House of the Golden Butterfly Read online

  B. Groves

  ©2017 B. Groves

  Temple Terrace, FL

  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.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ASIN: B076Q3ZMPC

  ISBN-13:978-1979112048

  ISBN-10:1979112045

  B. Groves Website

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  Table Of Contents

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgements

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  33.

  34.

  35.

  36.

  37.

  38.

  39.

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Other Works

  Follow Me

  Acknowledgements:

  I want to first and foremost thank my husband. He is my rock, while being my biggest fan, and my best critic. Also, all my family and friends who have supported me through this writing process. For my dad, the strongest man I know.

  Lingate, North Carolina

  A fictional town based on Asheville, North Carolina

  The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts –Italo Calvino, The Literature Machine

  Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loved ones are the worst –Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

  1.

  August 1994

  R ose pushed the wild hair out of the little girl’s face. She always had one stray hair that Rose could never tame no matter what she tried.

  Rose would say goodbye to her granddaughter for one last time. The little girl was the mirror image of her beloved—now dead—daughter.

  “I never could control this hair,” she commented, trying to make a smile touch her lips, although it was impossible.

  The little girl turned when a middle-aged couple came back through the front door after they finished packing up their car.

  Stay strong, Rose thought.

  Rose closed her hands into fists and dug her manicured nails into the delicate skin of her palms. She needed to keep her emotions in check. If she didn’t, she would change her mind and not let her go.

  The little girl’s eyes brimmed with tears. She didn’t understand now, but she would when she was older, and Rose was long gone.

  “Why do I have to go Mom-mom?”

  “Because sweetie, Mom-mom can’t take care of you anymore. I need you to live with your other Grandma and Grandpa. They will take good care of you,” Rose said.

  “No,” the girl wailed and threw her arms around Rose’s neck, holding on tight.

  Rose pried the little arms from around her neck. “No, Claire. It’s time for you to go.”

  The little girl sobbed while Mary bent down in front of Claire and said, “It’ll be fine, sweetie.”

  “But, I don’t want to leave,” Claire continued to sob.

  “You have to,” Rose said.

  Little Claire Westcott tried to grab a hold of her grandmother again, but this time Rose stood and gently pushed her away. Her heart shattered into a million pieces when she gestured to Clay to pick Claire up and put her in the car.

  Clay tried his best to calm the sobbing girl, but she resisted until he finally had to throw her over his shoulder and leave the house.

  Both of the women watched as Clay placed her into the car with kicking and screaming.

  Mary Westcott turned to Rose and asked, “Do you want to go say one final goodbye?”

  Rose lowered her head and sighed. “If I do, you’ll never get her out of here.”

  “This is horrible Rose, and you know it,” Mary said to her only son’s mother-in-law.

  “I’m doing this to protect her. Please, Mary, this is for the best,” Rose turned pleading blue eyes to the other woman.

  Mary tried to hide her disgust underneath a faceless mask, but Rose saw right through it. Who could blame her? “If you weren’t so good about Bobby’s funeral, I wouldn’t have agreed to this. Eventually, the truth will come out, and eventually, Claire will remember.”

  “I hope she never remembers,” Rose said, knowing it wasn’t true. Claire would remember and she would come to hate Rose for what happened.

  Mary’s eye turned sharp. “You know damn well that will not happen. We’re all aging, and you’ll leave everything to her. What will happen then, huh?”

  Rose lifted her chin trying to keep some of her dignity while Mary questioned her.

  “She’ll be a grown woman, and with God’s mercy, we’ll all be dead,” Rose said. Mary blinked, knowing the double meaning behind that statement.

  Mary scoffed. “If she ever asks—if she ever remembers—I will tell her the truth. But, we’ll both be paying for our sins one day.”

  Rose knew Mary was right, but her own stubbornness prevented her from admitting it openly.

  Rose fingered the brooch in her hand and looked up the stairs. She thought she saw a face looking through the spindles of the staircase, but she was to distracted to talk to him right now.

  Rose wanted to run away from her granddaughter’s sobs and close herself off from the world. She didn’t want her last memories of her only granddaughter to be her screaming in a car for her.

  But, it was the only way. The only way she could protect her.

  She would be fine with Mary and Clay. They would raise her in a stable home because Bobby had been the best thing that ever happened to her Janie, and Rose couldn’t have been prouder to call him her son-in-law.

  “We have to go,” Mary commented.

  Rose nodded and said, “Remember the account is in your name for her tuition. If you need anything else, I’ll provide it.”

