“Whoa, Kate, this would make one hell of a haunted house!” Jared rolled up the car window and unfolded himself from his battered old Toyota, shaking his head in amusement as he surveyed my newly purchased home.

I glowered at my brother. “I warned you it needed work. How do you think I got it so cheap?”

He strode up the walkway to join me on the veranda. The boards creaked and sagged as he mounted the steps.

I ran a possessive hand along the porch rail. It wobbled and bits of crumbling paint rubbed off on my palm, but I didn’t care. “They don’t build houses like this anymore,” I said, giving my hand a furtive swipe on my jeans. “It just needs us to rescue it.”

From the moment I saw it, I knew this moldering old mansion was meant for me. Its dark, empty windows and faded siding spoke to me, not of age and ruin, but of hidden grandeur waiting to be coaxed out.

“Kate, you said it was a little run down. This place looks like something right out of Tales from the Crypt.”

I punched him playfully in the arm. “It’s over a hundred years old,” I said. “What did you expect?”

Three stories high, the imposing Queen Anne Revival boasted all the opulence of a nineteenth century show piece with its decorative excesses—wide veranda, steeply pitched gables, patterned shingles, and miles of elaborately carved gingerbread. A tall round turret rising from the front corner evoked images of a fairy tale castle.

I had to admit the place did look a bit Halloweenish with the remnants of a thick morning fog clinging to the overgrown weeds in the yard and a dreary leaden sky casting a pall over the desolate façade.

“I know, I know,” Jared said, a teasing grin spread across his face. “It was owned by a little old lady who only lived in it on Sundays.”

I paid no attention to his gibes. For all his teasing, I knew my brother was a romantic like me. I knew he would recognize the underlying grandeur, the potential. My fingers traced the scrollwork on one of the porch columns. The artistic detail fashioned into the wood was exquisite despite the layers of grime.

“Okay, it has possibilities,” Jared conceded with a sly wink. He ran a hand over his jaw. “A few nails, a little paint . . .”

The house sat in the middle of an acre of land facing east toward the Cascades, a scant mile from the town of Salmon Falls, Washington. Twin big-leaf maples stood like gigantic sentinels on either side of a long gravel driveway. Grass and weeds grew knee high. To the right stretched a thick, woodsy tangle of trees and underbrush separated from the yard by a wooden fence, part of which had fallen over. To the left, over the fence, stood a neat white two-story house bounded by trees and rhododendrons. Here and there across the road, several homes clung to the outskirts of town.

Jared cleared his throat noisily. “So, are we going to stand around out here all day or do I get to see the inside?”

“Keep an open mind,” I warned as I turned to lead the way.

The hinges squealed a protest as I swung the door open. Dust motes stirred in the dim light as we traversed the broad entryway; the air smelled musty and stale. Proudly, I pointed out the classic architectural features, the extravagant woodwork, high tray ceilings, and wide staircase that ascended into darkness. Flocked velvet wallpaper, faded and worn, adorned the walls.

It appeared the style and décor hadn’t changed in over a hundred years, but, sadly, as the previous owner aged, she had become frail and eccentric, lacking the resources to keep the property maintained. The house had literally deteriorated around her.

“Like Miss Havisham’s mansion,” I murmured.

“What?”

“Great Expectations . . . never mind. What do you think? Won’t this make a great bed-and-breakfast? Once the remodeling’s done.”

Jared strode under an archway into the living room. He set down his duffel bag and guitar case, nodding his approval. “It’s impressive, I’ll give you that.” He took a moment to gaze around. “Looks like you even got the furniture.”

“Some of it.” I glanced at the haphazard assortment of chairs, lamps, and bric-a-brac. Tucked in the recess of the front bay window, a single chair and small round table looked forlorn as though waiting expectantly for a long-overdue cup of tea.

Relics of a simpler way of life, I thought wistfully, and I love every grimy, cobweb-shrouded inch of it.

“After the owner died,” I said, “the house sat empty for years. I bought it as is, along with whatever was left inside. Got the whole thing for a steal.”

