A Strange There After (9 page)

My eyebrows shot up. “If everything is so
perfect, Catherine, haven’t you wondered why I’m here? If you
supposedly got all you desired, shouldn’t I be gone? Are you
willing to risk the possibility that I can find a way to do to you
exactly what you did to me?”

“I’m not convinced you have what it
takes.”

“But I do.
He’s
offered me the same
thing you were. How do you feel about that? What happens then, when
he has someone new to serve him?”

My skin crawled using the word ‘serve’, but
it was the best description I had. As I waited for her to answer, I
prayed she didn’t call my bluff. My statement sounded more
confident than I felt. I watched with satisfaction as a flash of
fear sparked in her eyes.

“You have no idea what it cost to get where I
am. I hope you never have to.”

With that, she fled the room, leaving a
million more questions in her wake. Blowing out a frustrated
breath, I slumped against the counter, studiously ignoring the open
computer. I wanted to break it, to erase the images from my mind
forever. Would I have looked as relaxed and carefree in the
pictures?

No, concentrate, I chided myself.

Finding out more from Catherine wouldn’t be
easy. I wanted to know if she truly felt remorse, if she ever
regretted taking this entity up on his offer. Was living my life
worth all the pain and misery she’d caused? Did she ever get
scared, like me?

My attention wandered to the shards of glass
littering the countertop and the floor. I did it. It made me happy
to finally be able to manipulate objects, but the way it happened
scared me. I didn’t like tapping into my desire to harm others. I
wasn’t a violent person, and I sure didn’t want to start being one
now. If giving into sinister urges allowed me to interact with the
living, then I wasn’t interested. I’d find another way. One that
didn’t frighten me.

Tearing my gaze from the broken glass, I
wandered out of the kitchen in the opposite direction as Catherine.
My previous task was not forgotten. I needed to find George. Maybe
someone in this house would have the decency to give me the
truth.

Chapter
Nine

It surprised me to find my ability for
sensing ghosts crossed over to the other side with me. The familiar
ones, like George and Jackson, stood out. I tracked their energy
easily, a bloodhound with a scent.

My super senses led me to the laundry room,
with its high priced appliances and organizational bins. The space
never used to spook me. I enjoyed my quiet time in here, doing
laundry away from the step-monsters, but these days, I tended to be
a glass half empty kind of gal. I kept expecting the freaky faced
woman to leap out of the shadows or from every corner I turned.

I heard voices before I even entered.

Jackson knelt before the tiny space between
the dryer and the wall, trying to coax a terrified George from the
space. When he heard me, Jackson glanced over his shoulder.

“Maybe you’ll have better luck.” He moved out
of the way, and I took his place.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“No idea. I found him in here talking to no
one.”

George had wedged himself into a gap barely a
foot wide. I peered in at the terrified little boy. His wide eyes
tracked my every movement, but he didn’t come over to me like
usual. I crouched down and tried to lure him out.

“George, it’s me, Quinn. Come on, sweetie,
I’m not going to hurt you.” He didn’t budge, only stared at me with
suspicion. I tried again, “George, please. Jackson and I are
lonely.”

It worked. The boy inched forward, and I was
able to take his hand. Slowly, I managed to maneuver him into the
center of the room, and his little shoulders relaxed. I drew him
over to a shaft of sunlight streaming in the narrow window. Neither
of us would be able feel the warmth, but it was the bright,
comforting light I desired. Jackson remained near, leaning against
the countertop, arms folded over his chest. He offered me an
encouraging smile.

The second I sat, the entire atmosphere
darkened, a sensation I remembered from my ghost hunting days. It
was a feeling of not being alone, an oppressive air pushing from
all sides. I kept the open door at my back, wary of shadows. Just
because I couldn’t see the threat didn’t mean it wasn’t there. No
wonder the poor child trembled continuously.

I kept a hold of his hand. “Are you okay?” He
nodded quickly. “What’s wrong, George. You can trust me,” I
soothed. “Is something here?”

