The haunting between us, p.13
The Haunting Between Us, page 13
The room is quiet as a tomb as the weight of Chloe’s words descends on us. The air is oppressive and stifling, and the dappled light through the vine-covered window dims.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Matty blurts, shattering the silence.
Abby scowls at Matty, then turns to Chloe. “Do you sense anything else?”
“Nothing more in here.”
One by one, we descend the spiral staircase until we’re all in Emily’s room.
“I know I said the last room was creepy, but that was before I saw this one,” Matty says with nervous laughter. “Creepy little girl’s room with old moldy toys? No thank you.”
“Don’t forget the boarded-up door and the hole behind the medicine cabinet,” Cameron adds.
Abby rolls her eyes. “Chloe, what can we do to help?”
“I assisted my aunt with calming a spirit a few months ago,” Chloe says, reading notes from her phone. “She said spirits feed off the energy of the people around them. So we need to project calm and comfort. Let Emily’s spirit know we mean no harm.”
“Do we need to burn sage or anything?” Taylor asks.
“Other than making it smell nice, that wouldn’t do much.” Chloe laughs. “Let’s all sit in the middle of the room in a circle.”
Chloe sits down, legs crossed, palms resting on her knees. Everyone copies her, forming a circle. Cameron sits down next to me, and there’s a little flutter in my insides. I scoffed at the idea of holding hands earlier, but now it doesn’t sound so bad.
Like she is reading my mind, Abby asks, “Should we hold hands?”
“If you want,” Chloe replies. “What’s most important is that we’re comfortable.”
“Let’s do it,” Cameron blurts, peeking at me and then turning away fast. I fight back a smile.
Everyone joins hands. I grab Taylor’s hand on my left and Cameron’s on my right.
“Okay, everyone,” Chloe says in a soothing voice. “Close your eyes and clear your mind. Breathe slow and deep.” She pauses for a moment, then continues. “Push out unwanted thoughts. Picture a place where you’ve been happy. Think about what it looks like. Think about the smells. Think about the sounds. Think about how it makes you feel.”
I search my mind for such a place, but Cameron’s warm grasp captures all my attention. His palm is soft and smooth. His grip is firm enough that I can feel his strength, but not too tight. I squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back. Such a simple gesture, but it fills me with a little glow. Perhaps this is my happy place, holding Cameron’s hand.
Chloe continues in a deep monotone, “If you’ve found your place, let your whole mind think of nothing but how you feel there. Let all other thoughts drop away.”
I clear my mind and think only of Cameron and me together, holding hands, smiling, being happy in each other’s company. The feeling of someone you like liking you back is such a fundamental thing for many people, but it’s one that has eluded me for much of my life. Cameron squeezes my hand again like he’s telling me he’s also feeling it. A warmth I’ve never felt spreads through my chest. I don’t want this moment to end.
A pleasant scent hits my nose. I’m so deep in my happy place that I think it must be my imagination—the unmistakable scent of cookies.
“Do you all smell that?” Matty blurts, shattering my bubble. I blink my eyes open. Everyone’s slowly coming out of their happy places, sniffing and glancing around.
“I totally smell cookies,” Taylor says, and everybody else chimes in, saying they do too and nodding.
Cameron and I trade knowing looks. We’ve both smelled this, but having everyone else experience it is validating in a way that’s hard to describe. It means I’m not delusional. Either that or we are all delusional and having a group hallucination.
“This is what you two smelled before, right?” Abby says, glancing between Cameron and me.
We both say yes.
“I just totally got goose bumps,” Matty says. “You’re telling me that’s not a real smell?”
“I swear I’m not making cookies,” I tell Matty. “And there’s nobody else in the house.”
“So, what, that’s a ghost smell?”
Chloe nods. “Spirits can manifest in many ways. Sometimes you can see them, sometimes they make a sound, and in this case, it’s a smell. In other words, yes, it’s a spirit manifestation. Or a ghost smell, if you’d prefer, Matty.”
“I’m not sure I’d prefer anything,” Matty says, eyes wide. “This whole thing is freaking me out.”
