****
The room was quiet now. The maid has just finished cleaning, making the bed with fresh sheets. A mint sat on each of the two pillows. The fresh towels in the bathroom were folded to show the monogram from the Stratford House Bed & Breakfast. The routine was pleasant, a reassurance of the passage of time that otherwise seemed implausible.
The little girl sat in the corner. It was her usual spot. The maids didn’t like her to interfere. Sometimes they acted mad. Other times they waved her away like a pesky bug. Once in a while, they would run out. That happened with new girls, if they hadn’t been warned. If she moved too much, she might make a sound. They didn’t like her to make sounds. Sometimes it scared them.
Imagine. Grown-ups running and screaming because a little girl had walked across a floor. Grown-ups refusing to enter a room because she had picked up a bar of soap or shut the closet door. She didn’t like the closet door open. It took a lot of work to do that kind of thing, so she didn’t do it very often. When she did, the maids always acted crazy.
She looked around the room from her usual place in the corner. Out the window, early spring flowers were blooming. The trees had the lightest hint of green at their tips. The big forsythias in the backyard were nearing their peak of yellow; she loved looking at them. For the moment was content to just stand, humming to herself, watching as a neighborhood cat weaved through the crocus, perhaps on the trail of something to eat. More likely, though, it was simply enjoying some time wandering outside.
She turned around, hearing a tiny noise behind her. It was Alex. He spent most of his time in a room down the hall. A couple times a week he would come down to chat.
“You need to work on your sneaking technique,” she said, turning back to the window.
“Well, good morning to you, too, Denise,” he said. He sat down on the bed, rumpling the neat comforter. He was tall, his blonde hair parted down the middle and combed to the sides. He was wearing his usual attire: a green Izod shirt, Dockers, and a soft-looking pair of deck shoes. When Denise had met Alex, she complimented him on how straight the part in his hair was. “Only part of me that is,” he said. It was a while before she learned what he meant.
“You know how they get when they find the sheets and blankets all messed up,” she said.
He shrugged. She didn’t see him because she was looking out the window.
“They’ll blame me, you know,” she continued.
“What does it matter?”
“I hate when they act all funny when I do stuff. It isn’t like I’m playing a game or being mean or. . . anything,” she said.
“’Anything’? You mean, ‘trying to scare them’?” Alex said, the tiniest smile at the corner of his mouth.
“I hate that you think that’s funny,” she said. “We’re stuck here. Why not try to get along?”
Alex shrugged again. “It breaks the boredom.”
Denise turned around. “Have you heard from Bella?” Bella stayed upstairs. She sometimes wandered around the house, but she couldn’t seem to keep quiet on the stairs. Someone always heard her, and it became a mess. Bella was younger than Alex, but older than Denise. Thin, her pale skin setting off her black hair with bleached ends, she liked to wear her tank top and shorts. She wore platform shoes, but wasn’t very graceful in them. That accounted for a lot of the noise. When Denise met her, she was shocked by the ring the older girl wore in her nose.
“As a matter of fact, I did. We’re to expect some special guests today.”
“Special? Like what?”
“I swear I don’t know. Bella told me she overheard the maids chattering in the hallway this morning. The whole place has to be spic and span.”
“I hope it isn’t a bunch of idiotic college students. Remember them?”
Alex’s grin spread. “Of course! I got rid of them as soon as I could.”
Even though she disapproved of Alex’s tendency to play around with guests, she couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, I remember. They saw you, or say they did, anyway.”
Alex chuckled. “All the while our Little Miss stayed in her corner while the guests nearly wrecked this gorgeous antique bed and spilled their beer on the commode.”
“I doubt they would have noticed me unless I suddenly appeared at the head of the bed and went, ‘Boo!’” She shook her head. “You should have seen some of the stuff they were up to. It was disgusting.”
“All the guests do it,” Alex said.
Denise shuddered. “You had to be here to understand. I’m guessing you would have liked it, though.”
“What can I say? Man of the world and all.” He tilted his head to one side, his eyes twinkling.
“You were a man of the world. Now you’re barely a man of the second floor.”
Alex “Tsk”ed. “No need to be rude.”
“I see no need to cause a ruckus. I know Bella does it because she’s clumsy, but you seem to enjoy it.”
“Why not? They don’t have a clue, and no one ever gets hurt.”
“They’re scared, Alex.”
“I’ve never understood why.”
“You know perfectly well ‘why’.”
“I think they should lighten up.”
