by N. M. Howell
“Ladies,” a low voice said from beside me. I jumped, clearly not expecting anyone to be so close. I turned to look where the voice had come from and noticed an extremely faint shimmer of Mr. Richards’ floating body. He was so transparent in the low, glowing sunlight that I could barely make him out. To be fair, I hadn’t known ghosts could even go outdoors, let alone be seen in daylight. My serious lack of knowledge about ghosts would have to be rectified if I planned to continue living in a house full of witches.
“Hi, Mr. Richards,” I said politely, looking around to make sure no one else was close. “What’s the game plan?”
“I’ve got some of the fellows on board,” he said, clearing his throat. “We will search through the town and see if we can spot any trace of the girl.”
“Oh River, dear,” a voice called out from behind us. Damn, bad timing.
Bailey casually raised her finger to her lips, signaling to Mr. Richards to be discreet.
Mrs. Pots came running out from her shop to join us on the street. “I delivered your bag to your work, River. JoAnn put it on your desk for you.”
I watched her, wide-eyed, as she came to stand directly next to Mr. Richards. He eyed her up and down curiously, then proceeded to pretend to look at his wrist, that was missing a watch mind you, suggesting he was eager to stay on schedule.
Mrs. Pots didn’t notice, and my suspicions that she had been lying about being able to see spirits were confirmed. I smirked, wondering why on earth she would insist on such a thing.
“Thank you, Mrs. Pots,” I said kindly. I didn’t say anything else, hoping she would take the hint and leave. We had business to attend to.
“Poor Roger is in hysterics,” she added conversationally. “I haven’t been able to get the poor boy to calm down since the incident. He would love it ever so much if you came to see him.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Pots,” I said. “I’ll stop by tomorrow after my meeting with the mayor. You can tell him we’ll grab a coffee or something.”
“He’d like that,” she said, and then added, “What is happening to our quiet little town? Murder, here, in Brimstone Bay.” She made a sweeping motion with her arms, and I noticed her left arm go right through Mr. Richard’s body.
She turned to leave, then paused. Looking back at us, she asked, “Did you feel that? What a strange chill.”
Shit, well maybe she could sense spirits after all.
I shook my head. “Just the breeze. Bye Mrs. Pots, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I waved, encouraging her to go.
She shook her arms out dramatically, as if to ward off the breeze, and went back to her shop.
I let out a breath to ease the tension that I had been holding. I looked at Mr. Richards, who was still eagerly inspecting his watch-less watch hand.
“Don’t forget the haunted house,” Bailey said to him as if our conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “Given that’s where the body was found, it probably makes sense to start there.”
“Indeed,” the ghost said. “I shall check there myself.”
“There were a bunch of ghosts there this morning. I had noticed them before we found the body,” I added.
The transparent spirit nodded. “I will check back shortly. Don’t go far.” He left before we could say anything else.
“Be gentle if you find her,” I shouted after him, then glanced about to make sure there was nobody around to have heard me.
We continued walking down the street, looking for traces of spirits as we went. The warm glow of the setting sun made it difficult to see much of anything, and we gave up trying after a few minutes of squinting.
We walked along the street slowly, being sure to stay visible in case any of the spirits had anything to report back. As we neared the site of the haunted house, though, I noticed a small group of people lurking around the front of the building.
I brought my hand up to my eyes to block out the sunlight, and could barely make out who it was.
“Shoot,” I said, dropping my hand back down to my side in exasperation. It was Ryan and his friends. What were they doing there, I wondered?
“Who is it?” Rory asked, squinting herself to try and see.
“It’s Ryan Bramley and his friends from Boston.”
“What are they doing at the haunted house?” Bailey asked.
I shrugged. “I was wondering the same thing.”
“Should we go see?” Rory asked again, still squinting into the setting sun.
“No, definitely not,” I said flatly. “I’ve had enough of those guys for one day. Let’s just wait here.”
We found a bench the next block over and sat down to wait for news.
“What are we going to do if we find her?” Jane finally asked. The other girls turned to me expectantly, obviously wondering the same thing.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I said honestly. “I’ll have to find out who she is, of course, and hopefully get some clues as to what happened.”
I sighed, feeling beyond overwhelmed by the events of the day. God, this day really needed to end.
Rory put her arm around me and gave me a comforting squeeze. “You’ve got this,” she said. “You were born for this stuff. It’s why you came, isn’t it?”
I laughed. “Well not exactly for this.” I wondered what it would have been like if I had gotten a job in a big city. I would be writing about murders all the time, I imagined.
“I guess I never expected to be involved in anything like this, especially on my own. There’s no one else at the paper who has any real formal training, especially in this sort of thing, so I’m going to have to blunder through this myself and hope I don’t screw it up too badly.”
“I just feel sorry for the girl’s parents, whoever they are,” Jane said, staring off into the sunset. “I can’t imagine what they are going through right now.”
