Restless Spirits: Chapters 13 & 14
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Chapter Thirteen
The crew arrived late that afternoon. It wasn’t just Chris and Gus. They brought the entire Paranormal Institute with them—or at least as many members as were brave or stupid enough to come. As they all filed into the house, Chris led them straight to the spot where I died, and the spot she’d been standing in when I pulled her hair.
“It was here,” she said. “Are you getting anything?”
She directed her question to a young woman in a Betty Page bob and vintage cats-eye glasses. She held no equipment. Closing her eyes, she reached her hand out to the spot Chris had indicated. Another medium, apparently. Like Chris, only showier. She drew in a sharp breath and jerked back her hand.
“What is it?” asked Chris.
“It’s... I’m not sure. There’s definitely a presence here, in this house. It’s angry.”
“At us?”
Betty shook her head. “I can’t tell. But we should be careful. Whatever it is, it feels powerful. I don’t want to find out what it can do if its anger is directed at us.”
Chris shook her head. “Ron wouldn’t hurt us.”
“What about the thing that killed Ron? That wasn’t her voice on the EVP.”
“No, but it said her name. And I know that was her voice I heard calling my name the other day.”
Betty put a hand on her shoulder. “Wishful thinking can play pretty powerful tricks on us, sometimes.”
Chris shrugged her hand off. “I know what I heard.” Right you did, little sis. You tell ‘em. Chris turned to address the assembly. “Okay, people. You know the drill. Split up in teams and search the house. Don’t get separated from your partner. I want everybody back in this room in fifteen minutes.” She started assigning teams to different parts of the house.
Standard operating procedure called for a preliminary search of the house while it was still daylight. They would go over it from top to bottom, checking all of the closets, nooks, and crannies to make sure it was empty of people and animals. Only then would they set up their equipment. Once it was dark, they would go through the house again, looking for any evidence of paranormal activity. They’d use video cameras, tape recorders, cameras, thermometers, heat detectors, EMF detectors...well, I’m sure anyone who’s seen Ghost Hunters knows how it’s done.
The teams got their marching orders and headed off to carry them out. I didn’t envy the ones who had to go check out the basement. That place even gave me the creeps. Chris stayed in the parlor. “Sheila, you’re with me,” she said, and the woman I’d been calling Betty followed her as she headed toward the kitchen.
After going through the built-in cabinets in the dining room, they made their way into the kitchen. Could my luck get any better? The one person I wanted to get through to most was heading into the one room where Sarah couldn’t reach us. I had to restrain myself from doing a happy dance. I needed to conserve my energy until the right moment.
The gang was gathered in the kitchen, watching. “See?” I said as Chris and Be—Sheila started going through the cabinets. “I told you she’d come back!”
“What are they doing?” asked Maxwell.
“They have to make sure there are no animals or anything natural that could account for any weird noises or scents or anything.”
“Wow,” said Joe. “You’ve really got a handle on that professional ghost hunter talk.” He winked. I stuck my tongue out at him, but I couldn’t help smiling.
“Okay,” I said, “once she brings in her equipment, I’m going to try to contact her.”
“Can we help?” asked Lilly. “I can move some things around for them. Maybe I could go upstairs and play the ukulele—”
“No. You’ve helped enough, and I mean that. I don’t want to give Sarah another excuse to put you back in the basement. That goes for all of you,” I added. “The best way you guys can help is to stay out of the way. I need her to detect me. If you’re all running around messing with their equipment, they’ll just get confused. Not to mention freaked out.” Yes, freaked out. They might be pros, but they were still human and prone to the wiggins. It wasn’t unheard of on certain expeditions for some of us to run from the house, screaming like little girls. I won’t name names. I especially won’t name any names that rhyme with bus.
“I want no part of it,” said Ruth. “They’ll all be joining us soon, I’m certain. It’s going to become entirely too crowded around here.”
I sighed. “They’re not going to join us, Ruth, tonight or any other night. Look, for the millionth time, I’m doing this for all of us. If I can talk to Chris, I can tell her about Sarah, and then maybe she can figure out a way to free us. That’s a good thing. It’s a thing I should think you’d all be happy to cooperate with.”
