Ghost Writer
Windsor House had stood high on a steep cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean since before the first shots were fired at Concord and Lexington, ushering in the American Revolutionary War. The house was originally fairly small in size; however, several of its owners, mostly wealthy sea captains, added to the building over the centuries. Despite the many changes, it still retained its colonial charm.
Dominique took one look at the sprawling old house and immediately fell in love with it.
"The place has quite an amazing history," real estate agent Anne Courtenay explained as she and the prospective buyer toured the rooms on the main floor of the house. "One of the early inhabitants was a spy for George Washington, one led a band of smugglers, one was rumored to be a privateer, another made his fortune in the slave trade and ..."—the agent lowered her voice like a schoolgirl telling her classmate a juicy bit of gossip—"another was found murdered in one of the upstairs rooms."
"Murdered?"
Dominique was instantly intrigued.
"Was it the spy?"
"No. A writer. The body was found slumped over a desk in a small room in the east gable. No one ever found the manuscript the victim was working on. And the corpse—well, there was nothing near it but a pen, an inkwell and a few pieces of blank paper."
"How fascinating!" Dominique exclaimed.
"Maybe I shouldn't be telling you these things," Jacqueline said, suddenly fearful of losing her commission if she frightened the customer away. "Most people would find it disturbing to live in a place with such a dark history."
Damn! She was only making matters worse.
"Not me," Dominique said. "I'm fascinated by the macabre. I only wish the Lizzie Borden home or the Amityville Horror house was up for sale."
The realtor gave her an odd look, and Dominique laughed at the woman's reaction.
"I'm a mystery writer, you see," she explained. "Or at least I'm trying to be."
"A writer, huh? We've had quite a few of them in Silent Harbor over the years."
"Including the one who was murdered in this house," Dominique said with a wry smile.
* * *
Windsor House had an unforeseen effect on its new owner. Only a few days after moving in, she began having difficulty sleeping. Night after night, she lay awake in her four-poster bed until the early hours of the morning, listening for creaking floorboards, rattling windows or moaning winds. Oddly, there were no such noises to be heard. This in itself was highly unusual since the old house stood high atop a cliff on the rocky New England coast and was subjected to an almost constant barrage of strong winds. Dominique had only to look out the bay window to see evidence of them, to see the trees bending in their path, to see fallen leaves blown along the ground or whisked high into the air. Yet inside the house, peace and quiet reigned supreme. Only the crackling sound of burning logs in the fireplace broke the tomb-like silence.
I've never heard of people not being able to sleep because a house is too quiet! she thought. Leave it to me to be the first!
It was not long before Dominique's battle with insomnia began to affect her ability to write. She soon experienced what every author dreaded most: a profound case of writer's block. Not only could she not come up with any new ideas, but she couldn't even fine-tune drafts of stories she had written before moving into the old house.
With the advent of autumn, she spent most of her days reading novels, watching old movies and purposefully avoiding her computer and the stack of incomplete stories beside it.
Maybe I just wasn't cut out to be a writer, she admitted to herself as she sat in front of her fireplace, sipping a glass of wine.
She had wanted to be an author all her life, ever since she was a small child, sitting on her mother's lap, listening to classic fairy tales such as "The Tinder Box," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" and "The Little Match Girl." As she grew older and learned to read, she graduated from Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm to adolescent mysteries. In no time at all she read her way through the Nancy Drew series at the local library and then went on to the adult works of Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie.
What's wrong with me? she thought with growing desperation. I used to have hundreds of good ideas for stories, but since moving into Windsor House, I haven't been able to write a single, well-constructed paragraph.
October passed, followed by the coldness of November. Dominique grew tired of watching her small selection of videos and even became bored with reading. With so much free time on her hands, she decided to explore the huge house, hoping to find one of the hidden passages the real estate agent had told her about although Dominique doubted there would be any pirate booty hidden behind a secret panel. She would probably find nothing except dust bunnies, spider webs and the corpses of dead rodents. Still, she enjoyed the idea of the mystery itself.
After searching the lower floors, she found three hidden staircases, all of which led up to the attic, but there were no hidden rooms. Eventually, she began searching the attic itself, no easy task given the abundance of boxes, old luggage and cloth-covered antique furniture that had been stored up there.
I guess the previous owners never heard of Good Will or the Salvation Army, she thought as she looked through decades' worth of family heirlooms, old furniture and cast-off clothing. Most of this stuff is just junk. I don't know why anyone would want to keep it.
After several days of searching, however, Dominique found a treasure. It was a small antique chest, made of exquisitely hand-carved mahogany, probably the property of a fashionable eighteenth-century woman.
This will look beautiful on my coffee table. I can keep my magazines inside it.
