by Apryl Baker
Dan dropped a huge bombshell on me too, and I’m not handling it at all well. Mrs. Richards helped her sister take me from my parents. Who’s to say she didn’t kill them, too? I hadn’t been able to ask Dan anything else about it once Eli bellowed and brought his dad running, but that question has been running around and around in my head. Does Dan know who my parents are? I want to be selfish and demand answers, but I’m doing my best to be as un-Mattie-ish as I can. He needs to talk to the Malones.
When Mr. Malone begins to talk, I slip out of the room. They need to be alone. I go hunting for Doc. He said something about going to the control room. I figure it has to be on the main floor. Problem is, the main floor is freaking huge. I wander down a hall and find myself in a library. The shelves go from floor to ceiling with books older than any I’ve ever seen. The pages are yellowed on one whole section. The furniture is dark cherry wood and there are two oversized stuffed chairs in front of a massive fireplace. I could live in this room.
I trail my fingers across the books as I walk the length of the room. They feel so soft, so old. This is what I always imagined a library should look like. It’s what I plan on having some day. I love books and have recently started writing. No one knows how much I love books, not even Dan. Bookworms aren’t “cool” so I pretend I hate them. Since I can’t draw, I’ve been writing things down. It’s slow as it’s still hard to hold a pen or pencil for any length of time, but it helps me get some of my anger out and to keep my fingers from stiffening up. Who knows, maybe I’ll write the next Twilight or something.
“How are you holding up, kiddo?”
Whirling, I see Doc standing a few feet away. I hadn’t heard him walk up behind me.
“You scared me,” I say and turn back to staring at the books. I really don’t want to talk about my feelings with anyone. Well, I would with Dan if I was still on good speaking terms with him, but since I’m not, I’m stuck with just me.
“I know Dan is center stage right now, but you got handed some pretty heavy news, too,” Doc continues, ignoring my hint that I don’t want to talk. “To find out your mother isn’t really your—”
“I already knew that,” I interrupt him.
“How?”
“She told me,” I whisper. In all the years I’ve had this gift, my mom’s ghost had never visited me until that night in the hospital after the kidnapping. “That’s why Dan was looking into my past. He was trying to find my parents.”
“Do you want to talk, Mattie?” he asks.
“This is a bunch of BS!” Eli storms into the room and hurls himself onto one of the couches.
I sigh. I should have known my little hideaway wouldn’t last.
“You don’t think Dan is your brother?” Doc asks.
“He looks just like Caleb,” Eli spits out. “What’s BS is the fact that he won’t even talk about calling the cops.”
“It’s his mom,” I tell Eli. “Of course he doesn’t want to call the cops.”
“She’s not his mom! She freaking killed his mother!”
I sigh. Eli is so angry, he’s not thinking it through. “Yeah, I get that, and so does Dan, but she is his mother,” I stress the word. “She raised him and he loves her. Despite everything, to him, she is his mother.”
“She—”
“Shut up!” I interrupt. “What if we were talking about your mom? What if you found out today the woman you call mom murdered your birth mother? You’ve spent the last seventeen years in her care. She’s loved you, been there for you, and to you she’s your mom. Would you want to turn her in? Just think about that before you judge Dan or anybody else.”
“Why are you even defending him?” Eli demands. “After what he did to you—”
“He’s still my family,” I say. “No matter what Dan does or doesn’t do, he’s family. I may never forgive him for what he did, but he’s family.”
“I thought you’d already forgiven him.” Eli frowns at me.
“No,” I whisper. He thinks being with me is hard. Dan just keeps hurting me whether he realizes it or not. I’m done being hurt.
“What the hell did he say to you in there before Caleb and I got there?” Eli’s eyes are narrowed on my face. My expression must have given something away.
“Doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “Dan and I are done. I’m not sure we can even be friends anymore.”
