Sixteen

SIXTEEN

I left my phone in the kitchen. I'd been texting with Keith right before the séance and set it down when the others called me in. I retrieve it and stride to the dumbwaiter shaft. It opens easily, and I lean in, shining the light down.…

Nothing.

The shaft drops into the darkness of the basement. Clearly there isn't any newspaper hanging there or lying on the floor below.

I twist to look up, shining my cell phone light, until I can see clear up to the pulley. Nothing's there.

I back up, and I'm standing in the hall, biting my lip as I think, when I catch a voice, barely above a whisper.

The hairs on my neck rise. A male voice drifts from somewhere in the house.

Anton?

It's male, but too soft for me to tell anything more.

The voice continues in that whispering undercurrent, just distinct enough that I can follow it. When I reach the basement door, I stop, pivot slowly, and then twist the handle.

Locked.

The voice comes again. It's farther down, near the back of the house.

I keep following it until I'm approaching the breakfast nook.

There's a light on in there. A wavering light.

The voice has stopped, but it soon starts again, something between a whisper and a rumble. Undoubtedly male. Undoubtedly not Anton.

Brodie Kilmer?

What if he's been in our basement this whole time, with a key to sneak up at night.

No, if any of us thought there was an actual chance Brodie Kilmer was still in the house, we'd have taken the door off its hinges to check.

Maybe we should have done that anyway.

I take one careful step toward the breakfast nook and then stop as I see the figure seated at the table. It's Cirillo, still dressed in his golf shirt, but with his hair messy enough that he looks as if he rolled out of bed. He has glasses on, suggesting he usually wears contacts.

He's at the table, with all of his equipment. With the photos and mementos.

With my husband's ashes.

For a moment, even though he's facing my way, he doesn't see me. He's too engrossed in what he's doing.

Somebody staged that newspaper in the dumbwaiter and lured me in with the creaking of the pulley. Somebody who'd dug deep enough into my background to uncover my past.

Who would be looking into me like that?

The guy I'd hired to contact my dead husband. The researcher who had to be sure I wasn't some crank out to embarrass him.

So… after setting up that newspaper, he'd now be openly sitting in the breakfast nook talking aloud, where I can find him and wonder why he's awake?

I can understand Cirillo researching me, but what would be the point of staging that newspaper?

What would be the point of anyone staging it?

I think back to what I experienced.

A newspaper article… just like in Jin's story about his grandmother.

Dripping blood… just like in that story about Roddy and Sam.

I heard a rope in the pulley… but there isn't a rope on it.

I saw blood dropping and felt it hit my cheek… but my cheek is clean.

I'm losing it.

I roll my shoulders. No, I'm not. I'm on edge after the séance, and I imagined the article on Patrice and Heather and the dripping blood, because I just dreamed of that séance.

I'd been half asleep, and my imagination took advantage of that susceptible state.

I should talk to Cirillo about it. I know last night's footsteps in the attic were a hypnagogic hallucination. I should tell him about that and also get his opinion on what just happened with the dumbwaiter. He's the expert, after all.

I bite my lip again.

I don't want to tell him.

I don't trust him.

Part of me scoffs at the thought… but then I look at him, sitting in the dark, with my husband's ashes, and he might not have had anything to do with the dumbwaiter, but he's up to something.

I step forward.

He notices me and gives a start. "Nicola."

"Davos."

He follows my gaze to the items on the table. "I…"

"Can explain? I'm guessing those are your next words."

He pushes back his chair. "I wanted to continue the séance."

"Alone? After telling us it was over? Practically sending us all to bed?"

"It wasn't like that. I did go to bed, even before you did. I came down about an hour ago."

"In the middle of the night?" I ease back, trying to look casual. "Did you hear something?"

He seems genuinely confused. "No." He searches my face. "Is that why you came down?"

"I heard someone talking down here. Seemed to be conducting a séance without me."

