"Hello," Anne offered. She had the most trouble with steps; lifting her injured leg to climb up. Going down was fine, but it was a slow trip with the need for the hand-rail to get up onto the veranda. "I'm Anne Thompson. I was hoping to ask a few questions about the burned house down by the road."
"Of course. Sit down, dear. Are you okay?" the woman asked kindly, brushing a mass of frizzy grey curls over her shoulder, motioning to Anne's limp.
Anne brushed at the question. "Pfft-it's nothing."
"Reg, keep company while I get the album. Would you like a cup of tea?" the woman asked Anne.
Reg beamed. "Happy to keep company."
"Tea would be nice, thank you," Anne replied.
The old man sat with her at a glass-top cane table with matching chairs. "We don't get a lot of company. Folks think we're weird and Ethel is a witch or some such nonsense."
"Oh? That's not very nice."
"It's mostly because of the old house down there. They say the old laundry and workshop are haunted."
Anne eyed the kindly old man with interest. "Maybe they are. I think I've just experienced a haunting of sorts."
The woman returned with a tattered, silver coloured photo album. "There… have a look through. I'll be back with tea."
Reg motioned for Anne to help herself to the album. She opened the cover to find a title page that read: Holbrook Haunting. The name Holbrook was familiar to Anne. She questioned the old man with a glance.
"Holbrook is the original property name here." He motioned to the sweep of land they could see from the veranda. "All the way from the tree line of the creek to our driveway. The Harper house was on a small section, down there on the hay flats."
Anne turned the first page to find a series of photos that all looked the same. They were of the hay fields. There didn't appear to be anything significant about any of them.
"You see the light there?" Reg pointed out. "Look-there and there." He was indicating distortions in the print quality of the photographs; white blurs. "That's young Nick at work. You see him some days slashing his straw and baling it up."
Anne studied the photos closely and saw something of what the old man was claiming. The blurs could be construed as the shape of a tractor in the field.
"I have the camera set up all the time. You never know when, but in mid-summer, when the heat is at its worst… that's the time to watch for him."