The guide opened the front door and flooded the foyer with light.

“Alright,” she started into the foyer backwards gesturing for the group to follow her inside. “This is the grand entrance to the Avery Mansion,” a beatific smile seemed permanently attached to her face. “Please everyone, make your way inside… that’s great. And close the door when we’re all in… Perfect.”

With the door closed the natural light pouring down from the windows high up still lit the foyer such that they rarely needed to light the enormous crystal chandelier that hung down and cast prisms of light around the floor. The guests, mouths agape, gazed around at the Travertine marble floors, the sweeping Imperial staircase whose double sets of stairs framed an enormous painting of a man in a carefully styled suit out of the late 1800s. On his right arm a high coiffed woman with pale yellow hair, a pinched face and enormous blue gown stared off canvas. His left hand held a goblet being filled by a comely servant woman holding a large carafe with both hands.

One thing they didn’t see, however, was the man standing on the landing above and behind the tour guide.

“You’ll see behind me the couple for whom this mansion takes its name – Alexander Avery,” she gestured to the man with the goblet, “and his beautiful wife, Mathilda,” she pointed to the woman with the pinched face. With a little conspiratorial lilt in her voice, the guide started, “You might have heard the rumors that this mansion is…” she put her hand to her mouth to affect a surreptitious stage whisper, “…haunted.” There was a titter from someone in the group because everyone knew the Avery Mansion was haunted – the legend is likely what drew many of the visitors.

“Here it comes…” the man on the landing grumbled.

“You’ll notice a third person in that painting – the lovely servant girl, Eleanor.”

“Never existed!” the man on the stairs yelled.

“Rumor has it Mr. Avery had an affair with the young woman…”

“Who didn’t exist!” the man interjected.

“When their affair was discovered, the story goes that they argued at the top of these stairs. Eleanor begged Alexander to legitimize their relationship and leave his wife.”

“To what end?” The man rested his elbow on the railing. “The story doesn’t even make sense…”

“Eleanor turned to go towards the Avery’s bedroom to confront Mathilda and when Alexander pulled her arm to stop her she lost her balance and tumbled down these stairs…” she gestured to the landing where the man yawned, “where she died. The head butler, James Taylor…”

“John Taylor,” The man corrected. “She always gets my name wrong!”

“…Supposedly disposed of the body, burying the poor woman in one of the gardens behind the house.”

“Like I’d pick up a shovel,” he scoffed.

“The garden was later covered by a concrete patio…”

“How convenient!”

“…so we’ll never know.”

“Oh no, we know. We know your story is bullshit!” the man hollered.

“Many visitors have reported cold spots, items moving on their own, or the bathroom faucets turning on and off by themselves. Most of us think it’s the spirit of poor Eleanor who still walks the mansion.”

“Lies!”

“We’re going to move into the study now. If you’ll follow me this way…” she started off to the room to the right.

“Don’t follow her! She’s feeding you lies! It’s all crap!” he yelled after the departing group.

“Why do you care so much?” a woman’s voice came from behind him. She stood at the top of the stairs dressed in the plain dress worn by the female servants of the original household.

The man whirled to face the woman, “Because, Minnie, it’s crap! I was head butler here for forty years and they can’t even bother to get my name right! But they spin this drivel about some poor servant girl who never existed. For god’s sake, the girl in the picture is the artist’s girlfriend!”

“I know that, you know that… even the biographers have noted that. So what if they want to perpetuate the fiction. What is it to you?”

“I feel a certain… loyalty to the Avery. There’s practically nothing left of the original mansion – everything is…” he gestured to the chandelier, “so much costume jewelry!”

“It’s a lot prettier than the original chandelier,” the woman said staring at the seemingly innumerable glittering, multi-faceted cut glass pieces. “Hell of a lot easier to light, too.”

“Yes, but it all gives a false impression of the place. And, yes, it might be prettier, but at least they could be authentic about our stories! Instead, they make up stories about people who,” he started yelling after the departed group, “NEVER EXISTED AT ALL!”

“It’s not worth working yourself into a frenzy, John.”

“Really? Because I think I’m reaching the limit of my patience! I make the rocking horse in the nursery move and they attribute it Eleanor’s remorse about never having kids! I push a glass off the counter in the kitchen and Eleanor’s ghost is thirsty! Eleanor this, Eleanor that…” he stomped around on the landing.

“Oh, is that Eleanor’s footsteps?” the tour guide’s voice came from the study.

Minnie laughed into her hands.

“Oh, that’s funny?” John yelled at her.

She smiled and nodded vigorously.

“Really? Really, Minnie?”

“Oh John, calm down.”

“No, I’m done! It’s been more than a century. I’m done with this!”

“…Please follow me back through the entryway to the main sitting room,” the guide led the group back  into the big airy room.

John’s face went beat red and he started shaking.

“John? What are you doing? Calm down, John,” Minnie tried to get his attention.

“Errr,” John groaned and then all at once appeared on the landing to everyone standing below. “ELEANOR ISN’T REAL!” he yelled to the astonished group.

