So Fell The Sparrow

by Katie Jennings

  He scowled. “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t. It’s not who I am.”

  “Then who are you? Hell, we’ve been friends for years and I feel like I hardly know you, Jackie. You’re like these spirits you spend so much time obsessing over. Hollow and nonexistent.”

  Tears of anger sprang into her eyes at his words. “How dare you.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You don’t like to talk about your past.” He turned away and went to his dresser where his fix lay waiting. He began to prepare the needle as he spoke again. “Whatever. Why don’t you go find a ghost to keep you company? You always preferred that.”

  She stared at his back, at the tanned skin, the dark tattoos threaded between the scar tissue of pain long past, the length of messy black hair. He had been her crutch in many ways for so many years, her fallback when she craved an anchor. She knew she had abused the kindness he once showed her, the trust he placed in her.

  But the truth was she had to be free.

  At that moment, however, she needed comfort. Comfort he couldn’t give. Grace’s dark grief plagued her even though she hadn’t met the woman that died. It was the sort of heavy emotion that blasted through her weakened veil and infiltrated her senses, masking anything she may have felt of her own.

  There was only one person who could distract her from the pain. Though she knew she would regret going to him and leading him on, she didn’t care. He would just have to deal with the future when it came. Until then, she needed him.

  She left without a word and fled the house. When she reached the hotel room where Alex and Ian were staying, she knocked lightly on the door and rested her palm over the painted white surface, praying he answered. Praying he was alone.

  Alex opened the door, the soft light of the nightstand lamp glowing yellow behind him. The television was on though he looked like he had been asleep.

  “Hey.” He smiled sleepily, pleased to see her. “Is everything okay?”

  Jackie nodded and stepped into the room when he shifted out of the way. “Where’s Ian?”

  “Went to see Grace a couple of hours ago. Not back yet.” He stretched his arms over his head and settled down on the side of the bed. “You sure you’re all right? You look upset.”

  She let out a soft sigh but met his eyes assuredly. “I’m fine. Now.”

  Without hesitation, she moved forward and cupped his face in her hands, lowering her lips to his. She kissed him lightly, sweetly, running her fingers through his waves of sandy hair. She breathed in the warm scent of his soap, of the beer he must have had before bed, of the minty toothpaste he used. She welcomed it all, everything he was, letting it be her refuge.

  He was so kind, so gentle. Unlike anyone she had ever known. No wonder she felt such reprieve in his presence. He had this calming way about him that chased away the demons in her mind, making them cower in the corner like the horrors that they were.

  When she was with him there was no suffering. There was only Alex.

  His hands came up to grasp her waist, and the quiet strength of them sent her mind reeling with wild ideas. She felt all the grief, the pain, the tragedy slip away like grains of sand, lost to the brilliant spark of desire that replaced it. She brought her legs up and around him as she climbed into his lap, never breaking the kiss. Instead, she held on to him like a lifeline, absorbing the feel of his touch and the taste of his mouth. That was all that mattered now.

  “Jackie…” He let her push him back onto the bed, his eyes finding hers. The intensity she saw in them sent shivers down her spine and a beautiful ache bloomed within her heart.

  She placed a fingertip against his lips to quiet him, a slow smile curving over her own. Her hands slid under his shirt and urged it off him, revealing the warm skin underneath. She undid the dress she wore, lifting it over her head effortlessly to toss it aside.

  He took in the beauty of her body, still in disbelief that this was even real. That she was real. Surely, he would wake up and this would all be some incredible dream. It didn’t seem possible that she could be there with him as the rain poured like misery outside and his whole future seemed so damn uncertain.

  But she was. And he realized he had to make the most of this moment before she changed her mind and slipped away. Away from Mad Rock Harbor, from Massachusetts. Away from his life like some dandelion swept off by the wind. He had to prove that he could be good enough for her. That he was enough for her.

