by Kat Shepherd
“What happened? Did it work?” Rebecca asked.
Ethan looked uncomfortable. “That’s the part I don’t know. Those papers were lost.”
“Lost?! Then how are we supposed to find out what happened?” Tanya asked.
Maggie nudged her. “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”
“I didn’t! I mean, I don’t!” Tanya said quickly. “It’s just, you know, it’s a great story, and I want to know how it ends,” she finished lamely.
“Uh-huh,” Maggie said knowingly.
“There’s only one way to find out if Moina was ever able to reach the ghost,” Clio said.
“What is it?” Rebecca asked.
“We re-create the séance. Right here. Tonight.”
CHAPTER
19
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m doing this,” Tanya said. The five were seated around the dining room table, which Ethan and Clio had draped with a white cloth. Clio placed three candles in the middle of the table. In front of Ethan were a bell, a book, and a wooden mallet. Wesley lay curled up next to his chair, his gray muzzle buried under his paws.
“Aren’t we going to use a Ouija board or something?” Rebecca asked. “I thought that’s how people communicated with ghosts.”
Ethan shook his head. “With a Ouija, everyone touches the planchette to move it around the board. That just leaves too much room for human error. Or cheating. If just one person wants to fake a ghost, they can manipulate the planchette and trick everyone else. Too messy. Too unscientific.”
Tanya gave Ethan an approving glance. “Too many variables.” She opened her notebook and pulled a pencil out of her jacket pocket.
Ethan smiled. “Exactly.”
“Plus, whenever anybody uses a Ouija board in the movies, stuff goes real bad real fast,” Maggie said.
“Should we maybe have some stuff that belonged to the twins? Like their pictures or something? It seems like every time I touched one of those, stuff got all kinds of paranormal,” Clio said.
Ethan shrugged. “Sure. It can’t hurt.”
Clio stood up. She looked at the other faces around the table. “Could someone come with me? I’m a little scared to do it on my own.”
“I’ll help,” Rebecca said. She walked over to the wall of portraits in the dining room. “Which one?” As her hands brushed the portrait of the Plunkett family, the lights flickered. Rebecca took a step backward. “Uh, I’m guessing it’s this one?”
Clio nodded. “Be careful.” Rebecca gently removed the picture from the wall. Wesley sat up, his ears erect. The crystal rattled softly in the china cabinet. Rebecca handed the old photo to Ethan and followed Clio to the front parlor.
The broken portrait of the twins lay flat on the coffee table. Rebecca looked at Clio expectantly. “This is the one that flew off the wall after I touched it. What if it happens again?” Clio asked.
“We can do it together, if you want,” Rebecca said. Clio gingerly slipped her fingertips beneath the picture’s edges, with Rebecca doing the same from the other side. As they lifted it up together, Clio felt a rush of cool air swirl through the room. A few of the piano keys tinkled softly.
The girls hurried back to the dining room, and Ethan placed the photos side by side on the table. “Now we just need to turn off all the lights in the house, and we’ll be ready to go.”
Maggie looked at Ethan. “All of them?”
Ethan nodded and opened the book, running his finger down a page in the middle. When the girls didn’t move, he looked up. “What?”
“It’s just, you know, a ghost in the house, weird stuff happening … maybe turning out all the lights isn’t the best idea?” Rebecca said.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Ethan said. “Most ghosts are harmless, anyway.”
“Most of them? Well, that’s comforting,” Maggie said sarcastically.
Tanya put down her pencil, picked up her phone, and tapped the flashlight app. “Come on. We can split up; it’ll be faster that way.”
Maggie grabbed her arm. “No splitting up! We go in pairs or not at all.”
“But what about Ethan?” Rebecca asked. “Then he’s left alone.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Ethan said. “I’m alone all the time with ghosts. Besides, I’ve got company.” He reached down and stroked Wesley, who stretched and rested his head on Ethan’s foot.
The girls stood up, and Maggie linked her arm with Clio’s. “We’ll take the upstairs,” she said. “Nothing spooky’s ever happened up there,” she whispered to Clio.