They stared slack-jawed at the apparition in horror. Even the tour guide’s smile vanished, as did the color in her cheeks.

“It’s all a fiction!” he yelled before he slumped to the floor, his energy expended in the effort to materialize. Simultaneously, his ghostly image disappeared from the view of the living.

“John!” Minnie raced down the flight of stairs and kneeled next to John who was panting and sweating. “Are you crazy?”

“It was…” he grimaced in pain, “It was worth it. Now they… now they know the truth.”

The group still gaped silently at where John had stood visible. Finally the tour guide broke the silence. “Well,” she said trying to regain her composure, “that was clearly Eleanor’s husband, angry about his wife’s infidelity!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” John groaned.

“Where do they get this stuff?” Minnie asked shaking her head in astonishment.

Reginald was pleased when the doctor poked his head out of the door leading to the waiting room. “Reginald? I’ll see you now.”

Reginald had just finished his insurance paper work and handed it to the nurse who didn’t look up from the keyboard she was absorbed in. “Have a seat,” she spoke in a monotone practiced voice. “The doctor will call you when they’re ready.” Reginald didn’t think she even knew she was speaking words, the speech was so rote.

“Kids,” he thought. “Would a little customer service and a smile kill her?” he wiped his head with a handkerchief. He knew the air conditioning should be on, but he couldn’t stop sweating.

So when the door opened and the doctor called his name before Reginald even had a chance to sit down… things were looking up. “I’m doctor Collins,” the tall man said to Reginald as they walked to the examination room. Flipping through the documents he said, “It looks like you’re here for a routine physical?” He opened the door to the exam room and motioned for Reginald to enter.

“That’s right, yes. Look, I don’t want to sound ungrateful,” he started, “But where’s doctor Cunningham? I was supposed to see doctor Cunningham. I’ve seen doctor Cunningham for years.”

Doctor Collins flashed him an empathetic smile that Reginald felt was genuine. “We’re swamped back here right now. I’m filling in for some of the routine appointments so he can focus on the more serious cases.”

“Oh,” Reginald said, “I guess that’s okay. I mean, I heard this younger generation doesn’t want to work after the whole pandemic thing. Would rather collect unemployment…”

“Well,” Doctor Collins said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that. We actually lost some really great folks to COVID.”

“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that…” Reginald stammered.

“It’s been rough but we’re making due. Anyway,” he looked at the clipboard with Reginald’s paperwork on it, “it looks like nothing significant has changed since you were in last year…”

“No, but I’ve been having really bad acid reflux all week, no matter what I eat or don’t eat. Just recently I’ve been having tingling in my left hand…”

“I could tell when you walked in that there was a problem,” Doctor Collins said when a knock came at the door.

The nurse knocking didn’t wait for a response and opened the door. “Sir,” she said to Reginald, “You aren’t supposed to be back here. Doctor Cunningham will get you when he’s ready…”

“But, Doctor Collins here–”

“Is this a joke? Doctor Collins died last year from Covid.”

Reginald went pale and started hyperventilating as he turned to look at Doctor Collins.

“She’s right,” Doctor Collins said.

The nurse turned to Doctor Collins and let out an ear-piercing scream. Doctor Collins smiled and disappeared as Reginald fell back on the table unconscious.

“Your husband was suffering from what we call slow-onset myocardial infarction,” Doctor Cunningham explained to Reginald’s wife. “Fortunately, for some reason he was already in the room with the newest defibrillator and the nurse was able to administer treatment immediately. It’s the only reason he’s alive.”

We’re swinging to the opposite end of the father figure spectrum for this one!

As a ten-year-old boy, you can imagine the excitement my eight-year-old brother and I shared when we moved into the place on Tulip Avenue. We didn’t believe our dad when he told us we would each have our own rooms. Or that they were on the second floor! But I’ll never forget when we drove up to the old place set back from the other houses on the block at the end of the street.

After being cramped in a two bedroom apartment for as long as I could remember, the two story craftsman house set among ancient coast live oak trees seemed like something out of a fairy tale. I distinctly remember my mom asking how we could afford it, and my dad telling her it had been on the market forever, that there were things that needed fixing up, this and that, and even as a kid I could tell she wasn’t buying it. But I could also tell she didn’t want to call him on it in front of my brother and me. Later that night, when I was supposed to be asleep I heard them talking.

“Haunted? Seriously?” my mom asked.

“That’s what the real estate agent said. He was deadly serious about it. Said the place kept getting resold and resold… apparently it’s got a reputation and they had to really come down on the price.”

“Like way down into our price range? That’s like off a cliff,” she laughed.

“Well… yeah. And there really are some serious things that need fixing – I need to get the roof looked at before winter, and there’s some foundation issues…”

“That sounds pretty serious. Are you sure it’s safe?”

“It is,” he said.

It wasn’t. But he had no idea what he’d gotten us into.

The backyard held the one thing my brother and I were most excited about. Built ten feet off the ground around the massive truck of an ancient oak tree was a treehouse. Let me remind you, we were two boys and there was a treehouse in the yard of our house.

