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  Damon glanced at me.

  “Sorry, I thought I heard Mom coming home but I think it was a passing car.” I resumed the DVD.

  “Is it giving you the creeps? We can turn it off if you want,” he said.

  “No, it’s cool.” I tried to focus on the screen but the buzzing kept invading my ears, and I couldn’t help but rub them. I glanced at Savannah, who had come up for air, rubbing at the corner of her eye like she had something stuck in it. Talia was bent forward, rubbing at her ankle, Tamara sipped at her drink, and Sasha’s nose had that scrunched-up “ew” look to it.

  I gulped. Of all the times, why did we had to have an urge to connect right when I was sitting next to a boy? A boy that I kind of liked. Okay, really liked. And he didn’t know our secret. How would we explain this? Our senses were only going to get more heightened the more we ignored them, until we had no choice but to hold hands and let them show us what we needed to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

  I exchanged a glance with Savannah, and she whispered to Riley, then stood. “I just remembered, I need to go check something.” She wandered off.

  “Oh, do you mean that thing?” Sasha added.

  “That thing we were going to check? Oh yes, um…” Tamara stood also and followed. Talia got up too, but didn’t say anything.

  Riley stood and swung his arms back and forth. “I’m hungry again. Hey, Damon, let’s go make some popcorn, yeah?”

  Damon looked confused. He paused the DVD.

  I stood. “That’d be great, thanks, Riley. There’s another couple of packets next to the microwave. I’ll go and, um, see what’s, ah…the thing.” The buzz grew louder in my ears.

  As I walked past Riley I mouthed thank you, then joined my sisters in the bedroom.

  “Quick, quick! Before the popcorn’s ready,” I said, holding out my hands.

  We connected and the bubbles fizzed up rapidly inside, like a soda bottle had been shaken, then opened. My eyes clamped tightly shut, my ears receptive to the sounds that would arrive like uninvited guests gatecrashing a party.

  A door creaking…muffled whispers…then a clear voice: “Get the hell out of our house!”

  I sucked in a sharp breath, but kept my eyes closed and my hands connected to my sisters’.

  A door creaked again, then slammed, but not like it was slamming shut, more slamming open. And a whoosh of air. Although I couldn’t feel anything, it sounded cold. And strong. Then a cry—not a scream, not the scream, but a helpless cry as though someone were falling. And then a bump, and a cracking noise. Nausea rose in my gut. Was that bone?

  The sounds abated and my head cleared. I released my sisters’ hands and opened my eyes.

  “What did you hear, Serena? The scream again?” Savannah asked.

  “No, someone crying out. And something breaking. And the old woman’s voice again; she said to get the hell out of their house.” I shivered.

  “Well, for once I liked what I sensed,” said Sasha. “I could smell coconut, and something sweet, like it was some kind of coconut-based food.”

  Tamara clicked her fingers. “I tasted it! It was a coconut meringue. Although it did have a bitter aftertaste,” she said.

  “I smelled that potpourri again, too,” Sasha added. “Talia?”

  I glanced at my sister, who was sitting on the bed, rubbing her ankle again. “Ouch. Whatever that was, it’s going to hurt.” She checked her leg, then stood. “Whoa,” she said, sitting back down again.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Dizzy. That’s what I felt in the vision, like I had lost my balance.” She stood again and this time was steady.

  “Savvy, whoever spoke, did you see their face?” I asked.

  “Yes. The same people I saw before, the same three faces. Two women, one man. The older woman’s mouth was moving and she looked angry.” She sat on her bed by the window and her eyes went distant. “And somehow a door opened by itself. Then everything went blurry, and next thing I knew I was looking at someone’s leg; it was bent in a funny way. And swelling appeared. And hands, they grasped at it.” She glanced up at me. “I know those hands,” she said.

  “You recognized someone by their hands? Riley’s?”

  “Nope,” she shook her head. “I recognized the fingernails. The person who got injured was Lara.”

  Chapter 14

  Sunday passed quickly and Monday passed slowly. I kept checking my watch, desperate for the end of the school day so I could go to the Jamesons’ house. Damon and I had passed each other in the halls in the morning, and we exchanged knowing glances. It was kind of thrilling, the fact that we were going to share in a unique experience this afternoon, regardless of whether it worked or not. The other students around us were oblivious to what we had planned. They were also oblivious to the Delta Girls secret, of course, so now I felt even more different, but no longer weird. I felt…powerful. Special. Purposeful. I imagined myself standing on top of the vending machine and calling out, “Attention students! Just thought you should know—Damon and I are trying out EVP today! And by the way, I can hear ghosts! And voices! And things that are going to happen in the future! My sisters are also gifted. We are The Delta Girls!”

