Echoes of Ballard House

PROLOGUE

NEW ORLEANS, TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1919

Strike fear in their filthy, selfish hearts. Make them beg for their lives. Blood pulses through my veins like kerosene, liquid fire propelling me from the Model T with the hatchet clasped in my vengeful grip. Seething rage, concealed behind a black balaclava, drives me toward Ballard House, burning to fill their night with terror.

You can’t do it, hammers a voice in my head. You don’t have the nerve.

I do and will bring them to tears.

No one will ever suspect I visited Ballard House. Let them believe it was my galvanizing nemesis, the sadistic killer who’s cowered everyone inside their homes and clubs, fearing the stroke of 12:15 a.m., the wicked hour. The sniveling cowards granted the devil’s wish. Hosting eleventh-hour jazz soirees with bated breaths, praying they’ll see the light of day.

With calculated steps and daring, I stroll toward my target with unconcerned ease. Neighbors will bolt their doors and windows when they view me coming, convinced I’m the demon they fear. I continue with the waning gibbous moon’s reddish glow and artificial light spilling from homes onto Prytania Street. Pilfered keys between my fingers, I approach the gate, prepared to unlock their worst nightmare as I steal atop the porch.

I stop dead in my tracks, noticing the ajar door, then creep to the edge of the glass-paneled entry, ears plastered on the doorjamb, listening. Rebecca would never leave a door open or unbolted this sinister night. Meticulous about everything and fearful of her shadow, she checks every entry and double locks doors like clockwork at nightfall.

Jazz music spills from the interior. No stirrings. No chatter from occupants. I expected low voices as they huddled on tenterhooks, easing each other’s fears with palliative alcohol and anxious dialogue, awaiting daybreak or perhaps for the axe to fall.

Are they upstairs?

Darktown Strutters’ Ball blares from the parlor Victrola, silencing my entrance into the foyer. My fear ratchets with several signs of a scuffle—toppled lamps and strewn objects about the floor. I tighten my grip on the hatchet. Sweat beads my forehead as I skulk around the lower floor, finding nothing; not a soul in the kitchen, dining room, parlor, or den, where I expected they’d gather till the axeman returns to his native Tartarus.

Where are they?

It’s impossible to detect sounds, not even the squish of my shoes on the floor as I inch toward the Victrola. I pause and think twice before announcing my presence to whoever’s in the home.

You will fail. My conscience nags again.

Your plan will backfire, and you’ll lose everything, not only the trust.

Shut up! I scream in my head.

Perceiving something wrong in the home, I ignore my inner voice and head out of the parlor. My nerves crawl as I tread the stairs toward the second-floor landing, coming to an abrupt halt when a metallic tang hits my nostrils. I enter the hallway and cringe backward, horrified and repulsed, averting my gaze from the carnage and blood-splattered hall. Choppy spasms roil from my stomach to my throat. I pivot and lean into the wall, pulling the balaclava below my chin, choking back bile with a forceful swallow and bitter exhale.

God, no, don’t look. Don’t look.

I do. Peering sideways at Joseph’s severed head, propped upright beside his torso on the floor, eyes startled wide but no longer seeing.

Footsteps and a spine-shivering clunk reverberate from the lower floor. A wave of adrenaline shoots through me, spinning me toward the sound with my hatchet in attack position.

The killer’s still here.

Reversing my stride, I step over Joseph’s beheaded corpse into the master suite, noticing his body’s configuration. His torso lies over the threshold, legs in the hallway, struck by the killer before entering the bedroom. Inside the suite, I tiptoe around, searching for Rebecca, fearing she’s splayed in a bloody pool like Joseph. My emotions contradict the consuming rage I’d felt moments ago, subdued by fear and surprising concern for a woman I was about to terrorize. Reactions to Joseph’s bloody image affirm I don’t have a killer’s heart.

Was he entering the room to protect Rebecca?

