“I ran to Hannah and picked her up. I thought… I was worried she’d done something to her. By the time Erin got up, I’d decided I’d dreamed it all.”
“I’m just glad Hannah was okay.”
“But when you said the part about her eyes… This woman’s eyes were solid white. That’s all I saw, and I haven’t slept well since.”
While I was totally glad not to be handcuffed, I was still at a loss. What if the woman really was haunting Erin? What if she really killed the babies? What then? Could one really hire an exorcist? If so, how? From what I understood, the Catholic Church tended to drag its feet about these things. Hannah was in danger now. Especially since I – aka the girl with no past – showed up.
“Where’s the baby now?” I asked.
“With Erin’s aunt.”
I nodded and walked over to the pictures on the mantel.
“Are these all of Hannah?”
He stood. “No, these two are of her first two babies, Hailey and Carrie.”
All I saw was the creepy old lady. It was like a horror film on pause.
“What exactly do you see?” he asked me.
“In every picture of the children, I only see the old lady. In the others, though, I see you guys and other assorted family members.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how would you know? You can see past the woman, right?”
“True.”
“Okay, then point to the ones where you see the old lady.”
I pointed to the first one. He nodded. The second. Another nod. The third, and so on. Erin was so into family, it was charming. We walked to the pictures on the wall. She had them artfully arranged and all framed in white.
The babies were only in two pictures there. I started again and pointed to the one closest to me.
Billy frowned. “You see her in this picture?”
When I nodded, he shook his head. “This is Erin’s great-aunt Novalee. She died in the thirties or forties.”
Surprised, I pointed to another photo. He shook his head again. “This is Novalee, too.”
“All I see is the crazy ghost chick. Why does Erin have pictures of relatives she’s never met?”
“She’s just like that,” he said. “She loves old pictures and antiques and stuff. And Novalee’s story is tragic. I just think she always felt a connection with her even though they never met. All her older relatives say Erin looks just like her.”
“How is Novalee’s story tragic?” I asked, suspicious.
“From what I understand, she was a nut. Like certifiable. Set fires. Tore up any paper with pictures for no reason. Spent almost her whole life in an institution.”
Sadly, that could have meant any number of debilitating mental diseases. Or it could even have been a result of a childhood injury or illness.
“You know what?” he said, heading to the hallway. “There might be something up here.” He pulled the ladder to the attic down and had started to climb up when he remembered he was wearing a towel. “Maybe I should put on some pants first.”
“Maybe,” I said, chuckling.
It was a shame. He looked really nice in that towel. I needed to get Reyes a towel. Everyone needed a towel. It wouldn’t look too desperate.
Billy went to change, so I perused the pictures along the walls there. Erin had an incredible ability to decorate combining both old and new. Some of her heirlooms looked so fragile. So delicate.
I came across a drawing and stopped. It was very old, from the early 1900s judging by the dress the woman was wearing in it. But it was her.
“Billy!”
He ran out while pulling on a shirt. “Did you find something?”
“Is this her?” I asked him. “Because this woman could be Erin’s twin.”
He squinted. “Oh, yeah, I think it is.” He took the drawing off the wall and looked at the back. “Yep. Erin labeled all of the pictures. This one is from 1910. Novalee Smeets.”
I studied the drawing, but she was too young in it. I couldn’t tell if that was the crazy lady or not.
“You can see her in this, right?”
“I can. What were you going to show me from the attic?”
“Oh, when Erin was a kid, she used to draw a lot. I think she copied a lot of the old pictures she had. She might have drawn another one of Novalee.”
“Did she draw any of Novalee when she got older?”
“Let’s find out.”
I started up the stairs, and the situation seemed eerily familiar. It gave me flashbacks. “I just fell through a ceiling. I won’t fall through, right?”
“Nah, it’s finished.”
“Okay.”
After some rearranging, Billy found a box of Erin’s old drawings. She was an incredible artist. She practiced hyperrealism. Her drawings looked so real they could have been photographs.
“Does Erin still draw?”
“Unfortunately, no. I mean, look at these. We could be rich,” he joked. “She stopped after her first baby died.”
“She’s amazing.”
We pored over each drawing, checked names, and searched for other photographs she’d used as reference.
“Here’s one,” he said, holding it up for me. “The original is downstairs.”
I could see why she used that picture. Erin had focused mainly on the face and let the other details in the picture fade away. The woman in it was old with fragile cracks along her skin and eyes that didn’t quite look right. She was staring off into space; then I realized why.
“This is a mourning portrait,” I said to him.
“Wow, how’d you get the time of day?”
“No, mourning as in grieving. Novalee had already passed when this picture was taken.”
He lurched back as though suddenly afraid to touch it. I fought the urge to chase him with it while screaming, “Death cooties! Death cooties!” Sometimes my thoughts led me way too far astray.
“Well, mystery solved.”
He stared a moment, then asked, “This is her? The woman I saw?”
“Unless there are two ghosts hanging out here, that’s her.”
“What the hell? I mean, is she trying to kill Hannah?”
I chewed on a fingernail in thought. “I’m not sure.”
“Then what do we do? How do we stop her?”
“I have no clue.” He gaped at me, so I explained. “I see her, plain as you see me, but I don’t know what to do about her. I’m not exactly an expert, but I do have connections.”
“What kind of connections?” he asked, his brows knitting in suspicion.
“The, um, noncorporeal kind. I’ll ask around.”
He stared again, then snapped out of it and looked at my hand. “You know, you can put that down now.”
I looked at the poker I still held. The one I’d climbed to the attic with. “Oh, right. Sorry.” After I laid it on the floor beside me, I said, “Look, Erin and I don’t exactly… get along. If you could, maybe, not mention that I broke and entered?”
“Don’t worry about her. She’s a pussycat.”
To him, maybe. She wanted to kill me with a tire iron.