The Wildwood Hotel was old-fashioned in a way that felt deliberate, not dated. Even the outside was cozy despite its size, two stories that ran back far into the gardens of the property. It was white with black trim, the fresh paint glowing in the last of the evening sunlight when Gabriella and Amelia arrived. And judging from the paint supplies and tarps tucked away in a small area off the cobblestone front path, this paint was even fresher than Gabriella had assumed as she pulled into the small parking lot.

“Thoughts?” Amelia asked her as they met at the beginning of the path.

Gabriella studied the hotel. “Probably 1840s,” she said, eyeing the shape of the building. “But they’ve spent a lot of time updating the outside. It all looks original, but between the paint and the windows over there-” She gestured toward some very modern -looking stained glass windows – “they’re being very deliberate about keeping it that way while modernizing. I’m curious about the inside.”

“Well, you’re about to see it,” Amelia said. “Try not to get too excited. This whole outside was a lot dingier last time we were here, so I think you’re right on about modernizing. They’ve probably put a lot of money into this.”

“And recouping it will be hard if the haunting is no longer quiet or charming.”

“Bingo.”

It was warm inside as they came in from the rainy early June air. Like the outside, the interior looked like it had been updated while remaining as close to the original design as possible. But they had not put nearly as much time or money into it yet. The front foyer was small and dim, lit by warm antique lamps set along the sides of the room. Portraits lined the walls, as well as framed pictures of historical Fitchburg. Gabriella wanted to stay in the foyer and study them, but she reluctantly followed Amelia up to the front desk, where a young man sat looking at his phone.

“Is Lorraine here?” Amelia asked.

“She’s out back,” the man replied, sitting up straighter. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Amelia Cohen, from the Foundation for Paranormal Studies,” Amelia said briskly. “This is Gabriella McManus, my partner in this case.”

“Right, the ghost hunters,” the man said. “Hang on, I’ll grab her.”

Had there been more ghost hunters here? It did look like a place where you might find the kinds of investigators who had their own TV shows and web series. Gabriella had become more invested in those shows over the past few months, studying them with surprising intensity for the ones that were accurate and the ones that were just lies. Last time she caught herself throwing popcorn and booing her TV, she had to be grateful that she lived alone.

She peered around the corner of the desk as the man walked the other way to get the owner. The hallway off of the dim foyer led to an elegant, empty dining room, then disappeared into darkness. The whole thing was eerie, and matters weren’t helped by the stern portrait of Herbert Morgan half-obscured by shadows. The decorators were basically setting the stage for a haunting here, weren’t they?

“Hi, thanks for coming.”

The woman coming out of the back office was probably about fifty years old, with her brown hair swept into a messy bun. After seeing the pictures of Sarah at the briefing earlier, Gabriella could see the resemblance in Lorraine. It wasn’t striking, but something in the forehead and eyes were the same as the spirit. She was tall, with a thin build and a blue dress that fit the old-fashioned feel of the place without being a costume.

“Thanks for having us,” Amelia said, shaking her hand.

“I remember you,” said Lorraine, studying Amelia for a second. “You’re one of the team that was here last time.”

“Yeah, I was,” Amelia said. “It was me and a couple others. Madelyn is away for a few weeks, so Gabriella is taking her place this time.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Lorraine’s hand was cold as they shook, but her smile was friendly, if tense. “Come into my office,” she said.

The office was brightly lit, the stark contrast hurting Gabriella’s eyes. She tried not to show it as they followed Lorraine to her desk. She motioned toward a couple of nearby chairs, then sat down behind it.

“Our cameras are currently off, but we’ll be in contact with our headquarters throughout the night,” Amelia said, motioning to her comms. “If you remember Bradley from last time, he’ll be on with us from there.”

“Oh him,” Lorraine said. “The trainee, right?”

“Transfer,” Amelia corrected.

Gabriella was suddenly glad they’d shut the cameras off for this part. With a firm promise to turn them back on before doing anything after the interview, of course.

“Do you mind if we record locally?” Amelia asked, pulling a small recorder out of her pocket.

“Not at all.”

Amelia set up the recorder while Gabriella looked around the office. This space was more utilitarian than the rest of the hotel. It looked like the office of any shop or fast-food restaurant she and her friends had worked at in college. The legally required workplace safety and workers’ rights posters hung off to the side, and she suddenly realized she had no idea where those were hanging at Headquarters. If they were there at all. She’d have to look for those when she got back there tomorrow.

“Alright,” Amelia said, setting the recorder on the desk between her and Lorraine. “Tell us what’s going on.”

“It’s a lot of the same,” Lorraine said, settling back in her chair. “Noises at night, things moving in the rooms. And we’ve had a lot of issues with the electrical system, things that have never been an issue before now. That could be coincidence, it does need some work. But there’s a vibe this time too, a malice that I’m feeling as well. It gets strong here at night, you’ll probably feel it too if you’re staying. I truly don’t believe this has anything to do with my children and, to be honest, I never was convinced of that.”

Gabriella hadn’t felt anything yet, in fact the darkness outside this office had been almost kind. But remembering Herbert’s glare, she could see that changing quickly.

