Chapter 27
Kendyll
(Present Day)
MY EYES WERE CLOSED, AND my chin was lifted as I leaned back and soaked in the nighttime autumn breeze.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been up here, but judging by the bright full moon and thousands of twinkling stars, it had been hours.
Despite all that time, I hadn’t entirely calmed down.
There was still a voice in the back of my head that whispered its questions and concerns.
Who was that ghost I’d encountered earlier?
What did they want?
Why had it carried such an evil energy with its target set on me?
Why couldn’t Xander sense or see the apparition?
I blew out a puff of frustrated and unsettled air and dropped my head into my hands.
Wind rustled the sea of trees around the abandoned hospital. Brittle leaves rained down and blanketed the ground. It was a peaceful ambience, yet suddenly, the crisp and strong thrumming of chorded music joined the song of the night.
I looked over my shoulder from where I sat in the center of the rooftop to find Xander at the other end.
I hadn’t heard him come up, but he sat cross-legged in his jeans and t-shirt with a short stand and guzheng set up in front of him.
The instrument was long, sleek wood with numerous strings.
Xander plucked those strings with the poise and air of some ancient, angelic god rather than a modern day demon.
Enraptured like a lost soul who’d found their savior, I faced him and hugged my knees while listening to his expert playing.
I had loved Sinners Do It Better ever since their debut.
They were my favorite band, and that wasn’t because of the connection I had to them through Xander.
I loved rock music, and theirs had always called to me.
But this … the way Xander created beautifully ethereal melodies with a wave of his wrists and strumming of his fingers was something else entirely. Warmth washed through me as the piece filled the night breeze with magic.
The song ended much too soon, and when his dark eyes looked across the rooftop to meet mine, I implored, “Keep going. Please.”
A hint of a smile formed. “As my ghost wishes.”
He poised his tattooed arms and hands to play once more, and I fell under that spell all over again.
There were no words to the pieces he played, and yet, emotion overcame me all the same.
Wonder, longing, heartbreak, amazement. The music called to every part of my soul, and apparently, I wasn’t the only one.
As he finished another piece on the traditional Chinese instrument, his gaze bounced around me. I followed that line of sight and was equally surprised and delighted to see he’d grown an audience.
Catsper sat elegantly on one side of me, watching Xander with a proud lift of his chin as though to say, “That’s my dad over there. Isn’t he great?” The little ghost girl sat on my other side, and she watched Xander with the same kind of bright interest I surely had been.
With a glance over my shoulder, I spotted a handful of more spirits gathered here on the rooftop to listen—a woman dressed in an outdated nurse’s uniform, a few patients in varying decades of dress, and even a janitor with a bent, crooked neck.
I’d never seen so many ghosts at Mountview. Hell, I hadn’t even realized the building was haunted by so many. Excitement blossomed inside of me, because this was a huge chance. Looking back at Xander, I gave him an encouraging nod.
Once again, he flexed his fingers before beginning anew. With each piece—some uplifting and cheerful, others pure whimsy—the crowd of ghosts grew. They clapped their phantom hands joyously and called out praises to Xander, some even shouting requests for types of songs.
“Do a hard one!” a man yelled.
“A ballad. I adore ballads.”
“I don’t know what instrument that is, but I like it! Can you play your favorite song?”
The little girl looked at the growing population.
Without a word, she floated closer to land in my lap with Catsper climbing into hers.
Having a non-physical body resting in my lap was an odd feeling.
She couldn’t fully settle in the dip of my legs since we couldn’t fully touch, yet I barely noticed over the light filling my chest. Smiling, I wrapped my arms around her ghostly body and rocked us gently side to side while Xander played.
The large crowd applauded as another song concluded. The little girl nearly wiggled happily off my lap from how hard she clapped.
Xander looked up at the child in my arms, who still held Catsper in hers. Something intense crossed his face while he swallowed hard, but the expression was there and gone too quickly for me to understand what it was. He recovered by pasting on a friendly grin.
“You,” he said to the ghost child. “Would you like to pick a song now?”
She looked up at me excitedly then back at Xander. “Y-Yes, please!”
He nodded. “Wonderful. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
She leaned shyly into my arms but answered, “Maria.”
Xander and I shared a silent yet triumphant look before he met Maria’s eyes again. “That’s a beautiful name. What song would you like to hear, Maria?”
She thought about it for a moment and tilted her head back to look at me. I offered her an encouraging nod. When she faced Xander again, she declared, “A love song. One a prince would play for his princess.”
Xander’s lips parted slightly, and almost unconsciously, our eyes met. My heart tripped over itself upon seeing the affection bleeding through those sharp black eyes. “Mmm. I can do that.”
As the new piece began, I forgot how to breathe.
It was a song I recognized, even though I’d only heard it once and on a different instrument.
That last time Xander had played this song, he’d done so on the guitar while singing the Mandarin lyrics under his breath while believing me to be asleep.
Hearing it now on the guzheng without words had a rush of unwanted feelings rising to the surface.
A telling flood of emotion existed in the set of his brow, poise of his mouth, and tender perfection in which he played.
Emotions I’d long buried with a vow never to resurrect again tried shoving their way forward, and I was powerless to stop them.
But then again, I’d never been able to stop how he made me feel. All I knew how to do was hide and run.
I ducked my head, unable to watch him any longer, running even now. Better that than deluding myself like I had done the last time we’d been together.
“So pretty,” Maria gushed as the music faded.
