Legacy of Lies- The Haunting of Hilda Read online

  Legacy of Lies

  The Haunting of Hilda

  Netta Newbound

  Contents

  History of The Grand Junction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Netta Newbound

  Copyright © 2020 by Netta Newbound

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Junction Publishing

  United Kingdom - New Zealand

  [email protected]

  www.junction-publishing.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Legacy of Lies/ Netta Newbound. -- 1st ed.

  To the wonderful ladies at the Surf Shack and the Ti Tree Cafe in beautiful NZ - I miss you xx

  History of The Grand Junction

  How this book came about. We bought The Grand Junction the original gold mine manager’s house in small town New Zealand. I often wondered what stories the beautiful old place could tell us if it was able and, each time I was renovating a room for the first time, wondered what secrets and treasures I might find within the walls. Sadly, I never found anything in real life but that didn’t stop my imagination running riot.

  Although the book is based on a haunting, I never once felt the house had any ghosts in the fifteen years I lived there. However, after I first began writing this book, I left my laptop at home while completing some research at the local museum and I returned to the strangest message typed directly into the manuscript itself…

  I was literally all like this though is that this is a so bizarre: one. A sizeable lead the only evil effects is in detail and popular you are you are you will also be a need is a so is the really you your you are you will you do is to you

  As you can imagine, I was terrified. I promptly put the book away until I’d moved back to the UK before daring to finish it.

  Here are a couple of early photos of the house on its original site, and then a couple of more recent pictures that shows the front steps and the hallway, which are important features of the book.

  Chapter 1

  Twenty years ago

  Cringing, I stared at my rubbish attempt at a still-life painting. The image looked nothing like the bowl of fruit that had been placed just so to give us inspiration. I was wasting my time.

  For my nine-year-old sister, Charlotte, who also sat beside the hearth, it was a different story altogether. I envied the way the paintbrush danced in her smaller grip.

  “Beautiful effort, my darlings,” our mother said. But it was alright for her. She was Eliza King, the famous New Zealand artist who could create a masterpiece with her eyes closed. She was determined at least one of us would take after her. Charlotte was still young enough to believe how wonderful our attempts were, but I wasn’t. At almost eleven, I was old enough to realise I didn’t have an ounce of my mother’s talent and my competitive nature hated being bad at anything.

  “That’s beautiful, Hilda,” my mother said, when she spied me flicking crimson paint across my easel. “Isn’t it, Richard?”

  “What? What?” Startled from his snooze, our father leaned forward, pretending he’d been awake the entire time. “Oh, yes. Very lovely.” He raked his fingers through his thinning grey-brown hair, totally disinterested.

  “Mine’s finished.” I stuffed my brush into a jar of mauve-coloured water and wiped my hand on my pale blue dress.

  “Don’t do that,” Mum scolded. “Go and wash your hands.”

  My entire body tensed. “But, Mum, you know I don’t like going to the bathroom alone. It scares me.”

  “Nonsense. A few creaky joists and noisy pipes never hurt anyone. Now do as you’re told before you get paint over everything.”

  “I told you they should be doing that in the kitchen, but nobody listens to a word I say,” Dad complained.

  Mum shook her head. “It’s freezing out there, Richard. Somebody forgot to restock the wood pile, remember?”

  “Oh, go on, blame me. No mention of the fact I’d already done half a day’s work by the time you lot opened your eyes this morning.”

  I pulled on Charlotte’s sleeve while our parents were busy bickering. “Come with me,” I mouthed.

  Charlotte smiled kindly and placed her own brush into the jar.

  The wind howled, rattling the glass of the hundred-year-old kauri villa. The majority of the house was in darkness, except for the living room, in the rear left-hand side of the property.

  We held hands as we ran down the L-shaped hallway, past the kitchen to the ancient, ice-cold bathroom. The sound the old pipes made when the toilet was flushed or the taps turned on petrified me, and caused an untold number of arguments between me and my parents, but I couldn’t help it. We washed our hands and Charlotte waited for me while I had a quick wee.

  Mum was busy in the kitchen when we raced back to the lounge.

  Smoke hung in the air from Dad’s cigarette, or cancer stick as Mum called it.

  “Will you help us with a jigsaw puzzle, Dad?” Charlotte asked.

  He stroked her glossy strawberry-blonde curls and paused, as though deep in thought. Then he shook his head. “Sorry, love. I was miles away. What did you say?”

