Unfortunately, at the moment the shop was empty, leaving Jackie with nothing to distract her. “Vicky must really be in love. I mean, Mark wouldn’t necessarily know any better, but for Vicky Casey to even consider living in Cole House! She’s got stronger nerves than I do.”

  “Come on, Jackie. We’re not in high school anymore. Cole House might be a run-down old dump, but there’s nothing a bit of TLC can’t fix.”

  She shook her head sadly, the expression ruined by the gleam of excitement in her eyes. “I’m not so sure, Merry. It’s not only high school kids—”

  “I hear Mattie calling me,” I said. “I’d better check up on him.” I ran for the back, followed by Jackie’s cries of “Only last month, Kyle—” She was cut off in mid-sentence as the chimes over the door tinkled and customers came in.

  My Saint Bernard, Matterhorn, commonly called Mattie, opened one eye when I came into the office. I dropped into a chair. He closed the eye and rolled over. When Mattie—all one hundred and seventy pounds of him—rolls over, it’s a seismic event.

  I glanced at my watch. Two forty-five. I had ten minutes to wait until Vicky picked me up.

  One of the problems with the off season in Rudolph, is that the townspeople have far too much time on their hands. More than a few of them would spend that time gossiping. Cole House had been the subject of a lot of that gossip over the years.

  * * *

  Every small town has its haunted house. Usually, it’s nothing but an old house, maybe a place where one night years ago some kid saw a plastic bag caught on a tree branch and fled in terror, thinking a ghost was after him. Made-up stories were told by older kids to younger kids on dark winter nights, in the hopes of scaring someone. Perhaps the stories circulated as a warning to the unwary to stay away from a poorly maintained property.

  Cole House was the haunted house of Rudolph, New York.

  Unlike most other “haunted houses” in other towns, it truly looked the part.

  I couldn’t help a small shudder as Vicky pulled the bakery van up to the property. On Lakeside Drive, we’d driven past turreted and gingerbread-trimmed Victorian houses with wide, pillared verandas, refurbished to their former glory, next to huge new homes of glass and concrete with sharp lines and flat roofs. Spacious gardens were springing to life, and the huge old maples and oaks lining the street were bursting with the first sign of buds. To our left, Lake Ontario caressed the lush green lawns leading down to the public path along the shore, and to the right, houses on the small rise enjoyed expansive lake views.

  The paved road ended abruptly where a wire fence marked off the last property on the street. A large, heavily graffitied sign, warning “Private Property. No Trespassing,” hung at an angle on the fence. The tall metal gates stood open. Carriage lamps, all rust and flaking black paint, drooped on the gateposts. A tangle of wires hung uselessly from one, and the glass was shattered on both of them, the lightbulbs long gone. Beyond them lay an ill-maintained gravel track.

  Vicky drove through the gates and onto the grounds of Cole House.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. From the back of the van, Mattie woofed softly. I glanced at my friend. Vicky’s hands rested lightly on the steering wheel, and she was smiling to herself. I was about to say, “Don’t you remember?” when I remembered she hadn’t been there, and I’d never told her what happened the only time I’d ventured onto this property.

  It had been a hot, sticky summer night, and I’d been all of fifteen years old. The town had been in full celebration for Christmas in July. Mom was out of town, touring with Carmen (in which she sang the titular role), and Dad was busy presiding over the festivities as Santa Claus. A group of kids from my school had declared their intention to break into Cole House after dark. Vicky would have told them they were idiots and we’d have no part of it, but that year Vicky had gone to Nova Scotia to spend most of the summer with her maternal grandparents. I was on my own. Adrift without my best friend, I didn’t know how to say no, and so I went.

  Even sixteen years ago the house had been firmly boarded up, and we never did get inside. For which I am eternally grateful. Just walking through the grounds, across the weed-choked grass, beneath heavily leafed trees and broken branches, stumbling over cracked paving stones, with only the poor lights from a couple of flashlights to guide the way, was enough to have us all on edge.

