Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator

by Jill Baguchinsky

  What she said also explained why Dirk had gotten mad when I’d ratted him out to the jocks. He was still trying to be one of them. He was afraid of being different.

  After taking a few breaths and composing herself, Isobel continued. “The painting was almost done when he died. The last time I saw him work on it was a few days before the accident, and it just needed the finishing touches. But I didn’t know where he put it. I left the art room before he did that day, and I don’t know if he left the painting there or took it with him. When he was working on a painting, he usually left the easel facing the corner by the supply closets so the paint could dry. Sometimes he left finished paintings in that space by Mr. Connelly’s desk, between the wall and the file cabinet. I checked as soon as I could after I heard about the accident. The painting wasn’t on an easel, so I figured it was dried, but it wasn’t by the file cabinet, either, and Mr. Connelly didn’t know where it was. So I thought, since you can still talk to Dirk…”

  “You want the painting because it was supposed to be for you.”

  “No.” She glanced down at her boots. “I want to submit it to this year’s art show under his name. I think that would be allowed, as long as Mr. Connelly signs off on it. Dirk was so stubborn about keeping his art private, but he was really good. I want the world to see at least one of his pieces.”

  I shrugged. “Based on his reaction to your question, I’m not sure he’d want that.”

  “I don’t care what he wants.” She shook her head, suddenly aggravated. “I’m so damned mad at him still. He had all that talent, and he wasted it. He practically wasted his whole life being a member of the void. Now he’s gone, and his work deserves to be seen.” She looked pleadingly at me. “Ask him again. Or let me talk to him. Can you do that? Like, repeat what he says to me? Since I can’t hear him?”

  That had always been my mom’s thing—reconnecting ghosts to their living loved ones, letting them communicate, helping them move on. Mom’s gift was more than just seeing spirits. She also wanted to help them. I wasn’t like that. If there was anything I’d inherited from my dad, it was the belief that dead people—corpses, not ghosts—were easier to deal with than their living counterparts. I didn’t want to deal with a bunch of personal drama.

  Still, I found myself nodding. “We can try that. Let me talk to him again first, though.”

  Not that I had any idea what I was going to say.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  aura treatments and psychic echoes

  I arrived home that afternoon to find Sabrina Brightstar’s letter with a huge RETURN TO SENDER stamped on it. I was bummed but not surprised, since it wasn’t like Mom had been around to update her address book. I’d just have to do a little more in-depth sleuthing.

  A search of the Internet white pages for Sabrina Brightstar or Mildred Schwartz brought up nothing, but I struck some very tacky gold when I did a more general search. Sabrina Brightstar had her very own website. It was horrendous—not that I’m an expert in web design, but wow. Animated graphics, blinking neon text, and one of those annoying embedded MIDI files that starts playing blippy electronic music as soon as the site loads. (Sabrina’s song of choice was an elevator-music version of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police.) It was the kind of disaster someone with no taste and a copy of one of those web design books for dummies might’ve come up with circa 2003.

  This Sabrina Brightstar—and really, how many could there be?—sold tarot card readings, astrological counseling sessions, and aura treatments (whatever those were) online. A quick scan of her “About Me” page revealed that, although she currently lived in Colorado, she’d spent a decade on the east coast of Florida. Yep, this had to be the same Sabrina. I shot her a quick e-mail, again explaining that I was looking for information about my mom and the Logan Street investigation. Her response showed up the following afternoon.

  Dear Violet:

  Of course I remember you, dear. I knew you would soon contact me. Your thoughts of me gave you away; I felt every one of them. I sensed you were curious about your mother as well.

  I almost gave up on her right then. She “sensed” that I was curious? Wasn’t that kind of obvious from the whole, what-can-you-tell-me-about-my-mother thing? This was worse than one of those cold readings the fake psychics do on talk shows. But I slogged on through, hoping to find a valuable detail or two.

  Your mother was a wonderful woman and a dear friend, and it still pains me to remember what happened to her that awful night. I’m not sure how much you know about my abilities—

  Shouldn’t she have been able to sense that, too? I mean, I’m the last person to arbitrarily doubt someone else’s abilities, but still. I couldn’t help snickering.

  —but I am a powerful psychic and empath, and I feel things far more keenly than most people. Your mother, Robin, always appreciated my gifts. She understood what it felt like to be different in such a way; I sense that you understand as well. I knew of your gift as soon as I met you, well before your mother told me about it.

  You said you wanted to know more about what happened that night. The Logan Street property was so full of negative energies that I could barely set foot inside. However, your mother depended on my expertise, so I forced myself onward. That house, Violet, was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The presence within was angry and terrifying, and it left its invisible mark throughout the structure. Have you heard of psychic echoes? Occurrences involving strong emotion can imprint the surrounding area with an “echo” of that emotion. The echo repeats itself over and over, caught in an unending loop. Those with gifts like mine can sense such echoes and understand the circumstances behind them. This is why your mother relied on me—she could sense and speak to spirits, but only I could interpret a location’s echoes and determine the truth.

