Finding the Way Back

by Jill Bisker

  Convinced I was letting my imagination get the better of me, I turned around again when all the lights suddenly went out. I looked around and was surprised at how dark it was. It was still light outside, but the one window well open to the basement was boarded over. I vaguely remembered my mother saying something about keeping out animals or water or something. Well that was getting added to my list to fix.

  Trying not to panic, I started walking slowly in the direction I thought was the stairs. I held my hands in front of me to make sure I didn’t walk into anything, and slid my feet forward on the floor so I didn’t trip over anything. Suddenly I detected a foul odor that I hadn’t ever noticed before. It reminded me of the way our basement had smelled when I was growing up and a squirrel had fallen down the old chimney to the wood furnace shaft. Except this was getting much stronger.

  “Connie,” I tried to yell but it came out breathless and halting. I took a few breaths and tried to steady myself, then tried to call out again. “Did you turn out the lights? I’m still down here. Connie? Please turn the lights back on to the basement.”

  I felt my hands connect with the wooden banister. But the smell was becoming overwhelming and I was starting to feel nauseous. I dropped to my knees as dizziness threatened to freeze me in my tracks. Fighting the urge to curl into a ball and stay at the foot of the steps forever, I started pulling myself up. Finally, the door opened at the top of the stairs, a beam of light and life shining down on me and dispelling the darkness and decay. Connie flipped on the lights and my rescue was complete.

  I blinked at the bright lights and lunged to my feet taking the last steps at a run. I nearly toppled Connie over as I rushed through the door and into the safety of the kitchen.

  “Did you turn off the light to the basement?” I asked and accused at the same time.

  “No, I just came in and heard you yelling. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Let me get my breath,” I panted. “I hate that place.”

  Connie gaped at me, my distress obvious. She flipped the switch a few times and the light went on and off obediently. “I wonder how the light went off,” she said.

  “I don’t wonder. It’s that damned ghost! Why is it after me? Nothing is happening to you. Why me?” I asked. “From now on I’m carrying a flashlight any time I have to go down there. Some animal must have gotten in there and died too. It smells atrocious, but I’m not looking for it. Maybe we can get Dean to do it.”

  “What smell?” Connie asked looking down the stairs and sniffing tentatively. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Well, of course not, from up here. Go to the bottom of the stairs. It’s awful, you’ll see.”

  Connie walked cautiously down the stairs and stopped on the bottom step. She sniffed a few times and took a deep breath. “I don’t smell anything. Maybe you just thought you smelled something,” she called up to me.

  “I did not imagine it! How can you not smell that? It smells so bad down there I almost vomited. I can still smell it from here,” I said, then paused. “Well, maybe not anymore, but it was there, I’m telling you. I’m not coming down there again right now.” I peeked around the corner of the doorway as Connie moved further into the basement, sniffing as she went. I couldn’t see her anymore and then I didn’t hear her. I started to feel anxious. “Connie, can you smell it? What are you doing? I think you should come back up.”

  Silence. “Connie? Come back up.” Still silence. “Connie!” I yelled into the silence.

  I started running down the steps and then she walked back into my sight. “What?” she asked innocently, then laughed.

  “You suck. Really, stop scaring me. I really, really hate it down here.”

  We both started back up the steps. “I’m sorry, Laney. Sometimes it’s hard to resist picking on you. I don’t smell anything though. We’ll have the guys check it out more when they come over later.”

  “Add that to the long list of weird,” I answered, still annoyed at Connie, myself, and whatever caused the terrible smell.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Later, after an afternoon of cleaning up the study and a quick supper, I was upstairs in my room when Emmett and his crew arrived. Connie answered the door and I heard them bringing equipment into the kitchen so they could show us what they’d captured. I put on a minimal amount of make-up and braided my hair. I was postponing the inevitable, but I was going to have to face Emmett sometime.

  “Laney, they’re ready,” Connie called up the stairs. “Before we get started in the kitchen we’re going to check out the basement first.”

  Grabbing the flashlight I always carried in my toiletries bag I walked downstairs. “Hi guys, how’s everyone tonight?”

  “There she is, the lovely Ms. MacKenzie. How does it feel to be back in the single pool again?” Dean teased. He had a way of taking the edge off.

  “It’s daunting,” I answered. “I hope I don’t drown.”

  “So Connie has been telling us about your afternoon adventures,” Emmett said. As compared with my morning ones, I thought, getting angry all over again. Silly, ridiculous Laney.

  I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sure I overreacted but I don’t like the dark in the first place and I really don’t like the basement.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll check it out,” he said reassuringly, and it was starting to feel like I finally had some friends I could count on. When I was with Simon, he alienated all my friends, making me totally dependent on him. And then he betrayed me. Actually, I realized, I allowed him to do that. I wasn’t just a victim.

  Filing down the stairs, I made sure I was in the middle of the pack, with Emmett and Connie in front of me and Dean and Glen bringing up the rear. Everyone fanned out, searching for the scent. I took the opportunity to throw the wet clothes in the dryer and fold the towels. I couldn’t ask someone to come down with me every time I had to do laundry or take a shower, but I sure was going to take advantage of anytime I wasn’t alone to get a few things done.

