by Misty Simon
The single tag on the dog’s collar jingled without the dog moving an iota. Okay, now maybe they were getting somewhere.
She put the device directly over the collar and turned it all the way up. Something popped on the small screen, an electrical spark flying out and landing on the rug her mom had bought twenty years ago.
Mel quickly jumped on the spark to put it out before it became something dangerous.
Blowing out a breath, she sat next to Becker and the dog. “So, okay, it looks like we’ve got something in the collar, though I have no idea why it won’t just come out and say hello.”
“In the collar?” Becker removed his hands from the dog but, to his credit, did not remove the dog from his lap. Mumford stared up at him, whimpering. Being the guy he was, Becker petted the dog again but kept the strokes to his back end and didn’t come close to the collar at all.
There was going to be an issue here soon for either Becker or the dog if she couldn’t figure this out.
She reached for the collar, then snatched her hand back when a low rumble started in Mumford’s chest. He didn’t exactly snarl, but it was a close thing.
Glancing up, she caught Great-Grandpa’s eye. He waved his hand in the air like he was writing.
Yeah, she was still not going to do auto writing with a ghost she didn’t know the first thing about except that he was somehow confined to a collar. Usually if ghosts were confined to any type of prison, be it a jewelry box or a dagger, it meant they were being punished. And being punished usually meant they were not that good in the first place. How did she always get mixed up in these kinds of things?
Scratch that. Things never used to be messed up like this. It was only recently, so why was it happening now?
A question for another time, since the meter was still going off, and she had to find a way to communicate with this ghost that did not involve letting it invade her body and take over her hand and maybe more than that.
“Okay, conference time. Let’s talk.”
Chester and his friends figuratively pulled up chairs —since they couldn’t literally do that—and sat in mid-air. Chester had his hands clasped in his lap, while Montfried had one arm suspended like he was sitting on a sofa with his arm stretched out across the back. Franklin smoked his ghostly pipe, and Norman had his legs spread and appeared to be sprawled on a piece of furniture that didn’t exist.
“So, if we’re all comfortable…” Norman scratched his crotch and leered at her. Why, oh, why did Chester have to invite this one? He was attached to an antique nudie magazine that she’d had to place in a glass case so no one would try to flip the pages and possibly tear them and destroy his only home.
“Right. Ideas. I’m looking for ideas on how to communicate without doing auto writing.”
“Knocking?” Chester offered.
“Not bad, but it could make the dog bark if he thinks someone’s coming to the door every three seconds.”
“He ran right to the front door when he heard you approaching on the porch. I’d say knocking might not be the best thing.” Becker still had Mumford in his lap and was back to rubbing his head. Gaining his trust could be a good start. If the dog was grateful to Becker for saving him, then maybe he’d be less inclined to hurt any of them if messing with the ghost in the collar angered him. She hadn’t forgotten the way the dog had bared his teeth at her earlier.
To say her nerves were on edge would be an understatement of epic proportions. Epic!
“Okay, so no knocking. What about asking questions and seeing if he answers on a level that we just can’t hear, an EVP session?”
“That might be a good place to start.” This from Chester.
The rest nodded, and back upstairs she went to get her recorder. Her heart fluttered with anticipation to be able to use more of her gadgets. Usually they were virtually useless because she was fully aware ghosts existed. For heaven’s sake, she could, and did, talk directly with them and could frequently see them. But it was exciting to be able to use the tools. As long as they didn’t reveal something that was more than she could handle.
Downstairs again, she set up the EVP recorder and then pushed the button to catch any sounds in the room, even those she couldn’t hear with her own ears.
“Who wants to start?”
Everyone looked at her. Becker shrugged his shoulders, and the ghosts just gave her a blank stare.
“Fine.” She arranged herself on the couch next to Becker and petted the dog’s head, hoping very much that this would go well. “Hi, dog,” she said.
Becker nudged her leg.
“Hi, Mumford.” She blew out a sigh. “Can we talk to whoever is there with you? Probably in your collar?” She should have tried to take the collar off again, but she was already in the session and didn’t want to miss anything at this point.
Mumford’s tongue lolled out as he started panting. The needle on the meter didn’t move a single inch.
“He’s okay, right?” she asked Becker.
“Yeah, he’s fine, and his heart rate isn’t fast, so I think you can continue.”
“Mr. Ghost, we just want to find out who you are and how we can help you. No pressure, no worries, no censure, just help and hospitality.”
Becker raised his eyebrow at that one, and he had every right. The last time they’d gone up against a ghost, they’d ripped him into pieces and decimated him. But for now, she really did mean help and hospitality, unless he or she proved to deserve something altogether different.
The needle jumped like it had been hit by a live wire. “Oh, there was a spike in the energy!” She wanted to see what this thing could really do. “Tell me your name.” She waited a few seconds then went on to the next. “What are you doing here?” A few more seconds. “How can we help you?” Another minute, just in case the answer was longer than his or her name. “Can you show yourself, and if you can’t, why not?”
