Come again?

The old lady sits on the edge of her chair, an old wingback upholstered in a green and red flowery print. There are white lace doilies on each arm. The chair matches the rest of the room, from the rose shag carpet to the mahogany armoire in the corner that displays rows and rows of hummel figurines and beanie babies. On her lap sits a tiny long-haired Chihuahua named Wonton, quivering and staring at me. This is a grandma’s house if ever I’ve seen one, and the lady across from me belongs here.

My gaze is drawn to her hands as they wring together nervously, the fragile, liver-spotted skin wrinkling against her thumb and the gaudy rings that adorn each finger, accenting the veins that stick out in sharp relief. I glance at my own hands, smooth and unmarked, and feel a small dread at the thought of them withering someday.

“I don’t know what else to think,” the lady is saying to Kennedy, who sits beside me on the couch scribbling notes on her ever-present yellow legal pad. “I honestly don’t know what else it could be.” She shivers and draws her knit shawl closer around her shoulders.

Kennedy flips back a page or two, glancing at her notes. “So, the activity started soon after your twin sister passed away, is that right, Miss Canton?”

“Please, call me Miss Delphi,” the lady demurs, smiling. “I hate to be so formal.”

She picks up her teacup. “Yes, everything started the week after Adelaide died. That’s her there.”

She gestures to an 8x10 photo on the mantle of Miss Delphi and... Miss Delphi?

Wow, I think to myself as I stare at the two women in the photo. The sisters were truly are identical, down to the blue crocheted shawls around their shoulders.

Miss Delphi continues. “You can ask my Billy about the specifics. She never appears to me.”

As if on cue, there is a knock at the door. Wonton leaps to his feet, barking furiously from the safety his owner’s lap. Miss Delphi pats his head and turns to me. “Be a dear and get that, would you? It takes me too long to stand up on these rickety old legs.”

At the door is a slender man in his fifties, who has his mother’s friendly blue eyes and deep laugh lines.

“Come in, Billy. Don’t keep us ladies waiting! Come sit.” Miss Delphi gestures to the matching wingback chair beside her. “Girls, this is my Billy. Billy, these are Kennedy and Scout. They are the ghost finders you called!”

“Nice to meet you, ladies.” He nods to us and walks over to kiss Miss Delphi’s cheek and pat Wonton, who settles into quivering silence once more, before he sits and speaks to us. “You can call me Bill. I assume my mother here has been telling you about our adventure this past couple of months?”

“It looks like things have been pretty lively around here,” Kennedy smiles, flipping through her notes again. “She’s told us about several incidents- missing car keys, footsteps in the hall, and someone calling her name when no one else was here.”

“Yes, that sounds about right.”

“Is there anything else?”

I watch Bill’s expression become guarded. He glances at his mother and clears his throat. “Well…,”

“Oh, go on and tell them.” Miss Delphi’s voice comes out a little sharper. “I already told them you’ve seen your Aunt Adelaide around the house. They are ghost finders. They’ll believe you!”

“Sure.” Bill stands. “I think I need something to drink.” He goes into the kitchen, pausing behind his mother’s back to give me a pointed glance.

I raise my eyebrows at Kennedy, who barely shrugs and nods back. I shoot back the last of my water and stand, trying not to choke on the ice cube at the bottom. “Well, I think I need a refill. Be right back.”

In the kitchen, Bill is looking out the window, his hands fisted on the laminate countertop. I feel awkward now, standing in the doorway with my empty cup. “Needed a refill,” I say with an awkward grin, holding up the cup.

“I know my mother thinks this place is haunted,’ Bill begins, turning towards me. His blue eyes are troubled, the crease between his brows deeper than the laugh lines now. “And I want to believe her. But come on. Aunt Adelaide back from the dead? What are the chances?”

“Miss Delphi says you’ve seen Adelaide. Is that not true?”

