Whispers of the Devil

Layla

There isn't much that can scare me. Maybe that's why I became a nurse.

Maybe that's why I didn't balk at the idea of spending a summer in an entirely creepy, and no doubt haunted, French Colonial style mansion smack dab in the center of a swamp, cypress lined property in Hahnville, Louisiana.

I've seen scarier places. I've walked the haunted halls of hospitals all over the country during my four years of being a travel nurse. I've seen things in emergency rooms that would make someone's nightmares look and sound like child's play.

This place doesn't scare me. Although, maybe it should.

Mom's voice rattles in my ear as she pleads, "Layla, seriously, you can turn around and come home!"

"I already signed the paperwork," I say with a sigh, narrowing my eyes at the gargantuan structure looming in the distant haze of summer.

Overhead, cypress trees hang with vines that dust the top of my Toyota 4-Runner, the only major purchase I've ever made in my life. Before this moment, I'd been sleeping in bunk beds or on couches in whatever cramped apartments I could find during my nursing rotations. I've never stayed in one place very long. Not long enough to need a car, or to sign for my own apartment, that's for sure. The winding driveway is several miles long by my estimation, guarded by a rotting iron gate covered in vines. The columns on either side were cloaked in wisteria, a stunning purple against the age and decay that seems to ooze from this place like a festering wound.

This place is rotting, like whatever lurks inside the boundary of this property should have been dead a long, long time ago.

"She's bat-shit crazy, Layla. There's a reason the rest of the family keeps their distance." Speaking of something that should have died a long time ago, at least in my mom's opinion. "Your great-aunt has been a raving lunatic since she was sixteen."

"Well, I'll be the judge of that, given that I've never met her and only have your exaggerated family stories to back up those claims."

Mom huffs, her voice cracking down the line as the connection shudders. I have one bar of service out here. Maybe that's a good thing, given that my mom has it in mind to call me repeatedly now that she knows of my intentions here. "She's been cooped up in the house for decades, sweetie. I'm talking fifty or sixty years. The place is sinking, you know. Falling into the swamp. Your uncle wanted it condemned back in the eighties, but she flat out refused to leave, and there's nothing that can be done."

"I'm not here to save the house," I argue as my car bumps along the desperately cracked concrete driveway. Cypress roots have sprung from the cement, fanning out like dark claws that dig into the stone like talons. "I'm here because she needs a new night nurse, and the executor of her estate reached out to me directly."

"He never said you needed to be the one to bring your life to a grinding halt to make sure she doesn't asphyxiate in her sleep, for Christ's sake!"

I grind my teeth and stare out of the windshield as the house bounds into view, it's once white paint now gray and peeling. Four stories of darkened windows greet me as I pull into the driveway beside a rusted out sedan. "Look, I'm here. I'm fine, okay? I needed a break from the emergency room setting, and this is only a short-term gig. Once a permanent night nurse has been found, I'll be back in Washington, and I'll find another job close by this time."

Mom isn't happy. I imagine her stalking back and forth in front of the bay window in my old childhood home in Kirkland, Washington, just outside of Seattle. "There's a reason no one goes there, Layla."

"Because it's haunted?" I laugh, leaning my head back against the headrest and letting my car idle. "I should tell you about some of the stuff I've seen in emergency rooms, Mom."

Whatever she says next crackles with static, the line breaking up, and then the call drops.

It's for the best, I think. Mom has been trying to talk me out of this since the day I told her I'd been contacted by a lawyer in New Orleans whose practice has my great-aunt Penny as a client.

I've never met my aunt. All I know is that she never married, is childless, and is the heir to the family estate that dates back to the early 1800s. This place used to be a plantation, which is sordid enough, but add in the family lore about this particular line....

My fingertips tingle as I slowly get out of the car and shut the door, shielding my eyes from the sun as I look up at the windows. The screened-in front porch rattles as someone opens an interior door, and then a petite dark-haired woman peeks her head around the screen door. She holds it open, a beautiful, kind smile touching her lips. "You must be Layla Bryant!"

Her thick creole accent immediately calms my nerves. I smile back at her, saying, "Yeah, that's me. I'm glad I'm in the right place. It took ages to get here after passing the gate."

"There's a faster way off the property." She glances at my car. "Especially if you have four-wheel drive. It's a dirt road that connects with the neighbor's property. Come on in, it's stifling today. I just made iced tea. You thirsty?" Her golden-brown skin glistens in the unforgiving sunlight as she clutches the screen door.

I am thirsty. Hot, sweaty, and absolutely parched. I nod and walk to the trunk of my car. I hike my duffle bag over my shoulder–all that I have in the world besides my car.

"I'm Bailey Elliott, by the way," she says from the porch.

"It's nice to meet you, Bailey. Are you Penny Gregory's day nurse, then?"

"I am." Her smile is bright, all of her teeth shining white in the sunlight.

I glance up at the balconies and windows one last time before we go inside, and for a moment, I think I see a figure standing at one of the third floor windows. The shadow moves away just as a cloud stretches overhead, blocking some of the light. Strange, I tell myself as I walk up a set of steps and follow Bailey across the porch. I'm used to shadows in strange places, but the second I enter the house, I get that creeping sensation I normally feel while working alone at night in the hospital. It's like I'm being watched from afar by something desperate and curious, something that isn't sure it wants to be seen. Not yet, at least.

"I can see the family resemblance," Bailey says over her shoulder as she shuts the front door behind us. Her steps cause the wood floor to creak until she reaches a weathered, ornate rug situated in front of a wide, aging staircase.

I blink at her, tucking a lock of my golden blonde hair behind my ear. "Really? Honestly, I've never met my great-aunt. My family is all spread out now, all over the country."

