by H. P. Bayne
Beside him, Dez was still chattering. “How much do you think these houses cost? I’ll bet no matter what I could save in my lifetime, it would never be enough. And check these Christmas decorations. No way in hell you’ll ever find Grinch blowup figures on people’s front lawns.”
“Eva won’t let you put one on your lawn either,” Sully reminded him. But Dez’s running commentary had served its purpose, Sully’s response coming through a smile.
He spotted the sign for Juniper Crescent ahead and skipped the first turn, recalling from the map that he needed to take the second entrance. Dez’s conversation stalled out as if he’d noticed and wasn’t sure whether he should point it out or not. Before he was able to comment on it, Sully saw the second access point to the crescent and turned right.
The park still stood across the road from the houses here, its image the first thing Sully noted as familiar. He remembered it, all right. Glancing to the right through the windshield, he remembered the first few houses too.
The Blakes had lived in the fourth house from the corner. Sully pulled over in front of the second.
Dez peered at the house next to them. “This isn’t twenty-seven.”
Sully didn’t respond, knowing Dez would figure it out regardless. A moment later, Dez’s hand settled on his arm.
“How you doing?”
Again, no good answer. Sully opted for a trip down his dark and unpleasant memory lane instead, his eyes fixed on the park.
“I don’t remember much about McCoy Falls, but I remember this place. Sometimes, when Mr. Blake was drinking and I wanted to avoid the inevitable, I’d crawl out my window, walk this street for a few hours. Usually, I’d end up in the park over here. I could see the house, so I could tell when everyone finally went to bed.
“Got pretty good at figuring out the effects of alcohol and how long it would take him to work himself into a rage. When he drank, he drank heavy. I’d give about an hour before he started getting mad, closer to two before he got out of control. I needed to be out of the house before then. Didn’t always make it.” He gave a small smile, one he didn’t feel. “Usually managed though.”
Dez didn’t say anything.
When Sully turned to meet his eye, Dez’s expression registered a combination of anger and pain.
“You never told me much about what happened back then. I mean, I knew about the abuse and everything; you just never really talked about it. And I didn’t want to ask.”
“I didn’t want to talk about it. I knew I was safe with you guys, and that was enough for me. I did all the talking I needed to with the counsellor Mom took me to. She helped me find places to put it.”
“We could have helped you too.”
Sully couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? Dez, you guys did more than help me. You saved me. And not just by taking me in, either. You gave me everything I’d ever needed and never had. I didn’t need to sit down and talk out my entire past with you. I wanted a normal kid’s life with a family who cared about me and took care of me. You gave me that. Don’t think for a second it wasn’t enough. It was everything.”
Dez was an emotional man at the best of times. Before he nodded and turned away, Sully spotted the sheen of tears rimming Dez’s lower lashes. Despite that, a smile had formed on his face, letting Sully know he’d managed to say the right thing.
No sense delaying the inevitable any longer. He pushed the stick back into drive and eased his SUV ahead two houses.
The Blakes had lived in a mid-sized bungalow with meticulously trimmed shrubs in front. The old house, left badly damaged by fire, was gone. The house replacing it was a comfortable-looking two-storey, bearing clear signs of a new build. No trees or other shrubs had yet been planted in the front yard to match the other properties on the block, although they seemed to have attempted to make up for it with a trio of white, steel-framed reindeer Sully suspected lit up at sunset. Other decorations made the house appear lived-in, from a string of currently unlit lights rimming the gables to a stylish faux tree on the front veranda to a wreath on the door.
No blowup Grinches here.
When Sully pushed the stick into park and shut off the engine, Dez turned to him. “Can I make one suggestion?”
“Only one? Think you can manage it?”
Dez gave him a mild smack. “Stop calling them Mr. and Mrs. Blake. They don’t deserve any show of respect, all right? First names or last. I can’t deal with you calling them anything else.”
