I laughed at Darlene’s words, but I was the only one who found them funny. As she and Graham stared at me with serious—and in her case, confused—expressions, I realized she wasn’t joking. Even Striker paused her efforts to fish something out from under the fridge to gaze at me with reproachful eyes. My laughter faded away until the ticking of Darlene’s wall clock was the only sound in the kitchen.
“You’re serious?” I asked.
“Of course.” She cast an anxious glance at the ceiling above us and shuddered.
“Oh.”
Investigating a haunting was not what I expected to spend my evening doing. And since prior experience had taught me that burning sage did nothing to dispel Horace when he appeared, I hadn’t bothered to pack anything more than the single emergency bundle I always kept in my purse. On top of missing most of my supplies, my track record with solo attempts to summon or banish spirits wasn’t great.
But the thought of reaching out into the next world and feeling something reach back stirred something in me. If my psychic gifts had a stomach, it would be growling louder than an angry cat. Not getting to do any real Soul Searchers investigations lately had starved me, and Darlene was offering me the fix I’d been craving for weeks.
“Okay,” I said, straightening up in my chair and putting on my most confident smile. “We’ll get to the bottom of this together. Why do you think your house is haunted?”
“I hear footsteps,” she said. “Every night, right above my head. There’s a master bedroom upstairs at the front of the house, but I haven’t slept up there in years. My knees don’t like the stairs, so I moved my bedroom into the den down here.”
She pointed to the adjoining room. Through the open door, dozens of pieces of furniture loomed. A sudden sense of claustrophobia pressed in on me, even from my seat in the kitchen. How did she manage to sleep surrounded by so many shapes in the dark?
“I went up there once to investigate,” she said. “I told myself nobody could be in the house. I figured it had to be my imagination.”
“Did you see anything?” Graham asked.
“No.” She glanced up toward the ceiling again and lowered her voice. “But I could hear someone whispering.”
I found myself unconsciously matching her low volume. “What did they say?”
“I couldn’t understand the words. It might have been a different language. Spanish, maybe?”
I traded a look with Graham, who simply shrugged.
“There’s something up there.” Darlene stared back and forth between us with wide eyes. “Can you make it go away?”
Her earnest expression tugged at my heart. Even if I hadn’t already been on board with helping her, those eyes would have sold me. Kit and Yuri had always fielded the requests for the Soul Searchers team to investigate a haunting. Did everyone who came to us look this frightened and desperate? How did Yuri ever manage to say no?
“I’ll try,” I told her. “I can’t promise anything. Usually when I do this, my team has a lot of equipment—EMF meters, thermometers, cameras…”
“We have cameras.” Graham held up his cell phone. “And flashlights.”
Darlene brightened. “So you can do it?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything up there,” I hedged, not wanting to get her hopes up higher than I could deliver. “But I’ll do whatever I can.”
After we finished our round of coffee, Darlene led the way back into the living room. I had thought the room only had two doors—the front entrance and the little archway into the kitchen. But she pushed aside a tall pile of cardboard boxes marked Bedding, revealing a narrow carpeted staircase leading to the second floor.
“When’s the last time you went upstairs?” Graham asked.
“Oh my, let’s see… It’s been a few months at least.” She cringed. “You must think I’m a foolish old woman, not even using half my house.”
“It’s hard to downsize.” Graham’s voice was smooth and soothing. “We completely understand.”
His words erased the worried crease between Darlene’s eyebrows. I stared at him in wonder; he was perfectly channeling Yuri’s famous bedside manner, the quiet confidence that made people comfortable letting us into their homes for our investigations.
“Do you need anything?” Darlene asked.
I pulled the sage bundle from my purse and squeezed it. The faint crackle of the dry herb was always a comfort. “Matches and a candle, if you have them.”
She ducked back into her kitchen and returned a moment later with a sheepish expression, handing me a small green lighter in the shape of an alien’s head.
“It was an impulse buy,” she explained. “I got it years ago in Roswell. I don’t know why. I don’t even smoke.”
