by Amy Cross
“She hasn't stopped or anything?”
“Not so far. She hasn't slowed or sped up, or looked into any of the rooms. It's almost like she's on auto-pilot. It's like she's drifting through the house.”
“As if she doesn't really have a mind of her own anymore?” he asks.
“I didn't say that,” I continue, as we follow the ghost toward the door at the far end of the corridor. “She definitely hasn't shown any indication that she knows we're here, though. It's almost as if she's just patrolling the house.”
“Wow, look at her,” Josh replies, following me as I keep pace with the ghost. “She looks so real and solid. I guess I was kind of expecting her to be see-through. I know none of the other reports said they were see-through, but somehow in my head that's what I thought she'd be like. And I thought maybe she'd be silent too, but I can hear her footsteps. I wonder if we can smell her if we get close? Wait, am I rambling now?”
“Just stay calm,” I tell him, watching as Catherine makes her way into the kitchen. “That room's a dead end,” I add. “She can't just keep walking, she'll have to do something else. At the very least, she'll have to turn around and come back out. Unless you subscribe to the idea that ghosts float through walls.”
I step forward, but suddenly Josh grabs my arm to hold me back. When I turn to him, I see that he's staring straight ahead with an expression of wide-eyed fear.
“Come on,” I continue. “I want to see this!”
His lips tremble for a moment, but then slowly he shakes his head.
“What's wrong?” I ask. “Did you see something else?”
When he doesn't reply, I check the scanner, but the level's still hovering around fifty per cent, which is where it settled a few minutes ago.
“Come on,” I say again, trying to pull free from his grip, “let's go see what she's doing in that room.”
“She's dead,” he replies.
“I know, but -”
“She's dead, Katie,” he continues, his voice trembling now with fear. “I mean she's actually dead. Catherine Lannister has been dead for over a hundred years.”
“I know. That's why she's a ghost.”
“This isn't right,” he adds, taking a step back while still holding my arm. “This is all kinds of messed-up, Katie. We shouldn't be getting involved with things we don't understand.”
“That's the whole reason we came here,” I point out, as I start to realize that he's freaking out. I've heard of people reacting this way when they first encounter a ghost, but never in a million years did I think that Josh might have a problem. I try again to pull my arm free, but his grip is way too tight. “We came all this way specifically to see her!” I continue. “We can't stop now!”
“She's dead,” he mumbles again. “We shouldn't be getting messed up in this at all. We need to just back away and keep well out of it all.”
“You can't be serious!”
“Of course I'm serious!” he hisses. “I'm sorry, Katie, but seeing her like this has made me realize the truth. The living have no right interfering with the dead. We don't understand what we're dealing with, we could accidentally unleash something that we're not prepared for.”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea!” he continues, clearly starting to panic. “I don't want to find out, either! Katie, seriously, let's just get out of here!”
“You're in shock,” I point out. “It's okay, you can wait here but -”
“Where is she?” Doctor Carter shouts breathlessly, suddenly stumbling up behind us and quickly shoving Josh out of the way. “Don't tell me you've lost her!”
Finally managing to pull away from Josh, who seems almost catatonic now, I turn and start leading Doctor Carter toward the door at the far end of the corridor.
“She entered the kitchen a couple of minutes ago,” I explain. “There's no way out except to double-back, so she has to still be in there.”
“Why didn't you follow her?” he asks.
“I was talking to Josh about something.”
“Are you serious?”
“It doesn't matter right now.” Reaching the door, I stop as soon as I see Catherine Lannister over at the far side of the kitchen. She's standing in the corner, facing this way, but she's staring down at the table in the center of the room.
“She's magnificent,” Doctor Carter says, his voice filled with a sense of awe as he steps past me and enters the kitchen. “I knew she'd be a sight to behold, but this is greater than anything I could possibly have imagined.” He steps around the table and then over to the cabinets, keeping his eyes fixed on Catherine while clearly taking care not to get too close. “She's so clear and distinct. There's no fading into the background whatsoever.”
“I could hear her footsteps when she was walking,” I explain. “Only after I saw her, though. I thought that was odd.”
“Sensory complementation is a very real thing,” he replies, stopping a few feet to the left of the spectral figure. “You didn't hear her because you didn't expect to hear her.” He hesitates, before reaching a hand out toward Catherine. “Isn't she wonderful, though?” he continues, sounding like a big game hunter who's located the ultimate prize. “She's beautiful, in a strange kind of way. Forgive my choice of words, Miss Sinclair, but I'd say that the expression on her face is rather haunting.”
“It's hard to believe she doesn't know we're here,” I reply.
“The prevailing theory,” he continues, “is that ghosts are too focused on repetitive recreations of key moments in their lives. They have little concern for anything or anyone they haven't seen before. In a way, you could say that she's filtered us out of her perceptions so that she can focus on whatever she deems to be important. Which in this case appears to be that table.”
He turns and looks at the table.
“She died in the main hallway,” I point out. “None of the records mention her spending any time at all in the west wing of the house. This is where the servants lived.”
