Spookygirl - Paranormal Investigator (22 page)

Okay, this obviously wasn’t James Riley. “Abigail?” I gasped.

“Don’t feign stupidity with me,” she growled. Her breath was freezing against my face.

This was all wrong. Abigail was supposed to be the victim here. Her husband had killed her, then himself, all in a violent, abusive fit, and—

And none of that had ever been proven; the Riley Island records had been destroyed in a flood before the case was resolved. All Mom had known—and all I knew from her notes—was that James and Abigail died under suspicious circumstances. No one knew the details. I assumed, as had Mom’s team before me, that James was
the aggressor. But what if it was the other way around?

Abigail Riley jerked me toward the staircase. I held back, digging my Chucks into the floor, trying not to let myself be dragged.

“Isobel!” I said. “I know you’re in there! Push her out! Don’t let her do this!”

Heedless, Abigail gave an especially strong tug and dragged me stumbling after her. She was much stronger than Isobel would have been on her own.

“I won’t have you in my home,” she snarled. “Not anymore. Not after what you did. You and my weak, spineless husband.” She glared at me, her face a mask of betrayal and wrath. “How could you do this to me? I trusted you! Both of you!”

“I didn’t do anything!” I shoved at her, trying to loosen her hold. When that didn’t work, I kicked out at her legs, landing a couple of good hits. She didn’t even notice.

“I trusted you, Mary!” she said again, almost sobbing.

“Mary? Who’s Mary? It’s me! Violet!!” If only I could snap Isobel out of it, maybe she could fight back against the thing controlling her.

As Abigail pulled me closer to the stairs, I remembered the tourmaline in my pocket. I didn’t think it would do any good, but I grabbed for it anyway. My fingers closed around it; it was warm from being so close to my body. I
took it out, clenching my closed fist against my chest. I wouldn’t let Abigail win without a fight.

Just then another voice sounded from the foot of the stairs.

“Abigail Riley! You stop this nonsense right now! That’s not Mary, and you know it!”

Abigail froze. So did I.

I knew that voice. There was no way I could’ve forgotten it. Its tone made my chest hitch and my stomach seize with hope.

I craned my neck to see down the stairs.

“Mom?”

There she was. Except for the blue translucence, she looked exactly as I remembered—so pretty and graceful, with her longish auburn hair pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail. She wore the same blouse and jeans she’d worn to the Logan Street investigation all those years ago.

She charged up the stairs and reached out toward Isobel. She seemed to pull the blue ghostliness right out of her; Isobel instantly let go of my wrist and fell to the ground, limp and unconscious again. I knew I should check on her, but I couldn’t stop staring at Mom, standing there holding a woman by the front of her long, old-fashioned blouse. The woman’s hair was a disheveled bob; her dress was dirty, her eyes wild and glaring.

“That is
enough
, Abigail,” Mom barked, fully in Mom mode. “How many times have we been through this?”

Abigail ignored Mom completely. “You don’t belong
here!” she seethed at me. She seemed to glow more brightly for a moment, and she twisted out of Mom’s grip until she was free. Then Abigail turned toward me again.

“Get out!” She lunged forward, her rage so palpable that it crushed against me. I stumbled back to keep from falling, and she pushed again, this time at an angle, so that I had to turn. I was being herded.

Toward the stairs.

Mom tried to get to Abigail, but the woman’s anger seemed to shield her from any interference.

“Violet!” Mom called. “I can’t get through to her. I’m not strong enough. It has to be you!”

“But I don’t know what to do!” I cried as Abigail forced me back another step.

“Just trust your gut. You can do this, sweetie. I promise!”

“How?” I couldn’t look away from Abigail’s snarling ghostly face. She was practically vibrating with anger.

“Abigail was sick! She had delusions. She thinks she knows what happened here, but she misunderstood. You have to reason with her!”

Reason with her? Seriously? It was one thing to try that with a grumpy but reasonably harmless ghost like Henry or two teenage girls with serious angst, and quite another to try to appease the crazy-eyed wraith, the seething fury of Abigail.

But then Mom said my name again, and I heard the helplessness in her voice. That was something I’d never, ever heard from her when she was alive. She’d always seemed so strong, so able to do anything. But now she was stuck, and she couldn’t even reach out and save me.

