Claire takes the phone from my stiff hand and hits a few buttons. When a familiar woman’s voice fills the room, I realize she hit redial, then switched the audio to the speaker.
“Seattle PD, how can I help you?”
“Yes, good evening, ma’am. Will you please tell me when Detective Peters died?”
There’s a pause.
Claire explains, “My friend spoke to you a moment ago and was so surprised by the news, she neglected to ask. She’d like to send flowers to the funeral if it hasn’t been held yet.”
“Oh. I see. Well, I’m afraid it’s much too late for flowers. It’s been six months since he passed, almost to the day.”
Claire thanks her, then disconnects. Then she and Fiona stand there staring at me with that awful pity in their eyes, waiting.
As if from very far away, I hear my own voice. “That’s impossible. She’s wrong. He interviewed me after the accident. That was only two months ago. He sat with me out on the dock and interviewed me!”
Claire says sadly, “I have no doubt that he did.”
My hands begin to tremble. I find it difficult to draw a full breath. I back up another step. Looking at her for help, I say, “Fiona?”
She says softly, “You have to understand, dear, that there are very few people who can communicate with spirits.”
My voice rises. “What are you saying? What does that have to do with anything?”
She goes on in that calm, soothing tone, ignoring my panic. “Mediums, of course. A few psychics, too, though most of them are fakes. Also schizophrenics, for reasons we don’t really understand, though it probably has something to do with their altered brain chemistry.”
Claire adds, “Cats as well.”
“Yes, that’s correct. Cats can see ghosts, too.” She pauses. “So can some gifted children.”
The sound of a child’s laughter floating down from upstairs makes my heartbeat stutter.
It falls to a complete standstill when Claire says, “And so can other ghosts. Though they don’t recognize each other as such.”
I look back and forth between them. “I’m sorry, what?”
One of the bulbs in the fluorescent fixture overhead explodes. Another one follows immediately afterward, filling the room with a sharp crackle of shattering glass and the acrid smell of burnt wiring. A cold gust of wind whistles down the chimney in a high-pitched wail that sounds eerily like a banshee screaming.
A line from Dante’s last letter flashes into my mind:
You are the storm. You’re the source of everything that’s happening.
Then I recall something Fiona told me the day she came in and set off the alarm: “A spirit is energy manifesting itself. Akin to an electrical storm gathering force until it discharges a bolt of lightning. When a spirit is upset, that emotion—that energy—is transformed into a physical outcome. Hence your open cupboards and drawers.”
And one other thing that I didn’t begin to comprehend until just now: “I’d say the spirit who lives in this house is bloody furious.”
The way she looked at me when she said that, it was almost as if…
As if she were talking about me.
Like an army of spiders, cold horror crawls over my skin. I whisper hoarsely, “No.”
Fiona says quietly, “Yes, my dear. I’m afraid so.”
With the explosive force of a bomb, a hundred different memories detonate in my head all at once.
How shocked Fiona was when she saw me the day after Michael’s funeral. How she asked in that peculiar tone, “So you’ll be staying in the house?”
How all the people at the grief group ignored Madison, the woman whose child was abducted years ago. How she sat alone in the circle, as if she were invisible to everyone except me.
How Eddie the handyman who dressed like a hippie didn’t have a cell phone and thought David Letterman was only a therapist. How, when I went to find him, that therapist didn’t exist.
How all the roofers I called never called back.
How the security camera only recorded static when I went out into the yard.
How Destiny the psychic said mournfully, “I’ll pray for you.”
How when I rang the bell, her mother opened the door, looked around, then closed it, as if there was no one standing there.
The Death card. The Lovers. The reversed Magician, indicating I needed to let go of my illusions.
The upright Ten of Swords that hinted at deep wounds, painful endings…
Betrayal.
Fiona saying, “Reality is simply what we believe it to be. Each of us make our own truths, even ghosts.”