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This was a great story, full of suspense ...<br />
ending had a big twist to it.<br />
Kristen DePatsy, Student<br />
One of the most vivid stories I've ever<br />
read ... tale that begs to be read over and over<br />
again.<br />
Christian Werkmeister, AMC <strong>The</strong>aters<br />
i
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Haunted</strong><br />
Hearts on Fire<br />
By<br />
Katherine Kehoe<br />
ii
© 2016 Katherine Kehoe<br />
<strong>Edit</strong>ion<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10<br />
ISBN<br />
978-0997398823<br />
0997398825<br />
Credits<br />
Cover Design: Doc<br />
Interior Graphics: Doc<br />
Hibernian Publishing<br />
New Jersey<br />
ii
Dedication<br />
For Lisa,<br />
who showed me how to fight the worst demons.<br />
iii
Acknowledgements<br />
I have been writing since before I was even old enough to<br />
know the alphabet and my stories were just stick-figure pictures of<br />
cats going on adventures. Now that this book is in your hands, my<br />
ultimate goal has been achieved. I’ll have to start thinking of some<br />
new ones soon. Seeing Norway would be cool; I’ve got a little<br />
Viking blood. But before I do that, I need to get out my<br />
immeasurable, extreme, totally mushy gratitude to everyone who<br />
helped me along this journey.<br />
First, I want to thank Mike and Gail O’Connell for their<br />
endless patience, guidance, and general kindness. Without you,<br />
none of this would have been possible, and I am so, so insanely<br />
beyond words to thank you for recognizing me in that little coffee<br />
shop in Toms River years ago. You are both amazing, as are the<br />
rest of the staff at Hibernian Publishing who put their valuable<br />
time and effort into transforming this manuscript into a book.<br />
Thank you, also, to Lisa, for always encouraging me every<br />
step of the way and for being my biggest supporter every minute.<br />
Thank you for your hours and hours of listening to me vent and<br />
especially for reading this even though it scared you. You are<br />
amazing and I am so blessed to have worked with you for the past<br />
decade.<br />
Thank you to my parents for letting me spend hours of time<br />
locked in my room and writing/drawing away when I should have<br />
been emptying the dishwasher or folding my laundry. Especially to<br />
my daddy, who passed on a lot of badass traits, but particularly a<br />
love of all things creepy and gory. I love you so much.<br />
Thank you to Mr. Neid, wherever you are, for letting me<br />
write creative stories far beyond the allowed word count and for<br />
reading them and cheering me on anyway. Also for not yelling at<br />
me for reading Goosebumps under my desk. To this day, you are<br />
still the only teacher who let me get away with that. Thank you,<br />
Ms. Rolston, for being the greatest English teacher on the face of<br />
the earth and for pushing me to do more than I thought I was<br />
capable of.<br />
iv
Thank you, Rob, for opening my eyes to infinite<br />
possibilities and igniting something inside me that had been<br />
dormant. It is because of you that I finished this book. I have loved<br />
every minute of our adventure together and I cannot thank you<br />
enough for all of your love and support.<br />
Thank you to all the amazing friends who took the time to<br />
read the book and to offer me some feedback and reviews. Special<br />
thanks to Steve for popping my ad in the magazine. Thank you,<br />
specifically, to those who remembered to ask for updates and who<br />
got excited and jumped around with me over this, especially<br />
Larissa. Thank you, Eileen, my Surrogate Mom, for the most<br />
wonderful, kind, and loving joy you showed for me. Thank you,<br />
Keira, for hugging me even though neither of us are huggers, and<br />
sorry for drawing attention to it (but not really).<br />
Thank you, Emily, for writing ridiculous stories,<br />
screenplays, and haikus with me for almost twenty years now and<br />
keeping me inspired. <strong>The</strong> leprauchuna will be with me always.<br />
Thank you, Bethany, for your unwavering support and for writing<br />
with me so much. I will keep those smiley face boxers forever.<br />
Thank you, Sputz, for getting me into the paranormal in the first<br />
place and for taking many road trips to creepy, abandoned, and<br />
allegedly haunted destinations to keep the fear alive. Thank you,<br />
Chris, for sitting in the car, listening to Elvis, and working through<br />
plot holes with me until 3am even when you had to be up for work<br />
the next morning. Thank you, Pete, for having my back when the<br />
lights went out from the very beginning, and Marti, for never<br />
letting me wind up like Tucker. All of you mean the world to me.<br />
Finally, thank you for making it all the way to this page. I<br />
would hug you if I could. Never give up on creating your own<br />
story, whatever that may be, and make sure to stay away from<br />
demons in closets.<br />
v
Part One<br />
vi
Chapter One<br />
For his fiftieth birthday, my dad decided he wanted to take a<br />
ghost hunting class.<br />
“Check this out, Chelsea!” he exclaimed as he damn near<br />
gave me a paper cut with the flyer he was waving around my nose.<br />
I managed to snag his wrist and hold it in place long enough<br />
to read the big block lettering on the top of the paper. Ghost Hunting<br />
101: Learn the basics of ghost hunting, such as: types of spirits,<br />
equipment used, psychic protection, and how to conduct an<br />
investigation.<br />
Now to me, this sounded like just a bunch of technical — not<br />
to mention freaky — jargon. But when I turned my neck to look at<br />
my dad, he had this expression on his face like an Olympic gymnast<br />
who had just nailed a quadruple backflip. So, naturally, I said,<br />
“Sounds awesome, Dad!”<br />
“You didn’t even see the best part. Look at the date,” he<br />
insisted, shaking the page some more.<br />
When I peered at the subtext beneath the header, I realized<br />
that it was being held on June 2. That was why he was bouncing like<br />
a puppy greeting visitors; June 2 was his birthday. What better<br />
present could he have asked for? This time, there was genuine<br />
enthusiasm in my voice when I spoke. “Sweet! You should<br />
definitely go!”<br />
His smile stretched so big it looked like it was actually<br />
hurting his face. “It’s in June. You won’t have class anymore. You<br />
can come, too!”<br />
When I said that ghost hunting was freaky, I meant it. While<br />
my dad loved horror movies and creepy stories and all that went<br />
bump in the night, no matter how valiantly he tried to raise me on it<br />
as I grew up, I just couldn’t get into it. <strong>The</strong> very idea of something<br />
that I couldn’t see hanging around me, whether it was Casper or<br />
Patrick Swayze, made my heart kick into high gear. <strong>The</strong>refore, the<br />
idea of taking a class discussing these paranormal possibilities made<br />
me recoil a little in the swivel chair.<br />
1
“Well, I mean, I’ll probably have to work Saturday morning.<br />
I don’t know ...” I trailed off as I realized my words were vacuuming<br />
the happiness right off of his face. Serious guilt nailed me in the gut.<br />
I hadn’t seen my dad so enthusiastic about anything since the<br />
divorce. He was constantly working his butt off just to keep some<br />
kind of security for Gunner and me. And here I was shooting down<br />
the first thing he wanted to do for himself in a solid six months.<br />
Hoping that he would forgive my total assholeishness, I said,<br />
“You know what, forget work. I can get my Saturday switched. I’d<br />
love to go, Dad.”<br />
It was like flipping a switch and turning the lights on. <strong>The</strong><br />
smile sprang back onto his face and he leaned down to hug me.<br />
“Great! I would have brought your brother, but you have to be over<br />
eighteen. I know you’ll enjoy it, Chels. It’s not like a horror movie,<br />
I promise.”<br />
I winced as his beard scraped my cheek and patted his arm<br />
tentatively. I had seen him watching the shows on TV; I had a basic<br />
idea of what ghost hunting was supposed to be about. From my<br />
understanding, it was a bunch of dudes creeping around some<br />
ancient buildings that had tons of reports of people being tormented<br />
by spirits. It was pretty much like, “Hey, I hear that some lady got<br />
pushed down the stairs here by something she can’t see. I’m going<br />
to come in and try to figure out who this ghost is and why they’re<br />
being a royal pain.”<br />
But I wanted my dad to be happy, especially since it was his<br />
birthday. And if this was going to do it, then so be it. I would grow<br />
a pair for the night. Or at least pretend to, for his sake.<br />
Finally, he let me go and bounded off, probably to go find<br />
Gunner and tell him about it, even though he was too young to come.<br />
My brother would probably think it was seriously the coolest thing<br />
ever. He had totally inherited my dad’s love of the creepy, crawly<br />
stuff.<br />
That was how, on June 2 at 5:45, I scurried quickly after my<br />
dad through the doors of <strong>The</strong> End Shelf. My head was bowed so my<br />
hair would hang around my face, just in case anyone I knew<br />
2
happened to be walking by and see me going in to the used bookstore<br />
for a ghost hunting class.<br />
<strong>The</strong> smell of old yellowed paper hung heavily in the toowarm<br />
air inside the shop. <strong>The</strong>re wasn’t much room to walk around.<br />
Books were stacked literally from floor to ceiling, some on shelves<br />
and others just piled on their own. I wondered how the place actually<br />
made any sales. If I wanted to grab that copy of Wuthering Heights,<br />
I would have created a complete book avalanche. And the ancientlooking<br />
Bible up near the top looked like it could definitely do some<br />
damage if it knocked me in the head.<br />
Dad immediately made a beeline between the stacks for the<br />
back of the store, searching for exactly where the class was going to<br />
be held. He must have found someone to ask, because I heard him<br />
say, very proudly, “My daughter and I are here for the Ghost<br />
Hunting class. Where should we go?”<br />
I followed with less enthusiasm, taking my time gazing up<br />
and down the endless rows of books as I went. Man, this place had<br />
everything. <strong>The</strong>re were like, six copies of Twilight in one place, but<br />
across from it was what looked like the entire series of Animorphs.<br />
Talk about flashbacks to my childhood. It was almost comforting<br />
enough to make me forget I was about to go learn about something<br />
that, quite frankly, made me want to pee my pants−almost.<br />
When I reached the sales counter, there was a young, pale<br />
guy with dark hair sitting behind it smiling warmly at my dad. If he<br />
thought it was weird that we were there to learn how to talk to<br />
something we couldn’t see, he definitely didn’t show it. He turned<br />
his smile in my direction as I stopped beside my dad, my hands in<br />
the pockets of my jeans so no one would see if they started shaking.<br />
I noted, a bit judgmentally, that the t-shirt draped over his scrawny<br />
chest had a big number 22 wrapped up in a net. Haha, a book pun.<br />
<strong>The</strong> guy definitely fit the bill to work in a place like this.<br />
“Hey,” he greeted me. “You’re here for the class?”<br />
My dad answered for me. “This is my daughter. She’s a little<br />
scared of ghosts.”<br />
My cheeks flared with heat and I glared at my flip-flops.<br />
Thanks, Dad. Advertise to the whole world what a weenie I am. I<br />
3
also sleep with a night-light on; would you like to tell this stranger<br />
that, too?<br />
Clearly, my father was too excited by everything to wait<br />
around for his scaredy-cat daughter, because he whirled off in the<br />
direction he’d been pointed, going, “Come on, Chelsea! We want to<br />
get good seats!”<br />
I might as well have just taken a red sharpie and colored in<br />
my cheeks.<br />
<strong>The</strong> guy behind the counter laughed. It wasn’t mean<br />
sounding at all, but it didn’t do anything to help my blush go away.<br />
“Don’t worry,” he reassured me. “It’s not scary. I promise.”<br />
I raised my gaze from my flip-flops to his dark eyes. “I’m<br />
not only scared of the ghosts. I’m also worried about what kind of<br />
weirdos are going to be taking this class.” In my head, I had an<br />
image of some deathly pale Goth nerds congregating in the shop. I<br />
know that was completely stereotypical and unfair, but I was<br />
petrified. My brain was all but rational.<br />
He raised an eyebrow curiously. “Oh? Weirdos, huh? What<br />
if I told you I’m the one who got the group to come here and speak<br />
today?”<br />
Hi, I’m Chelsea Keller, and I am an insensitive asshole. “Oh,<br />
man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sure you’re not a<br />
weirdo.” Good, babble incoherently. Maybe he will think you’re<br />
mentally challenged and forgive your rude comment.<br />
<strong>The</strong> guy shook his head, still smiling. “Don’t worry about it.<br />
I’m a member of the team. I wanted to educate the world a little on<br />
the weirdo community, so I asked them to come out and give a talk.”<br />
Was he making fun of me? Okay, I kind of deserved that. I<br />
had just insulted something he was clearly interested in. “Sorry,” I<br />
said again. “I’m just nervous. This stuff has always freaked me out.<br />
I’m just here because it’s my dad’s birthday and he really, really<br />
wanted to come — as you can see.”<br />
“Seriously, it’s fine. Not everyone is into it, and I get that. It<br />
would be like trying to get me to sit down and watch <strong>The</strong> Notebook;<br />
I’d be horrified and judging everyone in the room enjoying it. But<br />
4
try and give this a chance. It may not be exactly what you think.” He<br />
winked at me.<br />
I actually had to smile a little at the chick flick reference.<br />
Being a female, I had seen my share of girly rom-coms and dramas,<br />
and I actually agreed with him on that one. <strong>The</strong>y were total hell to<br />
sit through. “I’ll try it. Thanks.”<br />
“See you later, Chelsea,” he said as I turned to follow my<br />
dad down the aisle. I realized that I didn’t know his name; he hadn’t<br />
been wearing a name tag like they did in big commercial stores.<br />
Mental note: be sure to ask on the way out. It was the least I could<br />
do in a desperate attempt at politeness after calling him a weirdo.<br />
It turned out that the store had a back room that was only<br />
partially filled with books. All of the walls were pretty much<br />
papered in stacks, but the middle of the room was a clear space with<br />
a few rows of chairs set up. In the front, beside a table loaded with<br />
equipment on display, were a man and a woman wearing black t-<br />
shirts that read, “Lark Hollow Paranormal Research.” Lark Hollow<br />
was a few towns north of us in central Massachusetts. I’d been there<br />
plenty of times to go to the mall, but I’d had no idea they harbored<br />
a creepy group of …<br />
Knock it off, Chelsea. Stop being so judgmental. Fear was<br />
not an excuse for being a bee-otch.<br />
Dad had taken a seat right in the front — why was I not<br />
surprised — so I sat down to his left, favoring the end of the row.<br />
“Look at all their gadgets!” my dad gushed, pointing<br />
blatantly at the table. “How cool is this?”<br />
“Very cool, Dad,” I mumbled. My fingers toyed with my<br />
phone in my pocket, tempting me to pull it out and text Michelle.<br />
When I’d told her that my dad wanted to go to this, she said, “Wait,<br />
is that where they dance around a circle and sacrifice animals?” I<br />
explained to her that no, ghost hunting was not some kind of<br />
ritualistic cult activity. At least as far as I knew. But at least she<br />
shared my wariness of it.<br />
<strong>The</strong> room began to fill up quickly as people filtered in<br />
through the doorway and selected seats. Before I knew it, there were<br />
a good twelve people besides us filling up the chairs. Twelve people<br />
5
in Bethany, Massachusetts, had been willing to pay fifty bucks to<br />
hear this talk and learn how to ghost hunt. I didn’t know any of them,<br />
and most were closer to my dad’s age than mine, but it was<br />
astounding how normal they looked. <strong>The</strong>re was one couple that had<br />
to be in their sixties, and two that had to be twin sisters. Nobody was<br />
dressed in black with hundreds of piercings. Hmm. Perhaps the<br />
nameless geeky guy behind the counter had a point.<br />
At 6:00 on the nose, the woman with the LHPR shirt clapped<br />
her hands together and gave us a huge smile. I’m talking airplane<br />
signal bright. “Welcome to Ghost Hunting 101,” she greeted us.<br />
“I’m Daisy, and this is Richard. We’re the founders of Lark Hollow<br />
Paranormal Research, which has been investigating the paranormal<br />
throughout New England for twenty years now.”<br />
Twenty years? That was my entire life. I had no idea the idea<br />
of ghost hunting had been around so long. I didn’t remember any of<br />
the shows being on TV when I was a little kid. <strong>The</strong>n again, I usually<br />
ran out of the room crying when my dad had something creepy on<br />
TV, and my mom would swoop down and rip him a new one for<br />
making me upset.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re is far too much information and training involved in<br />
becoming a ghost hunter to teach you all of it in a four-hour class.<br />
So today we’ll go over the basics, which include the types of spirits<br />
you may encounter, how to protect yourself against them, the<br />
equipment we use, and how to conduct an investigation,” Daisy<br />
explained.<br />
Richard spoke for the first time then. “We’ll be available<br />
after the class for questions. If any of you are interested in starting<br />
your own group, we suggest that you come and speak to us at the<br />
end of the class and we can tell you how to find additional<br />
information. This is a lot of stuff to take in for one night, and some<br />
of it’s probably going to get a little confusing. If you’re just<br />
interested in joining a group, we have little brochures on how to join<br />
Lark Hollow Paranormal Research up here.”<br />
“Let me begin by asking how many of you have had a<br />
paranormal experience?” Daisy piped up again. Several hands in the<br />
room went up, some of them enthusiastically, and others a bit more<br />
6
slowly. She pointed at one man in the back. “Why don’t you tell us<br />
about yours, sir? What’s your name?”<br />
“I’m Kyle,” he introduced himself. “I’m a doctor at the<br />
hospital over in Reading. I always hear footsteps on the second floor<br />
to my house, and whenever I go up to check, there’s never anyone<br />
there. My wife is really scared and she wants to move, but I keep<br />
telling her she doesn’t need to be. Whatever it is has never tried to<br />
harm us.”<br />
“Well, Kyle,” Richard said, “you bring up a good point. How<br />
many people here are scared of ghosts?”<br />
At first, I was still distracted by the fact that a doctor was<br />
here to learn how to ghost hunt to hear the question. I mean, doctors<br />
were all about science. But this guy, someone with a respectable,<br />
logical career, who did not look at all out of his mind, was here<br />
honestly telling us his story.<br />
When the hands started to go up around the room, I realized<br />
the question Richard had asked. Seeing that at least six other people<br />
had raised their hands, I timidly lifted mine to about ear level. Kind<br />
of a “me, too, but please don’t tell anyone” gesture.<br />
“Let me be the first to tell you that there is no need to be.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only reason that most of us fear ghosts is because we know next<br />
to nothing about them. <strong>The</strong>re’s not going to be any evil girl coming<br />
out of your TV to kill you. This is the real world. Yes, there are some<br />
spirits that would like to cause you harm, but we are going to teach<br />
you just how to protect yourself from those. You are stronger than<br />
them; you’re alive, they’re not. So you’re perfectly safe. And keep<br />
in mind that the great majority of spirits are not out to scare you. I<br />
promise.” When he said the final words, he looked right at me. For<br />
some reason, although he wasn’t smiling, his gaze was somewhat<br />
comforting. He had been doing this for twenty years and he could<br />
tell me with confidence that nothing was going to hurt me.<br />
Although my guard was still up, I actually found myself<br />
interested in hearing more. What was the difference between the<br />
ones that wanted to hurt us and the ones that didn’t? How could we<br />
tell? And how could we protect ourselves from the bad ones?<br />
7
Richard went on to explain to us the different types of spirits.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were the human spirits who were just hanging out because<br />
they weren’t ready to move on yet. Maybe they didn’t even realize<br />
they were dead, or maybe they didn’t want to leave loved ones, or<br />
maybe they had some business they needed to see through. <strong>The</strong><br />
reason varied with the spirit, the same way each of our reasons for<br />
attending the class varied person to person. At least, that was the<br />
example he used.<br />
He told us about the nonhuman spirits and said that he wasn’t<br />
going to go into great detail, because the less we knew, the less of a<br />
target we would be for them. But he did explain that anything that<br />
defied the laws of physics, such as a fire spontaneously lighting in<br />
the fireplace, probably meant there was something inhuman and if<br />
that was the case we should call in some experts. <strong>The</strong>n he inserted<br />
another Lark Hollow Paranormal Research plug. He didn’t really<br />
need to; if I ever saw anything catch on fire out of nowhere, I’d<br />
probably be halfway to California before the call to an investigation<br />
group even reached the second ring.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, when Daisy took over with the equipment, I was lost<br />
in a whirlwind of technical mumbo jumbo. <strong>The</strong>y used cameras and<br />
digital voice recorders to pick up photographs, videos and sound<br />
clips of ghosts talking. That much I could understand. But when she<br />
started holding up these little blinking machines that measured<br />
electromagnetic something or other, I found myself as confused as<br />
I’d been in my physics class last semester.<br />
After the first two hours of that, they let us take a ten-minute<br />
bathroom break. While my dad was poking around the table and<br />
trying out their tools, I scooted quickly from the cramped little room.<br />
As I passed by the counter, the guy from earlier asked, “How’s it<br />
going?”<br />
I paused mid-step and turned my body around. “It’s, um, a<br />
lot. But it’s actually kind of interesting. I didn’t know there were<br />
different kinds of spirits. I mean, yeah, I can see the difference<br />
between Slimer and the Keymaster, but that’s not exactly what<br />
we’re looking at here.” He laughed appreciatively. “I hear you. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
8
trained me for three months to teach me all the information they’re<br />
giving you guys tonight.”<br />
“Are you serious?” I asked incredulously. I guess I could see<br />
that. It would probably take me that long to remember how to use<br />
half of that equipment.<br />
“Yeah. So don’t worry. If you ever actually want to ghost<br />
hunt, they’ll give you more information. But you probably won’t<br />
want to associate with us weirdos.”<br />
Ah, crazy blush, we meet again. “I told you I’m sorry about<br />
that” I seriously felt bad. He was really nice, and I realized after<br />
seeing doctors and lawyers and other upstanding non-creepy citizens<br />
tell their ghost stories, that I had misjudged the crowd.<br />
“I’m kidding! Relax.”<br />
“What’s your name?” I asked, changing the subject.<br />
“Tucker.” He placed the book he had been reading on the<br />
counter so he could hold out his hand. When I glanced at the title as<br />
I reached over the book, I felt even worse about judging him earlier.<br />
This guy recognized my Ghostbusters reference and read Fight<br />
Club. That alone made him someone I would probably have been<br />
friends with in high school.<br />
“So what’s confusing you?” he asked after we’d shaken<br />
hands.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> equipment. I am not mechanically minded at all. I can’t<br />
tell an electronic-magnet-whatever from a spatula.”<br />
Tucker laughed again. “Electromagnetic. All that really<br />
means is a field made by things with an electric charge. <strong>The</strong> meters<br />
we have measure the changes in that field — hence the name<br />
Electromagnetic Field Meter, or EMF meter. Basically, the theory is<br />
that the presence of a ghost creates a change in that field. So, if your<br />
meter shows a jump to a higher number, there may be a ghost<br />
hanging around.”<br />
I raised my hands in mock applause. “Ladies and gentlemen,<br />
EMF meters for Dummies, presented by Tucker of <strong>The</strong> End Shelf.<br />
Next, he will explain Infrared Cameras for Complete Morons,<br />
specifically designed for Chelsea Keller.”<br />
9
He waved his hand at me. “Get out of here. You’re not a<br />
complete moron. It’s just a lot to take in.”<br />
“Yeah, but you said it in a much less confusing way than<br />
Daisy did! Seriously, thank you. I actually get it now. I feel a little<br />
more prepared to go back in there.” I glanced in the direction of the<br />
back room.<br />
“Well, hey, any time you need me to explain some Weirdo<br />
Science to you, just let me know.” Tucker grinned.<br />
Okay, he obviously was not going to let me forget that<br />
remark. Better just go along with it. “I will. Thank you, Mr. Weirdo.<br />
Where will you be presenting next? In the graveyard?”<br />
“Yes, the mausoleum, specifically. If you come, bring a<br />
small animal so I can show you the proper sacrifice technique.”<br />
I covered my mouth to stifle my laugh so it didn’t disrupt the<br />
silence of the store. “I’ll be there. But first, I need to go back and<br />
learn more about ghost hunting.”<br />
“Good luck!” He picked up Fight Club again and turned his<br />
attention back to it after one final smile.<br />
When I went back into the room, we listened to Daisy and<br />
Richard tell us all about protecting ourselves. Apparently, since<br />
ghosts were made of energy, we needed to use energy to shield<br />
ourselves from them. Different things could help with this, such as<br />
stones and candles or incense, all of which apparently had their own<br />
meaning. Most of the protection, however, involved calling upon<br />
help from whatever higher power we believed in. This shocked me,<br />
too; I had no idea that ghost hunters were religious. Again, I had<br />
been picturing Satan worshippers or atheists at best.<br />
Finally, they gave us their group’s protocol for conducting<br />
an investigation. At that point, I was already turning over too much<br />
information in my mind to pay too much attention. I didn’t plan<br />
turning this into a career, anyway. Even if after those four hours, it<br />
was slightly less scary than it had been in the beginning.<br />
Once they brought their presentation to a close, people in the<br />
room started to crowd around them with questions. My dad looked<br />
at them longingly for a moment before shaking his head. “Not worth<br />
10
trying to break through that crowd. I took one of their business cards<br />
if I have any questions for them.”<br />
Feeling surprisingly not scared at all after sitting through a<br />
Ghost Hunting 101 class, I teased, “Are you going to become a ghost<br />
hunter by night now, Dad?”<br />
He let out a belly laugh. “I wish. You know between both of<br />
my jobs I wouldn’t have time for it.” Just the same, his face was<br />
absolutely glowing. “Thanks for coming with me, Chels.”<br />
“No problem. I actually kind of enjoyed it,” I admitted.<br />
<strong>The</strong> man seriously couldn’t have been happier if I’d told him<br />
I was getting a free ride to Harvard. “See? I told you it wasn’t scary!<br />
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!”<br />
When we passed by the counter, Tucker was no longer<br />
sitting behind it reading an awesome book. Once we got to the front<br />
of the store, I saw why: he was flipping the open sign on the door.<br />
“Do you commonly keep your store open for fellow<br />
weirdos?” I asked.<br />
“Chelsea!” my dad exclaimed in horror.<br />
Tucker turned around, a smile playing on his face once more.<br />
“Only for cute weirdos,” he answered with another wink.<br />
I laughed. No way was he serious. “Thank you again for<br />
explaining EMF Meters to me.”<br />
“Sure. If you ever have any more questions, you know where<br />
to find me.” He stepped back to hold the door open for us so we<br />
could exit.<br />
“Thanks.” I smiled at him one more time before I followed<br />
my dad out the door.<br />
My mind was racing with all the information it was trying to<br />
process from the night as Dad gabbed on about how that was the<br />
coolest thing he’d ever done. Overall, I hadn’t been scared at all,<br />
except for maybe a few seconds when they were talking about the<br />
spirits that might try to hurt us. But there were ways to protect<br />
ourselves against them. And, really, even though it was weird and<br />
kind of out there, it was pretty interesting.<br />
11
Wow. Chelsea Keller just used ghost hunting and interesting<br />
in the same sentence. And it was completely void of sarcasm. Who<br />
knew?<br />
12
Chapter Two<br />
It didn’t take me long to decide that I was going to have to<br />
go back to <strong>The</strong> End Shelf and ask Tucker some more questions. I<br />
didn’t really have much time to think about it while I was at work<br />
the next day, except a little in the slow time between ticket sales.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, when I came home from the movie theater smelling like a<br />
mixture of popcorn and disappointed audiences, I found it wasn’t<br />
going to be so easy to push it from my mind.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second I walked through the door, I saw that there was<br />
something standing between me and my beloved shower. That<br />
something was in the form of my ten-year-old brother, who literally<br />
leapt from the couch the moment I stepped inside.<br />
“Chelsea! Tell me about the ghost hunting class!” He wore<br />
my mother’s huge smile plastered across his face as he bounded over<br />
to me. At his side was the skinny black frame of Trouble, who<br />
knocked his head into my knees and wagged his feathery tail. <strong>The</strong><br />
dog was all short hair except that tail and some fuzzy tufts around<br />
his ears.<br />
As I bent down to scratch our dog’s shoulders, Gunner<br />
grinned at me expectantly. “Did they teach you about the advantages<br />
of different types of EMF meters? Cell sensors?”<br />
“Yeah, probably. I mean, they told us a lot. I think Dad is<br />
probably going to remember more than I am.” I tried to move past<br />
him so I could at least make some progress toward the bathroom,<br />
but Trouble stayed pressed tightly against my knees.<br />
My brother was not about to be deterred so easily. “Well, tell<br />
me what you do remember! Dad is working late again. I don’t know<br />
when I’ll see him again to ask him. Come on, Chels. I’d have killed<br />
to be able to go!”<br />
“Really? You’d kill someone?” I raised my eyebrows.<br />
“Yes. <strong>The</strong>n I’d have a ready-made ghost.” He fought to hide<br />
the smile that was threatening to burst forth again.<br />
“That has bad idea written all over it.” I stepped right over<br />
the dog, but instead of heading for the shower, I plopped down on<br />
13
the couch. “Your first ghost encounter would be with someone you<br />
just killed.”<br />
“It wouldn’t be my first! I’ve had weird things happen<br />
before,” Gunner insisted. He scooted over and sat down on the other<br />
end of the couch. His sneakers pressed against my thigh as he<br />
stretched out.<br />
“Well, Grasshopper, there are human spirits and there are<br />
nonhuman spirits. Not all of them are going to be bad, but you don’t<br />
want to mess with the nonhuman spirits. Those are the ones that can<br />
go all Exorcist. But there are ways to protect yourself from them,<br />
like with energy and rocks. And they told us about the equipment<br />
and how to conduct an investigation at someone’s house, but that’s<br />
the kind of stuff you want to ask Dad.”<br />
My brother laughed. “You would remember stuff that could<br />
go Exorcist on you instead of the technical stuff.”<br />
I reached over and swatted at his dark hair. “Hush, punk. I<br />
learned what an EMF meter is.”<br />
He raised his hands to protect himself and grabbed my wrist<br />
to keep me away. “I know that already. It sounds like all the things<br />
you’ll remember are the things I read about. I want to know about<br />
the equipment they use.”<br />
“Well, excuse me! I was kind of busy trying not to pee<br />
myself when I walked in, thank you very much.” I pulled my arm<br />
back and punched his shoe lightly instead.<br />
“Did you?”<br />
“Yes, I did. <strong>The</strong>y had to get newspapers for me to sit on.”<br />
Gunner giggled again, but then seriousness blanketed his<br />
face. “I wish I could have been there.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> disappointment in his brown eyes tugged sadly at my<br />
heart. He would have appreciated the class way more than I had.<br />
Granted, a new found interest had bloomed somewhere in my head,<br />
but my brother legitimately loved this stuff as much as my dad did.<br />
And ever since Mom had left, he hadn’t exactly been having the time<br />
of his life, either.<br />
Suddenly, the light bulb clicked on over my head. “Hey, you<br />
know the place where they had the class, <strong>The</strong> End Shelf? It’s a little<br />
14
used book store. Well, the guy who was working there is a member<br />
of the paranormal group. I can go back and ask him some questions<br />
for you if you want.”<br />
His face instantly snapped from dejected to excited again.<br />
“Oh, really? That would be awesome!”<br />
“Sure. I have the early shift on Monday, so I can head over<br />
after work.”<br />
Gunner jumped up from the couch once again, giving my leg<br />
a good kick as he did. “Okay! I’ll make a list of things for you to ask<br />
him.” With that, he disappeared down the hall, presumably to his<br />
room to immediately make up his list.<br />
<strong>The</strong> kid was so let down that he didn’t get to come with us<br />
to the class. I mean, I owed it to him to try and find out some more<br />
information, right?<br />
So, Monday afternoon, I walked into <strong>The</strong> End Shelf with<br />
Gunner’s list of questions tucked into the back pocket of my shorts.<br />
<strong>The</strong> familiar musty, hot air greeted me as I headed right for the back<br />
counter. Just as I hoped he’d be, Tucker was sitting there, his head<br />
bent over another book. Suddenly, the awkward fairy tapped me on<br />
the shoulder with her wand and I stopped in my tracks. What if he<br />
was just being nice? What if he really didn’t want to explain things<br />
to me?<br />
Too late to run away. He looked up from his book and his<br />
eyes literally bugged out. It was like, one second he was calm, and<br />
the next, a dinosaur sauntered into his store and asked for a book on<br />
muffin baking.<br />
“Hi,” I said, forcing my feet to move the last few steps<br />
toward the counter.<br />
“Hey!” he greeted me, shaking the surprise off his face. “I<br />
didn’t expect to see you back here.”<br />
“Is it not a good time?” I asked.<br />
Tucker laughed. “No, no! I’m a little swamped with<br />
customers right now, but I can set some time aside for you. What’s<br />
up?”<br />
15
“I had a few questions.” I reached behind me and pulled the<br />
folded-up paper out of my pocket. “Well, actually, my little brother<br />
had a few questions.”<br />
He raised his eyebrows, looking surprised again, but I think<br />
a little pleased. “By all means. What can I do to help Little Keller?”<br />
“He wants to know about the equipment you use.” I laid the<br />
list on the counter, smoothing it out so he could read it despite the<br />
folds.<br />
Tucker scanned Gunner’s scratchy handwriting, a grin<br />
playing across his lips. “And how old is your brother?”<br />
“He’s ten, why?”<br />
“Wow, the kid knows his stuff. Have you looked at this?”<br />
I shook my head. “I figured the technical stuff I probably<br />
wouldn’t understand anyway.”<br />
“He’s basically asking me about all these different brands of<br />
meters and sensors and what are the best ones. To be honest, I<br />
haven’t even heard of half of them. I’m going to give him the name<br />
of a website that has a bunch of different equipment types on it with<br />
reviews of all of them. He can look into it and see what other people<br />
who have used them have said.” He glanced around on the desk until<br />
he found a pen.<br />
“Oh, man, Gunner is going to die.” I grinned. “Thanks so<br />
much.”<br />
“No problem! He wants to be a ghost hunter, huh?” Tucker<br />
finished writing and pushed the list back over to me.<br />
“Well, he’s read every book in the library on the subject,<br />
along with a ton from Amazon, and our TiVo is overflowing with<br />
recorded episodes of paranormal TV shows. I’d say yeah, he’s<br />
thinking about it.” I folded up the paper and stuck it back into my<br />
pocket.<br />
He smiled. “And what about you?”<br />
“What about me?”<br />
“Have you given the ghost hunting thing any more thought?”<br />
I should have expected that question. Honestly, the answer<br />
was a resounding yes. I had absolutely been thinking about ghost<br />
hunting all weekend. Especially once I knew I’d be seeing Tucker<br />
16
again. I had plenty of questions of my own that had nothing to do<br />
with Gunner’s, but it still felt so strange to me that I actually wanted<br />
to know.<br />
He must have noticed the gears turning behind my eyes,<br />
because he sat back on his stool like he was getting comfortable.<br />
“Okay. This is new to me, so bear with me.”<br />
Tucker just spread his palms and gave a small smile.<br />
It was as if I had a bucketful of questions and he had just<br />
tipped it over. <strong>The</strong>y were swimming all over my head, crashing<br />
against my brain like waves, one after another spraying up. I wasn’t<br />
sure where to a start. After a moment, I decided on one. “So, where<br />
do you find ghosts, exactly?”<br />
“In short?” he responded. “Everywhere.”<br />
Yup. That was the kind of answer that made me scared to<br />
ask my questions. “<strong>The</strong>y don’t just stay where they died like in the<br />
movies, do they?”<br />
He shook his head. “Think about it. If you died, would you<br />
want to stay wherever it was that you passed away? A hospital or<br />
your bed? Sure, I mean, you’ll find some hanging out in those<br />
places, but for the most part, we’ve found that ghosts haunt where<br />
they lived. Places they enjoyed being while they were alive.<br />
Sometimes places where there were significantly emotional or<br />
traumatic events like battlefields and schools. But there aren’t really<br />
any rules. <strong>The</strong>y can pretty much go wherever they want, whenever<br />
they want.”<br />
“So you really can’t even assume you know who it is that’s<br />
hanging around,” I mused. “I mean, if there was an old man who<br />
passed away in his house, he might not be there anymore once he<br />
was dead. But someone else might be.”<br />
“Exactly. <strong>The</strong> most important thing to remember is as much<br />
as we’ve learned about the subject in recent years, there is still so<br />
much we don’t know. <strong>The</strong>re aren’t any definite answers.”<br />
I paused to let this sink in. <strong>The</strong>y had mentioned this on<br />
Friday night, but there was so much information all at once that it<br />
hadn’t really hit me. In theory, Tucker was telling me there could be<br />
<strong>17</strong>
a ghost right next to me at any given time. I wasn’t safe from them<br />
anywhere.<br />
Thinking about safety brought up another question. “What<br />
about protecting yourself? I know Daisy was talking about stones<br />
having different properties. And something about energy.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re are way too many stones for me to explain to you<br />
right now,” he said with an easy laugh. “But if you search online for<br />
the properties of different stones, you’ll find plenty of lists that<br />
explain what each of them do.”<br />
I nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”<br />
“As for the energy aspect? Ghosts are attracted to energy,<br />
but in the same sense, you can use your energy as a shield around<br />
yourself. It’s all about visualization. Eventually you can train<br />
yourself to feel all the energy around you, but it takes time and work,<br />
and at this point you might be more comfortable not being able to<br />
feel that kind of thing. For now, if you ever get scared, try just<br />
visualizing yourself surrounded in white light. Or you could try<br />
armor. That’s what I do.” I thought I saw a slight blush creep onto<br />
his pale cheeks.<br />
Okay, information overload. I held up my hand. “Alright, I<br />
have about 1,000 more questions that came up now. I’m going to go<br />
do what you said and look around online for some answers and see<br />
what I can sort out on my own.”<br />
Tucker laughed. “Sounds like a plan. But remember, you can<br />
ask me anything whenever you want. Same goes for your brother —<br />
what’s his name?”<br />
“Gunner,” I answered. “And thank you again. I need to<br />
process the fact that there are dead people walking around all over<br />
the place. Walking — do they walk? Or do they float? Wait, don’t<br />
tell me. <strong>The</strong>re are no rules and they can do whatever they want.”<br />
His grin stretched straight from one ear to the other. “Now<br />
you’re getting it. But remember, you are safe from these floating and<br />
walking and moonwalking dead people as long as you envision<br />
yourself as safe and protected.”<br />
18
“I’m walking out of here in full knight’s gear. Chain mail<br />
and all. I even have a mouth guard.” I stood rigidly at attention like<br />
I imagined a soldier would.<br />
“Well done, Sir Keller.” He nodded and picked up his book<br />
where he’d left it on the counter. “It was good seeing you again.<br />
Seriously, don’t be shy about stopping back in.”<br />
“Don’t worry. If I don’t have any questions, I’m sure Gunner<br />
will. Bye, Tucker!” As I turned and headed for the front door, I<br />
couldn’t help but glance around me like I was going to see someone<br />
standing between the shelves. I had opened a door that my dad and<br />
brother liked to hang around, the door that let me in on the idea that<br />
spirits were all around us all the time.<br />
As predicted, when I got home, Gunner immediately<br />
snatched the list with the website written on it out of my hands and<br />
made a beeline for the computer. I had to wait a few hours for him<br />
to be done researching his equipment, but when he was finally<br />
finished, it was my turn.<br />
I spent a good few hours looking up all the different types of<br />
stones and crystals available for psychic protection. <strong>The</strong>re were<br />
endless charts that listed hundreds upon hundreds of different rocks<br />
with all sorts of properties. Some of them were grounding while<br />
others enhanced the psychic abilities. Some repelled negative<br />
energy and some absorbed it.<br />
At one point, Gunner poked his head back into the den.<br />
“Chelsea, can I … what are you doing?” He immediately hurried<br />
over to my side to peer at the screen. “Are you looking up ghost<br />
stuff?”<br />
My face promptly turned the color of Rudolph’s nose and I<br />
tried to appear nonchalant. No big deal, just the world’s biggest<br />
pansy looking into something she’d always been vehemently<br />
against. “Um, yeah. A little.”<br />
Instead of making fun of me, literally the biggest smile in the<br />
history of smiles of the world spread over my brother’s face. I swear<br />
his chest was swelling up. Was he proud of me? For some reason,<br />
even though he was just a kid who was ten years younger than me,<br />
this gave me a serious case of the warm fuzzies.<br />
19
“That’s awesome! You’re checking out the stones?” He<br />
perched on the arm of the swivel chair.<br />
“Yeah. I figured if I’m gonna start, I might as well start with<br />
protecting myself before reaching out or anything.”<br />
“That’s smart. You never know what you’re going to run<br />
into completely by accident. Timmy Johansson says he has a demon<br />
in his closet. I don’t believe him really, because I think if it was an<br />
actual demon he’d probably be throwing desks across the classroom<br />
or something. But I do think there’s probably something not nice in<br />
his house.”<br />
“Timmy Johansson is going to give me a heart attack. Go<br />
easy on me, Gun, I’m new at this.” I clicked the “back” button on<br />
my browser to return to the search engine.<br />
“Sorry. I just think it’s awesome. Maybe we can have a ghost<br />
hunting team together. Like the guys on TV. But siblings.”<br />
“What did I just say? Easy!” I shoved his shoulder playfully.<br />
He lost his balance and had to stand up so he wouldn’t fall right off<br />
the chair.<br />
Gunner was still grinning brightly. “Promise if you start<br />
ghost hunting that I can come with you one day. I know I’m<br />
supposed to be too young right now, but I want to do it one day.<br />
Especially if you’re going to do it.”<br />
“Don’t worry, Gunner. You’re the first person I’d want to<br />
bring with me.”<br />
By Thursday, I was pulling up in front of <strong>The</strong> End Shelf<br />
again with a new list of questions from Gunner and a whole army of<br />
my own. Part of me was trying to be logical and tell myself not to<br />
bother Tucker so much, but a bigger part of me, the curious part,<br />
was snowballing out of control. And Gunner was giving me some<br />
hefty nudges down the mountain.<br />
This time, when I walked in, there were actually other people<br />
in the store. A balding man in a brown tweed coat down to his knees<br />
was perusing the mystery section, and two girls probably around my<br />
brother’s age were checking out the vampire romance books.<br />
20
“I have good news. <strong>The</strong> future leaders of America are<br />
reading paranormal erotica in aisle 3,” I announced as I approached<br />
the counter.<br />
Tucker’s head shot up like I’d come in to the store breathing<br />
fire. He must have been really engrossed in the book in his lap. After<br />
a moment, he recovered from his initial shock and smiled. “That is<br />
reassuring news. And don’t worry; they know what Kim Kardashian<br />
had for dinner last night, but still nothing about our government.”<br />
A laugh bubbled up in my throat. I was learning very quickly<br />
that ghost hunters weren’t the weird people I had expected them to<br />
be. My little brother, while unique, wasn’t a freak. And Tucker was<br />
able to hold a conversation with pop culture references. <strong>The</strong>y didn’t<br />
spend all their time in the dark drawing pentagrams on the walls in<br />
cat’s blood.<br />
“How are you doing?” he asked as he set his book down on<br />
the counter. Today’s specimen was <strong>The</strong> Count of Monte Cristo.<br />
“Well, I’ve lived a few days with dead people floating,<br />
walking, and moonwalking all around me. I’d say I’m doing well.”<br />
I tugged the list out of my pocket again and held it out to him. “I<br />
come bearing more questions from Gunner. And a few from<br />
myself.”<br />
Tucker’s dark eyes held more appreciation than they had on<br />
Monday. Was he that happy that I was becoming so interested? I<br />
guess one more person whose denial had been vanquished was a<br />
victory for him.<br />
“Let’s see what I can do for you today.” He started unfolding<br />
the new piece of paper.<br />
“Thank you, Sensei. I looked into the crystals like you<br />
suggested. No wonder you couldn’t explain them to me the other<br />
day; there are so many!” I slid both my hands into my back pockets.<br />
He let out a laugh. “Yeah, you should see my collection. I’ve<br />
got a whole case of them.”<br />
“Do you always carry them with you?” I asked. I<br />
remembered reading that people would get out of bed in the morning<br />
and decide which crystals felt right for them to carry on that<br />
particular day. <strong>The</strong>n they’d leave them in their pockets constantly.<br />
21
“Usually.” He reached inside the collar of his baby-blue polo<br />
and pulled out a thin black rope. It was threaded through a small<br />
chunk of black stone. “This is obsidian. Apache Tear, to be exact.<br />
It’s for grounding and protection. I never take it off except to clean<br />
it.”<br />
I was about to ask where I could get one, but at that moment<br />
the two vampire girls popped up out of nowhere with armloads of<br />
books.<br />
“Excuse me, mister, how much are these?” one of them<br />
asked.<br />
“Those are a dollar a piece. How many do you have there?”<br />
Tucker asked. He tucked my brother’s list into his own book and<br />
placed it somewhere behind the counter.<br />
“I have six, and she has six. But we’re gonna grab some more<br />
since they’re not that much.” <strong>The</strong> girls dropped their books on the<br />
floor and disappeared back into the stacks.<br />
Before I could get in the way, I started to back up towards<br />
the door. “Looks like duty calls. I’ll stop back in another time. Or<br />
would this be easier when you’re not working?”<br />
Tucker stood up off his stool and leaned against the counter.<br />
“Actually, it probably would be a lot easier. Do you want to meet up<br />
somewhere else?”<br />
“Sure. Do you live around here?” A little voice in my head<br />
was murmuring something about talking to strangers I barely knew,<br />
but my curiosity was greater than my sense of caution. I wasn’t as<br />
scared by the living as I was by the dead.<br />
“Literally around the block.”<br />
“Okay. I’m not far at all, either. What about the little coffee<br />
house down the street?”<br />
He nodded. “You mean Joe Bean’s? Sounds good to me.<br />
When are you free?”<br />
“Sunday I’m only working until four.”<br />
“Meet you Sunday night at eight?”<br />
“I’ll see you then.” By that time I had reached the door, so<br />
with a little wave I turned around and pushed my way out into the<br />
warm summer air.<br />
22
23
Chapter 3<br />
<strong>The</strong>re had been a time when both of my parents would have<br />
wanted to know where I was going on Sunday night. <strong>The</strong>y would<br />
have asked me who I would be with and when I would be back. But<br />
Dad was at work and Mom was who-knew-where, so only Gunner<br />
was there to wave goodbye to me from his spot on the couch.<br />
As I got behind the wheel of my Honda, my nerves really<br />
started to kick into high gear. <strong>The</strong> past few days had me wondering<br />
if this was really a good idea. I wasn’t too worried about Tucker; he<br />
seemed like a nice enough guy. I was more concerned with whether<br />
or not I really wanted to kick this door open all the way. Sure, I had<br />
been asking questions and doing some research, but it had all been<br />
from a relative distance. Now I was on the road to making friends<br />
with a ghost hunter who seemed very enthusiastic about converting<br />
me into one as well.<br />
At what point would I be in too deep to ever back out again?<br />
For just a second, I considered turning off the car and going<br />
back inside. I could just avoid <strong>The</strong> End Shelf for the rest of my life<br />
