by JL Bryan
Mati must have been the chubby-cheeked blond girl in my vision. She'd looked around twenty years old, and not particularly talented at making braids. Perhaps she'd stuck around after her death to soothe or protect the children's ghosts in the house. Or maybe she was the real killer and had burned down the house in a suicidal mass murder, like Anton Clay. Maybe her ghost was also the one that had killed all the children who'd lived in that house over the years—maybe she was adding more children to her collection as time went by, making them sick with her singing.
Some part of me still suspected that Clay himself was behind that fire, somehow, but I hadn't found any hard facts pointing that way. Anton Clay had died in 1841, and this house had burned down in 1889.
Anton was definitely an active ghost by then. A second house built on the site of his death, on the spot where my parents' house would eventually stand, had already been consumed by fire, taking two teenage girls with it. Anton's ghost had probably set that fire to kill the girls, around 1870. Calvin and I both believed that from our research.
Anyway, back to the current client's home. We had signs of the ghosts of the three children who'd died in the fire, as well as their nurse, but if the ghost of the older servant, Julian, was still around, he was keeping himself scarce. Maybe he wasn't around but had moved on. Or maybe he was more deeply involved than I realized. I'd practically overlooked him since we hadn't encountered any sign of an adult male ghost on this investigation, but some ghosts are very good at hiding when they want to be.
On the monitors, the house lay silent now, the microphones detecting no lullabies upstairs, nor any desperate whispers out in the shed. The thermal and night vision cameras watched empty rooms.
They weren't really empty, though. At least one murderous ghost resided there, waiting for more children to kill. We just had to figure out which one it was and how to get rid of it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dublin, Georgia is a cute little town that really likes to play up its Irish origins, especially for St. Patrick's Day tourists. It has its share of historic buildings and Victorian mansions—I'd been there before on a ghost-exterminating mission with Calvin back in the old days, before he'd lost his ability to walk and had retreated from field work. This time, though, Stacey and I had driven there to visit with the living.
The McKinley House Nursing Care Home was a single-story brick structure with two short wings. It had tall windows flanked by white shutters, and generally looked pleasant enough from the outside.
"The nurse said she doesn't talk much. She's sometimes lucid, but most of the time, not so much," Stacey reminded me. I'd had Stacey call the nursing home in advance, since she's capable of turning on the charm and generally better with people than I am. Stacey's most dazzling and upbeat smile could melt you down like butter, even over the telephone. Mine could probably kill small mammals at twenty feet.
Not that any particular charm was needed. She was just verifying that we could come visit the lady. That's usually not a problem anyway. A typical nursing home is far from swamped with visitors, and most residents are eager for them. Historical research often takes me into these places, so I'm pretty familiar with what to expect.
We stepped through the sliding glass doors to the sunny lobby area. The smell of bleach hit me right away. I thought of Michael, lying there in his hospital, and quickly pushed the thought away. I was at work and had to stay on top of my feelings.
The nurse directed us to the recreation room, where we found Theresa Hendricks in a wheelchair, looking out at the small sand-and-stone Zen garden just outside by the shuffleboard court. She was eighty-one and thin as a stick figure, swimming in her flowered sweater. She slouched sideways in her chair, her green eyes dull. She looked highly medicated.
"Mrs. Hendricks?" the nurse said. "You have visitors."
The lady didn't stir. The nurse gave us an apologetic shrug and walked away.
"Hi, Mrs. Hendricks!" Stacey pulled a chair close to the lady and sat down beside her. "My name is Stacey Tolbert, and this is Ellie Jordan."
The lady did not respond. Her eyes stayed on the outdoor Zen garden, where a squirrel sniffed at a small patch of moss growing on a stone.
"We were hoping to talk to you about your old house," I said. "The one you recently sold. Would you mind answering just a few quick questions about it?"
She didn't stir at all. There wasn't even a flick of the eyes to indicate she knew I was in the room.
