Shani Struthers - 44 Gilmore Street

“Ness, I don’t think that’s going to—”

But Ness wasn’t listening.

“You don’t belong here, not anymore. This house belongs to others now. You can see the light. I know you can. We can all see the light, no matter how much we pretend otherwise. It’s there and it’s waiting. Go towards it, rest in peace and give the new occupants of Gilmore Street a break too.”

The spirit was getting ready to attack again; Ruby could sense it well enough this time. She braced herself but Ness stood in front of her, quickly retrieving the tourmaline spray she kept in her jacket pocket and spraying it in short, sharp bursts. Jed too shielded her – her allies, her friends, putting themselves on the front line, as they had done so many times before. Such bravery lent her courage. She drew herself up, adopted what she hoped was a formidable stance and echoed the sternness of Ness.

“You’ve no reason to attack me, Ben. Don’t do it again. Your time here has come to an end. You cannot stay any longer.”

She heard his scream again and even the dog shuddered. There was the flick of a switch. She tried to place it. Was it the kettle? The radio also burst into life as he directed his energy towards implements that could be easily manipulated. On the draining board, plates stacked neatly on the drainer started to vibrate. It was bright outside – a crisp March morning, but the light seemed to want to find escape. The room grew darker. Had clouds suddenly covered the sun?

The kettle started boiling, the sound of water bubbling rapidly usually an innocuous one but not this time – there was a threat behind it, a serious one. Something was going to come hurtling their way soon, she had no doubt of it.

“We have to get out, come back with Theo and Corinna in tow.”

Although Ruby hated to admit defeat, Ness’s suggestion was a sound one – there was safety in numbers: the four of them stronger than two.

Jed barked.

All right, the five of us.

Had she not been preoccupied with what was going on, the dog’s insistence would have made her smile. Imminent danger, however, had wiped out humour. Just before she turned towards the door, a cup from the draining board was seized upon and lifted upwards to hover in mid-air.

“Go, go, go,” said Ness, clearly as fed-up as she was at being forced out but not willing to chance a face full of crockery. Reaching for the handle, the door suddenly shut, as though with an almighty push Ben had shoved it back in its doorframe. The radio grew louder, vying for attention with the rattling plates. The kettle continued to boil.

Ness took charge. “Hunker down, protect your head.”

There was nothing more they could do. Ben’s fury was too great to reason with. As she obeyed, Jed doing his best to shield not just her but Ness too, Ruby heard another door slam – at the front of the house this time.

“Yoo-hoo, it’s only me. Where are you, in the kitchen?”

It was Samantha, back from coffee and sounding bright and breezy. “Hello,” she called again. “I’m coming in, is that okay?”

Ruby held her breath, watched as the door opened before she could warn Samantha to stay out. The moment she entered, however, the kettle stopped boiling, the radio switched off and the mug crashed back down to join the plates again, somehow remaining intact. All was normal. Or as normal as it could be in a house haunted by an extremely pissed-off spirit. Even the atmosphere was lighter as if he’d retreated, the sun’s rays shining fully through the windows. Perhaps he had slunk back into the shadows, but he wasn’t gone completely, she knew that – she could still feel his presence, albeit more distantly, his lingering anger too at his ‘performance’ interrupted.

With almost indecent haste, Ruby scrambled to her feet. “Samantha!” She hoped her voice held no trace of alarm. “It’s good to see you!”

Beside her, Ness was also standing; her forced smile a rictus grin.

“Everything all right?” Samantha asked, frowning slightly at such enthusiasm. “Anything happen whilst I was away, did you make contact?”

You could say that.

Ness glanced at Ruby, clearly catching her thought.

Striding over to the kettle, Samantha offered to make them a cup of tea. When she got there she was surprised to find the water in it was hot already.

“Oh, have you just had one?”

Keen to assure her they’d not been shirking their duties, Ruby asked her to sit. She explained what had happened, carefully dressing it in plain terms. This was Samantha’s family home – their new family home – and the last thing she wanted was to scare her out of it. In fact, it was imperative they stay and inject it with fresh energy. Besides, she had a sneaking suspicion that what Samantha had experienced was tame compared to what had just taken place. She asked her client for more details and was proven right.

“Well, it’s really what I’ve told you already,” said Samantha, tucking a few stands of blonde hair behind her ear, “I haven’t seen anything it’s more ‘felt’ you know? And yeah, a lot of the time it’s in the kitchen, eyes boring into my back, that sort of thing, and feelings, bad feelings, mainly aimed at me.”

“Not your husband or children?” asked Ness. Children were usually highly sensitive to the paranormal so Ruby listened to the answer with interest.

“Well… as I’ve said before, maybe my daughter. But no one likes it in the kitchen much. I mean, we don’t eat in here or anything. We used to, when we first moved in, but then the arguments started, mealtimes became something to endure rather than enjoy. Pretty soon, the kids started refusing to eat anything at all. As a family we get on, so this behaviour was unusual. We’ve started eating in front of the telly instead, it’s not ideal, but at least the bickering isn’t as bad.”

As Samantha spoke, Ruby nodded. A spiritual presence could affect a person in a number of ways, argumentative behaviour and loss of appetite being two of them. Ways in which she herself had reacted when being haunted. But that haunting was over and this was about Samantha, not her.

“So it’s you that’s the sensitive one?” she queried.

“I suppose.” Samantha actually looked quite proud as she said it. There were some people who didn’t mind being ‘different’. Even so, it wasn’t a false pride and she was no ‘wannabe’. Putting her mug down, which she’d been sipping from, the same one that had hovered in mid-air a short while previously, she added, “I get the feeling he doesn’t like women.”

“I think you’re right,” Ness replied. “What we need to do is find out why.”

“Do you know anything else about Benjamin Hamilton,” asked Ruby, “other than what you’ve told me?”

Samantha shook her head. “Sorry, no. The neighbours might though.”

“Good point, and he must have had family.”

“Not necessarily,” denied Ness, a shadow darkening her features.

Ruby conceded. “He was old, a lot of his family could well have died off.” Solely addressing Samantha, she continued, “There is a spiritual presence in your home and one that’s not particularly keen to leave. I’d like to come back with the rest of the Psychic Surveys team if that’s okay and carry out a thorough spiritual cleansing, using purely holistic methods of course.”

“I’ve read about that on the website, but remind me again what’s involved.”

“Aside from psychic connection, we use smudge sticks, which are herb bundles, made up of white sage primarily, to cleanse dark corners, bells to break down negative frequency and we also promote the use of crystals in the home, tourmaline, obsidian and pink quartz for example, which repel negative energies, discourage them in other words.” As Ruby explained, one hand went up to caress her tourmaline necklace, a ‘comfort blanket’ as she often thought of it. “The more crystals you have around the house the better – we can provide some but they’re relatively inexpensive to buy. I can point you in the direction of shops that sell them. We’ll also arm ourselves with more information about Ben. If we can understand him, we can empathise and hopefully encourage him onwards. You can help us with this, Samantha, if you don’t mind. We’ll dig deep officially but are you happy to talk to your neighbours about him? We could go knocking on their doors but two psychics visiting out of the blue might not be appreciated.”