Ink Stains, Volume I

by N. Apythia Morges

Notebook in hand, Isabelle Riviera sauntered into the conference room. A secretary followed with a tray of coffee and scones. The meeting had been arranged for nine o’clock on a Friday morning at an estate lawyer’s office called Vincent & Associates, located in Manhattan. A man rose to greet Isabelle and her husband, Michael.

  “Good morning,” Maurice Vincent said. He had been the person to contact them on behalf of his client.

  “It’s not good yet,” Isabelle mumbled and reached for coffee as Michael winced, apologetic. She immediately opened her notebook and wrote down the date and time.

  “Please call me Maurice,” Mr. Vincent continued.

  “My name is Michael Riviera, and this is my wife, Isabelle.”

  “Your reputations precede you. I’m impressed with your backgrounds,” Maurice said, smiling.

  “Thank you,” Michael said. “We were surprised at your invitation. We’re used to larger audiences.”

  “So it would seem,” Maurice said. “I’ve looked at a few of your published papers. Very interesting. When I showed one of your web lectures to my client, Harry LaFleur, he wanted me to call right away.”

  Maurice noted the two appeared handsome together, and each had the look that they’d rather be at the library.

  “Why did you need to find us?” Isabelle said, cutting to the chase. Isabelle had short, straight, dark hair, with pale skin that glowed. Her eyes were piercing, almost black. The sternness of her nature contrasted with the ease of her husband. He appeared to have a Latino ancestry with short, black, wavy hair that worked well with his thin frame.

  Maurice cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “Let’s just say there is mounting evidence that something needs to be done with one of my client’s estates. I deal with many of his family properties; however, this one in particular poses a problem for my client.”

  “How is there a problem?” Isabelle said.

  “The house…something there hurts people.”

  Isabelle and Michael smirked. Maurice was grave.

  “You think I’m joking.”

  “No,” Michael said. “We think it rare, or likely improbable, to find a ghost capable of inflicting physical pain.”

  “I want you to prove me wrong. If the house proves you wrong, however, can you help remove it?” Maurice wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Would you rather a Catholic priest?” Isabelle said.

  Michael gave her a stern look.

  “Thought I’d ask.”

  A young man with messy red hair strode into the room. He took off his coat jacket and set his suitcase on the table before shaking hands.

  “I’m Harry LaFleur. You must be Isabelle and Michael Riviera, the great paranormal scientists. Nice to meet you both.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, why do you need our help?” Michael said.

  “I don’t mind at all. It’s a fascinating place with incredible history. The oldest generations of my family lived there: my grandfather, great grandfather, and so on.

  “Unlike my forebears, I don’t wish to reside in New Jersey. I’m too busy here in the city. Therefore, I need someone to take care of it. My Aunt Mildred watched over the house until last week, until our gardener went through an upstairs window and died. No one in the local area wants to work there now.”

  “Suicide,” Michael said.

  “It isn’t likely,” Maurice said. “There is a landing with a railing fifteen feet from a large window that spans the second and third floors. He would have had to launch himself to break the central part of the window and land twenty feet into the backyard. The glass is too thick. Police are baffled.”

  “And so are we,” Harry said. “That’s where you come in. Your studies are impressive. I’m sure you could figure out if there is a supernatural…uh...presence, from what Maurice has shown me.”

  “The likelihood of finding such a poltergeist may be nonexistent,” Michael said.

  Isabelle continued to take notes, a line of concentration on her forehead.

  “You mean a class five poltergeist? Harry said. “I’m quoting your own work. Have you never seen one?”

  Isabelle sighed and set down her notebook. Michael cast another warning look. She gave a sigh of consternation and leveled with them.

  “We have seen class one through four,” Isabelle said. “Class one is akin to a feeling or sense that one is not alone. Class two involves actual sight of an unknown presence. Class three is where an unknown presence causes movement of an object. Class four: the presence can talk to humans, usually with a wide range of emotion left from previous life.

  “Class five was created due to the evidence we gleaned from sources all over the globe indicating presences that can cause destruction on a massive scale. None has been documented with instruments, only with witness accounts. We did indicate that class five was a theory, not something that we’d observed. You’re putting words in our mouths.”

  Harry smiled broadly. “Tell me, would the fifth be able to throw a human through a window?”

  “If a spirit did that,” Michael said, “it would be a great deal more powerful than anything we’ve seen.”

  “Well, this is what you’ve been waiting for,” Harry said. “You can prove your theory by staying at my house. Otherwise, we may find the killer responsible.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with the latter,” Isabelle said. “It likely involves a human. The house is in Jersey. Anyone in your ancestry of Italian descent?”

  Harry chuckled. “If that’s the case, the mob might be easier to get rid of.”

  Michael felt Harry’s demeanor too nonchalant for the discussion. “Joking aside,” he said. “We’re not entertainment. This is science for us.”

  “How is that?” Harry leaned forward. “I’ve done my research. EMF and EVP are standard, mist photos are extras. All of which have results that are highly controversial. Why has anyone believed in your work?”

  Isabelle shut her notebook and rose to leave. Michael knew the drill. His wife’s mood swings were part of the deal. She couldn’t be so open to let in the deceased and filter out the living. She went into the hallway.

  “We have what others don’t. My wife’s sixth sense.”

  Michael leaned on the wall next to Isabelle. Her eyes were closed. He looked at her with sympathetic sensitivity that could only have grown from a decade of marriage and work together.

  “We got the job,” he said, smiling. “We leave for Connecticut this afternoon.” He pushed her hair behind an ear. Her eyes opened.

  “Goody.” She glowered behind a mask he knew well. The story of the LaFleur ghost had touched a nerve. He wasn’t sure why. There were things from her childhood he knew she hadn’t told him. It was the wisdom with which she spoke at times that made him think her insights weren’t just from sensing the dead; they came from firsthand experience.

  “He’s not what’s bothering you,” Michael said. His eyes probed hers. Her mask darkened. She looked past him down the hall. A flicker of hate darted across her features, but when she looked at him again, she looked frightened.

  “We don’t have to do this, honey.” He put an arm around her.

  “I don’t think it’s real, but if it is, it could be the most challenging job we’ve had. Or if there is a killer out there with a vendetta, we could be in danger.”

  “They just said they have astounding security in the house. That’s what alerted the police, of course, but after the gardener went through the window.”

  “Hmm, comforting.” Isabelle said.

  The couple went to their home in Queens to pack as agreed. Used to prepping for short trips, the equipment was always ready to go inside the garage door.

  The drive with Harry LaFleur was entertaining as well as frustrating. The fact that Harry was driving them in a convertible with the top down on a beautiful summer day did not make up for the fact that he yelled the entire drive. He rambled about nothing. Isabelle felt he was hiding something.

&
nbsp; Isabelle understood pretense: everyone had it, no one knew this better than she. She smiled in moments it was expected, laughed when necessary, spoke as little as possible to get through conversation so it would ultimately end. She enjoyed few people; Michael was one of those rare persons with whom she relaxed.

  Harry, on the other hand, used words to obscure himself and confuse those listening. She felt the real Harry might be thoughtful. As they drove closer to the house, she began to realize he was more nervous, jittery.

  She enjoyed scenery from the backseat, glad to be further from the tirades, however, Harry tried to make up for the distance by twisting and shouting over his shoulder. They left the city with light traffic and, in two hours, made it into green rolling hills, trees interspersing the landscape. Isabelle felt the sun on her skin, closed her eyes, and listened to the wind. It ruffled her hair and began to feel less like wind. She shivered as the sensation flowed over the rest of her body, cold and liquid. Gasping, she felt engulfed by water. It was cold as ice. Opening her eyes, she saw she was surrounded by darkness. She felt water ripple past her skin as if she were in a current. Michael and Harry were gone, and she heard nothing.