Clio and Maggie walked into the front hall. Just as they passed in front of the clock, it let out a booming chime, and Clio jumped. “Seriously!” She glared at it. “Creepy nasty garbage clock!”
Maggie checked the time on her phone. “It must be broken. It’s ten after nine; why would it chime now?” Clio looked at Maggie expectantly. “Oh, right,” Maggie said. “Haunted house.” She looked more closely at the clock. “It really is creepy.” She reached out her hand to trace the strange carvings on its cabinet, but Clio stopped her.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Why not?”
“It just … doesn’t like to be touched.”
“Um, okay,” Maggie said. She studied the clock. “Hey, look! You can see almost all of the moon lady.” She pointed to the round, painted woman’s face edging behind the clock’s face. The eyes in the moon’s face glimmered a soft yellow gold. “She looks kind of familiar.”
“I know,” Clio said, “but I can’t place the face.”
Maggie shrugged. “Me neither.” The two girls walked upstairs. Maggie squeezed Clio’s hand. “So do you think Ethan likes you?” she whispered.
“What?”
“I don’t know. He seems kind of into you. He’s all like, ‘Oh, anything for Clio,’ and stuff like that. Haven’t you noticed?”
Clio switched off the light in the Lees’ bedroom. “No.”
Maggie led them farther down the hall. “Well, do you want him to? Like, do you like him?”
“Look, Ethan and I are just friends. Why are we even talking about this right now? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of busy.”
“Fine, okay. Sorry I asked. So you’re just friends, then. Cool.” The other upstairs rooms were closed and dark, but Maggie pointed at a bar of light coming from under the door across the hall from Minna’s room. “Whose room is that?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know. It’s always been locked, and I don’t think the Lees have gotten around to clearing it out yet.”
Just then, they heard a click and the door slowly opened a few inches. Maggie’s face drained of color, her freckles stark against her bloodless cheeks. “Uhhh … you were saying?”
Clio looked at Maggie. She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “I guess it’s unlocked after all. So now all we have to do is go in there and turn out the light.”
“But do we, though?” Maggie asked.
Clio grabbed Maggie’s hand. “Come on. We’re in this together.” She pushed open the door, and the two girls walked inside. It was a small room. The yellow wallpaper, peeling at the edges, was painted with a once-cheerful pattern of roses that had faded to a mousy gray. In the corner was a shelf of dusty books and antique toys. Across the room from a well-worn wardrobe, two sagging twin beds with carved headboards straddled a window hung with discolored lace curtains. Both beds were covered with quilts that were ragged with age and folded down to reveal a monogram stitched into the hem of each top sheet: HP and EP. In each bed, a china doll in a long, frilly dress with chipped, painted eyes sat up against the thin pillow at the headboard.
“This must have been the twins’ room,” Maggie whispered. “Do you think Harriet kept sleeping in the room after her sister died? Like, even as an old lady?”
“I don’t know, but it feels really weird in here. Something obviously unlocked the door and turned the lamp on, right? So let’s just turn it off and go back downstairs.” Cautiously, the girls made
their way across the room to switch off the old-fashioned lamp between the two beds. Clio looked back at the doorway. “Shoot. We should have turned on the hall light. I don’t want to walk all the way back downstairs in the dark.”
“I’ll turn it on. Just a sec.” Maggie stood in the doorway and peeked out. “It’s on the other end of the hallway. Hang on. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the dark hall, leaving Clio alone in the room.
Clio walked a few steps closer to the beds and waited, ready to turn out the light as soon as Maggie got back. Where was Maggie? It should take only a second to flip on the light switch, and Maggie had been gone a lot longer than that. The room was hot, and Clio felt dizzy. She loosened her scarf and stepped forward, stumbling on the rug. She leaned on the nightstand to steady herself, closing her eyes. Her head ached.