  Having no words, she relieved them both of what remained of their clothes. Her eyes held his as she took him inside of her, and her head fell back with this unbelievable sense of relief.

  As he rose up to wrap her in his arms and claim her mouth with his, she gave in to the wonderful, blissful feeling of coming home.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In the days that followed Nellie’s death, Grace noticed the change that fell over the house. It darkened the shadows, chilled the air, and inspired unknown things to mysteriously go bump in the night.

  She would be lying if she said it didn’t terrify her. Suddenly accepting the reality of the paranormal had done a number on her psyche, only made worse by the uptick in activity she experienced. The spirits knew they had her undivided attention, and they had no qualms about exploiting it.

  What was a girl to do? Keep living, she supposed. And ignore the problem until it refused to be ignored. She was powerless to combat the spirits, and too emotionally exhausted to try.

  The medical examiner said it was cardiac arrest that took Nellie from her. Grace couldn’t argue with the practicality of that conclusion, but it certainly didn’t make the pain any less horrid. Nellie, much like Grace’s parents, had been so full of life. Grace had learned long ago that just because life was perfect didn’t mean death wasn’t waiting patiently right around the corner.

  Like the little boy who had died on her operating table. Or Sally, who Jackie claimed had fallen to her death from the second-floor balcony. An accident caused by a faulty stair rail. An accident that had taken Sally away from her parents, just like Grace’s parents had been taken from her. Perhaps that was why she felt so strongly connected to the girl. They were both lost and lonely, orphans not just in life, but in death.

  Ian respected her desire to remain alone for a while, though he did call to check on her occasionally. He, Alex, and Jackie were busy at work digging up more information on the house, interviewing those whose family history was tied to the town, and poring over every last scrap of documentation they could find. They hoped to find out more about Ray and his poor daughter Mercy, both as supplemental research for their investigation and for Grace’s sake.

  One thing that did turn up at the house of an estranged, distant relative of the Sullivans was Mercy’s diary, worn and faded with time. Apparently, it was picked up by the relative right around the time that Mercy disappeared, and then forgotten among a library full of books that were rarely read.

  Ian said the diary detailed much of the physical and emotional abuse that Mercy had endured at the hands of her father, far worse than anything they could have imagined. Mercy wrote that her father blamed her for her mother’s death, that grief had driven him to madness. Though Mercy suggested that evil had always existed in his heart, it took a tragedy to unleash its full fury.

  Ian wouldn’t let Grace read the diary, for which she was grateful. She already felt bad enough for Sally…she didn’t have it in her to mourn over Mercy, too.

  Then he told her that Jackie believed the body in the basement—the one Grace still didn’t want to believe was there—belonged to Mercy. Though he didn’t say anything else, Grace knew he was itching to take shovels to the dirt beneath the stairs and find out for sure.

  Something in the back of her mind screamed that it was a bad idea to disturb the basement floor, as if doing so would release even more darkness into the house. She wasn’t sure if it was just her own paranoia, or if it was Sally influencing her. Either way, she wasn’t ready to allow them the chance. Not yet. May
be not ever.

  As the days turned into a week, and the weeks into two, Grace slowly grew impatient. Impatient for what, she wasn’t sure. But there was something that needed to happen that wasn’t occurring, and it was causing her sleepless nights and fits of helpless anxiety.

  She thought it had something to do with Nellie, though the woman was settled and buried now. Her sister Nora took care of the funeral and Grace managed to attend. She hovered in the background, struggling through cold sweats and panic attacks as images of her parents’ funeral plagued her. It was like reliving that awful day all over again.

  Then she went home, picked up her cello and played out the pain.

  Sally was most interactive with her when she played and part of her craved the company. It still frightened her, but she grew used to the sensation of spirit energy caressing her skin, pulling her hair, laughing hollowly on some otherworldly wavelength of sound.

