by Kim Hornsby
“I hear you,” Eve said. “Is that your name? Carrie?”
Eve must’ve gotten something on her microphone. I heard nothing as I inched around the door to the hallway.
“Carrie? Or Mary? Are you with me?”
We waited. Carlos was now closer to Eve, his monitor clicking frantically.
It was like fishing, in some regards, all this waiting, hoping, then a tug and off you go.
“We mean you no harm. Are you troubled or stuck here?” Eve’s voice was high, her words fast. “Ouch! Don’t do that.” Her steps shuffled up the stairs. “Someone pinched me.”
I couldn’t get to the stairs fast enough to help but put my hand out for the wall and moved along. “Carlos?”
“I’m on it,” he said. “Evie, let me see.”
Seconds passed while I waited for words to hear she was fine.
“She pinched my arm,” Eve said. “Carrie, I know you’re here with us. Can you tell me if that’s your name?”
Silence.
Finally, Carlos spoke. “You have a big mark where she got you.”
“No pinching, Carrie,” I said. “You’ll have to find a way to contact us without hurting us or we leave.”
Our policy was that if a ghost was violent, we called it, gathered our information, and made a new plan. If it was a minor attack, we went back in based on what we knew. “Back up here, please,” I said to Carlos and Eve. Once I’d even been inhabited by a ghost in an old Victorian house. That was freaky-ass cool, and only cool because the bad entity eventually left me, and we exorcised her from the house. When she was inside me though, I’d felt her sorrow and frustration of being murdered and buried in the wall of a house under construction.
I heard Jim clear his throat, now close to me at the entrance to the hall.
“Jim, has she ever hurt anyone before?”
“Not that I know of. Well, there was that time my girlfriend had bruises she couldn’t explain after working the bar.”
A pinch wasn’t bad but if this Carrie was intent on hurting, we had to be careful. That was a whole different investigation when ghosts got through to perform physical damage.
While talking in the hall, the door to the basement suddenly slammed shut. Carlos’ meter was going off frantically and Jim yelled.
“I see her.”
I stood near Jim but felt nothing. Until the ghost passed through me, leaving me feeling frozen and desolate. “She just went through me,” I said.
Then Jim felt something cold on his neck. “She touched my neck! It was frozen like . . .”
“Has she ever touched you before?” I asked him.
“Never. It felt like a popsicle on my neck. Very cold.”
“Can you still see her?”
“No,” Jim said, his voice reflecting the fact he was either shaking from fright or shivering from the popsicle touch.
Carlos’ meter was slowing, telling me that the ghost had left. “She’s gone,” he said.
“Carrie, are you still here,” Eve asked.
We listened and I heard a jingle from the next room. “Where’s Jim?” I asked.
Eve told me that Jim now stood by the door, looking ready to go. I’d heard his keys jingle.
One last ditch effort had me asking for more. “Breaking through like that is much better than pinching,” I said. “Thank you for messaging us.”
Ten minutes later, we called it.
As we headed towards the restaurant’s front door, my hand on Eve’s shoulder in front of me, I had a strong sense that told me to turn around. It was the first time I’d felt anything remotely like this in months. I wasn’t going to ignore it.
“Just a sec,” I said. Carlos and Jim were up ahead talking. I turned and cocked my head, wondering what this was about or if I’d dreamed up this request to look back. My eyes were open wide, even though I had no reason to expect I’d see anything. But I did.
The room was dark, almost wavy like it was underwater, but I could make out the configuration of the tables, the bar on my left, the depth of the room, pictures on the walls, and the doorway to the restaurant part we’d just come from. In less than a second, I saw all this.
And something more. My vision settled, and I saw clearly in the dim light as the figure of a person disappeared around the doorway to the restaurant.
“Hello?” I said.
Eve was behind me, ushering the men outside.
“Do you want me to see you?” I whispered. I continued to stare at the doorway into the stage room, my sight leaving me. Soon, all I saw was the blackness I was becoming accustomed to. The apparition was gone and with it, my ability to see. But I had seen the bar, even the photo of a car on the wall to my right.
