"I’d prefer you tell me nothing about what’s happened so far.”

   Maureen, Adam and I stood outside my front door, bathed in porchlight. Dave, Steve and Jim shifted in the darkness behind Maureen, their equipment poised and ready to go. John had drawn the short straw, and remained behind in Adam’s apartment monitoring our movements through a direct feed from Jim’s video camera.

   “Don’t tell me anything at all about the house, unless I ask you specifically. I’d like to just go in, walk around and be open to whatever impressions I receive.”

   Maureen dug around in the fannypack she wore about her waist. To my surprise, she came out with a rosary and a tiny bottle. The rosary she wound through her fingers, the bottle she uncapped and held in the same hand. Dampening her forefinger as needed, she very solemnly sketched a cross across the forehead of every member of our party.

   No one spoke.

   The holy water was recapped and returned to the fannypack. “You two stay back a bit,” she murmured to Adam and me, and reached past us to open the door.

   The house was dark and quiet. We’d left no lights on except the porchlight, and now it flooded into the living room like an uninvited guest. I followed Maureen inside, Adam and the others trailing behind. Someone in the rear flipped out the porchlight, and we were left standing in darkness. Then the camera whirred to life, Jim’s carefully adjusted lighting giving vague shape to the gloom.

   I waited, watching Maureen move slowly across the living room. She paused in the kitchen doorway, outlined by the inky darkness beyond.

   The faint hum of the video camera was all I heard. My old clock had no doubt run down, not having been wound for days, and I missed its comforting rhythm. Dave took a few steps closer to Maureen, holding out his black box. The digital display clearly showed a spike, a row of lights glowing bright green in a widening arc.

   Steve slipped past, moving adroitly despite his size. He moved throughout the room taking air samples, checking temperature and barometric pressure in the dimness.

   “This was a man’s kitchen.” Maureen voice conveyed certainty. “He liked to cook. I feel his ownership - his pride.”

   I said nothing, but followed Maureen as she walked on. Now I stood in the doorway, Adam behind me, watching as she took a turn around the dark kitchen, pausing by the stove.

   “He fancied himself a gourmet.” She trailed her fingers over the knobs on the stove. “Only the finest,” Maureen whispered, “only the finest.”

   The hair rose on the back of my arms, for her voice sounded strange, slightly husky. Though I knew nothing of Parker Hampstead’s culinary skills, what she said made sense. One of the best things about the house was the big kitchen. Someone had lavished care and attention on it, outfitting it with all the latest appliances. Parker would’ve been a man well able to afford it.

    Maureen walked between us, passing through the doorway and leaving the kitchen behind. We trailed her through the dining room. Strips of moonlight through the shutters cast angular shadows over the table and chairs, deepening low on the wall. I strained to catch any movement there, any shadow that might betray another presence.

   She moved on, and we followed. Adam caught my hand and held it firmly – reassurance I very much needed. This whole situation seemed surreal, and I wondered briefly at my own sanity. What was I doing? Why hadn’t I left this place while I had the chance?

   “Dave, take a reading over here.”

   Maureen had reached the hallway. She waited until both Dave and Steve came forward and moved their various meters up and down the hall. Video whirred close to my shoulder as Jim got everything on tape.

   “Definite cold spot,” Steve murmured. “Getting colder as I move toward this end of the hall.”

   Whatever doubts I had about Maureen’s abilities vanished as Steve came to a stop directly in front of the bathroom door. A chill ran up my spine. Steve was standing right where Hannah had first seen the ghost, right where I’d felt a freezing finger touch my neck, and right where - according to the newspaper article – Parker Hampstead’s body had been found.

   The lights on Dave’s EMF flashed bright green, then red. Dave stopped, fiddling with the dials.

   “Baseline reading was .4mG. I’m getting spikes up to .9, and down to .3.” He spoke for the video’s benefit as much as ours.

   “He was surprised.” Maureen’s soft statement had an otherworldly tone to it, bringing us back from the safe world of science. “He didn’t think she’d do it.”

   She moved down the hallway, Dave and Steve making way while keeping their eyes on their instruments. At my bedroom door, she stopped, then turned, searching the air around her.

   “Is the EVP recorder on?” Steve’s sharply hissed question betrayed his excitement.

   Maureen ignored the five of us as she addressed herself to the shadows.

   “Spirit, tell me why you linger.”

   Her voice was like honey, soothing and full of ease. She lured an answer from the air as though inviting confidences from her best friend.

   Closing her eyes, she swayed slightly, her rosary clutched in both hands. Even in the dimness I could see her fingers moving on the beads.

   Utter silence, save for whatever Maureen might hear. I felt nothing this time . . . saw and heard nothing. Somehow I knew that Parker was drawn to Maureen, concentrating his ethereal efforts on someone whose earthly spirit reached out to him.

   What a potent lure for a phantom forever trapped in a hell of his own making. A chance to communicate with the world of the living again, however briefly.

   “Guilt, and remorse.” Maureen opened her eyes and looked directly at me. “He feels very badly about something -- no, someone. He feels very badly about someone, but I don’t know who.” Surprisingly, she smiled. “He likes you, though. Your aura’s just brightened.”

   Sure enough, I felt a whisp of ice on my cheek. I shrank against Adam and stayed there, avoiding the sweeps of Dave’s metered amplifier.

   “Another big spike here,” he said, for benefit of the camera. “.9 and fluctuating.”

   “I don’t think you need to worry about this gentleman, Jody. He isn’t out to do anyone any harm.” Maureen’s grin turned decidedly naughty. “But I get a very clear impression that he likes the ladies, and you, in particular.” Apparently unconcerned, Maureen turned and entered my bedroom.

