Finding the Way Back

by Jill Bisker

  “Ghost,” Connie retorted.

  “No. We both expected to see someone somewhere, after hearing what we thought were footsteps,” I answered. “The drapery must hang in a way that leaves a shadow in certain light.” I was beginning to feel better now that I had confirmed what I had started to suspect already. We had overreacted just as I had the night before when the music was playing. That made so much more sense. And the footsteps were probably just a strange echo of squirrels on the roof. Or worse, maybe they had gotten into the walls.

  I turned and walked out of the bedroom, heading for the bathroom, while Connie and Emmett checked the other rooms. I needed to brush out my hair before it dried into more of a tangled mess than it was under the towel. I was no longer worried about intruders. It was all our imagination. Simon always said I was fanciful. This was just another silly moment of mine. If I was fanciful, Connie took another step right into whimsy. She really believed what she’d said about ghosts.

  I closed the bathroom door and sprayed the detangler into my hair, starting to comb out the snarls with a large-toothed comb. My hair seemed to have made it through the highlighting near-disaster, although I wouldn’t be sure until it was dry. Just as I finished I heard someone brush against the door. “I’ll be out in a minute, Connie,” I yelled through the door. For some reason she kept rubbing up against it, probably just to annoy me. We’d always done that as kids. We would try to hurry the person in the bathroom by talking to them through the door, knocking, and just plain harassing. She must have been in a hurry for something because she wasn’t giving up on the game. “Fine, I’m done,” I snapped as I pulled the door open.

  I gasped and stepped backward into the bathroom, confused. Connie wasn’t standing at the door, and neither was anyone else. I leaned out to peek down into the hall and no one was there either. I could hear Connie and Emmett down in the kitchen talking quietly.

  Neither Connie nor Emmett could have gotten away from the door and back to the kitchen that quickly. I felt a chill run down my spine, my fear returning. Someone or something rubbed up against the door loud enough for me to hear it. I took off down the hall, stumbling down the stairs loudly.

  Out of breath, I stopped in front of Emmett and Connie who were sitting at the kitchen table talking.

  “What’s wrong?” Connie asked, a look of alarm on her face.

  I struggled to get the words out, my mouth was so dry. “I was wrong, there’s someone in the house,” I finally managed to get out.

  “What?” Connie began, but Emmett was past me and up the stairs before I could say any more. We went charging after him. “Emmett! Wait! There’s someone up there! I know there is—I heard it!”

  He was quickly moving from room to room then was back in the middle of the hall. “I didn’t see anyone, Laney. I went in every room. There’s no one here and no place to hide with all this stuff in the way. No one could have gotten past the kitchen without us seeing them.”

  “But I heard it. Someone was rubbing up against the door when I was in the bathroom. I didn’t imagine this. It really happened.”

  “I’m sure you heard something,” Emmett said. “But there’s no one here.”

  “What do you mean? Do you think I’m making this up, that I’m just imagining all this? You know what—I don’t need your help. It was Connie’s idea to call you.”

  “Laney, it’s okay, I don’t think you are imagining this. It has to be a ghost,” Connie stated calmly coming up to put an arm around my shoulders.

  “Don’t patronize me. It’s not a ghost!” I yelled at her, shrugging off her arm.

  The room got silent as a tomb. Then I started laughing. “Okay, you got me, how did you set this up?” I asked, starting to calm down.

  “She’s not joking, Laney. We didn’t set anything up,” Emmett responded. “I think, perhaps, Connie might be right. I think it could be a haunting.”

  Suddenly I started to feel dizzy, the room turned ice cold and started to reel then everything went dark.

  Chapter Eight

  The next thing I knew I was looking up at the ceiling and Connie and Emmett were crouching down looking at me. “What happened?” I asked, sitting up so quickly I almost smacked heads with Emmett. Feeling dizzy again, I thought I might vomit. That would teach me not to drink red wine anymore.

