The Summoning

by Heather Graham

  9

  Kristi had fled to her room quickly—but not fast enough to outrun the real haunts of McLane House.

  “I felt her, too—I mean, I know someone was there, a woman, if you say so—but I didn’t see what you saw,” the ghost of Justin McLane told Kristi, frustrated. “I mean, well, you’re saying it was a ‘her,’ and I’m assuming you’re correct. Many generations’ granddaughter, you are truly gifted. We could see that you were experiencing something, but we couldn’t see what you were seeing—even I, a ghost, must admit it was quite a spectacle.” He paused and looked over at Monty. “Do you think it was Trinity?” he asked softly.

  “No,” Monty said. “Don’t you think I’d know if it was my wife? I pray daily I might somehow see her, feel her, touch her again!”

  “It wasn’t Trinity,” Kristi said.

  Then the knock she was expecting came at her door, and she hurriedly opened it, allowing Dallas to come in.

  The first thing he did was take her anxiously by the shoulders.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “I came as soon as I could get away.”

  She loved the worried look in his eyes, and his touch on her, as if he would battle the world or anyone in it—for her.

  “I’m all right. I think I handled it all okay.”

  “Yes, you did,” Dallas said. “And you thrilled everyone down there. But, Kristi, what did you see?”

  She closed her eyes. She still couldn’t believe it had happened; she just simply hadn’t believed Shelley could summon any real spirits.

  And she certainly hadn’t called anyone she’d intended to!

  But looking into the crystal ball, Kristi had seen a face. She’d thought it a trick at first—a projection somehow orchestrated by Shelley or the cameraman or someone who wanted a spirit to appear—one way or another—in the video.

  But there was nothing artificial about the face; it had been that of an older woman, terribly distressed. She had looked straight at Kristi, and she had said, “Help me, please, dear God, help me!”

  “I saw a woman’s face, in the crystal,” Kristi explained quickly. “And...” She paused, remembering the way the woman had looked at her, and how she had looked around nervously when the others had been saying they felt something, too...

  “Oh!” she whispered suddenly.

  “What is it?” Dallas asked.

  “She was afraid... I think she was afraid of someone in the room!”

  Dallas looked at her, frowning. “Did you recognize her? Was she someone you had seen before?”

  Kristi thought about that for a moment and then said slowly, “Maybe. She wasn’t someone familiar, or even someone I knew as a casual friend. But you may be right... I may have seen her at some time. Passed her on the street, in a store, something like that.”

  Dallas stared at her one more moment and then strode over to her computer. He keyed in something and then called over to her.

  He’d pulled up the picture of a woman, perhaps in her fifties, attractive and with a beautiful smile.

  It was the face she had seen.

  She gasped. “It was Eliza Malone! Oh, I should have known right away. I remember when she went missing, the police and everyone tried so hard to find her. I should have seen it immediately. I should have let her know that I... I’d help her!”

  “So...she is dead,” Dallas murmured.

  “Maybe not!” Kristi said. “Maybe she’s imprisoned somewhere, and she managed to astral project herself to me. She was asking for help. Because she wants to be found.”

  Dallas was silent. Monty McLane placed a ghostly hand on her shoulder.

  “Kristi, she was asking for help because she wants her body to be found—and for whoever took her...killed her, to be brought to justice.”

  Kristi sank down on her bed, still shaken. “I should have told her somehow that we’d help her,” she muttered. “Except, how do we? People have been searching for her over the last two years...”

  “She disappeared, and she was murdered,” Dallas said. “And what we have to do is find the body. Kristi, she appeared before you because you can help.”

  “How?”

  “Because she’s here.”

  “In this house?” Kristi demanded.

  He shook his head and said gently, “Not necessarily in this house, but somewhere near.”

  “So...we start digging up the streets?” Kristi asked. “It looked like someone was already digging in the yard.”

  “Yes...and no, of course not, in regards to the streets,” Dallas told her. “We try to make contact again,” he said softly.

  Kristi sank down on her bed.

  “We can take to the streets,” Monty said, “get out there, wander around—see if somehow we can find her. The thing is...”

  “Thing is,” Justin said, “it’s not easy to learn how to make contact—when you’re dead. Monty and I have been around a very long time. For years, I could see people...and they couldn’t see me. Well, only certain people ever really have that kind of sight anyway, but it takes time and trying and learning to materialize.”

  “But she’s desperate. She wants justice,” Kristi said.

  Justin added, “There are times when the dead are just excellent—fast learners. With a natural talent. Just as some people are born artists or musicians, some of the dead just...hit the streets running, so to say.”

  “But not all that often. She may be very hard to find,” Monty said.

  Dallas had been listening to the ghosts; he’d also been thoughtful.

  “You said you thought she was afraid of someone at the table?” he asked Kristi.

  “When she first appeared, she was looking right at me. Then she looked around, and something changed, and she was gone,” Kristi said softly. “But the Knox family isn’t from around here—neither are Carl, Claire or Murray. The only people who might have been here two years ago are Jonah, Genie and Sydney.”

  Dallas had pulled out his phone and was going to call someone.

