The Haunting Season

by Michelle Muto

  She almost wished they hadn’t come down here.

  Gage’s EMF meter whirred to life as he panned it past the dresser. Everyone’s attention turned toward it and the dolls. The spider, which sat in the middle of the web, retreated, scrambling down into the doll’s hair. Gage stepped closer to get a better EMF reading but Jess reached out and took hold of his arm.

  He glanced down at her hand, which she removed and he gave her a playful smile. “It’s okay. Just a bunch of old dolls. Creepy dolls, but it’s not like they’re going to come to life or anything. Trust me, I don’t work my voodoo magic on inanimate objects, okay?”

  Jess mustered a nervous smile.

  “Afraid of spiders?” Bryan asked. He moved the video camera aside. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Jess watched in amazement as the spider scuttled out of its hiding place and onto the doll’s face before fading into…nothing.

  Gage grinned. “Show off.”

  “Hey, you guys feel that?” Bryan asked.

  Jess rubbed her arms. She felt it all right. While the basement had been noticeably cooler, this area had suddenly grown quite cold.

  Dr. Brandt took out his own digital voice recorder. “Bryan, record this.”

  Bryan panned to Dr. Brandt, who held up a thermometer. The read-out began to drop. “Fifty-six degrees,” Dr. Brandt said. “Which is unusually cold for any basement in Savannah during the summer. There is no draft, just a sensation of cold.”

  Gage’s EMF device went off, the needle jumping back and forth wildly. “Hello?” he called out. “If there’s anyone here, can you show yourself? Talk to us?”

  Dr. Brandt recorded his next note. “Gage’s EMF reader has picked up a strong reading in the area, as well. Readings quickly fluctuating between two and five milligaus, indicating we may be in the presence of a spirit or spirits. Reading is not typical of electronic interference.”

  Everyone grew silent, waiting. Allison looked absolutely terrified and Jess wrapped an arm around her. The action helped Jess, too. Until now, she hadn’t realized how hard her heart had been pounding in her chest. Ghosts in restaurants in full daylight were one thing. But ghosts in dank, spider-infested basements were something else entirely.

  Gage’s EMF meter went silent. No fluctuating needle, no whirring sound, no red light.

  “Maybe the spirit moved off to another spot,” Dr. Brandt said.

  From somewhere farther in the darkened basement, somewhere amid the piles of furniture, lamps and assorted old appliances, a child’s xylophone began to play—the song clear and unmistakable:

  Three blind mice.

  Three blind mice.

  See how they run.

  See how they run.

  Then, silence.

  “Holy shit!” Bryan exclaimed as he nearly dropped the camera. He righted it, panning the basement far too fast to actually film anything.

  Dr. Brandt slowly scanned the basement with his flashlight. He and Bryan set off in the direction the sound had come from. Gage gave Jess and Allison a quick glance and they followed him, clinging more tightly to each other than before.

  “It’s just the girls,” Jess whispered to Allison, hoping that was true. “They’re just trying to say it’s all okay.” Jess wasn’t sure she believed her own words, but the idea mildly comforted her. Just the girls. Nothing else.

  Allison trembled. “They all ran after the farmer’s wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife,” she sang softly. She stepped away from Jess and pointed back to the dresser with the dolls.

  The mirror was different. It reflected another room, one Jess recognized as one of the locked ones from the third floor. Someone lay in the bed, sleeping. Except they weren’t really sleeping. Something glittered on the red bed coverlet. Jess stepped closer, her breath caught in her throat. What she had mistaken for a bed cover wasn’t a quilt or covering of any kind. It was blood. A large knife protruded from the woman’s chest. A couple of smaller knives lay around her, blades pointing inward.

  “Guys?” Jess called out, voice shaky. “Whatever it is, it’s back over here.”

  “In a minute,” Gage’s voice called back. “We found the xylophone.”

  “No, really,” Jess answered. “You need to see this.”

  Inside the mirror, something moved. From a shadowy corner emerged a boy approximately her age. Riley. He had to be Riley. He grinned, revealing thin, dark teeth. Something awful and dark and soulless lurked behind his black eyes. Riley made his way to the mirror, head slowly cocking from side to side.

