Ghost Huntress 5 - The Discovery

by Gibson, Marley

  He kisses the top of my hair. "Me too, Kendall. Me too. At least I'm closer, you know? Could be worse. I could still be in Tampa."

  I bury my face in his chest. "I don't want to think about it."

  His finger moves under my chin and he lifts my face to his. We meet in a sweet breath of a kiss that sends a volt of current all the way down my legs. He nibbles on my bottom lip and I sigh as I dissolve into his kiss. So soft. So tender. So sexy. And with our mind connection, I know what he's thinking too.

  So cute.

  So much fun.

  So ... mine.

  "You're mine too," I say when we break for air.

  Patrick stretches his arm to push me away. "You. Stay right there or I'll never leave. And I'll flunk out of school and not get into a good college and have to work a minimum-wage job just to pay the bills and it will all be your fault 'cause you didn't let me leave."

  I burst into giggles and take two steps backwards.

  "See you Friday, cutie." And then he winks.

  "It's going to be a long-ass week."

  He slips into the car, rolls the window down, and cranks the engine. "I know, but you're tough and you can do it."

  I pout. "DNA testing on top of this whole Xander the Doll thing?"

  "Neither of which you can control," he says. I hear the gear shift into reverse. "Take care of my girl."

  I kiss my fingertips, extend my fingers, and blow at him. He catches the kiss and puts it on his heart. Awww ... swoooooon!

  "Call me when you get home," I shout as he turns around in our gravel driveway.

  You know I will.

  And then his little black car drives out of sight.

  I walk back into the house and shut the front door behind me, and Mom steps out of the den, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She beams a smile at me and then walks over to hug me.

  "I like this one," she says. "He has his head on right."

  "I like this one too."

  "And don't you worry about the DNA testing. I've got it set up for Wednesday at my office. It'll be quick and easy and I'll be there with you."

  "Thanks, Mom," I say, hugging her back.

  "Now scoot upstairs and get your homework done. I'm sure you've put it off all weekend."

  I look up at the ceiling, feigning innocence.

  "I know you so well, Kendall."

  "Love ya; mean it!"

  "I know you do, sweetie."

  Patrick's right. Mom's right. It'll be okay.

  The breeze blows my hair, loosening the curls I spent an hour with the curling iron to shape.

  Becca's somewhere nearby spinning a mix of Deadmau5 and Armin van Buuren into a funky House beat that has my foot tapping ... or maybe that's my heart beating like crazy.

  Anxiety surrounds me.

  Unease trips me over my feet.

  Suddenly, the music stops. Blackness surrounds me. I'm moving through a dark tunnel. Whispered fingers of a spider's web tickle my face in an invisible snare. I swat around left and right to free myself of the entanglement, only to stumble on the stairs leading down, down, down—into what?

  A growl sounds out. Not exactly demonic in nature. More like in annoyance at being disturbed. A cry. A shout. Piercing blackness with nowhere to go.

  My hands feel in front of me looking for anything to grab hold of.

  Nothing.

  Cold air.

  A stream of light from an unknown source.

  A figure near the floor in the shape of a boy.

  No, not a boy. A doll.

  It's Xander.

  He laughs at me. Hard. A cackle that resounds off the clay walls of the deep cave. I cover my ears with my hands, pressing hard, hard, hard, yet I can still hear his shrieking chortle.

  "You can't stop me," he hisses.

  Snap.

  I'm out of the cave and moving with great speed down the hallway at Radisson High. Xander is there. In the hallway. In the lunchroom. In my history class. Then he's standing at the corner of the square, downtown. He's waiting for me when I come down the stairs for breakfast.

  "What do you want from me?" I scream to the doll. A doll that is preserved in a museum case, I remind myself. "What? What do you freaking want from me?"

  His button eyes glare at me. Waves of hatred swirl around him.

  "I'm not the one who did anything! I didn't break the rule or tempt the curse."

  Farah's cheesy pictures that are plastered all over her Facebook site flutter by like turning pages. Jim. Farah. Sean. Dragon. All of them. Stupid pics and poses with a doll. The hits on the Like button soar into the thousands.

  Is everyone crazy? God knows I feel like I am!

  Anona appears through the mayhem, her eyes conveying concern.