  Isabelle screamed but felt water move into her windpipe like an icy claw. Reaching for where Michael must sit in the car, she saw her father appear before her. He was holding a carving knife from their kitchen, blood dripping from the blade. A maniacal smile curved his lips.

  “What do you think about the presidential candidates this year, Isabelle?”

  She opened her eyes and saw the sun and both of the men looking at her with concern as she breathed heavy, shaking. A horrible headache filled the space between her eyes.

  Expecting to spit out water, she managed a response instead. “They’re all bullshit.”

  Harry guffawed and pounded the steering wheel. “Exactly!”

  She rubbed her temples. Michael recognized the occurrence of a vision and handed over a small packet of two pain pills. She took them dry and swallowed, hating her gift. What had happened? She had been drowning as surely as the sun shone. Then a memory of her father resurfaced. Isabelle hadn’t thought of what he had done in years.

  The car tires crunched gravel. Isabelle snapped her head up. Harry stared at her in the rearview. Red fingerprint marks glowed at each temple.

  “We’re here,” he said, hesitant.

  Good, Isabelle thought. I’ve already frightened him. Maybe now he’ll stop babbling. She stumbled out of the backseat after Michael moved the front seat forward.

  They gawked at the stone mansion. She could see a river winding behind it; further back was a forest Isabelle would die to explore. Her heart made an enthusiastic leap, a rarity. Enormous hedges surrounded the age-darkened stone. Flowers bloomed from every corner of the lawn. Michael grinned.

  “Are we in a Hitchcock film?”

  She winked and pulled out her field book.

  “What year was it built?” She dug out a pen.

  “1812. Five years after my great great grandfather, Arnaud LaFleur, got into the coal industry in Pennsylvania,” Harry said. “You can imagine the grandeur of his lifestyle.”

  “I can imagine more than that,” Isabelle said under her breath.

  “Yeah, we should up our fee,” Michael whispered. She smiled, and he looked happy to see it. Her cheeks hurt from lack of use. The men grabbed the bags and equipment and went up the walkway. Isabelle scanned the windows. She reached outward with her senses and found quiet.

  Harry unlocked the front doors and chuckled when they groaned inward, the cliché obvious. The hall into the foyer gleamed of cherry wood. Picture frames held grainy and dust-covered family photos. Dust motes danced in the sunlight. The hall opened into a marble atrium with a grand staircase spiraling out of view. Other passages led off the big room to the rest of the house. Isabelle continued to take notes.

  Michael set down the equipment. “Is the power on?”

  “Yes,” Harry said. Michael opened one of the small black Pelican briefcases and pulled out an electromagnetic field detector. He turned it on and left them abruptly to scan the house.

  “What’s that about?” Harry asked.

  “Trifield EMF,” Isabelle said. “It senses changes in electromagnetic fields within a range of approximately twenty-five feet. Supernatural sources have a general range of disruption that we use as a reference; anything higher or lower is considered man-made or environmental. It can also sense a moving electromagnetic field.” She smiled at Harry’s discomfort. He cleared his throat.

  “Very interesting. Does it work?”

  “If you hear the alarm, it’s likely an electric source,” she said. “That’s why he’s checking the house now, so we aren’t given a false alarm later by a power outlet or other obvious source.”

  “Has it worked with spirits?” he said.

  “Do you always harass the help?” Isabelle wrote down descriptions about the general presence of the house. “Yes, it has helped to locate them; however I usually don’t need it, but it can corroborate my visions.”

  “You see them?”

  “Yes, usually. Harry, are you going to tell me why you’re nervous?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do,” Isabelle said.

  He sighed. “This house has a bad history. I’m afraid of what you’ll find.”

  “You believe it is haunted?”

  “I’ve heard stories from my aunt, but no one has ever believed her. Not even me, until lately. The gardener last week…what happened wasn’t possible. I saw the body.” He grimaced.

  “Are you afraid to be here?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You should leave. Go stay at a hotel, for your own good.” She turned away.

  “I’m staying here with you,” he said, following Isabelle. “You need my help. Jesus, you must be better with the dead than the living.”

  “I’m not very good with either,” she said. “Why do I need you?”

  “I’ve heard stories from Aunt Mildred.”

  “Right, it would be good to learn them. Okay, but be careful; don’t get too emotional. Michael and I need to remain objective.”

  Isabelle carried the rest of the equipment to an office where she set up two computers on a large mahogany desk. She heard a series of beeps to signal her husband’s location upstairs.

  Michael poked his head into the office where Isabelle was turning on software. Harry sat in an extra chair he pulled in.

  “Let’s go out back and check out the window the gardener went through. This place is huge; it’ll be a workout to scan every few hours,” Michael grumbled.

  They followed him into the dark hall, through a nearby door, and downstairs into a day-lit basement. Already, Isabelle could see the lush landscape of the backyard through windows along the back of the house.

  Outside, their feet met a yard that began a gentle descent into granite bedrock. The rock served as shoreline at the edge of a wide murky estuary that drained into a sound, eventually the Atlantic. A line of mud marked where water had reached high tide hours ago. There were no trees in the backyard but plenty in the pine forest beyond the river and clusters straddled both sides of the house.

  “C’est bon,” Isabelle said. “We could make this a vacation.”

  Harry smiled. “If we make it through the night.”

  She raised an eyebrow. Turning where she stood, Isabelle looked back to the house. A gaping maw stared back. The center of the house held a twenty-foot wide window, three-stories tall.

  “Nothing popped up when I scanned the central part of the window, but of course the landing in front of it doesn’t get very close, maybe fifteen feet away,” Michael said.

  “That’s the window he went through?” Isabelle said, unbelieving.

  “Yes, you see how improbable it is that the gardener, John, did it on his own. He went through the second floor level,” Harry said. “Twenty-five feet fro
m the ground in the center of the window. The glass was an inch thick. It was shipped from England in 1812. We replaced it last week with modern double-paned glass.”

  “I can’t imagine the cost,” Isabelle said. “Who could throw themselves through that?”

  “I have nightmares of the body,” Harry said. “Police showed him to me to confirm his identity.”

  “Nightmares. Anybody unusual in the dreams?” Isabelle said, matter of fact.

  “No.”

  “Sorry, Harry, that’s horrible,” Michael said. “This happened at night?”

  “Why was he inside?” Isabelle said.

  Harry swallowed. “That is the question, isn’t it? He tended the grounds, never needed to go inside aside from accessing his equipment in the basement. He did die at night, around two a.m. I heard a rumor from my Aunt Mildred that he had been acting strangely. He would talk to himself and stare up at the house.”

  “This aunt kept an eye on the place?” Michael asked.

  “Yep, the infamous aunt who told me stories of this place when I was a kid.”

  “Let’s scan the landing site of the gardener, and then Harry can fill us in with the history,” Isabelle said.

  Michael proceeded to walk the backyard where the gardener had landed. Isabelle watched Harry’s face as Michael strode by, holding the meter. Harry was pale.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Isabelle said. “You don’t have to be here.”

  “I guess I’ll have to be okay. I was six when Aunt Mildred started telling me ghost stories about this property. Those stories gave me night terrors for years. I had to endure counseling and medication in my teenage years. In college, I began to forget my fear, let it go as an old woman’s means of excitement. I healed and moved on.

  “I became successful. Last week, John’s death brought it all back. Can you imagine a thirty-five year-old man with night terrors? But at least I can face the problem with sanity. My aunt lost any sense she had and went from living on her own to a nursing home a few days ago. I had to put her there. I have to put a stop to it, face my fear. Maurice didn’t find you; I did.”

  Isabelle smiled. “Maurice is a good friend, isn’t he?”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Isabelle, but I hate having you around. Worse than a shrink.”

  “At least you had someone you could talk to, even if you did pay them,” she said, watching Michael.

  Harry looked at her. “What about your husband? You share your burden, don’t you?”