"You have the Gregory eyes," Bailey says while motioning toward my face. "There's a bunch of portraits on the second floor, in the hallway that leads to the cigar room. You'll see. Every one of those people have those big blue eyes and that pointed chin. You look like Ms. Penny, actually. There's a portrait of her in the library. When I saw you get out of your car, I about had a heart attack thinking Ms. Penny had somehow escaped and come back sixty years younger."

Bailey's soft laugh is like music, but I stand awkwardly in the foyer and look around. It's clean, but there's still an underlying layer of decay hanging in the air. Mom might have been right about this place. It feels like I'm standing in another era, like this house has simply been lost to time.

Through an archway to my left, a formal sitting room comes into view. A jet-black grand piano has been waxed so thoroughly the sunlight gleams off it, spreading rays of light all over the faded chaise lounges and dust covered antique tables.

Bailey follows me as I turn to look deeper into the room. "The formal dining room is just through that archway there, and beyond that is the kitchen, which wraps around the backside of the house. There's a few smaller rooms back there too. Laundry room, two small bunk rooms, which I think used to be the house servants' quarters way back in the day." She walks back into the foyer. "On the right side, there's another sitting room in the back, a sunroom. It gets awfully hot in there this time of year, though. And this–" she walks through the second archway leading off the foyer, her hands spread wide, "this is where we keep all of Ms. Penny's supplies, you see. It might've been an office at one point."

Metal shelves that look so out of place are covered in white boxes full of medicine and other supplies–gauze, syringes, tubes and latex gloves. The sterile smell immediately brings me back to the hospitals I've spent so much time in, and I shiver with a sudden uneasy feeling that brushes over my skin, causing the fine, downy hair on my arms to stand on end.

Bailey leads me through the first floor of the house. It's a maze of doors and snug hallways leading to the kitchen. Sunlight streams through the back windows as she pours iced tea and hands me a glass, which is cold to the touch. It's a welcome relief from the unrelenting heat.

"There's no AC right now, but we keep the windows open in the summer to let the breeze in. It seems to help, and Ms. Penny doesn't seem to mind the heat."

"We?"

"Well," she says, smacking her lips. "There's me, the day nurse. I'm here Monday through Friday until around five and occasionally on Saturdays. Vera works on the weekends and on-call if I need a hand. She's an old, gnarled crone, that woman. I don't like her all that much." She sips from her tea, her dark curls dancing with the motion. "And then there's Curtis. He's our handyman. He's been fighting with the AC all spring to no avail, but you'll see him around nonetheless. He comes out once a week to tidy up the landscaping out front and back and checks on the house. He loves those gardens out there. His family goes way, way back with the Gregorys, you see." She leans her hip against the kitchen counter, which is a pale green and made of vinyl. Everything in the kitchen is dated, like it hasn't been renovated since the 1960s, at least.

Bailey continues, "Ms. Penny is... far gone, I'm afraid. A lot of what Vera and I do is just maintenance–keeping her comfortable. She doesn't eat much anymore and has an IV for fluids if she doesn't drink much during the day. She doesn't talk to us these days, not that she did much of that anyway. She talks to herself sometimes though. You might hear her from time to time."

I nod along, my eyes fixated on the thick cypress grove encircling the house. In the distance, against the swaying vines and leaping insects, I can see still water glistening against a group of scattered headstones.

"That's the family cemetery," Bailey says with a sigh. "The swamp is... getting closer to the house, you know. The foundation is all muddled and sinking in spots. I've been told the house is perfectly safe, but because of the way it's settling, you might hear some strange noises at night. The pipes are pretty loud, and sometimes it even sounds like a freight train is coming right through the center of the house if someone runs the washing machine. It just has old bones, you see. Like Ms. Penny."

"Is it haunted?" It's a silly question, but I can't help myself, especially while my gaze stays locked on the cemetery in the distance.

Bailey chuckles, but there's no real laughter in the sound. "Mmm... that depends on who you ask. This place is old, but you know that, being family and all."

In truth, I don't know much. All I know is that my great-great aunt and uncle, Aunt Penny's parents, had only one child, Penny. Her father's siblings left the family estate and spread out, creating the family lines I belonged to. I knew her father had died young, and her mother, based on family lore, went clinically insane after his death and died in an asylum in the early '60s. In reality, Penny Gregory is more of a distant cousin, but every time my mom brought her up, it was always aunt this, and aunt that, so I've always thought of her as my great-aunt.

Aunt Penny is the last of the Gregory line, the prolific name dying with her when that time came.

"Why did the last night nurse quit?" I ask, turning to face Bailey.

She takes a sip from her iced tea and looks absently out the window, shrugging. "She didn't like being here at night, which kind of defeats the purpose of her employment, doesn't it?"

"I guess it does," I laugh, shaking my head.

"I should probably show you where to put your things, huh? I'll try to give you a tour of the rest of the house before I leave this evening, but it's a big place. I haven't even seen half the rooms myself, and I've been here for three years. I live in Hahnville, so I don't stay here, but I swear the bedrooms are perfectly comfortable."

Bailey leads me upstairs, which is dark and foreboding. The floors creak painfully with each step as the long, darkened hallway she leads me down seems to narrow and twist, the floor slightly angled and off kilter.

"This is you." She smiles, opening a door toward the back of the house. The room is warm but faces north, putting it out of the glare of the sun. It smells sharply of wisteria, lilac, and fresh laundry, which is a welcome relief from the dusty smell in the lower level of the house. The linens are a calming white color, and the walls bleed with hand-painted floral wallpaper that doesn't show a single sign of its age.

Even the bathroom, with its antique finishes, looks new, or at least renovated.

"Ms. Penny's rooms are just across the hall," Bailey says, planting her hands on her hips. "I guess I should introduce the two of you. What do you say?"