“So you still think it’s Sarah Morgan?” Amelia asked.

“I do.”

She turned to Gabriella. “This hotel has been in my family for four generations,” she said. “My grandmother, Sarah, was the one who really transformed it when she inherited it from her parents in 1950. Before then it was a cheap little place. She made it what it is today. When my parents took over, they didn’t really change anything. They even kept up her garden, which Sarah kept only for the family and people she loved. So we’ve tried to do the same and so far it’s been fairly successful.” Lorraine laughed, but there was an edge to that as well. “The biggest change we’ve made since taking over was adding Wi-Fi. And even that was a bit of a family battle. My parents retired and my mother passed a couple years ago, but they certainly made their opinion known about the hotel after we took over. He still does, fairly frequently.”

She laughed again. “Anyway, my grandmother makes her presence clear. We’ve all seen her.”

“You’ve seen her?” Gabriella asked.

“Multiple times. She died before I was born, but there are enough pictures that we can always tell it’s her. When I was a kid, I used to see her in my bedroom at night if we stayed here on the property. Not often, but occasionally. And even over the past few years I’ve caught glimpses of her throughout the building. My grandfather doesn’t seem to be here with her though, thank God.”

“Herbert?” Amelia confirmed.

“That’s him.” Lorraine’s smile faded. “He was the co-owner, inheriting it along with her. She loved this place, but he really only cared about the money aspect. He tried to convince her to sell it at one point, but that was the only time in her life that Sarah ever stood up to Herbert.”

“Was he abusive?” Amelia asked.

Gabriella was a little surprised that this hadn’t come up during the first round here. Amelia, Madelyn, and Bradley were all fantastic investigators, and this seemed like unusually shoddy work on their part.

Then she remembered that the Foundation branches hadn’t been on heavy investigation until shortly after she arrived. They’d mostly been clean-up crews for larger cases, only doing basic investigation on their own. So of course the Foundation would just send them in to cleanse without too much information. Nobody in the North County branch had cut any corners on the case.

“Yeah,” Lorraine said as Gabriella tried to shove her own feelings aside and focus. “I’m not sure he ever hit her. If he did, she didn’t tell a soul. But he was angry and mean. He died when I was young, well after she did. But I remember being afraid of him, even as a small child.”

Gabriella shuddered. She was lucky that her large family, though not without its problems, was warm and welcoming. She’d never felt afraid of any of her relatives at any age.

“Sarah clung to him though,” Lorraine said. “She never dared to criticize him, though she really didn’t criticize anyone. She was sweet and gentle according to just about everyone I’ve ever talked to. Very religious. Which now makes me wonder if this is actually her causing all of this or if it’s something happening to her.”

“Do you think there are multiple presences in the hotel?” Amelia asked. “You said that Herbert doesn’t seem to be here, but what about other family members? Or former staff?”

“Maybe? I’ve never seen anyone else, but this just seems so unlike her. Do ghosts change after death?”

Lorraine looked genuinely curious as she looked from Amelia to Gabriella. Gabriella thought briefly about the ghost at the Jarvis Street School last summer, the one that had started to lose herself after years of being trapped by the Foundation’s incompetence. “Has anyone ever sealed the property?” she asked.

Amelia glanced over at her curiously. “No,” Lorraine said. “At least not that I know of. We had the investigators here, and then your team. And there was a blessing done on the property, but that’s it.”

“I can go back through the Foundation’s records,” Gabriella said to Amelia. “Maybe it’s like-“

“You’re right,” Amelia swiftly interrupted. “I doubt that’s the case here, but it’s worth digging back through.”

She made a note on her notepad, even though the digital recorder was picking up everything. “I’ll do that once we have everything set up,” she said. “You said you have Wi-Fi?”

“You won’t be able to access the files here,” Amelia said. “But we’ll figure that out tonight.”

Right, the Foundation probably didn’t even have them digitized. Gabriella’s mind was already turning with how to find the history of this space, both the hotel itself and the Foundation’s connection to it over the years. She’d dig out the report from the previous case from the overflowing, yet neatly organized filing cabinet in the living room back at headquarters and see what that had to say. Then search for anything the Foundation might have done and just not told them about since 1950.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Amelia said. “We need more information before we can decide on a plan. They’ve changed things up since last time, so we’ll be spending the night here to investigate, like we talked about. Then tomorrow morning, once we know what we’re up against, we’ll make a plan and get it in motion. I can’t promise anything, but hopefully we’ll be able to get this done quickly.”

“The sooner the better,” Lorraine said. “This was supposed to be over, but apparently not. I’m sure you’ve seen the reviews online. And after this weekend, I’m sure we’ll be getting more.”

“What happened this weekend?”

“We held a tea party for the local Girl Scouts troops,” Lorraine said, her pale face turning pink. “The girls started hearing footsteps above the reception room, even though there was no one up there. Then the lights flickered and…”

She trailed off, rubbing a hand on her forehead. “Two little girls reported a voice yelling at them from a stairwell near the restrooms. And then three more said they heard obscene things being yelled from behind a door. The troop leaders were angry, to put it mildly.”