“It’s cute.” I clicked the button where one of the alien’s ears would be, if it had them. It took me a few tries, but the lighter finally sparked and a thin blue flame hissed out of the nozzle. I lifted my finger off the button, expecting the flame to extinguish, but it was a persistent little thing.
“Sorry, it’s always been like that. Sticky.” Darlene reached out a hand and popped the button back up with her fingernail. The flame went out. “Just be careful with it.”
“I will be. Thanks.”
“Do I have to come with you?” she asked.
Her expression begged for a negative. When I shook my head, she visibly relaxed.
“I’ll just wait down here then,” she said, retreating into the kitchen.
I took a deep breath, then began creeping up the narrow staircase. It was clear Darlene hadn’t been up here in some time; the light from the living room hit the photos of her extended family at a sharp angle, illuminating a thick layer of dust on the glass. The air grew warm and stale as I neared the top of the stairs, and I sneezed.
Striker padded along beside me on silent feet, for once not trying to trip me. She also wasn’t trying to race me to the top, a fact I forced myself to ignore before my imagination could run amok with reasons my furry companion might be reluctant to beat me upstairs.
Graham brought up the rear, following behind us with pursed lips and tense shoulders.
At the top of the stairs, I groped around the corners for a light switch. I found one and flicked it up.
Nothing happened.
“Is there a light up here?” I called down to Darlene.
She reappeared in the living room doorway. “The bulb burned out. I kept meaning to fix it, but”—she shrugged—“didn’t.”
I pulled out my phone and switched the camera function to record video. The screen was gray and grainy until I turned on the flash. There was a burst of light, and then the hallway was illuminated. Beside me, Graham did the same.
Our twin lights swept the walls. Despite the clear signs of hoarding on the main floor, I still wasn’t prepared for the amount of furniture and boxes above. The clutter began in the hall, which was lined with packed shelves and rows of cardboard boxes. Faded black permanent marker announced their contents, with lines drawn through the original labels and all-caps descriptions like AUNT DEBBIE and TAXES—1998 scrawled below.
Through the three open bedroom doors—one on each side and a third at the end of the hall—more furniture was visible. Every flat surface was stacked high with boxes, baskets, loose piles of clothing, and bric-a-brac. The sensation of claustrophobia I’d felt downstairs crept back up my spine. I shuddered.
“Feel anything?” Graham asked.
“Uncomfortable,” I whispered. “I can taste the dust in the air. I really don’t want to go into any of these rooms. God knows how much mold might be up here.”
“So don’t,” he suggested. “Let’s just set up right here.”
He propped his phone against a pile of sewing patterns and angled it so the camera pointed down the hallway. Then he took my phone out of my hands and aimed the camera toward me.
Striker, always the brave one, immediately ducked into a bedroom. I would have preferred her to sit in my lap; she was my good-luck charm, and I felt stronger with her nearby. But the logical part of my brain reasoned that the footsteps Darlene thought she heard were nothing more than an ancient pile of magazines toppling over. If there was no ghost up here, it didn’t matter how weak or strong my psychic abilities actually were, so I let the cat explore the maze of stale smells that permeated the collection of preserved garbage.
For an instant, I considered going downstairs and telling Darlene my theory. I could encourage her to start clearing out some of her accumulated junk. But though Yuri pushed a “supernatural second” approach with the Soul Searchers, trying to rule out mundane answers before turning to paranormal ones, he still set up our ghost-hunting gear. He always made sure.
With my back against the frame of an open bedroom door, I settled myself into a relaxed, cross-legged seat on the floor. I placed the sage and the campy lighter on the floor in front of me, within easy reach in case they were needed. Then, eyes closed, I took a deep breath in through my nose. The dusty air burned my nasal passages, but I did my best to ignore the sensation, holding my breath for a moment before slowly releasing it out of my mouth. I repeated the process, focusing on a different part of my body with each breath until I could slump, relaxed, against the doorframe.
The breathing technique was relatively new to me. Elizabeth had shown me how to do it during a recent massage session as a way to help me clear my mind. Once I was no longer thinking about my surroundings or worrying about the future, it was easier to cast my consciousness outward.