  A scream caught in Jess’s throat.

  Someone threw a sheet over the mirror—Allison. “I warned you not to talk to them,” she hissed.

  Gage returned to her side. “What happened? Jess! Are you okay?”

  She shook her head and pointed at the mirror. “Riley. He’s in the mirror.”

  “Riley?” Dr. Brandt asked. “You saw Riley in the mirror?”

  “Y-y-yes,” Jess choked out. No ghost had ever shown her part of their past before. None of them had shown her such violence, or looked and felt as malevolent. “Someone else was there, too. A woman. He killed her. There were knives everywhere.”

  Bryan turned the camera on Jess. Dr. Brandt placed his hand on the sheet.

  “Don’t!” Jess nearly shrieked. “He’s in there. And he sees us.” She realized how much she sounded like Allison. She jumped when Dr. Brandt peeled back the sheet. His hand gently caressed the frame.

  The mirror reflected nothing but hers and the others’ reflections, ghostly and shadowy in the low, greenish light from Bryan’s camera.

  “It’s okay, Jess,” Dr. Brandt assured her. “No one is there now. See?” He turned to face her, his back exposed to the mirror. Jess wanted to scream a protest, to tell him not to stand so close to it. Her eyes darted to the mirror, still reflecting nothing but them and the basement. Images from the here and now. Nothing from the past at all. The dolls stared blankly outward.

  “I’d like to go upstairs now,” Allison said.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Dr. Brandt agreed.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Gage asked.

  Jess nodded. “I’m fine now,” she lied, taking a deep, steadying breath. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Ghosts weren’t supposed to behave like this. Whatever Riley was, he couldn’t be a ghost. He had to be something more. As the others turned and headed out of the basement, Jess couldn’t resist training the flashlight back one last time. The light bounced off the mirror, revealing nothing. But Jess swore the doll in the middle winked.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Who was she?” Jess wanted to know. “The woman in the room.”

  Dr. Brandt sat at the dining room table, fingers templed across his lips as contemplated Jess’s question.

  “Julia Alcott. Gracie and Emma’s personal nanny. A chambermaid discovered her the day after the search party found the girls’ bodies.”

  “So, they caught Riley red-handed?” Gage asked.

  “Red-handed.” Bryan laughed. “Funny, Gage.”

  “No,” Dr. Brandt said. “While Ms. Alcott’s death was most certainly Riley’s doing, no one caught him. Ms. Alcott told her employers that Riley was pure evil—that he had the soul of a devil. She threatened to leave unless they did something about him.”

  “No surprise there,” Gage added. “I’m sure the Silers had to see that one coming a mile away.”

  “True, but those aren’t words you’d kill someone over,” Jess said.

  “Riley wasn’t exactly sane,” Bryan offered.

  Dr. Brandt smiled. “Oh, Riley was sane. I think he only pretended to be insane. To answer your question, Jess, Ms. Alcott’s comments about Riley having the soul of a devil didn’t get her killed. Recommending an exorcism did. She even supplied the Silers with the name of a priest.”

  The pieces clicked together for Jess. “That’s what happened the first time. That’s how Riley’s parents died. They tried to exorcise him.”

>   Dr. Brandt nodded. “That’s exactly what happened. Ms. Alcott’s uncle was a priest. She’d told him about Riley, about what he’d done and he suggested an exorcism. Catherine Siler didn’t take a lot of persuading, not after what happened to her sister and now her own children. She wanted Riley dead as much as her husband at this point, but a servant told her that unless they exorcised the demon in her nephew before he was tried and executed, the evil inside him would only transfer to someone else.”

  “So how’d that work out for them?” Gage asked.

  “It didn’t,” Dr. Brandt replied. “The priest arrived, saw Riley for a few minutes, then fled the house. They discovered Ms. Alcott’s body soon afterward. So I’d say the exorcism didn’t work for them at all. But, a shotgun blast did. Riley was dead before nightfall. Where Riley’s father failed, Jonathan Siler succeeded. Without an exorcism, the deaths and other strange happenings continued at Siler House. Lights turned on and off. The piano in the music room played at night.”

