A thin beam of moonlight streamed in from the sliver of a basement window. The pull was even stronger than it had been before, like my bones were magnets being attracted to invisible iron. I was almost to the wall. To the place I’d heard her voice.
Five feet.
Four.
Three.
Two.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice, high-pitched and hollow.
I jumped, a searing pain sliced across my left hip, and the EMF reader clattered to the floor.
“Who’s there?” Her voice shook like leaves rattling against a windowpane in a storm.
I stood frozen to the spot and watched my breath billow in great ghostly puffs before me. My heart throttled my throat. Could she possibly be real? Could I possibly be a psychic?
“Please,” the woman cried. She sounded so alone. So desperate. So scared. “Please. Whoever’s there, please help me. Please. Before he comes back.”
But I couldn’t talk to her. If I did, I’d be admitting she existed. Then there’d be no chance any of this was only in my head, and I wouldn’t be an Untouched anymore.
“Oh, please. I beg you . . .” She stood in front of me. Right behind the bricks in the wall. Two feet away.
An almost unbearable force wrapped itself around my arms and hands. As if under a spell, I reached out my fingers. My feet were glued to the floor, but I stretched forward. Cold bricks scraped my fingertips. Blinding pain and fear and grief knotted themselves around my neck like a noose. I tried to pull away, but the energy pulled me forward, keeping my fingers connected to the basement wall.
“He’s coming,” she cried, her hysteria barely veiled.
Tidal waves of panic exploded over me. Her panic. My panic.
Footsteps. Rage. Murder. A sinister laugh.
I screamed and fell backward into a world of darkness. Into the arms of Aunt Elena.
Ignoring me, Hannah rushed to grab the EMF reader from the floor. She flicked it on and it beeped like an insane metronome.
“The readings are off the charts,” Hannah’s voice squeaked. “Please tell me you got something.” She looked at Frank, then Aunt Elena.
“There’s definitely something there,” Frank said. “I can hear two voices. One’s afraid. The other’s angry.”
“What’re they saying?” Aunt Elena asked, monitoring her beeping equipment.
Frank stayed focused on his tiny camera monitor. “I can’t make it out. Our gear may catch something. But we’ll have to analyze the data later.”
Adrenaline and terror flooded my veins. I could hear his laugh. I could hear her words. Energy charged with panic and dread filled the air. She was terrified, and so was I. I pushed myself away from Aunt Elena and ran.
My hip throbbed, but I didn’t care. I had to get away. I had to run. So that’s what I did. I ran up the stairs. Ran out of the house. Ran until I collapsed, panting on the curb next to the car.
I couldn’t go in that house again. Ever. A woman in there, a real dead woman. Her body. Her ghost was trapped. Inside the wall. And so was someone else. Someone dark. Someone capable of murder.
And the machine had captured it.
Hannah leapt into the backseat of the SUV next to me, making the leather squeak.
“You heard something.” Hannah hooted at me. “I know you did.”
I sat there, numbly staring into the distance. Away from the house. Away from my cousin who cared more about EVPs than me.
“Oh, Alex, come on . . . I mean, you’ve got to tell us—” Hannah begged.
Aunt Elena shut the passenger-side door, climbed in, and closed her own door. “Hannah. Not now.” The frown in Aunt Elena’s voice was clear, but also mixed with excitement. “He’ll talk to us when he’s ready.”
Hannah huffed and fell back into her seat. A pout pursed her lips, but I didn’t care. What I’d seen . . . what I’d felt. I trembled and tried to shake off the woman’s desperation. I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t want any part of their investigation or this house.
“I just want to go home,” I implored Aunt Elena through the rearview mirror. “Please. Take me home.”
She looked at me for a moment as if she wanted to say something, but changed her mind. Finally, she nodded and put the SUV in drive.
That’s when I made the mistake of looking up at the house. Silhouetted against an upstairs window, looking straight at me, was the outline of a man.
Ten minutes later, I limped into my house, shut the front door, and locked it. The hall clock read 9:30 p.m. Dad still wasn’t home. So much for him not wanting me to be alone. I wished Mom were here. My heart warped painfully at the thought.
I rushed up the stairs, two at a time, ignoring my grumbling stomach and the throb in my left hip. I wanted to be alone. Alone with my shame. Alone with my grief. Alone with my fear.
I locked my bedroom door, crawled into bed, and wept. Not just the rain-like tears that fell when I usually thought of Mom, but the thunderstorm kind of tears that shake your body and rattle your bones. The kind that wring out your soul.
Racking sobs shook my body and I gasped for breath. If only I hadn’t made it into the ghostball championships, then Mom wouldn’t have been driving me to that game. Then we wouldn’t have been in that accident. She’d be here. With me. Alive. And I wouldn’t have almost died and now be able to see ghosts. None of this would be happening.
“Oh, Mom.” I took a stuttering breath and pressed my snotty face against the hot, damp pillow. “Why did you have to die?”
A gentle weight settled on the bed next to me.
I stiffened, but didn’t care who heard me crying.
A cool hand caressed the back of my head. Almost like Mom had done when I’d been sad or ill or injured.
Tears still warm on my cheeks, I raised my face from the pillow. It was Mrs. Wilson. She looked down at me with the kindest, gentlest expression. My tears kept flowing.
“Shhhh, now. It’s going to be all right, honey,” her New Orleans drawl warm and comforting, even as she put her cold arm around me, somehow managing to keep it from sinking through my shirt. “I know it’s hard. I do. But your mom’s at peace. I’m sure she is or I’d have seen her here.”
I hadn’t wanted to talk to Mrs. Wilson. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her presence. But if she knew about Mom . . . if she knew about ghosts. I grimaced. How could I be psychic? I’d been tested. I was too old. I was Untouched, wasn’t I?
Something hard pressed against my hip and I remembered the key in my pocket. The key that had led me into the depths of that house. In my fright, I’d forgotten to put it back in the basement door. I pulled it out of my pocket, feeling its cold weight in my palm, before setting it on the night table next to my bed. I wasn’t a crazy hallucinator. I was a crazy psychic. And there wasn’t a fix for that.
Maybe I needed someone who would understand. Not Dr. Midgley. Not Dad. Not most of the world who believed if you weren’t a psychic by age ten, you’d always be Untouched. Maybe somehow I was different. Maybe Mrs. Wilson would understand. And maybe, just maybe, she could help me.
I bit the inside of my lip, hard, to make sure I was really awake. The pain confirmed my consciousness, and my stomach did a somersault. Then, I took a deep breath and spoke to my very first ghost.