Chapter 5 #2
She wished she had a better idea of just what she had seen.
Was it literally just light bouncing off of, …
off of what? She glanced around, realized that her car, which was white, was right there and was glowing in a weird light just because of the sun hitting it the way it was.
Chances were, that’s all she saw, and she laughed with relief and walked back inside, determined to put it all out of her mind.
Then she looked outside and stepped onto her back deck, and Camden stood there, frowning, while he took photos of her backyard.
That, along with everything that he told her about the neighbor, Henry, was enough to make her go a little bit crazy. She walked over to the fence, stepping directly into his viewfinder. When he looked up, she frowned at him and asked, “What the heck is going on?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “You won’t believe me.”
“Maybe not,” she agreed, “but I really want a chance to try.”
He hesitated once more. “I figured out quite a few years ago that your place is … haunted.” Then he turned and walked back into his own house.
*
Camden probably shouldn’t have mentioned anything about it, particularly when he’d seen how nervous she looked, even after he’d realized somebody was in her backyard.
It’s obvious she hadn’t been sleeping well either—which could be for a lot of reasons, but still he hadn’t exactly helped her out.
When he saw her out in the backyard later that evening, he stepped outside and called to her.
She hesitated and then walked over. “What now?” she asked, her tone less than welcoming.
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that earlier.”
“It depends on whether you meant it or not,” she stated.
He began, “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I’m not sure I have a choice at the moment,” she muttered. “I keep seeing”—she waved her hand—“I don’t know what I keep seeing.”
“Can you tell me?”
“Why would I?” she asked bluntly.
“Look. I wasn’t mocking you, and I wasn’t trying to scare you,” he explained, “but I’ve seen odd things around this place over the years, yet not often.
However, I’ll admit that they’ve been stronger since you moved in.
” She stared at him after hearing that, and he nodded.
“I get it. That’s really not what you want to hear. ”
With a broken laugh, she quipped, “Ya think? I just need a place to get settled in and to have some semblance of a normal life. I don’t want ghosts. I don’t want psycho neighbors. I don’t want people wandering in my backyard where it’s obvious they don’t belong. I don’t want any of that.”
He heard an almost hysterical note in her tone.
She continued. “I don’t understand how this place has ghosts. I’m not saying that’s what I’m seeing either,” she clarified. “No way I’m saying that.”
“Of course not,” he said in a soothing tone, “and I get it. I mean, for you, that would be one of the hardest things to acknowledge.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “You don’t know anything about me,” she stated.
“So don’t go making judgments. I can just tell you that, right now, it’s a rough time, and I may or may not be seeing things.
I don’t know what’s going on,” she admitted, “but I am wondering whether I need to see a shrink and maybe get some medication.”
“Don’t,” he replied.
She froze in the act of turning away. “Why is that?”
“Because it won’t help. If anything, it will dull your senses and potentially cause more problems.”
“Dulling my senses,” she pointed out, “is precisely why I would do it.”
“Listen. If ghosts are hanging around, … there’s a reason.”
She swallowed hard, then nodded. “Okay, I can potentially see that, but what possible reason could there be for this ghost to be hanging around?” He hesitated, as if not wanting to say, and she glared at him.
“Look. You obviously know more about what’s going on here than I do. I would appreciate some honesty.”
He sighed. “The thing is, I don’t know for sure what’s going on,” he conceded, “but I’ve seen some things over the last few weeks that surprised me. Let’s just put it that way.”
“Okay, so some things, … some otherworldly things, things that don’t belong? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, that would be a way to put it,” he confirmed, with half a laugh. “I mean, obviously there isn’t an easy way to put any of this.”
She pondered that and then agreed. “Okay, I’m with you there. And since I’m not willing to say exactly what I’m seeing,” she added, “I guess you’re not terribly comfortable with that either.”
“I mean, I’ve certainly seen my fair share.”
She stared at him in shock. “Really?”
“Yes,” he acknowledged, “and I’m not saying that to freak you out more, but I’m probably one of the few people who have seen ghosts around this place. When you started moving in, I realized that I was seeing more, but I’m not sure what I’m seeing, but there are definitely shimmers.”
