The Birds are Back

The body was found just before dawn by the first surfer of the day. Blue and frozen by the salty sea air, her head was half buried, and her face, once uncovered, bore an expression of desperation and longing, or so one police officer thought.

Identification issued by the Strathmore Psychiatric Institution was found on the body. Next of kin was notified--the husband, Solomon Watts. It was then the police realized the dead woman was something of a celebrity, at least among certain circles, the ones who spend too much time playing internet detectives or reading stories of others’ misfortune in gossip rags. The dead woman, Cristina Watts, garnered her fifteen minutes of fame nineteen years prior by murdering three people in a mansion up the coast. The trial was highly publicized, and Cristina was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to life in an institution. She had apparently escaped (how was under investigation) and wandered three miles through the woods before collapsing on the beach and dying of exposure. You could almost see, thought the officer, Blackwood Manor from the spot where she fell, high atop a hill cloaked in a veil of ocean fog.

Eugenie Watts, Cristina’s eldest daughter, received the news later that morning at her desk at the New York Times. Her father’s voice shook over the line.

“I don’t understand,” Eugenie said, her eyes unconsciously darting to her lower desk drawer, the one she kept locked.

“Come home, Gen,” her father pleaded. “Okay? I have to call Jessica now.”

“No,” Eugenie said quickly. “I’ll do it.”

Jessica--Eugenie’s younger sister--and their father had a strained, occasionally volcanic, relationship at best. Eugenie’s own relationship with him was distant, as it was with the rest of their family. Nineteen years had passed since she’d seen even a glimpse of a Christmas card from an aunt or cousin. Her mind drifted to wonder what the funeral would be like, and her stomach sank. She of all people knew what the press were like. Inside the church (if anyone would let her mother’s body into a church) would be only the three of them, she assumed. Outside, on the other hand…the worst side of the media, swarming like locusts.

Her eyes went again to the locked desk drawer.

---

“At least we won’t have to change our wardrobe,” Jessica said in her signature dry humor, no smile in sight, looking Eugenie up and down.

Eugenie realized she herself was dressed in her usual designer black dress and sunglasses and Jessica in a grunge t-shirt and torn black jeans. Each knew the other hadn’t picked their clothes for mourning purposes. They both wore black every day and had for as long as they could remember.

Eugenie had driven from New York City to Providence to pick Jessica up at her dormitory at Brown University. She had waited, leaning against the rental car, for twenty minutes before Jessica appeared. They exchanged a forced hug.

A woman with flaming red hair trailed behind Jessica, carrying an overnight bag.

“Hi Augusta,” Eugenie said, taking the bag and placing it in the car.

Augusta had been Jessica’s girlfriend for the past two years. Despite the eight-year age difference (Augusta was thirty and Jessica twenty-two), they always seemed good together. Augusta, with her calm feminine demeanor, balanced Jessica’s constant wry anger she had toward everything and nothing. Eugenie liked her.

---

Five mourners sat around Solomon Watts’ coffee table. On it was a marble urn, the focal point of the room. None of them could look away. Solomon’s close friend and attorney, April Castella, had spread legal documents out on her lap and the couch cushion beside her. Somehow, the urn had taken over the table and created a kind of perimeter no one dared cross.

“No,” Solomon said, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

“She insisted. She wanted her ashes scattered over the grounds at Blackwood Manor,” April said.

“So we’ve decided against a funeral then? We’ll just do a private ceremony, scattering the ashes,” Eugenie said to the room.

“No,” Solomon repeated.

“No one will come to a traditional funeral, Dad, except people we don’t want there.”

“We’ll bury her ashes in the family plot,” he said.

Eugenie and Jessica exchanged looks.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dad,” Eugenie said.

“Then we’ll scatter her ashes in the ocean.”

“That’s not what she wanted,” Jessica spoke up. She had been pointedly silent all day, and her sudden contribution made everyone’s eyes snap to her.

Augusta placed her hand on Jessica’s.

Everyone now looked to Eugenie. She had become the default leader of the group. Solomon, with his slow, almost airy, absentminded demeanor, couldn’t handle funeral preparations, and as the oldest daughter, Eugenie reluctantly took up the responsibilities. Now everyone looked to her for the final word.

She took a deep breath and looked at the clock on the wall.

“We have seven more hours of daylight,” she said. “Let’s do it now and get it over with.”

“Alright,” Jessica said, standing up and fleeing the room. Augusta followed her. Solomon sat still, staring at the urn.

“Oh, Cristina,” he said under his breath, tears brimming in his eyes.

