by fox, angie
Plus I could run like the dickens.
I fought to keep my breathing slow and even, to ignore the pounding of my heart.
There were no axe murderers here. Nothing alive.
My bangs tickled against my forehead, stirred by an imperceptible force.
"Frankie?" I asked, my voice catching in my throat. "Please tell me that's you."
I wouldn't even be mad.
"It's not," he said quietly. He hovered on my right, behind my line of vision. I could feel him next to me. At least I hoped that was him. For once, he kept his voice down. "There's something in here that you can't see."
Sweet mother. "What is it?" I froze in place, as if that would keep anything from coming at me. "Tell me where to go." I'd get the money and break a land speed record getting out of here.
A chill tickled up my spine.
"Frankie?" My voice quivered. "Tell me what's going on."
"Act casual." He disappeared.
Oh, no. He did not just do that. Something was wrong. If I couldn't see what threat might be lurking, and if Frankie wasn't going to tell me, then I was in a lot of trouble. "If you're not going to help me, I'm leaving. Now." Or at least as soon as I could find the door.
I took one step backward, then another, inching my way toward a full retreat.
"Wait." Frankie snapped. "Stop. Fine, I'll do it."
"What?" I braced myself.
His voice spoke from the dark void to my right. "I'll make it so you can see the ghostly side of this place. Just this once."
I couldn't spend another second in the dark, so I nodded and found my voice. "Please," I said.
"If I do it, you'll stay? You'll help me find the cash?"
"I'll try." My skin prickled as I felt the air around me shift. "Frankie?" I asked, not trusting my own voice as the ghost of the gangster shimmered into view next to me. A dull light settled over us, casting the house in an eerie silver glow.
I stood in a single room. Gossamer cobwebs hung down from the ceiling like Spanish moss dripping from an age-old oak. The ends brushed over my forehead and tangled in my hair. "Yikes," I ducked and my breath hitched as a wiry shadow scrambled down the far right wall and burrowed into the corner by the floor.
"Oh God. Oh God. Oh God," I repeated like a mantra, as if that could hold back the faint images that slowly came into focus all around me. They intensified and formed a ghostly portrait of a life once lived. A fire crackled in the stone hearth. I could actually hear the wood snap. A three-pronged pot stand floated above it, with something thick bubbling inside.
To my right, several inches off the ground, hovered a table surrounded by rough wood chairs. I took a quick step forward when a delicate spinning wheel appeared almost behind me on the left, close enough to touch.
Loud creaks echoed from above, underneath, all around, as if the house was adjusting itself on its foundation.
Frankie faded in and out with the rest of my otherworldly surroundings. "You doing okay?"
"No," I said truthfully. Ask a silly question… "Why is everything floating?"
Frankie set his jaw. "That's how the dominant ghost sees it."
"Josephine?" I asked, not really wanting to know.
"Yes." He lowered his chin. "Now for that problem I was telling you about? It's behind us."
I heard a snarl and whirled to see the shimmering outline of a hound dog with bared teeth. I took a quick step back.
Frankie hissed out a breath. "I never did too good with the guard dogs."
The dog's yellow eyes pierced the darkness as it solidified. It took a menacing step toward me, growling deep in its throat.
"And now that I can see it, it's going to come after me," I concluded.
"Sorry 'bout that," Frankie said, wide-eyed.
The beast stalked me toward the back stairs. Step by step I retreated. Away from my only means of escape.
I grabbed hold of the banister with a quick prayer that the old staircase could support my weight. The curved wooden handrail felt freezing cold to the touch. I yanked my hand back.
New plan. I wasn't going to touch anything in this place.
Except for the hidden money box.
A high-pitched wail echoed from the floor above.
I gasped. "Jilted Josephine." It had to be.
Frankie appeared on the staircase a few steps up from me. "Let's do this fast."
He'd better know what he was talking about. We took the steps two at a time. Each footfall elicited a creak that seemed to echo throughout the house.