“Something about cookies must be significant to the history of this house,” Chloe says.
“Is this a good sign?” Abby asks. “It’s a good smell, so does that mean our positive thoughts are working?”
Chloe’s expression is complex. “I’m not sure. The goal is to calm the spirit and have the manifestations go away. But that isn’t what happened, good smell or not.”
The cookie smell morphs from pleasant to acrid in a matter of seconds, and the group collectively groans. The memories of my nightmare in the library rush back.
“Well, that can’t be good,” Abby says. “Now what?”
Chloe glances at the notes on her phone. “I guess we can try again but be more forceful—”
Crack!
I shout in surprise, and the group lets out a chorus of yells and screams.
“What the heck was that?” Matty screeches.
“Look!” Taylor says, pointing to the floor at the bottom of the spiral staircase.
Abby shines a flashlight at the spot. Hairline cracks spread from the center in a circular pattern, like pie wedges.
“Good eye, Taylor,” Abby says.
Taylor smiles, blushing a bit.
My anxiety ratchets up at the sight of the cracks in the floor. “Crap. I hope we aren’t ruining the house,” I say. I’m still hoping to keep all of this a secret from Pa.
“Hang on a sec,” Abby says as she consults her phone. “I was looking at those floor plans you sent over, Cameron. Here, check out the plans for the second floor, first floor, and basement. What do you see?”
Cameron and I crowd around her phone as she swipes between the three photos.
“Holy shit!” I say. “There’s a room in the basement that lines up with this one. And what’s that space on the first floor?”
“At first, I thought it was the coat closet off the foyer,” says Abby. “But the coat closet is on the other side. Right, Hugo?”
“Yep.”
Cameron’s eyes go wide. “Steps. These cracks look like steps retracted into the floor. It looks like they open.”
“Exactly,” Abby says as her lips curve into a smile.
“You mean the spiral staircase goes down as well?” I say.
Abby nods. “There must be a switch around somewhere to activate it. Help me search, everybody.”
Everyone walks around, scouring the room with their phone flashlights, looking beneath moldy toys, searching the walls for seams, and scanning the baseboards.
“Hey, come check this out,” Matty calls, standing next to one of the old brass wall sconces beside the window. “This thing moves.”
He pulls the sconce out of the wall until it clicks, then glances between it and the staircase, excited for something to happen.
Nothing happens.
“Hmm,” Matty says, hand on his chin, looking deflated. “I was sure that was going to work.”
“Let me see that,” I say. “I have a hunch.”
A quick jiggle reveals the sconce turns on its axis in the wall. It won’t go any farther clockwise, so I turn it counterclockwise. As I do, each little wedge of the floor descends at a different rate, creating steps headed down.
“It’s working!” Matty screams right into my ear.
I keep spinning the sconce until it clicks and won’t go any farther. Stale air wafts up from the now-revealed staircase leading to darkness. We stand in a circle around it, peering into the depths.
“This house is absurd,” Abby says, shaking her head as she heads toward the stairs without a moment’s hesitation. “Let’s go check it out.”
I whisper to Cameron, “Is she afraid of anything?”
“Nope,” Cameron says, shaking his head. “Literally nothing. Wait! Scorpions. She hates scorpions for some reason.”
“Then let’s hope there are no scorpions down there.”
15
The Crow: Cameron
I follow Hugo, who’s on Abby’s tail, the rest of our friends right behind us. The staircase descends into a long, narrow channel leading through the first floor. The walls butt up against the railing on all sides. Abby swipes at years of cobwebs as she leads us into the darkness, her phone flashlight providing the slightest illumination. We descend until we hit the concrete floor of the basement.
We’ve entered a room that reminds me of a dungeon from a fantasy movie. A rough wooden table rests against one wall, various metal tools and clay jars scattered across it. A reinforced iron door with large rivets dominates the far wall, with a simple iron bar for a handle and an old-fashioned keyhole. A makeshift burlap mattress stuffed with rotten straw sits in the corner, and there are iron chains attached to the walls, ending in manacles. Etched into the wall are thousands of hash marks, covering nearly every square inch.
