Grace eyed him doubtfully. “You’ll really renounce ghost hunting for good if you don’t find anything?”
“Yes.”
“You’re just that confident, huh?”
“I am.”
Grace admired his arrogance while at the same time pitied him for it. It made him strong, fearless. It also made him pathetically stupid.
She reached out to shake his hand, keeping her other arm safely around the box. “Okay, then. You have a deal.”
He accepted the handshake, his eyes intent on hers. “I look forward to shattering your perception of life and death, Doc.”
Grace snorted. “I’m sure you do.”
“Cool, so it’s settled then.” Alex clapped his hands together happily, smiling at everyone. “We’ll go get our equipment so we can get started.” He left the room, patting Ian on the back as he passed. Ian shot one last look at Grace, amusement softening his features.
Grace watched them go and wondered if she’d made the right decision. Regardless, she looked forward to seeing the ghost hunter give up his life’s work. The thought alone was enough to lift her spirits.
It wouldn’t take long. It wasn’t possible to hunt something that didn’t exist.
* * *
Grace stood at the parlor window and eyed Ian and Alex suspiciously through the curtains. They were busy sorting through equipment in the back of their van—black duffle bags and metal briefcases. She didn’t pretend to have any idea what kind of stupid devices they used while “investigating” a location.
It didn’t matter. Her house wasn’t haunted. Period. And once they realized they were wasting everyone's time, they would be gone. She wanted so desperately to be alone again.
“This is for the best, child,” Nellie said, resting her hand on Grace’s shoulder. She stared serenely out the window at the men, looking very much like someone who got exactly what they wanted. It irritated Grace more than she wanted it to.
“They’re not going to find anything. You shouldn’t have called them.”
Nellie sighed. “I called them because I’m worried about you. Whatever it is that’s in this house needs to be taken care of so you can have some peace and quiet.”
“I’m not staying forever,” Grace mumbled, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “What difference does it make?”
“If you do stay, it will make all the difference in the world.”
Grace caught Ian’s eye as he looked her way, and he offered her a polite nod. She merely frowned. “I want to stay tonight while they do whatever it is they’re going to do.”
“Oh?” Nellie looked up at Grace curiously. “You may get more than you bargained for.”
“I want to make sure they don’t cheat.” Grace turned away from the window, feeling the strong urge for a glass of wine. Instead, she’d settle for tea.
She left Nellie in the parlor and headed into the kitchen. Before she could help herself, she started hearing her ex-fiancé’s voice in her head calling her an idiot for even playing along. Rick didn’t believe in any of this nonsense. So why was she allowing herself the headache of dealing with it?
Grace paused before filling the kettle with water, shutting her eyes tightly. She reminded herself that Rick didn’t control her life and what he thought didn’t matter. That part of her life was over. For now, this was her reality. An old abandoned house, a nosy neighbor, ghost hunters, disembodied voices…
It all seemed so far from the life she had lived previously. Long nights at the hospital, saving lives, dinner and drinks with friends, romantic weekend getaways with Rick. Before, she had filled her days with the pursuit of life.
Now it seemed she pursued nothing but death. The death of her parents, the long dead Sullivans who came before her to the Sparrow House, the death of her old self and the life she used to call her own. She may as well plunge into the harbor and end it all.
Grace shook off the thought. Suicidal? Not quite. Manic depressive, lonely, and a bit delusional, yes. But not on the verge of taking her own life.
Would she really get to that point? Was she getting worse instead of getting better? The thought troubled her. Instead of dealing with it, she shrugged it off and finished making tea. One day, one hour, one minute at a time.
Her next few hours would be filled with ghost hunters and creaking floorboards. Surely that would be enough to distract her.
Not like she had any choice.
CHAPTER SIX
When Ian and Alex returned to the living room, Grace swallowed the urge to laugh. She stood in the kitchen with her cup of tea, resting her hip against the counter. “You boys really are the Ghostbusters,” she joked, admiring their camera equipment and Alex’s black backpack. “Where’s the laser beam thing to nab the slimy bastards?”
“Left the Proton Pack at home, sorry,” Alex replied with a crooked grin. “But I did bring along this puppy that you should find equally as impressive.”
Grace resisted the temptation to roll her eyes and humored him. “You mean there’s something better than a Proton Pack?”
He whipped out what looked like an oversized remote control. It had a screen at the top with two numerical readings on it. “This is called a Mel Meter. It detects EMF—electromagnetic field—fluctuations and ambient temperature changes. Ghosts are made up of energy, and when they pass near the meter these little lights at the top will go off, giving us a good idea when they’re around. Of course, we usually feel it first. Don’t we, Ian?”
Ian shrugged, busy messing with the settings on his camcorder. He glanced down impatiently at his watch, noting it was nearly eight o’clock. “It’s still relatively early, but we can take some base readings and do an EVP session. Let’s hit the basement first since most of the activity seems to be down there.” He set his camcorder on the dining table and grabbed his digital recorder.
Grace’s eyes narrowed. “EVP session?”
“Electronic voice phenomena. Spirit voices,” Alex supplied. “That’s what the digital recorder is for. We often catch disembodied voices speaking within the white noise.”