He rubs his mouth. "Sorry. I thought I was being quiet, but Jin did say you have good hearing."

He tries for a smile. When I don't return it, he clears his throat. "I came down because I couldn't sleep. What happened this evening bothered me, and I wanted to try understanding it without the pressure of an audience."

When I don't speak, he says, "I don't know what happened earlier. Nor was I prepared to deal with it."

He runs a hand through his hair and waves to the chair opposite. I hesitate, not sure I want to move to conversational quite so quickly, but my brain is still spinning from that newspaper—and the realization I'd imagined it. I'm suddenly exhausted.

When I sink into the chair, he continues, "I hate admitting that I don't understand something I'm supposed to be an expert in. I'm a scientist. To start talking about feeling blocked and sensing something wrong? That's for the kind of mediums you've been dealing with. It's woo-woo, and I don't do woo-woo."

"Okay."

He holds my gaze, as if searching for something. Then his shoulders slump. "I was an ass earlier, wasn't I?" When I don't answer, his lips quirk. "Let me rephrase that as a statement, not a question. I was an ass earlier."

"Yep."

He blows out a breath. "I'm not usually…" An inhale. "I was going to say I'm not usually like that, but that'd be a lie. I'm not like that at séances . I'm a professional, and I behave professionally. But this…" He waves around the room. "This is different. I'm excited about it, but I've never done this before. I don't live in a house with my subjects."

"You're the one who suggested this arrangement."

"I wanted to see how spending time in the environment and getting to know the other participants affected the outcome. What I meant is that this isn't a side of me that clients see. My grad students, though? That might be another story."

He passes me a quarter smile. "When I first became a thesis advisor, I'd sometimes have one student leaving while the other came in, and there'd be this weird exchange. Not hello or goodbye, but H or J."

I arch my brows.

"The letter H or J," he says. "That's what the one leaving would say to the one coming in. Finally, someone told me what it meant. An ode to Robert Louis Stevenson."

I think for a moment. Then I say, "Hyde or Jekyll."

He nods. "They were passing on information about my mood, warning the next student who had to work with me. Ninety percent of the time, the answer was J. But if I'm in a mood, frustrated or irritable, it's enough of a personality shift to be noticeable. It bothered me that they had to warn each other, even if it was jokingly."

He locks his hands on the table. "Which is to say that I know I can be an ass. I apologize, and I will try to do better."

"I wasn't responsible for what happened earlier."

He sighs, slumping. "I know, and I snapped at you, which is inexcusable, particularly under these circumstances. I might be excited about the research possibilities, but you are still the client."

"So I'm in charge?"

He tilts his head with a mock-thoughtful frown. "I wouldn't quite go that far."

I give him a hard look. Then I say, "Do you want me to leave you alone while you figure this out?"

He shakes his head. "Whatever I felt earlier is gone."

"Would it help to continue the séance with me?"

He hesitates. "That would be unethical. Shania and Jin are here to act as observers, which is also for your benefit."

"Right. But if I waived that…?"

He's quiet for a moment and then gives a decisive shake of his head. "No. I would regret it later. I want you to have others present."

"Okay." I glance at the doorway, ready to go. Instead, I blurt, "I've been having experiences."

Shit! No. Don't go down that road.

I change direction fast. "Good experiences. I suspect they're just wishful thinking."

I tell him about being at the back door, hearing a voice and feeling a hand on my shoulder. Then I tell him about the sitting room tonight—the creaking board, the click of the knob, the moving doll—

"Hold on," he says, leaning forward, eyes glinting behind his glasses. "May I tape this?"

I frown. "I thought we agreed to a written transcript only?"

"This would just be for my records. I will destroy any recording if you ask me to. As for your experience at the back door, it was… typical."

"For someone desperate to make contact with a loved one?"

"Yes. Which isn't to say that it wasn't real, but the experience in the sitting room is different. May I tape you retelling it?"

