Chapter 9
2090 Words
Rather than leading us back into the house, Turner cut around to the side of the building.
"As you know," he said, "this house is quite old. There were many deaths on the property over the years."
"Did Mr. Slade die here?"
Turner stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at Jada. I wished she had kept her mouth shut.
"How do you know about Slade?" Turner's voice was liquid venom.
"Um... We saw his statue in the park. The one with the plaque on it." She looked as confused as he did angry.
"What's the matter Mr. Turner?" I asked.
For a moment, it looked like he was going to begin screaming. Then his face changed. It went from a mask of rage back to its usual appearance with eerie speed.
"Oh, yes," he said. "The statue in the park. Lovely little area, wouldn't you say?" He turned and resumed his march to the back of the house.
I looked at Jada and she shrugged her shoulders. We had to let it go.
I was beginning to get nervous. This was it. Turner intended for us to actually hunt a ghost. I'd known this part was coming but now that it was imminent, I felt much less confident.
"Nervous?" Jada asked, elbowing me in the ribs. I made a little grunt of consent. "Oh, don't worry, it will be fine. Hunting ghosts! It's the stuff of dreams!"
Jada's confidence encouraged me and I relaxed a bit.
Turner walked across the backyard and to the base of an enormous oak tree.
"This tree is over one hundred and fifty years old." Turner patted the bark like he was visiting an old friend. "Somewhere along its history, a young woman decided to climb it. She was dared by a group of boys and wanted to prove that she was as tough as them."
"Sounds like my kind of girl," Jada said.
"Most assuredly," said Turner. "When she neared the top, a branch broke and she fell to her death. Since that time, she has haunted this property, particularly the yard we stand in. I would like for you to try and capture her. Together."
"Together?" I said. "I kind of thought this was a solo activity."
"Yeah," Jada chimed in, "Sparks said something about a special connection between us and the ghost. She made it sound like it was just for one living person to engage in."
"Up to now, we have had hunters working almost exclusively alone. We would like to try something new, however."
"Okay, works for me." In truth, I was very happy that Jada would be helping. I was nervous enough as it was. I didn’t need the added pressure of being alone.
"So, what do we do?" she asked.
"Wonderful question, I'll leave you kids to it."
With that, he turned around and disappeared into the house.
"What the hell are we supposed to do now?" I asked.
"Hunt this ghost," Jada said automatically. She reached into the pocket of her sweater and pulled out a pair of glasses.
"These are what I got from Sparks." She put them on. "How do I look?"
She frowned when I burst out laughing, and then began to giggle herself. The glasses were like something a kid would make if he were dressing himself as a ghost buster with a tight Halloween budget. They had wires taped around them with absolutely no pattern and a black box on the back of each earpiece.
"Purgoogles," Jada proclaimed.
"Do they let you see orbs?"
"Orbs? No, I see ghosts."
"You mean like blurry outlines and stuff?"
"No," she said. "Like actual ghosts. Full bodied apparitions. They would look like living people except for their eyes."
"That's awesome," I said. "Can I try?"
"Sure, knock yourself out." She threw them to me.
I put them on and saw nothing at all. Though the lenses were clear to look at and I could see Jada's eyes through them perfectly when she was wearing them, I saw nothing. Only darkness. "Weird," I said and told Jada about it.
"Well, Sparks did say they were tuned especially to me. So what'd you get?"
"Just an app."
"What does it do?"
I pulled the app up on my phone to show her. She was proud that her fancy glasses showed better images than my orbs but she was disappointed that she didn't have the texting app.
"I'm gonna tell Sparks that she needs to fit this thing with a microphone. I want to talk with ghosts too!" She poked her lip out in a pretend pout and put her glasses back on.
The laughter had barely died in her throat when her face melted into horror.
She screamed and ripped the glasses off.
"What's the matter?" I asked. Her sudden terror scared me too.
Cautiously, Jada replaced her glasses and looked in the direction of the tree.
"Aaron, if you could see what I can see..." She let the thought hang in the air.
I was frustrated by her lack of explanation. I pulled up the orb camera on my phone and pointed in the direction of the tree.
There was a blue orb under the tree. It was hovering just above the ground. "Is that her?" I asked.
Jada didn't speak. Only nodded. Her eyes were glued to the spot.
As I watched through my phone, the orb rose slowly up until it disappeared up in the cannily of the oak. Moments later, it came rocketing down to the ground. When it reached the bottom of its fall, Jada twitched and her lip curled.
"Blood..." she said.
"What do you mean?"
"It's everywhere. It's in her hair. Her mouth. Her eyes."
The ghost was showing Jada its death.
"Don't look at it," I said as the orb in my camera began to rise again.
"I can't stop," she said. "I think she wants me to see this for some reason." When the orb dropped, she jerked again.
I had to do something to help.
I switched to the text editor part of the app and sent out a message.
"Hello, my name is Aaron. What is your name?"
There was no reply. I could tell from the motion of Jada's eyes that the ghost was continuing its awful show.