  “Hold on, wait a minute, get your bearings,” Emmett said calmly while putting his hand behind my shoulders holding me up. “You don’t want to faint again.”

  “Faint? I didn’t faint. This isn’t the nineteenth century, you know. Women don’t just faint anymore,” I huffed. “I’m probably getting a migraine. There are all these vision things that happen before you get one.”

  “Okay, Laney, you didn’t faint, you just wanted to pick something up from the floor very quickly. Whatever,” Connie soothed.

  “Don’t condescend to me,” I complained, starting to feel even more foolish. “I’m just getting a migraine. Maybe you’re giving me a migraine.”

  “Fine. I’m sure you’re just fine,” Connie said.

  “Fine,” I retorted, mimicking her, then paused. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment, thinking about all that had happened—the music, the footsteps, the bathroom door. “You might be right,” I mumbled.

  “What?” Connie and Emmett asked together.

  “Okay, okay, okay. You might be right about something weird going on here. Let’s go down to the living room. It’s freaking me out just sitting on the floor,” I answered, pushing myself back on my feet.

  They let me walk on my own down the stairs but I noticed Emmett went first, walking down more slowly than normal. He kept looking back at me, probably to make sure I didn’t faint again.

  “Something happened last night,” I finally said, sinking into the couch in the living room.

  “Something else ghostly? And you didn’t tell us?” Connie asked as she sat down next to me.

  “No, not ghostly—well, maybe unexplained would be a better word,” I answered. I was having a hard time grasping this ghost stuff but then it did make some sense, the more I thought about it. After all, burglars don’t really play music when breaking in, do they? “Last night after I went to bed I was awakened by music playing in the living room. I think it was the living room. I never found out where it came from.”

  Emmett leaned forward on the edge of the recliner. “What did it sound like?”

  “I don’t know. Music. An old recording, World War Two era maybe, orchestra type for sure. I’m sure I’ve heard it before, like on the edge of my memory. It was a song I know.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Da da dee, da da dum.” I tried to hum it, but I was horrible at that sort of thing and it came out as an unrecognizable tune. “Oh, I don’t remember.”

  “So it was more than just a brief hint of music? It was long enough to be recognized as a song you know? That’s interesting—you seldom hear something that persists that long. It could be outside noise or a timed radio,” Emmett said.

  “It played for several minutes, I think. Maybe shorter, you know how time seems to drag when you’re scared.”

  Connie just sat in silence staring at me. “And when were you going to tell me this?” she finally asked.

  “I kind of forgot about it. After a while it seemed more like a dream and in the light of day I figured you’d think I was crazy. Like Emmett said, I thought maybe there was a radio buried somewhere in this mess and it went off with an automatic timer.”

  “That is a reasonable supposition, really. Something we should check out first. We can’t be totally sure all these things don’t have another explanation,” Emmett stated.

  “Well, from now on if anything else happens we all need to know right away,” Connie emphasized.

  “I think me and the guys ought to come over tomorrow night and check it out,” Emmett said slowly.

  “What are you and your friends going to do about it?” I asked, laughing lightly.

&n
bsp; Emmett and Connie exchanged glances. “I wondered if that’s why Connie called me,” Emmett replied. “Now you might think I’m crazy, but I do some ghost hunting on the side. Kind of like a hobby,” he said and shrugged, looking at me with half a grin.

  I felt my blood begin to boil as I glared at Connie. “You called a ghost hunter?” I demanded, bolting upright. “Are you kidding me? What were you thinking? Everyone in this town has always thought our family was nuts, now we’re going to hand them proof.”

  “Laney, he’s my friend. It’s not like I Googled ‘Ghostbusters’ and called the first name that came up. Besides, what’s wrong with calling a ghost hunter? We heard all those weird sounds in the house and then we saw that black shape in the window just disappear into nothing. Why shouldn’t we call a ghost hunter?” Connie challenged.

  “He probably set up the whole thing. Connie, you are so gullible.”

