“That’s purple,” I said, and he nodded. Then he put aside the instrument and stood up.
“Please don’t stop on my account.”
He gave a self-deprecating shrug. “My playing isn’t worthy of an audience yet.”
“They seem to like it.” I gestured toward the horses.
“Well, stalled horses get bored,” he replied. “Just like us.”
“I never really thought about it, but I guess that makes sense.” Joe was in tune with things most people missed, like the way an animal might be feeling. I liked that about him. Nothing seemed to escape his notice. Even my best fake smile didn’t fool him.
“It’s good to see you, Chloe,” he said. “Even if you do look like crap.”
“Aww, thanks, what every girl wants to hear.” His green orb eyes searched my face.
“Is something wrong?”
“Nope, I just came by to see if you wanted to go for a walk.”
“Sure, why not?” He stood immediately. “I get the feeling you have a destination in mind.”
“I wouldn’t mind checking out this famous lake. Is it far?”
“’Bout half a mile from here. We can take a paddleboat out when we get there, if you feel like it.” He poked his head out the door and squinted at the sky. “Looks like rain, though.”
“What else is new?” I sighed.
“Maybe if we get a move on we can make it there and back before it starts.”
I followed Joe down a winding path choked with bracken, our breaths making clouds of frost in the air. I liked the way we could walk in comfortable silence, neither one feeling the need to talk. Eventually we hit a clearing and the lake just sprang into view. It was much prettier than I’d imagined, with grassy banks that flanked a body of still, dark water. Drooping branches of weeping willows trailed into the reeds. There was even a rickety white footbridge to cross from one end of the lake to the other. I spotted the paddleboats Joe mentioned moored at a pier, rocking gently on the water.
Mavis and May were there, some distance away. I pulled Joe behind a tree before they had time to notice us. May was recording information into a handheld tape recorder while Mavis pointed some black gadget that looked like a TV remote. I watched her get down on her hands and knees and aim her mystery device at the water.
“Why are we hiding?” Joe whispered.
“Shush!” I flapped my hands and stole a furtive glance out from behind the tree trunk. “What do you think they’re doing over there?”
Joe shrugged like it was no big deal. “They’re taking readings with their trusty EMF. It’s a device for measuring electromagnetic fields.”
“It looks like the buzzer that goes off when your table’s ready at the Cheesecake Factory.”
Joe laughed. “The theory behind it is that all matter emits a level of energy. So fluctuations can suggest the presence of paranormal activity.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
He gave a rueful smile. “Let’s just say I’ve been roped into helping out a few times.”
“Do you think that EMF really works?”
“I highly doubt it. If it did we’d know a lot more than we do, right?”
One of the women squinted and glanced in our direction.
“Please don’t let them see us,” I hissed. “If they do, we’ll never get away.”
Joe grabbed my hand. His grip was warm and solid, and for a moment it took me by surprise. “Follow me.”
Together we sprinted down the sodden path away from the lake. We didn’t stop until we reached an abandoned building sitting among a nest of straggly weeds. The windows were smashed, the paint was peeling and a nervous energy engulfed me the moment I laid eyes on it. I took a step back, out of breath from the run.
“Where are we?”
“This used to be part of the original property,” Joe answered. “I think it was a guesthouse back in the day. Guess it hasn’t been used in a while, huh?” He finally noticed the look on my face. “Chloe? What’s up?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. He was my only flesh-and-blood friend in this whole place and I didn’t want to risk pushing him away. But there was a distinct, dark shadow hanging over the old guesthouse. I was glad I wasn’t the one holding the EMF, because I was sure it would have been going crazy right about now.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The vibrations coming from the building were so strong I could feel them under my feet like tiny electric currents. Often, when a ghost was near, I could feel static in the air, but this was stronger than anything I’d encountered before. Whatever lay inside that guesthouse was powerful…possibly dangerous, and it scared the life out of me. How could Joe not feel it? It literally felt like the core of the earth itself was in revolt, and every ripple sent my stomach shooting into my throat.
For a moment, I was seized by a crazy impulse to just spill the beans and tell Joe everything that had happened to me since arriving at Grange Hall. But how well did I really know him? Where would I even start? Would he think I needed psychological help and tell Grandma Fee? Even relaying a fragment of my story would be enough to send any sane guy running for the hills. I didn’t want Joe to run anywhere. I liked him, and more than that, I needed him as an ally.
A weighty silence, the usual precursor to a storm, hung in the air until a distant rumble of thunder shattered it. Soon the trees were bowing in the wind and the clouds looked ready to burst. I felt the first fat drops of rain on my cheeks, followed by a crack of lightning that sounded like the snap of an elastic band magnified about a hundred times.
“Okay, I may have miscalculated when the storm would hit,” Joe said. He made an apologetic face.
I shivered. The cold had crept through my knitted gloves, paralyzing my fingers, and I hadn’t been able to feel my toes for the past half hour. I wanted to make sure they were still there.