"Sure, but I'd like you to remind me that you have the recording, in case I forget. I will probably want it destroyed."

"I'll compile a list of any recordings I make—all of which I will receive your consent for—and send them to you later."

He sets the recorder on the table, moving aside a photo of Anton to do it.

"Can we do this in another room?" I ask. "Or move all this?"

"Certainly." He makes a move to stand.

"Also, may I ask that you don't touch his ashes again, please? I know I should have taken them upstairs last night, but please ask me when they need to be moved."

Color rises on his cheeks. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"It's fine. I know I'm making it weird."

"You're not. It's perfectly understandable." He looks at the box. "Cremains mean something different to everyone. My grandfather kept my grandmother's remains in his closet inside a cookie tin. I was horrified."

"Did you accidentally open it and take a bite?"

He chokes on a burst of laughter. "Thank God, no, though I did read a story once about a teenager who found a relative's cremains and thought it was cocaine."

Now I'm the one trying not to laugh. Then I look at the box. "I don't think of that as Anton. His wedding ring means more to me. His ugly class ring means more. The closet of clothing I haven't cleared means more. This is…" I finger the box. "A responsibility. I haven't decided what I'm doing with them yet, but it feels like the one last thing I can do for him. Find the right place for his remains."

"I hear good things about closets. He liked shortbread, right? They make some lovely shortbread tins."

"You laugh, but Anton would approve. He'd probably also make some really juvenile joke about storing his remains in my panty drawer."

"Seems reasonable to me."

I stand with the box. "We're both tired and a little giddy. Let's get this recording done before we wake the others." I glance through the doorway. "The sitting room would be appropriate, if that works."

"It does."

I put the cremains box on a bookshelf in the sitting room and ask Cirillo to remind me it's there. That's what I think of it as. "The box" or "the cremains box." I'm not putting Anton on a shelf. I'm certainly not putting the last mortal remains of my husband on a shelf.

I explain what happened here. First I tell the story. Then I reenact it—getting up and standing in the doorway, proving no one could have slipped in behind me. I show exactly how the doll had been sitting when I was reading and how her head was turned when I sat down.

"And that was a thing Anton did?" Cirillo prods. "Moving around the dolls?"

"We both did it. Just being funny. He did more of it, though, and this doll was his favorite because of the red hair."

I add for the recording, "I also have red hair. He named the doll Laura Ingalls, because of the pioneer outfit and pigtails. Also the hair, but I pointed out that the character had brown hair and he was probably confusing her with Anne of Green Gables. We kept it as Laura, though."

"But seeing her head turned last night, you were understandably startled. You interpreted the apology as being for that. Because you leaped up and tripped."

"Yes."

"But the apology startled you again, and you heard what seemed like a curse. Also indicating apology, you believed."

"Yes."

"In life, how would Anton have reacted if he accidentally spooked you into tripping?"

"Exactly like that. Our sense of humor didn't extend to people getting hurt in pratfalls."

He asks a few more questions. Then he says, "Is there anything else?"

I motion to the recorder. He hesitates, but then hits the Pause button.

"There is more then?" he asks.

I think of the footsteps in the attic. The newspaper in the dumbwaiter. No, I've explained those away, and if I pile too much on, it'll dilute the rest.

Instead, I tell him what happened on the stairs and in the bathroom. He listens, and by the end he is sitting perfectly still.

"Two near accidents," he says slowly. "Potentially serious accidents. Both times, your initial sense was that they felt intentional."

I make a face. "Not like that. Someone didn't shove me down the stairs. They plucked at my shirt, and I tripped."

"Which could have been an affectionate prank gone wrong, like startling you with the doll. But the bathroom rug? That's not a prank."

"There was definitely no one in the bathroom. But ghosts don't pull rugs from under people, right? That's why I'm telling you. Your job now is to say to me that I'm distracted and need to be more careful in an unfamiliar house."

He leans back, a finger rising to his lips. At first I think he's shushing me because he heard something. Then I realize he's just thinking.

