by Kim Hornsby
I’d slept in until eleven in anticipation of tonight’s crazy schedule. I assumed Eve and Carlos did too because I didn’t hear from either of them until well after I began putting lunch together.
Having a pre-investigation nap was not necessary so I played a game on my laptop called Nightjar that had vocal cues to allow blind people like me to game. Nightjar was recommended on a “Things Blind People Can Still Do” site and I liked the challenge it provided. That and the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch narrated, and I happened to love that man enough to consider myself a Cumberbitch. Sherlock was one of my favorite shows when I could still see his intriguing face and now that I was listening to him on my laptop, I had to admit his voice was equally intriguing.
We’d made a plan to try a summoning at eight p.m. seeing the ghost had wandered down the hall around that time before, following two young children coming back from an evening out with their parents. If that time didn’t work, we’d try again later and keep going for a few hours. Eve had the keys to all the rooms around 714 in case the ghost went through the wall and we needed to follow.
My plan was to first attempt contacting the girl in the hall, then the room, then the elevator. Patrons were warned that one of the elevators would be out of service at midnight for a few hours and the other elevator had been programed to not stop on the seventh floor. If we needed to leave the seventh floor for any strange reason, the door to the stairs had been bolted from our side and we could easily lift the bolt and flee if things got wonky.
Eve was munching on something that snapped over on the other bed, while Carlos moved between both rooms talking to Eve about Electronic Voice Phenomena. He loved to capture voices on high frequency sound waves, being the one of us three who had no psychic abilities to communicate with apparitions. His super power was tech stuff.
“I’m going to have that sucker turned way up as well as setting up some infrared around the 714 doorway,” he said.
“Sounds like fun,” Eve called back, knowing that for Carlos, his tech stuff was what made ghost hunting fun. Standing around waiting for me to tell them what I heard or saw didn’t cut it for Carlos. He wanted in on the sightings, or at least confirmation. He needed toys that produced information. Before Carlos joined my team, I’d always been proud that I didn’t need to rely on equipment like some ghost hunters without clairvoyance, but Carlos had come along and convinced me to purchase fun toys of the ghost hunting kind. Aside from making him feel proactive, he’d also argued that when he caught stuff on tape it made the episode more scientific rather than asking our audience to trust that I wasn’t lying about hearing a ghostly voice. Our reactions to his data were fun to capture on tape too. Eve often squealed and screamed when a voice came through.
My mother called to say good luck which was very unlike her and ask if she could sleep at Floatville tonight, which was more like her.
“Can’t stand Ron’s apartment, eh?” I said.
“We decided a night apart might be good for our health. We don’t get much sleeping done,” she added.
I detected a lie but wasn’t sure if they actually did a lot of sleeping or if it wasn’t my mother’s choice to sleep alone. “Why don’t you go back to your own house?”
“It still smells funny. I’m going to have to get some air fresheners or candles or something.”
“Or open the windows,” I added. “You can crash at Floatville tonight. The hidden key is now six inches down in a blue pot that holds a dead plant to the left of the front door.” I’d recently moved the key because Rachel was really good at finding the thing, sneaking in and trying to pretend she hadn’t borrowed my floating house for a day or two when I knew she had, not only by the lingering scent of White Diamonds but by the way she never made my bed.
“I have it in my hand. I just thought I’d ask this time because you got so mad last time.”
Wow. Either Rachel was getting too good at finding the key or I was not good enough. I laid down on my bed, closed my eyes and thought about where to hide the key, a place where my mother would never find it. Maybe dangle it off the dock on a piece of invisible fishing line, thirty feet down.
When eight p.m. rolled around, it turned out I had nodded off. All that sleeping with Restless Rachel last week had me down a couple hours of zzz’s. When the alarm started its tinkling music, I opened my eyes, and reached to silence the thing on the bedside table.
“Rise and shine,” Eve said. “It’s ghost time.”
