A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) (19 page)

Meg and Charlie laughed. Apparently Charlie had competition in the ‘mither’ hen department. “Upstairs to get some sleep. Thanks for everything last night. You were splendid,” Meg told her.

Charlie chimed in, “You must know how much it means to us having you here?”

Annie looked at them both, then took the seat Rayne had vacated. “It be time we had us a wee chat. I may be an old woman, but I’m not a daft old woman, at least not yet. What’s this ‘haunted’ business I be hearin’ from your sister’s fancy man last night?”

Meg and Charlie looked at each other and then at Annie. Meg was the first to speak, “Well, we didn’t
tell
you, since you never asked.”

“What Meg is trying to tell you is that, living in the apartment as you are, even though you do stay here after dark some nights, you never go upstairs, which is where everything significant seems to happen.”

“I be guessin’ that’s your way of tellin’ me that this place be haunted. And why shouldn’t I know about that?” Annie asked, looking from one to the other.

“We didn’t want you to leave us,” Meg supplied lamely.

“Leave you! The likes of me scared off by some wee ghostie?” Annie scoffed.

Charlie grimaced. “Well, one of them is not some ‘wee ghostie’. I think it would be wise to let it go at that.”

“It be an old place full of creaks and groans and such, but a ghostie…wee or not…I have yet to see. Nor likely to since I’m not a believin’ in such!”

Meg and Charlie both beamed. “That’s great. That means you’ll stay. Rayne wants to exploit the haunted angle to attract guests,” Meg told her.

“Fine by me. Just don’t be askin’ me to dress up in no sheet and pounce on folks shoutin’ ‘Boo!’ I have me work to do and, as for the rest, it sounds like you’ve made up your minds,” Annie said, pushing herself up from the table.

“Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have much choice unless we can move the whole place to the seaside,” Charlie said with a wry smile.

***

Days passed. Rayne was supposedly photographing the area’s attractions with Adrian. Meg was looking at turning their one really sunny half-acre into a “daylily farm”. “I know I can make a success of it. I’ll raise exotics and they will be absolutely gorgeous…an attraction all by themselves…at least while they’re in bloom. Otherwise they aren’t much to look at,” she told Charlie.

Meanwhile, Charlie threw herself into her writing and Annie continued being ‘Annie’. Zack came and went without anyone seeing him, though they heard doors opening and closing, his car starting up, which was fine with Charlie. He tipped her balance way off kilter and knew entirely too much.

Then one night, Meg woke shivering with cold and reflexively pulled the extra blanket over both her and Freddie, who was curled in a tight ball with his tail covering his nose. Meg poked her head up and looked around. Breanna had to be somewhere close. Then she saw her, pacing the floor back and forth back and forth and wringing her hands. Something Meg thought they only did in Gothic novels. But there she was ‘wringing’ away. And wailing.

Meg moaned and sat up on the edge of her bed, pulling the blanket over her shoulders and lifting one corner for Freddie to burrow under. “What’s wrong, Breanna? What do you want? We read your journal and we want to know how to help you?” Meg asked.

Breanna turned to her then, her eyes round with entreaty, and wailed again.

Meg sighed. This was not going anywhere, she thought. “Okay. You can’t, or won’t, talk to me. Then how will I know what to do?”

Another wail.

Then Meg had an idea. A seance! She hadn’t held one since she and Charlie were kids. Not that she’d ever contacted anyone except for the vampire and that didn’t turn out so well.

She watched as Breanna wavered then faded, leaving one last wail lingering behind. She crawled back under the covers and waited until Freddie repositioned himself. She was more than half afraid he would want to go out again and she didn’t want to wake Charlie. She had promised she wouldn’t go out at night unless she went with her and so far she’d managed to keep her word.

Freddie began to ‘woof’ softly and his hind legs pumped against her side. He was asleep and she wished she could be, too. But her mind wouldn’t let her. She began to plan her seance. She knew she was a ghost magnet, but she wasn’t a medium, which was the usual requirement, though that hadn’t stopped her in the past. Which might explain her track record.