  “Can you help us with a jigsaw puzzle?”

  “I would, but Mummy’s preparing my dinner and it’ll be ready any minute now. Ask Hilda. She’ll help you.”

  Charlotte and I spent the rest of the evening engrossed in a one-thousand-piece jigsaw of a unicorn.

  “Okay, young ladies, it’s bedtime,” Mum said just before 8pm.

  “Aw, but, Mum—” Charlotte began.

  “You heard your mother,” Dad cut in. “Now, go brush your teeth and get into bed.”

  We knew not to argue with him. Between us, we slid the board, with the partially completed jigsaw on it, underneath the sofa. Then, once again, we rushed to the bathroom to brush our teeth before heading to the bedroom we shared
down the hall off the lounge.

  “Hilda, do you think we’ll have to move away from here?” Charlotte said once we were settled in our beds.

  “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

  “Because the scary things are happening more and more. I heard Mummy telling Daddy this morning. She thinks we should pack up and leave.”

  I leaned over the side of my bunk bed, staring, open mouthed at my sister underneath. “What did she say that for?”

  I saw Charlotte shrug in the glow from the nightlight. “She said she’s scared of the house.”

  “The house?” I almost toppled off the bed, saving myself just in time. “She always tells me I’m being stupid when I say I’m scared of the house.”

  “I know.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “Nothing. But she pointed towards Uncle Declan’s room.”

  I shuddered. I rarely went through the door halfway up the hallway that led to the front part of the house. The rooms on either side of the hallway used to belong to Dad’s brother until he died suddenly in his sleep the year before. “So, she must feel it as well. I know that part of the house is haunted.”

  “I thought you said the bathroom was haunted.”

  “That too. Although that might just be the pipes like Dad says, as it only happens when you turn the tap on.”

  “I wish we could move away from here.” Charlotte’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Dad will never allow it. He always says he’ll die here, like his parents and brother did.” I shuddered again. Although I’d been born in this house, I’d never liked it.

  “That’s what he said this morning. Mum cried.”

  Completely shocked at my sister’s words, I threw myself back onto my mattress and stared at the wooden ceiling. Why would Mum cry? Any time I suggested the house was scary I got my head bitten off. But I knew it was haunted. I often heard banging in the middle of the night coming from Uncle Declan’s rooms.

  Groans and a strange thudding sound woke me later on that night. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before, but it was definitely coming from the other side of the wall. The air chilled and a tremor skittered down my spine.

  “Charlotte?” I hissed.

  Soft snores were the only sounds coming from below me.

  Another series of moans and scraping thuds caused my heartbeat to quicken and I curled into a tight ball, pulling the blankets over my head to block out the terrifying ghostly sounds.

  As usual, Dad had already left for work by the time Mum woke us for school the next morning.

  I’d had a troubled night, listening to the old house moaning and groaning. It had been louder and sounded eerier than usual. I knew I was probably imagining it after what Charlotte had said, but there was no way I could stop myself.

  “Mum?” I said once we were all seated around the table.

  She appeared distracted and turned to look at me irritably. “What is it?”

  “Why are you scared of the house?”

  Her face flushed, and she scowled at me. “What are you talking about, Hilda? I’m not in the mood for this nonsense.”

  “Charlie said you were crying yesterday.”

  She rolled her eyes and continued preparing our lunch boxes.

  Charlotte kicked my shin.

  “What was that for?” I yelled, loud enough for Mum to hear.

  Charlotte gasped and stared at our mother, waiting for a tongue lashing, but instead Mum ignored us.

  Charlotte and I exchanged a puzzled look, confused by her silence. We finished our breakfast without another word.

  “Over here girls,” Wendy Thomas, our closest neighbour, called out to us from the window of her funky green Mini as we reached the school gate later that day.

  I gripped Charlotte’s wrist, and my stomach did a somersault. Nobody but our mother had ever picked us up before—not even Dad.

  “Hi, Mrs Thomas,” I said politely.

  “Get in, girls. Your mummy has been held up and asked me to take you back to my house for an hour or two.”

  “What’s happened?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “Bagsy the front seat.” Charlotte ran around the car, not troubled in the slightest.

  “Nothing’s happened, silly. Get in. Lucky for you, I’ve been baking all afternoon.”

  I reluctantly got into the back seat. Although I couldn’t put my finger on why, I knew something wasn’t right.

