The Haunting Season (13 page)

She found herself staring into Gage’s eyes again.

Why couldn’t she stop staring at him?

Gage held the door and followed her into the foyer. They found Allison sitting in the Great Room reading a book and Mrs. Hirsch in the dining room, polishing the table. She had no idea why since maids came in twice a week, but it didn’t matter. At least she wouldn’t be wandering the halls.

Jess didn’t ask how Gage was going to get the Ouija board up into the attic unseen, but in a way, the less she knew the better.

He leaned in and whispered, “Meet me in the attic, after dinner.”

She loved the feel of his breath against her ear. Before she could even nod, he was already halfway up the stairs. Damn him!

Allison looked up from her book and glanced from Jess to the staircase and back. She raised an eyebrow.

“Where’s Bryan and Dr. Brandt?” Jess asked, avoiding any questions about Gage. Mrs. Hirsch was too close and bound to be listening. The last thing Jess wanted was for her to start following either of them around thinking something was going on that shouldn’t be. Not that they had to answer to her.

“Third floor,” Allison said. “They’re checking out some of the rooms that are normally kept locked. Bryan is enjoying all the ghost hunting equipment a little too much.”

“Do you want to join them?” Jess asked, already knowing the answer.

Allison shook her head and went back to her book. Mrs. Hirsch was standing on a step stool, using a duster on an extended pole to clean the room’s molding. Jess couldn’t help but watch, taking note again of the strange, carved faces.

“Problem?” Mrs. Hirsch said, not bothering to stop her chores.

“No,” Jess replied. “Just looking at the faces. It’s like they’re watching.”

Mrs. Hirsch stepped off the stool and moved it to another area. She reached inside her blouse and pulled out a silver chain, then rubbed its dark grey pendant before tucking it back inside. “That’s the point.”

Jess frowned.

Mrs. Hirsch began dusting again. “Catherine Siler had the molding installed after the murders. For all the good it did.”

“Good?” Jess asked.

She got down from the stool and gave Jess an exasperated glance. “In some areas of the South, it’s believed molding like this prevents the corners of a room from harboring evil spirits. She even had a lot of the walls and ceilings painted sky blue, another method used for scaring off spirits.” She moved the step stool again. “Guess it didn’t work.”

Jess waited for the rest of the story, but Mrs. Hirsch didn’t say another word as she removed cobwebs from a corner. Then, with a small huff, she picked up the stool and disappeared into the kitchen, probably to check on what the cook was preparing for dinner.

Convinced Mrs. Hirsch was otherwise occupied, Jess thought joining Bryan and Dr. Brandt might be a good idea. She could at least keep them on the third floor a while longer, hopefully giving Gage more time in Dr. Brandt’s room.

“I’m going to go find Bryan and Dr. Brandt,” Jess said.

Allison put the book down. “On second thought, I’ll join you.”

Jess hadn’t expected Allison to tag along, especially since ghost hunting wasn’t her thing, but she figured it was a good idea to keep her with her instead of having her catch Gage going through Dr. Brandt’s things.

They left the Great Room and headed upstairs. On the second floor landing, she caught the shadow of a man on the wall. The shadow moved around the corner and down the hallway. “Gage?” Jess called softly, hoping the sound of her voice would give him a heads up that they were nearby. But if it wasn’t Gage?

Jess started down the hallway, aware Allison had stopped following. The corridor was empty and she turned back to her. “What? Did you see someone?”

Allison was staring at the wall where the shadow had been. So, she’d seen it, too. If it wasn’t Gage, Bryan or Dr. Brandt, then who? Jess tried to think back to all the ghosts she’d encountered in the past. Had any of them been able to cast a shadow?

“Allison? Tell me you saw the shadow of a man?” Jess whispered.

Allison continued to stare at the wall. “
I saw a man upon the stairs. I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today, I wish the man would go away
.”

“That’s really creepy,” Jess said.

“Don’t worry,” Allison said, taking a deep breath as she started up the third flight of steps. “It’s an old poem or something.”

Jess looked behind them, then followed Allison. “It’s still creepy. But, you did see a shadow, right?”

“Yeah. There really
was
a man on the stairs.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When she and Gage caught up with one another two hours later, Jess tried not to think of how close he was as they sat on the sofa in the Great Room. “So, the Ouija board isn’t in his room?” Jess asked. She could have sworn Dr. Brandt had left the board and the planchette in the supply box, and according to Gage, he’d taken everything back to his room that night.