---

The drive to Blackwood Manor took just over an hour, but it seemed like an eternity. Silence felt heavy and deafening in the car.

Eugenie wondered what the house would look like now. She had kept an eye on it over the years, not that she had ever admitted it to her family. The house, apart from being a part of her family’s dark history, was itself an enigma.

After the murders and her mother’s subsequent trial, the fate of the house was under harsh, hurried scrutiny. First, open house flags appeared outside its gates, then they went away. The house was purchased by the local historical society. But as they began bringing in period furniture and antique drapery to create an impression of preserved beauty, the house’s real past couldn’t be completely covered up. The house was, inexplicably, crumbling. The grounds went wild and then, surprisingly, died. The plants, ivy, and moss withered and dried, leaving twisted wooden snakes where vines once were, and all wildlife left. The fish Cristina had brought back into the private, manmade lake died within weeks. The more the society tried to restore it, the more it fell, and dead branches crashed through crumbled walls, into the house itself. The rain came in. They moved belongings out of the destroyed rooms, retreating to a single wing that formed the heart of the estate, the entrance and stairway, and made it up to look like the entire place looked as grand, but for safety and lack of visitors they had to close the museum after only eighteen months. After that, all it could claim to be was a stop on the popular ghost tours.

A sound like a shotgun rang out outside the car. Everyone jumped. Jessica let out a string of expletives.

“What the hell was that?” Solomon shouted.

“It’s the Fourth of July, Dad,” Eugenie said. “It’s just a firecracker. Someone must be setting them off nearby.”

“Is it?” he asked incredulously, looking nervous. Eugenie noticed he was shaking.

The car rounded a corner on the coastal highway and the house was now within view. Eugenie could now see the iron gate marking the grounds’ edge.

“This was a mistake,” Solomon said so abruptly it made everyone in the car jump again. “Turn back.”

“Dad, we’re here,” Eugenie said.

“Turn around. Turn around now. We’re going back.” He spoke in a tone Eugenie hadn’t heard for a long time. It frightened her.

She pulled the car over and stared at the steering wheel. Neither Jess nor Augusta said a word. Eugenie could feel their eyes on her. She let out a loud breath and shook her head almost imperceptibly.

A moment passed in silence. Then with one more exasperated breath, she made a U-turn. The road beneath the tires seemed the only sound for miles.

---

By the time they had taken Solomon back home and driven the hour back to Blackwood Manor, the hills were bathed in golden hour light.

The house stood out as a dark spot among the grouping of pristine, dignified mansions that populated the expanse of land.

Eugenie parked the car outside the black iron gates and took the urn in one arm and hoisted her bag on her other shoulder. The three women walked silently up to the gates and pushed them open. Abandoned houses don’t need locks, Eugenie thought. They walked the long drive, all the time looking up at the ruin that was Blackwood Manor.

“Disrepair” didn’t begin to describe the house. It wasn’t even a house anymore. It was a ruined castle. Felled branches, crumbled stone, and all categories of dead plant life littered the grounds, but more striking to Eugenie was what wasn’t there. Though ocean waves could be heard cracking against the shoreline at the other end of the estate, no seagulls flew overhead. There was no birdsong, no insects, no sound of any kind except the ocean and their footsteps. There was no wind coming from the cliffs.

“Is the house really haunted?” Augusta asked.

“Of course not.” Jessica said. “Where should we do this then?”

“Maybe around back by the lake?”

As surreal as the sight was, Eugenie couldn’t help but think that above all it was a beautiful creation. A blend of Victorian and gothic architecture that had stood for hundreds of years. Towers, half crumbled, stood against the darkening sky. Peeling walls and broken windows, almost held together by dead vines--it all looked fascinating.

They stepped gingerly around the side of the house toward the manmade lake. The back of the house was in even worse shape. The entire exterior wall was gone, and Eugenie could see the rooms within. She could see old furniture and a pile of rubble that used to be the ceiling. Somehow, however, a sideways-hanging chandelier still clung to a solitary point where the foundation held.

The three women found a spot near the edge of the lake, just in front of a thick grove of dead oak trees. Eugenie opened the urn and removed the bag of ashes. Placing the urn on the ground, she opened the bag, and with a look to Jessica and Augusta, leaned over the edge of the lake where dead reeds stood and let the ashes fall. They landed upon the water’s surface, and some danced along the ground, blown by a breeze Eugenie could not feel.

No one, it seemed, could conjure words. Instead they looked over the lake in silence. Eugenie felt numb. The air had left her lungs, and she hung in suspended silence. The air around her felt heavy, and her head swam.