My cousin had already done my makeup and only needed to touch up my blue-tipped hair which tonight was swept off to the side like a sideways soft dip ice cream cone. Eve liked the look and thought it went well with my image. I’d chosen some skull earrings and necklace, to compliment my floor-length black dress and army boots but then thought twice about skulls. I wasn’t about to dress like a kindergarten teacher to be more child-friendly but made the decision to remove the earrings, on camera, just before everything began.
We’d brought the Boo Bear, a piece of equipment that resembled a teddy bear but was so much more. It was an EMF recorder that was able to detect all sorts of things including temperature--“It’s getting chilly in here!” and magnetic fields--“Are you my new friend?” I intended to carry that imposter around all night, hoping to attract an eight-year-old girl.
I stepped into my dress, with Eve’s help, the taffeta of the skirt swishing, and remembered the last time I wore this frock was New Year’s Eve with Harry eighteen months earlier. We’d believed we had all the time in the world to enjoy New Year’s Eve parties at the top of the Seattle Space Needle with friends. We hadn’t even had another seven months before the accident took his life along with my eyesight, in one selfish swoop.
“I doubt if the ghost appears, she’ll even notice your jewelry.” Eve zipped the dress up, fixed my décolletage and left me lacing my army boots with three-inch heels. Looking bizarre was part of my schtick. I wouldn’t wear normal clothes on camera when there were costumes to be worn in the world.
As a teen, I’d always yearned to go to a school long enough to be in the drama club, but I’d only get as far as the first rehearsal and then Rachel would announce we were taking to the road again and school would have to wait. My brand had developed gradually, the Moody look taking off the night I was called to a summoning in the small town of Carnation outside Seattle. I’d been on my way to a costume party with Harry, dressed like a 1940’s movie star that night and never looked back, eventually changing to Rock Witch Chic, or something like that. Stevie Nicks’ early photos with Fleetwood Mac often gave me ideas for my next outfit and in the days when I could see, Harry and I would spend hours combing the downtown second-hand clothing stores for anything that looked like a renaissance witch might have once worn it.
When Carlos and the machines were ready, I turned the TV on for Hodor, told him to stay, and we entered the hall, leaving my dog in the room. If the first try did not produce a response, I wasn’t beyond trying to summon a child with my dog. Most children adored dogs. First, we’d try Boo Bear.
In the hall I felt around the doorways, Eve narrating to give me the room numbers. Our room was one down and across the hall from 714. “I want to do the opener in front of 714,” I said. “My back to the door.” I hadn’t told the world I was blind and as far as my fans went, the rumor of being blind was just that. I’d recently shown them a video of me playing soccer to dispel the idea that I had lost my sight but that was when Caspian was present and kicking a soccer ball in Cove House’s foyer was possible. Thinking of Caspian led me to wonder if he was walking around Cove House in our absence wondering where the heck we all went. My heart hurt to think he might come back in our absence, but I’d left him notes in my bedroom, on the kitchen table, on the front door and on the table in the third floor hall foyer, explaining we’d be back in three days and at the time of our departure, he’d been gone a full week. He liked to know these things.
According to Eve, Carlos had set up two laser grids in the h
all, the red crisscrossing beams shining against the hall wallpaper. If a ghost passed the grid, the outline would be seen and for that reason, Carlos also had cameras on the grids. Along with Boo Bear, Carlos used a MEL meter to take electromagnetic readings and temperature changes and swore by those things. When something spiked or made an unusual sound, Carlos occasionally handed the camera to Eve so he could check his toys.
Eve had me primped and ready, saying I looked dark and schoolmarm-y, like a badass ghost hunter. I worried my noisy dress might be caught in the audio, but Carlos said the swishing of the taffeta didn’t interfere with the EVP meter.
“I’m ready when you are, Carlos.” I now stood in front of room 714 waiting for the go-ahead. I always got a bit nervous before the camera switched on even though we weren’t live, but I preferred to do one take on everything. Going back to redo the same words over and over had me losing enthusiasm a tiny bit, every time.
