CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Fourteen months later…
Jess held flowers as she and Gage walked through Highland Cemetery outside Asheville. The weather had turned unusually cool for late October. The flowers she’d brought probably wouldn’t last long.
But they’d last long enough.
“Have you heard from Bryan?” she asked. Once in a while, Bryan would call her, but mostly, he kept in touch with Gage. He’d vowed to visit them over Christmas break, but they both knew he wouldn’t. They’d most likely never see him again. He only kept in touch to make sure life was still normal. To make sure it was truly over and that nothing had followed them out of Siler House.
Bryan thought they might be pushing their luck for all three of them to be in the same place at the same time. There was no sound evidence to prove his theory, but he wasn’t taking chances.
Jess understood. Some days, she felt something was there—waiting. She knew Gage often felt the same, even though all of them now wore iron pendants. Gage wore his on a strap of dark leather and Jess wore hers on a chain of sterling silver. So far, her dorm roommate hadn’t questioned Jess’s only choice of jewelry. But she had noticed Jess’s weird habit of covering up the mirror in their room before going to bed at night.
“Bryan called last weekend,” Gage replied. “His mom is getting remarried.”
She smiled. “That’s good. I’m glad he’s doing okay. He could use a little normal in his life.”
“I checked on the house this morning.” Gage didn’t need to tell her which house. “It’s been reopened as a bed and breakfast.”
Jess shook her head. How long before the house became active again? Before people saw things in the mirrors, anxious for a chance to spot a ghost at Savannah’s most infamous haunted house?
Promise me, Jess. Promise!
Be careful what you let in.
Jess sighed. “Fools.”
Gage squeezed her hand. “Maybe someone else will find a way to make it stop.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “I’ll always feel bad we couldn’t tell anyone the truth.”
They’d kept their word to Allison, but that didn’t make her feel good about it. She thought of Allison nearly every day.
“There’s nothing we can do. If we had told them the truth EPAC would still be hounding us. And every paranormal specialist out there would think they had something to prove. We know that won’t end well. All we can do is hope that what happened at Siler House doesn’t happen again any time soon.”
But it probably would, and they both knew it. Maybe not exactly what happened to the four of them, but Riley and Siler House would never rest. Neither would those who walked its halls. The best they could hope for was that Siler House would remain standing during their lifetimes. Because, if it ever did catch fire…
Jess shuddered.
The authorities and EPAC remained convinced Allison was still out there, somewhere. As for physical evidence, the camera was missing. And, in the end, Dr. Brandt’s final notes turned out to be more about the house and his own findings than anything about the four of them. For now, they were off the hook with EPAC.
Not that they could ever have fully controlled their abilities, anyway. Some things were never meant to be harnessed.
Jess knelt in front of Gram’s grave and placed the first set of flowers there. Gram always loved roses, and while there were only a few mingling with the carnations, Jess thought Grams would approve. She lingered for a moment, then stood and rested her hand on the top of the headstone.
I’m careful now, Grams.
She took Gage’s hand and led him along the pathway. The tree leaves were a beautiful gold as they danced against the clear blue sky. A squirrel bounded across the lawn in front of them.
Jess stopped in front of the second grave—her father’s. Her heart still ached for him—still ached as though it were only yesterday that she had stood here for his funeral. She placed the second set of flowers on his grave. Had he been at Siler House? The shadowed figure? Had he been watching over her the whole time? Was he still here, somewhere close by?
She wanted to say good-bye, as though after all that had happened, it’d be some sort of closure, some way to make up for the fact she hadn’t been there when he’d died. She used to think if she’d been given the opportunity to go back in time, to have that moment they’d been cheated out of, the pain would be different. She realized there weren’t ever enough good-byes, because she’d always want one more.
Had her father been at Siler House? Jess would never know. At one time she’d only wanted answers to questions like those. Now she realized some things weren’t meant to be messed with. She, Bryan and Gage had vowed to never try to make contact with anything otherworldly again. No matter who it was.
Not all ghosts were bad or harmful, but you couldn’t always open the door to one without opening it for the others.
