The Haunting Season

by Michelle Muto

  “Like crap,” Gage admitted. “Like I’d let him down. Hell, like I let my whole family down.” It felt good, how easy the words came out. How easy it was to tell her.

  Her expression softened, the pinched, worried look gone and Gage couldn’t help but notice her natural beauty.

  She stared out into the open field. “My dad died about a year ago. Cancer. I wasn’t there when he passed away. I’d been going every day after school. Mom was going to take me to see him right after dinner, but then…they called and…” Jess closed her eyes, clearly fighting back the memory. “He died alone.”

  Gage resisted the urge to reach out and touch her face, instead resting his elbows on his knees. “Sorry. That really sucks.”

  Jess offered him a sad smile. “For you, too. Especially since your parents think you can undo your brother’s death.”

  “There are days when I’m not sure what’s really expected of me. Do they think he’ll just show up good as new—as if nothing happened? Or do they think I can summon his ghost?” He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Problem is, I’ve never seen a ghost. Now, you on the other hand…”

  “So, you believe me? You don’t think it’s just my imagination?”

  “Oh, I believe you,” Gage said. And he did believe her. He wasn’t lying about that. Hell, he hadn’t lied to her about anything. “I guess I don’t have to see one myself to believe that you can. At first, I thought that maybe you were just a little too eager. But, I think you’re the real deal. Allison, too.” He smiled. “Not so sure about Bryan, though. The largest thing I’ve seen him make disappear is a plate of food,” he kidded. It made her smile which got him smiling, too.

  “Nah! That’s not true,” he quickly amended. “Bryan is a good guy and he’s got one scary talent. Anyway, I say that we see about getting out that Ouija board. Give it a try. Just you and me. What do you think?”

  “You’d do that?” Jess asked, turning those golden brown eyes his way once more.

  He would. Not just because he’d like to one up Bryan, but because if he was going to do this, he needed to prove it to himself and his parents once and for all that whatever hocus pocus mojo he might have had wasn’t there anymore. Okay, and it wouldn’t hurt to impress Jess, too.

  He shrugged. “Hey, we’ve both got something to prove and nothing to lose. That’s the way I figure it. We use that Ouija board to make the connection, I’ll see what I can reel in and you do the talking. Because, otherwise, we’re just going to walk around with all this equipment and get nowhere. Bryan and I tried it out after you and Allison went to your room last night. Other than a few EMF readings and cold spots we didn’t get much.”

  “Dr. Brandt said we’d use the board with or without Allison by the weekend. He just wants to give her a little more time.”

  Gage cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t want to wait until the weekend, do you? You’re miserable just sitting around.”

  She stared at him, apparently considering his offer. He nudged her with his shoulder. “Come on. No one will really care. Maybe they won’t even have to know if you’re more comfortable with that.”

  Please say yes.

  Jess’s smile widened. “Okay, I’m in.”

  “Then I say we get started.” He stood and reached down a hand. Jess looked up at him and took his hand into hers, sealing their deal and allowing him to help her up. When she was standing in front of him, he was almost reluctant to let it go. With those eyes and that smile, she really was a beauty. The guys back home might have thought she wasn’t his type, but they’d have been wrong. Deep inside, he liked girls like Jess over the flashier ones with the tough-chick attitude. Those were easy to come by. And for Gage, easy to get. He had learned early on how to turn on his good looks and charm. But girls like Jess were fun, easy to be around. And definitely worth his best effort.

  Jess gave him a faint smile. “How are we going to get the board?”

  “Come on,” he said, squeezing her hand gently and pulling her with him. They headed toward the house. “I’ve got a plan.”

  Which to him, was an understatement.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jess laughed as Gage tugged her across the yard. She didn’t even mind him holding onto her hand. In fact, she rather enjoyed it. The grass was cool beneath her bare feet, despite the day’s humid warmth. For the first time in a couple of days, she felt like everything was moving forward again.

  She told herself that her lightened mood had nothing to do with Gage himself, just his offer to help.

