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parkers-notebook · 2 years

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The House

(This is the opening to a lesbian horror story I wanted to work on when I was stuck on Red Death Ball. I know it's really exposition heavy, and I plan to edit that when the story is finished, but I wanted to share the backstory of the haunted house I'm creating)

There were signs all over the place. Really, my first clue should have been the fact that the listing was that underpriced. I mean, fifteen thousand for a rambling old Victorian mansion? One that was up to code, according to the inspector I hired to find out what the catch was, completely modernized while still maintaining the old world feeling? One that came prefurnished with lovely antique furniture, and even had a butler and maid service already set up? I should have run the other direction. I really should have.

And, I mean, I checked online. Most of the manors in this part of the state were going for four or five times that cost, and I'm talking for houses that are roughly half the size of Gracebourne Manor. This place is huge. Like... six acres of land, and a manor house that reminds me of Downton Abbey. There are servant passages in the damn walls! The last owners did a huge remodel, too, making sure all the plumbing was up to date and the house had electricity. It really was a good deal for the house.

Besides, Anna and I, we wanted a large place. Nice big plot of land for the kinds to play, if we ever got around to having those. We'd been talking about it for a while, but the time wasn't right. Even so, how many women in their mid twenties get the chance to own a place like Gracebourne Manor? Anna's inheritance would cover the cost outright, we didn't even have to mortgage it. And her trust fund could keep the property taxes covered, plus any emergency costs that might come up. We didn't need to worry about any of that.

I didn't marry Anna for her money, of course. Hell, I didn't even know her family was wealthy until we were engaged. Anna never cared about any of that. And sure, the Breckinridges never really liked me. Her mother, the high and mighty Lucinda Breckinridge, refused to her dying day to acknowledge that her only daughter was even a lesbian. Whatever. Alistair, her father, was cordial enough, and he made sure Lucinda didn't disown Anna for marrying me. He even refused to let Lucinda demand a prenup for our wedding. He just wanted Anna to be happy, and if Miss Evangeline Dumont from backwoods Georgia was it, then by God, he was going to make me feel welcome. Hell, half the money was left to me outright in the will. I didn't expect that, but it was nice.

So we could afford it. And I wanted Anna to have a bit of the privilege she was accustomed to. She said it didn't matter, that we were happy in our little walkup apartment in Savannah, but I wanted more for her. Hell, I wanted more for me too. I didn't intend to find Gracebourne Manor; I wanted a little house outside the city, but most of those were going for twenty thousand or more, and when the realtor mentioned Gracebourne Manor, well, I jumped at the chance.

But yeah, there were signs that something was off. I knew the history, of course. Gracebourne Manor, built in nineteen hundred by Mister Edward Henry Gracebourne. The Gracebourne family itself dated back to before the Civil War, but the original house, on a plot of land that no longer connects to the current acreage, burned down during the war. You see, the Gracebournes were good people, abolitionists in slave owning Georgia. They were accused of treason during the Southern succession, and while they escaped the charges, fleeing North during the war and staying there for a few decades after, the house was set aflame. A warning against them ever returning to Savannah.

But in the late eighteen nineties, Edward Gracebourne and his new bride, Miss Avaline Pritchard, returned to the ancestral land. They marked off six acres of the dozen or so that they still owned, and sold everything outside of that, including the spot where the original house stood. Edward designed and built the new Gracebourne Manor. It took ten years, during which time Avaline lived in a townhouse in downtown Savannah with her husband and their growing family. That townhouse, incidentally, was turned into apartments in the seventies, and is actually where Anna and I lived until we bought the manor.

But I digress. So, in nineteen ten, the new house was finished, and Edward moved his family into it: Avaline, their nine year old son, their seven year old daughter, and the three servants who lived with them. They kept the townhouse, so they had a place to stay when they were in the city. Everything was fine for about two years. During that time, Avaline gave birth to another little girl, Elizabeth, and they hired a new nanny to tend to her. Edward was away constantly, tending to his business interests up North, but he hired a caretaker for the manor and his family, one Richard Jameson.

It was rumored in town that little Elizabeth Gracebourne was not actually the daughter of Edward, but of Richard. She looked nothing like him, after all, though honestly, who can say what a child is going to look like when they grow up? But people were nasty gossips, and Richard living in that big house with Mrs. Gracebourne set tongues wagging. Edward didn't believe a word of it, of course. Avaline swore that she was faithful, and that was good enough for him.

It was during one of Edward's visits home that things began to go sour. The older daughter, Matilde, began claiming that there was a man in her room at night. Naturally, they at first assumed that she was imagining things. Until the night that Avaline, going to tend to her daughter after hearing her cry out, caught Mr. Jameson in the room with her. I won't say what he was caught doing, but I'm sure you can guess. Well, Avaline shrieked bloody murder, and Edward came running in with a pistol. When Avaline screamed, RIchard Jameson leapt on her, trying to make her hush, and when Edward saw that man atop his wife, half dressed and throttling her... he shot him.

Unfortunately, the bullet missed him. It didn't miss poor Avaline, though. Richard rolled away from her and fled past Edward, who was beside himself at the turn of events. He dropped that gun and went to his wife, trying to save her. Matilde's screams brought the butler running, and before long, the police had been summoned. Edward was arrested for the murder of his wife, though he was later acquitted when Matilde was able to testify that he'd been trying to protect Avaline. He returned to Gracebourne Manor, and there he stayed.

Matilde committed suicide at fifteen. She couldn't get past the trauma of what Richard Jameson had done to her, or the trauma of seeing her mother die in front of her. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, found her hanging from the banister of the attic hallway. Elizabeth herself went missing, also at fifteen, never to be seen again. Edward ate a bullet in nineteen twenty seven, a year after Elizabeth's disappearance. And the son, Edward Jr? He began to receive letters from an unknown source, each one containing a tantalizing clue about his sister's whereabouts, though they never panned out. Elizabeth was declared dead in nineteen thirty. Edward Jr sold Gracebourne Manor and moved back to the townhouse in Savannah. During World War Two, he was killed in a battle in France. No one knows what became of Richard Jameson.

Every owner of Gracebourne Manor has reported seeing things, feeling cold spots, all the usual haunted house claptrap. So Anna was wary about the house. But we couldn't raise a family in that little walkup apartment. We couldn't even have a dog there. No pets allowed. And we had the money, so why not make the change?

Besides, she changed her mind once she saw the house. It really was a lovely old place, and as I said, completely modernized inside. We even had internet. And a pond on the property, where we could teach kids to swim. So after the inspector returned a clean bill of health for the house, we signed the papers and started the process to move in.

I really should have paid attention to the signs.

#writing #writblr #horror #original fiction #tw: child abuse #tw: suicide mention #please be nice

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