"We brought you something." Stacey held out her hands, and I passed her the gift. It was a small lantana shrub in a clay pot, with a couple of fading red and gold flowers. "I asked the nurse on the phone. She said these were your favorite flowers. Is that right? I like them, too. My daddy planted some back home to attract butterflies. This one actually came from your old house. I dug it out from the garden bed this morning. Do you recognize it?"
The lady's eyes finally moved, from the sand outside, drawn to the bright flowers. Her lips moved soundlessly. One spotted, stick-fingered hand moved on the arm of her wheelchair. It seemed to me that she must have had a stroke at some point, but I didn't know for sure, and the hospital staff hadn't offered specific medical information to non-relatives like us.
"Did they bring butterflies?" Stacey asked. "The ones we had sure did."
The lady's hand twitched again.
"Door," she whispered.
"I'm sorry?" Stacey leaned closer, smiling.
"Doro. Loved butterflies." Now her eyes were on the plant itself. Her mouth moved at an angle when she spoke, downward and to one side.
"Your daughter Dorothy?" I asked. Dorothy had died at age seven, of an unstoppable fever the doctor hadn't been able to break.
"Loved them so much." Theresa's voice was weak, barely audible. It made me think of newspaper rasping in the wind. "Little Doro. She..." Theresa's hand closed into a fist.
"I know," Stacey said. "I'm sorry." She reached out to touch the woman's hand, but Theresa drew her hand back.
"It's very important that we learn some things about your house," I said. "Another child might be in danger there today. A baby."
"My babies," she whispered. She began smacking her hand feebly against the arm of her wheelchair, as if trying to drum, or maybe just inflict injury on herself. "My babies!"
"It'll be fine. Everything will be fine," Stacey said, trying to calm her down. I glanced around to make sure no nurse was hurrying over to kick us out.
"Mrs. Hendricks," I said. "In all the time you lived in your house, did you ever see anything...unusual?" I didn't know if charging ahead like this was a good idea or not, but I didn't know what else to do. There was no telling how lucid she was or how long it would last.
"Hmm," she replied. Her eyes moved to look at me for the first time. I pulled up another plastic rec-room chair and sat down next to Stacey.
"Any strange voices?" I asked. "Strange shadows?"
She looked back at me—not answering, but not looking away.
"What my friend is trying to say—" Stacey began.
"Did you have any reason to believe your house might be haunted?" I asked. So much for avoiding leading questions.
Stacey looked uncomfortable at my directness, glancing from me to Theresa.
"I lived in a haunted house," said another voice nearby. I turned to see a wizened, wrinkled man in a checkered golf cap. He was playing a board game against another man who'd dozed off. I saw it was Life, the three-dimensional board with the little mountains. The old man who was still awake was also well in the lead, driving a little plastic yellow car with pink and blue pegs to represent a married couple in the front, plus another tiny blue peg representing a baby in the back. He had a heap of cash and looked well on his way to retirement at Millionaire Estates.
"Haunted," he said again. "Had a girl in the attic who cried at night. My daddy said it was just an owl. We knew. Each of us kids knew."
"Well, thanks for sharing," I said. "Maybe you can tell me more later, but right
now—"
"Come here and I'll tell you the whole thing. You can take Elbert's turn. His meds just kicked in." He nudged the dozed-off man's red car, driven by a blue peg-man.
"The blond girl," Theresa whispered, and my head swiveled back to her. "She sang to them. Sings to them still. She'll sing to me, when I join them."
"What does she sing?" I asked.
"Tell you a great singer," Golf Cap said, turning around even further in his chair. "Betty Davis. Whoo-ee."
"She sang my babies to sleep," Theresa said. "When their suffering ended. She kept them close to me, close to me in that house. Doro was the first. When Doro went, just seven years, I thought I'd die. My baby girl, just gone. Then the singing started." Theresa's eyes closed.
"What kind of singing?" I asked, resisting the urge to shake her. She looked like she might drift off again—maybe her meds were kicking in, too.
"Singing..." Theresa whispered, her eyes still closed.
