The Old Victorian - short story, about 3000 words by Sierra Torrin

So many people have been through my home that I have lost track. I try to stay out of their way, but it is not in my nature nor what my mother taught me to do. She taught me to be a good hostess, to curtsey when they enter and offer food or drink in the front parlor. Most ignore my hospitality now, but that part of me wants to shout out to them; some days, “Get out of my house,” others, “Here I am,” not so different from Abraham, answering his God, to be recognized.
I’m not sure if I believe in that anymore, any kind of deity. Father was so religious, going to church every Sunday and partaking in Priest Jackson’s studies during the week, leaving offerings and taking confessions. Mother flattered him, went along with his God and his Jesus, but she fled to her back parlor when he wasn’t aware of her. There, séances, Tarot cards, prisms, and magic swirled with the dust and pollen from her myriad of plants. I must be somewhere in between, though they pulled me both ways. I try not to think about it.
It is true that I was married. Some texts say I was a spinster, but they are wrong, though I did have a few cats. That may have started the rumors. Mr. Bradford and I tried to have children, too, despite what is written, but I am barren. Father wailed that it was because of my lack of faith in his Jesus, and Mother cried it was my lack of belief in the spiritual or the complete lack of spells or rituals performed at my wedding ceremony. Mr. Bradford was more understanding, but I secretly thought he never liked children and was glad for the reprieve.
No one ever asked me.
There is someone else here with me, though. I used to think that it was some energy or person Mother conjured in her séances; he seems so persistent. But I think I learned of his name, why he is here, and why me -
“Annabelle? Is that you?”
Startled, I turn around. I have rarely been addressed by name, especially so informally by a man. Two men are standing by the grand staircase with boxes and thin wires. Both are dressed like they haven’t a job, in old slacks and strange matching black cotton shirts. They look young, maybe my age, though I’m bad with ages. Mother would have taken a brush to both of their heads, had they been her sons. A young woman is with them, dressed in the same manner. Her long brown hair, at least, does not look like a bird’s nest, as Mother used to say.
My dress must have swished, the cotton underclothes against the blue silk, because the other man whispered, “What was that? Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, that swishing sound and footsteps. Ms. Annabelle?”
Better. For a moment, I thought that people had lost all manners.
“Yes, sir, it is I. And who may you be?”
“I have a recorder in my hand. It won’t hurt you or make you do anything you don’t want to do. I can hear your voice with it. Could you speak into it for me?”
“I know what a recorder is, dear sir, but that looks nothing like anything in the flute family.” I sigh and shake my head. I lean over this “recorder” and speak slowly, as if they don’t understand proper English. “Good evening, sir. Could you tell me your name so that I may address you properly?”
Neither of the two men answers for a few moments, and I almost repeat what I had said.
“I’m Lucas,” the tall thin man said, “and this is Campbell.” He points to the shorter, portlier man. “The woman with us is Molly. We’re just here to talk. Is that okay?”
Lucas and Molly sit on the red plush couch my father bought that stands by the stairs, and I cringe. No one was ever allowed on that piece of furniture, not even Priest Jackson, who frequented the house. I start to tell them no, Father will be furious, but I remember that Father is no longer here. He died of a poor heart, the old doctor said, in his bed upstairs. I don’t respond to the men.
“Is your dad here?” It’s Campbell’s voice echoing in the hallway.
“He’s dead! Why would Father be here?” I say, and I can feel the tears brewing in my eyes, though it was so long ago that he passed on.
Neither Luke nor Campbell responds to my outcry, and I am embarrassed. Mother would have reprimanded me for it.
“If you are still here with us, Ms. Annabelle, could you make a noise or bang on the wall?”
What? What are they talking about? Such barbaric behavior is unbecoming of a lady… Can’t they see me standing right in front of them?
“She’s right there,” the woman says with odd conviction, pointing directly at me; very quiet young lady. I had almost forgotten about Molly.
“Good evening, Miss Molly,” I say, walking up to her. “You may understand better than the men, I think.”
“I know how you feel,” Molly says, “I’ve been there.”
“I think Annabelle likes you,” Lucas says softly, holding up another one of his boxes near Molly. “The EMF needle is starting to move. Ms. Annabelle, this is an electromagnetic field detector. There’s theories that say you can make the needle move on this device and make it light up.”
Campbell wanders over to the stairs and sits on the fourth step, staring through a small black box with a lense. Some kind of camera? How small it is! “Please answer some questions for us,” Molly says, interrupting my staring. “We can understand you if you put your hand over the device in Lucas’ hand. It will light up. Once for yes, twice for no. Okay?”
I put my hand over the – EMF, he called it - and watch it light up. Strange.
“Wow,” Lucas mutters.
“Are you in your best dress?” Molly asks.
“Why, yes. I mean,” I wave my hand over the box, and it obediently lights up.
“Are you still sad?”
I make the box light up once. I truly haven’t let it go; all that sadness, death.
“Ms. Annabelle, would you like us to help?”