Would their vow be good enough? No. Probably not. Allison had said that once the portal had been opened, it couldn’t ever be fully closed. It was a bridge they couldn’t uncross.
Jess had been glad to move out of the house and into a dorm at the start of her freshman year at the University of North Carolina. Especially after she noticed little black spots on her sister, Lily’s, dresser mirror. She’d broken that mirror. Total accident, she’d explained to her mother. Lily kidded her about seven years of bad luck. It could have just been a faulty mirror, but Jess wasn’t taking any chances that dark spirits had found a way to get to them.
“I gave Lily my room,” Jess said as she placed the flowers on her father’s grave.
Gage nodded. “Ah! The wrought-iron headboard. Good move. When we’re out of school, we’ll buy our own.” He grinned in that devastating way that made her heart race every time.
A blast of cold air blew past them and Jess rubbed her arms as she stood. Winter felt like it might come early this year.
Gage held her against him. “Are you cold? Want to go grab some coffee?”
“Yeah,” she said smiling up at him. Things might never be the same again, but then, she couldn’t expect them to. “Coffee sounds good.”
He kissed the top of her head and Jess wrapped her arms around him even more tightly. God, he was still as sexy as ever.
“I told you I’d win your heart,” he said, making her feel warm inside.
It was hard to believe he’d stuck around, but he had. He’d even transferred to UNC to be with her. She loved Gage and had no doubt they’d stay together. Unlike Bryan, Jess thought they’d grown closer because of what they’d been through. No one else would ever get that. Still, she thought of Allison and what had happened that last night at Siler House. While they could have all stayed holed up behind the fence until the maids and renovation crew had shown up on Monday, she understood that Allison’s nightmare would never end. It was just one more nightmare Allison couldn’t live the rest of her life running from.
Jess understood what the nightmares were like. They crept in around the edges of her sleep more than she cared to admit. Terrifying ones where Riley had managed to take her for his queen. Nightmares where evil spirits found her. In her nightmares, they found Bryan, then Gage.
Then Lily.
Visions of Allison’s terrified face woke her often. Allison, staring at the mirror. Allison with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
The difference between her and Allison’s situation, Jess thought as she and Gage walked under the unblemished sky, was that Jess had someone who understood, someone who’d always be there to hold her when the nightmares came.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Behind every book, there’s always another story—how the novel came to be. I’ve always wanted to write a haunted house novel. I love haunted house stories. My two favorites are The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King’s The Shining. The premise behind The Haunting Season has been in my head for nearly two years. I set it aside to get The Book of Lost Souls published, and then again to publish Don't Fear the Reaper. But when I sat down to write the sequel to The Book of Lost Souls, I dreamed of The Haunting Season instead. Night after night. I guess the story itself haunted me.
For influencing The Haunting Season, I like to thank Stephen King and the late Shirley Jackson. You guys are my idols. Thanks for writing the gold standard in haunted house novels.
Getting a novel ready for publication is a lot of work and all authors need a great support network. I’m lucky to have such support. Thanks to my husband who by now is used to weird work hours, the insomnia, the tears, the rants, the depression and elation. You are indeed my rock.
Thanks to my dogs who had dinner served to them later than they’d like and walks that were non-existent or cut short, but who stayed by my side, patiently and without complaint.
To D.B. Reynolds and Leslie Tentler, crit partners without equal. You guys have been more than crit partners and friends. You’ve been my lifeline and talked me off a lot of ledges. Thanks to Steve J. McHugh for and Courtney Cole for all their input and suggestions. Thanks to M. Leighton for giving me the thumbs up on the sex scene.
Special shout-out to my fellow authors in The Indelibles and The Paranormal Plumes.
To author Thomas Amo who was also a mortician for nearly twenty years. I could never have accurately written a key part in this book without your input. I truly enjoyed our talk during dinner about embalming and burial methods. Invaluable information, bud. Thanks so much.
To Sarah Hansen who took my breath away with the cover, and to copyeditor L. Peters for all the late nights she put in. I can’t say enough great things about you guys.
And, as always, thank you Dear Reader. Because ultimately, every author with a story to tell writes with you in mind.