“Yes, that’s the general idea.”
“If that’s the case, I don’t really need to stay here, do I?”
“Oh, yes, you do.”
“Why, exactly?”
“Because it sucks having to stay here by ourselves.”
“I knew you were just taking it out on me…” Elaina’s shoulders slumped.
With the labor divided, we stood up and went about our respective tasks. I don’t mind saying I got goose bumps when I heard that some kind of haunting was going on in this house, but just sitting down with the other two and talking about work had been enough to banish my fear.
Three heads are better than two, after all!
“Basically, we just have to do what we always do, right? Solve an issue involving a sancta,” I said. Thinking about it like that made me feel like there was nothing to be scared of at all. And heck, our jobs didn’t usually come with a whole house to stay in!
In spite of the modest, weathered exterior, Olivia’s house looked pretty rich inside. I’d guessed the family was doing all right for themselves based on the location, and now I felt sure.
“Miss Riviere, are we working in paradise this time?” I said. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
“I guess it’s possible,” she said, drawn into a smile herself. She looked kind of relieved, too—like she was starting to believe there was nothing to be scared of. “The assignment is simple enough. Really, all we have to do is find this sancta. I think we might be going home a lot sooner than—”
Bam!
She was interrupted by a crash from behind us—but there shouldn’t have been anyone behind us. It sounded like something heavy had fallen over. With a good dose of dread and some very disquieting thoughts about what I might see, I turned around.
My eyes were drawn to a bookshelf in the corner of the room. It was lined with lovely, fancy-looking books—one of which was lying on the floor.
Almost like it was warning us not to get too optimistic.
“Yikes…,” I said, shivering. Yes, Olivia had told us all about this before we arrived, but seeing it for myself was still frightening. “B-but since we know it’s a sancta doing that, there’s nothing to be scared of, right? Right…?” I asked the other two hopefully.
“W-well… No, I suppose not,” Elaina said, doing her best to nod. After a second, she added, “You know, I think I’m glad I got the job outside the house.”
Finally, Riviere said…
…nothing.
Huh?
Riviere was gone. She’d been standing right there until a second ago, but she had vanished like a puff of smoke. Where could she be?
I shared a look with Elaina, then called, “Miss Riviere?”
“Yes?” asked an annoyed voice. A beat later, we saw her face, too—from under a nearby table.
“Um, what are you doing?” I asked. She sort of reminded me of a turtle.
“Oh, it’s just—that noise just now, it made me drop something.”
Nice try.
“Miss Riviere, are you sc—?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, but you—”
“I told you, I’m not scared.” She crawled out from under the table as if nothing had happened, then stood up. “I’m the owner of an antiques shop, remember. A few jumping books mean nothing to me. If I got terrified every time a sancta did anything, how could I do my job?”
“You’re talking really fast.”
“I’ve dealt with lots of much, much deadlier sancta than this in my time, and I’ve disenchanted them, and I’m not about to let some overblown inanimate object—”
Bam!
“Eeeek!” Riviere gave the most adorable shriek and huddled back down. A second book had fallen off the shelf behind us.
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“I told you, I’m not—”
“Yeah, but you—”
“I’m seriously not!”
Similar strange events large and small continued to occur. For example, immediately after we split up to tackle our respective assignments.
I was doing as Riviere had told me, investigating every corner of the house. It was two stories tall and had a basement, and the obvious thing to do was to start from the top and work my way down. I went up to the second floor.
There were four rooms up there. Starting from the far end, they were the master bedroom, the husband’s office, the guest room, and Carrie’s room. I decided to begin my investigation in the master bedroom, because it had the least stuff in it.
The door creaked as I opened it. “Sorry, don’t mean to intrude…,” I said.
“Wowee!” I exclaimed when I saw the room. I couldn’t help myself. The bedside table had toppled over, and the bed was leaning at an angle definitely not conducive to sleeping. I guess the paranormal phenomena in this house continued whether anyone was there to witness them or not.
Curious, I took a peek in the other rooms. The office was a mess, too, and so was the guest room, even though presumably nobody was using it. Only in Carrie’s room was there no sign that anything had been disturbed.
“Huh…” Why would the daughter’s room be the only one to go unscathed? I stood there, pondering this discovery.
Just then, I heard someone laugh. “Hoo-hoo-hoo…”
Where was that coming from? I looked around. I could see a set of stairs at the far end of the hallway.
“Hoo-hoo-hoo…”
There it was again. This time the laugh was clearer than before. It was coming from the first floor. I obligingly trotted toward it, down the stairs. I came back into the living room to find Riviere silently patting down every chair and table. Maybe she was checking to see if she could disenchant them.
“Miss Riviere? Is something funny?” I said, and then I asked her why she had laughed just now.
“What?” She looked at me, thoroughly confused. I pressed: She had laughed, hadn’t she? But her expression only darkened. “No, I can’t say I did…”
“What, really?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she said with a shrug.
This was a different kind of experience from stuff falling off a shelf, and it made me shiver.
Here’s something else that happened.
It was while I was hard at work.
I heard a knock at the door of the house. Knock, knock. Knock, knock. Was Elaina back already?
“Coming!” I said, and I opened the door to let her in.
Except she wasn’t there.
Instead, there was a little old lady in an elegant outfit. She was leaning on a cane and giving me a perplexed look. “My goodness. Whoever might you be?” she said.
That was what I wanted to know. Who was she? I gave her a puzzled tilt of my head and studied her with a deep frown on my face. She studied me right back with an even deeper frown.
Finally, she said, “What are you doing in this house?!” And then, whack! She slapped me on the cheek with an open palm.
“But whyyyyyyyy?” I wailed. Why should I get slapped out of the blue?
Before I could figure out what was going on, the old woman brandished her cane at me. “This house belongs to me! You thief! Get out of here right now!”
Bap, bap, bap! She batted me on the arms and shoulders with her cane.
“Whoa, wait— You can’t just— Ahh!” It didn’t really hurt, but suddenly being accosted by a perfect stranger left me all in a tizzy.
“Don’t argue with me, just go! Get!” The old lady, who was proving very energetic for her age, began to shove me. Before I knew what was happening, I had let her into the house.
“Hold on, wait! You can’t just barge in here!” I said. This wasn’t even my house!
I was definitely starting to panic.
The moment she crossed over the threshold, though, the woman stopped short. She looked at the walls, she stared at the ceiling, she gazed at the floor, and then she looked bewildered. “Where…am I?” she asked, genuinely confused.
“In…in your house, I guess?” I said.
“I’ve never seen this house before in my life.” She shook her head. She looked around in perplexity one more time and said, “Do pardon me for bursting in,” and promptly left again.
Huh… Oookay.
“And that’s what happened,” I concluded. “Do you think it’s another paranormal phenomenon, Miss Riviere?”
“I don’t want to sound mean, but I think maybe it was just an old lady who forgot where she lives.” Nothing paranormal involved. Riviere shrugged.