The White Door

by Christy Sloat

  I took a deep breath. “No.” It was true. I didn’t let Sophie in, I didn’t trust her. Maybe I had sensed she wasn’t really who she said she was. I must have known it was Evangeline, somehow.

  “Then you and my son had to go and discover it was me.” She said son like he was the evildoer. “So, I took another victim and stabbed that poor girl, though I had to make it look like an accident. But now you won’t know who I am. I just might switch bodies a few more times.” She had staged the murder. Of course, she had to. Because Antonella had died in France when Evangeline took her body.

  “Why are you controlling Agnes? Why did she hurt me the other day?”

  She laughed thunderously. “Agnes is my sister, and she will do for me whatever I ask of her. I was trying to get you alone and get that key. But I see you don’t have it around your neck now.”

  I put my hands on my chest to feel for it. Where was it? Then I realized Ephraim had taken it from me.

  “No. I guess I don’t have it.” I was feeling braver. I didn’t have the key and she had crept in here to steal it while I slept. When I didn’t have it, she took out my light bulb and figured she could scare me into giving it to her. Well, she was even crazier than I thought she was. There was no way in hell I would give in that easily. “You broke into my house to steal the key and you thought I would make it that simple for you?”

  “Well, one can hope,” she sneered.

  “You have nothing but hope left. I won’t be giving in that easily, Evangeline. If you want that key, you will have to fight for it. I hope you’re prepared for that.” Bravery coursed through my veins. I wasn’t scared of her, or her magic. While I probably should have been, I just wasn’t.

  She came closer and, even in the dark, I could make the shapely outline of her new body. She wasn’t a young woman this time. This time she was heavier set and busty. I racked my brain to figure out who fit the description, but I came up empty. Honestly, she could have been anyone.

  “A fight you will have, you little brat.”

  Before I knew it, she was out the window and gone.

  I didn’t get any sleep after she left. I was wide awake, trying to think whose body she could have inhabited and when she was coming back. I would have to bolt my windows and secure everything in the house to keep her out. Then, somehow, I would need a weapon to fight her with. I wished I had an athame, like Everett Brown had used when he killed Agnes. I tried to think of what killed witches while the sun rose out my window. By the time my alarm went off for school, my brain was fried. And I still had nothing.

  Ephraim drove me to school again, like he had been lately. I couldn’t wait to unleash my knowledge of Evangeline’s break-in the night before. If my mom hadn’t been hovering around us all morning, I would have told him first thing.

  So, I used our drive to school to tell him.

  “She could be anyone at any time. She could have switched bodies already overnight,” he said frantically. “This is so frustrating.” He punched the steering wheel.

  “Easy there, Mike Tyson. We know one thing,” I told him.

  “What’s that?”

  “She will come to us. She will stop at nothing to get the key and as long as she thinks it’s in the house, she will not stop looking for it.”

  He nodded and focused on the road.

  He promised me that he would take the day to find a safe hiding place for the key. I, on the other hand, could do nothing and was going to be stuck at school. It was frustrating to be helpless five days a week. While I wasn’t in a hurry to graduate, I was in a hurry to stop Evangeline.

  In my first period class, Lynley sat waiting for me in the chair Sophie had once occupied. I smiled at her, happy to see her here. I wished I could come up with a way to talk to her. Instead, while the teacher made us take notes, I started writing in the corner of my notebook for Lyn to see.

  She walked over and sat on the desk of the boy sitting next to me. He was totally unaware of her presence.

  “What!” she screamed.

  I had told her that her mom broke into the house.

  I spent the rest of the morning’s classes telling Lyn everything. I filled the notebook with information that Lyn needed to know and by the end of the day, I needed a new one. I shook the cramps out of my hands as I walked out of art class. My hands weren’t used to this much writing.

  Lyn promised me that she would stay in my room from now on, like a watch dog. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Obviously she has some power to block you from me. That’s why whenever Sophie was around me, you couldn’t be. She wanted me all alone.”

  “Very good, Brylee. You’re so smart,” she teased.

  I punched her in the arm.

  “Watch it or I won’t let you stay in my room.” She laughed and fake pouted.

  Ephraim picked us up and we drove to a pizza place for a slice. He was excited to know Lyn was with us. They ended up talking to each other, with me as the interpreter. They talked about their favorite kinds of pizza and a time that they tried to make their own. Apparently, it was pretty disastrous. Listening to them talk made me happy, but at the same time it was depressing, knowing that the two of them once had a happy life. Now that was all ruined. I decided right then and there that I wouldn’t let Evangeline mess with Ephraim anymore. She had already taken his sister, I refused to let her take anything else from him, including me.

  Chapter 18

  I was seeing Hala Friday night and by Thursday my nerves were shot. I was always nervous about working with Hala. The last time I had helped her, one woman found out her daughter’s spirit was still with her and the other woman I couldn’t help. What would happen this time?

  When Friday finally rolled around, I felt like I needed some of my mom’s happy pills.