“I gave up thinking that long before you showed up here.” She walked over and leaned on the bed. “That reminds me, How’s Sophia”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Bella and I were just up there last week. We yelled and screamed and stamped our feet. You’d swear we weren’t even there. She just walks around, crying, or plays with her dolls.”
“I remember when she went up there. It was her play room, you know. I think, after all that happened, it’s the one place that must have seemed safe.”
“But she is bonkers, Denise!”
“If we have some special guests coming, maybe I should head up there before they show up.”
“Forget about it. The door is closed and locked. Has been since the night last week Mrs. Angelini went up there and came down all white and sweaty and shaking.”
“Oh,” Denise said. She wandered back over to her corner. “I hope the special guests are nice.”
“I hope they scream well. I haven’t heard a good scream in far too long.”
The shadows were quite long when three vehicles pulled in to the parking lot. Denise hadn’t moved from her perch by the window. She didn’t move or turn around when she heard the floor board squeak behind her.
“They’re here.”
“I was wondering,” Alex said. “Bella went all the way down stairs. You know how nosey she can be.”
It was quite a crew getting out of the vehicles. She hadn’t noticed, but then Alex pointed to the side of one of the vans. “Pissy?”
She looked closely, then turned and laughed at Alex. “That’s ‘PSI’, you dunce.”
“Oh,” Alex said.
“They certainly are carrying some weird luggage in with them, aren’t they,” Denise said.
The unmistakable sound of Bella clomping up the steps, then down the hall was followed by her annoying, whiny voice. “You guys! You have to come downstairs and hear this! You won’t believe who’s here!” With that, the sound of clomping went in the other direction.
Denise looked at Alex, who shrugged.
“Can we at the very least be quieter than Bella? No reason to get the night off to a bad start,” Denise said.
“True! We have the whole night ahead of us.”
A few minutes later, Alex and Denise were standing behind Bella. The hallway to the kitchen was expansive, but the three of them, plus all the folks gathered around the entry certainly made it feel crowded. Mr. and Mrs. Angelini were talking with two of the people from the vehicles. A man and a woman, dressed in identical black t-shirts, with “PSI” written across the front.
“What are they saying?” Alex said.
“Something about a tour, and if there were areas of the house
they couldn’t go, and if they minded gaffer’s tape on some surfaces,” Bella said.
“Gaffer’s tape?” Denise asked.
Bella looked at her and shrugged.
The owner and visitors were turning to head down the hallway. Alex pressed himself against one wall, while Denise and Bella did the same against the other, letting them pass.
The Angelinis now had the man and woman in the kitchen. They were talking about this’s and that’s. Alex snuck forward.
“I get it now,” Alex said. “’PSI’ is an acronym. Stands for Paranormal & Spiritual Investigations.”
Bella chuckled. “They’re ghost hunters?”
Denise looked at Bella. “Are you kidding me?”
Bella couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, no. It’s become all the rage. It certainly doesn’t hurt a place like this to get a reputation as haunted. It helps even more if you get one of the goon squads to come in and ‘investigate’.”
Alex was trying to overhear the conversation in the kitchen and what the ladies were saying behind him. The group in the kitchen turned, then headed for the hallway again.
“They’re coming back,” he said. The three of them were very quiet as the owner and the couple went upstairs.
“I want to hear what they have to say,” Bella said.
“Stay down here for right now. Alex and I can at least go upstairs without sounding like a Founder’s Day parade,” Denise said.
Alex and Denise were careful not to make a sound as they walked up the stairs. Denise said, “So what were they talking about in the kitchen?”
Alex made a face. “Oh, some story about glasses breaking. I can’t imagine that being a real story. I never hang out in the kitchen, do you? I mean, it’s boring.”
“If Bella was down there, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if half the room wasn’t turned upside down,” Denise said.
Alex snorted.
They were near the second floor landing. The folks they were following were entering Denise’s room. “Let’s hurry,” Alex said.
They entered and heard the owner say, “At the beginning of the 20th century, a family lived here. They lost two little girls, and eventually the father was convicted of raping and murdering the younger one.”
The two ghost hunters looked shocked.
“Is that true?” Alex asked Denise.
She nodded. “Sophie was a baby when I left. I tried everything I could when our father started sneaking in to her room. I banged on doors, stomped around the room. I even tried pulling his hair.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, she started bleeding one night and wouldn’t stop. Our mother called a doctor and he was the one who found out what happened. They tried to pin my death on our father, but it was diphtheria.”
“What happened to him?”