"Dr. Cirillo?"

No answer. He sits there, looking at me but not looking at me, finger still resting there.

"Davos?"

That snaps him out of it. He rocks forward, finger falling from his lips. "I don't know what happened to you, Nicola. After hearing about Anton's prank here in the sitting room, I would guess that the stair incident was also him."

My reaction must show, because he says, "You disagree. That doesn't sound like something he'd do?"

"It doesn't. But I'm also struggling to accept that what happened in here was Anton. I would be more comfortable qualifying it, saying that the doll prank could have been Anton."

His soft sigh says I'm splitting hairs. Maybe I am.

"Do you think it was someone other than Anton?" Cirillo asks. "A different ghost?"

"What? No."

"So it's an if-then statement." He smiles, pleased at himself for making a coding reference. " If it was a ghost, then it was Anton."

"Yes."

"But on the stairs…?"

"My mom had a friend who fell down the stairs and broke her neck. I never goof around on the stairs, and Anton knew that. He'd taken a tumble once himself as a child. Lost a tooth. He would not have tried to spook me on the stairs."

"If not Anton, then…"

I lean back. "If not Anton, then I just tripped. Or my shirt caught on that splinter."

"So again, if ghost, then Anton. But the bathroom rug?"

I tug over a throw pillow and hold it on my lap. "Absolutely not Anton."

"So a second ghost, which defies the last equation. If there are two ghosts, then neither incident was necessarily Anton."

" Could there be a second ghost?" I say. "Is that what's blocking you?"

He's quiet. Then he says, softly, "Whatever I sensed didn't feel like an ordinary ghost. Something…" He sits back abruptly. "I don't know what it was. You said the house has no history of hauntings?"

"Nothing."

He nods slowly. "I didn't sense anything when I arrived either."

"But that changed last night?"

He doesn't reply.

"What do we do?" I say. "Leave?"

"No." The word comes quick and harsh, and after it, he stops and rubs his mouth. "Yes, of course we would stop if you felt unsafe. You're the one who narrowly avoided two dangerous falls."

I lean forward, the throw pillow clutched against my stomach. "Is it significant that no one else has experienced anything?"

He says nothing. It is significant. My gut says so.

"Jin thought he heard Anton's laugh," I say. "You sensed some unknown whatever blocking you. But I'm the only one with real experiences, and definitely the only one with dangerous experiences."

Anton wouldn't pull out a rug from under me in the bathroom.

Did Cirillo sense some dark force that's only targeting me? Except the experiences that seem to be Anton also almost exclusively target me.

What if that dark force is Anton?

Jekyll and Hyde.

No, that's ridiculous.

Is it?

Remember what happened in high school. You've never been completely sure—

Of course I was sure Anton wasn't involved. I'd never have married him otherwise.

Jekyll and Hyde.

A whisper rises from my memory, from being in this room, hearing Anton's voice.

The apology.

What if he wasn't apologizing for frightening me? What if he was apologizing for whatever compelled him to do it?

No.

I know Anton. I never caught a glimpse of anything darker.

I turn to Cirillo. "Is it safe to stay? Finish the séances."

"Definitely," he says, a little too quickly. "But you must tell me everything you experience, however much your mind is insisting there's a rational explanation."

I force myself not to hesitate. I don't agree, either, just make a noise he can interpret as that.

What if the danger is Anton?

Then I need to know that. Maybe someone else would march out of this house the moment they felt the first twinge of doubt. They'd want to hold their loved one's memory sacred and polished and block anything that could tarnish it.

Nope, sorry, I can't hear you. La-la-la.

I want to know, and maybe that doubt already tarnishes his memory.

If it does, then I'm sorry, Anton. I don't honestly believe you tried to hurt me, but it would be worse to leave with those doubts festering, always wondering "what if." I need to set those fears to rest and be confident—absolutely confident—that you were the man I remember.