Though furious at their betrayal, Joseph didn’t deserve this. The hatchet loosens in my grip. I catch Joseph’s mangled corpse again and glance away. I could never—

Again, my stomach clutches. Emotions spew onto the floor. I swipe away the dribble, perceiving the wrongs of my misguided rage as I had the day before, confronting my father’s lawyer. With a knife at his throat, I demanded Father’s testament. He groaned in pain. The shock was too great, his heart failing. But I offered no aid or sympathy for my father’s henchman, only glared with a sardonic grin.

The only way you’ll get Gerard’s estate is if his beneficiaries die, he said, cringing with a sharp gasp.

I paid no heed and raided the office files for the testament.

You won’t find it. Please, boy, my pills, he begged, pointing toward the briefcase.

I laughed.

Gerard was right to disown you… you spineless, worthless little man.

Vitriol, heard for years from my father, rolled off like settled dust.

That’s not the only copy.

You think I don’t know that? I worked with the man for years. Gerard Ballard kept triplicates of everything. And now Rebecca has hidden the will somewhere in the house. Pivoting with his ghastly moan, I felt no remorse as the lawyer slumped over the desk.

If his beneficiaries die—

Four words sparked a more sinister plan. Murders I never had the heart to commit. It’s not Rebecca or Joseph’s fault my heartless father cut me off—severed me from his fortune, the home, the family business. He gave everything to Rebecca and a Creole, a colored, not even part of the family. A devilish thought and one planted by my father’s lawyer rises again. The killer is doing you a favor. The estate reverts to you if they are gone.

Thump, thump, thump, screeeech.

The drawn-out metal grates across the floor, stopping and starting as though the killer’s scouring the home. Abruptly, the chilling sounds halt, leaving me bewildered, unable to pinpoint the intruder’s whereabouts.

The Victrola spins its haunting melody to the last note.

Then, dead silence envelops the home, broken only by the rapid thud of my heart, pounding like an enraged bull within my chest.

Leave. Get out of the house. No, not before locating Rebecca. My ears perk, alert to the minutest of sound. I tiptoe through the room toward the walk-in closet and bathroom, believing Rebecca hid within, finding her nowhere in the suite.

Did she escape?

I creep toward the window with a gentle lift, exit onto the balcony, and pivot, spotting movement where I’d searched moments before inside the wardrobe.

With a blood-smeared face and torn dress, Rebecca crawls from a hidden compartment clutching a carving knife. Her ripped blood-stained sleeve, the only visible injury, reveals she’d fought for her life. Presumably, the blood on the knife belongs to her assailant or Joseph. Wild-eyed, rocking back and forth, weighing her next move, unsure where to take cover. Her gaze darts around the space, missing my image in the window.

She crawls toward the nightstand and reaches for a slip of paper, exposing the crimson wound on her side. Wincing, she crawls back inside the closet, slides her finger along the bloody knife, and dabs blood on the paper—scribbling something with her trembling finger.

Footsteps draw closer.

Rebecca's shoulders vault straight, eyes locked on the entrance, still as a frightened child, immobilized by fear.

Don’t just sit there. Run! Hide!

Thump, thump, thump, screeeeeech.

Panicked, Rebecca pushes the secret door open, crawling inside with the blood-scribbled note.

She’s safe.

Dithering at the window on my haunches, uncertain where to turn, I pause in utter amazement as Rebecca exits and closes the secret door again.

No, no. Go back inside the compartment. Hide!

I lift the window, pull the balaclava over my head, hiss, and whisper, Rebecca.

Her gaze lands on the window with widening recognition. Colin, she whispers, relief cooling the manic expression. She inches toward me on tentative feet, then freezes with an open mouth. Gazing from me to the edge of the window, she finds her voice too late. Colin, run!

My name rings like a delayed foghorn as the killer beside the casement wields the gleaming swishing axe with a whack.

A guttural howl erupts from my throat, sounding like an animal at slaughter. Jolted back onto the veranda, I roll on my side, clutching the stubby knobs of two missing fingers. The world spins, stars forming in my vision before the world goes black.