  My mom was making dinner that night while Ephraim, Lyn, and I sat at the table. With the craziness surrounding us lately, Ephraim hadn’t had time to tell me about his new job until that night. The only thing he had told me was he had gotten an internship. I was surprised when he told me what he would be doing and that he was supposed to start on Monday. He was nervous. It was a big deal to get an internship as a photographer for the police department. He hadn’t ever expressed an interest in crime scenes before, but once he explained that he felt he would be helping someone solve a crime, I understood. He was taking classes at the college for photography and also forensics. If this made him happy, then I would be happy.

  I had a paper due Monday, so I typed away while my mom hummed a lullaby and stirred a pot of homemade chicken corn chowder.

  I stopped writing and looked up. “Mom, lullabies, really?”

  She put the spoon down and faced me, her face now pale white.

  “I have something to tell you. I was going to wait until your dad came back, but I can’t.”

  I closed my laptop and gave her my full attention. Whatever it was must have been serious.

  “Brylee, your dad and I are having another baby,” she said excitedly.

  Ephraim stopped typing and just looked up at her. I stared at her stomach in shock. What did I expect to see? A huge baby bump? She rubbed her belly making the fabric stretch a little and then I saw it. It was bigger.

  “I don’t know what to say?” I admitted.

  “I know it’s a shock to you, but this is really good news. We’ve always wanted another child and now you’ll be a big sister.”

  Yeah, while I was in college, my parents would be raising another child in California, and I would never see it. Some big sister I would make!

  “I can’t help but feel like you’re replacing me,” I spat. “Is that why you guys are moving back?” I slammed my laptop shut.

  “Brylee,” she sat down next to me. “We don’t want to replace you. You are irreplaceable. You know that, but this just happened. We weren’t expecting it at all. Now that the town has literally gone crazy, I am a little happy to be moving.”

  I nodded and stared at my mom. She had alwa
ys been there for me and now she seemed fragile. She needed me more than I needed her at this moment. I bit my tongue and held in my true feelings. I couldn’t get her upset, that wasn’t the way to do things. I’d been taught better.

  “Mom, I’ll help you out anyway I can to make this easier for you.” I couldn’t act like a bratty, jealous child because of another baby. Besides, weren’t all babies considered miracles? My parents were having a little miracle and in the middle of all this despair, we could use some happiness. I could stand to see a life born for a change and not taken away.

  “Thanks, Brylee. You’re going to be such a good sister,” she said as she brushed my hair out of my face. The lights flickered in the kitchen, killing the moment.

  “Oh, we must be losing power,” my mom guessed. Suddenly, the lights went off completely. My mom gave a shriek. No sooner did they go out than they went back on. When they did, I was staring at the faces of all the ghosts stuck in the house. They stood grouped together in the living room. I slowly stood up, not sure what to do.

  “Brylee, what is it?” Ephraim asked, worried. I couldn’t say anything without freaking my mom out, so I stared at him giving him my “I see dead people” look.

  As I approached them with my mom staring at me, a rock flew through the kitchen window, slamming into the table where I had just been sitting. I turned around and realized that the ghosts wanted me out of the way.

  “What the hell?” Ephraim yelled. “Get upstairs, Mrs. Branson. Brylee, you too.”

  “No,” I told him firmly. My mom took his advice and rushed upstairs.

  Ephraim swung the door open and stood face to face with the angry mob of people gathered in our front yard. They all wore smiles on their faces. Happy, no doubt, that they had thrown the rock and scared us.

  Ephraim’s chest puffed up, but he walked calmly outside. I stayed inside and grabbed the phone. I was calling Rich, I had had it with this crap. No one in this town would bully us out of this house. They already had my parents running for the hills and the “For Sale” sign would be up soon enough.

  I heard yelling and looked out, watching Ephraim get in one man’s face. He was telling them that it was time for them to move on, but they wouldn’t budge.

  “Stockard,” Rich answered.

  “Detective, it’s Brylee. There’s a situation and I need some help …”

  “Say no more. I’ll be right there.”

  The line went dead. All I could do was wait and hope that the angry mob didn’t try to hurt Ephraim.

  I stayed inside until Rich’s car pulled up, then I practically flew out of the house. Before I did, Violet grabbed my arm. “Be careful, Brylee. There are some forces that you cannot reckon with and an angry town is one of them.” I looked into her eyes and saw fear reflected in their depths.

  “You’re scared?”

  She nodded. How in the world had a group of people sent such an old ghost into hiding? She let me go and I went outside to find out.

  Rich had the mob off to the side and was giving them hell.

  “You people have no right to be on their property, so get your asses home, now!”

  They listened and promptly marched off to their homes, all except for one. It was the same woman from the other night. She stood stock still with a creepy grin on her face.

  “You can make us leave now, but we will be back. The crimes that were committed on this land are because of this house and you know it!”

  She drilled her nubby finger into his chest. He stared down at it, and her, with disdain.

  “Get your hands off of me Mrs. Holiday or I’ll arrest you for assault on a police officer. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave and never come back to bother these people again. I can assure you that the Branson’s had nothing to do with the deaths of both girls.”

