Chapter 15
Itwist my hair into a bun and stick my pen through it, pinning it to my head.
It’s a million degrees inside this house, and I’m not sure if opening the windows is helping or hurting the situation.
There’s a slight breeze filtering in through the windows, but with it comes the humidity early June loves to hold onto.
The broken living room window will finally be replaced tomorrow, and luckily the guy can come early and get the work done before sunset.
It’ll cost me a pretty penny to have old glass put in as opposed to new glass, which is something I wouldn’t have done before.
But this house…it’s grown on me. I love it and there’s no chance in hell I’m getting rid of it now.
Getting up to get another glass of ice water, I roll my neck and blink several times, giving my eyes a break.
I’ve been on the computer all day, trying to figure out who the ghost is.
When I got nowhere, I started looking closer at my victims. Without my badge, I’m limited to regular old internet stalking, which can surprisingly get you pretty damn far.
People post way too much personal info on Facebook.
So far, the only connection I found between the victims—other than being males—is that they both went to the same national park within a day of being attacked. Josh, the first victim, went the day before, and Ryan, the second victim, had just returned from a day trip of hiking with his girlfriend.
I take a big drink of water and press the cool glass against my neck.
It gives me a little relief, but not enough.
I go back to the kitchen table. I’m currently looking at an Instagram profile of a friend of a friend who was with the group of people Josh was with.
I’m deep down the social media stalker rabbit hole right now, I know, but I’m getting answers. I think. I hope.
This girl posts a lot, like three or four times a day.
I scroll through each picture, checking for tags and hoping Josh’s name pops up.
She only tags her boyfriend in the photos, so I look through each one carefully, finding Josh in the background of only one.
The whole group is gathered around a waterfall…
the same waterfall Ryan and his girlfriend took a kissing selfie in front of.
Opening a Google search, I enter the name of the park, searching for recent deaths. Quite a few people have slipped and fallen over that waterfall in the last few years, with the most recent being a pair of sixteen-year-old girls trying to get the perfect selfie. Both died on impact.
But neither look like Pink Dress Ghost, and it takes a bit more searching and filtering through results to bring up an article from six years ago.
“Lynn Reeves,” I whisper, saying her name out loud.
A chill runs through me, and looking at her smiling face feels wrong.
She looks so far from the distraught woman I saw walking through my living room.
How can someone so pretty and so happy make me feel like darkness is going to take over the world?
I scroll down and get through just a few lines of the article before an ad pops up on the website, slowing my computer down.
I click on the X to close it over and over, and then the site freezes and I can’t scroll down.
All I know is Lynn fell to her death from the top of the waterfall.
Someone knocks on the door, and I jump up, blinking.
Who is—oh right. It’s around three-thirty. Jared is here to do yard work.
I take another gulp of water and go to the door to let him in.
“Jesus,” he says when he steps in. “It’s hotter in here than it is outside.”
“Really?” I lean out onto the porch. Shit. He’s right. “No wonder I’m sweaty.”
“This house doesn’t have air, does it?”
I shake my head. “I ordered a few room units from . They’ll be here tomorrow. Thank God for Prime.”
“Did you get gas for the mower?”
“I did, and some other stuff the guy at the store recommended for engines that haven’t been run in a long time.”
“Good. I guess I’ll get started, unless…”
“Unless?”
“I can ask a question or two?”
“Sure, kid.” I close the front door, intending on getting my water and going back onto the porch where it’s cooler. “Want any water?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He follows me into the kitchen, eyes immediately going to my computer and notes. The stupid ad finally closed, and a big picture of Lynn’s smiling face fills the screen.
“Working on a case?”
“More or less,” I answer, taking another glass from the cabinet. “What question do you have today?”
“I think I’m going to change my question,” he says, and inches closer to the table.
I fill his glass with ice and take it to the sink to get the water.
He’s looking over my notes, and I’m internally debating if I should rush over there, snap my computer shut, and tell him to mind his own business…
or if this would be a good time to clue him in on a few more things.
I suck at this teaching thing.
“Who’s the girl?” he asks.
