Page 12 of How to Fake a Haunting

After I’d gotten Beatrix to sleep, I sat curled on the leather love seat in the playroom.

The room was separated from the rest of the house by French doors, and it was my go-to spot for phone calls—usually to Adelaide, sometimes to my mother, especially when I wanted to check in on my father—when Callum had fallen asleep for the night.

I sat among half a dozen stuffed animals, twirling the shimmery tail of a plush dragon Bea no longer played with, and pressed send on the call.

Adelaide answered on the first ring. “You’re only calling while Callum is home because he’s already passed out, right?” When I agreed, Adelaide continued, sounding breathless. “Okay, I’m dying to know . . . did the music freak him out?”

“You jerk!” I said, but I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. “When did you even set that up? And why didn’t you tell me?”

Adelaide was quiet for a moment, then said, “I don’t know, to be honest. I bought the speaker a few days ago and brought it in with the Home Depot stuff. I connected it to your Wi-Fi while you were assembling the closet organizer.”

“How did you sync it to my account?”

“I didn’t. I synced it with mine.”

Another short laugh escaped me. “Should I expect to be at the mercy of your musical tastes again in the future?”

“Nah. At least not anytime soon. It’s lost its element of surprise. But . . .” She trailed off, then said, “I think it may be best if you don’t know everything coming down the pipeline.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your reaction to that song playing out of nowhere was genuine, right? Genuine and extreme?”

I snorted. “Of course. But I thought the plan was to make Callum think the house is haunted, not me. Besides, if I don’t know what you have planned, how can I protect Beatrix from what’s going to happen?”

“I guess you’re right.” There was a pause, and then Adelaide said, “Still, you have to be willing to make allowances for a really great idea. If something occurs to me in the moment, I have to be able to do it. For the benefit of the haunting. Are you okay with that?”

I sighed, too tired to argue. “If you know for a fact Beatrix is out of the house before you go rogue, fine. But not if she’s here.

Not if it could scare her too. The plan is for me to gaslight Callum into believing the house is haunted, denying things whenever it’s feasible, and when it’s not, making him think he’s crazy for thinking it’s a big deal.

Like the music tonight. And the dead animals, once we get to it.

If he mentions something, I play dumb. Otherwise, I blame it on his drinking.

But I never play dumb at the expense of Bea’s safety. Got it?”

“Got it,” Adelaide responded without hesitation.

I hope she realizes how serious I am about this.

Adelaide yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. I’m going to bed.”

“Me too.” I paused. Say it. Don’t get off the phone without letting her know how you feel. “And Adelaide? Thanks. For all of this.”

It was as much as I could manage, but it still felt strange, boiling down my gratitude for this thing we were doing into five short words.

Still, I was glad I was able to finally say it.

Seeing Callum cower on the floor then scurry off to bed like a frightened dog had made this whole thing very real.

Real and far more gratifying than I’d anticipated.

I could hear the grin in Adelaide’s voice. “No problem. Now get some sleep.”

I said good night and hung up, relaxing farther into the love seat while I contemplated all that’d happened since that morning.

I jerked awake sometime later, the overhead lights burning my eyes and my neck twisted uncomfortably on the love seat pillow.

With a groan, I made my way out of the playroom and up the stairs, still half asleep.

Before I could decide whether to turn left toward Beatrix’s room or go right and head to my office, a low retching came from behind Callum’s door, followed by the clang of metal against metal.

I stood for several seconds. More retching came, then silence.

I longed to climb into bed and succumb to sleep, but I also didn’t want Callum to choke on his own vomit.

With a sigh, I shuffled forward. Gripping the door handle to Cal’s room, I let myself inside.

He was asleep on the bed, and, to my relief, lay on his side.

Beside the bed, a small metal trash can had fallen over and was leaking vomit onto the floor.

I didn’t bother trying to wake him; from the sound of his snores, it wouldn’t have done any good.

I stood over him, studying his face and frame.

At thirty-eight, it’d be foolish to expect either of us to look the same as when we’d gotten married, but the changes in Callum went far beyond smile lines and a few gray hairs.

There were purplish-black circles under his eyes, and he had the unhealthy complexion of someone who didn’t spend much time in the sun.

He still had the same strong legs and muscly biceps he’d had when we’d dated, but he’d gained weight over the last two or three years, mostly around the waist. More, even, than I’d realized, since we hadn’t had sex since the previous fall, my desire for him having become inversely proportional to his drinking.

He lay, slack-jawed and twitchy, and I found myself transported to another moment in which I’d watched him while he slept, four years ago in the hospital, a few hours after Beatrix had been born.

Things with Callum had been better then.

Not great; I’d already been fed up with his drinking, but it would be a while still before I realized he wasn’t going to grow up and get sober, not even for Bea.

Not for the second child he said he wanted.

And certainly not for me. I’d held our newborn daughter in my arms, rocking the tiny bundle and watching Callum, wondering what our lives would look like in five years.

Ten years. Twenty. As I stood beside him now, the acrid smell of vomit stinging my eyes, I realized the first of those milestones, the five-year-anniversary of Bea’s birth, was two months away.

My current reality—shackled to a man more concerned with drinking than his daughter, my dreams reduced to getting through each day, holding things together for Bea while practically falling apart myself—was so far from what the woman in that hospital room had envisioned.

It was as if we were not the same person at all.

She was a distant, separate entity, cleaved from me at the first of many forks in the road.

Had every fork since then produced yet another fragmented self?

Were there different, dead-eyed versions of me strewn along the highway of my life, like roadkill putrefying in the sun?

The thought of these discarded selves filled me with terror.

Needing to move, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and a bottle of floor cleaner from under the bathroom sink.

I mopped up the mess and threw everything in the shower stall for Callum to dispose of in the morning.

While I worked, that previous sense of disassociation grew into something blacker and uglier, something that sprouted spines and teeth.

Coupled with my exhaustion from the long, stressful day, the intensity of it dizzied me. I stood before the sink in the muted light of Cal’s bathroom, swaying on my feet.

I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into a mire.

Why, no matter how hard I tried to control things, did they spiral further out of control?

What if Callum had choked in his sleep and Bea had wandered into his room in the morning and found him?

The idea that nothing I did mattered filled me with dread as black as my rage.

As my thoughts whirled, so did my hands, which felt tacky with dried vomit and ammonia.

The tackiness persisted, and I rubbed harder, suddenly frantic, and reached for the glass bottle of soap beside the faucet.

I pumped three squirts of lemon-scented foam into my palms, then reconsidered and pumped another two.

I wrung and worked my hands, but no matter how much I scrubbed, I couldn’t get them clean.

I glanced over my shoulder, but Cal’s snoring continued.

When I turned back, I caught a glimpse of my reflection among the shadows.

Clutched before me, my hands continued to try to rub themselves clean.

But it wasn’t the white foam of soap I saw there, worked into a lather.

My hands were coated in blood.

At the sight of all that red, I recoiled with a scream, knocking the bottle of soap with my elbow. It toppled off the vanity and shattered against the tile. Shards of glass hit my legs like stinging rain.

I froze. Callum moaned and rolled over, but remained asleep.

I let out a long, shaky breath and looked down.

There was no blood on my hands. It was—had to have been—a trick of the amber lighting.

I raised my gaze, but my reflection told the same story: Not only was there no blood, there was hardly any soap left on my hands.

The only thing in the wide expanse of mirror was my pale and startled face.

I stared at my reflection, until, finally, I looked away. Then I swept up the glass and went to bed.