I did so more thoroughly than I had in the cemetery. There, I had only been feeling for my mother—and half-heartedly at that. In my experience, cemeteries were some of the least haunted places around. I’d had far more hair-raising experiences in libraries, motels, and private residences than within the serene surroundings of a graveyard.
Here, I felt outward for anyone and anything at all. I sent my mind down the hallway and into each bedroom, allowing my sixth sense to creep along like invisible tendrils, touching and feeling the air as I went. I pictured the whole of Darlene’s house, what I knew of the inside and the outside, and even into her yard and along the fence line.
I sensed nothing.
For a moment, I considered taking off my black tourmaline necklace. Was it preventing me from feeling whatever presence lurked here? Its protective energy shielded me from malevolent forces; I would be able to feel a friendly ghost but was essentially numb to anything that would want to harm Darlene.
The thought sent a chill through my bones.
The worst-case scenario—the most dangerous possibility—was that something truly dark lurked up here in this forgotten part of her house. What if I had been right, and the sounds she heard were caused by things falling over, but those things didn’t fall on their own? What if these things Darlene hoarded up here came with more history than she realized? Kit’s girlfriend, Amari, had opened my eyes to the world of haunted objects. Could Darlene have picked up something like that and squirreled it away up here with everything else she couldn’t let go of?
If that kind of spirit lingered here, Darlene could be in real danger. My fingers crept toward the back of my neck, where a single silver clasp was all that separated my senses from everything that hid from me now.
And from Horace.
My hands froze in midair. If I took my necklace off, I would be vulnerable. Horace would find me. I didn’t know how, but he was able to feel me the same way I was trying to detect any spiritual presence now. I had to assume it was because he was hundreds of times more powerful than I was, and I had to assume he was looking for me all the time, waiting until his sight could penetrate my defenses.
No, I couldn’t take it off. And as I made that decision for the second time that day, I realized I didn’t need to. None of the original Soul Searchers team had any psychic abilities, but Yuri, Kit, and Mark had managed to identify and banish plenty of spirits before I came along.
I forced my hands back down to their original position, palms resting on my knees, and thought about what Yuri would do if he were here right now. He would probably start by going from room to room, assessing the situation while he considered everything he had learned in his pre-filming research… of which I had done exactly zero.
Just as I was about to suggest we hit the library tomorrow and come back another day, I heard them.
Whispers.
My eyes flew open. The sound was muted but unmistakable. Multiple voices, blending together, murmuring in the darkness. They spoke too quickly and too quietly for me to make out the words.
I kept my voice low. “Do you hear that?”
Graham nodded. His attention was fixed on the doorway at the end of the hall.
My hands were around the sage and the lighter in an instant. The butane torch lit the dried herbs more easily than a match, for which I was grateful. I blew out the flame, and the end of the bundle glowed comfortingly as the cleansing scent chased away the stale odors around us.
Graham pulled me to my feet by my free hand. Together, we crept down the hallway toward the nearly closed bedroom door.
The whispers grew louder.
I gripped the sage in both hands and held it in front of me like a shield. Graham reached out and pushed the door open, and the light from the cell phone in his hands illuminated a space as cluttered as the living room had been.
I pawed the wall for a light switch. Thankfully, this one worked. As the overhead light flared to life, I felt my jaw go slack.
“What is it?” Graham whispered. “Do you see something?”
My mouth worked in silence for a few moments, opening and closely uselessly while I tried to process what I was seeing. For an instant, I forgot where I was. I forgot when I was. A wave of memories slammed into me, knocking me backward into Graham’s arms.
He steadied me and gripped my shoulders. “Mac, what’s wrong?”
“This is my mother’s bedroom,” I said.
“What?”
“All of this”—I gestured to the bed, dresser, vanity table, and bookshelf crowded into the small space—“was in my mother’s bedroom.”
It was arranged differently than it had been next door. The bed was on the wrong wall, and the vanity was smashed into the corner by the closet instead of sitting under the window. There were no fresh flowers anywhere, and my mother would never have tolerated this much chaos on every flat surface. But there was no mistaking it: this was my mother’s furniture.
