Another swallow of air, and then she moved calmly over to the closet door — it was a sliding version, not a regular door with a walk-in space beyond — and pushed it aside.
The thing was empty except for a few forlorn wire hangers at one end.
So what had made that thump?
Nothing at all, it seemed.
Well, in a haunted house, you often didn’t have a physical cause for the phenomena you might see…or hear.
Delia pulled her phone out of her purse and turned on the flashlight again, slanting the beam up toward the shelf that spanned the length of the closet. It was empty as well, but then something caught her eye.
The puffy cross shape that somehow reminded her of the petals of a flower, with the small circle superimposed at its center. This one appeared to have been written on the wall just above the shelf, right smack in the middle.
Just what the hell was that thing?
Her phone still said it had five bars, but she knew better than to trust it, not after what Aaron had told her about the reception here. No, she just took some snaps of the drawing — and this one did seem to be drawn on, rather than scratched into the paint — and then stepped away from the closet.
“Alba, what does that cross mean?”
Movement at the corner of her eye, although Delia realized it was only the curtains fluttering ever so slightly. More air currents from the swamp cooler…or something else?
Then the faintest of whispers.
Not…a cross.
It was impossible to say whether the person talking was male or female, and yet Delia still got the impression the speaker was a woman.
Alba?
“I’m here to help,” Delia said clearly.
Something that might have been a ghostly chuckle.
Can’t help.
“Yes, I can,” she replied, hoping she sounded confident and not at all worried that she might be dealing with something here she hadn’t been expecting. “I’ve helped many move on.”
Can’t.
That was all, and Delia frowned. Was the ghost trying to say she couldn’t help, or attempting to tell her that it couldn’t move on, for whatever reason?
“Why not?” she asked, willing herself not to get too frustrated. Communicating with ghosts wasn’t like talking to another person — when they spoke at all, it was often in riddles or half-sentences, uttering statements that didn’t seem to make much sense on the surface. She usually needed a good while to get to the heart of the matter and ascertain exactly what was keeping them on this plane.
And, as she’d pointed out to Aaron, it was still early in the afternoon. She had plenty of time to get this straightened out and still be on the road before nightfall.
Danger.
Cold once again trickled down her spine. Delia pulled in a breath and wished she’d brought her iced tea from In-N-Out inside the house with her — her mouth felt as dry as the desert that lay just a few hundred yards outside the oasis of the Sanchez homestead.
“Who’s in danger?” she said clearly. “Or are you talking about the house?”
House…stays.
That made no sense at all.
Unless….
Was Alba trying to say that the house needed to stay in the family, and that anyone else who tried to live there would be in some kind of danger?
