Once Upon A... What?

By Katherine Henshaw

Summerview Manor was a house with secrets. The disappearance of the original owner Theodore Phillips the Third was basically town legend. But Tabitha and her best friend Scott didn't care. They'd wanted a place they could call home for as long as they could remember.When they finally save up enough money to buy the old Victorian house, t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katherine Henshaw
• Release date: Jan 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780648432708

Katherine Henshaw

Katherine currently resides in suburban Melbourne, Australia. A former data analyst and current freelance writer and domestic engineer, Katherine enjoys making up imaginary worlds and people while completely sober, and writing it down so others can use it to ignore their chores. Her years of living in her imagination translates into fantastical worlds and crazy adventures.

Book preview

Chapter 1

T his place is a shit hole, Tabby. I think I saw an advanced civilization of roaches in the kitchen, Scott complained, dusting off some of the ancient boxes he’d found in the attic.

I gave a giddy laugh, yet I was still unable to express the full extent of bliss at finally having a place we could call home, no matter how remote. "Yeah, but it’s our shit hole and our advanced civilization of roaches."

He sighed happily and flopped down on the ground. The good thing about this place is that it's so ratchet, even your mother wouldn't come here to harass you for money.

I rolled my eyes and chose not to answer, mostly because it was true.

"Tabitha? Tabitha! Tabitha Banks! You know I don't get enough money from the government to take care of myself. You know I have needs," Scott’s high pitched voice was eerily accurate.

Huffing a laugh, I moved the charcoal over the paper in my lap with practiced ease. Yes Mother-Dearest, I’m fully aware of your need for box wine and exercise equipment that you never use. I’ll be sure to send you something in the mail after I’ve revised my budget.

Scott snorted. She’d offer to do your budget for you.

I sighed, resigned. She would, too.

Scott lay beside me on his stomach on the floorboards in the bare dining room, his knees bent, feet kicking back and forth. The late summer heat had been unbearable for the last few weeks, especially while moving heavy furniture, but the ceilings were blessedly high. The dining room was on the north side of the house and never had direct sunlight, which meant that it was the perfect place for my art studio, so I didn’t cook myself while I worked.

I was focused on the sketch in my lap while Scott shuffled through the recently discovered box of sepia photographs and letters. It had been abandoned in the attic by Summerview Manor’s original owner.

Oh, he’s really cute. Where can I get one of those? I’d hit that so hard, Scott cooed, making me chuckle. I looked up from my commission piece to see what he’d found and instantly recognised the face.

I think you’d need a time machine to 1902 and the Scooby Gang to solve his mysterious disappearance before you could get in his pants, I said, going back to perfect the arch of the spine I was drafting.

Scott made a disgruntled noise. Lamé. I wonder if there’s any dick pics in here. He placed the picture on the pile between us, and kept flipping through the photos. Grinning, I wiped my charcoal covered fingers on my billowing yoga pants and picked up the photo.

Just as the local legend stated, he was oddly cheerful. Most photographs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were very serious, no smiling, no expressions at all really. This one, however, had a man whose eyes were filled to the brim with mischief and glee. As if he was waiting for you to find your bed short-sheeted or that you’d used salt in your coffee rather than sugar. He was the kind of guy I wouldn’t mind getting into trouble with. Pity.

I heard Scott sucking in a sharp breath and looked up at him, only to find that he was staring over my shoulder. I slowly turned my head to look. There, out through the sliding doors, was a black mass, a dark shadow figure, silently gliding past the staircase in what looked to be the shape of a hooded cloak. It was walking toward the backdoor of the Manor.

I dumped the sketch and photograph from my lap as I scrambled to my bare feet, nearly falling twice as I fought to catch up to the apparition and keep my balance at the same time.

I had just watched as it walked through the solid wall beside the kitchen door, the other side of which was the serving pantry, when Scott caught up to me. I dashed through the kitchen swing door to the serving pantry.

There was nothing there.

I ran through the kitchen looking out the windows to see if the apparition had gone outside. I flung open the rear entrance, looked in the powder room by the side entrance, poked my head out the side entrance door. I ran up the rear hall stairs and checked the upstairs rooms and the adjoining bathrooms, including the sewing room that I still didn’t know what to do with.

Scott met me halfway down the main staircase, white as a sheet.

I checked all the rooms downstairs and then went around the outside and I couldn’t find anything. Whatever that freaky as fuck ghost was, it’s gone, he said. He put on some bravado, but it was clear how scared he was. I felt it too.

Neither of us believed the stories about the place, and the architecture and low cost made ignoring them even easier.

Scott ran a shaking hand down his face and then stepped to the front hall side table to grab his wallet and keys.

