How to Fake a Haunting, page 27
I moaned, unsure what to do. It occurred to me that I hadn’t called my parents since that morning. “I need to find my phone,” I said. “To check on Beatrix.”
Morgan nodded and turned to the stove, intent on making tea anyway. I went to the charging station and pulled my phone off the cord. The moment I lifted it, I knew something was wrong. Twenty-seven missed calls and almost as many texts. They were split in terms of caller; about half from my mother, the other half from Adelaide.
“Shit,” I said, panicked.
“Everything okay?” Morgan asked.
I didn’t answer, just opened the text messages from my mother. The last one she’d sent caused a lump of terror to well up my throat:
Not sure why you’re not answering, but the ambulance has arrived for your father. It’s his heart. He’s conscious, but I need to follow him to the hospital. I was going to leave Bea with Francine next door, but Adelaide called. She’s been looking for you too. I told her what’s going on, and she picked up Beatrix. They’re on their way to you now.
My heart thundered in my chest. I checked the time stamp on the message. Twenty minutes ago. I looked up, horrified, just as Callum said, “Someone’s pulling in.”
I didn’t bother with shoes but, on mothering autopilot, grabbed Bea’s iPad and headphones, then ran out the door and down the front walkway. I met them at the edge of the drive, my heart soaring and then plummeting at Beatrix’s happy-go-lucky skips across the pavement, the purple cast—and Love, the koala—held to her chest, the ecstatic expression on her face.
“Mommy, Mommy!” she cried. “I missed you! My head feels all better, but Papa is sick. Gram went to the hospital.”
I scooped Bea into a hug. She smelled like honeysuckle and laundry detergent, and I wanted to hold her forever. Over Bea’s shoulder, I caught Adelaide’s eye. “Did you talk to my mom? Is my dad okay?”
Adelaide’s face was pale against the fuchsia waves of her hair. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “They’re hoping it was minor. He was stable before they transported him.” Her eyes darted up to the house. “Why didn’t you answer our calls? I haven’t heard from you since last night, when you left me that super-weird voicemail.” She widened her eyes as if to say, You know, the one we shouldn’t talk about in front of your daughter?
Adelaide’s attention wavered. “Is that Joe and Morgan’s truck?” Her eyes narrowed. “What are they doing here?” She looked at the house again. “Lainey, what the fuck happened to all the windows?”
“Language, Auntie Adelaide,” I said, and she rolled her eyes.
I set Beatrix down and she looked up at me. “Can I go on my swing set?”
“No!” I cried, but she took off running anyway.
I spun on Adelaide. “She cannot stay,” I exclaimed, and held out the iPad and headphones, but she didn’t take them. “I need you to take Bea somewhere—anywhere but here!”
Adelaide opened her mouth but was cut off by a shout from Beatrix. “What’s wrong with the yard?” she cried, darting in and around the holes.
“Woodchucks,” I called back. “They wanted to move into your fairy garden, but there was no room; they got mad and dug up the grass.”
I turned back to Adelaide; her mouth was open, and she was staring at the yard in dismay.
“What is wrong with the yard?” she demanded. “And the windows? And that voicemail? What is wrong with every-fucking-thing right now, Lainey? Start talking!”
It flooded out of me in a pressurized deluge of words, everything from discovering Chris was the blackmailer to the revelation that Callum and I were being haunted by ourselves.
“But what about the other two ghosts?” Adelaide asked. “Neither of you have ever been a corpse or dragged your mangled body out of wreckage.” It was just like Adelaide to accept everything I’d said at face value and go right for the plot holes.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, “but they’re terrifying in different ways.”
Adelaide stared up at the house. “So . . .what now?”
I was about to respond when I heard the door to the house open in the garage. Morgan poked her head out. “Um, hi, Adelaide. Nice to see you. Uhh, Lainey, we need you in here. Now.” There was urgency in her voice.
I stared at Adelaide, wild-eyed. “Take her somewhere?” I pleaded.
“Where?” she asked.
“Your house?”
