The thuds went on all night again, so Lizzie came upstairs with me and promised to stay until sunrise, to help me feel safe. Edward was down in the basement, keeping an eye on the shadow, and his last report was that it was in its corner, banging the boards and growling, but he didn’t think it had enough energy to keep it up much longer.
“Maybe my fear feeds him too,” I said to Lizzie, getting in bed.
“Yes, it’s possible,” she replied.
Another reason to face it. I didn’t know why, but I was sure that doing it would help me figure out the whole situation.
“We need to contact a medium or something,” I muttered, searching my phone.
Of course Trisha was still awake. She freaked out when I told her what was going on, minus the Blotters part, of course, and volunteered to help me find somebody that could at least advise me. She thought I needed the kind of psychic able not only to fe
I couldn’t turn the key to lock the basement door fast enough. Still dizzy, I snatched a soda from the fridge and gulped up half of it right where I stood, feeling I desperately needed a sugar boost.“Are you okay?” asked the tablet by the flashing cat ball.“Yeah, yeah, I just need a minute,” I panted. “And a tea.”“Speedwell,” said the phone.“That’s a great idea.”Five minutes later, I sat at the table, the phone offline on one side, the tablet with both apps open on the other. We lingered there until their dinner time, talking about what had just happened downstairs. Typing still demanded them a lot of time and energy, so Joseph and Lizzie shared the TTS, while Edward used the speaking up and Ann used my phone.What Edward had observed over those few minutes in the basement left me speechless.First of all, now he’d gotten a closer look
It was a sleepless night, trying in vain to find a credible source of information about binding spells or whatever. I gave up about an hour before sunrise, and left a note for Susan not to come upstairs until I got up. No wonder the first thing she did in the morning was come to dust and vacuum the master bedroom, right next door. And in order to vacuum the whole rug, she asked Mike to help her move all the furniture.So I woke up only two hours after falling asleep, to loud noises like I had a frigging construction crew working right by my bed. Exhausted and still upset about the whole basement situation, just hearing Susan’s voice triggered a homicidal fury I’d never known I had in me. I strode to the master bedroom and pulled the vacuum plug roughly. Susan turned around, surprised.“Didn’t you see the note I left you on the fridge?” I growled, definitely sick and tired of her.“Good morning, Miss Garner. Yes, I saw it. But
Over lunch, Amy asked the Blotters a lot of questions about their plane or dimension, and how they perceived the world of the living. With two TTS and two speaking apps, the conversation with them flowed better than ever. I left her chattering with the Blotters at the table to clean the kitchen. I was just about to finish when we heard a thud from the basement. Amy turned to me, suddenly apprehensive.“That’s the shadow,” I said, nodding. “It surely sensed you. I told it about you, and bet it can’t wait anymore to meet you.”“You told it? It’s conscious?”“Conscious and intelligent,” Edward replied.“Okay, let me grab a few things,” she said, and hurried to grab her bag from the east parlor.I opened the basement door and stuck my head in. “Coming, Kujo! Just a minute!”Amy came back with a fat white candle, a funny rosary and a small glass bot
I paced up, leaving Amy behind, and trotted to the end of the trail. In the Manor garden, a black pickup truck idled behind Amy’s car, and Mike was coming to meet the man stepping out of the passenger seat. I only got to see he was tall, all clad in black baggy clothes. I came out of the trail to the garden and waved my hand high.“It’s okay, Mike! I got it!”Mike stopped halfway but lingered there, like making sure I was fine, or safe, or whatever. Brandon Price looked back and started around the vehicle towards me. I was about to approach the truck when Amy grabbed my arm from behind to stop me.“Keep your distance, Fran. This man carries at least half a dozen parasite demons attached to him,” she warned, her eyes fixed on him.“Joseph will protect me,” I replied, freeing my arm.Brandon Price waited for me by his car. As usual, his face was half-hidden behind his glasses and under his stubble and b
After Amy left, the Manor felt quiet and empty for a while. I loved living with the Blotters, but only now I realized I’d been missing some regular human company as well. Especially someone like Amy, who didn’t force me to hide what was actually going on in my life. I took a longer jog that day, and spent a long while playing the guitar, not at the east parlor, but in my room. The Blotters respected my need for solitude and didn’t give any sign of their presence, save the usual little noises.The next morning, a glance at the calendar was enough for me to understand why I felt so down and lonely. The anniversary of Mom’s death was around the corner, but it’d never been about just that day. After years of fighting a lost battle against the cancer that kept coming back, she’d spent her last days in the hospital, drowned in morphine and still in excruciating pain. The day she’d passed hadn’t been anywhere near as bad, because it ha
“I’ve got it! The pendant and the name were all I needed!”I rubbed my eyes, trying in vain to lift my head from the pillow. Amy sounded awfully awake for my muddled brain.“You found the ritual?”“Did I wake you up? Oh, my, sorry, Fran!”“It’s okay. Can I call you back in ten?”“Sure, sure.”It was eight-thirty on a gray cold morning. I kicked myself out of bed, crawled into my winter sweatpants and a baggy turtleneck sweater that fell down to my knees, tied my hair up in a ponytail and felt ready to go back to bed. Instead, I dragged my feet all the way down to the kitchen.Susan and Mike wouldn’t come until nine, so I had a little while to make my breakfast in the quiet stillness of the house. Before cooking, I went to the east parlor. The cat ball flashed right away.“Morning, Ann, Lizzie. Amy seems to have good news and I’m about to c
That conference call was like the little push on the small of your back when you’re sitting on top of a big tall slide. Before I could catch my breath and process the situation, I was gliding down and there was nothing I could do to stop or at least slow down.I called Trisha before going to sleep, and I was forced to move the phone away from my ear until she was done with her happy cries and exclamations.“How long do you need me to stay?”“Three days?”“Didn’t you say the Haunters are staying five?”“Yeah, but—”“Then I’m staying at least six.”“You can’t call in sick for six days straight, Trish!”“Oh, didn’t I tell you I quit? Yeah, I was sick and tired of that groper son of a bitch. I have a couple of interviews scheduled, but they’re over Zoom, so I don’t need to be in town for them.&rdquo
Amy and Trisha got to the Manor at noon, when I had already bitten my nails up to my elbows and was pretty much pacing up and down the walls. Turned out the medium had decided to tell my friend about the Blotters and explain the whole situation before leaving Boston. She wanted to assess Trisha’s reaction to be sure she was the right choice to come lend a hand.That was why, to my utter surprise, my friend didn’t storm in calling out for ghosts and demons, never minding who was around. Instead, she got out of Amy’s flashy car already filming with her phone, using an SLS app to detect humanoid forms on screen. Which in Trisha’s world meant she was being the queen of discretion.Susan was still around, with the excuse of making sure our guests had everything they needed right as they needed in their rooms, so we didn’t talk until she left and we sat down for a late lunch.“Where are they?” Trisha asked Amy, a bundle of exc