“Eve?” I turned and headed towards the door, now knowing that nothing stood in my way if I stayed on the carpet runner.
“Did something happen?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said, not wanting to share my news yet. Not trusting that it happened.
“Did you see a young woman wearing a long white dress?” she said.
That was the thing. What I saw was not a woman in white. My ghost was a man. A man with long hair and if I wasn’t mistaken, he wore a suit jacket with tails.
My ghost looked more like a pirate.
Chapter 6
This was a huge game changer. I’d seen something. Yes, it was fuzzy and dark, but I saw the ghost of a man disappear around the corner and presumably down those few stairs from the bar into the restaurant.
I fricking saw something!
As someone trying to come to terms with the black hole in front of my face, this was monumental. I didn’t tell the others. Instead, as soon as we stepped outside, I made a decision. I asked for a few moments alone in the building. Everyone but me left the building and as they stood talking on the sidewalk, I went back into the restaurant and clicked the door closed, shutting out my companions. I was ready to play hard ball. I needed this ghost. The man I saw wasn’t Harry who had a slight build and blonde hair.
I walked a few steps forward, now knowing what my terrain looked like.
“I saw you just now. Come forward, you coward, and present yourself.” Challenging words like this might appeal to the ghost’s sense of manliness, honor, and swagger. I didn’t know. I was winging it. “Don’t hide like a coward!” I said forcefully. “I saw you.” I stood my ground, holding my breath, hoping with everything I had that somehow, I’d get through to the other side. That the spirit could hear me, and it wasn’t just my imagination fooling me into thinking I’d seen not only the layout of the bar and restaurant, but I’d seen a man ducking through the doorway, his coattails swinging as he hastily retreated.
I carefully walked towards where I knew the doorway to the stage room was, felt for the edge and descended the four stairs into the restaurant. “I know you’re in here. Show yourself.” The vision in front of me was total blackness, a scene I’d come to know well. Still, I kept my eyes wide, looking around the room for anything to show me that I hadn’t imagined what I’d just seen through my eyes.
Taking two steps forward, I bumped into something and my hand went out to feel the back of a chair. I clutched it with both hands. “Please, whoever you are, I need to see you again.” Should I throw everything out there, just in case?
“My husband and I were in an accident that took his life. And took my sight. I seem to have lost my former ability to speak to ghosts, to draw in spirits.” The room was deathly quiet. “But, I just saw you. Or, I think I did. Now, I’m not sure.” I was rambling, but if the ghost was listening, I figured it didn’t hurt to lay everything out on the table. “I saw you, a man in a long dark coat, and you wore boots. You have dark hair. You moved quickly as if you didn’t want to be seen, but I need to see you.” Hot tears burned my eyes. “I want to know there’s hope. Please show yourself.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and waited.
Soon, I heard the restaurant’s door open quietly in the next room.
Footsteps I knew to be Eve’s crossed to the top of the stairs.
“Bryn? Where are you?”
“I thought I heard something and came in here,” I lied. I would keep my secret for now. “We can go.”
Quietly, she approached and took my elbow to help me up the stairs. We walked silently through the bar and out the door to the night’s cold air.
“I wanted to give it another small effort. Without equipment.” I’d done this before and my fellow investigators knew that this worked sometimes.
“Ready now?” Carlos asked softly.
“I am. Jim,” I said, addressing our client, “we’ll get back to you in the next few days after we’ve had a chance to analyze all the data.”
“Jim left five minutes ago,” Eve said. “He said to tell you thank you.”
I might have been embarrassed talking to someone who wasn’t present, but I was learning to get over these moments. With my crew, at least. “Let’s head home then,” I said and waited for Eve to give me her arm to lead me back to The Marshmallow.
“I’d like to do a second investigation here in the next week or two. Pinching is troublesome.” I slipped into the passenger seat, clicked my seat belt closed and heard Carlos enter the back of the van where he’d be busy on the drive home, checking our footage and playing back the findings on his meters. He had a desk area back there, like some FBI surveillance agent.