“We should head back, right?” I suggested eagerly.
Joe glanced at the pewter sky. “Too late for that. We’ll have to wait it out.”
My heart took a dive.
“Where?” I asked, feeling like an idiot because the answer was patently obvious. We weren’t exactly overwhelmed with choices. Joe jerked a thumb at the guesthouse, sitting like a burned-out husk, daring us to venture inside. I would have preferred to take my chances outside and risk getting struck by lightning.
“We can take shelter here until it passes.”
I shook my head firmly. “There’s no way I’m going in there.”
“It’s perfectly safe, Chloe,” he said casually. “There’s nothing to be scared of, except maybe the odd spider, and I promise to fight off any that have the nerve to show up.”
“You don’t understand,” I hedged. “I’m just not comfortable.” A dull throb had in fact begun behind my temples.
“You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”
“No.”
“Well, c’mon, then! Where’s your sense of adventure?”
The decision was made for us when the heavens opened. We instinctively turned up our collars and sprinted for cover toward the only place that offered it. We huddled under the eaves, pressing our backs flat against the front door that I imagined had been a lustrous red once, but time had faded it to its current dirty oxblood. The windows were too encrusted with dirt for me to see anything inside.
Water poured from the trees in sheets and was starting to pool in the clogged gutters. I noticed the reverberations in the earth had slowed now, to a dull, erratic heartbeat. Joe angled his body to shield me from the rain and kicked away the creepers that were blocking our way. He ran his fingers along the top of the sagging door frame and triumphantly produced a rusty key. But the timbers had shifted over time and even with the key, it took some effort and a few shoves from Joe’s
shoulder before the door finally gave way.
Inside, the smell of damp enveloped us immediately.
“Some guesthouse,” I said. “Looks more like a shed.”
“It was probably beautiful once,” Joe replied. “I bet your gran has plans to restore it.”
“I’m sure she does.”
“My money’s on beauty center. What d’you think?” The conversation was helping to distract me. Joe’s British accent made everything sound playful. I liked the way he clipped his vowels, although there were times I had to strain to catch what he said.
“No way!” I laughed. “Gran thinks getting a French manicure is excessive.” I did my best snooty impression of her. “We must always strive to enhance the mind!”
“She doesn’t really say stuff like that?”
“Sadly, she does.”
Now that I was joking around with Joe, my previous fears seemed unfounded. The place was harmless enough, just full of dusty boxes and old furniture.
The dark clouds outside made it difficult to see, and we stumbled around, bumping into things shrouded in sheets. Joe found and tried the light switch, but the power was either out or had long been disconnected. Cobwebs trailed from the rafters and I squealed when a lone cockroach scuttled past my foot. True to his word, Joe stomped it with his boot. The pulsing in my head competed now with the sound of rain hammering the tin roof. We slipped off our soaked coats and gave ourselves a moment to acclimatize. I wondered how Mavis and May were faring out there in the downpour. They didn’t look the type to be easily dissuaded, so maybe they were crazy enough to work through it.
There was nothing to do but explore the cottage while we waited for the weather to clear. If it weren’t for the layers of dust, we could have been in a thrift shop full of collectibles. I realized the place was comprised of only one long room separated into two areas by a few creaking steps. The upper level was the designated bedroom, which still housed an old brass bed behind a Japanese lacquered screen. There was a pine dresser with a rose-patterned wash jug and basin, although the jug was cracked down the center and the rim was chipped. Someone had pushed a dressmaker’s dummy into a corner, and battered old hatboxes and suitcases were stacked beside it.
The lower level must have been the living room. Small paned windows stretched across an entire wall, allowing the watery light to filter in. Under it a moth-eaten chaise longue was positioned to catch the light. A rug had been rolled up and leaned against it like a sagging pillar. The place was literally packed to the rafters with junk. All of this couldn’t be Gran’s stuff; some of it had to belong to her predecessors at Grange Hall.
“Do you think the dead try to communicate with us?” I asked out of the blue. I hadn’t intended broaching the subject, but I guessed I wanted to test the waters.
Joe pondered my question in respectful silence. I could see I’d put him on the spot. He didn’t want to offend by disputing the idea, yet it was too out of left field for him to support. Or maybe, like most people, he hadn’t thought enough about it. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He was probably wondering whether he’d met his daily time quota with Miss Screwball U.S.A. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “But I don’t think so.”
“So you don’t believe in the concept of an afterlife?”
“I didn’t say that. Is everything okay? You’re acting weird.”
“If you had any idea how weird I am, you’d stop hanging out with me.”
“Chloe!” He smiled broadly, even though I failed to see any humor in my revelation. “Let’s get one thing straight. I like you far too much to stop hanging out with you.”
