by JL Bryan
“Affirmative, generalissimo.” Stacey gave me a mock salute.
“I can come with you and help out,” Juniper offered.
“I’ll call you when I need you,” I told her, just to pacify her. I had no intentions of bringing her upstairs until the house was safe. The girl could be mad at me later, but at least she’d be unharmed.
I took Stacey’s speaker and iPod, since she had the ghost cannon to protect herself and the others. I made sure I had two tactical flashlights on my belt and Jacob had a third.
“Are you going to...go after him?” Gord asked me, while I strapped my thermal goggles onto my forehead.
“You can’t beat him,” Crane said. “He’s too strong.”
“Thanks for that big vote of confidence,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ve faced tons of ghosts like this before.” Not exactly tons. Maybe a handful as scary as Isaiah Ridley. That’s why I still preferred to think of him as Whippy McHalf-Face. “Come on, Jacob.”
“Good luck,” Stacey said, looking between both of us. She looked like she wanted to hug us, but fortunately she didn’t—it would probably give the clients the idea that we were in lots of danger and weren’t entirely sure what to do. We wouldn’t want them thinking that, especially if it was true.
Later, there would be time to tell the family about the girl I’d seen and how she’d tried to kill me, but for now I wanted to hurry up and act, wanted to just deal with the problem without explaining myself every step of the way.
I grabbed the final big piece of gear I needed—a new ghost trap, taken from the rack in the van. The one wrecked by the poltergeist could probably never be trusted again.
Jacob and I started up the wraparound staircase together, shining our lights into the waiting darkness above.
Chapter Nineteen
There’s something about walking through a house, any house, at night by the glow of a flashlight. It makes you feel like an archaeologist discovering some forgotten place, maybe the home of people who fled to escape a disaster like Pompeii during the eruption of Vesuvius.
The upstairs hallway was silent. Our footsteps creaked and echoed on the old hardwood.
Ahead, I could see our smashed gear strewn all over the hallway, spread much wider than it had been before, as if the poltergeist had come through in another big whirlwind.
“So, Jacob,” I said, in the quietest voice I could manage, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“What?” he asked. He gave me a surprised, curious look.
“Does ‘what’ mean yes or no? Or are you asking me for a definition of the word?”
“Should we be talking about that right now? Aren’t we on our way to face some dangerous killer ghost? What are you expecting me to do?”
“I’m always on my way to face some dangerous killer ghost,” I said. “I’m allowed to have conversations about other things. So which is it?”
“Which...? Oh, no. No girlfriend.” He paused at the crossroads of the two hallways, looking at my stuff scattered along it, my mattress and camping pillow blocking the head of the stairs now, as though someone had decided to make a fort there. My guess would be the two boys from the attic.
“Do you date girls?” I asked.
“In theory. Not really since the plane crash...” He was talking about an airline crash in which he’d been one of very few survivors, and had awoken to find himself seeing ghosts everywhere.
“Are you going to ask Stacey out?”
“I...maybe. Do you think she’s interested?”
I scowled. “Aren’t you psychic?”
“Not about everything. Or I’d be winning lotteries all day long.”
We stopped talking as we approached the final door at the end of the hall. The air was noticeably colder and thicker, and I could almost see the darkness slithering out around the edges of the door. Isaiah was wide awake, an angry beast waiting for us in its own nest.
“You’re going to search the room for another ghost,” I whispered to Jacob. “I’ll keep Whippy McHalf-Face distracted.”
“Keep who distracted?”
“The ghost who just escaped. Isaiah Ridley. I’ll keep him busy. You’re going to look for the little girl ghost.”
“So we’re not trying to capture Whippy McFadden?” he asked.
“McHalf-Face...it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing I can do about him right now. The best I can do is try to hold him off. You’re looking for an eight-year-old girl named Eliza Ridley. I think you’ll find her in one of the cabinets, but I’m not sure which one. She used to hide there when she was alive, and they found her body there, too.”
