“It’s quiet,” said Ron. She and Joe stood on the mansion’s lawn at the edge of the pond. The last glow of the sunset could be seen above the trees, casting a coral gradient that faded into dusky violet above them, where a few stars could already be seen. The woods beyond were dark enough to conceal anything that might lurk within. There was no sign of the white lady.
“Think she’s in the house?” asked Joe.
“Maybe. Or maybe she’s not active until after sundown.”
“Where do you think we should start lookin’?”
“The house, I guess. If we split up, we’ll cover more ground.”
“Yep. Too bad that ain’t happening.”
Ron turned to face him and was met with a look that said there was no use arguing. She sighed. “Fine. Let’s head inside. We can start at the top and work our way down. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something else that can help Chris.”
Together, they transported themselves to the third-floor landing. “Which way first?” asked Ron, peering down each wing.
“You think this place has an attic?”
“I’d be surprised if it didn’t.”
“Maybe we should start there.” He nodded to a little door tucked into an alcove at the back of the landing. “Where do you s’pose that leads?”
“Let’s find out.” Ron started for the door, but Joe held her back.
“I’ll be the one stickin’ my head into strange places, if you don’t mind.”
Ron resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “This whole protective thing is only going to get more annoying once we’re married, isn’t it?”
“Count on it.”
She sighed. You could take the guy out of the 1910s, but you couldn’t take the 1910s out of the guy. Not completely, at any rate. She made an “after you” gesture and stood by while he approached the door. “Probably a closet,” she muttered.
Joe stuck his head through the door. “Yep,” he said, his voice muffled. “It’s a closet.” Pulling his head back through the door, he said, “Hold up. I think I saw something.” Concentrating, he took hold of the knob and turned it. Ron moved to join him as he pulled the door open and peered inside. There, on the back wall, behind a vacuum cleaner and a shelving unit stocked with toilet paper and cleaning supplies, was another door.
Ron grinned. “I’ll take what’s behind door number two, Monty.”
He gave her the same blank look he always gave her when he didn’t get one of her pop culture references. She sighed. “What were you doing all those years when the other ghosts were watching TV?”
“Mostly keepin’ Sarah distracted so they could.”
“Ah.” She had no comeback for that. She’d seen firsthand the sort of distractions the little monster had preferred. She jerked her chin toward the back of the closet. “You first.”
Nodding resolutely, he passed through the shelving unit as though it wasn’t there, and as easily passed partway through the door. Before disappearing behind it, he pulled back and looked at Ron. “It’s a stairway.”
“I was hoping for a new car,” she muttered. Again, the blank stare. “Right behind you.”
With a slightly bewildered look, Joe shook his head and slipped through the door. Ron followed. On the other side, a short, darkened staircase led up about half a flight before taking a turn to the left.
Ron thanked the ghostly night vision that allowed them both to see as they ventured up the stairs, although seeing in the dark didn’t always make the dark any less scary. This was one of those times.
The stairs led all the way up to the ceiling, where a trap door opened into an attic. They climbed up and looked around. “Whoa.”
“And I thought our attic was cluttered,” said Joe.
“There must be at least a hundred years’ worth of stuff here. It’s like these people never throw anything away.” Looking more closely at some of the antique furniture mixed in among boxes, storage bins and old steamer trunks, Ron couldn’t really blame them. This was some nice stuff. “Something tells me we’re not going to find Whitey up here.”
“Maybe not.” Joe nodded toward the back. “What do you reckon that is?”
Following his gaze, at first, she had no idea what he was talking about. One antique didn’t look any more significant than the other. But then she saw it. “Is that…”
Without either finishing her question or waiting for an answer, she floated through the stacks of old junk until she reached her prize: a wicker bassinet, once white but faded and weathered with age. A vintage mobile still hung from the hood.
“Now we know there was a baby here,” Joe said softly behind her.
“There’ve probably been a lot of babies here since this thing was last used. It doesn’t really prove anything. But it definitely suggests something.” She reached out and gave the mobile a nudge, causing it to spin squeakily. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. “I wonder which room used to be the nursery.”
“Let’s be sure to ask the lady once we get her to sit down and have a civil conversation with us.” As if to underscore his dubious tone, a mournful wail floated up from somewhere below.
“Shh!” said Ron.
“I was done talking.”
