The Haunting Season (22 page)

“Shhh!” Gracie whispered. “We don’t have long.”

Jess tried to collect her thoughts. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. She looked at the nightstand clock. Two thirty. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”

“We want to show you something.” Emma stuck out her hand as though she expected Jess to take it.

Jess glanced over at Allison, who was still asleep.

“I don’t think—”

“It’s
important!
” Gracie whispered. Her face wrinkled in concern “Please, Jess.
Please!
”

Reluctantly, Jess got out of bed and threw on her shorts under her sleep tee. She reached out to take Emma’s hand in hers, knowing very well that it’d slip through her grasp.

But it didn’t. Not entirely. While she couldn’t say that
she
was holding Emma’s hand, Emma’s hand was definitely holding onto Jess’s. There wasn’t the feeling of Emma’s skin on hers, just a cold
something
in her palm. Allison’s warning that the house and its occupants were getting stronger was an understatement.

Emma smiled up at her, and Jess tried not to show her nervousness. She’d never been able to touch a ghost before, and one had never touched her—not even Grams. Jess had thought about it, and often wondered what it’d be like. It was like touching death itself.

Emma tugged at her, sending biting cold into her hand. What would Allison think when she found Jess already gone? She allowed Emma to lead her out of the room as they followed Gracie down the hall. The girls walked ahead, going down the stairs and vanishing through the front door. Jess held her breath, then unlocked the door and opened it slowly, hoping it wouldn’t creak.

Stepping out into the night, she closed the door carefully behind her. The girls stood waiting, the moonlight shining through them. Their expressions were pinched, as though worried. Despite the warm air, Jess shivered.

Gracie turned and walked down the steps and her sister followed. Jess followed, too. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“You have to
see
,” Gracie replied without stopping.

Jess quickened her step. She wondered if Bryan and Gage were already out here and something had happened. “Wait! See what?”

“What he did,” Emma replied, her tone sullen.

“What
who
did?”

“Don’t worry, it’s none of your friends,” Gracie called back to her. Her words might have reassured her if Jess didn’t hear such sadness in them. Why would they want to show her something that clearly upset them so much?

Jess followed them across the moonlit lawn to the rear of the house, toward the little fenced-off cemetery where Gracie and Emma were buried. Jess expected them to stop there, but the girls walked past it, straight to the edge of the woods. There, they stopped and turned to face Jess.

“Why are we out here?” Jess asked.

The girls exchanged expressionless glances. “We told you,” they said in unison. “To see.”

Jess looked around. There wasn’t anyone else out here. Everything looked just as it had in the daylight—quiet and undisturbed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You will,” Emma said.

“In there,” Gracie added. She pointed to the dense line of trees bordering the back lawn.

“In
there?
” Surely the girls didn’t wake her in the middle of the night to go wandering off into the woods.

The girls nodded.

Jess eyed them cautiously. She didn’t like the idea at all. “Girls? What happened in there?” It was almost a rhetorical question because Jess felt certain she knew
exactly
what had happened. Riley had killed them.

“We died in there,” Emma said, confirming Jess’s suspicions.

Jess glanced at the woods. It seemed even darker now, like it could swallow her whole if she stepped inside. “Well, then, it doesn’t sound like a good idea for me to go there.”

“You have to see what happened,” Emma said. “We’ll be with you, Jess.
Please?
”

“Don’t worry.” Gracie placed her hand in Jess’s, sending another shiver up her arm.

“You said you’d help us. We just need to show you what happened,” Emma pleaded.

“When you see, you’ll understand,” Gracie pressed. “We can’t be at peace until you see what needs to be done. We’ve been separate all these years. He separated us.”

Separated?

Jess looked into Emma’s pleading eyes. Trust them? Or turn and run? The others would be out here soon and wonder where she was. On the other hand, if the girls could revisit the place they’d died, revisit what horror had fallen on them, then Jess could try to find her strength and go with them. Maybe the act of finally showing someone what had happened would bring them peace. Maybe it’d be a step in helping to send them on, freeing them of Riley and Siler House.