  “No, oh, no! I have known them all forever,” Kristi said. “They aren’t murdering people. It’s impossible.”

  Dallas ignored her; she didn’t know who he was talking to, but whoever it was, he didn’t have to exchange a lot of niceties—he was giving whoever it was the names of everyone in the house: the help and the guests.

  “I’m telling you—it’s impossible,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have told you anything, I should have just...just waited, or...”

  “Kristi, stop it!” Dallas said. “I’m not accusing your people of anything. I’m having the best people in the world find out everything they can about everyone who is in this house.”

  She fell silent, knowing he was right—and resenting it anyway.

  “Jonah was with me when Jedidiah died. Genie and Sydney were wonderful. They cared for him in a way you could never imagine,” she said after a moment.

  “I told you—I’m not accusing them,” Dallas said quietly.

  She didn’t answer. There was a knock at her bedroom door and she hurried over to swing the door open.

  Carl Brentwood was standing there, hand raised ready to knock again.

  “Kristi!” he said.

  “Carl, what can I do for you?” she asked, trying to smile as normally as possible.

  “First, I want to thank you—you did amazing, Kristi! And then, I’d love to interview you again. Would you please...”

  He broke off, seeing that Dallas had come up behind her.

  “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “It’s all right. We were just talking.”

  “About the séance?” he asked eagerly, excited.

  “Not exactly,” she murmured.

  He looked awkward.

  “It’s fine, really,” she said.


  “Well...then, I...uh... Could I talk to you again?” Carl asked.

  “Talk to me?” she repeated.

  “About the séance, I mean. It was... Wow. I know you weren’t sure about doing the video, but it’s going to be amazing, and I’m promising to do good things with it.”

  “Carl, I’ll do an interview, but you don’t know what I will say,” she told him. “I don’t know myself.”

  “It’s all right—you say what you think and what you feel.”

  She could feel Dallas was behind her, ready to protest on her behalf.

  “Sure, I’ll come right now,” she said, heading out of her room. She turned back and looked at Dallas. He could follow—or not.

  She shouldn’t be upset with him; Dallas played it logically, by the book. He was an investigator... He was FBI, after all. And people had died.

  It was just that everything around her suddenly seemed to be different from what she had known and loved all her life.

  They had to be wrong. Just because Eliza Malone’s face had appeared in a crystal ball, the woman didn’t have to be dead. It didn’t mean McLane House was involved.

  But Kristi was afraid. And she had never felt fear like this before.

  She hurried down the stairs. Both parlors were still a bevy of activity.

  Genie was excited, running up to Kristi as she came down the stairs. “Oh, Kristi, that was incredible. I’ve been in this house for years and...when I think about it, now and then, I’d get a feeling of the temperature changing, or maybe even of someone nearby, watching, but, well, I’d brush it off. But after tonight... I believe there are ghosts in this house,” she said.

  “Genie, I’m so glad you had a good time,” Kristi said.

  Genie looked behind Kristi, where Dallas had followed her. “Mr. Wicker, you should have been at that table. Or, maybe you didn’t have to be. Did you feel it, too? It was like the air changed, as if, as if you could feel that someone else was there. Kristi—you’re a catalyst! Oh, my God, being there with you was amazing—scary as all get-out, but so amazing. Mr. Wicker, from where you were, did you...get that?”

  “Ah, Genie, I was just an observer, you know.”

  “Good for an investigator to be an observer,” Genie said.

  “Always,” Dallas said, his tone pleasant.

  Carl came through from the other parlor and said to Kristi, “I think Matthew is ready—if you will?”

  “Sure, why not?” she said softly, trying to sound pleasant.

  Matthew was set up right by the stairs; she realized he could easily get shots of his interviewee—and of the portraits that lined the stairway walls. Of course—she doubted Carl would work with anyone who wasn’t good at what they did.

  “Kristi, I’ll put you right here,” Matthew told her. “And Carl right beside.”

  “Perfect,” Kristi murmured. She was aware Genie and Dallas had gone to stand behind him and that the others were coming in from the front parlor. Jonah leaned against the kitchen archway, much as he had done during the séance itself. Sydney was near him, grinning and rolling her eyes, as if in disbelief Jonah might still think it was all a sham.

  Kristi didn’t see Shelley, which surprised her.

  She’d have thought Shelley would have dramatically worked her moment as long as she possibly could.

  Maybe she’d gone to the kitchen, or elsewhere. Perhaps even outside—to commune with the beautiful and giving full moon.

  “Where are the rest of your crew?” Kristi asked Matthew.

  “Had to film another excursion tonight—at another house,” Matthew explained briefly.

  “And where’s Shelley?”

  “Oh, we interviewed her first. She was on such a high—but said she had to leave, too—had something else to do,” Carl said.

  “I see,” Kristi murmured, looking around at the others.

  Murray, the staid and gentlemanly agent, still looked a little thunderstruck—as if he had felt something himself, but didn’t trust his own senses.

  “Quiet, people, please!” Matthew called out. “You’re all welcome to be here, but the little microphones are sensitive. You can be here, just...you need to keep quiet.”