  “Serena?”

  “Huh?” I turned to the voice. My English teacher.

  “The bell has gone. Was there something you wanted to discuss?” She looked at me through her dainty glasses that looked like they could crack at the slightest bump or change in weather.

  “Oh, sorry! I was lost in thought.” I stood and gathered my belongings. “Thanks, but I have to go work on my science project now.” I smiled.

  “You’re a good student, Serena,” she said. “But don’t overdo it. Take some time to relax, too.”

  A teacher telling me to relax? That was a first. I probably should relax more, but it would have to wait until the ghost situation was sorted out. My brain wouldn’t rest until they did.

  I met Damon and Lara at the gate and as soon as she saw me she waved, then started walking—marching—up the road. No doubt she would set everything up like a high-tech research lab when she got home. I wouldn’t even put it past her to put on a white coat and safety goggles and greet us with a makeshift quarantine station when we arrived, so as to not contaminate the research area.

  But when we arrived, she greeted us with a tray of homemade goodies and a satisfied smile. “I made these last night. They’re extremely good. Eat.”

  I plucked a meringue from the tray and took a bite. Coconut. Vanilla. “Nice, thanks.” My chewing paused. Tamara had tasted these, Sasha had smelled them. Prediction success—check! But did that mean… “Hey, Lara, are those shoes slippery?” I gestured to her black, sensible, closed-toe shoes with a simple strap across the bridge. “They look kind of like some I used to own, and I used to slip and slide everywhere in them.”

  “No.” She lifted her foot and showed me the ridged nonslip sole.

  “Oh. Mine didn’t have that. Oh well, lucky then.”

  “Clothing and footwear should always be practical as well as aesthetically pleasing.” She carried the tray upstairs and we followed.

  Damon clenched his hand on the handrail as he ascended. I looked at him curiously.

  “I don’t have those fancy nonslip things,” he said with a grin.

  “Me neither.” I grasped the handrail too. What if it was someone else who had fallen and hurt their leg, and what Savannah had seen was Lara helping whoever had been hurt? She had only seen the leg and the hand, but not the body. Oh, great. More possibilities to worry about. I wanted to text Savannah to double-check, but there was a sense of urgency in the air and I decided to let Lara run the show. Again.

  • • •

  Half an hour later, when we had efficiently completed our speedy study session, Lara picked up her laptop. “Time to test out the EVP.” She said it in a way that sounded like she was simply suggesting we try out a new variety of meringue that she had made.

  A thought hit me. “D
o you know anything about the previous owners?” I asked Damon, as he picked up some equipment.

  “Nope. The place had been empty for a while when we bought it. I could try to ask Dad a bit more about it, I guess. All I know is that apparently it had been in someone’s family, and hadn’t been on the market to the public in a very long time.”

  “I guess if this doesn’t work then we could see what else we can find out about the history of the house.”

  Damon smiled and lowered his head a little.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, nothing.” He flicked his hand. I searched his eyes, and they met mine. “It’s just that you said we, not you.” He lightly touched my arm with his free hand. “Thanks for helping. It’s not exactly the most common thing to help a friend out with.”

  My arm tingled a little, even though his hand was no longer touching it. “No problem. It’s interesting stuff. I want to help.” I smiled. A friend…did he only see me that way, or as more? Had our date simply been a friendly meetup between two people who happened to be doing a science project together? Anyway, no point reading too much into things. I would send myself mad with all the possible reasons behind the things people said or did. All that mattered was that he was genuinely appreciative of my being here, and if we were just friends, we were just friends. No big deal.

  Though a twinge in my gut told me it was.

  I wanted it to be a big deal.

  I wanted him to like me more than as friends. I wanted a sign that it was true. Did that make me a desperate, needy, crazy girl? No, surely not. I wasn’t desperate. I didn’t really need him. And I knew I wasn’t crazy. I just liked him. That’s all.

  And clearly, by thinking of all this right now, my mind was trying to distract me from the significance of what we were about to attempt.

  “C’mon, you two!” Lara called from the sitting room. I was a little wary about going back in there, but not as much now that I knew they could hear the noises the ghosts made. Even if they couldn’t hear their voices.

  Time seemed to catapult back a hundred years when we entered. Like we had stepped into another world, which, although familiar, was far removed from the world we knew. The floor creaked as I walked across it, toward the middle where Lara had set up the computer on a large, square lamp table. It was as though with every step I took, the room was complaining, telling me I shouldn’t be here. Step, creak—what are you doing? Step, creak—go away! Step, creak—you don’t belong here!