I come to a moment later, beneath a canopy of stars and blood moon. A radiating pain shoots through my hand, a frightful reminder of the ax-wielding murderer.

How long was I out? And why didn’t he kill me?

I toss my head side to side, looking for the murdering bastard. Fearing he’s near, I scramble to my knees, moaning and clutching a throbbing hand. My stomach sickens at what emerges through the window. Damn you to hell, I screech under my breath, jerking my head from Rebecca’s bloody outline. I could never do that. Scare them, yes, but never this savage slaughter. Even though I harbored a murderous rage for days, I’m no killer.

I lean over the window for my severed fingers and scan the casement, finding only my blood. Are they a killer’s token or discarded garbage? A scream rises a frightful treble from the main floor. The woman pleads for her life.

Please. Don’t do this. You’re not this heartless. Please, I won’t tell anyone. Please, let me go.

Oh, God, no. Corinne.

The demon found Joseph’s wife. Does she know the killer? Do something. Don’t let him kill another person. Reaching for the hatchet, I realize it’s missing. My vision pans out like a binocular lens across the room toward a gut-wrenching image. A feral groan rises. Boiling anger tightens my uninjured hand into a fist. The demon buried my hatchet in Rebecca’s chest, a monstrosity destined to torment me forever.

A blood-curdling scream splinters the home.

It’s too late. Go, leave! You can’t help her now.

I lift the balaclava from the terrace and wrap it over my bloody hand. Scampering toward the back, I shimmy down the column onto the back porch, race past the swimming pool, and stop, detecting a baby’s mewl in the pool house.

Corinne must have hidden her infant, seizing the perfect moment to escape with the child. Why did she return to the house?

The back door bursts open, the noise shattering the tense silence. I crouch beside the Azealia bush, my heart pounding as I notice the killer's ungainly stride. Racking my brain, I try to recall the familiar gait. Who are you—the infamous axeman or perhaps a copycat like me? Would I recognize his face without the mask? A chill runs down my spine. Has the killer been among us, lurked nearby the entire time?

In Corinne's desperate pleas, I sensed a glimmer of recognition, a connection. I can't shake the feeling he's someone I've encountered before. But who? The question gnaws at me, intensifying the fear that grips my heart.

He strides to the porch edge, grasping Rebecca’s carving knife and a gleaming axe. A long gash trails his right arm. Rebecca wounded the bastard.

Infant babbling sounds again.

Save the child. My conscience commands.

I sprint toward the two-story pool house, inspect every shadowy corner, and search through storage boxes and cabinet drawers. The infant’s cooing ceases.

No, don’t stop. Keep babbling. I need to find you, I mumble, navigating wall to wall, past storage containers, pool equipment, and gardening tools, peering up at the loft. The child could be anywhere. And there’s no time to look.

I exit the pool house and latch the door, hoping the infant remains quiet. The ax-wielding killer grows closer. But he doesn’t see me sprint behind palmetto leaves, citrus trees, and flowering shrubs to the back, unlatch the gate, and stumble onto Coliseum Street. With an adrenaline-fueled heart, bloody hand, and blazing rage, I race toward my motor car on Prytania Street.

You bastard! You didn’t keep your promise! I scream in my head. They played your hellish jazz. Why kill them? Why my sister, Rebecca? You demon from hell!

JENSEN

APRIL 2018, 99 YEARS LATER

What was she trying to tell me? I park the Jeep Wrangler beneath a two-hundred-year-old oak tree with fern-covered limbs spread across Prytania Street, open the window, and sit motionless in thought. Spring wafts through the chilled interior, hints of jasmines, gardenias, hydrangeas, and privets, redolent of my parent’s funeral, overrun with several genera of flowers. The sweet, sickly fragrance conjures their death during my college sophomore year and the painful loss I wouldn’t have survived without Aunt Miranda.

JT, my sweet boy, whispers Miranda's voice in my mind, as though she sits beside me in the passenger seat. Never using my first and middle name, Jensen Thaddeus, she called me JT from the moment she laid eyes on me as a child. Her love was the solace that filled the void my parents' untimely death created.