  “Yes, of course,” Claire demurred, and then a hush fell over the room.

  Everyone was watching.

  Everyone.

  Justin and Monty had made an appearance as well; they were standing near Dallas, as if they were a band of close friends.

  “Kristi,” Matthew said. “Just answer any way you like. We’re trying to be real—not sensationalist.”

  “Sure,” she muttered.

  Matthew raised his fingers, starting a countdown, out loud at first, and then in silence as he got to three, two, one.

  “Kristi Stewart—owner of the McLane house, descendent of the family—we want to thank you again for allowing us to have this séance, and to film it for those who might want to come to beautiful Savannah, and McLane House.”

  Kristi smiled. “It can be very beautiful, yes.”

  “McLane House,” Carl said. “Your house—with a twisted and sad history.”

  “I’ve already spoken about Justin McLane,” she said pleasantly.

  “You have. And Shelley believes he was here with us tonight, but, Kristi—you had me shaking! Through you, I felt cold, and a strange swirling darkness, and a—a presence.”

  “Old houses can be drafty,” Kristi said.

  Carl smiled. “You said...she’s here. But it was not Trinity McLane. Who was it?”

  “Who knows?” Kristi asked. “It was a séance. And we’re all very susceptible to suggestion. I thought I saw a face, but...”

  “Trinity.”

  “Definitely not Trinity.” Kristi offered him as sweet and giving a look as she could manage. “I would know if it was her—I grew up with the legend of this house.”

  “Ah, yes, but—that’s just it! What everyone finds so fascinating is the story about Trinity and Monty McLane.”

  “All we know for sure is a story,” Kristi said. “We have no facts surrounding any of it.”

  “But it’s Trinity, they say, who haunts the house. And there was speculation of an affair between her and Colonel Huntington, wasn’t there?” Carl said.

  “There’s absolutely nothing in history to indicate that. And the only report of the action at the house came from Albert Huntington himself. Many people believe Huntington wound up shooting and killing Trinity by accident—when she jumped in front of her husband, probably not believing that Huntington would shoot her. You have to remember, by the time Savannah surrendered, bitterness was running really high. We Americans today are grateful to be the country we are—always imperfect, but ever striving for unity, for equality, and all good things. But back then...”

  “Kristi, tonight, we all really felt something. It was amazing. I’ve been at a séance here before, and it was great, but tonight—tonight was the next level. I can’t help but feel it’s because you were there, with us, that perhaps the ghosts of the house long to talk to you.”

  She forced a smile. “Oh, I think if the ghosts of the house wanted to have a conversation with me, they would just come right out and do so.”

  “But everything seemed to center on you, Kristi. We all know you saw something, someone—the ‘her’ you were saying you saw. We felt the presence. I still get shivers—I was so glad to be next to you!”

  “Hard to tell after a séance, isn’t it?” she asked sweetly. “We were all holding hands, the lights were low and, beyond a doubt, we felt the past, we felt history sweeping through us.”

  “Kristi, please, be honest. Did the ghost of Trinity touch you tonight?” he asked very softly and very seriously.

  “I, like you, can’t explain exactly what I saw or felt. But there is one thing of which I’m certain—the ghost of Trini
ty McLane was not here tonight, and I’m equally certain we don’t know the true story of what happened. But my strong feeling is that Monty McLane did not kill his wife.”

  She could see Dallas was smiling—as were the two ghosts by his side.

  She was doing all right; holding her own.

  “But, Kristi, you saw a woman. You were looking into the crystal ball, and you said, ‘She’s here,’ or something close to that. And the whole room was chilled, and we all felt it.”

  “Honestly, who knows what I really saw. In my mind, yes, there was a face in the crystal ball. Now the lights are on, the mystery is gone...”

  “But it wasn’t Trinity.”

  “No, I can assure you emphatically, it was not Trinity.”

  “Do you think Justin looks out for his heirs on this property? He never did live in the house—it was built after he was killed.”

  “He never lived in this house, no. I guess we’ve been pretty pragmatic about keeping the property and now the house in the family. Who knows? Don’t we all want to believe those who have gone before us look out for us?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “So.” She shrugged. “Maybe he is a kind and benevolent ghost, looking out for us.”

  “Ah, well, maybe one day, the truth will come to light!” Carl said. “However, whatever, you were incredibly special tonight, and I am honored to have been by your side. You have something—something very special.”

  “Thank you,” she told him.

  “McLane House is haunted,” Carl said. “You’ll never convince me otherwise.”

  Kristi smiled directly at the camera. “Perhaps, but if so—they are the warmest and most welcoming ghosts you’ll ever want to meet!”

  “And I can attest to that—everyone at McLane House is warm and welcoming. Kristi, thank you!”

  “Carl, thank you!”

  Matthew lifted a hand in the air, indicating a wrap; they both smiled at the camera.

  “Cut! Perfect!” Matthew said. “Well, almost perfect. I mean, it would have been perfect if you had seen Trinity tonight, but...hey, we said we wanted the truth.”

  Kristi rose, removing her microphone to hand back to Matthew.