and Tucker would never know what happened. He might be a little<br />
pissed about being ditched, but as time went on and he never saw<br />
me again, he’d have to resign himself to the idea that something<br />
urgent had come up to prevent me from getting there that one<br />
Sunday night. And he would raise his head from his books every<br />
now and then when the door to the store opened up, wondering if it<br />
might be Chelsea Keller, returning to apologize and giving him a<br />
chance to finally chew her out for being a turd nugget.<br />
Okay, working at a movie theater was definitely affecting<br />
my imagination.<br />
I stepped on the gas and pulled onto the street. <strong>The</strong>re was no<br />
way I could ever be okay with completely flaking on him without so<br />
much as a phone call. And I didn’t have his phone number, so I was<br />
stuck. Maybe I had already passed the point of no return.<br />
For a Sunday night, downtown Bethany was pretty active.<br />
All the small local shops had little white lights framing their<br />
windows, even the ones that were closed for the evening. Most of<br />
24
the parking spots were filled up and a surprising amount of people<br />
were wandering leisurely along the sidewalks.<br />
After a vicious stare down with a little old woman over the<br />
last parking spot on my side of the street, I managed to walk up to<br />
Joe Bean’s just as the alarm on my phone went off to tell me it was<br />
8 o’clock. I was about to head for the door, but then I saw Tucker<br />
waving at me from one of the little green tables set up on the<br />
sidewalk.<br />
Even better. With the crazy AC inside the place, I would<br />
have gotten really cold really fast. I flip-flopped my way over to his<br />
table and pulled out my chair. It screeched unpleasantly against the<br />
concrete in protest until I plopped my butt down in it, dropped my<br />
hands into my lap, and smiled. “Fancy meeting you here!” It was so<br />
warm out that the metal chair wasn’t even chilly on my bare skin.<br />
“Hello to you too,” he greeted me with a return smile. He<br />
was wearing a kelly-green t-shirt with the Boondock Saints prayer<br />
printed on it in white lettering.<br />
Before I could compliment his choice of attire, he produced<br />
Gunner’s piece of paper and placed it lightly on the table in front of<br />
me. “All his questions answered to the best of my ability. I gave him<br />
my email, too, in case he wants to ask me more.”<br />
I groaned in mock sympathy. “You have no idea what<br />
you’ve done.”<br />
Tucker laughed. “I don’t mind. I like kids.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>n you’ll love me. I’m more of a kid than he is any day<br />
of the week.”<br />
At that moment, a barista in an orange apron popped into<br />
view and asked if I wanted anything. When I glanced at Tucker, I<br />
noticed the little green cup already in front of him. I ordered a Chai<br />
and a slice of pumpkin bread.<br />
Once she was gone, I leaned in and whispered, “Good. She’s<br />
gone. Now we can talk about the forbidden subject. <strong>The</strong> one that<br />
would make the rest of the world think we’re crazy if they overheard<br />
us.”<br />
Tucker raised an eyebrow. “It’s ‘we’ now, huh? A week ago<br />
you thought I was the crazy one for believing in ghosts.”<br />
25
I raised a finger in protest. “I believe the term I used was<br />
‘weirdo,’ not crazy. Don’t put words in my mouth.”<br />
Another laugh fell softly from his lips. “Okay, then, my<br />
fellow weirdo. What did you want to ask me the other day before we<br />
were interrupted by Bella Swan?”<br />
“Let me start with this: What made you get into ghost<br />
hunting? You’ve witnessed my glorious crossing. But what about<br />
you?” I tucked my legs up onto the chair alongside me. Now that we<br />
were becoming friends, I figured I might as well learn a thing or two<br />
about him as well as about my new interest.<br />
He looked surprised again. “Not exactly what I was<br />
expecting. But okay, let’s see. I guess I’ve always been interested in<br />
it. I was kind of like your dad when I was a lot younger. I just thought<br />
the paranormal was the coolest thing. I loved the movies and scary<br />
stories and everything.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>n when I was in college, my best friend, Susannah,<br />
started having some creepy experiences in her dorm room. So a few<br />
of my friends and I thought we could go ahead and just ghost hunt<br />
like they did on TV. We got a bunch of voice recorders and video<br />
cameras and set about trying to tell whatever it was to leave<br />
Susannah alone. Since we didn’t know anything more than what<br />
we’d seen in the media, we wound up ending the night early once<br />
my buddy Ethan got a glass thrown at him.<br />
“After that we got knocked off our high horses and we<br />
wound up contacting Lark Hollow Paranormal to ask for some help.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y set the record straight and we found out that the spirit in<br />
Susannah’s dorm was a pervy kind of middle-aged man who — for<br />
some reason unbeknownst to us — did not want to leave the girls’<br />
dorm. Go figure, right?<br />
“Anyway, from there, we wanted to be legitimate, so we<br />
wound up signing up for Lark Hollow’s training program, and they<br />
made ghost hunters out of us. Susannah, Ethan, and I are the only<br />
ones who are still in it right now; the rest of them dropped out<br />
somewhere along the way. But we take it really seriously. We’ve<br />
been doing it for six years now, since we were twenty-one.”<br />
26
Somewhere in the middle of the story, the barista had set<br />
down my Chai and pumpkin bread, so I picked up my tea and sipped<br />
it gingerly. I hadn’t known that he was a whole seven years older<br />
than me. He just seemed so easygoing and young, not at all like most<br />
thirty-year-olds I’d met. <strong>The</strong>n again, the ones I worked with were<br />
thirty and still working at a movie theater, so maybe they weren’t<br />
the best examples to judge by.<br />
“That’s cool that your friends are into it, too,” I mused,<br />
thinking that Michelle would never go for this kind of thing. She had<br />
always teased my dad and brother for even believing in ghosts in the<br />
first place.<br />
“Well, you’ve got a friend now, too,” he pointed out. “I’m<br />
not going anywhere.”<br />
I smiled. “Thank you. A friend who has some serious<br />
experience in the area, might I add. Hopefully no one will be<br />
throwing glasses at my head anytime soon.”<br />
Tucker laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. You’re<br />
wearing armor, remember?”<br />
“Seriously, with the armor.” I set my cup down on the table<br />
again. “It’s as simple as just picturing it, and it’s there?”<br />
He shrugged. “Well, yeah. I mean, you need to believe that<br />
it’s really there and that you’re surrounded by protection and<br />
nothing’s going to get you. But yeah, you just need to imagine it<br />
being there, and it’s there. Energy is a lot bigger than what we know<br />
on a physical level. You just kinda have to trust that the good is<br />
always going to be stronger than the bad.”<br />
I nodded thoughtfully. “So I know how you started. I know<br />
how I started. I know how to protect myself, more or less. I know<br />
there are human spirits and nonhuman spirits. But what about this<br />
residual haunting thing? Gunner mentioned it once or twice and I<br />
know it came up in the class. What does it mean exactly?”<br />
A smile flickered over his pale face. “Residual haunting is<br />
kind of tricky to grasp. Basically, everything around us acts as a tape<br />
recorder, and if there was an event that was significant enough, it<br />
records it and will play it back. <strong>The</strong>re is no actual spirit present, but<br />
you might see a girl run up the stairs every night at the same time.<br />
27
You might hear a gunshot on a battlefield. You might hear a cabinet<br />
slam or watch a lady in a window of the house across the street.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no intelligent spirit present, just playback of something that<br />
happened a long time ago.”<br />
“Okay, so the dead floaty people have tape recorders now.<br />
Cool.” I pressed my palm against my forehead and grinned at him<br />
from behind my hand. “<strong>The</strong>re is so much to this. And let me guess,<br />
you can’t even tell me 100 percent that’s the actual definition of a<br />
residual haunting, either?”<br />
He shook his head, also grinning. “Nope. It’s generally<br />
agreed that that’s what it is, but how could we know for sure? We<br />
won’t until we’re dead, too. And at that point I’m guessing I’ll be<br />
hightailing it to a beach in Hawaii and not really concerned with<br />
trying to solve the mysteries of the living.”<br />
“Ooh, good point. I think I’d probably go to Alaska, though,<br />
instead of Hawaii. I really want to see the Northern Lights.” Argh,<br />
quiet, Chelsea. He’s here to answer questions about ghosts, not<br />
discuss your dream honeymoon.<br />
“You know, you’re right. If we’re dead, I doubt we’ll feel<br />
the cold anyway. I’ll put that on my after-bucket list.” Tucker mimed<br />
opening a pad in his hand and writing on it.<br />
“So now I’m jumping on the Gunner wagon.” I decided to<br />
switch subjects before he got bored of talking about my little girl<br />
dreams. “Tell me more about the equipment. You explained EMF<br />
meters to me. Please tell me what else you ghost hunters use.”<br />
“Well, we have the basic digital cameras and video cameras.<br />
Motion sensors so if something moves in a room you’ll know. Audio<br />
recorders. Temperature readers. And flashlights.”<br />
I bobbed my head. “I wish I had some glasses so I could look<br />
at you intelligently over them as we discuss the technical aspect.”<br />
He let loose another laugh. “Hey, relax. You seem to be<br />
absorbing it just fine. Like I said, Lark Hollow trained me for three<br />
months to teach me all this stuff in depth.”<br />
“True.” I went through the list of equipment in my head<br />
again. Cameras. Video cameras. Motion sensors. Audio recorders.<br />
Temperature readers. Flashlights. Got it. “What about all the other<br />
28
stuff they use on TV? Whenever Gunner watches these guys, it<br />
seems like they’ve got fancy laser grids and beeping toys and<br />
things.”<br />
Tucker picked up his coffee cup but didn’t take a sip. “Okay,<br />
don’t go by what they do on TV. Truthfully, a lot of the time they<br />
aren’t even using the basic equipment the right way. What I told you<br />
is really all you’ll need to know for right now. Anything else you<br />
use will just be some sort of variation of one of those. For instance,<br />
some of the cameras will have night vision or infrared capabilities.<br />
Or a vibration sensor will light up rather than make noise like a<br />
motion sensor might, but they’re really the same thing with different<br />
names. <strong>The</strong>re are some really fancy things that have been designed,<br />
but you don’t need to worry about those unless you’re seriously<br />
going to start ghost hunting. And even then you wouldn’t need to<br />
for a while.”<br />
“Is that what Gunner was asking you about?” I asked,<br />
picking up his piece of paper and unfolding it.<br />
“Gunner asked me how to alter a digital camera so it can<br />
have infrared capabilities.”<br />
“Right.” I instantly folded the paper back up again and<br />
slipped it into the front pocket of my shorts. “Well, never mind that.”<br />
I was pretty impressed by everything that I had learned in the<br />
half hour since I’d arrived at Joe Bean’s. I had a basic understanding<br />
of almost all the things they had gone over in the class. <strong>The</strong> only<br />
thing that I didn’t remember at all was the correct conduction of an<br />
investigation. But I wasn’t completely positive that I wanted to hear<br />
all that yet.<br />
“So, how was work today?” Tucker asked.<br />
It was my turn to look up in surprise. I had really thought he<br />
only was offering to talk about ghost hunting because he had some<br />
experience and I didn’t. But now he was making small talk that was<br />
completely unrelated.<br />
“Work was fine, thanks. I work at the movie theater in<br />
Tremblay. <strong>The</strong> early shift is a little unpleasant because, well, it’s<br />
early. And it’s slow. Not too many people come to see movies on a<br />
Sunday before noon. But you do get in for five bucks!” I added.<br />
29
“Get out. That’s awesome. I’m never paying ten fifty again.”<br />
Tucker grinned.<br />
“When do you get days off? You’ve been in <strong>The</strong> End Shelf<br />
every time I’ve come in,” I pointed out.<br />
“Well, I own it, so I’m kind of there all the time.”<br />
“You what?” I was shocked at first, but then when I thought<br />
about it, it didn’t seem all that unlikely. He had graduated college<br />
and had a degree in something. <strong>The</strong> guy had to have a job to support<br />
himself by then, unless he was still living in his mom’s house.<br />
“Yeah. I bought it from the last owner two years ago.” His<br />
smile was kind of faraway, like he was thinking about skating down<br />
a rainbow or something dreamy. “I love books. I worked at Barnes<br />
& Noble to get me through college, but I always appreciated the<br />
small businesses more.”<br />
“Books, ghosts, and movies. Tell me you don’t like really<br />
bad music and we can be best friends,” I pressed.<br />
“If you call my 80s music bad, I will walk away right now.”<br />
His face was only serious for a moment before the laugh burst<br />
through. “I’m sorry. I do like good music. Mostly classic rock, but I<br />
love the awful 80s stuff too. Anything from that decade, really.”<br />
“Hmm. Not so much on board with my Breaking Benjamin<br />
and Five Finger Death Punch, but I think I can tolerate it.” I<br />
munched on my pumpkin bread and my toes curled from the<br />
absolute deliciousness.<br />
“At least it’s not Justin Bieber,” he pointed out.<br />
“Touché.” I reached across the table for a high-five.<br />
I’m not sure how long we wound up sitting there for, but it<br />
was long enough for my hair to start frizzing from the humidity. <strong>The</strong><br />
conversation didn’t return to ghost hunting for quite some time. He<br />
told me about his crazy long hours working at the store. Because of<br />
these hours, he was able to live on his own in an apartment just a<br />
few streets away, right in Bethany. I couldn’t get him to pin a<br />
favorite book or movie, but his cinematic taste seemed to cling to<br />
the 80s just as his music taste did. He had no brothers or sisters, and<br />
his parents had moved to Florida when they retired after he<br />
graduated from college. He didn’t mention a girlfriend, so I gathered<br />
30
he was pretty much alone around here. This explained why he didn’t<br />
mind hanging out with some little girl who talked too much during<br />
the small amount of free time that he hadn’t promised to <strong>The</strong> End<br />
Shelf or Lark Hollow Paranormal.<br />
In return, I told him that I was still living at home with my<br />
dad and brother and going to community college part time while I<br />
worked full time at the theater. My music taste was a little more<br />
modern, but I could appreciate movies from any era, and when I<br />
found out he loved Mark Wahlberg as much as I did, I knew we had<br />
solid ground to build upon.<br />
Eventually, he pushed back his chair, making another oh-sopleasant<br />
scraping sound on the ground. Most of the people around<br />
us had cleared out of their tables, and the sidewalks around us were<br />
decidedly less crowded as well. “I hate to cut this short, but I’ve got<br />
to be up early for work tomorrow. Do you want to take my number<br />
so you can just call me or text me if you’ve got a question?”<br />
“Sure. Or we could do this again.” I pulled my phone out of<br />
my pocket and handed it over to him. He entered his number and<br />
passed it back to me. After I called him so he had mine as well, I<br />
pocketed my cell again.<br />
“I would be okay with that.” He smiled as he stood up,<br />
displaying just how tall he was as his head almost hit the umbrella<br />
over the table.<br />
“Me, too.” My head barely came up to his shoulder when I<br />
rose to stand next to him. “Thank you for answering all my<br />
questions. And for answering Gunner’s. And for hanging out with<br />
me.”<br />
“Don’t mention it, really. I’m glad to share my passion.” <strong>The</strong><br />
little white lights around the shop’s window reflected in his dark<br />
eyes.<br />
“Passion. For dead things.” I stroked a make-believe beard<br />
thoughtfully. “Maybe I should have given you a fake number.”<br />
He laughed. “Thank you for hanging out with me, Chelsea.<br />
You’re great. I’m kind of hoping you decide you want to ghost hunt.<br />
I could bring you on a case with me just to see if you like it or not.”<br />
31
“You could do that? I mean, just let me tag along? I thought<br />
I needed training.”<br />
“You do. But not just to come along and observe. Plus, I’m<br />
kind of high up now. I’m an assistant director. <strong>The</strong>y’ll trust me if I<br />
say you’re okay.”<br />
“Well, I’ll think about it. Thanks for sticking your neck out<br />
for me.” I smiled and reached out for a one-armed hug.<br />
He returned the same one-armed gesture and we hugged<br />
awkwardly as two new friends do. <strong>The</strong>n I gave him a little wiggle<br />
of my fingers. “I’ll be in touch. Be safe driving home; I know you’ve<br />
got a long way to go!”<br />
Tucker laughed. “Yeah, I’ll do my best.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> next day, Michelle and I finally had a schedule that<br />
matched up, so at 6:00 she was knocking at my front door with a<br />
massive pepperoni and sausage pizza from Antonio’s. I reached out<br />
like I was going to hug her but made a big show of snatching the<br />
box from her and rushing away. She darted after me, leaving the<br />
front door wide open as we ran into the kitchen. Trouble darted<br />
around our feet and barked at us as he tried to jump up at the food.<br />
“Hello, Michelle!” Gunner called. We heard him shut the<br />
front door behind us.<br />
“Hi, Gunner!” she shouted back, pulling her pin-straight<br />
butt-length black hair back into a ponytail so she wouldn’t get it on<br />
her pizza. I’d been trying to grow my own hair as long as hers for<br />
years but it never quite got past my elbows.<br />
We plopped down in front of the TV with several slices<br />
apiece and immediately turned on <strong>The</strong> Departed. Gunner came to sit<br />
down with us, but he had one of his ghost research books with him,<br />
so it was apparent that he would only be half-involved in the<br />
conversation. Trouble situated his skinny body on the floor between<br />
my friend and me, with his head resting on the couch for best crumbcatching<br />
access.<br />
“So how has your week been?” Michelle asked through a<br />
mouthful of cheese. “I feel like we’ve barely seen each other yet this<br />
summer!”<br />
32
“To be fair, you’re working two jobs,” I replied, sucking<br />
some sauce off my thumb.<br />
“That is fair,” she agreed. “But you should see the student<br />
loans I’m racking up at school down in Jersey. I gotta save some<br />
money.”<br />
“I hear you,” I reassured her as I very attractively guzzled an<br />
entire crust in one bite.<br />
“How was school this semester?” Gunner piped up.<br />
“It was school, you know. How was school for you?” she<br />
asked. “Or more importantly, how’s your summer going?”<br />
He shrugged, looking up at us over his book. “It’s okay. I’m<br />
not doing much. Timmy Johansson keeps telling me he has a ghost<br />
in his house but he won’t let me come over and see it.”<br />
Michelle immediately whipped around. “Oh, my gosh, that’s<br />
right. How was your ghost hunting class? You never gave me the<br />
full details.”<br />
I dabbed my napkin at my face in a very ladylike manner to<br />
make up for the beastly way I had wolfed down my pizza. “It was<br />
actually surprisingly interesting.”<br />
Her heavily-lined eyes widened. “You’re shitting me.”<br />
“Not. I actually enjoyed it. I made friends with one of the<br />
group members and I’ve been asking him questions about it. He<br />
wants me to try it out for myself.”<br />
“Hold on. ‘He’?” She wiggled her eyebrows.<br />
“Yes, he. But not he he. He’s kind of geeky. Like, really pale<br />
and scrawny.” Instantly I felt bad for saying that, but I had to dismiss<br />
any ideas she was getting that I might be interested in Tucker.<br />
She nodded, looking a little disappointed. Michelle never<br />
really dated any boys, since she was agonizingly shy around anyone<br />
that wasn’t me. So she liked to try and live vicariously through my<br />
experiences. Which, let me tell you, were not all that many.<br />
“His name’s Tucker. He owns <strong>The</strong> End Shelf, which is<br />
where they had the class. I went back a few times with some<br />
questions from both Gunner and myself, and then we hung out on<br />
Sunday night.”<br />
33
This time her eyebrows turned downward. “You hung out<br />
with him? You don’t even know who he is. Except he’s into that<br />
weird ghost hunting stuff.”<br />
“I resent that,” Gunner piped up.<br />
“Not you, Gunner. You know you’re like my son.”<br />
“Heaven forbid,” he quipped.<br />
“It’s not that weird. Well, I mean, it is weird, but it’s not<br />
what I thought it was going to be at all. It’s not all pentagrams and<br />
sheep’s blood or anything. <strong>The</strong>y are actually really respectful and<br />
scientific.” I tried not to get defensive, but I felt my blood getting a<br />
little heated up. I didn’t want her to think I was being silly or<br />
irresponsible. Tucker wasn’t dangerous, and as far as I could tell,<br />
neither was ghost hunting.<br />
Michelle didn’t look convinced at all. She had stopped eating<br />
her pizza and was staring at me with a concerned expression<br />
distorting the thousands of freckles on her nose.<br />
“Look, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m not, like,<br />
going and hanging out at his house or anything where he could trap<br />
me in his basement and sacrifice me to Beelzebub. We hung out<br />
down in Bethany at Joe Bean’s for a few hours. And I swear, ghost<br />
hunting isn’t what we thought it was going to be.”<br />
At that point, Trouble decided that pizza crumbs weren’t<br />
worth sitting through the tension in the room, so he got up and<br />
padded away. A few moments later I heard his nails clicking on the<br />
floor in the kitchen as he tried his luck with the scraps in there.<br />
“She’s right, Michelle,” Gunner came to my defense. “It’s<br />
not like you see in the movies. I mean, it could be, but the chances<br />
of that are so small. And Chelsea could get out of a bad situation<br />
before it got really bad. She’s not in any danger. Plus, Tucker has<br />
been doing this for years. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s<br />
not a crack head.”<br />
“How do you know this?” I demanded.<br />
“I emailed him. I wanted to make sure he was a reliable<br />
source. And I wanted to make sure he was nice.” My brother’s face<br />
was as red as my hair.<br />
34
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hit him or hug him. It was sweet<br />
that he wanted to look out for me, but I didn’t need a ten-year-old<br />
watching what I was doing. I didn’t need Michelle giving me that<br />
disapproving look, either. I was taking an interest in something that<br />
had always scared me and facing down one of my fears, and now<br />
everyone else was nervous for me. How was I ever going to shake it<br />
off if they were still hanging on to it for me?<br />
“Look, can we change the subject?” I requested. “I would<br />
like to enjoy Mark Wahlberg without being lectured, if that’s all<br />
right with you two.”<br />
“That is more than all right with me!” Michelle agreed,<br />
hunkering down into the pillows in the corner of the couch. “We<br />
should have picked a shirtless one, though.”<br />
Gunner finished the conversation with a distinct “Eww.”<br />
35
Chapter Four<br />
I spent the following day thinking hard about Michelle’s<br />
reaction to my new found interest in the paranormal. We had the<br />
coveted “best friends since kindergarten” label that girls always read<br />
about in books or saw in movies but couldn’t actually maintain.<br />
She’d always been supportive of anything I did, even when I decided<br />
not to go away to school so I could stay home and make money to<br />
help out my dad. But now that I was standing up in the face of<br />
something she knew terrified me, rather than being happy and<br />
encouraging me, she was being overly cautious.<br />
Granted, ghost hunting wasn’t exactly the same as school or<br />
a job, and not that long ago I had been reacting the same way to it.<br />
But if I was telling her that it was okay, then she should have trusted<br />
me. I had never done anything overly stupid in the entire time she<br />
had known me, which was a good three quarters of our lives. I mean,<br />
sure, there had been the one time I smoked because my longtime<br />
crush Aidan Jenkins offered it to me. And there were other times<br />
when I had a little too much to drink at a football game and spent<br />
the rest of the night puking at her house. But those were honest<br />
mistakes that probably ninety percent of kids will fall for at some<br />
point. For the most part, I had always been smart and level-headed<br />
and capable of making my own decisions.<br />
In retrospect, maybe it was the opposition that pushed me to<br />
text Tucker. Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need<br />
anybody’s approval. Ghost hunting was interesting to me and I<br />
wanted to learn more about it. And all I had to do was type, “Hey,<br />
when can I come along for an investigation?” and send it his way.<br />
Rather than texting me back, he called me up about half an<br />
hour later when the store was empty and told me that his group had<br />
a local investigation scheduled for Friday night. I was welcome to<br />
tag along because he was in charge of it. Normally on a Friday night<br />
I would have been working the late shift at the theater, but since<br />
Thursday was a midnight release of a major superhero blockbuster,<br />
my schedule had switched a little. I had the green light to go.<br />
“Count me in.”<br />
36
As Friday approached all too quickly, my nerves stretched<br />
tighter and tighter inside me. I almost called Tucker and backed out<br />
about thirty times over the course of three days, but every time I held<br />
strong. Gunner was practically writhing on the floor with envy, and<br />
when I bumped into my dad in the kitchen Thursday morning, he<br />
was ten brands of enthusiastic. I didn’t mention it to Michelle, and<br />
she didn’t ask.<br />
Finally, it was 5:00 on Friday night, and I was in my room<br />
hopping out of a towel and into a pair of jeans. What were you<br />
supposed to wear to a paranormal investigation? I picked the jeans<br />
because, well, I always wore jeans. But as far as shirts went, were<br />
flashy colors a no-no? Did we need to look professional? Should I<br />
dress warm in case the people had their air conditioning on killer<br />
high? Or would they need to keep the AC turned off in case of<br />
allegedly ghost-caused cold spots?<br />
Gosh, I was spending more time trying to pick out an outfit<br />
for a ghost hunt than I did for senior prom. Finally I decided on a<br />
black polo, which seemed to be the most ambivalent item I could<br />
find.<br />
Once I was dressed, I headed out into the family room for a<br />
better view of the street. Gunner was perched stiffly quite literally<br />
on the very edge of the big arm chair in the corner, his eyes wide as<br />
he scanned the pages of the book in his lap.<br />
“You okay, Killer?” I asked. “You look like you just pooped<br />
yourself.”<br />
He took a few seconds more to finish reading whatever<br />
sentence he was on before raising his eyes very calmly. Regardless<br />
of how engrossed he had been, I hadn’t startled him in the least. <strong>The</strong><br />
kid was way too desensitized from all those horror movies. “I’m<br />
fine. I’m reading the story behind the Amityville Horror.”<br />
“Oh, sounds like wholesome family fun. Please refrain from<br />
sharing until after I’ve marched into the ghost pit,” I requested,<br />
planting myself on the couch across from him.<br />
Gunner sighed longingly and closed his book, being sure to<br />
use his index finger to hold his place. God forbid he should fold a<br />
corner. “You are so lucky.”<br />
37
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.” I attempted a laugh, but the sound<br />
was so hollow it barely made it past my lips. My heart was pounding<br />
out a hectic death metal beat inside my chest. Throughout my entire<br />
body, my nerves were pulled so tight they felt like they could snap<br />
at any second. My whole being was on complete alert, and I wasn’t<br />
even in the people’s house yet.<br />
“You should tie your hair back,” he suggested. “This way<br />
strands won’t get in any pictures and make people think you caught<br />
something you really didn’t.”<br />
“Thank you, Jason Hawes.” I reached forward to the coffee<br />
table and started digging through the piles of books, papers, and<br />
various other goodies that had accumulated over the months. After<br />
a moment, I found a little hair tie, and I pulled my hair away from<br />
my face and into a ponytail.<br />
Just as I dropped my hands back into my lap, headlights<br />
beamed in the window as a car pulled into our driveway. “I must<br />
go,” I said dramatically as I rose from my seat. “Charon is here to<br />
ferry me to the underworld.”<br />
Gunner’s eyebrows turned downward. “Don’t joke about<br />
that, Chelsea. You might be scared and want to make it into<br />
something silly, but it’s not. <strong>The</strong>se are the spirits of real people<br />
you’re dealing with, and you need to treat them with the same<br />
respect you would someone alive.”<br />
I blinked, searching for some kind of response to that. My<br />
ten-year-old brother had just lectured me on being respectful and<br />
serious. When had he turned into Mom?<br />
Finally I just nodded and agreed. “Okay, Gun. I’m sorry. I’ll<br />
be serious.”<br />
“You don’t have to say sorry to me,” he said dismissively as<br />
he opened up his book again. “It’s not my house you’re going to<br />
mess up if you don’t be careful.”<br />
Well, this had certainly put a new spin on things. I had been<br />
so concerned with how I was going to react to the things that might<br />
happen during the investigation, I hadn’t actually considered the<br />
people living in the house or the spirits themselves. I was in such<br />
38
deep thought that I actually missed the handle on Tucker’s little<br />
silver Chevy Cobalt when I reached for it.<br />
After successfully gripping the handle and opening the door,<br />
I dropped into the fabric of the passenger seat and announced, “I’m<br />
just getting all my klutzy out now so I don’t knock stuff over at the<br />
investigation. Do not judge me.”<br />
He already had a big grin on his face. Luckily, I seemed to<br />
have dressed appropriately, because he was wearing just a plain<br />
black t-shirt and jeans. “Too late. How are you doing? Nervous?”<br />
“Does nervous mean hovering on the possibility of running<br />
for the hills at any given moment? <strong>The</strong>n yes, I’m nervous.” I was<br />
pleasantly surprised by the lack of air freshener inside his car. It<br />
actually smelled a lot like the inside of <strong>The</strong> End Shelf, and when I<br />
glanced over my shoulder and saw the array of books strewn across<br />
the back seat, I recognized why.<br />
“You’ll be fine,” he reassured me as he moved the shift stick<br />
and started backing out of the driveway. “You worry too much.”<br />
“I’m facing one of my biggest fears. I am maybe going to<br />
come face to face with flying household objects, slamming doors,<br />
freezing cold spots, and random fires starting spontaneously in<br />
fireplaces. I think I’m worried just the right amount.”<br />
Tucker was still smiling as he shook his head. “If you’re that<br />
worried, I brought something that might calm you down. Reach<br />
under your seat; there should be a little box.”<br />
I did as I was instructed and my fingers closed on a small<br />
cardboard box, like the type jewelry came in. “Do you need me to<br />
put your earrings in for you?”<br />
He laughed. “Just open it.”<br />
When I pulled off the lid, I saw that the box was packed with<br />
all different types of crystals and stones. My eyebrows lifted off as<br />
I scanned all the various shapes, sizes, and colors. “<strong>The</strong>se are all<br />
yours?”<br />
“Yes, ma’am. I figured you could use a little extra security<br />
and protection. I brought the ones I thought might be useful to you<br />
at this point in your ghost hunting career. You can pick whichever<br />
ones call to you.”<br />
39
“That was so thoughtful!” I was genuinely touched by his<br />
gesture. But not too touched to refrain from corny jokes. I leaned<br />
down and put my ear to the box. “I can’t hear any of them calling.”<br />
“You know, it’s a long walk to Rhodesville from here,” he<br />
threatened with mock severity.<br />
I grinned and surveyed the variety of stones in the box. My<br />
eyes kept coming back to a jagged-looking black piece about an inch<br />
long.<br />
When I picked it up, Tucker glanced over and nodded.<br />
“That’s black tourmaline. It’s supposed to create a powerful<br />
protection against negative energy.”<br />
After another moment or two, I selected another, smaller<br />
stone. This one was smooth and roundish, and it was kind of a<br />
transparent gray-brown color. I was proud to recognize it from the<br />
charts I’d been looking at online. “This is smoky quartz, isn’t it?”<br />
“Yup. It’s funny that your nervous self picked that one out;<br />
it’s supposed to be calming. It’s also good for shielding from<br />
negative energy.”<br />
I replaced the lid on the box of stones and slipped it back<br />
under the seat. <strong>The</strong>n I held one of mine in each hand and sat back.<br />
“Thank you. I really appreciate this.”<br />
“Don’t worry about it. I’d never send you in to any<br />
investigation totally unprepared. When we get there we’re going to<br />
ground ourselves, too.” He looked over my way and smiled again.<br />
“I know you can do this, Chelsea. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t<br />
think you were capable.”<br />
I don’t know if it was his reassuring words, smile, or maybe<br />
even the stones in my hand, but I could feel my nerves calming. My<br />
body was still alert and excited, but the anxiety was definitely<br />
lessening. It felt more like anticipation than terror.<br />
He reached forward and pressed the power button on the<br />
dashboard. Even though I wasn’t a huge classic rock fan, any<br />
musical ignoramus could have recognized the warble of Robert<br />
Plant that emanated from the speakers.<br />
“Is Led Zeppelin always the pre-hunt music?” I asked.<br />
“Only when I feel particularly awesome,” he replied.<br />
40
<strong>The</strong> rest of the drive didn’t take very long; Rhodesville was<br />
only half an hour west of my house. I had never been there before,<br />
but it turned out to be a very upscale neighborhood. <strong>The</strong> houses were<br />
big enough for Godzilla to live comfortably in. In fact, he probably<br />
could have had a T-Rex and King Kong as roommates and they<br />
would all have had plenty of space.<br />
We pulled up in front of this massive white mansion with<br />
about ten billion windows and two stone lions on either side of the<br />
door, which was probably a mile away from the sidewalk across a<br />
perfect green lawn. Its pristine condition made it look brand new,<br />
which confused me until I remembered what Tucker had said about<br />
ghosts not always haunting where they died. <strong>The</strong> house didn’t have<br />
to be old to be haunted.<br />
“Welcome to the home of the Masons,” Tucker introduced<br />
me as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I’m not going to give you any<br />
information on the activity they’ve reported, this way any evidence<br />
you find will be unbiased. Nobody else in the group knows anything<br />
about the family’s claims, either. Just me.”<br />
I nodded. “Fair enough.”<br />
We parked in the street right behind a black Mazda 3, and<br />
now people were starting to climb out of it. Before I had time to get<br />
a good look at them, Tucker was opening his door and stepping out,<br />
so I followed his lead.<br />
“Hi, guys,” he greeted his teammates casually as he went<br />
around to the trunk of his car. “This is Chelsea.”<br />
“Hi, Chelsea,” one girl greeted me brightly. If I needed<br />
anyone to disprove the image of pale, creepy ghost hunters who<br />
sacrificed animals in their mom’s basements by candlelight, she was<br />
it. She had bleach-blonde hair that was almost as long as Michelle’s,<br />
and she was actually super tan. On top of that, she was totally<br />
gorgeous, with these dainty little sharp features and a good amount<br />
of makeup coating her eyes. She looked more like someone you’d<br />
see in Playboy than someone who spent her time running around<br />
talking to things she couldn’t see. “Tucker told us you’d be coming<br />
to observe. I’m Susannah.”<br />
41
Susannah. As in, Tucker’s friend who had the haunted dorm<br />
room? I couldn’t help but grin and wonder if they’d ever hooked up.<br />
He was so dorky and she was so ... well, hot.<br />
Jotting on a mental post-it to interrogate him later, I reached<br />
out to shake her hand. It was super soft and perfectly manicured.<br />
“Nice to meet you.”<br />
“I’m Ethan,” the next occupant of the black car piped up as<br />
he approached. His hands were busy holding two bulky black<br />
equipment cases, but he nodded at me. He had a mane of blond hair<br />
that fell around his shoulders and a scruffy beard that made him look<br />
an awful lot like a really short, much-less-jacked version of Thor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> last two members of the group were an older man with<br />
thinning silver hair named Brad and a tall woman in her thirties with<br />
a sleek brown bob named Adrian.<br />
Once the introductions were made, Tucker handed me an<br />
equipment case. “Here you go, Chelsea. Anything in there, feel free<br />
to use. <strong>The</strong>y’re all my extras.”<br />
“Thank you!” I figured that he would give me one or two<br />
things to use, but I hadn’t expected an entire case full. I reached out<br />
to take it from him and my arm dropped a few inches from the<br />
sudden weight. “Gosh, what’s in here?”<br />
“Two flashlights, a digital camera, a digital voice recorder,<br />
two different EMF meters, and a lot of extra batteries.” He grinned<br />
at me, and then he turned to face the rest of the group. <strong>The</strong> sun was<br />
tucking itself into the horizon and the sky around us was painted<br />
different shades of pink. I was standing on a sidewalk surrounded<br />
by a group of very normal looking people. All of them seemed<br />
friendly and enthusiastic, and the one in charge was quickly<br />
becoming a good friend. It was definitely not at all what I had<br />
expected.<br />
“Alright, everyone. I think that both Mr. and Mrs. Mason<br />
will be home tonight, but I made sure they know they need to sit<br />
quietly and not follow us around while we’re working. We’ll go in<br />
and set up base camp in the kitchen, and then we’ll do a walkthrough<br />
of the house and figure out where everyone wants to start. Ethan and<br />
Susannah will be one group, and Brad and Adrian will be the other.<br />
42
Chelsea will stick with me.” As Tucker spoke, the traces of the<br />
geeky bookworm I’d befriended were melting away. He was<br />
suddenly confident and his presence was expanding around him.<br />
“Before we go in, Brad, do you think you could lead us in<br />
grounding ourselves? It’s Chelsea’s first time.”<br />
He nodded and began, “Close your eyes.” I waited to see<br />
that everyone else did before I complied. I couldn’t help feeling a<br />
little silly, but I definitely wanted to be as safe as possible. I was<br />
acutely aware of the stones in my pockets. “Feel your feet on the<br />
ground. Feel the earth beneath them. Your spirit is safe in your body.<br />
Your soul is sovereign. Bring your energy close to you. Now<br />
envision your shield around you.”<br />
I tried my best to follow his instructions. I wasn’t sure if I<br />
was doing it right, but it wasn’t like I was making a paper airplane<br />
and could show it to them and ask what I did wrong. I took a bunch<br />
of deep breaths and tried repeating what he had said. My spirit is<br />
safe. I am safe.<br />
“Is everybody ready?” Tucker’s voice broke my<br />
concentration and I opened my eyes, feeling strangely groggy,<br />
almost like I’d been asleep. Damn, maybe there was something to<br />
that meditation and grounding stuff.<br />
After the chorus of yeses, we all started up the cement path<br />
leading to the front door. Tucker stepped into place in the front, but<br />
I fell to the back. I figured being the least professional and<br />
experienced, I should probably bring up the rear and let the more<br />
confident folks approach the homeowners first.<br />
“Susannah, can we be Team Ramrod?” Ethan asked.<br />
“Um, only always,” she replied.<br />
So Tucker wasn’t the only one who could reference<br />
awesome movies. Man, had I ever been wrong about the ghost<br />
hunter stereotype I’d created in my head.<br />
Mr. Mason answered the front door with his wife practically<br />
clinging to him. <strong>The</strong>y both looked to be in their late forties, and<br />
although he was significantly steadier on his feet than she was, both<br />
of their faces were drawn and pale. I recognized that expression. It<br />
was the look I got whenever I realized my dad was watching a horror<br />
43
movie and bolted from the room. That was fear. <strong>The</strong>se grown people<br />
were afraid of the ghost in their house.<br />
On one hand, this was sort of reassuring, because it showed<br />
me I wasn’t a total baby for being afraid. On the other hand, it<br />
completely shattered the security I had been building in the car ride<br />
and after the grounding out front. If whatever was in their house<br />
could have scared them that much, then it had to be bad. Didn’t it?<br />
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Mason. I’m Tucker Hamilton. I’m the<br />
team leader for the group today.” Tucker was using the same voice<br />
that he did to reassure me.<br />
Mrs. Mason stayed behind her husband, but Mr. Mason<br />
shook the hand that Tucker offered him. “Thank you so much for<br />
coming. What can we do?”<br />
“We’d like to set up base camp in the kitchen, if that’s all<br />
right with you. <strong>The</strong>n we would like to do a walkthrough of your<br />
house so we know where we’re going tonight.”<br />
We filed into the kitchen and the team set down their cases<br />
on the empty table. <strong>The</strong>n, the Masons led us through the rooms one<br />
by one. <strong>The</strong> tour probably took about half an hour. <strong>The</strong>y had four<br />
bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and thirty thousand bathrooms.<br />
Well, that was a slight exaggeration, but only slight. <strong>The</strong> whole time,<br />
Adrian had an EMF meter out and she stuck the device in every last<br />
corner of every room. I actually remembered from the class that this<br />
was just taking note of any spots in the house that had naturally high<br />
readings. This way the investigators would know the difference<br />
between a natural cause and a paranormal cause.<br />
Once Tucker seemed satisfied that we would all know our<br />
way around, he took us back to the kitchen. Everyone began opening<br />
their cases and picking out the equipment that they wanted to use.<br />
Brad and Ethan pulled out a massive camera on a tripod and started<br />
discussing the best place to position it. Tucker took the Masons into<br />
another room, leaving me feeling very stranded in a sea of technical<br />
gadgets.<br />
Susannah shifted her case so she could stand next to me as<br />
she unloaded it. “You want to take both flashlights, in case one runs<br />
44
out of batteries or stops working. We always want to be able to see.<br />
And make sure they both work first.”<br />
“Thank you,” I breathed gratefully, and I followed her<br />
instructions. When I turned on the first flashlight, I raised my<br />
eyebrows in surprise. “It’s red!”<br />
She smiled, displaying perfect white teeth. Jeez, I’d like to<br />
go to her dentist. “That’s because red light is the only color that our<br />
eyes don’t have to adjust to.”<br />
“Oh.” I stuck one flashlight in my pocket and put the other<br />
one on the counter for the time being. “What else do you think is<br />
good to take?”<br />
“Since Tucker’s the team leader, he’s going to be sort of<br />
wandering in between the rooms, keeping an eye on us and making<br />
sure we don’t need any help. You guys won’t be investigating the<br />
same way that we are, but I’m sure you’ll have plenty of chances to<br />
snap pictures. And the voice recorder you can just leave on<br />
constantly, even if you aren’t comfortable asking questions yet. Or<br />
you can take an EMF meter, and any time you get a spike you know<br />
to start taking pictures like crazy!”<br />
I decided I might as well just grab everything. I stuffed a few<br />
extra pairs of batteries in my back pocket, the EMF meter in one<br />
front pocket and the recorder in the other. Once my jeans were<br />
completely stuffed with equipment, I picked up the camera and<br />
flashlight and squared my feet. “Okay, I’m ready.”<br />
By that time, Tucker had returned to the kitchen, and among<br />
the five of them they managed to figure out where to place their<br />
motion detectors and video cameras. After everything was in place<br />
and every member had the appropriate equipment, it was time to<br />
split up. Brad and Adrian elected to start on the second floor, and<br />
Susannah and Ethan took the first.<br />
“Now, remember,” Tucker said as we waited for the first<br />
team to get situated upstairs, “if you’re going to take a picture, say<br />
‘flash’ beforehand so we know to brace ourselves. And if you set off<br />
any other equipment or make a noise by accident, let everyone know<br />
that it was you.”<br />
“How do we let the people on the other floor know?” I asked.<br />
45
Ethan popped a little black device out of a holder on his belt<br />
and wiggled it in front of him. “Walkie-talkies!”<br />
As if on cue, his crackled and Adrian’s voice came through<br />
the speaker. “Okay, we’re all set. Lights out?”<br />
Tucker reached out and rested a hand gently on my shoulder.<br />
“You ready, Chelsea?”<br />
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs so much they started to<br />
hurt. <strong>The</strong> inside of the house didn’t look creepy at all; it looked<br />
pretty and clean and normal. All the furniture was modern and<br />
brightly colored. It didn’t have the “haunted mansion” feel at all.<br />
And all of the people I was with were very nice and helpful. Plus,<br />
Tucker would be with me the whole time.<br />
Was I scared? Shitless.<br />
Was I ready to prove I could do it anyway? Hell, yeah.<br />
“I’m ready,” I announced with a nod.<br />
Ethan radioed back to the upstairs team, “We’re all set, too.<br />
Lights out.”<br />
“Good luck, Chelsea,” Susannah offered encouragingly.<br />
“We’ll be right here if you need anything.”<br />
With that, Tucker started towards the doorway that led into<br />
the hall. I hurried after him, so when he stopped with his hand on<br />
the light switch, I had to put major brakes on so I didn’t barrel right<br />
into him and jab him in the butt with a flashlight. He moved his hand<br />
and the room fell into darkness behind us. Next, he moved into the<br />
hallway, and flipped that switch. I followed him to each room,<br />
leaving them black and creepy behind us.<br />
Finally, we reached the front hallway where we had entered.<br />
<strong>The</strong> chandelier above us was the last light on in the entire house. I<br />
took this opportunity to click on my flashlight, but the red glow<br />
seemed so weak compared to the ominous darkness.<br />
“Lights out,” Tucker repeated, and with one violent kick of<br />
my heart, he turned off the last switch.<br />
46
Chapter Five<br />
I may have been scared of ghosts, but I was never scared of<br />
the dark. I was scared of what was lurking in the dark; reaching out<br />
from the corners where we couldn’t see. I was the little girl who<br />
would turn off her light and do a flying leap onto her bed so<br />
whatever was lurking under it wouldn’t be able to grab her by the<br />
ankles. I was that little girl yesterday.<br />
So, naturally, when we were left in complete blackness,<br />
sweat started to bead on my forehead and my heart started<br />
hammering a hole in my chest. I waved my red light around, but all<br />
I could see was a small circle wherever the beam went.<br />
“Okay, where should we head first?” Tucker’s voice came<br />
out of the darkness. He sounded the same as he did when we were<br />
talking in front of Joe Bean’s — completely calm and normal. This<br />
was nothing new to him. He did investigations in the dark all the<br />
time and he was fine.<br />
“Umm ...” I tried to breathe and calm myself down. It was<br />
okay. Tucker was right there, Susannah and Ethan were in the<br />
kitchen, Adrian and Brad were upstairs, and the Masons were in the<br />
living room sitting on the couch. <strong>The</strong> living had to outnumber the<br />
dead in the house.<br />
“Hey. It’s okay. We only turn the lights out because it will<br />
minimize distraction and heighten all our other senses. <strong>The</strong> ghosts<br />
aren’t any more present or powerful now than they were with the<br />
lights on. <strong>The</strong>y’re off for our benefit.”<br />
Okay. That was a little reassuring. A little.<br />
After a few minutes, my eyes did adjust a little to the<br />
darkness. I still couldn’t see much, but it wasn’t completely black<br />
all around me at least. And I figured out the best way to position the<br />
flashlight so I could see what was in front of me.<br />
“I think we’ll go and sit with the Masons for a little bit. Make<br />
sure they’re okay,” he decided for me.<br />
I nodded and then realized he couldn’t see me, so I managed<br />
to say, “Okay.” I concentrated on breathing steadily and focusing on<br />
47
grounding myself like we had outside. Was it my imagination, or<br />
did the rocks in my pockets feel sort of warm?<br />
Tucker turned on his own flashlight, and I kept my beam<br />
trained on him so I could follow him through the house. When we<br />
got to the living room, he reminded me to watch my step, because it<br />
was sunken below the rest of the floor. “That’s probably the most<br />
dangerous thing you’re going to come in contact with tonight,” he<br />
said.<br />
“How is it going?” Mrs. Mason asked as we walked in,<br />
speaking up for the first time.<br />
“It’s going fine,” he told her. “We’re just getting started.<br />
We’re going to go for an hour and then switch places. Are you doing<br />
okay?”<br />
“We’re a little nervous,” Mr. Mason admitted. “We never<br />
leave all the lights off any more.”<br />
That sounded like me. Whenever I was home alone, I always<br />
made sure I left some lights on. Sometimes all of them. It was just<br />
more comforting to be able to see.<br />
“Don’t be,” Tucker reassured them. “You’re going to be<br />
fine. Our team member Brad is very sensitive, so any spirits that are<br />
here will probably be attracted to him. It’s like if there’s a room full<br />
of people and most of them speak Spanish but two of them speak<br />
English. <strong>The</strong> two who speak the same language are going to<br />