The box lights up twice. There is nothing they or anyone can do anymore.
“To just be here for you?”
The box lights up once. I put a hand over Molly’s and watch her eyes grow large. I pull away, thinking I must have hurt her. “She touched me.”
“Are you sure?” Campbell stands and focuses his camera on her.
“Very. My hand felt a pressure, some coldness. Is there any draft anywhere?”
“No. I already checked,” Lucas says.
“Someone else is here!” I shout suddenly. “Run!”
No one moves. I sigh impatiently. The feeling is stronger. A feeling of persistence and anger. “Molly! You must understand me.” I put both hands on her shoulders and do not take them off, despite the look on her face, a far away look of concentration. “You must leave. He is angry!”
I try to move her, but my hands go through her shoulders, and I almost fall. What is going on? I try to touch Lucas’ hands, but my hands just make his device shine with a brilliant orange, no longer blinking.
“Get. Out.”
“Did you say something?” Lucas turns to Campbell.
He shakes his head, face pale.
“Ms. Annabelle, what is going on?” Molly asks, holding up a recorder. She is staring right at me. She knows.
I kneel and speak directly into the box. “Leave. He is angry.”
Campbell’s hat flies through the air and lands several feet away. No one moves. A growl hovers in the air. “I’m going to rewind this and listen, okay?”
Molly and Campbell nod.
“Leave. He is angry,” is heard clearly. I grin despite the situation. They can hear me!
“Who is he?” Molly asks, as Lucas resets his recorder.
I cannot answer. I will not answer. He is angry.
“Can you not respond?”
The box flashes twice.
Molly looks at Lucas, and he nods. What are they up to?
“Ms. Annabelle,” she says slowly. “Is it Mr. Williamson?”
I cannot answer. I will not answer. He is furious with me already. It is also written that he killed me, but it’s untrue. Father would never have laid a hand on me.
“Did he do this to you?”
I almost laugh derisively. Father did not even hunt with his friends or accept the mice from my proud cat. He even refused to wear a crucifix, instead wearing a short chain with a silver fish with Jesus’ name in Latin inscribed on its body.
“She did this to herself!” The male voice proclaims. I cringe.
I turn toward the voice, my dress brushing past Molly’s knees. “No! Why do you torment me?”
“The meter’s going crazy,” Lucas says, standing.
“We’d better be picking something up on the digital audio,” Campbell responds.
“Because you no longer torment yourself!” he screams back at me.
“No one ever asks me. No one cared what it meant to me, Father.”
Molly looks down at her closed fist. It mirrors mine. “What is going on? The anger in here is palpable.”
“Even I can feel it,” Lucas says.
“Well, Ms. Annabelle,” my father says, the sarcasm in his gentlemanly voice goading me. “Why don’t you tell these people what happened?”
I don’t answer. The anger is still flowing around the room like
Mother’s magic and thrown Tarot cards. Eyes closed, I face away from his anger. “Why do you suddenly care? Are you still so concerned with what they write about you in the books and papers?”
“Just say it, woman!”
I can’t even look at Mr. Williamson, my father. Tears begin to form, but I proudly held them at bay. “I could no longer bare the burden of being childless. Your name would stop with me, and that killed you. Mother was stuck in her parlor with Madame Athena or Madame Lui Kim, and no longer cared about the present. And did you ever love me, truly?”
“Yes, I did,” Father says softly. “You were a good daughter.”
I turn back, knowing I can’t see him, but knowing where he is by the pull of anger still hanging in the hallway. “A good daughter? Is that all? It is too bad the fall from the balcony did nothing then.”
“Are they still there?” Campbell asks, aiming his camera at the space between the couch and the open front parlor doorway.
“Yeah,” Molly says. “There’s someone there. I sure hope it’s Annabelle and her father, George Williamson.”
“It was you, then. Some blamed a lover,” Father says.
“Who would have me, other than my husband, knowing you were lurking in the bushes?” I could not believe his arrogance.
When Father did not answer, I continued. “What do you mean, it was I?”
“Are you daft? You plunged to your death from that balcony fall, Ms. Annabelle.”
“I am not dead!” How ridiculous. “I am standing in the hallway, in front of the parlor, with these three. They are talking to me, Father. Can’t you see that?”
“Dear, they are talking to you with machines. That Lucas has been here before. Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed? I rather wish they would leave. This is a private matter, and I don’t know what they are hearing or will hear.”
“Molly hears me,” I say to the old wooden floor. The rugs are gone, but the faded rectangle still remains. I stare at the corner, remembering.
“She is what the men call ‘sensitive.’ She can feel energy.” Mr. Williamson sighs. “Don’t you want to be in Heaven?”
“Something you and my husband believed in!” I cross my arms and glare at him. “A fairy tale. Not even Mother believed in such nonsense.”
“Did you see that?” Molly mutters.
“The white flash? Yep,” Campbell says. “I hope I picked it up on the DVR. Good thing it’s kind of dark in here. I’m not sure this old thing would have picked up the contrast with the lights on.”