It seemed a fair concession, and one Sully knew he should be making. “Habit, is all. Fine. Jim and Colleen, it is.”
“Or Blake and his stupid wife. Can I ask you something?” Dez carried on without awaiting a reply. “Are you really prepared for what could happen if you can’t get the Blakes to cross over? You need to bear in mind, man …” He trailed off, and Sully knew Dez didn’t want to finish the statement.
Sully did it for him. “They could follow me home after and not leave me alone. Yeah, I know.”
“You’re still okay to do this?”
“A family needs help, and I need to deal with my past. Anyway, I’m not the scared little kid I used to be. I’ve faced down a lot in my life, Dez. I know I can handle this. Though I might need a reminder from you at some point.”
Dez offered him a smile. “You can handle this. I guess I needed to hear you say it. And I’m here for you, Sull, whatever happens.”
Sully grinned at Dez, then leaned over him to better study the house. He scanned the windows, searching for faces from the past but saw none.
Not that it meant anything. It could be one or more of the Blakes were trapped inside in death the way they’d been in life. On the night of the fire all those years ago, Sully had seen Jim Blake’s ghost in a frenzy outside the house, eyeing the bodies the fire department carted out. Apparently, he’d gotten no farther. It wasn’t unusual for ghosts to be connected to something from life, which acted like a chain they couldn’t break. Usually, that was where Sully came in.
“I’ve never minded the idea of the Blakes being trapped here,” he confessed now to Dez. “It’s the way they made so many foster kids feel. But it’s not fair to the people who live here now. I’ve forced a ghost to cross over before. Might be I’ll need to do that again.”
Dez’s hand settled on the back of Sully’s neck and squeezed gently. “Ready to do this?”
Sully nodded, then led the way from the vehicle.
3
The lady of the house opened the door before they reached it, sticking out her hand with a beaming grin as Sully led the way up the front steps.
“Lisa Everton,” she said. “I’m so excited to meet you!”
Lisa seemed young, and Sully put her age at not much above twenty-one or twenty-two. Yet the immensity of her belly revealed she was nearly at the point of responsibility for a new, tiny life.
Sully barely had a chance to meet the handshake when Lisa’s face crumpled and she burst into tears. She skipped the handshake and wrapped her arms around Sully’s middle. Her belly pressed against him and didn’t move, despite the fact the baby had started to kick very near a particularly sensitive spot on his body.
Sully eyed Dez for help but found none there, Dez appearing as uncomfortable as Sully felt. The only thing for it was to let Lisa calm down a little, so Sully uttered a few soothing words while awkwardly rubbing her back.
He struggled to keep his attention on her as the feelings began to hit him. First the eerie sensation they weren’t alone, then the smell of booze and cigarettes. Sully peered over the top of Lisa’s head, eyes moving slowly through the parts of the interior he could see through the open front door. The day was cloudy, casting shadows inside the house. In one of those shadows, in the deepest corner where a staircase met a wall, Sully saw it.
The shape of a man, features obscured by the dark, but his shoulders and head unmistakably those of Jim Blake. Even from here, the rage bubbling from the ghost clawed at Sully. He’d ha
d nearly twenty years to work himself up, and from what Sully could tell, he’d done a good job of it. Sully couldn’t imagine living in this house with this spirit and managing even an hour of sleep.
He suddenly wished they’d arranged to meet Lisa elsewhere. Talking about the Blakes in front of one of them—or more, if the others were here too—wasn’t a pleasant thought.
Finally, Lisa hiccuped and released Sully. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just cried all over your coat.”
Sully resisted the urge to swipe at whatever wet patches had been left while Lisa pulled a tissue from the pocket of her sweatpants and blew her nose. “It’s okay. Not a problem.”
“This pregnancy thing. My brain is so out of whack. I cry over nothing these days. I didn’t used to, I swear.”
It seemed the ideal moment to lighten the mood and introduce Dez at the same time. “Hey, I get it. Anyway, Dez cries over nothing too.” He turned and grimaced at the glare Dez shot him.
