Page 90 of If I Stopped Haunting You

“Maybe.” Pen shivered, squeezing his hand to ground her.

“So, I took a philosophy class back in college and the professor had us discuss the differences between being spiritual and being religious. I’ve grown up surrounded by sage and ceremonies and prayers to the Great Spirit.”

“Unetlanvhi,” Pen said.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s one of the few Cherokee words I know. It means ‘God’ or ‘Great Spirit.’ My dad used it a lot when I was growing up.”

“U,” he tried.

“Oo. Oo-net-lah-nuh-hee.”

Neil repeated it and she smiled, nodding. He continued, “Though I don’t believe in any entity myself, I asked one of the other students if they would consider that spiritual or religious.”

“And what did they say?” Pen asked as they passed the first door.

“Neither. When I told them that a lot of tribes believe in a Great Spirit, a creator, they said it’s not the same. And I wondered if they believed that simply because people outside of the community know so little about the actual practices of specific tribes.When people talk about religion, they don’t consider Indigenous practices. Natives and Indigenous people across the globe are left out of this conversation because we don’t have something… tangible, if that makes sense?”

“It does,” she said softly. If Pen closed her eyes, she could smell her father’s workshop, smell the old “death box” he’d had her paint as a kid, filled with feathers and skulls and deer hide. She could smell the sage-dense smoke and hear the soft language she didn’t fully understand.

“But what’s strange is, I never believed in those things, in the ceremonies of the spirits my father prayed to, but in this castle with these people, I’ve seen the unbelievable.” Neil smiled down at her as they passed the second door.

Pen’s stomach did little flips, but she tried to focus on his words, on him and only him, blocking everything else out.

“Does seeing the ghosts change your view of religion?”

“No, no, I don’t think it does. Ghosts are weird. They’re memories of people caught in this place in the center of everything, so close to death and yet, so close to life.” Neil cleared his throat, a laugh caught in his chest. “I met this woman once.”

“Wait, oh my god, please tell me you spoke to a clairvoyant.”

“Oh, I did. I was new!” he exclaimed as Pen bent at the waist to laugh, tugging them both to a stop a few feet from the door. “I’d never spoken to one, you know? And I decided, well, I know nothing about ghosts, so maybe if I speak to a clairvoyant, she can help me better understand them for my book.”

“And?” Pen asked, turning to him and taking his other hand in hers.

“And she was a total phony. To be fair, I found her on Craigslist, so I’m not sure what I expected. There were probably better clairvoyants out there. But I did learn quite a bit about the lore around ghosts. She said that ghosts are tied to the place wherethey die. And that if we see a ghost floating or levitating, they’re not levitating, they’re haunting the original spaces. Supposedly.”

“Ghosts don’t seem to live… or rather,hauntby the rules.” Pen sighed. “So, I wish I could pretend we haven’t reached the door, but…” She motioned behind him. “We’re here.”

“Huzzah,” he said, deadpanning.

“You know, at the very least, I know what book I’m writing next. Something about her, about how this castle has healed the thing that’s been broken in me these last five years, filled the well that’s been empty for so long. I wish I could explain it, but…”

Neil smiled. “Penelope, that’s amazing, seriously. Congratulations.”

She tried to smile back, but her nerves were a mess. Pen stared at the door, imagining the woman in white floating through it, the way she’d flickered in and out, whole and decaying, back and forth and back and forth. She struggled to see the girl the letters and journal entries had captured, to bridge the connection between a horrifying ghost and a scared mother-to-be. Pen’s stomach roiled at the memory of the last time they’d seen Georgina in this hall as she reached out, her hand clutching the cool metal as she paused and closed her eyes.

“We could make a run for it,” Neil said. “Tear off one of the van doors as a makeshift sled and slide our way to town for help.”

“You’ll do anything if it means not going in there again, huh?”

He squeezed her fingers. “Wouldn’t you?”

She inhaled deeply, smelling that sickeningly sweet scent of decay heavy on the air. It was nearly suffocating. But the hall and the room beyond were completely silent. Sucking in a sharp breath and forging on before she could change her mind, Pen twisted and pushed, letting the door scream open.

She and Neil blinked against the image before them of a young woman seated at a desk by the window.

Georgina.