“Is that right?” Grace decided not to mention radio interference and other more logical explanations, deciding it wasn’t worth the wasted breath. “What do they usually say?”
A smile spread over Alex’s face. “More than you’d expect.”
His answer intrigued her despite the cold, hard science that proved “spirit voices” to be nothing but baloney.
“Let’s go.” Ian nodded to Alex and headed for the basement door.
Grace immediately followed him. “Don’t mind me. I’ll be sure to stay out of your way.”
Ian stopped mid-stride and faced her. “You’re staying here?”
“Well, duh. Someone rational has to stick around and make sure you don’t cheat or steal anything.” She lifted her chin, the movement both distrusting and amused. “Plus, I will admit that I’m a little curious.”
“Just keep your mouth shut and don’t move around too much,” he shot back, irritated that she was going to be hanging around. He’d hoped she would take off for a few hours, give him some room to breathe. As it was, the weight of whatever baggage she carried on her back was stifling the very air in the room.
“Lead the way, boss.” Alex motioned toward the basement, allowing Ian to brush past.
He opened the basement door carefully, holding his breath as he listened. The house was silent as death. In his left hand, he held his digital recorder, turned on and ready to go. He started down the steps into the dark basement, feeling around for the light switch near the bottom. Behind him, Alex held the camcorder and closely monitored the Mel Meter, looking for EMF spikes and odd temperature changes.
Grace followed them, her footsteps heavy on the planks of wood. She slurped her tea and fought back a laugh at Ian’s exasperated sigh.
“I thought I told you to shut the hell up?” he barked, glaring up at her.
She only shrugged. “Oops.”
A
lex chuckled and continued down the stairs, reaching past Ian to flip on the light switch. A dim light illuminated the room. They all stared at the nearly empty space for a long moment.
“Feel anything funky?” Grace asked with a sly smile as she watched Ian scan the room. He ignored her question and stepped onto the hard-packed dirt, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of the space.
It was cold and musty like most underground basements. The concrete block walls kept the heat out, but also gave off an industrial scent that permeated the air. The boots he wore barely made impressions in the floor as Ian made his way around the room, feeling the walls and searching. For what, he wasn’t sure. But he would know when he found it. He always did.
“I’m getting some weird readings under the stairs,” Alex called out. He held the Mel Meter under the stairwell and it started to shrill loudly, announcing a spike in the electromagnetic field. Green lights flickered on and off at the top of the meter. “Temperature was 68 degrees coming down the stairs. Now I’m getting 66.6 and the thing is going off like crazy.”
Grace stood on the last step and leaned against the wall, looking bored. “666. There’s your demon, boys.”
…you will pay.
“Actually, that is pretty freaking strange,” Alex murmured as he stared at the device. “It’s never done that before.”
“It could be a coincidence.” Grace lifted her tea for another sip, but paused as she watched Ian tense like an animal suddenly detecting a predator. His face hardened as he froze, as if reaching out with all his senses. She would have laughed at him if she wasn’t caught off guard by the swift change of mood in the basement. It went from amusing to anxious like a cloud covering the light of the sun.
Ian slowly held up his digital recorder. “Talk to us. Did you make our Mel Meter read 66.6 degrees?” He went quiet for a moment as his eyes met Grace’s. He saw the skepticism on her face but also spotted the intrigue. His mouth curved in challenge. “Grace thinks you’re a demon. I think otherwise. I think you just wanted to get our attention.”
Alex was focused on the Mel Meter, monitoring it as Ian spoke. Suddenly, the readings on the device went back to normal. They hovered in silence for a few moments, the heaviness in the room lifting. He glanced up at his partner with a grin. “That was weird. I think you insulted it.”
Ian let out a whoosh of breath and flipped off his recorder, running his free hand through his hair. “Maybe.”
“So…what happened, exactly?” Grace asked, clutching her mug between her hands tightly. She didn’t even realize she was doing it.
Ian looked pleased. “There was a definite presence here. I’m going to play back the recorder and see if we caught anything.”
He turned the volume up and played back the last few minutes. As they listened, Grace heard her own voice come out of the recorder.
“666. There’s your demon, boys.”
She frowned at how mocking her tone was, momentarily distracted as Ian suddenly turned off the recorder, rewound it, and played it again. He did it twice more before he and Alex looked at each other in triumph.
“Did you hear that?” Ian asked, a fire in his eyes that had nothing to do with anger.
Alex nodded excitedly. “Yeah, man. It sounded like ‘you will pay’ or something like that.”
“That’s what I heard, too.”
Grace shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“That’s because you don’t know what to listen for,” Ian began, walking forward and handing the recorder to her. “Hold it up to your ear this time and listen.”
She rolled her eyes but did as he requested, hitting play and holding it by her face. Her lips pursed as she listened to her own voice yet again. After her words faded and just before Alex’s voice piped in she heard a low mumbling noise mixed with the static. Her forehead creased with doubt as she shut it off and handed it back to him. “I just heard grumbling and static. That could be anything. Hell, it could be your stomach for all I know.”
