Jane gave her a knowing smile. “Like from behind a veil?”
This sent a shiver up Tess’s spine. That was exactly what it had been like. She nodded.
Now everyone in the room was looking at her, rapt. It was like they were all holding their breath, as though the very room were holding its breath, too, waiting for her to continue.
Jane took her hand. “And what did you see when you were there?”
“I didn’t see anything,” she said. “I mean, I saw all of you; I was in the room. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but it’s what I heard.”
“What was that?” Wyatt asked. “What did you hear?”
Tess took a deep breath. She was going to say this craziness out loud. Why not? She was in a room full of ghost hunters. Not much would sound crazy to them. Would it?
“I heard a song,” she said. “A scratchy, faraway song. ‘You Are My Sunshine.’” She winced at the words.
“I know that song,” Wyatt said. “My mom used to sing it to me at night.”
“Mine too,” Grant said.
But Jane was looking into Tess’s eyes with a wary look in her own. “I don’t think this was the lullaby all of us heard as children, was it, Tess?”
Tess shook her head. “No. This was low, and slow, and . . . almost demonic sounding. Whatever that is. Threatening for sure. A man’s voice was singing it. And there was a verse that I had never heard before.”
“I know it,” Jane said. “Everybody thinks it’s a sweet love song. They sing it to their kids, to their lovers. But it’s not. It’s a song about—”
“Obsession,” Tess whispered.
“I don’t get it,” Wyatt said. “Obsession? What’s the second verse?”
Tess looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “It’s something about how he will love her forever, but only if she feels the same. And if she loves another . . .” She couldn’t get the words out.
“She’ll regret it someday,” Jane said, her own voice wavering.
“Holy shit,” Grant whispered. “That’s messed up.”
And all of a sudden, the pieces fell into place in Tess’s mind, like Legos fitting together. If those obsessive paintings had a soundtrack, that song would be it.
Daisy had loved another. Was it she who would regret it someday?
Grant broke her train of thought. “I’ll have all the data pulled together later, or tomorrow, when I can go through it all,” he said. “It’ll show where the cold spots were, where the activity was, and what time. But right now, I’ll get the laptop synced with my video recorder to see if it picked up anything in the studio around the time Tess fainted.”
He got busy attaching the USB cable to his device, and then to the computer.
They all gathered around the kitchen table as the grainy night-vision video played.
There was Jane, sitting in the middle of a circle of candles as the four others entered the room. Wisps seemed to be floating in the air around her.
“What is that?” Tess said, pointing to the wisps.
Jane held up her hand to stop Tess’s words. “Watch,” she whispered.
On the video, Jane opened her eyes and smiled. “I was just centering myself and the room. Did you find anything?”
Grant’s voice, now. “He got something on the recorder.”
Tesssss.
The camera panned over to Jane. “No surprise there. This is your house. Of course you’re the focus of it.”
And there it was—the static. The camera caught Tess’s reaction, first looking around, and then furrowing her brow and cocking her head to the side, listening.
And then it came.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
“Whoa!” Grant said, pushing back his chair from the table, as if to distance himself from the sound.
You make me happy, when skies are gray
“I’ll be damned,” Hunter whispered. “That’s like growling.”
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you Please don’t take my sunshine away
“And there we are, oblivious as hell,” Hunter went on. “I didn’t hear it.”
Tess heard Grant’s voice, then. “The EMF has been going crazy.”
“Look,” Jane whispered, pointing at the screen. The wisps seemed to be forming into something a little more solid as the camera panned around the room. Three figures, one clearly a woman, although they were just wisps of smoke, or fog, or ether. No faces, no way to tell who they were.