  Mary shook her head. “Not for now, but I promise to keep you updated.”

  “She’s been two grades above everyone else in her class for reading, and she’s trying to write stories,” Rose said with a proud smile. “I would encourage her to pursue that talent.”

  Mary nodded and the two women embraced. It was awkward from the recent past, but it was one they would always share.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Mary said.

  Rose watched as Mary and Clay piled into the car and started the engine. The noise mercifully drowned out little Claire’s sobs.

  She only peaked through the curtain as the car drove down the driveway and out of sight.

  Rose turned away from the window and broke down in
to gut-wrenching sobs.

  She stumbled into the special room, clutching her stomach as the salty tears blinded her and her despair overwhelmed her.

  She sank to the cold concrete floor letting all her hidden emotions pour like running water all over the floor.

  Rose opened her palm to gaze on the butterfly brooch.

  Her eyes turned up when she felt the familiar presence inside the room with her.

  She didn’t even flinch when the child appeared. She was used to his presence. She was used to how the temperature would lower twenty degrees every time, and how the world turned dark and gray around her.

  And, the reason this poor soul couldn’t move on was all her fault.

  Rose didn’t move from her spot for hours.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose whispered repeatedly until her throat constricted from her grief.

  “I promise she’ll come back,” Rose added.

  “This house will be hers for the taking. I can’t free you, but she will,” Rose said, gesturing with her hand.

  The presence faded from the room, but Rose wished it hadn’t left. It somehow comforted her.

  Rose would grow old in Kinsey House alone. She would die in Kinsey House, taking all the secrets of this accursed house with her. She hated this house with every fiber of her being. From the moment she was forced to marry that… simpleton named Arthur Kinsey, to the moment she had the police show up at her door when David died, she despised this home.

  All the money in the world couldn’t change the life she lived. It never brought her any happiness.

  She turned to the wall and vowed to live out the rest of her life in this house. There was too much she held dear within these walls, but one day this house would fall, and she would laugh from her place in hell.

  2.

  21 years later

  C laire Westcott stood over the casket of her beloved grandmother—Mary Westcott—one last time.

  The 78-year-old woman lay pale and still inside of the wooden box, surrounded by a light pink silk fabric. A golden cross hovered above her head etched into the delicate fabric casting a golden glow over her grandmother’s face.

  After the lid was closed, Claire would say one final goodbye to her and she would move on with her life—alone for the first time.

  A small smile curved one part of her lips as she adjusted Mary’s shirt sleeve. Her grandmother liked to look her best and even buttons out of place made the woman have a bad day. She expected no less from Claire.

  She would have hated the lipstick, Claire thought with another smile as her eyes filled with tears.

  The mortician did a lovely job on her. You would have never guessed the woman’s body had been ravaged by cancer in her final months.

  She looked like a doll dressed in her favorite dress with tiny cherries dotted over the light beige cotton.

  More family walked up to greet Claire, but it was all a blur to her. Within the last five years, the twenty-six-year-old faced too much death.

  It started with her grandfather. Clay Westcott suffered a massive heart attack. He never knew what hit him and died before he hit the floor.

  As if that wasn’t traumatizing enough, Claire’s beloved dog, Gaia, went to sleep one night and never woke up. Gaia, her loving little Shih Tzu died from old age. Claire adopted her fourteen years before when she was in middle school, and Gaia became her constant companion.

  She thought Mary was fine until a just six months ago when she told Claire her diagnosis and Claire’s world fell to pieces. Mary took the news like a lady and prepared herself for her death with dignity.

  “Stop crying,” Mary scolded her. “Death is a part of life. That’s why it’s in a circle. Mine has come in full.”

  It wasn’t until Mary was admitted to a hospice that her diagnosis became all too real, and Claire had to deal the reality that Mary was leaving her, just like Clay.

  Claire held her hand one day while Mary writhed in pain. She never screamed, she never cried, but the low grunts and groans were enough to tell Claire she needed lots of morphine to get through her final days.

  Her once beautiful blue eyes were clouded over. Death was knocking on Mary’s door.

  Mary then squeezed her hand and gasped, “I hope we were good to you.”

  Claire smiled through her tears. “You were my parents. The best there ever was.”

  Claire wasn’t lying. She couldn’t have asked for a home life happier than what her grandparents provided for her.

  Mary closed her eyes while a smile tugged at her lips. For the moment, she was content.

  Then a shadow crossed over her face.

  “Nan?” Claire wondered what changed her grandmother’s mood.