Jared cracked a grin. “Probably because nobody else wanted it.”

I ignored him and went on. “Of course, I’ll need to spend time sorting the random dust catchers from the genuine antiques. Some of them will need refurbishing, but it’ll be worth it to have authentic period pieces throughout the house.”

At last, I’d be able to use the knowledge I’d acquired working seven years in an antique shop in Seattle. Daniel, my ex, hadn’t liked the idea of me working after we were married, but I had insisted, learning from every appraisal, every transaction, intrigued by the function and history of each unique item that had passed through the store.

“Awesome, Kate,” Jared said. “No joke. It really is awesome. Where do you want me?”

“The library. Through there, to the left. I spent all day yesterday sweeping out the dust and spiders.”

“Sounds good.” He picked up his sparse belongings, pushed open the solid wooden door, and looked around. The wallpaper was gray with age. One window was broken and boarded up, blocking out a portion of the natural light, giving the room a gloomy cast. A faded wingback chair stood to one side accompanied by a small end table on which stood an old glass hurricane lamp. Two of the walls were dominated by imposing floor-to-ceiling walnut bookshelves laden with rows of musty hardbound volumes.

“All the books are still here,” Jared said with surprise.

“I know. I’m hoping there might be some good first editions hidden in there.”

He frowned, fingering his chin. “It’s strange though . . .” His voice trailed off.

“What?” I looked at him curiously.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just amazed the place wasn’t trashed. You said the house stood empty for years before you bought it, right? Usually, abandoned old houses like this are targeted by vandals and teens looking for stuff to steal.” His lips tightened and I wondered if he was remembering a time, not so many years ago, when he might have been one of those delinquent teenagers. “But other than a couple of broken windows and a little bit of graffiti on the wall by the front door, there really isn’t much damage.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I got off lucky. It could have been a lot worse.”

Then his gaze came to rest on the cot I’d purchased from the local thrift store. His mood bounced back to its habitual good humor. He tilted an eyebrow. “That looks comfy.”

“Sorry. It’ll have to do for now. At least you’re up off the floor.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“The upstairs bedrooms aren’t fit to live in right now.”

“Kate, I said don’t worry about it.” He grinned. “I’ve slept in lots worse places than this.”

I nodded and brushed back my hair with my fingers. “Anyway, if you get bored, I brought along a box of my own books which you’re welcome to read.”

I never went anywhere without an armload of books.

He chuckled. “I might have known. I don’t suppose you’ve got any good techno-thrillers or sci-fi?”

“No, but I’ve got a couple of Sherlock Holmes mysteries you might like.”

“We’ll see.” He sounded doubtful.

“I’ll be in a sleeping bag in a room just off the kitchen. There’s a couple of rooms back there that I’m guessing were for the housekeeper. I’m planning to convert them into a suite for Amy and me.” I smiled at the thought of my fair-haired, eight-year-old daughter, an angel with soft pink cheeks and bright blue eyes. “Once school is out, I want to bring her here. She’s staying with Mom during the renovation.”

Jared looked around again and shook his head. “I can’t believe you want to live here in the middle of all this mess. Is there even a functioning bathroom?”

“There is now. That was my first priority. I had the contractor and plumber working non-stop for a week replacing the pipes and water heater running to the kitchen and main floor bathroom.” I laughed. “In the meantime, they installed a porta potty in the back yard.”

“Great.” He grimaced and dropped his belongings on the cot. “Okay, let’s see the rest of the place. I want to see what I’ve gotten myself into.”

He was not one to waste time standing around.

A throwback to the 60s, Jared was a musician, an artist, a would-be hippy. At thirty-four I was a year older, but as children we had often been mistaken for twins with our straw-colored hair and cornflower blue eyes. Now, tall and self-assured, a braid down his back, Jared resembled a Viking. He had never been one for the nine-to-five lifestyle, but preferred the meager living he made selling hand-crafted jewelry and tooled leather goods, though he sometimes tended bar at a friend’s tavern downtown. In his free time, he wrote songs and played guitar with his friends. When I had proposed giving him room and board, and the basement as his own private workshop in exchange for help around the house, he had jumped at the offer.