“You got that much faith in your sister?” asked Joe.
I nodded. “She’s been studying this stuff since she was a kid. If anybody can get us out of here, it’s her.”
“All right, then. Consider us out of your way.”
Ruth looked down her nose at Joe. “You presume to speak for Maxwell and me?”
“Ruth, hush,” said Maxwell, and the look she gave him was withering. But he didn’t back down. “She’s right. This could help all of us.”
She sniffed. “Very well,” she said, “but I don’t approve.”
What else was new?
Chris and Sheila headed out of the kitchen. “Okay,” I said, “pretty soon, they’ll come back to set up their equipment. Hopefully, Chris will get on her laptop, and I can try to talk to her through it the way Lilly talked to me. What I need is to get good and angry before she gets here.”
“What on earth will that serve?” asked Ruth.
“I figured it out,” I explained. “It’s emotion. Strong emotions like anger and fear make us strong enough to get through and affect the other side. If I can work up a good rage and keep it up long enough, I should be able to type out a message to my sister.”
Everybody looked at each other. “But,” said Lilly, “I don’t usually feel angry or afraid when I make things move.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know…I figure it’s any kind of strong emotion. You’re a sixteen-year-old girl, stuck in an eternal hormonal flux. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. I doubt it’s that hard for you to tap into them. Every emotion is super strong when you’re sixteen.” It sounded good to me, at least. It must have sounded good to Lilly, too, because she nodded.
“What about Sarah?” asked Joe. “Somebody needs to keep her occupied so she doesn’t interfere.”
“What? No. No! I’m not going to ask anybody to do that.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, standing up. “I can take one for the team.”
“Joe...no! That’s—just no! Don’t do that!”
He came up to me and looked into my eyes. “It’s okay. I can take it. She ain’t gonna do anything to me that she ain’t already done a thousand times.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what she can do. What do you think happened to the rest of you? There should be at least a dozen ghosts here. Sarah’s picking us off.”
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“Go ask Ed. He saw it happen. I don’t know how, but she can destroy us. She could destroy you.”
He shook his head. “Ain’t gonna happen.”
“Joe, listen to me! This isn’t necessary!”
He lowered his voice. “Yes, it is. If you don’t want your sister to get hurt, this needs to be done. Now, just trust me.” Without further argument, he disappeared.
Looked like I wasn’t going to have to work hard at getting angry after all.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time Chris and company set up all of their equipment and got to work, I was out of my mind with worry and frustration. At least talking to Chris ought to be a piece of cake. I’d have to remember that silver lining if Joe didn’t make it back. Right now, it wasn’t making me feel any better.
Instead of the kitchen, like I’d hoped, Chris set up her computer in the parlor, in the same place I’d put mine. I kept thinking of Joe while she booted it up, wondering what Sarah would do to him. I didn’t even know how he died. I hoped it wasn’t too horrible.
“Sheila,” said Chris, sitting down, “can you go gather some readings in the kitchen?”
“But, I thought we weren’t supposed to split up,” said Sheila.
“Of course not. Don’t get out of earshot. I’ll be right here.”
Sheila opened her mouth to protest but seemed to realize Chris needed some alone time and nodded. Once she left, Chris backed her chair away from the computer. “Okay, Ronnie, or whoever you are. If you can pull hair, then I’m betting you can push keys. If you’re here now, can you type something for me?”
Smart girl. I went to the computer and saw that she’d pulled up a blank word processor page. Thinking of Joe, I reached down and made contact with the keyboard.
dont call me ronnie
That short phrase took about a minute to type, even without proper capitalization or punctuation.
Chris stared, slack-jawed, the whole time. She shook off an apparent chill, took a deep breath, and said, “Can you prove it’s really you?”
Seriously? This was going to take long enough without twenty questions to prove my identity. Supremely irritated, I took a shortcut and yanked on her hair. “Ow!” She rubbed her head. “Jerk!”
twerp
She smiled. “It’s really you.”