“What the hell am I looking at?” Hugo asks, shaking his head.
“Torture chamber?” Matty says.
“More like a prison cell,” Abby says. “Emily had a split personality. This must be where they put her when she was bad.”
“Those are like the hash marks we saw in the nanny’s room, but there are way more,” I say. “Maybe this was a prison.”
My whole life, this house has radiated sorrow, and this seems to be its epicenter. It’s no wonder Emily’s soul is so tortured after enduring such a life, being caged like an animal for years. The house reflects her loneliness tenfold.
“Do you sense anything, Chloe?” Abby asks.
“The same things I’ve sensed before, only more so. Hot and cold. Prickly and soft,” Chloe says.
“Eighteen thousand and eighty-seven,” Taylor says after examining the hash marks for an absurdly short amount of time. “Or forty-nine years, six months, and eight days.”
My jaw drops. Who knew they were so talented at math. “Taylor, you’re amazing,” I say. Taylor just smiles.
Abby takes notes on her phone. “Okay, some of these numbers are making sense.”
“They are?” Hugo and I say in unison, glance at each other, and smile.
“Yep. What if…” Abby pauses, making sure she has everyone’s attention. “Now, hear me out. Emily was born in 1880. Her dad died under mysterious circumstances ten years later. After his death, nobody saw the nanny’s lover, Luke, again. And the letter explains why.”
Cameron cuts in. “You think Emily had something to do with her dad’s death and Luke couldn’t handle the guilt?”
“Yep,” Abby says, nodding. “Agnes was so distraught about losing Luke that she locked Emily up down here. Nobody saw Emily again for the next forty-nine years, until she appeared again in 1939. That lines up with the hash marks.”
“Forty-nine years!” I say. “That’s horrible. And the fifteen years of hash marks in the nanny’s room?”
“Emily must have escaped. Perhaps she locked up the nanny as revenge.”
“Kids started going missing in 1939,” Hugo says, “right when the nanny disappeared. It must have been Emily.”
Hugo’s face contorts. Something about this is hitting him hard, and my heart aches. He’s no stranger to loss and hard family situations. I put my hand on his back. “You okay?”
Hugo nods, meeting my eyes. “When it’s a story, it’s one thing. But seeing this room…”
Chloe stares at Hugo and me, her eyes shifting between us. Oh crap. That usually means she’s about to drop a bomb.
“Chloe?” I ask, voice cracking. “What’s going on?”
Chloe’s eyes brighten. “I think I know what went wrong with the spirit calming.”
“You do?” Abby asks.
Chloe’s eyes bore into me. “Cameron, what was the safe space you imagined right before we smelled the cookies?”
I was thinking about how nice Hugo’s hand was in mine, and to be honest, I imagined kissing him. But no way am I going to say that in front of Hugo and everybody. My face burns like the surface of the sun. “Umm…”
Chloe smiles and nods. “That’s what I thought. Hugo, what were you thinking?”
“I…uh…I was imagining…” Hugo glances at me, then looks down fast. He wasn’t imagining the same thing as me, right? How is that possible?
Chloe’s eyes light up like she just solved a puzzle, and Abby smiles, shaking her head.
“I know how to fix it,” Chloe says, marching toward the spiral staircase. “Everybody back upstairs—get into a circle.”
We follow her instructions. Back in Emily’s room, Hugo heads toward me, but Abby intercepts him and guides him to the opposite side of the circle. Well, that sucks.
“Right here, Chloe?” Abby asks.
“Perfect. Let’s try it again,” Chloe says. “This time, everyone put your hands on your knees and clear your mind. No good thoughts, no bad thoughts, nothing at all.”
With my eyes closed, I try to clear my mind, but all these thoughts keep popping up. Who knew thinking of nothing would be so difficult? Holding Hugo’s hand. The hidden room we just found. The cookie smell. It’s all banging around in my head.
