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“That was different,” Jess said. “It was just superstition. What you’re talking about is—”

“Ghosts,” I said. “Yes, I’m suggesting that Baneberry Hall is haunted.”

There it was. The word we had tiptoed around for days. Now there was no way to avoid using it.

“You know how crazy you sound, right?”

“I do, and I don’t care,” I said. “Something strange is happening here. You can’t deny that. Something we won’t be able to stop until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Jess’s face rippled with indecision as she stared at the box. When her mind was made up, she took a gulp of wine and said, “Fine. Let’s do this.”

The Ouija board was older than I had initially expected. Far different from the one I’d used as a teenager, when my friends and I would get high and try to scare one another. It was an actual board, for one thing. Solid wood that thunked against the table when I removed it from its box.

The varnish gave the wood an orange tint. Painted across it were two rows of letters, arced on top of each other like a double rainbow. In a straight line below them were numbers.

1234567890

The upper corners each bore a single word. YESin the left corner, NOin the right. Two words ran across the bottom of the board.

GOOD BYE

Just like the board, the planchette also differed from my youth. It wasn’t plastic, but real ivory, one end tapered to a point.

I lit a candle, set it on the table, and turned off the kitchen lights.

“Romantic,” Jess commented.

“Can you please be serious about this?”

“Honestly, Ewan, I don’t think I can.”

We sat across from each other, taking opposite sides of the board. We then placed our fingers on the planchette, ready to begin.

“Is there a spirit present?” I said, addressing the area above the kitchen table.

The planchette didn’t budge.

I asked again, this time intoning the words the way a medium would do in the movies. “Is there a spirit present?”

The planchette slowly began to move—a stuttering slide across the board to the word in the upper right corner.

NO

I looked across the table to Jess, who could barely contain her snickering. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“Please keep an open mind,” I pleaded. “For Maggie’s sake.”

Jess grew serious at the mention of our daughter. She knew as well as I did that this was about Maggie. If there were ghosts at Baneberry Hall, only she could see them. Which meant she’d continue to do so until they left.

“I will,” she said. “Promise.”

Once again, I asked if a spirit was present. This time, the planchette jerked forward—so hard I thought it was going to slide entirely out from beneath my fingers. They stayed with it, though, following it to the word in the upper left corner.

YES

“You need to be more subtle than that,” I told Jess. “Stop pushing it.”

“ You’re pushing it.”

I looked to the board, where the planchette continued to circle YES, even though my fingers were barely touching it. It was the same with Jess. Her touch was so light it looked as if her fingers hovered over the ivory.

A chill entered the kitchen—a sudden drop of temperature I felt in my bones. I hadn’t felt cold like that since the night I first heard the music coming from the third floor. When I exhaled, I saw my breath.

Shivering, I spat out another question before the planchette could stop moving.

“Spirit, did you once reside in Baneberry Hall?”

The planchette continued to circle the word.

YES

“Spirit, what is your name?”

The planchette jerked again. So fast that Jess audibly gasped. I stared at it, dumbfounded, as it moved seemingly on its own to a letter in the center of the board.

C

Then another.

U

And another.

R

“Is this the spirit of Curtis Carver?” I asked.

The planchette did another lurch to the YESin the upper left corner. Across the table, Jess gave me a worried look. She was about to lift her fingers from the planchette, but I shook my head, urging her to keep them there.

“Curtis, are you also who my daughter refers to as Mister Shadow?”

The planchette kept circling.

YES

“Our daughter said you’ve spoken to her,” I said. “Is that true?”

More swooping and circling ensued around the word.

YES

“Do you have something to say to us?”

The planchette quickly slid back to the letter C. Six other letters followed, the planchette moving so hard I could hear it scritching across the board. Jess and I kept our fingers on top of it, our wrists jerking back and forth with each letter.

A

Then R.

Then E.

Then F.

Then U.

Then L.

“Careful?” I read aloud.

The planchette rocketed back to the YES, touching it briefly before returning to the double rainbow of letters and spelling out the same word.

CAREFUL

“What does that mean?” I asked.

The planchette never stopped moving, repeating the seven-letter pattern three more times.

CAREFUL

CAREFUL

CAREFUL

As soon as the planchette’s narrowed tip hit the final L, it swung to the bottom of the board in a jarring swoop.

GOOD BYE

The chill left the kitchen. I felt it go—an instant warming.

“What the hell just happened?” Jess asked.

I didn’t know. Nor did I have time to consider it, for at that moment a scream pierced the silence of the house.

Maggie.

Making the same siren-like wail she’d let out during the sleepover.

Jess and I ran upstairs, pounding up both sets of steps until we were on the second floor and in Maggie’s room. Once again, she stood on her bed, screaming in the direction of the armoire.

Its doors were open.

“Mister Shadow!” she cried. “He was here!”

Seventeen

After leaving Dr. Weber’s office, I head back to Maple Street in search of Bartleby’s public library. The doctor’s mention of Baneberry Hall’s history beyond the Carver family has me curious to find out more. As an added benefit, it will take my mind off Mister Shadow. Something I desperately need. I long for the quiet camaraderie only a library can provide.

Except Bartleby’s library no longer exists—a fact I learn when I pop into a beauty salon to ask for directions.

“That closed years ago,” the hairdresser says while not so subtly eyeing my split ends. “There was a fire, which destroyed almost everything. The town voted not to rebuild.”

I thank her and move on, declining her offer of a trim. Without a library, there’s only one place else I know to go for information—the Bartleby Gazette .

The newspaper’s headquarters are located in an unassuming office building on the southern end of Maple Street. Outside, a newspaper box displays the latest edition. The headline running across the front page is in letters so bold they’re practically screaming.

BODY FOUND IN BANEBERRY HALL

If the headline of every article was this sensational, then no wonder Allie was worried. I’d be alarmed, too.

A subhead sits below the main headline, not as large but equally as intriguing.

Remains discovered in notorious house allegedly girl missing for 25 years.