. There was something fascinating and tantalizing about discovering one’s heritage that Chloe had never known to appreciate until recently.

  But there was one document that appeared even older, dated from 1733. It was a royal land charter from England. She was a bit shoddy at historical dates, but she knew for a fact that this was before the American Revolution, probably when Georgia was a meager colony rather than a state.

  But it wasn’t the date that intrigued her. It was the name. Out of every single document, not one name had any first initials starting with a G. This was one did.

  The land grant was issued to Gavin Caras from Devon, England in the Hatherleigh County. He was to settle in Georgia with this land grant. Could this be her ghost? He was certainly dead, and if he was the original tenant of the cabin, it was completely possible that he could be haunting it. There was a significant time gap between this land grant and the first deed that was written up nearly sixty years later. Perhaps it had lain vacant during much of that time after Gavin died.

  Finally putting a full name to the ghost was a relief. He no longer seemed so enigmatic, so out of reach. She could address him now without the formality of a pen name. And he was from England, too. How exciting. If this ghost really did exist, maybe she could interview him for a book later.

  There had to be a way to find out if Mr. G really was Gavin and if he, in fact, was her ghost.

  Chloe, eyes full of wonder and intrigue, searched for anything else with Gavin’s name upon it but found nothing.

  She took a deep breath, gathered up the photos and land documents in her arms, and descended from the attic with her mind a little more at peace.

  Chapter 5

  Chloe’s eyes snapped open at the harsh cry of a crow on her porch outside. The house was bright with the morning sun as she lay on the sofa in the living room. Her gaze swept over the high wood paneled ceiling, frantically searching her memory of why she wasn’t in her pajamas, or in bed.

  A hardback copy of Moby Dick lay open across her stomach, and all at once she realized what must have happened.

  The night before, she resolved to wait up for her ghost, her Mr. G, whom she suspected was really named Gavin Caras from England. The coffee table was littered with photos and old documents, along with his three yellow notes. Chloe had planned to confront him about what unfinished business he had that made him into a haunting specter.

  Even as the clock tolled midnight, she felt foolish, like a child waiting up for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve... But she had to know. Mr. G only appeared when she went upstairs to go to sleep, and despite his previous chiding that she should get to bed at a decent time, she prepared an extra pot of coffee to help keep her awake.

  But the last thing she remembered was reading a particular sentence in the fifth chapter over and over again, her mind unable to grasp the meaning of the jumbled words as an unexplainable drowsiness took hold. And before long, her eyes refused to stay open. Chloe passed out and judging by the typical birdsongs drifting through the morning air outside the cabin, she had completely missed Mr. G’s arrival that night.

  Without even a twinge of grogginess about her, Chloe flipped a bookmark into the volume and turned around to look at her desk.

  Her laptop was still there, and next to it was another note with the familiar slanted cursive of her British ghost. Chloe groaned in frustration, mostly at herself.

  It didn’t make any sense why she would have fallen asleep. At her last count, she had three cups of coffee before dozing off, which would have been more than enough to keep her awake. When she was in Atlanta, she used to stay up all night with her friends on less coffee than she had consumed hours ago. Perhaps her mistake was in reading a book. Chloe should have done something more stimulating like exercise or baking countless batches of cookies.

  She pushed herself off the couch and retrieved the note.

  My Dear Chloe,

  You will have to try harder than that to catch me if that was indeed your intent. I was disappointed to see that you had not written a single new word for the novel. Nor did you respond to my offer to help. If I have offended you in any way, I apologize.

  I also saw that you found the land grant that was issued to me in 1733. Let me convey my sincerest gratitude. I thought it had been lost to the ravages of time. And I suppose I can no longer hide my true identity from you. This is just as well.

  I shall return with the night, but until then, I encourage you to write more. Or, at the very least, allow me to assist you. It would not be an inconvenience in the slightest.

  You obedient servant, Gavin

  P.S. I admire your choice in literature.

