The Haunting of Ravenswood Manor

Chapter 3

"Should I really be looking at this?" Marion questioned Jasper.

"He's your relative, family is family after all." Jasper shrugged.

Marion opened and the first couple pages. then towards the bottom of the fifteenth page she saw something odd. a large sum of money deposited to the account and beside the mark was the symbol of a heart...why a heart?

"Why would he put a heart next to a deposit?" Marion questioned.

"He really loved money?"

She turned a few more pages and saw the same thing again. and then two more times on two other pages. There was never any explanation for why the money was put into the account only the symbol of a heart...four times. Marion began to wonder if maybe Henry tricked the men into putting Melanie's name as the only beneficiary for their life insurances? If that were true, then this meant all the money from those men went right to Henry, not to Melanie.

"You went quiet all the sudden, what happened?" Jasper asked.

Suddenly the light slowly extinguished, Marion went to Jasper as if it were instinct. The room became colder and both of them knew their presence there was not wanted, they were intruding on a space that was to be private, perhaps never found again. Marion gripped Jasper's hand as a low laughter began to reside in the room. Looking around both of them could not tell where the laugh was coming from. Jasper grabbed Marion and led her back down the stairs, they both felt as though they were being chased, at the second to last step, they both jumped out of the secret passage, turning back from their landing on the ground they both watched as the bookcase moved back to it's proper place.

"What the hell was that?" Jasper asked as he looked down at Marion.

"I have no idea, but whatever it was, it didn't want us up there." Marion sighed as she relaxed her head back on the floor. "I'm Marion by the way."

"I figured as much, Marion do you think that was a ghost?" Jasper asked as he continued to watch her.

"I wish I could say for sure, I really don't know what to make of this place." she sighed wishing she could make sense of this, any of it at this point.

"Gotta admit, I didn't think taking this acting job would be this interesting. Now I'm glad I took it." Jasper chuckled.

A few hours later, Jasper and Marion were moping the beautiful floors of the ballroom when the doors opened and there stood Jackie. Neither of them were sure what kind of mood she was in, but she didn't look happy or mad. Jackie cleared her voice as she looked to her daughter.

"The model bride and model groom were in a horrid accident!" she cried as fake tears streamed down her face. "Whatever shall we do?"

Marion rolled her eyes and continued on her chore. Jasper shrugged and told her there were quite a few actresses who would fill in for the bride and even more actors who could fill in for the groom. Jackie probably didn't even listen to him, she already wanted her beautiful daughter to be the bride and after giving Jasper a good look over she knew he would be a perfect groom.

"No, I've decided. Marion will be the bride and you Jasper will be the groom!" Jackie smiled and walked out of the room.

Marion dropped her mop and looked to Jasper. A man she had just met. He was wearing jeans, a white tank top with a short sleeved dress shirt but casual over the top of it. His hair was to his shoulders and was a mix of caramel and brown. When she looked into his eyes though, she felt he was a kind and gentle soul. Still she didn't want to marry anyone, she wasn't even dating and now her mother just said she wanted her to marry a complete stranger.