“My mother claims that I’ve seen her dead sister because there have been several times in the last few weeks where she’s forgotten things that she’s done.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The first time, she was here in the kitchen doing the dishes. I came in and helped dry and put away. She was very quiet, not quite herself, so I suggested that she go lay down after, which she did. When I came in from mowing the lawn an hour later she was sitting in her chair and asked me if I’d help her do the dishes.” He huffs out a sigh. “The next time, it was dusting the hummels. And again when she forgot she’d already eaten lunch. Each time she acted strangely, and each time she forgot what she’d done within the hour. I’m sorry. It doesn’t sound paranormal to me. It sounds- medical.” His voice cracks on this last word and he dashes a hand across his eyes. “My mother is not getting any younger. I’m concerned that her mind may be starting to go.”

He doesn’t act like he needs or wants us to confirm the presence of a ghost. “Then why did you call us?”

“Because- because I love my mother, and I want to help her see that these claims are false. Because maybe when the ‘ghost finders’-” he says the words sarcastically, with air quotes, “don’t find anything, she’ll be willing to go see a doctor.”

I feel my hackles rise the moment he uses the air quotes, but I bite my tongue, hearing Dean’s voice in the back of my mind. The client is always right- even if they are wrong. This is a man who clearly loves his mother and is willing to try some unconventional methods to help her feel safe and in control. I can’t fault him for that. “Well, I’ll tell Kennedy about this, and we’ll help you get to the bottom of it, I promise. I have to ask, though. What will you do if we actually find evidence of a haunting?”

He shakes his head and laughs, a dry, helpless sound. “Please. I really don’t think it’s going to happen.”

That evening we meet in Miss Delphi’s kitchen. It’s a small home, so it’s just me, Cara, and Dylan tonight. We almost didn’t take the case. There was much debate over whether it would be bad for our group’s reputation to be chasing ghosts in the home of a woman with a possible mental illness. Ultimately, Dean and Dylan decide that since Bill is the one who called us in, and since we aren’t charging a fee, that it is okay to move ahead with the investigation.

Dylan pulls me aside as the others start unpacking the equipment on the laptop. “Are you okay for tonight, Scout?”

It really means a lot that he’s asking me this. It’s a far cry from the first ghost hunt we ever did together when he tried to feed me up to the ghosts as an appetizer. I may be sensitive to paranormal energy, but I have to be in charge of how it works. Well, as in charge as I can be. “I’m fine. We don’t even know if the place is really haunted.”

“I want you to feel free to tell us about anything you get tonight. Dean isn’t here.”

I nod. Dean is a good guy, but he hates it when I use my psychic abilities. He is firmly on the skeptic side when it comes to the paranormal, and views psychics as sketchy at best.

“You don’t feel anything?”

“Not yet. Well,” I pat my stomach. “Maybe a little hungry.”

Dylan laughs. “Don’t forget to tag your stomach growls on the recordings. We don’t want everyone to think there’s a demon on the prowl.”

Miss Delphi will be spending the night at her neighbor’s, the Fortins. Bill will not be joining us either. He is happy to hear the results of our work later, although it is obvious he’s sure the investigation will tank. I don’t mind skeptics, in fact I think skepticism is really important in paranormal research. But I hate working with people who don’t want to believe. It’s hard to concentrate when you feel like you are being laughed at behind your back.

It takes about an hour to set up the equipment, including cameras in the bedrooms, hallway, and kitchen- all places where Miss Delphi declares her son has seen her dead sister, Adelaide. Antonio puts out REM pods to monitor emf spikes. There is a laser grid shining down the hall, creating a pattern of red dots along the walls and the bathroom door at the end, so that we might see any shadow figures moving when they break the patterns of light.

“I’ll go set up a camera in the kitchen by the sink,” I call over my shoulder. Walking into the hallway, I step through a curtain of spiderwebs. I jerk backwards, swiping at my face and looking up and down for the webs. Not panicking like I used to. Looking for the truth instead of the fear.