“So why is she here now?” Doctor Carter asks. “What has drawn her here?”
“And where did it draw her from?” I reply.
He turns to me.
“She walked for several minutes,” I continue. “Obviously she doesn't spend all her time in here.”
“That's a good point,” he concedes. “She must have interests in other parts of the house, too. Perhaps she patrols the place night and day. Perhaps she's searching for something. Remember, Miss Sinclair, we still don't know exactly why she hung herself, but she must have suffered some kind of trauma. There's certainly a distinct possibility that she's retracing whatever happened to her.”
“Are you thinking of the Lofthouse theory?” I ask.
He nods.
“So she's trapped in some kind of loop?” I continue. “She doesn't understand why, but she's revisiting the places where she suffered particularly strong traumas.”
“That all depends,” he replies, “on whether or not you believe these ghosts are truly conscious of their actions. Lofthouse proposes that they're not, that they simply repeat patterns, but I'd remind you that there are other theories suggesting that they're not even -”
Suddenly Catherine Lannister steps forward, and Doctor Carter and I both step aside as she makes her way toward the door. As soon as she's out in the corridor, we follow her and find that she's heading back the way she came. Ahead, Josh steps into one of the side rooms to avoid her.
“What do we do?” I ask.
“We stick with her, of course,” Doctor Carter replies, already hurrying past me. “We're like hunters in the Serengeti who've finally located their target. We stick with her for the whole night.”
III
“Now what's she doing?” I whisper, as we stand at the top of the stairs and watch Catherine Lannister. “It's like she's just stopped again.”
For the past few minutes, we've been following her back through from the west wing of the house. She's been walking fairly slowly, but now she'
s halfway down the stairs and she's stopped to look up at the chandelier that hangs from the high ceiling.
“That's where she died,” Doctor Carter points out.
He's right.
The chandelier was a later addition, added by the Lannister family when they tried to renovate the house and use it once more as a home. Before the chandelier was put in place, however, there was simply a bare beam above the staircase, and it was from that beam that Catherine Lannister – on the afternoon of August 31st 1899 – hung herself using a rope she'd procured from one of the sheds in the garden. She was found moments later by a magistrate who'd forced his way into the house.
Meanwhile, her husband had vanished and was never seen again. Jonathan Lannister seemed to disappear from the face of the planet, along with the couple's daughter Millicent. The house fell into the possession of another branch of the Lannister family, who paid off the debts and then shut the house up. As ghostly tales spread throughout the local area, the Lannisters took greater and greater efforts to have the place sealed off from the world. They might not necessarily have believed the strange stories, but they definitely didn't want Lannister Hall to become some kind of tourist trap.
And now, as if transfixed by the sight of that morbid spot where she died, the ghost of Catherine Lannister seems frozen in place.
“Observations?” Doctor Carter asks.
I glance over my shoulder and see that Josh is still hanging back, still looking absolutely terrified. Realizing that any observations will therefore fall to me, I turn and look back down toward Catherine.
“The Lofthouse theory would support this behavior,” I point out. “She seems drawn to certain parts of the house. We don't know what might have happened in the servants' kitchen area, but the area above the stairs certainly fits with the idea of a traumatic location.”
“What else?”
“She seems calm,” I continue. “She's been walking slowly, more slowly than someone would be expected to walk when they're alive. This suggests a degree of... grace, I suppose. She's seems relaxed and not particularly traumatized.”
“What else?”
I pause, trying to think of something.
“It'd be worth trying to determine what she was wearing when she died,” I say finally. “Maybe her ghost is wearing the same dress.”
“What else?”
Again I pause, but this time I'm not sure I can come up with any more observations.
“Um...”
“Go closer, then,” Doctor Carter continues. “Don't be scared, girl. Remember, she can't hurt you. She's not even aware of your presence. Get right down there and take a closer look.”
I turn to him, shocked by the suggestion.
“There's no rational reason to be scared,” he adds firmly, with the tone of someone who's talking to recalcitrant child. “You're a scientist, Miss Sinclair, so kindly behave like one.”
I swallow hard. “Do you want to come with me?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I shall observe from here,” he explains. “I wish to get an idea of the broader picture, and it will help me immensely if you go closer and examine the detail.”
“Sure,” I reply, although the idea is faintly horrifying.
Turning, I look down at Catherine Lannister for a moment before realizing that there's no point delaying the inevitable. Either I go and take a closer look at her, or I might as well admit right now that I'm letting superstition triumph over scientific curiosity. Carefully, then, I start making my way down the steps until I'm just a couple of feet behind the ghost. This is already closer than I ever expected to get, but I tell myself over and over again that there's no reason to be worried.
She doesn't know that I'm here.
Even if she did, she wouldn't care.
And either way, she can't hurt me.
After all, those are the rules that Doctor Alice Reynolds established already.
“Well?” Doctor Carter asks. “Observations?”
