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Well, that was…

Nate didn’t know what to say to that.

Anyway.

He handed her his list. She read through it, hummed once or twice and started collecting things. “You’re keeping the original shutters?”

“Where I can.”

“Hm.” Some of the suspicion in her face gave way to something warmer. “That house used to be handsome. My mother had a photograph of it, from some church thing, before the war. All white, with the garden.” She set a box on the counter. “She also wouldn’t walk past it after dark, so.”

Ah.

Nate kept his voice easy. “Why not?”

She shrugged. “It’s a haunted house. I guess every town’s got one. Kids used to dare each other to go up on the porch. My brother did it in high school and came back white as a sheet. He swore something watched him the whole way up the drive.”

Something had. Nate could picture it in detail.

The something had likely been yelling too.

“Why is it haunted, though?” he asked. “Stories like that usually start somewhere.”

“Oh, there’s a hundred versions. Somebody died in there. Somebody disappeared in there. The family walled somebody up in the cellar.” She waved a hand. “The cellar story’s my favorite. It’s very gothic, isn’t it?”

Nate kept his face neutral. It wasn’t easy.

“What family?” he asked. “The Bellwethers?”

“The Bellwethers came later, I think. Before them, it was...” She frowned into the middle distance. “You know, I don’t actually know. Whoever had it back in the seventies kept to themselves. That I do remember. My mother called them not church people, which to her was basically the worst thing you could be.” She scanned a box of screws she’d picked up for Nate. “It’s an odd house, though, I must say. People came and went at strange hours, and then one day it was empty. Nobody ever had a story about them moving out. They were just gone.”

Nate took out his wallet and tried not to look too interested.

“You want history,” the woman said, counting his change, “you’re asking the wrong generation. I only know the stories we scared each other with.”

“Who’s the right generation?”

She considered him and Nate got the impression he was being assessed for something. Whether he was going to make the town’s haunted house into a joke online, maybe.

“Try the diner around seven,” she said finally. “There’s a group of older gentlemen who have a table there, and they know everything that’s ever happened here.”

The diner at seven was busier than Nate had expected from the quiet small town. Then again, it was the only place for folks to congregate.

Still, the booth he was looking for wasn’t hard to find. It was in a corner at the back, seating five old men who were bent over coffee cups and pie plates.

Conversation dipped when Nate approached, with everyone turning to face him. There was a bit of curiosity in their gazes, as well as suspicion.

Nothing less than what Nate had expected. “Evening,” he said. “I was told you’re the local experts on history.”

“Depends who told you,” one of the men said, though he seemed to like being called an expert.

“The woman at the hardware store.”

“That’s Diane.” He sounded satisfied. “Sit down, then. You’re the YouTube fella who bought the Bellwether House.”

“That’s me.”

“My grandson shows me your videos.” This from a heavyset man with a fork still in his hand. “You overpaid.”