The List

"So this is the place, huh," said Clair.

Daniel nodded. "Yep. This is it."

They stood in the large entranceway of the manor. Cobwebs hung wherever there was a right angle; along wall sconces, from decorative furniture, between bulbs on the chandelier. The smell of stale air and damp, rotting wood was as undeniable as the footprints through the middle of the dust covered floor.

The lobby had a ceiling that would have been three stories high in a modern home but was split into two very tall floors. Long corridors extended east and west towards their respective wings, with a third extending straight towards the rear. There was a balcony that wrapped around all four sides of the lobby, and ornately framed paintings that filled the space on the walls; some small, others massive.

Clair closed the front door as Daniel pushed aside thick curtains covering a window. "How about we get some fresh air in here?" he says. With a grunt he frees the pane from the grime in which it rests and swings it open.

"Wow. This place is unreal," Clair says.

She walks slowly along the perimeter, passing an old brass lamp on a small side table, stopping at a large painting of a sailor on a ship in a storm. She reaches out and touches it, then rolls the dust between her fingers. She turns to her brother with a mischevious look on her face. "You know, they say this place is haunted."

"It wouldn't surprise me," he replies.

"I thought you didn't believe in ghosts?" she responds, continuing her exploration of the lobby.

Daniel pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. "I said I ninety-nine percent don't believe in ghosts," he corrected. "But, you know, I can't disprove them either, so," he shrugs.

Clair laughs. "Woah, check out this thing!" She pulls a thin, old sword off a mount on the wall. Above it is a large painting of a soldier in battle, his face covered with mud and blood, violently dispatching his enemy. "Damn, this some musketeer shit right here." She grabs the handle and points it at Daniel across the room. "En guarde!"

He gives her a disapproving look. "Come on, focus up. Let's do what we came for then get the hell out of here."

"Ooh, I think someone's scared," Clair taunts.

"No, someone is hungry. I want to swing by that barbecue place we saw on the way."

Clair rolls her eyes and puts the sword back on the mount. As Daniel unfolds the paper in his hands, he notices the footprints through the center of the lobby. "Hey, did you walk here?"

"Huh?"

"Right there," Daniel points. "These footprints. Was that you?"

"What? I've been with you the whole time," Clair says, confused.

Daniel shakes his head, losing patience. "Nevermind. So, Grandma's letter says she kept an inventory of her significant belongings in the top right drawer of the desk in her study." He looks around the room at the three corridors leading to other areas of the manor, and then up at the doors along the second floor balcony. "Now where would that be...?"

"You really don't remember this place, do you?" Clair asks, hands on her hips, the bloodied face in the painting looking over her shoulder; the eyes of the soldier watching Daniel.

"I was too young..." he says. Is he looking at me? Daniel thinks, eyeing the painting. Ridiculous. Dismissing the idea, he continues, "you have a couple of years on me. All I really remember are those creepy statues in the backyard."

"Oh yeah, I totally forgot about those! They are creepy. We should get a selfie in front of them before we leave."

Clair suddenly turns her head to look down the hall, seeing something white move in the corner of her vision.

"What is it?" Daniel asks.

She furroughs her brow. "I don't know... I thought I saw..." She shakes head and turns back to her brother. "It was nothing. Anyways, if my memory serves me right, there was a stairwell at the back, and then Grandma's study is the first of the rooms up at the top."

Daniel folds and places their grandmother's letter back in his pocket and joins his sister, careful to step over the line of footprints in the dust. Together they began walking down the center corridor.

The afternoon sunlight from the open window in the lobby could only illuminate the corridor so much, and the farther they got along, the darker it became. Locked, closed doors lined each side. With every step the floor released a creak that sent needles down their spines. Halfway along a scratching sound tore past them, causing Clair to shriek and cover her mouth with her hands. The thin tail of a rat disappeared into the darkness ahead.

Tense and on edge, they reached the end of the corridor, finding twin staircases to the second floor. In the wall in front of them was a set of large curtains. Daniel tossed them aside, allowing the bright afternoon sun to flood through.

The darkness of the corridor was no more. Dust particles floated motionless in the air, catching the rays and twinkling like glitter. Undoing the latch, he cast the window open. A strong gust of air swept Clair's hair back from her face and sent the floating motes cartwheeling down the hall.

"Ah, much better!" Daniel says.

"Agreed."

Daniel and Clair climb the stairs to the second floor to find another hallway lined with rooms.

"Here," Clair says, "I think it's this one." She twists the knob and pushes open the first door on their right, then toggles the flashlight app on her phone. Taking her cue, Daniel does the same.

"Woah, bro, check this out!" Clair says, running over to something that caught her eye.

"Clair, what are you..." But before Daniel had a chance to finish, Clair had already turned back around to face him. On her head was a large black mask with a long beak like a bird. "Come on, we don't have time for this. Quit messing around."

Abruptly, she raises her arms over her head and begins moving her limps in awkward jerks, craning her neck back and forth, and making a low gutteral sound.

Daniel walks over and pulls the mask off of her head. "You are such a fool. I don't understand how you function in the professional world."

Clair laughs and shrugs, "its not that hard. I just pretend."

"How about we do some of that pretending now, ya?"

She scoffs and her shoulders sink. "Whatever. You're no fun."

