“Was the worst morning of my life,” finished Ethan. The truck bobbed up the road into the woods at the base of the bluff. “Lost my girl. Then, when I heard about the Winchesters, I had a nervous breakdown and crashed my truck.”
His voice hitched in a way that had nothing to do with the bumpy dirt road beneath the truck’s tires. He fell quiet.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That you had to go through all of that. It must’ve been really tough.”
Ethan gave a mighty sniff. “You’ve no idea. That’s why it’s best to leave well enough alone. Not everyone wants to talk about it.”
We fell silent. The trees swallowed the rumble of the truck’s engine as we wound our way up the hill. I wondered what it would have been like to have lived in Black Bay all those years ago. To wake up one morning and realize that the best thing that had ever happened to the town had vanished without reason. It wasn’t fair. That I knew from my own experience. Death was never fair. It took who it wanted, young or old, without regard or mercy for those left on earth. That was something I would never understand.
At long last, we arrived in the front yard of the Winchester house. Twilight beckoned, and the construction crew had gone home for the day. I hoped Bodhi was inside. I didn’t have the courage to spend time alone with our avenging angel, if that’s what she was.
“Need me to walk you to the door?” Ethan offered as the truck idled.
I gingerly stepped to the ground. “No, I think I’ll be all right.”
“Alrighty then. Take care of yourself, Bailey.”
“You too, Ethan.”
“And get off that foot,” he called through the open window, pulling a wide turn to face the road again.
“I will.”
As I crossed the yard, the rich scent of garlic and olive oil wafted from one of the open windows. Bodhi was cooking again. I smiled, picking up the pace as much as my booted ankle would allow. I couldn’t remember the last time Bodhi made dinner for us.
“Bailey?”
My heart leapt as a lanky figure emerged from the shadows beyond the house. For a second, some instinctive impulse told me to bolt for the safety of the Winchesters’ front door, but as the figure solidified into a familiar face, relief flooded through me.
“Milo!”
I rushed toward him, surprising myself by swinging my arms around his neck and pulling him into a hug. His thick hair fell forward, tickling my cheek.
“Oomph,” he grunted, patting me tentatively on the back. “Hi.”
I released him, and he automatically shucked his honey-colored hair back into place. “Sorry. Where have you been? I was worried about you.”
“I had to take care of something out of town.”
But Milo lacked something that evening. He was pale, a noticeable difference from his usual healthy tan, and the routine bounce that I’d come to expect with his every step was unmistakably absent.
“I tried to call you,” I said, squinting in the moonlight for other signs of what might be ailing him. “Your phone’s been disconnected.”
“Really?” He reached into his pocket for his cell. “I haven’t had any problems. Try again.”
“All right, but I’m telling you, it won’t work.”
I dialed his number. Almost immediately, his phone lit up. He swiped across the screen to answer it.
“Hello?” he said with a mischievous grin. “This is Milo.”
“You’re annoying,” I said into my own phone. The echo from his end of the line bounced back to me. We hung up. “Are you okay?”
“Never better. Why?”
“You just look a little… off.”
He avoided my scrutinizing stare. “Must be coming down with something. Did you need something? You said you’d called.”
The sudden shift in his tone bewildered me. Milo and I had always been pleasant and relaxed around each other, but today he was stiffly professional.
“Yeah. Um…” I searched for the right words. “I had a weird thing happen down at the library today. They don’t have any records for the house on file.”
Milo made a sound like an irritated bumble bee. “Did you speak with Mrs. Poe?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “That woman. I swear she’s been working at that library longer than she’s been alive. I’m not convinced she even knows how to use a computer, let alone search a database for specific information. Is there any particular reason you wanted the property records? I could probably answer your questions for you.”
My ankle had begun to ache again, and I longed for Bodhi’s cooking and the cozy interior of the Winchesters’ kitchen, even if it was under construction at the present moment.
“I just wondered who owned the house before your father,” I said.
Milo looked taken aback. “No one did.”
“Ever?”
“Not that I know of.”
“When did your father buy it?”
“I don’t know. When I was a kid.”
“So ten years ago? Fifteen?”
He rustled the sleeves of his windbreaker like an agitated bird fluffing its feathers. “I have no idea, Bailey.”
“Shouldn’t you?” I insisted.
“What do you want me to say?” he demanded. There was an abrupt animosity in his inflection, so acidic that I actually took a step away from him. “I told you when I sold you the house. I never wanted anything to do with it. My father didn’t exactly give me a choice when he died. I wish he’d never owned the damn thing. Are you happy now?”
I held my hands up in a symbol of defeat. “Fine. You could’ve just told me that. I didn’t need the Stanley Kowalski level outburst.”
“You asked.”
Milo glared angrily at me. The moon was slim, offering little light. With the uncomfortable effect of Milo’s baffling conniption palpable in the air between us, I had no desire to spend another minute with him.
“I’m going inside,” I announced.
But when I took a step toward the front door, Milo intercepted my path.
“Wait, Bailey.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He reached for my hands but I tucked them behind my back. “If you’ll just let me explain—”
“You know, Milo. I’m already trying to patch things up with my husband. I don’t need extra drama from someone who I thought was my friend.”