Before I could fully process what I was seeing, the whispers sounded again. This time, we were closer to the sound, and with a seventy-watt light bulb shining overhead, it was easier to focus on the noise and make out the details.
It wasn’t a whisper.
It wasn’t even a voice at all.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
“Do you hear that?”
“Yeah.” Graham frowned. “What is it?”
I listened again, cocking my head toward the sound. “It’s coming from the corner, by the closet.”
The scratching began again, and an unwanted image popped into my mind. The noise was far too much like the sound I imagined fingernails scratching at the inside of a coffin would make. If I heard a bell ringing, I was sure I would need a new pair of jeans.
As I inched my way across the crowded bedroom, I tried and failed to stop myself from wondering how someone could have been buried alive inside—or beneath—Darlene’s house. What would it feel like to be stuck in the wall between rooms, unable to move, no space even to breathe? What if someone had fallen into the pit when they dug out the foundation and been crushed by falling dirt and rocks?
My chest constricted. My feet stopped moving. I gasped for air, clawing at my throat.
“Mac?” Alarm sent Graham’s voice up a full octave. “Do you have asthma? What’s happening?”
I couldn’t suck in enough air to answer. All I could do was shake my head before the panic filled me, taking up all the room in my mind and my lungs. Shadows fuzzed at the edges of my vision.
If Darlene’s house isn’t haunted now, it will be soon, I realized, clutching Graham’s hoodie for support.
“Brrrllll.”
Striker’s muffled trilling replaced the scratching sound from the corner of the room. Then she made a noise I’d never heard before, howling in a strange way that sharply increased in volume before abruptly cutting off. She did it again, and the second “MmOOOWWWww” snapped me out of my panic.
“Striker!” I gasped in air and broke away from Graham, stumbling toward the source of my cat’s little voice.
She had to be under my mother’s vanity. It was a small, shallow piece of furniture with a narrow stack of drawers on the left and a dainty space for a pair of legs on the right. There was no mirror attached; I remembered my mother using a freestanding one she could tuck away in the top drawer when she wasn’t putting her makeup on. Now, instead of her small collection of cosmetics, the top of the vanity was stacked high with a miniature red cooler, a metal toolbox, and several cardboard boxes marked Camping.
When I got to the vanity and knelt down to check beneath it, Striker wasn’t there.
“Striker?” I called. “Where are you?”
“Brrrllll.”
Her answering trill was close. I stared at the stack of drawers holding up the left side of the vanity; Striker was a wily cat, but I’d never seen her open a drawer before. There was no way she was inside one.
I was immediately proven wrong. When I opened the bottom drawer, Striker stared at me from the rectangular space with wide eyes.
“How did you get in there?”
Graham peeked behind the vanity. “There’s no back on this thing, and the drawers aren’t as tall as they look on the front. She must have slipped in the spaces between them. And— Ew! There are mouse droppings back here.”
“Gross. I guess that’s why Darlene heard scratching.” I picked up the cat and lifted her to my chest. “Is that what you’re doing? Hunting little mice?”
“Careful,” Graham warned. “She’s probably filthy. Don’t touch your face until you’ve had a chance to wash your hands, and we should probably give her a bath.”
Striker heard the B-word and twisted around in my arms, squirming and struggling to get down. She slipped out of my grasp, landed on the floor, and immediately settled back down into the drawer. Paper crinkled beneath her furry bottom, and she pawed beneath herself with the intense focus of a grad student excavating an archaeological site.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
“What did you find?” I murmured, lifting her back out again.
A messy pile of envelopes half filled the drawer. I assumed they were Darlene’s old electrical bills or something else that should have been thrown away two decades ago, but I shined my flashlight inside to be sure.
My mother’s name—Evelyn Clair—was written on the front of the top envelope in a flowing, formal script I recognized. And even if I hadn’t known my former mentor’s handwriting, I certainly knew her name.
The return address confirmed it: Gabrielle Suntador, Donn’s Hill.