Denise smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. “He killed himself before his trial. Right down the hall, in the room next to yours. Put a gun to his head. One second he’s there, the next he’s staring at me, his eyes wide.”
“Shadows?” Alex said, a look a fear in his eyes.
“I stood and laughed. It wasn’t pretty but I didn’t care. He’d hurt me, even though it didn’t kill me, and he killed sweet Sophie. You ask me, he got off easy.”
Alex waved his hand at her. “Sshh, they’re getting to a good part.”
“We think the little girl who haunts this room is named Sophie,” Mr. Angelini said.
Denise clucked her tongue. “How can they be so clueless? Sophie didn’t die in this room, I did!”
“How can they know the difference?” Alex asked.
“. . . most of what goes on in here are sounds, footsteps. Sometimes the closet door will open and close. We’ve had maids who refuse to work in here because they’ll hear something or feel something,” Mrs. Angelini said.
“Scaredy-cats,” Denise muttered.
“Any other rooms have activity associated with them?” one of the Ghost Hunters, the woman, asked.
“Room 7, just down the hall,” Mr. Angelini said. They headed toward the door.
Alex and Denise stepped out of their way and followed them. “Oh, boy, I get to learn how scarey I am,” Alex said.
“We did have a college student here on a stop during Spring Break, oh, seven years ago claim to have seen a youngish man standing by the side of the bed,” the owner said.
“You hear that?” Alex said.
Denise gave him a dirty look. “Show off.”
“Whoever is in here seems to be playful. Sometimes the bed is rumpled. One couple came to me in the morning and said the towels had been removed from the rack in the bathroom and folded neatly in this chair,” Mr. Angelini said, indicating an overstuffed wingback.
“Did you really do that?” Denise said.
Alex’s signature shrug. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Denise shook her head.
“Any idea who might be in here?” one of the hunters asked.
“There was a man who passed away in the house back in the early 1980’s. That was under previous management, and we really don’t have any details,” the owner said.
“I didn’t pass away, you ninny! I was strangled!” Alex shouted.
The group paused. One of the hunters looked at the other and said, “Did you hear that?”
“They heard you,” Denise stage-whispered.
“I don’t give a damn!” Alex said, an indignant look on his face. “That fat sonofabitch who was my partner got mad at me because I was taking my money and leaving him, so he strangled me! What did the cops care, just another ‘homocide’ to them. One less fag in the world.”
Denise looked at him. “However you got here, I’m glad you did. Up until then, it was just Sophie and me, and you know what kind of company she can be.”
Alex snorted. “It used to bother me more than it does now.”
Denise nodded.
“The third floor and the attic are the spots where our most recent experiences happened,” the owner said.
“Bella,” Denise said.
“And Sophie,” Alex said.
They were walking behind the group heading to the landing to go upstairs when they heard the unmistakable sound of Bella’s inelegant movement down the hallway. Once again, the people stopped. All four heads turned in their direction.
Mrs. Angelini smiled. “That’s unusual. Usually those loud footsteps are heard upstairs.”
“They heard you,” Denise hissed.
“Sorry,” Bella hissed, tiptoeing with no more grace than she ran.
“Just stay here until they get back downstairs, will you? Alex and I will let you know what they say,” Denise said.
Bella nodded, looking abashed.
Denise and Alex hurried along.
“About three years ago, a young lady named Isabella Asgood slipped and fell down the stairs, breaking her neck. We think she’s the one making all the noise up here. We’ve found rooms that weren’t occupied with the sheets pulled off, garbage cans knocked over, that kind of thing. Just last week, a guest up here reported that the small chair by the table in her room fell over all by itself.”
“Sounds like Bella,” Alex said.
Denise nodded. “You’d think she’d have learned how to maneuver by now.”
The three people were standing at the attic door. The owner said, “I don’t like to go up here. I had to put some things away last week, and I could hear footsteps and the sound of a little girl talking.”
“Could you make out the words?” the gentleman hunter asked.
“No, but it definitely sounded like a little girl. We’ve thought for a long time the other little girl who died here, Denise, haunts the attic.”
Denise clucked her tongue. Alex shushed her.
“And she died. . .” the lady hunter prompted.
“She died of diphtheria,” Mrs. Angelini said.
“At least they
got that part right,” Denise said.
The hunters were shaking hands with the owner. From downstairs Denise and Alex could here the sounds of a large group of people coming in, carrying a whole lot of stuff. The Angelinis and the two hunters passed them, and Denise and Alex waited until they were sure everyone was downstairs.
