Curse of Crossing Chapter 6

Curse of Crossing

Chapter 6

Elizabeth

“Wow Lizzy! I can’t believe you found all of this documentation about our family in the old Crossings house.” Dad is still pouring over all of the papers that Ben and I found in the secret room in the cellar of his family’s home. “What were you doing up there anyway?”

“Mother is trying to sell that house. Maybe you have heard that there was a strange car found there recently? It belonged to Benjamin and Marilyn Crossing from Ohio. Anyway, their son wanted to come up and see the house where his parent’s car was found to see if there is any information about what happened to his parents. Mother was busy today, so I took Ben up there. We found all of these papers about our family in the cellar.” I decide to leave out the detail about the ghosts Ben and I saw while explaining this all to my dad.

“Did you notice anything strange while you two were there?”

“Strange?” Yeah, if you consider I saw a ghost of myself strange, I think to myself!

“Well, the old stories and rumors that float around this town have always maintained that the Crossing House is haunted.” Dad tries to make his voice sound scary when he says haunted.

“Uh, well, no, not really. I just got this really weird vibe being there. It was probably just a lifetime of hearing all those old ghost stories. Besides, the Johnsons didn’t seem to have any problems all the years that they lived there.” I try to laugh it all off.

“No problems until that car crash that killed them.”

“Dad, you can’t seriously think that living in that house had anything to do with the wreck that killed that couple? Do you?”

“I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other Lizzy, but it is very consistent to the fate of all who have ever lived in the Crossing House.” I just roll my eyes at him. “Don’t roll your eyes at me. I remember the stories that my grandmother used to tell about the Crossings. She told of unexplained disappearances, mysterious deaths, and worse than bad luck to all the Crossings. She even believed that there was a connection between the Crossings and the Wrights. She said that when she married Grandfather Richard, that his mother, Josephine told her of the family’s curse. She said that Josephine was told that your Great-Great-Great Grandmother Elizabeth, who you are named after of course, was desperately in love with Benjamin Eugene Crossing, and he was equally in love with her. The two had planned their wedding and on the night before they were to marry, Benjamin’s mother and father abruptly called off the wedding. They refused to let Benjamin marry Elizabeth. It seems that they had secretly arranged a marriage for their eldest son to a young lady from New York whose family had considerably more money than the Wrights. It is believed that Elizabeth was so distraught and overcome with grief over the loss of the relationship that she supposedly cursed Benjamin and all of the Crossing men. The curse was said to happen to all Crossing men when they were of marrying age, who either lived in or came to Crossing, they would suffer a most gruesome death. This curse is supposed to last until such a time that a Crossing man is truly loved by and also saved by a Wright woman.”

Holy cow! A curse? Really? I grab my phone and quickly dial Ben. “I’m calling Ben. He is at that house alone.” I don’t really believe in this story that my dad has just told me, but I have a bad feeling about Ben all the same. It just sends me straight to voicemail. “It goes straight to voicemail.” I hit end on my cell and look up at my dad in frustration. “I have to go back out there and make sure Ben is okay. I’ll call you later.” I start toward the door before I finish telling him where I’m going.

“Wait! Lizzy, you can’t go out there by yourself.” Dad gets up from the table and comes after me.

“I will be alright dad. I have to make sure Ben is okay. I’ll call you soon, I promise.” I run out of the front door and quickly get in the car. As I start the engine I look up to see dad watching from the front door. I wave at him and speed out of the driveway.

“Please let Ben be okay.” I keep saying out loud over and over as I make the five minute ride to the Crossing House. If anything has happened to him I will never forgive myself. It is just starting to get dark as I pull down the lane. The gate is unlocked and Ben’s car is still in the driveway. I feel it as soon as I get out of the car. There is a heavy, weighted feel to the air around the house. Something is very, very wrong here. My own fear and panic threaten to keep me from moving but I fight through it and run into the house.

“Ben! Ben where are you?” I shout as I run through the sitting room, looking around frantically for Ben. I run back down the hallway toward the cellar door that Ben and I went through earlier and pull it open. “Ben! Ben are you down here?” Oh please tell me he didn’t go back down here! My keys are still in my hand so I turn on my keychain light and start down the stairs. It does not feel as cold down here as it did when Ben and I were here earlier. I go over to the square in the floor that Ben lifted earlier. Oh goodness! I can’t believe I’m really going to stick my hand in this dark hole! I get a grip on my panic again and pull the latch in the floor. The doorway to the secret room starts to open. “Ben!” I shine my light around the room. He is not here. I don’t waste any time turning and running as fast as I can back up the stairs and back to the sitting room.

I know he has to be here. His car is still here, so he has to be here somewhere. “Ben! Ben where are you?” I shout once again. When there is still no answer, I start to pace around the sitting room. Where could he be? He’s not in the cellar or the secret room. He said he wanted to check out all of the rooms in the house. If he were in rooms on this level, surely he would have heard me shouting or running. He must be upstairs somewhere.

As I approach the stairs it is now completely dark outside and inside. The only light is coming from the tiny light in my hand. I shine my little light up the stairs and even though it isn’t terribly bright, it still shows footprints in the dust leading up the stairs. I gather up my faltering courage and quickly make my way up the steps. “Ben! Are you up here?” I shout when I get to the landing at the top of the stairs. There are several rooms up here, so which one do I start in? I shine my light around the floor to see if I can still see any footprints. Just as I notice that the footprints lead off to a room to my left I see something move. “Ben?” My voice is starting to get shaky now and the temperature has dropped about twenty degrees in the last couple of seconds. When I look up, I see me. Well my ghost twin. She is looking right at me with a look of concern on her face. We stand there and stare at each other for a moment. Then she turns and glides into the room that the footprints go into. I follow.

When I go in the room, I shine my light around and see a large four poster bed and a huge fireplace. My ghost twin glides over toward the end of the bed and points at something. Then she turns and disappears through the fireplace. Okay, the last time she did that she led me to the papers in the cellar, so I am guessing that I am supposed to follow her again. I take a few steps toward the bed and see something lying on top of the duvet. I reach down and grab the roll of parchment. I unroll it, flatten it out on the bed, and shine my light on it to see better. It looks to be a drawing of some type, like a floor plan layout of the house. I see these kind of drawings at my mother’s office all of the time. I find the stairs on the drawing and follow them until I find the room that I am in right now. Something looks strange about this room on the drawing though. The drawing shows that the room takes up the whole width of the house, but the fireplace is not on the back wall of the house, it is actually several feet away from the back wall. There is a room behind that fireplace. There were no other doors on that side when I was out in the hallway, so there has to be a secret panel somewhere.

I leave the parchment lying on the bed and make my way over to the fireplace. My ghost twin went through this thing for a reason, so once again, against my better judgment, I will trust her and follow where she wants me to go. I shine my light around the fireplace’s opening to see if I can find the latch. That’s when I notice a missing brick near the opening. I move the light over more and see the missing brick in the fireplace. I reach down and tug on the brick but it doesn’t budge, so I push on it. The brick sinks in, there is a click and the sound of an air lock opening, as the whole back of the fireplace moves out of the way.

“Ben? Are you in there?”