  Chloe’s head was reeling. She didn’t know what bothered her most; the fact that he thought she was offended or that he had leafed through, not only her book collection that was still packed away in boxes, but also possibly her family photos on the coffee table with his land grant. The two things she held most dear in the world had been practically laid at his feet, and she wasn’t there to supervise. Once more, Gavin had violated her space without her permission. She thought British men had better manners than that.

  But now, she knew who he was. He confirmed it himself in the letter she held in her hand. The unknown had been brought to light and, somehow, the thought that he had been through her stuff didn’t matter so much anymore. He must have been bored, and she would have been, too, if she were over three centuries old and trapped in this cabin.

  She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the strands a little silkier than usual since she took two showers in the span of twenty-four hours. Then a scent caught her attention.

  Coffee.

  Chloe went to the kitchen and saw that a fresh pot was steaming and ready for her. Even one of her favorite mugs had been set out in preparation for her morning ritual. And this was not just left over from last night. That pot had been half empty by the time she fell asleep.

  Gavin must have done this.

  And with that thought came the violent shaking of her whole body. She was not only terrified by this strange and wondrous thing that was happening to her, but also by the effect it played on her soul.

  Somehow, knowing that Gavin wasn’t an intruder, but a spirit whose presence was technically always there, made living in this cabin alone a little more bearable, not that it wasn’t before. But the idea of having a ghostly roommate made the mild case of loneliness seem smaller.

  Making her coffee was a friendly gesture, but not one done lightly. None of her old friends back in Atlanta knew exactly how she liked her coffee to be brewed. And just by the smell, she could tell that it would be perfect. Not even Brent could make her coffee just right. To Chloe, this might as well have been flirting.

  Gavin cared enough about whatever kind of superficial relationship they had to go out of his way to make her coffee. Chloe appreciated the favor, but would this lead to more? First, he offers to help her writing and now, he was making her coffee. Where would he stop?

  But she didn’t want to rely on Gavin for companionship. Perhaps this is what her parents had whispered so covertly about before. Did her aunt go crazy because of Gavin? Did he drive her to a madness that could only be remedied by leaving?

  Chloe didn’t trust herself to pour the coffee without spilling, so she sat down heavily in one of the dinette chairs and buried her face in her hands.

  This might be getting a little too far out of control. Suddenly, the idea to move
back to Atlanta was in the forefront of her mind. But what waited for her there was far worse than a mere friendly ghost who appeared eager to help her finish her novel.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe Gavin was her ticket to becoming a famous author. And perhaps, in the end, she could help Gavin ascend out of Limbo so he would no longer be bound to this cabin. Then she could have the solitude she had been wanting all along.

  But her mind bucked at the notion. Part of her held tight to the idea that ghosts didn’t exist and that she was crazy for thinking so. What if a few of her screws were coming loose?

  The stress of the move and the grief of losing her aunt may have proven too taxing. One gentle mind could only take so much, and Chloe knew where her breaking point was. Brent had pushed her there on more than a few occasions.

  But then, on the other hand, what if she wasn’t insane? What if ghosts and goblins of fairytales really did exist? Then, that begged the question if everything else of myth and folklore were real? Chloe squeezed her eyes shut against the idea. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was an adult; a perfectly rational adult who held a correspondence with a ghost that may or may not be a figment of her deranged imagination.

  The last weakening hold on her sanity released, and Chloe felt almost relieved. If she accepted that Gavin was real, perhaps that would make things easier. She wouldn’t be so stressed and torn between two realities. This might not have been the wisest choice, but it was better than returning to Atlanta and sacrificing the future she could have by sticking it out in the cabin.

  For the time being, she would let Gavin be real, at least until proven otherwise. But there was still one way to find out if he were truly real or just a product of a stressed out psyche.

  Chloe had yet to confide in any living soul about all she had experienced. And, until further notice, she would hold fast to that ultimatum. However, she could still fish around to learn who Gavin was and what truly happened to her aunt. And, in order to fish, she’d have to go to a prime fishing spot.