“This should be fun!” Alex said.
“I’m going to ignore them,” Denise said.
“Good luck with that,” Alex said. “The first time they insist Sophie’s in your room, you’ll get so indignant you’ll have to set them straight.”
Denise “hmphed” at him.
Bella was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. “So? What did they say?”
“They got your story right, at least. They even named you right,” Denise said.
“Don’t mind her. They got her and her sister all confused,” Alex said. “Are you going to get yourself hunted by these folks?”
Bella smiled. “Are you kidding? This is our big chance!”
“Chance for what?” said Denise. “It isn’t like anyone cares we’re here.”
“You don’t get it. I remember those ghost hunting shows. All we have to do is walk around, knock on a wall, and all of a sudden, people will know we’re here!”
“I’ve been here so long, I’ve lost interest,” Denise said. “I do worry about Sophie, though.” She raised her said, looking at the ceiling. “I stick around for her sake, you know. I keep hoping she’ll understand she’s safe now.”
For a while, there was all sorts of activity. Strange machines and objects appeared in various rooms. The three agreed to assume their usual positions, if for no other reason than it seemed to make sense. Denise felt a sense of relief, however, that the door to her room was left open. She had no desire to play “haunt” to a bunch of nincompoop ghost hunters. If they went to the attic, though, she wanted to go along. Poor sweet Sophie hadn’t had much of a chance in life; the least she could have was some help now, especially if there were these Nosey Nellie’s coming around trying to figure out what was best left alone
The lights went out all around the house. That was certainly out of the ordinary. She could hear feet on the stairs. Four people walked down the hallway. Two entered her room, both men. One was young looking, no more than thirty or so. The other, older, had long white hair and a beard. They were holding things in their hands.
“In here, they say they’ve heard footsteps, seen doors open and close. They believe the girl who passed away here, Sophie, is still here,” the younger man said. He had a nice face, his brown hair cut short.
“Hmph,” the older man said. He was waving the box in his hand. Lights were blinking on it. Not too many, but as he got closer to where she was standing, more and more of them were blinking. She backed away, wary.
The man kept coming. All of a sudden, he was right in front of her. Pinned between the dresser and the man waving that blinking box, Denise stood stock still. The man held it up, and it was right by her head.
“See this?” the older man asked.
“Yeah,” the younger man said. “Not too bad.” He moved the dresser and peered behind it. “No power outlet here, so I don’t know what might be causing that spike.”
“Me neither,” the older man said.
They’d huddled together, and Denise took her chance, moving quickly out to the middle of the room.
The two hunters went back to waving the box where she’d been standing. There were no lights on it this time.
“That’s weird,” the older man said.
The younger man nodded. “Sophie, was that you?”
Denise hated it when Alex was right, but she felt indignant being mistaken for her little sister.
“We heard about what happened to you. We’re sorry something that horrible happened here,” said the older man. “Did you die in this room?”
Denise rolled her eyes.
“Sophie, is there anything you want to say to us?” He held up the box in his hand. “This object in my hand can record what you say, even if I don’t hear it. If you want to tell us something, try shouting it as loud as you can, and we should be able to pick it up.”
The indignant feeling wouldn’t go away, so she gathered herself and shouted, “I’m not Sophie!”
“Did you hear that?” said the younger man.
“That was a voice,” the younger man said, nodding. “A girl’s voice.”
They pushed a button on the box. Denise listened carefully, and, sure enough, it had picked up – barely, but quite clearly – her voice.
“Holy shit!” the younger man said.
“That was clear as a bell,” the older man said.
“’I’m Sophie’,” the younger man said.
Denise stamped her foot. What morons.
“Sophie, if that’s you can you make a noise, knock on a wall, or say something else?” the older man said.
“You can speak. You can even touch one of us, if you want. You can’t scare us, and we won’t hurt you,” the younger man said.
Denise didn’t move.
The two men looked at one another. The older one was waving the blinking box around, moving away from her. “Nothing,” he kept muttering.
They turned, then, and suddenly the box was right there in her face, the lights blinking bright.
“Harry, look at this,” the older man said.
“I see,” the younger man said.
“And it’s right here in the middle of the room.”
“Sophie, are you still here?” the younger man said.
He was wearing a baseball cap. The bill stuck out over his good-looking face. She concentrated as hard as she could. Then, quick as a flash, she reached out, flicking the cap’s bill. The hat flew off the man’s head, landing on the floor behind them.
