House Of Whispers

- Barbara Beaton

Judith sat in Sarah Osborne’s kitchen, trying to make sense of what the woman she’d always called Nanny was saying to her.

“Your mother was my baby cousin,Judy. I was much older, and of course Sissy was very young when she had you – and unmarried. In this town it was quite the scandal.”

Judith marvelled at how recently such attitudes prevailed. What her poor mother must have gone through!

“Our families were close, so I was more like a sister than a cousin,” Sarah went on. “Well, more like a mom, really. Sissy’s mother did her best but she suffered terrible headaches…” She lifted a hand to her throat and twisted a silver chain round her neck. “My mom – they were sisters – said her headaches came after the hauntings.”

“They saw ghosts?” Judith asked incredulously. “Nanny, are you telling me this house is haunted?”

“No, no, not this house, the other one. The one you’ve been dreaming about.” Sarah wrung her hands. “Oh dear… this is not coming out at all well. How about more tea? I made your favourite cookies – on the plate by the kettle.”

Judith picked up their empty cups, got up from the big table and walked to the counter top, thinking how she could fit her entire New York apartment into this kitchen. Andrew was right; they needed somewhere bigger.

“So the house I’m dreaming about actually exists?” she asked as she set the kettle on the stove to boil.

“Oh yes,” Sarah replied. “It’s the Goodwin family home.”