“Yes,” I said bluntly. “I can’t explain what it is, but something was lying dormant in your house, waiting for the right moment, and the right minds to take over. I’ve seen possession firsthand,” I added, pausing to suppress a shudder, “and it’s nothing to be messed with. You can’t go back there, and you can’t send any more construction crews there either.”
Her fingers trembled a little as they found their way to the cross at her neck again. “So what do we do?” she asked.
“Sell that damn house, Christine,” Daddy said.
“Oh, Monty,” Christine replied, but before she could continue, I interrupted.
“Daddy, there’s no way you can sell that house to another unsuspecting buyer. What’s loose in Porter Manor is dangerous. Deadly even.” Turning to Christine again, I added, “I’m so sorry, but you’re going to have to abandon the house altogether. Put a high fence around the whole property and don’t let anyone near it ever again.”
The color in Christine’s face drained again and the trembling in her fingers spread to her limbs. “Oh, my,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, Mary Jane, I don’t know if I can do that! I paid an enormous amount for that home and the surrounding land, several million dollars in fact. My former husband developed golf courses, and taught me a great deal about the business, and I paid all of that money because the manor sits on thirty beautiful acres that I had planned to build a golf course on to help recoup some of the costs for the renovation. The manor sits mostly in the middle of the land at the very top of the highest hill, so there’s no way to hide it from the golf course. Even if I break it up into smaller lots, no one is going to want to have a view of a crumbling mansion in their backyard.”
I didn’t say anything, because what could I? Whatever was in that house was too powerful, too deadly, and honestly scared me too much for me to offer my services beyond what I’d already done. I wanted Christine to do what I’d said, but I couldn’t imagine personally accepting the loss of several million dollars. I was asking her to simply walk away, and that had to be a terrible choice for her indeed.
And then Daddy said something that sort of stunned me. “Mary Jane,” he said, “you work with all these people who deal with these things. Don’t you know somebody, an exorcist or someone, who might be willing to come out here and sort this mess out?”
I wanted to laugh. My father understood so little of what I did for a living that it was shockingly funny. But then I wondered if I’d ever really tried to explain it to him, or if I’d simply walked away because it was easier. “I do happen to know some people in the business for something like this,” I said, and both he and Christine looked encouraged. “In fact, I know a few of the very best ghostbusters in the world.”
“Well, come on now,” Daddy said, reaching for a pen and pad of paper. “Tell me who they are and we’ll call them right up and see about retaining them.”
I reached down for my purse and extracted a card, which I handed over to Daddy. He took it and studied it with interest before his brow furrowed again. “This is your card,” he said.
“Yes.”
And then it seemed to dawn on him. “This is what you’ve been dealing with over there in Europe?”
“Yes,” I repeated. “And a few other places. And trust me when I tell you that we have dealt with some incredibly dangerous and scary things, but, Daddy, this one is particularly tricky. This one, more than all the others, scares me the most.”
Daddy stared at me for a long moment before he asked, “Why?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Because this particularly dangerous spook knew Mama.”
Chapter 7
“Mary Jane, you’ve got to stop talking in riddles here,” Daddy said after my second attempt to explain it to him. “You’re telling me you had some sort of dream about Madelyn as a young child, and she told you that she was haunted by some sort of ghost, and that same ghost was playing a board game with you today over at the Porter house?”
“Not a board game, Monty. A Ouija board,” Christine corrected. She seemed to be taking this much better than Daddy was. “And it wasn’t a dream—it was an out-of-body experience. I’ve had one of those. Scared me near to death!”
Daddy stared first at me, then at his fiancée, and then he sat back in his chair and simply shook his head. “I must be getting old. I don’t understand any of this.”
“You don’t have to understand it, Daddy,” I said. “You just need to see how dangerous this is. This spook came after Mama when she was a little girl, and it seemed to know me personally.”
“Could it come after you?” Christine asked, her fingers back to fiddling with the cross around her neck.
I sighed. “No. I think it’s tied to the house, but where it came from I don’t have a clue. The Porters have lived in that manor for nearly a hundred years, and they never seemed to be bothered by whatever was haunting their home.”
Daddy grunted. “If they had been, we’d never have heard about it. That family is particularly tight-lipped—as the remains of that missing boy can attest to.”
But I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. If anything as powerful and, frankly, as violent as that spook had been loose in that house, no way could they have continued to live there.”
“So where did it come from?” Christine asked. “I mean, why did it suddenly show up in the house if it hadn’t haunted the Porters before now?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, there has to be a way to get rid of it,” Daddy insisted. “What if we hired a priest to sprinkle some holy water over there? Maybe if he walked through the place and blessed it, that’d do the trick—don’t you think, Mary Jane?”
And then I realized that Daddy and Christine were never going to go for my idea to construct a fence and put it around the perimeter of the property. If I refused to take on this spook, then they’d look for someone who would be willing, and the two of them knew so little as to be completely trusting of some idiot who claimed to be an expert at ridding houses of ghosts and then we’d probably have another murder on our hands.