Pandemonium ensued.
The two men acted as if neither had a hat knocked off their head before. They talked over one another, marveled at the event, talked of cameras and whatnot, and carried on so much, Denise couldn’t help but start to laugh.
All of a sudden, the two men stopped everything.
“Did you hear that?” the older man whispered.
The younger man nodded.
Denise tried covering her mouth, but little chuffing sounds came out, no matter how hard she tried to stop them. These guys were supposed to be hunting ghosts? A childish prank, the sound of laughter, and they acted all shocked!
She was shaking, trying to keep it inside, but a “HA-HA!” escaped. She clamped her mouth shut.
She decided the best thing to do now was leave. She turned and walked, very quietly, down the hall. Up stairs she saw the attic door was open. She could hear voices up there, and they weren’t Sophie’s. As carefully as she could – the stairs were very creaky – she made her way up.
The attic was T-shaped, with the stairs coming up at the junction. Sophie spent most of her time in her old play room, which was down the staff of the T. The hunters, the man and woman who had been given the original tour, were seated at either end of the cross.
She could see her sister on the floor, a doll in her lap. She was humming softly to it. It was either this or the pacing, back and forth. That’s all Sophie seemed able to do. It had been over a hundred years, and nothing Denise had tried seemed to get through to the poor dear.
“It’s pretty quiet up here,” one of the hunters said.
“Yeah,” the other said.
This was hunting ghosts? A middle aged man and woman sitting on their bottoms, doing . . . nothing? She did that for days and night uncounted, and she was dead!
She stomped on the attic floor, as hard as she could.
Their heads jerked around. Both of them were looking right at her.
“That was a footstep,” the woman said.
No kidding, lame brain, Denise thought.
Throwing caution to the wind, Denise stomped across the attic
to the spot where her sister sat, oblivious, her doll the only thing real to her.
She ignored the hunters and their chatter behind her.
“Hi, Sophie,” she said.
The little girl, her curly brown hair held with two ribbons, never flinched. She kept on humming quietly as she played with the doll. Denise squatted beside her sister.
In all the years she’d tried to snap Sophie out of whatever was making her act this way, Denise had tried everything. She’d shouted and stomped and stood in front of her and waved her arms. When she would go on a pacing jag, she’d try to trip her, or push her. She had even tried taking the doll away once. All Sophie had done was stand up and start pacing, proceeding to do so non-stop for three weeks.
Not sure why, Denise said, “What’s your doll’s name?”
“This is Denise,” the little girl said.
Denise blinked.
Denise became aware the hunters were almost directly behind her, carrying on about something or other. At the moment, she couldn’t care less. Wanting to smack herself in the head for being so dumb, Denise wanted to concentrate really hard; this might be the chance to break Sophie out of whatever was wrong with her.
“That’s a nice name,” Denise said.
Still humming, Sophie nodded.
“She’s got a pretty white dress,” Denise said.
“This is the dress my Mommy and Daddy said she was buried in,” Sophie said.
Denise looked down. The calico she was wearing was what she was buried in. It was nothing like the beautiful lace and ruffles on the doll.
“Denise is dead?” she asked.
Sophie nodded. “A long time ago. Mommy still cries, but Daddy doesn’t.”
Denise knew that, having spent quite a bit of time trying to console her mother.
“Why do you like playing with a dead girl?” Denise asked.
“Because then she’s here with me. Not in heaven like Mommy says all angels go,” Sophie said. She looked up in to Denise’s face. “I hope I can be an angel when I die. Mommy says I will, but Daddy says only good girls become angels.”
“Why does your Daddy say you’re not a good girl?” She tried to ignore the ridiculous sounds behind her from the irrelevant hunters.
Sophie looked back down at the doll. “He says a good girl wouldn’t make her father do bad things. It’s my fault, he always says, because I’m a bad girl.” She went back to humming.
“You know, I bet your Daddy’s wrong,” Denise said.
“My Daddy’s never wrong. He’s the smartest person around. That’s what he always tells me,” the little girl said.
“I think you’re a sweet little girl, Sophie. I think you should look at me right now, so I can tell you something.”
Sophie looked up at Denise. There were tears in the younger girl’s eyes. “Are you going to tell me my Daddy hurting me is wrong? That’s what Mommy tells me.”
“No, sweetheart,” Denise said. “I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear it. Can you try?”
The little girl nodded. She smiled at Denise, her whole face becoming even more beautiful.