  “Oh come on! That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. How could he possibly have—,” Connie began to interject then was cut off by Emmett.

  “Hey, wait a minute there, Laney. Number one, I’m still right here. Number two, I am not a charlatan. I don’t ‘set things up’. I study things that are happening that no one else can explain,” Emmett retorted.

  “He’s not even the only ghost hunter I know,” Connie said, partly to herself. Emmett glanced at her sideways in mild surprise.

  “There is nothing to explain if it’s just a door closing because a window is open, or if it’s an animal living in the walls, or it’s just an old house that makes noises,” I said, ignoring Connie’s other comment.

  “You know, that’s fine, I can just leave. Sorry, Connie,” Emmett said and headed for the door.

  But Connie put her foot down, both figuratively and literally. “You, stay put,” she said to Emmett who stopped at the front door. Then, turning to me she continued, “You, listen. Laney, can you just open your mind for one minute? Have you forgotten that our grandmother died in this house? She fell down the stairs. That could give her unresolved issues,” Connie said, exasperated.

  I took a deep breath, why was I fighting this? I actually had always wanted to believe in ghosts. Our family had many tales of paranormal experiences. My grandmother on my father’s side swore that her father sat on her bed and spoke to her the night he died. He said goodbye in the same room with her when his body lay fifty miles away.

  “Laney, just give me a chance,” Emmett said. “I take the approach that part of our objective is to expose as much as we can with logical explanations. In reality, we debunk way more than we ever find that’s paranormal. We look for the slanted floors, the breeze coming through, animals in the walls, you name it,” Emmett quietly spoke, walking back into the living room. “It’s totally up to you. If you’re not interested, we won’t do it, and no hard feelings.”

  I looked at Connie who was standing behind Emmett nodding. Emmett said nothing more but waited patiently for my decision. I could actually see him becoming a friend. I took a large breath and let it out slowly. “One night, that’s all. If you find nothing, I don’t want to hear any more talk about it. And I want to be here. I’m not leaving and coming back to your evidence like they do on TV. I want to be here to help debunk these things.” I was adamant on this point. I wasn’t about to turn my house over to strangers who could then make up whatever they wanted in order to make it look like they found something.

  Emmett smiled. “No problem.” Then looking at Connie, said, “Would you be more comfortable if I stayed tonight? I could sleep on the couch here in the living room.”

  “No, we’re fine,” I answered for her. “I think the witching hour has come and gone. Besides it’s only some footsteps and noises. It’s late and I just want to go to sleep.”

  Connie nodded at Emmett who accepted her confirmation. “You have my cell number. Call if you need me. Tomorrow I’ll get a hold of my guys and let you know when we’ll be here.”

  Connie saw Emmett to the door and thanked him for his help. We decided to sleep with lights on in the bathroom and in the kitchen so if we had to get up we wouldn’t trip in the dark. I didn’t think there would be any more ghostly occurrences, but if anything more did happen we were tired enough to sleep through it.

  Chapter Nine

  The next day I awoke to the early morning sun starting to shine into my room. I rolled over to hear Connie’s cell phone ringing in the next room. “I should probably start carrying my cell,” I spoke out loud to myself. I just hated being so accessible, I rarely had my phone near me. I guess I was an anomaly of the times.

  I could hear Connie talking quietly on her phone as I plodded down to the kitchen. Coffee. Before everything else. Coffee. We hadn’t washed dishes the night before, so I just rinsed my cup from yesterday and popped a K-cup into my machine. I put more water in the reservoir, then watched the machine as it warmed up and pushed the button that made the magic happen. It was gratifying to have coffee made that quickly, but even so, more quickly would be even better.

  When my cup was done, I added my sugar and cream, and heard a chair being pulled out from under the table. I turned around expecting to see Connie but she wasn’t there. I blinked a few times, puzzled. Did I just see the chair move that last inch away from the table?

  At that moment I heard Connie come down the steps and she appeared around the corner. “I’m ready for coffee,” she said.