I would have to save us both.

While I struggled against Abigail’s shoves, I concentrated on putting together all the pieces I had of her story. She, not James, was the aggressor. And she’d been sick, according to Mom. Delusions. A mental illness—something that probably wouldn’t have been diagnosed or treated correctly when she was alive. It had to have been terrible for her. It had to have been torture.

I remembered then how she’d attacked me when she’d possessed Isobel.

“Abigail!” I said. “Who’s Mary?”

“She tried to steal my husband.” Abigail’s face twisted even more with hatred. “She wanted to take him from me!”

I couldn’t see Mom anymore, but I felt her close to me. She spoke quietly, her voice near my ear, so that only I could hear her. “Mary was their maid. She had no interest in James, not like that. He was practically a father to her.”

“Abigail,” I said, “you misunderstood. No one wanted to take James from you. Mary was innocent!”

“I saw them!” Abigail said. “I saw them with that book.” She pushed again, and this time when I stepped
back, the ground wasn’t there to meet my foot. I was at the edge of the stairs. I screamed a little and clamped both hands down on the handrail to keep from falling.

“What book?” I yelled.

It was Mom who answered. “James gave Mary a book as a birthday gift,” Mom said, her voice trembling. “Mary hugged him to express her gratitude. It was innocent.”

I repeated what Mom said. Then I tried to appeal to Abigail’s softer side. “Abigail, you were sick. You didn’t see what you thought you saw, but that wasn’t your fault. You need to accept that. You need to let all of this go.”

“I know what I saw,” Abigail said, but for the first time, her voice faltered with a hint of doubt.

“They’re all stuck here,” Mom prompted. “Abigail, James, and Mary. Help her to realize that.”

“Abigail, your anger is keeping you here. It’s keeping James and Mary here, too. You’ve trapped them here with you because you won’t let go of your rage.”

“Stop lying!” Abigail said, and I felt her wrath growing again. “James left me long ago.”

“Maybe you’ve just been too caught up in your own rage to realize they’re here,” I said.

“Call them,” Mom said.

I finally pulled my gaze away from Abigail and looked around the shadowed hallway.

“James? Mary? Are you here?”

Two other blue shapes appeared down the hall. Slowly, timidly, they made themselves visible, assuming the forms of a small, balding middle-aged man, and a girl just a few years older than me. The man stood a little in front of the girl, as if to protect her, but he looked as terrified as she did.

“Look,” I said to Abigail, trying to sound as strong and authoritative as possible. I didn’t think she’d listen to me, but she did. She turned and stared, openmouthed and speechless.

James reached out a tentative hand. “Abby, my dear…Please. You’ve been unwell. I understand that. Mary and I both do. But we can’t go on like this forever.”

“But you…You and she…” Abigail sounded suddenly uncertain.

James shook his head. “We would never do such a thing. I love you, Abby. I’ve loved you since before this horrible sickness took control of your mind. You can be free of that now. This anger, this violence…It’s not you. It never was.”

“Please, Mrs. Riley,” Mary chimed in, stepping out from behind James. “Please believe us. I would never, ever betray you.”

Abigail stared at them for a long time. Then she turned back to me. “What have I done?”

“It’s all right now,” Mom said, reappearing beside me.
“The illness that made you think these awful things was a part of your life, but it couldn’t follow you into death. What you feel now is only the echo of the anger you felt when you were alive. It doesn’t exist anymore. All you need to do is let it go, and you’ll see.”

“But all these years…”Abigail put her hands to her face and sobbed. “How could I have hurt them? They must hate me!”

“I never could,” James said, stepping forward. “Neither could Mary.” Behind him, the girl nodded her agreement.

A change came over the three of them then. It was like the change I’d felt in Dirk after Isobel and I found the painting. They were filled with peace.

Again, James reached out for Abigail. This time she stepped forward and took his hand.

“We’ve been here long enough,” he said, offering his other hand to Mary. She accepted it. He offered Mom and me a grateful nod, and the three of them disappeared.

Mom watched them go. Then she turned to me and said, “I’m so proud of you, I could just about burst.”