“Sophie, you died. A long time ago,” Denise said. “Your Daddy hurt you very badly, and you died. I’m Denise, Sophie. Your sister. Our Daddy hurt me, too, but I didn’t believe him when he told me I was bad.”
The little girl looked at her. “Denise died a long time ago.”
Denise nodded, smiling. “Yes, honey, I know. I did.” She looked the little girl in the eye. “So did you. A very, very long time ago. Do you think you could take my hand? You and I, we could walk out of this attic, maybe play in another part of the house.”
Sophie’s beautiful face turned to a twisted mask of rage. “NO!” she shouted.
The hunters whooped and hollered behind Denise.
“Why not? I promise, you’ll be safe, no one will hurt you ever ever ever again.”
Instead of responding, the little girl jumped to her feet and started pacing. Up and down and back and forth, her footfalls were quite loud. The two hunters got very excited, even though it was clear they had no idea what was going on around them.
Denise stood and started pacing along side her sister. “Sophie, please! I’m only trying to help you.”
“No you’re not,” Sophie said. “You’re trying to trick me. Just like HE always tricked me. ‘Let’s go upstairs, Sophie, I promise I’ll be good this time, Sophie, I’ll stop if you really want me to stop, Sophie.’ HE lied and you’re lying and lying makes me mad. Very, very mad.” Up and down and back and forth.
Denise followed her sister stride for stride. She didn’t say anything for a bit, noticing out of the corner of her eye the two hunters heading down the attic steps. She hoped they would leave the door open. She had no desire to be locked in the attic with her sister.
A light went off in Denise’s head.
“OK, Sophie. I tell you what,” Denise said. “Can I stay up here and play with you?”
Sophie stopped her pacing. She raised her head. Her cheeks were still flushed, streaked by tears, but there was something there in her eyes.
“You’d do that?” she asked.
Denise smiled. “Of course I would, Sweetie. What are sisters for?”
Sophie leaned her head to the right. “You – you’re my sister?”
Tears clouded the corners of Denise’s eyes. “That’s right, Sophie. I’m Denise.”
Behind her, Denise thought she heard the sound of people. After a hundred years, she seemed to be getting through to Sophie, and she didn’t want to lose this chance because of some imbecilic ghost hunt.
“But,” Sophie said, her face drooping, “but, Denise died when I was a baby.”
Denise kept smiling, not allowing her eyes to waver from the younger girl’s. “I know. I said that. I died. So did you.”
“I? Died?”
Denise nodded. “But it’s OK, Sophie. It’s fine. We’re safe now. No one can hurt us. If you want we can stay up here and play with dolls. Or we can just talk.”
Sophie’s eyes grew wide. “I died.”
Denise nodded. She wanted to hug her sister, but was terrified of scaring her off.
“A long time ago.”
Denise smiled and nodded. “A very long time ago.”
The whole time, Sophie’s eyes hadn’t left Denise’s. Then, they glanced over Denise’s right shoulder. “Who are those people behind you?”
Denise laughed. After all this time, a hundred years of trying and failing, she had got through to her sister. She laughed some more, and saw how the men – the same two men who had been in her room earlier – stopped and wondered at the sound of her laughter.
Something about her laughter must have been infectious, because Sophie, whose face had always looked too wooden to Denise, suddenly brightened, her smile spreading. The girl started to chuckle. Soon, both of them were laughing, the laughing-bug passing from one to the other, tears rolling down their cheeks.
“Those men look so funny!” Sophie shrieked.
At that moment, both men were carrying on, pointing and whispering among themselves.
“Watch this,” Denise said. She walked over to the younger man. His baseball cap was back on his head. She concentrated as hard as she could, then reached out and popped it off his head. It went flying back, landing several feet behind him.
Denise couldn’t hear their exclamations of joy over the laughter she was sharing with her sister.
While the two hunters fiddled around, Sophie said, “Can I really leave the attic?”
The last of the laughter settling, Denise said, “Of course you can, Sophie. Take my hand.”
Not caring about the hunters or owners or anything else, Denise took her sister’s hand and led her to the attic stairs.
Bella’s head popped out of her room. “Psst!” she said.
“Who’s that?” Sophie said.
“Oh, that’s Bella,” Denise said. “She’s funny. Kind of clumsy, but nice.”
Bella was looking up and down the hall, then waggled her fingers at the two girls to come to her.
“What is it, Bella?” Denise said.
“I think I went a little overboard with the ghost hunters who were in here,” she said, pointing over her shoulder back in to her room. There was a chair sitting on its side, and a picture frame that always sat on the mantle had tipped over. Denise could just make out the glint of broken glass.