Recalling the reluctance in her voice and unspoken words on my last visit, I narrow my eyes and stare straight ahead, mumbling to myself, I know you wanted to tell me something.

I’ll see you soon, sweet boy.

I kissed her papery cheek three weeks ago; unaware it would be my last kiss goodbye. If only I’d known, I would have heeded her plea and stayed longer, not rushed back to unimportant paperwork at the office.

I sit on the edge of the driver’s seat, my eyes fixed on the familiar street flanked by grand historic Greek Revival, Italianate, and Victorian mansions. Behind a privet-lined gate, my family’s white Queen Anne Victorian comes into view, nestled amidst live oak, cypress, and magnolia trees. At a distance from the street, a hibiscus-marigold cobbled path leads to the front steps. The view evokes memories of my twelve-year-old self dashing from the glass-paneled doors to my parents’ car twenty-three years ago and countless nights when creaks echoed around Ballard House.

A frisson ripples down my spine, recalling blood oozing from the floors, agonizing cries, scampering footsteps around the room, the bedroom door flapping like a fan, and a loud splintering clunk to the floor. I dove beneath the covers, resurfacing when sunlight broke through my bedsheet. Dashing into my clothes, I raced outside to the front porch, where I remained for hours with my feet on the wicker chair, unwilling to touch the floor or go back inside the home.

Miranda perched beside me with a heavy sigh. "There’s nothing to be afraid of," she said, dropping her face to my frozen twelve-year-old countenance and pulling me into her side. It’s just harmless noise. I lifted my gaze, detecting worry in her expression. "The house is old and complains like my creaking bones at night," she continued.

It wasn’t just the creaks that frightened me, but the trickling blood and people I couldn’t see. Did she hear the loud thud? Was it a nightmare? That was the first and last nightmarish episode I’d experienced, but on every visit, Ballard House continued its nocturnal creaks.

When my parents’ car turned the corner that morning, I bolted from the porch to the SUV’s backseat. The vehicle they would perish in a fatal crash six years later, traveling to Princeton University parent’s weekend, my sophomore year. Several months afterward, nightmares of a passenger-less SUV arriving at my dorm haunted my sleep. The dreams ceased altogether when I accepted they were never coming back.

My foot hits the running board, and my leg dangles from the cabin. I squint at the midday sun shadowing mausoleums for the living, bordered by the neighboring mausoleums for the dead in Lafayette Cemetery. Amy, a friend and teenage crush I haven't seen in years, exits the white Greek Revival house across the street. I had befriended her on weekend visits to Aunt Miranda. She's blossomed into a good-looking woman and still has that girlish bounce as her dog pulls her along the street. Miranda told me seven months ago that Amy divorced her husband and moved back home to care for her ailing father, who passed away not too long ago. Returning home must have been difficult, given the animosity toward her family’s antiquated social mores. When she left for college, she vowed never to return. And she never did, returning only to bury her parents.

The dog races ahead, pulling Amy toward a tree where it stops, sniffs, and relieves itself on the trunk. Amy pauses with a look of annoyance and places her hand on her hip, pivoting her head toward the jeep. Believing she’s spotted me, I lift my hand with a hesitant wave, halting my gesturing when she doesn’t respond. Does Amy recognize me after eighteen years? I’m not that downy, round-faced boy she’d kissed when I left for college. My hollowed cheeks and angular jaw must appear different from the teenager she knew—a result of running college track and a rigorous workout that’s become a daily routine. We’d tried to stay in contact over the years, a letter here and there, but drifted apart soon after college.

I realize she’s not staring at me but at another dog walker with a bright smile crossing the street toward her. She kisses him on the mouth and clasps his hand, evoking the sticky cherry lip gloss I’d tasted on her lips that blazing August day, making out on her twin bed. Our teenage awkwardness induces a grin and a cringe, recalling her creepy brother busting in and taunting Amy to tears, her hatred and fear of Billie unmistakable on that blistering day. Ahead, she and the other dog walker continue around the corner with a command and tug on their dog’s leashes.