I’m gonna need to run into town and get us a fuckload of tequila, Honey. I am not nearly drunk enough for this shit, he tossed over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

I smirked. Get some marshmallows and we can make some smores, too.

The indignant grunt was enough for me to know that he was going to bring home enough ingredients to put us both into a sugar coma tonight.

We weren’t going to drink our fear away on an empty stomach, so after a reasonable dinner, Scott and I sat in our warmest pajamas in front of the living room fireplace. We’d made a blanket fort and filled it with all the necessities to get us drunk and fill ourselves with sugar.

Scott considered my satin nightwear from the corner of his eye briefly as he toasted his marshmallow on the fire. The last time you wore those, you discovered Chris cheating on you. His tone was aiming for unassuming, but we’d been best friends since high school, and I knew exactly what he was trying to say. I wasn’t above being petty and making him say it though.

And? I’m a big girl that don’t need no man, Scotty, I said as confidently as I could.

It’s been a couple of years now, you should put yourself out there again, he said gently.

I nodded, but let the silence hang, giving thought and consideration to his concerns. Scott knew I wasn’t ignoring his words, that I was the type of person to sleep on it before I acted or replied when it came to serious subjects.

After assembling his smore, he blew on it and nibbled on the corner, testing the temperature. He stared blankly at the fire for a moment, licking the melted chocolate off his finger but then jolted from his slouch and stared at me with excitement.

I know what’s missing. Music! he declared.

I felt a grin flash across my face. We can totally test the gramophone we found. Start pouring the hooch. I shimmied out of the blanket fort and ran out to the dining room where we had shoved the boxes of vintage treasures that had once belonged to Theodore Phillips the Third.

I feel bad for Three-odore, Scott called out after me as I left the room. It seems like he was as close to his family as we are to ours.

Yeah? I called back as I rummaged through the boxes we’d pulled from the attic for the gramophone we’d found while cleaning. I tuned him out as I read the worn and frail covers of the records we’d discovered.

When I was back in the living room with the box that had the gramophone in it and records stacked on top, I saw Scott had lined up some shot glasses, at least four large glasses of cocktails and was reading the stack of the yellowed letters.

Scott handed over a fresh smore and a full shot glass as I sat down next to him.

- and then the letter goes on to say how his fiancée, Alice, had fallen ill with suspected influenza. Which seems odd ‘cause it’s such a disconnect from the abuse in the rest of the letter. Like it almost sounds like it's being written by another person altogether, but the handwriting is exactly the same.

Most of these letters were from his father, Theodore Phillips II, demanding that he return to the city, that he had a duty to his future wife Alice. A handful of the letters were from the fiancée, telling him how much she missed him and begged him to return.

I paused, my smore inches from my lips, Wait, so the first of the letters arrived three weeks after Theo the Third began building here, saying that he needed to go back to marry Alice. How long after was this one dated? I asked.

Scott hummed and rustled through the papers. This letter is dated 6 th of April, 1901, and the first one was dated 23 rd November 1897, so like three and a half years?

I curled my lip in disgust. So in all that time, there was no indication that Theo the Third was planning on going back at all. Ew. What if Theo the Third didn’t want to marry Alice? And that was why he moved out here and built this place. I’d hate my Dad and would run away too if he tried to make me marry someone against my will. Theo the Second sounds like a total douche canoe.

Scott’s eyes glittered. I feel bad for Alice though, she missed out on such a babe!

Laughing, I finished my smore and heaved the gramophone out of the box. Blowing dust from the turntable, I placed it onto the centre of the coffee table next to our smore assembly line.

By the time I had looked up on my phone how to get everything working, Scott was working on his second drink and had already taken two shots. Hey, slow down, I gotta catch up now, I said indignantly, swatting him on the shoulder with the back of my hand.

Honey, after that ghostly bullshit today, I’m not slowing down ‘til I can’t stand up. Now, let me handle the music while you catch up. He handed me another shot with one hand and reached into the crate with the other.

I happily sucked down the two shots and chased them with my cocktail, while Scott cooed over the albums.

Oh! Black Sabbath. Very cool. But maybe not today, ‘cause I’m done with this esoteric shit right now. Hmm... Led Zeppelin? No. Oh my god, Tabby look! The Andrew Sisters! Is there any music more cheerful than them? Remember dance class in high school?

Scott slipped the record out of its sleeve and placed it on the gramophone, then proceeded to stare at it for a moment.

Scotty, what are you doing? I tried not to laugh at my best friends look of concentration.

Okay, so I don’t know how to use a record player or a gramophone. Thoughts? he said flashing me with an adorably lost look on his face.

I handed him my phone with the page open.