  She looked up at the house, smaller windows like tiny eyes around a giant mouth. “Can’t share everything.” The image of her father with the knife resurfaced. The memory confused Isabelle. Why did it keep coming back now? Michael walked back to them.

  “Not a damn thing,” Michael said.

  “Let’s walk to the river and hear Mildred’s tales,” Isabelle said.

  They sat on a stone bench. A salty tang hung in the air. Before them, the river had been reduced to a mud flat. A puddle sat in a crook, and, the flat swept eastward out to sea beyond their line of sight.

  “I’d like to know if Mildred’s stories are true,” Harry said. “That’s why you’re here. My Aunt Mildred grew up here as a child. I always believed she told them because she loved tall tales, but my mother said she became obsessed as a child and has been odd ever since.

  “Their parents had to pry my aunt from the room in the attic where she played by herself. She failed in school but kept busy with her own projects. She later became a recluse when she moved from the house. Never married.”

  “Need to check the attic,” Michael said. “Totally forgot.”

  “What was she like when she told stories?” Isabelle said.

  “My mother would pick Aunt Mildred up to get her to socialize, much to my detriment. Mildred would wait until Mom was out of the room to really shine. When she told them, she would stare into space.

  “She would clutch my shirt and whisper these monstrosities, vehement. Some stories were nonsense, babbling. Some were clear. Those eyes…deranged; gray hair stuck out in every direction.

  “She said she had seen a woman raped during a party at the house, watched another man get pushed down the stairs during a separate party, and swore she watched a child drown in the pool inside. Here’s the thing: no one ever died in the house while she lived there.

  “I’ve done research in the past few years. A woman never reported being raped, but one went missing in 1816. A little girl did drown in 1835. A man died falling down the stairs in 1838. All three happened during ballroom parties a hundred years before Mildred was born. My mother thinks she became delusional, but these deaths did happen here.”

  “She played in the attic?” Isabelle asked.

  “Yes, my grandmother said she would go from the attic to get food from the kitchen, go to the bathroom once in awhile, but mostly stayed there all day.”

  “Did she say who did these things?” Michael said.

  “That’s what terrified me as a boy,” Harry said. “She kept saying it was someone she couldn’t see. Even as an older woman, she believes this. The only exception was the raped woman. Aunt Mildred said she saw a man on top of a woman in a nice dress but couldn’t see their faces.”

  “Did she give any names?”

  Harry shook his head. “I didn’t ask, didn’t want to know.”

  “Can you show us where these things happened according to her?” Isabelle said.

  “Just the pool where the girl drowned. Like I said, I didn’t ask specifics as a six-year-old.”

  “Was anyone ever implicated for these crimes?” Isabelle said.

  “A governess was charged for negligence when the girl drowned on her watch. However, it was considered accidental. Nothing ever came of the missing woman. The man who fell down the stairs was considered a drunk, another accident. It was hard to decipher old records.”

  Michael nodded, obviously concerned. The fear was palpable in Harry’s voice.

  “You said she babbled. What would she say?” Isabelle said.

  “Jeez, she rambled on about rippling walls, so many strange things like that.”

  “Anything else?” Isabelle was writing.

  “She talked about faces in the glass, that exact phrase, can’t forget it. She warned of portraits in our home that held stories I shouldn’t watch. Last thing I remember—she said to make sure the faces of people didn’t change. What does that mean?”

  Isabelle looked up with a sharp inhale. “It could mean…a variety of things.”

  “Such as?”

  “I truly don’t want to influence you,” Isabelle said. “In general, the spirit may have been communicating with your aunt, trying to get her to see what it wants. She would sound delusional to a rational person.”

  “Well, then I hope Aunt Mildred is schizophrenic,” Harry said. “Otherwise there is something in there hell bent on talking. That’s all I know. That, and I won’t be sleeping tonight.” He got up and started for the house. Michael rose with him. Isabelle felt light-headed and closed her field book.

  “We won’t either,” Michael said. “But we’re not paid to sleep. We should set up our equipment for nighttime. We have a few hours before dark.” He grasped Isabelle and pulled her into his arms.

  “Everything all right?” He said into her ear. “Something is agitating you more than normal. We don’t have to finish the job. We can walk away.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong. I want to help Harry. I know what it’s like to be haunted your whole life.”

  He sighed. “Why won’t you talk to me about it?” He shook her shoulders gently.

  “Only one of us needs to feel haunted, Michael.”

  Michael went from room to room, placing EMF sensors that transmitted wirelessly to their computers. It was four o’clock. Isabelle walked the house, describing framed photos and paintings to her recorder. She was taking Mildred’s advice seriously. Harry may have called it babbling, but she felt they might be tru
e observations.

  She noted all the mirrors in the house. She never believed in the superstition that they could show the dead but wouldn’t discount Aunt Mildred on that count either. Isabelle never knew how spirits would make themselves known. Most of the time, they showed their memories to her and remained invisible. Sometimes they portrayed their death with little interaction, which was enough for her.

  Their repertoire had been established by people who touted that she could exorcise spirits; however, she felt they owed their success to record keeping. No one else could document the dead, not really. Isabelle had investigated many “seers” and found their documentation unfounded. They had yet to meet someone else like her.

  Exorcism was the wrong word. Isabelle merely acknowledged the presence of a spirit. Few words were said on her part. Each spirit held a certain resistance to change. In their reports, she assigned class levels indicating that resistance. Most fell into classes one through three. They had never dealt with a presence that may have caused a death, if at all possible.

  By seven o’clock, she had a hand cramp from writing and found Michael as he finished setting up sensors. They heard noise coming from the kitchen where Harry was making a salad. He nodded toward boxes of pizza next to a bottle of wine.

  “Wow, Harry,” Michael said. “You did all this?”

  “I can’t take credit,” Harry said. “My staff brought the food, but they refuse to stay. It’s just us three now.”

  The kitchen had a large island with bar stools. A brick oven filled a corner of the space, a chimney extending up through the house.

  “This is the brightest room in the house, since it was updated ten years ago,” Harry said. “The rest of it is plain ugly. I hate old wallpaper. Isabelle, did you see the mosaic in the dining room there?”

  “No, I didn’t make it to the dining room. This place is huge,” she said, between mouthfuls of pepperoni slices. “It’s not like me to forget something like that. I need to walk the attic as well.”

  Michael nodded in agreement. Harry handed them plastic cups of wine.

  “I shouldn’t have alcohol,” she said.

  “Why not? Interferes with seeing the dead?” Harry said, mouth stuffed.

  “Quite the opposite,” she said.

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Harry said.

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s hard enough to tell reality from their world half the time.”

  Harry stopped chewing. “Can you tell me about their world?”

  Michael shook his head. “I get a rare glimpse as it is; she won’t tell you.”

  “Sorry for asking, but why don’t you talk about it, Isabelle?”

  “I tell or write as much as needed for academic purposes,” she said. “Anything beyond that could be taken out of context. Some things would be enlightening, others detrimental, depending on how it’s received.”

  “You bear the weight for all of us then?”

  She rose, took her field book, and walked into the dining room. She had had enough. Harry stood to go to her.

  “Don’t,” Michael said. “She does carry a lot. I see expressions, usually of anguish, and I’m sad to say I’m relieved I don’t see what she does. I couldn’t withstand being witness to traumatic events over and over. Her strength is one of the things I love about her.”

  “We see horrifying events all the time on the news, in movies; it’s the bane of human existence.”

  “Not the same. She feels everything these spirits felt. News reels don’t show you what it’s like in a third world country. They get your attention for twenty seconds, and it’s over before you can process it.”

  “True enough.” They each tipped back a glass.