"What do I do if she's up here?" I asked, breathless, glancing back over my shoulder. The hound dog had stopped the bottom of the stairs, its yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Maybe it couldn't go any farther.
A girl could hope.
Frankie lurched to a halt next to me. I stopped as well. Ghostly portraits lined the wall. The quivering beam of my flashlight caught the elaborately framed paintings of men with stiff collars and ladies with artfully styled hair.
I didn't like this. And I was real unhappy our only exit was blocked. I didn't take well to being trapped—by a ghost dog or by anybody. It felt colder up here. Sinister.
The gangster looked as agitated as I felt. "Focus on the money," he ordered, with the kind of single-minded determination that had probably gotten him killed.
Fine. Okay. I took one more step, then another. "Where is it?" I asked, as we neared the top.
He stopped cold, refusing to look at me. "I don't know."
"What?" It came out louder than I'd planned. But holy moly. He'd led me here thinking all I had to do was sneak onto this poor woman's land, break into a haunted house, uncover the money, and run. And then share it of course, but in no way did Frankie ever mention that he didn't know exactly where to look.
"Relax," he snapped. "The dog made our decision for us. We'll start by searching the second floor. If it's not there, we'll look on the bottom floor when he goes away."
"Since when do guard dogs go away?" I demanded. "You are the worst criminal ever." He was making this up as he went, and taking me along for the ride.
"I think I've been doing this longer than you," he shot back, over my whispered, desperate, admittedly repetitive chorus of oh my God's. He stared me down. No doubt if he could have shaken me, he would have. "Get a grip, sweetheart. Remember, you can move things and touch things in the physical dimension. You've got a huge advantage."
Fat lot of good it would do me if we didn't know where the box was.
"Oh, sweet mother," I gasped as we heard the door downstairs swing open. "Is somebody coming? Someone alive?" I almost hoped we'd get caught at this point. Rescued.
The ghost dog barked happily and went to greet our visitor. Frankie cursed under his breath. "It's probably someone who haunts this place."
"Oh geez," I swayed, fighting hard not to grip the banister.
"Go," Frankie said. "You look around upstairs. I'll try and buy us some time. If I yell, you run."
Lovely. "Run where?" I muttered, as the image of Frankie disappeared.
The dog's barks grew harsh and aggressive as I heard Frankie's voice downstairs. Whatever he was saying, it sounded charming. Or whatever passed for charming among the cocky gangster ghost set. I hoped he knew what he was doing.
I took the last few steps at a run.
At the top of the landing, the ghostly cobwebs tangled all the way down to the floor, blocking my path. There was no way around them. I'd have to go through them.
It seemed like an impossible task. Then again, everyone around these parts knew, if you wanted something done—come hell or high water—you leave it to a southern girl.
I gripped my flashlight and summoned up my courage.
"I love my house," I reminded myself on a whisper, before squeezing my eyes shut tight. I steeled my courage, made sure my mouth was closed firm, and stepped forward. I love my house. I held my breath and reached out my hands. They tangled in the cold, filmy, sticky, otherworldly web.
I love my house. I pressed forward as it touched my face and wound through my hair.
I love my house. I screamed it in my head as the fibers caressed my arms and goose bumps rippled over my skin. That web felt like a living, breathing entity. It stretched out in front of me, surrounding me, blocking my way until…
With a soft whoosh, I broke through.
I ducked my head, sucked in a harsh breath. "Get it off," I said, furiously rubbing at my arms and face.
But there was nothing there.
The filmy tendrils had disappeared completely.
I couldn't even hear Frankie or the dog anymore. It was as if I'd entered another realm.
I stood in a narrow hallway, a long stretch of wall broken apart by three solid doors. Light glowed from the one on the far right end and I knew without asking that we would find our ghost there.
I hurried the opposite way, to the far left door. Maybe I'd find the money in here, and then I could sneak down and somehow get past the ghosts on the first floor and get away from this house.
The door handle felt like a block of ice as I gripped it and turned.