gravitate to each other. Why bother trying to talk to someone who<br />
can’t understand you? It’s the same with spirits. If someone is more<br />
aware of them, they’ll probably head in that direction.”<br />
“Is he, like, a psychic?” Mrs. Mason asked.<br />
“Not quite. He can’t predict the future or anything. But he<br />
can feel their presence. Sometimes he can see them. Everyone has<br />
the ability, but he’s a lot more in touch with his.”<br />
I actually found myself enjoying this. Since the Masons were<br />
so nervous, Tucker was trying to ease their anxiety, but he was<br />
easing mine at the same time.<br />
Unfortunately, as team leader, he had a job to do, so we<br />
couldn’t stay there forever. Once he was sure that the couple would<br />
48
e okay, he led the way out of the room and back into the kitchen,<br />
where Ethan was perched on a stool.<br />
I was about to ask where Susannah was, since I knew they<br />
had a rule of never leaving an investigator alone, but then her voice<br />
came from one corner. “We just want to ask you some questions.<br />
We want to learn a little about who you are. Is that okay?”<br />
Tucker didn’t say a word, so I figured he was just observing.<br />
I tried not to shine my flashlight in Ethan’s eyes as I scanned the<br />
kitchen. Had anything changed? Had a ghost moved a chair or a<br />
candle or something? Nope, everything looked the same. Gunner<br />
had told me that it didn’t happen all at once. He said the TV shows<br />
were very misleading in that hardly any cases could get that much<br />
information in one night. An investigation was almost never finished<br />
with just one visit. Most of them yielded little, if any, information.<br />
“Are you a man or a woman?” Susannah asked. <strong>The</strong>n, after<br />
about a thirty second pause, “What’s your name?”<br />
After a little while of listening to her asking a lot of simple<br />
questions, Tucker started to move again. This time, we made our<br />
way upstairs, which wasn’t as challenging as I expected it to be. We<br />
found Adrian and Brad in the master bedroom. Adrian was sitting<br />
on the floor with her back against the front of the massive bed, and<br />
Brad was standing in a corner with some equipment in his hands.<br />
“This thing just spiked to a ‘9.’ Will you take a picture?” His partner<br />
complied, but she must have been using an infrared camera, because<br />
no flash went off.<br />
“Is there someone here with us?” Adrian asked. I caught a<br />
voice recorder resting on the ground in front of her in the beam of<br />
my flashlight.<br />
“Are you over by me?” Brad pressed.<br />
We waited in silence, but no response came. <strong>The</strong>y asked a<br />
lot more questions, but Brad’s EMF reading didn’t rise again.<br />
Eventually, Tucker announced, “Alright, the first hour’s up.<br />
I’ll radio the two downstairs and we’ll switch up rooms. You guys<br />
done up here?”<br />
Adrian nodded. “We went through most of the bedrooms<br />
before we came in here and didn’t feel anything. We’ll see if<br />
49
Susannah and Ethan spend a lot of time in here, too.” She turned on<br />
her flashlight and started scratching something on a notepad I hadn’t<br />
noticed at her side.<br />
“We try to log everything,” Tucker explained. “From noises<br />
or sights to just feelings. Even if you randomly feel hungry, that<br />
might not mean anything to you, but if we tell the Masons, they<br />
might always get hungry in this same spot. And that might be<br />
something worth noticing.”<br />
“I see,” I murmured.<br />
After a few moments, Adrian and Brad had packed up their<br />
things, and they traded places with Susannah and Ethan.<br />
Surprisingly, the first place the pair decided to come was the master<br />
bedroom. Had there been a ghost there? I hadn’t noticed anything<br />
unusual about the room at all. I might have just been in the same<br />
room as a spirit and nothing bad had happened at all. Interesting.<br />
Tucker led me out of the room again and into a different<br />
bedroom. It looked like it belonged to a child; there were toys in a<br />
corner and the bed was a twin covered in Toy Story sheets. He sat<br />
down on it lightly and patted the spot next to him. “You feel like<br />
trying to have a little conversation with whoever’s here?”<br />
I took the seat at his side and pulled my digital voice recorder<br />
out of my pocket. “<strong>The</strong>y keep asking questions but getting nothing.”<br />
“Not necessarily. <strong>The</strong>y could be getting EVPs. I know<br />
you’ve heard of that. It stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena. All<br />
it means is a sound we don’t hear at the time, but when we play it<br />
back on the recording, it’s there. That’s really what we’re trying for<br />
— something caught on the recording.”<br />
“What would I do without you?” I laughed nervously.<br />
“Well, you probably wouldn’t be here in the first place. Do<br />
you realize you’ve been in the dark in a haunted house for an hour<br />
now and you’re completely fine?”<br />
This was relatively true. While I was not completely fine —<br />
there was something of a hurricane going on inside me, specifically<br />
in the fearful section of my brain — I had not run screaming as I<br />
half-expected to. I had stuck it out, and now that he pointed it out, I<br />
50
was definitely less frightened than I had been when we first turned<br />
off the lights.<br />
“Look at me. I’m a professional already. Now, how do I use<br />
this thing?” <strong>The</strong> voice recorder had so many buttons, I worried I<br />
might touch one and it would self-destruct.<br />
He leaned over and pressed the appropriate button, and a<br />
little red light came on in the corner of the machine. “This is Tucker<br />
and Chelsea in the Toy Story bedroom at 10:34,” he announced,<br />
presumably for logging purposes and not because he thought I might<br />
have forgotten who we were.<br />
“If there’s anyone in here with us … hello,” he continued.<br />
“I’m Tucker. This is Chelsea. We would love to talk with you.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> silence pounded in my ears as the seconds dragged by.<br />
My heart was throbbing so aggressively, I was amazed that he<br />
couldn’t hear it.<br />
When nothing came, Tucker tried again. “Can you tell me<br />
what year it is?”<br />
Still nothing. How did they do this all the time and not<br />
explode from the suspense?<br />
I felt him turn to face me. “Do you want to ask them<br />
anything?”<br />
“What do I ask?” I knew I would feel silly talking to nothing,<br />
but it was part of the gig. Everyone else was doing it, and they were<br />
all professional and didn’t look funny at all.<br />
“Anything you want. Talk to them like you’re talking to a<br />
person you’ve just met. It’s best to ask questions that would have<br />
simple, short answers. We think it takes a lot of energy for them to<br />
respond so we can hear them, even just on the recorder. And try to<br />
stay away from questions that could be loosely interpreted. Like the<br />
whole ‘Show me a sign of your presence’ deal. <strong>The</strong>y could take that<br />
as a green light to throw Woody over there at you. You need to be<br />
specific.”<br />
“Oh. Good. How comforting. If I ask the wrong thing, I<br />
could get hit with a flying cowboy.”<br />
“It might not be a cowboy! It could be the lamp, if they’re<br />
particularly strong.”<br />
51
What? I whipped my flashlight up to his face in horror, but<br />
he was smiling. Oh. He was joking. Lighten up, Chelsea.<br />
Okay, focus. What to ask the mysterious spirits? I could copy<br />
something I’d heard the other investigators asking. That would be<br />
safe. But if I was the ghost and had people repeating questions, I’d<br />
probably get bored or annoyed after a while. Better to ask it<br />
something original.<br />
Finally, I blurted, “What’s your favorite color?” Oh, yes.<br />
Very original. 100 percent pure Chelsea.<br />
I glanced at Tucker, expecting him to laugh at me, but he<br />
was just looking down at the EMF meter he had pulled out of his<br />
pocket. After a moment, he stood up and walked over to the corner,<br />
holding the meter in front of him.<br />
Hmm. Apparently that question was appropriate. I tried to<br />
think of what else I would ask someone when getting to know them.<br />
What had Tucker and I talked about? Oh, yeah! “Do you like<br />
music?” I waited a few seconds, as the others had, and added,<br />
“What’s your favorite song?”<br />
“Chelsea! Take a picture of me,” my partner spoke up. “I just<br />
got a massive spike over here.”<br />
I fumbled for my camera. “Get ready for a flash!” I snapped<br />
five pictures as quickly as the little machine would take them. Each<br />
time, the bright white light lit up the entire room and blinded us.<br />
After the last time, I found myself blinking as my eyes tried to adjust<br />
again to the darkness.<br />
He thanked me and continued taking readings along the wall.<br />
After a while, I ran dry of questions, and Tucker had run the<br />
EMF meter through every inch of air in the room. He turned towards<br />
me. “We would like to thank anyone who shared anything with us<br />
tonight.” <strong>The</strong>n he nodded at the recorder. “You can turn it off if you<br />
want and we can go check on the others.”<br />
I pressed the same button he had and the red light<br />
disappeared. I replaced the tiny machine in my pocket and stood up<br />
to follow him out the door.<br />
After a brief walkie-talkie announcement, we all migrated<br />
back downstairs to the kitchen.<br />
52
“How is everybody doing?” Tucker asked. Susannah and<br />
Ethan had moved to a different bedroom, and both of them looked<br />
pretty bored when we walked in. “Can we switch up places? We’re<br />
not getting anything,” Susannah requested.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> upstairs was pretty dead,” Ethan said.<br />
“We’re getting a few things down here,” Adrian spoke up.<br />
“But we’d like to go back upstairs again before we leave if that’s<br />
okay.”<br />
“That’s fine. It’s 11:30, and we told them we might be here<br />
as late as 1,” Tucker agreed.<br />
Once the groups dispersed again, we stopped in to check on<br />
the Masons, who were both fast asleep on the couch. All that fear<br />
must have really worn them out. My body was definitely starting to<br />
feel it, too. Even though on a normal Friday night I’d still be out<br />
with Michelle at this time, I was getting pretty damn tired.<br />
When we got back into the hallway, Tucker asked me again,<br />
“Where do you want to go?”<br />
This time, I was comfortable enough that I could think<br />
clearly. “Umm ... what about the kids’ playroom? We haven’t really<br />
stopped in there much.”<br />
He raised his arm in the direction of that room. “Lead the<br />
way.”<br />
I wasn’t sure why I wanted to head to the playroom. Really,<br />
there were just more toys there to get thrown at me if I asked the<br />
wrong question. But I remembered it distinctly from the<br />
walkthrough earlier, and it was the first room that popped into my<br />
head.<br />
<strong>The</strong> family either was very impeccable when it came to<br />
cleaning, or they’d gone out of their way to make sure the house<br />
looked spiffy for the investigation. Either way, I was glad, because<br />
there were literally endless amounts of toys in the bins that lined the<br />
room. <strong>The</strong>y were little accidental booby traps waiting to happen.<br />
This particular room was different from the others because<br />
there was an enormous bay window framing the front yard. Even<br />
though there was no streetlamp directly in front of the Masons’<br />
house, there were several dotting the development and they let in<br />
53
enough light for me to be able to see without my flashlight. I turned<br />
it off for the first time and placed it beside me as I settled down with<br />
my back against the wall.<br />
Tucker seated himself on one of the toy bins that<br />
conveniently had a red plastic lid placed over its contents. He leaned<br />
forward a little, resting his arms on his knees and clasping his hands.<br />
He was waiting for me to lead the way.<br />
For a moment, I had to marvel at the absolute incredibleness<br />
of the whole situation. Just a few weeks ago, I would have darted<br />
out of the room at the mere mention of the paranormal. <strong>The</strong>n, all of<br />
a sudden, completely by chance, I took a class and met a guy. That<br />
night something had shifted, and since then, the newborn interest<br />
had been snowballing and growing alarmingly fast. Tonight, I was<br />
doing the unthinkable. I put myself smack-dab in the middle of an<br />
investigation. Now I was sitting in the dark without a flashlight and<br />
the team leader was looking to me to decide how we were going to<br />
handle investigating the room. It was like someone had stuck me in<br />
a toaster. In went the old, dull, plain Chelsea, and out popped a new,<br />
adventurous, and delightfully crispy Chelsea!<br />
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the borrowed voice<br />
recorder. Once I turned it on, I placed it carefully on the floor beside<br />
my flashlight. <strong>The</strong>n I pulled my knees up to my chest for some<br />
security and said, “Hi. I’m Chelsea, and this is Tucker. You’ve<br />
probably seen us in some part of the house by now, but in case you<br />
haven’t, we’re here just to talk to anyone who’s hanging around.”<br />
Tucker added, “We would really appreciate it if you could<br />
communicate with us. <strong>The</strong> little device by Chelsea is a recorder, and<br />
if you talk into it, we’ll be able to hear you when we play it back<br />
later.”<br />
Suddenly, the light bulb blinked on over my head. <strong>The</strong><br />
metaphorical one, not the actual one in the room. That would have<br />
been something!<br />
“Am I allowed to take out some toys?” I asked.<br />
“Sure,” he replied with a nod. He didn’t ask why, and I<br />
wasn’t sure if it was because he knew what I was going to do with<br />
them, or if he just trusted me.<br />
54
I reached into the nearest open bin and pulled out a little<br />
stuffed dog, a Barbie, and a truck. Carefully I lined them up in front<br />
of me in a row. I figured that since the last talking session upstairs<br />
had been uneventful — or at least we had to assume so for now — I<br />
would try to give the spirits something else to work with. If they<br />
didn’t feel like using all their energy to shout at us loud enough for<br />
us to hear from their ethereal plane, then maybe they could<br />
communicate another way.<br />
“I put out some toys here,” I announced, as if the ghost had<br />
never seen a toy before. Maybe they were dead long before Barbie<br />
was invented! If that was the case, they were probably wondering<br />
why a blonde, big-boobed woman was dressed as a doctor.<br />
Focus! “If there’s anyone here for us, you can let us know<br />
by moving one of them. You can roll the truck or push over the doll.<br />
Whatever you want to do. But if you can move one, we’ll know that<br />
we’re not alone.” Goosebumps spread up my arms like I had dunked<br />
them in ice. Good word choice, genius.<br />
Tucker pulled his digital camera out and I saw the red light<br />
blink on that meant he was recording. He held it down below his<br />
face so I could try to meet his eyes, but he was watching the screen<br />
instead of me. He hadn’t been breathing down my neck staring at<br />
me the whole time, making sure I didn’t have a heart attack or break<br />
the equipment. He might have been watching out for me, but he<br />
really believed that I could do this myself.<br />
My own confidence boosted by his, I let my feet slide away<br />
from my butt so my legs were straight out in front of me, resting<br />
beside the toys. “You can touch them any time you want. If you still<br />
want to talk to us, feel free. Can you tell me your name?”<br />
Silence descended upon us again as my partner sat still as a<br />
gargoyle across from me and we waited for some kind of response.<br />
Somehow, it wasn’t as frightening as it had been initially. It was<br />
definitely intimidating, but it wasn’t overwhelming. I didn’t want to<br />
run away.<br />
I glanced up from the toys and caught Tucker looking at me<br />
again. <strong>The</strong> faint light from outside illuminated half his face, but it<br />
was easy to see the little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.<br />
55
My face immediately heated up like my body had turned on<br />
a burner beneath it. I wasn’t sure why it decided to flush, but I was<br />
glad for the darkness so he wouldn’t see that my focus had shifted<br />
for a moment. I looked quickly back down at the row of toys.<br />
Just in time to see Barbie topple over.<br />
All my joints locked up. Except my jaw; that dropped open.<br />
I didn’t know what to do. My brain wasn’t working right. Any<br />
logical action to take had completely vanished into the furthest<br />
corner of my brain. My heart had kicked right into overdrive and I<br />
could actually feel the extra blood surging through my body. Every<br />
nerve was telling me to get up and bolt, but I couldn’t move.<br />
Luckily, when I saw the expression on Tucker’s face, I didn’t<br />
feel so silly. He might have been a professional investigator, but his<br />
eyes were wide with excitement and the little smile had transformed<br />
into this massive grin that looked wide enough to hurt. “Did you just<br />
knock over the doll?” he asked whoever was there with us.<br />
“It wasn’t me,” I managed to choke out. Slowly, my body<br />
functions were coming back to me, and I was able to pull my knees<br />
up to my chest again. My heart pounded so loudly in my chest that<br />
I could barely hear what he was saying.<br />
“It wasn’t me, either,” he agreed. “Something else pushed<br />
that Barbie over. And I’ve got it recorded!” He tapped his camera<br />
with one finger, still grinning like a little kid whose parents had just<br />
brought home a puppy.<br />
I started to glance around the room. I wasn’t sure what I<br />
expected to see, but I didn’t find it. <strong>The</strong> whole place was just as<br />
empty as it had been before the doll was pushed over, except that<br />
now we knew that we weren’t the only two in there. Someone had<br />
touched the toy with enough force to knock her off her butt.<br />
Tucker’s enthusiasm carried us the remainder of the time. I<br />
didn’t think my tongue would have been able to form words if I<br />
tried. But he was asking questions like a journalist hunting down a<br />
story. “Thank you so much for moving it. Can you talk to us now?<br />
Can you move the train next? Were you in any other rooms with us?<br />
How long have you been here?”<br />
56
Eventually, Brad’s voice crackled from the walkie-talkie,<br />
asking us if we were ready to pack it up. Since nothing else had<br />
happened since the fall of Barbie, Tucker radioed back that we were<br />
done. He turned off his camera and slid it into his pocket as he stood<br />
up.<br />
I grabbed the recorder in one hand and my flashlight in the<br />
other and shakily got to my feet. My body felt strange after all the<br />
adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins for the last<br />
twenty minutes. I was tired, but also still tingly and fighting hard to<br />
stay alert. Although my legs were wobbly, I managed to follow<br />
along behind Tucker — very closely behind him — out of the room<br />
and down the hall to the kitchen.<br />
This time, he turned on the lights as we went, chasing away<br />
the darkness so it retreated to the closets and behind the furniture.<br />
My heart began to calm down now that I had regained one of my<br />
most important senses, and by the time we got to the kitchen, my<br />
legs felt much more stable.<br />
“How did it go?” Ethan asked as we filed in. <strong>The</strong> other group<br />
was already there, packing their equipment back into the black<br />
cases.<br />
“It went well, thanks,” Tucker responded evenly. I was<br />
surprised for a moment he didn’t blurt out what had just happened,<br />
but then I realized he was acting normal for the sake of the residents.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were already scared and didn’t need to hear snippets of what<br />
had happened and get more freaked out.<br />
I followed their lead and started unloading my pockets back<br />
into their places in the case. Each one had a little spot to fit snugly<br />
in the foam, and it was like that game with matching the shapes with<br />
the holes to put them all away where they belonged. Finally, though,<br />
I managed to get it all sorted out, and I closed the lid and it clicked<br />
into place.<br />
Before we left, Tucker went to speak to the Masons again,<br />
leaving me in the kitchen with the rest of the group. “So, what did<br />
you think of your first investigation?” asked Susannah as she leaned<br />
against the table.<br />
57
“It was, um ...” I fumbled for the words, but they stuck to my<br />
tongue.<br />
She let out a tinkly laugh. “That was how I felt, too. You get<br />
acclimated to them surprisingly fast, but if something happens, it<br />
will almost always surprise you. That’s part of the fun, though.” She<br />
winked her heavily-makeupped lashes at me.<br />
After a moment, Tucker returned to the kitchen. “Let’s move<br />
out.”<br />
I fell into step behind everyone once more, and we filed out<br />
of the kitchen and to the front door. As we passed by the Masons,<br />
they smiled gratefully at us. I think Mrs. Mason even had tears in<br />
her eyes as she waved. <strong>The</strong> both of them looked right at me as I<br />
reached out to grab the door so I could close it behind me, and I felt<br />
the warm fuzzies climbing up inside me. <strong>The</strong>y were genuinely<br />
appreciative that we had just spent a few hours trying to find out<br />
some information to reassure them. And it felt really nice.<br />
“Take care,” I said with what I hoped was a comforting smile<br />
before I pulled the heavy door closed.<br />
We barely made it to the cars before the experiences came<br />
pouring out.<br />
“Chelsea and I saw a toy move!” Tucker exclaimed, all<br />
traces of professionalism having buckled to make way for the<br />
excited little kid I saw earlier.<br />
“Something pulled my hair!” Adrian gushed.<br />
“I kept getting the name Tyler,” Brad announced. “I think<br />
that there was more than one spirit in there, though. I got an image<br />
of a young boy and an older man. I don’t know which one’s name I<br />
was picking up on.”<br />
“Damn, looks like we got the short end this time around,”<br />
Ethan said with a laugh as he popped the trunk so they could load<br />
their cases in.<br />
Susannah piped up, “Who’s in for the diner so we can talk<br />
about how crazy we are in public instead of in front of these poor<br />
people’s house?”<br />
While everyone else chorused that they were definitely in,<br />
Tucker turned my way. I really wasn’t up for going out and hanging<br />
58
out after what had just happened. I wanted time to process the whole<br />
experience, and I couldn’t get that with them all fervently discussing<br />
it like that.<br />
Somehow he must have read it on my face, because he<br />
looked back at the rest of the group and said, “Sorry, guys. Chelsea<br />
and I have plans. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, okay?”<br />
Although they looked disappointed, they all nodded<br />
understandingly. Whether they believed that we had plans or just<br />
knew that the first investigation could be a lot to take in, they were<br />
okay to let us go without argument.<br />
“It was so nice meeting you, Chelsea,” Susannah told me as<br />
she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me in a warm<br />
hug. I wasn’t expecting the gesture, so the best I could do was<br />
awkwardly pat her back. “I hope you’ll come back again. We would<br />
love to have you on board.”<br />
Once the rest of them had all said goodbye and piled into<br />
Ethan’s car, I opened the passenger door — on the first try this time<br />
— to the little Chevy. I dropped into the passenger seat beside<br />
Tucker, who was already turning the key. He looked over at me and<br />
smiled once again. “So, Miss Keller. Let’s talk.”<br />
59
Chapter Six<br />
“First of all, let me just say this: Holy Mother of God.”<br />
Tucker’s laugh filled the car as he pulled away from the<br />
sidewalk. “Yeah. I kinda feel the same way. It’s not often something<br />
that substantial happens.”<br />
“You mean Barbies aren’t always victims of paranormal<br />
activity?” I quipped. Despite the fear that had nearly exploded out<br />
of my chest inside, I found a smile creeping onto my face. I had<br />
really expected to get up and run the hell out of there at the first sign<br />
of a ghost. Instead, I’d been too scared to move. I considered that a<br />
good sign. At least my body reacted the correct way. I imagined that<br />
if I jumped up and dashed away screaming at the top of my lungs,<br />
Susannah would not have invited me to join them again. Ever.<br />
But I didn’t! I managed to stay put. I made it through an<br />
actual paranormal investigation, where there was almost definitely<br />
an actual ghost present. I wasn’t sure how, but that wasn’t important.<br />
<strong>The</strong> important part was that I did it! I repeated this expression of my<br />
enthusiasm out loud to Tucker.<br />
“Let me be the first to say I told you so,” he replied with a<br />
playful smirk.<br />
“Oh, come on. You didn’t know that I could do it. <strong>The</strong>re had<br />
to be some part of you that was like, ‘I hope she doesn’t go<br />
completely ape shit in the middle of this,’” I countered.<br />
He shook his head, still smiling. “Nope. I knew. <strong>The</strong>re was<br />
not a doubt in my mind.”<br />
I decided not to argue because it was nice that he had so<br />
much confidence in me. My dad and brother had definitely given up<br />
on me very early on when they had tried to get me involved in<br />
spooky things, although Gunner had some new found faith in me<br />
now. God, he was going to poop himself when he heard what had<br />
happened.<br />
“Seriously, though, Chelsea, you did great. I’m really<br />
impressed. You asked all the right questions and were very<br />
professional.”<br />
60
Well, now I felt even nicer. “Tucker, this is my ego right<br />
now.” I spread my hands in front of me wider and wider to display<br />
the growth of my self-assurance. “Be careful. Soon I’m not gonna<br />
be able to fit in the car with you. I’ll have to ride on the roof.”<br />
Another laugh burst from his mouth and he shook his head.<br />
“That’s okay. You’re allowed to enjoy this.”<br />
Did I enjoy it? I’d been straight up terrified before I left my<br />
house. Tucker’s presence had calmed me down a little and so had<br />
the grounding session we’d all had before we went in. When the<br />
lights went out, it was all I could do not to scream like Freddy<br />
Krueger had popped out of the wall above my head. But if I stopped<br />
focusing so much on how I’d been working to keep the fear in check,<br />
I realized there had been something else that had carried me through:<br />
excitement. I’d been enthusiastic about facing this head on and<br />
maybe learning something new along the way. And somewhere deep<br />
down, there was actually a little pride bubbling up.<br />
“Yeah, I had a good time.” Part of me couldn’t believe the<br />
words had just left my lips, but the other part of me was going “about<br />
damn time!” Hello, alternate personality in which I am somehow<br />
this adventurous badass. Maybe I should start slamming on eyeliner<br />
and cutting my hair like Joan Jett so the world will know what a<br />
tough bee-otch I suddenly am.<br />
“Next, we just have to review the audio and visual and see if<br />
we picked up any evidence along the way,” he said.<br />
I imagined myself sitting with the recorder on my bed and<br />
hearing a ghostly voice leaking through the headphones. My<br />
imaginary self was, needless to say, freaked out. “You want me to<br />
look at what was on the recorder and camera you lent me?”<br />
Tucker glanced my way. <strong>The</strong> stoplight colored his pale skin<br />
a faint red. “Do you want to?”<br />
I dove deep into my mind and to search for an honest answer<br />
to that question. Did I want to sit alone in my house, which was<br />
formerly a place of safety, and listen to some voices from beyond<br />
the grave? My knee-jerk reaction was hell no, screw that! But there<br />
was that other part of me, the one with the heavy eyeliner and 80s<br />
61
ocker hair that was wondering if it wouldn’t be kinda cool to find<br />
an EVP.<br />
“Yeah, okay. I’ll try it,” I decided.<br />
Even though he was facing the road again, it wasn’t hard to<br />
see his face completely brighten. “Good for you! You’ll be fine.”<br />
As I was re-emerging from the depths of my mind, I caught<br />
sight of the mental Post-it I’d stuck to the inside of my skull earlier.<br />
“Oh! So, Susannah. You didn’t tell me she was a total hottie.”<br />
At least one eyebrow — the one I could see — rose after that<br />
comment. “What does that have to do with ghost hunting?”<br />
“She’s one of the hunters!” I giggled. “Come on. I know you<br />
two have been friends since at least college. Did you ever go out?”<br />
Tucker sighed and shook his head. “No, we didn’t. I mean,<br />
don’t get me wrong, there was a time when I wanted to. But we’ve<br />
just been friends too long.”<br />
“Ah, so she stuck you in the friend zone and you had to deal<br />
with it,” I translated. He might have been the expert on ghosts, but I<br />
knew a thing or two about the way women worked. This was<br />
probably due to the fact that I had a vagina, but also partially due to<br />
my immense wisdom and knowledge of all things sexual. Not.<br />
He laughed. “Pretty much. But it’s good that she did. She’s<br />
not really my type.”<br />
“You mean tall gorgeous blondes with ten feet of legs aren’t<br />
your type? Are you more into the short, squat, hairy women?”<br />
“Yes. My last girlfriend was actually a troll that lived under<br />
a bridge. Things didn’t work out because she kept trying to eat my<br />
pet goat.”<br />
I rolled my eyes but laughed anyway. “Whatever. So, no<br />
girlfriend now, huh?”<br />
“You might find this surprising, but ‘weirdo’ isn’t usually at<br />
the top of a girl’s list of qualities she wants in a man.”<br />
Instantly guilt kicked me in the chest. “Oh, come on! I was<br />
young and naïve and knew nothing of the ghost hunting world! How<br />
was I supposed to know that you’re all actually pretty awesome?”<br />
62
Tucker’s low chuckle filled the car. “I’m just playing,<br />
Chelsea. But thank you for the compliment. You’re pretty awesome<br />
yourself.”<br />
At this very opportune break in the conversation, he pulled<br />
into my driveway. I was surprised that we were home already; it<br />
seemed as though hardly any time at all had passed since we left the<br />
Masons. <strong>The</strong>re was still a light on in the front window, which meant<br />
that Gunner had probably managed to stay up. My dad’s truck<br />
wasn’t in the driveway yet, so I assumed he was still working.<br />
Tucker pulled the car into park, popped the trunk, and<br />
opened his door to get out. I followed his lead and stepped out into<br />
the humid night air, and a moment later he came around to my side<br />
with the equipment case he’d lent me. He handed it over and I<br />
remembered the stones in my pockets.<br />
As I reached in to grab them, he seemed to read my mind.<br />
“Keep them. I have plenty and I can always get more.”<br />
My body felt pleasantly warm, and I wasn’t sure if the rocks<br />
were giving me some mystical power or if I was just happy he was<br />
giving me a present to commemorate the night. “Thank you. I mean<br />
for everything. Thanks for all your patience with and confidence in<br />
me. I had a really good time tonight, if you can believe it.”<br />
“I believe it.” He reached out with one arm for the awkward<br />
new friend parting hug again, but I wasn’t having it. I set the case<br />
down beside me and wrapped my arms around his skinny chest.<br />
Even though he was tall, he felt so small in my hands. But his body<br />
was warm and when he gently curled his arms around my back, we<br />
fit as if we’d been doing this for a long time.<br />
After a moment, he let me go and I backed up a step so I<br />
could pick up the equipment case again. “So, I’ll call you when I<br />
hear Zuul asking me if I’m the Keymaster through the recorder,” I<br />
said with a grin.<br />
“If you hear that, you’re getting a one-way ticket to evening<br />
television and leaving the rest of us so far behind you won’t even<br />
hear us calling.” His smile was as big as mine felt. “Remember to<br />
take a shower and wash off any energy you might have picked up in<br />
the Masons’ house. Goodnight, Chelsea.”<br />
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“You mean I can’t just go flop down on my bed and pass<br />
out? Well, at least I don’t have the morning shift tomorrow.”<br />
Surprisingly, I wasn’t actually that tired, even though it was after 1<br />
am. My body must have still been on a high from all the leftover<br />
adrenaline.<br />
When I stepped into the family room, Gunner was dead to<br />
the world in his armchair with his book still open on his lap. Trouble<br />
was lying on the floor by his side, and when I came in he raised his<br />
head curiously. I held up my hand, the signal for “stay,” so he<br />
wouldn’t wake up my brother by bolting up. He did as he was told<br />
and laid his head back down on his paws.<br />
I tiptoed as quietly as I could down the hall to my bedroom.<br />
Once safely between the Hollywood Undead and Asking Alexandria<br />
posters on either side of the door, I fell to my knees. A little<br />
dramatic, yes, but now that I was in a place where I could really<br />
relax and unwind, the entire night came rushing back to me. I<br />
replayed it all in my head, every one of the intense emotions<br />
scratching at my heart as it rose up inside me with each scene.<br />
I had survived my first ghost hunt. And yes, I said first,<br />
because I knew it wasn’t going to be my last.<br />
On Sunday morning, as I was scooping popcorn into a red<br />
and white striped bag, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I handed<br />
the mom her giant movie snack, and she reached around the baby<br />
strapped to her chest to give me the money. After they had gone, I<br />
pulled out my phone, expecting to see a text from Michelle, to which<br />
I would respond with the timeless question of why people insisted<br />
on bringing babies to the movies. But instead of my best friend, I<br />
saw a missed call and a voicemail from Tucker.<br />
“Jake! I’m going on my break,” I announced to my<br />
coworker. He nodded sleepily, giving me the green light to escape<br />
and see what was up.<br />
Once I was in the breakroom, I played the voicemail. “Hey,<br />
Chelsea, you have got to hear this. I was listening to the audio we<br />
recorded in the bedroom and we’ve got a Class A EVP! Sorry. I’ll<br />
64
explain what that means later. But, seriously, call me back. You need<br />
to hear this.”<br />
My heart gave my chest a swift kick as I pressed the dial<br />
button on his name. What had he found? What did the spirit in the<br />
Masons’ house tell us?<br />
“Oh my God!” he exclaimed as soon as he picked up. “You<br />
have to hear this. What are you doing right now?”<br />
“Well, hi, Tucker! I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I quipped.<br />
“I’m at work until five.”<br />
“Okay. Me, too. I want to get it on my computer at home<br />
because I’ve got a sound program I can enhance it with. Do you want<br />
to come by and listen to it when you get off?”<br />
“Only if there will be pizza,” I bargained.<br />
“Consider it done,” he agreed.<br />
“You’re the best! Just text me your address and I’ll find my<br />
way there.”<br />
Around 5:30 I pulled up in front of Tucker’s apartment,<br />
which really was only three streets away from <strong>The</strong> End Shelf. It was<br />
situated on top of a bakery that had all its lights turned off so I<br />
couldn’t read the neon sign in the window. I sent him a text to let<br />
him know that I was there and had no clue how to get up to his place.<br />
A few moments later I heard footsteps clunking on wooden steps.<br />
He practically bounded around the side of the building. <strong>The</strong><br />
grin on his face was total Cheshire cat: tons of teeth and so happy it<br />
was almost creepy. “Hi! Come on up, this way!” He turned around<br />
and I had to hurry to keep up as he led the way to a flight of stairs<br />
leading to the second floor.<br />
Tucker held the door open for me to step into his tiny<br />
kitchen. It was sort of old-fashioned looking, with brown tiles and<br />
yellow wallpaper that looked like it had lasted since it was put up in<br />
the 70s. I didn’t get a very good look at the layout, though, because<br />
he disappeared through a doorway to the right; I scooted through<br />
after him.<br />
<strong>The</strong> room we emerged into was also small, but he had<br />
managed to fit a desk with a computer on it in one corner, an L-<br />
65
shaped black couch in another, and a TV against the wall across<br />
from it. On either side of the TV were two stands absolutely packed<br />
with DVDs and even a few video games on the bottom shelves.<br />
He zoomed right over to the desk and pointed at the wooden<br />
chair. “Sit.” I complied and waited as he bent over and fumbled with<br />
the mouse to bring up whatever he wanted me to hear.<br />
After a few seconds, he turned to me. His face was about a<br />
hand’s length away from mine, and I could see the purple circles<br />
etched into the pale skin beneath his eyes. How late had he been up<br />
reviewing evidence? “Are you ready for this?”<br />
I took a deep breath to try and steady my wildly hammering<br />
heart. “Hit me.”<br />
One finger clicked the mouse button and immediately sound<br />
burst from the speakers. It took a moment for me to register at what<br />
point in the investigation we were, but then I heard myself say —<br />
extremely loudly — “Do you like music?” <strong>The</strong>re was what felt like<br />
an hour-long pause, and then I asked, “What’s your favorite song?”<br />
After this rose a faint but definite whistle. It sang three notes<br />
and then left a deafening silence in its wake.<br />
I whipped around to face Tucker again. “What. <strong>The</strong>. Hell.”<br />
“Someone answered you, Ms. Keller,” he replied. “Maybe it<br />
was trying to tell you its favorite song.”<br />
“But we didn’t hear that!” I exclaimed. My heart was<br />
throbbing so fast it was about to have liftoff right up my throat and<br />
out my mouth.<br />
“That’s what an EVP is, remember? Our ears couldn’t pick<br />
it up, but the microphone on the recorder did.” <strong>The</strong>re was the<br />
Cheshire cat smile again.<br />
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “Can you play it again?”<br />
He played the clip at least ten more times, and we sat there<br />
side by side, letting it sink in that we now had not one, but two pieces<br />
of evidence on the recording. Each time we heard the soft whistle, I<br />
tried to identify what song it actually was from, but that combination<br />
of notes could have been from anywhere. It wasn’t really that<br />
important; the fact was that someone had responded to my question.<br />
Someone who wasn’t Tucker, the only other living soul in the room.<br />
66
After a while, I sat back in the chair, raising my hand to my<br />
forehead. It felt damp beneath my palm and I realized I was<br />
sweating. “My God. I don’t even know how to react.”<br />
“Well, I think an appropriate reaction would be shock.<br />
Maybe a little awe. Followed by some pride. You communicated<br />
with a ghost twice on your first investigation,” Tucker said. Now<br />
that he had put a word to the emotion, I could actually hear that his<br />
own words were strung with pride.<br />
“Can we email this to Gunner?” I requested. I was positive<br />
that my brother would have a reaction very much like Tucker’s. It<br />
would probably make his week to hear some real-life, not-on-TV<br />
evidence of a spirit. And maybe his trained ears would be able to<br />
make out what song that was.<br />
He nodded. “Of course. I’ll send it to everyone in the group<br />
so they can hear it too. This is amazing. I haven’t gotten something<br />
like this in months.” His fingers tapped furiously on the keys as he<br />
wrote a little message to my brother, and then to our teammates from<br />
Friday night.<br />
It was strange that when we got an answer to my question, it<br />
just raised more inquiries. <strong>The</strong>re had been something in the bedroom<br />
with us; that much we now knew. But who was it? Was it the same<br />
spirit that had knocked over the Barbie? Why had they chosen to<br />
answer that question instead of any others? Were they with us the<br />
entire time? Why us, rather than Susannah and Ethan or Adrian and<br />
Brad?<br />
When Tucker was done with the emails, he turned to me<br />
again and let out a laugh. “I can see your head going absolutely nuts.<br />
Relax, Chelsea. We’re going to submit all our evidence to the<br />
Masons and if they want more information we will be able to go<br />
back in. <strong>The</strong>n you can talk to your friend some more.”<br />
Did I want to? Was I okay with going into a house that I had<br />
some solid evidence was actually haunted? <strong>The</strong> old Chelsea was<br />
hanging back timidly and uncertain. But new, kickass Chelsea was<br />
already strapping up her combat boots and halfway out the door.<br />
For a moment, a hush fell over us. Tucker’s face was still<br />
very close to mine. His fair skin was flushed with enthusiasm, and I<br />
67
could smell whatever Old-Spicey aftershave he had patted on in the<br />
morning. Suddenly, I realized that this dorky ghost hunter was<br />
actually very cute. How had I not seen it before? His dark eyes were<br />
full of passion for his trade. His smile was genuine and sweet. My<br />
heart went into another spasm, but this one wasn’t from fear.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n the moment broke as he stood up abruptly. “Now that<br />
you’ve heard that, I believe I promised you some pizza.”<br />
Feeling considerably flustered and wanting to buy some time<br />
to recuperate, I nodded. “Yes, yes you did.” My chest deflated in<br />
relief as he announced he would be right back and disappeared into<br />
the kitchen again.<br />
What was that all about? I recognized this feeling. It was a<br />
warm and inviting sensation, something that was safe but dangerous<br />
at the same time. I had felt it when Bobby Price asked me to prom<br />
senior year. I had felt it when my first boyfriend, Kevin Andrews,<br />
had grabbed my hand on our first date. I had felt it in many moments<br />
before a kiss. Not to mention before other physical adventures after<br />
that.<br />
But why was I feeling it now? What did it have to do with<br />
Tucker? He wasn’t someone who had turned my head like Bobby<br />
Price or Kevin Andrews, and now I finally had him alone for the<br />
first time. He was a new friend I had made based on a mutual interest<br />
that was just budding on my end. And he was a lot older than me,<br />
which made him more of a teacher or a leader than a boy I could be<br />
interested in.<br />
And yet, when he came back into the room, I couldn’t help<br />
but look him up and down again as if seeing him for the first time.<br />
He was wearing khaki cargo shorts that exposed skinny legs and a<br />
white t-shirt with grapes that had angry faces on them. He wasn’t<br />
any different than usual; he looked like his usual slightly geeky, pale<br />
bookworm self. But somehow he looked amazing.<br />
Knock it off, Chelsea. You’re just a kid compared to him.<br />
He’s only being nice and teaching you how to ghost hunt. You can<br />
be friends, and that’s it. Don’t start complicating it with your girly<br />
garbage.<br />
68
I swallowed that pleasant, warm feeling and smiled at him<br />
as if I hadn’t gone completely insane while he’d been in the kitchen.<br />
“On its way?”<br />
He nodded and collapsed into the couch. “Thirty minutes and<br />
counting. I don’t know about you, but all this excitement is wearing<br />
me out. You want to watch a movie?”<br />
“Sure,” I agreed with amazing calmness out loud. In my head<br />
I was growling at myself to remember that the little moment we had<br />
was just that: a moment. Nothing more. It probably wasn’t even the<br />
same feeling that I was thinking of anyway. It was just some kind of<br />
rush created by the evidence. I walked stiffly over to the couch and<br />
perched delicately on the edge of the couch a good foot away from<br />
him.<br />
Of course, he noticed. Most men probably wouldn’t have<br />
thought twice about the way I was suddenly acting like there was a<br />
stick in my butt, but Tucker was a ghost hunter. He was trained to<br />
be especially perceptive. “You okay?” he asked.<br />
“Yeah. Just, you know. Overwhelmed by the whole ghost<br />
whistling,” I mumbled, trying not to look at him. He looked so damn<br />
adorable with the concerned expression on his face.<br />
I felt the cushions shift as he stood up, and I allowed myself<br />
to watch his back as he walked over to the stands of movies.<br />
“Nothing better than something mindless to distract you, then. What<br />
are you in the mood for tonight? I’m guessing Paranormal Activity<br />
isn’t really the best choice?”<br />
“Probably not,” I agreed. “What are my non-ghosty<br />
choices?”<br />
He turned around with the same adorable smile adorning his<br />
suddenly handsome features. “Come pick one out.”<br />
I got up and went to stand next to him before the impressive<br />
cinematic collection. As I focused every fiber of my being on the<br />
selection rather than the man next to me, it turned out that Tucker<br />
had pretty much every single one of the best movies of all time.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were actually a few that I hadn’t seen, too, so I pulled one of<br />
those out with Richard Gere on the cover. “What’s this?”<br />
69
“Primal Fear. That was Edward Norton’s film debut. Pre-<br />
Fight Club and American History X. It's a little heavy, but I promise<br />
there are no ghosts in it.”<br />
“Let’s do it,” I decided, handing it over to him. When his<br />
fingers brushed mine, an electric current surged up my arm and I<br />
dropped it back to my side immediately. Good choice of words,<br />
Chelsea.<br />
Beating the image of what Tucker might look like without<br />
his book pun t-shirt out of my head, I hurried back to the couch and<br />
squeezed my body as far into its arm as I could. Where had this come<br />
from? What are you doing, body? Why are you reacting this way to<br />
Tucker Hamilton?<br />
Luckily, he resumed his previous position on the couch and<br />
didn’t get too close to me. He even left the lights on as the movie<br />
began. Normally, I would get totally lost in the storyline and<br />
everything around me would fade out. But throughout the night,<br />
even when his fingers were covered in pizza grease, all I was<br />
thinking about was how he would react if I reached out to hold his<br />
hand.<br />
70
Chapter Seven<br />
Gunner had pretty much had a child on the carpet when he<br />
found the email with the EVP. So I was only mildly surprised when,<br />
on Thursday morning, he called me into the den and announced that<br />
he had found the song that matched the notes.<br />
“How long have you been working on this?” I teased. “You<br />
need to go out and get a date.”<br />
“Ew,” he responded. “Just listen.” <strong>The</strong>n he pressed play and<br />
the harmonica in the beginning of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” floated<br />
from the speakers. As soon as the three notes had finished, he<br />
switched over to the recording of the whistle and played that for me.<br />
“Holy balls,” I exclaimed. <strong>The</strong> kid was right — the tune<br />
matched perfectly. “Seriously, Gunner, how did you find this?”<br />
He shrugged. “I knew it sounded familiar. So I just went<br />
through iTunes and listened to a lot of well-known songs. I was<br />
hoping that it wouldn’t be some obscure thing that would take me<br />
years to locate.”<br />
“Apparently not. I’m really impressed, dude. This is<br />
awesome!” I wrapped my arms around his neck in a rather violent<br />
sisterly hug. Trouble got up from his place under the desk and started<br />
to bark at me to stop hurting his buddy.<br />
After that, I had no choice but to text Tucker. I had been<br />
trying to avoid thinking about him for the past few days (although it<br />
hadn’t really been working; my brain found a link to him from<br />
almost everything that I looked at). <strong>The</strong> warm, happy, electric<br />
feeling had subsided considerably since I hadn’t seen him. But when<br />
I looked through my phone for his name, I felt my heart stirring a<br />
little again.<br />
I sent him a text saying that Gunner had found the song that<br />
matched the EVP, and he called me back almost immediately.<br />
“What’s the song? I’ll listen to it right now.”<br />
“’Piano Man’ by Billy Joel,” I replied.<br />
“I’ll call you right back. I need my phone to get to my<br />
music.”<br />
71
Shortly after We Came as Romans blared from my phone as<br />
it rang again. When I picked it up, his voice echoed with the same<br />
enthusiasm as it had when he first found the EVP. “Dude. He’s right.<br />
This is dead on.”<br />
“I know!” I giggled, suddenly feeling giddy. It had to be<br />
from the discovery, right?<br />
“We should celebrate,” he decided. “Do you want to hang<br />
out tonight?”<br />
“I’d like to, but I’m working until eleven.”<br />
“Oh. Well, we’re doing another investigation on Saturday.<br />
Would you want to come along again? Susannah was asking for<br />
you.”<br />
In spite of my inhibitions, I really did want to go on another<br />
investigation with them. <strong>The</strong> first one had broken out a part of me I<br />
hadn’t even known existed, and I wanted to get to know her a little<br />
better. And besides, this whole evidence-of-the-paranormal thing<br />
was becoming a little addictive. I’d actually plugged my recorder<br />
into my car so I could listen to it on the way to and from work and<br />
search for more EVPs. I hadn’t found anything yet, but that only<br />
made me more eager to come across another.<br />
I couldn’t keep avoiding Tucker forever, anyway. Maybe I<br />
felt a little awkward now that I realized how hot he actually was, but<br />
that was okay. I could be attracted to him in the heat of the moment<br />
without hurting anyone.<br />
“Yes. I’d love to come.”<br />
Over the course of the following month, I went on three more<br />
investigations with his group. Each time, the people in the team<br />
changed up. Tucker wasn’t always the team leader; once there had<br />
been another man in charge. But I still got to pair up with him every<br />
time. More than once, I caught myself just sort of gazing at him and<br />
wondering what it might be like to kiss him. But I always managed<br />
to shake it off and refocus. I was doing a good job of convincing<br />
myself that it was still just fueled by the excitement and all the<br />
emotion being tossed around inside me during investigations.<br />
As far as evidence went, we didn’t gather anything else solid.<br />
Some of the group members were more sensitive to the spirit energy<br />
72
than others, and a few times they picked up on different feelings or<br />
images, but that was about it. <strong>The</strong>re was nothing else tangible to<br />
work with, and I was beginning to realize what Tucker meant when<br />
he said that most of the time they didn’t get anything at all.<br />
One day, he called me right after I got off of work. “Hey,<br />
Chelsea. I sent the report to the Masons last week, and they want us<br />