“I couldn’t help myself! They started waving that EMF-thingy at me, and it freaked me out, and I guess I tried too hard to get away,” she said. Then, as if noticing for the first time, “Hey, you got your sister to come out of the attic.”
“Yes. Bella, this is Sophie. Sophie, Bella.” The young woman and little girl smiled at one another and shook hands.
“You really outdid yourself in there, Bella,” Denise said. “Something tells me Alex is going to be jealous.”
“You think so?” Bella said.
Denise nodded. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s see how he fared.”
Showing surprising grace, Bella made it all the way down to the second floor in silence. They walked to the room where Alex stayed. The two hunters who’d done the initial tour were in the room. They seemed to be considering a point in the room in the exact opposite direction from where Alex was, lounging and waggling his fingers at the three females in the doorway.
“What did you do?” Denise said.
“Oh, you know. A bit of this, a bit of that,” Alex said. “Bella, the racket you made was a thing of beauty. You should know it may well have been the hit of those hunters’ entire careers.”
“You think so?” she said. Her face brightened. “I felt kind of like a dork.”
“Oh, honey, trust me. You are a dork, but what a wonderful dork,” Alex said. He looked and saw Sophie for the first time. From precocious to gentle, in a flash, Alex’s smile warmed. “Sophie.”
“That’s right,” Denise said.
“Hi,” said the little girl.
“Young lady, I’ll have you know we have all been so worried about you for ever so long.” He walked over, his hand extended. “I’m Alex. I have no idea what to say except, well, we’re all dead but we have our fun.”
The hunters seemed to be heading out of the room. Denise pushed Sophie up close to the wall, letting the hunters out of the room. “You don’t want them to touch you. It feels pretty weird.”
“They always say it feels like cobwebs or something,” Bella said. “I always feel sick for days, truth to tell.”
“How you can you feel sick if you’re dead?” Sophie asked.
“That’s an excellent question,” Bella said. “I don’t know. I do know that is how I feel.”
“I wonder if they’re done with their little ‘ghost hunt’,” Alex said.
“Who cares?” Denise said, smiling down at Sophie. “I have my little sister back. That’s all I care about.”
Denise and Sophie were sitting on the floor of the room they now shared, chatting about this and that, when Alex popped his head in the doorway. “They’re back,” he said.
“Who’s back?” Denise asked.
“Those ghost hunters. Remember a few nights back?”
“Oh, yeah,” Denise said.
“That seems so long ago,” Sophie said.
“Well, that’s because we don’t experience time anymore,” Denise said. “At least not the way they do.”
“Oh,” Sophie said. “Should we care they’re back?”
“I don’t know about you ladies, but I for one am dying to know why they came back,” Alex said. “Well, you know what I mean.”
The three of them headed down the stairs. Only a little while out of the attic, and Sophie was quite adept at moving about without making a sound. Denise was thinking of having her give Bella lessons.
In the parlor were all sorts of overstuffed sofas and chairs, a large fireplace that was always ready for a fire, and, now, a table around which sat the Angelinis and the middle aged man and woman ghost hunters.
“I think you’ll be surprised by what we caught, both audio and video,” the woman said.
“For a small house, it was unusually active,” the man said.
“Unusually active, my ass,” Alex said. “I was holding back. Imagine if I’d done the full floor show.”
“Sh!” Denise and Sophie shushed together.
“Two of our team, after helping to set the equipment in place, stayed here in the parlor, keeping their eyes on the images from the stationary cameras we had set up based on the information you gave us,” the man said. “After everything was in place, but before the actual investigation began, one of them, Dan, heard a sound from one of the cameras.”
On the television screen, the image of the third floor hallway popped up. Nothing moved. Suddenly, everyone human and formerly human heard the distinct sound of clomping feet down the hall.
“Bella,” Denise sighed.
“Did someone call my name?” Denise spun around. Somehow, she’d heard from all the way up in her lair on the third floor.
Bella appeared at the top of the landing. She was smiling. “See? I can learn how to make my way-“ And down she came with a tremendous crash, thudding on the floor.
“What the hell?” the woman ghost hunter bellowed. The four were up from the table and in the hallway. Of course, they saw nothing. Denise, meanwhile, was shaking her head while Sophie and Alex chuckled.
Bella had the decency to look embarrassed as she gathered herself. “Sorry.” She looked back over her shoulder. “And I was doing so well, too.”
