Expecting
As Blythe Britton stepped over the threshold of the three-hundred-year-old, center-chimney colonial in Longwood Valley, she was finally realizing her dream. Blythe and Jason had been married for eight years, and during that time, they scrimped and saved to put a deposit down on such a house.
"Welcome home, Mrs. Britton," her husband said, carrying a bag of Chinese take-out in one hand and a bottle of inexpensive champagne in the other.
It wasn't much of a celebration, yet for Blythe and Jason, it was a feast fit for a king since it was their first meal in their own home. Jason opened the bottle and poured the champagne into two juice glasses while Blythe spooned General Tso's chicken onto mismatched plates.
"A toast," the proud husband announced, handing his wife a glass, "to our new home and our new life."
"Wait," Blythe cried before Jason could sip his champagne. "I have something to add. Here's to the new addition to our family, who will hopefully be conceived soon."
"I'll drink to that. And may that baby be only the first of many. I hope to fill this old place with happy, healthy children."
It seemed as though all the couple's dreams were on the way to coming true. Within a few months of moving into the house, Blythe learned she was pregnant. Her great joy at the news was matched only by that of her husband.
"I can't wait until the baby is born!" the expectant mother exclaimed. "I don't know how I'll stand the next seven months."
"The time will pass before you know it," Jason assured her. "We'll be renovating and decorating most of the summer, and then we'll have our first holidays in our home to enjoy."
By the time the work on the house was finished and the first green leaves turned red and gold in the autumn, however, Jason noticed a marked change in his wife's behavior. Although Blythe had been born into an Irish Catholic family, she never practiced the faith. Yet once she became pregnant, she began wearing a crucifix around her neck and incorporating religious wall hangings and figurines into the house's colonial décor.
"Where did you get all these ceramic statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary?" Jason inquired as he helped his wife dust the living room furniture.
"From a Bible store in Salem."
"Salem?" Jason echoed with amusement. "I guess the Christians haven't entirely given up on the pagans in Witch City."
"You shouldn't joke about such things," Blythe chastised her husband.
"Why not? You know how I feel about organized religion."
"You have to be careful what you say. I don't want any of your atheist talk to endanger our baby's soul."
Jason attributed his wife's outburst to the hormones that plague pregnant women. He also believed one of his responsibilities as the prospective father was to humor the mother and make sure she remained calm.
"I'm not an atheist. I'm an agnostic, and, as such, I happily admit I don't know squat about the origin of the universe, the existence of a supreme being or the destination of a person's soul when the body dies. But I do know—at least I strongly believe—that our baby won't go to hell because I made a silly joke."
"There you go again. Honestly, sometimes I don't think there's any hope for you at all," Blythe cried with exasperation.
Upset, she threw down the dust rag and went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. As Jason finished dusting, he felt he had failed his first test of fatherhood by not pacifying his wife.
"Just my luck," he sighed. "Why couldn't Blythe simply get a craving for pickles or ice cream like other pregnant women?"
* * *
October soon came to an end, and November brought with it the first freezing temperatures, frost and sporadic snow flurries. Jason was further convinced that his wife's hormones were out of whack when she graduated from religious interior design to going to mass on Sundays and switched from viewing HBO to watching the Eternal World Television Network. It was not until Thanksgiving Day that Jason learned what had prompted Blythe's sudden religious zeal.
"I don't think we're alone in the house," she admitted when she heard a noise coming from the crawlspace.
"I'll go down to the hardware store tomorrow afternoon and buy some humane mousetraps," her husband responded as he sat down in the wingback chair beside the fireplace to eat his slice of pumpkin pie.
"I'm not talking about mice," Blythe uttered softly. "I think there's a ghost in this house."
Now his wife's seeking sanctuary in Catholicism made sense to him in a weird kind of way. Jason himself viewed the paranormal in the same light as the spiritual: gods and ghosts might very well exist, but without solid proof one way or the other, he would reserve his opinion. On the other hand, Blythe, given her current precarious emotional state, might misinterpret perfectly normal phenomena as proof of occult forces at work.
"What makes you think the house is haunted?"
"You promise not to laugh? I can feel a presence here."
Jason did not laugh, for he saw no humor in his wife's absurd claim.
Thanksgiving weekend passed, and the impending Christmas festivities pushed all thoughts of ghosts from Blythe Britton's mind. Perhaps her husband was right, and it had only been her hormones after all, for she embraced the holiday season with the joy and wonder of a young child experiencing it for the first time. Throughout the house, the religious paraphernalia was taken down and replaced with Santa Clauses, reindeer, elves, poinsettias, mistletoe and snowmen.
"Just think," Blythe mused, "next year will be the baby's first Christmas."