  And why not let him? He could be right—the two of them might have the abilities to pull this off. Gracie and Emma had said they’d help with the board, too. She hadn’t told Gage that part, mostly because she wasn’t sure what the girls had meant.

  He pulled her close as they stopped by the front door, and she thought he intended to kiss her. For a moment, Jess forgot to breathe. Her gaze wandered from his hazel eyes down to his mouth. Not that she would have minded a kiss. Except Gage knew how hot he was. Not pretty-boy model handsome, but more ruggedly sexy.

  He’s probably a jerk in the romance department. Don’t let him see what he does to you. How you light up inside when he’s around.

  Then again, they weren’t going to be here that long. A kiss didn’t have to mean anything else. Surely it’d never develop into much of anything. Just a summer attraction. Jess didn’t have a boyfriend back home—well, not anymore. She forced herself to breathe again, to stop looking at his totally kissable mouth so temptingly close to hers.

  One kiss. Just one…

  “Ready?” he asked. The corners of his mouth twitched into a grin.

  “Now?” she eked out.

  Gage’s grin widened. The jerk had to know he was teasing her, but Jess didn’t have the guts to lean in and kiss him. “Why not?” he said. “First, we’ve got to see where everyone else is, especially Mrs. Hirsch.”

  “Who’s to say she isn’t walking the halls?”

  “I’m sure she is. That’s why you’re going to be the diversion.”

  “Me? She’s already caught me in one of the rooms.”

  “Hey, I can’t think of a better diversion,” Gage murmured, making her think about that kiss again. “As for Mrs. Hirsch? It’s even better if she catches you. Do it again. Try the same room or find another one. Just don’t be quiet about it.”

  They stared at each other. He was killing her, but she refused to make the first move. They’d done nothing but stare at each other their entire conversation. Jess forced herself to look out into the yard. “I think you’re way too good at this,” she finally said.

  “Yeah, well, what can I say? Where do you think Allison is?”

  “No idea.” Jess didn’t want to mention that she hadn’t stayed in the same room with her last night.

  “Now, we’ll just have to find Dr. Brandt,” Gage said, opening the front door.

  Jess couldn’t believe she was going though with this. It was one thing to try to persuade Dr. Brandt into using the board or doing a séance without Allison or Bryan, but something else entirely to enter his room and take the Ouija board without asking. Yet, it also seemed the right thing to do. What if the ghosts had a hard time showing up with all the equipment and Allison’s negativity? Allison had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with ghosts, and wasn’t fond of anyone else having anything to do with them, either.

  She found herself staring into Gage’s eyes again.

  Why couldn’t she stop staring at him?

  Gage held the door and followed her into the foyer. They found Allison sitting in the Great Room reading a book and Mrs. Hirsch in the dining room, polishing the table. She had no idea why since maids came in twice a week, but it didn’t matter. At least she wouldn’t be wandering the halls.

  Jess didn’t ask how Gage was going to get the Ouija board up into the attic unseen, but in a way, the less she knew the better.

  He leaned in and whispered, “Meet me in the attic, after dinn
er.”

  She loved the feel of his breath against her ear. Before she could even nod, he was already halfway up the stairs. Damn him!

  Allison looked up from her book and glanced from Jess to the staircase and back. She raised an eyebrow.

  “Where’s Bryan and Dr. Brandt?” Jess asked, avoiding any questions about Gage. Mrs. Hirsch was too close and bound to be listening. The last thing Jess wanted was for her to start following either of them around thinking something was going on that shouldn’t be. Not that they had to answer to her.

  “Third floor,” Allison said. “They’re checking out some of the rooms that are normally kept locked. Bryan is enjoying all the ghost hunting equipment a little too much.”

  “Do you want to join them?” Jess asked, already knowing the answer.

  Allison shook her head and went back to her book. Mrs. Hirsch was standing on a step stool, using a duster on an extended pole to clean the room’s molding. Jess couldn’t help but watch, taking note again of the strange, carved faces.