The truth here is, there are no spiderwebs. I just walked into ghost energy. I can feel it running down my hands to my fingertips and dropping into my stomach like jumping beans. I think I can tell Dylan that Bill is definitely wrong. There is something here. The only question now is, who- or what- is it? I wait for a moment. The energy dissipates. Taking a deep, calming breath, I continue on into the kitchen only to stop with a gasp. “Miss Delphi! I thought you went over to the neighbor’s house?”

The old lady is standing at the sink, her hands braced on the silver metal edge, staring out the window at the setting sun. She doesn’t answer or acknowledge that I’ve spoken.

“Miss Delphi? Did you forget something? Can I help? We’re going to start the investigation now, but if you want I can walk you back over to Mrs. Fortin’s.” I take another step towards her, expecting her to smile and move, but nothing. It’s like I’m not here. Awkward, I think to myself. Now what? Should I go get Dylan? Maybe call Bill? I suddenly see what he means about his mother not acting like herself. But, maybe she is hard of hearing?

I decide to try one more time, speaking loud and clear this time. “Um, I need to set up a camera over there, just in case Adelaide makes an appearance here tonight.”

At the mention of her sister’s name, the old lady seems to come back to life. Her shoulders jerk back and she turns towards me, blinking several times like she’s just waking up. “Dear? Oh...yes. My shawl. Could you hand it to me, please?” She gestures towards a row of hooks that line the wall by the kitchen door.

“Oh, sure. This one?” I lift the blue crocheted shawl from its hook and hand it to her.

“These old hands…,” She gestures for me to help put it on her. I do, although I feel kind of weird about it. I swing the material up and around her thin shoulders, and button the top button under her chin.

“Thank you, dear.” She grabs my hands. Her hands are icy and surprisingly strong. She doesn’t let go. I can feel her fingers gripping tight, my thumb pressed into the knobbly skin of her knuckles. It gets awkward and I tug my hand back a little, hoping she’ll get the hint and let go.

Her face leans towards mine and she tugs back. Her painted red lips stretch into a smile. But they don’t stop where a normal smile should, pulling wider and wider until the wrinkles on her cheeks stretch tight, her teeth gleaming white from inside her mouth. It is a leering smile, made stranger by the cold glint in her blue eyes that make her look almost predatory. She isn’t blinking. In that moment, with the cold pooling in my belly and ice climbing up my spine, I know I need to leave. Right now.

“Okay, then. Do you need me to walk you back to Mrs. Fortin’s place?” I yank my hands from hers, my heart racing. “Miss Delphi? Miss Delphi?”

She turns from me, first her shoulders and hips, then her head. Last to leave me is that cold, leering stare. She moves in a way that doesn’t seem possible for the stiff old lady who couldn’t get up to answer the door, sleek, polished. Sly. She glides to the doorway between the kitchen and the hall to the parlor, the only way I have back to the others, and stands there, looking out. I can’t bring myself to push past her, and so I fast-walk to the screen door. “You know? I think I forgot the- the thing. In the car. Dylan’s gonna want it for tonight, so I’ll just-” The door slams behind me as I rush to the porch railing, gripping it tight while I will my heart to stop racing. Has that woman always been so creepy?

The slam of the door sets off a dog barking next door. I look over to see Wonton bouncing on his front feet as he barks his head off. He is sitting on Miss Delphi’s lap as she sips a cup of iced tea and chats with Mrs. Fortin. I turn back to the kitchen in confusion. There is no one there. I run through to the parlor where Dylan and Cara are setting up equipment and joking with each other.

“Where is she?” I demand. They look confused. “Where is Miss Delphi?”

“She left a half hour ago, remember?” Cara looks at me like I’ve grown two heads. I shake my head and go back to the porch. Miss Delphi is still there with Mrs. Fortin, and as I stare at her with dread in my belly, she lifts her glass of tea in a sort of toast.

“Good luck with the ghost finders, dear,” she calls over with a normal, wrinkly, old lady smile.

I lift my hand, wiggle my nerveless fingers and try to smile through clenched teeth. I think we are in for a long night.