to come back in for an investigation. When are you available? We<br />
really want you to come back in with us since our evidence was<br />
focused around you last time.”<br />
I was flattered by the request. “I’m only working until four<br />
on Friday. Could we do it then?”<br />
“Absolutely. Listen, since you’ve never gone into a place<br />
more than once, there are a few things you need to be aware of. Are<br />
you around before Friday to go over it?”<br />
We hadn’t hung out, just the two of us, since the night at his<br />
house. This was mostly due to me trying my best to steer clear of<br />
him because I wasn’t sure how to keep myself in check without an<br />
investigation to distract me. But if there were more things I needed<br />
to learn, I didn’t really have too much of a choice. “I’m around<br />
now.”<br />
“Perfect. I’m just closing up. Do you want to come over to<br />
my house?”<br />
And ravage your body? “Yeah, sure. I’ll be right over.”<br />
As soon as I hung up, another call came through, this one<br />
displaying the name “Michelle” on my screen. I stared at the phone<br />
for a moment as the heavy double bass of my ringtone filled the<br />
interior of my Honda. We hadn’t exchanged more than a casual but<br />
undeniably stiff check-in text since we’d butted heads over the ghost<br />
hunting issue.<br />
Immediately, shame smacked me in the face, coloring my<br />
cheeks red as I clicked the button to answer the call. This was my<br />
best friend. I didn’t need to hide what I was doing from her.<br />
Still, blood was pumping loudly in my ears as I answered<br />
and quietly went, “Hey.” Guilty. My voice sounded like a wife<br />
who’d been periodically sneaking out for a midnight rendezvous<br />
with a man who wasn’t her husband.<br />
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“Hey. Listen, I know we haven’t talked much lately, and I<br />
know we’re both really busy. But I miss you. Are you free Friday<br />
night?” Her voice, on the other hand, sounded like the whimper of a<br />
puppy that had peed on the carpet and was trying to make amends<br />
by bringing a bone to her master.<br />
“That would be …” my cheating wife guilt was a knife<br />
twisting through my insides, abruptly stopping me from finishing<br />
my sentence; it wouldn’t be fun because I couldn’t do it — “great,<br />
on any other day. Sorry, Chelle. I’m busy Friday.”<br />
“What are you doing? Working?” Of course this was her<br />
only logical explanation for my being busy, because if I was free I<br />
would surely have made time for my best friend who I hadn’t seen<br />
in over a month. I definitely wouldn’t be ghost hunting with a cute<br />
older boy and his friends. That wasn’t Chelsea Keller style.<br />
“Uh ... no. I’m going on another ghost investigation.”<br />
“Another?” I could practically see her freckles stretching as<br />
her eyes widened. “Do you like, do this all the time now?”<br />
“Um, kind of.” I picked at a frayed spot on my shorts. “A<br />
few times, anyway.”<br />
“Since when do you want to be involved in this kind of stuff,<br />
Chelsea? You were always scared of it before. And, I mean, it<br />
doesn’t sound safe to me.”<br />
Maybe it was my guilt spurring a more favorable reaction,<br />
but my face started to get hot. <strong>The</strong> unfaithful wife spoke up<br />
defensively. “It’s safe. I’m fine. I have people teaching me who have<br />
been working with the paranormal for years.”<br />
“What happened to the girl who wouldn’t even watch <strong>The</strong><br />
Blair Witch Project?”<br />
“She finally grew a pair.” My cheeks were burning.<br />
Somewhere inside me the guilt was still scratching at my stomach,<br />
trying to remind me that I didn’t need to get so worked up. But I was<br />
starting to spread my wings and she was trying to rein me back in.<br />
“If you want, I can tell you what this is really about. I can show you.<br />
It’s not as scary as we used to think.”<br />
“No, thanks. I’m just fine without Satan appearing in my<br />
bedroom at night.”<br />
74
<strong>The</strong> anger finally overtook the last of the guilt. “You know,<br />
you’d think that you’d support me now that I’m not being a chicken<br />
shit for once in my life. You’d think that as my best friend you’d<br />
want to encourage me to grow and branch out. Not try and talk me<br />
out of it and refuse to let me try and explain it to you.”<br />
Michelle’s end was silent for a long time, and I was just<br />
about to check and see if she’d hung up on me when she finally said,<br />
“You’d think.” Her words were soft but there were spikes around<br />
them. Her defenses were raised now, too.<br />
“Look. Whenever you want to open your mind a little, then<br />
call me. But I have to go now. I have to go meet some ghost hunters<br />
and summon some demons. Because that’s what we’re all about.”<br />
“Bye, Chelsea.” She ended the call before I got the chance<br />
to respond again.<br />
Wow, Chelsea, since when did you become such a raging<br />
bee-otch?<br />
Since my best friend stopped supporting me and thought I’d<br />
actually be interested in something dangerous and stupid like devil<br />
worshipping, that’s when.<br />
Tucker was waiting for me on the steps when I pulled up and<br />
parked at the curb. When I got out of my car, he announced, “I<br />
picked us up tacos this time. I hope that’s an acceptable substitute<br />
for pizza.”<br />
I grinned, even though my heart decided it was going to act<br />
as a battering ram and try to break free of my chest. All the anger at<br />
Michelle was banished to the tiny corner of my brain that wasn’t<br />
consumed by his gorgeous smile. Stop that, Chelsea. “I suppose it’s<br />
acceptable.”<br />
Tucker led the way up to his kitchen again, and this time we<br />
stopped there. He already had plates set out on the red square table<br />
shoved into one corner, and there was a white paper bag in the<br />
center, presumably holding yummy, spicy deliciousness.<br />
“How was work today?” he asked as we seated ourselves.<br />
I scooted my plastic red chair in closer to the table. “It was<br />
good, thank you. How was work for you? Any new and exciting<br />
customers?”<br />
75
“Nope. It was pretty slow today. But I did get to finish Why<br />
We Suck.” As he loudly crinkled the bag open, the wonderful aroma<br />
wafted out and caressed my nose. I scooted to the edge of my chair<br />
and held up my plate for him to drop my dinner onto it.<br />
After we all but vacuumed up our food with our mouths, I<br />
sat back and patted my newly filled belly. “Tucker Hamilton, you<br />
really know the way to a girl’s heart.” Initially, it had been a joke,<br />
but when my heart actually jerked around, I was instantly attacked<br />
by self-consciousness. Was it okay to joke like that? Did I have to<br />
keep myself more in check? I didn’t want him to know that he<br />
actually did have some effect on my heart now.<br />
Luckily, he didn’t respond directly to the comment. Instead<br />
he just smiled and reached over to grab my plate for me. As he<br />
carried the dishes over to the sink, I crinkled up the empty bag,<br />
attempting to be at least marginally helpful. And distract from my<br />
heart comment, of course.<br />
“Where’s your garbage, buddy?” I asked, fiercely<br />
overcompensating.<br />
He knocked his knee against the cabinet beneath the sink<br />
right in front of him as he turned on the water. “Under here.”<br />
I wandered hesitantly over and waited for him to finish<br />
rinsing the plates. Instead, he just moved over to the side slightly so<br />
I could get to the garbage. With lightning speed I darted forward,<br />
pulled open the cabinet door, and chucked the crumpled paper bag<br />
inside.<br />
Tucker raised an eyebrow as he shut off the sink and dried<br />
his hands on a green and white towel beside it. “You okay?”<br />
I nodded, attempting to appear as nonchalant as possible. As<br />
if I didn’t just break the sound barrier as I hurtled forward to throw<br />
out a bag in the garbage that was dangerously close to his goodies.<br />
“Fine. Why do you ask?”<br />
“Never mind. Shall we go talk business?” He extended one<br />
arm in the direction of the room with the big couch and the TV.<br />
“We shall,” I agreed, glad for another distraction.<br />
We headed into the next room and while I seated myself on<br />
the couch, he strode over to his desk and picked up a manila folder.<br />
76
When he lowered himself — way too close to me, I might add —<br />
onto the leather cushions, he held it out to me. “That’s the report we<br />
compiled from the first investigation. Any evidence we found is in<br />
there. You can read through it whenever you get the chance.”<br />
“Uh-huh.” I swung my knees away from him as I opened the<br />
folder. <strong>The</strong> report was only about a page long, but as I scanned it I<br />
noticed that they had included the feelings that Brad had and when<br />
Adrian’s hair had been pulled as well as the concrete evidence.<br />
“Wow, you guys really were thorough.”<br />
“We want to give them as much information as we can,” he<br />
pointed out. “Now, we’ll be taking in some different team members<br />
this time, this way there will be some unbiased minds to investigate.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y won’t know what we’ve already found. So you need to be<br />
careful not to mention anything in front of them.”<br />
“Seems easy enough.” I couldn’t really have a conversation<br />
with him while I was facing the opposite direction, so I slid my<br />
knees back around. Unfortunately, I moved a little too fast, and they<br />
knocked gently against his. Once again that electric shock rocketed<br />
up my thigh, and I couldn’t help but glance down to see if there were<br />
actual sparks scattering from where we’d made contact. My head<br />
told me to move away, but my body didn’t want to. I left our knees<br />
touching.<br />
Tucker’s cheeks looked a little flushed. “Okay. So, um, next,<br />
you’ll need to know that we still can’t talk to the Masons about too<br />
much, unless they have direct questions. That report was written in<br />
a way that was meant to comfort them, not make them more<br />
alarmed.”<br />
I glanced back down at the paper, trying to read it and get an<br />
idea of what he meant. But every nerve in my body was completely<br />
focused on the sensation of my leg touching his. I wanted to get<br />
closer. I shouldn’t. But I wanted to.<br />
He granted my wish without even hearing it. He leaned to<br />
point at something on the paper. <strong>The</strong> print was just gibberish to me<br />
by then; I was too aware of the way his shoulder was pressing<br />
against mine. More of those pleasant, hot sparks were cascading<br />
down into my hand and the rest of my torso. “See here, how we<br />
77
wrote that Adrian felt a slight tug on her hair, rather than a pull?”<br />
His breath was warm against my cheek as he spoke.<br />
I think I heard that faint voice of reason in the back of my<br />
head warning me not to do what my body was urging me to, but I<br />
was past the point of logic. My body was alive with the tingle he<br />
was sending through me with just an accidental touch. I needed to<br />
know what it would be like to really touch him.<br />
Slowly, I turned my head to face him. My heart was raving<br />
in my chest as it pumped adrenaline through me. His dark eyes met<br />
mine, and I searched them for just a second, hoping for a green light.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n I let mine close, leaned in, and gently placed my lips against<br />
his. <strong>The</strong> touch was so soft, but instantly the delicious warm<br />
sensation started at my toes and spread the rest of the way up my<br />
body.<br />
At first, he didn’t react, but after a moment he pressed back<br />
into the kiss. One hand reached up and gently rested on my cheek.<br />
Even more of those wonderful hot sparks rained down through my<br />
face, my throat, and into my torso.<br />
Yesss. Triumph joined the rush of emotions as I opened my<br />
mouth a little. His hand moved from my cheek down onto the side<br />
of my neck, then wrapped around the back. I brought one of my own<br />
hands up to rest on his chest. Even though he wasn’t a big guy, his<br />
body felt warm and strong beneath my fingers.<br />
I wasn’t sure how long we were making out on his couch for,<br />
but it was starting to get really difficult to resist the urge to let my<br />
hand wander a little lower. Luckily, Tucker pulled back from the<br />
kiss, but just far enough so his lips were out of reach. Those<br />
bottomless brown eyes latched onto my gaze and held me there. My<br />
heart was still furiously pulsing away, but I took the moment to catch<br />
my breath.<br />
“Wow,” he breathed softly.<br />
A small laugh bubbled up from inside me. I was on such a<br />
high from his lips; my head actually felt clouded and fuzzy. “You<br />
said it, dude.”<br />
He leaned a little closer and rested his forehead against mine.<br />
“You know, I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.”<br />
78
I pulled away so I could get a better view of his face. “You’re<br />
shitting me. I’ve been fighting the urge since the night we watched<br />
Primal Fear.”<br />
“What? Why were you fighting it?” he exclaimed. His<br />
normally pale face was flushed with the same kind of life that was<br />
flowing through me.<br />
“I didn’t think it was appropriate to jump the team leader!” I<br />
shot back.<br />
We stared at each other for a moment, and then a fit of<br />
laughter clutched us both. He’d been waiting for me to make the<br />
move for as long as I’d been battling it off and insisting the feelings<br />
weren’t really there.<br />
“Well, if you’d jumped me in an investigation, I might have<br />
had to push you away,” Tucker said thoughtfully. “But I wouldn’t<br />
have wanted to.”<br />
“Is this okay, though?” I asked, for once being totally<br />
serious. Just because he kissed me now didn’t mean he would let me<br />
do it again.<br />
For an answer, he leaned in and kissed me again. After a few<br />
more heart-booming seconds, he broke free and said, “Of course it’s<br />
okay. It’s more than okay. It’s amazing.”<br />
I could feel color rushing to my own face, so I leaned my<br />
body into his and rested my head against his shoulder. Amazing. It<br />
had been a while since anyone had used that word to describe a<br />
moment with me. But it was exactly the word I’d been thinking of.<br />
“I can’t believe you just kissed me,” he mused.<br />
“I can’t believe I just kissed you, either,” I giggled.<br />
We sat there for a little while longer, the quiet suddenly<br />
feeling not so deafening, but comfortable. My heart quieted down a<br />
bit, and my nerves relaxed a little. I was still very aware of his body<br />
against mine and the heat it was radiating, but the big question had<br />
been answered. I now knew what would happen if I kissed Tucker.<br />
However, another question slowly began to rise up in place of the<br />
old one.<br />
“So what happens now?” I asked, shattering the silence<br />
around us.<br />
79
Tucker didn’t answer at first, and I couldn’t help but wonder<br />
if he was going to say it couldn’t happen again. But when he spoke,<br />
his solution made my heart flutter again. “Now, I take you out this<br />
weekend. Not just for a Chai and pumpkin bread or pizza and tacos.<br />
I mean for a real dinner.”<br />
“That would be awesome,” I replied. “It’s okay to, you<br />
know, date another investigator?”<br />
He shrugged. “I know there are some couples who are<br />
members. As long as we don’t let it interfere with the actual work,<br />
it’ll be fine.”<br />
“We’ll be totally professional!” I pulled away from his<br />
shoulder and sat up straight, raising an arm in salute.<br />
“Oh, definitely,” he agreed with a laugh.<br />
“But right now we don’t have to be.” I leaned in and pressed<br />
my mouth against his lips. I wasn’t quite finished with him yet.<br />
On Friday night when we pulled up in front of the Masons’<br />
house, both of our bellies were full of delicious Italian food from a<br />
family-owned place Tucker had introduced me to. I had given up on<br />
a few failed attempts to keep the goofy smile off my face; it just<br />
wasn’t going away. If I had expected things to change between us<br />
after I made a move, I had been totally mistaken. Things hadn’t been<br />
any different except that I could reach out and hold his hand beneath<br />
the booth and we’d spent a few minutes making out in the car before<br />
leaving for the investigation.<br />
This time it was a brand-new, spotless white Camaro that<br />
was parked in front of us. I didn’t have time to wonder who it<br />
belonged to before Susannah climbed out of the driver’s side. Damn,<br />
that girl had it all. “Okay, is Susannah a hired assassin or<br />
something?” I asked. “How does she afford a car like that?”<br />
He laughed as he reached for the door handle. “Not exactly.<br />
She’s a pharmacist.”<br />
“Oh, how I wish I wasn’t going to be forty before I have my<br />
degree,” I groaned.<br />
80
“It might be helpful if you figure out what you want to do<br />
first,” Tucker teased, swinging his legs around so he could step out<br />
of the car.<br />
Susannah threw herself into him in a hug and then zeroed in<br />
on me. <strong>The</strong> sugary aroma of strawberries and cream invaded my<br />
nose. “Hi, guys!” she greeted us with her usual bubbliness.<br />
Brad was the other member of the original investigation to<br />
join us. He didn’t hug me, but he shook my hand and asked with a<br />
smile, “When are you going to become a member already?”<br />
I glanced up at Tucker and had to pause for a moment just to<br />
admire how good-looking he was. Seriously, that boy had the most<br />
heart-throbbingly gorgeous brown eyes I’d ever seen. <strong>The</strong>n my mind<br />
refocused and I searched his gaze for any indication that Brad’s<br />
suggestion would be a possibility. He had never brought it up before,<br />
but I’d been on four investigations with them. My comfort level had<br />
seriously adjusted, even though nothing truly exciting had<br />
happened. I felt better about being in the dark and had learned my<br />
way around the basic equipment. As far as I was concerned, I wanted<br />
to keep it up.<br />
He wasn’t paying attention, though; he was too busy shaking<br />
the hands of the other two members of the night’s team. I had met<br />
them both before; one was this giant, burly man in his late thirties<br />
named Anthony, and the other was an awkward kind of guy around<br />
my age named Jamie.<br />
Once all the hellos had been exchanged, we stood in a circle<br />
to ground ourselves. By that time, they didn’t need to guide me, but<br />
Anthony filled the silence with a prayer that asked the protection of<br />
Saint Michael. My eyes roved to the giant golden cross resting in<br />
the open V of his navy polo. I’d never reached out for protection<br />
from a higher power, but the more religious members of the group<br />
held tightly to their respective faiths.<br />
As we carried our cases along the cement walkway up to the<br />
front door, Susannah fell into step beside me at the back of the<br />
group. “Hey, Chelsea, it looks like you and I are the only ladies<br />
tonight,” she pointed out. “Do you want to work together?”<br />
81
I considered this for a moment. Up until then, I had always<br />
worked side by side with Tucker. I’d built up a definite level of trust<br />
in him, and I knew that he had faith in me. I’d only met Susannah<br />
for investigations, and our interactions had been brief. It would take<br />
quite a leap forward for me to abandon what I’d grown comfortable<br />
with in exchange for something uncertain. Especially in a place<br />
where we’d actually gotten some tangible evidence before. But she<br />
seemed super nice and friendly, and she’d been doing this as long as<br />
Tucker had. Plus, if she was his best friend, she had to be some kind<br />
of awesome. “Sure,” I agreed. “That would be fun.”<br />
“Is that okay, Mr. Team Leader?” She swung her case<br />
forward and jabbed Tucker in the back of the knee.<br />
“Hey!” He stepped quickly sideways and glanced over his<br />
shoulder at us. “That’s fine if that’s what you guys want. Jamie,<br />
you’re coming with me tonight.”<br />
He certainly didn’t seem worried about me pairing with<br />
Susannah, so I felt my confidence inflate a little. A very little, but it<br />
was something.<br />
As soon as the Masons opened the door, I decided that the<br />
way that they had written the report of findings to make it sound as<br />
comforting as possible had definitely been a success. <strong>The</strong> couple<br />
seemed much more at ease this time around. <strong>The</strong>y were smiling<br />
when they welcomed us into their home, and Mrs. Mason even stood<br />
on her own rather than hiding behind her husband.<br />
Tucker and the Masons brought Jamie and Anthony for a<br />
walkthrough of the house, while Brad, Susannah, and I stayed in the<br />
kitchen to unload some equipment. Brad brought forth his video<br />
camera and tripod, and instead of just asking the more experienced<br />
member, he asked both of us, “Where do you think we should put<br />
this?”<br />
“I’d say one of the places where Chelsea and Tucker got<br />
some hard evidence last time,” Susannah suggested. “I was going to<br />
say we put a motion detector in the playroom.”<br />
I bobbed my head. “That was my first thought, too. <strong>The</strong> place<br />
we actually saw something move would be a good place to have a<br />
camera set up in case someone decides to play Barbies again.”<br />
82
Brad agreed, and departed to go get it set up. As soon as he<br />
was gone, Susannah plopped a motion detector into my hand.<br />
“Come on, Chica. We’re gonna put these in the bedrooms upstairs.”<br />
She held up her own and flashed an excited grin. This girl had done<br />
hundreds of investigations, and she was still so enthusiastic about it.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n again, you never really knew what to expect. It couldn’t<br />
exactly get old fast.<br />
In a few minutes, we had everything placed where it needed<br />
to be. I was actually glad that Susannah had asked me to partner with<br />
her, because since I wasn’t shadowing Tucker, I could actually<br />
contribute to the setup. A new sense of importance layered the edges<br />
of my confidence; I held my head uncharacteristically high as I<br />
stepped back onto the pink and white kitchen tiles.<br />
“Does anyone have a preference where they want to start?”<br />
Tucker asked, hoisting an expensive-looking camera on a thick strap<br />
over his head.<br />
“I want to check out the master bedroom again,” Brad spoke<br />
up.<br />
“No problem. Susannah and Chelsea, you two can take the<br />
downstairs for now.”<br />
“Roger,” she chimed in.<br />
“Okay, then.” Tucker finished adjusting his camera around<br />
his neck and met my gaze pointedly. “If everyone is ready, then<br />
we’ll go lights out.”<br />
Even though I was getting an ego boost from handling this<br />
on my own, it was a definite relief to know he still had my back. I<br />
nodded slightly, just enough to send him the message that I’d be<br />
fine.<br />
Everyone else filed out of the kitchen, and the last one<br />
flipped the light switch, leaving Susannah and me in the dark. For a<br />
second or two, it was still freaky as my mind kicked into horrormovie-writer<br />
gear, wondering what was lurking in the corners, just<br />
waiting for us to wander too close. <strong>The</strong>n logic bubbled up from my<br />
smarter stream of consciousness and washed over my sympathetic<br />
nervous system, reminding it that nothing had ever actually grabbed<br />
me from the shadows.<br />
83
“Let’s head right for the goods,” my partner gushed. <strong>The</strong> red<br />
circle from her flashlight rested on the now-empty doorway leading<br />
into the hallway. “I want to go play Barbies with some ghosts.”<br />
I clicked on my own flashlight and gestured for her to lead<br />
the way. “Sounds good to me.”<br />
My heart began to flutter as we stepped down into the sunken<br />
playroom once again. <strong>The</strong> familiar giant bay window and ten<br />
thousand toy-filled plastic bins dragged forth the memory of our last<br />
visit. My brain set up this big screen display of Barbie falling over<br />
at my feet, adding in the special effect of a tiny doll scream.<br />
Swallowing the rising fear, I squared my shoulders and<br />
marched right over to where we had been sitting last time. Instead<br />
of taking the floor again, I perched on top of a bin as Tucker had.<br />
Susannah took the opportunity to open another of them and<br />
pull out a few toys. Carefully, she laid out a plastic stegosaurus, a<br />
stuffed rabbit, and another Barbie. Just as I had, she sat down on the<br />
floor and laid them out in a perfectly straight row. <strong>The</strong>n she looked<br />
up at me through eyelashes weighted down with a ton of mascara<br />
and grinned. “If there is anyone else here with us, I’ve got some toys<br />
for you to play with.”<br />
84
Chapter Eight<br />
We sat in the playroom for the entire forty-five minutes it<br />
took for Tucker to radio us and ask if we were ready to switch. I set<br />
up my digital recorder beside me and we asked all the standard<br />
questions, along with a few about if the spirits remembered me.<br />
Apparently, my friend didn’t feel very playful, because those toys<br />
didn’t move a fraction of a quarter of a centimeter. <strong>The</strong> room was as<br />
silent and motionless as a church on a Friday night.<br />
Susannah’s face oozed disappointment as she spoke into the<br />
walkie-talkie. “Yeah, we can switch. Nothing’s happening down<br />
here.”<br />
I gathered up my equipment and started slipping things back<br />
into their respective pockets in the camo cargo pants I’d discovered<br />
to be quite handy. “Maybe there will be something on the audio or<br />
video.”<br />
She shrugged one shoulder as she placed each toy back into<br />
the bin they came from. “I guess so.”<br />
We headed for the enormous doorway and as I stepped up<br />
onto the tiles of the hallway, I felt a rough shove from behind me. It<br />
was a good thing I had all my equipment in my pockets, because my<br />
hands shot out to break my fall as I tripped forward. My palms<br />
smacked the cool floor at the same time that my shin collided with<br />
the step. Hot sparks flew up my arms and leg on impact, but luckily<br />
I saved myself from a total face-plant.<br />
As soon as I realized that my body wasn’t injured, I<br />
recognized that my pride was. A furious blush rushed up my neck to<br />
my cheeks and I whipped around, ready to ask Susannah just what<br />
her problem was.<br />
Instead, her pretty eyes were wide with concern as she<br />
swooped down on me. “Are you okay?” she asked frantically, her<br />
voice higher than usual. “What happened? Did you catch your shoe<br />
on the step?”<br />
“Uh, no.” All the blood must have rushed to my hands and<br />
my shin, because my brain was working extra slowly. “I felt a pretty<br />
good push.”<br />
85
Susannah’s hand instantly covered her perfectly painted lips,<br />
but didn’t actually touch them so as to keep the makeup intact. “You<br />
what? I swear, Chelsea, I didn’t touch you. I had my camera in both<br />
hands.” She held it up for emphasis.<br />
Finally, something in my mind plugged in again. Even more<br />
adrenaline rushed forth and I was on my feet in less than a second.<br />
“Something pushed me.”<br />
Her head jerked in every direction, looking for something<br />
she wouldn’t ever be able to find. “Who’s here?” she demanded.<br />
“Did you just push Chelsea? Why would you do that?”<br />
Suddenly, I felt hands on my shoulders. I jumped high<br />
enough that I almost hung myself on the immaculate chandelier<br />
dangling from the ceiling. When I hit the ground again, I swung<br />
around to see dark eyebrows furrowed over familiar brown eyes.<br />
“What happened?” Tucker asked. “Someone pushed you?”<br />
I nodded as my heart pounded against my chest like a dog’s<br />
foot against the floor as it scratched itself. <strong>The</strong> explanation stuck to<br />
my heavy tongue.<br />
Susannah came to my rescue. “We were just walking out of<br />
the room and it looked like she tripped.”<br />
Jamie poked his head out from behind Tucker and nodded at<br />
something behind us, inside the playroom. “It looks like the camera<br />
might have captured it.”<br />
As he and Susannah went over to check it out, I sucked in<br />
deep breaths of air to calm myself down. It was totally bad to let the<br />
residents see one of the investigators freaking out. <strong>The</strong>y would<br />
definitely not be reassured by a professional blubbering about how<br />
Casper gave her a shove. I had to get it together.<br />
“Are you okay?” Tucker asked. He still hadn’t taken his<br />
hands off my shoulders. As I started to think clearly again, a warm<br />
tingle began to spread from where his fingers rested. His grip was<br />
strong, but so gentle.<br />
<strong>The</strong> comfort of his touch was just what I needed to focus on<br />
to bring myself back to center. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little wigged.”<br />
I glanced over my shoulder as if I expected to see the culprit. Okay,<br />
Chels, keep searching for the Invisible Man.<br />
86
Instead of a terrifying monster with giant claws, or whatever<br />
nonsensical beast I expected, I only saw Susannah and Jamie<br />
huddled around the little camera screen. When they noticed me<br />
looking, they both waved us over at the same time. I was hesitant to<br />
break away from Tucker’s hands, but I had to see what they’d found.<br />
He was right at my heels anyway as I joined the other two.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y moved over to give us a better view of the palm-sized screen.<br />
Jamie had his hand on a button, and I saw myself falling in reverse<br />
as he rewound the footage. A second after I was on my feet on the<br />
video, he took his finger off the button. “Okay, right here. This is<br />
some Paranormal Activity shit.”<br />
My eyes glued themselves to the tiny image of me as it raised<br />
one foot to step out of the room. Suddenly, what looked like a very<br />
small and subtle shock wave blasted out from the center of my back,<br />
sending ripples through my t-shirt. Susannah was easily a foot<br />
behind me, with both her hands on her camera, just as she’d said.<br />
Surprisingly, I didn’t freak out. In fact, I didn’t really feel<br />
anything. Maybe my body was becoming immune to fear after being<br />
constantly attacked by it. Or maybe it didn’t know how to process<br />
the physics-defying event it had just been a victim of. It was quite a<br />
weird phenomenon to stand there feeling absolutely nothing,<br />
watching a clip of myself being shoved by an invisible force. I raised<br />
my hand to point at the screen. Despite my numbness, it was<br />
quivering. “Can ... can I see that again?”<br />
“Yeah, sure.” Jamie fumbled hurriedly with the device and<br />
rewound it again. Once more we saw the clear imprint of something<br />
hitting my back, only nothing was there.<br />
By the time it was over, my brain had remembered how to<br />
send reactions through my body. Dampness was clutching at the<br />
fabric under my arms and my breathing sounded ragged and<br />
shallow. My heart rate was gaining speed like a rocket launching<br />
into the sky.<br />
“Are you okay, Chelsea?” Susannah asked. “You look<br />
awfully pale.”<br />
87
“Yeah, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Jamie offered.<br />
When no one laughed, he immediately busied himself with the<br />
camera again. “I’ll just rewind this ...”<br />
I shook my head. No, I was very not okay. <strong>The</strong> events had<br />
finally just registered in my head. Everything I had been afraid of<br />
had just come into being right in front of me. Well, behind me,<br />
technically. Something I couldn’t see had attacked me. <strong>The</strong> spirit<br />
had given me a pretty hefty shove and I could have gotten seriously<br />
hurt. This was the reason that they had terrified me so much in the<br />
first place. And now I had a reason to be afraid.<br />
“Come on, let’s go outside for a minute. You guys can start<br />
the second sweep without us.” Tucker laid his hands on my<br />
shoulders again and steered me in the direction of the door. I didn’t<br />
need much pushing. Now that I had an excuse to run away, I<br />
quickened my pace and actually leapt right out from under his grip<br />
and up out of the sunken room.<br />
Once we stepped out into the warm, damp night air, he sat<br />
down on the cement step and patted the spot next to him. Gratefully,<br />
I sank down like a deflating balloon, all the tension whooshing out<br />
of me in a massive sigh. I was out of the house. I wasn’t trapped<br />
there with a nasty spirit who wanted to hurt me. It was okay to<br />
breathe again.<br />
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against<br />
his side. His body was warm and steady. “Remember what I said,<br />
Chels? You can always leave if you get spooked or uncomfortable<br />
at all. You didn’t have to wait for me to make the decision.”<br />
“I wasn’t thinking. My basic motor functions kind of shut<br />
down to make room for all of that terror.” I stared at the tiny cracks<br />
in the gray material beneath us. Its cool temperature was seeping<br />
through my jeans, contrasting the humid air.<br />
“What are you thinking now?” His thumb gently traced a<br />
circle on my bare arm.<br />
“Honestly? I’m thinking my worst fear just came true. That<br />
was like something straight out of a horror movie. Something<br />
invisible just pushed me down. I had no way of fighting back or<br />
seeing it coming. It could hurt me again.”<br />
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Tucker was quiet for a moment, and all I could hear was the<br />
sound of his breath gently moving next to my ear. <strong>The</strong>n he asked,<br />
“Did it hurt you?”<br />
“It shoved me!” I exclaimed instinctively, and then I actually<br />
thought about the question. Yeah, my shin might be bruised a little.<br />
But it didn’t hurt now. My hands weren’t stinging. Nothing was<br />
sprained, twisted, or broken. No blood had been shed during the<br />
incident. “Well ... I guess not really. It tried though.”<br />
“Maybe. And maybe it was able to touch you because you<br />
let your guard down a little because we were wrapping up the first<br />
round. In any case, this ‘worst fear’ of yours — it just happened.<br />
And you survived it.”<br />
Damn. <strong>The</strong> boy had a point. I was pretty much no worse for<br />
wear after the incident. Granted, I was a little shook up, and I’d most<br />
likely have a bruise, but that was the worst of it. I wasn’t<br />
psychologically scarred — at least as far as I could tell. I wasn’t<br />
running screaming for my mommy. I wasn’t being rushed to the<br />
hospital or spinning my head in a full 360, Regan style.<br />
“Trust me. I’ve never been pushed, but I have had things<br />
thrown at me. And let me tell you, I know it’s freaky. But you’re not<br />
defenseless. Remember, you’re alive. <strong>The</strong>y’re dead. You can claim<br />
your space and ground yourself again and head back in there and be<br />
just fine again.” His voice circled my head and seemed to stroke my<br />
frazzled nerves; I could feel the adrenaline slowly dissipating.<br />
For a few minutes, we just sat there and I focused on doing<br />
just what he’d said. I felt the ground beneath my feet and envisioned<br />
myself covered in armor and surrounded by white light. Little by<br />
little, my senses began to return to normal.<br />
After a while, he asked, “Do you feel better now?”<br />
I sucked in a deep breath and heaved it out. <strong>The</strong> oxygen was<br />
definitely clearing my head. That and not being stuck in a room with<br />
an angry dead guy. “Yeah, I do.”<br />
Tucker’s fingers touched my cheek and he gently turned my<br />
head up so I would meet his gaze. Those coffee-colored eyes<br />
grabbed me and held me in place. “Do you want to sit out the rest of<br />
this investigation?”<br />
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<strong>The</strong> blood rushed to my cheeks and I wanted to break the<br />
gaze, but I just couldn’t look away. Yes, I definitely wanted to. I<br />
wanted to run home and curl up under the covers and never think<br />
about ghosts again. But could I?<br />
“Chelsea. Nobody is going to judge you. I promise.” His<br />
eyes were void of their normal playful light.<br />
I’d already taken a few steps out of the door and wanted to<br />
continue in the general away direction. Temptation was lounging<br />
seductively on the sidewalk, raising a finger and beckoning me to it.<br />
Every fiber in my body wanted to run into its arms and let it take me<br />
away to safety. But if I let myself keep running, would I ever stop<br />
and turn around again?<br />
Who was I kidding? <strong>The</strong>re was no way in hell that I was<br />
coming back if I left.<br />
“I’ll come back in.” I finally broke from his gaze and stood<br />
up.<br />
“Are you sure?” Tucker rose to his feet and looked down at<br />
me, his forehead creased in a frown. “You know you shouldn’t push<br />
yourself when it comes to the paranormal.”<br />
I knew what he was talking about; if you were too shaken,<br />
too unguarded, you were an easier target for any spirits in the area.<br />
If you had a bad feeling about a case, the general rule of thumb was<br />
to just not participate. But whoever this spirit was, whatever it had<br />
pushed me for, whatever it wanted from any of us, I couldn’t let it<br />
get the best of me. He was right; the worst had happened, and<br />
looking back, it turned out to not be that bad at all. I was fine.<br />
Although he had sounded cautious, he seemed totally<br />
psyched to have me on board again. A big smile broke out across his<br />
fair skin and he looked like he wanted to reach out and hug me.<br />
Whether he stopped himself because he was nervous or trying to be<br />
professional, I wasn’t sure.<br />
With a deep breath, I turned and opened the door to step back<br />
inside.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rest of the night was more than encouraging. I traded<br />
partners with Jamie so I could stick by Tucker, just in case I needed<br />
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to borrow some of that confidence again. But it was really<br />
unnecessary. Although something incredibly freaky had happened<br />
in the beginning, the remainder of the investigation was completely<br />
uneventful. Everyone had material to work with after the shove; they<br />
had specific questions to ask and they all wanted to get into the<br />
playroom. But there was no response, at least none that we could<br />
hear or see.<br />
I elected to head home instead of joining the group for their<br />
usual post-investigation diner rendezvous. Even though nothing else<br />
had happened, I felt thoroughly drained. Probably from focusing all<br />
my energy on making sure I was completely, totally, one hundred<br />
percent covered in my imaginary armor. My brain was fried from all<br />
the concentration. We didn’t talk too much on the way home — in<br />
spite of the scare factor of the evening, I was drifting in and out of<br />
consciousness as sleep grappled for a hold on me.<br />
When Tucker pulled into my driveway, I stumbled sleepily<br />
out the door onto the blacktop. To my surprise, he turned off the car<br />
and got out with me. “You coming in?” I asked.<br />
He laughed. “I’m just walking you to the door.”<br />
Hmm. So maybe things were a little bit different between us.<br />
I was getting some real lady treatment, apparently. He fell into step<br />
beside me as we made the short trek up the drive and to the front<br />
door. <strong>The</strong> outdoor light wasn’t on, which meant that my dad was<br />
home and had turned it off automatically when he went to bed.<br />
“Well,” I said, not sure exactly how to say goodnight to a<br />
new, sort-of, not-official boyfriend after a paranormal investigation.<br />
Needless to say, it wasn’t a situation I found myself in frequently.<br />
“Listen,” he interrupted my trying to think of what to say. “I<br />
wanted to let you know how impressed I was tonight. I probably<br />
wouldn’t have gone back in after that.”<br />
My eyebrows shot so far up that anyone leaning out a second<br />
floor window could have reached out and caught them. “Really?”<br />
Tucker seemed so fearless when it came to ghost hunting. “Even<br />
though that wasn’t a demonic case or anything?”<br />
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He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, it was still a big deal. That<br />
doesn’t happen every day. I would probably have stayed on the<br />
porch the rest of the night if it was me.”<br />
“Well, damn, if I’d known that, I probably would have, too!”<br />
I exclaimed. <strong>The</strong>n I couldn’t help but let out a giggle. This was<br />
reassuring. I figured the professional ghost hunters were well past<br />
the point of being scared. I knew that they had the bad feelings<br />
equals stay away rule, but I didn’t think anything could happen midinvestigation<br />
to make them want to leave.<br />
“You know the case last Saturday night that you didn’t come<br />
to because you were working?” When I nodded, he went on. “Ethan<br />
left in the middle of that one. He was getting some stomach pains<br />
and he just didn’t feel right about it. Sometimes you just have to cut<br />
your losses and realize that you might be better off not involving<br />
yourself in a certain case.”<br />
I wondered if maybe I should have sat out the rest of the<br />
time. Would I wake up covered in warts or with my pupils covering<br />
the whites of my eyes or something? I opened my mouth to vocalize<br />
this concern, but Tucker wasn’t done.<br />
“If you weren’t meant to stay in this case, you would have<br />
felt it and known to sit out. It’s not fear that keeps a person away;<br />
it’s a different feeling. I can’t describe it. You’ll feel it someday; we<br />
all do. All I can say is that you’re something else, Chelsea Keller.<br />
You don’t have any idea how strong you really are.”<br />
By this time, his face was about a thumb’s length away from<br />
mine, and my heart was already thumping away. Electricity crackled<br />
between us as his words encircled me and twined themselves<br />
through my nerves. This indescribable feeling of lightness gripped<br />
me. Nobody had ever made me feel like I was strong before. I always<br />
felt like I was the baby of any group, the first one to turn and bolt<br />
like a bunny into her hole if there was trouble. Now I was hearing<br />
it outright from this boy. And, I suddenly realized, I cared very much<br />
what he thought of me.<br />
This time, he made the move forward. His lips pressed<br />
lightly against mine and ignited a fire in my mouth. It spread in a<br />
matter of seconds all the way down to my toes. I stepped forward<br />
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and pressed myself up against him, reaching up to touch his face<br />
with both hands.<br />
At this very opportune moment, the front door swung open<br />
beside us with an obnoxious squeal. I jumped back from Tucker<br />
quickly and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, trying to<br />
clear the imaginary evidence of what we’d just been doing. When,<br />
other than in the movies, does crap like that actually happen?<br />
Gunner’s eyebrows were hanging out in the air above his<br />
head with mine from earlier. “Um, sorry, I, uh, thought maybe you<br />
forgot your key, ‘cause you were, you know, uh, standing here for<br />
so long.” His cheeks were a shade of red I’d never seen before.<br />
Instead of getting annoyed by the interruption, Tucker let out<br />
a good-natured laugh. “It’s okay, man. Gunner, right? I’m Tucker.”<br />
He held out his hand to my little brother just as he would to any<br />
adult.<br />
<strong>The</strong> kid shook off the awkward immediately. “Oh! Hi,<br />
Tucker. It’s nice to meet you.” He shook hands enthusiastically.<br />
“How did the investigation go?” His head twisted from one of us to<br />
the next and back again, awaiting an explanation.<br />
“Do you want to come in?” I offered. “This might take a<br />
while.”<br />
Tucker’s smile faltered for maybe half a second. Was he<br />
nervous? We’d been to his house before, but never to mine. He<br />
didn’t let it stop him if he was. He nodded. “Sure, I can hang out for<br />
a little bit. Thank you.”<br />
As soon as we closed the front door behind us, Trouble<br />
rocketed out of nowhere and crashed into the newcomer’s knees. I<br />
held up my finger as a warning for him not to bark or jump, so he<br />
just pressed his skinny body into Tucker’s legs and panted, staring<br />
up at me innocently.<br />
Most people tried to avoid the hyperactive mutt, but not this<br />
one. He immediately got on his knees and started scratching behind<br />
Trouble’s fluffy ears. “Oh, man. You didn’t tell me you had a dog.<br />
I love dogs. Hey, little guy. What’s his name?”<br />
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“Trouble,” Gunner said proudly, as the canine in question<br />
flopped over on his back, begging for a tummy rub. Tucker complied<br />
readily.<br />
After a few minutes, during which my brother filled my beau<br />
in on the entire story of how we’d come to own the dog (which<br />
wasn’t very exciting; it just involved a trip to the animal shelter and<br />
naming him when he broke a vase the second he came into the<br />
house), we moved to sit on the couch and discuss the investigation.<br />
As excited as he was, Gunner could barely keep his eyes<br />
open. A few questions in, his head started to droop while he listened<br />
to Tucker explaining where we’d placed the cameras and motion<br />
detectors.<br />
“Gun, are you sure you don’t want to go to bed?” I asked.<br />
“No, I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I want to hear ...” His voice<br />
trailed off into a totally un-translatable murmur as his head rolled to<br />
the side to rest on a pillow.<br />
We stayed quiet for a little while, letting him disappear from<br />
the world. During these moments, my mind was racing. I was high<br />
on the compliments he’d paid me outside and new pride in myself<br />
for sticking out the investigation, and maybe a little drunk from the<br />
one head-spinning kiss we’d snuck in before we were interrupted.<br />
My room was only a few steps away. Temptation was hanging out<br />
down the hall again, wiggling his finger in that old “come-hither”<br />
gesture. I wanted so badly to invite Tucker back there and see what<br />
he looked like underneath that black t-shirt.<br />
But I hesitated. We had barely started this thing between us;<br />
he wasn’t even officially my boyfriend or anything. I didn’t want to<br />
take things too fast and make it weird. Normally, I wasn’t the one<br />
leading the way, so I didn’t have to think about these things so much.<br />
But Tucker was different; he was either very shy or very polite and<br />
gentlemanly. Maybe a little of both. I wondered, though, if he was<br />
thinking about it, too.<br />
Once I was certain that Gunner was asleep and movement<br />
wouldn’t disturb him, I rose from the couch. “You better go before<br />
I try and take advantage of you.” <strong>The</strong> words were serious, but I<br />
laughed quietly to direct it as a flirty joke instead.<br />
94
“Please explain to me how that’s supposed to be incentive to<br />
leave.” He grinned as he stood up next to me and reached for my<br />
hand. I laced my fingers through his and walked with him to the<br />
front door.<br />
“Thank you for dinner,” I murmured as I wrapped my arms<br />
around him and fell into his embrace. “And thank you for<br />
encouraging me tonight. You’re the best.”<br />
I felt him kiss the top of my head, but he didn’t respond. He<br />
just held me there, his arms tightly encircling me. My ear was<br />
pressed against his chest, and I could hear his heart bumping against<br />
it, quicker than I would have expected. I couldn’t keep the smile<br />
from stretching across my face. Who knew that after everything that<br />
had happened to scare me that night, I could still feel completely<br />
secure, like nothing in the whole world could touch me in that<br />
moment.<br />
After a little while, he pulled back a little so he could make<br />
eye contact again. “Do you remember what Brad asked you earlier?”<br />
“About joining you guys for real? I didn’t think you heard<br />
that.”<br />
“I did. And I think it’s an awesome idea. Would you want<br />
to? I mean, you’re basically a member as it is. You’ve done, what,<br />
five investigations? Six? All we’d have to do is set up a meeting<br />
with Daisy and Richard and they’ll officially put you in the training<br />
program. You’ve already had over a month of experience anyway.”<br />
Regardless of the whole ghost-pushing-me-and-scaring-meshitless<br />
ordeal, I didn’t even have to think about it. My confidence<br />
had grown into an enormous monster and I was ready for just about<br />
anything. “Yes. I’d love to.”<br />
A massive smile pulled his lips away from his teeth. “Great.<br />
I’ll give them a call in the morning and we’ll set something up. Now<br />
it’s really time for me to leave before I let you take advantage of<br />
me.” He bent his head down to kiss me again. Heat radiated from<br />
him, warming me all the way through every crevice of my body. I<br />
was seriously reconsidering inviting him back to my room, but it<br />
was over as fast as it started; he stepped back and reached for the<br />
doorknob. “I’ll be in touch, Miss Keller. Goodnight.” In a moment,<br />
95
he was gone, closing the door behind him. I barely heard its squeal<br />
over the thundering of my heart.<br />
96
Chapter Nine<br />
It took a few more weeks for Richard and Daisy to have free<br />
time in their schedule to see me. During that time, I kept myself busy<br />
with work, two more investigations, and as much time as I could<br />
manage to get with Tucker. I put my monthly free tickets to good<br />
use when I took him to see the latest Tarantino movie, and he took<br />
me out to dinner again. Sometimes we just met up after work for<br />
coffee (or tea, in my case) in downtown Bethany. Once, he even<br />
took me to this park where they had an old castle on the grounds that<br />
was rumored to be haunted. <strong>The</strong> group had tried to get in a few<br />
times, but they couldn’t get clearance from the town because the<br />
place was so dilapidated. It was still really cool to walk around and<br />
check it out.<br />
Finally, the group’s directors had about an hour one<br />
Wednesday night, so we met them at Joe Bean’s around seven<br />
o’clock. Tucker came with me because I’d asked him to, even<br />
though he insisted I could do it on my own. I knew I could, but I<br />
wanted him there anyway. He was far more the expert than me.<br />
<strong>The</strong> baristas knew our orders by heart, so one of them set the<br />
two cups down in front of us just as we caught sight of Richard and<br />
Daisy. <strong>The</strong>y were both wearing black t-shirts bearing the words<br />
“Lark Hollow Paranormal Research” above a phone number in the<br />
same blue-with-white outline lettering.<br />
“Hi, Tucker. Hi, Chelsea,” Richard greeted us as they<br />
approached the table. He held out his hand to me first, and when I<br />
took it, mine was nearly engulfed in his clammy grip. He smiled as<br />
he sat down and Daisy popped up to shake hands next.<br />
Once they were both seated, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why<br />
don’t you guys wear those shirts to investigations? <strong>The</strong>y’re great.<br />
And they look so professional.”<br />
“We don’t want to alert the clients’ neighbors that they’re<br />
having a paranormal investigation,” Daisy explained. “We try to<br />
protect their privacy at all costs. If their friends start thinking they’re<br />
wacky, they might be a little irritated with us for not being discreet.”<br />
