Hell Within -- Chapter Ten: The House of Lancaster -- Scenes 1-3

-Chapter Ten: The House of Lancaster-

-1-

The massive door of faded hand-carvings swung open and a woman poked her face out -- her white skin pale against the black stone. It was not the kind of face Mandy would expect to find within such a dreary residence.

She looked like the typical middle-class mom type -- auburn hair straight and shoulder length, a symmetrical face, a fit physique. There was nothing remotely Igor-like about her.

"Hi," she said. "You must be Mandy."

"Yeah," she said looking up at the tons of stone above her and shook her head.

"Don't let the size of it scare you. My husband and I only live out of a small part of it."

"You're Mrs. Eaton?"

The woman looked away shyly.

"I'm not that respectable. Amy's fine."

"So we have the same name?"

Amy shook her head. "My name's actually Amymone. My mother was weird."

Mandy looked down the side of the house.

"I don't know if I'm qualified for this."

Amy smiled. "If you know how to operate a broom, you'll be fine."

Amy opened the door all the way and led her through a stately foyer of white plaster walls and gaudy archways dressed in gold curtains, through a stone hallway lit only by candles, and into a den filled with portraits.

One of the portraits in particular caught her eye.

On the far end of the room, hanging prominently above a six-foot hearth was the countenance of the man in her dream. Mandy stared at it with foreboding.

We've come to protect you.

"What's wrong?"

Mandy pointed at the portrait. "Who's that?"

Amy shrugged. "I dunno. I've been meaning to take the ugly thing down."

Mandy looked at her. "Where are you and your husband from?"

"Ben's from all over the place."

Mandy looked back at the portrait. "Where?"

Amy sighed. "Here, Gwinnett, Clarkesville, Athens, Gainesville. . . ."

"Athens?"

She nodded. "He went to college at UGA."

"When?"

Amy frowned and studied Mandy. "Why?"

"My mother was a business major in UGA in the eighties."

"What a coincidence!"

Mandy looked around the den again. The ceilings soared above her head, and the walls were of oak. And all the furniture must've been at least a hundred years old.

"This house is fabulous!"

Amy shook her head and started for the sofa.

"I wish I thought so. All of this finery is too much for me."

Mandy followed her and sat across from her in an armchair that was about three sizes too big.

Amy looked at her and grinned. "That chair must've been made for someone with a fat ass."

Mandy laughed.

And Amy rolled her eyes. "I have a lot of dreams, but being rich and surrounded by all this ruffle and fluff is not one of them."

Amy looked at the fireplace and started fiddling with her hair. "I always thought of myself as a Mom in a three bedroom house and a husband who works fifty plus hours a week."

"I'd trade places with you any day."

Amy huffed. "And you'd have no idea what you were getting yourself into."

"Neither would you."

Amy looked down at her lap.

"So tell me about the job," Mandy said.

Amy nodded as if remembering something. "The job is for a maid. You can live here, if you want, free of charge. We have plenty of room. Most of the time all you'll be doing is cleaning the rooms on the fifth floor, and maybe the downstairs kitchen."

"And the pay is the same as you mentioned in the add?"

"Yeah, if you live in, you'll be paid two hundred a week."

Mandy nodded.

"You're still in high school, right?"

"I'm a junior."

Amy squinted at her. "What do your parents think about you working as a full-time maid?"

Mandy waved. "That's complicated. I just finished going through an emancipation suit."

"Oh?"

She shrugged.

"So you're emancipated?"

"Not exactly. The judge put me under the legal guardianship of my shrink until I'm eighteen."

"Your shrink?"

Mandy couldn't believe she'd said that.

Please hire me. I'm not a psycho, I swear.

"It's totally screwed up, and I want out of it," she replied.

Amy studied her carefully. "So how did you end up under the guardianship of your shrink?"

She shook her head. "He saw that I was in a really bad situation and intervened, and then my mother died."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Mandy shrugged.

Amy shook her head tightly. "You're not going to quit school are you?"

"Oh no! Dr. Ambrose would never allow that. I'm just gonna be
booked up and stressed out for the rest of my life."

Amy nodded. "That's terrible."

Mandy shook her head. "Not really. No need to worry about emancipation now. And having Dr. Ambrose as my legal guardian is not hurting anything. All I have to do is finish school, and concentrate on pulling myself out of this mess."

Amy smiled. "You have a good attitude about it."

Mandy sighed. "Well, now you know why this job is so perfect. Completely flexible full-time employment with a place to stay that doesn't involve constant weirdness."

Amy screwed up her face. "Does your shrink still charge you a hundred bucks an hour for conversation?"

Mandy laughed.

"Well," Amy sighed, "If you want the job, it's yours."

Mandy squinted. "Didn't you say you wanted me to meet your husband?"

Amy looked away from her. "Don't worry about it. He's asleep."


-2-

Two days later, school was finally out, and Mandy found herself standing in a bedroom on the fourth floor that was to become her own.

"So what do you think?" Amy said.