Turning toward the door, I suddenly halted and put up a hand. “Do you hear that?” A lonely melody drifted on the air, suffusing the very atmosphere with a yearning despair.

Jared paused and listened. “Sounds like someone playing a piano.” His nose wrinkled in distaste. “Can’t say I like their choice of music.”

“Must be the neighbor,” I said. “I’m surprised we can hear it all the way over here.”

“Sounds close,” Jared said. “Like, in the next room. Do you have a piano?”

I frowned. “There is a piano, but there shouldn’t be anyone else in the house.”

Cautiously, I pushed open the door and peered into the living room. All was gloomy and hushed as before. The music had stopped.

I exchanged a glance with my brother.

“Weird,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Had to be the neighbor,” I said. There was no other reasonable explanation. “These old single-pane windows aren’t exactly soundproof.”

Moving across the living room and back into the cavernous entry hall, I pointed through a wide arch beyond the base of the stairs toward a room in which stood a magnificent grand piano. “I call that the music salon.”

“Gee, I wonder why.” Jared’s deadpan expression was betrayed by the smirky twinkle in his eye.

“It’s a Steinway,” I said, ignoring him. “A gorgeous piano.”

“Looks old,” Jared said. “Cleaning and tuning will probably cost you a fortune.” He approached the piano and plunked a couple of notes. The tone was clear and resonant. “Doesn’t sound too bad. A bit dusty maybe, but it seems to be in pretty good condition.”

That’s when I saw the sheet music propped on the rack above the keyboard. Had that always been there? I hadn’t noticed it before. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. A galactic leap from the beginner piano lessons I’d taken as a girl. The complicated splatter of notes across the staves made my eyes blur. I cracked open the piano bench and slid the pages inside.

I turned then and led the way through the dining room and down a short passage to the kitchen. In traditional Victorian fashion, the kitchen lay at the back of the house sequestered behind a sturdy door lest unwary guests be offended at the sight of the cooking staff.

I loved kitchens in old houses and this one in particular. Besides being enormous, it featured a brick fireplace and an old-fashioned butler’s pantry. It needed renovating to make it functional for modern living, but I was adamant about keeping the charm and character of the original architecture.

At the moment, things were in disarray. Portions of the walls had been removed to allow access to the plumbing, and in pulling up the old linoleum, the contractor had discovered a patch of dry rot. This had necessitated tearing the floor down to the joists in front of the sink. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was dirty and drab; the smell of old grease permeated the air and mice infested the cupboards.

Being Sunday, there were no workers in the house. Our footsteps echoed off the walls as we walked through the empty rooms.

Just inside the kitchen, a door opened to a stairway leading down to the basement. I gave Jared a sheepish smile. “I’m afraid I’ve only been down there once and it was pretty bad―full of dirt and spiders and junk. But there is electricity, and I am planning to have a bathroom installed.”

He gave a short laugh. “Well, I wasn’t expecting the Ritz. Let’s take a look.”

I flipped a switch on the wall. A lightbulb suspended from a wire in the ceiling over the stairs made a lackluster attempt to dispel the gloom. As we descended, a hodgepodge of random shapes materialized out of the dark—a discarded trunk, a rusted bicycle, various garden tools, and heaps of forgotten household items dumped here out of the way. Along one wall were an ancient washer and dryer and washbasin, plus a shelf full of empty canning jars. A large oil furnace hulked like a great troll in the shadows. The floor was concrete, smooth and gray and water-stained. A door to the outside was set unobtrusively in the wall near the back corner.

Jared stood for a few moments on the bottom step sizing things up.

I repressed a grin. “Nothing a big, strong guy like you can’t handle, right?”

“Geez, Kate. There must be a century’s worth of crap down here. I’ll bet if we dig deep enough, we’ll find the Lost Dutchman mine, D.B. Cooper, and the Holy Grail.”