Behind her, she heard the bedsprings groan on Eudora’s bed. “Don’t sit on there, Maggie,” she said without turning around. There was a thump and Eudora’s doll fell to the floor, bumping her foot. “Be careful!” Clio said. She bent to pick up the doll and turned around.
There was no one there.
CHAPTER
20
THE LIGHT IN the hallway flicked on, and Maggie appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Did you call me?”
“Uh … no. But I’m pretty sure the ghost was in here with me. Let’s just shut off the light and get back downstairs. I’ll tell you on the way.” Clio gently put the doll back on Eudora’s bed, turned off the lamp, and hurried out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
The two girls walked quickly down the hallway, and Clio filled Maggie in on what had happened in the twins’ room. The girls flipped the hall light off and picked their way down the creaking steps and through the dark first floor back to the dining room, where Ethan and the others sat at the table. Ethan had lit the candles, and their flickering flames cast wavering shadows that seemed to crawl across the walls and ceiling.
“Everything was quiet down here. Did you see anything upstairs?” Rebecca asked.
Maggie smiled grimly. “Oh, you know, just the usual stuff. We found the twins’ bedroom, which was still all made up like a little girl’s room, complete with toys, sheets, and everything. And then something invisible sat on Eudora’s bed and dropped her doll. Just that kind of regular, normal stuff that people find when they go upstairs.”
“Why do you think Eudora’s haunting the house?” Rebecca asked. “All of her family is gone, so wouldn’t she be at peace now that she’s with them again?”
Ethan shrugged. “Sometimes something disruptive happens that can pull a spirit back into our world. It could be having a new family in the house, or the renovations the Lees are doing.” He turned a page in the book on the table. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
“Do we have to hold hands, keep the circle unbroken, that sort of thing?” Maggie asked.
“Nah,” Ethan said. “In the old days, people held hands to make sure someone wasn’t cheating, pulling secret levers or knocking on the table or something. Believe it or not, there were a lot of frauds out there.”
“Oh, I believe it,” Tanya said.
“Who taught you all this, Ethan?” Rebecca asked.
Ethan blushed. “Nobody. The family gift was really strong back in the day, but since my mom’s grandma, none of the family seems to have it. Or not that they would admit, anyway.”
“So you’re just kind of, like, figuring this out on your own? How do you know if you’re doing it right?” Rebecca asked.
“It’s kind of trial and error, I guess,” Ethan said.
Rebecca smiled encouragingly. “Okay, so it’s kind of like baking. The more I practiced, the better I got. My first soufflés were a disaster, but now they’re little puffs of heaven. How many séances have you done before this one?”
Ethan scratched his head and looked down at the table. “Uh, this is actually my first.”
Rebecca’s smile fell. “Oh.”
“Okay, that’s enough questions.” Clio’s voice was impatient. “We’ve got to find Eudora’s ghost and figure out how to send her back before the Lees get home on Monday, so let’s get this show on the road.”
Ethan picked up the bell and rang it once. “May we bring peace to all mortals and spirits who dwell in this house.” He tied a thin cord to the bell’s handle, hung it from the center of the chandelier, and sat back down. He looked at Clio, and she put the wooden mallet on the floor near the wall. Ethan closed his eyes. “Spirits, we invite you to speak with us tonight. You may ring this bell to answer yes to our questions and knock on the wall to answer no. Are there any spirits with us tonight who wish to make their presence known?”
Everyone stared at the bell expectantly. Clio held her breath. The seconds ticked by. Maggie fidgeted.
Then the bell rang softly.
“Did you hear that?” Clio whispered to Tanya. Tanya nodded and wrote something down in her notebook.
Wesley whined and stood up, stiffly pacing the floor near Ethan’s chair. He looked imploringly at Ethan. Ethan gently scratched the dog’s bony side. “It’s okay,” Ethan whispered. “You can go.” Wesley trotted from the room, and a few seconds later they heard the sound of his doggy door as the old dog pushed his way outside.
“Spirit,” Ethan continued, “was this your home?” There was a pause, and the bell rang again.
