Page 55 of How to Fake a Haunting

I entered the house from the back deck, turning away from the spot where Bea had fallen, the splintered wood of the rail leering at me like fangs. The playroom was empty and quiet, but I heard voices up ahead.

“What do you mean, we have to do it again?” Callum was demanding. I crossed the hallway, stopping a few steps back from the kitchen. Joe stood across from Callum at the island. Morgan was by the table.

“We can’t get them to leave until we know who they are,” Morgan said, her tone patient but firm.

“We know who they are!” Callum cried, banging his fists on the marble. “Somehow, some-fucking-way, they’re us! Lainey and me. Some fucked-up echo from the past!”

I walked into the room. Everyone turned to look at me, and the conversation changed direction.

“Why is that pink-haired bitch here?” Callum growled. “And why does she have Beatrix?”

I filled them in on my father’s heart attack and my mother dropping Bea with Adelaide to follow him to the hospital.

Callum peered through the open maw that used to be the kitchen window. “But they’re gone, right? You sent them away?”

“I . . . didn’t,” I admitted. “I tried, but Adelaide thinks she should be here. In case she needs to help.”

Callum let out a loud, bitter laugh and paced the kitchen. “What the hell is she going to do?” he said. “I don’t like it. And having Beatrix here is a really bad idea. It’s not safe.”

Black spots popped at the corners of my eyes, and rage as sour as bile welled up my throat. “I don’t think you’re in any position to comment on Beatrix’s safety.”

“I’m not the one who brought her to a goddamned haunted house—”

“I didn’t bring her here! My father’s in the hospital and—”

“That stupid clubhouse isn’t going to protect—”

“It’s not the house that’s haunted, you jackass, it’s us!”

“All right, all right!” Joe said loudly. He put up his hands. “Can we get back to the main issue here?”

“Which is?” I asked, still unsure what they’d been discussing when I’d walked in a minute earlier.

“That we need to uncover the identities of the other two apparitions.”

“Oh,” I said, and sighed. “As long as it’s only that.” I sank into a nearby chair.

Morgan smiled weakly at me. “While you were outside, the ghost with blood on her hands—”

“Me,” I interjected. “We might as well call them what they are. I was calling her Lady Macbeth in my head, before I realized . . .” I trailed off, then refocused on Morgan. “Anyway, yes, the ghost with blood on her hands is past-me . . . Past-Lainey.”

“Right, okay, so, while you were outside, Past-Lainey and Past-Callum reappeared and went through the motions of their respective loops several times.” Morgan tilted her head, something occurring to her. “Did you see your, um, past self out there when you were talking to Adelaide?”

I shook my head.

“Remarkable,” Morgan mused. “When inside the house, you can see the ghosts when they step out of it. But when outside the house, you see nothing. They’re invisible.”

“Not true,” Callum said from the island. “Those goddamn holes in the yard are certainly visible.”

“Anyway,” Morgan continued, “when the past ghosts reappeared, they retained their”—she winced—“er, your faces.” She looked back and forth between Callum and me excitedly.

When we only stared, she added, “Don’t you see?

Using the unbroken mirror to reveal their identities stuck.

They no longer have the nonfaces they initially presented with.

They’re exposed, and therefore ready to be dealt with.

But there are four ghosts, not two. So we need to uncover the faces of the others.

Then we can figure out how to banish them all. ”

“But we held your mirror up to all the broken mirrors in the house,” I pointed out. “It only revealed the identities of Lady Macbeth and the staircase specter. I mean, Past-Lainey and Past-Callum.” I grunted in exasperation.

“That’s true,” Morgan admitted. She looked across the room to her husband and smiled. “But there are other ways to get what we want.”

Ten minutes later, Callum and I stood in the living room, watching as Morgan and Joe wound yarn—borrowed from Bea’s craft supplies—around one end of the gold-framed mirror.

Joe threw the ball of yarn over the chandelier directly above them and fashioned a noose-like knot through which he threaded the other end of the yarn.

When he was done, the mirror hung flat in the air above the coffee table, to be raised or lowered as needed.

Morgan threw a black towel over the mirror’s surface. “Do you have something wide and low we could fill with water?” she asked. “Like an oven tray, but big enough for the mirror to fit into?”