  She laughed and then looked straight at me. The expression on her face sent chills up my spine and suddenly I recognized her voice.

  “Evangeline,” I whispered under my breath. She smiled at me and waved goodbye as she left.

  “You okay?” Rich asked Ephraim.

  He nodded and joined me by the doorway. “It’s just a lot to deal with. They’re pushy, that’s for sure, and they threw a rock through the window, nearly hitting Brylee.”

  Rich surveyed the window and looked to me. “Are you alright? You sure the rock didn’t hit you?”

  I shook my head and almost told him that my ghost friends had saved me.

  “Well, I’ll take some photos of the damage. I can’t pinpoint who threw the rock without questioning them all …”

  “No,” my mom said, interrupting him. “I don’t want to have anyone arrested. I just want to sell this house and end this as soon as we can.”

  Rich nodded and pulled her aside for a little talk, I assumed to discuss how to keep her safe for the time being.

  Ephraim’s arms went around me and as he embraced me, he whispered, “It was her.”

  So I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Thankfully he could tell that Mrs. Holiday was now his mother, at least until she decided to take another form. For now, we knew who she was and what she was up to. She would be trying to take me out and I was ready to stop her.

  Chapter 19

  Ephraim insisted on driving me to Hala’s but I wanted to get out of the house and away on my own. I needed to think and a car ride to Hala’s gave me that opportunity. So, as I drove the forty minutes to her place, and did just that. I thought and thought and came up with nothing. No solutions. I pulled my car into her driveway and she met me in there.

  “Something bad happened, right?”

  I nodded. She was talented, that was for sure. She knew that something was going on the moment it happened at my house. Sadly, she couldn’t help me.

  Hala set down a cup of steaming tea in front of me, trying to calm my frazzled nerves. I sipped it slowly as she went through an old book. Tonight we were planning on strengthening my skills as a dead talker. For my benefit, she wanted me to be able to notice the differences between the living and the dead. She promised it would help me see Evangeline in any form she took.

  “When she kills her victims, she takes over their bodies, but they are dead. You should be able to tell that the person she has reanimated is dead,” she began. “There should be a fetid odor associated with the body as well as rotted skin. The longer she has the body the more emaciated it will become. So, the body will wear a lot of make-up and perfume to cover up these things.”

  As I thought about it, Sophie had smelled of perfume and wore a lot of cover-up. Although, that would describe every teenage girl in my school as well.

  “We’re talking about half of the student body at Wilson High, Hala.” I sipped my tea and was happy that it had cooled down.

  “Okay, another thing is they will be able to block other spirits from being around them. Think of it as a force field.”

  Yes! This was helpful. I was reminded of Lyn’s inability to be in class with me.

  “Wait, what about Violet’s fear of her? What does that mean?”

  Hala nodded and flipped to the next page. “Here,” she pointed to the paragraph in question. “It says that they create so much energy to reanimate the dead that other spirits fear being in their presence. They can control the energy around them, like how she controlled Lynley, keeping her from being in the same room as her. She can also control Violet’s energy, practically making her a puppet.”

  I swallowed hard as I thought of how Agnes was forced to drag me up the stairs in the middle of the night. “Hala, she is trying to kill me. She is trying to use Agnes to deliver me to her.”

  Hala’s eyes widened and it was at that point that I felt the most terrified. If Hala was scared, then so was I.

  “What do I do to protect myself from her now?”

  Hala stood and put the book back. “You have to use the energy in the house to protect you from her. If they rally around you, that’s when you will be the safest. But they must all c
ome together as one.”

  I sighed. “So, you’re saying I have to use the ghosts as protection? Like my own personal ghost protection agency.”

  She laughed at me and nodded. “Sorry, but that’s the only way to stay safe. The more energy around you the harder it will be to focus on one energy source to control, does that make sense?”

  I nodded. If there was a lot of ghosts in my room or around me at all times, Evangeline would be blocked. She would be too busy trying to control all of the ghosts to get to me and it would exhaust her. She wouldn’t be able to get to me, nor would Agnes. While I didn’t want to be surrounded by the dead, it seemed I had no choice.

  That night I asked Ephraim to stay in his own room. It was a hard decision, but I didn’t think he would appreciate being surrounded by all the ghosts in the house. He kissed me hard on the lips and promised he would sleep on the couch, listening for any signs of my needing help. I closed my door and turned around, facing my room. I would have to get them to come here and rally around me. That wouldn’t be so easy. Some of them had helped me with Evangeline before, but some still didn’t like me being here.

  I was thrust back into the memory of when they called me and told me to get out of their house. I still wasn’t sure who did that, but whoever it was, didn’t like our presence. I decided to take my chances and just try.

  So, as I sat on my bed, I called them to me.

  “Ghosts of the Browns, I need you here now,” I said, feeling foolish.

  At first nothing happened but then I felt a burst of cold air. Violet was the first to arrive, her hair in an up-do as always. She looked happy to see me.

  “You need us?” she asked.

  “Yes, I need your protection, as strange as that sounds.” I bit my nails nervously.