Still feeling kind of dazed, I stepped up to her. I wanted to hug her. I wanted that
so bad
. But I couldn’t. I could see her, but I couldn’t put my arms around her.

She solved that problem, though—she hugged me instead. Even though I couldn’t physically feel her
arms around me, I felt her warmth and love in that hug. There was no cold spot around her, just that warmth. That joy.

But I felt something else, too. Peace. The peace that had arrived for James, Abigail, and Mary hadn’t disappeared with them. It came from Mom, too, and it made me panic. I’d just found her, and now I was afraid she was going to leave.

“Mom, don’t go!” I said. “Not yet.”

She smiled and reached out to smooth my hair, and I could almost feel that, too.

“Shh, Violet. I’m not going anywhere. Not yet. We have time.”

Tears spilled from my eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Oh, sweetie. I’ve missed you, too. You’ve grown up. You’re so tall, and so beautiful.” Her voice was wistful. “It’s so hard to keep track of time when you’re.…well, when you’re like this.” She gestured toward herself. “I’ve thought of you every single day. I wondered how you were, what you were doing. You and your dad both.”

I wiped at my tears. “Then why didn’t you ever come see me? I waited and waited, and I tried so hard to sense you. I figured that if anyone would know you were nearby, it’d be me. But you never came.”

She smiled sadly. “You don’t know how badly I wanted
to. I’ve been stuck here with Abigail and James and Mary. They were my unfinished business—I came here with the intention of helping whoever was haunting this house, and that was Abigail. Her anger was strong enough to trap me here, too.”

Deep down, I think some part of me had suspected and feared this all along. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

Near my feet, I heard a groan.

“Omigod! Isobel!” I’d forgotten all about my friends. I ran over to Isobel, who was struggling to pull herself into a sitting position. Carefully, I helped her to her feet.

She held her hands to her head, as if she were dizzy and needed to steady herself.

“What happened?”

“Let’s go find Tim, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

I turned to Mom. “Can you help us find Buster? I brought him here, too. I hope he’s okay.”

Mom nodded.

“Who are you talking to?” Isobel asked, squinting at me in the darkness.

“Let’s just find Tim,” I said again, ignoring her question.

I wanted to stay there with Mom, but I’d brought my friends into this mess, and I needed to make sure they were okay.

Tim was sitting where he’d fallen, leaning against the wall. He was dazed and bloody, and his eyeliner was hopelessly smeared, but he was otherwise all right. I helped him up, and the three of us sat on the staircase. While we waited for my mom, I filled them in.

“You seriously saw your mom?” Tim asked.

“Yeah. She’s looking for Buster.” My stomach twisted at the thought. I hoped she’d be able to find him.

“And I…I was, like, attacking you?” Isobel looked horrified.

“You went totally
Exorcist
on Violet,” Tim informed her as though he’d been there.

“It wasn’t you,” I told her. “It was Abigail.”

Isobel shook her head as if to clear it. “I don’t even remember going up the stairs.”

“That’s probably for the best.” I grimaced at the aches peppering my back from where the edge of each stair had bruised me, then glanced at the curved welts on my wrist from where Isobel’s long nails had dug in.

A sudden squeal and a chilling gust from behind caused all three of us to jump. I recognized the screech immediately—it was a little weaker than usual, a little weary, but there was no mistaking its origin.

“Buster!” I felt like a kid in one of those lame animal movies, where the faithful lost dog comes limping over the
hill at the end, and everyone’s happy, and you can’t help crying even though you feel like a tool. I wished I could scratch Buster behind the ears, but since he didn’t have ears, I promised him lots of cookies once we got home instead.

A blue mist formed in front of us then, slowly taking on Mom’s shape and appearance. “Are your friends all right?” Mom asked with typical motherly concern.

I nodded. “They’re fine. And you found Buster!”

“When I realized he was here and fighting with Abigail, I called to him and gave him a place to hide. He was safe.”

Tim and Isobel tried to follow my gaze, but to them it looked like I was talking to an empty space. “Is it your mom?” Tim asked quietly.

“Yeah. It’s my mom.” Being able to say that made something inside me swell and glow. It really
was
her, standing right there in front of me. Okay, so she was a ghost. But after seven years of missing her, a ghost was more than good enough for me.