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“They looked like bloody footsteps,” I clarified before he flipped through, showing exactly that on the screen. It was crazy to see what we were seeing in person in hard evidence, but you could see the red footprints clear as day on the screen.
“That’s not ominous at all,” she said, swallowing hard. “This is the light stuff?”
“Yes,” I said. “There are plenty of stories that we could give you. On the lake, for instance, we had an encounter. Something shoved Ryker onto the ice and another of us saw a floating figure. They had even made one of us believe that we were falling in.”
Elizabeth shuddered. “I never did like that dock. I’m not very surprised at hearing all of this.”
We showed her a few more things on the screens, and she watched with rapt attention. But it was clear that she was uncomfortable the entire time.
Her body language was rigid, and she shifted often. She hated every second of this, and I couldn’t blame her. With a father like Patrick, I knew her childhood was anything but kind, and this was just another bad thing to attach to this castle.
“Now we have the final footage. We did not stream this because we knew things were bad, but we did have cameras set up in the room we ended up in: your father’s quarters. After you had identified him, we knew he was at the center of it all.”
“What did he do?” she asked in a shaky tone. Her hands were wringing together and I fought off the urge to go to her.
“He essentially tethered himself to this house, made it so his spirit couldn’t cross over, and then he enhanced the supernatural abilities so he was stronger than the other ghosts here. He used it to torment you, Elizabeth. There’s no nice way to say that.”
“Fucking prick,” she growled. “Show me.”
Ryker hit play, and she watched everything unfold. You could even see me on screen being slammed into the ceiling.
She put a hand over her now-pale face as she watched, wide-eyed and horrified, as everything raged on, from start to finish.
Thankfully, there was no audio, but there didn’t need to be. You could fill in everything with your imagination just by watching that horrifying footage.
“This isn’t exactly something we would release, but we thought you would want to know how bad things got and to explain the level of damage in that room. It’s extensive.”
“Is he gone now?” she asked. “For good?”
“Yes. We had some help from some experts with runes, and we turned it to bar any negative activity. He and no other entities in the future will ever be able to inhabit this castle the same way. It’s protected now.”
“But there are some spirits who remain here?” she asked, looking around uneasy again.
“Not every spirit is bad, but yes. You can call them friendly ghosts if you want. This is their home, and they’re not willing to cross over. And I morally can’t force them to,” I said, slightly apologetic.
“That’s...” she started, opening and closing her mouth a few times, trying to put into words what she was feeling.
“I think I knew that.”
Whatever I thought she would say, that was definitely not it. We all looked at each other before looking back at her.
“What do you mean?”
“You remember I talked about imaginary friends?” Her eyes flickered to me and I nodded. “There was a little girl here when I was a kid. Her name was Laura. She used to keep me company when I played hide and seek from the staff. We laughed and sang together, and then one day she was just gone. I don’t know if I got too old and forgot her or what.”
“It’s often said that children have the ability to see ghosts. It could just be that life became too serious, and you lost the ability to talk to her. I will say we did not run into any children here.”
“Hopefully, she moved on to a better place,” Elizabeth said, letting out a sigh and looking relieved.
She stood up and started to pace. This was a lot to process and we weren’t here to hurry her or pressure her into anything. This was uncharted territory for us all.
“I truly don’t know what to do. This isn’t home for me. It never has been. It’s not just about the ghosts, the negative or the good ones. I didn’t have good memories here. My father was abusive in his own ways. That man gave me enough trauma to write a psychology textbook about.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I hate that he tormented you in life and in death.”
“Well, he can’t anymore, can he?” she said, and then a wide smile broke over her face. “He can’t.” she said it again before letting out a light laugh. Elizabeth was a whole lot stronger and smarter than anyone gave her credit for, and I was glad that she finally would get to move on.
Then her smile fell.
