It was a sleepless night, trying in vain to find a credible source of information about binding spells or whatever. I gave up about an hour before sunrise, and left a note for Susan not to come upstairs until I got up. No wonder the first thing she did in the morning was come to dust and vacuum the master bedroom, right next door. And in order to vacuum the whole rug, she asked Mike to help her move all the furniture.
So I woke up only two hours after falling asleep, to loud noises like I had a frigging construction crew working right by my bed. Exhausted and still upset about the whole basement situation, just hearing Susan's voice triggered a homicidal fury I'd never known I had in me. I strode to the master bedroom and pulled the vacuum plug roughly. Susan turned around, surprised.
"Didn't you see the note I left you on the fridge?" I growled, definitely sick and tired of her.
"Good morning, Miss Garner. Yes, I saw it. But it's Wednesday, and this room is to be dusted on Wednesdays."
"Says who?" My question took her aback and I wasn't in the mood to give her any chance, so I pointed at the hallway. "Out."
"Excuse me?"
"This is my house and I'm telling you to leave. So leave."
She stiffened and looked me up and down, taking offense like that trick had worked on me before.
"You're not entitled to give me orders. Especially not in such a rude way."
"If you don't leave the house now, you're fired."
"What? I don't work for you, Miss: I work for the Blotter family."
I think she regretted those words later, because the moment she said that, the Blotters decided to show their mind. The vacuum started by itself despite being unplugged, the heavy closet doors slammed open and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees in a heartbeat.
I raised my eyebrows. "Feel like putting that to the test, Susan?" I nodded to the hallway. "Leave, and don't set foot in the Manor again unless I tell you so. From now on, you're gonna play by my rules or you ain't playing at all. Make up your mind. This was your last warning."
Susan pretty much scampered out of the room. The moment she left, the vacuum stopped and the temperature raised back to normal.
"Thank you," I muttered, sweaty and agitated, my chest burning.
Violence, physical or verbal, is always violence, and I loathed having been pushed to such an extent. I heard the backdoor slamming shut, felt the light cold weight on my shoulder and tried to breathe deep.
"Thanks," I repeated, rubbing my face.
I dragged my feet back to my room. I dropped myself flat on the mattress, my heart still pounding in my chest, shaking a little. Plain to see I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. I felt the nightstand for my phone and checked the time. Nine-thirty. Shit. Maybe a shower would help me at least calm down. I was sitting up when my phone rang. Now what?
I was surprised to see it was Trisha. She never got up before eleven: the treat of working the afternoon shift.
"Hey, Fran! I found someone who can help you," was her merry greeting.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Three different psychics referred me to a big-time medium. Looks like she's the witch all Boston witches turn to for help and advice. I've already talked to her and she's really cool. I'm sending you her number. She'll be waiting for your call."
Thank God for Trisha! "I really owe you, Trish."
"A weekend at your new place would make us even."
"Ha! There's always a catch!"
"Hey, if this woman can help you, I've totally earned a visit to the creepy haunted house!"
"You're right. But I need to talk to her first."
"Keep me up!"
I headed to the bathroom feeling ten times better than just minutes ago. While I took a shower, I heard noises in the master bedroom and assumed it was Mike, moving the furniture back in place. So I stopped at the doorway before heading down.
"Mike?" I called.
"Yes, Miss?" he replied from downstairs, right as a footstool moved across the room by itself to stop before the armchair by the window. Everything was back in place.
"Oh, great, thank you, guys," I muttered, and started down the stairs.
Mike was oiling the hinges on the first-floor doors, and paused his work the moment he saw me.
"Morning, Miss," he said like I hadn't just threatened to fire his wife. "Let me know when you want me to move the furniture back in place in the master bedroom."
"Oh, no need. Thanks anyway," I replied en route to the kitchen. He'd heard me calling him but he hadn't heard the noise of the Blotters pushing everything back in place? Weird.
Trisha had already sent me the medium's number, and I was too anxious to wait until after breakfast to call her. So I did it while cooking. I was surprised when she switched to facetime to pick up, but I liked to see her from the very beginning.
Amy Taylor was in her mid-forties, and she had big bright eyes in her round face, dark hair past her shoulders and a merry way to speak that reminded me of a preschool teacher. The moment I introduced myself, she nodded and grinned.
"Oh, yes, your friend Trisha told me all about—" Her grin was replaced by a mild frown. "Not about that. You're not alone, Francesca."