   I righted myself, determined not to be afraid of a flirtatious ghost. Since I’d seen him at the séance, I’d felt no menace from Parker. He was in death what he’d probably been in life, an ineffectual shadow of a man – reduced to peeping through the mist at the physical world he no longer had access to.

   Parker Hampstead wasn’t the reason I was here tonight. Holly Townsend and her overwhelming anger - her tortured, unquiet soul was why I was here.

   I wanted to set her free. To prove to myself that no one person can so influence your life that you’re driven to acts of despair; acts that doom you to an even more hellish existence.

   Like living out eternity in the house of the lover you killed, doomed to feel all that turmoil and jealousy over and over and over again – driven insane by the knowledge that you’ve killed a person you once loved, and lost everyone you ever loved in the bargain. Crazy as a loon, and dead to boot.

   Giving Adam’s hand a squeeze, I let go of him to follow Maureen into the room. She was standing at the head of my bed, looking toward the window. As I watched, she staggered, catching herself with a hand against the wall.

   “Oh, there’s terrible grief here.” Maureen shook her head, steadier now. She trailed her fingers over the wall, moving slowly toward the closet. “Sadness,” she whispered.

   Next to my dresser, she stopped, and put up a hand.

   “Wait there, please.”

   I stood in the doorway, Adam at my shoulder. I could hear Jim’s camera equipment humming as he hoisted it higher, keeping it trained on Maureen.

   She closed her eyes and stood in the quiet darkness, listening. Crossed her arms, she hugged herself as though cold.

   “Don’t be afraid. We won’t hurt you.”

   Anyone hearing Maureen would have thought she spoke to a frightened animal or a small child.

   “We’re here to help. We won’t hurt you.”

   Maureen’s breath was indrawn on a hiss, and as she let it out, she spoke more urgently, this time to the humans in the room.

   “She doesn’t like us being here.”

   No one questioned the pronoun usage, accepting the switch from ‘he’ to ‘she’ without question, for the feel in the room was very different from the earlier encounter.

   And then, though I willed it not to be so, I saw the first dark coils of shadow moving in a far corner. I was frozen with fear, for the black tendrils oozed up the wall, spreading like a stain in the gloom.

   “Loss, and anger. Fury, betrayal.” Maureen clutched at her stomach, looking ill. “A volcano.”

   Maureen opened her eyes and looked at us, face stricken.

   “Adam, get out.”

   No sooner had the words left her mouth when the shadows moved, darting like a spear past Maureen and straight toward us.

   Adam gasped, clutching at his chest. I spun, catching his shirt as he staggered back, and felt the blackness brush cold against my arm. He came to rest against the wall in the hallway, a grimace of agony on his face.

   “You must fight the pain, Adam. It isn’t real.”

   Maureen was at my elbow, thrusting herself in front of me. Her voice was calm, but I was anything but soothed. I clutched at Adam’s shoulder, shoving her out of the way.

   “Someone call an ambulance! He could be having a heart attack!”

   Maureen was having none of it. Ignoring my shouts and shoves, she spoke quietly to Adam.

   “It isn’t real, Adam. It isn’t real.”

   To my relief, he seemed to ease. His return grip on my arm loosened, while he took several deep breaths, eyes closed. Then they opened.

   “I’m okay.” I didn’t believe him. He looked pretty shaken, and far from okay.

   A second later I was proven right. With a groan of pain, he clapped a hand to his forehead, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. Another moan came from deep in his throat, frightening me with its intensity.

   “Get back!” Maureen was no longer speaking to Adam or to me. Her angry words were directed at something none of us could see clearly, some dark mist that hovered in the air around us. She dug in her fannypack for the bottle of holy water and sprinkled it liberally into the gloom.

   I’d never been so afraid in all my life, for I’d suddenly realized what was happening.

   Adam had collapsed in the hallway outside the bathroom door, experiencing the pain Parker Hampstead must have felt when Holly Townsend shot him in that very spot – once in the chest, once in the head.

   Would he experience Parker’s death, too?

   Holly was angry, and all that anger was now directed at Adam, who she thought was Parker.

   “Back off, Holly.” I snarled the words, twisting so that my palm rested on Adam’s shoulder and my face was to the mist. “This isn’t Parker. This is Adam, and he belongs to me.”

   I wanted to help her, but I’d be damned if I let her run the show. And I’d be damned if I let her hurt Adam.

   “You have no power here, Holly.” I used the words I’d read in the Ouija book. The advice given was to let the spirits know who was in charge. I didn’t have a Ouija board, but I was a fast learner.

   “Parker Hampstead is already dead, and you killed him. You remember, Holly – I know you remember.” The mist seemed a paler shade of gray now, but hovered, sullen and heavy in the darkness. “Do you want the guilt of this man’s death on your conscience, too? Leave Adam alone.”

   Adam’s stiff shoulder eased beneath my palm, and I turned back to him, fearful he’d slipped into unconsciousness. Instead, he gave me a grateful look, sagging in relief as he leaned his head against the wall. The pain was gone.

   “I know you weren’t a bad person, Holly.” The mist was almost gone, fading to nothingness as I spoke. “You need to let go of this and go into the Light.” My throat was suddenly choked with tears, but I urged the restless soul one more time, “You can leave Parker behind, Holly. Go into the Light.”

   A long, drawnout sigh came from Maureen. Dave and Steve knelt at Adam’s side, instruments ignored, but the camera still rolled.

   “She’s trapped here, honey,” Maureen said to me sadly.

   “She doesn’t know where the Light is.”