97
“Oh. Good point.” I immediately took a sip of my Chai so<br />
nothing else silly would come out of my mouth. Tucker’s fingers<br />
came to rest gently on my knee under the table, and sparks fired up<br />
my thigh. I raised the green mug higher so it would cover the blush<br />
creeping onto my cheeks. <strong>The</strong> spicy aroma of the tea pounded<br />
heavily against my nose, but I resisted the urge to move it and gulp<br />
in some fresh air.<br />
“So, we hear you’ve been quite an asset to our team,”<br />
Richard said, getting right to business. “We’d love to have you<br />
aboard. We welcome any individual interested in helping people<br />
experiencing hauntings. You understand that we are a totally<br />
nonprofit organization, correct? Also that you will need to be free<br />
on Friday and Saturday nights for investigations, and some Sundays<br />
for group meetings?”<br />
I bobbed my head, lowering the teacup. I’d downed it all by<br />
that time, so there could be no more hiding. “Yes, sir. I work full<br />
time, so I won’t be free always, but when I am, I’m all yours.”<br />
“That’s fine.” He waved his hand. “As long as you’re around<br />
for at least half of them. We just need to make sure you’re serious.”<br />
“You also understand that most of the time, absolutely<br />
nothing paranormal will be happening. You’ll be sitting there in the<br />
dark with nothing going on and you need to maintain a professional<br />
demeanor and resist goofing off. Unless you want to play with some<br />
Barbies.” Daisy winked at me.<br />
I glanced at Tucker. “He told you about that?”<br />
His hand squeezed my knee as he smiled.<br />
“Sweetheart, we’ve seen the evidence,” Daisy replied.<br />
“Footage like that isn’t something we get regularly. Tucker wasn’t<br />
going to leave us out.”<br />
“You already know that most investigations begin at 9pm,<br />
and can end at any time throughout the night. We usually tell<br />
residents that we need the house until 3am, just to be safe. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
hardly ever go that long,” Richard added. “Most of the things that<br />
we would normally tell you, you already know.”<br />
“Excuse our redundancy,” Daisy added.<br />
“Don’t worry,” I assured them. “I’m paying attention.”<br />
98
<strong>The</strong> pair went on to explain to me the investigation<br />
procedure and told me that some of them were often at least two<br />
hours away. <strong>The</strong>y told me that soon I would start attending<br />
preliminary visits in which they would interview the clients on the<br />
paranormal happenings in their house, but on those cases I would<br />
not be investigating because I would have already established a<br />
relationship with the residents. <strong>The</strong>n they finished up by telling me<br />
that I’d go through another two months of training before I became<br />
an official investigator, and some of these would have to be in<br />
cemeteries or buildings other than houses to make sure I had<br />
experience in all areas.<br />
When my head was totally filled to capacity with ghostly<br />
information, they sat back over their newly-ordered coffees and<br />
smiled in unison.<br />
“Well,” Daisy mused. “That’s that, then. We have a<br />
cemetery training this Saturday night. Are you available?”<br />
I nodded. “I am. I get off work at 8. I’ll come over right from<br />
the theater.”<br />
“Excellent.” Richard took a sip of his coffee and I couldn’t<br />
help but wonder if anything he drank or ate got stuck in his<br />
lumberjack beard.<br />
“Welcome to the Lark Hollow Paranormal Research group,<br />
Chelsea Keller. <strong>The</strong> last thing we’ll need you to do is fill out some<br />
forms with some basic information, just like a job application.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’re on the website, so you can print them and give them back<br />
to us on Saturday.” Daisy reached across the table to shake my hand<br />
again. Her elbow bumped her coffee cup gently and a few droplets<br />
splashed out onto the little plate beneath the cup.<br />
“Thank you!” I felt like I was being let into some kind of<br />
secret society. It was so different, so unique, so unaccepted by<br />
everyday people. And not long ago, I’d been one of them. Who<br />
would have thought that I’d wind up joining a ghost hunting group?<br />
And nobody even had a gun to my head or anything!<br />
“So, what do you do in your spare time? Did I hear you say<br />
theater?” Richard asked.<br />
99
I gave them a little bit of background information on me<br />
right there, telling them about my job and where I went to school<br />
and that I lived very close by. <strong>The</strong>y in turn told me that Daisy<br />
worked for a florist and Richard was a dental hygienist. Go figure,<br />
right?<br />
Once all the mugs had been emptied, we all stood up to say<br />
goodbye. <strong>The</strong> directors of the paranormal group both shook my hand<br />
again and congratulated me. Daisy said she would look forward to<br />
seeing me on Saturday, and then they said farewell to Tucker, too.<br />
After they departed for their vehicle, I reached into my<br />
pocket to fish out my keys, but Tucker interrupted my search when<br />
he threw his arms around me. “Congrats, Chels!” I think he tried to<br />
lift me off the ground, but it didn’t work out, so he settled for<br />
swinging me from side to side excitedly.<br />
“Help! Assault!” I squealed sarcastically as I pretended to<br />
try and wiggle away. Really, I was just as excited as he was. I could<br />
barely believe I’d actually just had that conversation, and they were<br />
all congratulating my membership to a ghost hunting organization.<br />
Seriously. Ghost. Hunting. And me. In the same group.<br />
He laughed and let me go, then reached into his own pocket.<br />
A glance at his phone told him the time. “It’s only 8:30. Do you<br />
want to come over for a little bit?”<br />
My heart thudded hard into my ribs. We hadn’t been to<br />
Tucker’s place since the very first time we kissed. Whenever we<br />
hung out, it was always in public or at a stranger’s house for an<br />
investigation. <strong>The</strong> prospect of being alone with him, with no one<br />
else around, was even more exciting than my acceptance into LHPR.<br />
“I guess I don’t have anything better to do.” I rolled my eyes<br />
upwards coyly, trying to look bored.<br />
Tucker bent over in a mock bow. “Oh, thank you, Princess,<br />
for taking time to grace me with your presence.”<br />
I fell right into the role. “You are most welcome, lowly<br />
commoner. I also give you permission to carry me down the street<br />
to your house. I am most exhausted from my long day of looking in<br />
the mirror and brushing my hair.” I flipped said hair over my<br />
shoulder dramatically.<br />
100
“Tough luck, sister.” He gave me a gentle shoulder bump<br />
and started off in the direction of his apartment building.<br />
When we arrived, he led the way into the living room area.<br />
“Movie?” he asked.<br />
I couldn’t help but glance curiously at the closed door in the<br />
corner that I assumed led to his bedroom. Curiosity was scratching<br />
at my insides, but I swallowed it down. Just because we were alone<br />
at his place didn’t mean we’d wind up there. Right?<br />
“A movie would be fantastic,” I agreed. “Oh! Remember we<br />
were talking about Catch Me if You Can?”<br />
“Yes! I actually did pick that up the other day.” Tucker<br />
started rummaging through the piles of papers on his coffee table.<br />
“Now, finding it is a whole different story.”<br />
Trying not to fidget too much, I wandered over to the desk<br />
to make myself useful. However, the paper situation was just as bad<br />
there, and it was clear that there were no DVD cases in the big white<br />
mess.<br />
“I guess it must be in my room.” He brushed past me to the<br />
closed door I’d been eyeballing when we first walked in. Since he<br />
didn’t close it behind him, I buckled under the weight of all that<br />
curiosity. I padded slowly over to stand in the doorway, peering in<br />
to see what Tucker Hamilton’s bedroom looked like.<br />
I expected to see clothes all over the place and empty pizza<br />
boxes and random objects covering the floor. At least, that was what<br />
I had seen with all the other guys I’d dated. Maybe it was because<br />
he was older, or maybe it was because he was Tucker, but his room<br />
was in almost perfect condition. He had two massive bookshelves<br />
on either side of his queen-sized bed, which were jam-packed with<br />
paperbacks and hard covers. <strong>The</strong>ir scent lingered in the room,<br />
mixing in with the distinctive smell of boy. Across the room was a<br />
dresser, which was where he picked up the movie in question.<br />
When he turned around, I could tell he hadn’t expected me<br />
to follow him. His eyes got a little wider and he started tapping the<br />
case against his other hand. “Oh. Yeah, welcome to my fortress.”<br />
Despite the way my knees suddenly felt wobbly now that I<br />
was in his bedroom, I wandered further in. My hand reached out to<br />
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touch the soft black comforter that covered the bed. “It’s nice.<br />
Totally was expecting more of a Beauty and the Beast-type library,<br />
though.” I glanced over my shoulder at him and grinned.<br />
He leaned against his dresser, still clutching the DVD.<br />
“Sorry to disappoint. I’ll be sure to have my library up to your<br />
standards next time.” A smile hovered on his perfect lips as well.<br />
I turned to face him and perched lightly on the edge of the<br />
bed. It was soft and totally comfy, and an image of laying there with<br />
him flashed through my mind. Instantly a blush raged on the surface<br />
of my skin, and I looked down at the floor so my hair would fall<br />
around my face and hopefully camouflage the color. “Are you a<br />
sleeps-on-the-couch kind of guy? Or do you actually stay in here?”<br />
“I sleep in here,” he answered. When I dared to peer up at<br />
him, I saw that he, too, was looking down at the floor.<br />
Was I being too forward by making my way into his space<br />
like this? I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. I mean, I knew<br />
he had no problem being close to me. We’d done our share of<br />
making out in the car and what have you. But maybe I was taking it<br />
a little too far.<br />
My fingers found a spare thread in the comforter and began<br />
twisting it around. My brain fumbled for a way to desexualize me<br />
sitting on his bed. A little awkwardly, I asked, “What do you dream<br />
about, Tucker?”<br />
<strong>The</strong> flush that had flooded my skin wasn’t clearing up. Its<br />
heat radiated beneath my skin, causing my heart rate to spike<br />
dramatically. <strong>The</strong> pounding echoed in my ears, the only sound in the<br />
entire room. I couldn’t even hear either of us breathing. Oh, whoops.<br />
I’d been holding my breath.<br />
Tucker’s eyes slowly rose from their fixation on the floor<br />
until his gaze clasped mine. Those unfathomably spectacular dark<br />
eyes were full of more emotions than I could match names to. I<br />
wanted to hit the pause button and hold that glorious moment there<br />
forever.<br />
Until he decided to make it better.<br />
“If you want to, I could show you.” Slowly, he peeled<br />
himself away from the dresser. His steps were slow, but fluid, like<br />
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his body was moving on its own but his mind was unsure. <strong>The</strong> room<br />
was so small that he made it to the bed in only a few strides, but it<br />
felt like it took him an hour to make the journey.<br />
He bent his head at the same time that I tipped my chin up<br />
and our lips connected softly. His hands came to rest on either side<br />
of me, and I was dimly aware of him subtly pushing me down and<br />
backward. <strong>The</strong> burning under my skin flared intensely and every<br />
single molecule in my body took off spinning.<br />
I started to crawl backwards with my elbows until I was<br />
resting on my back, and Tucker followed me, climbing onto the bed<br />
on his hands and knees. <strong>The</strong> mattress creaked under the shifting<br />
weight. With our bodies so close, I could feel an identical heat<br />
radiating from his.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n his lips pulled away from mine and he caught my gaze<br />
again. This time, right on the surface of his expression, I could<br />
plainly read his uncertainty. “Chelsea ... are you sure this is okay?”<br />
To my credit, I actually did stop to think about it for a<br />
moment. I brushed my hair away from my face and exhaled a whole<br />
lot of the rising passion to clear my head. Obviously, my body was<br />
completely okay with the situation. But I knew that wasn’t what he<br />
was asking.<br />
Clumsily, I sorted through the facts in my lust-riddled brain.<br />
None of the blood was really focused there anymore. I had known<br />
Tucker for a few months now, and he had only ever been trustworthy<br />
and kind. My heart was kicking for him just as much as the rest of<br />
my body was. I felt completely safe and confident that this was a<br />
good idea. In fact, it was a fantastic idea.<br />
I reached up and laid my hand against his cheek. His skin<br />
was so warm. It sent a whole new impulse spiraling through my arm<br />
and down the rest of my body. “I’m sure. Show me what you dream<br />
about.” I had absolutely no idea what part of my feverish brain the<br />
smooth line had come from, but the words were already out and<br />
gone. I leaned up to kiss him again.<br />
Satisfied by my reassurance, Tucker fell right back into the<br />
kiss. One of his hands slid down along my neck, sending those tiny,<br />
delicious sparks scattering out everywhere his fingertips brushed.<br />
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<strong>The</strong>y roved gently down my arm, hesitated for a moment, and then<br />
came to rest against my hip.<br />
My own fingers quickly located the bottom of his t-shirt. I<br />
finally allowed my hand to dip beneath it and touch his skin. He got<br />
the idea and broke away from my mouth just long enough to reach<br />
over his shoulder and tug the shirt over his head. My breath snagged<br />
on something in my throat as I gazed at his body for a moment. He<br />
was perfect. Fair skin, skinny arms, and everything. His obsidian<br />
necklace hung suspended in the air between us.<br />
I was nearly twisting right out of my skin. I reached up and<br />
pulled him down against me. We rolled over so that I was on top,<br />
and then again so he was, our lips meshed together. Somewhere in<br />
the kissing and touching, my tank top and shorts wound up on the<br />
floor. He had to reach over the side of the bed once his pants were<br />
off to retrieve a condom from his wallet at some point. It was warm<br />
in the room, but one or both of us — I wasn’t quite sure who —<br />
pulled back the covers and then we were beneath them.<br />
Finally, Tucker was above me again, with his hands pressing<br />
into the mattress on either side of me. <strong>The</strong>re was something<br />
incredible that I had no words to describe glowing in his eyes as we<br />
gazed at each other. <strong>The</strong> rest of the world around us had gone dark.<br />
My entire body, my whole being, was aware of only him. Every last<br />
nerve, each tiny atom, they were all quivering with anticipation.<br />
At first, I couldn’t help but stiffen, but he was so gentle that<br />
my body relaxed almost immediately. I wrapped my arms around<br />
his shoulders, and he lowered his head so it was beside mine and<br />
placed a soft kiss on my cheek. “Are you okay?” he whispered. His<br />
breath was hot as it danced across my neck.<br />
I nodded, not wanting to speak and shatter the beautiful<br />
moment. Words were cumbersome and pointless beneath the covers.<br />
Now was the time to show him just how okay I was, not to tell him.<br />
Slowly, Tucker began to move, his hips rocking smoothly<br />
against mine. My brain had totally shut down and my body knew<br />
what to do. I fell into the rhythm that he conducted. We were<br />
connected in the most intimate way that two people could; there was<br />
no way I could ever let him any closer to me than this.<br />
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Boy, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.<br />
105
Part Two<br />
106
Chapter Ten<br />
“You are absolutely beautiful.” Tucker’s lips brushed<br />
against my shoulder.<br />
I rolled over, the squeal of the mattress disturbing the<br />
wonderful stillness of his bedroom. “You’re too much.” I dipped my<br />
head to catch his lips before he brought his head back to rest on the<br />
pillow beside me.<br />
When I let him go again, he didn’t lay down. I could make<br />
out half of his face in the faint glow from the streetlight streaming<br />
through the window. He was just gazing at me. I didn’t need to see<br />
his eyes to envision the expression painted inside of them.<br />
“Tucker, be careful. If you keep on staring like that, I might<br />
start to suspect you’re possessed.”<br />
He let out a soft chuckle and finally dropped his head down.<br />
“You know, that’s not really funny.”<br />
“You’re right. It’s completely terrifying,” I agreed.<br />
One of his big hands came out of nowhere and smushed<br />
against my face. “You’re completely terrifying.”<br />
I wriggled out from beneath him and squished my body up<br />
against his. A shiver rocketed through my veins, a thrilling result of<br />
the skin-to-skin contact. Mmm. If I hadn’t already jumped him when<br />
we’d gotten back to his place, I’d have jumped him right there.<br />
His arms came to rest around me, and I softened into his<br />
embrace. My stock of endless corny jokes melted away as that<br />
wonderful warm sensation spread outwards from my heart all the<br />
way down to my toes. “I love you,” I murmured into his chest. He<br />
smelled like the soap from the shower he’d just taken.<br />
He hooked his arms under mine and pulled me up so he could<br />
kiss me again. A flock of doves took flight in my stomach. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
feathers tickled my insides as our lips locked together and time<br />
slowed down around us once again. When he was satisfied, he pulled<br />
back just enough to whisper against my mouth, “I love you.”<br />
I laid my head down on his chest. “Thank you for dinner<br />
tonight.” My fingers traced a circle on his smooth skin.<br />
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He placed one more kiss in my hair. “It was my pleasure.<br />
Happy eight months.”<br />
“Okay, refresh my memory on this particular house,” I<br />
requested as I cut the wheel to make a sharp right turn.<br />
In the passenger seat, Susannah opened up the manila folder<br />
with her expertly manicured hands. “This one is ...” she paused<br />
dramatically as she scanned the page for the information she needed.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Johansson family. Both parents, still married, and one son.<br />
This is the one where the boy claims that something talks to him<br />
when he’s alone. <strong>The</strong> parents have never seen anything weird<br />
happen, but the kid is so freaked out they finally agreed to call us.”<br />
“Oh, right. <strong>The</strong> possible schizophrenia case.” My head<br />
bobbed as I recalled Daisy’s email about it when she asked if I would<br />
be available for the preliminary visit. We had the forms the family<br />
had already filled out on Susannah’s lap, but it was important to go<br />
and talk to them and find out what we were dealing with for<br />
ourselves.<br />
She giggled and closed the folder again. “Chelsea. You need<br />
to keep an open mind. You’re a ghost hunter now. You can’t go<br />
around prescribing Adderall to our clients.”<br />
“I wasn’t thinking Adderall. Maybe military school.” I<br />
glanced her way and flashed a winning grin.<br />
Minutes later, I pulled the Honda up alongside a very pale<br />
yellow bi-level house with brown shutters. It looked normal enough<br />
from the outside, but then, they always did. <strong>The</strong>re were never any<br />
transparent people out front mowing “666” into the lawn. That<br />
would have made our job way too easy. Actually, if I saw a spirit<br />
with a lawnmower, I’d probably slam on the gas rather than the<br />
brakes.<br />
Susannah pulled up the fur-lined hood of her poofy white<br />
jacket and reached for the door handle. “Here goes nothing.”<br />
I followed her lead and burrowed far inside the hood of my<br />
own much less stylish winter coat. <strong>The</strong> material made a swooshing<br />
sound as the sleeves brushed against my shoulders. As soon as I<br />
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swung my legs out of the car, the frigid air attacked them, and a<br />
fierce chill rushed up my body. “Brrr.”<br />
We made our way up the driveway and along the little path<br />
that had been shoveled in the snow up to the front steps. Taking care<br />
to check for ice first, I grabbed the railing and hopped up to the door.<br />
<strong>The</strong> man who pulled open the heavy interior door was thin,<br />
balding, and wearing some wicked 70s-style glasses. He didn’t<br />
smile as he peered out the glass pane on the outer door. “Can I help<br />
you?”<br />
I glanced over my shoulder at my partner, whose eyebrows<br />
were raised. Usually the clients were expecting us. “Er, yes, Mr.<br />
Johansson? I’m Chelsea Keller from Lark Hollow Paranormal<br />
Research. This is Susannah Reid. We’re here for the preliminary<br />
visit? You spoke with Daisy?” My sentences began to curve up into<br />
question marks at the end as my confidence faltered.<br />
Still his face didn’t register any recognition — or any<br />
emotion at all, really — but he reached out to push open the door for<br />
us. “Oh. Okay. Come in.” We stepped onto a little brown-carpeted<br />
landing with two sets of stairs, one leading up and the other diving<br />
down. <strong>The</strong> house smelled softly like something pleasantly spicy and<br />
sweet, almost like the Chai teas I always grabbed from Joe Bean’s.<br />
Mr. Johansson was already disappearing up the set of stairs to the<br />
left.<br />
I stepped a little closer to Susannah as I shrugged off my<br />
hood. “Weird.”<br />
“Do you think we should follow him?” she whispered.<br />
Her question was answered momentarily in the form of a boy<br />
about Gunner’s age appearing at the top of the stairs. His face was<br />
drawn and pale. Now that was the sort of look I had grown to expect<br />
on a client. Maybe Daddy just hadn’t had much to do with contacting<br />
the paranormal investigators.<br />
“Hi,” he said hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure what to do now<br />
that we were there.<br />
“Hi, sweetie,” Susannah greeted him warmly with a vibrant<br />
smile. “I’m Susannah, and this is Chelsea. You must be Timmy. Is<br />
there somewhere we can sit down together so we can talk?”<br />
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Now that she had his attention, Timmy was staring at her like<br />
she was something that had walked right out of one of the Playboys<br />
he’d hidden under his bed. Did ten-year-olds even read Playboys?<br />
Oh, God, that meant that Gunner ... Ew. Stop, brain. That is quite<br />
enough of that kind of talk.<br />
Luckily, he recovered from his awe long enough to lead us<br />
up the stairs and into a quaint little dining room. We sat down on the<br />
cold wooden chairs and Susannah slid the folder over to me. I pulled<br />
my pen out of my pocket and opened up to the first page.<br />
Once I was situated, I glanced up at Timmy. “Are your<br />
parents going to sit with us, too?”<br />
He cupped one hand around his mouth and yelled, “MOM!”<br />
I winced and stuck my pinky in my ear. Ah, yes, he was<br />
definitely my brother’s age.<br />
Shortly after the unnecessary yell, a woman with a short<br />
black mom-do appeared in the doorway. Unlike her husband, she at<br />
least offered us a smile, even if it looked a little forced. When she<br />
came to sit down beside her son, I recognized concern and some<br />
hopefulness in the creases framing her eyes. She didn’t know what<br />
was wrong with her son. She was willing to consider that it really<br />
was something paranormal so she didn’t have to face the facts that<br />
her kid might have been wired a little differently. Gotta love parents.<br />
“Hi, Mrs. Johansson.” Susannah introduced us again and we<br />
both shook her hand. “We’re just going to ask you some more<br />
questions. Some of them might be repeats from what you’ve already<br />
filled out, but that’s just in case you’ve thought of anything to add<br />
in the few weeks since you submitted the investigation request<br />
form.” She was beaming at the woman. What I’d give for people<br />
skills like that. Or even just a rack like that.<br />
“Thank you for coming,” Mrs. Johansson said. Her lips were<br />
tight.<br />
“So, it says here that all three of you are Catholic?” I asked.<br />
“Yes. Why do you need to know that?” she responded.<br />
Susannah came to the rescue with her sunshiny smile. “It’s<br />
really mostly so that we can be respectful of your beliefs. Also so<br />
that we can understand what kind of practices you have in the<br />
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household. Someone who is Wiccan would have different objects<br />
and celebrations in the house than someone who is Jewish.”<br />
I couldn’t help but shoot her a little grin. Way to lay on the<br />
charm. <strong>The</strong>n, before Mrs. Johansson became even less patient with<br />
us, I continued, “How long have you lived here?”<br />
“About six years,” she replied.<br />
Timmy was kicking the underside of the table rhythmically,<br />
so my pen skewed to the side as I was writing the “y.” Note to self:<br />
Don’t have kids.<br />
“And how old is the house?” my partner asked.<br />
“Maybe ten years, if that. It was very new when we bought<br />
it.”<br />
We reviewed that the previous owners had been an elderly<br />
couple who had sold it when they had to move into a nursing home.<br />
Both of them were still alive, so it was unknown if anyone had ever<br />
passed away on the premises. No physical changes of any kind had<br />
been made on the house since they had moved out.<br />
“Now, what makes you suspect that there is paranormal<br />
activity going on?” I pointedly looked at Timmy with this question.<br />
He looked up. His blue eyes were the size of the tires on my<br />
car. “<strong>The</strong>re’s a demon in my closet.”<br />
My heart froze mid-beat. That word had definitely not been<br />
in the report. If I’d seen the d-word, I would have automatically said<br />
no to even the preliminary visit. Desperate to retain a professional<br />
attitude, I struggled for words. “I-I’m sorry? What makes you think<br />
that?”<br />
“I just know. At first I didn’t. He pretends to be nice. But<br />
he’s not.” <strong>The</strong> boy was looking down at his knees.<br />
Susannah and I exchanged glances and she reached across<br />
the table to rest her hand on his. “Sweetie, tell us what happened.<br />
Tell us how you know that.”<br />
Mrs. Johansson’s face was the color of the paper under my<br />
pen, and I imagined mine didn’t look much different. Instantly, my<br />
nerves were on overdrive. Why would Daisy have sent me to this<br />
case? She knew that I wanted no part of anything evil.<br />
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“He lives in my closet. He doesn’t come out when anyone<br />
else is around. Mostly at night, when I’m trying to sleep. He<br />
whispers things to me.” Timmy rested his elbow on the table and<br />
pressed his forehead against his palm.<br />
“What does he say?” Susannah pressed gently.<br />
“He says my name. He asks me to play with him. But one<br />
time I tried and he shut the closet door behind me and growled a lot.<br />
I got really scared, but finally he let me open the door again.” Tears<br />
were actually starting to glaze his eyes. This kid wasn’t kidding.<br />
Either there really was something in his closet, or he was in need of<br />
some serious help.<br />
“We’ve never noticed anything strange,” his mother added.<br />
“His father and I have never heard any voices, in his room or<br />
anywhere else.”<br />
“He doesn’t talk when you’re there.” Timmy glared at her<br />
through eyes with water just barely held back from spilling out onto<br />
his cheeks.<br />
“How long has this been going on?” I asked, glancing from<br />
one to the other.<br />
“He started telling us about it maybe three months ago,” Mrs.<br />
Johansson said. “We didn’t think much of it. Maybe a boy’s<br />
imagination, you know? But he seems so frightened ...”<br />
“But it’s been happening for longer. Almost a year. At first<br />
I thought it was cool.” His chin dropped onto his chest like he was<br />
ashamed of himself. “But then when I realized he wasn’t nice, I tried<br />
to pretend he wasn’t there. And it didn’t work.”<br />
My lips pressed together tightly as my brain started to smoke<br />
from overworking. I was struggling to keep the fear down and think<br />
logically. Just because the little boy said that it was a demon didn’t<br />
mean it was. It could just be a really nasty spirit. Or it could be, as<br />
his parents seemed to believe, all in his head.<br />
Susannah leaned forward and brushed her long, bleach-fried<br />
hair behind her ear. “I need you to think really hard, Timmy. Was<br />
there anything big that happened in your family or in your house<br />
right around the time that this guy started talking to you?”<br />
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He blinked furiously to keep his tears from spilling out.<br />
“No.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> wooden chair creaked as she sat back against it and<br />
glanced at me. I knew what she was thinking: would he have<br />
answered differently if mother wasn’t in the room? <strong>The</strong>re were also<br />
questions that we needed to ask Mother Dearest that weren’t<br />
appropriate in front of her child.<br />
Time to split them up.<br />
“Timmy, does this activity happen in any rooms besides<br />
yours?” I asked.<br />
He nodded. “Yeah. I can be anywhere. He lives in the closet<br />
but he’ll follow me upstairs sometimes. He gets bored down there.”<br />
“But it’s mostly in your room?”<br />
Another nod.<br />
“Do you think you could show me your room?” Susannah<br />
posed the question that one hundred percent of the straight male<br />
population wanted to hear from her.<br />
Without a word, he pushed back his chair and started over to<br />
the stairs. Susannah followed after and touched my shoulder on her<br />
way past me. Good luck.<br />
“Mrs. Johansson, could you give me the tour of the rest of<br />
the house?” I asked as their footsteps thudded lightly against the<br />
carpeted stairs. “And do you mind if I take pictures?” I reached into<br />
my back pocket and pulled out the little digital camera that was<br />
resting there.<br />
“Oh, sure.” She rose and gestured around us. “Obviously,<br />
this is the kitchen and dining area. To our left is the living room.”<br />
As I tailed her down the hallway, I clutched my open folder<br />
and tried hard to emphasize the fact that I was just reading the<br />
questions off of a sheet. <strong>The</strong>se were the ones that made people puff<br />
up and hiss at us. “I have to ask you again if you or your husband<br />
are heavy drinkers or do any kind of illegal drugs. I promise you that<br />
your answers are absolutely confidential.”<br />
She frowned over her shoulder as she paused in a doorway.<br />
“No, I can assure you that our answers on the sheet were accurate.<br />
We barely even keep alcohol in the house, and nobody is on drugs.”<br />
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“What about Timmy? Has he seen a psychologist or been<br />
prescribed medication since you submitted the form?”<br />
Mrs. Johansson shook her head. “No. We wanted to see you<br />
first before going to that extreme.”<br />
“Do any of you suffer from any illnesses?” I asked.<br />
“Okay, look. Chelsea, is it? My family is perfectly normal.<br />
Until Timmy started experiencing this — this demon, or whatever<br />
— we had no problems whatsoever. I would appreciate it if you<br />
would take me at my word.” <strong>The</strong> blue eyes she had passed to her<br />
son were a mixture of anger and pain.<br />
In her mind, seeing a psychologist was more extreme than<br />
calling in a team of ghost hunters. This woman was really desperate<br />
to have something haunting her son that wasn’t just in his mind. I<br />
wondered if this could have had something to do with why it was<br />
hanging around, assuming that there was actually an entity. With the<br />
woman being this insistent, she might have filled out the application<br />
with a little embellishment on the paranormal claims.<br />
I lowered the folder. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Johansson, but normal<br />
is relative. This is just standard procedure. I don’t mean any<br />
offense.”<br />
She sucked in a big breath and shook her head. “Right.<br />
Thank you. Anyway, this is our bedroom. Hi, Paul.”<br />
I leaned inside the doorway to see Mr. Johansson sitting on<br />
a vast four-poster bed that looked out of place in the small room.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a cross hanging over the headboard, which made another<br />
question pop into my head.<br />
“Have you ever had your house blessed?”<br />
Mrs. Johansson raised an eyebrow. “As in, an exorcism?”<br />
<strong>The</strong> word immediately gave my heart a jolt. “No. Nothing<br />
like that. You can call the priest at your local parish to come and<br />
bless your house with holy water and prayer. If there’s negative<br />
energy hanging around for some reason, it could help to clear it.”<br />
“No, we didn’t know that we could do that. Maybe we<br />
should.” She chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip.<br />
“It’s something to consider.” I raised my camera and<br />
snapped a photo.<br />
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Mr. Johansson didn’t even look up from his magazine.<br />
After we finished the tour of the upstairs, we descended to<br />
the lower level, where we found Susannah and Timmy still in his<br />
room. She had her EMF meter out and was scanning the corner by<br />
the closet.<br />
“What is that?” asked Mrs. Johansson.<br />
As my partner explained what the device was for, I surveyed<br />
the bedroom. It was much larger than his parents’; the kid had half<br />
the downstairs to himself. <strong>The</strong>re were sliding glass doors in the back<br />
that led out to a patio and a huge, snow-covered yard. His double<br />
bed was in one corner, pushed against the wall farthest away from<br />
the closet.<br />
Being in the room was making me uncomfortable, but I tried<br />
to shrug off the feeling. It had to be all in my head. Timmy<br />
mentioning a demon had definitely wigged me out. That didn’t mean<br />
that there was actually anything here.<br />
I squared my shoulders and practically marched up to the<br />
sliding wooden doors of the closet. It would definitely take a lot of<br />
effort for an entity to hold one of those shut and keep a ten-year-old<br />
boy trapped inside. <strong>The</strong>re were no knobs or handles; that entire door<br />
would have had to be held against the frame.<br />
With a deep breath, I tried to keep my heartbeat steady as I<br />
slid my fingers into the tiny gap between the door and its frame and<br />
pushed it open. <strong>The</strong> inside wasn’t all that intimidating; it was fairly<br />
small and looked like any normal closet. <strong>The</strong> floor was littered with<br />
toys, shoes, and clothes that had fallen off their hangers. Maybe<br />
some of those could have gotten stuck and made it impossible for<br />
Timmy to open the door again once he was inside. But why would<br />
it have closed behind him in the first place?<br />
I took a picture for good measure and then turned around to<br />
get a few of the room itself. As I lowered the camera, I noticed<br />
Timmy staring at me. “You okay?” I asked.<br />
His lower lip was trembling. “Will you please help me? Will<br />
you make him go away?”<br />
Instantly, an image of Gunner in the same situation popped<br />
into my head. <strong>The</strong> poor little guy was totally terrified. If my brother<br />
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was in the same situation, I’d have done anything to protect him. My<br />
heart literally tried to jump out of my chest and wrap him in a big<br />
hug. All my fear was washed away by this warm, brave, protective<br />
sensation.<br />
“Don’t worry, Timmy. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”<br />
Whether there’s a spirit or you’re in need of medication.<br />
Susannah finished up recording any unnaturally high EMF<br />
readings in the house so whoever investigated could be aware of<br />
where to expect spikes. <strong>The</strong>n the four of us reconvened at the kitchen<br />
table.<br />
I reached inside my folder and pulled out two slips of paper.<br />
“We just need you to sign this release form now, please. One copy<br />
is for you to keep and the other is for us. It just says that we aren’t<br />
responsible for any kind of spike in activity during or following the<br />
investigation, or any damages that occur because of it.”<br />
“Thank you for your time,” Mrs. Johansson said, although<br />
her sincerity was questionable. She took the pen I offered her and<br />
scribbled a signature on the paper. “When can we expect you to be<br />
back to actually, um, ghost hunt?”<br />
“Well, we need to assign someone to your case and they’ll<br />
call you to set up a date that’ll work for you,” I explained.<br />
Her thin eyebrows instantly turned downward. “You mean<br />
you two aren’t going to be here?”<br />
“Probably not.” Susannah’s tone was ten kinds of apologetic.<br />
“Since we’ve already met with you, we might have biased emotions<br />
or thoughts. We try to avoid having the preliminary investigators be<br />
here for the actual investigation. We promise that whoever comes<br />
will be just as understanding and professional as we have been.”<br />
Though she didn’t seem thrilled, Mrs. Johansson was<br />
apparently satisfied by the calming tone. I swear, if Susannah talked<br />
to a lion like that, she’d have it purring on its back begging for a<br />
tummy rub in seconds.<br />
Once the form was securely tucked into the folder along with<br />
the EMF readings, we stood up and pulled our coats back on.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Johanssons walked us down to the landing where we’d<br />
first walked in. I bent down so I could be eye level with Timmy,<br />
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who was twisting the bottom of his shirt with both hands. “Listen, I<br />
promise you that you have nothing to be scared of. We’ll make sure<br />
you’re safe. Mr. and Mrs. Johansson, you did the right thing by<br />
calling us.”<br />
He didn’t look up at me, but he nodded.<br />
With that, we donned our hoods again and opened the door<br />
to face the nasty winter air.<br />
Once we were in the car, I spun a dial on the dashboard to<br />
turn the heat up as high as I could. <strong>The</strong>n I plopped the folder into<br />
Susannah’s lap and raised my eyebrows at her. “Well.”<br />
“Dude. <strong>The</strong> husband? Complete creeper.” She ran her<br />
fingers through her hair to fix it after having been under the hood<br />
for thirty seconds.<br />
“Even the mom. <strong>The</strong> woman is absolutely convinced that<br />
there can be nothing wrong psychologically with her son.” I rubbed<br />
my hands together and held them in front of the vent, letting the hot<br />
air rush over my skin.<br />
Susannah bobbed her head. “Oh, totally. She doesn’t<br />
understand how this works at all.”<br />
“Did you get any weird EMF spikes while you were down in<br />
Timmy’s room?” I asked.<br />
“Nope. A few natural hotspots from some wires here and<br />
there, but nothing strange. I have to admit, I didn’t get any<br />
paranormal feelings anywhere in the house. And I swear I am not<br />
just saying that because I want that woman to get over herself.”<br />
I gazed past her at the quaint bi-level. “I was a little psyched<br />
out by the demon thing. So I can’t tell if I had any concrete feelings<br />
of ‘holy shit there’s a ghost in here’ or if it was all in my head.”<br />
A tinkly laugh bubbled up from her throat. “Please, girl. You<br />
did fine. Most people, especially the religious families,<br />
automatically think a ghost is evil. But we don’t even know if<br />
something was there.”<br />
She had a point. When people interacted with something<br />
they couldn’t see, their fear did have a tendency to convince them<br />
that it was evil. Case in point: pre-Tucker moi. “Did you get<br />
1<strong>17</strong>
anything else out of him when he was away from his mom?” I<br />
shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb.<br />
“Nope.” She let her head roll back against the seat. “He just<br />
kept saying how the thing talks to him and wants him to play. But<br />
it’s so strange that, if there’s an entity there, wouldn’t affect either<br />
of the parents, unless they’re just absolutely oblivious — which they<br />
do seem to be. I don’t mean to write off his claims, but honestly, I’m<br />
not sure this is anything paranormal.”<br />
I nodded as her words sank comfortingly into my ears. Her<br />
logic made sense, but I wasn’t about to make any kind of judgments.<br />
I’d leave that up to the team that actually went into the house.<br />
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Chapter Eleven<br />
“Are you positive it’s okay for me to be doing this?”<br />
Tucker shot me a glance from the driver’s seat, not even<br />
trying to mask the grin. “Chelsea, Daisy wouldn’t have asked you<br />
herself if it wasn’t okay. We try to avoid this, but sometimes it has<br />
to happen.”<br />
I stared out the window at the pale yellow bi-level with<br />
brown shutters. <strong>The</strong> snow around the driveway had started to turn<br />
brown in the weeks since I’d visited it last. My initial uneasiness<br />
was creeping up my throat again, trying to choke me and trip me up.<br />
“Stupid Jamie. How dare he get the flu tonight, of all nights?”<br />
“So selfish,” Tucker agreed.<br />
It wasn’t that I was scared to do the case. Well, okay, I was<br />
definitely nervous. This was exactly the reason that the preliminary<br />
investigators didn’t come to the actual showdown. I was unnerved<br />
by the absolute terror that had been woven in Timmy’s words. No<br />
one else here tonight had experienced that.<br />
Although everyone who had reviewed the file we’d started<br />
felt that there was no demon in the closet. In fact, most of them<br />
seemed to be leaning towards it all being in his head. But LHPR’s<br />
mission statement of open-mindedness and willingness to assist<br />
forced them all to consider the fact that it could be a particularly<br />
cranky spirit.<br />
If they’d actually thought the activity was in any way<br />
demonic or evil, Daisy wouldn’t have asked me to go. That was what<br />
I kept telling myself on the drive up. Yeah, maybe something didn’t<br />
sit right with me, but it was just because my emotions were biased<br />
after the preliminary round. That was all. That had to be all.<br />
“Hey.” My boyfriend’s hand on my shoulder jerked me out<br />
of the black hole that was my brain. “You okay?”<br />
I turned to face him and my heart gave a pleasant little<br />
shudder. God, he was so damn gorgeous. And those perfect brown<br />
eyes were so full of genuine concern and affection. Immediately<br />
distracted from my reservations about the case, I nodded. “Yeah.<br />
I’m okay. Just getting lost in that scary place in my head.”<br />
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“Hmm. Let me help you find your way back.” He leaned<br />
forward and pressed his lips to mine. <strong>The</strong> fire-like sensation flooded<br />
down my throat and to my limbs like a shot of Jäger.<br />
<strong>The</strong> kiss only lasted a second before he pulled back and<br />
rested his palm against my cheek. A little smile hovered on those<br />
lips that fueled me. “Come on. You’re going to be fine. You always<br />
are.”<br />
I took a deep breath and opened the passenger door. My<br />
sneakers crunched on the hardened snow as I walked around to the<br />
backseat to grab my equipment case.<br />
Ethan was the first to get out of the backseat of the blue<br />
Fiesta that parked behind us. His long blond hair was tucked back<br />
behind his ears. “Hey,” he greeted us.<br />
Within moments, Adrian and Richard had also emerged onto<br />
the street. When I saw the director, I said to Tucker, “You’re not the<br />
team leader tonight?”<br />
He shook his head. “Not tonight. Richard’s in charge. You<br />
and I can partner up again.”<br />
Since I had become an actual investigator with Lark Hollow<br />
Paranormal, I couldn’t just tag along and trail him around anymore.<br />
Whenever he was the team leader, I had to partner with someone<br />
else. I mean, I’d gotten used to it, but of course I preferred to work<br />
with him. He was the one who had taught me how to do all this in<br />
the first place. Naturally, I regarded him as the foremost expert in<br />
ghost hunting.<br />
<strong>The</strong> five of us convened on the sidewalk for the preinvestigation<br />
grounding and prayer session. No one spoke out loud<br />
this time; each of these team members preferred to work in their<br />
heads. I closed my eyes and focused on the cement beneath my feet.<br />
I envisioned the suit of armor — newly coated with a fresh white<br />
light to repel negativity — covering my body. My fears began to<br />
subside as I made sure I was energetically protected. Even if this<br />
was a grouchy spirit, I would be okay. We’d dealt with some notso-nice<br />
ones before.<br />
After a few moments, Richard asked, “Okay, who’s cold?”<br />
With a chorus of laughs we all headed for the front door.<br />
120
Mr. Johansson opened the door. I was expecting a cold<br />
demeanor again, but tonight, he gave us a big smile. “Welcome.<br />
Come right inside.”<br />
As I passed him, he raised his eyebrows. “Are you okay?”<br />
I hadn’t realized I’d been frowning in his direction.<br />
Immediately I wiped the expression off my face. “Oh, yeah, I’m<br />
okay. Sorry.” Just a little wigged out by your complete personality<br />
180. And the fact that you don’t seem to remember me at all.<br />
Richard led the way up the stairs to the table where we’d sat<br />
down to interview the Mrs. and Timmy. He set down his case, and<br />
the rest of us followed suit.<br />
Before unloading, he turned to Mr. Johansson. “Would you<br />
mind giving us a tour of the house?”<br />
“Of course, of course.” <strong>The</strong> man seemed completely happy<br />
to oblige the team leader’s request. He motioned for us to follow<br />
him and started off down the hall. “I’m the only one home tonight.<br />
Mrs. Johansson took Timmy out. She didn’t want him getting<br />
scared.”<br />
God, someone was awfully bubbly and talkative tonight.<br />
Even though I had already seen what the interior looked like, I<br />
brought up the rear of the tour for good measure. I wanted to keep<br />
an eye on the sketchy Mr. Johansson, and the best way to do that<br />
was to stick close to him. And blend in with the rest of the group, of<br />
course.<br />
Once the rest of my teammates had a chance to visit every<br />
room in the house, we returned to base camp to gear up. I’d been<br />
sure to wear my cargo pants again, so I loaded the pockets with my<br />
flashlight, my digital camera (now with infrared capabilities), my<br />
voice recorder, my EMF meter, and my brand-new infrared noncontact<br />
thermometer (a Christmas present from the boyfriend —<br />
how romantic, right?).<br />
It didn’t take everyone long to situate the cameras and<br />
motion sensors where they wanted to. <strong>The</strong>y didn’t know any of the<br />
specific claims, so they were going completely off of intuition. I kept<br />
my mouth shut so that I wouldn’t affect their focus, but I did<br />
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volunteer to set up one of the video cameras in Timmy’s room when<br />
no one else suggested it.<br />
As soon as everyone was satisfied with the placement of the<br />
machinery, Ethan asked if he and Adrian could take the upstairs first.<br />
“Something’s definitely pulling me into that master bedroom,” he<br />
remarked with a glance down the hall.<br />
“That’s fine with me,” Tucker consented. When he looked<br />
to me, I just nodded. Timmy’s bedroom room hadn’t seemed any<br />
scarier this time than it had last time, even when I was down there<br />
by myself. <strong>The</strong>n again, the lights were still on.<br />
“If everyone is ready, let’s go lights out,” Richard directed.<br />
“Mr. Johansson, if you would, please come with me.” He led him to<br />
the couch in the living room beside the kitchen/dining area so he<br />
could explain what he needed him to do.<br />
Tucker and I traipsed over to the stairs once again. With each<br />
step down, the equipment in my pockets jostled against my legs. His<br />
hand hit the wall switch on the landing, sending the light on the<br />
staircase shooting away from us.<br />
“Do you want to go to the den or Timmy’s room first?” he<br />
asked as we came to the downstairs hallway.<br />
“You tell me,” I advised. “You’re the unbiased one,<br />
remember?”<br />
He laughed. “Oh, right. Okay, let’s go to the den since you<br />
already set up a camera in the bedroom.” This time he had to reach<br />
up to pull the chord on the hall light, and once it clicked, darkness<br />
rushed up to greet us once again.<br />
I clicked on my flashlight and the red glow bathed the wall<br />
opposite us as I led the way into the den. <strong>The</strong> beam picked up the<br />
old brown leather couch facing the big-screen plasma TV on the wall<br />
first, so I plopped myself down on it. <strong>The</strong>n I pulled out my digital<br />
recorder and pressed the “record” button.<br />
“This is Tucker and Chelsea. First sweep, in the den.” I let<br />
my flashlight rove around, observing the photos hanging on the wall.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was Timmy with a little white dog. Mr. Johansson holding a<br />
massive fish up on the line with which he’d caught it. <strong>The</strong>y were all<br />
smiles. Nothing like they had seemed during the preliminary visit.<br />
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That uneasy feeling was creeping into the crevices of my<br />
mind again, but I tried to brush it off again.<br />
“If anyone’s in here with us, then hello,” Tucker greeted the<br />
alleged spirit. “I’m Tucker. This is Chelsea. Can you tell us your<br />
name?”<br />
One of the challenges of partnering with him now was the<br />
fact that it was way hard to keep my emotions in check. When my<br />
red beam roved over his face, my heart gave that pleasant little heavy<br />
beat against my ribs. Immediately I took a deep breath to steady<br />
myself. Bad, Chelsea.<br />
Gradually, my uncomfortable feeling subsided with each<br />
question that we asked. <strong>The</strong> voice that Timmy heard didn’t come<br />
snaking from the black corners of the room. We didn’t get any kind<br />
of answer at all.<br />
Eventually, Tucker turned to me. “You want to head into the<br />
bedroom? We’re getting nowhere in here.”<br />
We picked up our equipment and switched to the other room<br />
down the hall. This time I didn’t sit down. I felt on edge again; I just<br />
couldn’t shake the idea that something didn’t seem right about the<br />
whole situation.<br />
Tucker didn’t seem to pick up on the same feeling, though,<br />
so I tried again to convince myself that it was all in my head. <strong>The</strong><br />
rest of the group members were way more sensitive than I was. If<br />