  Isabelle walked the short distance into the dining room and turned to the right. A mosaic covered the wall, literally the entire wall behind a twenty-foot long table. She gaped at a mass of fragments arranged as a river beneath a star-laden sky at twilight. An oak frame held the mass. The fragments ranged from angular to rounded, millimeters to several inches, each held different designs or colors, but the overall effect was mesmerizing in its unity.

  The river was a collection of blues and off-white tones. Green and gray pieces lined the shore as rocks and grass. A blood orange mass showed a sun setting above the trees, alighting the water with a ruddy glow. A darkening sky glittered with a sharp contrast of stars above shadowed pines.

  “Harry?” she said. “What is this?” She heard the scrape of stools.

  “This is the project Aunt Mildred became obsessed with as a child. She would walk the mudflats at low tide as a child to collect clams for dinner.

  “Over time, she found pieces of pottery in the mud with her clam hook, beautiful pieces of porcelain swept downstream for hundreds of years. Soon she only went out to collect the fragments and made this mosaic. It’s lovely, really.”

  “Amazing,” Michael said. He walked back into the kitchen with Harry to finish dinner.

  “Mildred, you tiny genius. What did you stumble into?” Isabelle murmured. What had caused this child to begin such an endeavor? Isabelle surveyed it, taking it in. Nothing in the mosaic gave her a clue, and no feeling emerged other than wonder.

  The sun was setting beyond the windows behind her, and she turned to see its glow cast on the river. The sky darkened above the pines, and the first star had come out. Isabelle felt she was standing between the subject and its abstract mirror image. Starting slightly with an uneasy feeling, she looked around and saw the room was empty. While she looked at the river, the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention.

  Is it the river? Or the room? Isabelle thought. Had she been channeling the fear of a spirit or was it her own? The room was silent as a tomb, sounds from the kitchen gone.

  Next to her, someone began to scream.

  Isabelle covered her ears. It was if someone was screaming into her ear. She groaned. Plugging her ears did nothing. Scanning the room, no one emerged. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

  The screaming abated to a whisper, a moan, and then silence. Slowly, she lowered her hands, untrusting. Breathing hard, Isabelle put a hand to her forehead. She recognized those screams.

  Mother lay on the floor, a knife hiding its blade in her abdomen. Isabelle heard Mother screaming and came running. She hid behind the couch when she saw Father standing over her mother. He pulled the knife from Mother’s body after Mom’s last breath. A maniac, he smiled at Isabelle when he noticed the six-year old. That wasn’t Daddy.

  Sweat beaded on her forehead. Isabelle felt faint. What was causing these memories to emerge from her subconscious? She had suppressed them, hadn’t thought of them in years. She had experienced the death of her mother twice upon arrival. Was a spirit using the memory to its benefit? Why had she heard her mother screaming?

  Trembling, she walked back to the kitchen. Could she be losing it? Michael jumped to help her to the table when he saw her pale face.

  “What happened?” Harry said. “What did you see?”

  “I heard screaming,” Isabelle said. “Did you?”

  “No,” Michael said. “You heard it in the dining room?”

  She nodded. “That’s why plugging my ears did nothing. It was in my head. I’ve heard the screams before, somewhere else. I don’t know if my mind is playing tricks or if it’s something here.”

  “Somewhere else?” Harry said.

  Michael answered. “Isabelle can see spirits, and they can see her. They can see everything she has seen, her memories.” He held Isabelle.

  “Why would they do that?”

  “One of our ideas is that some are weak; it’s easier to show a memory from her life that evokes a certain emotion to convey what they want. But it makes it difficult for Isabelle to be objective at times. They stir her up.”

  “Lucky you,” Harry said.

  “Some have been waiting a long time to be heard,” Isabelle said, standing on her own. Michael held her hand. “Some want to send a message to lea
ve them be.”

  “Let’s go to the office and turn on the listening devices,” Michael said.

  “Which are what?” Harry said.

  “Audio recorders which capture electronic voice phenomena: EVP,” Michael said. “I like to use them, although they’re rarely useful.”

  “Apophenia,” Isabelle said, shaking her head. “All it is.”

  “She doesn’t believe in it,” Michael said. “Some think we see patterns in anything we want to, and that’s right to some extent. EVP can magnify background noise, including static, to the point you think you hear a spirit talking. We only include the results if something is said that Isabelle can corroborate.”

  Harry shivered. “You were right, I don’t want to know too much. Especially since the sun is setting. Where should I be during all this? I don’t want to be in your way.”

  “You can stay with us, go to bed, whatever you want,” Michael said. “It can take a few days to pick up readings or see anything, as far as the instrumentation or my wife goes.”

  “Nice to be lumped in with electronics,” Isabelle said.

  Michael smiled.

  They walked the dim hall to the office on the first floor. Harry liked that it was near the main entrance. They turned on four battery-powered lanterns to offset poor lighting and the off chance the power went out.

  “Time for bed. Which rooms do you want?” Harry said.

  “We brought an air mattress,” Michael said. “We need to be near the computers and equipment. We camp out here.” He pulled out headlamps for himself and Isabelle. Stumbling around the house in near dark was asking for an unnecessary accident, not caused by any haunting.

  Five hours later, Isabelle and Michael passed coffee between them. She watched a monitor for any change in the EMF of the house, Michael for spikes in possible EVP. Sporadically, they walked the house with handheld versions of each to make sure the sensors weren’t missing something in a space this large. The hallways grew longer each time, their steps slowing.

  Isabelle enjoyed the full moon from each window, especially the stunning view from the back window over the yard. She wondered if the gardener too enjoyed the view before he went through the glass. Moonlight shimmered on the river and darkened the shadow of trees. It was hard to imagine anything tragic occurring here.

  At midnight, Isabelle found the stairs to the attic. She whispered her intention to Michael before starting up. He remained on the third floor. The wooden steps creaked. She imagined a small girl walking them hundreds of times to create the masterpiece in the dining room. A light switch at the top revealed a large dusty room filled with old furniture covered in white linens.

  Large windows at either end exposed dim outlines of treetops on the sides of the house. The lighting was poor. She stayed five minutes, sensing nothing. As she turned to walk to the staircase, dust motes stirred. A startling cloud rose from the floor.

  “Hello?” Isabelle strained to hear. She saw nothing but settling dust and closed her eyes. The room temperature dropped. Isabelle shivered. Faintly, she began to hear a sound that grew in volume, a woman’s voice.

  “Why are you doing this? Please, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop! ” The voice dissipated. Something groaned, a masculine voice. Both gone, silence returned.

  The temperature rose. Nothing emerged from the shadows. Shaking, she went to the stairs and walked down, woodenly. She found Michael on the third floor.

  “I know where Aunt Mildred saw a woman raped. It happened up there and explains why she became sensitive to phenomena if she played there.”

  “You okay, Iz?”

  She nodded. He went up to test the area with the monitor and returned, shaking his head.

  In a few hours, the couple would take turns sleeping. In the meantime, Harry snored softly behind them on the air mattress in the office. Isabelle smiled. He didn’t last more than a half hour in his room next door before asking to stay with them. An hour after that, he was out.

  “I’m surprised,” Michael said. “There’s hardly any background noise in the whole house, aside from his snoring.”

  She giggled, slaphappy. “EMF sensors are only picking up slight power surges.”

  Harry jumped up behind them, bellowing. His face turned beet red, the cords in his neck stood out.

  “What the hell?” Michael got to his feet. “Harry, what is it? Jesus!”

  Harry didn’t respond. His eyes were closed, and he continued to shout. Michael looked at Isabelle for an answer, bewildered. She remembered something and slapped Harry, hard.

  “What happened?” Harry’s eyes snapped open.

  “You tell us,” Michael said, shaken. He clutched his chest, breathing hard.

  Harry looked confused.

  “Night terrors?” Isabelle said.

  Recognition dawned on their faces.

  “Really?” Michael said. “Thank goodness. I thought I had more than one medium on my hands.”

  Harry mumbled apologies before slumping back into bed.