Thinking about what I’d seen in the bar made my heart feel lighter, like I’d just had very good news. Being able to see the bar, the pictures on the walls, the groups of tables and chairs, the liquor bottles behind the bar, it was heady, as if I’d had a glimpse into the future and things were looking better. Did I get my vision? If I got my psychic sight back, I might be able to communicate somehow with Harry. It was a long shot but would be something to keep me going at night when I mourned the death of my best friend and lover. I so wanted a sign from my Harry.
I spoke from the passenger seat with more vigor than I’d had recently. “Good job everyone. Is it sore where she pinched?”
“Carlos, shine a light over here. I want to see if she left a mark,” Eve said from the drivers’ seat beside me, holding out her arm. “Yes, it’s sore.”
A few seconds passed. I waited and then, “Whoa! That’s a good one,” Carlos said.
“What is it?” Someday their descriptions would come without me asking.
“I have a bruise,” Eve said, “the size of a silver dollar, not much, but verification that I was pinched.”
In the joy of having seen something through my eyes just now, I’d forgotten that the ghost made a very nasty crossover from being passive to harming Eve. It was never good when they communicated this way and both my crew knew this. “What were you saying just before she pinched?” I asked.
“We might have to play it back,” Eve said.
“I remember.” Carlos had a photographic memory, something that was very handy. “You asked her if she was Mary or Carrie.
“Maybe she hates being called by the wrong name,” I said. “It was vindictive, whatever the case.”
“Whoa!” Carlos said. “Listen to this Bryn!” He put the headphones on me and I heard a static voice speak. “My love,” it sounded like.
“That’s just before Jim yells and runs away,” Carlos said.
“What is it?” Eve asked, now driving.
“I’m pretty sure Jim’s ghost said “be careful, my love” just before she touched his neck. Is that what it sounded like to you, Carlos?”
“Si, that was what I thought, too.”
“Do you think the ghost is in love with Jim?” Eve asked. “That’s so romantic to think that a ghost is in love with an Alive. Unrequited love and forbidden love all in one bundle.”
“Have you ever heard of that, Bryn? Where a ghost falls for an Alive?” Carlos’ voice was close.
“I have. It’s not unheard of when a ghost is rattling around a house and becomes enamored with its captor, so to speak.” I wasn’t sure if that was what we had, but Jim’s girlfriend had bruises.
“If that’s the case,” Carlos added, “Jim is going to have to break up carefully with this ghost if she’s a pincher who can slam doors.” He laughed but I didn’t. We might have a jealous ghost on our hands and that was never easy. Or fun.
We turned onto highway I-90 and sped back to Seattle, the van going up to seventy miles per hour, a cruising speed that scared me for good reason. My facial scar twinged. The cut on my face was something I was trying very hard to ignore. My lack of sight helped me not to see it but periodically, Frankenscar hurt.
“I wonder why she told Jim to be careful.” We’d completely ignored that part of the ghost’s message.
“If she loves him, maybe she fears he’ll marry his girlfriend or something,” Carlos offered from the back of the van.
Eve touched my left shoulder. “I know you felt something back there, Bryn. What was it?”
Did I need to keep this from them? Probably not, but I wasn’t ready to release my news to the world just yet. “I had a thought, more than a feeling, that if I was alone in the room, I might appeal to the ghost, seeing she pinched you and obviously had some animosity towards you.” That much was true.
“What did you say?”
It was selfish, but I didn’t want to train Eve to do what I did. If she knew all my tricks to summon spirits, it diminished my worth and even though I was not worth much right now as a paranormal investigator, I was worth more than I was an hour ago.
“I said that I understood her pinching you. Sometimes you’re a pain in the ass.”
Luckily, they laughed at my feeble attempt at a joke.
**
Two days later, on the way to the Oregon coast, I realized that if my mother found out Eve’s ability to contact spirits was up and running, she would summon her to Mrs. G’s house sometime soon. “By the way, Eve,” I said. “Rachel will be on you like a hungry tiger when she finds out you have felt spirits, so keep that secret under your hat. Don’t tell her anything unless you want to be used and abused,” I cautioned.
