“She’s a fraud,” Barbra croaked, not bothering to lift her head from the pillows. “None of those damn elixirs worked.” I was about to defend myself, but Barbra turned to face her sister. “This whole ghost-exorcism business is just BS. It’s a waste of your time and money! But you never listen to me anyway, do you? Not about Danny, or the house, or the...” She trailed off, grumbling darkly under her breath, apparently too tired to say more.
Layla waved an embarrassed hand in her sister’s direction. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She hasn’t been sleeping well since Danny’s death.” Then she looked at me and dropped her voice so Barbra wouldn’t overhear her. “She’s the one who discovered the...” Layla made a choked sound and her words faltered. “The body.”
The body of the man you killed, I thought to myself.
“Barbra, why don’t you go to the girls’ room and try to rest on Allison’s bed? I think she and Hannah are outside playing in the treehouse,” Layla said.
Barbra looked like she might argue, but ultimately just shrugged and climbed to her feet, performing an ungainly zombie shuffle down the hall. I watched her go, worry prickling at the base of my skull. Something really needed to be done for Barbra and soon.
Layla turned to us with an obviously false smile when her sister left. “Why don’t I show you the rest of the house?”
Chapter Seventeen
Large portions of a once immaculate house had simply been pummeled into so much rubble. I was a bit nervous ascending the stairs to reach the girls’ bedroom, as one section of the drywall on the right side of the stairs seemed on the verge of collapse. White dust coated the bannister and came away on our fingers as we climbed.
The distinct holes I could see were about the size and shape of a man’s fist. My shoulders curled forward as I remembered finding similar holes near the headboard of Finn’s bed. This was definitely the work of a poltergeist. And hopefully one I could banish.
As far as I was concerned Danny was most probably the poltergeist—he’d been murdered by his wife and he was furious over that fact so he’d come back, from beyond the grave, to enact his revenge. It was just a shame Barbra and her girls were in the middle of it.
And, I still couldn’t get a feeling on whether or not Danny was even in the house. Truth be told, I would have expected to see or hear from him by now. Unless he was hiding, making it more difficult for us to detect him.
There was more rubble on the second floor landing. Floorboards had been pried up. The insulation had been pulled partly out of one wall, hanging like a fat, pink tongue on the floor.
Layla paused at the doorway of the room, peering in nervously. “We moved Allison and Hannah’s beds into the downstairs guest bedroom, and the ghost hasn’t bothered them as much. Something about this room upsets it, I think.”
“And where is Barbra’s room?” I asked, finding it interesting that the girls were no longer being attacked since they’d left this room. That wasn’t standard poltergeist activity. Usually, all family members were fair game, no matter which room they were in.
“Oh, Barbra was sleeping with the girls for a while. Now she’s sleeping on the love seat, in the living room.”
I took a deep, shaking breath and followed Bailey and Marty into the girls’ former bedroom. I noticed with interest that Bailey hadn’t spoken a word in the last few minutes. Instead, she kept closing her eyes and nodding, sometimes holding her hands out in front of her.
“The ghost isn’t in this room anymore,” Bailey said, at last. “I felt its energy downstairs.”
Interesting that she could feel Danny’s spirit, but I couldn’t.
“Bails, are you able to tell us anything about the spirit in the house? Like who it is?” Marty asked.
She circled around, holding her arms up above her head, as if she could feel the answer in the air. “The energy in this house feels… male. I’d say this… poltergeist is the late husband, Danny.”
If I hadn’t been having nightmares about this house for weeks, I might have been impressed by Bailey’s quick deduction. And, just like that, I could suddenly feel the spirit’s weight, like a storm front compressing the air, making it difficult to breathe. Though I couldn’t see him, I could tell the spirit was here.
“But, why would Danny come back to haunt us?” Layla asked, eyes going wide.
“I don’t know,” I answered through gritted teeth.
The room’s wallpaper had once been an eye-searing shade of pink. Now, most of it was in tatters on the floor, leaving beige wall and glue behind. The headboard had been reduced to a pile of matchsticks, and at least one mattress had met its end here. Stuffing and springs littered the carpet like bedtime shrapnel. Glass glittered and winked at us as we moved into the room.
Layla gestured at a pile of pictures, mostly of Barbra and her girls, that lay in the middle of the floor. “One of those frames hit Hannah, going as fast as a major league pitch. It hit her right beneath the eye.”
I remembered Finn telling me about how Hannah had shown up with a black eye she didn’t want to talk about. The puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place and fiery anger burned in my stomach. This SOB poltergeist wasn’t going to get away with this. And neither would Layla…
“Barbra is beside herself, of course,” Layla continued. “The picture probably would have hit Barbra in the head if Hannah hadn’t sat up so suddenly.” Layla was quiet for a minute. Then she faced us again, worrying her lower lip. “Barbra feels like this is her fault.”
My heart ached for Barbra. I knew that feeling only too well—wanting to be able to protect your children against something otherworldly, something you felt helpless against.
“Layla, do you mind stepping out of the room?” Bailey asked as she opened her eyes and faced the woman in question. “Sometimes spirits can be shy.”
“Right,” Layla said, shuffling backwards. “Of course. I’m going to check on Barbra.”
Marty waited until she’d gone to quirk a brow at Bailey. “You’ve never asked anyone to leave before.”
Bailey shrugged. “I’ve also never had a grieving widow breathing down my neck.”
“Can you… see the ghost, Bailey?” I asked as I turned to look at her.
She shook her head. “I can feel him and every now and again I pick up on a word or a feeling but,” she started, her words dying on her tongue as she turned around and closed her eyes. “For some reason… I’m having trouble actually… seeing him. It’s almost like he’s being blocked or he’s playing a game with us.”
“I can’t see him either and I can’t hear him,” I said. “Which is strange, considering I can usually see and hear spirits as easily as if they were living people.”
“Something here… is different,” Bailey admitted with a quick nod.
“I think… I think Layla killed her husband,” I said as Marty turned to face me, a question in his eyes and a frown on his face. I hadn’t told him about my nightmares yet, or the fact that I’d seen this house in my dreams. Well, first time for everything.