“Mattie…”
I look up into Dan’s big old puppy dog eyes, burning with pain. I want to take the words back, but I can’t. I won’t. Caleb and Mr. Malone are standing behind him in the hallway and I turn away, unable to bear the look in Dan’s eyes. “So Doc, tell me about the house. I came here to help you, so tell me what I’m looking for.”
Doc heaves a sigh. I think he really wanted to talk about my feelings. So not going there, Doc.
“Let’s all have a seat,” Doc says. “We might as well be comfortable as none of you have heard this story and it will take a while to tell.”
I walk and sit on the opposite side of the couch Eli is on. Dan heads for the open spot beside me, but Caleb gets there first, which earns him a glare from Dan. I really, really want to know exactly what I said while I was out.
Once everyone is seated, Doc goes to stand by the fireplace. I think he does it unintentionally, but he always seems to find the one place to sit or stand that makes him mesmerizing, impossible to take your eyes away from him. And when he starts to speak, you’re hooked like a crack mule.
“I was sitting at home about a month ago in front of my fireplace going over some old texts I had just acquired from an estate sale in Dublin when my phone rang. It was a rather bizarre call. An old friend of mine I hadn’t heard from in a while was babbling on the other end about evil. It took me almost an hour to calm Stew down enough to talk to him.”
Doctor Olivet shifts and leans into the mantle. His face is soft, inviting, but it’s his voice that’s so hypnotic. We’re all listening intently to his story.
“Stew and I are old college buddies. We don’t talk as much as we used to since he and his wife moved to England. I only get to hear from him sporadically, which was why his call at midnight was so startling.” He shakes his head and stares out the window. “He and his wife inherited a property back here in the States and they decided to sell it. Stew had just been laid off and they needed the money. He came back state-side to get the estate ready for sale. It hadn’t been occupied in over ten years, but there was a trust set up that makes sure repairs and maintenances were completed regularly.”
“Hold up, Doc,” Eli interrupts. “This house has a trust fund? Who does that?”
“Rich people,” I tell him. “Now shut up and let Doc finish.”
He glares are me, but shushes.
“The attorney’s office who handled his cousin’s will refused to meet him at the house and had Stew pick up the keys at his office. Stew thought it a little odd, but dismissed it. When he arrived at the house, night had fallen. The house was dark and he told me he almost didn’t go in. He got an ominous feeling, but shook it off. He said he’d been watching too many scary movies lately and attributed his unease to that.”
Unease? This house is freaking creepy, I think to myself.
“Everything was fine for the first few days,” Doc continues. “There was a lot to do in order to get the house ready for sale and Stew kept busy. It was on his fourth night in the house that things started to get a little weird. Nothing too much, just little things. He heard creaking on the stairs and told himself it was just the house settling. The next morning when he woke, the kitchen was a mess. The fridge was open, its contents scattered. Dishes lay broken on the floor, the chairs scattered. He assumed someone had broken in and reported it to the police. Things began to get a little hairier after that. Doors he’d closed would be open five minutes later, the faucets in the house constantly dripped even after they’d passed inspections from several plumbers. The temperature in the house fluctuated from cold to freezing even if he turned off the
AC.”
“Those are classic haunting signs.” Caleb frowns. “Why didn’t he call you earlier?”
“Stew didn’t believe in ghosts,” Doc says simply, “and it almost got him killed.”
I look over at Dan, who is just as engrossed in the Doc’s spiel as the rest of us. Sometimes I wonder what he thinks now that he knows the spookier side of life is real. Does he regret meeting me because I tore away his fundamental beliefs, especially since he started seeing demons himself? I don’t know.
“Stew being Stew, ignored the obvious,” Doc continues, interrupting my thoughts. “He decided it was just his own imagination running wild. He continued working on airing out the rooms and managing the construction crews that were modernizing some of the rooms to make the house more marketable. A week into the construction, his crew quit. When asked, they refused to go back into the house. They said it was haunted. Several of the workers swore they saw things, felt things, and one said he’d been pushed down the stairs by an unseen force. It all sounds very generic, like something you’d see in a B rated movie and that is what Stew attributed it to. There were stories about the house and the workers had been hesitant to go into the house from the beginning. He decided they’d let their imaginations get the best of them.