He trembled harder, his entire body jerking.
Nice, Quinn, scaring him won’t get you information. Instead of
demanding once more to know what frightened him or checking to see
if Jackson noticed it too, I moved past it, hoping to find out more
about his childhood.

“Where were you born?”

His gaze searched mine, the deep pools of his
irises full of gut-wrenching grief and weariness. It always killed
me to hear of children trapped in this world after they died. They
deserved to be someplace they were loved, not left to wander a
house full of strangers. I’d heard EVP of kids asking where their
mama went and doing anything to been seen. It broke my heart, more
so after experiencing how hard it was to attract attention and the
aching frustration when it didn’t work.

Eventually, he answered. “Right here, Miss
Quinn, only two months after they finished settin’ up house.”

“And your mama worked here?”

“Yes’m. She a house slave. Workin’ in the
kitchen. We lived out in them small buildings. Six a us ta one
room.”

This part of my heritage made me
uncomfortable—being involved with the slavery movement. While
researching my family, I discovered the Roberts had owned over a
hundred slaves between the house in Savannah and the cotton
plantation across the river. Compared to other local families, it
wasn’t the worst numbers, but still horrible.

“Tell me about growing up with my
family.”

He tilted his head, a far off look in his
eyes. “Mostly, it be fine. There some other young ‘uns, or I’d
sneak out and play with kids from other houses. Missus Regina, she
a nice lady, so’s her daughter, Margaret. They let me help with
things.” His expression clouded. “Master Amos, he a bad man.”

Amos Roberts would have been Margaret’s
daddy, and my great, great, great grandfather, probably one of the
most successful members of the family. I had to ask, “How was he a
bad man?”

“He beat his slaves, Miss Quinn. Sometimes,
he beat ‘em so bad they died. Then he take ‘dem young girls out to
the carriage house. I heard the screams.”

I shivered, imagining the hell these poor
people lived in. A change came over George. His expression
flickered and became harder.

“He got what coming to him when he messed
with stuff he know nuttin’ about. My mama make sure a that.”

Agitation pulsed off him in waves, so I
navigated to safer waters. “I met Margaret. She’s a nice lady.”

Affection pushed his tone up an octave. “We
same age, and she used ta bring me sweets from the kitchen, cakes
an’ honey. Margaret was kind. Made me laugh with her church stories
from Sunday school.”

“I was about your age the first time I saw
you,” I recalled. “You were standing at the entrance of my bedroom,
staring at my toys.”

“I ‘member. Ain’t never seen so many
things!”

I grinned. “I tried to chase you away,
thought you were there to steal them all.”

George giggled, joined by Jackson, and I
wished he wasn’t stuck here. He didn’t deserve this kind of
eternity. I was about to ask more when George’s eyes focused over
my shoulder, then widened in terror. A presence pressed against my
back, thick and cloying, along with the realization if I turned,
something terrible would happen.

Swallowing my fear, I rose to confront
whatever had joined us.

In the far corner, opposite the one George
had hid in, a black mass appeared, growing denser by the second.
Jackson stepped up beside me as I angled my body to protect George.
Two amber eyes opened, narrowing and icing my skin instantly.

Dis boy ain’t no concern a yours. Leave ‘im
be, filthy Roberts murderer.

Whoa, murderer? Obviously, this was the crazy
lady. My chest tightened, entwined with anxiety.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I
haven’t done anything to you,” I said with more courage than I
felt.

I will make you suffer, child. Blood always
tell. Yours is as tainted as the others’. Leave dat boy alone.

All of a sudden, a whirlwind of darkness
burst into the laundry room surrounding us. Preparing for the pain
I knew was coming, I pulled myself up tall and stared it down. “I’m
not afraid of you,” I said.

You should be.

I flinched, bracing for the attack. Instead,
the darkness parted, whooshing around me. Confused, I let in a
moment of relief, until I heard the screams behind me.

I spun, only to see Jackson completely
enfolded within the inky mass. His cries escalated into shrieks
filled with so much pain tears formed in my eyes. George backed
away, sobbing, his face wet with tears. He crouched, then
vanished.