  “Did you just pull the chair away from the table?”

  “What? No, I just walked in.”

  “Connie, I heard that chair being pulled out while my back was turned. Are you sure it wasn’t you?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. Are you saying it happened by itself?”

  I didn’t know what to think. “Maybe it was like that and I just thought I heard something. The coffee machine makes a lot of noise.” We both gazed at the chair then I moved forward and pushed it back in. I would have been sure it was nothing if I hadn’t seen that last bit of movement out of the corner of my eye when I turned around. Unless my eyes were playing tricks with me. After all, I was moving at the time.

  “I’ve heard about things like this, but I’ve never actually seen it myself. Good thing Emmett and the guys are coming over tonight,” Connie said, passing me on the way to the coffee machine.

  “I was rethinking that a few minutes ago, but now I think it might be a good idea,” I said, still questioning what had actually happened.

  Connie turned with a steaming cup in her hand. “By the way, that was my mom on the phone. She and your mom are coming over here later to talk about the house.”

  I looked at Connie and envisioned my mother’s reaction to our new ghost hunter friend. “Did you tell her about last night?”

  “Am I that crazy? No, but I do think we need to discuss it with them, don’t you? You don’t want them to hear it from someone else. They grew up here. If it were haunted don’t you think they would have noticed? Maybe they’ve seen some of these things too. If they never had experiences like these before, then it’s a new haunt. Then that would mean it’s our grandfather, right?”

  “I’m not sure it really works that way.” I shivered at the thought of that conversation. “So when are they coming?”

  “I told them nine o’clock. So theoretically we have about an hour until they descend, but knowing them it wouldn’t surprise me if they show up any minute.”

  “Right. I’d better get a shower. I suppose I have to go take my life in my hands and battle the spiders defending their homes in the shower stall in the basement,” I replied, running upstairs for my toiletries. My mother could detect anyone’s weakness like blood in the water. I had to be prepared for the coming assault. Those two little women were like army generals and I would have to be strong unless I wanted them moving in and taking over.

  Trudging to the basement, I grabbed the bug spray and shower curtain I had picked up the day before. I had no intention of going unarmed. I turned every light on I could find, and made a men
tal note that more lights were needed. You can’t see spiders in the dark. I approached the shower stall and sprayed the entire area around it—the floor and walls outside, the area above the inside walls where the enemy could crouch, waiting to pounce on me. I hoped there would be time for the repellent to work before I got in. I waited as long as I dared, then turned on the water, hoping it would wash down any creatures hiding in the half light. I couldn’t believe how much I hated this creepy basement. Toward the top of my renovation list was going to be an upstairs shower.

  I removed my faded flannel pajamas quickly and jumped into the stream of hot water. If I could immerse myself fast I wouldn’t give the arachnids a firm footing to grab onto me should they be in a jumping mood. After I was wet, I realized I didn’t bring any of my own shampoo, conditioner or soap. I looked around and found half a bottle of shampoo, which was better than nothing. But there was no way I was using the bar of soap that looked like it had a full head of hair.

  I took the fastest shower I could, sudsing up and rinsing my hair, then jumped out. Crap! I forgot my towel. I looked around. My choices were either an old throw rug—Yuck! Just the thought made my skin crawl—or climb back into my pajamas. The ‘jamas it was. I toweled dry with the bottoms and wrapped the top around my hair. Double crap! I forgot my clothes also. What was I thinking? I had been so worried about spiders in the shower that I didn’t plan very well. Looking at my soggy pajama bottoms I rewrapped my hair in my bottoms and threw the wet top on. Meaning to get to my room as quickly as possible, I ran up the stairs and walked into the kitchen.

  Triple crap! Emmett stood in the kitchen, his back to me, talking to Connie. My heart jumped at the deep timbre of his voice. What was he doing over here so early? Connie’s eyes met mine as she saw me slide out of the room and back down the stairs a few steps, pulling the door shut behind me.