  At eight o’clock in the morning, Isabelle awoke. Michael lay next to her. He must have joined her when Harry left an hour before. At four a.m., she hadn’t been shy about joining Harry; she needed to be near the equipment. Clattering dishes could be heard down the hall.

  She stretched and got up to look at the computers. On each, she pulled up a summary chart of the past eight hours. Nothing unusual, the house was deader than a doornail thus far, aside from what happened in the attic. Not everything registered on the equipment sensors, pity, even after Michael added them to the attic.

  Isabelle let Michael sleep. The hall was thankfully dark. When she reached the kitchen, the sun shriveled her retinas.

  “Morning!” Harry was making eggs and toast for an army.

  “Is it already?” She looked for coffee. An espresso machine was on the counter. She pointed, unbelieving.

  “I’m usually stuck with instant.”

  Harry smiled, surprised. “I figured you were harder to please.”

  “I could kiss you.”

  Michael marched in, eyeing them. “I leave you two alone for five minutes.”

  “Look, honey!” Isabelle handed him her espresso.

  “Can I kiss you, too?”

  Harry laughed. “We can all kiss my butler when this is over.” He handed out plates of eggs.

  Over the course of the day, Isabelle sat in different rooms, taking notes. She wrote about anything that caught her eye. She paid attention with her senses but felt nothing odd. Michael poured over research Harry had gleaned about the property.

  Michael joined Isabelle when she reached the pool on the first floor in the afternoon. She had worked down from the attic, choosing the poolroom last, considering her drowning vision in the car. She sat in a brass chair aged lime and looked across the smooth water of the twenty-five yard pool.

  A wall of windows over half the pool jutted onto the majestic lawn. Shrubbery and the river beyond were visible. Some of the windows had clinging condensation from the chlorine-scented water below.

  Michael sat next to her and sighed. “Anything?”

  “I’m wondering if what happened here affected me before we arrived. On the drive here, I experienced the sensation of being underwater. I couldn’t see when I opened my eyes.”

  “I knew something happened. Why didn’t you tell—”

  “Michael, Harry was blabbering on like a horse’s ass. Anyway, I couldn’t see, meaning the water had to be dark. Maybe the room wasn’t lit when somebody drowned?”

  “That makes sense if it was in the 1800s,” Michael said. “Only had candles at the time. The original sconces are on the walls. Drowned at night?”

  “The pool had to have been different then, replaced by this modern one.”

  Something moved in the background over Michael’s shoulder. A dark head of hair lifted out of the water.

  “Isabelle, are you all right?” Michael reached for her hand.

  She managed a h
ushed whisper. “Something is communicating.”

  A figure shrouded in white walked up the steps, slow and deliberate, back to them on the far side of the pool. A small and unimposing figure finally turned, and Isabelle saw a little girl. The shroud was a white dress, soaked wet. Brown hair hung in strings. A white face and hands held a blue cast, lips a dark purple.

  Isabelle grasped the arms of the chair. The girl continued at an agonizing pace. Michael quieted, looking for signs where Isabelle gazed. Isabelle’s eyes traced a path to where they sat. Michael sat up straight. The girl came to stand next to the coffee table between their facing chairs.

  “Isabelle, can you help me?” said the girl, voice distant. “I don’t want to stay here.” The child appeared tired, exerted from getting out of the pool.

  “I might be able to. What is your name?” Isabelle felt empathy for all tortured spirits, especially children.

  “Constance.”

  “Okay, thank you. Did the woman who took care of you…hurt you, Constance?”

  “No, my nanny loved me as if I were her own.” The child looked around, startled.

  “Do you know who did hurt you? Or could you not swim?”

  “I can swim, really well. I don’t know her name.” She shuddered, clearly afraid.

  “A lady hurt you? How do you know it was a lady?”

  “She wore a long red dress,” Constance said. “I was admiring it when she threw me in.”

  “I’m sorry she hurt you,” Isabelle said. “I would have admired a dress like that, too.”

  “You can see it when she comes out again,” Constance said. “She still wears it.”

  Isabelle sat up straighter, uncomfortable in the hard chair. “Is she here with you?”

  “Stay away from her, if you can. Please, don’t let me stay in the water forever.” The girl turned and walked a slow path to the water. Halting staccato steps, as if willing each foot to go before the other, she gave Isabelle a poignant stare as she disappeared below the surface.

  Isabelle shivered in the warm, humid room. Michael raised his eyebrows.

  “The girl who drowned, Constance Smith.” He looked at the water.

  “Her nanny was Eleanor Bridges. It was ruled accidental; the nanny thought the child was at the party, but Constance came here. They found the girl under the pool cover. She said a woman did kill her?”

  “A woman in a red dress. According to Constance, I can see her wearing it.”

  Michael sucked in a breath.

  “Yes, we may have a class five on our hands.”

  They filled Harry in with details of the poolroom encounter as he drank coffee in the kitchen.

  “My God, that little girl is trapped here? Why?”

  “I think we will find out,” Isabelle said.

  “Did you find records on the man who fell down the stairs?” Michael said.

  Harry had made a call to town hall that afternoon. “I retrieved a death certificate, that’s all. The examiner ruled it accidental. The man was a business partner and close friend of my great grandfather. His name was William Geraldine. My great grandfather was hosting a party where they celebrated the purchase of a small company.

  “I have thought about it, and the only staircase people would take from a ball or any sort of celebration would have to be the grand staircase. The ballroom is on the second floor along with the smoking room and several meeting rooms,” Harry said. “William was drunk at time of death, according to the report.”

  “I will keep an eye on the staircase,” Isabelle said.

  Afternoon melted into dusk. Dinner arrived with filet mignon, potatoes, and corn.

  “You’d think we were on vacation,” Isabelle said, eagerly accepting her plate.

  “At least taste this local microbrew with it,” Harry said and handed her a brown bottle. “No argument.”

  Isabelle sighed.

  “Thank you. It’s very good, Harry,” Michael said. He glanced sidelong at Isabelle. “So far the energy here seems tame. Go for it, hon.”

  “About as tame as a coiled rattlesnake,” Isabelle said. “But I’ll give it a taste. Famous last words.”

  “You’ve got us to protect you,” Harry said. “And there’s always the door. Sleep on the lawn. What’s a ghost going to do? Now, raise your bottles.”

  One beer turned into three each as they talked and laughed. Isabelle and Michael didn’t have many friends, and they welcomed the camaraderie. Isabelle felt good for the first time in days. The assignment at hand seemed hardly to matter. Harry was telling story after story that had them in stitches.

  “You wouldn’t believe the school uniforms!” Harry said, pounding the counter. “It was rumored that my gym teacher was gay, and my mother proved it when she shrunk my shorts and refused to buy me more. He made me scale the rope an extra five times that gym class!”

  Isabelle and Michael almost tipped off their bar stools in hysterics. The room dimmed and brightened too much for a power surge.

  Great, Isabelle, fall down drunk on the job, she thought. Then she saw the woman behind Harry.

  A complete stranger stood in the corner of the kitchen, staring at her. Isabelle’s pulse quickened. Dark hair contrasted with the pallor of skin. She wore a dark red, velvet sleeveless gown. Her hair was pulled up, glamorous. Dark circles under her eyes told a different story; a young woman in her mid-twenties, too young to be dead.

  Staring at them with disapproval, eyes dark, intense. Stunned, Isabelle had never seen a spirit appear so solid. She looked alive as the three of them. Harry and Michael didn’t notice, didn’t see. The woman wore a necklace. She had never seen a spirit wear jewelry either. Isabelle made out a beautiful white jewel on the woman’s bosom.

  The eyes didn’t wander. Isabelle felt the energy in the room change. It felt charged, uncomfortable, and it was building.

  An alarm went off in the office. Michael and Harry jumped up and ran to it. She wanted to yell at them but couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. Isabelle was alone but not really.