“I guess I could—” Her eyes fell on the playhouse at the top of the swing set. “What about there?” she asked.
I looked in time to see Beatrix disappear through the door of her fortress. “Pinecone House?”
“It’s far enough from the main house, don’t you think? And no ghosts have incorporated a trip down the slide into their wanderings. At least, not yet.”
I frowned at her bad joke. “I don’t know—”
“I’m worried about you. What if I need to be here? To help somehow?”
“Lainey?” Morgan called. She was back in the doorway again. “We need you in here.” The urgency had climbed up a notch.
“Arghh!” I shouted in frustration. “I can’t think straight. I don’t know what to do.” I took off toward the swing set, and Adelaide followed. At the bottom of the ladder, I turned. “Give me a minute,” I said.
“Of course,” Adelaide replied.
I climbed up and knocked. When there was no answer, I pushed open the door. Bea’s gone, my brain screamed. The ghosts got to her somehow! The house swallowed her whole! Then I realized Bea was surrounded by blankets and stuffed animals at the center of the snug space. I smiled and held out the headphones.
Her face lit up. “Shows in the playhouse? I’ve never done that before!”
“I know, right? It’ll be fun.” She took them while I propped the iPad on a pillow shaped like a whale. My stomach twisted. She was so sweet, so innocent. How had this gone so wrong? How was my daughter, whom I’d wanted to protect more than anyone, thrust into this madness? I looked at her. The cat ears of the headphones poked out from between several plush horses and a second whale pillow. I pressed play, and cartoon dogs twirled on a swing while a smiling Dad-dog looked on with affection.
Despite the holes in the yard and my terror at what would come next, despite the malevolent chaos in my house—and my relationship—the image of Bea watching her favorite show, the show I usually made an exception for, putting down whatever work or household chore needed finishing to indulge in the delightful program with my daughter, injected something like hope into my heart. I paused the show and lifted one side of Bea’s headphones from her ear.
“Which episode is this?” I cooed.
“‘Double Babysitter,’” Bea squealed. I swore that whenever she watched the show, her voice took on the higher-pitched notes of the titular character.
“I love this one,” I said. Beatrix reached for the iPad to restart it, but I put a hand on her arm. “Sweetheart?” I asked. She blinked her large gray-gold eyes at me. “Can we pretend it’s like the babysitter episode tonight, and Adelaide is like Frisky, and Mommy has to go do something for a bit but will be back very soon?”
She thought this over. “Where are you going?” she asked.
I forced myself to appear calm, to keep up the facade that things were normal. “Nowhere. But I still need you to stay in here with Adelaide, no matter what. Just for a bit, okay? Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
Beatrix shook her head.
“Good, so you stay here with Adelaide, watch your show, and I’ll come back shortly.”
“Okay, Mommy.” Bea reached for the iPad again.
“One more thing, ’kay, sweetheart?” I leaned forward and rubbed Bea’s cheek with my own, then kissed her several times, my heart aching more fiercely with each kiss. “I love you. So, so much.”
I replaced the headphones and pushed play. A moment later, Bea’s laughter, infectious and more real than anything, rang out. I shut the door and climbed down from the fort. Adelaide was staring at me. “You okay?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Not at all. Take care of her while I’m in there, okay?”
“I promise.”
I held her gaze. Who would have known her batshit plan to make my life better would have brought us here? As terrifying as it was, I felt like we belonged in this moment. When you realized you’d been haunting yourself, that meant things really needed to change.
Tell her thank you! a voice in my head howled. Tell her how much you appreciate her! You suck at showing your emotions. It’s okay to be vulnerable! And this time, instead of letting the moment pass, I grabbed her and pulled her into a hug.
“Thank you,” I said. “For all your help. For everything.”
Adelaide held me a moment, then pulled away. As she did, I felt a lump in my pocket. I slipped my hand inside and pulled out the knife I’d brought with me into the tent.
“Here,” I said. “I know, it’s absurd. A knife against a ghost. But it would make me feel better if you had it.”