  "You can do nothing to stop it."

  "Stop what?" I beg to know.

  "They brought it on themselves."

  "Are you telling me this curse is real, Anona?"

  Xander the Doll is at her feet staring at me with those eyes until suddenly he blinks and blood pours from his eye sockets and—

  "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

  My scream is more muffled than it sounds in my head.

  As I flail about, sheets and blankets fly, as do Natalie, Buckley, and Eleanor, who are curled up on the bed. Eleanor meows her displeasure and hops down with a grunt. Buckley readjusts, and Natalie jumps over to the chair with Sonoma the Bear. My chest rises and falls with each labored breath and I pray hard that God will slow my heart down to a reasonable rate and not one in need of medication.

  What. The. H ell. Was. That. All. About?

  As I struggle to breathe like a normal person, I reach forward and tug my gray and white cat Buckley into my lap. He's sound asleep again, so he doesn't fight me. He just lightly purrs as I hug, pet, and kiss him. There's something calm and soothing about petting a kitty cat that returns blood pressure to normal levels without Lipitor or Crestor or anything else that ends with a -tor. Actually, those are for cholesterol, I think, but it doesn't matter right now.

  I've had ridonkulous dreams before, but this one was chilling. So real, too. The earthy smell of the damp clay tunnel remains in my olfactory system. I scratch at my face even now to rid it of the phantom spider web. And that damn doll with the button eyes. What was that all about? No good can come from having any association with a story as mucked up as that of the Farnsworths with their Haitian slave nanny, sixteen children, voodoo protective charms, and God knows what else. I don't know if I'm up for this one.

  Then I think of all I learned out in California on my retreat. How the spirit guides and the totem animals spoke directly to me with the message that I have to use my gift to help others. It's my duty in life to find and guide lost souls. I cannot fear. Oliver told me so. Loreen tells me so. Father Mass tells me so. Mom tells me so and even cross-stitched this Bible verse into a throw pillow for me:

  Fear not, for I am with you;

  be not dismayed, for I am your God;

  I will strengthen you, I will help you,

  I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

  —Isaiah 41:10

  My eyes lift to the ceiling and I pray with all of my might. "Lord, I'm really gonna need your strength on this one if it's as bad as I think it's going to be. Amen."

  Chapter Six

  WEDNESDAY AFTER SCHOOL, I head to Mom's office.

  "I can't do this, Kendall," Mom says as she puts down the syringe.

  I slouch in the chair at the doctor's office and glance down at my left arm. The blue rubber band is knotted on my upper arm and my hand is balled into a fist. Mom was this close to puncturing me with the needle before she chickened out.

  She flips off the tight plastic gloves and stacks them on the table in surrender. "I can't hurt my baby like this."

  "Mom, please—"

  "I can't do it, Kendall."

  "Mom, you do this every day to other people's babies," I say, a bit snarkily. I just want this over and done with. N
eedles are not my friend and I totally gag whenever I watch my own blood drain into those little glass vials. If my mom does it, though, at least I'll know it's being done with love.

  "That's different," she says. "Don't you remember? I cried when you got your ears pierced. I can't cause you pain."

  I snicker at the memory of my sitting at the Earring Pagoda in the mall as Mom was over in the corner crying. Bless her little heart.

  She reaches over and releases the rubber band meant to help with the blood flow.

  "Mom, we have to get this done. Andi Caminiti agreed to the test. I can't be the one to back out."

  Mom flattens her lips together. "Bernadette, can you come here?"

  A tall African American woman dressed in white with fantastic braids past her shoulders comes around the corner. "Yes, Sarah?"

  Mom indicates the labwork form on the desk. "This is my daughter Kendall. We need to pull vials of blood to send off for a DNA test."

  Bernadette smiles warmly at me. I shift my eyes to my mother and then roll them a bit. Bernadette totally gets it.

  "And you can't stick your own baby. I understand. Move aside."

  The nurse reties the blue rubber band and instructs me to make a fist. Before I know it, the shiny needle pricks my skin and slides into the vein in the crook of my arm. Oww, oww, oww. I pinch my eyes shut when I see the blood begin to fill the vial. I know this has to be done to determine if Andi and I are related, but seeing the worry painted on my mom's face almost breaks my heart.