She took the chest downstairs and cleaned it with Old English furniture polish.
Looks like new. Not a scratch on it.
Dominique placed the chest in the middle of the living room coffee table. With one hand, she reached for her small stack of magazines and with the other she opened the latch on the chest. She was surprised to see that it was not empty. She had been so impressed by the chest itself that she had given no thought as to its possible contents. Inside was a small stack of papers, yellowed with age. Dominique gently took them out and thumbed through them. Her heart raced as she saw the faded handwriting, unmistakably the product of a bygone era.
This might be ... yes! I think I've located the murdered writer's missing manuscript.
Dominique wanted to immediately curl up on the sofa and read the pages, but her good sense prevailed. She had been working in the attic all day, and she was covered with perspiration, grime and dust. First, she would take a hot shower. Next, she would have something to eat, and then finally she would read the manuscript.
* * *
After her shower, Dominique quickly ate a frozen dinner, tossed the cardboard tray into the trash and went to the living room to read. She opened the chest and discovered with shock that the manuscript was gone. Someone, it seemed, had stolen the papers while she was in the shower, and that someone might still be in the house.
Her first instinct was to telephone the local police, but she was so terrified that she couldn't move. She stood still in the center of the room, for once grateful for the profound silence of Windsor House since she was sure to hear the intruder if he moved. After standing immobile as a garden statue for close to half an hour, Dominique finally put aside her fears and searched the main floor of the house. Surprisingly, all the doors and windows were locked. How had someone gotten in?
He must have already been inside the house before I locked the doors. And if so—then that means he's still here.
She wanted to run outside, get into her Subaru Outback and drive as far away from Windsor House as possible. But the car keys were in her purse, and her purse was upstairs in the bedroom. Summoning all her courage, she made her way slowly up the stairs, her ears alert for any sound, her feet ready to run if necessary. Dominique looked at the long hallway in front of her. Why hadn't she chosen one of the smaller bedrooms near the stairs rather than the master bedroom at the far end of the house? While she was on that line of thought, why had she bought this old mausoleum of a house in the first place?
As she walked down the long hallway, she neared a door about midway to the master bedroom. It led to a small room with a slanted roof, one Dominique barely noticed before. A faint, flickering light emanated from inside.
Can it be a flashlight? she wondered.
The frightened homeowner was about to turn and flee from what she was sure was the intruder, when she realized the glow might not be from a light at all. What if it was a fire?
If I run and it is a fire, this old place will go up like kindling. But if I act quickly, I might be able to extinguish the flames before they spread.
Bravely, she tiptoed toward the open door and peaked inside. What she saw struck her with a combination of curiosity and fear. Three candles burned in a holder on a desk at which a man sat writing. No, it was not a man. At least not one of this world, for he was more transparent than opaque. So, too, were the furnishings of the room. The desk, the bookcases, the pair of wing chairs and the small reading table were more shadow than substance.
I thought it would be exciting to live in a haunted house, she admonished herself, but wanting to see a ghost and actually being in one's presence are quite different. Next time I'd better be careful what I wish for.
The phantom writer picked his head up and turned toward the door. Dominique tensed, fearful of the confrontation, but the man looked right through her.
"Is anyone there?" he called in an eerie voice that echoed through the room.
Not receiving a reply, the writer shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and resumed writing.
After several minutes, Dominique continued down the hall toward her room. There was no intruder, she realized—at least not a living one. Should she run from a ghost? Why? It didn't seem as though he meant her any harm. Calling the police was out of the question. She could just imagine what their reaction would be if she asked them to evict a ghost from her house. Perhaps she should phone a priest. That did not seem like a good idea either. After all, she was not a Catholic. Would the church be willing to send an exorcist to help out a Protestant, and not a very devout one at that?
After giving the matter further thought, Dominique decided on the path of least resistance: for now, she would do nothing. She would wait and see what the days ahead would bring.
* * *
The following morning, as Dominique made her way down the long hallway, she looked into the room under the east gable. Her ghostly visitor and all his furnishings had vanished. The room was once again empty, its walls and floor bare.
She went downstairs and, after putting the water on for coffee, went to the living room and opened the lid of the small chest. Inside was the manuscript. She picked up the pages and held them tightly against her chest.
You're not going to get away from me again, she thought as she brought them to the kitchen to read over a cup of hot coffee.
Dominique read the first chapter.
Odd book for a man to write.
It was apparently a romance, one set in the years immediately following American Independence and written in the first person by a female character. The story began with a young woman journeying from Philadelphia to the home of her new husband, a wealthy sea captain from Massachusetts. The idea of marriage to a stranger, a union arranged by her legal guardian, at first terrified the woman. Upon meeting the handsome, dashing sea captain, however, she fell helplessly in love.