“Good thing there’s only about twenty cabinets in that room. What will I do if I find her?”
“Just let me know. Ready?”
He looked at the door. “There’s nothing to be gained by waiting five or ten minutes, is there?”
“Nothing at all.”
“That’s what I figured.” Jacob approached the door and grasped the handle.
“Wait,” I said.
“I’m going first. Don’t worry, the evil spirits will cower before our flashlight beams, am I right?” Jacob pushed it open and led the way inside.
A heavy, ice-cold shroud seemed to hang inside the room, darkening all the walls in spite of our flashlights. Even a flash of lightning outside brought barely a glimmer through the balcony doors and tall windows.
“Okay, go,” I whispered.
Jacob opened a cabinet. It was crammed full of cardboard boxes and old shopping bags.
He sighed and began pulling the junk out, piece by piece, until he could touch the inner wall of the cabinet with his fingertips.
“Nothing here,” he whispered.
A deep, ragged breathing sounded in the air behind me. I turned and pointed my light directly toward the shadowy corner where I’d heard it. I couldn’t see anything, but Isaiah was definitely there, or somewhere in the room, watching me with a palpable feeling of loathing and hate.
I slid my thermal goggles down over my eyes.
While Jacob rummaged through another cabinet, I looked back and forth in the sea of dark blue air and saw the purple-black shape of Isaiah. He seemed to be pacing on the other side of the room, back and forth, back and forth, watching us like a wolf in a cage. Unfortunately, there was no actual cage to hold him away from us.
I heard footsteps approaching and turned my head toward them, but I kept my light on Isaiah’s ghost.
The door creaked open.
“Ellie, are you in here?” a voice whispered, while a glowing red-and-yellow shape looked in at us.
“Juniper?” I asked. “What are you doing?”
The purple-black mass of Isaiah surged across the room, straight toward the warm-blooded shape of Juniper.
“Get behind me!” I shouted. I drew my second flashlight and pointed it at Isaiah, joining its beam to the first one.
Juniper obeyed, running over to stand between Jacob and me.
“What’s happening?” I whispered, assuming something had gone horribly wrong downstairs.
“I told them I was going to the bathroom and I snuck up here,” Juniper told me with a triumphant smile.
“Why?”
“I thought you were kind of telling me to do that.”
“What?” I asked. “No, definitely not.”
“Do you want me to go back?”
Not with Isaiah lingering near the door, watching you. “You’d better stay with us. Point this right where I show you.” I passed her a flashlight.
Juniper took a sharp breath.
“What is it?” I whispered.
She didn’t answer—she was tense and still beside me.
“Can you see him?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” she whispered back. She was looking at the narrow stone fireplace where the cold form of Isaiah stood.
I raised my thermal goggles onto my forehead. Isaiah was visible in our overlapping beams, coated in dark earth, his chest rising and falling with his ragged breaths. The
whip dangled from his right hand, its strange array of buckles glinting.
“Keep your light on him,” I whispered, but it was obvious the flashlights wouldn’t be enough this time. He was telling us that by standing there, making himself fully visible to us. Isaiah’s ghost wasn’t much of a talker, but he was sending us a threatening message with this apparition.
Blasting him with some loud orchestral holy music might have chased Isaiah away, but Jacob was still searching for Eliza’s ghost, and I didn’t want to startle her or send her deep into hiding.
“I found her,” Jacob whispered. “This is the one.”
“Okay. Juniper, come on.” I took Juniper’s arm, and she jumped a little bit, but then let me guide her backwards to the wall. “Keep your light on him. Can you do that?”
Juniper nodded, her mouth open, not daring to make a sound or even to look away from the dark ghost.
I glanced at Jacob, who knelt by a deep, empty cabinet, having dumped out the boxes and garment bags that had filled it. His palm rested on the cabinet’s worn wooden floor, his fingers splayed.