Jason was not as happy about the upcoming holidays as his wife was. It was ironic that he—who was skeptical of all things he could not see and touch—was now the one who felt the presence of an unseen force in the house. He refused to discuss the possibility of a ghost with his wife since he did not want to upset her. Nonetheless, he felt the need to talk to someone about the strange sensations he encountered in the old home.
On the advice of a coworker, he contacted Crow Haven Corner, a witch shop on Essex Street in Salem. The woman who answered the phone sympathized with his predicament and advised him to call Kevin McCoy, a paranormal investigator from Puritan Falls who had some success uncovering ghosts in Salem, Danvers and Beverly.
By day, Kevin was a clerk at a computer store in Essex Green. Jason telephoned him, and the two men agreed to meet after Kevin's shift was over. Jason left work early and drove to Puritan Falls to discuss his recent, troubling experiences. Since his only frame of reference for paranormal investigators was watching the movie Ghostbusters, he half-expected Kevin to be a cross between Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray. He was disconcerted to discover Kevin was an eighteen-year-old who looked as though he should be in his parents' family room playing video games on a Sony PlayStation.
"If you don't mind my asking, how did you hear about me?" the young man eagerly inquired as he and Jason sat down at a table in the Green Man Pub to discuss business over chicken fingers and fries. "Did you see my Facebook page?"
"No," Jason replied, suppressing a smile. "Someone at Crow Haven Corner recommended your services."
Kevin tried to hide his disappointment by stuffing a ketchup-soaked fry into his mouth.
"You should really check my page out. I have some great photographs of what I believe is Nathaniel Hawthorne's ghost outside the House of the Seven Gables."
"It sounds fascinating," Jason lied, suspecting the trip to Puritan Falls had been a complete waste of time.
"So you believe you've got a ghost in your house," Kevin said in a more professional manner. "What exactly have you experienced? Cold spots? Strange odors? Unexplained sounds?"
"I'll pick D, none of the above. Seriously, though, it's just a feeling that there's someone in the room, watching and waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"Damned if I know."
"I'm not doing anything on Sunday," Kevin said, chewing and swallowing the last of his chicken fingers. "I can come over and take some readings of your house."
At that point, Jason would have preferred to call the whole thing off, but he felt it was too late to turn back and decided to see it through.
"There's one problem. My wife is expecting a baby, and I don't want her to know what's going on. I'd like you to pretend you're my boss's son and that you're paying a visit because you're interested in the architecture of old homes."
"Awesome!" the boy exclaimed, appearing even younger than his eighteen years. "It'll be like working undercover. I can't wait to put this on Facebook."
As Jason finished his coffee, he wished he had stayed in Longwood Valley and not sought help from a teenager.
* * *
"Your boss's son is coming here today?" Blythe asked with frustration. "Can't you make it some other time? Turner Classics is having a Christmas movie marathon on television, and I didn't want to miss any of it."
Jason was secretly relieved, for here was a way to keep his wife from learning the real reason behind Kevin McCoy's visit.
"You needn't miss your marathon. You can watch it upstairs in the bedroom. I'll tell my boss's son that you're feeling under the weather. He'll understand; he knows you're expecting. You won't have to cook either. I'll make a pot of spaghetti for dinner."
"Thank you," Blythe replied with a smile of relief. "I'm really not up to entertaining today."
At 2:15, the doorbell rang, and Blythe turned off the television in the living room and retreated to the master bedroom.
"I wasn't expecting you this early, but come on in," Jason told the teenager.
"I worked until two o'clock, and then I drove directly here," Kevin explained. "I figured, why bother going home first?"
"Want a can of soda or a bottle of water?"
"No, thanks. I'm good. Why don't we just get started? I'd like to get home in time to catch the Patriots game."
"I don't know how to go about this. Where do you want to begin?" Jason asked after inviting the young man into his living room.
"This is as good a place as any," Kevin responded as he reached into his Red Sox backpack and took out an EMF meter.
"What's that?"
"It's a device that measures electromagnetic radiation. Life energy forms—or ghosts if you prefer—cause a disturbance in the electromagnetic field."
While the two men walked through the living room, dining room and kitchen, there was very little fluctuation of the needle. Jason was beginning to think the presence he felt was all in his head when suddenly, as they neared the staircase to the second floor, the meter registered a surge of electrical activity.
Kevin's eyebrows rose and he turned to Jason.
"Looks like you got a ghost here after all."
The investigator then handed Jason the meter and removed a digital camera from his backpack.
"What's the camera for?"
"Digital cameras sometimes register energies the naked eye can't see."
"You mean you'll be able to see whoever it is that's haunting this place?"
"What we'll probably see—if we're lucky—is a patch of mist or a semitransparent orb."
Kevin pointed his camera in several directions before pressing the button.
He held the camera toward Jason and said, "See that white circle? That's your ghost."
