The house virtually hummed with ghost energy. There was a lot of it, heavy, like a blanket that settled over everything and muffled sound and emotions. I couldn’t pinpoint a number. The sheer strength of the energy, coupled with the age of the house, would indicate numerous ghosts. Number was something I could always feel. If there were two entities, I’d know innately there were two ghosts in the building. Their signatures were vastly different. Here at Horeland Estate, I couldn’t tell.
There was something I knew for certain.
“Male,” I said decidedly, opening my eyes.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. The strongest is definitely a masculine aura. Powerful. Stubborn.”
Madison wrinkled her nose. “Damn it. If it’d been female, at least she could have been reasoned with.”
I burst out laughing. “On behalf of male-kind, they aren’t all unreasonable.”
My sister fell silent as I scooted out of the foyer, making a beeline for the living room. Again, like the dining room, the curtains were all closed, barely allowing ambient light around the fabric. The furniture spreading across the expanse of floor seemed like ghostly islands in the dim glow.
I yanked open a set of curtains overlooking the driveway. Drizzle fell on Madison’s white BMW, and beyond it, the woods stood watch, dark and silent. Just out of reach of my vision, I thought I saw gravestones.
“Is that a cemetery?” I asked quietly.
Madison stopped next to me and shuddered. “Yeah. Family plot.”
Generally, a cemetery — especially a family plot — could cause all manner of problems in an old house, mainly regarding ancestors who couldn’t absent themselves from their home. I closed my eyes, sending out psychic feelers, and found the cemetery was empty.
Curious.
Madison flipped a switch, bathing the living room in soft chandelier light. I could see details better: twelve foot ceilings and hand carved plaster moldings, dark green metallic wallpaper laced with loopy golden swirls. Even the furniture was antique: three claw-footed couches in matching greens and several old, scratched cabinets lining the walls.
“Beautiful,” I murmured, taking a moment to appreciate the antiquity even though I could barely breathe around the throbbing I associated with the ghost’s source. I lifted a hand, taking a few steps further into the room. The closer I got to the source, the heavier it pressed on me. Like a dowsing rod, my hand seemed to float right of its own volition. “There.”
Madison followed my pointed finger. “The fireplace?”
“It’s radiating power.” I finished crossing the room, stopping just short of the grand marble inset that surrounded the almost person-sized fireplace. “This thing would be big enough to roast small children.”
Madison raised an eyebrow.
“Hansel and Gretel?” I said, aghast. “Witch burned in an oven?”
My sister just stared.
“Nothing? You need to read more.” I sighed for the state of bliss that was Madison. If it didn’t involve hair and makeup, she wasn’t interested. I steered the conversation away from her lack of literary prowess. She could do mathematical circles around me, so I couldn’t pick on her.
“This guy feels angry,” I said, holding both palms in front of me. The energy pulsing inside the fireplace was urgent and hot. “Something traumatic happened here.”
“Oh, God,” Madison moaned. “Do you think he was burned in the fireplace?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know. Which would make you feel worse, that he did or didn’t burn to death?”
She stuck her tongue out, crossing her arms over her dress.
“Where do you usually encounter activity?” I asked, backing away from the fireplace and yet another confrontation.
A question Madison was comfortable with, obviously, as her answer was immediate. “My office and the stairwell. And here, of course, but you could tell that.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. Moving into a thoroughly haunted house had made my skeptic sister into as close a believer as she could get without actually admitting it.
“Take me to your office.” In an attempt to alleviate the doom and gloom, I said it in my best robotic alien voice, eliciting a sunny, white smile from her.
The curving mahogany banister in the front hall was hot with ghostly power. As I slid my hand up it and followed my sister up the stairs, I could sense the man whose signature was all over the house, his large palm having trailed up the same wood numerous times since his death. I closed my eyes, trying to capture his face in my mind. He was there, just at the edge of my vision like a shadow on a darker backdrop. I almost had him. I just had to seek a little farther…
… and I tripped up the stairs.
Both knees and hands hit the thinning carpet runner. Sharp pain twisted through my joints, shock waves continuing up my thighs. I groaned.
“Way to go, Graceful,” Madison teased, holding out a hand.
I took it and let her pull me to my feet.
“Glad to know you haven’t lost any of that cool you’re so famous for.”
“You saw nothing,” I warned her, brushing my knees off.
“Nothing,” she agreed with a smile, and turned to continue our climb.
See? We weren’t always fighting.
The second floor landing wasn’t as bad as the fireplace, though it was definitely dark, even with the chandelier in the foyer behind us illuminated. I peered down either side of the hallway, the darkness stretching cavernously into even more darkness.
“The lack of daylight alone in this house could cause a sane person to go mad,” I remarked.
“I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and on the covered patio,” my sister said softly. “The light is good there.”
On the landing, I felt an underlying ribbon of something that I wasn’t too happy about — something twisted. Unclean. Almost inhuman. I’d been doing this long enough that I’d come up against a lot of different spirits, but this was a new feeling entirely.
It made me uneasy. I wasn’t going to tell my sister that, though. Not yet.
“How many rooms in the house?” I asked.