  I set the dial on the dryer and started it, then went to sit at the base of the stairs and watch while the others moved some things around and looked in the dark corners.

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything down here right now, Laney, and we don’t smell anything either,” Emmett said as he walked around the furnace looking at the different components. “But there were high EMF readings here last night which can give you the feeling of being watched, and can even cause hallucinations sometimes.”

  I turned and stomped up the stairway. It was not a hallucination. It was easy to blame things on his EMF, but sometimes things were just real. Arriving back in the kitchen, I stood at the sink wiping some dishes that had been left to dry. It wasn’t long before the thumping on the stairs indicated everyone had given up the search.

  Dean came up and put his hand on my shoulder, “Hey, it’s okay. We didn’t find anything but that doesn’t mean nothing was there. A lot of weird things are happening around here and we can’t discount it.”

  Grateful for the comforting, I smiled and hugged him. At least one man wasn’t going to treat me like I was crazy.

  Emmett walked over to the table looking uncomfortable and asked, “Should we get started?” We all crowded around the computer screen he had set up. “So first we went through the video. We only caught one interesting thing which was when we were coming down the stairs and Laney was pushed. Watch this.” He pushed play on his recorder and we all watched the three of us coming down the stairs. When I was on the fourth step from the bottom I went flying forward. “Now watch it again and look right behind you. It looks like a shadow and it doesn’t move with you. I think we caught some kind of entity.” He played it again and we watched it more closely. It did look like the outline of someone right behind me. A shadow of darkness.

  “I don’t know,” I started hesitantly. “I think that might be my shadow.”

  “No, Laney, watch it again. It just doesn’t line up right,” Dean protested. We wat
ched it again, all of us leaning into the monitor to see better.

  “I wish this was larger,” Connie added.

  “I looked at your old TV but there’s no way to hook up to that,” Emmett said. “I have a newer flat panel and I could bring that over so we can see it more clearly. I really think it’s the entity.”

  “I concur,” Glen agreed. “I watched this over and over when I found it. I think it’s the entity also, but then I’m not positive.” Since Glen rarely spoke we all seemed to regard his opinion the most. He wasn’t one to use hyperbole. “We do have other proof, though, so let’s show them that.”

  Emmett pulled up the audio files. “Now these are interesting. This first one is from when we were upstairs in the hall. You remember we first heard footsteps. Unfortunately, we didn’t catch those. You can hear something on the videotape but it doesn’t sound like much so I haven’t played it yet, but can later. Now remember, I walked out into the hall and asked a question, and then we heard something that sounded like music. Listen to this.”

  I sat still in my chair, straining to catch every nuance. On the recording, Emmett was asking, “Is there something you’d like to tell us?” Then silence. “We’re here to help you. Can you tell us your name?” Still silence. “We’re not here to hurt you.” We heard something that might have been music, but seemed discordant.

  The hair stood up on my arms. “That was very distinctly something different. Do you think it’s somebody trying to send a message? Why music? What does it mean? What would it represent?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think we can conjecture on the meaning. I’ve never actually heard music before. While it’s hard to distinguish it on the recording now, at the time, all three of us heard it as music. It does seem as if you have an intelligent haunt, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s interacting directly in response to something you do or say,” Emmett explained.

  “I don’t buy that,” I announced, shrugging. “I don’t. If this ‘entity’ is targeting me, why couldn’t it also be directly interacting with things we are doing? Our mothers said there were some strange things going on when they were growing up, but I doubt it was at this level. Otherwise they would have made a bigger deal of it.”

  I heard the front door opening, and then I heard my mother’s voice. “Laney, are you all right?” she called. “I heard you fell down the stairs.”

  “Uh-oh,” Connie said behind me.

  I turned to look at her, and guilt was written all over her face. “Connie, what did you do? You didn’t tell our mothers everything that happened last night, did you? We’ll never get any peace if we tell them everything.”

  “I ran into my mom when I was out picking up supplies at the store. It’s not like I hide from her. She started asking pointed questions, and then there was nothing else I could do. I wasn’t going to tell, but you know the family rules, ‘Don’t tell Connie anything you don’t want everyone to know.’”

  Into the already packed kitchen strode Tess and Shelly. “I know we’re late but Shelly just had to change her shoes one more time before coming over,” my mom said as she took off her coat. “What did we miss?”

  I gave my mom a hug and glared at Connie over her shoulder.

  Aunt Shelly noticed my look. “Laney, don’t blame her. We ran into Connie when she stopped at the store. Neither one of you has ever been able to keep secrets so hush your fussing.”

  I let it drop. Our mothers would have found out eventually.

  “Manners, Laney. We haven’t all met,” my mother reminded me.

  Sighing deeply, I introduced Dean and Glen. “Nice to meet you, Glen,” my mother said. “You, I remember,” she said to Dean, tweaking his cheek as if he were five years old. I rolled my eyes.

