Logan grabbed a fork and started in on his pancakes. “I didn’t hear any other sound except those chains moving slowly across the ground. And then…it stopped.”
“Is that why you banged against the door?” asked Tyler.
Logan nodded. He didn’t want to admit the fright that gripped him at that moment. They relied on him to be strong and fearless, and he couldn’t let them down. He turned to Ashleigh. “After that I texted Eloise. I told her everything that had happened over the last few days.”
Spellbound, Ashleigh pushed her upper chest against the table. “Did she get back to you? What did she say? Will she check on things here?”
Logan lifted a finger. He couldn’t think of anything else he wished to tell them, so he got up, retrieved his phone, and returned to the table. “She got back to me this morning.” He let out an even breath and prayed that Eloise had good news for them. Even so, his hand began to shake, so he tightened his grasp around the phone to ward off the jitters.
“What does it say?” asked Tyler, eyebrows pointed upwards.
Logan entered his phone’s security code to unlock it. He read Eloise’s text message aloud: “Hi Logan. Thanks for reaching out to me. I’m really sorry to hear things have gone sideways in your home. I can’t really give you advice over the phone because I’m not sure what you’re dealing with. I’d need to see things for myself. I’m off the next couple of days, so I can visit your house if you’d like. I can take a look around and try to find out what might be causing the commotion. Feel free to give me a call.”
Logan could do nothing but smile. And hope she’d be able to help them.
13
When they finished eating breakfast, Logan’s phone rang. He sliced a hand through the air, cutting off their bickering.
“Hello,” he said, trying to breathe calmly to keep his chest from tightening up on him.
“Hi,” Eloise said. “Thanks for texting me. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?”
“Of course. I’ve got my sister and brother here as well.” He adjusted the cell to speakerphone so his siblings could hear the conversation. “We’re all curious to hear what a professional thinks about our case.” He tacked on the word “professional” with a smile in his voice to hear what she had to say about that.
“A professional?” asked Eloise with a chuckle in a high tone. “I don’t know about that.”
“We do,” said Ashleigh. “I read your blog. You know all sorts of things. Scary things. Things no one else knows.”
“It’s not like she’s a ghostbuster, Ash,” Tyler said with a rascally grin. “I’ve seen the reboot and Eloise wasn’t in it.”
Logan smacked him on the arm. He mouthed the words: Knock it off! “Ignore him, Eloise.”
She snickered. “How’s everything going over there? Has anything happened since last night?”
“No,” Logan said. “Not since I texted you. That’s a good thing, right?”
Eloise remained quiet for a few seconds. “It really depends on what you’re dealing with and what they’re feeling and thinking.”
Logan wished he hadn’t heard that answer. It would have made things so much better if they weren’t anticipating an attack. “Where do we go from here?” Logan asked, hoping Eloise might stop by sooner than later.
“I can visit if you’d like.”
“That sounds fantastic!” he said.
“But be careful.” Tyler leaned closer to the phone. “Logan’s in love with you.”
Eloise giggled.
It was just what Logan needed: to get embarrassed before meeting Eloise instead of while chatting with her. Rather than berate his brother, he tried to accept the dig as a way of getting over his nervousness around Eloise.
“That’s it?” Tyler asked, his playful manner gone. He frowned, looking disappointed.
It gave Logan a new tactic against his brother’s sarcasm: act disinterested or even pleased, and Tyler might just give up. He’d definitely remember that again. As for Logan, he was pretty glad not to feel heat shooting up his neck and into his face. It seemed he wasn’t as overtly humiliated as he’d at first thought.
“Logan?” asked Eloise in a tentative voice.
“Yes,” he said. “Whenever you can visit would be awesome.”
“Great! See you soon.” She disconnected the call.
The doorbell dinged.
Shocked, Logan craned his neck to the front door before turning back to Ashleigh. He whispered, “Could that be her?”
Ashleigh pursed her lips. “She can’t hear you through a door and across the whole house.” But a grin lit her features. “But yeah, I think it’s her.”
Logan concurred. Eloise had to have been standing on their porch. Otherwise, to hear the bell a second after being invited seemed too coincidental.
Tyler darted over to the door, opened it, and stepped aside. “Logan, your date’s here to pick you up.”
Logan was too busy staring at the beautiful woman on his doorstep to make sense of what his brother said. “Hi!” he whispered.
Ashleigh covered her mouth to hide her laughter. “I’m pretty sure Eloise didn’t hear that.” She placed a palm to the small of Logan’s back and pushed him towards the door.
Logan approached their guest with legs that felt like he’d just spent twenty minutes on a stair-climber for the first time. He grabbed the doorknob. “Hi.”
She laughed. “Hello.”
“Real smooth.” Tyler handed his brother a piece of paper with Ashleigh’s cell phone number on it. “If you want tips on how to talk to the ladies, give me a call.”
Eloise peered into the house and met Logan’s gaze. “I promise I’m not a vampire, but if you need to get some garlic to protect yourself, I’ll completely understand.”
“Yeah,” Logan said with a dreamy smile. “I love garlic!”
“For dinner,” Tyler said. “Garlic and water. Day after day. It’s his favorite meal.”