It took him exactly three shots and half a cocktail each to get the Andrew Sisters voices to fill the living room with big band brass and life. The problem was that it was playing at double speed. We looked, and there seemed to be no way to change speeds on the gramophone.

"Y’know what, Tabby… maybe the Andrew Sisters were meant to be played this fast. I like it."

I laugh while struggling to pour more shots. We had listened to two Andrew Sisters albums, and a Fleetwood Mac album before we saw that the needle was doing serious damage to the vinyls. By that point we had given up on cups and glasses all together and were drinking straight from the bottle.

We should listen to the old timey music that goes with the gramoma- gram-oma-phome… that thing. I ended up just pointing at the gramophone while reaching for the crate of phonographs. I pulled a dusty yellowed sleeve from the crate, and giggled at the title. ’Hello exclamation mark, Ma Baby. By Howard and Emerson’ Oh! Is this, like, that racist cartoon of the singing frog?

Scott leaned over and snatched the record from me, and with far more care than was required, he placed the record on the turntable.

Hello, Hello! Hello Baby! I guess you don’t hear me, the wires must be crossed somewhere! drifted through the gramophones tarnished brass horn.

Thank god for technology, Scott muttered, taking a swig of the tequila.

He sounds like a gangster, see. I finished the sentence with a put on Al Capone accent, my mouth curved to the side.

The music began to play and Scott and I got up and did the most ridiculous jaunt of a dance we could muster while sipping from our respective bottles of spirits. We linked arms at the elbow and danced around in a circle, all while waiting for the chorus, as that is truly the only words of the song we knew.

This guy has some interesting vocal tone, Scott muttered around the opening of his bottle.

The song led up to the chorus, both Scott and I pausing and tilting as we waited for the words. When they came, we sang them at the top of our lungs, hands up in the air. I had a fleeting thought that maybe we should slow down with the alcohol.

---

Hello! Ma Baby! Hello! Ma Honey! Hello! Ma Ragtime Gaaaaal! We did a drunken rendition of the Charleston as we sang, though it was probably not the right decade, all the while snickering at each others faces.

The laughter didn’t last long.

I was overcome by an uneasy feeling, and then I was hit with a pulse of air. I turned to Scott, who was looking just as startled as I was. The feeling was then followed by a rhythmic thumping that quickly sped up to a reverberation.

The song long forgotten, I reached out to grab Scott’s wrist tightly, while Scott stared at the ingredients written on the side of the tequila bottle.

Nausea crawled up my throat as I fought the almost solid vibration of the air around me. I couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears and my sight was slightly blurred, but I couldn't tell if that was because I was drunk or not. The only thing I knew for sure was the feeling of Scott’s hand in mine, and I was not letting go any time soon.

As quickly as it came, it was gone. Both Scott and I flinched at the blinding light. It wasn't until I registered the warmth on my skin that I realised that it was the light of the midday sun.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light, but the moment they did, I froze.

We were no longer in the living room of Summerview Manor, but in a lush, green forest. We stood by the side of a worn dirt path in our pajamas and slippers, the only sounds we could hear was the sound of birds and a bubbling brook.

We stared at each other in shock.

What the fuck was in that booze, Scotty? I joked weakly.

Chapter 2

W hat the fuck just happened? Where the hell are we? Scott asked, clearly as drunk and as shaken as I was. I looked around for clues. The trees were nothing like the spindly, sparse late summer trees around the Manor, nor were they like anything I’d seen in my art studies. I didn’t recall ever being or hearing of anywhere with trees that looked hundreds of years old and so untouched. I didn’t think I knew of anywhere in the world that would feel or look like early spring at this time of year, either. We stood there staring at the wilderness for an unmeasured amount of time before we looked at each other with a sense of dread.

Scott, I whispered.

I know, he replied.

I think I know what happened to Theodore Phillips the Third, I said.

Yeah, I think I do too, he murmured. It was a case of bad taste in music, he added. I couldn’t help myself. I was just drunk enough and just hysterical enough to either freak out or laugh maniacally. Laughing won out. Apparently it was infectious, as by the time I could focus my eyes, Scott was also slumped over, leaning against a tree laughing, tears running down his face.

The sound of galloping horse hooves broke us out of our hysterical reverie, and we sobered up somewhat. Without thinking, we both scrambled to find somewhere to hide in the foliage. Scott leaned over to me, breathing so quietly into my ear, I had to strain to hear his words. Shouldn't we ask for help?

I looked him in the eye, my sincere fear written across my face and shook my head. We should figure out a plan before we do anything or talk to anyone, I whispered as quietly as I could. Scott nodded his head and we waited for the sound of horses to pass us by. It sounded like a handful of horses rode by our hiding spot. We waited silently, waiting for the horses hooves to fade to nothing. When they did, I turned to Scott.