“Too late,” Eve said from the backseat of The Marshmallow. “She called last night, and we got talking. She asked if you’d picked up on anything at Mrs. G’s and I misheard her and told her I hadn’t felt anything. I’d need to be inside the house.”
I groaned. “Is that where you went last night?” Eve had gone out and I assumed she had a social life. Or at least girlfriends to hang out with like any normal twenty-four year old.
“Bryn, I think Mrs. Giovanni was murdered.”
Carlos whistled from the driver’s seat in admiration.
“What makes you say that?” I didn’t want to block a murder investigation, I just didn’t want to work with my mother on one.
“We went in the bedroom and I felt it.” Eve sounded almost frightened to tell me.
“What did you feel?”
“I sensed that Mrs. Giovanni was forced to do something.”
“Her daughter?”
“No, someone else. A dude. I don’t know.”
“Did you tell my mother this?” Rachel was dating a cop and I was sure she’d be foaming at the mouth about this to her new boyfriend.
“I did. I haven’t spoken to Aunt Rachel since last night. I’m sorry I went all undercover.” Eve’s voice was small inside the big noisy van.
“You should have told me, Eve. Just because I didn’t get anything doesn’t mean she wasn’t murdered. I’m glad you helped. What did my mother say she was going to do with this new information?” I was curious.
“No idea, but she looked like a werewolf during a full moon when I left.”
I was tempted to call my mother but didn’t want anything to ruin our day of discovery at Cove House. “I’ll call her tomorrow. I’m sure she’s pleading her case with the boyfriend cop right now.”
Of course, it was raining when we pulled up to Cove House. March on the Oregon coast wasn’t known for sunshine. It wasn’t drizz
ling either but teeming sideways like the world was coming to an end. The wind off the ocean was driving the rain to hit the van door noisily. That’s how I knew it was raining sideways because it wasn’t until I asked what the weather looked like that Eve supplied the bad news we would get drenched when we walked from the van to the front door.
“Carlos, get the bumbershoot,” I said. “I’m not sure the clothes dryer in the house works yet.” We’d brought clothes and food, enough for a few days, but still, I wanted to keep as dry as possible on the walk in. After all, I couldn’t run up the stairs to avoid the downpour. I still had to take my steps carefully.
“According to the house specs there’s a laundry room with washer and dryer off the back veranda,” Eve said. “But who knows if it’s hooked up.”
I didn’t know. But I had a feeling we’d all know soon enough. We hadn’t yet spent a night at Cove House, having decided last time we were here that we needed to bring clean sheets for the beds. Once we’d finished with the bloody bedroom investigation, our little group had headed back to Floatville for the night.
“I’m parking The Marshmallow as close to the house as I can without driving on the grass.” Carlos said.
“There is a rectangle of lawn, about thirty feet deep with a sidewalk leading from this driveway’s ending,” Eve said.
“I’ve got a perfectly functioning hood on my coat,” I said. “You guys take the umbrella.”
“Carlos has the megabrella and we can all fit underneath,” Eve said. “Let’s take those wooden stairs slowly. They might be slick.”
Harry had given me deck shoes once as a joke because Floatville never left the dock. We weren’t sure how seaworthy our house was even though it had a motor at the back if we ever needed to move it. This morning, I’d considered wearing them, but I’d gone with my Frye boots and a raincoat with a hood. I reached back to pull the thing over my spiked hair. Although lately I’d traded in my signature teal blue spiked hairdo for something more easily controlled, today I was full of hope and had transformed to Moody by styling my hair in signature spikes by applying gel to the top and pulling the ends to make them stand up. My hair was part of my brand and Carlos would undoubtedly pull out the camera and start filming today. I didn’t want to look like Bryndle, the normal person, if that happened. Before we’d left Floatville, I’d asked Eve if I did a good job, before the gel dried.