“Nope,” Gage replied. “I looked everywhere. Weird, isn’t it?”

“Maybe he put it someplace else.”

“I guess, but why would he have taken the Ouija board out of the box? I found everything else in his room.”

Jess frowned. “You don’t think Allison might have already taken it, do you? You know, to keep all of us from using it?”

Gage shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, regardless of whoever stashed the Ouija board, I think the basement is a good place to start looking for it. That, or a locked room,” Jess said.

Gage grinned. “I know just how to do it without being too suspicious.”

She gave him a curious glance.

“We drag out the equipment,” he said. “Go on a little ghost hunting expedition. We’ll even rally the troops. Bryan hasn’t had a chance to use the video recorder yet, and this would be the perfect opportunity. All that equipment gives us license to dig around. Look behind some closed doors, scope stuff out. I like your idea of the basement. Let’s start there.”

It hadn’t taken much convincing to get everyone in on the ghost hunt. And, after the incident on the stairs, Jess was eager to see what the equipment might tell them. Gracie, Emma, and Riley weren’t the only ghosts here, after all. She’d sensed them and the girls had confirmed that much. Jess wasn’t sure if it bothered her that the others hadn’t shown themselves.

Dr. Brandt handed out the equipment—flashlights, EMFs and the voice recorders. Even Allison was complacent enough to at least accompany them. She’d said anything was better than sitting alone.

Bryan seemed happy to be in charge of the full spectrum camera. The one thing Jess had noticed about him was how much liked anything technical.

“Leave the lights off!” he said excitedly as they all headed down the basement stairs. “I want to see how the night vision feature works.”

Behind her, Gage pulled the chain on the overhead light, momentarily putting them into semi-darkness. The only light came from the camera.

Jess groaned. Boys. They’d break their necks. The stairs were steep and oddly shaped. People must have had smaller feet in the early 1900s. She flicked on the flashlight Dr. Brandt had given her and pointed the beam at the steps. The light was dim, providing barely enough visibility to see just past Bryan. It only brought the shadows and dusty cobwebs more to her attention. Jess smacked the base of the flashlight a few times.

“They’re low-light,” Gage explained. “It’s how they’re designed.”

“Oh,” Jess replied.

Up ahead, Dr. Brandt turned on his flashlight. Small sections of the basement came in and out of view as he panned the beam of light—brick and stone walls, shelving with an assortment of items stacked on them, and paint cans and hand tools.

“Hey!” Bryan alerted. “You guys are going to mess up the infrared!”

The temperature in the basement felt ten degrees cooler than on the main floor—Jess didn’t need to check a temp reading on her EMF reader for that. Basements were always cooler, though. This was the first time she’d come down here, and she ran a hand over walls, enjoying how cold the stones were to the touch. She inhaled deeply, taking in the delightful scent of earth and damp stone, the scent of Siler House itself. Up ahead, Dr. Brandt appeared to be doing the same.

Allison glanced over her shoulder at Jess. “See?” she mouthed.

Gage made a sweep with the EMF detector and Bryan recorded the action.

“Is the EVP on, Allison?” Dr. Brandt asked.

Allison checked on the voice recorder connected to the lanyard around her neck. “It’s on.”

Dr. Brandt reached up and pulled a chain, snapping on the overhead light. Darkness receded into the corners of the basement, and as the light bulb swung back and forth, the shadows danced.

“What did you do that for?” Bryan complained.

“Food storage,” Dr. Brandt explained. “I don’t want any of us to crash into the shelves. There’s a lot of jars and canned goods. The rest of the basement will be plenty dark. We won’t turn on any more lights.”

Dr. Brandt led them past the shelving that housed countless jars of sauces and cans of who knew what, as well as an area with a large freezer and refrigerator, and a section for the housekeeping staff that held organized cleaning supplies and fresh linens. They came next into an open area with even more odds and ends. It looked like the staging area for the renovation crew—extra baseboards and molding, a workbench, some plywood and lots of stuff that must be original items pulled from the rooms.

