Sally trembled but managed, “Please.”
Cid knelt and kissed, first, her scars and then moved on to the skin which reacted to his warm lips. Sally’s body moved, and tiny hushed sounds escaped her lips. Even in her ecstasy she was sensitive to his super hearing. “May I make love to you?” he asked, his voice just above a whisper.
“Please,” she answered in kind.
Down the hall in the kitchen, Jesse looked at his watch and smiled. “I don’t think Cid and Sally are going to join us anytime soon. Maybe I’ll go over and send the bozos to town for a recon and some grub.”
“I think that would be a great idea. But first let me show you something.”
“Why Faye…”
Faye blushed and hit Jesse on the arm. “Not that! Come down to the basement. Don’t be afraid.”
“Okay, but if you’re setting me up, I’m going to send the hellhounds - which I will be in charge of picking up their shit for eternity – after you.”
“You’re such a poet.”
Jesse turned on the lights and stood dumbstruck at the top of the stairs. On the hard stone floor were a dozen or so salt outlines of men. It looked like a crime scene. “So that’s where the salt went.”
“Jon and Daniel thought maybe this would slow down the beasts so you and your men could work safer.”
“And longer. I’m going to go over, make sure the men are fed, and then we are going to work all night if we have to.”
Faye followed him up the stairs.
“When the lovers are finished, tell Cid to get his tool belt on. It’s time to work.”
“I will.”
Jesse walked out the front door whistling.
~
Sally left two coolers of sandwiches and easily gobbled snacks in the kitchen of Walnut Grove House. The men had rallied and agreed to work through the night, to work while the ghosts were bound below stairs. As long as they felt safe, they ignored the fatigue. Faye acted as Sally’s escort to and from the carriage house. Because of this, Sally decided to make as few trips as possible. She knew that having Faye watching the contractor’s backs tonight was more important than Sally’s need to see Cid.
Cid had opened The Invisible Man and had seen the tiny precise printing between the lines and in the margins of the hardcover book. “I’m surprised it’s written with American spellings,” Cid said as he skimmed the book. “I’m not sure I would have been as accommodating, had I been writing my memoir in Ireland.”
“Maybe Blue Daniel wanted to make sure no one was misled by the differences in words like tyre and tire and colour and color,” Sally suggested.
“Near the back of the book, there are words used that have come into vogue after the time of his death,” Cid marveled.
“It shows that, even after death, the writer was trying to educate himself,” Sally said impressed.
“As Jon is fond of saying, never underestimate the Orish. Instead of spending his time chopping down trees or lamenting about his lot in death, Daniel wrote his story and hid it until the right people came along. Would it be an imposition to ask you to start reading this tonight? I fear that it’s every bit as important as finishing this house, but I can’t concentrate on one knowing the other is abandoned.”
“It would be a pleasure. I’ll even take notes,” Sally promised.
Sally decided to hole up in the trailer. She set herself up with pencils, pens, and paper. She plugged in Cid’s tablet and clicked open the dictionary function. Sally pulled on a PEEPs hoodie, abandoned by Cid due to a mustard stain, and took a moment to enjoy the sense of security that came from wearing something of Cid’s.
Chapter Thirteen
Daniel Sullivan’s Tale
I guess you be wanting the facts first off, but this is not a tale of when I was born or from what family I was born into. This is a tale of a house, a horrible house. I, Daniel Sullivan, set down these remembrances so you can decide for yourself whether I deserved my fate or not.
War was looming in Europe, and I had a choice. I could join my friend Jon O’Connor on a working trip to America or fight for George, a monarch I never saw as my king. We Irish had lived too long under the oppression of the English. This was my opportunity to stay true to my feelings and not endanger my family.
I thought I’d choose to use my God-given talent as a wood carver to be able to make a living and send my wages so my mam and da could afford to live an easier life. America was, after all, the land of opportunity, but only if you chose the right path. I chose to follow Jon O’Connor to work for high wages along with men from countries I only knew about because of my da’s insistence on me sitting in on advanced tutorials with the parish priests. The lessons were a hardship on the household accounts, but he insisted that they were an investment in my future.
I wish I could have made him proud and sought out a higher education, but my love was in the wood, as it was my mam’s father and his father before him. I had a talent. A talent which took me to America riding in second class with my friend Jon.
There was a boon of building fancy houses to show off the wealth of the robber barons and
