fairview
Amanda  

Fairview Hills Cemetery Chapter 6

Gabriella dipped the paint roller into the tray, letting the cheery yellow paint soak into it as she wiped her face with a clean bandanna. The office was almost done, and she already loved the way the room looked, even before the furniture was added in.

She almost wished she’d taken her mom up on her offer to have Gabriella move in with her when she was leaving her old apartment. The offer had been sincere and Gabriella knew her mother wouldn’t mind the company, even long term. But both of them were trying so hard to establish their lives that Gabriella knew that moving back in together would only interfere with that.

Still, it was a gorgeous house, much nicer than her tiny studio apartment. It had to be coming up on two hundred years old, yet it was in great shape, with a wraparound porch and frosted windows. In the few months that her mother had been here, she’d been collecting antiques and carefully decorating every room. The results looked like something out of an autumn fashion shoot.

She was halfway through painting the final wall when she heard someone walk into the room behind her. “Hi, Mom,” Gabriella said, pushing her hair out of her eyes with a paint-speckled hand. “I’m almost done with this layer. After this, I think you just need a few little touch-ups and it’ll be good.”

There was silence when she stopped talking. Gabriella turned around and swallowed a gasp as she took in the emptiness of the room behind her. The door was open, but she’d left it open to let out fumes from the paint. She walked over and glanced around the narrow hallway. Nothing there either.

“Mom?” she called uneasily.

“Downstairs!” Mom called back. “Be right up!”

Gabriella went back into the room and tried to take comfort in the afternoon sunlight streaming in. The paint was a creamy yellow color, and it was hard to be afraid when she was surrounded by sunshine. Not that she had any reason to be afraid. Ghosts were her job. It wasn’t fear, it was professional curiosity.

No, she couldn’t convince herself of that. She was nervous.

Solid footsteps came up the stairs and a second later, her mom was in the doorway with a mug of tea. She handed it to Gabriella. “Looks great in here,” she said.

Gabriella wrapped her hands around the hot mug. “Thanks,” she said. “You weren’t just in here, were you?”

Her mom laughed. “No,” she said. “Did you meet Agatha?”

Gabriella nearly spilled her tea. “What?”

“Agatha,” Mom repeated. “My resident ghost.”

A ghost. Great. Okay, this was doable. If they could do Father McEnerney’s case on the side, then investigating her mom’s house would be no big deal either. She could bring the EMF reader in and see what showed up, maybe try to make contact. A spirit board would be asking for trouble, but maybe the others had an idea. Or maybe one of the more experienced people on the team could give it a try and contact the ghost safely. Or the Foundation? They must operate in New Hampshire too. Maybe there was a Hillsborough County branch she could contact for help. If they had to make contact at all, that was.

“I know that look,” Mom said, tearing her out of her racing thoughts.

“What look?”

“The one that’s halfway done investigating the house already.”

Busted. Gabriella smiled guiltily. “Just a little,” she said. “Is it, um, doing anything?”

“Harmful? No. No, she just gets up to mischief.”

Mischief was too vague. “What kind of mischief?”

“The kind that doesn’t need to be investigated by the overworked Worcester county team,” her mom retorted. “It’s fine, honey. She’s a harmless presence. She just likes to peek around and make sure everything is up to standard.”

There were still too many implications there for Gabriella to be comfortable with. If things weren’t up to standard, what would Agatha do? Her mom lived here alone, and it was at least half an hour until anyone in the family could get to her if the ghost decided to move past mischief and into malevolence.

“Gabbie,” her mom said, touching her arm. “I promise, it’s okay. She’s a harmless ghost and you don’t need to be doing any extra work in your off time.”

Gabriella sighed. “Okay,” she said. “I believe you. Just please let me know if anything happens.”

Even as her mother promised to do that, she knew she wouldn’t come to Gabriella for anything short of a reenactment of Poltergeist. Maybe she could just get a few readings anyway. Check the temperature of the place, simple things like that. If Gabriella got enough proof that things were fine, maybe she could leave it alone after all.

“Let’s talk about other things,” Mom said, sitting down in one of the two kitchen chairs that were sitting in the middle of the empty room.

“Like what?”

“Like when do you think Elliot will ask you out on a date?”

Gabriella laughed and sat down in the other chair, grateful for the break. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe he’s interested, but I’m not sure.”