She had no idea if this was true or not, but maybe all the girls needed was for someone to understand the horror of what had been done to them—why their lives had been taken at such a young age. She’d never crossed over a ghost before. But, she’d read and heard of stories where ghosts just needed a form of closure before they let go of the past. Siler House had sat empty for so long that the girls had no one to tell.

Until now.

They continued to wait patiently. Emma’s lips were pursed together, her forehead wrinkled with worry in anticipation of Jess’s answer. “Please, Jess.
Please
. We can’t truly be together until you see.”

Standing on the edge of the woods was like standing on the edge of another world. Trees stood like some spectral army against a backdrop of black. Stepping inside meant wearing the darkness like a cloak. It would envelope her, making her invisible to Gage and the others who expected to find her on the back lawn.

Turn back.

Emma took Jess’s hand into both of hers and tugged.

“How far?” Jess asked.

“Not far. You’ll be back before Allison and the others come looking for you,” Gracie said.

“Okay,” Jess said, not feeling that it was okay at all.

The girls smiled and led Jess into the woods.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

True to their word, the girls hadn’t ventured too far into the woods before coming to a complete stop. The bright moon shone through the treetops, allowing Jess better visibility.

“Is this where you died?” Jess asked, unable to keep the slight tremor from her voice. There wasn’t anything unusual about the area they’d stopped in. Just a bunch of trees with woodland debris at their bases.

The girls exchanged another glance.

“This is where it happened,” Gracie said. “Are you ready to see?”

Jess didn’t answer. Her heart raced and her mouth had gone dry. She wasn’t ready, but what could she say?

“You have to touch the earth,” Emma explained. “You have to touch the spot where it happened. You’ll see it then.”

“And you’ll see it
when
.” Gracie added.

Jess shook her head. “I don’t think that’s all it takes.” Her reply was more of an excuse to turn around and go back than anything else. She wondered what might be underneath the decaying leaves. Crawly bugs, snakes and the like were the least of her worries.

“But it is enough,” Gracie’s form flickered in the moonlight. “For you.” As Emma let go of Jess, the cold chill slid up from her hand to her entire body, freezing her into place.

“You’ve always been able to see things, Jess. See
us
. Ghosts. But you don’t know how to channel it. Yet. Touching the area our bodies were in will help. You’ll be closer to us and you’ll see through to the other side,” Gracie explained. “You’ll be able to see things in our world.”

Emma nodded. “It’s what you’d call the veil.”

Jess frowned, but the girls’ expressions remained emotionless. What if by helping the girls, Jess could make it easier to find her father on the other side?

Be careful what you let in, Jess.

But this wasn’t a portal or some veil. She wasn’t letting something or someone else in. She was just looking through it to some other side.

Like some sort of one-way mirror. No. Don’t think of it like that. Don’t think of Riley and whatever else is there.

Part of her wanted to scream, to run away. Yet, some other part wanted to see this—wanted to know if she truly could see even further into the unknown.

It’s the house. Allison is right—it’s doing something to us.

It can’t. You’re not in the house. Don’t blame it for what you want to know. You can do this. You’ve come this far. It’s just dirt. Dirt! Just sticks, leaves and Georgia clay. You’ve let ghosts touch you and you can’t even touch a patch of dirt?

Jess shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. “Okay.” Shaking slightly, she knelt down to the moonlit earth, the girls standing on either side of her, and placed her palm on the ground. At that same moment, the girls rested their hands on Jess’s shoulders. The cold of their touch bit into her, and she cried out in agony. Her vision grew fuzzy. A sense of frigid air and darkness swirled through her.

Jess blinked and found herself standing alone in the woods. It was daylight now and the air had a different smell—more earthen and pine, and something else, too.

…
you’ll see it
when
.

When. As in time. Jess understood where she was, but more importantly, she had a good idea
when
she was—August 1909.

“Gracie? Emma?” she whispered. No answer. Up ahead came the sound of someone shoveling dirt. She wanted to call out again, but didn’t dare. If all she had to do was see what happened, then maybe she’d return or wake up.