“Shhh!” She held up a finger and listened. The crying sounded far away, but it was unmistakable—not the least of which because of how it was already making her feel.
After a moment, Joe pushed her finger down gently and pointed to a window on the other side of the attic. They both transported themselves to it and looked out over the front lawn. They spotted her at the edge of the pond. She was hard to see, as faint as her cries, but the more she cried, the more solid she grew. And the more solid she grew, the louder her wailing became.
Ron sighed. “Guess we’d better get down there.”
“We got a plan for once we’re there?”
“Shout her down, try to talk some sense into her. Don’t let her go in the water.” She looked at Joe. “I figure maybe she’s stuck in a loop, like you were. Forced to relive her suicide over and over.”
His mouth drew into a grim line. “I don’t reckon any amount of interference would’ve broken that loop.”
“Except it did. Once we took Sarah out of the picture.”
He considered this. “All right, then. Guess it can’t hurt to try.” He took her hand and then added, “I hope.”
“You and me both,” she muttered before they beamed themselves down to the pond.
The time they’d wasted talking allowed the weeping ghost to grow stronger. She looked almost as solid as a living person, and at close range, her wail hit Ron like a sonic grenade. She staggered but managed to stay upright as her mind groped desperately for happy thoughts to latch onto like a life preserver. Joe squeezed her hand, reminding her of her biggest reason to be happy.
It was only a crack in the wall of despair enclosing and threatening to suffocate her. But it was big enough to allow other cracks. Their engagement and impending wedding. Her dad’s remorse. The fact she would be there to witness Chris’s future. She stacked these things up in her mind like a shield, blocking out the despair and summoning enough strength to shout as loudly as she could, “Hey!”
The wailing stopped. The sudden silence was palpable. The white lady looked stunned as she stared out at the pond, as though she’d only just registered the other spirits’ presence. Slowly, she turned toward them, looking as though she’d never seen them before.
Ron and Joe both relaxed and let go of each other’s hands. “Thank you,” said Ron. “That makes this much easier.” At the other spirit’s confused look, Ron placed a hand on her chest. “My name is Ron. Veronica, I mean. And this”—she held out a hand to indicate Joe—“is Joe. We only want to talk to you. We want to know how to help you.”
The woman looked utterly confused. Ron tried another tactic. “What about your name? Can you tell us that?”
The ghost only continued to stare, tilting her head as if trying to understand, like a dog trying to comprehend a new sound. Or a predator sizing up its prey.
Ron started to get a bad feeling. Overcome with the urge to hurry this along, she took a step forward and reached out, intending to put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. But as she moved, the woman’s face distorted and she let out an ear-splitting shriek, the force of which blew Ron’s hair back as if she were a living person in a gale-force wind.
Fear gripped her as she realized she’d made a very big mistake. She’d assumed this was a human ghost. It had likely started out human—like Sarah—but as Sarah’s evil nature had twisted her spirit into something else, so might this creature’s spirit have been twisted by her despair. Ron reached out for Joe’s hand, but before she could find it, the white lady lunged and gripped her by the arms.
And then she wasn’t standing at the pond anymore.
“Ron?” Joe whipped his head around, scanning the yard, the pond, and the woods beyond for any sign of where they’d gone. “Veronica!” he shouted.
Nothing.
“All right,” he told himself aloud. “Don’t panic.” He closed his eyes and focused on her, expecting to be drawn to her location. But nothing happened. He couldn’t get a sense of her anywhere.
“Okay, now it’s time to panic.”
He transported himself back to the attic. No sign of them there. From there he moved on, scouring the house room by room, moving at the speed of thought, slowed only by his unfamiliarity with the house’s layout. She wasn’t on the second floor. Nor the first. He had an aversion to basements, but that didn’t stop him from searching there, too.
Ron was nowhere to be found.
Joe swore as he considered what to do next. He went back outside, where he intended to search the woods, and then the bottom of the pond if it came to that. But the sound of tires crunching on the long gravel drive made him hesitate. Should he keep looking, or should he tell Chris what happened?
He didn’t know what good it would do to tell her. There wasn’t anything she could do about it except worry, and she already had enough to deal with. Besides, he might still find Ron, and he could search farther and faster on his own. No point in telling Chris anything until there was something certain to tell. With his mind made up, he plunged into the woods, calling his fiancée’s name.