“They probably don’t even know she’s dead,” Rory said. I didn’t know whether that was comforting or horrifying. Either way, we were going to have to figure this out so they could get peace.
About half an hour had passed before Mr. Richards returned. He was joined by a few other transparent forms, but I couldn’t make out who they were.
“We found the girl,” he said, puffing out his chest with pride.
I stood up. “Really? Where?”
“She’s hiding in the attic of the house,” he said. “She shied away from me, as I expected she would. She wouldn’t say anything, either.”
“What did you say to her?” I asked, encouraging him to go on.
“I told her not to be frightened, and to remain where she was.” He added, “I’m afraid there’s not much we can do for her. Poor thing is frightened beyond repair.”
He turned to leave and began floating away.
“Wait,” I said hurriedly. “Please, tell the girl I want to speak with her. Tell her I will meet her tomorrow morning just before first light.” Hopefully, no one else will be out and about that early in the morning.
“Tell her I want to help her, and that everything will be okay,” I added
He nodded and disappeared.
“He’s always in such a hurry,” Jane mused.
“Ghosts,” Rory sighed.
“We should get home,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be out after dark. Not until we find the killer.”
We walked home quickly, eager to get back to the safety of the house. I glanced back towards the haunted house as we left, and saw the four guys were still there. I paused and watched them suspiciously for a moment, then turned and jogged to catch up with the girls.
I figured it was safe to say that that had been one of the longest days of my life, and I was thankful it was finally almost over. I said goodnight to the girls and locked myself in my room. I really just wanted to be alone for a while.
Only, I wasn’t alone. The little gray cat was sitting on my bed waiting for me.
“Now how did you get in here?” I went to join him on my bed. He purred a
s I scratched him behind the ears, and he rolled over on his back wanting a belly rub. “You are a funny little guy, aren’t you?” I rubbed his belly obligingly, and his purring grew even louder.
“Do you have a name?” I asked. He didn’t respond. Obviously, he was a cat.
“What about Whiskers?” he rolled back onto his feet and looked at me, tilting his head sideways. “No? Then, how about Mittens?” He continued to watch me.
“Well, you look like you rolled in a fireplace. What about Soot?” At that, he meowed. “Alright, Soot it is.” I scratched his ears, and he purred.
After the day I had, I was happy for the silent companionship. No interrogations, no pestering questions, just company and cuddles.
“You know what?” I said to the cat, as I laid back on my bed feeling defeated. I kicked off my shoes and pulled a pillow down under my head. “You’re the best thing to happen to me all day.” I set my alarm for four o’clock in the morning, closed my eyes, and instantly fell into a deep sleep.
9
Four o’clock came way too soon. I felt like I had barely closed my eyes before my phone buzzed next to me, jarring me awake. It took me a few moments before I remembered why I had set my alarm so early, but once I remembered the dead girl, my mind was instantly alert.
I had fallen asleep in my clothes, so I quickly changed, brushed my teeth, and quietly tiptoed out of the house. My hair was a disheveled mess, but I had grown used it by now. The air was chilly, and the streets were nearly pitch black.
There was a calm silence in the town as I made my way to the haunted house. The sky was still dark, and the sun wouldn’t rise for yet another hour or two. The street lamps offered enough light to see, though.
The town was deserted, and the house had an eerie stillness to it, cordoned off by police tape. Knowing that there were ghosts in the house added to the eeriness, but given my purpose in going there, I didn’t let that detract from my mission.
I didn’t want to be caught trespassing, so I leaned against the fence on the side of the house, where I noticed one of the windows wasn’t boarded up. I stood there and waited, hoping the girl’s ghost would come to me.
Relief flooded through me as I saw the form of a young girl emerge in the window. She stared out at me looking frightened.
“It’s okay, there’s no reason to be afraid.”
The girl didn’t move and continued to stare at me.
“My name is River,” I said calmly. “I’m here to help you. Can we be friends?”
She nodded to me. Good, we were off to a good start, at least.
“Can you tell me your name?” I asked.
She shook her head.
I sighed. “Something bad happened to you, and I’m going to help figure it out. Okay?”
The girl nodded.
“First, I need you to tell me your name so I know what to call you.”
She shook her head again. Damn, this wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t really have any experience dealing with living children, let alone dead ones.
“Is it because you don’t want to, or because you don’t know what your name is?”
A few minutes went by, and I watched the girl struggle to try and say something. Finally, she whispered, “I don’t know.”
Crap. Okay, back to square one.
“Do you know how you got here?”
She shook her head. I let out a breath of air - this was going to take a while.
“Let’s play a game,” I said, trying desperately to come up with a plan. The girl smiled and nodded.
“Okay, you get to ask me any question you want, and then I ask you a question. It can be any silly question you want. Does that sound fun?”
The girl shrugged. “Why don’t you go first,” I offered, then waited patiently for the girl to ask something.
“What day is it?” she asked. Okay, not the most creative question, but I guessed I should cut the kid some slack.