“Hey,” Ashleigh said, her footsteps pounding the floorboards as she approached them, “don’t give away all of Logan’s secrets. What Tyler meant to say is that we’d like to invite you inside.” With a wide grin, she unfurled an arm toward their home. “Come on in.”
“Thanks,” Eloise said, glancing at Logan as she tried to crush a furtive grin.
“You’ll have to excuse him,” Ashleigh said. “My brother stayed up to protect us all night while we slept. He’s kind of delirious right now.”
“How thoughtful.” Eloise’s smile touched her eyes. “You must be exhausted,” she told him.
Logan nodded, still taken aback that she was really here.
After Ashleigh ushered Eloise into the house, Tyler punched Logan on the arm.
The unexpected jolt redirected Logan’s thoughts and allowed him to break through his annoying ability to get dumbstruck upon first seeing her. And he thought he’d kicked that habit. It seemed he’d need to work harder at it. Either that, or hopefully, spend more than a few minutes with Eloise at a time so he could get comfortable in her presence.
“So,” Eloise said, spinning toward Logan. “Would you mind if I took a look around?”
“Not at all,” Logan said, regaining his wits. “Let me lead the way.” He silently thanked his sister for keeping the house spotless. “First up: Tyler’s room. He’s a master at interior design. He decorates his room with clothes in the most interesting way.”
“Better not!” Tyler said.
With his siblings following on his heels, he guided Eloise through the family room downstairs before making his way to the staircase. He stopped and pointed to the picture that had fallen.
“It was just laying there?” Eloise asked. “No one had bumped into the wall?”
“Yes.” He waited to hear what she’d say, but she remained silent and her expression hadn’t changed. He wished he could read her mind to figure out what she was thinking, but he pushed that thought aside.
Eloise traced a finger across the cracked po
rtion of the frame that streaked across Logan and Ashleigh’s faces. She staggered back.
“Whoa!” Logan reached out and cradled her in his arms, pulling her toward him, and her warm palm rested against his chest just above his heart. He liked the way she felt in his grasp, like she belonged there, like this sensation had been the one piece missing in his life. “Are you okay?”
Nodding, she closed her lips and swallowed. “I just lost my footing.”
Logan didn’t entirely believe that. She hadn’t adjusted her position. She’d been standing in place. Only when she touched that streak of broken glass had she given a jolt. No doubt her paranormal skills had somehow affected her. But why had she jerked like that? Had she felt pain? Had a memory struck her mind?
“Did you sense anything?” Logan asked, disconcerted.
She didn’t respond.
Had she purposely disregarded his question? He examined her eyes, and she glanced to the right, toward his siblings, before meeting his gaze again. Indeed, she had discovered something she chose not to say in front of his sister and brother. Under that circumstance, Logan had no intention of repeating the question. He may have saved his siblings from learning a troubling fact, but knowing that didn’t assuage his own concerns. Quite the opposite.
Regardless, for the first time, Logan contemplated that fracture in the glass. It now seemed odd that the crack split across his and Ashleigh’s faces while leaving their parent’s images untouched. Had it fallen and cracked like that? There was no way to tell, but it seemed like a bad omen.
Eloise glanced up the staircase. “Most of the activity occurred one flight up?”
“I’ll lead you up,” Logan said. But he didn’t move.
Neither did Eloise. She looked into his eyes, and her breath caught in her throat. “You’re truly a nice guy, aren’t you?”
He found it odd that she phrased it that way, like she was shocked that some men had good manners and even better intentions. “I try to be.”
A smile spread across her lips. “You were going to show me upstairs?” She removed her hand from his chest and stepped out of his grasp.
Logan started up the steps and extended his hand behind his back. When Eloise grasped it, Logan linked his fingers with hers. Leading her didn’t feel right, so he slowed his pace until she walked alongside him.
Their eyes met. Logan liked the way his heart hammered wildly under his lungs. Damn, he’d need to temper his excitement. He didn’t want to grow too attached to her. He still didn’t like how touching a mere photograph affected her. It didn’t seem fair, like she’d been cursed with her special abilities.
“How does this work?” Logan asked. “The whole psychic thing?”
“It depends on what I sense, the type of entity in any given place, and the amount of power it wields.”
Eloise slowed. She released her hand from his grasp.
“Oops,” said Tyler. “Sorry.”
Logan turned to see his brother retreat a step and shake his head, obviously having bumped into Eloise. Beside him, Ashleigh had also come to a stop, but her panic-stricken gaze never left their guest’s face.
Logan tried to read Eloise’s expression, but he couldn’t make anything out. It seemed that she’d stopped moving, causing Tyler to bump into her.
“For instance…” Eloise met his stare. “The picture frame downstairs: the entity knocked it down.”
A low whine left Ashleigh’s clenched lips. Her eyebrows drew inwards. She breathed quickly through her nostrils and shook her head.
Logan went a few steps down and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He couldn’t tell her everything would be all right because he didn’t want to make claims he couldn’t back up, but he could tell she didn’t feel comfortable going up there.