Finally! Real progress! I didn’t waste any time getting sentimental.
get me out of here
“How?”
how should i know
“You are in a better position to know these things.”
Right. She needed something to go on. It would take forever to tell her about Sarah, so I just typed:
research dead kids
Not particularly articulate, but this was about as tedious and cumbersome as text-messaging. I was about ready to resort to text-speak, something I always said would happen over my dead body. Well, there you go.
“Dead kids?” she asked. “Could you be more specific?”
I just waited. She was smart enough to piece this together, and I was getting worn out.
“Do you mean kids who died here?”
bingo
“There weren’t any.”
wrong
“But, I’ve researched this house’s entire history. No kids—except for the Feldman baby, and he survived. He manages a QuikTrip on Route 66.”
I sighed, and summoned the strength to keep typing.
little girl. red hair. sarah. she
Before I could type any more, the computer flew out of Chris’s lap and into the wall. We both screamed at once.
Sheila ran in from the kitchen. “Is everything okay?”
Clearly shaken, Chris just pointed at her laptop on the floor. She started telling her about our conversation. I didn’t pay attention. I was too busy shouting at the kid.
“What is your problem?” I left them arguing about the wisdom of Chris sending Sheila out of the room and ran up the stairs. I was angry. Angry enough, I hoped, to mete out a spanking to a powerful little spoiled brat.
But I didn’t find Sarah at the top of the stairs. I didn’t even find the upstairs at the top of the stairs. At least, not the one I was familiar with. Instead, I found that other hallway, the one with the Victorian decor and the burned man standing at the end of the hall.
I wanted to turn and run at the sight of him, but I stood my ground. “It’s you, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’re the one doing all of this.” He took a halting step toward me. I flinched, but I held my ground. “Leave them alone. They’re not here to harm you!” I remembered the thing that I had seen Sarah turn into and thought maybe this was another manifestation. It started coming toward me, one arm outstretched as if reaching for me, but I wasn’t about to stand still and let that thing get me. I transported myself back into the parlor, where Chris had set her laptop back up and was frantically calling my name.
“Ronnie?” she called. “Are you okay? Please, if you’re able, just give me a sign. Any sign.”
“I don’t sense her,” said Sheila, “but I’m sensing a lot of anger. And fear.”
I leaned back over the laptop and typed:
get out
“Ron?”
yes. evry1 out. now.
Chris swore. Then she told Sheila, “Call the others. Get the equipment.” She shook her head and said, “Don’t worry, Ron. I’ll be back soon.”
NO
“What do you mean, no?”
TOO DANGEROUS
“But how am I supposed to talk to you if I don’t come back here?”
ill contact u just go
“How?”
Excellent question. I didn’t have an answer for it.
ill figure it out
When she still didn’t budge, I added:
love u
Chris sniffed, her eyes filling with tears. “I love you too, Ronnie.” She closed the laptop and went to help Sheila round up the others and herd them out of the house.
Only when each and every one of them were safely out of the house did I return to the kitchen. “How did it go?” Lilly asked as I walked in.
“I got through. Chris knows we’re here. Something started messing with us, though, so I got them to leave.”
“Good riddance,” muttered Ruth.
“Mama,” Lilly admonished, then turned back to me. “Can she get us out of here? Can she set us free?”
“I don’t know. But she’ll try. We didn’t get that much time to talk. That burned guy seemed to be getting pissed.”
“What burned guy?” asked Maxwell.
“Ron has seen another ghost,” Lilly told him. “A man covered in horrible burns.”
“Nonsense,” said Ruth. “In all my years in this house, I’ve never encountered such a being.”
I didn’t really feel like arguing, so I let it go. “Is Joe back?”
Lilly shook her head. “He always disappears for hours when it’s his turn.”
“Do you know where he goes?”
She shook her head, and the others remained silent.
“You mean none of you knows how Joe died?”
“He doesn’t like to talk about it,” said Lilly. “He usually comes back here when it’s over, though.”