I pushed the door, but it didn't budge. It was locked, no doubt by something otherworldly and terrifying, but I wasn't going to dwell on that. I simply drew my hand back, wiped it on my dress, and kept my eyes peeled for any hidden compartments as I moved to the door in the middle of the hallway.
Glancing at the glow coming from the door not taken, I steeled myself and reached for the knob in front of me. The chill of it radiated up my arm.
It refused to even turn.
"Okay," I said to myself, shakily, knowing I needed to keep quiet, but at the same time, needing to remind myself that I was real. I was here. And no doubt whatever haunted this place knew that already.
I was out of options except the glowing door at the end of the stairs. I didn't even want to think about what lay in wait near the exit if I chose to flee.
But really, where would that get me at this point?
I'd already gone through so much and I couldn't, just couldn't, give up now. Not when I was—could be—so close.
The flashlight beam shook along with my hand, sending stark, flickering shadows over the stark, blank wall.
Now or never.
Sweat slicked my skin despite the chill in the air.
The house went eerily still as I approached the third door.
As I reached for the knob, it began to turn on its own. I fought the urge to yank my hand back. Instead, I pushed the door open, shivering at the dank room that greeted me. It glowed with a silver light. I saw no bed, no dresser. Only a ghostly chair in the very center, with a perfectly formed hangman's noose stretched out above it.
I folded my arms over my chest, and shuddered when I saw that my skin shimmered with silver light, as if I'd somehow gotten caught up in the illusion.
I jumped in shock as the chair clattered across the floor.
The rope of the noose creaked and I gasped in horror at the sudden appearance of a young woman, her neck in the noose, hanging.
The door behind me slammed closed. I ran for it, yanked at it, but it wouldn't open. The knob wouldn't even turn. I fought with it until I wrenched my wrist and tears ran down my face and I sobbed and I begged and—
"You," The ghostly woman uttered, nearly scaring me out of what was left of my sanity.
I refused to look. "Frankie!" I called, I begged, fighting with the door, "Frankie, get up here!"
No response.
"Frankie!"
Nothing.
I turned to face the ghost of the woman. She wore her long hair in a thick braid down her back, baring her neck, which lay crooked in the hangman's noose. Her chin tilted down, her head lolling so I couldn't see her face, which was perfectly fine with me. She wore an old-fashioned nightgown in ghostly flowing white. Her skin shone translucent, but her neck was raw and torn where the rope cut into it.
She raised her head and stared at me. She had been in her late teens when she died, and she was beautiful, if you didn't count her quivering chin and haggard expression.
The shadows under her cheekbones deepened. Her eyes shrunk back into their sockets. She snarled and her entire face drew back into a skeletal sneer. She let out a deep, guttural moan. "Get. Out."
Chapter Five
My body refused to move. If it could, I'd be running. Or cowering in the corner and crying like a baby. Instead, I stood dumbstruck.
The noose swayed almost imperceptibly from side-to-side, rocking the woman, squeezing off her air. I wasn't even sure ghosts needed air. Her mouth formed an "o" and she let out a hoarse, wet moan.
She had been strung up, tied to the ceiling, strangled for eternity.
The poor girl. When it came right down to it, Josephine's story wasn't all that different from my own: jerky guy, public embarrassment, the whole town looking down on her. But it didn't have to end so terribly.
Maybe she didn't have a friend like Lauralee. Or a sister who loved her.
Her mouth opened and closed like a caught fish. She was haunted and tortured and had been left that way. In a terrifying moment of total clarity, I had to ask. I had to know the truth, not just the legend that didn't tell her side of the story. "What happened to you?"
Her eyes locked onto mine. My pity fled as her stare bored into me hard. She took a deep, sucking breath, and screamed.
I took one step back, then another. I didn't know where to go or how to get out of there, but she'd told me to get out and I meant to do it. I was just going to need a little help since she'd locked the door behind me.