“We are friends—”
“I’m going inside,” I said again, this time more firmly. I sidestepped Milo. “You should go home. Get some sleep. Evidently, you need it.”
I left him there in the front yard, feeling like an ass as I shut the door on his blanched, dejected face, but there was no excuse for his immature behavior. All I wanted was some additional information about the house. If Milo had baggage with his deceased father, that was between him and whatever therapist he employed. I wasn’t a punching bag. Milo would have to take his impulsive aggression out on someone else.
In the kitchen, Bodhi sautéed fresh spinach in one skillet and seared chicken in another. He had covered the majority of the room with clean white sheets, keeping the construction dust out of the food. The muscles in his shoulders flexed as he maneuvered the spinach around without any utensils, skillfully flicking his wrist to make the greens dance in the pan. Somewhere, he’d found one of Elizabeth Winchester’s old aprons and had secured it around his waist with the lacy pink straps.
“Hey there,” he said when he noticed me. “What was that all about outside?”
“Did you hear?”
“Just the headlines,” Bodhi replied. He filled a glass with white wine and handed it to me. “Milo’s back, huh?”
“Yeah, and in the pissiest of moods.”
He returned to the stovetop. “Strange considering you and him are usually so buddy-buddy.”
There was a hint of resentment in this observation. I set my wine glass down on the countertop. “You don’t still think he and I are involved, do you?”
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Bodhi’s focus remained fixed on the cookware. “If you say you’re not involved, then I believe you’re not involved.”
“We’re not involved.”
“Okay.” The chicken sizzled as Bodhi poured wine into the frying pan. “Did you find anything out about the house? Or our lovely guest?”
“Not really. Although—”
At once, the frying pan violently upended itself, sending the scalding chicken skyward. Bodhi leapt away from the stovetop, rocketing into me and knocking my wine glass to the floor. As it shattered and the liquid seeped into the toes of my walking boot, the stove flared to life. Fire erupted from each of the four burners, scorching the spinach and burning the fallen chicken to a crisp. Thick, acrid smoke billowed upward, and the fire alarm overhead screamed a warning. Then, just as quickly, the stove shut off completely, bringing the spectacle to an abrupt end.
“That was rude,” Bodhi shouted over the screeching alarm.
“And she didn’t even let me finish.” I glanced up at the ceiling, addressing our invisible entity. “Do you mind?”
The fire alarm shut off with an annoyed chirp.
“Thanks. Bodhi, open a window so we don’t choke.”
Bodhi propped open the back door and lifted the window above the sink. He used a dish towel to waft the smoke out into the garden. “Apparently, we’re not eating tonight.”
As if in response, a droplet of hot oil shot out of the pan of ruined spinach and landed on Bodhi’s arm.
“Ow! Enough already!”
“As I was saying,” I said, raising my voice. I was ill-suited to communicating with the dead. Everything was so much simpler when you had facial expressions to take visual cues from. “I did find a few articles on the Winchesters at the library. They didn’t tell me anything that we didn’t already know, but I think I have a guess as to who our house guest is.”
“And?” Bodhi asked, coughing in the cloud of smoke.
I consulted the ceiling again. “Are you Caroline Winchester?”
All was silent. Bodhi continued to clear the air in the kitchen, but other than that, nothing moved. The frying pans didn’t stir. The stovetop remained extinguished. Bodhi and I exchanged anxious glances.
“Really?” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration. “Now you’re quiet? Look, I know we promised to help you, but it would be a whole lot easier if we knew who you were or how you ended up trapped here in the first place.”
Bodhi watched open-mouthed as I paced back and forth through the kitchen, having a conversation with myself. “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“All I’m saying is that you can’t throw a temper tantrum and then not bother to help us,” I scolded the smoky kitchen. “We’re not wizards. We don’t magically know what you’re thinking.”
“Bailey, it’s no use—”
Bodhi’s voice cut off. His limbs stiffened, and he dropped the dish towel in a heap on the floor. Then, like something out of a horror flick, his brown eyes turned black.
“Don’t you dare,” I thundered. I took Bodhi by his shoulders and shook him. “You want to communicate with me, you’re going to have to find a different way to do it. Do you hear me?”
Bodhi’s head rolled back on his neck.
“I mean it!” I shouted, steadying Bodhi against the kitchen counter. “You want my help? It’s not going to happen unless you let him go. No more of this possession crap! That was our deal.”
But Bodhi’s tongue lolled out, his lips opening and closing as if whatever was using his body couldn’t quite figure out how to operate his vocal chords.
“Let him go,” I demanded. “Let him go, or I am marching us both out of this house. You can’t leave, right? You’ll be left here to rot. I’ll give you a grand total of three seconds, and then I’m out of here. Three, two, one—”
The door to the garden slammed shut. At the same time, Bodhi jerked back to consciousness, his eyes clearing to their regular brown. I sighed with relief as he sagged against me, his breathing ragged and uneven.
“Perhaps this may come as a shock,” he said, his voice shaking. “But I would like to avoid similar experiences in the future.”