  Emmett sat our mothers down to show them the evidence he had collected. When we got to the part where I was pushed down the stairs, I could see my mother was getting alarmed. “Kitten, I’m not sure you should stay here. It seems to be a little dangerous.”

  Okay, it was time for damage control. “Mom, please listen. The only thing that was dangerous was the push. We promise we will be careful but I don’t want to leave. I’d like to see this thing through.”

  She still seemed distressed but she smiled at me. “We’ll see.”

  “No, Mom. We won’t see. I’m not a little girl anymore. I am staying. Besides, we all know we cannot sell the house with these things happening. We have to get to the bottom of this. There have been cases where the homeowner was sued because they sold a home known to be haunted and the buyer didn’t know.” I was surprised at my reaction but overjoyed that I had stood up for myself.

  Emmett spoke up. “I was worried last night as well. But I promise you, I won’t let them deal with this alone. Glen, Dean and I have discussed this before we came and we are all determined to get to the bottom of this if we can.”

  “You know, I think I can handle this myself, thanks,” I snapped at him. I knew I was being unreasonable, but I just couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t allow another man to take over and solve this for me. He could help, but I had to be the one who took ownership of it.

  My mother cleared her throat, “I think we should allow Laney to make this decision for herself.” The room got quiet and everyone turned to look at me.

  I was touched, and looked at my mother in surprise. She was actually following my lead and giving me my freedom. I wondered if she realized just how much her support meant to me right now. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to me, leaning my forehead into hers. “Thanks, Mom. I’m staying.” I looked at Connie.

  “I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this together.”

  “All right, then.” I looked at Emmett. “Should we finish up with the review of last night?”

  “You got it. There’s only one more item that was interesting,” Emmett answered. He reached over and opened another audio file. My voice came out of the computer, “Look, a stamp from nineteen fifty-three.” Very faintly after this was a distinct female voice.

  “What was that?” Connie asked incredulously.

  “Listen again,” Glen answered. “You tell us what it’s saying.” He looped the voice several times.

  “It sounds like ‘Yes’. That’s very clear. ‘Yes,’” I answered. “Now what is that in response to? The stamp?”

  “The year,” Aunt Shelly answered. “What year did you say?”

  “Nineteen fifty-three. So what happened in nineteen fifty-three?” I asked.

  “My parents were married and moved into this house, and I was born,” my mother stated simply.

  “That can’t be a coincidence,” I insisted. “I just don’t believe it. I think everything that is going on here has to do with something that happened in nineteen fifty-three.”

  “Or possibly, that’s when the spirit came and the haunting started,” Connie said.

  “General Patton was on the stamp,” I said. “Could it have anything to do with him?”

  “You may be jumping to big conclusions,” Dean replied. “Let’s not assume too much. There’s no evidence pointing to any one event.”

  “It’s a starting point though,” I answered, getting excited. “Their marriage, moving into the house, Mom being born. We can start with those events and follow the trail. Hansel and Gretel and all that.”

  “Let’s hope nothing eats the crumbs and we can’t find our way back,” Emmett said.

  It had been a long day so I invited everyone to leave; tactfully, I hoped, but I was beyond caring. I’d had enough and just wanted to have a bath and go to bed with a book. The crew filed out, leaving the house quiet again. Connie offered the bathtub to me first and I gratefully accepted while she retreated to her room for some quiet time.

  What a day—could I be any more tired? If I allowed myself to think too much about it, I was still a little unnerved by the finality of the divorce. I knew it was the right thing to do, but it didn’t make it any easier. That was why I tried not to think about
it. It was easier to consider the reality of ghosts out to get me, pushing me down the stairs and saying things we could hear on a recording. I had no idea what that was all about, but for some reason I was convinced that the date on the stamp had meaning. But no more thinking about that, or divorces or ghost hunters or anything else right now.

  Grabbing my pajamas, I went into the upstairs bathroom and started the water in the bathtub. Thankfully Connie got my Epsom salts for me. Making the water as hot as I could stand it, I climbed in and dropped in three cups then lay back and closed my eyes until the tub was full. I turned off the water then realized with great annoyance that I forgot my book. Could I do nothing right? Well, I wasn’t going to go get it now. I picked up the salts bag and started to read the recommended uses. ‘Reduces stress’—yep, needed that. ‘Revitalizes tired, achy muscles’—I sure hope so. ‘Minimize swelling’—I could probably use that too. And ‘refresh skin’s appearance’—definitely. Interesting, it can also be ‘ingested as a saline laxative’. Uh, no thanks. I didn’t think I needed salt water shooting out of my backside. Does anybody really use it that way?

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax. Breathing deeply I started to feel calm and stress free for the first time since I had arrived. Scritch. I opened my eyes and looked at the door. Again with the sound of something leaning against the door. This was getting real old. Maybe if I just ignore it it’ll go away. I closed my eyes again and put my head back.

  Scritch.

  I hoped it wasn’t mice. I gave a low growl and sat up. “I’m really not in the mood,” I called out loudly.