Tyler’s bangs covered his eyes like a curtain. He usually only did that while locked in concentration while playing the guitar or the piano. Logan wondered if he’d done that for the same reason that Ashleigh had seemed reluctant to continue ascending the steps: that he didn’t want to see what could possibly be upstairs, no matter that no one had heard anything suspicious up there.
“You called it an ‘entity,’” Tyler said. “Why not just call it a ghost?”
“Because I don’t know what it is yet,” said Eloise.
“Hmmm.” Ashleigh bit her inner cheek. “If it’s not a ghost, what could it be?”
Eloise looked over her shoulder. “There are many different supernatural creatures.”
“Many?” Logan asked and gulped. She made it seem like an offhand remark. It may have been for her since she knew more about the supernatural than he did, but Logan felt that a large number of creatures substantially increased the possibility that they could hurt humans. That thought made his right eye twitch.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Eloise returned her attention to the stairs ahead of her, but she ascended them at a slower pace than before.
Logan wanted to comfort his siblings, but this situation was not one that parents, much less their children anticipated, so he followed Eloise at a safe distance.
Just as she reached the last step before reaching the second level, Eloise stopped. She looked left and right. “It was here. But it wasn’t very strong.”
Logan scoffed. The idea sounded ridiculous. “It carried chains,” he reminded her.
She nodded at that but remained in place for a few more seconds. “I should be able to see that, but I’m not getting an image of this entity. It was in each room downstairs but not for long. It’s not on the steps.”
“So…” Ashleigh whispered. “It’s up there? Waiting for us?”
“Normally, I’d feel an entity by now,” Eloise admitted. “I feel something, but again, I don’t know what it is.”
To learn that she couldn’t hone in on it made him wonder if she’d never encountered a creature like the one that had penetrated their house. If that was the case, it might not bode well for them for one simple reason: she might not know how to get rid of it.
“We’ll have to keep going,” Eloise said.
“I can’t,” Tyler said, lowering his gaze. “I mean, I don’t feel like it.”
“That’s okay,” Ashleigh snapped. “I’ll stay here with you.” Her brows drew close as she looked downstairs. “We’ll stay right here, so we can hear them if they need us. Okay?”
Logan was proud of his brother for admitting his feelings. Although his brother liked horror movies, at least those rated PG-13, Tyler may have gotten more scared because he’d seen those movies, rather than braver for having seen them.
Eloise met Logan’s stare. “Are you coming?”
For the briefest moment, he considered telling her no. He still didn’t like that she’d been beset with her psychic abilities, but he liked and trusted her. If something went wrong, he knew she wouldn’t turn her back on him. For those reasons, he said, “Of course, I’m coming.”
Logan hiked a few more steps until he stood beside Eloise. Based on the determined yet curious expression on her face, Logan hoped she would soon have some sort of answer as to what haunted them.
14
Eloise touched down on the second floor. She swiveled right and poked her head inside Logan’s mother’s room. “It has been here.” She turned back toward the corridor and walked into the only other room on this side of the house, the one belonging to Ashleigh. “It has also been here.”
Logan’s shoulders clinched. What did it want from his mother or Ashleigh? It reminded him of how it had latched onto her and attacked her at her friend’s house. “What does it want?”
Eloise scanned the room before making her way around it in a rectangular fashion. “It spent some time here, but I don’t know why.”
Logan wished she would elaborate. He would have expected more depth than that, but he didn’t want to push Eloise for more information. She had dropped whatever else she had planned this morning to visit, so he wouldn’t pelt her with tons of questions until he felt
like she’d come to a conclusion about what haunted them.
With the same noncommittal expression, Eloise left the room, traversed the hall, and hung a right into the bathroom. She stared at the ground. “Was this ground flooded?”
“Yes,” Logan said breathlessly. “Not exactly flooded, but water was all over the floor. The toilet got clogged.”
Her gaze went to the toilet. “With sanitary napkins.” After looking around the room, she spun around, exited the room, hung a right, and immediately entered Tyler’s room.
Stunned by that insight, Logan twirled around towards his siblings. “Did you tell her?” he whispered to his siblings.
Mouths agape, eyes wide open, they shook their heads in unison.
He trusted the astonished looks on their faces and stepped out of the bathroom. Logan, standing ramrod straight, shifted back toward Eloise. He had no idea her abilities were so powerful that she could see and feel what had happened here. His belief in her grew stronger, but it also frightened him for the simple fact that he knew nothing about this strange ability and how it impinged or enhanced her personality.
Eloise jutted out her chin and shook her head. Then she closed her eyes and stood in place, remaining silent.
Logan felt odd staring at her while she reflected on whatever gripped her, so he set his gaze elsewhere. It was strange inviting a potential love interest into their home to search for ghosts or whatever Eloise thought might inhabit their home. But based on their short conversations until now, he knew she would speak her mind and not sugarcoat things.
She inhaled. “I see a long, frayed white dress. Long black hair.”
Logan wondered why the woman had entered Tyler’s room. What had it wanted with him?
Eloise opened her eyes. “That’s all. Usually, I get more than that. Not this time.” She pivoted, left Tyler’s room, and stopped at the outskirts of Logan’s bedroom. “This is yours?”
The Descendants Page 11