I let out a loud hiccup. "I'm not trying to hurt you or invade your house. Or keep you from throwing anything you want out your window." Damn. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that. "It's just that I'm in a bit of trouble and…"
The ghost's hair unwound from the braid. The shadows in her face drew deeper. I watched, stunned, while her hair freed itself and spread out behind her as if carried on an unseen gale of wind.
My voice left me with a final squeak as she drew the noose off of her neck.
She drifted straight for me, her eyes cold, her face menacing.
I was sorry this happened to her. I was sorry I intruded. I cringed, holding up my hands to shield my head. I willed myself to open my mouth, to speak without screaming. Maybe if I explained what I was doing there, she'd understand. Maybe she'd let me go. The words came out in a rush of desperation. "I'm only here because my ex-fiancé screwed me over."
She stopped her approach and hissed out a sharp breath. It sounded scratchy, weak, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.
"Men," she said, her voice crackling. The ghost tilted her head to the side.
I swallowed. Hard. She'd just given me an opening. Maybe. I couldn't believe I was explaining this to a ghost. "He cheated on me. And he assaulted my sister." It made me angry just to think about it. "Then he turned the whole town against me when I called off the wedding."
She stared at me. My heart pounded. I'd probably said too much. But it was the truth. All of it.
She drew her hair over her shoulders, watching me all the while. "My former love also had trouble with the truth."
I tried a conspiratorial laugh, but it came out as more of a whimper. "Um…" My power of speech, which was my only true gift on this earth, had completely abandoned me.
She began to braid her streaming black hair. "I know what they call me. I hear them say it." She flinched as if struck. "Jilted Josephine."
I cleared my throat. She might have heard me say it when I first walked into this place. Guilt gnawed at me. "I've heard it bandied about," I said weakly.
"Jonathan said he wanted to marry me." She snorted, and her watery black and white image grew stronger. She glanced at the window overlooking the front yard. "But then it happened."
Her back stiffened, and I could see a red haze form around her.
I had a feeling we were headed into dangerous territory, and I didn't want to tes
t my luck. It was freaky enough to be standing here, talking to her. But at least she wasn't attacking me. She wasn't threatening me.
She was simply another girl with a crappy ex.
I shook my head. "Men can really do a number on us, can't they?" And as long as we were telling stories, "When I told Beau I couldn't marry him after what he'd done, he refused to listen. He said the wedding was going forward whether I wanted it to or not." I still remembered his smug words.
Her eyes widened. "He forced you to the altar?"
"No. I didn't show up." I couldn't believe I was having this conversation. "Once he realized I was standing by my word, he painted me around town as a flaky gold-digger who was only after his money." I crossed my arms over my chest.
Her image swirled in an unseen wind, her hair loosening and flying out behind her as she clenched her jaw. "My fiancé left town without telling me and married his cousin. He said it 'just happened.' How do you 'just happen' to get married?" She held out her hands and a silver locket shimmered into view. She gripped it hard, turning it over in her hands. "Of course, his cousin had a bigger dowry."
Her white gown streamed around her as she rushed to the window and hurled the silver necklace straight through the broken panes. I heard the glass shatter anyway, listened as broken shards clattered onto to the ground below. "If I was a better shot, I'd have hit him in the head with it."
"I'd have helped you practice your aim," I told her.
Her expression softened and she appeared almost vulnerable. "I really loved him." Her gaze focused on the rough floorboards. "Enough to compromise my virtue. I couldn't marry anyone else." She raised her head to watch out the window and I saw a faint silver light gleam amid the weeds and the overgrowth. "Then he arrived at my home, thinking to apologize, when he had her in his carriage." She turned to me. "So I cast the contents of my hope chest out the window as well. Along with the chest itself."
"I hope it landed on him," I said.
She smiled. And when she did, she was truly lovely. "I would have liked that very much."
I smiled back and the ghost gave a small shrug. "Maybe we can start over," I suggested. "My name is Verity. I'm from Sugarland as well."