Madison thought for a moment. “Seven on this floor, and eight above. You saw most of the first floor, not counting the kitchen, laundry, den, and patio.”
“Attic?” I asked. “Or basement?”
“There is a small root cellar just below the kitchen, but not a full basement. Yes to an attic.”
“Do events happen simultaneously?” I asked, following Madison down the hallway to the left. “Like a noise upstairs and downstairs at the same time.”
She thought about it for a moment, then finally nodded. “Just last night, I heard a door open downstairs and footsteps in the attic at the same time. Jacob wasn’t home. Just me.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. I can’t tell how many are here, but there’s a discrepancy in the signature. One is normal, if a little elusive. The other… it’s not very nice.”
Panic flashed in Madison’s blue eyes. “Not nice? Not nice how?”
“Don’t flip out yet,” I told her gently. “Let’s keep looking. Right now, I’ve only got small pieces of the puzzle. I need the corners to bring it all together.”
Madison motioned to a closed door. “Office.”
The door was like every other door in this hallway — mahogany wood, carved decorative work, and a tarnished brass handle.
“This place has to be worth a fortune,” I said, eyeing the woodwork. “You can’t get this kind of detail anymore unless you use an expensive tradesman.”
Madison nodded. “So true. Jacob had a crumbling baseboard replaced last month. It cost a pretty penny.”
“I’m sure it cost more than a pretty penny,” I said with a laugh. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
When I placed a hand on the doorknob, it sparked beneath my fingers, visible in the darkness of the hallway.
Madison gasped. “Was that him?”
I shook my hand out be
fore trying again. It opened easily. “No, doofus. That was static electricity.”
She punched my shoulder. For a sissy girl, she sure hit hard.
Madison’s “office” was really a bedroom that had been conformed to a closet. It was full to the brim with clothes, shoes, and accessories. A make-up cabinet and vanity stood against one wall, and one small desk with a pink Mac laptop sat opposite. The computer was open and graced with a picture of Madison and Jacob, smiling and happy. They sat side-by-side on a stone bench I recognized from Tory Lake. Jacob was tanned and blond, one muscular arm tossed around Madison’s shoulder as they leaned into each other.
I felt a pang. For all I made fun of Madison’s perfect life, I couldn’t deny that her husband loved her, and she him. Even in picture form, it was visible. Theirs wasn’t a marriage of convenience.
“See what I mean?” Madison’s voice was shrill. “I shut down that computer before I left the house this morning.”
I patted her arm. “Chill.”
My boots silent, I crossed the plush, dark pink carpet, wondering who in their right mind would choose to cover their floors with something so similar to Pepto Bismol. Not that Pepto is ugly by any stretch — who doesn’t like a good, girly pink? But pink for carpet was pushing it.
The energy seemed concentrated over Madison’s laptop, which made sense considering what she’d told me about it turning on and off all on its own. I slid a palm across the keyboard, closing my eyes as I tried to conjure something else — anything else — about this elusive ghost. It wasn’t abnormal for me to draw so little information from a place; some ghosts simply didn’t have the substance to leave much more than a residual mark. But this guy felt strong. Why was he so hard to pinpoint?
I closed my eyes, tilting my head to the side and straining to feel something. “Young,” I murmured, biting my lip. “Wealthy in life… famous? No. Popular, more like. A politician?” I opened my eyes, looking at my sister. “Who lived here before the Horeland family?”
She shook her head. “No one. The Horelands built this house.”
“So we operate under the assumption anyone that is here is family.” I wandered closer to the window, my gaze traveling the room, tracing shadows and taking note. I paused at the curtains, gently pushing one panel aside with my fingertips.
In the grim daylight, the room overlooked the cemetery.
“Easier to see from up here.”
“What?” Madison crossed to my side, glancing at the lawn. “Oh, yeah. Did I tell you every Horeland born in this house is buried there?”
“Lovely.”
Madison’s pocket chirped, and she walked away without response, whipping her sleek white phone out.
I stared at the graveyard, still trying to make sense of the feelings I was getting from the house. A ghost I could barely read, though his signature was so strong I was drowning in it. Another signature, moody and mean, but I was unsure if it was the same ghost or a new one. Doors that opened, curtains that closed, a family graveyard… this place was ripe for ghostly issues.
I was so lost in my thoughts, trying to piece together what I knew, that I didn’t immediately notice the drop in temperature, or the distinct sensation of air swirling around me.
Not until soft, warm fingertips brushed across my neck.
Chapter Three
I jumped, letting out a tiny Meep!
I turned around so suddenly I lost my balance. My back hit the wall, the curtain tangling around my torso.
From near the door, her cell phone pressed to her ear, Madison stared at me. “Are you okay?”
No one was behind me. The touch had been so warm and real, I’d thought it was Madison playing a joke on me. Even my sister wasn’t good enough to cross a carpeted room wearing five-inch heels in point-two seconds.
I brushed a hand over my neck. My own fingers were ice cold. “Yeah. Fine.”
Madison narrowed her eyes at me, then turned back to her call.