“Here we go,” Carlos said. “4, 3, 2, …”
“Investigation 67, The Grand Hotel, Portland, Oregon, Seventh Floor, April 30th.” I paused knowing this was where Carlos would start the show. “Good Evening, Mood Peeps. Moody here. We are in Portland, Oregon, on the seventh floor of The Grand Hotel, a structure built in 1908 by a family who made their wealth in the lumber industry. We’re investigating the claims of the apparition of a little girl often seen outside room 714, crying and troubled. In my arms, you’ll notice I’m carrying a teddy bear and for you die-hard Mood Peeps, you might recognize Carlos’s toy, Boo Bear. This is no ordinary bear. Boo measures EMF levels, something that indicates an apparition is close. We’re hoping to draw the spirit to us with a bear.” I held up the bear with his little red backpack. “The ghost of this little girl has followed other children down the hall. Once, she got in the elevator with a family and is often mistaken for an Alive because she doesn’t float and isn’t transparent. She doesn’t respond to conversation and often ends up at the door to room 714 crying. What is this poor child crying about? Carlos, turn on the equipment and let’s find this ghost.”
I stood staring ahead, hoping I was looking directly into the camera. Apparently, we’d gotten pretty good at deceiving the public this way. If I wasn’t looking directly into the eye of the lens, Carlos simply adjusted the camera, so I was. “How’d that look?”
“Awesomely gruesome,” Eve said from behind the camera across the hall. “Do you feel anything, Bryn?”
“Not really.” I held my arms out from my sides, the bear in one hand, and tipped my head back to empty my mind and allow other thoughts to consume me. As I did so, something rushed in.
There was someone with us.
Someone close, but I couldn’t tell who it was. The feeling of being watched made the hair on my arms stand on end. “I get something.” I held the little bear in front of me. “Do you like my teddy bear? He needs a friend. Teddy is looking for a little girl,” I said in a nicer voice than I usually used.
I waited.
And waited.
Carlos’s meter beeped normally, but still, I felt that someone was close.
I pretended to look around, hoping I wasn’t facing the wall and looking as blind as I am. I’d recently started thinking about telling my fans about my challenge. This pretense of being sighted had turned me into a liar, something I tried every day not to be.
“My teddy bear wants to know why you are so sad?” I backed up to feel the wall behind me and slid down, an act that reminded me of the bloody bedroom and the trail of Caspian’s blood from shoulder level to the floor. “Can you tell the bear what’s wrong?” I sat the bear in front of my old-fashioned looking boots, his backpack full of equipment and out of view. I propped Boo against the heel of my boot and took a deep breath. Sometimes on investigations, I forgot to breathe much. I closed my eyes and listened.
“Bear lights,” Carlos whispered.
Boo Bear’s tummy would be flashing red and blue, something that meant there was activity close by, the meter inside the bear measuring electromagnetic activity. The bear laughed in its preprogrammed voice. “Are you tickling me,” it said. I’d never heard him say this before and wondered what this particular response meant. Carlos had sprung for the expensive bear that talked in response to levels.
I felt a definite drop in temperature around me. The bear did too. “It’s chilly in here!” his animated voice said. “Hello. My name is Boo Bear and I’d like to be your friend.” I wondered if Carlos and Eve saw anything. Not wanting to scare the ghost of the child, I sat still, with eyes closed and waited.
“Bear lights,” Carlos said again.
“I want to be your friend,” Boo said. Behind that cute little voice some sophisticated equipment was monitoring and recording.
Then, the hall returned to a normal temperature.
“That’s it for now,” I said.
“Bear lights off,” Eve said.
“She’s gone,” Carlos added.
“Did you see anything? I felt her,” I said.
Carlos would still be filming. “Boo Bear got all the action. I barely got a reading over here behind the camera.” Carlos sounded disappointed. “No laser crossover either.”
We waited silently for another few minutes, then I called it. “Let’s change locations,” I suggested. We went into room 714, set up the bear on the bed and tried again. Nothing. Then, we put Boo on the chair, the table, but got nothing. I made the call to take a break and review what we had.