Mandy didn't know what to think. The furniture and finery about the room overloaded her senses.

It reminded her of a hotel room set in an old western movie.

The flooring was a well-preserved, rich hardwood -- not of the variety one might find in some of the newer and cheaper homes. A single panel of it was as wide as her foot.

A kind of fabric covered the walls like wallpaper -- white with a golden embossed flourish design, and both the fifteen-foot arched windows that overlooked the front yard were dressed with tasseled gold curtains.

There was a rosewood card table between the windows with two matching chairs on either side.

There was a tall canopy bed against the wall to her right also draped in gold curtains and tassels, and beside it, another small table of about the same size as the card table with a yellow and white porcelain vase on top of it and a matching bowl.

"It's beautiful," she said.

"More ruffle and fluff," Amy said almost under her breath.

Mandy frowned at her.

"Listen, I know it's a long way up here. If you need help unloading your car. . . ."

Mandy smiled. "I work for you, remember."

Amy rolled her eyes. "I'm not an old-money maid. I spent the first nine years of my life living in a single-wide trailer."

"Okay."

Amy nodded. "I have to make a phone call, so if you need me, I'll be in the downstairs den."

"Thanks."

Amy smiled and turned out of the room closing the door behind her.

Mandy walked across the room to the arched windows, and peeked out over the front lawn.

The warmth from the spring sun streamed in and warmed her hair.

Outside, blue skies -- emerald grass.

Paradise.

Surely, this had to be a mistake. There was no way that the man who owned all of this could be her father.

A heavy knock at the door broke her trance. She turned away from the window.

"Yes?"

The door opened, and she recoiled at the sight of the man on the other side.

He was tall -- at least six feet with a husky build. And he had the ruddy complexion of a black man who had a bit of Caucasian in his family history.

"I'm sorry," he said with a booming voice. "I didn't mean to startle you."

He smiled, and she looked over him carefully. He had boxy silver framed glasses with thick lenses drooping halfway down his short nose -- iron gray hair. And though his smile was a bit disarming there was something in his manner that Mandy didn't altogether like.

He stood in the shadows of the hallway just out of the reach of the sunlight as though its warm embrace would turn him to dust, and when he'd first opened the door, she could have sworn that his eyes, now dark and friendly were glowing green.

"Who are you?" she said.

He nodded. "I am Tom Freeman, the caretaker of the estate."

She squinted and took a step toward him. "I wasn't aware that anyone else worked here."

He nodded and looked down at the floor in a manner that seemed humble.

"I'm afraid that I'm not of much avail anymore given my advancing years."

She stepped over to the door, but she couldn't tell any more about him than she already had.

"I'm. . . ."

"Mandy Green," he asserted extending his hand -- still just out of the reach of the morning sunlight.

She shook his hand, and her small hand disappeared in his paw. And she didn't like touching him. His hand was cold and clammy like the flesh of a corpse, and the skin was so soft that he may have never worked a day in his life.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. If there's anything at all that I might do to make your stay here more enjoyable, feel free to ask."

"Thank you," she said.

His grammar was impeccable -- better than hers ever would be, and he seemed to have no accent at all.

"Where are you from?" she said.

His dark eyes narrowed to slits. "Many places, but I cut my teeth here. We've been here for generations."

"You have family here?"

He nodded. "Just a son, and just now, he's far away."

"Well, it was nice meeting you."

He stood up straight. "Indeed. Well, I'm sure you have much to do. If you need anything at all just ask. I could walk through this house blindfolded without ever touching a wall."

She laughed.

He nodded and turned away.

-3-

Mandy was headed outside to begin bringing up her things when someone knocked on one of the heavy doors of the foyer. She closed the distance and opened the door.

Another shock stood outside basking in the morning sunlight wearing a white polo shirt with a Wood County Sheriff's badge stenciled over his right breast.

"Mandy Green," Detective Davis said.

She took a step back from the door.

"Well, ain't this a small world."

She glared at him. "What do you want?"

He smiled and glanced at the officer standing next to him -- the same officer that had accompanied him when he'd come by Dr. Ambrose's office to inform her that her mother had been killed.

He gave her a perplexed look. "What are you doin' here?"

"I work here. This is my first day."

He nodded.

"Movin on up in the world, huh?"

"What do you want?" she repeated.

"Relax, I'm not here about you. I want to talk to a Ms. Amy Eaton. You know where she is, by any chance."

"You know this is harassment, don't you?"

He shook his head. "This ain't got nothin to do with you."

"What's the problem?" Amy said behind her.

Mandy turned around and faced Amy who stood in the mouth of the foyer holding her cell phone.

"Detective Davis and his boyfriend would like to speak with you."

Davis chuckled behind her.

Amy approached the door and peered over Mandy's shoulder.

"Can I help you?"

"You Ms. Eaton?"

"I am."

Davis eyed Mandy. "There someplace we can talk privately?"

Mandy pushed past the two men and stomped out of the house toward her escort glancing over her shoulder in time to see Amy invite them in the house.

(Continue to scenes 4-7)