they weren’t feeling like something was off in the house, then it had<br />
to be just because I had been to the preliminary visit.<br />
He took out his own voice recorder and placed it on the floor<br />
beside the camera. <strong>The</strong>n he produced his cell sensor and started to<br />
scan the room with it, giving the introduction as he went. “You<br />
might have heard us in the next room, but I’d like to say hello again.<br />
I’m Tucker, and this is Chelsea. We’d like to ask you some<br />
questions.”<br />
Silence roared in my ears, adding to the general wanting-torun<br />
sensation that was nipping at my heels. No matter how I tried to<br />
argue the emotion with logic, it was not going away. I turned so my<br />
back was against the wall and I could clearly see the rest of the room,<br />
as long as I had the flashlight on.<br />
123
“Is there anyone in here with us?” Tucker asked. After a<br />
second’s pause, he added, “We hear that you like to talk to the little<br />
boy who lives here.”<br />
A clicking noise rose from the corner that made my heart<br />
jump into my throat, but when it continued, I realized it was just the<br />
radiator. It was winter; obviously people were going to have their<br />
heat on. I exhaled heavily.<br />
“He’s scared of you. We’re not scared. We just want to talk<br />
to you. We want to find out who you are.” He walked over towards<br />
the closet.<br />
Suddenly, at the exact time that the noise from the radiator<br />
died down, another sound rose to meet our ears. It was so faint I<br />
wasn’t sure if I was hearing it at first, but then it gradually got<br />
louder. My blood froze solid in my veins as I recognized what it<br />
was: laughter. Whoever we were talking to thought what Tucker had<br />
just said was pretty hilarious.<br />
His head whipped around to look at me, and in the glow of<br />
the red flashlight, I saw his eyes were the size of clementines. <strong>The</strong>n<br />
the dark brows furrowed in concentration and he turned around<br />
again, searching for the source of the laughter. “Why was that funny<br />
to you?” he asked, keeping his tone even and making sure not to<br />
challenge the entity and provoke it to any further action.<br />
For an answer, the laughter stopped. <strong>The</strong> silence crept up on<br />
us again, making the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
was always the chance that the laughter had been residual, that there<br />
was no actual spirit there, but then why had it started and stopped at<br />
such opportune moments? I had to assume that we weren’t alone.<br />
And if that was the case, then why was it interacting with us when<br />
it had never showed its presence to the adult Johanssons?<br />
My heart was going haywire. “Tucker…” I said softly.<br />
<strong>The</strong> instant the word was out of my mouth, the closet door<br />
slid open so fast that it knocked violently against the doorframe.<br />
Tucker’s body flinched in surprise, and he immediately pulled out<br />
his camera and started snapping pictures. He leaned his head inside<br />
the closet to take a few more, and as soon as he straightened up<br />
again, the door slammed shut once more.<br />
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<strong>The</strong> bang echoed deafeningly in the silence, and instinctively<br />
I slapped my hands over my ears. This was definitely not residual.<br />
This was an entity that had just nearly succeeded in closing my<br />
boyfriend’s head in the closet door. He might have found this<br />
exciting, but I did not want to tangle with it. I finally realized why<br />
I’d been feeling uneasy all night long. It was the bad feeling that<br />
Tucker had assured me I would recognize. <strong>The</strong> one that signified<br />
that it just wasn’t a good idea to go to a particular case. And I was<br />
not ashamed at all of the fact that I wanted to get the hell out of there.<br />
Before I could announce that I wanted to go outside, he was<br />
already talking to the spirit again as he backed up. “Did you know<br />
my head was in there? You could have hurt me.” His eyes were still<br />
wide and his whole face was lit up with what I could only describe<br />
as awe.<br />
<strong>The</strong> walkie-talkie buzzed with static and Richard’s voice<br />
came through. “Is everything okay down there?”<br />
Tucker reached down to pick it up, but as he raised it to his<br />
mouth, a new frown crossed his features. Again, I didn’t get a chance<br />
to speak and ask what was wrong. Before I could, flames sprouted<br />
forth from the radio.<br />
He dropped it instinctively and jumped back. When the<br />
device hit the carpet, instead of extinguishing, the fire grew as it<br />
consumed the entire thing.<br />
I couldn’t move. My blood had turned to concrete in my<br />
veins and I was stuck standing there staring at the walkie-talkie that<br />
had caught fire on its own. I was pretty sure even my heart had<br />
stopped beating.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, something in my brain registered that yes, the<br />
impossible had just happened, and that was the final straw. Normal<br />
spirits could not start spontaneous fires. This thing, whatever it was,<br />
had given me reason to believe that Timmy was right about it. Fear<br />
like I had never known wrapped its steely grip around my heart. This<br />
wasn’t just fear of being pushed or scratched. This was fear for our<br />
lives.<br />
125
Before Tucker had a chance to keep talking to his new friend,<br />
I shouted, “Tucker! Let’s get out of here!” I didn’t know why I was<br />
shouting. It was still silent except for the crackle of the flames.<br />
He didn’t even look up. His gaze was fixed on that fiery thing<br />
as it writhed on the floor, somehow not spreading to the carpet. He<br />
was absolutely mesmerized.<br />
I didn’t want to go over to the side of the room where there<br />
were slamming doors and random fires, but I didn’t have a choice. I<br />
darted over to him and grabbed hold of his arm. “Tucker! Come on!”<br />
I urged. Adrenaline was surging through me and my heart was<br />
racing to break the sound barrier. We had to go. Now.<br />
When his eyes lifted to mine, the amazement contained<br />
within them shocked me. He wasn’t afraid. He was completely<br />
captivated. “It started a fire, Chelsea. All on its own. Imagine the<br />
power ...”<br />
I ignored his creepy remark and pulled his arm as hard as I<br />
could. Luckily, he started to follow me in the direction of the hall. I<br />
let go of his hand and hurried to the doorway.<br />
When I turned to make sure he was following me, I saw that<br />
he had stopped just a foot away and had turned to stare at the burning<br />
walkie-talkie again. I opened my mouth to call out to him at the same<br />
time that he was knocked right off his feet.<br />
This wasn’t a push like I had experienced at the Masons’<br />
house. This was something barreling right into him and sending him<br />
flying. It was like watching a scene in a movie where someone gets<br />
thrown into a wall. He hit the wood with a dull thud and fell<br />
facedown onto the carpet.<br />
“Tucker!” His name wrenched itself out of my throat as I<br />
bolted over to him. I was distinctly aware that whatever had just<br />
knocked into him could do the same thing to me, but I didn’t care. I<br />
needed to make sure that he was okay.<br />
I fell to my knees at his side, unsure of what to do. Should I<br />
touch him? He could have been seriously hurt by that impact.<br />
Anything I did might make it worse.<br />
Luckily, he moved on his own and looked up at me with a<br />
dazed expression. He didn’t say anything, but the fact that he was<br />
126
able to blink and turn his head was enough for me. I grabbed him by<br />
the shoulders and hoisted him to his feet with all the strength I had<br />
in me.<br />
This time, I made sure I kept hold of his hand as I ran from<br />
the room. As our feet pounded up the stairs, we ran into Richard,<br />
Adrian, and Ethan, who were all on their way down.<br />
“What is going on down there?” Richard demanded.<br />
“We have to go. We don’t know what we’re dealing with,” I<br />
breathed as I reached for the door. I didn’t even want my equipment.<br />
I just wanted to be out of that house and as far away from that spirit<br />
as possible.<br />
No one argued with me. “I’ll turn the lights on and pack up<br />
our equipment so we don’t alarm Mr. Johansson,” Richard said.<br />
“He shouldn’t stay here, either.” By this time, I had one foot<br />
on the front steps. “Nobody should. Whatever that thing is, it just<br />
hurt Tucker.” I didn’t even bother to shut the door behind me as I<br />
hurried down the steps, still dragging my dazed boyfriend behind<br />
me.<br />
I didn’t stop until we reached his car. Once there, I<br />
immediately asked, “Are you okay?” I started looking him up and<br />
down, making sure he wasn’t bleeding and his pupils were the same<br />
size and everything.<br />
“I’m okay.” His voice sounded far away.<br />
I glanced over my shoulder at the house. <strong>The</strong> front door was<br />
still open, but now lights were on inside. Hopefully everyone in<br />
there was hurrying with the packing up.<br />
When I looked back at Tucker, he was staring down at his<br />
arm and wiggling his fingers, probably inspecting it to make sure it<br />
wasn’t hurt. He dropped it down and raised his eyes to look at me.<br />
His expression was still dazed, like he was just waking up.<br />
“Does anything hurt?” I asked. My heart was still<br />
hammering away in my chest, and my concern was split in six<br />
different directions. I needed to make sure that the rest of the team<br />
was okay. I needed to make sure that the family would be okay, and<br />
I needed to make sure that Tucker was okay. He was making me<br />
127
nervous with the out-of-it look on his face. “Do you need to go to a<br />
hospital?”<br />
He shook his head slowly. “No.” His voice was stronger<br />
now, which was slightly reassuring. Slightly.<br />
I gave him one more look-over. His skin wasn’t bruised as<br />
far as I could see, and the hand that had been holding the walkietalkie<br />
didn’t look burned. His eyes were beginning to focus more<br />
and his voice had sounded better. <strong>The</strong> color was still drained from<br />
his face, but he was always pale, so that wasn’t a huge issue.<br />
“Okay.” I finally shifted my focus just as everyone came<br />
striding quickly down the driveway.<br />
“We advised Mr. Johansson that it’s best if he and his family<br />
stayed elsewhere tonight,” Richard informed me. “He’s going to<br />
meet his wife and son at his mother’s house. As for us, we’re going<br />
to go to my house and talk about what just happened.”<br />
“Are you okay to drive?” I asked Tucker.<br />
He blinked dazedly. “Yes.”<br />
I turned away from him and gave Richard a worried look. I<br />
didn’t think it was good for him to try in this condition. Luckily, he<br />
picked up on what I was trying to tell him and said, “I think that<br />
Ethan will drive you and Chelsea back to my place for now, if that’s<br />
okay.”<br />
Tucker just nodded.<br />
If I’d known how to operate a manual, I would have offered<br />
to drive us myself. But as it was, I was grateful to have Ethan there<br />
with us. This way if there was anything seriously wrong with Tucker<br />
it wouldn’t be on my shoulders alone. I had never seen anything like<br />
this happen before. I didn’t know what the appropriate reaction was.<br />
Once the cars were loaded up, I climbed into the backseat of<br />
the car and the guys took the front. As Ethan pulled a K-turn, he<br />
said, “Okay, guys, spill. What the hell happened in there?”<br />
“Did you get the video camera?” I asked. I couldn’t pull my<br />
eyes away from the house. Half of me expected the entire thing to<br />
go up in flames.<br />
“Yeah, why?”<br />
“Because you’re not going to believe this unless you see it.”<br />
128
129
Chapter Twelve<br />
Richard’s house wasn’t far from the Johanssons’. We pulled<br />
into the driveway of the white ranch style home in about ten minutes.<br />
I’d relayed the story to Ethan, who, as expected, had a lot of “What<br />
the hell?” and “No f’ing way!” responses. When we got out of the<br />
car, he immediately started inspecting Tucker just as I had done.<br />
“I’m fine,” Tucker insisted. He was definitely returning to<br />
normal; the glaze in his eyes had disappeared and his voice sounded<br />
the same as it usually did.<br />
Daisy opened the front door as we climbed onto their<br />
wraparound porch. “Hi, guys. I just got back from training.” When<br />
she saw the expressions on our faces, she immediately demanded,<br />
“Is everything okay?”<br />
“We think so,” I answered wearily. Even once the house had<br />
disappeared from view, the images of the walkie-talkie bursting into<br />
flames, the closet door nearly slamming closed on Tucker’s head,<br />
and the invisible force hurling his body against the wall, were still<br />
playing over and over on my brain’s film reel. Add in the sound of<br />
the eerie laughter on loop and there was pretty much a horror movie<br />
going on in my mind.<br />
<strong>The</strong> couple led us into their family room, which was barely<br />
big enough to hold all of us. Adrian, Ethan, and I sat down on the<br />
white couch, and I pulled Tucker onto it with us. Richard and Daisy<br />
sat down in the matching loveseat.<br />
In a matter of minutes, I had explained everything that<br />
happened in Timmy’s room. As predicted, everyone wanted to see<br />
for themselves, so they plugged the video camera into Richard’s<br />
laptop. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch it all happen again, so I<br />
watched Tucker’s reaction to it instead. <strong>The</strong>re was a barely<br />
noticeable smile tugging the very corners of his mouth upward. In<br />
spite of having been thrown into a wall, he was still enjoying this.<br />
Was the evidence of a spirit more important than his own safety?<br />
Once the footage had finished, the silence that fell over us<br />
was worse than anything they could have said. I wasn’t sure I wanted<br />
to know what they were thinking.<br />
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Eventually, Daisy spoke up. “Wow!”<br />
“<strong>The</strong> only time I have ever seen anything like this happen,”<br />
Richard said, “was during a demonic case. It appears that the little<br />
boy might have been right.”<br />
This time, I was sure that my heart had actually broken one<br />
of my ribs when it slammed against them. Richard, the leader of the<br />
twenty-year-old paranormal group, was saying that this could very<br />
well have been the work of a demon. In fact, it was more likely than<br />
not.<br />
“Normal spirits wouldn’t have the strength to throw a person<br />
like that,” Adrian murmured. Her face was as pale as the snow on<br />
the windowsill.<br />
Ethan covered his face with his hands and his chest expanded<br />
as he took a deep breath. <strong>The</strong>n he moved his hands down so they<br />
only covered his mouth and he could stare at the screen of the laptop.<br />
<strong>The</strong> image of Tucker against the wall after being tossed like a doll<br />
was frozen there. Finally, he moved his hands and breathed, “God,<br />
Tucker ...”<br />
Once his name had been mentioned, every set of eyes in the<br />
room turned to the man in question. It took him a second to draw his<br />
own gaze from the laptop screen and focus on the rest of us. “What?”<br />
he asked after a moment.<br />
“Well, first of all, I’m glad you’re all right. Second of all …”<br />
Richard began, but Daisy cut him off.<br />
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are?” she hissed. I’d<br />
never seen her look angry before, but she was positively bristling.<br />
“You could have broken something. Been put in the hospital. In a<br />
coma. You could have been killed.”<br />
“Hey, sweetheart, breathe.” Richard reached up and tenderly<br />
patted her arm. His gentle touch seemed to calm her, and I had the<br />
urge to reach out to Tucker. I kept it to myself, though; this was not<br />
the time for cuddling.<br />
<strong>The</strong> male director turned back to us. “I’m very disappointed<br />
in the way you handled the situation, Tucker. You know that as soon<br />
as you realize that the laws of physics have been broken, it’s more<br />
than likely a non-human spirit. And you know that with anything<br />
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that isn’t human, the rules change. You should have listened to<br />
Chelsea when she wanted to leave. Instead, you put not only<br />
yourself, but her as well, in danger by hesitating. In fact, the whole<br />
team was in danger, because none of us knew what we were dealing<br />
with or how to properly handle it. I hope that you will take<br />
something away from this and act differently in the future.”<br />
My insides were churning with a mixture of sympathy and<br />
my own disappointment. Richard hadn’t been down there; he hadn’t<br />
seen how incredible the whole thing really was. Scary, yes. No,<br />
scary was an understatement. Scary was when you were home in the<br />
shower alone and you heard a noise and thought Pennywise was<br />
going to come out of the drain. This whole thing had been absolutely<br />
petrifying. But it had also been unlike anything I’d ever witnessed<br />
in my life. Right before my eyes, something had burst into flames<br />
without any cause. It was kind of understandable that he was<br />
distracted by the display and wasn’t thinking clearly.<br />
But at the same time, Tucker was my role model. He was the<br />
one who had taught me how to ghost hunt. He’d shown me that it<br />
wasn’t scary and we were always safe. But now, largely because of<br />
him, we’d both been very much not safe. And that didn’t sit well<br />
with me, either.<br />
He wasn’t saying anything. He was looking back at the<br />
screen again, focused on the motionless image of himself. Was he<br />
regretting it? Did he feel bad? Was he embarrassed to be chewed out<br />
in front of his fellow investigators? I couldn’t read any emotion on<br />
his face; it was totally blank.<br />
After a few moments, Richard broke the hush once again.<br />
“But more than that, I’m glad that everyone made it out of there<br />
okay. Now that I know what we’re dealing with, I can go back in<br />
with the team that’s been trained for dealing with demonic spirits.<br />
We can discuss possible courses of action with the residents. But<br />
we’re safe and they’re safe, and ultimately everything worked out<br />
okay.”<br />
I swallowed loudly. I wasn’t so sure about everything being<br />
okay. Tucker was clearly shaken up by the whole thing, and I hadn’t<br />
even begun to examine my own psychological damage. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
132
was a very real possibility that I’d be too scared to go back to ghost<br />
hunting because I’d think that they’d all turn out to be demonic when<br />
they seemed benign enough. But I’d sort through that later.<br />
“I’m sorry for snapping at you, Tucker,” Daisy said gently.<br />
“I was just frightened. It was so hard to watch that happen to you.”<br />
“Are we going to show this to the rest of the group?” Ethan<br />
asked. “I feel like they have a right to know.”<br />
“Absolutely,” Richard agreed. “I’ll schedule a meeting so we<br />
can all talk about it sometime this week.”<br />
“Is anyone hungry?” Daisy offered. “I was just about to<br />
throw some food together when you got here.”<br />
Ethan bobbed his head. “Yes, definitely. Thank you.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> tension had broken. We had just gone through quite an<br />
ordeal, but they were working to bring things back down to normal.<br />
Ethan and Adrian stood up to go help Daisy in the kitchen, leaving<br />
Tucker and me alone with Richard.<br />
<strong>The</strong> group’s director leaned forward in his chair. “Honestly,<br />
are the two of you all right? I remember the first time I saw<br />
something like this happen. It was ... shocking, to say the least. Do<br />
you have questions?”<br />
“Only a hundred,” I finally burst out. I’d been holding in my<br />
own terror for long enough. “What was that thing? Why did it pick<br />
that family? Why did it do this to us when it didn’t even let the<br />
parents know it was there? And why Tucker when it had to choose<br />
between both of us?”<br />
Richard straightened up again. “I don’t know exactly what it<br />
is yet, but I will let you know as soon as we get more information.<br />
We will certainly go back into the house, but better prepared. I also<br />
can’t tell you why it picked the Johanssons, or why Timmy,<br />
specifically. Perhaps because, as a child, he was more vulnerable<br />
than the guarded adults. Why it chose to attack Tucker ... I also don’t<br />
know. Maybe because he was closer to it and it was more<br />
convenient. Maybe it doesn’t like males. Maybe there was a<br />
weakness it sensed in him.”<br />
Tucker still hadn’t said a word. He was staring at Richard<br />
now, still with no emotions on his face. I wondered if this was the<br />
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kind of traumatic event it was going to take him a while to recover<br />
from, like a car crash or a mugging. Hell, I was traumatized by it,<br />
and the thing hadn’t even touched me. I was dying to know what<br />
was going through his head, what he was feeling, but I couldn’t ask<br />
him yet. Not here.<br />
“You’ll be okay, though, Chelsea. I promise. I know that was<br />
horrifying enough for me to watch. I can’t imagine how you feel,<br />
having had to witness it in person. If you need anything, you can call<br />
Daisy or me anytime, day or night.” Richard offered his best<br />
comforting smile.<br />
I was touched by the concern, but it didn’t take away what<br />
had just happened. All the same I nodded. “Thank you. Do you guys,<br />
um, need some time alone?” Part of me wanted Tucker to finally<br />
talk, and I thought that maybe he would if they were by themselves.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other part of me just wanted to get out of there and pretend like<br />
nothing had happened in the kitchen with my friends.<br />
“That’s a good idea. Thank you.” He nodded.<br />
I turned to Tucker, wanting to say something before I left.<br />
But my tongue was suddenly clumsy. Any words I could think of<br />
seemed silly and nonsensical in the face of what he’d just gone<br />
through. So I settled for resting my hand on his thigh for a moment<br />
before I got up and headed to the next room.<br />
<strong>The</strong> others were making some kind of lemony chicken<br />
deliciousness, and I helped by grabbing some plates and setting<br />
them up on the table. <strong>The</strong> conversation was a little forced and a bit<br />
too light considering the situation, but at least it was a distraction. I<br />
was happy to listen to Adrian talk about the martial arts classes she<br />
was teaching if it meant not thinking about the demon that had<br />
attacked my boyfriend.<br />
Eventually, Richard and Tucker joined us at the table, and<br />
we all tried our best to keep the dark reality at bay during the latenight<br />
dinner. But there was one more thing that was bothering me,<br />
tugging at my consciousness all throughout the meal. While<br />
everyone else was clearing their plates and filing into the kitchen, I<br />
grabbed Richard and pushed him into the next room.<br />
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“I have to ask,” I said, keeping my voice hushed. If Tucker<br />
hadn’t already thought of this, I didn’t want him to overhear.<br />
“What’s the possibility of this demon following one of us home?” I<br />
knew that after every investigation we had to shake off energetically<br />
to make sure we didn’t bring anything back with us. If there was a<br />
possibility that this spirit latched on to someone and piggybacked a<br />
ride, well ...<br />
“It’s possible. But it’s unlikely. Demons are usually bent on<br />
one person. I imagine that, for whatever reason, it wants to destroy<br />
Timmy. Or perhaps destroy his parents through his demise. But if<br />
you protected yourself, and had your guard up, you should be fine.”<br />
Richard laid a giant bear-paw-sized hand on my shoulder.<br />
I fidgeted with the belt loop on my pants. “What about<br />
Tucker? You saw what happened. He let his guard down.”<br />
He looked thoughtful. “Maybe we should smudge him and<br />
his apartment. You know, burn some sage and cedar incense and<br />
cleanse the energy around him. Make sure that everything is positive<br />
around him.”<br />
I nodded. It wasn’t a foolproof option, but I understood what<br />
he was saying. My concern was legitimate and that was all we could<br />
do.<br />
Tucker insisted that he was fine to drive, and this time he<br />
seemed stable enough for me to let him. We said goodbye to<br />
everyone else and trudged through the snow to his car.<br />
He was uncharacteristically quiet for a long time as he drove.<br />
I was busy wracking my brains for something to say to him, so I<br />
wasn’t exactly Chatty Cathy either.<br />
Before I knew it, we’d already pulled into my driveway. It<br />
was my last chance to talk before he left for the night. Finally, I<br />
blurted, “I think you should smudge your apartment.”<br />
He turned to me slowly, his eyebrows raised. “Yeah? What<br />
for?”<br />
“To cleanse any negative energy you might have brought<br />
home.”<br />
His gaze roved away from me again and he stared out into<br />
the darkness around us. <strong>The</strong>n, after a moment, he turned back to me.<br />
135
Instead of answering right away, he leaned in really closely so our<br />
noses were just about touching. I could smell the chicken we’d eaten<br />
on his breath mixed in with his usual Tuckery scent. In spite of the<br />
seriousness of the situation, my heart gave a dramatic ba-dump.<br />
“Don’t you worry about me, gorgeous.” His fingers twirled<br />
into my hair and he turned slightly to look at the red strands he was<br />
toying with. <strong>The</strong>n just his eyes flicked back to meet mine, and I<br />
couldn’t help myself. I went totally Jell-O.<br />
“I-I can’t help it,” I stammered, trying to stay focused. “You<br />
just got attacked.”<br />
He dropped my hair and slid his palm around the back of my<br />
neck. “And I’m fine. I promise.” <strong>The</strong>n he pulled back and replaced<br />
one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick shift. He jerked his<br />
chin in the direction of my house. “Go on. It’s late. I’ll talk to you<br />
later.”<br />
My heart was still drumming away in my chest, but I<br />
reluctantly did what he said. If he wanted to get home, that was okay.<br />
He’d had a very long night and I didn’t want to smother him. I<br />
trusted that he would be smart enough to smudge the apartment and<br />
himself now that I’d brought the idea to his attention.<br />
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said as I stood outside the car with<br />
one hand on the open door.<br />
He leaned over and flashed me a grin. “Goodnight, Chelsea.<br />
I love you.”<br />
“I love you, too,” I returned. <strong>The</strong>n I shut the door with a loud<br />
thud and hurried quickly up the driveway.<br />
As soon as I got through the front door, I slid down to a<br />
crouch and buried my face in my hands. How had this happened?<br />
I’d spent months learning that this wasn’t as scary as I’d thought it<br />
was. <strong>The</strong>n, all in one night, all my training out of my original fear<br />
had unraveled. Investigating the paranormal had turned out to be<br />
way scarier than I had ever imagined. How was I ever going to go<br />
back into another house when I knew that what happened tonight<br />
could happen again? Yeah, everyone else had been surprised and<br />
they hadn’t seen exactly that before, but the possibility was around<br />
now.<br />
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And what about Tucker? Would he be okay? He definitely<br />
hadn’t seemed himself. Even at the end of the night, when he’d been<br />
close to kissing me, he hadn’t. He had pulled away at the last minute.<br />
Understandably, he had to be unnerved by the whole thing. But how<br />
long would it take him to shake it off and get back to normal?<br />
Trouble’s cold nose pressed against my arm and I uncovered<br />
myself so I could scratch him. His mouth opened so his little pink<br />
tongue flopped out. “If you had any idea what just happened tonight<br />
boy.”<br />
“What happened?” <strong>The</strong> voice startled me so much I fell over<br />
onto my butt on the cold tile. Gunner stepped into view from the<br />
next room.<br />
“What are you doing awake?” I demanded. “It’s like, 3am.”<br />
He rubbed his eyes sleepily. “I woke up when you slammed<br />
the door like that. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”<br />
My heart warmed a bit with his concern. Normally, I<br />
wouldn’t have burdened my little brother with my problems. But I<br />
was so overwhelmed and so scared, I couldn’t help myself. I stood<br />
up and rushed forward to throw my arms around his neck.<br />
Instantly, all traces of sleepiness vanished from his body as<br />
it sprang to alertness in my arms. “Chelsea? Are you okay?<br />
Seriously. What happened?” He wrapped his own tiny limbs, a little<br />
awkwardly, around my back in return and patted me gently.<br />
For the final time, the story spilled from my lips. I explained<br />
how I’d gone to the preliminary investigation and then been called<br />
last minute to do the actual investigation. I told him about the little<br />
boy’s fear and his father’s transformation and how unnerved I had<br />
been. And finally, I relayed all that had happened to Tucker down<br />
in the bedroom.<br />
By the time I was done, I realized I was still clutching him<br />
tightly. Not wanting to suffocate him as a thank you for having<br />
listened to me, I managed to break my fingers out of their claw-like<br />
hold on his back.<br />
Gunner reached around and rubbed the spot where my hand<br />
had been. His deer-brown eyes were almost engulfed his whole<br />
head. “Holy shit.”<br />
137
“Gunner!” I exclaimed. I had never, in his entire life, heard<br />
my brother swear.<br />
“What? I think I’m allowed to curse in this situation!”<br />
“Where did you even learn that word?”<br />
“Chelsea, I’m ten, not three. I don’t live under a rock.” He<br />
stepped around the side of the couch so he could sit down. I followed<br />
suit and once I was beside him, he asked, “So, are you okay?”<br />
All the air left my lungs in a sigh so massive it could have<br />
knocked down the three little pigs’ straw house. “Yeah. I mean, I’m<br />
upset, obviously. But I’m okay. I didn’t get hurt. I’m just concerned<br />
for Tucker and the family.”<br />
“What was their name? <strong>The</strong> family?” he asked.<br />
“I wish I could tell you, but it’s confidential.” I leaned<br />
forward with my elbow on my knee and propped my head on my<br />
hand. “Why do you want to know, anyway?”<br />
“Was it the Johanssons?”<br />
Immediately I straightened up again. “How do you know<br />
that? Did you go through my email?”<br />
He shook his head. “Timmy Johansson is my friend. He’s<br />
been telling me there was a demon in his closet for months.”<br />
Something sparked in my brain and I did recall him<br />
mentioning it months ago. “Oh.”<br />
Now his eyes looked almost wistful. “I didn’t believe him. I<br />
thought he was just trying to get attention.”<br />
As I gazed at my brother, I clearly saw the weight across his<br />
little shoulders for the first time. When I was his age, my biggest<br />
concern was that Kelly Armstrong kept stealing the cookies out of<br />
my lunch box. But after Mom had left, Gunner had quickly morphed<br />
from a little boy into a young adult. His dad and big sister, the only<br />
role models he had left, were never around anymore because we<br />
were always working. We might have had good intentions, but our<br />
consistent absence forced him to look out for himself more often<br />
than not. He was a fifth-grader who got out of bed at 3am because<br />
he could tell by the sound of the door slamming that his sister might<br />
be upset. And that thoughtful, regretful glaze over his eyes went far<br />
138
deeper than I could see. It was so much more than, “I’m sad. Give<br />
me a new cookie and make it better.”<br />
And what was wrong with me? I hadn’t even paid enough<br />
attention to him to remember that the client was a friend of his.<br />
My heart thudded slowly and heavily in my chest, suddenly<br />
weighted down with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Gun.” I reached out and<br />
slipped my arm around his shoulders, pulling him against me again.<br />
“He’ll be okay, though. Richard is still working on it. <strong>The</strong>y’re not<br />
going back into the house until they get the green light from us. His<br />
dad took us seriously tonight.”<br />
“You should tell Richard about the way his dad acted.” He<br />
rested his head against mine. “It sounds like he might have been<br />
possessed.”<br />
I felt my pulse pick up again. “You’re serious?”<br />
“Yeah. I wouldn’t joke about that. I know this is a big deal.”<br />
I knew now that he understood more than I’d been giving<br />
him credit for. “Okay. I’ll call Richard tomorrow, then.”<br />
Gunner pulled out from under my arm so he could look at<br />
me. “I think Tucker will be okay. He’s still alive. That’s a good<br />
sign.”<br />
Even though I’d been on more ghost hunts than I could count<br />
by that time, I trusted what he said. He knew more about the dark<br />
side of investigating than I had ever wanted to learn. I only was<br />
aware of the basic need-to-know facts, and nothing else. I’d wanted<br />
to avoid it as much as I could.<br />
“And you will be, too.” I turned to face him and my chest<br />
tightened up like I was about to cry. His eyes were so serious, so full<br />
of more emotions than even I could grasp. My little brother was<br />
reassuring me that I would be okay. It was supposed to be the other<br />
way around. He shouldn’t have had to take over Mom-status.<br />
“Thanks.” I suddenly wasn’t sure what to say to him. I<br />
thought I’d known him so well, but I’d been wrong. Finally, I settled<br />
on the only words that could really express what was welling inside<br />
me. “I love you.”<br />
For the first time all night, he smiled. “Do you want me to<br />
sleep in your room with you tonight?”<br />
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I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, that’s okay. I’ll just take the<br />
floor in your room.”<br />
“Wait, really?”<br />
“No, not really! Come on, when have I ever done that?”<br />
He shrugged. “When have you ever run into a demon<br />
before?”<br />
“Touché, sir.” I stood up. “Come on. It’s got to be closing in<br />
on 4am, and I’ve got work tomorrow. Let’s get some sleep.”<br />
We walked into the hallway where our bedrooms were<br />
situated. Just before he passed through the door and into his room,<br />
Gunner paused. “I love you too, Chelsea.”<br />
140
Chapter Thirteen<br />
I tried really hard not to smother Tucker. Really, I did my<br />
best to focus on serving customers their ten dollar stale butterdrenched<br />
popcorn all day. When Jake asked if I wanted a break, even<br />
I decided against it so I wouldn’t be tempted to send him a text.<br />
But when my shift ended and I realized I had just enough<br />
time to shoot over to <strong>The</strong> End Shelf before it closed, my resilience<br />
cracked. I was pulling up to the curb in front of the little bookstore<br />
before the two little characters on my shoulders had even appeared.<br />
<strong>The</strong> little bell tinkled as I opened the door and stepped into<br />
the heavy, musty air of the bookstore. Normally, the atmosphere was<br />
comforting and steady. This time, it made me stiffen instinctively.<br />
Would Tucker be the same, just as the bookstore was? Or would he<br />
be strange and unfamiliar, like he was last night?<br />
I found him behind the counter, as always. Instead of a book<br />
in his lap, he had a notebook that he was scribbling in. His head was<br />
bent as his pen worked across the paper. All I could see was his<br />
beautiful dark hair and the white letters across his black t-shirt that<br />
read, “By the way, I took care of that thing for ya.”<br />
“Hey,” I greeted him, aware of the hopeful tone in my voice.<br />
Tucker’s head jerked up as if I’d screamed in his ear. When<br />
his eyes fell on me, though, he immediately appeared to calm down<br />
and a smile spread across his face. “Of all the bookstores, in all the<br />
towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.”<br />
Instantly my nerves went slack as I relaxed. This was the<br />
Tucker I had hoped to find. <strong>The</strong> one that wore movie quotes on his<br />
lips and his clothes and smiled like me walking in was the best thing<br />
that happened all day. “How are you doing?” I asked, my own smile<br />
stretching to match his.<br />
“Better,” he answered. “A lot better, actually.” He closed his<br />
notebook and slid it into a compartment beneath the counter. “How<br />
about you? You seemed rattled last night.”<br />
“I’m fine if you’re fine.” I leaned against the nearest shelf.<br />
“I was just worried about you.”<br />
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“You’re sweet.” He stood up and stepped over to stand in<br />
front of me. “But I feel good as new.” <strong>The</strong>n he bent his head to kiss<br />
me, sending tingles dancing down my spine all the way to my toes.<br />
When he broke away, he walked around to the back of the<br />
counter and pulled out his keys. “How was work today?”<br />
I didn’t need to follow him to continue the conversation; the<br />
store was small enough that he could hear me clearly as he headed<br />
to the front door to lock up. “It was fine, thanks. <strong>The</strong>re’s a new<br />
Sherlock Holmes movie that came out on Friday with rave reviews.<br />
Do you want to go see it one day this week?”<br />
“Definitely.” He flipped the sign so the store’s “Closed”<br />
status was advertised to the outside world. “Do you want to come<br />
over now? I bought some sage on my lunch break and I’m going to<br />
smudge the place.”<br />
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’d like that.” My reservations about seeing<br />
him had completely melted away. <strong>The</strong>re was nothing strange about<br />
his demeanor; he seemed to have recovered from the episode last<br />
night.<br />
Tucker turned off the lights inside the little shop, grabbed a<br />
plastic shopping bag containing his sage, and we walked outside. I<br />
realized that his car wasn’t parked at the curb. In the summer, I knew<br />
that he walked, but the sidewalk was covered in ice and the air was<br />
positively frigid. New England wasn’t really the best place for<br />
wintertime walks to work.<br />
“You didn’t drive today?” I asked, not trying to hide my<br />
surprise.<br />
“It’s not that cold,” he shrugged.<br />
Oh, well. Maybe he just needed the fresh air to clear his head,<br />
or something. I followed his example and shrugged it off as we got<br />
into my car to drive to his apartment.<br />
Again, to my surprise, he handed the sage stick over to me<br />
once we were inside. “You want me to do it?”<br />
He smiled as he reached into one of the cabinet drawers and<br />
produced a lighter. “You can get some practice.” His thumb flicked<br />
open the top and he held the flame over the dry herb until it caught<br />
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fire. When he pulled it away from the sage in my hand, he left the<br />
lighter burning for a moment.<br />
I hadn’t actually done a smudging on my own before, but I<br />
had watched Daisy when she was training us how. <strong>The</strong> first thing I<br />
did was open up all the windows and doors in the apartment, which<br />
would let the smoke and negativity out from the newly cleansed<br />
space. <strong>The</strong>n, starting with the doorway leading to outside, I started<br />
at the bottom and fanned the smoke with my hand to direct it all<br />
around the wood frame. Once the door was complete, I made sure<br />
to touch on all four corners of the room before moving on to the next<br />
one.<br />
<strong>The</strong> apartment was so small it didn’t take me more than half<br />
an hour to finish. Tucker watched me in the kitchen, but he didn’t<br />
follow me to the rest of the rooms. When I returned to where I’d<br />
started, I found him sitting outside on the wooden stairs in just his t-<br />
shirt. His jacket was still resting where he’d hung it over the chair at<br />
the table.<br />
“You okay?” I asked as the cold breeze blew out the last of<br />
the embers on the sage bundle.<br />
He turned to smile up at me. “Yeah. It just got kind of smoky<br />
in there.”<br />
I held out the sticks to him, and he stood up to take it from<br />
me. When he passed by into the kitchen, I saw that the seat of his<br />
jeans sported a big wet spot from the snow-dampened wood. He<br />
didn’t seem bothered by it though, so I kept my mouth shut.<br />
Tucker set the sage down on the countertop and turned to<br />
me, wiping the ashes off his hands on his jeans. “Thank you.”<br />
“Thanks for letting me do it. That was the first time I ever<br />
got to smudge a place myself.” <strong>The</strong> whole room smelled musty and<br />
almost like pot, and the air was thick from the smoke. But it felt<br />
clean and refreshed just the same.<br />
“I knew you could do it.” He stepped forward and curled a<br />
hand around my waist. His fingers hooked in my belt loop and he<br />
pulled me forward so our hips bumped together. <strong>The</strong>n he lowered<br />
his face to mine to kiss me again.<br />
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Now that I had smudged the place, I felt much safer, so I was<br />
able to relax and fall into his kiss. As his mouth opened against mine,<br />
other body parts began to stir. Before I knew it, we were moving<br />
through the doorway and into the den. His hands found the bottom<br />
of my sweater and tugged it upwards. I raised my arms so he could<br />
pull it over my head.<br />
I sat down on the couch and he climbed on top of me, but<br />
before he pressed against me it was my turn to pull his shirt off. He<br />
moved backward so it slipped over his head easily. <strong>The</strong>n he lay<br />
down on top of me, his fingers moving towards the clasp of my bra.<br />
My hands roved up his chest, but when they got to his<br />
collarbone, something was missing. I opened my eyes and broke<br />
away from the kiss.<br />
His hand paused where it rested on my back. “What?”<br />
“Where’s your necklace?” <strong>The</strong> rope holding his trademark<br />
Apache Tear wasn’t where it always rested around his neck. In the<br />
entire time I’d known him, I’d never seen that necklace come off.<br />
Tucker laughed. “Oh. I didn’t feel like I needed it any more.<br />
It didn’t help me last night, right? I thought I’d put my faith in the<br />
smudging.” He lowered himself to kiss me again, clearly dismissing<br />
my question.<br />
Okay. Maybe he had a point. If the obsidian stone hadn’t<br />
helped keep him safe, maybe there wasn’t much use in wearing it<br />
anymore. But still, maybe that stone had been the only thing keeping<br />
the demon from hurting him worse.<br />
Whatever. It was his choice. He’d let me smudge the<br />
apartment, so I felt confident that any negativity was curling out the<br />
windows with the smoke.<br />
However, it crept right into my dreams. I woke up with the<br />
sheets sticking to my wet skin, panting as I tried to banish visions of<br />
Tucker being thrown into the wall that led to him not being able to<br />
get up again. I wasn’t sure how long I laid there, staring at the ceiling<br />
and trying to picture butterflies or puppies or anything that wasn’t<br />
his head getting popped like a cherry by that closet door. Even after<br />
the sweat had cooled and dried and my breathing had returned to<br />
normal, my heart kept jerking in the direction of my phone.<br />
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He picked up on the third ring, and his sleepy voice instantly<br />
calmed the lions my nerves had become. “Hey, you okay?”<br />
“Oh, yeah. I just had a dream about you and it pretty much<br />
gave me perpetual skeeves. I needed to make sure you were okay.”<br />
Now that I was explaining this to him, I felt a little silly, but not<br />
enough to make me sorry that I called.<br />
“I’m fine. I promise.” <strong>The</strong> tiredness was draining from his<br />
speech. “What was your dream about?”<br />
“I would really, really rather not go there again.” I fought to<br />
keep the graphic, disturbing images out of my head. “Let’s just say<br />
it was a much worse version of the investigation.”<br />
“Aww, Chelsea.” His concern brushed my cheek as it wafted<br />
from the phone. “You sure you’re okay? You sound like those<br />
skeeves aren’t totally gone yet.”<br />
His use of my word invoked a little smile in spite of the<br />
situation. “<strong>The</strong>y’re going. I’ll be okay. I’m good now that I know<br />
you’re good.”<br />
“I’m really good. In fact, I’m feeling so good, I think I want<br />
to come cuddle my girlfriend a little.”<br />
“Tucker! It’s like, 3am. You have to open your store in a few<br />
hours.”<br />
“I’ve opened it on less sleep than what I’ve already had<br />
tonight. What do you say?”<br />
I slid my legs out of bed and peered out the window. My<br />
dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet, which meant he’d still be at<br />
work for a few hours. Tucker could probably be in and out before<br />
he even got home. Just in case, I said, “Park your car across the street<br />
and text me when you get here.”<br />
When I opened the door, Tucker immediately swept me into<br />
his arms, wrapping me up in the sleeves of his college sweatshirt.<br />
Trouble jumped up and put his paws on our hips, completely<br />
unaware of the fact that this was an unconventional time for a visit.<br />
“You know, you didn’t have to come all the way here just to<br />
make me feel better. Not that I’m complaining.” My voice was<br />
muffled by his shoulder.<br />
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“To make you feel better? I’m here on business.” He let me<br />
go and straightened up, looking extremely official in his Call of<br />
Duty pajama pants. “Now, you’ve got a corpse in a car, minus a<br />
head, in a garage. Take me to it.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> last of my worry melted in the warmth of his smile and<br />
we retreated back into the depths of my room. We had to squish<br />
ourselves together in my little twin bed, and as we lay there with our<br />
noses touching, I was relieved by how normal his eyes looked again.<br />
He wasn’t out of it like he’d been in the aftermath of the<br />
investigation. He was my Tucker, gazing at me like I was Catherine<br />
Zeta Jones, for some delusional reason. Poor boy. Lucky me.<br />
“Now, if you have another nightmare, you can just roll over<br />
and probably elbow me in the face to see that I’m okay.” His smile<br />
split his pale skin.<br />
“Good idea. Maybe I should try kicking you in the shins to<br />
make sure.”<br />
He kissed me, sending that delicious warmth from his body<br />
into mine. I slid my hand over his back, pulling him into me. When<br />
our lips cracked apart, I whispered, “Thank you.”<br />
“I didn’t do anything.” He transferred his kiss to my nose.<br />
I rolled over and pressed my back against him, fitting<br />
perfectly into the curves of his body. He draped his arm over my<br />
waist and our fingers twined together.<br />
<strong>The</strong> horrible dreams stayed out of my room the rest of the<br />
night.<br />
I was back to spending most of my weeknights sitting in a<br />
classroom, so I didn’t get to see Tucker again until Wednesday<br />
night. He picked me up from my house at eight and we drove to a<br />
dingy little pub that had the best wings in the state (or so their sign<br />
claimed).<br />
As we walked into the bar, I couldn’t help but watch him<br />
closely. Although I’d felt better after the last time I saw him,<br />
something was off again. It wasn’t until he reached out and smoothly<br />
pulled the door open for me that I realized what it was. His stride<br />
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was different. <strong>The</strong> way he carried himself was just a little straighter,<br />
with his head a little higher. He was projecting confidence.<br />
“You’re in a good mood tonight, huh?” I asked as we stepped<br />
up to the hostess’s podium.<br />
“Two, please.” He gave her a look like nothing I’d ever seen<br />
before — at least not on his face. His expression was basically<br />
saying, “You’re welcome” for speaking to her. And, amazingly, she<br />
seemed to enjoy it. Her face flushed brightly as she picked up two<br />
menus and smiled up at him through furiously batting eyelashes.<br />
As she led us to our seats, I raised an eyebrow at him. He<br />
grinned down at me. “I’m in a great mood. I’m alive. I feel<br />
amazing.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> hostess slid the laminated menus onto opposite sides of<br />
the wooden booth, and we slid into place across from each other.<br />
Well, I sort of scooted along. Tucker slid, slowly and gracefully. He<br />
leaned against the wall and brought one leg up onto the seat with<br />
him, his knee bent so he could drape his arm over it. “Thanks,” he<br />
said to the other girl, who flashed a big, flirty smile before she<br />
disappeared in a whirl of blonde hair.<br />
“Okay, do you think you could save that for when I’m not<br />
right here?” I asked as I picked up my menu. I didn’t mean to sound<br />
bitchy, but it was really weird seeing him acting that way toward a<br />
stranger when he never even acted that way toward me. <strong>The</strong>n again,<br />
I’d probably have smacked him if he’d tried; the arrogance was a bit<br />
much.<br />
He placed one palm on the worn wooden table between us,<br />
his thumb toying with the scratches that formed someone’s initials.<br />
“Relax, Chelsea. I’m just enjoying being out. I was stuck in the<br />
bookstore all day.”<br />
I laid the menu down. Stuck in the bookstore? Since when<br />
was he ever “stuck” there? He loved working there. Or so I thought.<br />
Before I could ask about it, our waitress appeared in a short<br />
red dress and a checkered apron. I kept my eyes down as I asked for<br />
a glass of water so I didn’t have to see how he was looking at this<br />
one.<br />
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Instead, it was his words that gave me the kick in the chest<br />
this time. “What do you have on tap?”<br />
As the waitress recited the list of beers, my blood pounded<br />
in my ears and dulled her voice to a mumble. Tucker had never<br />
ordered a beer before. In fact, he’d never ordered any kind of<br />
alcohol, not even wine. Now, on the night that he was acting so<br />
pleased with himself, he decided he wanted to drink? I couldn’t even<br />
drive the stick shift if he had too much.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rest of dinner was pretty silent. My normally talkative<br />
boyfriend was very intent on the three beers and twenty buffalo<br />
wings he forced down his skinny throat. And I was thoroughly<br />
uncomfortable with the fact that he was acting so weird.<br />
After he’d paid, I slid my arms into the sleeves of my jacket<br />
and followed him out the door and into the parking lot. I had to be<br />
careful to step evenly on the patches of ice so I wouldn’t slide, but<br />
he just strode right over them as if they weren’t even there. When<br />
we reached his car, he stopped and slipped his hand into his pocket.<br />
<strong>The</strong> little white object he raised to his lips was the biggest shock of<br />
the night.<br />
“Since when do you smoke?” I demanded.<br />
He ignored my shrill tone and shrugged. “I’m stressed. And<br />