“Her name is Lynn.”
“Why is she important.”
“I think she’s haunting people.”
Jared looks back and forth from me to the image of Lynn on my computer several times. And then my screen saver turns on, turning his attention solely on me.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“But you are going to do something?” he asks eagerly.
“Yes.”
“That’s so cool.”
I give him his glass of water. “It’s a little cool.”
“Are you going to do a hunt like they do on those ghost shows on TV? Do you have equipment to measure EMF and record EVPs and all that fun stuff?”
His excitement isn’t bad on its own, but I’m getting a bad feeling from it. Ghosts are dangerous—obviously. The chances of him running into a ghost are low, I suppose, but when there’s an angry spirit out there, I don’t want him taking a single chance.
“I don’t think so.”
“How are you going to find the ghost then?”
“You’ll find that out one day. Maybe. I’m not making any promises on that, actually.” I take another drink of water, sweltering already. “Come on, let’s go outside and take a stab at the lawn mower.”
Jared nods, and I motion to the back door.
“This house is pretty damn cool, you know,” he says, eyeing the back staircase.
“Yeah, it is. Though not in the literal sense right now.”
“Not having air is rough.”
“There are worse things, I suppose. But it is rough when you’re used to having it.”
“My dad’s always wanted to buy your house. Don’t sell it to him.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t want to live in a haunted house?”
“Is it really haunted?”
“Not by ghosts.” I open the back door and let him out first. He looks down at the line of salt he just stepped over. “And it won’t be anytime soon.”
“Why are there salt lines?”
“I told you, to make sure ghosts don’t haunt my house.”
Jared blinks a few times, mouth opening to ask a question but the words leaving him. We make it a few paces into the yard before he speaks again.
“What’s the story behind the ghost you’re looking for? Was she murdered and is vengeful now?”
“Her death was ruled accidental,” I say, and something clicks in my mind.
If her death was an accident, why is she so pissed off?
Did I rip her from heaven by opening the rift?
I’d be pissed too. But that doesn’t sit right with me.
She’s attacked two men who were at the falls the day before she attacked them.
“So it’s a residual haunting.”
“Not quite. This is one of those things where the less you know, the better.”
“Got it,” he grumbles, and doesn’t ask anything else while we get the lawn mower out of the shed. It takes a little bit of work, but the thing starts. I go inside, gather up my notes, and take them onto the porch.
According to the article, Lynn and her boyfriend, Trevor, were hiking when she got too close to the edge of the falls, slipped, and fell to her death.
Her boyfriend tried to grab her, but couldn’t get there in time.
Her body was recovered several hours later and the cause of death was from blunt force trauma from the fall.
Vengeful spirits are usually the result of an unjust death.
From someone murdered…not someone who slipped and fell while admiring a waterfall.
Common sense didn’t prevail in her case, as with the many others who got too close to the edge and didn’t make it after the fall.
But is that enough of a reason to slip through the rift and want to hurt people?
I trade my laptop for the notebook transcribing the grimoire. It’s in English, but the way some of the sentences are written and worded is still a little confusing. Not finding anything helpful, I close the book and move to the steps, leaning against one of the stone pillars next to me.
The cross hanging between my breasts feels cool again, reminding me that I have it on. I reach inside my tank top and pull it out, running my fingers over the sleek metal.
“I still don’t know what you wanted,” I whisper.
“If you wanted to freak me out, you wasted a lot of energy. And if you wanted to give me a real warning, you were way too ambiguous.” I pull the chain over my head and rest the cross in my palm.
Closing my eyes, I let the image of Jacques giving this necklace to Braeya play out before me.
“I think it was really shitty what you did to him,” I continue.
“But…for some reason I get the feeling you actually cared in the end. It was just too late.” I open my eyes again and look up at the blue sky above me.
“So if you really want to help them, if you really have a warning, you need to get me the message again. And be a little more clear this time.”
I close my fingers around the cross and wait. The rumble of the lawn mower engine gets louder and louder as Jared comes around the house. Nothing changes, nothing feels out of place or gets my attention. If Braeya was here before, she’s gone now.