That was probably enough for now. Mumford had shut his eyes again, and she didn’t feel any kind of presence, not that she always did. That needle was still moving, though, back and forth, and it made her heart pump hard along with it.
“Let’s see if anything came through.”
Jumping up from the couch, she realized she looked to be the only one excited about this. Everyone gave her a skeptical look, with various levels of doubt coloring their expressions, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have her fun.
She pulled the recorder toward herself, shut it off, and then hooked it up to the desktop computer in the office. Quickly she opened the various programs she’d need to get good quality sound.
Her heartbeat accelerated when the first green line came up on the screen and then spiked with her first question. No sound other than the normal noises of the room. Her second question didn’t garner anything more than that, either. At the third, she did hear a little something different, something she wasn’t certain she’d heard in the room when she was asking things. It sounded a little like a cough or maybe someone clearing their throat. Maybe it had been so long since the ghost had talked that he was rusty. She bounced in her chair at the prospect of that. How awesome would that be? And she could totally share that with her friends online. They didn’t all have to do with ghosts. Some, however, did do spirit things, or tarot readings, or energy and aura readings. And all of them would probably be fascinated with this stuff. She sure was.
By the fourth question, it sounded more like someone was hacking up a furball, and then the last question came, and the only thing she heard was a very human voice saying, “Woof.”
That was not funny.
Apparently, it was not funny only to her since all the guys, ghost and human alike, laughed. Even Mumford gave her a doggy smile, the little pain in the butt.
“Fine. You all think this is funny? Then you try it your way, and we’ll see if he’s such a comedian then. Maybe he’s some ridiculous throwback guy from the beginning of time, when men didn’t realize that women were the ones with the good id
eas and men just fumbled around like idiots.” She huffed away toward the kitchen, and Chester laughed.
From behind her, she heard him say, “Oh, Becker, don’t follow her. She’s just in a snit that her little gadget picked up something but not what she was looking for.”
“No, I think this might be more serious than that.” She turned back around and spoke to all of them. “Mumford looks innocent enough, but have you ever had a ghost come in that couldn’t show himself? Or didn’t want to show himself? Or was extremely afraid of showing himself? I’m not comfortable, but you guys obviously have better ideas, so go for it.”
She went into the kitchen to look for a snack, something with lots of sugar and preferably chocolate. Reaching on top of the fridge, she brought down Mrs. Hatchett’s cookie jar and prepared to face her wrath if only to get her hands on a chocolate chip cookie her mom had helped make last night.
Mrs. Hatchett came zooming out and hovered in Mel’s face.
“Go ahead,” Mel said. “Give me your lecture. I’ve already been told I’m being ridiculous, so let’s have it. Give me your best shot.”
“Oh, honey, those men are just being ridiculous, not you. This is how the male species acts when they don’t know what to do with something. Just put a plate of cookies together for yourself and get back out there to see what they have planned, and then sit back and watch them do it. It can be highly entertaining when they fail themselves. Just you watch. You’re the smartest person in this house. They’ll figure that out soon enough.”
Well, she certainly hadn’t been expecting that and unintentionally took a step back. Had Mrs. Hatchett been messed with, too, because of this ghost in the house? Chester had always been supportive of her and thought she was brilliant—in his own words—but he was acting like she was a ninny. And now Mrs. Hatchett was being nice to her and offering her cookies.
Suddenly there was a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before. Mel tugged her lace gloves onto her hands, then straightened them on her arms. She’d better go check on the guys to see what was going on.
Becker met her in the hallway. Putting his hands on her arms, he pulled her in for a kiss. “I’m sorry. You were right, and we should be more cautious. I want to warn you about the mess before you come in.”
She stepped out of his grasp and ran for the room where she did all her business and kept control of this tiny part of her world.
Papers were all over the place, and her ledger of all the ghosts at Hargrove lay open, with some of the pages bent. Chester looked worse for wear, his ghostly hair standing on end and his expression filled with something very close to shock. Franklin didn’t look much better, with his mouth hanging open and his pipe turned upside down but still smoking. Norman sat up straight with his hands over his ears and his knees quaking.
The dog was the only one still smiling and wagging his tail.
“What the hell happened?”
“We, uh, let Chester try to conjure the spirit.”
She slapped a hand on his chest. “That is the worst idea ever.” And would totally explain the cold breeze and the mess. “Get everything cleaned up as much as possible. We’re going to the schoolroom. Follow me as soon as you can. Bring the dog, but tell everyone else to stay here.”
She trooped up the stairs to the third floor, seething. Conjuring. Conjuring! You did not conjure without a butt-load of protections and markings on the floor, the ceiling, and anywhere else you could stick them. It was a ritual, not a parlor game to be done in her parlor. Dammit.
The third floor was divided into a series of rooms, without any real rhyme or reason except that, back in the day, when the house had first been built, they’d had a bunch of kids they homeschooled with a governess. Don’t ask her where they got the money, or where it had all gone, but at one time she used to play up here with the big chalkboard and the old school desks. She hadn’t been up here in years.
