By
Brynn Morgan
Copyright © 2023 by â Brynn Morgan â All Rights Reserved.
It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited.
Chapter 20
It was hushed in the room. None of the women made a sound. They had no words. What Elizabeth had put this innocent girl, this child, through was simply wrong.
"There is no doubt that Elizabeth raped by James was a terrible thing, but nothing excuses her behavior. No child deserves to be beaten and mistreated." Lainie said.
They left Clarrisa's apartment and drove back to the house. Both women were so silent.
Davis walked in the back door, into the mudroom, and removed his boots. He walked into the kitchen, where Lainie and Emily sat around the island and noticed their grave faces."You can hear a pin drop in here," he smiled. "How did tonight go?" "Did y'all find out anything?" he asked curiously.
Lainie and Emily were sitting at the island, heads bowed in contemplation and expressionless.
Lainie finally spoke up. "Davis, Elizabeth was brutally abusive to Penelope."
He grabbed a chilled beer bottle from the fridge and sat by Emily. His knee brushed against her leg, and Emily felt it. She did not move away.
Davis's voice was deep. "I'm sorry. Who is Penelope?" "I'm trying to catch up," he added.
Lainie responded softly. "Elizabeth never gave her daughter a name. She just called her the girl. She had a servant girl whom her husband, James, was sleeping with. And she took pity on the child and named her Penelope."
Davis picked up one of the journals and flipped through it absentmindedly. Emily spoke up. "We honestly do not know where to go from here. We feel like we have hit a major dead end. The journals ended, and we know that Elizabeth died, but what happened to Penelope?"
Lainie agreed with her. "Yeah. Not sure how to figure the rest of this out."
Davis stopped riffling through the pages and flipped the journal over in his hands, running his fingers over a small gold label. "How about here?" he said. He shoved the book over to Emily. She read the label aloud.
"Property of: Cynity Goldsborough Hastings"
Lainie's eyes widened. "Cynity Goldsborough Hastings it is. We will reach out to her tomorrow morning, and hopefully, she is still alive and will talk to us. She lives in Crosswind, which is close to here."
***
Emily could not sleep. She was so disturbed by Elizabeth's treatment of The Girl. Davis had insisted, since the night of the attack, that Emily was not to sleep alone anymore, so he made a pallet on his floor, and she slept in his bed. Emily felt horrible about it, but there was no arguing with him.
She rose from the bed, tossed back the covers, and climbed out, trying not to make any noise. Emily looked back at Davis lying on the floor and, placing her hand on the knob; she turned it slowly.
"Where are you going, Emily?" Davis's voice was low, a whisper in the dark room.
She jumped, startled. "To get some water."
Davis sat up and grabbed his cell phone to supply light; he stood up and walked over to her. "I don't want you alone for even one minute, Emily, not after what happened the other night." He spoke softly, raised his hand, and cupped her cheek, brushing a finger over her high cheekbone. Emily shivered from his touch.
She gasped lightly. "Even to go to the bathroom?" Emily teased, and there was just a hint of a smile on her lovely features. Was she flirting with this man?
Davis stepped closer to her, and his voice had a husky quality to it now. "I might let you do that alone, Em." he teased.
He called her Em, and it warmed her from the inside out. This man. He was making her breathless with his closeness to her. Emily stepped back, opened the bedroom door, and entered the darkened hallway.
Davis followed her but at a distance. She reached into the cabinet, pulled out a glass, and filled it with tap water from the sink. She stared out the window into the night as she took a sip from the glass.
"Penny, for your thoughts?" Davis spoke behind her, leaning against the fridge with his arms folded.
Emily sighed and rubbed her neck with her hand "I hope this lady can tell us more."
Davis hoped so, too.
***
Lainie looked up Cynity Hastings online that following day, and sure enough, she was alive, and Lainie found a phone number. She called.
"Hello," an older woman answered.
"Yes. May I speak with Cynity Hastings?"
There was silence on the other side of the phone. "This is she."
Lainie explained who she was and that she was looking for information on Hastings House. She said she had always been interested in the house, but that information was minimal. Lainie also informed Cynity that she had read the donated journals of Elizabeth Hasting and that it just came to a halt when Elizabeth passed but that she had a lot of questions still.
"Well," Cynity said in a southern accent that was graceful and dignified in tone. "I was hosting a meeting today with the historical society but canceled it because I am under the weather. However, I would be willing to speak with you this afternoon. If that works for you, dear?"
Lainie smiled. "That will be great."
Cynity gave her the address and told her she would see her then."
"Would you mind if I bring someone else with me?"
The older woman responded. "Of course not, dear,"and the call ended.
Emily was thrilled to hear that they were meeting with the woman. She could tell them more about the history of the place, at least she hoped that the lady could.
***
Cynity Hasting's home was a 1900s farmhouse completely renovated with a wraparound porch with white rockers. It had Queen Anne posts and railings, and on the bars were baskets with hanging ferns drooping down becomingly. It was rainy, and Cynity graciously welcomed them in and led them into a large, brightly lit sunroom with recessed lighting full of plants of different varieties. The inside of the house was very practical and simplistic and had so much rustic charm.