Ian tried to hold on to what little patience he had left. Damn skeptics. “When I get this on the computer and amplify the sound you’ll be able to hear it clearer. Either way, this is a great EVP and I feel it warrants more investigating.”
“Well, seeing as your little ghost friend hightailed it out of the basement, maybe you should head upstairs,” Grace suggested with a dry smile. “I’m still not convinced, but I’ll give you another chance to prove it to me.”
She started up the stairs, leaving Ian to brood. Alex patted him on the back. “That old lady was right. There’s something in this house.”
“I know,” Ian agreed, staring after Grace. “The problem is convincing Dr. Cynic to give us free reign of the house to do a proper investigation.”
“She did get really touchy about those old photographs. I don’t know how much she’ll let us do.”
Ian focused on the space beneath the stairs, pondering the 66.6 reading and the EMF spikes they got. There was bad energy in the basement, most particularly near that area. But why?
“She’s not going to have much of a choice,” Ian decided. He turned to his best friend with a hard smile. “I’ll tie her down if I have to. Whether she likes it or not, we’re doing a full investigation.”
Alex chuckled. “You attract more flies with honey, my friend.”
“Who the hell wants to attract flies?” Ian winked before making his way upstairs.
Alex followed close behind, shaking his head. “A spider.”
* * *
They did a quick sweep of the upstairs, finding nothing but hollow rooms and creaking floorboards. Ian was convinced that the activity was centralized in the basement and the first floor by the stairs where Nellie had her encounters. The spirits appeared to have an attachment to the lower half of the house, and he was determined to find out why.
He found it interesting that he had made intelligent contact with a spirit in the basement with very little provocation. What kind of response would he get when he kicked it up a notch?
Grace grew increasingly skeptical as the night wore on, so Ian made a point to explain things to her before he and Alex left for the local hotel. He’d already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to let her stand in his way, but it was more polite to reason with her. At least, that’s what Alex suggested and Alex was better with people.
Where Ian could be a steamroller, Alex was a convincer. It didn’t take much for people to side with Alex once he had the chance to lay on the charm. Unfortunately, though, that charm didn’t seem to be working very well on the doctor.
“What do you think you’re going to find tomorrow that you didn’t find tonight?” Grace asked impatiently. She poured a glass of Cabernet in the kitchen and lifted her glass in a mock toast. “I gave you what you wanted. It failed. Shock. Now it’s time for you to move along and leave me alone.”
Ian gritted his teeth but Alex only smiled. “We got our base readings and know the house better now. Give us the chance to come back with some more advanced equipment and go all out. We’ll set up cameras throughout the house, take some infrared photos…”
Grace sipped her wine, unimpressed. “And use ‘trigger objects’ or whatever the hell you called my photographs?”
“Exactly.” Alex clapped his hands together. “I know you think your neighbor is crazy, Grace. But the EMF readings, the EVP, and the temperature fluctuations we got down in the basement prove otherwise.”
Grace frowned as she lifted the aged photograph of the little girl off the counter and held it in her hands. She’d been looking at it earlier while they roamed around upstairs. She stared into the girl’s colorless eyes, her thoughts drifting to her father. Would he have allowed a couple of fanatical ghost hunters to poke around the house? Or would he have told them to take a hike like she desperately wanted to do?
She closed her eyes, absorbing the pain that hit her. Sorrow draped over her body like a cloak. Like an impending storm. When it eased, she opened her
eyes and met Ian’s resolutely, her decision made.
“Fine. You can do your full investigation. But if you don’t find anything, then we’re done here.”
Ian nodded. “I told you I won’t let you down, Doc.”
Grace downed the last of her wine and poured another glass. “All you’ve done is fight me on this.” She turned away and faced the kitchen sink, feeling lost and tired. “Please go.”
Alex grabbed his backpack and motioned for Ian to follow him out. “See ya tomorrow, Grace.”
She didn’t bother to answer. The sound of the door shutting behind them was like a final gunshot to the heart. Her misery crept back in, kept at bay only long enough for her to watch them drive away out the window. As their headlights faded into darkness, she felt her knees weaken and her heart thud helplessly. Unable to do more, she abandoned her fresh glass of wine, wanting only her bed and the solitude it promised. The dark, welcoming shroud of nothingness.
Yet as she passed by the stairwell beneath the second-floor balcony, she could have sworn she heard a faint, whispering voice. A little girl’s voice.
I am the sparrow.
“Damn you.” She squeezed her eyes tight in disbelief and fear. It just wasn’t possible.
She raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her. There would be no more ghostly whispers, laughter, or weeping tonight.
If there were, then she had definitely let her sorrow drive her crazy.
* * *
“Don’t you want to listen to it?” Alex asked, plopping down on one of the queen size beds in their hotel room and breaking out his laptop. He plugged in the digital recorder and began downloading the EVP they had captured.
“No,” Ian replied quietly, his thoughts elsewhere as he started unpacking his suitcase. He pulled out his toothbrush and toothpaste and stared down at them for a long moment, distracted.
So Fell The Sparrow Page 8