  In other parts of the house, Sally was harder to find. Grace sensed that the girl was often chased away by the darker spirits that resided there, the ones that must have come from the basement. The ones she had unknowingly released when she had the antique furniture brought upstairs, only to witness it deteriorate before her very eyes with each passing day.

  She looked down at the sofa now, shaking her head at the sight of it. The beautiful fabric was completely faded, with splitting tears and cigarette burns and stains marring its surface. The wooden coffee table and end tables were cracking, as though water damaged, their glossy surfaces peeling and bubbling. The lamp shades over the antique lamps were tearing, the threads of the fabric frayed and weathered.

  The grandfather clock Grace so admired had ceased to operate. Even though she’d disabled the gong weeks earlier, the hands no longer moved and the quiet ticking sound disappeared. Deep scratches appeared down its wooden face as if carved by a knife. How could someone have damaged such a beautiful clock?

  Now that the spirits no longer needed their vessels, they began to crumble.

  She had yet to point out this phenomenon to the others. From the beginning, it had been her secret. Her personal evidence of the paranormal that almost seemed too odd to be real. She’d never heard of ghosts inhabiting inanimate objects before, but surely there was no other explanation for what she was witnessing with her own eyes.

  And as long as she wasn’t crazy, which she was still hoping she wasn’t, then that left ghosts as the only explanation.

  She laughed at herself, though it wasn’t with humor. It was just so beautifully ironic that she would find herself attributing something to ghosts. To the paranormal. To what she, for a lifetime, convinced herself was make-believe.

  She knew better now.

  It occurred to her that maybe it was time to bring back the others, to show them the furniture and finally take action to rid the house of the bad spirits. After all, it appeared she was going to be staying longer than initially planned, so better to improve the house rather than let it deteriorate.

  She decided to call Ian after she took a shower. Hopefully, he and Alex would have some idea of what to do now.

  As she closed herself inside the bathroom, she slipped out of the robe she wore and turned on the shower at full heat. She wanted the steam to cleanse her of the past. In an hour, she may fall back into her weakened, anxious self, but until then, she was determined to save the house.

  Save her house.

  As she washed her hair, she imagined playing the cello and let the music in her head soothe her. She began to hum, smiling as she popped open the conditioner and poured a dab onto her palm.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something dark moving beyond the gauzy shower curtain. It scampered along the floor like an animal hunched over on two legs. She hovered, frozen with fear, her eyes glued to the shadow.

  She had seen it before. In fact, it seemed to enjoy bothering her while she bathed. That didn’t make it any less terrifying when it showed up again and again, never truly showing itself to her, only existing as this mirage through the curtain.

  On impulse, she threw open the curtain, like she always did, and the creature was gone. Vanished into thin air, as though it had never existed in the first place.

  She found her breath and gulped in air like a starving woman gorges on bread. Her body shook with uncontrollable tremors, and she knew then that her decision to bring back the others was the right one. How much longer could she go on living like this? Exposing herself to this evil that had every intention of messing with her mind, terrifying her into a cowering mess of fear?

  No more. She was going to start fighting back. Starting with leaving the curtain open from now on.

  * * *

  Alex hunched over his laptop, giant headphones covering his ears. He listened intently to the audio captured by one of the static cameras during their stay at the Sparrow House. It was the camera that had been in Grace’s bedroom, and though he hadn’t expected to hear much of anything, it was turning out to be one of the most active recordings they had gotten.

  Not only had they captured a little girl’s laughter and singing voice, the audio also picked up delicate footsteps and faint whimpering sounds. He had a notepad before him with all the times marked down and he scratched his chin as he penciled in a new one.

  At 3:08 a.m., a menacing growling sound penetrated the silence. Alex paused the recording and rewound, his eyes searching the video feed to see if anything visual had been captured. He spotted the vague outline of a shadowy figure in the corner of the room, shifting side-to-side like a boxer ready to fight.

