Tess Kincaid, "Limestone: Legacy of a Curse"

 

Tess Kincaid is the author of Pechewa: An American Odyssey (2024), and three poetry collections published by Finishing Line Press, Patina (2011), Unpressed (2013), and No Third Thing (2016). She is a Forward Prize nominee. Limestone: Legacy of a Curse (2024) is her second novel.  

About Limestone: Legacy of a Curse, by Tess Kincaid
Limestone: Legacy of a Curse is inspired by true events, including many experienced by the author. In 1810, a powerful Native American curse was bestowed on a plot of land near the banks of the Scioto River, in the recently formed state of Ohio. One hundred thirteen years later, in 1923, a stone and cedar manor house was constructed on the ill-fated land. The deceptively beguiling house, named Limestone by its first owners, lured five generations of occupants, from the days of Prohibition, through World War II and the Vietnam War, to the 1980s Black Monday stock crash, enabling the curse to inflict haunting tragedy upon all who lived within its walls. Limestone: Legacy of a Curse is the prequel to present-day events in Pechewa: An American Odyssey. 

From Limestone: Legacy of a Curse

Tree understood that all houses, especially old houses, spoke their own distinctive language. The unique creak of expanding floorboards, water settling in pipes, and the rattling of radiators is expected, even welcomed. They comprised the personality of a house, and after one got to know it, it became a familiar comfort. It was the same with Limestone. After six months, she knew all the usual thumps and bumps, and what time of day or night they might occur. But there were other sounds, random sounds, unexplained sounds. The turning of a doorknob, a door closing without the pull of an open window, the creak made only by a foot on the sixth and seventh steps of the front stairway, or the metallic squeak made from the turning of a water faucet in the middle of the night.

One night in late autumn, Tree awoke to the sound of footsteps on the front stairs. She was familiar with the various creaks the steps emitted, depending on who was ascending or descending. The light scamper made by children was not the same as the sound of an adult, and a male’s step was heavier than a female’s. This step was female. It gently creaked the sixth and seventh step, followed by a sharp rattle like the sound of a string of pearls dropping to the hardwood floor. Tree sat up in bed, and held her breath, listening. After a long exhale and deep breath, she noticed a heavy scent in the air, heady and intoxicating, like an old-fashioned oriental perfume. It was unlike anything she had ever smelled. She sat in the dark for several minutes inhaling the unusual scent until it slowly faded. The room was cold. The red numbers on the digital alarm clock read 3:20. In the distance, Tree heard the mournful nostalgic train whistle as it passed the Linworth crossing, as it did every night around this time.