  I was overwhelmed by the echoes in the Logan Street house. I’m not sure how much you know about how Palmetto Paranormal operated, but in most cases, we did a preliminary investigation during the day, then returned at night, when supernatural elements are at their most active, for a more in-depth investigation. During the preliminary of Logan Street, I inferred a strong sense of violence and wrath emanating from the property. So many bad things happened there, and all the echoes centered upon James Riley, Jr., and his wife, Abigail. I felt such rage around them! It was obvious to me that James Riley was, in life, an abusive husband, exposing Abigail to the brunt of his terrible temper. A whisper of infidelity wafted through the house—as I studied the echo, I grew certain James suspected Abigail of being unfaithful. Perhaps it was that lack of trust which led to their downfall and maybe even their deaths.

  Grasping the nuances of the situation was difficult. There were too many echoes at that point, too many remnants of rage and hatred and pain. Such things are not always clear, even to me.

  But that night…My dear, that night was horrible. The house had no electricity and my flashlight stopped working almost immediately. The darkness increased the echoes tenfold, both in volume and in strength. Our fourth member, Bryan, abandoned the investigation after only a few minutes, but I did my best to persevere because I knew it was important to Robin. After I’d gathered what information I could, I went looking for your parents to tell them I was finished and would wait outside. In a flash of lightning, I spotted your mother at the top of the stairs with a dark, threatening figure standing next to her. It reached out and shoved her, and she fell.

  I may not be a young woman, and my eyesight is not what it used to be, but I know what I saw. I also know that the only people in that house were your mother, your father, and me. Who else could it have been?

  I wish I had more insight for you, dear, but that is all I know.

  Yours,

  Sabrina Brightstar

  A dark, threatening figure? Why was she so certain it was Dad? It could have been a weird shadow caused by the lightning. Heck, maybe it was the ghost of James Riley, Jr. Maybe he was such a strong spirit that even an airhead l
ike Sabrina could catch a glimpse.

  But if that were true…Could James Riley, Jr., have pushed my mother? How many times had Mom told me things like that couldn’t happen, that the dead wouldn’t, or couldn’t, physically harm the living in such a direct way?

  Still, I suddenly find myself doubting Mom. Maybe she’d just wanted to believe what she’d told me, or maybe she’d been too busy looking for the good in everyone, living or dead, to see that some people just don’t have any good in them at all.

  And why couldn’t a ghost hurt a living person? Even harmless Irma Morris from the cemetery could heft around a few glass balls. If she’d wanted to hurt any of us, she could have lobbed them at our heads. And look at Buster—if he was able to turn an entire room of furniture upside down, surely he could throw stuff hard enough to cause an injury.

  Or shove someone down a flight of stairs.

  At least I knew ghosts like Buster and Irma wouldn’t do things like that, but I had no reason to trust James Riley, Jr.

  An idea began to spin in the back of my mind. It was ridiculous, and probably dangerous, and I knew I should ignore it, but…I wasn’t going to be able to finish the Logan Street investigation with only secondhand information from an incompetent psychic. I needed a more direct approach.

  What if I went to the Logan Street property and did some investigating of my own? I was certain Dad hadn’t pushed Mom, but if I could go to that house, hopefully confront a ghost or two, and find out what really happened, maybe I’d be able to complete the file with a concrete statement that would put a lot more than the unfinished investigation to rest.

  Pulling this off wouldn’t be easy. I’d need a plan—a better plan than I’d come up with for investigating the locker room. But I felt more and more determined to finish Mom’s final investigation file, and this seemed like the only way to do it.

  Feeling excited but still annoyed at Sabrina, I printed her e-mail and added it to the Logan Street folder. It was important to be as complete and comprehensive as possible with these things. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it Mom’s way through and through. And that meant compiling any and all information.

  Unfortunately, to be really complete, the Logan Street folder also needed another person’s account—my dad’s—and I knew I wasn’t going to have much luck getting that. The more I thought about it, though, the more it seemed like the folder needed a fourth account, too. Mine. I mean, I wasn’t there that night, but I was certainly a part of the bigger picture.

  That’s when I remembered Ms. Geller’s midterm assignment: the descriptive essay about my most vivid childhood memory. Denying it any longer was stupid—I knew exactly what I had to write about, exactly which memory I had to face.

  Violet Addison

  November 14

  English 2 Honors

  Most Vivid Childhood Memory

  Black Tourmaline

  When I think about the night my mom died, the first thing I remember is black tourmaline. Mom always carried a small piece of tourmaline—inky black and cold and tumbled smooth—among her lucky charms. She was a paranormal investigator, and she believed tourmaline offered protection against negative energy. I just thought it was a pretty rock, so I was always taking it out of her messenger bag and trying to keep it for myself. It made me feel like I always had a piece of her nearby.

  That evening, while my mom was getting ready for an investigation, I stole the tourmaline out of her bag. I thought I could keep it for the night, then put it back in the morning without her ever knowing. Then she and Dad left for the Logan Street house.

  I never saw her again.