  “The nursery rhyme,” Bryan said, replaying the video. “The kid’s xylophone. How did it do that?”

  “Anyone check the thing out?” Gage asked. “Make sure no one tampered with it?”

  “You think someone’s putting us on?” Allison said. She seemed angry, upset. Scared. “You heard it! We all did. Jess and I weren’t having some group hallucination. No one tampered with the xylophone or the mirror, Gage.”

  He held up his hands in a truce. “Okay, okay. It was just a suggestion. I’m not saying the paranormal doesn’t exist. I know better. It’s corporations and studies I don’t trust.” He and Allison stared at each other for a long minute and Jess wondered what had been said between them. Whatever Allison had shown Gage, neither of them had told anyone else.

  Gage finally looked away. “We all heard it. Just trying to rule stuff out. Any chance it was the girls, Jess? Could Gracie and Emma do that?”

  Jess shrugged. “I guess the thing with the xylophone was possible, but I don’t think the thing with the mirror was. That was a pretty gruesome scene. That was Riley’s doing.”

  Allison shook her head. “They aren’t helping us, Jess.”

  “They’ve promised to help. They’re just little girls. Riley killed them! I don’t see how they’d side with him.” Jess looked at Gage to try to see disbelief in his expression, to see if he would mock her. But he sat there, calm and unreadable. At least he didn’t seem to think she was crazy.

  “They said they’d help? With what? Your dad? Ben? This experiment?” Bryan asked, sounding excited. “That’d be pretty cool.”

  Allison went back to shaking her head. Jess could be upset with Allison all she wanted, but deep down, she felt bad for her. This place terrified her and she shouldn’t be here. Yet, no one seemed to care.

  Dr. Brandt turned on his digital recorder. “What happened? What did they say, Jess?”

  Jess shrugged. “Just what I said. They said they’d show me things. I suppose the music came from them. Maybe they wanted to warn us about Riley in the mirror.”

  “So, what next?” Gage asked. “Do we wait around to see if something else happens? Do we have a séance?” He paused, giving Allison a quick glance. “Do we revisit the idea of using the Ouija board?”

  “They’re getting stronger,” Allison said. “It’s because of all of us. It’s our combined energy. Who we are and our experiences with the supernatural. A séance or the Ouija board will only make it worse. You don’t want them to get stronger.”

  “What if we can help the girls?” Jess asked. All she could think of was her sister—that if something so horrible had happened to Lily, she’d want someone to help her. The idea of spending eternity with the person responsible for your own death was unfathomable to Jess. “After all this time, don’t you think they deserve some peace?”

  “That’s the problem,” Allison said. “They’ve been here for too long. Messing around with this isn’t going to help matters. They’re not the same girls.”

  Jess’s jaw went slack. “They haven’t done anything to suggest they’re against us. They’re not Riley. I’m not saying they’re perfect angels, and they can be a bit strange, but still—”

  “Fine,” Gauge interrupted. “I say we have a séance. We’ll skip the Ouija board. We don’t need the Ouija board to conduct a séance.” He gave Allison another quick glance.

  “I agree,” Jess said.

  “Sure, I’m in,” Bryan added.

  Allison gave Bryan a dark look.

  Dr. Brandt nodded. “Allison, we’ve been over this. No one will make you touch the Ouija board. You only need to be in the room. Jess has a point about Gracie and Emma. Some ghosts become trapped. I’ve freed others in the past, sent them on their way to peace.”

  Without waiting for a response he turned to the others. “There’s a few things I’ll need to take care of first. We’ll work on the plans tomorrow over breakfast. I think everyone has had enough for one night and I need to transcribe some notes and copy the video onto the laptop along with the voice recordings.”

  The boys got to their feet, ready to head back to their room.

  “Allison? Jess?” Dr. Brandt called as the girls slid from their chairs, too. “I’d like a quick word.”

  He waited until both the boys had made their way upstairs.

  “I don’t want you two separated at night,” he told them.

  “Why?” Jess asked. “I’m not afraid.”