I passed him the bottle of wine. He took a swift swig. “I don’t think she knows how to talk to us,” I said. “She can’t even use you to do it. We’re going to have to figure something else out.”
“Do you ever wonder what people might think if they knew we spoke so nonchalantly about my own demonic possession?”
“I don’t think she’s a demon.”
Something rattled in the far corner of the room. Bodhi jumped, but it was only a teacup jiggling in its saucer.
“Was that there before?”
“I didn’t have any tea today,” responded Bodhi.
Carefully, I crossed the kitchen to examine the trembling china. As soon as I got close enough to touch the teacup, it stopped shaking. In the hallway, the analog clock—the battery of which had been dead for who knew how long—tick-tocked at a pace far quicker than seconds.
“Is that—?” began Bodhi, staring down the hallway.
“She wants us to follow her,” I confirmed.
The hands on the clock began to spin in opposite directions.
Bodhi’s face slackened. “This ought to be good.”
Together, we inched down the hallway. The clock shook vigorously until it rocketed right off its nail on the wall and landed with a crash on the floor. Both the minute and the hour hands stopped spinning, pointing toward the basement door. Bodhi and I exchanged nervous glances.
“Maybe we should come up with a safe word,” Bodhi said. There was no hint of amusement behind the suggestion, though I was tempted to laugh. “Something short and sweet. Like taco. Do you think she would go for that?”
The clock shot to the end of the hallway and ricocheted off the basement door.
“How do we know you won’t lock us down there again?” I asked the empty corridor.
Something small and shiny flew out from beneath the door to the office, where Caroline’s piano still waited for her to return to it. I knelt down to inspect the object. It was a key.
“I think we’re making progress,” I said to Bodhi.
“Speak for yourself,” he muttered. “Easy for you to say when you’re not the puppet master’s plaything.”
We tiptoed down the hall. The door to the basement swung open, and the fickle overhead light flickered on. I peered down the stairs. The landing was dark and foreboding. The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention.
The light blinked off and back on again.
“Well,” I said, gripping the handrail tightly. “Here goes nothing.”
15
The Séance
Bodhi steadied me with a firm hand as we descended into the basement. The handrail was loose. It bounced against the wall if I put too much weight on it, so I let go and let Bodhi guide me downward. The door at the top of the stairs mercifully remained open, and the shaft of light from the hallway served as a reminder that the first floor of the house, though still hair-raising, offered some kind of retreat into normalcy. It was distinctly different from our last foray into the basement just a couple days ago. There wasn’t much comfort in the thought, considering the entity that had savagely ambushed us then was the same one that encouraged us into the cellar now, but I hoped that she sensed our loyalty. Or, at least, my loyalty. Bodhi remained tense and rigid, ready to bolt up the stairs at the first sign of trouble.
“Relax,” I murmured, squeezing his hand.
“I’ll relax when we finally sell this damn house,” he whispered back. “It feels like we’ve been here for an eternity already, and all we’ve done so far is demo the living room and kitchen area.”
The steps creaked beneath our feet. We both paused, waiting for another direction from the invisible entity, but none was forthcoming. I inched forward.
“We knew this house was going to take us longer to renovate,” I said.
“Yeah, but we didn’t know we’d be playing Ghostbusters while we did it,” he hissed. “And at least they were armed with proton packs.”
“Something tells me our house guest wouldn’t take kindly to being chased away with a proton pack.”
We reached the bottom of the stairs. My eyes worked to adjust to the dingy moonlight filtering in from the shattered storm window. Bodhi took a flashlight from his pocket and shone it around the room. Everything looked the same as it had the last time we had visited. The Winchesters used the space as a storage area, a place to dump all of the junk that they didn’t use on a daily basis. Cardboard boxes overflowing with odds and ends from different aspects of the Winchesters’ lives balanced precariously on top of one another. Old, broken sailing equipment littered the concrete foundation. A child’s pink bike lay on its side like a bird with a broken wing. In the far corner, a glass door marked the entryway to a once-luxurious wine cellar.
“Now what?” asked Bodhi.
The pink bike righted itself, settling on its training wheels. Bodhi and I jumped back as it trundled across the concrete, joyfully tooting the shiny bell that balanced on its handlebars. It rolled toward the back end of the room. As it steered itself through the towers of the Winchesters’ leftover miscellany, Bodhi nudged me from behind.
“What?”
He indicated the tricky maze of rubbish before us. “I can only assume we’re supposed to follow it.”
“Then you go first!”
“Me? It likes you better!”
“I have a broken ankle! Besides, you’re the man of the house.”
“Okay, first of all, your ankle is only fractured. Second, that’s sexist.”
“What are we, twelve years old?” I shoved him in front, ignoring the smirk that played about his lips. “Just go.”
With a groan, he stumbled forward. Somewhere beyond the stacked boxes, the bicycle gave a happy honk. “Oh, shut up,” Bodhi ordered.
We plucked our way through the mess, trying not to disrupt any of the haphazardly stored items. I brushed by a small dog kennel, jumping when a rogue wire caught the sleeve of my shirt. Bodhi calmly detached me, and we met the pink bike near the door of the wine cellar.
The Haunting of Winchester Mansion Omnibus Page 15