Freed from small talk and another condolence, I release a sharp breath, slide from the Jeep with a swift close of the door, beeping it locked. Tucking the key fob in my pocket, I fasten my gaze on the tree roots protruding through the cobbled sidewalk and continue toward the privet-lined gate on careful footing. I enter the passcode, etched on my brain like the floral engravings on the wrought-iron spires, into the console, and the lock clicks.

As I enter the gate, I glance up at the white balcony circling Miranda’s bedroom on the second floor, expecting to see her waving as she did throughout my boyhood. My gaze slips to the off-street parking beside the home where her faithful Mercedes has sat idle since her eyesight failed three years ago. Anguish from her lost independence echoes in my memory. I wipe my sweaty brow and continue along the privet-lined path, past fragrant marigolds and gardenias blossoming in the thick humidity. With my arrival expected, the front door opens long before I step onto the wrap-around porch.

WHISPERINGS

Whispers awaken after days of silent anticipation, hushed voices stirring within Ballard House walls. Every nook and cranny echoes a soft song, a symphony of creaks, cascading like falling dominos, weaving their way along the timeworn walls.

He’s come—

He’s come—

He’s close—

Yes, very close—

The front gate swings open and then shuts with a muted thud.

Will he help us?

Yes, I believe so. He’s the one—

Our hope, hope—

Hush now, my little one. He’s here—JT will set things right… Set things right now that Miranda is gone. Hush… hush… shhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The front door creaks open. Footsteps fall. The walls hold their breath, coming to absolute silence.

MIRANDA’S LETTER

"JT! Hello, sweetheart," Anna, Miranda’s lifelong friend, greets me, rushing to the porch edge, arms open, folding me into her pillowy bosom.

Six years younger than Miranda at seventy, Anna always looks more youthful than her age. How will she cope without her faithful companion? Friends before I was born, raised on Prytania Street, their parents’ alliance brought them together, a bond that’s lasted through their marriages, the birth of their children, widowhood, and now severed by death.

Raw emotions from losing her constant companion, just five days before, seep through the fabric of my shirt.

Oh, darn, sorry, she apologizes, dabbing at the linen sleeve. She steps back, taking me in and wiping her eyes. This day has come too soon. Her voice is low and solemn. It will never feel the same without her here, she admits, motioning with her hand and leading me through the vestibule.

My shoes clack-clack-clack on the hardwood floors, reverberating from the foyer up the winding stairway. The airy home still smells of new furniture purchased a year ago, the ever-present scent of Miranda’s lemon essential oils mingled with the woody musk of cardboard boxes. Miranda’s figure mirages on the sofa with a fond expression she assumed whenever I visited, an image I cling to, never wanting to forget her smile.

We pass through the parlor into the formal dining room, heaped with boxes and bubble wrap. With items scattered around the table, Anna kept the large crystal glass bowl filled with lemons undisturbed in the exact spot Miranda preferred on the table. A fan of Feng Shui, Miranda believed lemons brought good fortune and warded off negative energy, which I always interpreted as evil spirits. The home is never without lemons, a product of her prized lemon trees in the backyard. An abundance she used for cooking, her essential oil concoction (sprayed around the house like holy water), and as gifts to friends and associates packed in decorative gift baskets.

I recall the ever-present crystal bowl with nine lemons, which Miranda kept in the southwest corner of the kitchen, and my sarcastic comment about Chinese geomancy. She responded with a smile and an answer posed as a question. Why do you think we’re so fortunate? Our family business and wealth thrived for years because of genius, hard work, and astute practices, not an ancient tradition. Regardless, Miranda never once complained about the home’s negative spiritual energy. Maybe her measures worked, or she ignored the presence.

I can’t believe she’s gone. The house feels hollow without her. Before you arrived, the walls creaked something awful, Anna states.

It’s just the wood swelling from the humidity.

"I’ve lived long enough