"You can see them?" I asked, surprised. "Great! That makes things easier."
"You can see them too?"
"Oh, no, I'm blind and deaf as a rock, but I know them. Who are you seeing?"
Amy hesitated. "A lady with a long dress that looks like the end of the eighteen hundreds."
"That must be Mrs. Anne Marie Blotter."
"Nice to meet you," said the phone app.
Her start made me smile. "Sorry, that's how I communicate with them."
"How many are them?"
"Three more grownups and two children. Six total, all from the Blotter family, the owners of the Manor."
"Oh…" She fell silent, still frowning slightly, and all of a sudden flashed another bright grin. "I see. Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Blotter."
"You can hear them over the phone?" I was already jealous. However, this came to prove she was indeed a hell of a medium. Now I needed to find out if she could help us.
She told me what she'd gathered from talking with Trisha and I filled her in with what we've found out over the last two days. She took notes of what I said, and frowned again after I finished, her eyes moving over the lines she'd just scribbled. I used her pause to serve my breakfast and sit down to eat. I didn't dig the way she raised her eyebrows to look up at me.
"This ain't gonna be easy, Francesca."
"It's Fran. Why?"
"Chaining an entity like the one you describe isn't just a candle and a spell. This is some serious magic. We may not be able to free this entity, so we need to start looking for alternatives."
"What d'you mean, alternatives?"
"Banishing it."
I don't know why, but I felt a prick in my belly. "No. We gotta find a way to set it free. It's been in agony for years already. I don't wanna kill it."
"It's a dangerous parasite, Fran."
"It's what it was born to be, like a dog or a tree. I need options."
She sighed like a grownup putting up with a child's tantrum. "Then we need to find out who chained it, to ask them to release it."
I rolled my eyes, snorting. "Forget it. He already told me he ain't gonna help."
"You know who did this?"
I told her about Brandon Price.
"And you say I can see it happen? Okay, let me watch it and call you back."
"I think she can help us," said the tablet's TTS the moment I disconnected.
"I certainly hope so. What do you think, Ann?"
"I agree."
Mike knocked on the door before walking into the kitchen. He nodded at me forcing a tight smile and went out the backdoor without a word.
"At least the shadow's quiet."
"It's sleeping."
The TTS took a moment to add, "It looks like it will keep its end of the deal."
"Fingers crossed," I muttered.
Amy called back twenty minutes later, and she was shaking her head when I picked up.
"Good Lord, Fran. I can't believe they have it there for the whole world to see," she said. "Now I'm positive they performed an occultist ritual to sever the attachment. It must've been complex enough to require two steps. What you saw on TV was the last step, when he actually freed himself from the parasite."
"I'm gonna kill that man bloody."
Amy chuckled. "Easy, Fran. We still need him. When can I visit the Manor? I need to see the entity with my own eyes to know what we need to do."
"Can you come today?" I replied, making her chuckle again.
"I can't, but I think I can take the weekend off. Guess there's at least a motel in town, right? Because I have a ninety-minute drive to get to the Manor, and I don't wanna drive back home in the middle of the night ."
"She can stay here the weekend." Ha! They were really getting the hang of typing fast.
Amy seemed surprised. I raised my eyebrows, grinning.
"Oh, my, I'd love it so much," she murmured. "It'd be the first time an intelligent non-living extends me such an invitation."
"So you can't say no," I said.
"Oh, well, no, of course. Okay, okay. I'll be there by Friday noon."
Despite the awful start of the day, I felt calm and optimistic after talking with Amy. The Blotters liked her and agreed she seemed capable of helping us. Joseph and Lizzie made some jokes about how nice it would be, having someone in the Manor who could actually see them and wouldn't look the wrong way to talk to them.
"Hey, that's cold!" I complained, making them laugh.
I headed back upstairs to tidy my room and went out for a short jog. My life had become too sedentary for my guts, so I'd decided I would start running in the woods every day. And it was a fine morning for my first jog. The twins led me to a secondary trail that took a long detour to reach the Quabbin. Long but flat, hell yeah. I reached the Quabbin out of breath and rested there by the shore, admiring the changing colors of the leaves and enjoying the cold breeze.