“It’s Tuesday today, the second day of October,” I said. “All day long.”
She smiled. “My turn,” I said warmly. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue,” she said shyly. Great, at least she still remembered things about herself. That was a good start. “I love the color blue,” I said to her as she smiled. “Your turn.”
“Why am I here?” Ouch, my heart broke just a little bit.
I tried to be as gentle as I could. “Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out, sweetheart. I just need you to answer a few more questions and then I will hopefully be able to give you that answer, okay?”
She nodded.
“Do you go to school?” She nodded again. “What’s the name of your school?”
“Beacon Park,” she said, then frowned. “I don’t want to go back to school.”
“Well, what if I told you that you never had to go back to school again?” I told her, smiling. It was sad but true. She beamed up at me. “Really?”
“Promise,” I said. “What grade did you just finish?”
“Grade 9.”
“So you just finished your first year at high school?” She nodded. Ugh, the first year of high school was never easy, and this poor girl would never get to experience all the fun that you could have as you climbed the high school food chain. At least I knew where to start looking for more information.
“Do you live with your parents?” I asked, hoping to gain some insight into her family.
She nodded. “I live with my mom and dad and my grandma.”
The sky was beginning to lighten, and the early morning commuters were beginning to come out. I brought my phone out and pretended to talk into it, so people wouldn’t ask any questions if they saw me talking to myself outside of the haunted house.
“Do you remember your name now?”
She paused. “Jessica.”
I smiled at her. “Great job, Jessica. Do you have a last name? Or do you just have the one name like Beyonce?”
She giggled at that, and then said, “Of course I do. Sturgess.”
“Jessica Sturgess,” I said out loud. “What a pretty name. Now I can try and get some more information on why you’re here, okay?”
She nodded shyly.
“Do you remember anything about what happened?”
She shook her head. “I remember going to sleep excited because my mom had just taken me Halloween decoration shopping like she always did at the end of September. I went to bed late after helping her put up some of the decorations, and the next thing I know I’m here in this house, surrounded by weird floating people who keep talking about weird things.”
Awesome, that gave us at least a window of time when the murder would have happened. Sometime between the end of September and yesterday, so that gave us a very short window.
“Jessica, I’m going to have to go and do some research, okay? Can you stay here and wait for me to come back later?”
She nodded. “Promise me you won’t leave the house, okay? I need to know where to find you later.”
“I promise,” she said. “Don’t take too long.”
I smiled. “I won’t. And when I come back, I’ll hopefully have more information about why you’re here.”
I waved goodbye, sad that I would be leaving her alone in the house with the other spirits, if they were even still there. What a strange environment to find yourself in as a young girl.
I headed towards my office to pick up my backpack that Mrs. Pots had dropped off for me and to grab a much-needed coffee. I couldn’t remember the last time I was awake so early, and I knew my energy would crash soon.
I was not pleased when I noticed Ryan’s friend Jordan leaning against the front door to my office.
“Couldn’t help but notice you hanging around the haunted house this morning,” he said conversationally, a sly smirk spread across his face.
“And how exactly did you notice that?” I asked, putting emphasis on the word notice. “What are you doing out so early, anyway?”
&nbs
p; “Just out for some early morning exercise,” he said and flashed a winning smile at me. I did my best not to notice how attractive he was.
I glanced down at his jeans and sneakers. “Not really dressed for exercise there, Jordan.”
He shrugged. “Okay, you got me. Just wanted to come say hi.”
“Well, hi,” I said, trying to push past him so I could get to the door.
“Hi,” he said to me, but didn’t move out of my way.
“I need to get into my office,” I said sharply.
“Have coffee with me,” he replied.
“What? No, I have to work.”
“Let me buy you one little coffee.”
I sighed. “You can buy me coffee, but I won’t be able to stay and drink it. I have a meeting with the mayor about the murder.”
That seemed to peak his interest, and he stood up a little straighter. “Oh, yeah? Got more information about the killer?”
“Why are you so interested?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Just curious. I hope they find who did it soon.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, eyeing him cautiously. “Are you going to buy me that coffee, or what?” I asked, hoping that it would at least make him get out of my way.
“Oh. Right. Yeah, of course.” He moved to step towards to neighboring door of the café.
“I’ll be down in five minutes,” I said, then took advantage of his not standing in my way and opened the door and ran up the stairs to my office before he could say anything.
I locked the door behind me at the top of the stairs and ran to my desk to turn on my laptop. I only had a few minutes to find out everything I could about Jessica Sturgess before my meeting with Mayor Scott and Sheriff Reese.
Luckily, her name was all over the Internet. Missing Girl Disappeared from Home was the first hit on Google, and the link brought me to a digital poster with Jessica’s face plastered on the front. Bingo. I printed the page out and stuffed it in my backpack, then proceeded to skim through some of the other articles. She had been missing for a few days, and by the looks of it, there have been no leads. Her poor parents must be having an awful time.