  With my right hand, I reach out to her, and she threads her fingers in mine. I know she and Dad both support me in this effort to get closure on my birth parents. However, I know they fear losing me. I clutch her hand tightly to let her know how much I appreciate her—as well as to fight the pain. Damn, this hurts!

  Bernadette pulls the needle out and says, "There you go, sweetheart. Let me just put a Band-Aid on that for you."

  She swabs the area with alcohol and then applies the sticky pad to my arm. I'm sure I'll have a whompus-size bruise there later today.

  "Sarah, did you get the hair-follicle samples yet?" Bernadette asks while labeling my blood.

  "Yes. They're already bagged and tagged."

  I rub at the spot at the back of my skull where the hair was plucked.

  "Now what?" I ask both my mother and Bernadette.

  "All of the samples will get packaged up in a special medical-supply envelope and left for FedEx to pick up and take to the lab in Connecticut," Bernadette explains. "It'll be a few weeks, but don't you worry." She pats my arm and returns to whatever she was doing before Mom called to her.

  "So, some scientist with a lab coat and a microscope will determine if my DNA matches up in any way with the Caminiti family."

  "That's pretty much it," Mom says with a sigh of relief.

  I finger the Band-Aid on my arm, watching a small spot of blood seep through.

  Now all I can do is wait.

  ***

  Celia's leaning against my car when I leave the doctor's office. "Everything come out all right?"

  "Yep."

  She frowns. "Get it? 'Come out all right'? 'Cuz you just had, like, blood drawn?"

  "I get it."

  "It wasn't funny, was it?" She looks sorely disappointed.

  I laugh and pat her on the shoulder. "Sorry, Cel. My mind is in ten thousand other places." The DNA test. My dream. Xander the Doll. My history paper. Everything.

  "I'm here to help," she announces. "So what are you doing your Civil War paper on?"

  "I haven't the foggiest clue. With so much going on, I haven't even thought of it yet."

  She holds up her hands. "Maybe you should write about all of our paranormal adventures and how they relate to Radisson's part in the war."

  "That's not exactly historic."

  "Just a thought." Standing tall, she says, "We have an appointment with Mr. Louis Pfeiffer to talk to him more about Farnsworth House and Xander the Doll."

  My mouth drops open. "How'd you pull that off?"

  Celia whistles for a moment and then smiles. "Let's just say that Mega-Mart has recently made a substantial charitable contribution to the preservation of Radisson's precious history."

  I smack her on the arm. "You didn't!"

  "No, I didn't. But my dad did it for me," she says through a bright grin.

  "Celia, you rawk!"

  She shrugs. "Mega-Mart needed the tax write-off." She opens my car door for me. "Shall we?"

  I grin like the Cheshire cat. "You're good."

  Ten minutes later, we're parked in the driveway of the old Farnsworth mansion, better known now as the home of the Radisson Historical Society. A very sweaty, nervous-looking Mr. Pfeiffer opens the door and greets us begrudgingly.

  "This is highly against our rules," he says flatly, not letting us through the large oak doorway that he's standing in.

  Celia crosses her arms over her chest. "Mr. Pfeiffer, I'm sure if you talk to the board and advise them of the substantial amount of money donated by Mega-Mart, they will have no problem with two innocent high school girls coming into the house, taking a look around, and writing a school paper on it."

  He steps aside.

  Score one for Celia Nichols. Girl's got backbone.

  "Is Xander the Doll here?" I ask with a bit of trepidation.

  "He is," Mr. Pfeiffer says. "He is in his room upstairs and is strictly off-limits except for special displays."

  "He's in his room?" Celia repeats.

  "The room he shared with Robert Townsend."

  "Is he still in the glass case?" I ask, just to make sure. I really don't need that doll coming to life and stalking me like he did in my dream.

  "He is indeed."

  Somewhat relieved, I let out a pent-up breath. "Thanks, Mr. Pfeiffer."

  "No pictures," he says. "And don't touch anything."

  "Yes, sir," I say politely.

  "And no—"

  "We've got it, we've got it," Celia says.