  “I’m not asking,” Dr. Brandt said. “I thought if I gave you two some distance from each other you’d work things out. I’d like the two of you back in the same room.”

  He glanced between the two of them. “I’m serious, ladies. Do we need to discuss what’s going on between you two?”

  Allison shook her head. “No. We’re fine. My insomnia keeps Jess awake. I’ll try harder to be quiet.” She offered Jess a smile.

  “Good,” Dr. Brandt said. “Go work out whatever you need to. Tomorrow, I want you two back in the same room.”

  Jess followed Allison upstairs. When they were out of earshot, Allison said, “He’s right. If they get any stronger, we’d all be better off making sure we’re with someone.”

  “You think they’re getting stronger?” Jess asked. “Weren’t they like this before we came here?”

  “Sometimes, spirits feed off people’s energy and there’s never been anyone like us here before—at least not four of us. And, haven’t you noticed we each have a unique ability? It’s not a good combination to have in Siler House all at once.”

  Jess thought about it as they walked down the third floor hallway. She had no intention of going to their room. Not tonight. Tonight she wanted to see if she could talk to the girls. Ask them a few more questions. “So, we’re different. What does that mean in relation to the house?”

  “They’re drawn to people like us,” Allison explained. “I’ve told you.” Exasperated, she left Jess standing in front of the other guest room and continued down the hallway to the room they’d shared. “Ask Gage why we’re here. He knows.”

  Gage? So he and Allison had been talking about all this. She’d ask him what they’d found out tomorrow. Jess entered the guest room and closed the door. No Emma. No Gracie.

  “Girls?” Jess called out. “Hey, I need to talk to you.”

  Nothing. No creaking floors from Mrs. Hirsch, although Jess had no doubt she’d be along soon enough.

  “Really, guys! I need to talk to you. Emma? Gracie?”

  Nothing. Maybe Allison had been wrong about them being stronger. Or, Riley was keeping them from showing up. Bastard!

  Jess kicked off her shoes and shed all her clothes except her panties and tank top and crawled into bed. She lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the house settle down for the night. The crickets and frogs were once again in full chorus. After what seemed like an hour, she finally drifted to sleep.

  A soft tap on the door woke her. She listened for a moment or two, thinking she’d dreamed it.r />
  Someone softly tapped at the door again.

  “Allison,” she muttered, getting out of bed. Who else? Mrs. Hirsch wouldn’t be tapping lightly. Jess opened the door, expecting Allison to be standing there in her nightgown. Instead, she found Gage in a pair of jeans and a dark shirt. “Oh!” She exclaimed and closed the door. “Give me a minute.” Her cheeks flushed with warmth—not just because he’d made no attempt to look away when he’d clearly seen her in nothing more than her underwear and tank top, but because the warm, tingly sensation wasn’t limited to only her face.

  “Meet me in the room across from Allison’s,” Gage whispered through the door.

  “It’s locked,” Jess replied. She scrambled across the room to retrieve the denim shorts she’d left on the bed. Quickly, she smoothed out her hair, turned out the light and opened the door. No Gage. Didn’t he hear her? Mrs. Hirsch kept the door locked. She crept down the hall, hoping the floorboards wouldn’t creak.

  For the time being, and despite her every effort, ghosts were the last thing on her mind.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The door opened with a soft snick. Gage waited, remaining hidden behind some furniture until he was sure it was Jess. She looked around the room, missing his shape entirely before she closed the door behind her and walked toward the window.

  “See? Not locked,” he said softly, stepping from the shadows and standing close to her. “Glad you showed up.”

  He didn’t really think she would have stayed in her room, or at least, he’d hoped she wouldn’t. The fact that she’d met him here in the middle of the night told him Jess was at least curious. With any luck, her curiosity extended beyond why he’d asked her here. He thought about her far too much lately. He couldn’t get Jess out of his mind.

  “How’d you do it?” she asked.

  “The door, or getting here without anyone seeing me? The door was easy to pick. All the doors here are. And, Bryan is keeping his mouth shut.”

  “Why didn’t he come with you?”

  Gage grinned. “I told him I was meeting you.”