Free All Things Lost by Josh Aterovis

After the Captain died…” she paused as if she expected Amalie to insert a comment here, then went on when only silence filled the gap, “…there were no children, so the house was passed through a succession of owners. It was left empty for quite an extended period of time right after the turn of the century. A doctor named Johnson from Baltimore bought it in the Roaring Twenties and it was quite the swinging joint for a while.” Speaking of swinging, she was getting back into the swing of her prepared speech now that she knew she still had a live one on the hook. Her color had returned to normal and she was becoming more animated as she talked. “Over time, most of the surrounding land was sold off for farmland. When the Captain bought the land, the plantation encompassed more than a thousand acres.”
    She continued, “When Doctor Johnson died in 1950, his son left it vacant for a number of years and it fell into disrepair. The son eventually sold the house to another doctor who intended to retire on the Shore. He fixed up the house and he and his wife moved down. They didn't stay long. That's when the ghost stories started.”
Victoria
paused and took in Steve eager expression before continuing. “His wife said she heard strange noises at night, doors opening and closing, footsteps-the usual. The last straw apparently was when she woke up one night to find a woman standing at the foot of her bed. When she screamed to wake her husband up, the woman vanished into thin air.”
         “So she actually saw a manifestation?”
         “So she said. The couple wasn't long in moving out and as you can imagine, word spread like wildfire. For a while, it was quite the attraction. They even had a famous psychic come to the house to give a reading. She said she felt a very sad woman, the usual vague psychic stuff. Eventually interest died out, but the good doctor couldn't find a soul to buy it. When he died it went to his wife, who left it to her daughter, who finally managed to sell it to someone. It went through about a dozen owners in the next forty years. No one lived here very long, except for one couple who seemed to get a kick out of living with a ghost. By that time, people had taken to calling the house Amalie's house, since everyone just assumed the ghost was Amalie . The current owner has had the house on the market for two years now.”
         “The ghost has never been violent, though?” Steve asked.
         “Not to my knowledge.”
         “Let's see the rest of the house then.”
         She led us on a tour of the home. It was just as impressive inside as it was out. The house sat on an east-west elevation, facing east. On the south side of the house, facing the creek, was a huge ballroom. A row of wavy glassed windows looked out over the yard to where a few lonely looking posts gave testament to the dock that was once there. On the north side was a parlor and a library. The oldest part of the house had been converted into the kitchen at some point in the last century. It still had a huge brick fireplace that took up most of one wall and dark wooden beams across the ceiling. Smooth worn bricks covered the floor. I found it to be the most comforting room I'd been in yet.
         The second floors consisted of five bedrooms, three across the front and two on the back. The third floor, originally quarters for the live-in servants, had been converted to four more bedrooms. The Captain had built the house for entertainment, expecting regular guests. We found out that the cupola on top had been built so Amalie could watch the Creek for the Captain's return. It was there that Amalie's ghost was claimed to have been seen the most, and it was the door that led to the narrow staircase up to the cupola that was said to open and close so frequently. The idea being that Amalie was still waiting for the Captain to come home. Personally, I would have thought that she would have caught on by