The sun is setting that way so I assumed that way is west. I don’t know what they call it here, but imma call it west ‘cause I make my own rules.

Scott snorted at that, rolling his eyes at my drunken declaration. And based on the fact that they were riding this late in the afternoon, they must be headed home? Scott shrugged, content to let me take the lead for the moment, so I continued.

In other words, I don’t know anything and I’m making assumptions while grasping at straws, I said. Scott nodded his head and stared off in the direction the horses had travelled as he took a moment to think things through.

We either go the way they went or the way they came. Whatever happens, we need to find some kind of shelter and food before the sun sets, he said, standing up from the shrub we had hidden behind.

I pouted and whined, You decide. I’m too drunk to decide. Or y’know... think. That made Scott smirk.

Fine. We head to the west and find somewhere to stay for the night. I’m sure the walk will help sober us both up, he said with a confidence only Scott could muster in this situation. He plucked my bottle from my hand and placed both his and mine under the fallen branches of the bush.

I glared at him. Ugh, I hate you. You take my booze and make me do exercise. Can’t you carry me? I lifted my arms like a child.

I am only going to carry your fat ass through the woods half the time, if you carry my fat ass through the woods the other half, he challenged.

I hissed at him in a comical impression of a cat. Not today, Satan, I announced and hauled myself to my feet, considering my fluffy slippers. These are going to be destroyed by the time we get anywhere.

We trudged along the path in silence for what felt like hours, but must have only been half an hour, when I glimpsed the smoke of what I assumed was a chimney through the branches of the enormous tree tops. I felt relieved and depressed. The smoke looked so far away and all we’d eaten for the last twelve hours was smores and too much alcohol. I fake cried at Scott, which led to him snickering.

I spy with m-

Fuck no! I cut Scott off, covering his face with both my hands, causing him to guffaw and to swat his hands at me.

Aw, but Tabby, this walking in silence thing is boring, he moaned.

How about we talk about the fact that we are probably in a parallel realm or universe and it’s the racist frog song that got us here? I offered with a smug little smirk. Scott looked at me a moment and started laughing.

Oh my god, can you imagine trying to explain that? He put on a deep voice. ‘So how did you get here?’ ‘Oh you see, we were singing the frog song, not just any frog song, the racist one...’ they’ll think we’re crazy... Scott went quiet for what seemed like the first time since I had known him. Tabby, if we find a way back, we can’t tell people. They’ll lock us away or something. I nodded silently. As fantastical as this whole thing was, no one would believe us. It would just cause more problems.

We won’t say anything, while we’re here or when we get back. And if anyone asks, we’ll say simple things. Remember psych class? Lies tend to be overly detailed. Not too much detail. Scott nodded his head.

Eventually the town came into sight as we topped the next hill and looking down on it, it wasn’t anything that I had expected. The town looked to be centred around a humble stone fountain. The buildings were made of rough cut stone and the roofs were thickly thatched with straw rather than shingles. It was straight out of a Shakespearean play, as were the villagers clothing.

It’s like a Ren Faire on crack, Scott muttered. I nodded my head in awe. From where we stood, we saw there were three main roads that met at the fountain, and the rest of the town's streets spiralled out from there. What was most unique about this village was the fact that the houses were built in and around the thick trunks of ancient trees. Not a single tree had been removed in the building of this village, which gave it an earthy charm that drew me in. It seemed to do the same for Scott, if I could go by the look on his face. A few chimneys were flagging smoke into the air, and it reminded me that it was about to become dark and get cold. We needed to find shelter.

We walked to the centre of town and looked around for a tavern, ignoring the way the few shakespearean peasant-like villagers stopped and stared at us. By the time we got to the fountain, we still hadn’t figured out which of the lookalike buildings would give shelter to travellers.

A middle aged woman stepped out of a corner building with a full basket in hand. She looked at everyone staring and then between Scott and I, before blurting out, Oh my goodness! Both your clothes have been savaged!

Without even taking a moment to think, Scott ran his hands down his chest, drawing attention to his now torn and dirty sleeveless top and pierced nipples. Thank you, we do try.

The townspeople were staring at my filthy ripped purple satin pajamas. I wasn’t used to being stared at for my choice in clothing; I rarely left my studio long enough for people to notice me. She obviously meant well, but the woman's eyes had just caught on Scott’s exposed nipple rings and her horror and fascination were hilarious. I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing in the woman’s face. I cleared my throat a couple times, trying my best to keep my amusement from showing, before finally getting myself under control.

Hello, uh, we seem to be lost without any of our... uh… coins? The woman didn’t seem to be confused by the word, so I went on. Would you be able to help us find some place to sleep for the night? The woman’s eyes travelled