The usual romantic drivel, Dominique decided with disappointment.
As she continued reading, though, she noticed that the tone of the story changed. The bride soon learned there was a darker side to her husband: he was moody, secretive and often bad-tempered.
This is more like it! The fluffy little romance is turning into a Brontë-esque gothic tale. Will the brooding sea captain have a mad wife hidden in the attic like Mr. Rochester did?
The manuscript, however, was not complete. Dominique was left sitting on the sofa with the yellowed pages in her hand, wondering what skeletons the writer might have revealed in the sea captain's closet had he not been murdered.
"Perhaps I should hire a medium to contact the writer to find out how the story ends," she laughed.
Then a bolt of inspiration struck her. She wanted to be a writer; here was her chance! She could complete the manuscript. At long last Dominique broke through the wall of her writer's block! She ran upstairs to get her laptop, but as she passed the small room under the east gable, she stopped.
I bought this place so that the atmosphere would inspire me. The greatest source of inspiration is right there in that room.
An hour later, Dominique sat at a card table in front of the mullioned window, writing with a fountain pen she'd had for who knows how many years. She continued the story where the dead writer left off, working for several hours and stopping late in the evening, exhausted and hungry, yet deliriously happy because she was finally writing again.
* * *
That night, as darkness set in, the ghostly author returned to the room under the east gable. The card table and folding chair at which Dominique had sat earlier in the day were clearly visible beneath the semi-transparent desk at which the spectral writer continued working on the manuscript.
I wonder if he even noticed that I added several pages to his story.
If he had, he gave no indication of it.
During the next several weeks, this pattern continued without deviation. During the daylight hours Dominique worked on the manuscript, and at night her ghostly visitor assumed the task.
"It's time for the graveyard shift to begin," she joked one evening when she saw the ghost begin to materialize as the sun went down.
The next day, Dominique reread the entire manuscript over her morning cup of coffee.
"This is really quite good," she admitted. "I'll bet my ghostly collaborator and I would have a bestseller on our hands if we ...."
What was she thinking? How could she publish a book, more than half of which was written by a ghost?
"The idea is ludicrous!" she said, neatly arranging the growing stack of papers. "But who is to know that the book was not entirely my own creation? Is the phantom writer likely to rise from the dead, contact a lawyer and sue me for plagiarism? It's highly unlikely. Why shouldn't I submit the manuscript to a publisher then?"
As the tale of the young bride and her handsome sea captain progressed, however, Dominique began to experience inexplicable feelings of unease. She started to imagine strange voices in the night and movements in the shadows. Yet regardless of her growing discomfort, she was compelled to go up to the east gable each morning, read what the ghost had written the previous night and contribute her own ideas to the story.
One day she wrote a particularly disturbing scene in which the heroine learns her husband is involved with a group of wreckers: unscrupulous townspeople who deliberately lure unsuspecting ships onto the rocky coast. After the ships run aground, the captain and his henchmen then kill the survivors, plunder the ship and hide all traces of their heinous crime. The wife, who by now had lost her romantic ideals about the man she had married, confronted him with this knowledge. His reaction had been both explosive and violent. He swiftly struck out with his heavy hand and administered a little husbandly correction.
Dominique put down her pen and stared at the paper.
Why did I write that? she wondered. I don't even remember thinking about such a scene.
For the first time, she considered the fact that there might be an unknown force working through her. Was it the murdered man who had begun the manuscript so many years ago? Could it be that in his ghostly state, he could enter her subconscious mind during the day and write through her?
Dominique pushed herself away from the card table. It had been weeks since she ventured outside of Windsor House. Suddenly, she had to get away from it for a while.
Being a book lover by nature, she naturally gravitated toward the Silent Harbor public library. She walked through the lobby of the old building and looked at the selection of new releases. Suddenly her attention was drawn to a portrait above a large brick fireplace in a reading room to the right of the entrance. The man in the painting was about fifty years old and very handsome. The graying hair at his temples and the salt-and-pepper beard gave him a distinguished, regal look, but the steely glint in his blue eyes conveyed a sinister streak.
Dominique moved closer and read the name plaque on the frame. The portrait was that of Captain Gideon Mayfield. An icy chill swept through her. Although the man's name was never mentioned in the text, Dominique instinctively knew that this was the sea captain in the dead writer's manuscript.
"You really existed," she whispered, looking up into his menacing countenance.
"Excuse me? Did you say something?" asked librarian Patience Scudder who had emerged from the rear of the building.
"I was just talking to myself," Dominique replied, slightly embarrassed. "I've heard of this man, Captain Mayfield."
