She appears right next to me. "It's about time y'all came over. Wait'll I show you the things I know about this place," the feminine voice says.
Farah Lewis still wears her red RHS cheerleader uniform, and she has her hands on her hips like she's about to start cheering. She walks right through Celia to take a seat opposite me. Holy crap! With everything going on, the fact that Farah is still earthbound slipped my mind. I haven't told anyone other than Patrick about her.
Told me what?
Farah is here.
Where?
Over there.
You didn't tell anyone else you saw her before?
It was such a quick contact, and I hadn't heard from her since.
And she's here now?
Yeah ... in the gold chair.
I don't see her.
Well, I do.
"Are you okay, Farah?" I call out.
Celia jerks her head around. "Farah's here?"
Farah leans forward and tries to poke Celia in the back. "Yeah, Nichols! Right here. Behind you." Then the ghost glances at me. "She really can't see me?"
"No, she can't see you," I say.
"I can't see her," Celia says dejectedly.
"No way." Farah's beautiful white smile dazzles me. "You really can see spirits, Kendall. Courtney was wrong to treat you like she did. And I was wrong to go along with the queen beeyotch. Forgive me for that, will you?"
"No worries, Farah. It's all water under the bridge."
"Good, 'cause now that I'm on this plane, I'm all into happiness and light and doing the right thing. It's quite refreshing," she says with a dreamy smile.
Becca moves her digital voice recorder over and sets it in the empty gold chair.
Farah giggles. "Should that have tickled me?"
I grin. "Did it?"
"Sort of."
"So, what are you doing here, Farah?"
She moves her eyes around, getting a good look at the room. "I'm not really sure. After my funeral, I sort of wandered around town, and I ended up here. I guess I was seeking out that silly doll that I ticked off. He's upstairs in his case, you know. I had a long talk with him, and we've been setting things straight."
"What things?"
"You know, like I'm sorry I took his picture, didn't mean to disrespect him, blah, blah, blah." She stands and circles the area. "You have no idea the secrets this house has. More than anyone in this town could ever imagine."
"Why don't you tell me?" I ask.
Farah smiles and laughs again. "Now, you know that's not how it works, Kendall."
Just then, Shelby-Nichole and Father Mass come bounding down the stairs. "We got the most amazing class-A EVP," she says.
"I'll admit it's pretty impressive," Father Mass says.
Farah closes her eyes and waves her hand. "Go ahead. I wanna hear this too."
We all gather around and Shelby-Nichole presses the button on her recorder. I listen closely to the convo as it plays out:
SHELBY-NICHOLE: Are there any spirits here with us? Okay, that was a dog barking outside.
FATHER MASS: Are you suffering? May I pray for you?
VOICE: Yessss ... please do.
"Wow," Celia says. "That's clear. Female voice, definitely."
"Shhh!" Shelby-Nichole says. "There's more. Listen."
FATHER MASS: Do you know the nature of your condition?
VOICE: Deeeeeeecccccccceaaaasssssed.
"Deceased?" Loreen asks.
"That's it," Becca notes. "I can clean that up later."
"Here it comes," Shelby-Nichole states.
FATHER MASS: Do you know why we're here? Do you have a message for us?
VOICE: ... go down ... underground.
We all jump back. "Whoa!" is the collective opinion of the group.
"That was amazing," Celia says.
"Unbelievable," Patrick adds. "One of the best EVPs I've heard."
Farah is right next to me. "Yep. That's her. The lady I've been hanging with."
"Her?" I ask the ghost.
"Yeah, she's really nice. We bonded about how my grandparents are from Ghana. She was originally from Ghana, but then she was put on an African slave ship and sent to the West Indies."
I don't need to be psychic to figure this out. "Are you talking about Althea, the Farnsworth children's nanny?"
Smiling, Farah says, "I think that's what she said her name was."
Turning to my friends, I ask, "What does the voice—Althea or whoever—mean by 'go down ... underground'?"
"Underground Atlanta?" Shelby-Nichole asks, unaware of my conversation with the recently deceased.
Celia scoffs. "No, that's not it."
