The Haunting Of Bechdel Mansion by Roger Hayden

moment, stunned by his
hasty exit. “Call me Mary,” she said as he neared the door.
    “Sure thing, Mary,” he said with a wave and
bright smile. She didn’t know exactly what she had said beyond her
basic line of questioning. One thing was clear, Pastor Phil was
being evasive. After he closed the door, she walked toward the
living room prepared to see the damage done to the wall at her
behest. Was Pastor Phil right? Would the house treat them any
differently than the others? She wanted more than ever to find out
before it was too late.

Chapter Nine
    Sunday Barbecue
     
    The new air conditioner was up and running,
much to the collective relief of Mary, Craig, and the various work
crews tasked with renovations. Painters, cleaners, movers, pest
control, and electricians had been busy throughout the week
modernizing the old mansion transforming its faded grimy, walls and
dusty, spider-webbed interiors into something entirely different.
Mary could hardly believe it herself. Their home was beginning to
look downright livable in elegant fashion.
    The attic had been cleared out of dwelling
rodents who for so long had made the space there own. The pipes
running through the walls had been nearly repaired, the septic
system replaced, and the electrical wiring brought up to
twenty-first century standards. No stone had been left unturned,
and when Mary looked at the bright white paint covering the
formerly brown-stained walls and shiny hardwood floors she could
barely take it all in.
    Empty of most boxes and modestly furnished
with sofa chairs and coffee tables, the foyer looked unrecognizable
from when she first saw it. It hardly resembled the scene of a mass
murder some forty years ago, but that night was never far from her
mind.
    The downstairs study had been turned into
her own art room where she could work under the sunlight of a large
bay window that looked out into their shaded, fertile backyard and
its long stone walkway through freshly cut crass and bushes trimmed
to perfection. Her agent had lined up a new children’s book for her
to illustrate. She had three week deadline and by mid-week she
hadn’t even started.
    Mary was doing her best to adjust, even
though normality had long since recused itself to a different time
and place. Redwood seemed the perfect town to live in, their
mansion, a dream come true, but there was something lurking beneath
the surface, troubling and grim, that she couldn’t shake off.
    The week had rushed by, and by Sunday she
couldn’t believe all the work that had been done on their home.
Things were quieter with less people parading through the house,
and Mary knew that she and Curtis would soon be the only two people
inside their vast dream home, living like royalty without the bank
account or prestige to show for it.
    That morning, she had almost forgot their
Sunday engagement at the Redwood church. There had been no visitors
to their house since Pastor Phil’s unexpected visit, and when she
opened the drawer to the nightstand to get her cellphone, she was
greeted to the sight of the warped, burnt edges of the child’s
diary that had captivated her the week before.
    Curtis was just coming out of the bathroom
after a shower when Mary quickly closed the drawer. She still
hadn’t told him a thing about her discovery, and she didn’t know
why. She stood in a T-shirt large enough to go down to the knees of
her smooth, bare legs as he greeted her with an optimistic smile on
his face.
    “Morning,” she said back in a croaky voice.
She hadn’t been feeling that well for the past few days, chalking
it up to exhaustion.
    “I hope you’re ready to testify ,” he said, mimicking the
movements of a preacher with his arms up in the air.
    “Hardly…” she said, walking away from the
nightstand. She had never seen him so eager to go to church, not
the Curtis she knew. His angle, as she was it, was setting up a
practice as soon as possible. There was no better way than to reach
out to the