  Don’t be a fool, Isabelle, she thought. Say something. She closed her eyes, dreading even a moment when she couldn’t see this spirit but needing some composure nonetheless. Opening her eyes, finding her words.

  “I am Isabelle. I am a friend. I do not wish you harm, only to make contact and learn from your life.” She stammered. The woman didn’t move or bat an eye. Nothing to indicate she heard Isabelle.

  Isabelle looked to see if Michael was coming down the hall. Seeing nothing, she turned back. The woman was inches away. Brown eyes searing, pale skin close enough to see pores. A white hand lunged and clasped Isabelle by the throat.

  Unbelieving, Isabelle cried out as the spirit knocked her to the floor, stool clattering on the tile. The cold hand had monstrous strength. Isabelle’s vision clouded. Somewhere she heard Michael cry out. Isabelle thought the torment would stop with his arrival. It didn’t.

  Isabelle found Michael’s terrified face over the shoulder of the leering woman. Isabelle mouthed a word. He nodded and retrieved a butcher knife from a magnetized wall strip. He ran back and thrust it into her hand, blade up. The spirit sneered, inches from Isabelle’s blue-tinged face.

  She stabbed the spirit. The woman let go, dropping Isabelle, clutching her chest. The knife fell. Isabelle sucked in breaths of molten air that burned on the way down. The woman gaped at her unwounded chest. She leapt up, furious.

  Isabelle swore as she stood with Michael’s help.

  “What the hell is going on?” Harry said.

  “You okay?” Michael said. “What happened?”

  Horrified, Isabelle watched as the woman picked the knife from the floor. The apparition walked by her, gown swishing. Those eyes focused on Harry then Isabelle then Harry, goading her.

  “Run, Harry!” Isabelle yelled, her voice box finally working.

  “Why?” He said, stepping back. The woman was a foot from him. Didn’t he see the knife?

  “Just do it!” Mic
hael said. Harry turned and fled, his skin marble white. Isabelle blinked when she saw the woman run after him.

  “Oh my God,” Isabelle ran, too. Michael followed.

  “What is it, dammit?” he said, out of breath as they turned right and ran down the main hall through the center of the house.

  “The woman in the red dress!”

  As they neared the front door, Isabelle heard Harry pound up the grand staircase.

  They entered the foyer, and she saw the ghost follow him up the stairs, mere feet behind. They ran up the stairs and fled down the hall to a dead end. Isabelle and Michael fell into a large ballroom with walls entirely covered in gilded mirrors. Isabelle saw the woman stand over him as Harry doubled over to breathe, her face reflected at infinitesimal angles around them.

  The woman raised a hand, aiming the knife above the middle of Harry’s back. Isabelle screamed. The knife plunged, blood flowering his white shirt. He crumbled. Isabelle lunged toward Harry, but Michael grabbed her shoulders. Something clattered to the floor.

  The woman smiled, taunting Isabelle. Michael turned his wife around and slapped her as hard as he dared. Isabelle stared, unbelieving.

  “What is wrong with her?” Harry said.

  She saw Harry standing in the middle of the room. She looked back to Michael. Swallowing, she put a hand to her mouth. The woman was gone. Then she saw the knife. It was behind Michael, near the door.

  Tears welling in her eyes, Isabelle pointed to the knife, questioning. Michael nodded.

  “You dropped it a second ago, honey,” he said, his voice thick with fear. “What happened?”

  Isabelle took a deep breath that wanted to become panic. She leaned over, hands on knees, head down to offset dizziness.

  “Jesus.” Harry was at her side in an instant. They each grabbed an arm.

  “Class five poltergeist,” Isabelle heaved. “Unless I imagined it. Am I going crazy?”

  “Unless we’re imagining that handprint around your neck,” Harry said, “you’re perfectly sane.”

  Dusk had deepened into night. They found a stone bench on the front lawn. Michael rubbed her back as Isabelle gave every detail. Harry trembled when she told the last of the story and realized the implication. Michael rubbed his temples.

  “What did you see?” Isabelle said.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Michael said. Harry nodded in agreement.

  “Did you see the knife when she picked it up?”

  “No, you carried the knife from the kitchen upstairs,” Michael said.

  “How did I see her holding it?” Isabelle felt sick. The men shook their heads.

  “Why did you want it?” Harry said.

  “A theory of mine. Basically, poltergeists of this magnitude can’t accept they are dead. I reminded her, and she didn’t like it.”

  “Reverse psychology for the dead,” Michael said, both amused and grim.

  “Why did she go after me, then?” Harry said.

  “Good question.” Isabelle stared at the grass, black as the sky now. “I saw her stab you, blood soaked your shirt, and you were on the floor. How did I see her kill you?”

  “I don’t know, Isabelle. This is a first, right?” Michael said.

  “She’s very strong. She choked me hard enough to leave a mark. How have we not known she was here this entire time?”

  “The woman who went missing, what was her name and what year did she disappear?” Michael said.

  “1816,” Harry said. “Her name was Genevieve Milton.”

  “The spirit was wearing a gown,” Isabelle said.

  “Fit for a ball in the 19th century?” Michael said.

  “Definitely. That would make her almost two hundred years dead.”

  “Miss Milton is notorious for ruining the first gala my great great grandfather had here, four years after the house was built. Town records show a search party was sent out the day following the event and in subsequent weeks.”

  “Isabelle, I’m not sure I want to go back in there,” Michael said, shaken. “I can’t wait to document what you’ve seen; I never thought it possible. But this spirit worked you like a puppeteer. What else can she do to us? It’s not worth it.”

  “I can see her. I can keep us safe,” Isabelle said. “This is the end-all job for our work. She didn’t hurt Harry! Just sent a message to me, to all of us.” She added on the latter, covering the sneaking suspicion the message was indeed meant for her. Isabelle had used the knife to trick the spirit into letting go. The infamous Miss Milton had then taught Isabelle a lesson.

  “She hurt you,” Michael said. “We have enough for our research.”

  “We must finish the job!”

  “Look, you confirmed my aunt wasn’t trying to rob me of my childhood. You saw something real. You don’t have to go back in there,” Harry said.

  “Harry, don’t you want to know how she died, only to remain in this house? There is a reason she can’t find absolution. Michael, did anything show on EMF?”

  “There was a strong plateau in pulse. I didn’t realize why it was a plateau until now. It stayed at a high level while you were attacked and then dropped. I’ve never seen electromagnetivity of this magnitude.”

  “I felt it,” Isabelle said. “In the kitchen, I felt the field build around her before the alarm went off.”

  “We should never have left you,” Michael said.

  “It didn’t matter if you were by me. She’s willing to chase us all over the house!”

  “Right, so how about we leave and stay in a hotel until the morning and have my staff come back for your equipment?” Harry offered.

  Isabelle got up, disgusted, and, to their astonishment, walked back into the orange maw of the house.

  “Why are we back inside?” Harry yelled from the doorway as Michael stormed past him. “I’m not paying you enough for this!”

  Harry took a look around before shutting the door and followed Michael. They found her in the office.

  “Isabelle!” Michael said. “Are you insane? You think you can keep us all safe?” Michael shook his head.

  “This will lead to answers, Michael,” Isabelle said. “We have to write about a class five. We know almost nothing!” Her throat hurt. Unconsciously, she rubbed the bruise.

  “She toyed with you, a professional medium. You’ve dealt with spirits all your life.”

  “We need to learn from this,” Isabelle said, desperately.

  “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re getting greedy in your career. Maybe this spirit is getting to you.”

  “Something happened in my childhood to initiate my interaction with the dead. Something with my father and mother. Starting with the drive here, I have felt a connection between this place and that moment. I don’t know what it is, but I intend to find out.”

  Michael swallowed. He knew her mother had died when she was young, but they never discussed details. Isabelle refused. He knew the argument was over.