"Maybe it has something to do with the Underground Railroad?" Loreen suggests.
"There's no proof or history that it ran through Radisson," Celia the history buff says.
Farah tries to nudge me, but of course, nothing happens. "That's not necessarily true."
I spin on my heels. "The Underground Railroad came through this house?"
Becca turns around. "Who are you talking to?"
Celia answers, "She's connected with a spirit in the house."
I bite my bottom lip.
"Go ahead, Kendall," Patrick encourages me. "Tell her."
I breathe in deeply. "Farah Lewis is standing right next to me."
Becca's eyes grow wide. "She is? Seriously?"
"Hi, Rebecca," Farah says, although my friend can't hear her.
"She says hi to you," I say. Patrick nods at me, urging me to come clean to everyone. "Farah was at her funeral and spoke to me. She said it was Xander that caused her accident. She's been wandering the town and ended up here. It seems she has befriended ... Althea."
"The nanny slave that made Xander?" Celia asks.
"One and the same."
"Wow," Becca says. "That means her spirit hasn't been at rest for more than a hundred and fifty years."
Snapping her fingers in perfect cheerleader style, Farah orders, "Oh, don't forget that part about this house having secrets."
I roll my eyes and repeat what she said.
"All houses have secrets," Celia quips.
"Not like this one," Farah says, and I relay her message.
Loreen steps forward. "Whatever this secret is hinges on the message we just got. 'Go down' and 'underground.'"
I turn my palms up and close my eyes. Stretching out with my energy, I try to connect with anything in the room that will talk to me, besides Farah. For a girl who died in such a horrific manner, her spirit is playful and silly. She stands in front of me making faces as I'm trying to do my psychic job. I wave her away and hang my head down, letting my hair cover my face in a veil of concentration. Remnants of my dream come back to me ... the mustiness of the earth and the damp crawlspace ... and maybe even something dangerous.
"There's something hidden underground here," I say with great confidence.
"Attagirl," Farah says, cheering me on and doing a bit of a routine I remember from basketball season. Why she can't just tell me, I don't understand.
Patrick steps in front of me. Quiet for the most part up until now, he reaches for my hand and tugs me over to the fireplace. "Becca picked up almost twenty milligauss in this area." We both begin feeling around the crevices and cracks in the mantel. Patrick sweeps his hand over and around the antique oil painting of a country landscape.
"Warmer," Farah says playfully.
I move to the right side of the fireplace and trail my hand down the wooden carvings around the perimeter of the pit. Knobs of whittled round wood knot the four corners in a decorative pattern that doesn't match the rest of the house's architecture. My fingers brush around the smoothness and a message comes to me—from deep in the recesses of my mind—that these are for more than decoration.
"You're getting warmer," Farah says again.
Patrick cocks his head at me. "There's some sort of passage here, Kendall."
"I know."
"Push the kno
b in, if you can," he instructs.
With a grunt and a groan, I shove hard into the structure. "It won't budge," I say with a moan.
"Ahh, you're red-hot!" Farah says, clapping. "Go, Kendall, go, Kendall..."
"Farah, please! You're not helping."
She stops and pouts a bit and then returns to her dance routine.
I do a good heave-ho, and the knobs pop back into the wood like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. I half expect a gigantic boulder to roll down from somewhere and crush me. Thankfully that's not the case. Patrick triumphs on his side of the mantel, as well.
"Holy crap! I can't friggin' believe it!" Becca exclaims.
The house groans and the floor begins to shudder underneath us. The wood panels of the mantel begin receding into the bricks, and the bottom of the fireplace shifts backwards, the plate slipping into the wall.
"It's some sort of secret passageway," Celia shouts. "It's the message: go down ... underground. Do you think this was part of the Underground Railroad?"
"I haven't a clue," I say, exhausted after opening this channel.
Celia moves in front of me and starts to cough from the dust and cobwebs. "Oh my God—there's a staircase!"
"Awesome!" Becca shouts. "Can we fit down there?"
"We may be a little tall," Patrick notes. "We'll make it work, though. Celia, do you have flashlights?"