Now she was going to use those desks to build a center that would keep everything but what she wanted out and anything within her grasp in and under her command.
She really hoped this worked.
Chapter Three
Standing in her gadget room, she rubbed her lace-covered hand up and down her arm to calm herself after the fiasco of the guys trying to summon things. After looking around the third floor, she’d had ideas about what she might need, and everything necessary was in the gadget room. It was convenient that she had to come back down here, because it gave her that moment to herself to regain control.
She felt a presence in the doorway behind her and turned to find Becker leaning against the door jamb.
“The guys had some other suggestions that I think are ludicrous. I was completely against the conjuring of anything I don’t know about without you there, and maybe not even then, but I’m sorry for not stopping them.” He smiled at her and held out his arms.
She walked into them because she wanted to be hugged and because she got what he was doing. He had come to find her because he trusted her and didn’t want to walk into something he didn’t get without her. And that made him pretty damned perfect in her book.
“I did think of one other thing,” he murmured into her hair.
“What’s that?”
“I saw Mumford eyeing up your old hotel call bell. One of my patients is trained to ring the bell every time he wants a treat.”
She snickered. “Doesn’t that get annoying to have the bell rung every second of every day?”
“His owner says he’s not a treat hog and is actually very good about limiting the dings unless he’s not getting the treat he wants quickly enough. Then he dings it like an impatient socialite at the Ritz.”
“Should we do once for yes and twice for no?”
“I like it.” He snuggled her in to his hard chest, where she laid her head down and listened to his heart. He had wanted to save the dog, but maybe there was more to it than just not letting him stay in the ditch by the side of the road, covered in mud. Maybe there was something more that only she could do.
And she had the perfect place to do it.
“Take Mumford and that bell up to the third floor schoolroom. The others aren’t going to be with you, right? I don’t want distractions.” She kissed him hard on the lips before pushing him away. “Go.”
And he went. Now she just had to hope that the ringing bell would work. If not, then they’d be back at square one.
By the time she rummaged through her room of gadgets, she still hadn’t fully convinced herself this was a brilliant idea. She wished her dad were here to help, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her little team of males wasn’t helping, either, if they had thought it would be a good idea to conjure.
She sent a quick text to one of her online pals before she trudged up the stairs to the third floor. Light flooded down the stairwell from the third floor to the second. Could she use the darkness to help her?
She called up to Becker, and when he answered, she let him know she was coming up. Even though the upstairs was lit up like a carnival, she gripped more tightly a flashlight she’d taken from the gadget room. She could do this. Heck, she’d taken on a ghost that had been hell-bent on destroying a whole town in order to make himself live again and who’d taken her father hostage. She could get one ghost in a freaking faded dog collar to give up the goods.
With the right attitude finally in place, she barged into the schoolroom. The governess for the family had crossed over about thirty years ago, after teaching her father all the things he might need to know. And then he’d fallen down on Mel’s education, at least regarding ghosts, because he’d been grieving her mother—no less than she’d grieved herself, but he’d left her to her own devices, and now she was left to her own devices again.
She’d rocked it for all these years and would not be brought down by one measly little ghost.
Mumford scrambled to her, looking up at her with those eyes that saw too much and took in things he shouldn’t be able to. She bent dow
n to scratch him between the ears and slyly slid her hand along his collar. They hadn’t tried again to take it off to see what they could do with it. Maybe that was the next step before anything else.
“Becker?”
“Over here.” The next room was dark as night, in contrast to the bright one she stood in. He flicked his flashlight on and waved it around above his head. “Are we going to have to turn the lights off? I’m not usually easily spooked, but it is positively spooky up here.”
Residual energy had hung in the air for all the years she’d been alive, and one of those energies was a non-interactive entity. It played out its death scene over and over again like a reel of film stuck in a loop. She hadn’t been up here in years for that very reason. She was sad to see Mary Hargrove fly to the window and jump yet again. Fortunately, Becker had either not noticed or he couldn’t see this one. Not everyone could. Mel had never been sure why. Her dad couldn’t see her, either, but her mom had tried many times to help the poor woman cross over. Mary never seemed to hear her.
Now wasn’t the time to be experimenting with that, though. She had things to do and maybe not a lot of time to do them. That cold spot earlier concerned her because it could mean a couple of things, and until she heard back from her friend Jennifer, she wasn’t sure which possibility was the right one.
The sun had sunk below the horizon before Mel deemed herself ready to take on whatever was in that dog’s collar, for real this time. She’d set wards, filled the corners with protective spices and spells, and lit the appropriate candles in the four corners of the earth. This was more than just trying to get a ghost to talk to her.
“Okay, let’s see if Mumford will remain at the first desk with his hind end at the front left corner…”
Mumford was moving before Becker could respond. He moved right to the spot she’d indicated and sat down. Yeah, he totally was not just your average dog.
But what was he? They were about to find out.
She crouched in front of him. “I’m going to take off your collar.”
He squirmed away, twisting his head when she went to get a grip on the collar.