Who could she get to attend? Maybe the more the better, increased energy and all that? Well, she could count on Charlie and maybe Annie, though she wasn’t a believer. Rayne was a must, since she was their ‘publicist’ and should have some idea of what she was ‘publicizing’. And if Rayne was there, Adrian would want to be there, too. And Zack. Charlie and Zack struck sparks off each other but they could probably be in the same room for a little while without a total conflagration. Six altogether! Was that a good number, she wondered? Sage could have told her, but she probably would also have told her not to do it. She was still mulling that over when she fell fast asleep.

***

The seance was to be held that night in the front parlor around the big claw foot table. Meg was having an attack of jitters as she paced her bedroom. “Breanna, please show up tonight and actually say something. No more wailing, please! It’s getting to be kind of irritating. This is my very first public seance and I don’t want it to be a complete disaster with all those people there. Now I know that sounds a wee bit ‘about me’, when it should be all about ‘you’ but I only had one real success in this seance business. And we can help you if you’ll let us. I know we can!” There was no response, not even the teeniest drop in temperature or muffled wail. Meg was beginning to get a headache…something she hardly ever did.

Annie had been difficult to persuade, but when she told her that she was trying to help Breanna, the Hensley’s daughter, she reluctantly agreed. Everyone else also accepted Meg’s invitation and all six gathered around the table at 9PM sharp. They were seated according to the cards Meg had arranged: Charlie to her right, then Zack, Rayne and Adrian, then Annie on her left. Everyone but Annie, who wore her usual shapeless cotton dress, wore formal attire and it was an elegant group that looked expectantly at Meg.

Butterflies were jumping in her stomach and her hands were shaking slightly, as she told them, “I know that most of you have never been to a seance before…or thought to…but here you are and thanks for coming. We are going to attempt to contact the other side. Before we begin, I will tell you that it is usually a medium that conducts this sort of thing. She enters a trance and lets her spirit guide…usually an American Indian for some reason I can’ imagine though that may just be from what I’ve read and there may be other…” Charlie kicked her under the table. She took a deep breath and continued. “Anyway. I’m not a medium. But Charlie can tell you that I seem to attract ghosts and such and I have been in contact with Breanna Hensely, the twin daughter that disappeared forty years ago.”

Charlie could feel Zack’s eyes burning a hole in her and threw him a superior smile, as if to say, “See! You don’t know everything!” His answering smile promised? She wasn’t sure what, but it made her pulse quicken. She turned her attention back to Meg, who was saying, “Some of you may have questions, but I ask you to remain quiet at all times. Later, if all goes well, I will have you write your questions on the pads I have provided next to each of you. Charlie will turn off the lights now, though the candles on the mantle will remain lit. I will ask you to join hands, forming a circle, which you must not break. And no talking at any time. I must have the complete concentration of everyone on one goal…bringing the spirits that haunt Hensley Hall to us.”

Meg was beginning to get a feel for it and rather liked being in charge. She waited till Charlie rejoined the circle. “Now join hands and concentrate!” she ordered.

Nothing happened. The candles on the mantle danced in some hidden breeze, casting writhing shadows around the darkened room. Someone cleared their throat, someone shuffled their feet and Zack squeezed Charlie’s hand almost painfully.

Now what,? Meg thought in a sudden panic. She’d seen movies….she’d have to wing it! “Is there anyone with us tonight?” she asked in a sonorous tone. “Please make yourself known!”

Nothing! Though it seemed the wind had picked up outside the windows. Was that a good sign, Meg wondered? She tried again. “Is anyone with us tonight?” I’m dying here, she told herself, before she realized that was a poor choice of words. Please, Breanna, she silently begged and then continued, “Is there…?”

The temperature began to drop…and drop. A keening wail came from everywhere. A wail that Meg could recognize anywhere! Breanna was coming through for her. “Thank you,” she muttered under her breath, then asked aloud, “Breanna is that you?”

She felt Annie’s hand tighten and heard a collective gasp, as a ball of light hovered near the ceiling.

“Breanna, we are here to help you. Tell us what we can do?”