  “Problem?” Mrs. Hirsch said, not bothering to stop her chores.

  “No,” Jess replied. “Just looking at the faces. It’s like they’re watching.”

  Mrs. Hirsch stepped off the stool and moved it to another area. She reached inside her blouse and pulled out a silver chain, then rubbed its dark grey pendant before tucking it back inside. “That’s the point.”

  Jess frowned.

  Mrs. Hirsch began dusting again. “Catherine Siler had the molding installed after the murders. For all the good it did.”

  “Good?” Jess asked.

  She got down from the stool and gave Jess an exasperated glance. “In some areas of the South, it’s believed molding like this prevents the corners of a room from harboring evil spirits. She even had a lot of the walls and ceilings painted sky blue, another method used for scaring off spirits.” She moved the step stool again. “Guess it didn’t work.”

  Jess waited for the rest of the story, but Mrs. Hirsch didn’t say another word as she removed cobwebs from a corner. Then, with a small huff, she picked up the stool and disappeared into the kitchen, probably to check on what the cook was preparing for dinner.

  Convinced Mrs. Hirsch was otherwise occupied, Jess thought joining Bryan and Dr. Brandt might be a good idea. She could at least keep them on the third floor a while longer, hopefully giving Gage more time in Dr. Brandt’s room.

  “I’m going to go find Bryan and Dr. Brandt,” Jess said.

  Allison put the book down. “On second thought, I’ll join you.”

  Jess hadn’t expected Allison to tag along, especially since ghost hunting wasn’t her thing, but she figured it was a good idea to keep her with her instead of having her catch Gage going through Dr. Brandt’s things.

  They left the Great Room and headed upstairs. On the second floor landing, she caught the shadow of a man on the wall. The shadow moved around the corner and down the hallway. “Gage?” Jess called softly, hoping the sound of her voice would give him a heads up that they were nearby. But if it wasn’t Gage?

  Jess started down the hallway, aware Allison had stopped following. The corridor was empty and she turned back to her. “What? Did you see someone?”

  Allison was staring at the wall where the shadow had been. So, she’d seen it, too. If it wasn’t Gage, Bryan or Dr. Brandt, then who? Jess tried to think back to all the ghosts she’d encountered in the past. Had any of them been able to cast a shadow?

  “Allison? Tell me you saw the shadow of a man?” Jess whispered.

  Allison continued to stare at the wall. “I saw a man upon the stairs. I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today, I wish the man would go away.”

  “That’s really creepy,” Jess said.

  “Don’t worry,” Allison said, taking a deep breath as she started up the third flight of steps. “It’s an old poem or something.”

  Jess looked behind them, then followed Allison. “It’s still creepy. But, you did see a shadow, right?”

  “Yeah. There really was a man on the stairs.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When she and Gage caught up with one another two hours later, Jess tried not to think of how close he was as they sat on the sofa in the Great Room. “So, the Ouija board isn’t in his room?” Jess asked. She could have sworn Dr. Brandt had left the board and the planchette in the supply box, and according to Gage, he’d taken everything back to his room that night.

  “Nope,” Gage replied. “I looked everywhere. Weird, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe he put it someplace else.”

  “I guess, but why would he have taken the Ouija board out of the box? I found everything else in his room.”

  Jess frowned. “You don’t think Allison might have already taken it, do you? You know, to keep all of us from using it?”

  Gage shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, regardless of whoever stashed the Ouija board, I think the basement is a good place to start looking for it. That, or a locked room,” Jess said.

  Gage grinned. “I know just how to do it without being too suspicious.”

  She gave him a curious glance.

  “We drag out the equipment,” he said. “Go on a little ghost hunting expedition. We’ll even rally the troops. Bryan hasn’t had a chance to use the video recorder yet, and this would be the perfect opportunity. All that equipment gives us license to dig around. Look behind some closed doors, scope stuff out. I like your idea of the basement. Let’s start there.”