Heart hammering, Jess made her way toward the sound. His back was to her as he fervently dug into the earth. Same dark hair, same tall, thin build.

Riley.

Gasping, she ducked behind a tree, mentally cursing herself for making noise. Surely he’d hear her. But he didn’t. He grunted as he continued to shovel sprays of earth.

He was digging their graves!

After a few minutes, Riley stopped and tossed the shovel aside. He walked out of her line of sight, behind a thicket of trees and then returned with a blanket and a wicker basket. He set the basket down and spread the blanket out neatly between a couple of trees.

What the hell?

Riley took a seat on the blanket and extracted silverware from the basket, along with a red apple. He bit into apple and looked up into the trees, taking in nature and the sky above him.

She cursed him for being so nonchalant about enjoying a picnic before burying Gracie and Emma’s bodies. She should have been glad that he’d been caught, except he’d still gotten away with it—the girls remained his captives long into their deaths.

Finishing the apple, he tossed its core aside. After taking a moment to pick his teeth, he got up and went back to where he’d been digging, putting his back to Jess once more.

Riley reached down and pulled at something—a flash of white skin caked with dirt. Dizzy with horror and disbelief, Jess nearly fell backward. He wasn’t digging a grave for Gracie and Emma.

He was digging them up.

Jess fought to catch her breath and stay on her feet as Riley dragged the girls from the ground and onto the blanket, propping up each against the base of a tree. Muddy dirt, twigs and leaves covered them. Dark stains along the neckline of their dresses indicated they’d bled heavily.

Jess wanted to move, to order her legs to take her away from here. But the shock and fear froze her in place. Her stomach began to rebel and she gagged, then wiped at her mouth, fighting against it.

He’ll hear you!

Riley knelt down between the girls and examined each girl’s neck where he’d clearly slit their throats.

He began to sing. “He cut off their heads with a carving knife, have you ever seen such a sight in your life!”

Again, Jess’s stomach lurched hard enough that her eyes watered.

Run. Run!

Her traitorous feet remained motionless as though stuck in quicksand. Jess was helpless to do anything but watch. Her breath came in quick, ragged bursts and she fought to not pass out. If she did, Riley would find her. Even now, she was certain he had to hear her, hear her breathing and the pounding of her heart.

Riley stopped his singing and bit into Gracie’s cheek, tearing away a chunk of flesh. He chewed slowly and swallowed. Jess’s eyes watered again and she wretched, unable to silence the sound, but nothing came up. Her heart pounded so hard now she swore it would burst. Her vision began to swim, yet her eyes remained glued to the grizzly scene. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground.

Turn your head, look away.

Omigod! The smell!

The girls might only have been gone a day or two, but given that they’d been buried in shallow graves in Savannah’s summer heat, they’d already started to decompose badly. Jess wretched again.

Riley leaned closer to Emma and took a bite out of her, too.

And then Jess blacked out.

It was dark when she woke. Riley was nowhere to be seen. Neither were the girls. Relief poured over her when she recognized she was seeing the here and now. But relief began to ebb as the full realization of it all crashed down on her. She’d returned to the spot where the girls had taken her—the place where they’d told her to touch the ground—the place where Riley had dug up their bodies.

The place where Riley had begun to eat them.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Jess scrabbled backward a few feet. Her hands! Her hands were covered with dirt, her fingernails caked with mud. Her eyes settled on something smooth and hard poking out of a small section of earth. That hole hadn’t been there when she first arrived. Somehow, in her time-travel trance or whatever it was, she’d dug up this spot… the spot Gracie had told her to touch. The shape was unmistakable—the eye socket of a human skull stared up at her, the rest remained interred in the earth.

He separated us.

He cut off their heads with a carving knife, have you ever seen such a sight in your life?

Jess scrambled backward again, meaning to stand, but her legs were unable to support her weight and she fell backward, onto her bottom. “Oh my God!” she cried as she scooted farther away before finally getting to her feet.