“I get sound, but not necessarily sight.” She shrugged. “It’s a mixed bag of blessings. She sees terrible things, but at least she can sleep without something wailing in her ear.”
He looked horrified on their behalf. “You see that? And hear that?” “It’s enough to make one mad,” Gwenivere intoned.
Giselle shot her a glare, then pulled Jonathan’s attention back to her. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Itwasthat bad. And sometimes it was worse. But other people didn’t need to know that. Certainly not people who were already being tormented.
“All right then,” he said, as he straightened to his full height. “Tell us what to do. What does…he want?”
The hesitation in his voice told her that he didn’t want to name his father or label the ghost. Therefore, the ghost became a generic “he.” But Jonathan would have to get a great deal more personal with it before this was done.
“We don’t know,” she said. “He probably exhausted himself destroying the library.”
Susanne took a tentative step closer. “So, ghosts get tired?”
“Not exactly. They have energy that they use up when they do things in the physical world.”
“Like throw a library’s worth of books to the floor,” said Jonathan.
“Yes. But then that supply is exhausted, and it takes a while for them to gather up again.”
“But maybe he won’t come back,” Susanne offered. “Maybe he’s like a candle that’s burnt out now.”
Giselle shook her head. “That hasn’t been my experience. Ghosts that are this strong find a way to come back. If he’s been haunting you for a year, I don’t think you can count on him fading away.”
Then the countess stepped out of the parlor. She was pale, but her voice was strong. “I will go back to Father Bertran. I will tell him everything, and he will send us an exorcist.”
Giselle winced, and she wasn’t the only one. Even Jonathan sighed.
“I don’t think Father Bertran is predisposed to believe you.”
“Then you will have to come with me!” she said. She even stomped her foot as she declared it.
Jonathan looked to Giselle. “Would that work? Can Father Bertran help us?”
“Never in my experience, and my father is a vicar, if you recall. He’s tried all sorts of things over the years. And spoken at length with a Catholic exorcist. As best as we can decipher, these are ghosts, not demons. They’ll stay until they do whatever they need to do before they pass on.”
“Pass on?” Jonathan asked.
“Go to heaven.”
“Or hell,” the countess said. “That’s why he’s haunting us, isn’t it?” she said with a sniff. “It’s because he would rather torture us here than be tormented in hell.”
Giselle bit her lip. The countess’s belief rang strong, and she could see that Susanne and even Jonathan wondered if their mother was right. Was their father here rather than in hell?
“I’ve never encountered anyone who was here because of that. I don’t think they go to hell. When a spirit is done here, they grow brighter. It’s like a light that starts right here.” She pressed a finger to her heart. “Then it expands, growing brighter and brighter until they’re gone.”
“You’ve seen it?” Susanne asked, her voice filled with awe.
“Yes.”
“How many times?” Jonathan asked. “How long have you been…”
He couldn’t even finish the question, and no wonder. She had no name for what her family did. Ghost hunting didn’t fit. They didn’t hunt anything. It was more like the spirits found them and tormented them until someone crossed them over into the light.
“I call it crossing them over,” she said.
“How many times?” he persisted.
“Our whole family does it,” she said. “We all have different gifts, but it’s something I’ve learned—we’ve all learned—from the very beginning.”
