by Amy Cross
I wait.
Silence again.
And then, finally, a faint creaking sound from directly above. Looking up, I see another chandelier hanging above me, and I'm certain the sound came from one of the bedrooms upstairs. A moment later, there's another creak, and it's hard not to think that I'm hearing a set of slow, cautious footsteps.
“It's an old house,” I whisper to myself, trying to muster a little courage. “It'd be weird if it didn't make noises at night.”
Great.
Now I'm talking to myself.
Turning back to the camera, I figure I should just -
Suddenly I hear footsteps. Clear, definite footsteps walking across one of the nearby rooms. I turn and look toward the door that leads into the library, and I realize that someone seems to be in there. Without even thinking, I make my way to the door and look through, but of course the footsteps come to a halt just in time to leave me staring at a perfectly still and undisturbed room. I tell myself that there has to be an explanation for the sound I just heard, but as I take a few steps forward and feel the room's unusual chill, I check my watch and see that it's almost nine.
A single light in the far corner is the only illumination. The windows are just tall, dark rectangles now, and after a moment I spot my own reflection in the glass.
I can see the fear in my own eyes.
“Helen?” I say cautiously, even though I know there's no chance that she's here.
Turning, I look around the room, and I can't help noticing that it's much colder than before, as if this room in particular has suddenly dropped in temperature.
“Helen?”
This time, I swear I can actually see my breath in the air.
Heading over to the window, I look out and see nothing but my own reflection staring back at me. I cup my hands around my eyes and lean closer, and now I can just about make out the van parked in front of the house. In some weird way, it's reassuring to see a reminder of the real world, and to be reminded that tomorrow morning Mac and I will be getting out of here. All we have to do is get through this one final night and then -
“Paula!” Mac shouts suddenly, from several rooms away. “Is that you?”
Turning, I hurry to the doorway and look through into the study, and then I make my way through several rooms until I reach the hall.
“Was that you?” Mac asks, turning to me as he stands at the bottom of the stairs. He looks worried, maybe even a little pale. “Were you upstairs just now?”
I shake my head. “No. Why?”
“Are you sure? There's not a second way up, is there?”
“No. Why, what happened?”
He hesitates for a moment, staring at me as if he can scarcely believe that I'm here, and then he turns to look up the stairs again.
“I heard footsteps,” I tell him, taking a step closer. “It sounded like there was someone in the library.”
“I heard footsteps upstairs,” he replies, still looking up toward the dark landing. “They definitely weren't down here. There was someone up there, in the corridor.”
I walk over and stop next to him, following his gaze and watching the top of the stairs.
“Should we go and take a look?” I ask finally. “Maybe there are two ghosts here, not just one.”
I wait for a reply, before turning to him.
“Mac? Should we go up?”
He hesitates, almost as if he's frozen, before suddenly turning and heading to the monitors.
“We need to check the footage,” he stammers, clearly concerned. “We need to see if the cameras caught anything up there.”
For the next few minutes, Mac frantically looks at the video feeds from the past few minutes. He's muttering something under his breath the whole time, although I can't quite make out the words. I offer to help, but he tells me he's got everything under control. Still, it's clear that he's searching for something, something that he seems to think should be there. Finally, however, he leans back with a sigh, staring at the banks of monitors and hard drives. He's clearly lost in thought, to the extent that I barely dare breathe in case I disturb him.
“There are no videos of ghosts,” he says finally.
I wait, but after a moment he turns to me.
“Are there?” he continues.
“I...”
“People have tried to capture visual evidence of their existence, but there's nothing. It doesn't work. And when Doctor Pullman was here, on the final night, all her equipment failed due to a battery sensor problem.”
Again, I want for him to continue.
“So what are you saying?” I ask finally. “You don't think it's possible to record them?”
“Either that, or the equipment keeps them away.”
He stares at me for a moment longer, before getting to his feet and walking over to the generator. For a moment, framed against one of the lights, he seems pensive. After a few seconds, however, he reaches down and flicks a switch, causing the generator to stop running. Immediately, the monitors all go dead, and the same thing happens to the lights that Helen set up all around the hallway. I flinch as I look around, and I realize that we're now standing in complete darkness. There's not a single light in the entire house.
“Mac...”
“If we keep the power running,” he replies, his voice somehow sounding thinner now that I can't see him, “we'll never get any results. I'm sorry, Paula, but this is just how things have to be tonight.”
A moment later, I see a bright light nearby, and I realize that he at least has a hand-held flash-light.
“You're not scared, are you?” he asks.
“No,” I stammer, even though that's a lie, “but... Do we really need to have all the lights off?”
“Yes. We do.”
“Okay.” My mouth feels dry now, and I can't help turning and looking back into the darkness. “So now -”
“It's time to stop playing games,” Mac continues, stepping closer. I turn to him, just as he presses another flash-light into my right hand. “This is for you. You trust me, Paula, don't you?”