“It’s like a museum of old junk,” Bryan said, panning the camera over a small area of furniture, some covered with dusty sheets, some without. Jess caught a glimpse of a chair with rotting upholstery. An old bike and several dolls with antique, waxen faces sat in another section. Nothing in Siler House had given Jess the creeps as much as those dolls, and she felt the fine hair rise on her arms. She never liked dolls, and these were especially awful. For one, they were sitting on top of an old dresser, facing toward them as if waiting for someone to show up. A blond-haired doll in the middle looked the worst of the bunch. At some point, it appeared to have been a child’s favorite. The dress was dirty and the hair, which must have been golden and in perfect ringlets at one time now looked frizzy and dull. Worse, a fairly large spider had built a web between it and the dresser mirror. The pale light from her flashlight cast shadows, illuminating white stripes on the spider’s legs. Jess quickly panned the flashlight upward, making sure the spider didn’t have relatives overhead.

She almost wished they hadn’t come down here.

Gage’s EMF meter whirred to life as he panned it past the dresser. Everyone’s attention turned toward it and the dolls. The spider, which sat in the middle of the web, retreated, scrambling down into the doll’s hair. Gage stepped closer to get a better EMF reading but Jess reached out and took hold of his arm.

He glanced down at her hand, which she removed and he gave her a playful smile. “It’s okay. Just a bunch of old dolls.
Creepy
dolls, but it’s not like they’re going to come to life or anything. Trust me, I don’t work my voodoo magic on inanimate objects, okay?”

Jess mustered a nervous smile.

“Afraid of spiders?” Bryan asked. He moved the video camera aside. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Jess watched in amazement as the spider scuttled out of its hiding place and onto the doll’s face before fading into…nothing.

Gage grinned. “Show off.”

“Hey, you guys feel that?” Bryan asked.

Jess rubbed her arms. She felt it all right. While the basement had been noticeably cooler, this area had suddenly grown quite cold.

Dr. Brandt took out his own digital voice recorder. “Bryan, record this.”

Bryan panned to Dr. Brandt, who held up a thermometer. The read-out began to drop. “Fifty-six degrees,” Dr. Brandt said. “Which is unusually cold for any basement in Savannah during the summer. There is no draft, just a sensation of cold.”

Gage’s EMF device went off, the needle jumping back and forth wildly. “Hello?” he called out. “If there’s anyone here, can you show yourself? Talk to us?”

Dr. Brandt recorded his next note. “Gage’s EMF reader has picked up a strong reading in the area, as well. Readings quickly fluctuating between two and five milligaus, indicating we may be in the presence of a spirit or spirits. Reading is not typical of electronic interference.”

Everyone grew silent, waiting. Allison looked absolutely terrified and Jess wrapped an arm around her. The action helped Jess, too. Until now, she hadn’t realized how hard her heart had been pounding in her chest. Ghosts in restaurants in full daylight were one thing. But ghosts in dank, spider-infested basements were something else entirely.

Gage’s EMF meter went silent. No fluctuating needle, no whirring sound, no red light.

“Maybe the spirit moved off to another spot,” Dr. Brandt said.

From somewhere farther in the darkened basement, somewhere amid the piles of furniture, lamps and assorted old appliances, a child’s xylophone began to play—the song clear and unmistakable:

Three blind mice.

Three blind mice.

See how they run.

See how they run.

Then, silence
.

“Holy shit!” Bryan exclaimed as he nearly dropped the camera. He righted it, panning the basement far too fast to actually film anything.

Dr. Brandt slowly scanned the basement with his flashlight. He and Bryan set off in the direction the sound had come from. Gage gave Jess and Allison a quick glance and they followed him, clinging more tightly to each other than before.

“It’s just the girls,” Jess whispered to Allison, hoping that was true. “They’re just trying to say it’s all okay.” Jess wasn’t sure she believed her own words, but the idea mildly comforted her. Just the girls. Nothing else.

Allison trembled. “They all ran after the farmer’s wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife,” she sang softly. She stepped away from Jess and pointed back to the dresser with the dolls.

The mirror was different. It reflected another room, one Jess recognized as one of the locked ones from the third floor. Someone lay in the bed, sleeping. Except they weren’t really sleeping. Something glittered on the red bed coverlet. Jess stepped closer, her breath caught in her throat. What she had mistaken for a bed cover wasn’t a quilt or covering of any kind. It was blood. A large knife protruded from the woman’s chest. A couple of smaller knives lay around her, blades pointing inward.