In the afternoon, I decided I should pay our guest in the basement a visit to let it know Amy was coming. Edward came with me downstairs. Good thing there was still plenty of daylight, because I'd left the LED on and the batteries were already dead. The shadow knocked on a board, like acknowledging my presence, and I placed the phone on the floor between us, in case it wanted to use words. And it did.
"Help," it said after I explained why Amy was coming. "No kill."
"Only help. You have my word I won't let anybody do you any harm. Told you I wanna set you free."
I gave it a whole minute to reply, but it didn't.
"Go back to sleep, Kujo. I'm coming back with Amy in a couple of days and we may need to show her your chain, okay? So she can see what they did to you and find the better way to release you."
It knocked. I'm sure it was because I couldn't see it and it couldn't do me any harm, but the whole situation made me so sad for the poor thing. Before it could take advantage, I grabbed my phone and stood up.
"Thank you. And thank you for keeping your word about the noises."
I was halfway to the stairs when I heard a muffled shuffle from the corner.
"Thank," the phone app said.
"That was Kujo?" I asked, lowering my voice.
"Yes."
I turned around to face the corner and nodded, smiling. And hurried up back to the kitchen, before I broke in tears out of pity. However, Edward said through the TTS that the shadow hadn't even tried to touch me or fed on me.
"It felt truly grateful," he said.
"Well, I don't think anybody ever treated it nicely. Like, you don't go around the desert petting random rattlesnakes, right?"
"I think you are changing it, Fran."
"Showing him something different," added Joseph through the speaking app.
I smiled. "I like that. Hope it's for its own good."
"And ours," said Ann from the phone.
When the Blotters left to have dinner, I decided I needed to address the elephant in the room and called Susan.
All of a sudden, the woman was pure silk and honey. She repeated several times she wanted to keep the job and promised she would respect all my decisions concerning the Manor, so I told her to come the next morning as usual. I didn't trust she would be able to fight back her control freak urges, but I felt awful about what had happened in the morning and wanted to give her a chance to prove me wrong.
I had just disconnected when Amy texted me, to confirm she was coming and she would arrive in the Manor on Friday after lunch.
The next day was like a rare oasis, and I was able to have the first regular day of the whole week. Susan showed up at nine sharp, and dropped her attempt to make my breakfast when she saw me shake my head.
"Good morning, Susan. We're having a guest over the weekend. She will stay in the corner bedroom," I said, refilling my coffee mug.
"Don't worry, Miss. I'll ready it right away."
"On Friday, please do whatever you need to do inside the house before noon, so you can leave for lunch."
"Yes, Miss."
No questions about who was coming, no argument about which room the guest would use? Maybe miracles did happen?
I decided to get out of her hair for a while and drove to Ware, the next town, to buy a tablet. I also bought a bunch of batteries and another LED flashlight, just in case. I went out for my jog before lunch and spent most of the afternoon customizing the tablet for Lizzie and Ann, to give each of the adult Blotters a way to communicate with me without needing my phone.
Friday! Amy texted me about noon, to let me know she was leaving Boston. Susan played housekeeper of the year and left shortly after. So I cooked lunch for two and set both tablets around the table. I was excited, in the best of moods, and hurried out the front door the moment I heard a vehicle driving onto the driveway.
The medium drove a flashy red sports car that threw me completely off. She parked it halfway to the Manor and got out with a big bag. The first thing she did won us over for eternity: she was coming to meet me at the bottom of the stairs to the front door when she stopped and crouched down with her bright grin.
"Hi! I'm Amy. What's your name?" she said to the air before her. "Nice to meet you, Charles, Charlotte." She nodded, always grinning, straightened up and walked the rest of the way. Before I could make up my mind whether to shake her hand, she hugged me and kissed my cheek. "Hi, Fran." Then she turned to look behind me, her eyes sparkling out of pure joy. "Oh, my, I'm thrilled to meet you." She nodded again, like repeating their names to keep them in mind. "Mrs. Blotter, Edward, Joseph, Lizzie. Thank you so much for welcoming me into your lovely home."
The front door opened by itself and I motioned for her to walk in. I led her to the kitchen and told her to sit down at the head of the table. I'd been right and she hadn't had lunch, so I served it for both of us and sat down at the other head, leaving two chairs between us at each side of the table, with the tablets ready.
"I know you don't need them, but I do," I excused myself.
"They'd never be so rude as to leave you out of the conversation," Amy replied, unable to stop grinning and looking at the chairs that remained empty to my eyes.