“Yes, but -”
“So this is what we have to do,” he adds, interrupting me again. In the flash-light's glow, I can just about make out his features, and I can see the apprehension in his eyes. Maybe even a hint of excitement. “This is the moment we've been preparing for, Paula. We've replicated the circumstances of Doctor Pullman's work down to the very last detail. Now we just have to wait for the black-eyed lady of Blackwych Grange to come and find us.”
As he speaks, there's another creaking sound from above.
“And she will,” he continues. “She found Doctor Pullman, and now it's our turn.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Sitting at one end of the long dining table, I stare at the flash-light in my hand. All around me, the dark house is completely silent, although I know that Mac is sitting just a few meters away at other end of the table. We've been waiting here for almost an hour now, listening to occasional bumps and creaking sounds, but so far we've mostly been left alone.
And I'm terrified.
“Have you noticed the pattern?” Mac asks finally.
I swallow hard.
“Pattern?”
“The sounds that are coming from upstairs,” he continues, and his voice sounds a little tighter now, as if he's scared too. “They're moving slowly from the western side of the house toward the center. You know that the black-eyed lady is most commonly first spotted on the stairs, don't you?”
“I read that.”
“Even going back as far as the Preston tapes, or the interview with Clara Harrison... There are certain places in the house where the ghost is most often reported.”
“And how does that help us now?”
“My theory is that she's being cautious,” he explains. “She's probably listening to us right now.”
“Why would a ghost be cautious?” I ask.
“I don't know, but I intend to find out. One thing that inte
rests me is the question of whether ghosts can change over time. Are they stuck once they die, or can they develop? Can they evolve, maybe come up with new plans, new strategies? In other words, do they have conscious minds that can reason and adapt?”
Hearing another faint sound from somewhere above, I look up. I know there's a chandelier above us, but the room is too dark for me to see anything. Finally I raise my flash-light, casting a bright beam toward the ceiling and picking out the empty candle-holders on one of the chandelier's grand sides.
“Do we really have to keep the lights off?” I ask. “And the cameras are -”
“We have no choice, Paula.”
I shine the flash-light toward him. Not directly at his eyes, of course, but close enough that I can see his face.
“But you were so insistent that we bring them,” I continue. “Why make all that effort, only to shut them off on the final night?”
“Because that's what happened to Doctor Pullman.”
“But -”
“And we have to replicate her experience,” he adds, interrupting me again. “That's the whole point of this trip, Paula. I have to know what happened to her. If I can figure that part out, if I can see what she saw, maybe I can find a way to help her. Maybe even -”
Before he can finish, there's another faint creaking sound, this time coming from the hallway. I open my mouth to ask if Mac heard the same thing, but he quickly gets to his feet and hurries around the side of the table. I hurry after him, following his flash-light to the doorway and then stopping next to him as he shines the beam of light up toward the stairs.
“Where is she?” he mutters under his breath.
“What time did Doctor Pullman first see the ghost?” I ask.
“I don't know.”
“But her notebooks -”
“She kept a meticulous, detailed log until just before midnight,” he explains, still shining his flash-light at the empty spiral staircase. “She made entries every half hour. After midnight, there were no more notes, so evidently something happened that...”
His voice trails off.
“It's half past eleven now,” I point out, feeling a tightening sense of fear in my chest.
“But why would the ghost wait?” he asks, turning to me. “You and I might be following Doctor Pullman's schedule, but the ghost should feel no such compunction.”
“Maybe it...”
I pause, trying to come up with a suggestion.
“Maybe the ghost doesn't have a mind,” I continue finally. “Maybe it's just a representation of something that's long gone. If that's the case, its appearances wouldn't be linked to anything that we do. The schedule would be based on significant moments in its own life.”
“Almost as if it's on a timer?”
“Well...”
“That's a possibility,” he adds. “I've been working on the assumption that the ghost has some kind of conscious mind, but...”
He pauses.
“It reacts to people,” he mutters. “It does. I know that. That's why it's being cautious. It's watching us, figuring out who we are and what we want. I'm certain.”
“Based on Doctor Pullman's notebook?” I ask.
He hesitates for a moment, still watching the stairs, before finally turning to me again. “Paula, I need you to do something that might make you uncomfortable. It's part of the project, and I'm hoping very much that you won't let fear cloud your judgment.”
“Mac -”
“I need you to go upstairs.”
I feel a shiver of fear in my chest.
“I need you to go upstairs,” he says again, “alone. Can you do that for me?”
“Why?”
“Because that's what happened when Doctor Pullman was here. Her assistant went up alone. I think perhaps that action triggered something.”
“Why can't we go up together?” I ask. “It shouldn't -”
“I'll be right here,” he continues. “Paula, please... We're scientists, remember? Academics. Even though this might go against your deepest instincts, you can't let fear hold you back.”
Turning, I look toward the empty staircase. The thought of going up there is terrifying, but at the same time I know that my fears are irrational. My heart is pounding, and even though I want to help Mac, I can't bring myself to do what he's asking.