  I don’t remember much about what happened. Muffled noises, the wind in the trees, the waves in the distance, the distant sounds of festive merrymaking coming from the town park, boards of the old porch creaking, footsteps behind me. Weak light slipped between the plywood boards nailed over the windows, and someone screamed that she’d seen a shape moving across the light. When we heard a low, indeterminate moan coming from the house, our nerve broke and we ran for all we were worth, a mad tumble of girls tripping all over themselves through the woods and fleeing down Lakeside Drive, heading for the lights of the town park and the cheer of the holiday festivities. I think I remember laughter following us as we clambered over the fence. I do remember that I tore my best jeans.

  Now, with the benefit of sixteen plus years and a lot of experience, I know a group of older kids must have heard us planning the expedition, and lain in wait with the intention of frightening us. At which they succeeded.

  “You okay, Merry?” Vicky asked me.

  “Me? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Fine.” I’d never told Vicky what happened that night. I suppose I was afraid she’d laugh at my naivety. “Here we are.”

  The driveway was maintained well enough that no saplings were pushing themselves through the gravel, but the rest of the property was as I remembered it from that long-ago night: vine-choked shrubs, huge trees draped with dead branches and withered leaves, lawns of weeds and crab grass, rose bushes that were nothing but thorns and shriveled flowers, a few scraps of perennials struggling to survive in the spots where they’d been planted all those years ago.

  The house loomed in front of us. Trees crowded against it, and on a sun-filled spring day, the house was wrapped in semidarkness. Two stories of red brick, multiple chimneys, a wide wrap-around porch, tons of broken and crumbling gingerbread trim. The windows were covered in plywood, but incongruously, the porch was swept clean of debris, and the front door stood wide open in welcome.

  Two cars were parked in front of the house. I recognized Mark’s car, and I assumed the shiny black SUV belonged to the realtor. The garage was more of a carriage house, with doors that had to be opened rather than rolled up. Those doors were open now, and I could see that the space was jammed full of bits of furniture, boxes, and assorted construction equipment and tools.

  “It’s not as bad inside as it looks from the outside.” Vicky said, having read my mind.

  “That’s good to know. I mean, how long will it be before you can actually live here?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? We’re moving in over the weekend. I hope you and Alan are free to give us a hand.”

  “But—” I said.

  Vicky opened her door and got out. “Come on in and I’ll show you around.”

  When Vicky made up her mind to do something, she wasted no time in doing it. She’d only decided to move here a week ago. No, I said to myself. She knew all along she was going to do it. She just needed to say it out loud to someone.

  Three people stepped onto the front porch: Mark and our friend Russell Durham, editor in chief of the Rudolph Gazette, with a woman in her mid-forties whom I assumed was the relator. Vicky jumped up and down, clapping her hands, and then she skipped lightly up the steps. Mark held out his arms and she jumped into them. He swung her around, both of them laughing. Russ and the woman smiled. I cringed, hoping the planks beneath their feet wouldn’t give way beneath them. Over our heads, the eaves troughs were either nonexistent or full of holes, and the roof above the door, designed to shelter visitors from the rain, would achieve nothing of the sort.

  “I’m glad you’re with me,” I said to Mattie. “You can frighten any ghosts away.” I got out of the van and called for the dog to come. He considered whether or not he wanted to do that, for a few seconds, and finally he made up his mind, leaped over the seat, and clambered to the ground. He immediately started taking stock of his surroundings, and his nose twitched as he followed a trail only he could see, tail rapidly moving. Mattie, like most of his breed, isn’t known for being a high-energy dog, but the strange smells around here soon had him running from one bush to another, to the wheels of the cars, to the overgrown flower beds next to the porch and the base of the front steps.

  The woman with my friends held out her hand to me. “I’m Marlene. Marlene Jones.”

  “Merry Wilkinson,” I said, as we shook.

  “I know who you are well enough,” she said with a laugh. “You and the famous Victoria, she of the mince tarts and the gingerbread.”

  “Famous,” Vicky said. “That’s me.”