"Is the pope Catholic?" She pulls out her large LED lantern and splits it into three, handing one piece each to Patrick and me.
"I don't know, kids," Father Mass interrupts. "If there's a tunnel under there, it's probably as old as the house. You don't know how stable it is. Or how unstable it is. Something could happen down there and you could be trapped."
"That's why you and Loreen should stay here in case we need you to get help," Celia instructs.
I'm too dumbfounded at what's going on. Not only is there a secret passageway in here, but it exactly matches the vision from my dream. It's like I was led here. And I have no choice but to see this through.
Patrick looks over at me and quotes the EVP. "'Go down.'"
Giving a weak smile, I say, "What are we waiting for?"
Chapter Seventeen
THE STAIRCASE IS RICKETY and creaks as it guides us down, down, down into the earth below this house. I can't believe I'm putting my trust in some architect or carpenter from over a hundred years ago. Will this structure support the weight of all of us, or will we plummet into some never-ending hole?
I point the flashlight in front of me so I won't trip and fall and break my neck. Timidly, I place my sneakered foot on the wooden slat and proceed downward. So far, so good. Patrick is in the lead and he hasn't fallen in yet, so I'll up the faith ante. Celia's next, with Shelby-Nichole snapping pictures in our wake. Becca—brave Becca—pulls up the rear.
I sneeze, once—twice—a third time, feeling the chill of the darkness around me.
"Bless you," Celia calls.
"Are you all right?" Patrick asks, and I nod in the shadow of the flashlight.
"As all right as I can be considering the circumstances."
At the base of the stairs, a path spreads out in front of us. It's narrow and doesn't provide much headroom at all. We all have to duck to get under the low ceiling, especially Celia and Patrick. Dirt clods fall from the ceiling onto my skin and clothing as we pass, perhaps disrupted for the first time in a century and a half.
"How did someone dig this tunnel?" Becca asks.
"There's no telling," Shelby-Nichole answers. "Seriously, this looks like something that could help slaves escape. Why else would it be here?"
"And right under the master's nose in his great room. That's ballsy," Becca adds.
I want to agree, although I sense there are too many spirits trapped down here for me to believe they all actually made it out to see their freedom. The cries of people from a long-past era still linger. Not just men and women fighting for a way out, but children ... babies. The agony of so many makes me want to double over in pain. My nostrils are filled with the stench of body odor and rotten food. I gag and try hard not to get sick right here, right now. It's not real. It's place-memory I'm picking up with my psychic sensors. Breathe ... just breathe... Nameless, faceless souls circle the very air around me, extending their tortured fingers toward me for help.
"Patrick," I moan, tortured by what I'm seeing.
"I know, Kendall. I'm getting it too." Patrick turns back for my hand and immediately shares my vision. "We can't help them all."
"Why not?"
His eyes are black in the tunnel. "We'll try."
I take a sip of water he offers me from the bottle he pulls from his back pocket. Quenching my own thirst seems to disperse the spirits loitering here. I so much want to cleanse the whole area and help them all pass on to their own personal paradises. If I even can.
"I'm freezing," Becca exclaims as we press forward through the crumbling passageway.
Celia jeers. "We are, like, underground. There will be a marked temperature difference from the surface."
"It's more than that," I say, agreeing with Becca. "We're surrounded by phenomena. These spirits are confused. Some are hurt. Most are baffled over their state of being, thinking that their slave lives still exist." Their jumbled whispers join together in an off-key opera, crying out to anyone who can hear them for help.
I press my hands up to my ears, hoping to drown out their sorrow, but it continues to echo against my eardrums. I can't see any of them, yet their heartache is so intense, fiery, and real to me. "Farah, can you help me?" I ask. I see my breath in the light of the flashlight, as if it's a January afternoon in Chicago.
"Come on, Kendall," she says sweetly. "You're doing great so far." She curls her index finger, and I move ahead of Patrick to follow the specter.
My shoe hits a puddle on the floor, splashing mud up onto my jeans. Dirt scatters from overhead, and I try not to dwell on being buried alive as an avalanche of small pebbles pound my skull. I duck and cover my head as Patrick calls out to me. Surely this isn't the way things end for us, particularly when we're trying to help those in need.