“This one,” Jacob whispered. “Definitely.”
“Can she hear me?” I asked.
“She might, but you won’t hear her. She’s very faint, barely there. She’s fragile, no strength at all, the most fragile ghost I’ve ever—”
“Get up and hold my light,” I whispered.
As I passed him the flashlight, our fingers brushed together. Something jolted me, as if he were filled with static electricity.
Then—
I lay in my hiding spot, my knees tucked up against me. I hold my doll.
Through the door, I hear Mother and Father shouting. It’s strange. Mother yells at us, but never at Father. Usually Father does all the yelling.
“Put it down!” Father was shouting. “A pistol doesn’t belong in a woman’s hand.”
“We’ve had enough,” Mother said. She was not yelling anymore. Her voice was calm and flat, but somehow that sounded much scarier. “Noah, Luke, and me. We’ve all had enough.”
Then the explosion.
Then the silence.
Finally, I ease the door open. Mother has left the room.
Father lies on his desk. His face is half gone, and his papers are drenched in blood. His eyes are open and staring at me, lifeless.
I scream.
Later...many days later...I see them gathering firewood by the pond. Mother. Noah. Luke. None have wept for Father. None care that he is gone.
But I care. The pain rips at my insides, day and night. He is gone, and she killed him, and nothing is being done about it.
Then I feel it rise, the faceless thing that’s tormented me. I feel it sweep out towards my mother and my brothers, as if carried along on the river of hate, fear, and sorrow that flows out from me.
Standing in the yard, I watch them drown, flailing in the water. My heart fills with fear. What is happening?
I run inside, upstairs to my hiding place, and close the door.
He’s waiting for me. Father. He’s seen what happened. His rage seethes in the air around me.
He’s come to punish me, as he punished Mother and Noah and Luke, with his belt.
I feel it on my throat, leathery and cold, like a snake’s skin—
“Ellie!” Jacob shook my shoulders, staring into my eyes. “Ellie, wake up!”
“Huh?” I blinked as if waking from a dream. “You did something to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what happened.”
I turned to see Isaiah shuffling toward me, his steps jerky and unnatural. I’d glimpsed Eliza’s memories, of course. That belt had just been at my throat, ready to strangle me.
I finally understood. Isaiah’s ghost had murdered Eliza.
“Keep your light on him!” I told Jacob. “Now!”
Jacob took my place, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Juniper and soaking Isaiah’s ghost with white light.
I grabbed the new ghost trap and crouched down by the open cabinet.
“Eliza?” I whispered. “Eliza, can you hear me? I’m here to help. You can choose to escape this place forever.”
“He’s coming closer,” Jacob said.
I slid the thermals down over my eyes again. At the very back of the deep cabinet, a few feet away, I could just discern a very faint, very pale blue shape, almost indistinguishable from the background cold of the room.
“Eliza,” I said. “I understand you. I know what happened to you. All you have to do is step inside this jar. I’ll light the way.” I pointed the fireplace lighter into the trap and lit the three candles. “Just follow the candles to the bottom and rest there. I can take you to a safe place, full of trees and sunlight. You won’t have to hide anymore.”
Juniper let out a long, strange sigh, then collapsed to the floor. The flashlight rolled out of her hand.
“You okay?” Jacob turned his flashlight on the girl.
“Keep it on Isaiah!” I told him.
Jacob swung the light back toward the fireplace, but the dark figure was gone.
“I can’t--” he began, and then a long, dirty leather belt, studded with buckles, cracked across his arm. It coiled around his forearm, lashing him hard enough to draw blood.
Then Isaiah snapped the belt, sending Jacob crashing into the sewing machine table, which toppled over in a heap of bright yarn and loose needles. Jacob went down in a heap of sewing and knitting supplies.
I was failing everyone tonight.
I checked Juniper, lying quietly beside me. She was unconscious, and her pulse felt weak.