  He scurries off to another part of the house, leaving us standing in the foyer. The place is in pristine condition, with well-polished hardwood floors, expensive Chinese rugs, and detailed oil portraits of the home's former inhabitants. To the left is a formal sitting room; to the right, what looks to be a music room. We walk down the long hallway, which opens up into a huge great room with settees, chairs, sofas, tables, and a lot of marble accents scattered about. A massive fireplace with dark wood trim on the mantel dominates the room.

  "You could fit about ten people in that fireplace," Celia exclaims.

  "Or at least cook for ten people," I add.

  "Oh, they wouldn't have cooked in here. That is for warmth and entertainment. There's probably a hearth in the kitchen just as big."

  We wander through the great room and into the back, where there's a bedroom that's been turned into an office. Boxes upon boxes of papers are stacked from floor to ceiling. I recognize many of the family names we've run across in our ghost hunting: Parry and Biddison, to mention a couple. Of course, most of the boxes are labeled Farnsworth.

  Celia moves to open one of the boxes, but I stop her. "He said no touchy."

  "Yeah, but he's sweating like a prostitute in church. You think I'm going to do what he says?"

  This time I laugh extra hard. "Okay, that was funny."

  Before she opens the lid, though, I stretch my hands and wave them over the boxes, looking for something that speaks to me. A humming sound buzzes in the room like many voices whispering at once. Are ghosts of the Farnsworth family trying to tell me something?

  I touch the arm of one of the chairs, and at once my ears are filled with shrieking cries of terror and torture. Could this be the resonance of injured or beaten slaves? The tears are more childlike, though, begging Stop and Don't do it. I remove my hand as if it's been burned and shake off the contact.

  "Anything?"

  I don't want to say for sure as I can't attribute the cries, so I just say, "The usual stuf
f."

  Celia pulls her EMF detector out of her backpack and begins sweeping the room for readings.

  "Don't let him see you using that," I say.

  She nearly claps. "I've got a huge spike over in this corner."

  "There's nothing here that should really set that off."

  "I know. Are you feeling anything?"

  I point to three boxes of Farnsworth material. "I'm getting the sense that we should look through those."

  "Hmm ... how do we do that if we can't touch?" Celia asks.

  I plop down on the floor and cross my legs. "Let me see what I can pick up."

  I close my eyes and steady my breathing, letting the energy of the building flow around me. My hands hover above the boxes, palms itching as the information is nearly vacuumed into my skin.

  "I'm getting the name Phillip Farnsworth," I say. I breathe deeper and let the house's memories speak to me. My bones rattle as I begin sensing times gone by. Images flash in color and in black-and-white, fluttering through the years so long ago and letting me peek at the Civil War world of the Farnsworths'.

  With my eyes still closed, I describe what I see to Celia. "Phillip Farnsworth, the patriarch of the family, was allegedly from noble blood in Great Britain. However, he owed a ton of money to several people back in the early ... umm ... seventeen forties. Wow, that was a long time ago."

  "This is all good, Kendall," Celia says. "Keep going."

  I fill my lungs with air again and center my thoughts. The images come to me. "Farnsworth was shipped off to the penal colony of Georgia to live in debtors' prison."

  Celia giggles like a schoolgirl and I let my hands drop to my lap. "What?"

  She laughs again and says, "You said penal."

  "Oh, good God, Celia! Get serious."

  She tries her best to stop laughing. "I don't know what's gotten into me. Must be the nitrous oxide remnants from the dentist filling my cavity after school."

  "You're drugged up? Celia!"

  "I'm okay, I'm okay ... go ahead."

  I sigh hard and try to get back my connection with the old house. It takes a few minutes, but soon I'm seeing Phillip Farnsworth again, aboard the large vessel that brought him across the Atlantic Ocean to Georgia. "Okay ... here we go. Farnsworth moved from Augusta to Radisson when he won this property in a hand of poker. He had a full house. The other guy had two queens." Not that that's important, but it's what I'm picking up. "Farnsworth obtained much of the land on the east side of Radisson and made a buttload of money selling the Georgia pines for timber. From then on, the Farnsworth family had vast wealth that was passed on to Phillip's descendants. Not only that, they used the farmland nearby to grow cotton; to do that they needed to purchase many slaves from the ships that came into port from Africa and the West Indies."