  “I would like answers, too,” Harry whispered. “I’m tired of wondering what happened here and conjuring up answers in my nightmares.”

  “Guess I’m outnumbered,” Michael said, grumbling. “We all stay together. Let’s get going and scan the house. Isabelle, attach the recording device.”

  They entered the hall. Michael checked the sensors while Isabelle and Harry peered at the handheld EMF. They each had a flashlight in the dimmed house lights. It was an eerie feeling; every time Isabelle shined the light into the shadows, she expected to see the woman lunge for her.

  Keep breathing, she thought. In these types of situations, she told herself spirits were trying to tell their story. She didn’t know if that logic would fit here, however.

  On the landing in front of the great window, they faced the dark river below, stars caught in its surface. It was the same sight Isabelle admired the night before. She felt a cold chill instead of awe. The window reflected their flashlights, and movement caught her eye. She saw the silhouette o
f a woman in a dress next to herself.

  Gasping, Isabelle shined the light to her right. Nothing.

  “What?” Michael cried out.

  “Let’s leave the landing,” she said. “Grab the railing!” If this spirit was responsible for the gardener’s demise, she didn’t want to be part of the reenactment.

  The guys swore but followed orders. Isabelle grasped the railing with all her strength. They each rotated their light in all directions. Isabelle expected a cold hand to clutch her throat. They left the landing, slowly, while gripping the banister, and ran toward the grand staircase. The hallway before them seemed eternal. Isabelle felt a sense of dread and pushed it aside. An alarm went off downstairs.

  “Wish I was down there to know where the hell this thing is!” Michael said. Isabelle was behind Harry, and his light illuminated a picture-sized mirror on the wall to her right in a brief flash. It was long enough to reveal the woman and her white face, teeth bared.

  “Faces in the glass,” Isabelle said.

  “What?” Michael said.

  “Saw her in the mirror,” Isabelle said.

  Harry whimpered. Claws of fear tore at Isabelle. She held onto the rail as they jogged down the grand staircase. Halfway down, something pulled the back of her shirt, a gentle tug, but Isabelle screamed and lost her footing.

  I’m falling, she thought, too fast to cry out a warning. Isabelle piled into Harry and drove him face first into Michael, who screamed in surprise. Isabelle felt a final moment of sickening free-fall before they thudded to a stop at the base of the steps. Laughter echoed in the foyer.

  “Are you all right?” Michael asked.

  Isabelle did a self-check, noting Harry’s elbow in her left eye socket, a headache behind that eye. Harry mumbled a yes from below.

  “Good, then get off me,” Michael said with strain. They all stood after gingerly untangling.

  “We leaving?” Harry was panting, and the flashlight shook in his hand, creating a staccato light trail on the marble. Isabelle would have said yes, but she saw something in the beam that made her pause. Light trembled on a painting of water winding through a sunlit countryside at the entrance of the foyer. It was moving.

  Isabelle walked toward it, head cocked. She heard Michael utter obscenities but then he obviously saw it, too. The picture frame wasn’t moving, which would have been somewhat normal. No, the water was flowing, currents visible as it bubbled over rocks in a field of tall grass.

  “Pictures that move,” Isabelle said. “I bet your aunt saw this every day, Harry.”

  “Holy shit,” Harry whispered. “Everything was true? She grew up here, in this hell hole.” He shook with terror. Isabelle held his hand, sympathetic.

  “Harry and I are starting to see paranormal evidence,” Michael said into a recording device.

  Something glimmered in her peripheral vision. Shining her light, Isabelle saw the white walls rippling. She gasped when she saw three people in the doorway. Constance Smith held the hands of a man in coveralls, another man in a suit next to them. The little girl met Isabelle’s eyes. Harry dropped his light with a clatter.

  “She killed us,” Constance said, crying.

  “That’s the gardener, John. And there’s…William, my great grandfather’s business partner,” Harry said, incredulous. “I know him from a photograph.”

  “The one who died on the stairs?” Michael asked.

  Harry nodded.

  Isabelle knelt before the girl. “Why did she kill you?”

  “Go to the river,” Constance said. “Find her grave.”

  “Who, Constance? Genevieve?” Isabelle pressed, but Constance backed away with the others. They grew faint as they passed into darkness, but Isabelle saw the girl give a small nod.

  Isabelle found her way back to the office, shaking with what everything could mean. It was Genevieve Milton. She had killed those poor souls. What ghost could entrap even one spirit? They had never documented a being so powerful. Isabelle realized she didn’t know if she could keep them all safe. Was she being careless? Michael and Harry followed, happy to be back in the well-lit room.

  “There are no paintings, no mirrors, and no knives here,” Isabelle said. “We’ll be okay. We can figure this out and get this bitch back where she belongs.”

  “What does ‘Go to the river’ mean?” Michael said.

  “The mural your aunt made,” Isabelle said. “It’s of the river. The painting with flowing water. It’s all a message. Genevieve is communicating her death.”

  “They would have found a body downstream,” Harry said. “First place they would have looked. They drag the river bottom for bodies to this day.”

  “‘Find her grave,’” Isabelle said. “Constance didn’t say the river was her grave.”

  A woman screamed upstairs, far overhead. The attic. The screams were different from last night, when she heard her mother. Isabelle ran toward them. They pounded up the back stairs to the attic.

  They discovered the room decorated in 19th century furniture, the linens gone. Isabelle recognized the shrill cries coming from a dark corner. She had heard them the first night when she was here alone.

  Walking together, they passed a large wardrobe, and as they rounded it, caught view of the man. His back to them, he wore dark pants and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up. He was holding the arms of a woman on the divan, pinning her. Isabelle couldn’t see the woman but saw the edge of a red velvet dress. He groaned with pleasure as the woman gave a feeble cry, sobbing. The man straightened and fixed his clothes. Isabelle heard the woman asking why.

  He lifted her in his arms and turned toward the three. Harry sucked in a breath as light showed their faces.

  “My great great grandfather, Arnaud,” he said. “My heritage.” Isabelle barely recognized Genevieve. She didn’t look angry. Instead, she was haggard-faced, hair torn, and limp in his arms.

  Arnaud LaFleur stalked past with her, and they followed him down the stairs, through the house and poolroom, out onto the lawn. Genevieve began to scream as they neared the edge of the river. LaFleur was swift. He threw her into the shallow water from the rocky edge and waded in.

  She resurfaced and screamed in pain from hitting rocks. He gave her no time to regain herself. He pushed her chest and head under water. Her arms and legs flailed for an agonizing minute then stilled.

  Genevieve floated to the surface. LaFleur looked around and saw the water wasn’t flowing. It was stagnant, halfway between low and full tide. His crime of passion hadn’t been premeditated.

  “What is he going to do?” Isabelle said. Looking at the house, all lights were on and loud voices carried from the ballroom in 1816. “He should have been caught.”

  LaFleur responded as if in answer to Isabelle and dragged the body out of the water. He laid Genevieve on the lawn and made for a gardening shed. Harry and Michael looked at each other.

  LaFleur grabbed a shovel and started digging near the shed, under trees with low branches. Sounds made by LaFleur began to dissipate as he faded from sight. Lights dimmed and laughter faded to silence in the house.

  “Time to go back in,” Isabelle said. The sun rose over the trees with dawn, and they all felt relief, though Isabelle and Michael knew it meant little protection.

  Isabelle walked with firm resolution to the dining room. She turned to the mosaic. Something glinted in her peripheral vision. Turning, she saw the butcher knife on the table. How did it get there?

  Genevieve is toying with me, she thought. Looking around, no one was there. Isabelle walked closer to the mosaic. She had to figure this out, fast. Harry entered with Michael.

  “The knife,” Harry said. “How?”

  “Do you really need to ask?” Michael said.