"It's okay. It's settled now," Patrick says.
I stand as tall as I can and forge ahead. I can't let anything stop me. I have to see this through. Around the next turn, I run face-first into a damn-near-primeval cobweb. It's the one from my dream trying to ensnarl me. The wispy threads layer over my face, and I start sputtering, coughing, and flailing my hands around to rid myself of the insect's prison. I run forward, fearful that the owner of the web is now in my clothing. For a moment, I almost whip my T-shirt over my head to remove the pesky, multilegged creatures. Man, it must have had babies and they're crawling all over me. I wipe my hands up and down my arm to get off the bugs. I won't let them defeat me. I won't be scared. I won't give in! Then I realize it's not bugs at all. I'm only feeling the emotions and experiences of what those escaping slaves went through.
"Keep up, Kendall," Farah calls out. "We're almost there. You're not going to believe it."
"Patrick, stay with me," I yell out.
"I'm right behind you, babe," Patrick says through the darkness. "Wait up."
I stop in the tunnel, hunching down so the dirt ceiling won't shower me with more clods and God knows what else that has gathered down here all these years. I will my pulse to calm the hell down and I try to breathe through my panic. It's just spiders and other bugs. I've handled worse. At least, I think I have.
Then a bloodcurdling scream twists through the air.
"Gross! Gross! Gross!" Shelby-Nichole dances around spastically, pressing herself up against the dirt wall as hard as she can. "It's a snake!"
Becca shines her light at Shelby-Nichole's feet to show the skin of a snake.
"It's just the skin it shed," Celia says.
"I don't care! It's a damn snake. I don't like this at all," Shelby-Nichole calls out. She begins to cry and tremble at the same time. "I-I-I thought I could be all brave like
y'all and do this—I can't though. I frickin' hate spiders and I loathe snakes. I can barely breathe in this claustrophobic space." She backs up into Becca, and all I want to do is calm the freak-out before it gets out of control. "I'm scared shitless and I want out. Please don't hate me."
"We don't hate you, Shelby-Nichole," I say. "Just head back the way we came and stay by the mouth of the staircase. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."
A sigh of relief escapes her chest and I watch as she swats away the tears on her cheeks. "I'm sorry, y'all."
I'm sort of jealous that she can admit her weakness so boldly and back out. I can't though. I have to keep going.
"Don't be sorry," Celia says, and I know that she's not altogether brave in this environment, but we all press forward. It's now just Patrick, Celia, Becca, and me ... and, of course, Farah leading the way.
"We're so close. Just watch out for the big holes in the floor," she instructs.
Too late. I have no time to pass on the warning to Patrick, who trips and goes sprawling on the floor, landing with a resounding groan. Mud splashes and he's covered in red Georgia clay all over the front of him. "I'm okay."
"Oh, sweetie," I say, trying to brush the mud off.
"It's okay, Kendall," he says and winks at me. "In fact, I'm glad that happened. I'm connecting with the soil. It's ... speaking to me."
"What's it saying?" Becca asks.
"Mainly to keep going."
Farah throws her hands up. "Umm, duh! That's what I've been saying, cute boy."
I shine the beam up ahead, seeing that the tunnel gets smaller and smaller until it's only a crawlspace. Are you kidding me? I sigh extra-hard, then get hold of myself. Okay, if that's what it takes. I get on all fours, move my hair aside, and crawl through the moist and musty dirt, trying not to sneeze. I hope there's a payoff at the end of this tunnel—freedom, a secret chamber, anything.
I'm not disappointed when I emerge from the tunnel into a small room at the end of the hall.
I gasp in the dull, clammy air, feeling suffocated almost. The space before me is not much bigger than my closet at home; enough room to walk around, but you wouldn't want to be stuck in here for any length of time. Stacked up in one corner are rusted buckets from an era long past. A wobbly old wooden chair is propped against another wall, and I see a moth-eaten, filthy blanket covering what seems to be sticks.
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