I swept my hand in front of me, encompassing the contents of the room. Cheerily, I said, “Anything you find, it’s yours. When do you want to start?”

He wrinkled his nose in an unenthusiastic grimace. “Let’s see the rest of the house first. I’m going to have to work up to this.”

We tromped back up the stairs to the kitchen. In the far corner by the back door another narrow stairway led up.

“Where does that go?” Jared asked.

“That’s the back staircase for the servants. There are maids’ quarters and a nursery on the third floor.”

“Cool,” he said. “Let’s go see.” Stepping around the carpenters’ tools, he headed up. I followed on his heels. I hadn’t been to the top floor since my first visit after the papers had been signed. All I remembered was a big dark space that had obviously been used for storage.

At the top of the stairs, the door opened onto a wide room with a pitched ceiling matching the contour of the roof. A brick fireplace against the wall shared a chimney with the kitchen fireplace below. I figured this must have been a common sitting room for the maids who had once lived here. Four other rooms opened off of this one. I planned to eventually reconfigure them for guests.

“Cripes,” Jared exclaimed, staring around. “There’s almost as much junk up here as there is in the basement. You could make a fortune just holding a garage sale.”

“Sure, if I can find anything of value.” I flicked my fingers lightly at the shoulder of a moth-eaten dress form, raising a puff of dust. “I’m guessing there isn’t much demand for this sort of thing.”

I moved on a few steps and considered a slightly lopsided three-legged easel splattered with dried paint, underneath which was tucked a box of petrified oils. “I’m sure someone would love to have this.”

Jared conducted his own investigation. He examined a small wooden table. “Why do you suppose this is up here? Looks like a perfectly good nightstand to me.”

I looked up from a box of old clothes I had discovered. “If you like it, take it. You can use it in your room when you get it fixed up.”

He didn’t respond but kept fiddling with the table.

Finally, I said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get this drawer open. It’s stuck.”

“It’s probably locked. You’ll have to break it to get it open.”

“No, there’s no lock. It’s just stuck.” He gave it a couple of good whacks with the heel of his hand and tugged on it again.

I went back to digging through the musty garments. I could probably sell them to a vintage clothing store. I knew there was a market for authentic period fashions. The stirred up dust made my nose tickle.

“Ah-ha!” Jared said.

I saw he had gotten the drawer open and was rifling through it.

“Hey, Kate, look at this.” He held up what looked like a book.

“What is it?”

“A family Bible. It was in the drawer. There’s a picture inside. Here, take a look.”

He pulled a small black and white photograph from the front of the Bible. He handed me the worn photo and I found myself looking at a picture of a pretty, dark-haired young woman sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair with a toddler on her lap. Behind them an older man stood with his right hand on the woman’s shoulder. The picture appeared to have been taken on the front porch of this house. Judging by the grainy quality of the picture and the clothes worn by the subjects, I guessed it was taken sometime in the early part of the last century.

“Sometimes these old Bibles have a page to fill in your name and family tree,” I said. Taking the heavy book, I flipped curiously through the first few pages. “Yes, here it is: Blossom Elizabeth Thatcher, born December 8, 1919, daughter of Morgan Virgil Thatcher, born February 2, 1880, and Angela Rose Wilkins Thatcher, born June 5, 1898.”

“Blossom Thatcher,” I repeated slowly. “That was the name of the previous owner. This is probably a picture of her as a baby with her parents.”

Jared’s forehead creased as he considered this. “She had to be over a hundred years old when she died.”

I nodded. “I talked to some people in town when I first came to look at the house. They said she was kind of eccentric and lived alone here most of her life.”

Immersed in this lonely tale, it didn’t take much to convince my imagination it heard the soft sounds of a woman’s sobs emanating from a corner of the attic. An icy shudder rippled down my spine. I turned, my eyes straining to pierce the shadows, but saw nothing. Jared appeared oblivious. Strangely shaken, I hurried to the door. This dark, stuffy garret was giving me the creeps.