The Haunting of Riley Watson
Alexandria Clarke
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 9
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
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Prologue
Crimson Basin, Vermont was a pure white sea of snow this early in the morning. The previous night’s storm coated the mountain with a fresh layer of untouched powder and left the sky spotless. As the sun rose, it brought with it a palette of pink, purple, and orange, turning the snow into a blank canvas for the sky to paint its colors on. At the bottom of the mountain, the octagonal roof of the King and Queens Ski Lodge and Resort main building jutted out of the snow, like a child poking her head from a pile of fallen leaves. From a helicopter’s point of view, the resort looked miniscule in comparison to the mountain. Up close, it was thousands of square feet of beautiful stone masonry construction and towering gabled roofs that fit together like the pieces of a decorative Christmas village. It was the type of building that elicited the phrase, “They don’t make them like this anymore” from the mouth of anyone who had an ounce of appreciation for true craftsmanship.
Right before sunrise, the guests and residents of King and Queens were all asleep except for Thelma Watson. She slipped from her bed, dressed silently, and left her snoring husband to catch up on his REM sleep. Downstairs, she met a bleary-eyed employee at the locked door of the ski rental shop.
“Morning, Mrs. Watson,” he said, yawning as widely as a lion. He shook out his mane of long, golden hair and pulled on a bright, neon-yellow beanie. “Fresh powder, huh?”
Thelma liked the slow drawl of the local snowboarders. It was a refreshing change from the forced politeness of the tourists who frequented the lodge. She offered him a cup of hot coffee and a twenty-dollar bill.
“You know me, Liam,” she said. “I like to be the first one to cut a line. Two sugars, right?”
He pocketed the twenty and inhaled the steam rising from the hole in the cup’s lid. “Oh, bless you.”
She used her own set of keys to unlock the ski rental shop. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Mrs. Watson?”
“Sorry. Thelma.”
Liam helped Thelma get her skis and equipment off the shelves. She admired the way his shoulders flexed and rolled beneath his heavy snow jacket. When she was all set, the pair locked up the rental shop and headed to the ski lift. Liam hopped into the controls booth as he took off his gloves and blew warm air across his fingers.
“Here she goes,” he announced, powering up the lift with familiar dexterity. The cable creaked to life, and the metal chairs swung around as Thelma snapped her skis into place.
Thelma kissed Liam’s cheek. As he flushed bright pink, she said, “You’re the best.”
“Be safe up there,” he said. “You know what they say about skiing alone.”
She coasted across the snow toward the lift. “That you shouldn’t?”
“Basically.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been doing this for years.” The chair lift scooped Thelma up and whisked her away. She waved over her shoulder at Liam. “See you later!”
The lift carried Thelma into the rising sun. She kicked her feet, savoring the freedom of nothingness beneath her skis. In the middle of the sky, she forgot the problems awaiting her at the lodge. For an hour or two, while she was alone with the snow and the mountain, everything else faded into oblivion. No amount of meditation was as effective as skiing alone in the early morning.
About two-thirds of the way up the mountain, a clang echoed across the treetops and something fell from above Thelma’s head and landed with a puff of powder in the snow below. The chair lift shuddered. Thelma looked up at the gears that secured the chair to the cable. Four heavy-duty bolts connected the gear to the chair itself, but one of them was missing. The second was on its way out, and the remaining two steadily loosened, coaxed free by the vibration of the lift. Thelma’s pulse quickened, but she encouraged herself to remain calm. She patted her pockets and swore. She’d left her phone in the rental shop. There was no way to contact Liam to stop the lift. The second bolt fell. It clanged against the chair, ringing like a church bell, before plummeting to the ground. Thelma shrieked as the chair dipped violently.
“Think,” she urged herself, holding on to the armrest with white knuckles. “You’ve got two kids who need you, Thelma. Get out of this.”
She ditched her poles over the side of the chair then unstrapped her skis and let them fall too, wincing as the expensive equipment crashed against a jagged rock. Above her, the last two bolts gradually worked free. Thelma jettisoned her heavy snow boots next. There was an emergency call box at the top of the lift. If she could lighten the load long enough to make it there, King and Queens could send a rescue team before she froze to death in the snow.
The lift bounced through a support brace. The third bolt caught on the gears, and the chair swung to the right as metal screeched against metal. The bolt ripped away, and Thelma slid from one end of the chair to the other as it dropped to a steep angle, swaying from the final bolt. Thelma peered over the side. Jumping wasn’t an option. The steep mountain pass would swallow her whole, and they wouldn’t find her body until the snow thawed at the end of the season. She imagined skiers and snowboarders riding over her, the tip of her nose protruding from the snow.