She nodded and gave me a gentle shove. “Don’t come out here again until you fix whatever’s going on in there.”
I nodded and started toward the house. I tried to look unafraid, in case anything was watching from the broken windows, but I was a mess of swirling terror and uncertainty.
“Hey,” Adelaide called.
I stopped, looked back.
“Remember my advice.”
“What advice is that?”
She winked. “Serial killer confidence, baby. Don’t let those ghosts know how scared you really are.”
Chapter 53
I entered the house from the back deck, turning away from the spot where Bea had fallen, the splintered wood of the rail leering at me like fangs. The playroom was empty and quiet, but I heard voices up ahead.
“What do you mean, we have to do it again?” Callum was demanding. I crossed the hallway, stopping a few steps back from the kitchen. Joe stood across from Callum at the island. Morgan was by the table.
“We can’t get them to leave until we know who they are,” Morgan said, her tone patient but firm.
“We know who they are!” Callum cried, banging his fists on the marble. “Somehow, some-fucking-way, they’re us! Lainey and me. Some fucked-up echo from the past!”
I walked into the room. Everyone turned to look at me, and the conversation changed direction.
“Why is that pink-haired bitch here?” Callum growled. “And why does she have Beatrix?”
I filled them in on my father’s heart attack and my mother dropping Bea with Adelaide to follow him to the hospital.
Callum peered through the open maw that used to be the kitchen window. “But they’re gone, right? You sent them away?”
“I . . . didn’t,” I admitted. “I tried, but Adelaide thinks she should be here. In case she needs to help.”
Callum let out a loud, bitter laugh and paced the kitchen. “What the hell is she going to do?” he said. “I don’t like it. And having Beatrix here is a really bad idea. It’s not safe.”
Black spots popped at the corners of my eyes, and rage as sour as bile welled up my throat. “I don’t think you’re in any position to comment on Beatrix’s safety.”
“I’m not the one who brought her to a goddamned haunted house—”
“I didn’t bring her here! My father’s in the hospital and—”
“That stupid clubhouse isn’t going to protect—”
“It’s not the house that’s haunted, you jackass, it’s us!”
“All right, all right!” Joe said loudly. He put up his hands. “Can we get back to the main issue here?”
“Which is?” I asked, still unsure what they’d been discussing when I’d walked in a minute earlier.
“That we need to uncover the identities of the other two apparitions.”
“Oh,” I said, and sighed. “As long as it’s only that.” I sank into a nearby chair.
Morgan smiled weakly at me. “While you were outside, the ghost with blood on her hands—”
“Me,” I interjected. “We might as well call them what they are. I was calling her Lady Macbeth in my head, before I realized . . .” I trailed off, then refocused on Morgan. “Anyway, yes, the ghost with blood on her hands is past-me . . . Past-Lainey.”
“Right, okay, so, while you were outside, Past-Lainey and Past-Callum reappeared and went through the motions of their respective loops several times.” Morgan tilted her head, something occurring to her. “Did you see your, um, past self out there when you were talking to Adelaide?”
I shook my head.
“Remarkable,” Morgan mused. “When inside the house, you can see the ghosts when they step out of it. But when outside the house, you see nothing. They’re invisible.”
“Not true,” Callum said from the island. “Those goddamn holes in the yard are certainly visible.”
“Anyway,” Morgan continued, “when the past ghosts reappeared, they retained their”—she winced—“er, your faces.” She looked back and forth between Callum and me excitedly. When we only stared, she added, “Don’t you see? Using the unbroken mirror to reveal their identities stuck. They no longer have the nonfaces they initially presented with. They’re exposed, and therefore ready to be dealt with. But there are four ghosts, not two. So we need to uncover the faces of the others. Then we can figure out how to banish them all.”
“But we held your mirror up to all the broken mirrors in the house,” I pointed out. “It only revealed the identities of Lady Macbeth and the staircase specter. I mean, Past-Lainey and Past-Callum.” I grunted in exasperation.
“That’s true,” Morgan admitted. She looked across the room to her husband and smiled. “But there are other ways to get what we want.”