“Do you want us to leave?” Lucas asks, holding out his recorder. “Give us some kind of sign if you do.”
“No, please. I do get terribly lonely here,” I say.
“Then, come with me. Come to Heaven with me,” Father says.
I squint where I think he is, trying to see if I can see my father in all the anger that still surrounds him. A tangle of brown hair sits under a black top hat, but there is a blur for a face above a black jacket and slacks. I cannot make out who is wearing it. “How do I know you are not a devil, tempting me? Or Lucifer or Beelzebub or whatever you are called?”
A hiss echoes through the hall that even Campbell, Lucas, and Molly seem to hear. All three look at each other and scramble, somehow grabbing all of their boxes and wires in their arms. “Someone wants us to leave,” Campbell says, eyes still wide and probing the hallway as if he might see George, too.
“Sounded like a man to me,” Molly answers, “Probably the dad.”
“You can’t hurt me any more,” I say and position myself in front of Molly, Lucas, and Campbell.
“You will be lonely forever!” Father screams. “You have no idea the peacefulness of being in God’s home!”
I would still be tortured, I think, nothing can rid me of the guilt and sadness.
“Ms. Annabelle, I’ve had a miscarriage, too,” Molly whispers, and I almost miss her words.
Father did not. “What? You had a what? How? You could not conceive.”
I cannot answer him. The doctor was sworn to silence. Was something written down? He presses me again, and I can feel the anger breathing down my neck. “Ms. Annabelle, tell me.”
“It wasn’t a miscarriage, Father. I had the doctor… get rid of the baby.”
“Doctor MacCaffrey? I trusted him! Why, my daughter, why?”
“It wasn’t my husband’s!” I scream, tired of the secrets. “It was Mr. Barnard’s.”
“Henry?” Father breathes. “From the theater?”
“Are you sensing anything?” Campbell asks, turning to Molly. His camera doesn’t move.
“Sadness. Not as much anger, but it’s still there,” Molly whispers. “Lucas, could you snap a picture over to the left?”
Lucas grabs a small silver box from beside him, and flashes of light precede the mechanical click. “Don’t worry, Ms. Annabelle. Cameras have gotten smaller in about a hundred years.”
“Come with me,” Father repeats, ignoring the camera. I decide he has that luxury, not being corporeal, as Mother called it. “We can finally be together.”
“What is Heaven like?” I ask, betraying a bit of curiosity. I turn toward the huge window that faces the grand porch and stare at the lampposts lining the street outside, feigning disinterest.
Father’s voice sounds desperate to my ears. “Mother and your grandparents are there. We can do as we please, roam the green fields or with others or ride horses. You used to love to ride.”
The front door creeks open, and a hot wind shudders the heavy curtains. Lucas swears like one of the soldiers; not words I hear often. “I hope to God you caught that, Campbell. I had locked that behind us! There’s no way in Hell that door could open on its own!”
I whirl back to the door, hearing a ring of truth in Lucas’ words. Peering out, I don’t see Fourth Street. The white wooden steps descend past the small garden Mother tended with the help. The lampposts illuminate a dusty landscape dotted with brown scrub under a deep red sky.
People wander this bleak desert, but they are still alone. No one sees the others, as if they are all illusions. I don’t see Mother or Grandfather or anyone I know. A woman wearing a tattered blue dress walks close by holding her belly, and I can hear her crying out for her mother, father, and husband. I clutch the doorpost – the woman is me! “Father, what is this?” I know perfectly well, but I want to hear him finally tell me the truth.
“We don’t have to be alone any more! We can be together!” I can picture him, arms outstretched in supplication. I’m glad I cannot see my father.
“Ms. Annabelle, please don’t leave.” It’s Molly. She thinks the open door means I have left.
“You no longer have to be alone!” Father interrupts.
“I live close by,” Molly continues, not hearing Father talking. “I can come to visit you, if you would like.”
I hug Molly. “I would love that,” I say, looking into her wide brown eyes, ignoring her rigid posture and slight smile.
“I think she hugged me,” Molly says to Lucas, and she breaks into a nervous giggle. “I take it that’s a yes.”
“Father, you can go tell whatever demon or angel that sent you that I shall stay here. I shall forgive myself before the despair takes over.”
“You know I shall come back for you.” Father’s voice is glowering.
“And I shall be here,” I say, offhand, but I don’t relish the idea of seeing him again.
Suddenly, I no longer feel the anger of his presence, and the door swiftly shuts. The warm air I felt and the surreal landscape beyond has been replaced with the cool air of autumn and the quiet neighborhood street.
“See you later, Ms. Annabelle. It’s late, and we have to leave. But, I’ll visit. Take care,” Molly says with a friendly smile.
“Ending EVP session, old Victorian house on Fourth Street,” Lucas says into his recorder. He turns it off with a click.
“Ending video of old Victorian,” Campbell says, and puts his camera away.