I’d been touched many times before on investigations. Spirits who didn’t have the power to reveal themselves visually often touched people in an attempt to gain their attention. My hair had been pulled, my shirt tugged, icy cold fingers had gripped my arm…
This touch had been different. Warm and human. Nothing urgent about it. A lover’s caress, almost: slow and purposeful. It made things deep within me twist and turn, made me yearn for more. I hadn’t had someone touch me like that in a very long time.
Madison finally ended her call a moment later, dropping her phone into her dress pocket as she looked at me expectantly. “Well?”
I sighed, still rattled by the touch as I leaned against the cool wall. “I’ve got nothin’.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” Madison gaped. “You always know everything. Remember that time we went to Mammoth Cave and you knew without a doubt there was a spirit and he was protective. Older, you said, and close to the earth.”
“I remember.”
That had been one of my first encounters. At least, the first I remembered: our family vacation on a particularly poor year. We took a route north and hit a few roadside attractions between Georgia and Kentucky. Mammoth Cave was considered the largest cave system in North America, and my dad was dying to do the lantern light tour.
I was nine. Only moments into the lantern portion of the tour, I looked at my mother and told her there was a man next to me. I couldn’t see him, but I sensed him, the same way you know someone is standing behind you. You can feel their essence, their signature.
This man’s signature was overly protective. He followed us through the cave, never veering far from us, always staying in the shadows outside the lantern glow. I could tell he was old; he’d lived a long, full life because even in death, he was content. And there was something about him that made me think he lived close to the earth, like a farmer or something. I got the smell and taste of corn.
Near the end of the tour, the tour guide had said, “Now, for our resident ghost story.”
Years before, when they were excavating this particular cave, they came across the remains of an older Native American gentleman. They theorized he’d come into the cave either seeking shelter or seeking food, and he’d gotten caught in a massive cave-in.
“Some guests have said that Indian Joe seems to want to keep them safe,” the tour guide went on. “He’s said to stay with us throughout the tour, only leaving once we’re all safely out. As if he doesn’t want his own fate to befall any of us.”
My parents had looked at me as if I’d grown a second head.
My sister never forgot it.
“I want to see the Horeland cemetery,” I said, before I realized the words had even formed.
Madison lifted a pale eyebrow. “You hate cemeteries. You said they suffocate you.”
I grinned. “Thanks for remembering, but I think I need to see the graveyard. I’ve got a lot of loose ends. Maybe something will click.”
“It’s pouring,” Madison pointed out.
“I’ll survive.”
“You might,” my sister grumbled, turning her back on me as we left the room.
The second floor landing felt even more oppressive this time. I considered holding my breath and closing my eyes to bypass the nasty undertones, but I figured I’d fall down the stairs and end up yet another ghost haunting Horeland Estate. Funny as the thought of haunting my sister seemed, I decided against it.
“You can stay inside. I’ll go alone,” I assured Madison, my boots clomping on the stairs. “Wicked witches melt when wet.”
Madison shot me a glare. “‘I’ll get you, my pretty.’”
I laughed.
Madison gestured to the dining room. It was once again in darkness, the heavy drapes closed tight.
I stared, a little shiver racing up my spine.
“Every time,” Madison said with a shrug.
“You’re a bit calmer about it than I expected.”
She laughed. “I’m getting used to it. The cemete
ry though… That place is horrible. It’s eerily quiet. Not to mention the mud is deep enough to tug you under.”
“Can’t be any creepier than the house. I’ll manage.”
I left my sister standing in the open doorway. The transfer from air conditioning to humid morning nearly took my breath, and despite the rain — which was now only misting — a sheen of sweat broke out upon my forehead.
I passed through an archway formed of topiary, and stepped off the pathway into thick grass, pausing mid-step as the sensation of being watched fell over me. I glanced over my shoulder to find Madison standing where I’d left her, her fingers tapping on her smartphone. She wasn’t even looking at me.
I turned a circle, my gaze roaming over gardens, driveway, and house, but I saw no one. As far as I knew, Madison and myself were the only two people currently on the grounds.
Suspicions confirmed, I continued to the graveyard. The sensation stayed with me as I lifted the latch on the black iron gate and shoved, hinges squealing all the way.
I paused with a hand on the gate, scanning the graveyard. Madison was right; the moment I walked inside, it seemed quieter. Grass grew tall around the headstones, and a lone apple tree grew in the back corner. The plot was small, maybe less than a square-acre, but the fence was tall. I wasn’t sure it was keeping people out so much as keeping things in.
I glanced around for something to prop the gate open, and hit pay dirt on a large stone just outside. Whether that was its purpose or not, I used it to wedge the gate open. Something told me if I didn’t, I’d find myself locked in.
And not on accident.
The headstones lined the fence, facing inwards like a family at the dinner table. A large empty fountain took up the center, the pool beneath it stained with calcium and lime. I stopped at the first stone, squatting to read the lettering:
Ramona
1845-1873
“No last name,” I murmured, shoving grass aside just in case it was hidden.
I moved on, meeting George, Marlene, Ethan, Mary, Patrick, Margaret, and Daniel. Again, no last names, and all of varying ages from born in 1790, to died in 1950.
His Haunting Kiss (His Kiss Series Book 1) Page 2