"Please, I would like to talk to you."
Still no reply. I felt very useless. Jada needed my help but there was nothing that I could do for her. How can you force a ghost to do anything?
"You are frightening my friend very badly. Would you please stop?"
Finally, I got a response.
"Good. I want your friend to be scared," said the ghost.
"Why would you want that? We are just here to talk to you."
"I have to live like this. Do you think that I want to be a ghost?"
"I'm sorry if you aren't happy," I said. I could see a tear welling up in Jada's eye. Her lips trembled. "Why don't you talk with us instead of trying to scare us away?"
"Why would I talk to you?"
I couldn't really think of a good reason to offer. "Well, I imagine its rather lonely being a ghost. Wouldn't you like to make a friend?"
"I have all of the friends I need. They are dead like me."
"You won't be our friend?"
"Maybe I will when you're dead." The idea that I might one day be on the other side of this app hadn't really occurred to me before. I didn't like it but I decided to put it away until I had more time to mull it over.
"Please, just tell me your name," I said.
"Fine. It's Anna."
"Anna. That's a very pretty name."
There was a pause and then she responded. "Thanks." I smiled when I saw that she might actually come around.
"How old are you, Anna?"
"I was fourteen when I died."
I began to write a message about how sorry I was to hear about that but before I could, she'd sent another message. "I don't want to talk to you, Aaron. I want to talk to her."
"Her name is Jada. But she doesn't have the app that I have."
"I don't know what that means. I want to talk to her."
Jada whispered in my ear, "She's stopped, Aaron. Whatever you are doing, it’s working." She sounded excited.
"She says that she wants to talk to you," I told her. "What do I tell her?"
"Tell her okay, moron. You can just type what I say."
"Oh, yeah. Good idea." My ears were burning. Why hadn't I thought of that?
"Anna," I typed, "from now on, I'll be sending Jada's words. You two can talk through me."
"Good," was the response.
Jada began to dictate her end of the conversation. "Hi, Anna. It's nice to meet you."
"Hi."
"Aaron said you wanted to talk to me."
"Yes," said Anna. Jada gave me a look that said, 'What the hell am I supposed to do with that?'
"I don't know, just keep going," I told her.
She began to dictate again. "Okay, Anna. Why did you want to talk to me instead of Aaron?"
"He is a boy."
Jada giggled. "You got that right."
"I'm not supposed to talk to boys. That's what Mom says. Or what she used to say." I made an uplifting motion with my hands, telling Jada to make sure the tone of the conversation didn't stray back to death. Anna seemed to be sensitive about it.
"Your mom sounds like a smart lady," Jada said.
"Oh yeah, she's the smartest lady I know."
"Are you sure never snuck and talked to any boys?"
"Well...," Anna said.
"You aren't saying no because you have talked to boys! You are such a little rebel!"
"Don't tell anyone!"
"I promise it will be our secret. Did you ever kiss a boy?"
"Oh goodness, no. But I have thought about it a lot."
"I guess so. You don't have a boyfriend where you are?"
"No. Most of the others are adults. There is Bobby, I guess. We play sometimes but he's too mean to be a boyfriend."
"I understand," said Jada. "Boys can be like that."
"You've kissed a boy before?"
"Of course. A lot of boys are mean, but a lot are nice, too. It's the nice one's you want to make sure you kiss."
"Oh, I do wish I'd been able to grow old enough to have a real boyfriend. What about Aaron, is he your boyfriend?"
"Oh, no. We just met, actually."
"Is he a nice boy?" Anna asked. The conversation was getting a bit uncomfortable to mediate but Jada was making progress. We had to keep going.
"Oh yes," Anna said, looking right at me. "He is a very nice boy. I'm lucky he is my friend."
"So why isn't he your boyfriend, then?"
"Well, it doesn't really work that way Anna."
"Why not? You said that nice boys are the ones you kiss. Have you kissed him?" Anna was making me very self-conscious. Jada's giggling wasn't helping.
"No, I haven't. Like I said, we just met."
"I don't understand. If I had a nice boy around, I would make him my boyfriend and kiss him all day. You are lucky Jada, just like you said."
"You're right. Very lucky." Jada was still looking right at me, a smile on her face.
"Anyway, I know that you are only here so that you can catch me."
"How do you know that?" Jada asked.
"That scary man was the first one to do it. He brought other people to do it too. He wasn't very nice about it. Made me do it. Some of there others too. A couple asked permission and I did it just because they knew they would force me anyway."
"Oh wow, Anna. I'm so sorry." Jada said it, but I agreed with her. How cruel, to force a ghost to do what you wanted. I couldn't imagine how that was even possible.
"Okay, I like you Jada. He's okay too, I guess. I will allow you to get me, but first, you have to do something for me."
"What is it?"
"You promise you will do it?"
"Maybe," Jada said.
"You have to promise."
Jada looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders. What other choice did we have?
"Okay, Anna, I promise."
"Good," she said. "Kiss him."
- Writer