“Are you here in this house because you miss your family?” Ethan asked. The bell rang over and over again, and the chandelier swayed.
“Be easy, spirit. Tonight our hope is to send you home to reunite you with your loved ones,” Ethan said. The chandelier slowed, and the bell stopped ringing.
“Can I ask a question?” Clio whispered. Ethan nodded.
“Are you the ghost of Eudora Plunkett?” Clio looked expectantly at the bell. It was still. The girls looked at each other in confusion.
Suddenly, Clio heard a rap on the wall behind her. The mallet’s knocking grew louder. Soon unseen fists pounded on the walls. The ceiling shook. The china rattled in the cupboards. The table quaked, and Clio felt her chair move beneath her. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling like snow. Clio heard Wesley’s doggy door flap in the kitchen, and the dishwasher door dropped open with a metallic crash. The piano keys pounded in the living room. “What’s going on?!” Clio cried.
“I don’t know!” Ethan frantically leafed through his book, but it flew from his hands and slammed against the opposite wall. The wooden chest of Moina’s papers sprang open, and a storm of pages swirled about the room. The candles snuffed out.
The air was thick with plaster dust, the motes catching in the moonlight from the window. The chandelier swung with a vengeance. The bell cord snapped, and the bell fell to the table with a clatter. It rolled across the table’s surface in tight, angry circles. Rebecca crawled under the table. “Come on! It’s safer down here!”
Ethan and the girls cowered under the table as the room was engulfed in pandemonium. The chairs slid across the floor, banging into one another. “If we don’t do something soon, this whole house is going to come falling down on our heads,” Tanya yelled over the noise.
“Yeah, but what do we do?” Ethan asked.
“You’re asking me?” Tanya replied incredulously. “I don’t know! You’re the expert!”
“I’ve never met a ghost like this!” Ethan shouted. “It seems pretty angry!”
Maggie snorted. “Thanks, Captain Obvious! So what do we do about it?”
“Find a way to make it … not angry?” Ethan asked uncertainly.
“That would be a good start!” Rebecca ducked as a book slammed into the edge of the table, barely missing her head.
The china cabinet on the wall groaned and began to rock. The chairs left the floor and floated around the table. “Somebody do something!” Maggie shrieked.
In desperation, Clio lifted her head and screamed. “Tell us what you want from us!”
The banging on the walls stoppe
d. The swirling mass of papers and chairs dropped to the floor. Dust hung in the air.
The girls crawled out from under the table. Tanya switched on her flashlight and played the beam over the toppled furniture, torn papers, and fallen pictures. “Ethan, what happened?”
Ethan looked stricken. “I don’t know.”
The other girls switched on their flashlight apps and picked their way carefully through the rubble. Maggie rubbed her arms, which had broken out in goose bumps. “Is it over?”
Clio’s flashlight beam lit up the wall. “No. It’s definitely not over. Look at the mirror.”
Blood red words covered the mirror: SISTERS CAN NEVER BE PARTED.
CHAPTER
21
“HARRIET,” CLIO WHISPERED. Her legs were still trembling, and she put one hand on the table to steady herself.
“But … why?” Tanya asked, her voice hoarse. “Why would Harriet’s ghost be haunting the house? She died an old lady.”
Maggie forced a thin smile across her anxious face. “Ooh, you guys, did you hear that?” Maggie gave her friend’s shoulders a squeeze. “I think Tanya finally just admitted ghosts are real!” She gestured around at the remnants of the evening’s chaos. “I guess this little demonstration really won you over, huh?”
Tanya gritted her teeth and picked through the detritus on the floor, looking for her notebook.
“Is she still here?” Rebecca righted an upended chair and put it back in place at the dining table, her eyes darting nervously around the room.
Ethan swept up a pile of papers with his arms. “She’s nearby.”
“Why isn’t she attacking us anymore?” Maggie asked. She opened the china cabinet to make sure nothing was broken.
“I think she wants us to help her,” Ethan answered. “She wants to move on, but she’s trapped here.” He sorted through the pile of papers he had gathered.