I nodded, and sat down in the chair that was usually kept free for him. “I’ll wait for him, then.”
“I’ll wait with you,” said Lilly.
“You girls have no cause to worry so, I’m certain,” said Maxwell. “Joe is made of hardy stock. He’ll outlast us all.”
“You shouldn’t speak of things you know nothing about, Maxwell,” said Ruth. Then she stood up. “I’m weary of sitting. Take a stroll with me.”
Maxwell sighed. “Be right there, dear.” He turned back to me and Lilly. “Give Joe our regards when you see him. Tell him he has our thanks.”
I smiled. “I will.”
“Maxwell!” Ruth hollered, having already vanished from the room.
He sighed. “Coming, dear!” he shouted, then he, too, disappeared.
I practiced drumming my fingers on the table. “I’m going to hate myself if he’s not okay.”
“He’s okay,” said Lilly.
“How do you know? How can you be sure?”
She shook her head. “I can’t. But I can’t let myself believe otherwise, either.”
I stared at his empty chair. “I just can’t stand not knowing.”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “The last time he did this was when you came.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you first came here, before you died. He warned me not to speak to you, not even to warn you. But I didn’t listen. So he went away to try to distract Sarah so she wouldn’t harm you.”
“He did?” I let that sink in for a minute. He stuck his neck out for me when he didn’t even know me. What on earth possessed him to do that? “I’m glad his plan worked out better this time. For the living, at any rate.”
“Me, too,” said Lilly. “And I want you to know how sorry I am. I only wanted to warn you, to get you to leave so you’d be safe. But Joe was right. I only drew attention to you and made her angry. If I had left you alone like he told me to—”
“Hey, don’t you dare blame yourself for what happened to me, kid.”
“But if I hadn’t spoken to you—”
“If I had listened to my sister and not come here alone, I’d probably still be alive and kicking. I don’t have anybody but myself to blame. Well, and Sarah.” We sat in silence for a few moments. Then, quietly, as if afraid of the question, Lilly asked, “You like him, don’t you?”
“Joe?”
“Well, since my father’s married and I’m fairly certain Ed is too old for you...”
“Funny.” I smiled. “I like Joe fine. I wasn’t too sure about him in the beginning, but he’s a good guy.”
“I mean...you like him. As your beau.”
“Oh. Well. I mean, he’s cute and all, in a cowboy sort of way, but I don’t really—”
“He likes you,” said Lilly.
I blinked. “What, you mean he likes me likes me? Did he tell you so?”
“No,” she said, fiddling with her hands, “but he doesn’t have to. The way he looks at you...he doesn’t look at me that way. It’s the same look he gets when he talks about his wife.”
Oh. “Really?” Wow. I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling. I shouldn’t put a lot of stock in the observations of an inexperienced kid, though. Besides, by the kicked-dog look on her face as she studied her hands, confirmation of her suspicions was the last thing she wanted to hear. My sudden urge to smile faded. “Look, Lilly, don’t worry. I’m not moving in on your territory. I know you’ve got a thing for Joe—”
“But I just want him to be happy,” she said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I feel. He doesn’t even notice I’m alive. Well, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, and he does so know you’re alive. You’re one of his best friends in this house.” I cringed as I remembered how it felt when I was a teenager and a guy I liked would tell me I was his best friend. Not what you want to hear from someone you’re crushing on. “The point is, he notices you.”
“He sees me as a child. But you...you’re a grown woman. And you’re beautiful, and witty—”
“I’m a stubborn, pig-headed fool, according to Joe. Those aren’t exactly courtin’ words.”
She smiled, but she didn’t look encouraged. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said and let it drop.
Poor kid. I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to have died in the prime of her youth without having experienced so much as her first kiss. And then to be stuck in this unimaginable limbo where she was perpetually sixteen with no hope of ever growing up...my heart went out to her. Maybe I should talk to Joe about her, give him a little nudge in her direction.
Something in me railed against that idea, though.
I didn’t want to examine that part too closely.
I just hoped he was okay.
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