But from the first time I climbed the ladder rungs hammered into the tree to the little porch and opened the door I knew we weren’t alone.

Mostly they moved things. Tommy would set his army men up in dramatic tableaus only to come back the next morning to find the army men positioned completely differently. We chalked it up to animals getting in through the window openings, but none of the army men were ever tipped over or knocked off the little table – they were all upright…. Just moved around.

After we’d lived there for a while I think the ghosts that lived in the treehouse felt more comfortable with Tommy and me because we’d catch movement out of our peripheral vision. More than once I’d hear laughter from the opposite side of the tree house that Tommy and I were playing in. But we never felt threatened or like the ghosts were evil. Honestly, it felt like we were at recess at school – kids all around doing their own thing. We just couldn’t see them.

Once Tommy and I were fooling around and I grabbed the action figure he wanted and ran through the door of the treehouse trying to keep it away from him. In my hurry, though, I managed to hit the small gap between two railings on the porch; where I expected to push off a railing I was met with empty air… and a ten foot fall to the ground below. Only I didn’t fall. I started off the edge but felt hands arrest my fall. For a moment I teetered precariously on the edge of the porch and then the hands pushed me back until I caught my balance. Tommy watched the whole thing and asked, “What just happened?” I could only shake my head in disbelief.

Our dad had a temper made worse when he was drinking and his drinking started getting bad after we moved into the Tulip Avenue house. As his moods would darken the tree house became our sanctuary. In hindsight, I don’t think he was acting completely on his own – there are a lot of stories from the Tulip Avenue house.

I don’t remember what we did to set him off. I don’t know if it was Tommy not cleaning his room, or we left lights on – I genuinely don’t remember. But I remember his anger. I remember Tommy and I running out of the house and scurrying up into the tree house. Dad followed us out into the yard.

“You kids think you run this place!” he yelled at us. “I’m going to tear that goddamn treehouse down and where are you going to go then? Huh?”

We didn’t come back into the house until he’d passed out on the couch watching the Late Show. We were worried about the treehouse but I convinced Tommy that dad wouldn’t remember his threats and we’d be fine.

He remembered.

He was still asleep when we left for school that next morning. But when the bus dropped us off after school we hurried around to the back yard only to find the treehouse had been reduced to rubble around the base of the tree. Dad sat in a lawn chair smoking a cigarette facing the rubble (which he only did when drinking), his tshirt sweat stained, and a number of empty beer cans around the chair.

Tommy had started crying, and I think that’s what first alerted my dad to our presence. He turned around with a really evil grin on his face – it didn’t look like my father. “How do you like your goddamn treehouse now?” He started laughing – again, not like my dad normally laughed. Tommy ran off for his room and I followed because I didn’t want to be anywhere near my dad.

A week later, though, we had a new treehouse.

After my dad died and the Tulip Avenue house was a memory for the three of us, my mom told me what happened. That night Tommy and I had snuck back into the house with our dad sleeping on the couch in a drunken haze was the last time he slept in the house for a week.

Mom said he claimed he was being tormented. “Goddamn kids are around the bed!” he said the first night.

“Mike, there’s no one here. Tommy and Dale are in their rooms.”

“Can’t you see them?!” he said staring frantically around the room. “Seriously, Christy? There’s like a dozen of them! You don’t hear them laughing and singing?”

My mom didn’t hear or see anything. She was convinced my dad was having some kind of psychotic break. He eventually left the room, but mom said she could hear him walking around the downstairs saying, “Stop following me!” and “Leave me alone!” until he eventually left the house entirely and slept in the cab of his truck at the jobsite he was working on that week.

The next night was the same. Mom said he had started drinking harder than usual, but everything he would start to nod off he’d jerk awake and yell at one of the invisible children to leave him alone. Mom hid his keys because he was so drunk, but she said he kept doing that nod-off-jerk-awake-yell-at-kids thing until the sun came up.

For our part, during that time Tommy and I effectively hid in my room coming out only to eat and go to school. In hindsight I think we were mourning the loss of our sanctuary as much as we were trying to stay away from our father.

Mom said the whole tormenting lasted about a week and my dad became more and more delirious from sleep deprivation. Finally, in the middle of the night after being tormented she said he yelled, “Fine! I’ll rebuild it! Is that what you want? Will you leave me the fuck alone then?!”

Apparently, they let him sleep that night.

When the school bus dropped us off the next day we could hear dad running one of his saws. We went around the back to find him and our uncle Andy rebuilding our treehouse.

“Hey guys!” Uncle Andy called to us. “What do you think?”

We were speechless.

For his part, so was our dad. His eyes were bloodshot and he worked silently, but the children let him sleep that night. Dad and Uncle Andy were finished the next day and we were up the new ladder the second they were done. From up in the treehouse I could hear Uncle Andy say to my dad, “Looks really good, Mike.”

My father grunted and walked away mumbling, “Fucking kids better leave me alone.”

“Mike?” Uncle Andy said shocked. “What’d Tommy and Dale do?”

“Not those kids. Not those kids…”