“He went to bed that night thinking that people were too superstitious. A short while later, the cold woke him up. His teeth were chattering and when he turned on the lights, he saw frost all over the windows and the mirror. The bathroom water was running and he went to turn it off. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, something pushed him, hard. He went stumbling and the lights went out. He fell and went to get back up, but he felt someone kick him in the ribs. When he got up and turned the lights on, there was no one there, but he had a huge bruise forming where he’d felt the shoe connect with his ribs. He turned off the water and searched the house, thinking someone had gotten in, but found no one.
“The footsteps started as he was checking the locks on the first floor. He could hear them run from one end of the house to the other above him. He ran upstairs, but found no one. He checked each room, but again, they were empty. By this point, he started to get a little freaked out. He headed back to his own room. When he reached the middle of the hallway, every door on the second floor slammed open. Stew did what any sane person would do. He ran. Laughter followed him. He said he could feel hands grabbing at him, but saw no one. He made it halfway down the stairs when he was shoved, causing him to fall. This is where it got a little fuzzy for him. He’d hit his head and his vision was blurry, but he said he saw someone standing on the stairs, smiling at him. It appeared to be a man, but his face was twisted. Stew said he hadn’t known what evil felt like, but he learned that night as he stared up into the man’s face.
“He dragged himself to the front door and then out of the house. It took him a bit to clear his head enough to drive, but he managed to get to a hotel and call me. I’ve never heard him so scared before. It really shook him up.”
“I don’t understand, Doc.” Mr. Malone frowns. “It sounds very generic, like he really was just spooked and probably scared himself into thinking the place was haunted. He admits hitting his head. Isn’t it possible he imagined the person standing above him?”
“It’s possible,” the Doc agreed, “but you don’t know Stew like I do. He is the most down to earth person I know and he’ll find an explanation for anything remotely supernatural rather than admit it’s something paranormal.”
“Doc, I hate to say it, but we’ve been in this house for a week and haven’t encountered one single ghost.” Caleb shakes his head. “Even our equipment is silent. I’m not sure there’s anything here.”
“Mattie?” Doc looks at me and I sigh. He wants to know if I saw anything remotely like his friend had. I did, but I don’t want to tell him. I want to get out of this house. I want to question Dan, I want to talk to his mom. She knows who my parents are. If I tell Doc what I saw, he’ll dig in and refuse to leave. But I can’t lie to Doc. He’s one of the few people left I trust.
“I saw a man standing on the front porch when we arrived. At least I think it was a man, it was hard to tell. He was full of hate. I could feel it even inside the truck. He enjoyed my pain, wanted me to come inside. If I hadn’t passed out, I’d have demanded Caleb take me back to the airport and ran as far and as fast I could.”
“No offense, Mattie, but I don’t buy it,” Eli tells me. “There’s no activity in this house.”
I tune out what Doc says. I can see a woman standing in the corner of the room. Her face is pale, the eyes bruised. She’s wearing a very old dress, maybe late 1800s? I don’t think anyone realizes how cold it is in here. They’re too busy arguing about whether there are ghosts here or not. I’m still not quite sure how their gifts work, but if they can’t see this, then maybe she’s not a bad ghost? Just lost and in need of help.
Her eyes are full of pain. They look so haunted. I may not be able to hear her, but I can feel her overwhelming grief. Her lips are moving, but all I hear is a mumbled whisper. I frown. What is she saying? She keeps pointing at the wall behind me. I turn and look, but there’s only paintings hanging there. What does she want?
“Mattie?” Doc interrupts me. “What are you looking at?”
I ignore him and turn back to the woman, only this time I see someone standing behind her. The malice coming from him is intense and I shrink back against the couch cushion. It isn’t the same man I saw on the porch, but he’s dangerous. This is one that could and would hurt me or anyone in this room. His attention is focused on the woman, though; not us.