While Carlos and Eve reviewed our data and taped footage, I sat in the chair listening to them. I was kind of useless without vision. I chewed the inside of my cheek then realized I needed more to do than just listen. I moved to Hodor, now lying at the bottom of the bed and scratched his tummy while I waited for my friends’ eyes to tell me what they saw.
“What the frick?” Carlos said. “Eve, do you see what I see?”
“What?” I hated when they said this without giving me a clue. “Tell me.”
Eve always responded to my desperation. “There’s something in the mirror at the end of the hall, but nothing in front of the mirror to warrant the darkness.”
“I’m zooming in,” Carlos whispered.
I heard clicking and whirring.
Eve was the first to speak. “It looks like the form of a person, but not small enough to be a child. Zoom in over here. It’s super-fuzzy, Bryn.”
“I’m trying to sharpen it,” Carlos said. “I’ll be damned.”
I knew before they said his name. “It’s Caspian, isn’t it?”
“Sure looks like him but the form is so distorted,” Eve said cautiously. She and Carlos couldn’t see Caspian, only Rachel and I could. “It would be my guess that it’s the man I saw when Jacqueline inhabited me.”
My heart was in my mouth. “Is he distressed or smiling, or what?” I had to know.
Carlos took this one. “We can’t see his face but he has his hands up like he’s trying to reach through the mirror.”
My taped voice filled the room. “My teddy bear wants to know why you are so sad… My bear wants to know what’s wrong.” Little did I know while I was reaching out to the ghost of a child, fifty feet away, Caspian appeared in the mirror, attempting to get my attention, and was completely ignored.
I hadn’t seen him. I hadn’t seen anything. The presence of Caspian in the mirror, if it was him, did not afford me vision. I’d remained blind as a newborn sloth. Although I was overjoyed to finally have verification that he wasn’t gone forever, I was also distressed that if he was close and I couldn’t see, it might mean I might never see again through my psychic abilities.
Had our connection been destroyed?
Chapter 7
Back in the hall at one a.m., we tried again. I’d floated the theory that there was too much activity in the hotel for the girl to break through and a summoning in the middle of the night might work better. I almost wished I’d hired a child actor to try to lure the ghost to our hall posting and said this to Eve.
“That would be an interesting acting gig for a kid to have on their resume,” she joked. “Role: Ghost bait.”
I laughed and clutched the bear to my chest. Tonight, the bear would have to do. Or maybe Hodor, but he’d been sawing logs on the bed when we left the room and I hated to disturb his beauty sleep.
Almost as much as finding this little girl, I hoped Caspian might appear again as I got ready to film. Carlos had set up a camera at the end of the hall, directed at the mirror and I’d asked Eve to keep an eye on the thing, just in case. If Caspian was trapped somewhere, unable to break through but desperate to reach me, I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to facilitate that.
This time, I sat inside the elevator that now smelled faintly of garlic. I was hungry and as I sank to the floor to sit crisscross applesauce, I wondered what time room service opened. I had the bear in front of my boots again, perched and ready to earn back the two hundred dollars he cost us.
Eve had redone my swooping blue hair and now adjusted my collar, fussing and fidgeting to make sure nothing unusual distracted from my weird look, like a button not done up, a hair out of place, a smidge of red lipstick on my front teeth. Those things drove viewers crazy, I knew firsthand. Now, Eve was our fastidious quality control freak to make sure I looked perfectly bizarre.
“I’m good to go when you are Carlos,” I said.
“4, 3, 2…”
“It’s just after one a.m. in the Grand Hotel in Portland and we’re trying to contact the ghost of the little girl again.” I was half-whispering, not because of the ghost, but because it gave the scene tension. “Hours ago, we had very good indication that she was close and interested in our Boo Bear that measures electromagnetic levels in the atmosphere, and temperature. We also had other equipment going like the Ghost Box which did not pick up on any EVP, but Carlos is tuning it to a slightly different frequency this time and hoping for communication. Mood Peeps, let’s try to find this sad, little girl, shall we?”