  “Shall we go in?” Marlene stepped back. Arms around each other, still laughing, Vicky and Mark entered the house. Marlene followed.

  I waited outside for a moment, under the pretext of letting Mattie explore. I put my hands on the porch railing, taking care not to lean too heavily on it. Russ stood next to me, and we watched the dog.

  I gave Russ a look. “Have you been inside?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s not as bad as it looks, but bad enough. I know what you’re thinking, Merry. When Mark told me he was considering buying this house, I did some poking into its history. Sort of a rite of passage for kids from Rudolph High to spend a night here. Did you?”

  I suppressed a shudder. “A whole night? Perish the thought.”

  Perhaps I didn’t suppress the shudder as well as I thought I had. “You’ve been here? As a kid?”

  “Once. And that was enough. The place has a reputation. Teenagers, overactive imaginations, dares, and pranksters—you know what it can be like.”

  “Being from New Orleans,” he said in his deep rolling drawl, “I know from haunted houses. We should go in. Vicky and Mark are anxious to show us the house. Try to sound pleased for them, Merry. It’s not as bad as you think.”

  I called Mattie, who tore himself reluctantly away from the in-depth inspection of a thorny bush; then I plastered on a pleased expression and followed Russ into Cole House.

  * * *

  It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. But bad enough.

  “This house has been in the Cole family for a hundred and forty years,” Mark explained to us. “The last surviving member of the family, Miss Emmeline Cole, passed away a few months ago. Emmeline was almost eighty, and she was living in Rochester. She’s been away from Rudolph and this house for—what, Marlene? Forty years?”

  “The house was last occupied in 1983, when Emmeline moved to Rochester. From what I heard, she never married and was considered a recluse. Folks say that once she left, she never stepped foot in the house again.”

  “Why didn’t she sell it?” Russ asked. “If she didn’t want to live here herself. Or at least rent it out.”

  We stood in the front hall. A heavy glass chandelier, thick with dust, hung over our heads; cracked black and white marble tiles were at our feet; and a wide staircase with oak banisters and mouse-chewed red carpeting swept up into the gloom of the second floor. At least the electricity had been switched on, and a forty-watt bulb above the stairs illuminated the foyer.

  “The terms of her father’s will stipulated that the house was to remain in his family until no direct descendants of his remained,” Marlene explained. “The will was written when Emmeline’s two sisters were still alive, so with three daughters it was natural Mr. Cole expected to have descendants.”

  “What happened to the sisters?” Russ, ever the newspaperman, asked. “I know they died quite young. I tried to find out the details, but all I could dig up in a hurry was their dates of death and the word accidental.”

  Marlene ignored the question. “Emmeline could have overturned that clause in her father’s will if she’d wanted to, I’m sure, but for reasons I don’t know, she never did. As she was the only surviving child upon her parents’ death, she was left with the entirety of their estate. She might have simply decided it was too much trouble to try to fight the will.” She turned to Mark and Vicky. “Ms. Casey, Mr. Grosse, this is your house now. Do you want to show your guests around? I see the dog has already started doing so.”

  Mattie, likely following a mouse trail, was heading off down the long corridor to the back of the house.

  “The old Grosse place they’ll call this in years to come,” Vicky said. “Children will whisper about miserable old man Grosse chasing them out of his yard and shaking a meat cleaver at the clouds.”

  Mark gave her an affectionate smile.

  “They’ll also talk about the sweet, lovely, eternally young Ms. Casey, who made up for the cranky old grump with her magic gingerbread cookies.”

  “Sorry to interrupt your dreams for the future,” I said, “but I have to ask. The electricity’s been switched on and that’s good, but … how livable is this place?”

  “Let’s show you,” Mark said.

  We walked down the corridor, following Mattie. Doors were open, and I peeked inside as we passed. I saw furniture draped in sheets, and heavy curtains pulled back behind plywood-protected windows. Living room with shrouded couch and chairs, small low tables, cold, dark fireplace full of cobwebs. Dining room—another fireplace, more cobwebs, a large table surrounded by at least twenty chairs, and a long, low sideboard. A library with draped chairs, reading tables, and bookshelves full of books. A large, round object, which I took to be a globe under a sheet, stood on a table.