“Please,” he says after a moment. “Paula, your body is scared but your mind is rational. You're not superstitious like Toby, are you? I saw something in you, back during your interview for this job. I saw strength, and courage, and self-control. I saw qualities that I admired, Paula, qualities that reminded me of myself at your age. That's why I hired you, because I knew that we'd end up in this situation and because I truly believed that you'd stay strong. Please, Paula, prove to me that I was right about you. Show me that my faith was justified.”
I hesitate, but after a moment he places a hand on my shoulder and I realize that he meant what he just said. He really does believe in me, and he's relying on me to help him with his work. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me before.
“Please, Paula,” he continues, with his hand still resting on my shoulder. “Show me that I was right to bring you.”
***
A couple of minutes later I stop at the top of the stairs, shining my flash-light along the corridor. The doors on either side are all shut, and there's no hint of anything being out of place. Still, as the beam of light catches the scratched mirror, I can't deny that my heart is pounding faster and harder than ever.
“What do you see?” Mac calls up.
“Nothing,” I stammer.
“Paula?”
“Nothing!” I shout back to him. “I see nothing!”
“And what do you hear?”
I pause for a moment, listening to the silence. Now that I'm up here, the house seems to have become perfectly still again, as if my presence has been noted. After a few seconds, I see that the beam of light is shuddering slightly, and I realize that my hand is shaking.
“I need you to go to the other end of the corridor,” Mac calls up to me. “We're replicating Doctor Pullman's experience, Paula. This is important.”
“Okay,” I reply, although I can tell that I sound scared.
I take a deep breath, before starting to make my way cautiously through the darkness. I look at each door as I walk past, worried that one of them might suddenly creak open, but so far the house is being very well-behaved. I glance over my shoulder a few times, too, just in case there's any sign of movement. The only sound is coming from my own footsteps, and I'm starting to feel just a little more confident. Maybe this really is just a house after all, and maybe there's no reason to be scared.
Maybe Mac was right.
We're scientists and academics, not ghost-hunters. We're here to -
Suddenly I hear a bump from up ahead, from just around the next corner. I quickly try to tell myself that it was just a bump, before the fear and paranoia can take root in my mind. A moment later, however, I hear another sound, this time a very faint gasp. Turning, I look toward the door at the far end of the corridor, and I see that it's just slightly ajar. I swear all the doors were shut a moment ago, but now I can hear a faint scratching sound too, coming from the room ahead.
“Mac?” I call out, hoping against hope that he'll be able to hear me.
No reply.
“Mac?”
I could turn and run. I could just get the hell out of here, but then Mac would demand to know what I'd heard, and he wouldn't be very impressed if I admitted I hadn't even taken a look.
“Curiosity,” he once said in a lecture I watched online, “is the core of the human spirit. Without curiosity, we'd still be banging rocks together and grunting.”
I take a deep breath.
The scratching sound hasn't stopped. If anything, it's a little more frantic now, and a little more persistent.
“I'm going to take a look,” I say out loud, as much to bolster my confidence as to let Mac
know what's happening.
Edging forward, I get closer and closer to the door until I'm just a few feet away. The scratching seems so close, just on the door's other side, and now I can tell that the door itself is actually shuddering slightly, as if it's being bumped from the other side. I've heard sounds in the house before, of course, but this is much more distinct.
Reaching out, I place my right hand against the cold door and hesitate for a moment, before slowly starting to push.
Almost immediately, I feel resistance.
Something pushing back, preventing me from opening the door fully.
“Mac?” I call out again, while not daring to look away from the narrow gap that reveals a moonlit room beyond. “Mac, can you get up here?”
I push the door again, but there's definitely something on the other side, something that seems not to want me to go through.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
The scratching is getting even louder now, and after a moment I look down toward the bottom of the door. The sound seems low, almost on the floor.
“Who are you?” I ask again, forcing myself to sound more confident. “Are you...”
My voice trails off.
This feels so dumb, but at the same time, I have to ask.
“Are you Elizabeth Marringham?” I continue, flinching slightly as I say that name.
No reply.
Just more scratching.
I push the door again. This time it swings open a little, before stopping suddenly. A moment later, it starts to swing shut again until it bumps against my hand.
“What do you want?” I ask.
No, wait.
That was ridiculous.
There's no ghost here, so why am I asking questions?
I push the door again, and this time it opens a little further before stopping as it hits whatever's on the other side. I should just slip through and face my fears, but -
“Paula,” a voice gasps suddenly.
A weak, frail voice.
I take a step back, my heart pounding, before realizing that I recognize the voice.
“Helen?” I whisper, before stepping through the gap and looking down.
Immediately, I see Helen slumped on the floor, her face contorted with pain as she clutches her left arm and rolls onto her back. Her whole body is shuddering, and moonlit sweat is glistening on her forehead.