“This is just one man’s tale,” Audrey said. “This is his perception of the facts. There was little else of note, according to Mark.”
Mark smiled.
“Now, as some of you know, Mia found a few things wrapped in an oilcloth under the floorboards of the attic. Inside, Mark and I found these drawings.” Audrey handed several pictures of the drawings for the group to pass around. “They were crayon and pencil drawings of the house. Notice how the windows appear to be eyes and the door a mouth? It isn’t unusual for children to see houses and cars as living things, but Mark and I thought it strange that every picture was of the house, and it always appeared to be hungry.”
“Chills,” Mia said. Ted rubbed her arms. Mike handed her the afghan to cover up with.
“The journal wasn’t William’s or Marilee’s. It was Earl’s.”
“Whoa,” Mia said. “Why would the journal be hidden with the drawings?”
“It’s because it tells where the gold ended up.”
Everyone sat at the edge of their seats.
“Earl wrote about building the house. He wasn’t a descriptive writer. For example…” Audrey read:
Bought 100 acres squeezed between four lakes. Won’t have to worry about water.
May having trouble with baby. May died. Wyatt with wet nurse.
House raising going well.
Good crop.
Married Mary, she already with child. Child not mine.
“Cuckhold?” Mike asked.
“He could have known and married her anyway. He needed a mother for Wyatt,” Mia said.
“He doesn’t say, and throughout the journal, he refers to William and Wyatt as brothers,” Audrey told them.
“Gold?” Mike prodded.
“The week before Earl died, he penned:”
Mary died. Think house killed her.
Found exorcist. Paid him in coin.
Exorcist found in well. Fear for William.
“And that’s all he wrote,” Audrey said.
“We think that the house tricked the priest,” Mark said.
“Like me,” Murphy voiced.
“So at this point, the two of you are thinking…”
“The house is evil,” Mark said. “But why?”
Audrey picked up a plastic bin and lifted the lid. “This is the missing manuscript. It is called Strawberry Wine because it’s all about…”
“Making wine,” Mark filled in. “It’s a fiction story about a group of Italian immigrants who bring with them Grandma’s recipe on making wine out of wild strawberries.”
“Strawberries grew wild in Italy. They have found references that go back to 234 BC,” Cid told them.
“Good to know,” Audrey said indulgently. “In this story, they talk more about the difficulties in growing them en masse. This would be the crossed species developed from the white and the red,” she explained. “William is very clever and winds his tale around what we suspect are truths. The immigrant’s son wants so much to succeed that he takes inside him a wizard. Because of this wizard, the man’s wife dies giving birth to his son. The wizard helps to build the winery, and soon, the man takes another wife and raises her son as his own, fearing that any more sons coming from him will endanger the woman he has fallen in love with.”
Orion and Mia locked eyes. She nodded.
“In the demon world, one cannot have children with a human woman,” Orion told them. “The woman will not survive the birth. I suspect the wizard was in fact a demon, and Wyatt’s mother paid the price.”
“Scary,” Mark said.
“Sam and Edie, if you think this subject is too mature for Mark, we can discuss it another time?” Mia asked.
“No, he is a smart child. I’m not sure his mother would approve, but we have always been honest with him about reproduction,” Sam said.
“It’s interesting that William knew about the family secret. Maybe his father told him or his mother…” Audrey trailed off.
“Wyatt is under the impression that his father sacrificed William and that the house killed the family,” Mia said.
“Wyatt’s alive?” Sam questioned.
“Very much so.”
“Is he a demon?” Mark asked, wide-eyed.
“He has some things in common with demons,” Mia hedged. “He loved his brother and felt the loss of the family strongly. He tore the house apart in vengeance, not looking for gold,” Mia explained.
“In Strawberry Wine, the winemaker sets aside a gold coin to insure a good harvest. After thirty years, the payment is due. In the book, the wizard walks away with the money. The family lives happily ever after. Or, that is the assumption the writer wants us to make,” Audrey explained.
“I’d like to read that,” Cid requested. Audrey put the lid on the box and handed it to him.
“We have Audrey and Mark’s research, so now, let’s look at the investigation,” Burt said. “From the start, the house exhibited the ability to produce individual hallucinations. Mark seems to be the only one immune. I saw Mia and Mike as children. Mia saw the room fully furnished, and Mike relived a beach memory. Glenda enjoyed drinking tea in a fully-operational kitchen. I was filming the living area when it slowly took me back in time to when the house was whole. I was enticed into a game of hide and seek with Timmy and Jimmy. I remember going up the stairs, and then I experienced a more personal memory.”
“All of those seem lovely,” Edie remarked. “As if the house was giving you a gift.”
“While the house was giving, it was taking our energy. It was hungry. I believe, had we all gone in at once, we would have never exited alive,” Mia said.
Mike took the afghan from her, feeling the chill her words brought.
“Inside the house was also a very negative being. It was sent there to influence Mark,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Mark asked.
“How did you feel after you walked by that house?” Mia asked.
“I was a bit mad. Sometimes I would snap at my gran when I came home. I had horrible dreams. Until you guys came, I was very angry inside.”
“Is this his normal behavior?” Mia asked Edie and Sam.
“No, but we thought he was missing his mother and upset about his father.”
“Mark, you see, this thing also made me mad when it touched me. I was bitchier than