“No, Daddy, that wouldn’t do the trick. And under no circumstances should you attempt to hire or enlist anybody to investigate or bless that house.”
“Then what should we do?” Daddy asked. “Christine can’t just walk away from all that prime real estate, Mary Jane. She’s got most of her money tied up in it.”
I eyed the clock on the wall. It was getting late, and I’d long ago missed supper with Mrs. G., Gilley, and Heath. Daddy always ate a late supper, and I suspected he and Christine would ask me to share a meal with them in a few more minutes, but I didn’t have the energy to sit with them any longer. I needed to go and be alone with my thoughts for a bit. I wanted the night to think about what to do.
Standing up, I said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I’ve had a long day, and all I want to do is head back to Mrs. Gillespie’s and take a good soak in the tub.”
“You won’t stay for supper?” Daddy asked, standing as well, and I heard a small note of surprise in his voice. I eyed him curiously and wondered if there was perhaps the smallest trace of hurt there too.
“No, thank you, Daddy. I’m really not hungry, and I’d just like to go home.”
Daddy pressed his lips together and I realized what I’d just said to him. Mrs. Gillespie’s house had been more home to me than this house for a long time now, but I’d never, ever dared to say it out loud, especially not to Daddy. “I mean—”
“I know what you meant,” Daddy said gruffly. “All right, Mary Jane, all right. You get on back to Minerva’s and you tell her how much I appreciate her extensive hospitality to my little girl.”
The words were right, but the sentiment was wrong, and before we fell into another familiar argument, I thought it best to leave.
I said my good-byes,
but Christine wouldn’t let me get away without another hug. She kissed my cheek and held me at arm’s length for a moment, studying me. “Your mama would be so proud of you, Mary Jane,” she said. “And I’m sure she’s looking down from heaven right now, and beaming at you and the beautiful woman you’ve become.”
Tears again welled in my eyes and I turned away before they leaked down my cheeks. That was my Achilles’ heel. All you had to do was mention how Mama felt about me for me to dissolve into a puddle.
I wondered if the Sandman knew how strong our spiritual connection to each other was, and then I was racked by a violent shudder, because I felt quite firmly that he did know.
Driving the rental back toward Mrs. G.’s, I could almost feel the presence of an evil force at the very edge of my energy. I reached over and flipped on the heat. I couldn’t get warm enough.
By now it was dark and I was feeling more and more anxious. Mrs. G. lived only ten minutes from Daddy, and yet the drive felt interminable. To make matters worse, I was having trouble concentrating. My thoughts were fuzzy and my lids were heavy. It was as if a sudden wave of exhaustion had snuck up on me and taken over.
I shook my head to clear it, and turned on the radio, hoping for a distraction. The station was playing an upbeat dance tune and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was just the kind of song to push the fogginess away.
Except that abruptly the song cut out and loud static filled the interior of the car. I reached for the knob and as I touched it, I got a tremendous burst of static electricity that had me pulling my hand back to shake it. “Ow!”
And then that same shiver traveled up my spine, because I realized that underneath that layer of static from the radio, someone was speaking.
My breath caught when I heard someone say, “Hello, little DeeDee. The Sandman wants to play.”
Using the cuff of my sweater, I covered my hand and smacked the knob to turn off the radio, but my aim was off and instead of turning it off, I only managed to turn the volume up. “Little DeeDee,” the Sandman taunted from the speakers. “Why don’t we play a game of tag?”
I was about to punch the radio again when something huge came dashing out from the side of the road.
It all happened so fast that it felt like a blur. From the corner of my eye I saw a whisper of movement dart out from the bushes. My head snapped up and in the headlights I saw . . . a monster. There’s really no other way to describe it. It was enormous, at least eight to ten feet tall, smoky gray, with long limbs and a ferociously hideous face. The eyes were red, the teeth sharp and bared, and the hands seemed to end in claws.
I let out a cry and stomped as hard as I could on the brakes while swerving to avoid the creature. There was a terrible THUD against the right quarter panel, and then the car was sent fishtailing into a full 180-degree spin. I lost sight of the road, felt the centrifugal force of the spinning car, which made it nearly impossible to hold on to the wheel and steer, and then there was a terrific jolt as the car dipped sideways down off the shoulder onto the embankment, where it finally . . . finally came to a stop.
For several moments all I could do was press my back firmly against the seat while my chest heaved and copious amounts of adrenaline coursed through my veins. My hands had a death grip on the steering wheel and my knee was locked under the dash as I continued to stomp down hard on the brakes. Dust swirled around the outside of the car, while inside, the radio had returned to that snappy dance number, but it sounded far away from me, and it barely registered that the static had ended and, with it, that horrible creepy voice.
At some point I came more fully to my senses and my gaze darted all around while I took in my surroundings. “Okay, M.J.,” I whispered. “Get a grip here.” Slowly I raised one finger at a time off the steering wheel just to loosen the tight squeeze I was giving it, and I took note of the fact that I’d ended up in a small ditch at the side of the road. There was only the fading glow of another car far down the road but no other cars in sight. The engine in my car was still running, which I took as a good sign, and I looked down at the dash to see if there were any warning lights there.