She and the others cheered merrily, but I couldn’t get my hands to move. A hard lump had lodged itself in my throat, and I stared at the top of Maria’s transparent head. I was afraid if I looked up, Xander would see everything I didn’t want him to see on my face.
“My hands need a little break,” Xander announced to the crowd, and his voice drew closer as he spoke. “But this is fun. What if we all sat here and did something else? Maybe a little story telling?”
I glanced up as Xander sat beside me. He propped up one knee and rested his forearm across it while the other flexed where it rested near my hip.
“Stories?”
“I like stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
The lively chatter among the spirits was a stark contrast to our time here at Mountview so far. If I’d known music would draw the ghosts out of hiding, I would’ve had Xander perform for us a lot sooner. Their conversation was also a good distraction from what beat at my twisted heart.
“I’ve got a story.”
Everyone’s attention zeroed in on the janitor.
He floated in the air and settled near Xander’s guzheng like he was now our main stage event.
His neck was still deformed, bent at a horrible angle.
Despite being nearly transparent, redness rimmed and clouded his eyes like the blood vessels had busted as he died.
He stared at me for a beat longer than normal. “I remember you. You were smaller before. Little. He told us to stay away from you. ‘Fraid we’d ask you for help.”
“Excuse me?” I questioned with a raised brow.
“The story!” a spirit complained.
“Tell your story!”
The shouts from the crowd made the man shake his contorted head, clearing it of the daze he’d fallen into. His ramblings became forgotten, and he cracked a lopsided smile. “My story. Right. It’s a ghost story. You guys might know it. It’s about the Monster of Mountview.”
Some of the spirits gathered around the roof grew agitated upon hearing that name, and they vanished back to wherever they typically hid. Maria remained in my lap, but she grew tense.
I held her closer and told her softly, “I’ve got you. No monsters will get you while I’m here.”
She snuggled closer and pressed her face into my chest as though to shield her eyes from anything scary that could pop out.
I chanced a look at Xander. He appeared even more tired now as he watched me hold Maria protectively. I wasn’t sure what was going through his head, but I also didn’t have time to figure it out. I refocused on the janitor as he began his eerie tale.
“Patients. Doctors. Nurses,” the dead older gentleman spoke slowly, letting his eyes roam across his audience of phantoms, a human, and a demon.
“That’s not all that roams these halls. You may hear or see her from time to time.
Maybe it’s when you’re about to drift to sleep but feel something playing with your hair at your back.
Maybe it’s when you’re sitting alone in your room and think you see a figure watching you from the dark corner, only to find no one there when you look.
Maybe you’ve seen her standing behind you in the mirror but whip around to discover you’re all alone in that big, quiet bathroom.
But you’re never alone. No. She’s there, alright. The Monster of Mountview.”
The roaming ghosts floating or standing around the rooftop grew restless. Some started to subconsciously drift higher while others sank into the floor of the roof like it was a blanket they could hide behind as they listened to the janitor.
“I saw her from time to time. Still do,” the man continued.
“Even before I ended up like this.” He gestured to his bent neck.
“She’s the reason I’m like this, you know.
I couldn’t take it. Her standing at the end of the hallway while I mopped during the nightshift or crawling along the ceiling with her dark hair hanging down like black cobwebs that tickled me as I walked under them. ”
His gaze suddenly stared into the distance with some horrified memory.
“Her eyes. Those eyes were what really frightened me. They were the size of my fist and totally black. I knew they would follow me for all of eternity if I didn’t end things.
I didn’t want her to turn me into a madman like the patients I cleaned up after.
So I hung myself to make her leave me alone, only …
I can’t ever escape her now. She’s always there, watching me from the pitch black doorway, whispering things I can’t understand, twitching like she wants to reach out and grab me. She’s even here now.”
The ghosts around us yelped in alarm and quickly fizzled away to return to their hiding spots in the building. I couldn’t even be disappointed, because my own heart had begun to race while fear trickled free in my veins.
Swallowing hard, I asked, “Do you know who the Monster of Mountview is or where she came from?”
The janitor’s face stretched into a wide smile, but there was nothing friendly behind that grin. “She’s his pet. The master’s. She does his dirty work like we all do, but she actually likes it.”
“Who?” Xander demanded. He looked a little crazed himself as he narrowed his eyes on the ghostly janitor. A seriousness had replaced the lethargy that had previously bracketed his expression. “Who is the master?”
The janitor wobbled and looked around wildly with shaking shoulders.
“I’d push my mop bucket, but even when I stopped moving, I’d still hear the squeak of wheels coming closer.
It was a wheelchair rolling down the hall with no patient in the seat, nor anyone pushing it.
No. No one was there, but I knew. I knew it was her trying to scare me.
That’s what she does. It’s what we all do now.
She finds what you’re afraid of and makes it real.
She toys with you. She and Master both do. ”
“Who is the master?” Xander implored between gritted teeth.
“She’s here. Ask her. Master will be back soon, too. I need to get back before she comes for me again. I don’t like it when she chases after me.”
With a single step forward, the janitor vanished into thin air.
The handful of ghosts that had remained for the last of his deranged speech followed after him.
Only Catsper and Maria remained. The little girl clung to me frightfully, and I realized with a horrible pang that I shouldn’t have let her listen to that man’s nonsense.
But it wasn’t nonsense. It wasn’t the ramblings of a lunatic or a delirious ghost too far gone from reality.
The Monster of Mountview.
That was who I’d seen earlier that day, and if what he said was true, it wouldn’t be the last I saw of her.