  “The place comes fully furnished?” I asked.

  “Yes, but most of it will be headed straight for the dump,” Mark said. “Forty years of mice and mold and damp isn’t good for furniture. Those books you were admiring will crumble to dust at a touch.”

  “We might be able to salvage some things,” Vicky said. “I’m going to ask Alan to take a look and let me know if he can reclaim the wood tables, at least.”

  The kitchen came as a big surprise to me. It looked like a still-used, working kitchen. It was clean—relatively clean; as clean as my kitchen, anyway. The decor was hideously out of date, with wood-fronted cabinets, linoleum flooring, Formica countertops, but the shining steel fridge matched the dishwasher, and it hummed quietly in a corner. The countertops were scrubbed, the floor washed and swept, the induction stove polished. The big glass-topped table in the center of the room was surrounded by four chairs. A huge bouquet of peach roses in a glass vase occupied the middle of the table.

  “This is … surprisingly nice,” I said.

  “The kitchen was originally designed as a place where servants would work, out of sight and completely out of mind. Certainly not a room for the family and their guests to gather and enjoy.” Mark ruffled Vicky’s short hair, and she smiled up at him. “As the only servants in this house are us, I intend to have those walls knocked down, which will open up the kitchen to the dining room, and we should be able to widen the windows. Maybe put in French doors opening out to the garden. I’m thinking a kitchen garden close to the house. For vegetables and herbs.”

  “My granddad was the Cole family lawyer for many years,” Vicky said. “My dad now looks after what’s left of their affairs. Charles Cole left money specifically intended to be used for the upkeep of the house, regardless of which of his daughters was living here. Or none of them, as it transpired. The amount dwindled over the years, and things got a lot more expensive. That fund soon didn’t have enough to maintain the entire house and grounds, so rather than doing bits and pieces here and there, the money, under Granddad and then Dad’s administration, went to maintaining the gate and fence as and when needed, ensuring the bushes didn’t encroach onto neighboring property, and keeping the kitchen and ground-floor bathroom in working order, along with what used to be the morning room, which is big enough for our bedroom until we can renovate the rooms upstairs. The stove, fridge, and dishwasher got here yesterday, and there’s a freezer in what used to be the pantry. Neither Mark nor I would be able to last long without top-of-the-line appliances. Mark needs his knives”—she nodded to the wooden block on the counter on the far side of the room—“and I prefer to test my recipes for the book at home rather than in the bakery, where something’s always interrupting me, even when we’re closed.”

  Along with everything else she had on the go, Vicky was working on a baking book. Tentatively titled Year-Round Holiday Favorites from America’s Christmas Town, I was almost as excited about it as she was. I figured it was a guaranteed bestseller, with not only Vicky’s skills with flour, butter, and sugar, but the Christmas Town theme. I was encouraging her to put a formal proposal together. When she had that ready, I’d contact people I know in the publishing industry in New York. I’d once been a props stylist and then a design editor, at Jennifer’s Lifestyle Magazine, and we’d run many features highlighting recipes from new (and old) cookbooks. I’d worked closely with editors and publishers as well as the authors and their agents, to get that done. I hoped someone—anyone—would remember me.

  Thus,” Vicky said, beaming, “we can move right in.”

  Chapter Three

  By the time we left Cole House, I felt fractionally better about Vicky living there. The house was, to put it mildly, in poor repair, but some of the rooms were livable. Vicky and Mark were busy people, but they were also young and in love and full of enthusiasm, with good incomes and supportive families. They intended to initially put a hunk of money into the most important thing, which was getting a new roof, and they planned to start working on the garden themselves. They confessed that neither of them knew anything about gardening, but you didn’t need to be a horticulturalist to know that the tangle of vines choking the bushes and trees needed to be cleared out, fallen branches hauled away, weeds dug out of the perennials, and the lawn exposed to the sunlight.