“Yes, shimmers,” she repeated. “I’m certainly seeing shimmers. I kept thinking it was the car, you know, a reflection off something.”
He nodded. “And that would be a normal reaction,” he pointed out, “but I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“No, but—Look. Did the people who were living here before, did they die in some terrible way or something?”
“Not that I am aware of,” he replied, “but they were very advanced in years, so I assumed just old age. I haven’t really looked into it.
This place has been vacant for a very long time.
I presume the original older couple were aged out, and then their elderly son decided that it was time for him to sell.
” He pondered that for a moment. “I’m sure there are other explanations, but that seems to be the simplest. It changed hands, and somebody was trying to dump it. ”
She winced at his choice of words.
He smiled. “No offense intended. I just meant to sell it fast so they could get what cash they could, which is what people tend to do with an inheritance.”
“What were you doing outside earlier? Why were you taking photos of my backyard?” she asked.
He smiled and shared, “I’m trying to figure out if my security cameras are in the right position to see most of your yard, but I can’t really tell until I have a little more action back here. Yet I don’t really want any action because that’ll mean we need to take a closer look.”
She sighed. “How do you honestly feel about the one neighbor kid, Henry?”
“I haven’t seen any sign of him.” He studied her closer. “Have you?”
“No, and I haven’t heard any disturbances, but, to be honest, I really don’t want to either.”
“Of course not,” Camden agreed. “From that perspective, we’ll just keep an eye out and hope that Henry’s under control. I haven’t spoken to him recently. So, if he comes back here at all, just let me know, and I will speak to the family again.”
“But will talking to the parents make any difference?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t know why Henry would care that I’m here in the first place, but, if he cared enough to sneak out in the middle of the night, I highly doubt he’ll be held off just because somebody told him not to.”
Camden stared at her and then sighed. “You’re quite right there. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that he would be deterred so easily, but we also aren’t necessarily dealing with somebody who can reason the same as you and I do.”
She faced him. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“I understand that. I’m sorry that has marred your arrival in this area, but, on another note, have you met any of the other neighbors?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t even know who lives here, besides you.”
“Well,” he began, “beside you on the other side is an older couple, John and Margaret. They’ve lived here …
ten or fifteen years, maybe longer. They stick to themselves, and I think they must be in their eighties at this point.
I’m not sure they are even here right now.
They spend a lot of time down south with their children.
Henry lives with his parents on the other side of John and Margaret, and the last house is Jerry’s. ”
“Ah, I have met Jerry briefly,” she noted, as she looked back over at Henry’s house, then in the direction of the older couple near her. “I hope the twins and their noise doesn’t become a nuisance to them.”
“I don’t think John and Margaret will mind.” He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t imagine they’ll want a ton of screaming and yelling, but they understand kids. John and his wife definitely have adult children, although I don’t recall them visiting their parents here.”
Devon turned to stare in that direction. “Families get busy,” Devon agreed, “and, for the most part, I don’t think it’ll be an issue. I just know that kids can be noisy, and I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about starting off on the wrong foot. Start off on the foot you need for yourself because nobody else will know what that is. And it seems the twins are adjusting okay, though I realize I’m just seeing the surface.”
She laughed. “Yeah, on the surface they’re doing well, but not so much on the inside.”
“Have they been getting some therapy?”
She nodded. “I did that right away.” Then she looked down at her watch and noted, “I need to make a few appointment changes, but, of course, it’s the weekend, and, as usual, I didn’t get it done during the week.”
“That’s hard, and I find myself in the same boat half the time,” he noted, with a laugh.
“I make a dental appointment, then I get a case, and I can’t get to the appointment, and everybody gets pissed off.
” He sighed. “I deal with a lot of the uglier cases, which requires me to put 150 percent in at a moment’s notice, regardless of what else I have scheduled.
At those times, the bosses forget that you have teeth to be looked after. ”
She nodded. “I never even thought about that. Cancellations are really common, and, while we try to understand, it does get frustrating.”