"Y'all have a seat here," she said. "And we can chat."
Cynity had little watercress finger sandwiches on a yellow plate and a glass picture of peach tea filled with small ice cubes with three glasses for each of them on the side. She knew all about hospitality.
Cynity Hastings was a handsome older woman in her eighties with a short white bob that framed her features and the brightest blue eyes. She was very fair and had few wrinkles, and her mind was brilliant. She must have been quite the beauty back in her day, Emily thought as the older women poured them each tea and placed two sandwiches on their plates.
She was slender and wore a light green Caftan, white linen lounge pants that flowed with the movements of her body. Cynity sat down across from them in a high-backed chair. They felt like they were in the presence of a queen with how she carried herself so regally.
"So," she said. "You are doing some research on Hastings House?"
Lainie sipped her tea, and Emily responded. "Yes. We would love to know more about the history of the house. We read Elizabeth Hastings journals that you donated some time ago, and now we want to learn more." Emily continued. "I was there for a couple of days and had to leave," she said.
Cynity raised one perfectly arched brown eyebrow.
"Why?" she asked slowly.
Emily did not even know how to go about explaining the encounter there. She stopped speaking.
Cynity sipped her tea and then sat her glass on a marble coaster.
Lainie spoke plainly. "Ma'am, have you heard about the girl?"
Cynity folded her arms in her lap and spoke. Her voice was wistful. "I was married to Parker Hasting for forty-eight years. He passed away two years ago here in the home he loved dearly. I will never forget it. I was a new bride of twenty-one when he first took me to Hasting's house. I met him at one of my beauty pageants. It was love at first sight for both of us, and we married at once. We eloped." she said with a small smile, she continued. "It was a chilly, snowy day in December, and his mother and father, Thomas and Rose, had thrown us a party. They were upset at Parker at first, but they came around to the idea and invited us over so that they could meet me."
She stood up and walked over to a fireplace made of fire brick, and the huge mahogany mantel was covered with photos in silver picture frames of Parker and Cynity's family down through the years. She gazed at the pictures with fondness. "They had invited many people to celebrate that afternoon, and it was so loud. I got nervous about all the attention and escaped upstairs to look around."
Lainie and Emily waited anxiously.
"I climbed that grand staircase, and when I got to the top of it, I turned to the left and went down the hallway. I had never been in such a large, beautiful home as Hastings and I was mesmerized with all the large rooms, fine furniture, and the like."
Cynity paused. She turned and looked at Lainie and Emily. "I was snooping around in the main bedroom, picking up perfume bottles from off the vanity and sniffing them, and I heard laughter. It was soft. I thought a child was behind me, so I turned." She sat back down in her chair. "There was nothing there. I walked back out into the hallway and looked. There was nothing there. So, I turned to go down the stairs, and I heard it againâthe laughter. I turned and looked down the opposite hallway to the right." Cynity's voice trembled slightly. "Down at the end of this dark corridor was a stream of gloomy light from an open bedroom door. I saw a child step out of the shadows, and she slowly started walking toward me. So slowly, as if in slow motion. I heard her laugh again. So, I said hello to her, and then she stopped. I thought that she wanted to play or something. She was young and small. She was looking at me with her head turned oddly. I told her who I was and asked her name."
Emily leaned forward with her hands on her knees. She waited.
"What did she say?" Lainie asked.
Cynity's eyes were closed as if relieving that moment many years ago. "She said nothing. She started walking toward me faster than before. I realized that the girl was not normal in how she walked. I turned away from her, getting scared that I was up there alone with her, and started down the staircase, and that is when it happened."
Emily gasped. "What?"
"I was pushed violently in my back by this thing and started falling."
Lainie and Emily's mouths gaped open.
"It was so evil, what I felt in that hallway, girls. She wanted to hurt me, to kill me. I was screaming, and Parker was able to get to me and catch me."
"Oh my God," Emily said, covering her hand with her mouth.
Cynity opened her eyes. "I never went back upstairs again. I did not want to go back to the house, to be honest, but I had to, down through the years."
"Did you see her?" Lainie asked.
Cynity shook her head. "Not clearly, but I could tell that she was wearing a dress. It looked old-fashioned with ruffles and had a high collar. That was all that I could see." she told them.
"Do you know who she is?" Lainie asked softly.
Cynity looked at them and took a sip of tea. "Parker said that there had been rumors for centuries of a violent spirit that had passed away at Hastings's house and that she was The Girl. He said that the rumor was that she had pushed many to their deaths down the staircase, and she wandered the dark corridors of Hastings House searching for her next victim."
"Do you know any history of the girl? Lainie asked again.
"I only read those diaries as you did, and they scared me so badly that when his mother bequeathed the journals to Parker, I had them donated to the library. I did not want them in my house," she said. Cynity leaned back in the chair. "I do not know what happened to The Girl after Elizabeth's death, but I feel that the room at the end of that hallway, where she was locked in sometimes, would contain some answers. She died in that house, but I am not sure how. It was very violent for her to seek vengeance, as she has for all these years. That is your next place to search. The locked room."