Page 52 of How to Fake a Haunting

“When we talked last night,” Morgan said, “something occurred to me. You said the ghosts only emerged when the mirrors broke, and that they’re shadowy, slippery, almost as if they’re made of reflective material themselves.”

I nodded, and Morgan slipped both hands back into the duffel on the counter.

A moment later, she came out with an oval mirror, gold-framed, about a foot tall by a foot and a half wide.

It looked like something that would hang over the sink in a tiny bathroom.

“It’s from our downstairs bathroom,” Morgan admitted. “It’s small, but I think it’ll work.”

Without realizing it, I recoiled slightly. Callum did the same—as if the mirror might shatter by virtue of being in our house.

“Work how?” I asked. “I mean, what’s your idea?” I hoped Morgan didn’t plan to break it, to summon the horrifying specters back.

Still holding the mirror, Morgan shot a quick glance at Joe.

He nodded, urging her on. “I . . . sort of have this theory,” she said, “based on historical representations of mirrors in hauntings. I think we can use this mirror to see what, up until now, you haven’t been able to.

I think we can position this mirror to be a way in. To see who these ghosts are.”

I could tell she was speaking the way she had when Adelaide was here, trying to present her ideas and philosophies cautiously enough for us to accept them, but I wanted to tell her no such care was needed; Callum and I had seen enough to believe whatever she said.

“Ghosts can do as little as reflect emotions, fears, desires, and secrets,” Morgan continued.

“And when that’s the case, they’re mere phantoms, coming to us in dreams, as shadows in our periphery, a smell or taste or memory.

But sometimes, and more frighteningly, ghosts are real, and I mean really real, corporeal, tangible, not mere hallucinations, mental projections, or even the apparently purposeless phantom.

” She paused again, looking apologetic. “And when ghosts are real, they can do terrible, irreparable—if unspecified—harm. They have it in their power to change the course of a life . . .” Her voice dropped so low I struggled to hear her.

“They have the ability to seal fates, maybe even to kill.”

“So what are you suggesting we do?” Callum asked gruffly. He’d hardly said a word since I’d spoken of the abortion.

Morgan held up the mirror again, a small smile on her face.

“Like I said, we start by figuring out the actual identity of these ghosts. If they’re real, like you say, they’re bound to have some sort of agenda, maybe a nefarious one.

But we can’t fight back until we know who they are and where they came from.

” She nodded in the direction of the foyer.

“I believe, or at least, I hope, that if we hold up this mirror”—she waved the mirror in her hands—“to one of the broken ones and look at where the apparitions came from through a reflection, we might be able to see their real faces.” She paused, looking hard first at me, then at Callum. “Are you ready for that?”

“Oh,” I said, which was decidedly not an answer. Beside me, Callum gulped.

But Morgan must have been satisfied; she held up the gold-framed mirror and raised an eyebrow in supplication.

“Let’s start in the upstairs bathroom.”

Five minutes later, I stared into the prismatic remains of Callum’s bathroom mirror.

My head ached from nonstop adrenaline, and frissons of panic kept radiating through my gut.

For Beatrix, I kept reminding myself. We had to figure out who or what was haunting us if Beatrix was ever going to come back.

Callum held the gold-framed mirror while Joe and Morgan prepared their equipment.

I could see by the way he kept readjusting his grip that his fingers were slick with sweat.

I wasn’t sure how Callum was sweating. Every inch of me was ice-cold, my fingers numb, my arms and neck prickling with gooseflesh.

I pushed down waves of panic and examined what I could see of my reflection in the shattered mirror.

There were a few intact shards at the bottom, clinging to the wood.

Or, at least, I thought they were intact; when I looked more closely, I saw that my reflection went on forever in a ghastly funhouse effect.

“Are you ready?” Morgan asked. She and Joe were in the open doorframe, Joe with a video recorder and electromagnetic field meter at the ready.

I nodded, but that was a lie. I wasn’t ready. Not at all. Still, I stepped up beside Callum and took a breath.

“All right, so on the count of three, Callum will raise the mirror he’s holding to the broken one on the wall.

” Morgan’s voice was calm, but did the air suddenly feel different?

Heavy and throbbing? Or was I imagining it, letting my fear get the best of me?

Allowing the last twenty-four hours to prime me for chaos?

“Do I raise it on three or after three?” Callum asked.

Joe gave a little laugh. “Either one. I’ll be ready.” He held up the camcorder.

“All right, then,” Morgan said again, but did she sound less certain than she had a moment ago? Less convinced everything would be fine? If so, it didn’t matter, because the next word out of her mouth was the start of the count. “One . . .”

I blinked. The air is not hazy, the air is not hazy . . . Callum adjusted his fingers, almost losing his grasp on the mirror.

“Two . . .”

My stomach lurched. I shuffled to the side a half step, to better see into the mirror when Callum raised it.

“Three!” Morgan shouted.

Callum grimaced and lifted his arms. Joe aimed the camcorder. I looked into the gold-framed mirror, expecting to see one of the shimmery-faced ghosts made visible. Made far more terrible.

What I saw was the same broken mirror that hung on the wall.

There was no ghost. No illuminated reflection. No question made known.

“Nothing happened,” Callum said. I resisted the urge to respond, No shit.

I turned to Morgan. She and Joe were whispering to one another. “It’s okay,” she said to me and Callum a moment later. “I sort of expected that to happen.”

“You did?” Callum’s tone was suspicious.

“The ghosts have come and gone twice. Since they’re not staying perpetually in your home, it stands to reason they wouldn’t be present in the mirrors all the time either.”

“It stands to reason, huh?” Callum said. “What part of this is ‘reasonable’ to you, lady?” I shot Callum a look, but neither Joe nor Morgan seemed to mind his little outburst.

“What do we do now?” I asked. My headache had worsened with this latest instance of receding adrenaline.

“We go on to the next mirror,” Morgan said matter-of-factly.

We moved ourselves and the equipment to Beatrix’s room and followed the same process. After another anxiety-spiking countdown, Callum raised his arms to reveal the same broken mirror we could see with the naked eye.

The same scenario unfolded three more times—in Bea’s bathroom, in the downstairs bathroom, and, to my great surprise, in the foyer. I’d thought that since the foyer mirror was the first point of ingress, it might be the ghosts’ main portal.

“What now?” Callum asked.

Morgan started to respond, but I interrupted, clearing my throat.

“Sorry?” Morgan said. “What was that?”

Fear clenched my insides, but I knew it had to be said. I grimaced, pushing images of the tortured creature from my mind, swallowing against the smell of burning flesh. My eyes flicked toward the living room.

“It’s just that . . . there’s one more mirror.”