Nothing seemed to be going haywire, so very carefully I eased my foot off the brake and over to the gas pedal. The car, still in drive, moved just a few feet of its own accord, and I didn’t hear any rattling or bumping, so I pressed down on the gas just a bit and made my way over to the edge of the ditch. The slope back up to the road wasn’t all that steep, so I pushed a little harder on the gas and the car lurched up and back onto the road. I sighed with relief and took a few extra deep breaths for good measure.
And then I remembered the monster.
My eyes darted to the rearview mirror, then to the two side mirrors, but there was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen behind me. I turned next to look toward the right side of the road, and then the left. Nothing unusual was hiding in the bushes, and I wiped my brow and took a few more deep breaths.
But then I saw something that nearly made me slam on the brakes again. Far off to the right and reflected in the moonlight was the faint outline of Porter Manor.
I blinked when I saw it, then blinked again. “How in the hell . . . ?” I muttered, looking around again to try to figure out where the heck I was. There was no way I should’ve been near that old mansion, as I’d specifically set off from Daddy’s in a direction that would’ve taken me away from the Porter house on my way to Mrs. G.’s. I should’ve been at least three miles from it actually, so I couldn’t figure out how I’d come to this side of town.
And then I remembered that fuzzy-headed feeling I’d had not ten minutes before. I glanced at the digital clock on the dash, and sure enough, the time was fifteen extra minutes ahead of where it should have been if I’d taken the direct way back to Mrs. G.’s.
Down the road I saw a gas station that was brightly lit, and I decided to head over to take a minute to get a grip and figure out what’d happened to me. I actually had half a mind to call Heath and ask him to borrow Mrs. G.’s car to come pick me up. I was shaking terribly with fright and rattled nerves.
I also knew I needed to inspect that right front quarter panel. Whatever had hit the rental car was sure to have left a dent.
Pulling up into the station, I was about to cut the engine when the radio suddenly cut out again and went to static. I tensed and debated quickly punching the knob or waiting to see if I’d get another warning before being struck by the monster again. “Tag, little DeeDee,” the static-filled voice taunted. “You’re it.”
• • •
I never got out of the car at the gas station. Instead, I punched that knob hard enough to hurt my hand and peeled out back onto the road. Hovering over the steering wheel, I focused only on getting back to Mrs. G.’s, and without any further incident, I made it.
When I walked in the door, Heath took one look at me from the living room couch and sprang to my side. “What happened?”
“Remember how we were hoping the Sandman was confined to the manor?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, he’s not.”
Heath put his hands on my shoulders and looked me all over. “Are you hurt?”
“No, just shaken.”
“Tell me,” he said, leading me toward the kitchen.
We sat at the table and I said, “Where’s Gil and Mrs. G.?”
“They went shopping,” Heath said. “Gil wanted a new fishing vest since you gave his away, and I gave him a hundred bucks to bring back two for us that aren’t as . . . bright.”
I smirked. “That plaid is a little loud, huh?”
“It screams,” Heath agreed. “Did you eat yet?”
I realized that the kitchen was still filled with the most delicious smells. “Nah. Daddy invited me to stay for supper, but I wanted to get back here and be with you.”
Heath put a hand on my shoulder
. “Sit,” he said. “I’ll get you a plate.”
While Heath warmed up the leftovers, I told him about my conversation with Daddy and Christine.
“So you think that if we don’t help them, they’ll just find someone on their own to try to get rid of that spook?” he asked.
“I do. Christine has invested so much money in Porter Manor and the land around it that there’s no way she’ll just walk away from it. I don’t think she’s willing to give up on the idea of letting her dream go just yet.”
“That’s an attitude that could get somebody killed,” Heath said, setting down a plate of steaming eggplant parm in front of me.
I took a huge whiff. God, it smelled good. “It’s a point of view Daddy also shares,” I told him.
“Which means, if we butt out, somebody else is gonna get hurt.”
“Yep. Or worse than just hurt.”
“Maybe we could try talking to them again. There’s gotta be a way to convince them.”
“Maybe there is,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s a choice we have anymore.”
“You don’t want to try talking to them again?”
“No, I don’t think we have the luxury of any other solution other than shutting down the Sandman, Heath. It came after me tonight.”
“Tell me,” he said.
Over dinner I told him everything that’d happened and his expression went from concern to outright fury. “If that car had hit a tree, you could’ve been killed,” he said.
I nodded, because that was absolutely true.
Then he pushed back his chair, got up, and headed to the door. “Where’re you going?” I called after him.
“To check something out. Stay put. I’ll be back in a sec.”
I still had the car keys in my purse, so I wasn’t worried he’d take off in search of the Sandman, but I wondered what he was doing. I would’ve gone after him to find out, but I was so tired and chilled, and, yeah, maybe even a little afraid of the dark tonight. So, I focused on polishing off the last of my dinner before getting up to take my dish to the sink.