That was tough to wrap my head around. I was that strange, secretive girl who permanently looked like she’d just seen a ghost. What on earth did he see in me? I wouldn’t want to date me, and yet I couldn’t seem to do anything to put Joe off. I decided not to say anything self-deprecating. It would just sound like I was in need of reassurance, like that girl at the gym with the toothpick legs who tells everyone she needs to lose five pounds. But I was genuinely curious.
“You really like me?”
“Really truly.”
“But why?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Well, for starters, I like that you’re weird.” I laughed outright. Joe had a way of taking the awkwardness out of things. “But seriously, I like you for loads of reasons. You’re cute and smart and feisty. But most important, you’re probably one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. You say what you feel and don’t try to impress anyone. I guess what I’m saying is, you’re not afraid to be you.” I basked in the compliments. I got the feeling Joe Parrish’s good opinion was not easily earned, so I must have done something right.
“Actually, being me is scary as hell, but thanks.”
We continued to pick our way around the rooms. Every time we disturbed something, it raised a cloud of dust. Some of the cardboard boxes on the table weren’t sealed, so I rifled through and picked up the first thing that came to hand—a leather-bound volume of Tennyson’s poems, the pages gilt-edged. There was a curling inscription written in faded ink inside the cover. To my dearest Isobel, Happy Birthday. December 1853. That was all the gift-giver had written, ensuring his or her identity remained anonymous. As I stared down at the message with its long, sloping letters, I heard the sound of labored breathing. I looked around for Joe, but he’d moved to the loft area and was skimming through a box of old vinyl records. Just for a moment, I could actually feel warm breath on my neck. It was enough to make my hairs stand on end and a prickling sensation course down my spine.
A gust of wind tore open the front door and rushed inside like a stampede. The book was snatched greedily from my hands and flung across the room with unprecedented force. It bounced off a wall and landed facedown with a thud, sending dust swirling through the air. Joe jumped down the steps and had to use his whole body to shut the door against the gale-force wind. Then he bent to pick up the volume from the floor, looking at me with flushed cheeks and ruffled hair.
“I take it you’re not a Tennyson fan?” he asked drily.
“Joe, that wasn’t me,” I replied, dead serious.
“Very funny, Chloe.”
Why couldn’t he sense something was wrong? He might not share my abilities, but didn’t he have any intuition?
“Actually, it’s not funny at all.”
“What are you talking about?” He seemed puzzled by my sudden mood change.
I walked over and grabbed him by the shoulders, too alarmed now not to share the truth. “There’s something here. That’s why I didn’t want to come in,” I said hurriedly. “I think we should leave.”
“Wow. Don’t tell me the old girls have got to you!” I held his gaze, refusing to return his smile. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Joe, I think there’s a reason we ended up in here.”
“There is. It’s because it’s pissing down outside and we don’t want to catch pneumonia.”
“I mean other than the weather.”
“Okay, I’m officially confused. Are you saying you’re…” He petered out, looking unsure how to continue. Had there been more time, I might have been subtler, eased him in more gently. But he was going to struggle with what I was about to tell him no matter how delicately I put it.
“Psychic? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
I didn’t know what prompted the decision. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t know what might happen and I didn’t want to have to go through it alone. Not this time.
“How long have you known?” Had he just gone from skepticism to acceptance in a matter of seconds? Joe didn’t think I was crazy. Instead, he was asking for details. I had to be impressed by that. The only other person who’d ever reacted that way to my so-called gift had been my mom. I felt the old familiar
sting behind my eyes and quickly blinked it away.
“Awhile. Joe, I’d rather you didn’t mention this conversation to anyone.”
“My friends don’t call me The Vault for nothing.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“Well,” he said, his lip curling in a slight smile, “I’d be lying if I said I understood. I don’t understand at all. But I do believe you.”
“Well, that’s something.”
Joe walked over and folded me up in a hug, his chin resting on the top of my head. It was a small gesture, but it settled me. I wasn’t sure how to react at first; it had been a while since I’d been this physically close to someone. But I managed to relax into it and felt myself leaning against his broad chest. I could feel his warmth seeping through his shirt. I hadn’t felt anything this comforting in a while.
“You know, if you ever need to talk to anyone about this stuff, you can talk to me,” Joe said.
“I know.” Then I returned to the present and ducked from beneath his grasp.
“Can we please go now?” It was impossible to miss the note of urgency in my voice. Joe cleared a patch on the window with his sleeve and peered outside.
“Looks like the rain’s easing up… . We could probably head back now before your gran sends out a search party. Unless you’d rather stick around and try to find out what’s going on here?”
I rolled my eyes. “Rule Number One, Joe. You don’t actively go looking for trouble.”
He laughed. “Well, I don’t scare easy. Here, I’ll show you. After all, if there is something here, it would be rude of us not to say hello!”
“What?” It was hard to fathom why he did what he did next. He was either testing me or trying to allay my fears. Either way, he had no idea what he was fooling around with, and I was too slow to stop him. He spread his arms wide and turned in a full circle. “Hey there, goulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night!”
“Joe, that’s not funny… .”