Callum stared blankly, but I knew just the thing. “There’s a plastic tray of Bea’s in the playroom. It keeps her Play-Doh and clay from getting everywhere. Would that work?”

Morgan said it would, so I went to fill it with water before handing it carefully over. She placed it on the coffee table below the mirror.

“Okay,” Morgan said. “Let’s form a circle.” She removed a bundle of herbs and twigs from a satchel by her feet.

Callum narrowed his eyes. “So, are you a ghost hunter or a witch?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“What are we doing exactly?” Callum pressed.

“Catoptromancy,” Morgan said.

“And that is?”

“Divination using a mirror as the tool.” She yanked the black towel off the mirror with a flourish like a magician pulling a scarf off the top of a hat to reveal a rabbit.

“We’re going to turn the lights off, and while we’re visualizing what we want to see—the identities of the corpse specter and tortured wraith—we’ll lower the mirror toward the table until its base is resting on the surface of the water.

When that happens, we should see something in the mirror.

An image. An explanation. Something that illuminates the answer to our question.

“Or, we’ll see nothing at all.” She shrugged.

“This is far from a science, but I’m optimistic, since the last instance of using mirrors to fight mirror ghosts worked.

” She walked to the wall and flipped the switch, plunging us into relative darkness.

The broken bay window let a fair amount of moonlight into the room, but Morgan looked satisfied.

“And if one of the ghosts reaches up and pulls us into the mirror with it?” Callum asks. “Then what?”

“I don’t foresee that happening,” Morgan said.

“You didn’t foresee the ghosts being violent,” Callum pointed out. “Or this”—he gave the gold-framed mirror a push, sending it swinging on the yarn—“showing that two of the ghosts have our own damn faces.” He looked over at me as if expecting backup, but I rolled my eyes.

“She’s trying to help,” I said. “Can you keep an open mind?”

He grumbled something, but I ignored him and stepped up to the coffee table. Joe and Morgan stepped to either side of me. Callum was left to walk around to the other side and face me.

“Okay,” Morgan said. “Joe, you want to grab the yarn?”

Joe complied.

“Raise it a bit.”

Joe raised the mirror so it was a little above eye level for all of us.

Morgan held a lighter to the smudge stick until a small flame licked up from its end. When she blew it out, smoke curled from it in a steady stream. She moved her hand back and forth above the coffee table, the smoke rising and encompassing the mirror in its haze.

“Callum, I’d like you to envision the corpse specter,” she began.

“What?” Callum’s voice was shrill. “Why me? That thing clearly has it in for—”

He quieted when he saw the look Morgan was giving him. “Fine,” he grumbled, and shut his eyes.

“Lainey, I’d like you to envision the ghost we’ve been referring to as the tortured wraith. Envision her pain. Try to feel it. Think of what she might have lost. Think of what might have happened prior to her crawling out of the mirror and through your living room.”

I did as I was told, and while it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t pleasant.

The smell of heather and basil gave way to gasoline and the sharp sting of alcohol.

Along with charred flesh, I smelled blood, which I hadn’t realized had been there in the wraith’s presence before.

I imagined the wretched thing collapsing to the ground, wailing in an agony that was more than physical, that was existential and all-encompassing.

As if, besides the pain, she had lost everything . . . and been the cause of it.

“Good,” Morgan said. “Now, move your focus from what you’ve seen of the apparitions to what you haven’t seen. Couldn’t see. Think about their faces.” Then, more quietly, she said, “Joe, lower the mirror.”

I heard the lighter click again. A fresh wave of smoke filled the room.

“Imagine the swirling, shifting, immovable nature of their faces becoming still,” Morgan said. Her voice was calm, gentle. “Imagine the abstraction smoothing out. And as you do, open your eyes.”

I thought of the wraith in the moment she’d stood before me, when it felt like she’d seen me despite her lack of eyes. I opened mine. The mirror was about six inches from the water and still lowering.

“Stare into the mirror,” Morgan said softly. “And see the face of your specter reveal itself to you.”

I stared into the mirror. With the smoke swirling around it, it wasn’t hard to superimpose the mental image of the ghost into its reflection.

It occurred to me that I should be seeing the reflection of the chandelier, the ceiling, in the mirror’s surface.

But nothing was there. It was merely a black, roiling depth.

Until it wasn’t.