My hand snatches the camera before it can hit the ground, and before I can think about what I’m doing.
“Good catch,” Kit says apprehensively.
“Yeah…that was weird.”
“You’re telling me.”
Except it’s not weird. I’ve been practicing, whenever he isn’t paying attention. Trying out the slightest moves. It’s still only the left arm I can control, but it’s something. I don’t know how it will help me yet, but I know it is a major card in the game we’re playing.
“Here,” Kit says, and I’m thrust back into my body, making me stumble.
“Thanks,” I say, a little out of breath.
He wiggles my pinky as an indication of where he is. Got it.
I set up the camera, properly attaching it to the tripod this time, and turn it on to record.
With my other handheld camcorder, I start my standard sweep while I narrate. “This Connecticut family home has been around since 1912, though we can see it’s been updated since then. This house has changed hands over a dozen times, averaging at least one owner per decade. During the century-plus that families have been residing here, at least fifteen people died in this house, making for a nice mix of residual and intelligent hauntings. Two occupants died in the main bedroom upstairs, in their sleep. Four passed away in a tragic fire in the ’60s. Three people have died in the bathrooms, one slipping and hitting their head, one drowning in the bathtub, the other on the toilet, Elvis-style. In the ’90s, there was a home invasion and the owner shot the intruder.”
In my head, I ask Kit, “Who am I forgetting?”
“The aneurysm in the kitchen, the person who fell down the stairs, the sex ones, the person who fell off the terrace.”
“Right. Thank you.”
Aloud, I continue as I start up the stairs. “One woman unfortunately had an aneurysm burst while she was cooking in the kitchen, someone fell down the stairs, breaking their neck, another person fell off the upstairs terrace, crushing their skull. Lastly, in the late ’60s, early ’70s, the owners would often host orgies. At two separate orgies they hosted, one person died oferotic asphyxiation that was not done safely and another had a heart attack mid coitus.”
In my head, Kit snickers, “Coitus.”
“You’re a child,” I scold.
I finally make my way to the main bedroom, where I set up my second camera and my new thermal camera. Into my phone speaker where I am recording, I say, “Multiple previous owners have reported a lot of activity in this room specifically—feeling someone poke them, yank off their covers in the night, and even sights of an apparent apparition.”
With my dad’s lighter, I light a few candles that we brought with us at Kit’s suggestion and set them carefully around the room. It reminds me of my first hunt with August, before we figured out the trick with the flashlight. I wonder if that’s why he suggested them.
I take a seat on the floor with my flashlight set up and go through my standard introduction. When I ask, “Is there anyone here with me?” I get nothing, but I’m patient. I ask again, and this time the light does flash.Yes!“Hi,” I say. I give my spiel of how the flashlight communication method works: one flash for yes, two for no. “Understand?”
The light flashes once. Cool.
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask this. Did you die here?”
The flashlight blinks once.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Did you live here?”
One flash.
“Is your name Henry?” Henry Jones died in his sleep back in the ’30s. One of the owners has reported seeing a translucent man standing in the doorway in the middle of the night.
Two flashes.No.
“Oh, all right. Am I speaking with Violet?” Violet Parker lived here for fifteen years, the longest of any of the owners, and also died in her sleep in this very bedroom.
One flash. Fantastic.
“Well, thanks for letting me visit you today, Violet. Did you have a happy life?”
The light flashes once. Then twice.
