But Callie Sinclair felt it as soon as they climbed the worn wooden steps to the porch. Something was here. Sure enough, when Alice opened the front door and gestured her inside, the whispers began. They swirled through her head, a chorus of faraway voices rustling like tattered leaves in the wind, traveling through time and space, from who knew where.
Despite the warmth of the early May afternoon, a shiver slid through her, and she pulled her long, lightweight sweater coat around her chest, resisting the urge to try to close off her mind. She was here to listen, after all, and she could feel the nervous anticipation rolling off of Alice as they entered the foyer. The older woman had clearly been excited for her arrival; she’d met Callie in the long driveway, her silvery hair catching in the spring breeze as strands escaped the knot pinned loosely on the back of her head.
“Are you cold, dear?” The furrows lining Alice’s forehead deepened. “Or do you…feel something?”
“Just a little chill,” she said with a weak smile, purposefully keeping her answer vague. She did feel something beyond a mysterious chill in the air…but she didn’t want to get Alice’s hopes up. And it was difficult to explain. Of course there were remnants of past lives lingering here; it was pretty much a given for any home with this type of history. Many people connected to this house would have passed on over the years, leaving some imprint of their essence, like the blurred images captured beneath closed eyelids after a bright flash.
But she was here to connect with someone specific: Henry Turner. Alice had sought Callie out upon hearing about her abilities from a mutual acquaintance. When Callie had reluctantly agreed to meet Alice at a coffee shop last week, she’d taken pity on the kind widow. How could she not? Alice and Henry had been married 53 years, and they had saved up to finally afford their dream vacation—a 28-day Polynesian cruise. When Henry had suffered a massive heart attack in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, the medical personnel on board had not been able to save him.
But after the funeral, when things began settling down at the normally quiet farmhouse, Alice started noticing strange occurrences, which increased in frequency and severity as the weeks went by. She now firmly believed her late husband was trying to tell her something—and that his message was urgent.
Callie hadn’t wanted to get involved, but Alice truly seemed to believe she—or someone she loved—might be in danger, and contact with Henry was the key to possibly preventing tragedy. Either Alice was genuinely concerned, or she was an excellent actress… but Callie couldn’t see the point in making a story like that up, considering Alice would be paying her money for her services. When Alice’s pleas were joined by barely contained tears, Callie relented.
And now, here she was. In an isolated old farmhouse, with a woman she really didn’t know, searching for a ghost.
While she could hear the lingering murmurs of long-gone souls, she couldn’t make out anything distinct. So far, there was no bright spark of connection to a specific person, like she’d experienced before. But maybe she just needed to give it time. What did she know about the process, really? The few times it had happened to her, the spirits had come to her, on their own, and had plagued her with a determined tenacity until she opened her mind up to the messages and relayed them to the intended recipients. If there was a process she was supposed to go through, she had no idea what it was. She had no degree in this type of thing, no certification. It was just a bizarre and unwelcome result of the accident.
“I feel it from time to time too,” Alice said, a knowing look gleaming in her pale blue eyes. She closed the front door to block the air coming in through the screen door and nodded toward the kitchen. “How about a cup of hot coffee? Or tea?”
“I never say no to coffee,” she said gratefully, playing with the long dragonfly pendant around her neck. That was true, although she’d probably had enough already this morning at her apartment.
She was starting to think coming here was a mistake. But Alice had been so desperate, and Callie herself knew how comforting a message from beyond could be. That first time, though, right after the accident, she’d thought she was losing her mind. But then it started happening again, whenever she was with Karen, her physical therapist, and she finally gathered up the nerve to ask her if she had a sister who’d died recently. And the answer, sadly, had been a surprised ‘yes’. Once Callie began relaying the phrases echoing through her head, things Karen confirmed only the twin sisters would have known, her new reality set in. And Karen avoided marrying the fiancé who was cheating on her. After a few more instances, Callie came to accept she was now some kind of conduit between two worlds—but she’d never actively sought the connection before. Maybe if you tried to force it, it wouldn’t come.
Still playing with her necklace, a gift from her father, she followed Alice into the house. The floorplan was open on either side of the central staircase, with a welcoming family room to the left; they walked to the right, through an airy dining area that transitioned into the kitchen. The décor was a mix of country charm and seaside accents, a nod to both their rural homestead and its location on Cape Cod, a peninsula surrounded by water. Old signs advertising fruits and vegetables for sale hung on the pale yellow walls, and canning jars filled with shells sat on the windowsills.
Part of the counter top extended out in an L-shape between the kitchen and dining spaces, and Callie leaned against it, admiring an antique-looking iron rooster tucked in the corner. Did they have hens here? Fresh eggs every morning would be such a luxury. She’d noticed a few other buildings at the bottom of the hill beyond the house, one of which looked like a barn. But the only animal she’d seen thus far was a large black cat, sitting on a post of a split rail fence and eyeing her with contempt.