I like the rush.”<br />
“Are you serious?” I wrinkled my nose and opened the<br />
passenger door. I swung myself into the seat and slammed the door<br />
shut behind me.<br />
What was going on? Tucker was acting like a complete tool.<br />
First he was walking like the ground should thank him for gracing it<br />
with his feet, next he was drinking, and now he was lighting up a<br />
cigarette outside the car. Oh, wait, my mistake. He dropped into the<br />
driver’s seat with the lit cigarette still in his mouth. <strong>The</strong> smoke<br />
immediately began to fill the small interior of the car.<br />
Maybe I should have been angry with him for all of this, but<br />
I was more confused than anything. In the two days since I’d last<br />
seen him, he’d somehow transformed into Douchey McDoucherson.<br />
I knew Tucker Hamilton, and this wasn’t him. He was sweet, kind,<br />
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and humble, and as far as I knew, hadn’t touched alcohol or smoked<br />
anything since college. Not until tonight.<br />
Of course, my first thought as he pulled out of the parking<br />
space was that it had to be related to what had happened at the<br />
Johanssons. But that didn’t really make sense to me. How could<br />
someone encounter something so serious and then flip a switch and<br />
become a total turd? Didn’t near-death experiences usually snap<br />
people back to reality, not swell their heads and raise them so far<br />
above it? And he’d been fine on Sunday.<br />
<strong>The</strong> cold air rushed in as he opened the window to flick his<br />
ashes outside. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched the<br />
yellow lines disappear under the front of the car.<br />
Instead of parking in my driveway, he situated the car at the<br />
curb in front of my house. My eyebrows immediately came together<br />
in a frown as I swiveled my head to look at him. “What’s up?”<br />
For an answer, he leaned over across the armrest and pressed<br />
his face against mine. Normally, a Tucker kiss sent those pleasant<br />
sparks raining down through me like the trails from fireworks. But<br />
this time, the entire thing was so out of character that my whole body<br />
tensed up.<br />
After a minute of my lips being pretty much motionless<br />
against his, he pulled back. “What’s the matter?”<br />
“You’re acting weird,” I said, intelligently.<br />
His dark eyes bored into mine. Little droplets of sweat<br />
began to bead on the back of my neck. Suddenly I really wanted to<br />
get out of that car.<br />
“I don’t think it’s weird for a guy to want his girl,” Tucker<br />
murmured. He trailed his fingertips down my arm and onto my<br />
thigh. <strong>The</strong>n his whole hand curled around my leg and his fingers<br />
wedged in between them.<br />
Automatically, my body responded to his. It was a truly<br />
strange sensation to have my lady parts suddenly very alert to the<br />
situation, but at the same time, to want to push him away. Luckily,<br />
my head was in control enough to grab his wrist.<br />
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“Stop.” I was surprised by the conviction that was embedded<br />
in my voice. Half of me still wanted him to keep going. But this<br />
wasn’t right.<br />
“Damn it, Chelsea, are you serious?” He whipped his hand<br />
back to his side of the car so fast it almost took my head off. “What’s<br />
your fucking problem?”<br />
His hand might as well have smacked me. His words were a<br />
swift kick in the chest that knocked the breath right out of me. Never,<br />
in all the time I’d known him, had I ever heard Tucker raise his<br />
voice. And definitely not at me. I barely had enough air left to muster<br />
the question, “Excuse me?”<br />
“You’re my girlfriend. I want you.” His eyes were as hard as<br />
his lips had been earlier. This “want” was nowhere to be found<br />
within them.<br />
My mouth hung open, but the words were lost before they<br />
even reached my tongue. I just stared at him for a few moments,<br />
disbelief strangling me, until finally I reached for the door and<br />
stepped out into the snow.<br />
“Wait, Chelsea.” I heard Tucker’s door open and slam shut<br />
again behind me. His sneakers crunched in the snow as he met me<br />
halfway up my front yard and came to stand in front of me. “I’m<br />
sorry. I didn’t mean it.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>n why did you say it?” I demanded. <strong>The</strong> porch light was<br />
at his back so his face was cloaked in shadow. “You have never<br />
acted the way you’ve been acting tonight, Tucker.”<br />
“I don’t know. I just ... I got carried away.” He moved<br />
sideways and the light flooded his face, and I recognized his eyes<br />
again.<br />
My defenses cracked, but I didn’t let them crumble. “I think<br />
I deserve a little more respect than that. I don’t care how carried<br />
away you might get.”<br />
“You’re right. You’re completely right.” His chin was glued<br />
to his chest. Was he ashamed? Embarrassed? Funny, for the first<br />
time in almost a year, I couldn’t read what was going through my<br />
boyfriend’s head.<br />
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“Look. I don’t know what’s up with you tonight, but I don’t<br />
appreciate it. Maybe you’re going through some kind of crisis after<br />
almost dying during that investigation or maybe you’re on drugs.<br />
Either way, you’re really lucky I love you so much.” When he<br />
looked up hopefully, I held up my index finger. “But that doesn’t<br />
give you license to suddenly treat me like a pretty side dish. Ever.<br />
Got it?”<br />
“Got it.” Tucker bobbed his head. “I know all of this. I don’t<br />
know why I slipped up like that. I never do that.”<br />
I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been biting my lip until I<br />
released my hold and tasted blood. “I know.”<br />
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Chapter Fourteen<br />
<strong>The</strong> next few times I saw Tucker, he acted almost completely<br />
normal. He quoted movies, read thick books incomprehensible to<br />
most human beings, and didn’t have the confidence to flirt with<br />
random waitresses. <strong>The</strong> only thing that was a little unnerving was<br />
his sudden habit of smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day. When<br />
I kissed him, it left an ashy taste in my mouth, shadows of the weird<br />
night we’d had. But since there were only shadows and no more<br />
actual displays of assholery, I pushed it to the back of my mind.<br />
It took three weeks before Daisy and Richard decided to ask<br />
him to come to another investigation. I wondered if they’d been<br />
contemplating kicking him out of the group, but I wasn’t about to<br />
go and ask something like that behind his back. Most likely they<br />
were just giving him time to recover before he stomped back into<br />
another place riddled with spirits.<br />
I happened to be free that night, too, so at eight o’clock,<br />
Tucker was at my house. When I opened the door to let him inside,<br />
I saw that his car was still running in the driveway, and Susannah<br />
was checking her makeup in the side mirror. Trouble, on the other<br />
hand, was only interested in his favorite visitor. He immediately<br />
pressed himself against my boyfriend’s leg, demanding attention.<br />
“You look adorable,” Tucker said, reaching out to touch one<br />
of my braids with his free hand.<br />
“This is business attire, Mr. Hamilton. <strong>The</strong>re’s nothing<br />
adorable about it.” I swatted his hand away and grinned. “Just let me<br />
grab my bag.” I turned and hurried down the hallway to my room.<br />
As I was checking to make sure I had all my equipment in<br />
the black messenger bag, Trouble’s barking echoed through the<br />
halls. I started to roll my eyes before I realized this wasn’t his usual<br />
playful “love me” type of bark. This was the kind of bark he used<br />
on strangers we passed when we took him for walks. Did Susannah<br />
come inside? He hadn’t ever had a chance to meet her.<br />
<strong>The</strong> barking continued, and I heard Tucker’s voice mixed<br />
into the raucous chorus, although I couldn’t make out his words. I<br />
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flipped my light switch behind me as I exited my room and emerged<br />
into the hallway.<br />
Just in time to see Tucker’s foot collide with my dog.<br />
Trouble let out a little yelp of surprise and pain and<br />
immediately backed off, tail pressed firmly between his legs. I<br />
dropped my bag of equipment and rushed forward. “What the hell,<br />
Tucker?” I demanded as I fell to my knees beside the skinny black<br />
canine. I ran my hand along his back gently, trying to calm his<br />
furious panting.<br />
“He wouldn’t leave me alone.” Something in his voice made<br />
me turn and look at him. <strong>The</strong>re it was again. That cold, hard lack of<br />
emotion glassing over his normally expressive eyes.<br />
It kicked on the fear response in my brain, but I wasn’t about<br />
to tuck in my tail like Trouble. “So you kick him? A dog barks at<br />
you and your first thought is hey, if I hurt him, maybe he’ll stop?”<br />
My fingers twisted in the long, fluffy hair around the dog’s ears. He<br />
glanced at me, still panting.<br />
“Sorry.” His word was shallow steel.<br />
I didn’t know what to do. Trouble seemed like he was fine;<br />
his dignity was probably hurting more than anything. No one had<br />
ever hit him with anything before, except maybe Gunner with some<br />
Legos when he was younger. But even if it was safe to leave the dog<br />
alone, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go anywhere with Tucker. This<br />
was the second time I’d seen his eyes look so empty and glassy like<br />
that, both times following some completely unusual and kind of<br />
scary behavior. I didn’t know what could be causing it, barring some<br />
kind of mental disorder brought on by head trauma after hitting a<br />
wall. But my trust in my boyfriend didn’t extend to this stranger he<br />
was routinely turning into.<br />
And just the realization of that fact was enough to blow a<br />
few holes in my protective shield for the night.<br />
“You guys go. I’ll drive myself.” I focused on Trouble, not<br />
wanting to look up because I didn’t know which Tucker would be<br />
looking back at me. I didn’t want to be so cold to the one I loved and<br />
I didn’t want to piss off the one I didn’t know.<br />
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“Seriously? You had me drive all the way here just to tell me<br />
to leave?” <strong>The</strong>n his usual warmth laced the last word. “Chelsea?”<br />
I couldn’t help myself. I raised my gaze to meet his and<br />
found my boyfriend looking back at me. His dark eyes spoke even<br />
more wounded puppy than Trouble’s. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to<br />
upset you. Please ride with us.”<br />
My jaw clenched tightly as I stood up and retrieved my bag.<br />
I knew that Richard and Daisy liked us all to go in only one or two<br />
cars so we wouldn’t attract attention to the house we were<br />
investigating. We didn’t want the neighbors to be like, “You guys<br />
have ghosts? WEIRDOS.” And the strange look had completely<br />
vanished from Tucker’s eyes, creating at least an illusion of the<br />
safety I’d known for the entire time I’d known him. As long as he<br />
didn’t go bizarro again, it should be fine. I could redo my protection<br />
on the way there.<br />
“We’ll talk later,” I said as I brushed past him.<br />
Daisy and Anthony were already standing on the sidewalk<br />
beside their car when we pulled up. <strong>The</strong> house in question was a<br />
little green bungalow with white trim. It looked like something out<br />
of a children’s book, especially with the little glass sunflowers and<br />
butterflies sticking out of the front lawn.<br />
“Everything okay?” Daisy asked, her eyes flitting<br />
suspiciously to Tucker. “You guys are a little late.”<br />
“We’re fine,” Susannah chirped. “Just a little traffic.” If<br />
she’d picked up on tension between Tucker and me, she hadn’t<br />
mentioned it. Actually, if it hadn’t been for her, that would have<br />
been one completely frigid car ride.<br />
I hugged my denim jacket tightly around me as we filed up<br />
to the front door. <strong>The</strong> snow had mostly melted from the grass but<br />
Massachusetts was hanging tightly onto winter, as always.<br />
A thirty-something woman with long hair as blonde as<br />
Susannah’s, but much less fake, answered the door. She smiled at us<br />
and the way her freckles stretched out made me think of Michelle<br />
and a quick pang squeezed my heart. Not now, Chelsea. Keep your<br />
shields up.<br />
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“Hi, guys,” she greeted us before stepping aside. One by one,<br />
we walked past her through the door and into the warmth of her<br />
home. And that wasn’t just temperature warmth, either; the place<br />
smelled like french toast on a Sunday morning. All the furniture<br />
looked like cozy, wooden things with big, dark colored cushions<br />
you’d find in a log cabin a little further up north. And there were<br />
cute little duck knickknacks on the shelves and coffee table.<br />
Who doesn’t love baby duck bookends?<br />
As I bent down to further inspect the porcelain yellow birds,<br />
I noticed the titles on a few of the books. Wicca 101, Handbook for<br />
Wiccans, Magick Spellbook, Complete Study of Witchcraft. A few<br />
months ago, this would have given me a thorough wigging out. But<br />
now, I straightened up calmly and waited to see what exactly was<br />
happening here.<br />
“So, for those of you I haven’t met yet, I’m Carrie. I already<br />
talked to Richard on the phone and he said it was okay for me to tell<br />
you this. I’m a practicing Wiccan, and one of my spells seems to<br />
have attracted some kind of a spirit. <strong>The</strong>y aren’t threatening in any<br />
way, but I want to know who they are and if they need some kind of<br />
help.” Carrie’s dark eyes moved to each of us in turn. When her gaze<br />
finally landed on me, she smiled again. “That’s all I want to<br />
accomplish tonight.”<br />
She led us on a tour of her tiny house, which was chock full<br />
of fake ducks in every corner. Who knew a witch’s weakness would<br />
be tiny feathery baby birds? I couldn’t help but smile to myself. I<br />
didn’t feel any kind of tension or weird sensation like I had in the<br />
Johanssons’ house.<br />
Once we’d seen the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom,<br />
Carrie brought us back out to the family room area we’d first stepped<br />
into. Daisy instructed us to set up our equipment at the coffee table<br />
and informed us of our pairings for the night. “Tucker, you’re with<br />
Chelsea. Susannah, you go with Anthony.”<br />
By this time, I was so grounded that I didn’t mind working<br />
with Tucker. He had seemed completely himself the entire drive<br />
there and during the tour of the house. Whatever thing had happened<br />
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to him with Trouble earlier, we could discuss it later. It was placed<br />
aside while we did business.<br />
“You want to go to the kitchen first?” he asked as he stuffed<br />
his EMF detector in the pocket of his cargo pants.<br />
“Sure.” I clicked my thermometer’s battery cover into place.<br />
Daisy took care of the lights as soon as we settled down in<br />
position. Tucker sat at the kitchen table and I leaned against the<br />
counter, flicking on the red flashlight to combat the darkness.<br />
His voice recorder was set up on the table in front of him, so<br />
immediately he launched into an EVP session. “Hi, I’m Tucker. This<br />
is Chelsea. We’re just here to talk with you; we don’t mean you any<br />
harm. Can you tell us your name?” After a few moments of silence,<br />
he asked, “Can you say our names?”<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, for the first time since we’d entered the house, I started<br />
to feel uncomfortable. Not in the same way as I had at the<br />
Johanssons, but I was getting the idea that we weren’t as welcome<br />
there as we’d first thought.<br />
“Do you mind having us here?” I asked.<br />
Tucker’s eyebrow lifted, silently asking me what I was<br />
picking up on. I ignored him.<br />
“Do you not like us?” I continued.<br />
Suddenly, Tucker’s EVP recorder skidded across the table.<br />
It dropped straight off the edge and hit the ground in a clatter of<br />
batteries exploding out of it. I jumped so high I almost caught the<br />
ceiling fan to cling to.<br />
“Jesus,” I breathed, aiming my flashlight at Tucker as he<br />
bent over to grab the pieces of his recorder. In the dim red light, I<br />
caught a glimpse of a cut of some sort on his side when his shirt<br />
lifted up. But then he was sitting again and the spot of his skin was<br />
covered by fabric again, so I stuck up a mental Post-it to look at<br />
whatever it was later.<br />
“You okay?” I asked him.<br />
He nodded. “I’m good. What made you ask those<br />
questions?”<br />
“Just a feeling.”<br />
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Once Tucker had dropped off Susannah, he drove us back to<br />
his apartment in silence. <strong>The</strong> remainder of the night had been<br />
uneventful, with the same uneasy feeling following us but no more<br />
equipment flying off furniture. We hadn’t gotten any EMF hits or<br />
anything, and Anthony and Susannah had experienced the same kind<br />
of luck.<br />
Eventually, when we pulled into his parking spot outside his<br />
place, I spoke up. “So, I don’t know what’s been up with you lately.<br />
But it’s got me worried. I think you should get some kind of help.”<br />
Tucker’s head jerked up like I’d smacked him in the face<br />
with Silly Putty. “Help?”<br />
“Yeah. Like, of the psychiatric or medical persuasion. I’m<br />
not kidding, Tucker. You’ve swapped personalities twice since that<br />
investigation where you got thrown into a wall. I don’t know what<br />
you could have rattled around in there but it’s definitely all too real<br />
that something’s not right.” I could feel my eyes bugging out as the<br />
words spilled forth.<br />
He took his hand off the stick and laid it gently in his lap.<br />
“You really think I’ve been that different?”<br />
“Not always. Most of the time you’re fine. But then there are<br />
times when I worry. You kicked my dog today. You smoke<br />
cigarettes now. And you’ve been an ass to me more than once. All<br />
of this does not fit into the Tucker Hamilton spectrum.”<br />
His gaze was in his lap with his hands. My heart gave a little<br />
kick of distress and I reached out and laid my hand on his thigh. “I’m<br />
just concerned. You’re scaring me a little. This isn’t you.”<br />
Tucker turned to meet my eyes. “You’re not making any<br />
little jokes. You must be serious.”<br />
“I am completely serious.” I squeezed his thigh for effect.<br />
Slowly he breathed in a massive amount of air and exhaled<br />
in a sigh that totally seemed to deflate him. “I’m sorry, Chelsea. <strong>The</strong><br />
last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable around me, let<br />
alone scared of me. I’m so sorry for kicking Trouble. You’re right;<br />
maybe I should go and get checked out.”<br />
My heart was filling up with Tucker love again. This was the<br />
man I wanted to be dating. <strong>The</strong> one who listened to me when I had<br />
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something to say and wasn’t afraid to be weak in front of me.<br />
“Thank you. Just to make sure everything’s okay. I just don’t want<br />
anything bad to happen to you.”<br />
His eyes flashed with a seriousness I’d never seen before.<br />
“Or to you.”<br />
A shiver rocketed across my skin, leaving all my hair<br />
standing up in its wake. “Yeah. Or to me.”<br />
“Do you still want to come in?”<br />
I nodded. “Always.”<br />
We crowded side by side up the thin staircase leading to his<br />
apartment, and once we shut the door behind us, I immediately threw<br />
my arms around him. I was so grateful that he’d accepted what I’d<br />
said and that creepy blank stare hadn’t surfaced again. Hopefully,<br />
whoever he decided to go to for help would be able to determine<br />
what was up with his head.<br />
He bent his head and placed a gentle kiss on my neck. My<br />
body started to hum with life as his kisses trailed down to my<br />
collarbone. His hand gripped the back of my neck to hold me in<br />
place as I started to squirm beneath his lips.<br />
“Tucker, we have to shower,” I murmured.<br />
“Mmmm,” he whispered, his breath hot against my skin.<br />
“No, I mean, after the investigation shower. Get all the<br />
energy off us.” My knees nearly buckled as both his hands grabbed<br />
my hips and pulled me into him. Whoa, someone was assertive all<br />
of a sudden. And someone else kind of liked it.<br />
“Okay,” he agreed, opening his mouth against my neck and<br />
lightly grazing it with his teeth. “In a minute.”<br />
I let him slide my jacket off my shoulders and onto the floor.<br />
His hands started to explore underneath my sweater. <strong>The</strong>n, he<br />
changed his mind and knelt down, hooking his arms underneath me.<br />
Before I knew what was happening, I was in his arms, and he was<br />
carrying me to his bedroom.<br />
“Since when are you strong enough to lift me?” I teased.<br />
“Since you started driving me so crazy.” His voice was<br />
husky and his eyes chased the jokes right out of my mind.<br />
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Tucker laid me down on his bed, and when he straightened<br />
up again, he pulled my sweater over my head. When he climbed on<br />
top of me, I found the bottom of his shirt and tugged it up until he<br />
pulled it the rest of the way himself. He tossed it to the floor with<br />
mine.<br />
My hands roved down his chest and onto his sides until they<br />
felt a scratchy, raised area. In the dark, I couldn’t see what I was<br />
feeling. “Tucker, what’s this?” I asked.<br />
“It’s nothing,” he breathed into my ear, his hips already<br />
pressing against mine.<br />
“No, really, are you okay?” I asked.<br />
He pulled back. “Yeah, I’m fine. I caught myself on a shelf<br />
at the shop a few days ago. Just a scratch.”<br />
I moved my fingers away and focused on his shoulders<br />
instead.<br />
We shed the rest of our clothing and Tucker slid into me. But<br />
the way his hips rocked was different. Just like the assertive way<br />
he’d initiated this, he was moving with a confidence, with<br />
knowledge. His motions were fluid like this was what he’d been<br />
born to do. <strong>The</strong>n, he started to thrust at a different angle, and he<br />
started hitting something he’d never touched before. This incredible<br />
pleasure spread through my hips and legs until it engulfed my whole<br />
body. I could barely move or breathe it felt so incredible. I didn’t<br />
know where he learned to do that, but I didn’t care; I wasn’t<br />
thinking. I was just feeling. His hips pumped faster and faster until<br />
I was moaning like a porn star.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n his angle changed again. And this time it wasn’t so fun.<br />
His movements felt like they were tearing up my insides. Pain shot<br />
through my body instead of pleasure.<br />
“Ow, hey, easy!” I said.<br />
He didn’t slow down. Little grunts of pleasure were dripping<br />
from his mouth and his body was damp with perspiration. Fear laced<br />
with the pain that was running through my nerves and I started to<br />
push at his chest.<br />
“Tucker! You’re hurting me!” I cried. “Stop it!”<br />
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Still he didn’t stop. He kept thrusting again and again, his<br />
grunting becoming more frenzied as he closed in on his goal. <strong>The</strong><br />
goal that blinded him to the pain I was in beneath him. Tears sprang<br />
into my eyes and I thought I was going to start bleeding if he didn’t<br />
stop. I drew back my hand and slapped him across the face as hard<br />
as I could.<br />
In one final motion, his body stiffened as his head rocked to<br />
the side from the force of my hand. He jerked a few times and then<br />
his muscles released, a deep groan rolling out of his throat as he<br />
collapsed and rolled to the side of me.<br />
I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, not sure if I could move.<br />
What the hell had just happened? Who was this person lying naked<br />
in bed beside me? What happened to my gentle, romantic Tucker<br />
who asked if I was okay at least once every time we had sex? My<br />
Tucker who was hesitant to ever take control, and definitely never<br />
would without me asking him to? It seemed good at first, but not if<br />
it led to this ...<br />
My whole body still felt echoes of the agony he’d just put<br />
me through. I sat up and wrapped myself in his blanket, retreating<br />
to the bathroom. When I turned on the light, I inspected the damage.<br />
No blood, but my hips and thighs were red from him slamming so<br />
hard against them. It still smarted, but everything seemed to check<br />
out okay.<br />
When I returned to the bedroom, I immediately flipped on<br />
the light. Fear was snapping at my heels, urging me to get out of<br />
there, but I had to collect my clothes. I kept my eyes on the floor,<br />
not wanting to look at him. I couldn’t believe he’d just done that to<br />
me. <strong>The</strong> impact on my heart was worse than anything he could have<br />
done to my body.<br />
“Chelsea, are you okay?” His voice was so cautious, so<br />
placid.<br />
I didn’t turn around until I had all my clothes back on. “No.<br />
I’m not okay. I told you to stop and you didn’t. You seriously hurt<br />
me, Tucker. I don’t want to see you again until you get help.”<br />
His face looked like I’d just set fire to everything he held<br />
dear in the world. Like he didn’t understand why I was leaving. But<br />
160
that wasn’t the most disturbing part of the image in front of me. My<br />
hands must have missed them in the frenzy that had just occurred on<br />
the bed, but the cut on his side wasn’t the only one. <strong>The</strong>re was<br />
another on his other side, one on his arm, several on his legs. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
were bruises on his back in places I couldn’t possibly fathom how<br />
he could have reached.<br />
“Please don’t leave, Chelsea. I’m so sorry. I got carried<br />
away.”<br />
“You get carried away a lot lately. I’m so scared for you,<br />
Tucker. Please talk to someone.”<br />
And with that, I was on my way out the door and down the<br />
stairs, and my fingers were already punching in the number for a<br />
taxi on my phone.<br />
161
Chapter Fifteen<br />
<strong>The</strong> next morning, I was so sore I could barely walk around.<br />
I called Jake to ask if he could cover my shift at work. He agreed<br />
only if I promised to take his Friday night shift. At that point I<br />
sincerely did not care about work, so I took the deal and situated<br />
myself on the couch.<br />
My tired mind was so bogged down I didn’t hear a word that<br />
came from the TV. Eventually, Gunner came home from his friend’s<br />
house and settled down by my feet with Trouble. I found myself<br />
watching him, wondering if he would have some kind of an answer<br />
to my questions. He wasn’t as much of a kid as he looked like, after<br />
all. And he was something of an expert when it came to the<br />
paranormal. Maybe there were other reported cases of people being<br />
injured and coming out all disoriented.<br />
Or maybe I shouldn’t burden my little brother with these<br />
kinds of things. <strong>The</strong> kid had enough to worry about. You’re a big<br />
girl, Chelsea. You can handle this. He’s going to get help. He might<br />
be all better in a few weeks.<br />
Two days later, Tucker called me. I didn’t pick it up, but<br />
when I went back to listen to the voicemail, my heart made quite an<br />
attack on the defenses I’d been busy building. He told me he’d made<br />
an appointment to see a doctor and make sure nothing was wrong<br />
with his head, and that he was so, so sorry. That he never wanted to<br />
hurt me and he couldn’t bear the thought of it and would I please,<br />
please call him back.<br />
Like a pansy, I caved. I couldn’t bear the sorrow in his voice,<br />
and ignoring him probably wouldn’t help the situation. However,<br />
that didn’t mean I was going to break and see him.<br />
“Chelsea!” <strong>The</strong> way he said my name pulled at my stupid<br />
emotions, but I swallowed them down.<br />
“I’m glad you made an appointment. Are you doing okay?”<br />
“No. I’m scared, Chels. I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s<br />
wrong with me or how I could do that to you.”<br />
162
I ground my teeth together violently. Keep it together,<br />
Keller. This is how girls get sucked into abusive relationships. No<br />
matter how much you love him, he’s not safe right now. “You’re<br />
gonna be fine. Okay? You did the right thing. You’re going to see a<br />
doctor. He’ll help you.”<br />
“I miss you.”<br />
God, just drive the freaking knife right into my heart, why<br />
don’t you?<br />
“I miss you too.” My voice sounded like the air rushing out<br />
of a balloon.<br />
“So I guess ... I’ll see you around then.”<br />
“Let me know how the doctor goes. When’s your<br />
appointment?”<br />
“Next Friday.”<br />
“Okay. Look, remember, through all this, no matter what, I<br />
love you. I just can’t be around you right now.”<br />
“I understand.”<br />
I had never missed Michelle so much as I did during the<br />
week and a half it took for Tucker to go to his doctor’s appointment.<br />
I wanted to text her and spill everything that was going on. I wanted<br />
to cry because I was so freaking terrified that Tucker was going to<br />
wind up drugged up on medication or in a padded room. I wanted<br />
her to tell me it would work out and come over and watch movies<br />
and distract me. But I couldn’t. She’d never forgive me for going off<br />
on her if she found out she’d been right, at least about ghost hunting<br />
being dangerous.<br />
Instead, I stuck it out on my own, keeping busy with work<br />
and trying to focus on sociology and statistics. As if. My boyfriend<br />
was going through trauma and I was sitting around trying to identify<br />
what problems were mutually exclusive. Obviously my focus was<br />
on the enthralling math equations!<br />
On Friday night, Tucker sent me a text that told me he’d gone<br />
to the doctor. <strong>The</strong>y wanted to do some testing so it was going to be<br />
a while longer before they’d know what was going on with him. I<br />
answered that I was proud of him and to please keep me posted.<br />
163
When I got out of work on Sunday, I had circles under my<br />
eyes the same color as the roads I drove home on. This waiting, this<br />
not knowing was pulling at me, making my chest hurt and my body<br />
exhausted. I could not describe how infatuated I was with the idea<br />
of flopping down on my bed and passing out before the clock hit<br />
8:30.<br />
But when I went to pull into my usual spot in the driveway,<br />
there was a car blocking my entrance. A little silver Chevy Cobalt,<br />
the passenger seat of which I had become very familiar with. My<br />
heart dive-bombed my stomach and the handful of popcorn I’d<br />
downed tried to climb back up my throat. I swallowed hard as I<br />
managed to park my car against the curb.<br />
What was he doing here? My feet were so hard to lift they<br />
felt like they were glued to every place I stepped on my trek up the<br />
driveway. I didn’t want to see him yet. Not until he’d gotten the tests<br />
done and they had identified the cause of his freaky mood swings.<br />
I opened the door slowly, like they do in horror movies when<br />
they’re expecting a killer to be lurking in the shadows. Unlike in the<br />
movies, though, the man I wanted to avoid was sitting right on the<br />
couch in my living room, watching TV with my little brother.<br />
Instantly, I felt a surge of instinctive adrenaline that would<br />
have allowed me to throw myself in front of Gunner if I needed to.<br />
When I stepped inside, both of their heads turned in unison. Tucker<br />
looked a little uncertain, but my brother smiled about a thousand<br />
watts at me.<br />
“Hi, Chelsea. I invited Tucker over tonight. I hope that’s<br />
okay.”<br />
My eyebrows crashed downward in a frown. How did<br />
Gunner even get in contact with Tucker? He didn’t have a cell phone<br />
yet. But they did email each other. When did they get to the point<br />
where they wanted to hang out with each other?<br />
“We’ve been emailing for the last few weeks. Gunner had<br />
some questions about some things he’d been reading.” My<br />
boyfriend’s voice was so quiet I could barely hear it over Bruce<br />
Willis shooting things on TV. “If you want me to go, I’ll go.”<br />
164
I seriously contemplated my options for about a nanosecond.<br />
All signs pointed to it being completely unsafe having Tucker here,<br />
especially now that Gunner was involved. But the sight of his big<br />
brown eyes, his perfect skin, and those hands I impulsively wanted<br />
to reach out and hold ... they pulled me in. I shrugged, trying to<br />
pretend like my insides weren’t battling each other so viciously.<br />
“No, it’s okay. It’s good to see you.” I stepped around behind the<br />
couch and over to the armchair.<br />
Normally, I’d go right to the shower, but I didn’t want to<br />
leave them alone. All I needed was for Tucker to snap and start<br />
kicking my little brother instead of Trouble. Speaking of the dog —<br />
I glanced around. His little black frame was nowhere in sight.<br />
Normally when Tucker was here, he was all over him. But he wasn’t<br />
even in the room. Did dogs even remember when someone hurt them<br />
one time?<br />
“How was work?” Gunner’s voice brought me back to the<br />
surface of my mind and I took a breath.<br />
“Not too bad, thanks. <strong>The</strong> new Paul Rudd movie sold out<br />
again, even on Sunday night.” I pulled my hair out of its ponytail<br />
and immediately the smell of popcorn assaulted my nose. Scratch<br />
that. Not without a shower. I retied my hair to keep it out of my face.<br />
“What have you guys been doing?” Besides plotting to drive me<br />
insane.<br />
“Tucker was explaining pendulums to me. I didn’t get how<br />
they worked. Did you know you can make them swing one way or<br />
another just by willing it to swing that way?” Gunner reached<br />
forward to a little velvet bag on the coffee table in front of him. He<br />
tugged out a pendulum on a silver chain.<br />
I hadn’t been involved in the paranormal world long enough<br />
to build much of a sensitivity to that kind of thing. Plus Tucker was<br />
looking at me and it was really hard to pretend I didn’t notice. So I<br />
just nodded. “Sure. That’s pretty cool.”<br />
“Definitely. Now we’re watching Die Hard.” My brother<br />
held the pendulum up over his palm like the mediums do on TV<br />
when they want to communicate with the spirit world.<br />
165
I sank back into the chair and allowed my eyes to flick over<br />
to Tucker. He had stopped watching me and was gazing blankly at<br />
the screen. I wondered what was going on in his mind, and then<br />
sadness gave me a sharp stab in the heart when I realized how<br />
strange it was to not know. <strong>The</strong>n he glanced at me and gave me a<br />
heartbreaking little smile. Ouch.<br />
Poor Gunner was caught in the crossfire of way too much<br />
tension. After a few minutes he put the pendulum down on top of its<br />
little bag and stood up. “You guys want to roast marshmallows?”<br />
“Over the stove?” Tucker asked, finally breaking our gaze to<br />
look at my brother.<br />
“No, we can use a lighter and do it right here. Hang on.”<br />
Gunner disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned, the promise<br />
of food proved to be enough to lure Trouble back into the room,<br />
because the dog was right at his heels. He had to hold the bag of<br />
marshmallows up by his shoulder to keep it safe.<br />
Gunner paused to hand a fork and a marshmallow to me, and<br />
then continued over to his seat on the couch beside Tucker. Trouble<br />
plopped down next to me, eyeballing my marshmallow like it was a<br />
four-course meal.<br />
“Didn’t Gun feed you?” I asked him, reaching over with my<br />
free hand to scratch behind his ears.<br />
“I always feed him. And he’s always hungry anyway.”<br />
Gunner rolled his eyes as he stabbed another marshmallow and<br />
handed the fork to Tucker. <strong>The</strong>n he speared his own ‘mallow and<br />
took our kitchen lighter out of his pocket. He raised the flame to the<br />
marshmallow and made sure he browned all the sides of it before<br />
passing the lighter on to Tucker.<br />
“See, this way you eat all the crispy parts off and then you<br />
go through and do it again.” He tried to smile and eat the<br />
marshmallow at the same time, but it resulted in white goop all over<br />
his top lip. He jumped back, licking at it with his tongue like a dog.<br />
“Crap, that’s hot.”<br />
I laughed in spite of the situation, and even Tucker cracked<br />
a little smile as he toasted his own marshmallow. It faded quickly as<br />
166
he watched the little flame dancing across the white surface. His<br />
marshmallow rapidly blackened and sprouted bubbles.<br />
“You like them that burned?” Gunner asked through a<br />
mouthful of white goo.<br />
<strong>The</strong> smile resurfaced on Tucker’s lips as he clicked off the<br />
lighter. “Yeah.” He stood up and reached over to hand me the<br />
lighter. I kept my feet as far from him as possible, but when my<br />
fingers brushed over his the familiar tingles spread through my arm.<br />
I jerked the lighter away probably too quickly and<br />
concentrated on effectively burning my 'mallow. Damn it, Tucker.<br />
Why must you be so hot now? Why can’t you still be the dorky<br />
bookworm I first met so I wouldn’t have to be in this situation at all?<br />
When I was done, I passed the lighter back to Gunner, who<br />
toasted the second layer of his marshmallow and then handed the<br />
kitchen tool along. Tucker hadn’t even taken a bite out of his own<br />
marshmallow yet, but he lit the flame again and held it up to the<br />
blackened sweet. After a few moments, he pulled the lighter away,<br />
watching the tiny blaze burning steadily. He held it up right in front<br />
of his face, and my marshmallow turned to ash in my mouth when I<br />
recognized the cold gleam in his eyes.<br />
Before I could move, or swallow the ashes so I could speak,<br />
Tucker moved the lighter back toward the fork in his hand. But<br />
instead of focusing the flame on the marshmallow, he held it against<br />
the skin on his wrist.<br />
“Tucker!” Gunner shouted, jumping up. His half-eaten<br />
marshmallow splattered against the carpet with barely a thump.<br />
I dove forward at the same time and grabbed Tucker’s hand<br />
that held the lighter. When I tried to pull it away from his wrist, I<br />
was shocked by how much resistance I met. He was never this<br />
strong; I could always pretty easily overpower him.<br />
Luckily, the action of me grabbing him was enough to shake<br />
him out of whatever the hell kind of trance he was in. He clicked off<br />
the flame and blinked, staring first at me, and then at his wrist, which<br />
was a horrible shade of red. His mouth hung open in this perfect<br />
little “o.”<br />
167
<strong>The</strong> breath shakily emptied from my lungs as I let go of his<br />
hand and took a step back, making sure to keep Gunner behind me.<br />
“Tucker ... you need to go to the hospital. Like right now. That looks<br />
bad.”<br />
Tucker’s chest was heaving like he was in pain, but his face<br />
was strangely clear of any signs that he might be experiencing some<br />
massive degree of agony. He closed his mouth and nodded. “Okay.”<br />
“He might be in shock,” Gunner said, peering over my<br />
shoulder. “You should drive him.”<br />
I didn’t really want to be alone with him, but my brother had<br />
a point. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and backed up more so I<br />
could take the long way around the couch. I stepped on Gunner’s<br />
foot but he just bounced to the side so he’d be out of my way.<br />
“Come on, Tucker.”<br />
He placed the lighter on the coffee table and stood up,<br />
keeping his arm bent at a weird angle like a dinosaur. Part of me<br />
wanted to rush to him and clean it myself and make it better. <strong>The</strong><br />
other part of me wanted him to keep it far, far away from me. My<br />
stomach pitched when I saw the blistered skin up close. He<br />
continued walking past me out the door, holding it open long enough<br />
for Trouble to dart into the front yard for a quick pee break.<br />
“Call me if you need anything, Gun.”<br />
“Chelsea, has Tucker been acting ... weird lately?” Gunner<br />
asked, gazing past me out the door.<br />
I paused with one hand on the knob. “Uhh ... yeah. He’s been<br />
a little out of it.”<br />
“Did you guys run into anything bad in the paranormal<br />
realm?” His eyes turned to me at the same time a chill rushed<br />
through me. What kind of dots was he connecting?<br />
“Yeah.” I gripped the doorknob like it would support me if I<br />
lost my balance.<br />
“I think you and I need to talk when you get back. He’s, um,<br />
acting really weird.” Gunner’s hands were knotted together like a<br />
ball of yarn.<br />
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Sure. When I get<br />
back.”<br />
168
At that moment, several things seemed to happen all at once,<br />
in less than a second. First, we heard the sound of a motor starting<br />
up in the driveway, followed by the brief sound of rolling tires. <strong>The</strong>n<br />
a canine yelp of pain rocketed through the front door and straight<br />
into my bloodstream, freezing my heart mid-pump. <strong>The</strong>n Gunner<br />
pounced off the couch like a lion and we bolted out the front door at<br />
the same time. His elbow knocked against my side and I stepped on<br />
his foot again, but we barely noticed.<br />
Tucker was just climbing out of his car, which was still<br />
running. Lying in the driveway in front of the silver Chevy was the<br />
skinny frame of Trouble. His fur was so dark it almost blended in<br />
with the blacktop, but his sides were shaking so much he was<br />
unmistakable. Gunner and I exchanged a glance that was a contest<br />
of whose eyes could get wider before darting forward.<br />
We reached Trouble at the same time Tucker did and all<br />
three of us knelt beside him. <strong>The</strong>re was a dark pool forming beneath<br />
him and a faint metallic smell clouded the air around him, but he<br />
was still panting rapidly. He moved his eyes to look at me when I<br />
reached for him.<br />
“Don’t touch him!” Gunner exclaimed, grabbing my hand<br />
before it reached the dog. “If he’s hurt badly you could paralyze him.<br />
We have to call someone.”<br />
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Do I call 911 for a dog<br />
emergency?”<br />
“No, we have to call the vet. Hang on. I’ll go get the number.<br />
Don’t touch him.” Gunner was gone in a flash of white sneakers and<br />
I heard the front door slam shut behind him.<br />
“Hang on, boy. We’ll get you help. I promise. You’ll be<br />
okay.” Tears clawed venomously at my eyes as I realized I could<br />
very well be bullshitting the sad, broken form on the driveway. No,<br />
don’t think that way. He’ll be fine. How fast could Tucker have been<br />
going, anyway?<br />
My eyes lifted from Trouble to Tucker, who was already<br />
staring at me. “What happened?” My voice was colder than I’d ever<br />
heard it sound.<br />
His eyes matched my tone. “He was in my way.”<br />
169
“He was in front of your car. You would have had to go<br />
forward when you should have been going in reverse.” My fingers<br />
balled into a fist just so I could have something to squeeze. I could<br />
barely believe we were actually having this conversation. “Did you<br />
hit him on purpose?”<br />
At first, he didn’t move at all; he just kept staring at me.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, very slowly, Tucker’s lips curled up in the corners. “Why<br />
would I do that? I love dogs.”<br />
His response would have knocked me backward if I wasn’t<br />
already kneeling. <strong>The</strong> chilly March air had nothing to do with the<br />
goose bumps that broke out all up and down my arms. Tucker, my<br />
sweet, gentle boyfriend, hit my dog with his car on purpose. He<br />
should have been worried and freaking out, and … my frantic<br />
thoughts were interrupted by a pathetic whimper from Trouble.<br />
“Shhh, boy, it’s all right.” I bit my lip; it was so hard not to<br />
reach out and touch him.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n Gunner was back, shouting out a telephone number<br />
over and over so he wouldn’t forget it. I quickly called. As it was<br />
ringing, I stood up protectively over my dog and in front of my<br />
brother. “Get out of here, Tucker.”<br />
He raised an eyebrow like he was inviting me to challenge<br />
him. I stared back with as much steel as I could muster against this<br />
boy who had such a hold on my heart. After a few rings, a woman<br />
picked up the phone and anounced, “Hello, Hope Veterinary Office.<br />
How may I help you?”<br />
“Yeah, hi, my name is Chelsea Keller, and my dog just got<br />
hit by a car.”<br />
When Tucker saw that my focus was elsewhere, he dropped<br />
his gaze and turned around to get into his car. Gunner tried to step<br />
in between the car and Trouble, but I grabbed his shirt to keep him<br />
in place.<br />
“Okay, hang on. Let me transfer you to our emergency<br />
department.”<br />
Tucker’s silver Chevy backed out of the driveway with such<br />
a ferocious roar I thought he might leave skid marks on the blacktop.<br />
As he pulled away down the street, he met my eyes through the<br />
<strong>17</strong>0
window one last time. That same hollow, terrifying expression<br />
gripped my bones and held my tongue in place so I stuttered the next<br />
time someone asked if they could help me.<br />
<strong>17</strong>1
Chapter Sixteen<br />
Later that night, I was sprawled out on the couch staring up<br />
at the ceiling when Gunner’s head blocked my view of the white<br />
expanse above me. “We have to talk about Tucker.”<br />
My heart kicked as it tried to get out of my chest. It didn’t<br />
want to hear whatever Gunner had to say. But if it meant helping<br />
him in any way, I had to listen. I quickly scooted backward so I<br />
could sit up and make room for him on the couch with me.<br />
“You said you came across something not so good when you<br />
were ghost hunting?” he asked as he lowered himself to the cushion<br />
by my feet.<br />
I nodded as my heart continued to pound out a rapid rhythm<br />
against my ribs. “Yeah.”<br />
“I know you’re not supposed to reveal anything about your<br />
clients, but can you at least tell me what happened there? That could<br />
have something to do with why he’s sitting there burning his own<br />
hand.” Gunner’s face was red and he looked like he’d rather be<br />
chewing on nails than sitting here having this conversation with me.<br />
“Like head trauma? Because I thought of that,” I offered.<br />
His eyebrows furrowed. “No, not exactly.”<br />
I took a deep breath, and when I let it out, the story spilled<br />
forth. I told him about the way I felt uneasy from the very beginning<br />
of the case but tried to brush it off, about how Tucker almost had his<br />
head slammed in a closet and his hand burned before being tossed<br />
into a wall. By the time I finished, my hands were shaking so badly<br />
I had to use them pull my knees against my chest to keep them<br />
steady.<br />
Gunner was quiet for a little while as he stared down at the<br />
couch cushion beside him. When he finally raised his head, he said,<br />
“Chelsea ... was this Timmy Johansson’s house?”<br />
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Chelsea Keller,<br />
the magnificent detective who never misses a beat. Timmy<br />
Johansson was Gunner’s friend who kept telling him that he had a<br />
demon in his closet. This is the second time I forgot this. Damn it.<br />
<strong>17</strong>2
“Whatever was in that house was evil. I didn’t believe him<br />
at first, but he started coming into school with weird scratches on<br />
him and was so scared. And I think the demon might have attached<br />
itself to Tucker.”<br />
His words were a twister that tore up the entire room and<br />
wrenched all my limbs apart. I opened my mouth, but my tongue<br />
couldn’t form words. It took me several tries before I finally went,<br />
with the utmost coherence, “What?”<br />
My brother glanced down at the phone that was lying on the<br />
coffee table, its silence reminding us of the absence of Trouble in<br />
the house. <strong>The</strong>y said they’d call when they had news.<br />
“He burned his own hand. He hit our dog with his car. I’m<br />
guessing you’ve noticed some other things wrong with him, too.” I<br />
thought of the lack of his necklace. <strong>The</strong> going outside when I<br />
smudged his apartment. <strong>The</strong> scratches and bruises. <strong>The</strong> smoking and<br />
the arrogance. <strong>The</strong> way he’d hurt me. My heart twisted into a knot.<br />
“Shit.” I slammed my fist into the couch.<br />
“I’m not saying it’s definite. But I’m saying it’s worth<br />
looking into.” Gunner chewed nervously on his lip. “And you should<br />
probably not be around him alone.”<br />
“You think he’s possessed?” I asked, my voice sounding<br />
very small.<br />
“Possibly. I don’t know. Every case is different. But he’s<br />
showing some signs that can’t be written off as just coincidence after<br />
what happened at the Johanssons’.”<br />
I pressed my nose against my knees. God. How was I<br />
supposed to react to this? I’d always been so afraid of something<br />
like this happening to me. Now it had happened to the person who’d<br />
been reassuring me all along that I’d be fine. My mentor. My guide.<br />
My Tucker.<br />
“Hey, Chelsea, it’s okay.” Gunner reached out to awkwardly<br />
pat my hand. “I wanted to tell you so we could get him some help.<br />
You can tell the people in charge of your group. <strong>The</strong>y should know<br />
what to do to help him.”<br />
<strong>17</strong>3
“What do you do to help someone in this situation?” I asked.<br />
Stop shaking like that, voice. If you sound so weak it might actually<br />
make me cry.<br />
“Um, don’t freak out, okay? But you usually want to get a<br />
priest or a demonologist. Someone who can perform an exorcism if<br />
everyone agrees we’re right for suspecting he might be possessed.”<br />
“You’re kidding.” He just kept shooting me in the chest.<br />
Gunner shook his head. “I wish I was. But they can help.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y can get rid of it if Tucker wants to get rid of it. But only if<br />
we’re totally sure.”<br />
“How can we know for sure?”<br />
“If you tell all the signs to your group leaders, they’ll know<br />
if they should call someone else in. Have you done any other<br />
investigations since the one at the Johanssons’?”<br />
“Just one.”<br />
“Did anything weird happen?” he asked.<br />
I didn’t have to think back far to remember the recorder<br />
sliding off the table in response to me asking if the spirit liked us.<br />
When I relayed this to Gunner, he threw up his arms. “And you<br />
haven’t listened to that to see if you got some kind of response yet?”<br />
My arms went up in front of me defensively. “Hey, a little<br />
preoccupied with my boyfriend’s sudden transformation into<br />
Creepy McCreeperton.”<br />
“Well, where’s your recorder? Let’s listen to it!” Gunner was<br />
practically bouncing in his seat.<br />
I did what he said and retrieved the voice recorder from my<br />
bag. When I sat down on the couch again, I handed one earbud to<br />
him and stuck the other one in my ear. We held our heads close<br />