Chloe continues to talk, her deep soothing voice like butter. “Whenever a thought enters your mind, gently push it away. Breathe deep. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
I take a long breath and concentrate on the timbre of her words, fighting to block out everything else. Eventually the individual thoughts drift away like pillowy clouds. Thinking of nothing is oddly freeing. The world melts away with only Chloe’s voice to guide me.
We sit in calm silence for a long time, save for the steady drone of Chloe’s words. I’m no longer aware of the specific things she’s saying. The words are lyrical, like a song in a long-forgotten language. Minutes pass, and nothing changes. Gradually, a weight lifts off my shoulders, and I feel distinctly lighter, like I could almost float off the ground. I had no idea what a heavy burden I was carrying until it was gone. Whatever force was holding me down has left, and I hope it never returns.
“Okay, everybody,” Chloe says, her gentle words breaking through my bubble of soothing calmness. “Anchor to the sound of my voice and slowly return. When you’re ready, open your eyes.”
Bit by bit, I return to the land of consciousness and blink my eyes open. Everyone around me is doing the same, some with calm faces, some smiling.
“Wow, that was something,” Taylor whispers.
“Yeah, I’ve never been so relaxed,” Matty adds. “Chloe, you should do that for a living.”
“Do you all feel it?” Abby asks. “The oppressiveness I’ve always felt in this house…it’s gone.”
A murmur of agreement comes from everybody.
“Chloe, do you think we did it?” I ask. “Did we fix the house?”
Chloe peers around the room, taking deep breaths. “We did something, that’s for sure. The personalities are still there, but they feel...” She pauses to find the right word. “Smoother? More in balance. Calm.”
“That’s amazing!” I smile shyly at Hugo. “Do you feel it too?”
“Yeah!” He smiles back. “This house has never felt so peaceful.”
Matty hops up, raising his hands over his head. “It’s Saturday night! Let’s celebrate!”
***
We all head downstairs with bubbly exuberance. The oppressiveness is gone, and it’s strange. Living next to the house for my whole life, this low-grade dread has always churned inside me, and now that it has lifted, the difference is profound. It’s like I’ve had an itch my entire life and I finally got to scratch it.
In the living room, the group chatters, excited by what we’ve done. I sneak over to Abby and whisper to her, “It seemed like you knew what was going on in there. Why did it work the second time? Why did you separate Hugo and me?”
“You just answered your own question.” Abby laughs. “Chloe said you two and the house were connected. Something about your and Hugo’s teenage hormones was messing with it.”
“Mine and Hugo’s?”
“Duh. I saw the way he was looking at you.”
My heart speeds up. “Really?”
“For such a smart guy, you sure are dumb sometimes,” Abby says, laughing. She nudges me toward him. “Go talk to him.”
I gulp, swallowing my fear as I approach.
“Hey,” I say to Hugo.
“Hey,” he says back, smiling, but then his brow knots. He looks around at our group, which—let’s be honest—can get a little rambunctious.
“You okay with all this?” I wave my hand vaguely at the group.
“It’s fine.” Hugo manages a smile. “Just not used to having so many friends.”
“We can move to my house if you want.”
He shakes his head. “Nah. Pa isn’t due back until tomorrow. Might as well take advantage of it.”
Hugo puts a couple of frozen pizzas into the oven and sets out a few two-liter bottles of soda. Several of us pile onto the couch and turn on the TV. Everyone agrees scary movies are off the table tonight, so we pick a superhero movie instead.
I take my spot on the couch from earlier today, hoping Hugo will sit next to me again. I’m not disappointed. He stands above me holding two paper plates.
“Pizza?” he asks, holding one out to me.
“Thanks.” He got pizza for me. It’s the smallest gesture, but it makes me glow. It means he was thinking of me.
He plops down next to me with his plate. We eat and watch the movie with our sides pressed against each other. My eyes are on the TV, but I’m not really watching—all my attention is focused on Hugo. The way his chest moves as he breathes. The way he laughs at the funny parts of the movie, heartfelt and genuine. The way he brushes his hair from his eyes. The way he licks his lips—so kissable. Thinking of anything else is impossible.
