“I didn’t tell you that she was definitely a psychic,” Caitlin complained as the men crossed to the other side of the table and lazily took spots on the opposite side of me. “I said that she claimed to be a psychic, and a lot of people claim a lot of things. But she did say that she saw Grady, and her description is markedly similar to the description that they gave us when we walked into the Peters Building.”
“Ahh.” Liam leaned over the table toward me, the same grin staying on his face - I had seen enough of their videos to know that it wasn’t a permanent fixture, but I was honestly starting to wonder if it was more prominent than I thought. “So either you can see ghosts through a screen, or you have the remarkable ability to Google things.”
“Forgive us,” Luke interrupted, “but after the last proclaimed psychic ended up being fake, we’ve gotten to be a little bit skeptical. You don’t mind if we test you a bit before we officially take you on, do you?”
I nodded. “Caitlin was already telling me about the screen testing for the audience.”
“That’s not exactly what we meant,” he continued, pulling a folded lump of papers from his pocket. From my other side, Caitlin sighed loudly.
“Guys, you promised you wouldn’t do this again.”
“And you promised that the last psychic you brought in could see ghosts.”
“And the future,” Liam cut in, raising his eyebrows at me.
“And the future,” amended Luke. “This time, we just want to make sure, because if we keep bringing in fake psychics, eventually our audience is going to start to think we’re doing it on purpose to trick them, and I don’t want a hoard of angry teens on our doorstep.” He unfolded the papers and handed them to me. The top was a bad printout of a famous ghost image - the white mist of a purported ghost on a shadowy staircase. “Can you see that?”
“Isn’t this one of the most famous ghost photos of all time?” I asked, trying to figure out what the catch could possibly be. “I’m fairly certain everyone can see it, or else it wouldn’t be famous.”
“That’s what we thought, too,” Liam said, reaching over to point at a mildly more shadowy part of the staircase. “But the last two mediums we talked to insisted that there was a second ghost in the photo that we couldn’t see.”
I picked up the paper and investigated it closer. As far as I could tell, there was nothing but shadow in that corner. If I squinted just right, I might be able to make out a face in the warping of the old photograph, but that didn’t make it a ghost. “Maybe they’re seeing something I’m not,” I said, handing the picture back to him, “but to me, that just looks like a staircase.”
Luke and Liam looked at each other. From the slight arching of Liam’s eyebrow, I could tell they were silently talking to each other in the way that friends could when they’d been around each other for years. Not that I’d experienced that myself, mind you - because of being the weird kid in the school who was always seeing spirits, I never had anyone that I’d gotten that close to, but I’d seen it happen in front of my eyes time and time again. Turning back to me, Luke took a second picture from the stack of papers. “And how about this one?”
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I looked into the image of a dark hallway. At least this one was a lesser known picture, but to me, it just looked like a stock image of a place they were trying to make look creepy. “Nothing in this one either,” I said, handing it back.
“Really?” Luke asked, the confident expression he had just had sliding off his face in a heartbeat. “I was sure we captured something at that hospital.” He held the picture up to the light and looked at it closely himself for a minute, then sat it back in front of me. “Not even there?” He pointed to a shadow that was admittedly an odd shape, but didn’t seem particularly human.
I sighed - if I was going to have to fight them about every piece of evidence, I had to wonder if this was actually a viable way to get into the Peters Building, or if I would be better off just trying to sneak in at night. “It’s an interesting shadow, but there’s nothing that makes me think that it might be a ghost,” I said, passing the paper back to him again. “If there was actually a ghost in that photo, you wouldn’t have to try so hard to see it.”
Luke nodded slowly, still looking somewhat unconvinced, but he took the photo away and handed one more back to me. “And this one?”
I picked up the paper to find what must have been a still from the Peters Building, although the frame was selected in such a way that it was impossible to see anything other than a small bit of a wall and Liam’s face. I recognized the area immediately, though, because Grady was standing right behind him. I tapped my finger on Grady’s face and passed it back to them. “I don’t remember seeing that frame in the video, but that was probably as close as Grady got to him,” I said, pointing toward Liam. “From what I could tell, he didn’t like your vibe, but he seemed to prefer Luke’s. Odd that he would have been standing right beside you, then, but you must have been doing something interesting enough for him to want to watch.”
Luke and Liam nonverbally spoke again for a minute before Liam turned to lock eyes with me. “How did you know that was the Peters Building?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t, but since Grady’s in it, I assumed that it had to be. He’s been locked to the building for this long, I doubt he’s about to start leaving any time soon.”
Liam nodded, his face turning a very light shade of green. “I took this picture in the middle of set up,” he started to explain. “We hadn’t really done anything with the building yet, but when I was setting up a static cam, I could have sworn I felt something brush the back of my neck. I took this picture, but I didn’t see anything. Do you think Grady touched me?”
I shrugged. “Maybe, but probably not.” At that light reassurance, the color started to immediately come back into his face. “Most spirits don’t have the ability to touch people, after all. They could maybe cause a light breeze on the back of your neck, but in my opinion, it’s more likely that you’re just a bit sensitive yourself, and you managed to pick up on the fact that he was there.”
Luke started nodding instantly at that. “I’ve always said that out of the two of us, Liam is more sensitive to spirits. Spirits seems to get more attached to me, but he’s the one who’ll notice them.”
“Ahh, yeah,” I started, clearing my throat. “Is it true that you think you get possessed a lot?”
Liam, now nearly back to his original skin color, nodded. “It’s not full possession, like I’m sure you’re thinking, though,” he answered. “Really it’s more like we start thinking and feeling like the ghosts around us. It’s not that they’ve taken over our bodies, but that we’re starting to become them in a way. It’s this really weird thing that we’ve noticed in haunted locations.”
“Mmmhmm,” I hummed. “And, not to be offensive or anything, but have you ever considered that this might be happening to you because you are in the space, thinking about what they might have been thinking about at the time, instead of it being an actual possession?”
For a heartbeat, they just stared at me, and I was worried that I had offended them, but then they both started laughing. “I honestly have considered just that,” Luke finally managed to get out, “but that makes a terrible story, so we’re going to stick to possession instead. If you stick around, you’ll have to learn that sometimes, the story is better if you don’t question it too much. But Cait,” he said, focusing his direction back on her. Caitlin had been visibly checked out of the conversation, slumped in her chair and checking her nails, but she shot straight up immediately, “I think we’ll all get along great. Great find!”
“Thanks!” she responded, beaming. “In that case, Andromeda, please let me see you to your room. The boys have a tradition of doing some last-minute research the night before, and we don’t want to ruin the authenticity by having you know about the haunting ahead of time. Even if, in this case, it might already be ruined because you saw the video.” She seemed to think about it for a moment, then shrugged. “They’ll get over it this once, if we show them what your real power is.”
Caitlin led me down the marbled floors and to one of the large rooms on the first floor. “Just take it easy tonight,” she said as she started to close the door behind me. “We’ll want you well rested and ready to play tomorrow.”
I couldn’t help but feel like she was being purposefully ominous, but as I grabbed my pajamas out of my suitcase, I decided that, at that moment, I didn’t really care. This was still the nicest vacation I was probably every going to be able to go on, so I might as well enjoy it.