"I'm not surprised. He was a very wealthy and prominent man here in the village. Generous to a fault, too. He founded the library and donated a large collection of books to get it started."
"Funny, he doesn't look like a man who enjoyed reading."
"The books belonged to his wife. She was murdered, strangled to death. The captain wanted to keep her memory alive, so he created this library in her honor. She was a writer, you see."
"They lived in Windsor House," Dominique said, stating a fact rather than asking a question.
"Yes. That's where she was murdered. They never did find out who killed her."
"They'll know soon enough," Dominique said mysteriously.
Then, moving as though in a trance, she left the library, got into her Subaru and drove back to the old house. She walked, zombie-like, up the stairs and into the room in the east gable.
The card table and folding chair were gone. The room was fully furnished with a Chippendale writing desk, bookshelves, two wing chairs and a small reading table. Dominique took no notice of either the room's furnishing or the long, flowing dress that had mysteriously replaced her jeans and sweatshirt as she stepped over the threshold.
She walked to the desk, reached into the drawer and removed the pages she had been working on. She had to be quick and make her escape before he came home and before he could prevent her from leaving. As she was gathering a few personal items together, a shadow was cast into the room. Dominique turned. Gideon's massive frame filled the doorway, cutting off the light from the hallway and blocking her only means of escape.
"Where do you think you're going, woman?" he bellowed.
"N-nowhere," she stammered as she shrunk from his threatening presence. "I came upstairs to write."
The captain stared at the sheaf of papers his wife was clutching in her hand.
"And just what is it you've been writing now?" he demanded to know.
"Nothing much. Just some foolish poems. You know how silly we women are."
Gideon reached out and grabbed the papers from her hand.
"I'll see for myself if you don't mind."
Frightened, Dominique backed away, staring wide-eyed like a cornered animal. The captain's face turned purple with rage as he read his wife's detailed account of his nefarious dealings.
"I see you haven't learned your lesson," he growled, menacingly advancing toward the terrified woman.
"No," she whimpered. "Please don't. I'll destroy the manuscript. You can burn it in the fireplace if you'd like."
"And what's to stop you from writing these things down again? No. Women have got to learn to hold their tongues and stay out of a man's business."
Dominique tried to run, but her husband had only to reach out his long, muscular arm and catch her in his grasp. She fought valiantly, but the petite woman was no match for the bear of a man who towered over her.
Captain Mayfield was further enraged by Dominique's struggling. His hands reached around her neck, hoping only to give her a good scare, but he underestimated his own strength, and within a matter of minutes, he choked his young wife to death.
Dominique's body slumped to the floor. The captain picked her up and placed her in the chair at her writing desk. He then grabbed the papers, locked them in a small chest he'd taken down from the bookshelf and hid them in the attic. Finally, he notified the local lawmen—most of whom had taken part in one or more of the captain's shipwrecking parties—that his wife had been murdered by an intruder.
After a cursory investigation, the woman's body was sent back to Philadelphia for burial. Her murder was never solved, for no one in Silent Harbor would dare accuse Captain Gideon Mayfield of involvement in his wife's death.
* * *
"This is by far your finest work," the publisher said, looking across his desk at the grinning writer. "But it is in no way like the other stories you've submitted in the past. Mind if I ask you where you came up with the idea for this one?"
The writer laughed.
"It's strange, but last year I moved into a seventeenth-century house in New England. I was actually suffering from writer's block at the time when I found a diary in an old chest in the attic. I was touched by the young woman's story, so I decided to rewrite the diary in the form of a novel."
"A diary, huh? Do you think this woman and her husband really existed?"
"I know they did. I saw the captain's portrait in the Silent Harbor Library. Furthermore, I located his wife's grave in an old cemetery in Philadelphia."
"I don't suppose you were able to find out who murdered her?"
A smile played across the writer's face.
"I think it was the captain himself. By all accounts, he was an unsavory sort of fellow. As a matter of fact," the writer continued, "I intend to do a little investigating into the poor girl's death. I'd like to write a nonfiction article exposing this captain for the monster he was."
"When you finish it, bring it to me. I'd love to read it."
The writer stood and shook his publisher's hand. Then he left the office, with his large advance check tucked safely in his jacket pocket.
After author Peter McDonnell left the publisher's office, he made the long drive back to Windsor House. He walked up the main staircase and part-way down the long hallway to the small room in the east gable. The card table and folding chair were still placed in front of the window.
The writer sighed. He had not been completely honest with his publisher; he didn't tell him about the strange visions he'd had while sitting in the gable room or of the conclusion he'd come to: that Windsor House was haunted by the ghost of the murdered writer, Dominique Mayfield.
Despite what Salem likes to tell everyone, he was not the ghostwriter for the Harry Potter series.