  Isabelle ignored them. “Why did Mildred have this obsession? Why the pottery from the river?”

  She saw a white piece in the river. Odd, there weren’t any other white fragments in the river. It was rounded, unlike the others. She pu
lled up a chair to stand on and leaned in to observe a large white opal jewel, four fish etched into its surface. They swam in a tight circle, nose to tail. Isabelle smiled.

  “What is it?” Harry said.

  “The necklace Genevieve wore when she died,” Isabelle said. “Minus the chain. Aunt Mildred found her necklace, and all the baggage that came with it.” She pointed out the two hundred-year old opal gemstone.

  Turning around, Isabelle almost fell off the chair when she saw Genevieve behind Harry.

  “It was given to me by my fiancé, the man I loved,” Genevieve said. The ethereal voice resonated through the walls. Harry and Michael jumped at the sound, eyes wide. They turned and saw with jaw-dropping clarity the beauty among them.

  “The stone shows the eternity meant for us.” Sadness crept into her voice.

  “You can’t be with him?” Isabelle said, stepping gingerly off the chair.

  “What Arnaud did to me that night…he stole my love from me, the promise made by my fiancé. I have tried to leave, but Arnaud made that impossible. His power holds me prisoner. I believe that’s why you’re here.”

  Isabelle let out a sigh of relief. “We do want to help.”

  “You already have. Arnaud’s brood is once again in the house. Thank you.”

  Harry gasped, white as a sheet.

  “Harry isn’t the same man as Arnaud,” Isabelle said. “I won’t let you hurt him. You need to find another resolution.”

  “He carries the same blood and same sin,” the spirit hissed. “He must pay. After I died, all I was capable of was a push here, a little force there. Otherwise I would have killed Arnaud. Constance, she was easy to lure, an easy kill. Arnaud realized then that I wanted him and left the house. I couldn’t follow.” Disappointment imbedded her voice.

  “Why did you kill that little girl?” Isabelle cried. “And William? The gardener? What did they do?”

  “The girl was a member of Arnaud’s family,” Genevieve said, coldly. “I could feel his blood in her veins. Her death gave me strength. The others were of no importance; they were tests. Now I can stand before you.” She turned her steel gaze on Harry.

  “Arnaud’s power fills you, Harry,” Genevieve said. “His eyes look through yours.”

  “I’m sorry for what he did to you,” Harry said, softly. “It was monstrous, unspeakable. I’m ashamed to be related.”

  “If apologies were enough,” Genevieve said. “I wouldn’t be here.”

  “They can be enough,” Isabelle said. “I won’t let you kill him.”

  “Who says I will be the one to do it?” Genevieve thrust her chin, defiant.

  Isabelle looked at her, questioning. She looked into Genevieve’s liquid brown eyes. A flash of light filled her mind. Isabelle saw her father, his insane grin. It was her torturous memory again. The image of her father faded, and she saw a different man. A stranger with scraggly black hair and beard stubble stood over her mother, leering. He wore patched and ripped clothing, filthy, a drifter.

  The memory replayed, and Isabelle watched as the drifter killed her mother as her father had. He grinned at Isabelle as her father did. When her mother gave her last breath, the man stood and smiled sweetly as he cut the throat of her father.

  No,” Isabelle said, snapping from the vision. “No, no, no! This isn’t real! My father killed my mother. I don’t know why you’re showing me this. I saw everything.”

  Genevieve smiled, enigmatic and beautiful. “You saw what your mind told you to see. Ever since that moment, you have seen the dead. Why can you see me? Your father embodied that spirit because he was weak, allowing a psychotic wanting one more kill to possess him.”

  “No.” Isabelle shook her head, vehement.

  “No? You refuse to remember. From your memory, I have gleaned there are others like me with such strength. I can do more than throw men through windows.”

  Another flash of light, and Isabelle picked up the knife. She could feel Genevieve crawl through her mind, control her fingertips. Hatred poured into her heart. In three strides she gripped Harry LaFleur and thrust the knife into his heart.

  Michael shook her out of the trance, where she stood near the mosaic, far from the knife.

  “Harry!” Gasping, Isabelle collapsed.

  “I’m all right,” Harry said, kneeling by her with Michael. Genevieve remained on the other side of the table.

  Isabelle started to cry. She had felt the knife when it slid into Harry. Horrified at the perverse satisfaction she felt, even knowing it wasn’t her own. Genevieve clung to Isabelle like an unwanted residue.

  “My God,” Isabelle said. “I was too young to understand. All this time, I’ve been afraid of meeting someone like you again.”

  Michael gave Isabelle an encouraging nod. Harry was shaking. They were running out of time.

  Isabelle felt Genevieve try to lure her into another trance. If she gave up her mind to Genevieve, she wouldn’t come out of it until Harry was dead.

  Isabelle jumped onto the chair to get the white opal. After two hard pulls, she yanked it off the mosaic. Genevieve clutched for her necklace as it disappeared from her neck.

  “I believe this does represent eternity,” Isabelle said. Genevieve darted toward her, sliding over the floor in an effortless blur.

  “Isabelle, you don’t have much time!” Michael said.

  Isabelle threw the opal onto the floor. Genevieve reached her, took her arm. Tottering, Isabelle fell off the chair, and, at first, her foot found nothing but empty marble. Then she saw the opal, and before Genevieve could drag her away, her shoe heel smashed at the piece, breaking it into fragments.

  “What have you done?” Genevieve screamed. She grabbed Isabelle’s face, fingernails peeling flesh.

  “You had a little girl bring your necklace into the house to keep it safe,” Isabelle said, sneering. “To protect you. You could have been free but you chose to stay!”

  Genevieve grew weak. She pulled away, her form fading.

  “How will I find my love? You have destroyed everything!”

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” Isabelle said. “But after what you’ve done, you may not deserve that love.” The woman watched Isabelle, eyes mournful as the last of her red velvet dress slipped into the ether.

  They heard a little girl laugh and turned to see Constance skip around the room. She, too, was fading. Others began to pour in, men and women of all ages and dress; they entered from the walls and looked at Isabelle and smiled or laughed before disappearing.

  “How did you know what to do?” Michael asked as she and Harry sat outside in the sun. “I was at a loss!”

  Isabelle sighed. “I guessed. Genevieve followed the necklace into the house with Aunt Mildred, therefore she needed to have it nearby. I knew when I first saw her that she placed too much hold in the physical. She walked like us. I stabbed her with a knife, and she thought herself wounded. As she became more powerful, she felt alive again.”

  She told them about the visions the ghost had shown her, and, for the first time, described to Michael what happened to her parents.

  “I don’t know if it needs to be said, but thank you for not stabbing me,” Harry said, hugging Isabelle. She shook him off with a chuckle. “How did you know she had a choice when she died? She made it sound like her death made her a prisoner.”

  “I will tell you one thing about death,” Isabelle said. “We always get a choice. To stay or move on, no matter how we die. Don’t stay for revenge, don’t stay for anything.”

  Michael looked as surprised as Harry at the revelation.

  “I’m sorry you ever had to witness such a horrific event as a child, let alone that it happened to your parents.” Michael was grim. Isabelle, however, felt relief for the first time since she was six years old. Her father hadn’t been a murderer. He hadn’t been crazy. He hadn’t killed her mother senselessly.

  “It’s unfortunate what happened to Genevieve, but she made it worse by spreading ev
il. However, she did something I am grateful for.” Isabelle smiled.

  “What’s that, Iz?”

  “Cleared my father’s name.”

  About the Author

  Michelle K. Bujnowski has been writing short horror fiction for over a decade while working as a geologist throughout the country. She currently stays at home with her high-energy 21-month old, Ethan, and she and her husband Tom look forward to the arrival of his baby brother in March. Michelle has published with The Literary Hatchet, Dark Moon Digest, The Lightning Journal, and Dark Edifice Magazine.