  “Oh, shit.” His right hand shot out to slap around the nearby bed for Ian, his eyes not leaving the screen. He made contact with Ian’s shoulder and vaguely heard him grunt through the heavy headphones. “You have to see this, man.”

  With a sigh, Ian shut off the television and rolled over, nudging Alex out of the way. He lifted the headphones off Alex’s ears and propped them onto his own. “What am I looking at?”

  “Look in the corner,” Alex instructed, rewinding the recording back. When he hit play, his eyes honed in on Ian’s face, eager to see his reaction. He wasn’t disappointed.

  Ian’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Shit.” Alex grinned, slapping his friend on the back. “We hit the mother lode.”

  “What time did this happen?”

  “A little after three. Why?” Alex reached around for a bag of chips, popping a few in his mouth.

  Ian looked sick to his stomach. “Grace was sleeping right there as that thing hovered in the corner.”

  Alex frowned. “Yikes. Hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Damnit.” Mind reeling, Ian shot to his feet and ran his hands through his hair restlessly. He paced the floor, gathering his thoughts, creating an action plan. “I should tell her. But if I do, she’s going to be terrified.”

  “Maybe she should be terrified. That could be the thing Jackie keeps seeing at the house. I didn’t realize it went into Grace’s room.”

  “None of us did. We thought that room was safe.” Ian walked up to the wall and slammed his fist against it. “I’ve given her enough fucking space. I’m going back over there.”

  “I don’t know if she’s ready.”

  “She’s going to have to be ready,” Ian declared, shrugging into his black leather jacket impatiently. “Can you send that video to my phone? I want to show her.”

  “Seriously, don’t show her this,” Alex pleaded, reaching over to close his laptop.

  “She deserves the truth.” Ian stood resolute, eyes intense. “Just send it to me, okay?”

  Alex sighed. “Okay. But she isn’t going to be happy.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not happy either,” Ian growled, grasping at his hair again. “The woman is driving me insane by keeping me out. This is one of the hottest paranormal locations we’ve ever investigated—she even admits it now—and she still won’t let us back in.”

  “Her friend died, cut her s
ome slack.” Alex reopened his laptop and tapped away at the keys, preparing the video to send off to Ian’s phone.

  Ian knew Alex was right, but he was determined to free her from her pain, if only for the sake of the investigation. And because he cared about her. A lot. He rubbed at his face, scared of the way he couldn’t stop thinking about her. The lines of her face, the storms of her eyes, the cynicism of her smile. She wouldn’t let him go.

  All the more reason to get back over there and rid her house of the bad spirits. Then he could go back to Seattle and leave all this behind. She could get back to her life in Chicago, and maybe they could email each other once in a while.

  Or not. He didn’t want it to matter.

  His phone went off in his pocket, and he glanced at the caller ID as he pulled it out. When he saw her name, his pride crumbled fantastically to pieces.

  “Hey, Doc.”

  “Hey. I need you to come back. Bring the arsenal. There’s something strange in the neighborhood, and I’m calling in the Ghostbusters.”

  Despite everything, he broke out laughing. “Only if you sing the song.”

  “Fat chance. Now hurry up and get over here before they eat me.”

  She hung up before he could respond and he felt his humor fade to dread at her words. The spirit they captured hovering in the corner of her bedroom looked ready to hurt her, giving him second thoughts about showing her the video.

  It may be the one thing that caused her to snap in two, forever broken. Forever afraid.

  * * *

  Grace tossed her cell phone on the kitchen counter, feeling edgy. She paced back and forth for a moment, her stomach fluttering with nerves.

  This had to be the right decision, she told herself. Because once she brought them back into the house, there would be no turning back. No more alone time, no more ignoring the obvious threats plaguing her house. She was ready to face it all without fear.

  At least she hoped so.

  When she heard a knocking on the front door, her first thoughts were of Ian, though she knew it wasn’t possible for him to be at the house so fast. She shook off the jittery nerves she felt and went to the door.