“There's a kind of static glow,” I reply, peering more closely at the tiny, dancing threads of light that are rippling across parts of Catherine's back and shoulders. “The air feels different as well, as if there's a faint charge. That definitely supports the idea that the maon radiation is super-charging the immediate environment. I'm also noticing a possible temperature drop in line with Doctor Reynolds' theories. And now that I'm this close, I'd say that her skin tone isn't quite as natural as I'd first thought. There's more of a faint blue tint that seems to be linked to the charge.”
“What else?”
Staring at the back of her long, elegant neck, I can't help feeling a shudder pass through my chest.
“She's not making any kind of noise,” I continue. “Even the static charge is silent.”
“And?”
I try to spot something else that might be of interest.
“Go around to the front of her,” Doctor Carter continues. “Don't be shy, Miss Sinclair. She won't hurt you.”
I open my mouth to ask if he's sure this is necessary, but then I realize that I already know what he'll say. He'll say it's absolutely necessary, and he'll ask me again whether I've got the nerves to be in this line of work. Even though I want to go back up to the top of the stairs, then, I force myself to step around the ghost until I'm a couple of steps down from her, and then I look up and see – at close range for the first time – the ghostly face of Catherine Lannister.
“Well?” Doctor Carter calls out impatiently. “What do you see?”
“She's beautiful,” I whisper, before realizing that I need to be a little more professional. “Um, she's definitely got a hint of blue. It's part of the static charge.” I pause, before noticing several thick bruises around her neck. “I think I can see marks from where she hung herself. Would that fit in with the prevailing theories?”
“It might,” he replies. “Professor Andrew Lowenstein has proposed that the dead can manifest hints of their demise about their person.”
“I'm definitely seeing bruises,” I explain. “They might be consistent with a noose, although I'm not really an expert. I'm also seeing faint dark threads beneath her skin, particularly on the left side of her face. That might be consistent with the reports that she drank rat poison before she hung herself.”
“That's certainly possible,” Doctor Carter agrees. “Come on, girl, what else do you see?”
“She's so calm,” I continue, “and -”
Suddenly Catherine Lannister lowers her gaze. For a moment she seems to look straight at me, and I step back in fright before realizing that she's simply looked forward. Before I have time to say anything, however, she steps past me and makes her way calmly down toward the main hallway, and I take a moment to regather my nerves before looking up at Doctor Carter.
“I didn't spook her,” I explain. “I didn't do anything to make her move.”
“I doubt you could have done if you'd tried,” he replies, before coming down to join me. “She's completely oblivious, she has no idea that we're here. I want to use that to our advantage, though, and try to get some photographic evidence of her presence. Miss Sinclair, I need you to come with me to the banquet hall and fetch the adapted cameras I brought along.” He turns and looks back up the stairs. “Joshua,” he continues. “You'll follow Ms. Lannister so that we don't lose track of her.”
“Can't I come and help with the cameras?” he asks timidly.
“Get after her and stop wasting my time!” Doctor Carter snaps, before turning to me again. “I'll explain how to use the cameras, and then I need you to get as many close-up shots as possible. Is that clear?”
I hesitate, before nodding. “Of course.”
He turns to Josh again. “Well?” he shouts. “What are you waiting for, boy? Get your ass down here and make yourself useful!”
IV
“The filter corrects for maon warping,” Doctor Carter explains a short while later in the banquet hall, as he shows me the cameras he apparently rigged together b
efore we arrived. “This should make it possible to get some very high-resolution images of the manifestation.”
“Why are we using this for still images?” I ask. “Wouldn't it be more useful to get -”
Before I can finish, my phone starts ringing again. Feeling acutely embarrassed, I slip it out of my pocket and see that Dad's trying to get through again. I already texted him to explain that I can't talk at the moment, so I reject the call.
“Sorry,” I say as I set the phone on silent. “That won't happen again.”
“One would hope not.”
“But why aren't we trying to capture video footage?” I ask, hoping to seem a little more professional.
“There'd be too much trade-off between quantity and quality,” he replies. “The video wouldn't be able to take advantage of the filter's higher end processing. That's something I'm working to correct for the next investigation, but for now I want to limit us to still photography.”
“Have you considered using a dual-lens set-up?” I continue. “You could alternate capture from one lens to the other and essentially double your processing time.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but then he hesitates and – after a moment – he furrows his brow.
“That's a very good suggestion,” he says finally. “I hadn't considered something like that, but you might be right. Thank you, Miss Sinclair.” He stares at me for a moment. “Well done,” he adds finally, sounding a little disgruntled.
“It was just an idea,” I reply. “I wouldn't know how to implement it in the field.”
“We need to get back to work,” he says with a sigh, turning and leading me back through to the hallway, where he stops again and looks around.
There's no sign of Josh or of Catherine Lannister, but that's only to be expected since we spent maybe ten minutes getting the cameras ready.
“Joshua!” Doctor Carter calls out. “Where are you?”
We both wait for Josh to say something over the earpieces, but all we hear is silence.
“Joshua,” he continues, speaking more carefully and clearly this time, “where are you? Please let us know which part of the house you're in presently.”