The top of the lift loomed up ahead, a buoy of hope in a sea of waiting disaster. Thelma squeezed her eyes shut. If she didn’t watch the distance closing in on itself, the time would pass faster. One last support tower separated Thelma from safety. As the lift approached it, the sun burst over the trees and sent its blinding white light into Thelma’s eyes. Tears soaked her eyelashes and traced patterns down her cheeks. She knew, somehow, that this was the end. As the chair passed through the support tower, Thelma blew a kiss toward the resort at the bottom of the mountain. The final bolt fell. The chair plummeted. Thelma screamed.
1
“Have you seen my tarot card deck?” I swept aside a pile of old magazines, faded and wrinkled with condensation rings from all the times I’d used them as coasters, to check beneath. The tarot deck was nowhere in sight. “I swear I just had it. Oh, the bathroom maybe.”
My best friend, Jazmin, planted her hands on her hips as I ducked into the five-square-foot bathroom of my tiny, one-bedroom apartment to look. “Do you read fortunes in the bathroom?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “I can’t afford to miss a call. If I happen to be in the john when the phone rings, then so be it. Ugh, it’s not here.”
It was almost noon. Today’s show was supposed to go live in fifteen minutes, and I hadn�
��t gotten dressed or rigged the apartment yet. I smoothed my hair in the mirror. It was time to dye it again. The pink sheen I favored for Madame Lucia’s signature look faded fast, but the frosty silver ombre underneath was going strong. I wasn’t a huge fan of bleaching my dark hair so often, but silver was in right now, and the viewers loved the mysterious and effortless vibe of my ghostly style. I arranged my hair into Madame Lucia’s trademark mohawk braid, a voluminous plait envied by many of my followers, intentionally leaving some wispy strands for added mystique. My hair was a huge part of the character I created. If the braid wasn’t complete, I was plain old Lucia.
“Found your cards,” Jazmin called. “They were under your crystal ball. Hurry up, will you? We’re on in ten.”
“It’s an orbuculum,” I corrected her, pinning the braid in place. “I’m getting ready. Can you hook up the fishing wire?”
“Sure. What are we demolishing today?”
“How about my mother’s china set?”
“I thought we were saving that for the season finale.”
The towering cabinet full of dishware that had been passed down to me from previous generations stood against the far wall, blocking out half of the lone window. The cabinet resembled a bloated old man—the husband of the wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast—with tiny, inefficient limbs and a belly full of priceless porcelain that cursed whomsoever dared to eat off it. My mother claimed the dish set had been in our family for hundreds of years, but the faded stamp on the bottom of the plates revealed they’d been made in the 1940s. Some of the patterns didn’t match, and I suspected my grandmother collected the entire set from a chain of Salvation Armys.
“It’s time,” I told Jazmin. “Numbers dropped off after last week’s episode. We need something big to get the viewers back.” I gazed up at the cabinet. “Do you think I’d survive if we pulled it down on top of me? I hear near-death experiences are easy to market.”
“Dial it down, Lucia,” said Jazmin as she stood on the sofa and looped heavy-duty fishing wire through the top corners of the cabinet. “Remember the knife incident? I had to rush you to the emergency room for twenty stitches on your forehead. I never got the blood out of my car seats.”
I rubbed the divot near my hairline left over from the scar. “It was totally worth it. I hit five hundred thousand subscribers with that video.”
“You should prioritize your health over your viewers.” Jazmin’s foot got caught in the sofa cushions, and the cabinet rattled as she accidentally tugged on the other end of the fishing line. I steadied her before anything truly tragic could happen. “Otherwise, Madame Lucia might become one of the ghosts she’s supposedly summoning from the other side.”
“Ooooh.” I jumped on the sofa and waggled my fingers around Jazmin as if I were casting a spell. “Madame Lucia meets her maker and returns from the dead. Now that’s clickbait.”
Jazmin hooked her foot around my ankle and sent me sprawling across the worn crimson sofa cushions. “Don’t even think about it.”
“It’s catalogued. For now,” I added, rolling off the sofa.
“Thank you,” she said. “Who’s today’s caller?”
I consulted my journal full of notes, stories, ideas, and phone numbers. Being a successful call-in psychic was no easy feat for someone who’d never learned the fine art of organization. I flipped to the most recent page in the hectic planner and rooted out the information I needed.
“Jenna Mulroney,” I read off the page. “Abusive dead husband, miscarriage, blah blah blah. She wants her unborn kid to know she loves him, or her, or it. I’m not sure how far along she was. I’m thinking we could rig the creepy kitchen shadow and pipe in some baby crying sound effects.”
Jazmin grasped my face in both hands and forced me to look at her. “Lucia, please. Have some sympathy for these people. They’re not calling because they want their stories plastered all over the Internet. They genuinely need Madame Lucia’s help.”
“What they need is a good psychiatrist,” I said. “Don’t mess up my hair.”
She ruffled the braid. “You look fine. Where’s your kimono?”
“Bathroom.”
