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“Thank you,” I say as she sweeps off, gathering things from various shelves then meeting us at the counter.
“This is for your session, I’ll throw in these as extras. Just hang them on your main doors and put these in your pockets,” she points out each one.
I hand over my card and thank her for helping us. She’s kind but I feel like we still have just as many questions as we did before. For once, our ghosts are fairly quiet. Figures. But honestly, I feel like that got us nowhere except confirmation we are one, not alone, and two, that things are getting weird.
“Do patient’s files become public after their death?” Jayce asks.
“The sanitorium?” Eli guesses. “It’s not just for mental health. They were used for any long-term illness like tuberculosis and stuff like that, too. But I’m not sure if the record laws protect both types or not? Mental health was lax back then. We’d need to be family to ask for them, I believe.”
“Well then that’s useless,” I sigh. “So, what the hell do we do now?”
“We can check public records. If it was released for a court case it might summarize what we’ve found. I don’t know if she was involved in any, but with how tightly wound she was in the history of the fire I have a feeling she’s come across some legal trouble somewhere along the line,” Jayce concludes.
“So, to the town archives?” I ask.
“To the archives,” Jayce agrees. “It might be another bust, though. That seems to be all we get.”
Yet, one hour later, I was seated at a table glancing through all the records they had on Stella Walker. Thankfully, they’d gone digital and scanned in most of the documents so it was easier to look through.
“Look, here’s a record that was from an incident at her elementary school,” Eli says as he waves us over to his monitor. “The entire class is mentioned, which is why she’s here, but someone set the supply closet on fire and took out the class pets in the process. Talk about psycho.”
“Did they blame it on faulty wiring, too?” I ask with every ounce of sarcasm I feel.
“No, it seems a janitor took the fall for leaving his supplies in the storage closet. The kids were only second graders so there were never in question. Guess they should have been .”
Jayce leans back and taps his chin. “Or this is the incident that started it all. Like that one memory that starts a villain’s arc in movies? She saw this, lost a favorite class pet, internalized the trauma, and subsequently became obsessed with fire?”
“And our ideas earlier were far-fetched?” Eli scoffs. “I think it’s much more likely that she’s simply a psychopath.
We spent a few more hours digging through records but there wasn’t much more to go on. A few sneezes overtake me before I tell the guys it’s time to call it a night. The three of us are all frustrated and tired but I am in need of a shower. When Jinx told me that Stella was following us like a shadow, I felt unclean and in desperate need of a shower. As if washing would rid me of her.
Lucien
I was standing near Raven when the witch told her I was leeching power off of her. How was that possible? I existed in my realm of past and present for years now, didn’t I? People came and went with those silly ghost tours. But after Raven visited I was able to leave my prison on the college grounds on Halloween. I thought it was simply because on that night, the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, but now I see I was wrong. I’m mad at myself for doing that to her. The last thing I want to do is cause her pain.
Even if I know I need to keep some distance, I need to speak with her about it when she gets home. Plus, I didn’t want that witch to overhear us talking. Raven seems reasonable, I’ll just explain to her that I’m not some parasite, that I wouldn’t do that to her, at least not willingly.
Will she believe me? More than likely she’ll be angry. That witch did not cast me in the best light.
After being called a freeloader I thought it was best to come back to the apartment and simply wait. A loud bang startles me from my thoughts as the door slams into the wall behind it.
“Eli, control your temper.” Raven’s voice floats towards her bedroom that I’m in and I have the sudden urge to go to her. Not only because she sounds so upset but because she’s like a light in the dark, always beckoning me closer and I’m helpless to stop it. “I’m going to shower off some of this dust.”
“How can I?” he grits out. “We have a psycho attached to us and no way of knowing how to rid ourselves of her. Lucien tried to save us, but fuck, I’m beginning to think that it’s his fault.”
My heart sinks at his words. Is he right? Maybe I should head back to the college and give them space. The thought of being forced back to my prison is killing me, though. I don’t want to be alone among all the forlorn souls, I want to be near her. God. Maybe I am the leech the witch accused me of.
Raven pauses her walk down the hall to turn back to him. “You know it’s Stella that is the cause for all of this. It was a chance that we were there on Halloween and I resemble Iris. If this is Lucien’s fault, it’s mine as well. He never asked to die in that fire, but that didn’t stop him from giving up his life to save as many as he could as he tried to get to the love of his life. Would you do the same?”
Raven opened the door to her room. I’m floating near the unmade bed and move aside so she won’t pass through me as she launches herself onto it. She lands face down and buries her face into the pile of covers. A muffled scream escapes her lips and she lays there for a few moments before sitting up. Her face is red and she’s breathing heavy, but looks a bit less manic than she did when she stormed in here.
“Great, now I have to change these sheets, too,” she huffs as she starts to undress.
At the sight of her ripping her clothes off, I cough, trying to get her attention. She’s already pulled off her distressed blue jeans, and is about to pull her shirt over her head when she turns to look up at me.
A smile tips her lips and all my worries seem to melt away at the same time.
“Ah, I wondered if you’d show up again today.”
