Page 7 of Speak of the Devil

“Even better,” her mother said. “Because I just got another message about the Sunrise Manor house, so the sooner it’s cleaned up, the better.”

“It’ll be done before you know it,” Delia promised, and hoped she wasn’t blowing too much sunshine on the subject. While she’d sent dozens of spirits on by that point, she’d neverencountered one as violent as the ghost that appeared to be inhabiting this house.

“Good luck!”

Her mother ended the call there, and Delia gratefully plucked the phone out from under her ear and tossed it into her purse. Then she reached in the inner pocket and pulled out the Zippo lighter she’d bought at a smoke shop years earlier before she kicked the clove cigarette habit she’d picked up while playing with her band, then lit the little stick of palo santo.

Cleansing light, cleansing energy,she thought. The smoke from the piece of sacred wood began to drift upward, and although she didn’t breathe it in, she still allowed herself to stand there and smell its acrid yet somehow also aromatic scent, knowing how much it helped to clear the air, so to speak.

Once she knew it was well and truly kindled, she set the piece of palo santo down on the ashtray and then lit a white chime candle and set it next to the piece of palo santo. She’d already rubbed the bottom of the candle with some sticky paste that would allow it to stand upright in the ashtray, since she didn’t want to have to carry around a candlestick in addition to all the other junk she already had in her ghost-banishing arsenal.

Something shimmered at the edge of her vision, and she turned to see the ghostly outline of a gawky male figure hovering in the air a few feet on the other side of the kitchen island where she’d set up the candle and palo santo.

It sent her an inquisitive look, and Delia did her best to smile.

“Hi, there,” she said. Most of the time, the ghosts she sensed never appeared at all, were only a whisper of a presence, but every once in a while, they materialized enough so she could see them. Clearly, this spirit was a strong one…but she already knew that. Otherwise, it would never have been able to manipulate matter in such a way that it could flip the switch for the garbage disposal, let alone force Marti Fields’ head into the sink.

However, it wasn’t making any threatening movements toward her, so Delia decided it was probably safe to proceed.

“Was this your house?” she asked, and the ghostly figure dipped its head. Sure, she’d already guessed that was the case, but she figured it would be easier to start with an innocuous question and proceed from there. One other time, she’d communicated with a spirit in the same way, with her doing all the talking and it only nodding or shaking its head, but the experience was still a little jarring.

And since this ghost seemed to understand what she was saying, she knew she needed to get to the bottom of its behavior…while at the same time convincing it that there was no reason for it to remain on this earthly plane any longer.

“Why did you do that to Marti?” she asked next, frankly curious. The attack had seemed deeply personal, but Delia knew the other woman had never set foot in the house before. A sudden thought prompted her to add, “Did she remind you of someone?”

The spirit faded in and out and then nodded again, even as it mimicked the motion of a person rocking a baby in their arms.

Oh, boy. They were moving into dangerous territory a lot more quickly than she’d anticipated.

“Did Marti remind you of your mother?”

Again, the spirit seemed to flicker, like an incandescent bulb that was about to breathe its last.

The lights in the kitchen flicked on and off, and the garbage disposal growled. Delia made herself hold her ground, even though she’d never encountered phenomena like this before and wasn’t sure what she should do next.

What she really wanted to do was grab her purse and bolt out the door, but professional pride made her stay where she was. No way was she going to run out of here like a scared little kindergartner.

“And you were angry with your mother for some reason?”

Before Delia could even begin to react, the spirit moved toward her with blinding speed.

Movedthroughher.

It went through her mind’s eye with a flash — a woman with unnaturally blonde hair that looked very similar to Marti’s drunkenly laughing with a man who helped her onto the sofa, where they kissed and fondled one another until she passed out.

The man…who looked like he was probably in his early forties, with thinning brown hair and a goatee…leaving the comatose woman on the couch so he could go down the hallway to the bedroom where her fourteen-year-old boy slept….

Delia closed her eyes, and the horrible visions abruptly ceased. But in that moment, she knew everything — how the boy had been abused and gathered the courage to go to his mother with his terrible secret…how she’d insisted he was lying.

How he’d buried his pain and his shame with drugs and alcohol, finally succumbing in that very same room only two days after his nineteenth birthday.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry no one listened to you.”

The spirit had reappeared by that point, and now floated in the air only a few feet away from her. He seemed more solid now, solid enough that she could see his eyes had been blue, almost the same clear, azure shade as the cool January skies outside.

“I believe you,” she said. “I saw what happened. But your mother isn’t here. She put the house on the market and moved out after what happened.”

The ghost’s mouth moved, forming a single word.Where?

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