She doesn’t see him. Why doesn’t she see him or sense him or something? She’s shouting at me and I feel a stab of pain shoot through my temple. My hand immediately shoots up to grab it, remembering the night Eric put me in the hospital.
“Caleb, turn on your EVP sensor,” Doc barks out. I can hear a shrill wail start and I’m pretty sure it’s the EVP sensor.
“What the…?” Caleb whispers.
“There’s something here with us?” Doc asks me.
I nod. The man standing behind the woman turns and looks at me. He smiles and starts forward, his hand outstretched. I jump up and start to back away. Why can’t they see him? Weren’t they supposed to see evil ghosts? This was as evil a ghost as I’ve ever seen.
Caleb moves in front of me and I can see the red and green lights on his device going crazy. “What is it, Mattie, what do you see?”
“You don’t see him?” I whisper. He’s so close.
“No.” Caleb frowns. “I can’t see—”
There’s a thump upstairs and then the lights go out, plunging us into darkness.
Hands grab me and drag me from the room.
Chapter Fifteen
I groan and roll over onto my back. Did I hit my head? I open my eyes, but it’s too dark to see anything. The air is musty and stale. My bandages have come unraveled somehow so I can feel the loose dirt under my fingers. How did I get here? I was in the library and then…ohmygosh! I scramble up and bang my head against something. Pain explodes and I fall back down. Oww.
My knees protest when I push myself up and take a deep breath. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. It’s not too bad, though. I’ve been in worse places. The thing that concerns me the most at the moment is how and why I’m here. I was dragged out of the library by someone, but who? Or what? And are they down here, too?
It’s freezing, so I assume I’m not alone, but since Eli and Caleb tattooed me, I can’t hear the ghosts like I did. It’s frustrating and more than a little scary. As much as I hate what I can do, I rely on it to keep me safe, especially since I discovered they can cause me harm. Now I’m stuck with my ghost Spidey senses at half-mast. Not at all good. Not in this house.
“Hello?” I whisper.
Nothing, I hear nothing. I stand up slowly and walk with my hands out in front of me until I hit the wall. I move along the wall, looking for either a light switch or a door. The so
oner I can find my way out of here, the better. The walls themselves are made of dirt, so I’m thinking I might not be in a basement but a cellar. A lot of old houses have them in addition to a basement. Back in the 1800s they were used to store things that needed to be in a cool dry place, like vegetables and sometimes even ice.
Wind catches my hair and blows it back. I stop and take a deep breath. It’s not the wind. There’s no wind down here. Plus there’s a stench. It’s an awful smell that makes me choke just a bit. Not nearly as bad as demon stink, but bad enough to make the contents of my stomach want to come back up. Just keep moving, Mattie, I tell myself. Keep moving. I start forward again, a little faster this time. Definitely not a nice ghost. I’m starting to pick up emotions and they are full of rage.
Fingers reach out and tickle up my arm, causing me to shiver. The cold seeps through my skin and settles into my bones. I’m shaking from cold when I force my feet to start moving again. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I can make out shapes. Not sure what they are, but I think I see steps a few feet in front of me.
More hands tug at me, twisting in my hair. Fear curls through me, but I refuse to panic. I just need to get up the stairs and out of this place. It’s a bad place, full of pain and rage.
Yes, I make it to the steps! I run up them as quickly as I can. It’s definitely a cellar. The doors are right above me. I push, but I can’t get them open. I hear chains rattle. I’m locked in? Oh no, no, no! I can’t be locked in.
“Hey, can anyone hear me?” I shout while rattling the doors. Of course they can’t since they’re probably all inside searching the house looking for me and I’m out here! And I’m defenseless! Thanks to Eli and Caleb, I can’t hear the ghosts anymore, which puts me at a distinct disadvantage. They are so gonna fix this when I get out of here.
“Somebody help me!” I scream out into the night. God, how long will it take them to figure out I’m not in the house? I shake the doors again, disgusted.