Once Kevin established the fact that the house was haunted, Jason then wanted to know who the spirit was and what he or she wanted.
"You fixed this place up after you bought it, didn't you?" the investigator wondered.
"We renovated the kitchen and the bathrooms and painted the other rooms. Why?"
"Often the spirits of people who once lived in a house become active when new owners make changes to their environment."
"You mean the ghost may not like our granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances?"
"We have a pet cat at home. Every time my parents get new furniture, the cat takes a few hours to sniff it out. It's probably the same with ghosts. They want to see what people have done with their space."
"I got news for this ghost. I spent six hundred thousand on this house. It's my space now."
* * *
The following Saturday, while Blythe was out Christmas shopping with her sister, Kevin returned to the Britton home and brought with him a young girl about his own age, who claimed to have psychic powers. Jason was skeptical, given the girl's appearance: she looked more like a babysitter or a cashier at Walmart than a psychic.
"This place is awesome!" Marla Lovejoy exclaimed when she walked into the foyer. "I love these old colonial homes."
"Should we sit around the dining room table and hold hands while you try to contact the spirit?" the homeowner asked.
The young girl glanced at Kevin and tried to hide her smile.
"I don't do séances, Mr. Britton," she explained. "I'm a real psychic. I don't need the corny gimmicks you see in the movies."
Marla walked around the house, looking through the rooms as though she were considering buying the place.
"I'm getting flashes of a woman who is soon to be a mother."
"My wife is expecting," Jason offered.
Marla closed her eyes in concentration.
"I see a beautiful face framed with fiery red hair."
"That's not Blythe; she's a blonde."
"Her eyes are emerald green with flecks of gold. There is a strange discoloration on her forehead. It's a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon."
"Do you know who she is?" Jason asked.
"I see great sadness in her green eyes. The child she carried ...."
Marla shuddered.
"She lost the baby and is heartbroken over the loss. The child is all she had in the world since the man she loved betrayed her."
"But who is she? Why is she here? What does she want?"
The color abruptly drained from Marla's face, and she put her hand to her throat.
"That's all I can see," she apologized, but her eyes told a different story. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help. Come on, Kevin. I have to get home. I have homework to do."
After the teenagers departed, Jason was left alone in the house.
Or am I alone? he wondered.
Was there really a ghost in his home with him, or had Kevin and Marla been overly eager to prove a paranormal occurrence that didn't exit?
Later that evening, as Jason helped Blythe decorate the tree, he decided to forget about the whole ghost business and enjoy his first Christmas in his own home. Then, once the holidays were behind them, the countdown to baby day would begin.
* * *
Ten days before Christmas, the mysterious red-haired, green-eyed specter would surface again.
While Jason was at work, Blythe went to the mall and bought her husband a new camera bag. She decided the best place to hide it was in the attic. When she took the bag upstairs, she noticed several framed paintings stacked against the wall by the dormer. Curious, she walked over to the window and examined the paintings. There were two seascapes, a still life and four portraits, one of which was of an exquisitely beautiful young woman that caught her eye. She took the painting downstairs, cleaned it off and hung it on the living room wall.
When Jason came home that night, he took off his coat in the foyer and headed toward the kitchen. He came to an abrupt stop when he saw the portrait on the wall.
"Where did you get this picture?" he called to his wife.
"I found it in the attic. Isn't it beautiful? I think it must have been hanging up when the realtor showed us the place because I recognized the face at once."
Jason was certain that the portrait had not been hanging on the wall when they first viewed the house. If it had, he most definitely would have remembered that captivating face framed by fiery curls, those brilliant emerald eyes with flecks of gold and the birthmark shaped like a crescent moon on her forehead.
"I wonder who she is," Blythe mused.
"I have no idea," Jason replied, not wanting to tell his wife that the red-haired beauty was the woman whose spirit most likely haunted their home.
Blythe received an answer to her question two days before Christmas. It was a Sunday evening, and she and Jason were watching an HGTV special on the holiday decorations at the White House when they heard Christmas carolers singing outside their front door. The Brittons warmly greeted the group of neighbors and invited them inside for hot cocoa and homemade cookies. One of the carolers, a history teacher at the local high school, noticed the portrait hanging on the living room wall.
"I see you've met the beautiful Magdalena Babbage," she observed, nodding her head toward the painting.
"Is that her name?" Jason asked.
"Yes. Some people claim she haunts this place."
"How silly!" Blythe laughed, dismissing the idea at once, despite having been the first one to suspect there was a ghost in the house.
"Who was she?" her husband asked casually, feigning only a mild interest.