Rolling his eyes at Sully, Dez smiled as he met Lisa’s handshake. “Ignore him. I usually do.”
Lisa’s laugh was closer to a giggle. It promptly stopped as Dez took the last step up onto the porch, putting himself at full height in front of their much shorter client.
“Wow, you’re tall!” she exclaimed.
Dez smirked. “I’ve noticed. Not much fun going clothes shopping.”
She nodded in continued awe, then appeared to snap out of it. “Where are my manners? Come in. I’ve got the coffee on.”
Sully stepped inside first, eyes going immediately back to the corner by the stairs.
The man was gone.
Expecting it wouldn’t last long, Sully wanted to take advantage of Blake’s absence as soon as possible. He untied and removed his boots next to Dez as Lisa wandered off with directions to come to the kitchen once they were set.
“Anything?” Dez whispered.
“I saw him in the corner by the stairs.” Sully nodded with his chin to indicate where. “His personality hasn’t changed any.”
“Great.”
Coats hung on the rack in the entryway, Sully and Dez entered an open-concept living room and kitchen space, the two divided solely by a breakfast bar. Lisa was pouring coffee into cups set before a pair of barstools, so Sully slid onto one while Dez took the other.
Lisa didn’t pour herself a coffee, opting instead for a big cup of what looked like water with lemon slices wading inside.
Sully noticed a third, yet-unoccupied bar stool placed at the side of the bar. “Do you want to sit down? Or we could go over to the couch.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but no. Sitting isn’t exactly comfortable for me at the moment. There aren’t a lot of comfortable positions, to be honest.” Another giggle. “These guys better be super-nice to me once they’re out.”
“They?” Sully asked.
She nodded. “Twins. My husband has a twin brother, and now he’s going to have twin sons.”
Something in what she’d said sparked a fresh round of tears though she got her emotion under control more quickly this time.
“I’m so sorry. I’m all over the place.”
It occurred to Sully this might be pregnancy hormones, but it might be partially connected to something else. Ghosts had the ability to influence people’s emotions, sometimes even their physical health.
Another reason he needed to get rid of any Blakes around the place.
“Is your husband home?” Sully asked.
Lisa shook her head. “Ciaran’s at work today and does a half-day tomorrow before his holidays. I’ve been off work for about a month now. My doctor said I need to be careful. It hasn’t been the easiest pregnancy.”
With Jim Blake around, physically attacking her, Sully had no doubt.
“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?” Dez asked.
Lisa took a swig of water, then returned the cup to the countertop before starting. “Ciaran and I got married earlier this year, and I got pregnant something like five minutes later. We hadn’t planned on it being so soon. I was on the pill and everything.
“Anyway, Ciaran has a really good job in web design and social media management with some big clients, and I have a good job in IT. We both do well financially, and we were thinking of places we wanted to raise a family. We want our kids to grow up in a smaller community rather than the big city, and both our jobs allow us to work from home quite a bit, so commuting isn’t as big a problem. We decided on McCoy Falls.”
She paused for another sip of water. This time when she set it down, her hand shook a little. “I’ve changed my mind. Could we go sit in the living room?”
Sully carried his and Dez’s mugs to the coffee table while Dez took Lisa’s water and hovered at her side in case she needed a hand. Once she was safely settled in a dining chair she’d clearly placed here—“Easier for me to get out of,” she explained—Sully and Dez took spots on the sofa. Then she went back into her story.
“We checked out a few houses, but a lot of them were older and needed a lot of upkeep. With twins on the way, we knew we wouldn’t have time for big projects around the house. The easiest thing to ensure our new home ticked all our boxes was to build. We looked around for lots and found this one. It had been empty a long time, we were told. It’s near a school and right across from a park. It seemed ideal for a family.
