Susan and Mike didn't say a word when they found small motion-activated cat balls in every single room, from the first-floor foyer to the third-floor study. I ignored the look they traded and offered no explanation.
After a whole month living in Blotter Manor, I'd learned that even though the Blotters had their own parallel timeline, the space coordinates remained the same. The cat balls helped me keep from disturbing their routines, like walking into the east parlor while Lizzie was home-schooling the twins, or disturbing Joseph or Edward when they were reading in the library. This way, they only needed to move a hand near any of the balls to trigger the lights and let me know I was intruding in some way. At the same time, they used them to let me know if one of them joined me at a given room. Then the app would tell me who it was.
It was nice, getting together with them before dinner. By the end of August, I was almost getting used to the TV turning on by itself, whenever the twins felt like watching cartoons. However, they never revealed their presence openly if Susan and Mike were around. I didn't ask why they didn't like the housekeepers, considering the Collins had devoted their lives to the Manor. I didn't want to be nosy, and I didn't want to learn anything that might strain my relationship with the couple. Susan's relentless determination to keep control of things and treat me like a temporary nuisance already made it a little tense.
Meanwhile, since real life had become so strange and fascinating, I'd taken a rain check on trying to come up with a fictional plot to write. Instead, I started a journal to keep a record of my experiences interacting with the Blotters, starting on the day I'd first heard about the Manor. That alone would make a hell of a better story than anything my imagination could come up with.
Turned out I was right, even if I'm not sure I'd rather been wrong.
The speaking app did work better offline. Whenever I used it without disconnecting my phone from the internet, random words would keep popping up, messing up any conversation I tried to have with the Blotters. But smartphones are meant to be connected twenty-four/seven, and mine soon started threatening to stop working if I didn't download the necessary updates. I ended up ordering a tablet, that would stay offline and keep my channel of communication with them open and clean.
Picture my surprise one late-September afternoon, when I came back from my walk to the Quabbin and found the tablet open on a text document that read: "I can use this. J."
"What!?" I cried. "Joseph? You here?"
"Yes," the app replied.
"You wrote this? That's awesome! I had no idea you guys could use a touchpad!"
"Hard."
"You mean it takes you a lot of energy?"
"Yes."
"Okay, let me look into it. Maybe I can find a way to make it easier to use."
"Good."
"Picture that! We could drop the Tarzan speech and actually talk!"
"Finally," he replied, making me laugh.
I spent a couple of hours trying different apps, until I found one that offered the customization options I was looking for. It was meant for people with speech problems, and allowed me to add the more frequently used words in bars around the main screen, to save time. When a sentence was complete, tapping the speaker icon made a TTS voice read it aloud. The best feat was that it would generate a bar with the most used nouns by the user, to keep them at hand.
And while at it, I came across another ghost hunting app that promised to get more than one word at a time, maybe even complete short sentences. None of them were free, but I reminded myself I wasn't poor anymore and bought both. After doing my best to customize them, I took the tablet to the east parlor, but found nobody there. Of course, it was already dinner time.
The cat ball on the dining-room table lit up the moment I approached the open door, and I heard the faintest sound of cutlery and dishes.
"Hey, sorry to disturb you," I said to the empty chairs.
"No problem," replied the new app, proving it did pick up more words.
"New speaking app," I said, smiling, and pointed at the tablet. "I think I found a way to write that can work. I'm leaving the tablet charging in the east parlor, in case you wanna try it."
"Library."
Meaning the men would explore it first. I still struggled to keep in mind how things worked back when they were alive. "Okay. Take a look at it and tell me what you think tomorrow."
"Good idea."
"Anyway, the app on my phone will be on, in case you need to tell me anything. Enjoy. Night."
"Goodnight."
I took the tablet to the library and placed it on the corner shelf, between Joseph's and Edward's armchairs. I left it charging, so they could use it for as long as they wanted, and if what ghost hunters said was true, they could also draw energy from the battery at the same time.
Back to the kitchen, I put to cook, wondering what I could watch over dinner. YouTube kept suggesting me a compilation of the best paranormal evidence capture by the infamous Haunters. No matter how many times I tapped the option to not show it anymore, it kept popping up. So after checking there was nothing interesting to watch anywhere else, I decided I could always have a good laugh and sat to have dinner and watch the rockstars scream like little girls.
The moment Brandon Price started with some weird off-camera narration, everything seemed to happen at the same time: I heard a thud, so loud the floor vibrated under my feet, the ball on the kitchen table lit up and the TV turned off.
"What—?" Another loud thud cut me off.
"Never again," said the app from my phone.
"Oh, you mean these guys? Fine with me."
The third thud made me jump to my feet.
"I said fine, no need to get so loud!"
"Not us."
Those two words sent cold chills down my spine.
"That wasn't one of you?"
"Demon. Basement."
"What!?"
The next thud seemed to shake the whole house.
"Library."
I forgot all about my dinner, grabbed my phone and hurried out of the kitchen with a frightened glance at the basement door.
It was the only part of the house I still hadn't been to. During my explorations of the Manor, when I'd just moved in, I'd found the door locked. Mike said he had the key, explaining the place was full of old stuff, and the faulty wiring he hadn't been able to fix caused the lights to flicker or go off out of the blue, making the large underground room hard to navigate.
Back then, I'd shrugged it off, thinking he was just being a little territorial, and forgot about it. Had he told me all that now, I would've come to a very different conclusion.
The library felt unusually crowded, like all the Blotters were surrounding me and just as upset as I was. And they were. Using the apps on both the tablet and my phone, they explained the origins of those thuds.
Sit tight. I know I did.
Turned out the infamous Haunters had been to the Manor twice. Once for their first season, and then again for their hundred episode, on season five. Apparently, they hadn't come alone on their last visit. Along with all the production crew and sycophants, Brandon Price had brought a dark attachment he'd picked up at some other location they'd investigated. And while shooting in the Manor basement, somehow the dark entity that followed him around had stayed behind when he left. The thing had wreaked such a havoc over the following days, the tenant had fled in fear for his life.
"Oh, I heard about it in town," I said. "I thought that had been you guys."
"Never."
"We don't scare."
Looked like they'd taken offense. "Sorry. And how come I never heard it before tonight."
"Grace." That was the late Miss Blotter.
She'd come back to the Manor when the tenant fled, bringing a woman from out of town to perform a cleansing of the whole house. It'd only worked for a couple of weeks, so she'd taken it one step further and brought a priest to bless the Manor. It hadn't been a full out exorcism and it didn't kick the thing out, but the cleansing had weakened it, and the blessing put it to sleep.
"Dormant," was the word they used.
"Like a volcano?"
"Yes."
That is, until I had the bright idea of watching that damned clip. Brandon Price's voice from the TV had been enough to wake it up.
"So it's still attached to him?"
"Maybe. It's waiting."
"For him?"
"Don't know."
"It's hungry."
I threw up my hands and grabbed my head. "We have a hungry demon in the basement?" I couldn't believe my own words. "We have to do something!"
"Tomorrow."
The next thud didn't sound so loud from the library, but it gave me a good scare anyway.
"Easy."
"We protect you."
I shrugged, trying to smile. "Thank you guys," I murmured.
"Go to sleep."
"I don't think I can." I stood up with a deep breath. "I know I don't look like it right now, but I'm so grateful you're with me."
I felt a quick, cold touch on my forehead, like a kiss, and then a light weight on my shoulder.
"Us too."
I chuckled, my eyes welling. "C'mon! Don't do that! You know I'm tough as a pudding!"
Both devices said the same, one after the other: "Ha. Ha."