Reaching out to Jackson, not sure what I
expected to accomplish, my arm merely sank through the cloud.
Frigid pin pricks assaulted my skin, and I snatched my hand back in
shock. I stared at it, noticing red angry welts that grew redder by
the second. Jackson’s cries escalated, the sound inhuman.

A hot burst of rage came to life, alive and
ugly. It built and roared inside me, to the point I had to let it
out or else explode with the force of it. Focusing all my hate and
emotion on the black entity torturing my friend, I clenched my
fists.

“Stop it!” I shouted, the timbre of my voice
reverberating throughout the room. An invisible wave of energy shot
out from me, slamming into the woman’s black mass and within
seconds, it dispersed, leaving behind only a trace of charged air.
My body hummed with darkness, but slowly it began to subside.

I stared down at my hands, shocked at what I
did. Where the heck had that come from?

A grunt captured my attention, and I spun.
Jackson slumped to the ground, shaking. No longer held back by the
unseen force, I rushed toward him. A gasp escaped me when I saw the
dark blisters dotting his skin. The angry red spots looked like
burns, as if he stuck his hand in a pot of boiling water and got
scalded. His body was rigid with pain, and I wanted to cradle him
but feared hurting him more. Instead, I tried to soothe him with
words.

“It’ll be okay. Just breathe.”

Panic clawed at my throat. I wasn’t entirely
certain if it
would
be okay. What kind of power did it take
to hurt a spirit this badly? My thoughts ran in a million different
directions. I didn’t know what to do. I hoped Abby and Boone found
something useful soon. This couldn’t happen again. I didn’t want my
friends harmed because of me. Although, it seemed I had the ability
to protect them. The bad news was I didn’t like the way it made me
feel afterward.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“You...have...nothing to apologize for.” The
words wheezed out of his mouth as he tried to get comfortable on
the floor. Amazingly, the wounds were already beginning to fade. “I
could try and salvage my manhood by saying I’ve felt worse, but it
would be a lie.”

“The blisters are going away.”

Jackson stretched an arm, flexing his fist
and watching his skin return to normal. “So they are. I expected to
look down and see all my skin flayed from my flesh.” He tilted his
head to stare up at me. “What did you do?’

“I have no idea. I got really mad, and it
flew out of me. I’ve never done anything like that before.
Protecting you and stopping your pain were my biggest
concerns.”

“Well, you have my undying gratitude,” he
said with a smirk. “Although, I don’t believe I have done anything
to annoy that particular spirit.”

His attitude baffled me. While he still moved
gingerly, he appeared to be pain free and back to his normal self.
Relief loosened the knots in my stomach. Some remained. The ones
struggling to figure out how I chased the woman away. The amount of
energy it took to accomplish was unfathomable. It went against
every truth I knew about ghosts. At least, things I
thought
I knew. This spirit business, being on the other side, was a whole
new cup of tea.

“She didn’t hurt you because of anything you
did. She did it to teach me a lesson. It had to do with George. She
wanted me to leave him alone. Called me a murderer, with tainted
blood or something.”

“There were a few unsavory Roberts as the
years passed. She could mean any one of them.” He brushed his hair
from his face. “Instinct tells me it has to be around the time of
Amos Roberts. There were some dark stories about him killing a
slave girl.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” I explain.
“Her accent is pretty heavy, so I can’t help but think she may have
been a slave here.”

“And you heard this in your head?”

“Yep. The chick speaks to me with her
thoughts. Or my thoughts. However it works. Kind of annoying.”

“I think I would have gone mad by now.”
Jackson pushed to his feet and rolled his shoulders.

“The sooner I can reclaim my body, the better
it will be for all of us.” Catherine. I needed to concentrate on
her, regardless of this strange tug-of-war these two entities were
having over my soul. One wanted to help, one wanted to batter me.
But if I righted the wrong Catherine did, problem solved.

Spinning on my heel, I prepared to leave,
planning to seek her out and somehow making her pay, but Jackson’s
fingers wrapped around my wrist. “Where are you going?”

“I have to put a stop to this. Standing idly
by and letting those I care about get hurt is unacceptable.
Catherine is the key.”