Obscene words, flickering lights, and footsteps were common enough signs of a haunting. Gabriella looked over at Amelia. “Let’s get moving,” Amelia said. “We’re going to put cameras up throughout the property. You said no one is staying here tonight?”

“No, we blocked it all off after the Girl Scout tea,” Lorraine said. “The only people in the building are you, me, and Daniel.”

She motioned toward the door to the front desk. “He’s my nephew,” she said. “He’s a good kid. We’ll both be here a few more hours, but I can stay if you need me to.”

“No, we should be fine as long as we can contact you,” Amelia said. “Alright, thank you for the information, it’s all going to be very useful.”

“So, does this mean that the Foundation finally doesn’t believe it was my children?” Lorraine asked Amelia. “Because they’re in college now, they haven’t been here in months. And Daniel just moved to Massachusetts, so he wasn’t here for any of it before. So what changed their minds?”

“The fact that they have us doing the investigation this time,” Amelia said. “Last time, we were just the cleanup crew after they’d done their own investigations.”

“And you’re going to do better than they did?”

Did she sound slightly skeptical or was Gabriella just feeling oversensitive today? “Yeah,” Amelia said simply. “You said the rooms are out that way?”

***

Gabriella expected them to split up to put the cameras in place, but Amelia insisted they should stay together for this part. “We’ll be splitting up to do rounds throughout the night,” Amelia said as she turned on her comms. “But there’s no need to invite trouble just yet. Hey Bradley, can you hear me?”

There was silence on the other end. “Bradley?”

“Hang on.”

His voice was crackly. “I’m here,” he said. “The computers aren’t handling the workload well.”

“Shit,” Amelia said. “Have you told James?”

“No, because I can’t get McManus back on the fucking line,” Bradley said. “His comms cut out a couple minutes ago, and he called to tell me. I’m trying to fix it.”

“We’ll wait on the cameras here then,” Amelia said. “I’ll be sending them all to my tablet, they should autosave there.”

“No, we should try to have them here too. I’ll be watching all of them, anyway.”

“We’re alive.”

James’s voice came onto the feed, somewhat tinny and clearly coming from a speaker beside Bradley. “Alright, so we’ve got all the cameras going now?” James asked. “My comms are shit, so please be patient.”

“All but the hotel ones,” Amelia said. “How’s the woods?”

“I have poison ivy,” James replied. “It hasn’t shown up yet, but I can just feel it. And I won’t tell you where it is, but I’m going to hate my life even more than usual tomorrow. But Graham is communing with nature.”

“We have an agreement with the deer,” Graham said mock-solemnly from the same tinny speaker. “Our alliance remains firm.”

“Everyone shut up for a second,” Bradley said. “I need to get everything straight on here.”

Amelia looked at Gabriella with amusement. “Roger that,” James said.

Gabriella could hear the glower over the speaker. “Alright, I have visuals from everyone,” Bradley said. “Keep them on, I want to know where everyone is at all times.”

“Of course,” James said, again with a lack of the flippancy she would have expected for this kind of paranoia. “I’ve got my portable charger too, so I’ll keep my phone on, how’s that?”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, like maybe Bradley thought James was mocking him. But Gabriella knew he was being entirely sincere. “Thank you,” he said after a moment.

This fixation with staying in touch in the field seemed to have started when James disappeared at the Jarvis Street School. It hadn’t been for long, maybe twenty-five minutes from when his comm had cut out to when Gabriella and Bradley got to the school and found him unconscious in a classroom. It had been terrifying, but everything had been fine after. But she couldn’t remember Bradley being this strict about staying in contact before then.

She and Amelia made their way down the hallway on the first floor. Thankfully, this wasn’t that large of a building. There was a single hallway of rooms down one end of the hall and the conference and reception rooms down at the other. Upstairs, there was a rectangle of hallways lined with rooms, but overall it was a small hotel. The cameras they were using were small and easy to stick up on the walls, so keeping track of any activity tonight should be simple enough.

“Alright, it’s showing up on my tablet,” said Amelia as Gabriella checked the camera at the end of the first floor hallway to make sure the adhesive was sticking. “It’s going to alert me if the motion sensor goes off.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Gabriella said.

“It’s beyond basic equipment and we ordered them about three years ago,” Amelia said, frustration evident in her voice. “We’ve just been working without half of what we need for years now.”

If Gabriella had been killed, maybe that would have improved their situation. The thought returned as Amelia took out the next tiny camera and started toward the staircase at the end of the hall. Last time Gabriella had said anything like that, James had been livid, making her swear never to talk like that, that it wasn’t even worth thinking about. For a while, she’d thought that the Foundation would have had to handle it exactly like Robin wanted. If they wanted to keep the region safe, they’d need to keep their surviving agents safe. But after the past six months or so, Gabriella wasn’t so sure it would have made any difference.

The reception room where the Girl Scouts had been was smaller than Gabriella expected, with a few little tables draped with dainty tablecloths. “We’ve got two cameras left, not including the ones for the upstairs hallway,” she said.

“Um…one in this room, one in the stairwell where the kids heard the voice,” Amelia said. “We’ll get these done, then go find out which room is ours and get set up for the night. And then I’m getting some dinner.”

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 5