“The build itself had some problems with equipment breaking and tools disappearing. One worker got hurt in an accident. He’s okay now, but it was scary. He was working on the second floor and somehow his harness came unclipped, so he fell.”
She visibly shuddered. “I would have thought everything was down to the team being kind of sloppy, except for everything that started after we moved in a few weeks ago.
“At first, it was perfect. But within a few days, things started happening. I’d put something down, and it would disappear. I’d walk into the kitchen in the morning to find a smashed glass on the floor. The scariest was finding the big chef’s knife sitting in the middle of the island. Even though Ciaran and I don’t smoke, we’d smell cigarettes and even alcohol randomly around.”
Figured, Sully thought. Not only the fire smell but booze as well. This was Jim Blake, through and through.
“Then things started getting even weirder. We started smelling something burning, usually in the middle of the night. It got so bad, we called the fire department a couple of times, thinking maybe something was going on with our wiring. But they checked and so did an electrician, and everything was fine. There’s other stuff too. Sometimes, I wake up in the morning or get out of the shower and notice big scratches and bruises—and I don’t remember doing anything to get them. What’s more, they’re in places I can’t easily reach, like my back. And even worse—” Her voice choked, and she took a moment to regain her composure. “I found bruises on my belly this morning, as if whatever this is, it’s trying to hurt my babies now.”
Lisa sat back, easing her shirt up a little. Sully’s jaw slackened as he eyed the mottling of bruises—not deep or dark, but obvious. Obvious enough to make Sully hate the Blakes even more.
Returning her gaze to Sully, Lisa tugged the hem back down. “This was the last straw, so I called you. I saw you on the news, and I thought maybe you could help me.”
She’d said “me,” not “us”—a sure sign the couple had been pulled apart over this.
“Lachlan told us you and your husband haven’t been on the same page about what’s going on,” Dez said.
She nodded, and her face scrunched up as further tears threatened, though she sucked this round back. “Ciaran doesn’t believe me. He says ghosts don’t exist and that’s the end of it. He’s got an explanation for everything, and the stuff he can’t explain he still insists isn’t paranormal. The missing stuff he blames on my memory. When stuff gets moved or broken, one of us must be sleepwalking. The smells he says are probably because one of the workers was smoking and drinking around the building material and it’s coming o
ut sometimes. The bruises and scratches, I’m somehow doing to myself and not remembering.
“He isn’t mean about it or anything. He laughs it off. What he doesn’t get is that he’s laughing me off, as if my opinions and experiences don’t count. The first few arguments we had were mostly teasing, but they’ve gotten worse. He’s changing, and I don’t like it. I don’t like who he’s turning into.”
This was a new piece of information, and one Sully didn’t like either. If Ciaran was changing, it was possible Blake was influencing him—possibly even learning how to possess him.
Sully would need to get Blake out of here one way or another.
“What I really don’t understand is the way the neighbours look at us,” Lisa continued. “Especially this older lady next door. She smiles and everything, but it reminds me of the way you react to someone when they’ve been diagnosed with a terminal disease, like people feel sorry for us. I mean, do they know the place is haunted?”
“I don’t think that’s exactly it,” Sully said. He had a choice to make: tell Lisa the truth or spare her another stress and hope she never found out.
Yet if the neighbour knew something about the past, it was only a matter of time before she, or one of the others, told Lisa. Better it came from Sully since he could be both sensitive and tactful about it.
Even so …
“How sure are you that you want the answers?”
Lisa’s eyes flashed open a little. “You know, don’t you? You know what’s in my house.”
“If I tell you, will it help you, or will it make it worse?”
“Can you get rid of it?”
Sully would allow nothing else. “I won’t quit until I do.”
She nodded and sat up as straight as her unborn children would allow her. “Then tell me. Knowing is better than wondering. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”
He sure hoped so. “First, I need to disclose some backstory. I used to live here—in the original house, I mean. I was in the foster system, and the couple who lived on this property took in foster kids.”