  It hadn’t taken much convincing to get everyone in on the ghost hunt. And, after the incident on the stairs, Jess was eager to see what the equipment might tell them. Gracie, Emma, and Riley weren’t the only ghosts here, after all. She’d sensed them and the girls had confirmed that much. Jess wasn’t sure if it bothered her that the others hadn’t shown themselves.

  Dr. Brandt handed out the equipment—flashlights, EMFs and the voice recorders. Even Allison was complacent enough to at least accompany them. She’d said anything was better than sitting alone.

  Bryan seemed happy to be in charge of the full spectrum camera. The one thing Jess had noticed about him was how much liked anything technical.

  “Leave the lights off!” he said excitedly as they all headed down the basement stairs. “I want to see how the night vision feature works.”

  Behind her, Gage pulled the chain on the overhead light, momentarily putting them into semi-darkness. The only light came from the camera.

  Jess groaned. Boys. They’d break their necks. The stairs were steep and oddly shaped. People must have had smaller feet in the early 1900s. She flicked on the flashlight Dr. Brandt had given her and pointed the beam at the steps. The light was dim, providing barely enough visibility to see just past Bryan. It only brought the shadows and dusty cobwebs more to her attention. Jess smacked the base of the flashlight a few times.

  “They’re low-light,” Gage explained. “It’s how they’re designed.”

  “Oh,” Jess replied.

  Up ahead, Dr. Brandt turned on his flashlight. Small sections of the basement came in and out of view as he panned the beam of light—brick and stone walls, shelving with an assortment of items stacked on them, and paint cans and hand tools.

  “Hey!” Bryan alerted. “You guys are going to mess up the infrared!”

  The temperature in the basement felt ten degrees cooler than on the main floor—Jess didn’t need to check a temp reading on her EMF reader for that. Basements were always cooler, though. This was the first time she’d come down here, and she ran a hand over walls, enjoying how cold the stones were to the touch. She inhaled deeply, taking in the delightful scent of earth and damp stone, the scent of Siler House itself. Up ahead, Dr. Brandt appeared to be doing the same.

  Allison glanced over her shoulder at Jess. “See?” she mouthed.

  Gage made a sweep with the EMF detector and Bryan recorded the action.

  “Is the EVP on, Allison?” Dr. Brandt asked. />
  Allison checked on the voice recorder connected to the lanyard around her neck. “It’s on.”

  Dr. Brandt reached up and pulled a chain, snapping on the overhead light. Darkness receded into the corners of the basement, and as the light bulb swung back and forth, the shadows danced.

  “What did you do that for?” Bryan complained.

  “Food storage,” Dr. Brandt explained. “I don’t want any of us to crash into the shelves. There’s a lot of jars and canned goods. The rest of the basement will be plenty dark. We won’t turn on any more lights.”

  Dr. Brandt led them past the shelving that housed countless jars of sauces and cans of who knew what, as well as an area with a large freezer and refrigerator, and a section for the housekeeping staff that held organized cleaning supplies and fresh linens. They came next into an open area with even more odds and ends. It looked like the staging area for the renovation crew—extra baseboards and molding, a workbench, some plywood and lots of stuff that must be original items pulled from the rooms.

  “It’s like a museum of old junk,” Bryan said, panning the camera over a small area of furniture, some covered with dusty sheets, some without. Jess caught a glimpse of a chair with rotting upholstery. An old bike and several dolls with antique, waxen faces sat in another section. Nothing in Siler House had given Jess the creeps as much as those dolls, and she felt the fine hair rise on her arms. She never liked dolls, and these were especially awful. For one, they were sitting on top of an old dresser, facing toward them as if waiting for someone to show up. A blond-haired doll in the middle looked the worst of the bunch. At some point, it appeared to have been a child’s favorite. The dress was dirty and the hair, which must have been golden and in perfect ringlets at one time now looked frizzy and dull. Worse, a fairly large spider had built a web between it and the dresser mirror. The pale light from her flashlight cast shadows, illuminating white stripes on the spider’s legs. Jess quickly panned the flashlight upward, making sure the spider didn’t have relatives overhead.