together as we listened to the recording with the volume all the way<br />
up.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was silence at first, but then Tucker’s voice flooded<br />
my ear. “Hi, I’m Tucker. This is Chelsea. We’re just here to talk<br />
with you; we don’t mean you any harm. Can you tell us your name?”<br />
All was quiet for a few moments until he asked another question.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n the silence resumed.<br />
<strong>17</strong>4
Next, it was my turn to ask questions. I asked if the spirits<br />
minded having us there, and there was silence again. But when it<br />
came time for my second question, we got a response. “Do you not<br />
like us?” was followed by a furious hiss and then the sound of the<br />
recorder sliding off the table. It was so loud I had to rip the earbud<br />
out of my ear.<br />
“Play it again!” Gunner urged.<br />
I rewound the recording and played my question again. “Do<br />
you not like us?” Hissssssss. Deafening sound of recorder flying<br />
across the room.<br />
Gunner’s head turned slowly toward me. His skin was the<br />
color of the white couch beneath us. “Did you hear what it said?”<br />
“No.” I rewound it again and played it, over and over, until<br />
the hiss began to form words. Nmmmmmmmmmmmfffff<br />
hhmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnn. Nnnnnnnntt hmmmmmmmnnnn.<br />
Nnnnnooooottt huuuuuummmmaaaaannnn. Not human.<br />
It was my turn to change snowman-colored. I finally<br />
swiveled my head to meet Gunner’s gaze. “What. <strong>The</strong>. Hell.”<br />
He kept balling and unballing his fists frantically. “Jesus,<br />
Chelsea. Next time something like that happens, listen to the<br />
recording right away, okay?”<br />
We spent the rest of the night huddled together on the couch,<br />
listening to the remainder of the recordings I’d taken. We caught a<br />
“Get out” and a “No” that didn’t make any sense in context with the<br />
questions we’d asked. But that first hiss kept pounding in my ears.<br />
Not human. Not human. Not human.<br />
Eventually, the animal hospital called us back. Gunner<br />
grabbed the phone first, so I had to sit there and wait in excruciation<br />
for him to finish his extensive conversation that lasted all of two<br />
minutes. He told me that Trouble was going to be okay; they’d<br />
stopped the internal bleeding and repaired his broken leg. However,<br />
they wanted to keep him for a few nights just to monitor his<br />
condition and make sure he didn’t start to bleed again.<br />
One sigh of relief rushed out of me. My dog was going to<br />
live. At least one of us was out of danger for now.<br />
<strong>17</strong>5
But that didn’t change Tucker’s situation. I should have just<br />
asked Gunner from the beginning instead of shouldering the issue<br />
myself. Sure, it was still possible that he had some psychological or<br />
physical condition going on, but I couldn’t ignore the other option<br />
that had been presented. It sounded more likely the more I went<br />
through his strange behavior. Something malicious wouldn’t be<br />
comfortable wearing a necklace meant to keep negative things at<br />
bay. It certainly wouldn’t be able to stay in a room with smoke<br />
meant to cleanse the place of dark energy. And it would have no<br />
problem hurting anyone else — it might even enjoy it.<br />
My stomach kept on bucking and pitching like a pissed off<br />
horse trying to throw its rider. I wanted to go to his apartment and<br />
chase the bad thing away myself. I wanted to hide in my room and<br />
hope it never found me. I wanted to apologize to Tucker, who was a<br />
prisoner in his own body, for the coldness I’d shown him and the<br />
failure of my trust in him. God, my head was on fire.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next morning, I woke up early just so I could call the<br />
heads of Lark Hollow Paranormal Research. Richard picked up on<br />
the fourth ring. “Hello?”<br />
“Hi, Richard, it’s Chelsea Keller.”<br />
“Well, good morning, Chelsea. What can I do for you?”<br />
“Uh, it’s about Tucker.” My nerves weakened as the word<br />
loomed in my head. If I said it out loud, somehow it would make it<br />
more real. “I think — I think something might have happened to him<br />
at the investigation of the Johanssons’ house.”<br />
“What do you mean?”<br />
“He’s been acting weird. I think … something might have<br />
attached to him.”<br />
Richard drew in his breath. “Chelsea, this is a very serious<br />
assumption. I’m going to need to know why you feel this way. Do<br />
you have time to come over today?”<br />
I had class that night, but Tucker’s well-being was just<br />
slightly more of a priority. “I can come after work. Around six?”<br />
“No problem. We’ll see you then.”<br />
<strong>17</strong>6
Richard and Daisy both sat down and listened to my story. I<br />
fumbled a lot, especially the part about how he’d physically hurt me,<br />
but Gunner told me they needed to know every last detail. Once I<br />
was done, I felt like a balloon that someone had just popped as I sat<br />
back against their dining room chair.<br />
<strong>The</strong> couple looked at each other, then back at me. It was<br />
Daisy who spoke first. “Okay, Chelsea. First of all, you were right<br />
to come to us with this. I don’t think your theory is unwarranted.”<br />
I’d never seen her look nervous before.<br />
“Whatever was in the Johanssons’ house was definitely<br />
dangerous. I’ve checked in with them twice since we’ve been there<br />
and they’ve had no more activity. So it would make sense that the<br />
entity attached itself to someone else. We can’t assume it’s a demon;<br />
it might be some other inhuman spirit or just a really nasty human<br />
spirit. But if it’s using Tucker, then we need to help him.” Richard’s<br />
eyes were the color of tombstones.<br />
“Human spirits can do that, too?” I asked.<br />
He nodded. “If they’re strong enough. I think I’m going to<br />
give my friend Craig a call. He’s a demonologist and he will be able<br />
to tell us if he thinks he should come out for a visit or not based on<br />
what you’ve described.”<br />
Daisy raised her index finger. “Oh! Do you think we should<br />
call Ethan and Susannah first? <strong>The</strong>y’re good friends with Tucker.<br />
Maybe they’ve noticed other strange things about him in the past<br />
few weeks.”<br />
Within the hour, Ethan and Susannah both showed up on the<br />
doorstep. <strong>The</strong>y walked inside looking thoroughly concerned. On the<br />
phone, Daisy hadn’t told them exactly what was wrong, just that it<br />
was very important.<br />
<strong>The</strong> five of us sat down again around the dining room table.<br />
Normally, Susannah would greet me with a hug, but she barely even<br />
looked at me when she took the seat beside me.<br />
Richard looked to me, and I relayed the story again, this time<br />
exempting the part about the violence. Tucker’s best friends didn’t<br />
need to hear about our sex life gone horribly wrong. <strong>The</strong>y weren’t<br />
the ones deciding if we should call an exorcist or not.<br />
<strong>17</strong>7
“Before we call in a demonologist, we want to know if either<br />
of you has noticed anything strange about Tucker lately.” Daisy<br />
turned her intense stare on each of them.<br />
“Now that you mention it, kind of.” Ethan pushed one side<br />
of his long blond hair behind his ear. “We went out the other night<br />
and he had a few beers. I haven’t seen him drink beer since college.<br />
And he was walking around with a lot of confidence. But I just<br />
attributed that to being drunk.”<br />
Four sets of eyes turned to Susannah. Her long, mascaraloaded<br />
eyelashes hooded her eyes, which were focused in her lap.<br />
When she noticed we were waiting, she glanced up and her face<br />
instantly flushed. “Um … I don’t know.”<br />
“Susannah, we need you to be honest,” Richard said.<br />
She drew in a deep breath. “I guess just the same kind of<br />
thing. He seems almost cocky. It’s not like him. And I, um, I noticed<br />
the cuts on him, too.”<br />
My heart sank lower and lower into my stomach with each<br />
of their words that confirmed my suspicions.<br />
Daisy and Richard bobbed their heads in unison. <strong>The</strong>n Daisy<br />
looked at me. “Just so you know, Chelsea, even if Craig thinks it<br />
would be a good idea to perform an exorcism, Tucker has to agree<br />
to it. Craig can’t perform one unless Tucker wants him to.”<br />
My lips felt like lead when I tried to move them. “What if he<br />
doesn’t want to?”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>n there’s nothing we can do except pray for him.”<br />
I glanced at each of the faces around me. <strong>The</strong>se were all<br />
people who loved Tucker. How could they sit there and accept the<br />
fact that if he didn’t want an exorcism, there was no way to help<br />
him? Daisy and Richard hadn’t even seen that cold look in his eyes.<br />
A look that probably belonged to the spirit that inhabited his body.<br />
“Either way, I’ll call him. And if he wants to come down,<br />
one of us should get in touch with Tucker.” Richard stroked his<br />
beard. “We’ll need to tell him that he has a problem and we think he<br />
should be cleansed.”<br />
“Chelsea and Susannah are the best candidates for that,”<br />
Ethan nominated. “He’ll trust them the most.”<br />
<strong>17</strong>8
Susannah’s expression instantly morphed into one of panic.<br />
Was she that afraid of dealing with a demon? I felt a little better<br />
knowing I wasn’t the only scaredy cat in the room.<br />
“It’s definitely something better handled in person,” mused<br />
Daisy. “But maybe we should leave a third person waiting in the car<br />
just in case. If he is possessed, he’ll have even more strength than<br />
normal.” I remembered the way his arm wouldn’t budge under my<br />
grasp when I tried to stop him from burning his arm.<br />
“I’ll go.” I nodded my head in case my words weren’t strong<br />
enough to confirm my position. I didn’t want to have to see him like<br />
that. I didn’t want to be around whatever might be inside his body.<br />
But I would have done just about anything to have helped him.<br />
“Susie?” Ethan reached out and touched Susannah’s arm.<br />
Her thin eyebrows were curved downward, but she nodded.<br />
“Okay,” she agreed. “For Tucker.”<br />
“I’ll go call Craig right now, then.” Richard pushed back his<br />
chair, stood up, and turned the corner into the kitchen.<br />
An uncomfortable silence settled over the dining room table.<br />
Susannah had resumed looking at her lap, Ethan was gazing with<br />
sudden fascination at the chandelier, and Daisy was glancing around<br />
at each of us in turn. When she grabbed my gaze with hers, she<br />
reached across the mauve tablecloth and touched my hand. “He’ll<br />
be okay, Chelsea. Tucker is strong. We’ve watched him grow since<br />
he was just a kid.”<br />
It took about half an hour for Richard to return, but when he<br />
did, he told us that Craig had agreed to make the trip down from<br />
Maine. He wasn’t entirely convinced that the case needed an<br />
exorcism, but the claims warranted further investigation at the very<br />
least. We just had to get Tucker to agree to meet with him.<br />
“You two sure you’re up to it?” Richard asked.<br />
I nodded, and Susannah gave a tight smile.<br />
“I’ll be your backup,” Ethan volunteered. “When are you<br />
free?”<br />
I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible and get that<br />
thing out of Tucker. Screw class. “Tomorrow night?” I asked.<br />
<strong>17</strong>9
“I’m off work at six,” he answered. “If you make it at seven,<br />
I’m there.”<br />
Susannah sighed. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”<br />
“I’ll call him as soon as I get home and make sure he’s free.”<br />
I rose out of my chair. I didn’t want to talk to him in front of them.<br />
I might say the wrong thing. Or I might say the right thing at the<br />
wrong time. Either way, if I was going to ask him to hang out with<br />
me after the events of the other night, I didn’t want anyone listening<br />
in.<br />
We said our goodbyes and filed out the door. As I reached<br />
for the handle of my car door, Richard called to me from the<br />
doorway, “Chelsea?”<br />
I turned, expecting some more advice, some explanation as<br />
to how to handle so delicate a situation.<br />
“Good luck.”<br />
180
Chapter Seventeen<br />
On Tuesday night, Susannah and I tread heavily on the<br />
wooden staircase leading up to the apartment. Ethan’s car was<br />
parked around the block so Tucker wouldn’t notice and think we<br />
were ganging up on him or staging an intervention. My heart was<br />
down in my feet, weighing them down so much I thought the steps<br />
might break beneath me.<br />
<strong>The</strong> phone call had been surprisingly easy. He’d answered,<br />
apologizing a thousand times, telling me he didn’t know what had<br />
come over him. He had absolutely not meant to hit Trouble with the<br />
car, and he didn’t know what made him burn himself with the<br />
lighter. After he’d been sorry for about twenty minutes straight, I<br />
finally got enough words in to tell him that it was okay and I needed<br />
to talk to him. He said that was fine and I was welcome to come<br />
over.<br />
Susannah’s hands were in the pocket of her brown jacket<br />
with the fuzzy white lining. She let me knock on the door and kept<br />
glancing in the direction of the car, like she was contemplating<br />
whether or not to bolt.<br />
I had no idea what to expect, but when Tucker opened the<br />
door, he looked completely normal again. His eyes were soft and<br />
welcoming, and his smile was genuine as he stepped aside to let us<br />
in. “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming too, Susannah.”<br />
“Missed you.” She wouldn’t look him in the eyes.<br />
When I walked past him, I managed to meet his gaze for a<br />
moment. <strong>The</strong>re was pain smoldering in the dark brown depths, and<br />
I wondered how much of that belonged to the real him and how<br />
much was caused by the entity inhabiting him.<br />
“So what’s up?” he asked as we all stood awkwardly in the<br />
kitchen.<br />
“We need to talk.” My voice was stronger than I’d expected<br />
it to be. Maybe it was because Susannah felt so weak beside me.<br />
Tucker nodded. “Okay. Do you want to come sit down?”<br />
We followed him into the den with the big L-shaped black<br />
couch. My heart, as leaden as it felt, fluttered a little as he sat in the<br />
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exact same spot where we’d first kissed. I made a point of sitting<br />
further away than necessary. Susannah sat on the other side of him.<br />
“Remember how I told you that you needed to get help?” I<br />
asked, glad I’d rehearsed this in front of the mirror before heading<br />
over.<br />
He nodded again. His face was drawn and the circles under<br />
his eyes were heavier than usual.<br />
“I think you might need a different kind of help now. We<br />
think that something might have attached to you at the Johanssons’.<br />
Some kind of spirit. You may or may not be aware of it.” My fingers<br />
twined around the string of my hoodie.<br />
Tucker glanced behind him at Susannah slowly, then back in<br />
my direction. “So, you’re saying I’m possessed?”<br />
“Maybe. Maybe not. But we want to find out for sure. And<br />
if you are, we want to help you.”<br />
“What do you know about possession, Chelsea?” His eyes<br />
started to gleam over with the familiar eerie hardness, and I looked<br />
hurriedly at Susannah. She was staring at her lap again, not even<br />
paying attention to me.<br />
Tucker leaned forward and the couch creaked beneath his<br />
weight. “Do you think I could possibly not know what’s happening<br />
to me? Do you think I don’t sit here every day listening to the voice<br />
in my head that doesn’t belong to me and not realize what’s<br />
happening?”<br />
“Stop that!” I exclaimed, scooting backwards so my tailbone<br />
bumped against the arm of the couch. “Tucker, I’m trying to help<br />
you. Fight it, please!”<br />
“Fight what?” He stood up, holding his arms at his sides in<br />
a way that made him seem much bigger than he really was. “Fight<br />
this power? Fight the girls I’ve been fucking who came over at the<br />
same time?” He threw another glance at Susannah, a grin spreading<br />
over his face.<br />
“Girls?” I repeated. My legs suddenly felt weak.<br />
“She didn’t tell you?” Tucker turned around and stepped<br />
over to Susannah. He reached down and grabbed her by the hair,<br />
yanking her head back. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.<br />
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“She never wanted me her whole life, and now that I’ve got this<br />
power, she can’t keep her hands off me.”<br />
Planes were dropping tiny atom bombs in my stomach. My<br />
skin was burning. That couldn’t be true. That couldn’t be why<br />
Susannah was so quiet and refused to look at me. “Stop it!”<br />
“Stop it!” He echoed, mocking me in a high-pitched voice.<br />
He let go of her hair with a jerk and straightened up again. “Tucker<br />
was weak. He let me in. He wanted me here.”<br />
Chills coursed over my skin, clashing with the heat beneath<br />
it and peppering me with goose bumps. “You’re lying. He’s stronger<br />
than you.”<br />
“No.” Those dead eyes locked on mine. “If he was, you’d be<br />
talking to him right now. But all he can do is watch while I do<br />
whatever I want.”<br />
Before I knew what was happening, he moved forward faster<br />
than humanly possible and grabbed the front of my hoodie. He<br />
jerked me to my feet and I stumbled. I brought my hands against his<br />
chest to steady myself, and he caught my wrists to hold them there.<br />
“See? You still want me. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy<br />
what I did to you a few weeks ago.” He leaned his face close to mine<br />
so I could smell something metallic on his breath.<br />
My cheeks flushed furiously and I squirmed, trying to break<br />
free of his grip. But he held me like the stocks. He started to move<br />
one of my hands lower until I felt the fabric of his jeans beneath my<br />
palm.<br />
“Susannah, call Ethan!” I shouted.<br />
Tucker — or the thing in Tucker’s body — released my<br />
hands so sharply that I fell down and landed hard on the wooden<br />
floor. “Ethan’s here, too? Oh, good, he can watch what I’m going to<br />
do to both of you.” His tongue snaked out and trailed along his lips.<br />
“Tucker! I know you can hear me. Fight it, please!” I urged,<br />
desperation chomping at the heels of my words.<br />
“Shut up, Chelsea!” He lashed out a foot and caught me on<br />
the side of the head. Pain burst out from my temple and spattered<br />
black spots all over my vision. “He can hear you, but he can’t do<br />
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anything. Go ahead, bring your exorcist here. See what happens to<br />
him.”<br />
“Go fuck yourself!” I screeched, climbing to my feet with<br />
my hands pressed against my temple. It was wet beneath my palms<br />
and there was a thundering throbbing inside my skull.<br />
He surged forward and caught me around the waist, holding<br />
my body against his. “Or I can fuck you again.” He glanced behind<br />
him as I struggled uselessly. “Come on, Susie. You know you want<br />
in on this. You’ve hooked up with girls before, haven’t you? You<br />
look like you’d fuck anything with legs.”<br />
I managed to look past him to see what she was doing.<br />
Susannah was just staring at him, her makeup streaking down her<br />
face with tears. Had she sent anything to Ethan?<br />
“Let me go!” I jabbed my elbow into his stomach as hard as<br />
I could. He might have been stronger, but his stomach wasn’t made<br />
of iron. He let me go and bent over. <strong>The</strong> distraction was just enough<br />
for me to whirl around and bring my sneaker up into his crotch. He<br />
toppled over and fell to his knees on the floor.<br />
I rushed past him and grabbed Susannah’s hand, jerking her<br />
up off the couch. We were just about to the front door when Tucker’s<br />
voice caught me by the heartstrings and pulled me back. “You don’t<br />
want anything to happen to Gunner, do you Chelsea?”<br />
Instantly I twisted my body around to stare at him. He was<br />
climbing to his feet, using his coffee table for support. “You stay<br />
away from my brother.”<br />
“Who’s going to stop me? I know where you live. I know<br />
he’s home alone plenty of the time,” he hissed.<br />
“He’s not stupid. He knows what’s going on with you. He<br />
won’t let you in.” I let go of Susannah’s hand so I didn’t crush it in<br />
my suddenly-iron fingers.<br />
Tucker let out a laugh that wasn’t his own. It sounded like a<br />
cartoon hyena. “Please. I don’t need him to let me in. I can break a<br />
window. I can break down a door. I can hurt him in ways you’ve<br />
never even imagined.”<br />
“Why? What do you want?” My blood was pumping in my<br />
ears so hard I could barely hear myself speak.<br />
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“I don’t want anything. I want to use this body until I run it<br />
into the ground. I want to experience all the thrills of a solid form.”<br />
He was walking towards us now, so I started backing closer to the<br />
door. One hand in my pocket pressed the call button, which was<br />
already on Ethan’s number.<br />
“If you touch my brother, I’ll kill you,” I spat. “I don’t care<br />
if you are in Tucker’s body.”<br />
“Right. Like you did after I hurt your dog.” A horrific grin<br />
spread across his face. “Did he make it? I thought I hit him hard<br />
enough to kill him, but apparently that rat is resilient.”<br />
I turned around and reached for the door handle, but Tucker<br />
grabbed my other wrist again and pulled me back. He brought his<br />
nose centimeters from mine, so all I could see were those<br />
bottomless, empty eyes. “You can leave, but you’re not safe. No one<br />
you love is safe. And the more you fight me, the worse it will get.”<br />
“I’m not afraid of you,” I lied.<br />
“You’re even stupider than I thought.” He grabbed my other<br />
wrist and pushed me against the old fashioned wallpaper. My<br />
tailbone collided with a wooden beam and I winced. “And weak. So<br />
weak. You try to be strong, but you’re nothing but a coward, Chelsea<br />
Keller. You have so much to lose. I will break you so easily.”<br />
I tried to bring my knee up again, but he blocked me with his<br />
own. I glared up at him, my insides smoldering with fury that he<br />
dare hurt Tucker and my dog and threaten my little brother. He was<br />
ticking off the list of everyone I loved. I stared into those<br />
emotionless eyes, searching for any trace of the man they belonged<br />
to. Even though I couldn’t find him, I hoped he would see me trying<br />
desperately to throw him a rope.<br />
Suddenly, Tucker resurfaced. <strong>The</strong> adoration and pain<br />
returned to his eyes, and the strength left his hands. He let go of my<br />
wrists immediately and took a step back. “Chelsea ... I’m so sorry.<br />
Please ...”<br />
“Oh, Tucker.” Tears instantly burned in my eyes. “I love<br />
you. I swear to God I’ll save you.”<br />
In another instant, he was gone, and I was slammed back<br />
against the wall with my wrists pinned onto it with superhuman<br />
185
strength. “I love you,” the spirit mocked. “You shouldn’t have lied<br />
to him, little girl. I’ll never let you save him.”<br />
At that moment, something crashed over Tucker’s head. He<br />
released my wrists and I ducked under his arms as he turned around.<br />
Susannah was standing there with her hands on the wooden knife<br />
holder from the counter. <strong>The</strong> collar of her jacket was soaked with<br />
tears.<br />
I wrenched open the door, grabbed her arm again, and hauled<br />
her out after me. We bolted down the stairs just as Ethan came<br />
running around the corner. “Go!” I yelled at him, waving my arm<br />
for effect. Our feet pounded hard against the sidewalk.<br />
As we turned the corner, I glanced over my shoulder one<br />
more time. Tucker was standing on the top step, leaning on the<br />
railing, and smiling like a wolf that had just cornered its prey.<br />
Craig elected to come down anyway. After we played back<br />
the recorder that had been in Susannah’s pocket for Daisy and<br />
Richard to hear, they decided we definitely needed to get a<br />
professional on the job. I’d made Ethan stop at my house to pick up<br />
Gunner, and the six of us were huddled at the usual dining room<br />
meeting place once again. I hadn’t wanted to let him hear anything<br />
on that recording, but he’d insisted that if I was going to pull him<br />
out of the house for his own safety, he needed to know why.<br />
He held my hand under the table as we sat in silence. It was<br />
going to take Craig until tomorrow night to drive down. We had no<br />
idea what Tucker was going to try in the meantime after all the<br />
threats he’d made. Listening to them again had sent freezing icicles<br />
all up and down my spine.<br />
“Should we call the police?” Ethan asked.<br />
“No,” Susannah spoke up. It was the first time she’d opened<br />
her mouth since we left his house. “If we call them, they’ll arrest<br />
him. And then we won’t be able to help him.”<br />
I gazed at her, my stomach lurching as I wondered when<br />
she’d been sleeping with Tucker. Wherever he was inside his own<br />
body, did he like it?<br />
Stop, Chelsea. Don’t let that thing into your head, too.<br />
186
But I couldn’t help but feel stung that Susannah would have<br />
gone for it. She wasn’t possessed. She had nothing moving her but<br />
her own free will. I thought we’d been building some kind of<br />
friendship, but apparently, it ended when a suddenly-confident guy<br />
was involved. I felt a foreign pang of longing for Michelle.<br />
“You’re all welcome to stay here tonight,” Richard offered.<br />
“What about Dad?” Gunner asked. “He’ll come home at 4am<br />
and I don’t want him to find Tucker waiting for him.”<br />
“We can’t tell him not to stay there. We’d have way too<br />
much explaining to do.” I dropped my forehead onto my free hand,<br />
which was propped up by an elbow on the table.<br />
“What if we stay with you?” Ethan asked. “We can all camp<br />
out or something.”<br />
I glanced at Susannah, suddenly not wanting her in my<br />
house. Ever. She wouldn’t look at me and now I finally understood<br />
why.<br />
Ethan caught my look and nodded. “Oh. Okay. Well, how<br />
about I call Jamie? He’s young enough for it not to be weird if he<br />
stays over. He and I can hang out with you guys tonight. Strength in<br />
numbers, you know?”<br />
I glanced at Gunner for confirmation. I didn’t know Jamie<br />
that well, but Ethan had a point with the age factor. My brother<br />
shrugged. “Sure. Works for me.”<br />
Ethan pulled out his phone and went into the kitchen to make<br />
the phone call. Once the sound of his voice rose from the other room,<br />
Richard leaned forward.<br />
“Are you two, honestly now, okay after what happened<br />
today? Chelsea, your head looks like it should be okay, but if you<br />
want to go get it checked out, I’d be more than happy to go with<br />
you.”<br />
I had almost forgotten about my head in all of the emotional<br />
trauma that was flying around inside me. Now that he mentioned it,<br />
the cut gave a painful throb. That was going to turn all kinds of pretty<br />
colors in the next week or so. “I’m okay. Thanks. My pupils are the<br />
same size, right? No concussion.”<br />
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“And Susannah, what about you? Do you want to stay here<br />
tonight? You probably shouldn’t be alone, either.” Richard turned<br />
his attention to her.<br />
Gunner squeezed my hand.<br />
“Okay,” she agreed quietly.<br />
Just then, Ethan returned to the room, replacing his cell<br />
phone in his pocket. “Jamie said he’ll meet us over at your place. I<br />
didn’t tell him what was going on, just that we had some paranormal<br />
chaos and needed to keep a lookout tonight.”<br />
I released Gunner’s hand and stood up, only too eager to get<br />
out of the room with Susannah. “Thanks. Can we head back there<br />
now? I’m pretty wiped.” My brother followed my lead to accentuate<br />
my action.<br />
We thanked Daisy and Richard and headed back to our own<br />
house. Once we got inside, we carefully went around to each room<br />
together and checked for signs of forced entry. All seemed to be in<br />
order, and Ethan said he doubted Tucker would make a move so<br />
quickly after the showdown today anyway. We set up all three of<br />
our sleeping bags on the floor in my room, and when Jamie got there,<br />
we all hunkered down with Anchorman on my laptop.<br />
Around 1am, Jamie, who had had the least stressful day,<br />
volunteered to take first watch if the rest of us wanted to get some<br />
sleep. Gunner, whose head had been dropping onto my shoulder for<br />
the past half hour, agreed readily and curled up under my covers.<br />
I didn’t want to turn the lights out, but when Ethan stretched<br />
out on the sleeping bag by the door, I figured we didn’t have a choice<br />
if we wanted to get any sleep. I flipped the switch and retreated to<br />
the sleeping bag beside my bed, alongside Jamie’s.<br />
“Is it okay for me to ask what’s going on?” he asked.<br />
I rolled onto my side so I could face him. “Remember the<br />
Johansson case? You weren’t there, but I’m sure you heard about<br />
what happened that made us run out of there.”<br />
He nodded. <strong>The</strong> street light outside was reflected in his wide<br />
blue eyes. “Yeah. Tucker got really ... Oh, no. Something happened<br />
to him.”<br />
188
“Whatever was there went home with him.” I turned over<br />
onto my back again and stared up at the ceiling. “Sometime you can<br />
listen to the recording we left at Daisy and Richard’s from what<br />
happened today.”<br />
Jamie was quiet for a while, and when glanced his way again,<br />
he had his knee against his chest, his elbow draped over it, and was<br />
staring out the window. “I can’t believe that happened to Tucker,<br />
out of all of us.”<br />
My heart had never felt so fragile in my entire life. “Yeah.<br />
Me either.”<br />
“Chelsea?” Gunner’s voice floated over the side of the bed.<br />
“What’s up, Gun?” I asked.<br />
“I just want you to know you’re not a coward. You’re not<br />
any of those things he called you.”<br />
And here comes Gunner Keller with the band-aid to the<br />
wounded heart. “You mean that?”<br />
“Dude. You were terrified of this stuff, and you did it<br />
anyway. And now you’re in the face of what you were always afraid<br />
of, and you’re not running away. Cowards would be halfway to<br />
Florida by now.”<br />
And cue waterworks. I blinked furiously to keep them away.<br />
“And you told him you’d kill him for me. I mean, that was<br />
really brave. And nice, I think. Thank you for that.”<br />
Okay, surrender the resistance. <strong>The</strong> tears that had been<br />
threatening for so long finally crept their way down my cheeks.<br />
“Thank you, Gunner.”<br />
“<strong>The</strong>se things prey on your weaknesses. But you’re stronger<br />
than it. And you know it. Don’t let it get to you.” His voice started<br />
to fade out at the last sentence. He was quiet for a few moments, and<br />
then the soft sound of his heavy breathing filled the silence of my<br />
room.<br />
I rolled over onto my side again. Jamie wasn’t looking at me,<br />
but he was smiling.<br />
189
Chapter Eighteen<br />
Gunner and I went to Richard and Daisy’s house at five the<br />
next day. Ethan and Susannah were already seated at the table when<br />
we walked in, next to a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair<br />
I could only assume was Craig. He reached out and shook my hand,<br />
and then my brother’s, before we sat down.<br />
“I think we should go to his house again,” he mused. “It<br />
seems as though this demon has extreme control over Tucker.<br />
However, judging by his reaction when he was released<br />
momentarily, he may have the willpower necessary to perform a<br />
successful exorcism.”<br />
“Who’s ‘we’?” Ethan asked.<br />
“Whoever feels they should or want to be there. I’d prefer at<br />
least two others to come with me; I never perform one alone.” Craig<br />
looked gravely at me.<br />
I nodded. Gunner’s words had encouraged me, as well as the<br />
desperation with which the genuine Tucker had looked at me the day<br />
before. I could handle it. “I’m there.”<br />
“I could go, too,” Ethan volunteered.<br />
“Me, too,” Richard added.<br />
“And me,” Gunner piped up.<br />
“Gunner.” I glared at him sharply.<br />
“Fine.”<br />
Daisy chuckled. “When you’re eighteen, Gunner, you’re<br />
more than welcome to join our group. We could use a head like<br />
yours.”<br />
He lit up like a K2 meter.<br />
“So the four of us will go over there as soon as possible.<br />
When will he be home?” Craig asked.<br />
“Tonight? <strong>The</strong> End Shelf closed about when we got here.<br />
He’ll be home now,” I spoke up. Assuming he went to work at all. I<br />
had no idea how he was spending his days. Apparently he’d spent a<br />
good amount of time with Susannah and I hadn’t had a clue.<br />
Craig nodded and rose from his seat at the head of the table.<br />
“Good. I’ll go and get my things together and we will head over<br />
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there around eight. Ethan, Richard, Chelsea, you all make sure you<br />
thoroughly ground yourselves. I don’t know how tonight is going to<br />
affect any of us, but you need to make sure you’re protected.”<br />
Daisy ordered a few pizzas for us, and while we waited for<br />
them to arrive, we moved into their living room to put on the TV<br />
and pretend we weren’t terrified about what was going to happen in<br />
a few hours. Susannah retreated to whatever room she’d stayed in<br />
the night before, which I was grateful for. It would have been way<br />
too hard to ground and focus while I was staring at her.<br />
After we’d downed a few slices each, Craig came around to<br />
each of us with a cross on a thick string. “If you don’t believe, then<br />
this won’t have any power. But if you believe in the strength of the<br />
Lord, it will keep the devil and his minions at bay.”<br />
“Are you Christian, Craig?” asked Ethan.<br />
“No, I’m not. But I’ve seen too much to kid myself into<br />
believing there’s not something bigger than us working out there.”<br />
Craig placed the wooden cross in his palm.<br />
I closed my hand around the cross once he handed it to me.<br />
I was sure what I believed in, but I definitely put some kind<br />
of stock in the crosses and something bigger. I draped it around my<br />
neck and tucked it inside my shirt. It made a weird bulge beneath<br />
the green striped fabric, but I felt some comfort in feeling it resting<br />
against my chest.<br />
“I have these for you, too, Chels.” Gunner reached into his<br />
pocket and produced two big chunks of black stone. “<strong>The</strong>y’re<br />
obsidian. <strong>The</strong>y repel negative energy.”<br />
“Where did you get these?” I asked. <strong>The</strong> stones were hot<br />
when he dropped them into my palm.<br />
“I bought them when Mom left. Don’t worry, I cleaned them.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y’re fine to use.”<br />
This immense affection for my brother overtook me and I<br />
pulled him in for a hug. “You’re the best little brother ever.”<br />
“Stop. Don’t be weird.” He wriggled out of my grasp. “But<br />
remember what I said, okay? You can do this.”<br />
191
After we were all effectively geared up, we loaded into<br />
Craig’s car. <strong>The</strong>y let me take the passenger seat, and as we<br />
journeyed along the highway, our driver kept glancing over at me.<br />
Finally, I asked, “What’s up?”<br />
He smiled slightly. “I’m not exactly a sensitive person, but<br />
I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. And you, my dear, have<br />
quite a road ahead of you.”<br />
“I do?” Way to shake up my protective barrier. You’ll be<br />
fine, Chelsea. But it’s gonna be hard and you’ll cry a lot and<br />
probably get hit in the temple a few more times.<br />
“Yes. I’ll tell you about it later. Trust me, it’s a good thing.”<br />
Feeling a little confused, and not very reassured by his last<br />
comment, I turned my head to look out the window. I kind of wished<br />
Gunner had come with us. If I hadn’t been so concerned with his<br />
safety, of course. I reached into my pocket and held onto one of the<br />
stones he’d given me.<br />
We pulled up to the curb just outside the apartment. As far<br />
as Craig was concerned, it didn’t matter if he saw us coming. He had<br />
never met Tucker, so he wouldn’t have any knowledge of who he<br />
was or what he was there for. Of course, he might have an idea, but<br />
his impulsive need to cause chaos among the living had a good<br />
chance of overwhelming any caution.<br />
Craig went first, followed by me, then Ethan, with Richard<br />
bringing up the rear. We filed up the familiar wooden steps that<br />
echoed hollowly every time one of our feet came down on them. <strong>The</strong><br />
cold air crept around us and whispered eerily against my face.<br />
Strangely enough, I was very calm inwardly. I knew this was<br />
something I had to do, for Tucker.<br />
Once we reached the top of the stairs, Craig knocked on the<br />
door.<br />
Yesterday, Tucker had answered almost instantly. Tonight,<br />
there was no response. I glanced around to the street. His silver car<br />
was right there, parked a few spots away. He had to be home. Unless<br />
he’d walked somewhere. After all, the cold didn’t seem to bother<br />
him anymore.<br />
192
When a few minutes had passed, Craig knocked again and<br />
called, “Tucker?”<br />
Still there was no answer. This sense of dread began<br />
creeping up into my throat. <strong>The</strong> monster’s words echoed in my<br />
mind. “You can leave, but you’re not safe. No one you love is safe.<br />
And the more you fight me, the worse it will get.”<br />
I reached forward instinctively and turned the handle. <strong>The</strong><br />
door opened easily and swung inward with a slow creak. <strong>The</strong> lights<br />
were off inside, and I could only see the shadows of the furniture<br />
and cabinets in the kitchen.<br />
“Tucker?” I called. Still no answer. Maybe he really wasn’t<br />
home. Or maybe he was lying in wait somewhere.<br />
Craig stepped inside before me. He glanced around in the<br />
darkness. No one came rushing out at him. “Tucker?” he tried again.<br />
I stepped hesitantly through the doorway behind him. He<br />
continued moving forward as I reached behind me for the light<br />
switch. I heard a dull thud as he walked into something in the dark.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n my hands found the switch and light flooded the kitchen as I<br />
turned around just in time to see what Craig had bumped into.<br />
I saw his feet first. His black sneakers, connected to a pair of<br />
jeans, which led up to his Boondock Saints shirt. And above that<br />
was his head, bent horribly sideways to make room for the rope<br />
around his neck.<br />
Instantly I turned around to run out the door. Ethan and<br />
Richard blocked my way, staring open-mouthed at Tucker’s body<br />
like it was some kind of circus sideshow. I bent over and all the pizza<br />
came up, spattering on both of their shoes. <strong>The</strong>y jumped to the side<br />
and I bolted past them, hurrying down the stairs and stopping when<br />
I reached the bottom to empty my stomach completely.<br />
My brain was numb. It didn’t know how to process what I’d<br />
just seen. Yesterday, I’d been talking to Tucker, or the thing that was<br />
controlling him. He was alive enough to kick me in the temple. And<br />
now, only hours later ...<br />
“I’ll never let you save him.”<br />
He’d been threatening to come after my family and destroy<br />
what I loved, but he’d gone with the easiest option. Unless Tucker<br />
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had seized control of his body long enough to rid himself of the<br />
demon in the only way he knew how.<br />
No. Stop. It couldn’t have come to that.<br />
Could it?<br />
Too late. <strong>The</strong> demon was right. I’d lied to Tucker. I didn’t<br />
save him.<br />
Tears were freezing against my face in the cold air. I felt<br />
arms around me, and I didn’t know who they belonged to, but I<br />
didn’t care. My Tucker, who had been fine only a month ago, had<br />
fallen victim to a monster and it had killed him. I was never going<br />
to hear his voice again. No more witty banter inside <strong>The</strong> End Shelf.<br />
What would happen to his store now, anyway? What would<br />
happen to his apartment?<br />
What would happen to the demon? Where would it go?<br />
“Chelsea, you need to breathe.” Richard’s voice infiltrated<br />
the horrors in my mind, the image of Tucker’s body that was<br />
cemented there. I caught hold of it and let it pull me out of the<br />
depths.<br />
<strong>The</strong> tears didn’t stop, though. I turned around and collapsed<br />
against his chest. “We were too late,” I blubbered.<br />
“I’m so sorry.” Ethan’s voice was a whisper, and when I<br />
opened one eye I saw his face was as wet as mine.<br />
Craig stood grimly by, a cell phone at his ear as he described<br />
to the police what we’d just found. When he hung up, he announced,<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y’ll be here soon. We need to wait a few minutes.” He turned<br />
his dark eyes on me. “Chelsea, it’s going to be okay.”<br />
We didn’t get back to Richard and Daisy’s house until after<br />
midnight. Gunner was passed out on the couch, Susannah was<br />
nowhere to be found, and Daisy was waiting on the stairs. Richard<br />
had called her to tell her what had happened, and she rushed into his<br />
arms the moment we walked through the door.<br />
Ethan kept his hand on my shoulder, but the tears had dried<br />
up after talking to the police. <strong>The</strong>y handled it so professionally, like<br />
Tucker was just another number in the multitudes of young people<br />
who committed suicide every year. <strong>The</strong> whole event was just so void<br />
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of emotion it pretty much anchored me back to the ground and let<br />
me get control again.<br />
I sat down on the couch beside Gunner, and he blinked<br />
sleepily at me. When he saw my face clearly, his eyes shot open and<br />
he jumped up. “What happened?”<br />
“He’s dead. Tucker’s dead.” My voice was the product of a<br />
hollow chest. Wherever my heart had gone, it was buried<br />
somewhere so far inside me I couldn’t feel it anymore. It couldn’t<br />
take all the sadness it was drowning in earlier.<br />
<strong>The</strong> way Gunner’s face broke almost found it again, but I<br />
swallowed hard to keep it away as he fell into my arms.<br />
A few days later, I was dressed in a black dress with dark<br />
purple flowers on the bottom and standing beside a casket with two<br />
people I had never met before. <strong>The</strong> woman had gray hair tied back<br />
into a loose bun and the man was tall and thin and looked so much<br />
like his son it was unreal. Tucker would have grown up to be a really<br />
handsome older man.<br />
His mom gripped my hand from time to time, as if she found<br />
some comfort in touching the person Tucker had been closest to<br />
before he’d died.<br />
A lot of people walked up to me and hugged me. Most of<br />
them I didn’t know, but it was wonderful to feel the kindness of all<br />
the friends he’d made along the way. And I did recognize Anthony,<br />
Adrian, Brad, Jamie, Richard, Daisy, Susannah, Ethan, and the rest<br />
of the members of Lark Hollow Paranormal Research. And Gunner,<br />
of course, but he was there for the entirety of both the viewings.<br />
Whenever I needed a little strength, I’d glance his way and he would<br />
give me a sad smile of encouragement.<br />
Whenever I looked in the direction of the body in the casket,<br />
I was amazed yet again by how peaceful he looked. His eyes were<br />
closed, and I found myself longing for him to just open them again<br />
and warm me with all the love they held. I knew it would have been<br />
safe; there was no more demon in there now. But there was no more<br />
Tucker, either. Just an empty vessel, with two souls gone at the same<br />
time.<br />
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No one in the whole room, aside from LHPR, understood<br />
what had happened. <strong>The</strong>y never would. We didn’t want to deface<br />
his memory with ideas of monsters and possession. Plus, they<br />
wouldn’t have believed us, anyway.<br />
I’d never had to bury anyone before. Watching dirt pour over<br />
the closed casket, covering up any last hopes of seeing him again<br />
forever, was almost too much. Mr. Hamilton broke down and wept<br />
on his wife’s shoulder. I took Gunner’s hand and felt it shaking<br />
along with mine.<br />
Once the ceremony was over, people broke into little groups<br />
to reminisce more about the late Tucker Hamilton. A few people<br />
were starting to laugh at happy memories. Some of them were still<br />
crying. I just wanted to step away for a minute. It was kind of hard<br />
to breathe in the cemetery.<br />
Gunner stuck with Ethan, who was talking with Tucker’s<br />
aunt. I wove through a few headstones to stand apart from everyone<br />
else. My shoulders felt incredibly heavy, and they sagged with the<br />
weight as I read the inscription on Martha Giordano’s grave. Ever a<br />
mother, ever a saint.<br />
“I think what they put on Tucker’s was better.” <strong>The</strong> voice<br />
startled me, and I turned around to find Jamie standing with his<br />
hands awkwardly in the pockets of his suit. He smiled shyly, like he<br />
wasn’t sure if it was okay. “‘Life is not forever, love is.’”<br />
I offered the biggest smile I could muster in return, which<br />
was admittedly pretty pathetic, but I tried. “Yeah. Me, too.”<br />
“Are you holding up okay?” he asked.<br />
I shrugged one shoulder. “I guess. I mean, as okay as I can<br />
be, you know? It’s not exactly a birthday party with clowns and<br />
balloon animals.”<br />
He winced. Okay, note to self. Humor: not really appropriate<br />
at funerals. “I just wanted to tell you that if you ever need anything,<br />
you can call me. Anytime, okay? I, uh ... I lost my dad last year. So<br />
I sort of get what this is like.”<br />
His words reached my heart, even where I had buried it deep<br />
in my chest. “Thank you.” This time my smile was real.<br />
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He must have understood that being alone had its importance<br />
in this process, too, because he went, “Okay. Well, I’ll see you<br />
around.” And with that, he retreated through the field of gray stones,<br />
back to the throng of people. <strong>The</strong> back of his suit was tucked into<br />
his pants on one side.<br />
I continued moving among the graves, reading the names of<br />
loved ones that others had lost before me. <strong>The</strong> next time someone<br />
approached me, he was leaning against a tree in front of me, so I saw<br />
him before he could startle me.<br />
“Hi, Craig,” I greeted him.<br />
“Hi, Chelsea.” His face was grave as ever. “I know now isn’t<br />
exactly the best time, but I’ll be going back to Maine tomorrow. I<br />
wanted to make sure we got to finish the conversation we started in<br />
the car.”<br />
“About the road I have ahead of me?” I asked. Yes, good<br />
timing, sir.<br />
“Yes. It’s important for you to know this. You’ve<br />
encountered something malicious very early in your paranormal<br />
career. Most people will go years without ever coming this close to<br />
one of them. When one is aware you got this close to them, they’ll<br />
all know.”<br />
I glanced nervously over my shoulder. “Look, Craig, I<br />
appreciate it, but I’m kind of freaked already by all this …”<br />
“And you’re stronger than them.” I turned back to him. “Not<br />
many people in the world have what it takes to battle these things,<br />
but you do. You’re a force that will send them running. Don’t ever<br />
lose sight of that. No matter how dark it gets around you, you will<br />
light the way.”<br />
His words placed themselves heavily on the weight already<br />
lying across my shoulders. “So I have a responsibility, then? I’m<br />
going to encounter this the rest of my life?”<br />
Craig nodded. “Yes. But as long as you continue to grow,<br />
and strengthen yourself, and be aware, you’ll always come out on<br />
top. And hold on to your fear. You may not like it, but it’s what<br />
separates you from them. I could feel your light from all the way<br />
across this graveyard.”<br />
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“That’s a little cheesy,” I cracked, obviously not<br />
remembering my previous note to self.<br />
Craig smiled for the first time since I’d met him. “You thrive<br />
on cheesy. Don’t pretend otherwise.”<br />
“I have to ask, though. If I’m this force to be reckoned with<br />
or whatever, then why couldn’t ...” I glanced back over my shoulder<br />
at the group of black-clad people gathered around Tucker’s grave.<br />
“Why couldn’t I save him?”<br />
“You can’t save everyone.” His voice was quiet, much less<br />
harsh than usual. “All you can do is try. And you did all that you<br />
could for Tucker. This was too much to handle the very first time<br />
you encountered it.”<br />
“Well, thank you for the heads up, in any case. At least now<br />
I can be prepared for what’s going to come knocking on my door<br />
eventually.” I tried to straighten up, but that burden was so damn<br />
heavy.<br />
“That will never get lighter. But you will get stronger and it<br />
will be easier to carry.” He leaned down and gave me a one-armed<br />
sideways hug. “Take care, Chelsea. And remember I’m not too far<br />
if you need my help again. I’d be happy to work with you anytime.”<br />
“Thank you.” I squeezed back and then he, too, turned away<br />
and disappeared into the headstones.<br />
<strong>The</strong> days turned into weeks, and Craig turned out to be right.<br />
Every day that I kept my head up, the weight on my shoulders got a<br />
little easier to bear. I was able to let my heart peek out of its hiding<br />
place every now and then. Work and school kept me busy, as well<br />
as spending time with Gunner. <strong>The</strong> group asked me once or twice if<br />
I wanted to come to a meeting or go on an investigation, but I wasn’t<br />
ready to head back into the fray just yet. That might take a little<br />
while, but I knew after my talk with the demonologist that<br />
eventually it would find me, even if I wasn’t in the mood.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only things that didn’t go away were the nightmares.<br />
Each night, without fail, I’d snap up in bed wide awake after some<br />
morbid dream about fighting with demon Tucker. Usually, I would<br />
be the one to wrap the noose around his neck. Sometimes I got<br />
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creative and used a knife. Once I even burned him with a kitchen<br />
lighter. And in the moments before he died, I could hear his voice<br />
again. “Chelsea ... I’m so sorry. Please ...”<br />
One night I woke up from a particularly freaky one that<br />
involved a push down those wooden steps. Instantly my fingers went<br />
to the thin black rope around my neck and closed around the chunk<br />
of obsidian at its base. As I peeled my hair away from my face and<br />
tried to catch my breath, I glanced around the room. Something was<br />
different. Something was ... off.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n my eyes fell on the shadow in the corner. My heart<br />
instantly screeched to a stop in my chest. I didn’t have time to ask<br />
who was there before the faint words reached my ears.<br />
“Chelsea ... I’m so sorry. Please ...”<br />
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