  “I’m happy we gave you a good life,” she started. Her voice became raspier with each word, but she waved away the water Claire offered her. “That’s what your father would have wanted. We’d hoped to see you walk down the aisle before we left this Earth.”

  Claire ignored the marriage comment. She’d heard it before, especially after Papa died.

  Mary turned and tried to sit up in the bed. Claire tried to stop her, but Mary pushed her hand away and sat up cringing in pain.

  She placed a gnarled hand on the rail to steady herself. Claire couldn’t help but stare at the purple veins, and bones just underneath the paper fine skin.

  “I’m ready to be with them. I miss them. Every single day. I never knew such pain until I lost them all,” she said with more strength in her voice.

  Then she smiled at her granddaughter. “But, I never thought I would feel such joy again until you came into our life.”

  Claire lowered her head and sniffled.

  “Stop that sniffling, Claire,” Mary scolded. “Also, keep your head held high. One day you’ll find success with love, career, and maybe a family. Always be the strong woman I taught you to be.”

  Claire was always thankful for Mary’s never-ending support of her writing career.

  Another shadow passed over her grandmother’s face. Her cloudy eyes turned dark.

  “Nan? What is it?”

  Mary lay back into the pillows and struggled to take a deep breath.

  “I should have told you,” she muttered.

  Claire thought she saw a single tear run down her grandmother’s face.

  “We should have told you,” Mary corrected herself.

  “Told me what, Nan?” Claire asked, wanting to prod her grandmother, but not wanting to see her in any more pain.

  Mary shook her head, refusing to say anymore. She never said another word that night, and Claire went home confused from her grandmother’s words.

  What did she mean by that? She asked herself.

  Claire went back into her memories. She remembered nothing of her parents. They died in a freak car accident when Claire was three. Every time she was shown a picture of her mother and father, there’d been a big gaping hole in her gut she couldn’t explain to anyone.

  Claire thought Nan and Papa were always honest with her about her parents and other family issues. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  The words were forgotten when Claire received the phone call the following morning that her grandmother had passed.

  The guilt never left her because she hadn’t been there when Mary took her last labored breath. She’d been getting ready when the phone call came. She couldn’t believe she wasn’t there when Mary passed away. But, as Claire thought it over, Mary wanted this, and her guilt lessened with each passing day.

  Claire was brought out of her thoughts by another greeting from a mourner. She plastered a fake smile on her face and tried to ignore the annoying scents of colognes and perfumes that people wore. Mixed with the subtle smell of incense from the funeral home, it made her sinuses clog as it hung like a fog inside the viewing room.

  She pushed a stray hair out of her face and shook more hands and received more hugs.

  Her great-aunt and uncle stood by their respective families. Claire had always felt like an o
utsider with the family of Mary and Clay Westcott.

  Not that she was ignored by them, but that gaping black hole in her life of never knowing her parents always made her feel different from the rest of her father’s family.

  Family members expected Claire to give a eulogy. She was a writer, after all, her Great-Aunt Joanie commented.

  Claire wasn’t up for it, but she wrote one anyway. She did it for Papa and would do the same for Nana.

  She checked the clock while people were whispering amongst themselves as they took their seats.

  She would speak first. She may have been a writer, but that didn’t mean she liked speaking in front of crowds of people.

  Her Great-Uncle Ben limped up to her and embraced her.

  “Ben, can I ask you a question?”

  Ben looked surprised and said, “Sure you can.”

  Claire put her finger to her lips thinking it over but decided it might be the only time she could get an answer.

  “I know this isn’t the right time…”

  “It’s never the right time, sweetie,” he said, as he gazed at his sister. “Ask away.”

  “Nan mentioned about not telling me something or what she should have told me a long time ago,” Claire said. She wanted to laugh. The sentence made sense in her head. “I’m sorry. What I meant was her last words were they never told me something. Do you know?”

  Ben flinched, but Claire noticed he caught himself. His eyes darted around the room, and Claire noted how he stiffened.

  “Ben?”

  Ben seemed to catch that brief moment and shook his head. “I… I don’t know. She was so doped up at the end, she said a lot of things out of confusion.”

  Claire turned away in frustration. She’d been going through family pictures to hang on boards at the funeral but found nothing out of the ordinary. The family made sure her father was featured in the pictures since the couple lost their son over twenty years ago.

  Claire always thought it was strange that there weren’t many pictures of her and her parents. She thought there would have been more of them since she was their only grandchild, but there hadn’t been much to place on the boards containing the loving couple she’d heard so much about over the years.