The next afternoon, Josslyn greeted Evan at the door with a wide grin. “Come right on in, Evan,” Josslyn signed with a beckon of her arm.
“Smells great in here. What’cha been baking?”
Josslyn led him into the kitchen.
Nathan was placing some lemon-flavored goodies into a large, light-brown wicker gourmet food basket as Josslyn and Evan stepped into the kitchen.
“Oh, wow! Those look really good!” Evan signed. “Are those for me?” He grinned while Josslyn gave him the eye. They both laughed.
“These are for Norma,” Josslyn signed.
“Oh, they’re perfect for her, especially since she’s a fan of all things lemon.”
“Right.” Josslyn turned to Nathan. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Nathan signed. He picked up the basket while Josslyn pushed the stroller with Maddie in it.
“Caden and Trina are out in the backyard by the pool with Thor,” Josslyn signed to Evan, “doing their thing on their gizmos. They already know that we’re going out and that we’ll be back in a bit.”
They walked the short distance to Norma’s house.
“Oh! How nice to see you again!” Norma said with enthusiasm. She opened the door wider and stepped aside to let them in. “I was just thinking about you the other day. Please come in.”
“These are for you,” Nathan signed.
“We brought some delicious goodies just for you,” Josslyn signed. “Because you’re so special.”
“Oh, my!” Norma said. “Awww, you didn’t have to. Nonetheless, I appreciate it very much.” She peeked inside to view the contents. “Oh, dearie me! How scrumptious they look, and they smell so good!”
“I brought lemon tarts from the local bakery,” Josslyn signed as she pointed to each content in the basket, “a bag of sugar-free, lemon-flavored hard candy, and the pièce de résistance is the no-bake pink-lemonade frozen bars, which yours truly made from scratch.”
“Oh, how lovely! I’d never heard of them before. I absolutely have to try at least one. And, of course, you’re more than welcome to dig in, as I’m going to share all of this with you, too.”
Norma withdrew a frozen bar while Nathan pulled out a lemon tart, which he shared with Josslyn, and Evan picked up a wrapped lemon-flavored hard candy to suck on.
Norma bit into the frozen bar and her eyes rolled back. “Oh, my! How delicious and scrumptious this is!” She poured the hard candy from the bag into the clear lead-crystal candy dish, then went into the kitchen to put the frozen bars in the freezer, and the tarts in the refrigerator. She returned with the empty basket and handed it to Nathan. “Let’s go into the living room.”
They went into the living room and sat down.
“So, what brings you here on this wonderful day?” Norma asked.
“We’re curious to know about the background and history of the property that our house sits on,” Nathan signed, “and we assume you may know a few things about it. We also thought about maybe checking with a local historian when we have time.”
“Ah,” Norma said. She finished the last bit of the frozen bar and licked her finger and thumb, then leaned forward to pull out a tissue from the box on the coffee table. She blotted her lips and wiped her fingers. “I’ll do my best, since memory can be rusty and not all that trusty. What would you like to know? Where would you like me to start?”
“As far back as you can remember,” Josslyn signed. “All the way to the very beginning, if possible.”
“Okay,” Norma said with a pensive nod. “Please bear in mind that I wasn’t always a very outgoing person. I was more of a homebody, especially having been a full-time housewife, and later on, a full-time mother with two children, who are now grown, of course. Now I have five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
“As I mentioned when you first came to meet me,” Norma continued, “people moved in and out over the years. They never stayed put for long. New folks moved in, then moved out after a short while. Anyway, after the last people moved out, the house sat vacant for months until you moved in.”
Norma stopped to catch her breath. “I’m thirsty. Would you like some lemonade or a nice cold glass of water? I should’ve thought to ask you earlier.”
“We’re good,” Evan said. “Thanks for asking.”
“I’m just going to help myself to a little glass of lemonade. I’ll be right back.”
Norma returned from the kitchen a few minutes later. “Thank you for waiting.” She set her glass of lemonade on the coffee table. “Now, going back to the very beginning . . .
“The original house, an old Spanish-style house, had been built back in the 1940s. The first owners were a young married couple in their early twenties, Charles Watlington, an insurance salesman and his wife, Victoria, a full-time homemaker and mother. They had an only child, a son named Aaron, who was born sometime in the early 1940s. They were rather quiet folks who kept to themselves most of the time. Neighbors didn’t see them very often over the years.
“As the decades passed and the husband advanced into his older years, he outlived both his wife and child; she died in the 1980s after a lengthy illness somewhere in her sixties and the grown-up child also died from an undetected heart condition in the early 1990s somewhere in his fifties. Then, in 1999 or 2000, the owner died from old age in his late seventies without a will and no surviving relatives. The property had escheated to the State of California where the state tried to sell the property at auction. The house had been old and in bad shape, dilapidated and in disrepair.”
Nathan uncrossed his legs and sat forward, his hands clasped on his knees, interested to hear more about the people.
Norma sipped some lemonade, then continued. “The auction was eventually won for an unusually low price by a developer, who did nothing with the property for about two years.
“Then someone else with interest in that parcel of land bought it in 2003. In the early part of 2004, the house was torn down and the land cleared to make way for a new house to be built, but the property became a vacant lot from 2004 through most of 2007.”
Evan adjusted his position on the chair to make himself more comfortable and sat up straighter as he continued to interpret. He glanced at Josslyn, who rolled the stroller back and forth as Maddie napped. She'd sneak a peek at the baby now and then while Norma spoke.
“Construction of the new house began in December of 2007 around the holidays and was completed by Halloween 2008.
“Between 2008 and 2010, there had been some trouble with the house from time to time while the house had been on the market, but nothing major. There had been trivial incidents, like kids and teenagers who had trespassed upon the property, and squatters who sneaked in through the sides of the house, or homeless folks who had broken in, busted a window, or breached an unlocked sliding glass door in the back of the house, only to be removed forcibly from the property. Attentive and suspicious neighbors had called and lodged complaints to the police. Then, March 2010 came and you know the rest.”
As Nathan, Josslyn and Evan walked back to the Bryants’ residence, they pondered on what Norma had told them.
“She didn’t give us any insight,” Josslyn signed, “as to how the demon got into the house or where it came from.”
“She probably doesn’t know,” Evan signed.
“An evil spirit doesn’t just walk into a house and possess it after a house has been newly built,” Nathan signed. “That wouldn’t make sense.”
Josslyn nodded in agreement. “Evil spirits are invited into a home by a person, whether wittingly or unwittingly, and evil spirits have sneaky ways of getting people to invite them into their homes.”
“The use of Ouija boards is one of them,” Nathan signed. “It’s a doorway, a portal, from their place in Hell to the Earth plane. Others call that doorway a vortex.”
Evan thought for a moment, speculative. “Is it possible that a previous owner could have invited the spirit into the house?”