"Was it a lullaby?" I asked. When she didn't answer, I played the version I'd found on my tablet of a Welsh lady singing "Ar Hyd y Nos." It was originally from a vinyl recording made in Swansea a hundred years earlier. Someone had made a digital copy for a public cultural archive.
Theresa's eyes opened...very wide.
"Are they here?" she whispered. She turned her head slowly from side to side, eyes darting. "Have they finally come?"
"Who?" I asked.
"My babies," she said. "No one understands. They stayed in that house...even after they died. My husband wanted to move after Doro's funeral. No, I said. Because I knew Doro was still there. I heard her crying at night, after she died."
"A lot of them do that," Mr. Golf Cap chimed in. "The crying at night."
"Then the lady would sing, and Doro's spirit would find peace," Theresa continued. "It happened with all my children. When they grew sick, she would sing, and they would sleep. When all of them had...gone, I would still hear them at night in the house." A thin smile appeared on her lips, and her eyes began drifting closed again. "The boys, running, rough-housing, shouting. The girls laughing. My husband didn't hear them, but I did. And heard her sing them to sleep each night. She sang me to sleep, too."
"My ghost never sang," Mr. Golf Cap said. "Just a lotta sobbing, a lotta 'hyuck, hyuck, hyuck.' My sister saw her more than I did. I only saw her the once, out the window. Big eyes. Kinda looked like an owl."
"I never wanted to leave that house," Theresa whispered. "I need to be there when I die. Tell the doctor. I need to die in my house so I can join my babies. She can keep us all together. Her lullaby...Where are my children?" She looked around the room again, blinking. "My children. I need them. Where are they?"
"They're fine," I said. "They're safe." I didn't know if that was true, but I didn't think it could hurt to reassure her. "Tell us more about the ghost who sings the lullabies."
"An angel," Theresa whispered. "She gave me a gift once. An earring."
"How did she do that?" I asked.
"Showed me where it was buried in the yard," Theresa said. "Little raindrop of gold. It was hers. Before she was an angel, she was a living girl. I once took it to a jeweler, and he said it was real. Welsh gold. He showed me the manufacturer's mark. I never found the other one, so I never got to wear it...Oh, but when I held it in my hand, I could hear her singing so much better...and I could see my children run by in the hall, like they were alive again..."
"Mrs. Hendricks," I said, feeling my pulse rise. "Do you still have this earring?"
"In my jewelry box." She frowned. "I don't touch it anymore. It doesn't work anymore. Not in this place. My children aren't here." Her chest hitched a little as she let out a sob.
"Ooh, I would just love to see your jewelry box!" Stacey said. "Is it very pretty?"
"Yes, you little featherhead, it is," Theresa said. "It's in my room."
Theresa directed me to steer her wheelchair part of the way down a short hall. There were two beds in her room, but one of them was stripped to a bare mattress. Decorations had been removed from the wall on that side of the room and collected in a cardboard box.
"Anne passed this morning," Theresa said, waving her hand at the empty bed. "She was always gassy and complaining about it. Here we are."
She gestured at a small jewelry boxed carved of dark cherry wood. "It's in there somewhere. Doesn't work anymore, like I said. Not since they put me here. I hate to look at that old thing, now. It's down at the bottom."
Stacey chatted with the woman while I opened the lid and searched the little nooks and drawers of the jewelry box. There were a number of nice items in there, actually, enough diamonds and precious gems that it looked like a pirate's treasure box from a picture book.
I found the single gold-raindrop earring near the bottom. It actually looked cheaper than the rest of Theresa's jewelry, and more crudely made.
"You say this will help us speak to the singing ghost?" I asked. "May we borrow it?"
"If you see her, tell her to come. Tell her to bring me my children. I miss them all so much." Then she suddenly looked cross, glaring at me. "Who are you?"
"My name is Ellie Jordan," I said. "We introduced ourselves—"
"You do not belong in my house," she said. Her eyes, which had been dull and glazed, seemed to smolder now. "Get out of my house. She doesn't want you there. Get out!"