Annie’s grip had become painful. The ball of light rolled across the ceiling and down the wall. In the middle of the floor it began to elongate into a pulsing blue spire…the scent of roses was overpowering. A murmur swept the table as the spire began to advance in their direction. The room grew colder still, as the shape of a woman formed, dissolved, then formed again.

“Breanna, please speak to me,” Meg found herself begging.

Breanna looked at her and smiled. Then uttered one word. “Devon?”

“Oh my God!” Rayne began, starting to rise.

“Don’t break the circle! She won’t hurt you!” Meg shouted. “Breanna, where’s Devon?”

She smiled again and it was a smile of recognition and love. “Devon” she murmured softly.

Then she heard, what she had been afraid they would hear. Coming down the hall…coming their way….thump…thump…thump.

Breanna’s eyes widened in horror and she began to fade. “Devon, please,” she managed to say, before she vanished. But whatever was coming down the hall, kept coming… closer and closer and closer.

Everyone stared in horror, as a black shadowy mass flowed through the closed door and began to morph into the shape of a man. A man whose slitted red eyes searched the table just as Charlie heard Zack say, “What the hell?”

Which was exactly where that came from, Charlie thought, as she gripped Meg’s hand tighter and told her “It’s okay, Meg. It’s okay”, while Meg kept muttering “I am in charge…I am in charge”, as Rayne screamed then fled the room with Adrian close behind. Nobody noticed Annie, who sat staring at the monstrous thing before her with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

Then Zack turned on the lights. And the room was back to normal if ‘normal’ meant full of white-faced people who looked like they’d just seen a ghost. Annie fled the room, which left Meg, Charlie and Zack.

He looked at them both, then turned his attention to Charlie. “Nice parlor trick…no pun intended…but a bit much if you want to keep your guests coming back for more. Heard about the ‘haunted’ thing and wondered what you were up to. You’ll have to let me know how you did it some time. You know how much I enjoy our little conversations,” he told her with a smile, then strolled from the room.

“Meg, are you all right?” Charlie asked worriedly.

“That sure was something! Who’d a thought I could pull that off?” Meg asked with a shaky smile. “I’m a helluva lot better at this than I thought I was! Is everyone okay?”

“Rayne’s with Adrian. She’s scared, but she’ll be fine. I’m more worried about Annie. Let’s go find her and see if we can calm her down.”

“Charlie?”

“Meg?”

“Didn’t Breanna seem to be talking to Devon or was that just my take?”

Charlie looked at her still badly rattled sister and drew her into a hug. “Yes, that’s what I thought, too. She was speaking to someone at our table…either Zack or Adrian must be Devon. Or rather
might be
. We don’t know how reliable Breanna is when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“Surely, she would know her own brother. But which one is it? If it’s Zack, he lives in the same house as us and, if it’s Adrian, Rayne may be dallying with a murderer? This can’t be good either way!”

“Probably not!” Charlie told her thoughtfully.

***

Annie had fled back to the safety of her apartment. Meg and Charlie followed her there and knocked on her door. They could hear her moving about inside, her dog, Tavish, whining, but she wouldn’t answer their knocks nor their entreaties. Finally, they were forced to give up and return to the house, where they found that Adrian had left and apparently taken Rayne with him. They both fully never expected to see their sister enter the house again, or Annie, who was probably busy packing. Zack seemed to be the only one unaffected by the whole thing and, since they hadn’t heard his car, they assumed he was in his room, though they could hear no sound coming from that end of the house.

They made their way upstairs to Meg’s room, where Freddie had been left during the seance. Together, they took him out for his last walk, then headed straight back upstairs, leaving every light on in their wake. Meg asked to sleep in Charlie’s room. Both sisters were way more rattled than either wanted to admit.

The remainder of the night was quiet, though neither sister escaped some very bad dreams. Early the next morning, they went down to the kitchen with Freddie racing on ahead of them. The wonderful aroma of coffee and bacon was waiting for them when they opened the bottom door. Annie was still with them and they both felt their spirits lift.