“I know it’s the afternoon already, but is a breakfast blend okay?” Alice asked as she filled the coffee pot in the deep white sink. “My grandson likes the stronger stuff, so I do have dark roast.”
“Breakfast blend sounds wonderful.”
Alice measured the coffee, then gestured with the little metal scoop toward where Callie stood. “That’s where the sugar bowl slid off the counter and smashed.”
Her gaze found a new sugar bowl, next to a napkin holder resembling chicken wire, and Callie stared at it for a moment, as if history might repeat itself.
Alice retrieved two mugs from an overhead cabinet. “I know it sounds crazy, but I saw it with my own two eyes, even if they are old eyes.”
“I believe you.” She reached for the sugar bowl herself, moving it within easy reach. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Alice waved her offer away as she crossed to the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk. “No, no, just make yourself comfortable.” She poured some milk into a small white pitcher and picked up the thread of the previous conversation. “Even if I’d had any doubt about it moving on its own, I sure didn’t imagine cleaning up all the mess after it flew off the edge and hit the floor.”
Callie nodded as she pulled a stool from under the counter. “That must have been a frustrating way to start the morning.”
“The thing is…why would Henry want to make me have to clean up a big mess?” Alice set the milk pitcher next to the sugar bowl, locking her gaze with Callie’s. Her thin lips pressed into a seam, turning the soft folds of skin around her mouth into parenthesis. The coffee maker sputtered and gurgled in the background. “He was always telling me I was doing too much around here, after I hurt my shoulder. I mean, we had disagreements on occasion, just like any couple, but I have no doubt he loved me. In the 53 years we were together, he was never mean-spirited or cruel.”
Callie frowned, a small sound of acknowledgement emerging from the back of her throat. It was an interesting observation, but she certainly didn’t have the answer. Go on, then, Henry…explain. I’m listening.
“When it first started moving, a small part of my brain thought, ‘He’s trying to help me, to pass the sugar’. It was scary, but a little sweet. But then when it
suddenly smashed like that, it felt…different. Not sweet anymore. It felt…angry.”
“I’m sure it’s hard for a spirit to move something in the physical world. Maybe he just…doesn’t have a lot of control over it,” she offered, shifting on her stool as she gathered her dark curtain of hair over her shoulder and coiled it into a rope.
Alice tilted her head to the side, considering. “Well, he certainly got my attention, if that was the point. And then there were all the other things that have happened that I told you about last week. The family pictures that fell and shattered after years of hanging on the same wall. A huge crack appearing in my car’s windshield when it was safely in the garage. All the laundry I’d hung on the clothesline ending up on the ground. Important papers going missing.” She ticked off each incident on her thin fingers, the gold band on her left hand catching the light from the fixture overhead. With a small shrug, she added, “Anyway, all this was enough to convince me to find someone who could help, that’s for sure.” She nodded toward Callie before turning back toward the coffee maker.
Of course, it remained to be seen whether she could actually be any help. A surge of nervous energy hummed through her, and she ordered herself to relax. There was no real pressure here; she had signed no contract, received no money. She’d only agreed to come by the house for an initial visit, and go from there.
Danger. The word rustled in her head, thick and muffled, as though coming from underwater. But it wasn’t her thought, and it was accompanied by that familiar flare of pressure in her skull. She froze, her eyes searching the room. She’d never actually seen a ghost, but the instinct to look for a figure to go with a disembodied voice was tough to ignore.
Nothing but the back of Alice’s thin but surprisingly sturdy frame as she filled two coffee mugs on the other side of the kitchen. Cropped tan pants, untucked powder blue blouse, pewter strands of hair still vying for freedom from the loose bun.
She turned her head slowly. Just the vacant farm table, the empty foyer, and a partial view of the front door, still closed.
A tremor shuddered through her. So…a connection had been made, even if briefly. And the message—danger—was not exactly comforting. Knitting her brows, she strained to pick up something else. But it was just the background noise of whispers now, slowly fading away like a battery draining of power. Those spirits had no real reason to reach her, no unfinished business keeping them caught between worlds. They only wanted someone to know they’d been here, once, and had left a tiny piece of their presence behind. The memory of a life lived.
Ghosts who moved things in the physical world and sought out mediums, in her experience anyway, had something important to relay. And the fact that someone—Alice?—was in danger…well, that felt important. Callie realized she was stuck now. How could she refuse to help if danger lurked around this sweet woman?
The thud of footsteps on the porch jolted her from her ruminations, and she jumped in her seat, the word danger still rattling through her mind.
THE HAUNTING OF HILLWOOD FARM on Kindle
Ghost Moon (Haunting Romance) Page 19