"I'm sorry, who doesn't want us there?" I asked.
"Get out of my house!" Theresa screamed, rocking a little in her wheelchair. "Get out of my house! Get out of my—"
Nurses and orderlies converged on the screaming woman's room. She was given a sedative, and we were politely but firmly kicked out of that nursing home. I don't know if it was meant to be a lifetime ban or not, but that was pretty much the end of our interview with Theresa Hendricks. I felt terrible about going in there and asking her those upsetting questions.
"So that's not exactly what I expected," Stacey said as we crossed the parking lot toward our blue van. "Sounds like she was on friendly terms with the dead Welsh girl."
"Or under her spell." I opened my hand, looking at the golden earring. I'd kept it folded away in my palm while the nursing-home staff ushered us out.
"You stole from an old lady?" Stacey asked the question pretty loudly, her voice almost squeaking in outrage.
"Sh!" I glanced back at the open glass door, where two nurses were emerging into the parking lot after us. "Maybe wait until we're off-site before you scream that. We need this earring, Stacey. If it belonged to Mati, and it meant so much to her that she had Theresa dig it up out of the yard...you know that means we can use it."
"Sure. It just feels wrong." Stacey climbed into the passenger side of the van. I climbed into the driver's side, with a wary look toward the two nurses, who seemed to be coming our way and picking up speed.
"Believe me, it's better to get any possibly cursed items out of your jewelry box," I said. "Besides, she had much nicer stuff in there."
"True." Stacey still didn't look happy as I cranked up and headed for the highway. I didn't look back to see whether those nurses were trying to flag us down or not. "So...back to Mackenzie's house?"
"I think we have everything we need to capture this ghost," I said. "We have until tonight to prepare."
Chapter Twenty-Three
We got to work at Mackenzie's house. First we pried a few small speakers loose from the monitor bank inside the van and set them up around the nursery. It was pretty obvious that sound was going to play an important role here.
"Big problem, though," Stacey said. "We have a few traps in the van...but no stampers." Stampers are the bulky, heavy pneumatic devices that can slam the lid shut on a ghost trap at high speed. They can be operated remotely or triggered to close automatically when sensors inside are activated. Sensors measuring electromagnetic activity, temperature, and movement can all be used together to try and detect when a ghost is actually inside the trap.
It is absolutely not an exact science.
"Do we have any clamshells?" I asked.
Stacey made a derisive blowing sound through her lips. "Maybe a couple, but come on. Lullaby Lucy doesn't move at tortoise speed."
I nodded. The "clamshell" attachments are much smaller and can be affixed to the mouth of the ghost trap. They'll close the lid the same way as the big stamper—automatically or by remote—but they're much, much slower. They bring the lid down and press it into place with all the speed of a snail taking an afternoon stroll. Ghosts are made of energy, and so theoretically they can move at near light speed if they really want to. A clamshell trap attachment would only work if we could convince the ghost to enter the trap and just sort of hang out at the bottom, twiddling its ectoplasmic thumbs for ten or twelve seconds.
"So we have to go resupply at the office," I said.
"You don't think the Hoff busted us for all the missing gear yet?" Stacey asked.
"I don't see Kara ripping us soul-first out of our noses, so I'm guessing not. Nicholas seemed pretty willing to cover up for us. I think he likes feeling like he has that extra power over us."
"But he doesn't. Right? Or does he?"
"Only if we want to stick with this organization."
"Which we do. Or wait. We don't?"
"We do for now." I sighed. "Okay. I'll give a Nicholas a call."
"I think he likes you."
"Great. You and Hayden can double date with us."
"Well, there goes my appetite." Stacey stood and stretched, then we hurried out of the nursery. It wasn't so scary during daytime, with sunlight glowing in the windows, but it still felt dim and not particularly friendly in there.
We went outside, and I called Nicholas on his cell. I was definitely not dialing the landline for the office, where I might somehow get routed to Kara instead.
"Ellie, love, isn't it nearing your bedtime?" was how he answered.