"Magdalena was one of Longwood Valley's more unsavory characters. The original owner of this house was Levi Rochester, a dashing sea captain with a well-known fondness for beautiful women. No one knows where Magdalena came from, but she showed up here one day as Captain Rochester's housekeeper. It was common knowledge among the villagers then that Magdalena wanted to become the captain's wife and mistress of this house, but Levi was loath to give up his freedom, even when she told him she was expecting a child."
So far, everything the history teacher said confirmed what Marla Lovejoy had seen in her visions.
"Eventually, Levi's eyes fell on another pretty face. When the young woman in question died after a short and sudden illness, rumors spread that Magdalena had brought about her rival's death with the help of the devil."
"You mean people thought she was a witch?" Jason asked.
"Yes, and when the captain denounced her, she was taken before the magistrates for questioning. She was eventually found innocent of the charges, but while under arrest, she miscarried. When she was finally released from jail, she went back to the captain's house, only to discover that he'd left on a lengthy voyage. To make a long story short, Magdalena died of a broken heart before Levi Rochester returned to Puritan Falls, which I suppose was a blessing since he brought a wife back with him."
Jason looked up at the portrait and thought he saw Magdalena Babbage's emerald green eyes blazing with anger.
"So, how does it feel living in a house that was once inhabited by an accused witch?" Blythe asked her husband after the carolers had taken their leave.
"That's something not everyone can claim."
Despite the lighthearted banter, Jason found no humor in the situation. Unlike his wife, he did not view Magdalena as an innocent woman falsely accused of witchcraft and later callously abandoned by the man she loved. Rather, his instincts told him the beautiful redhead was a manipulative, scheming vixen who had tried to entrap a generous, compassionate man who had taken her off the streets and given her a place to live.
It suddenly struck Jason that those opinions were not his own but those of Levi Rochester, and that realization terrified him.
* * *
During the next few days, Jason tried to block out all thoughts of Magdalena and Levi and focus on the future instead of the past.
With the holidays behind them, the expectant parents put all their energies into preparing for the arrival of their first child. They took birthing classes at Longwood Valley Hospital, went shopping for baby furniture and painted pastel green, yellow and white stripes on the walls of one of the spare bedrooms. At the end of January, Blythe's sister hosted a baby shower, and afterward, the Brittons organized the nursery.
Early on the morning of February 26, Blythe felt her first labor pain. By noon, she was timing her contractions with a watch. At six o'clock in the evening, her water broke, and Jason drove her to the hospital.
The expectant father remained at his wife's side in the labor room and then accompanied her to the delivery room, where he was present for the birth of his daughter shortly after three o'clock the following morning. Because the tiny infant was experiencing some minor breathing difficulty, she was immediately taken away to the hospital nursery and given oxygen. Meanwhile, Jason accompanied his exhausted wife to the recovery room. Two hours later, he kissed Blythe goodbye and headed home for some much-needed sleep, promising her that he would return in a few hours.
When he went back to the house and climbed into his four-poster bed, he immediately sensed he was not alone.
"It's you, isn't it, Magdalena?"
A brass candlestick on the dresser rattled in response.
"I've waited three hundred years for this moment," he said, speaking the thoughts of the long-dead sea captain. "You killed Suzanna in hopes of having me and this house all to yourself. Then you cursed my manhood and left me unable to father a child with any woman except you. Well, I've finally won. I have a daughter, and I'll have more children. Now, be gone with you! Leave this house at long last, for it will never belong to you."
Jason was abruptly awakened from his trance-like state by the sound of Magdalena's portrait falling off the wall onto the hardwood floor. His heartbeat raced.
"What the hell is going on?"
After several moments of uneasy silence, he relaxed. The house was still, and he was truly alone. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
* * *
Five hours later, feeling well-rested and elated at being a father, Jason walked into his wife's room in the maternity ward of Longwood Valley Hospital, carrying a large bouquet in one hand and a pink foil balloon announcing IT'S A GIRL in the other. He kissed his wife and looked down at his sleeping infant, who was wrapped in blankets and wearing a tiny knitted cap on her head.
"Hi, Madison," he whispered, addressing the baby by the name he and his wife had previously selected.
"She doesn't look like a Madison to me," Blythe said. "I think we should give her another name."
Jason frowned.
"But you said you loved the name Madison."
"I know, but I want to call our daughter Magdalena instead. I think the name fits her better."
As Blythe removed the pink knitted cap from the baby's head, Jason glimpsed the fiery red curls and the crescent-moon-shaped birthmark on her forehead. He gasped as the little girl opened her emerald green eyes and stared at her father in triumph.
In that terrifying moment, Jason knew there would be no other children to fill the old center-chimney colonial house, for Magdalena Babbage had waited three hundred years to be its mistress, and with her prize within reach, she was not about to share it with anyone.
"If there's something strange in your neighborhood," don't bother calling the Ghostbusters. It's only Salem.