Daniel puts the mask back on the stand where Clair had found it, then notices a peculiar table against the wall. "Woah... What in the hell..."

On the table, spread carefully over a moth-eaten tablecloth, lay an assortment of metal instruments. Daniel picks up one with a wooden handle attached to a long jagged blade. "Is this a bone saw?"

Clair reaches for a small metal blade fastened to a thin wooden handle, then thinks better of it. "Umm, so, why does Grandma have a table of torture tools?"

Daniel put the surgical saw back down. "I don't know and I don't care. And," he says, giving her a stern look, "clearly your memory sucks." He gestures to the room. "This ain't Grandma's study. Let's find that list and get the hell out of here." Clair nods in agreement and they both leave the room.

He leads them across the hall to a room directly opposite, the only room with a door already standing open. Near the center of the room sits a large desk. "Ah, here we go," he says as Clair follows him inside.

The room was entirely bordered by bookshelves, mostly full, the occasional trinket or souvenir filling in the gaps. Daniel, not one to break habit now, pulls the curtains and throws open the window.

"You said top right?" Clair asks, moving around the desk.

He retrieves the letter from his pocket. "Uhh... yep, top right."

Clair opens the drawer, finds a mess of folded papers, and decides to dump all of it on the desk. Sorting through she finds a bundle folded together with the word Inventory written in scrawled handwriting at the top of the first page, followed by many pages of line items paired with descriptions.

"I think I got it!" She says to Daniel, who turns away from perusing the bookshelves and joins her at the desk.

He traces his finger down the items on the pages. "Good find, I think you're right. This should help the estate trustee divvy up her belongings. Great! Alright, now let's get out of here. This place creeps me out and I've been daydreaming about barbecue for the past hour."

"Hold on a minute. Take a look here," Clair says, pointing to the description of an item on the page. "Surgeon Barber mask and assorted medical tools - Equipment inherited from my father that belonged to my great grandfather, Arthur J. Callahan, MD, a surgeon in New York, late 1800s."

"Wow, the eighteen hundreds, that's incredible," says Daniel.

Clair looks at her brother. "Imagine being sick and some guy with a terrifying bird mask shows up. That's terrifying."

"Yeah, screw that." Daniel continues skimming over the pages. "Hey, here's that sword: Soldiers Rapier belonging to my great great grandfather, who fought nobly for the South." He looks at his sister with a grim expression. "Guess we can't all be on the right side of history."

She shakes her head in exaggerated shame, "come on, Grandma," then reads the next item, "Painting of g.g.g.f at the Battle of Antieta, 1862."

"So that soldier was our great great grandfather, eh? Crazy. Didn't know we had relatives who fought for the South," Daniel says.

"Great great great great grandfather," Clair corrects, eyes scanning over the remaining of the items and descriptions on the page.

Daniel shakes his head, "What?"

"He was Grandma's great great grandfather. So... that would make him our great great great great grandfather."

His mouth hung open, baffled. "Seriously? Is that really important right now? Who cares? Grab the list and let's get going already."

Clair shrugs and folds the bundle of papers. "Okie dokie."

They made their way back down the stairs.

With the drapes pulled aside and the windows open, they both begin to see the manor in a new light. The cobwebs, at first unsettling, now looked almost beautiful, catching the sunlight on their fine silk strands. The warm breeze that sent dust motes dancing around also dispelled the smell of damp wood, replacing it with the scent of freshly mowed grass. Instruments of torture and gruesome paintings were now relics of the siblings' shared past.

It's incredible how different something can look in the dark, Clair thinks. I bet even that rat is cute in the light!

Well, maybe not the rat.

Along the now-illuminated and not-scary-at-all main corridor, Clair notices a scrap of white paper on the floor peaking out from behind a wooden stand. She picks it up and reads it as Daniel walks passed her towards the painting of their civil war relative in the lobby.

Looking at the soldier's eyes he sees that they are clearly looking down at the enemy, not out towards them. "You were never watching me at all, were you?" he says softly to himself.

"Eh? What was that?" Clair asks, looking up from the paper.

"Nothing," he responds, putting his hands in his pockets and continuing on his way to the front door.

"Hey bro, listen to this," Clair says, reading from the paper. "Dear Daniel and Clair. We came by Thursday to conduct the preliminary audit of the house and grounds for the appraisal. Unfortunately we were called away before we could begin. We will return on Saturday. Regards, Silvia Weston, Montgomery & Co." She held the paper up for Daniel to see. "The breeze from the windows must have blown this off the stand."

Daniel nodded. "Well, if she was here yesterday, that explains these footprints," gesturing to the floor. "Now," he exclaims, a grin coming over his face as he rubs his hands together with excitement. "Let's go get us some delicious southern barbecue!"

Gravel crunched under the tires of their rental as they left down the drive. The manor of their grandmother, at first dark and foreboding, had turned out to be no more than an old house with lots of family history.

The next day a different car made its way up the gravel drive.

From the glove compartment, Silvia Weston retrieved a key and a flashlight. She walked up the steps in her real-estate agent high heels and let herself in, clicking on the light and shining it around the lobby. The smell of stale air and damp, rotting wood was as undeniable as the darkness that seemed to swallow the very light she was casting.

"Someone really needs to open the windows and get some fresh air in this place."