“I love you, Mia.”
Mia looked up at him, her face expressing what those words meant to her. “I love you too, Ted,” she said. “As I do Brian, who may just get the job of Aquaman.”
“Can the Martin family handle another superhero?” Ted asked in an announcer’s voice. “Stay tuned for the further adventures of Batman and the Ice Queen, as they fight paranormal injustice with the aid of Aquaman.”
“Did you hear that?” Mia asked Brian.
“Pblsst.”
Chapter Two
Mark stood at his grandpa’s fish-cleaning bench, cleaning the bluegills he’d caught. Sam looked over his shoulder but couldn’t find anything to criticize. Instead, he patted his grandchild on the back before sitting down in the nearby rocking chair.
“How was the pond?”
“Quiet,” Mark replied. “You were right about waiting until after the weekend. I was the only one on the east shore of Buckley Pond. I saw your friend Roger on the west shore. He was using minnows. I saw the flash of silver while he was casting.”
“Minnows in Buckley? Did he catch anything?”
“No,” Mark said, laughing. “I saw him give up after I pulled my eighth bluegill out.”
“People discount worms. All those fancy gadgets can’t replace a worm when a fish is craving one,” Sam said sagely.
Mark nodded. “I never thought I’d be spending my summer elbow-deep in fish guts,” he said. “But I’m happy.”
“You’re missing your games though,” Sam acknowledged.
“The interaction with my friends, I miss the most.”
“School friends?”
“No, actually, the people that I battle with. I’ve never seen them, but we talk to each other over Ventrilo while we play. It’s a good group of nerds.”
Sam scratched his head. “Good thing I was born too early for video games. I don’t think I could keep up.”
“Grandpa, you were an electrical engineer. I’m sure you could be running a game if you wanted to.”
“Alas, we have no internet here, so I can’t embarrass myself. Maybe next time your gran and I visit, you can let me watch.”
Mark turned around and asked, “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“It’s a date then.”
“Speaking of dating…”
“Grandpa, I’m only twelve. There are no dates for me.”
“I guess I think of you as older. You’re very serious.”
“Mom would disagree with you.”
“My daughter doesn’t remember being a kid.”
“Mom’s got a lot on her plate with Dad in the rehab facility. I hardly see her, between work and her visiting him.”
“At least she had a career to fall back on when this tragedy struck,” Sam said proudly.
“Yes, but it’s all so senseless. He’s not trying to get better, Grandpa. All that money, and he just lays there and feels sorry for himself.”
“Maybe he is trying, Mark. The brain is a funny thing. I know that after a stroke, it needs to rewire itself, but your father didn’t have a stroke. It was the blast that killed his friends, that locked him in. It may take longer.”
“Sometimes I wish…” Mark started and stopped, feeling guilty.
“I know, son, I know. But let’s look on the positive side of things. This has given us a chance to reconnect while your mother takes the qualifying courses she needs for that promotion she’s up for.”
Mark smiled. “Grandpa, tell me about the old house.”
Sam rolled his neck and closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure what you want to know about it?”
“Why did they let it fall to ruin?”
“I’m not sure, but here’s what I know… Something horrible happened in that house. A whole family was killed. Things like that imprint on buildings. No one wanted to live in it. They tried to sell it, but no one bought it. They tried renting it, but no one lasted more than a few months there. It’s a shame. It’s such a beautiful house inside. Or it was.”
“So it’s haunted,” Mark confirmed.
“Hell yes. I’ve even seen a few ghosts.”
“I can hear them playing upstairs, the kids.”
“Let’s see, that would be the boys. What were their names? Something alike, maybe Timmy and Jimmy. They would have been my age if they had lived,” Sam told him. “My family was farming down south in Grundy County when it happened.”
“You were just a kid.”
“Yes, and I doubt that my father or mother paid any attention to the murder at the time. It was after your gran and I bought this place that I became acquainted with the old house and its history. Sad, very sad.”
“What happened?”
“Tell you what, let’s take those fish in so your gran can plan her supper, and then I’ll sit down with both of you and tell you about the murder at the old house.”
~
“There was a farmer named Earl Wayne, and he had two sons. The elder, Wyatt, and the younger, William. Earl and his wife Mary raised the boys in the house by Buckley Pond. Earl owned most of the land in these here parts. He made his fortune by domesticating strawberries and supplying them to the restaurants and hotels in Chicago. He purchased some more land and had a large home built in Big Bear Lake. Wyatt would inherit the farms and the new house, while William would inherit the house by Buckley Pond and the five acres surrounding it.”
“Sounds like the younger kid got screwed,” Mark observed.
“It was how some folks did things. I think it was to encourage the younger son to set out into the world and make his name and money that way. But fear not, Earl wasn’t an ogre. It was rumored that he liked William more than Wyatt, and that’s how the trouble started.”
“Trouble?” Mark asked.
“The conditions of the will stated that William would inherit the old house and all the contents of the building.”
“I assume, dear, that the good furniture was already at the new house, so why would there be trouble?” Edie asked her husband.
“Evidently, when Earl was planted, Wyatt took inventory of his fortune and found it lacking. Gold coins that he was sure were in the new house were missing. He demanded to search the old house, and