“Try to keep it down, please?” Denise said.
The owners and hunters went back to the table, chatting quietly. Denise had missed most of their conversation.
“We didn’t have any experiences in the kitchen-“
“I told you,” Alex whispered.
“-but I thought you might like to see and hear some of what we caught in the attic.”
A couple buttons were pressed, and then, on the screen, was a shot down what looked like an empty expanse of the attic. Denise was aware she and Sophie had been there; well, at least Sophie. In the quiet, she could hear, dimly, the two hunters saying something. Then, clear as a bell was a “Thud”. The hunters were up like a shot.
The rest of the tape was the hunters wondering if they were really hearing footsteps, blah-blah-blah. Then, yet again clear as a bell, was the clear, sweet laughter of two little girls. Denise wondered if any sound was as wonderful as that; the first laugh shared by two sisters separated by life, death, and a hundred years lost.
She looked at Sophie, who smiled up at her.
“Then, the most amazing thing happened,” the man hunter said.
On the screen, the younger hunter was gabbing about something when, quick as a flash, his hat was flying of the back of his head. Yet again, there was more laughter in the midst of all the carrying on about the hat.
“And that wasn’t the only time that night a hat went flying,” the woman hunter said.
After a few keys were pressed, there was Denise’s room. The older man and younger man were talking, saying something. Silence for a moment. Denise smiled as she heard her voice say, “I’m not Sophie!”
“Did you hear that?” the man asked the owners.
“I did,” Mr. Angelini said.
“I’d like to hear that again,” Mrs. Angelini said.
“Sure,” the man said. Over and over came Denise’s voice.
“It sounds to me like someone saying, ‘I’m Sophie’,” the woman said.
Denise clucked her tongue. Alex patted her shoulder, smiling.
“That’s what the investigator’s thought at first. If you listen carefully, though, it’s saying something else,” said the woman hunter. She had them listen to it again, sever
al times.
“I’m not Sophie?” Mr. Angelini said.
The hunters nodded.
“That’s what we heard, too.”
“And that doesn’t mean that’s what’s being said.” Denise wanted to go in there and, sick feeling or no, slap all four of them.
“If it isn’t Sophie, then who could it be?” Mrs. Angelini asked.
The two hunters shrugged. “We have no idea. All we can say with any kind of certainty is someone, possibly a girl, is yelling, ‘I’m not Sophie.’”
They let the clip run a little longer, and there went the hat, with them stopping everything because Denise had laughed at how silly they looked.
The owners laughed, too.
“Clearly, whoever is in there was having a bit of fun,” the man hunter said.
The owner’s nodded, still chuckling.
“Now, this next footage is amazing. I’ve been doing this for a quarter century, and I have to say I’ve never seen anything like this,” the man hunter said.
On the screen was Bella’s room on the third floor. The men were waving their EMF meters around. Suddenly, the chair tipped over. A few moments later, even as the men were wondering what, exactly, had happened with the chair, the picture frame on the mantle fell. The sound of the glass breaking was quite clear.
“That’s wild,” the owners’ said.
Denise turned. Bella gave a guilty smile. Denise smiled back.
“I have to say, based on all the things we experienced here, and the abundance of evidence, the Stratford House Bed & Breakfast is most definitely haunted,” the man hunter said.
The woman was nodding. “It seems to me, the best way to consider what’s happening is this. These are just people. They lived their lives and died, however they may have died, whoever they might be, and they share this space with you. At worst, they seem somewhat playful. I certainly didn’t detect anything negative or potentially harmful here.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Alex said.
Denise chuckled. “Isn’t it nice to think we’ve been here all this time, and these people come in here with all these expensive gadgets to figure out we were people who lived, and are now dead, and mostly just want to be left alone?”
“I guess that’s why I feel sorry for them,” Bella said.
Denise turned, and gave the young woman a questioning look.
“They act all scared and everything, when all that’s happening is us just kind of doing our thing. It takes all this work to figure it out.”
“And the worst part is there are some folks who just insist we don’t exist,” Alex said.
Sophie “Hmph”ed. “Like it matters whether or not they believe in us.”
#####
About The Author: A transplanted New Yorker, Geoffrey Kruse-Safford calls suburban Illinois his home. With degrees in Political Science and Theology, Geoffrey was happy to stop taking himself seriously a long time ago. He and his wife of 18 years, Lisa, have two daughters, a St. Bernard, two cats, a guinea pig, and wouldn’t most people say that’s more than enough?
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