  Chapter 2

  I felt self-conscious in Wendy’s flash new kitchen. Picking at the chocolate muffin she’d placed in front of me, I glanced at my sister. “Charlie. Eat nicely,” I hissed.

  Charlotte opened her mouth, revealing the churned contents.

  “You’re such a kid.”

  “So are you,” Charlotte said.

  “Who’d like a glass of milk?” Wendy smiled.

  “Yes please, Mrs Thomas,” we both said in unison.

  “Less of the Mrs Thomas. Call me Wendy. We’re practically family.”

  Wendy poured two glasses of milk out of a jug in the fridge.

  “That’s a funny bottle,” Charlotte said.

  Wendy handed us the glasses. “It’s actually a wine carafe, but I use it for milk. This was collected fresh from the cow this morning.”

  I paused the glass as it touched my lips. Then I placed it back on the bench top.

  “Something wrong?” Wendy asked, eying my glass.

  “You got this from an actual cow?”

  She shrugged. “Where else?”

  “The supermarket.”

  “Okay. But where do you think the supermarket gets it from?”

  I shuddered. “I don’t know. But if you got it from your cows, how do you know it’s clean?”

  “We’ve never had any complaints, sweetie. But if you don’t want it, don’t drink it.”

  The doorbell rang and, moments later, Mum rushed into the kitchen talking ten to the dozen. “I’m sorry, my darlings. I hope you’ve been well behaved for Aunty Wendy.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said, placing her empty glass on top of her plate.

  “They’ve been as good as gold.” Wendy winked at me.

  I scrutinized our mother, who was wearing a white blouse with a pair of scruffy grey track pants. She usually dressed immaculately and would never be seen dead in the track pants she wore when doing dirty jobs around the house. “What’s happened?” I asked.

  Both my mother and Wendy laughed. The fake, tinny sound confirmed something was indeed terribly wrong.

  “Why don’t you take your sister through to the lounge and watch television,” Wendy suggested.

  We glanced at our mother who nodded her approval. Yet another thing that caused me to worry—Mum refused to have a television in our house. She said it was the root of all evil.

  Reluctantly, I followed my sister who appeared oblivious to any problem and eager to get in front of the TV before Mum changed her mind.

  “Something’s wrong, Charlie,” I hissed once we were seated on the plush blue leather sofa.

  “What you talking about?” Charlotte said, staring at an animated kid’s show.

  “Never mind. You’re too young.”

  Charlotte scowled at me. “Am not!”

  “Then why don’t you care about what we’re doing here?”

  “Mummy was running late. Wendy told us.”

  “She never goes anywhere. And why are they in there whispering and acting weird?”

  “Ready, girls?” Mum suddenly stepped into the lounge, startling us both.

  Charlotte gasped. “Can I just watch the end of—?”

  “Come on, Charlie-bear,” Mother interrupted, “it’s time to go home.”

  During the five-minute walk home, I tried to work out what was different with our lovely mother. She sounded alright. She looked alright, apart from the track pants, but something was definitely off. “Do we need to paint tonight, Mummy? Going to Wendy’s has made us late.”

&nbs
p; “No, sweetheart. We’ll just have dinner and you can finish off your jigsaw puzzle if you like.”

  I nodded, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “Daddy’s home,” Charlotte said excitedly as we rounded the bend.

  Mum gasped and looked at the house. “Is he?”

  “Yes. Look. His car’s there.”

  Suddenly deflated, Mum shook her head. “It’s been there all day.”

  “How did he get to work then, Mummy?” Charlotte asked.

  “I don’t know, Charlie. Maybe he walked.”

  Although Dad only worked a short distance away, we’d never known him to walk. He never walked anywhere.

  The imposing sage-green house had originally been built for the gold mine manager and sat in its own well-established grounds beside a murky green pond. We walked through the side door into the snug that backed onto the kitchen. The old house was freezing cold.

  Mum turned to me. “Do me a favour, Hilly-billy. Go and fill the log basket for me, please. I’ll have the place toasty in no time.”

  Groaning, I fetched the basket and headed out the back door to the wood pile. Once full, I struggled to lift it. Dragging the basket to the back door, I called Mum for help.

  In the living room, Mum had turned on the gas heater to take the chill off the room and lit the huge double-sided wood burner that backed onto the kitchen. “Shall we have boiled eggs and soldiers for dinner?” she asked.