“Oh, he’s interested,” Mom said. “He’s been by a few times since the last time you were here. And there’s only so much he can pretend to have forgotten to do for my yard. Or do to welcome me to the neighborhood. Or recommend new restaurants as though I haven’t been here for a few months now and tried them all out myself.”

Gabriella laughed. She had a feeling that Mom had intentionally moved just far enough away from the family to get some space for her own life. Having a big family was wonderful, but could be terrible and overwhelming too. A sprawling house in the middle of the country was ideal for her mom. She could set up her own life out here and have things like her own restaurant, rather than go to the same restaurants the family had been going to for fifty years. Even if she was living with a ghost that was becoming bigger and more menacing in Gabriella’s mind every time she thought of it, she was happier here.

“That sounds great,” Gabriella said. “Once I hear from him, I’ll let you know.”

“You could ask him too,” Mom suggested.

She certainly could. It wasn’t like Gabriella had never asked anyone out before. But she didn’t know how to explain that it felt like a bit of a bait and switch. She asks out the cute, normal guy. He thinks she’s normal and says yes. Then surprise! Ghosts.

“Maybe,” she said instead.

They sat quietly for a second, then the door slowly creaked shut.

“Agatha,” Mom scolded, shaking her head.

She got up and opened the door, lodging a doorstop underneath it. Gabriella tried to decide if the chill she was feeling was real or not. If she could just slip a recorder in here, maybe do some EVPs…

No. Mom didn’t want her investigating, and they had plenty going on right now, anyway. She’d focus on the cases they were already working on and leave Mom’s house alone.


Gabriella’s plan lasted an hour before she found herself slipping down the cellar steps. While the rest of her mother’s new house was furnished and cozy, the basement was nearly empty. Gabriella couldn’t decide if she was surprised by this or not. On one hand, her mom had always made a point of keeping the house completely set up, no matter where they were living. Nothing stayed packed up in boxes for more than three days. But on the other hand, there were no empty boxes? Nothing stashed away for later? The only things in the cavernous basement were a washer and dryer along one wall and bare shelves precariously propped along the wall opposite.

She didn’t have an EMF detector handy, and she knew that despite everything people tried to argue, smartphone EMF detector apps were bullshit. So for today, she’d just observe and try to get some EVPs on her phone’s audio recorder to check later.

If Mom caught her down here, she would know immediately what Gabriella was doing. But she couldn’t just ignore it. She didn’t necessarily need to get the team up here and bring Father McEnerney on board for an exorcism. But the idea of her mom up here alone with a ghost whose strength and motives were unknown? Even if it wasn’t her profession, Gabriella wouldn’t be comfortable with it.

Thankfully, Mom already had some protections up. Gabriella had spotted a St. Christopher medallion in the living room and some familiar creations from Gran’s house placed strategically throughout the first floor. So she wasn’t being foolish about it. If she was right, and this was just a harmless spirit, Gabriella wouldn’t push it any further.

She took out her phone and opened the audio recording app. This, at least, wasn’t much worse than the recorders they used on cases. She hit Record and held her breath as she recorded the silence in the room. It was so quiet that her heartbeat seemed to boom in her ears. Mom must be upstairs on the second floor, there were no sounds of footsteps or movement or any of the other things that carried so easily in an old house.

There were no obvious signs of a haunting down here. The air was cool, but it was uniformly cold throughout the entire basement. She was itching to measure EMF levels, but they’d probably be normal too.

Gabriella turned off the recorder, then walked over to the small window on the other end of the basement. She could hear the wind outside the tiny, filthy window as she took another recording. After about three minutes of standing awkwardly by herself, looking out at the brown grass that was just above her head, she turned the recorder off again.

That was plenty for now. She was already pushing her luck by staying down here so long. Maybe next time she was here, she’d bring some tools from work and get some more solid answers. Just for her own peace of mind, if nothing else.


CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 7

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The Northern Worcester County branch of the Foundation for Paranormal Research is one of the organization’s top investigation and cleanup teams. So when a case comes in involving a century of mysterious disappearances, they figure they’ll be done before their lunch break is supposed to end. Investigators James and Amelia go to the site while their coworkers remain behind. But in seconds, Amelia vanishes in the cursed house and the others are forced to find her with no help from their bosses. Will they be able to get her back or will the house claim one final victim?

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