“Go get dressed,” she ordered. “I’ll finish up out here. Don’t come out until you’re in the Madame Lucia zone. Break!”
She smacked my butt hard enough to sting, like a coach encouraging her star quarterback to make the winning play of a tied championship game. I yelped and returned to the bathroom to complete my transformation to Madame Lucia. The kimono was part of my costume. It was a floor-length satin robe that swamped my willowy frame with its garish pink and purple floral pattern. It swished as I swung it around my shoulders and tied it tight enough to hide the Blondie T-shirt underneath. To finish off the look, I glued on some fake eyelashes, painted my eyelids with glittery blue shadow, and drew fuchsia lip liner beyond the perimeter of my mouth. Part of Madame Lucia’s draw was her theatrical appearance, despite how corny and unrealistic it was. If any of my viewers met me in real life, they wouldn’t believe the great and powerful psychic medium Madame Lucia was actually Lucia Star, college dropout and failed actress. Madame Lucia was full of bravado and success. Lucia Star was a desperate wash-up just shy of her thirtieth birthday in need of fast cash. Frankly, I preferred Madame Lucia.
“It’s go time!” Jazmin shouted. “Move your butt, Madame Lucia.”
I sauntered from the bathroom. “Children of the sun and moon,” I said, dropping my voice into an accent somewhere between a Spanish casanova—rolling every “r”—and a dog’s growl. “Madame Lucia, the renowned spiritualist, has arrived to soothe your weary hearts and troubled minds.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jazmin said. “Save it for the camera.”
I flounced to the sofa, which Jazmin had draped with patterned throw blankets to make the space look more hectic and ethereal than it already did. The coffee table was decorated with my orbuculum—a spherical hunk of clear glass I’d found at the flea market—the tarot deck, an assortment of candles, sage bundles, and a bunch of crystals. We had a TV monitor set up to show video conferences. That way, our viewers could see the reaction of the caller. Across from me, Jazmin set the camera up on a tripod. Long lines of fishing wire trailed across the floor and waited at her feet. When the time was right, she could tug on the appropriate wire to trigger a “moment,” as Madame Lucia called them. Fishing line was the oldest trick in the book, but it worked and it wasn’t visible on camera, so we stuck to our strengths. We had more sleight-of-hand subterfuge up our sleeves, like projections and shelves rigged to drop. We stuck to practical effects that horror movie makers used to rely on before CGI was a thing.
“Two minutes,” Jazmin warned as she connected the camera to my laptop. We broadcasted the web show live. That way, people were less likely to accuse us of altering or editing the footage in post. It made the ruse more real. Our productions relied on my ability to improvise. The people who called were paying customers, not actors we hired to give a performance. My performance mattered most, and I worked best under pressure.
I yanked the curtains shut and lit the candles to set the mood. Jazmin released a spurt of mist from the fog machine to give the room a smoky, 1920s underground speakeasy feel. Jazmin and I blew a kiss to each other, caught the other’s gesture, and pocketed it. It was our good luck ritual before every show, silly but effective.
“Live in five, four, three, two—” Jazmin pointed at me to take it away.
“Good evening, spiritualists, channelers, and curiosity chasers!” I spread my arms wide, allowing the kimono sleeves to flare out like the wings of an enormous tropical bird. “And welcome to Madame Lucia’s Parlour for the Dead and Departed, where I, Madame Lucia, connect with the dead and not so departed.” I gave a hefty, dramatic wink to the camera. “For you viewers who have never tuned into a session before, I must warn you. Mediumship is not for the faint of heart. As I always say, we must proceed into the spirit realm with the three Cs: confidence, candidness, and caution. If
you lack but one of these, who knows what you might bring back from the other realm.”
Behind the camera, Jazmin rolled her eyes. I contained a grin. The more ridiculous Jazmin considered my performance, the more views tended to roll in. I turned up the intensity of my accent.
“Today we’re speaking to someone from” —I consulted my notebook— “Trenton, New Jersey. Her name is Jenna Mulroney. I’m going to see if I can get Jenna on a video call so she can walk us through some of her concerns.”
I dialed the number we had on file. The video conference app buffered on the TV monitor. Jenna answered after one ring, and the monitor loaded a low-resolution image of her. She was young—thirty-one or thirty-two—and had the face of a woman who was once considered pretty before a damaged marriage and the death of her unborn child beat the humanity and happiness out of her. Her pixelated eyes searched for comfort in her computer screen. In me. Jazmin’s warning resonated with me. This woman was broken, and it was my job to infuse her with a tiny bit of hope.
“Hi, Jenna,” I said. “This is Madame Lucia. Can you see and hear me well?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you so much for returning my call. I’ve been anxious to speak with you.”
“And the spirits are anxious to speak to you,” I replied. “Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that our conversations are broadcasted live on YouTube. Do you consent to your story and experience being shared with other spiritualists who wish to gain insight into the world of the dead?”
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