“What’s that say?” Jessica spoke, walking toward the house.

They walked past a derelict greenhouse to the hub of the rubble. Graffiti on one of the few remaining walls read “HAIL SATIN” with a roughly spray-painted pentagram next to it.

“Kids,” Eugenie said, shaking her head.

“Hey, I like satin. It feels nice,” Jessica said dryly.

“It’s out of style this season,” Eugenie replied.

The two of them ventured through the rubble into one of the exposed rooms.

“What are you doing?” Augusta shouted worriedly.

“Don’t you want to have a look?” Jessica yelled back.

“No! Let’s just go!”

Eugenie and Jessica wandered ahead.

Papers and fragments of glass were scattered on the ground. An old, ornate piano lay maimed and alone, its legs buckled, in the middle of the room covered in dirt and debris. What once must have been brightly colored walls were now a murky orange. More writing covered the interior walls, this time unintelligible and sprawling.

“Ugh,” Augusta let out in disgust.

“Cool.” Jessica said.

Eugenie smiled at her sister. “Cool” was her first thought as well.

The group continued toward the core of the house, where there stood a huge marble staircase. They gazed up at it. A last ray of the setting sun came through the ceiling high above them and reflected in a large gold mirror that hung at the base of the stairs.

“In here,” Jessica called.

She led them into one of the front drawing rooms. It was surprisingly intact and almost untouched except for the thick layer of dirt over the furniture. Antique chairs were arranged around a stone fireplace, in which a pile of wood lay ready to be lit.

“I bet the neighborhood teenagers come here to smoke weed all the time,” Eugenie laughed.

“Anyone bring any?” Jessica asked, dusting off the setae and plopping down onto it.

“Well…”

Eugenie opened her bag and extracted a bottle of tequila. Jessica stared at her, amazed. Eugenie handed the bottle to her and walked to the fireplace, crouching in front of it.

“What are you doing?” Augusta asked.

“I’m freezing,” Eugenie replied.

“That probably hasn’t been used for centuries. You could burn the whole place down!”

“She’d be doing the neighbors a favor. And this place has only been empty since the ‘90s, genius,” Jessica said, screwing off the lid of the bottle and taking a drink.

Eugenie found a half-used book of matches on the floor a few feet away, arranged the wood, and lit the fire. It crackled precariously before settling into a warm glow. Eugenie smiled.

“Anyone know any ghost stories?” Jessica asked.

Augusta let out an exasperated sigh, finally sitting down next to Jessica.

“The story of this murder house has to be the best one we know,” Eugenie said. “You’ve heard it, right Augusta?”

Augusta looked from Eugenie to Jessica, visibly uncomfortable.

“The one from before our family arrived, I mean,” Eugenie went on. “The original murder.”

“No…”

Jessica passed Augusta the bottle and leaned forward, listening intently to her sister.

“The Blackwood family owned this house for centuries,” Eugenie began. “Until the 1950s, when their bloodline died out.”

“Or was snuffed out,” Jess interjected, looking at Augusta.

“It was a night just like this. The Blackwood family was having a party. One of those great balls that rich old families liked to throw. Everyone who was anyone was there. Annette Blackwood, the family’s only child, was out on the lawn by the lake. She was twenty-one.”

“Someone shot her,” Jessica said, sipping from the tequila bottle.

“Yes, thank you Jess,” Eugenie continued, crawling forward and taking the bottle from her.

"Anytime, Gen."

“She was shot?” Augusta asked.

“Twice. In full view of everyone. And yet, somehow, no one could identify who killed her.”

“A complete coverup,” Jessica said, shaking her head.

“It was not a coverup,” said Eugenie.

“How would you know?”

“Because I’ve read the reports.”

“You have?”

Eugenie nodded. “All of them. I have copies of the eyewitness statements, police reports, everything. Whoever it was hid in the tree grove, shot her twice. Annette actually survived both gunshots, but the force pushed her into the lake. She drowned. It was a hired hit. Precise.”

“Was not.”

“.38 Special, Smith & Wesson. I’ve seen the photos.”

Jessica looked at her curiously.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Anyway,” Eugenie continued. “A month later, Annette’s parents both took their own lives. They couldn’t live with the grief.”

“Or—”

“They weren’t murdered. They killed themselves.”

“All I’m saying is that it looks fishy,” said Jessica.

Augusta grabbed the bottle and took a long drink.

“Why was your mom here?” she asked.

Eugenie answered, “She was writing a book on the case. We all stayed here for the summer. Or we were supposed to.”