  Everything else from that night is a blurred string of connected memories. I went to bed at 9:30 as usual, and left the tourmaline on my nightstand, where it would be safe. Then the phone rang, waking me up just enough to hear my babysitter, Rachel, answer. I must have fallen back to sleep quickly, though, because I didn’t hear her end of the conversation. When I woke up again, my bedside lamp was on and Aunt Thelma was in my room. She told me to get dressed, then got my purple suitcase out of the closet and began packing some of my clothes.

  I was groggy and confused. I told her it was too early to get up, and I asked where my mom and dad were.

  “Your dad’s at my house in Lakewood,” she said. “That’s where we’re going now.”

  That confused me even more. “But where’s Mom? Is she there, too?”

  “You just wait and talk to your dad, okay?” Aunt Thelma’s eyes were red and watery. “I can’t do that part for him.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, and I shoved away the clothes she tried to hand me. She was giving me my Saturday jeans to wear, the ones with the holes in the knees. It was a school day; Mom wouldn’t let me wear those jeans to school. Aunt Thelma said I wouldn’t have to go to school that day.

  That was when I realized something had to be wrong. I was scared. I didn’t want to go to Aunt Thelma’s house. I wanted my mom and dad.

  When we got to Aunt Thelma’s house, Dad was waiting in the living room. His face was white and his eyes were puffy, and his expression made him look like a balloon someone had let all the air out of. I’d never seen him look like that before. Not my dad, who forgot the punch lines when he told jokes, and who made us sit through bad science fiction movies on cable, and who laughed more than anyone else I knew, except maybe my mom.

  He held his arms out, and I ran to him and hugged him as hard as I could.

  “Thank you, kiddo.” He hugged me back just as tightly. “I really, really needed that.”

  Aunt Thelma kept offering to get us tea or coffee or milk, I guess because she didn’t know what else to do.

  I don’t remember exactly how he told me, the words he chose. There was a lot of crying. Mom had fallen down a flight of stairs during the investigation. She had broken her neck and died instantly.

  I started crying and told him it was my fault. I had taken Mom’s lucky tourmaline. Maybe it would have protected Mom if she’d had it with her. Then I cried some more because I had forgotten to bring the gemstone with me—I’d left it on my nightstand by accident.

  Dad told me it wasn’t my fault.

  “It was an accident. A terrible accident. Your mom would want you to understand that, Violet. You did nothing wrong.”

  Even now, it’s hard for me to accept that. Logically, I know he was right that I had—and have—nothing to feel guilty about, but seven years later I still can’t help but wonder if my mom would still be alive if I hadn’t taken her lucky black tourmaline that night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  through your incorporeal skull

  Now that I’d turned in my English essay, I could get back to more pressing matters. I still had to figure out just how to finish the Logan Street investigation, and I’d told Isobel I would talk to Dirk again, too. But no matter how many times I asked him about the Black Rose painting, or what I threatened to tell his fellow jocks, Dirk kept quiet.

  “You’ll never find it,” he insisted, trying his best to sound all scary and foreboding. “I destroyed it.”

  I even threatened to track down his father and share the truth of his macho jock son’s true artistic sensibilities. That made Dirk pause a little, and I thought I’d gotten through, but then he clammed up. I guess he figured out that I didn’t really care enough either way to go through all that effort.

  Still, I wished I had more definitive news about the painting. I couldn’t help thinking that if Dirk had truly destroyed it, he wouldn’t be so secretive about the details of its fate.

  Since he was so annoyingly unhelpful, I decided to snoop on my own. Unfortunately, there weren’t that many places in the art room to stash a canvas. Isobel was right about the space between the file cabinet and the wall—it was empty, aside from a prepped, gessoed canvas, some dust, and half of a broken pencil. I checked the storage cabinets and the drying racks and anywhere a canvas could’ve been misplaced, but I didn’t come up with anything.


  At least my worthless attempts with Dirk distracted me from my issues with the locker room, which I was still doing my best to avoid. I’m not sure which possibility was more disturbing—that the thing inside was a ghost, which meant ghosts could indeed be threatening, or that it was something else entirely. The latter made me feel increasingly vulnerable; it reminded me of how much I didn’t know. I could almost feel the presence in the gym itself, as if it were seeping out of the locker room and working its way inside me a little more each day. Maybe there were ways to protect myself, but who would teach me?

  Then again, if my suspicions about the Logan Street house and Mom’s death were correct, I couldn’t very well creep in there all afraid and unsure. I had to know what I was doing.

  Maybe I needed to look at the locker room differently. I needed practice, and here was an opportunity to face something that was less than friendly. If I could stand up to it and finish the investigation I’d started, that experience might be invaluable when I went looking for James Riley, Jr.

  So I decided to give it one more try. Armed with Mom’s protective doodads and ghost hunting equipment, I loitered near the gym one afternoon and waited for the locker room to empty out. I’d told Dad I needed to spend a few hours researching an English paper in the library; he agreed to pick me up at five, which gave me plenty of time. Half an hour after the last bell, I was able to sneak inside.