Ten minutes later, Callum and I stood in the living room, watching as Morgan and Joe wound yarn—borrowed from Bea’s craft supplies—around one end of the gold-framed mirror. Joe threw the ball of yarn over the chandelier directly above them and fashioned a noose-like knot through which he threaded the other end of the yarn. When he was done, the mirror hung flat in the air above the coffee table, to be raised or lowered as needed.
Morgan threw a black towel over the mirror’s surface. “Do you have something wide and low we could fill with water?” she asked. “Like an oven tray, but big enough for the mirror to fit into?”
Callum stared blankly, but I knew just the thing. “There’s a plastic tray of Bea’s in the playroom. It keeps her Play-Doh and clay from getting everywhere. Would that work?”
Morgan said it would, so I went to fill it with water before handing it carefully over. She placed it on the coffee table below the mirror.
“Okay,” Morgan said. “Let’s form a circle.” She removed a bundle of herbs and twigs from a satchel by her feet.
Callum narrowed his eyes. “So, are you a ghost hunter or a witch?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“What are we doing exactly?” Callum pressed.
“Catoptromancy,” Morgan said.
“And that is?”
“Divination using a mirror as the tool.” She yanked the black towel off the mirror with a flourish like a magician pulling a scarf off the top of a hat to reveal a rabbit. “We’re going to turn the lights off, and while we’re visualizing what we want to see—the identities of the corpse specter and tortured wraith—we’ll lower the mirror toward the table until its base is resting on the surface of the water. When that happens, we should see something in the mirror. An image. An explanation. Something that illuminates the answer to our question.
“Or, we’ll see nothing at all.” She shrugged. “This is far from a science, but I’m optimistic, since the last instance of using mirrors to fight mirror ghosts worked.” She walked to the wall and flipped the switch, plunging us into relative darkness. The broken bay window let a fair amount of moonlight into the room, but Morgan looked satisfied.
“And if one of the ghosts reaches up and pulls us into the mirror with it?” Callum asks. “Then what?”
“I don’t foresee that happening,” Morgan said.
“You didn’t foresee the ghosts being violent,” Callum pointed out. “Or this”—he gave the gold-framed mirror a push, sending it swinging on the yarn—“showing that two of the ghosts have our own damn faces.” He looked over at me as if expecting backup, but I rolled my eyes.
“She’s trying to help,” I said. “Can you keep an open mind?”
He grumbled something, but I ignored him and stepped up to the coffee table. Joe and Morgan stepped to either side of me. Callum was left to walk around to the other side and face me.
“Okay,” Morgan said. “Joe, you want to grab the yarn?”
Joe complied.
“Raise it a bit.”
Joe raised the mirror so it was a little above eye level for all of us.
Morgan held a lighter to the smudge stick until a small flame licked up from its end. When she blew it out, smoke curled from it in a steady stream. She moved her hand back and forth above the coffee table, the smoke rising and encompassing the mirror in its haze.
“Callum, I’d like you to envision the corpse specter,” she began.
“What?” Callum’s voice was shrill. “Why me? That thing clearly has it in for—”
He quieted when he saw the look Morgan was giving him. “Fine,” he grumbled, and shut his eyes.
“Lainey, I’d like you to envision the ghost we’ve been referring to as the tortured wraith. Envision her pain. Try to feel it. Think of what she might have lost. Think of what might have happened prior to her crawling out of the mirror and through your living room.”
I did as I was told, and while it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t pleasant. The smell of heather and basil gave way to gasoline and the sharp sting of alcohol. Along with charred flesh, I smelled blood, which I hadn’t realized had been there in the wraith’s presence before. I imagined the wretched thing collapsing to the ground, wailing in an agony that was more than physical, that was existential and all-encompassing. As if, besides the pain, she had lost everything . . . and been the cause of it.
“Good,” Morgan said. “Now, move your focus from what you’ve seen of the apparitions to what you haven’t seen. Couldn’t see. Think about their faces.” Then, more quietly, she said, “Joe, lower the mirror.”