“What happened?” Augusta asked in a low voice. “You don’t have to tell me, but why did your mom do what she did?”

“Late-onset schizophrenia. She was overworked and too involved in the case, and it triggered something in her mind. She didn’t sleep. She was taking pills to keep her focused. It was like she became another person.”

“She was possessed,” Jessica interjected.

“She wasn’t possessed. I know ghost stories are fun, but they aren’t real. When people say things like that, they’re distracting from the reality of what can happen when mental illness is left untreated. Everyone saw the signs and they did nothing. You were a baby--you don’t remember what it was like.”

Jessica put her hands up theatrically.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this?” Augusta asked.

Jessica shrugged.

Augusta looked to Eugenie who evaded her gaze, staring instead at the fire. She hadn’t meant to snap at Jessica. But she knew what happened. She knew the only thing haunting Blackwood Manor in that moment was the three of them.

Fireworks exploded above. Eugenie listened to their melodic beat, watching the flashes streaming through the murky window and through the cracks in the walls, feeling the blasts in her body.

A kind of warmth settled over them. The air turned heavy again. Eugenie watched as Jessica’s chest began to rise and fall, her eyes closed, her head in Augusta’s lap. Augusta’s eyelashes fluttered, and her head delicately leaned to the side, resting on the back of the setae. Eugenie’s own limbs seemed too weak to move. The fire grew, a few sparks flying through the grates. She noticed a faint noise coming from somewhere in the house, over the sound of Jess and Augusta breathing and the fire crackling and the house swaying. The noise grew louder. Distinct footsteps echoed through the hall adjacent to the drawing room. Eugenie tried to remember where that hall led, but her mind went hazy. Her eyes focused on the fire. The steps grew louder. She could no longer fight the heaviness, the wave of warmth completely engulfing her body. The creak of a door on its hinges could just be heard as she finally succumbed to sleep.

She dreamed of Augusta. She saw her from behind walking along the dark hallway. Augusta snapped around, her long ruby hair flying, looking Eugenie dead in the eye. Eugenie saw directly into Augusta’s petrified face and eyes, staring through her own and to what terrible thing must be behind her. The eyes bore into Eugenie as Augusta stared, frozen where she stood, her eyes growing so wide she thought they’d engulf the both of them. She slowly became only a pale face hovering in the darkness, terrified expression unmoving, unchanging. Eugenie turned to see what Augusta was looking at and saw a woman dressed in a ball gown, draped in pearls, staring at her. She lunged back and realized in horror she was looking into the great gold mirror by the staircase.

Suddenly there was a strong smell. The stench was unbearable. She was suffocating, drowning in the perfume.

She ran to the music room to find the chandelier swaying from side to side. The room was filling with water. The chandelier bobbed and floated to the ceiling, spreading its crystal limbs like a great mystical sea creature. She swam, struggling with every movement, toward the window, jumped out into the grounds and ran. But she stopped still, transfixed. Something was coming out of the water.

Two sharp gunshots shattered Eugenie’s ears, and she fell into the ether.

She woke with a jolt, covered in sweat, the blasts still echoing in her ears. She realized the fireworks were still sounding in the night sky outside. The neighbors were still in full celebration.

She sat up from the floor. Jessica dozed on the couch. She looked around but Augusta was nowhere in sight.

Eugenie stood and walked down the hallway she remembered from her dream. In the shadows was a dark bundle on the floor.

“Augusta!”

Augusta lay unconscious. Eugenie checked her breathing—it was steady. She stood again and turned to get Jessica then stopped with a jolt as she saw her own reflection in the gold mirror. To her relief she looked like herself. But a streak of blood was painted under her left ear, smudged around her neck. She turned to examine it. There was a mark the size of a coin near her right shoulder blade.

She touched it and flinched with pain.

“Shit.”

There was a noise from outside. She followed it. The sun was starting to rise over the ocean. A flock of gulls rested by the lake. They looked at her for a moment as she emerged from the ruined house, then flew away. She watched them go. She then heard the low hum of insects in the dead trees. She wandered over, past the lake where a water strider made tiny dimples on the surface. Looking up into the trees, her eyes alighted on the nearest branch. A single green bud came into focus. She reached out and touched it. Looking back to lake’s surface in wonder, she thought she could almost see a reflection of a figure, before a finch landed on it, bathing in the cool water.

She gazed back toward the house and the thought came to her—Why would anyone leave this place? …Why should they?

And, as if to answer, another thought entered her mind.

They shouldn’t.