The cabinet door slammed beside me. The girl I’d seen in the mirror earlier stood in front of it, arms crossed, giving me a petulant look. She was still white-on-white skin, hair, and calico dress, glowing with a soft, eerie light.
“What are you doing in there?” she said, in a whiny sort of tone. “Stay out of there.”
“Leave us alone,” I replied.
“You don’t tell me what to do. This is my house.”
“You’re not Eliza,” I said. “You wear her face because you were made from her anger and grief, but you’re a thing that shouldn’t exist. You’re a poltergeist.”
“What did you call me?” she whispered.
“A poltergeist. Normally, Eliza would have grown up, and you would have dissolved. But she never grew up, and her ghost was trapped in this house, so you still exist. But you shouldn’t.”
The girl scowled. When she spoke again, her voice echoed from all the walls. Chairs and boxes overturned, cabinet doors opened and slammed, and the window curtains flapped and snapped like sails in a storm.
“You do not know what I am,” she said.
Something like a large, invisible hook stabbed into me, just under the ribcage, and hauled me upward. I howled in pain, and then I was flung hard against the ceiling.
Being pinned against the ceiling by an angry spirit is a situation from which there is no easy escape. If I somehow managed to get free, I’d still fall about twelve feet to the floorboards. Unpleasant.
Isaiah himself was busy tormenting Jacob. Jacob was backed up against the wall, taking a bad lash across the chest. Then he stepped forward and shouted something at Isaiah, which made the ghost stagger back a step or two and disappear. Isaiah appeared several seconds later on Jacob’s other side.
I couldn’t see much more of their fight, because the poltergeist rose close to me until her face filled my vision. She looked almost angelic...and then her lips twisted down into a hideous scowl, the corners of her mouth reaching all the way to her chin.
“You do not understand me at all,” she said, her voice hitting my ears with a force that made them ring, especially my already-injured right ear. “I am older than you. You think I am nothing, but I have had years to watch and listen. For so long, that was all I could do.”
“You should leave this family alone,” I said. “Both families, the living and the dead.”
�
�They are mine!” she snapped. “Because of you, I must kill everyone in this house tonight. You’ll die first.” She bared her teeth, and strange, guttural giggling burbled up from within her.
She reached her small, glowing white fingers into my throat.
I felt pressure, and I couldn’t breathe. I struggled, but my whole body was pinned into place, the back of my head flush against the pressed-tin ceiling.
“You are so arrogant,” she hissed. “You thought of me as nothing but an animal.”
There was a gurgling sound in my throat, then a painful pop. Was that my larynx crushing or my windpipe rupturing? Only my coroner would know for sure.
“I’ve been watching and listening to you, too,” she whispered. “I will collect my new family, and I will collect your friends. But I won’t kill you inside my house. You can haunt the front garden. I’ll keep you outside like a stray dog, just like her.” I assumed she meant Catherine Ridley, the lady of the back yard pond.
I couldn’t ask, though, because my vocal apparatus wasn’t exactly free to function. In fact, there was a distinct lack of oxygen in my brain, and things were going dark. I wanted to tell the poltergeist that if she didn’t want me to die inside her house, she would need to alter the situation fairly quickly.
As if hearing my thoughts, she pitched me across the room. I crashed into the glass double doors and out onto the balcony. I hit the rough brick floor and kept sliding.
I didn’t stop until I slammed into the iron railing at the front.
Actually, I didn’t stop then, either. My body was pushed against the railing, then began to slide upwards. She was trying to drag me up and over the top so I could fall to the brick steps below.
I grabbed one slender post of the railing, but it was slick with rain, and my grip barely slowed my ascent. I grasped it tighter as I reached the top of the railing. I hung there, barely clinging in place, while the rain pounded down on me.
A flash of lightning illuminated the house. When it faded, the poltergeist floated before me, softly glowing, still in the innocent little-girl shape of Eliza. She was on the outside of the railing, and she was gripping my arm and leg with her little hands.