  Damon closed the door, then slid the heavy drapes over the windows. He turned on a small lamp in the corner. He fiddled with his handheld recorder and did something with Lara’s computer. Then he turned on the recorder, tapped the table with his fist, and said, “Testing, testing.” The red light flashed as he spoke. He connected the recorder to the laptop and played back the recording. “Okay, everything is working fine. We can now go ahead.”

  “We have to make sure we’re very quiet,” said Lara. “So that any sounds can be picked up and aren’t masked by our own. I think we should ask a few basic questions, though, like who they are, and what they want.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Damon. “And if the light flashes red, it means it’s picking something up. Maybe we should move around to a few different locations in the room between questions, just in case some areas are more receptive than others.” With his straight posture and squared shoulders, it seemed like Damon was completely confident and had been preparing for this for a while. “We ready?” He glanced at me and I nodded, then at his sister, who gave a single, definite nod.

  We stood close together, Damon in the middle, and I resisted the urge to grab hold of his arm to settle my nerves.

  Damon pressed the recorder. We all froze, eyes on the device. He waited a while, then said, “We’d like to know who you are.” His voice was clear but a little uncertain sounding. I couldn’t blink for fear of missing the flashing red light. It remained neutral. We waited. “Please tell us who you are,” he said.

  The light bulb stayed dark. But we heard a flickering and our eyes darted to the corner. The small lamp dimmed, then brightened. My heart raced. I glanced at the recorder but still the light wasn’t red.

  “Can you tell us what you want, then?” he asked.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe we should move closer to the lamp?” I whispered.

  Slowly, we moved as a group, toward the lamp that had stopped flickering but now had a certain ominous glow to it, like it was watching us, waiting until we were close enough so it could flicker like mad and freak us all out.

  “Ask again,” said Lara, but at the precise moment that she spoke my gaze switched from the lamp to the recorder as I heard a muffled voice. The red light flashed. My heart pounded in time with its ruby-colored confirmation that we were not alone.

  I pointed to the device, my eyes urgent and unblinking, Damon and Lara’s pupils dilated. The voice was muffled but someone had definitely spoken, though I wasn’t sure what they had said. I mouthed ask again to Damon.

  “Can you please repeat that? What is it you want?” Damon asked, his voice different somehow, smaller even, now that he had seen that little red light flash.

  It flashed again, and I heard it. Her. The old woman.

  “I said, we want you to GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR HOUSE!”

  “Agh!” I screamed. And immediately regretted it. My muscles trembled and became weak, and this time I did grab hold of Damon’s arm.

  The flashing stopped. Damon put the recorder down and held onto both my arms. “You’re shaking. Are you okay?” He looked me right in the eyes but I could barely register anything visual, my awareness totally consumed by the sense of sound, as though it had barged into my consciousness and pushed the other senses out of the way with a mighty shove.

  I nodded rapidly, though I wasn’t okay. I had heard those same words in my vision, but nothing could have prepared me for the suddenness and intensity of hearing them for real.

  “She’s just scared by seeing the light flash, I think. Quick, plug it in and see what it picked up,” said Lara.

  Damon connected the device, his hands shaking a little too.

  My senses repositioned themselves and consciousness focused my thoughts. I couldn’t hold this in anymore. I had to say something. “I already know what they said.”

  Damon paused and looked up at me as he bent over the table. “What do you mean?”

  “I heard them. I heard her.” I wrung my hands together. “She said to get the hell out of their house.”

  The twins stared at me with confused expressions.

  “But how…” It was strange to see Lara lost for words, unable to string together a clear and logical sentence.

  Damon’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I know. But I did. I can. I just didn’t want to say so.”

  The crease between his eyes deepened, and he tapped on the keyboard. “Okay, shh,” he said.

  The recording played back and Damon’s voice asking who they were could be heard, followed by nothing except a slight disruption to the static background sound, which I presumed to be the lamp flickering. Then Damon’s voice asked what they wanted, and I suggested moving toward the lamp. Then I heard Lara’s voice saying, “Ask again,” mixed with the muffled voice I’d heard.

  They both looked at me, obviously having noticed the muffled sound overlapping with Lara’s voice. Lara quickly diverted her gaze to the computer screen, watching the waveform representation of the sounds showing up as peaks and troughs as the visual display of the recording moved across the screen.

  When Damon’s voice on the recording asked for the spirit to please repeat what they wanted, I held onto my ears in preparation.

  “I said, we want you to GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR HOUSE!”

  I scrunched up my face, rubbing at my ears. The recording ended and Damon and Lara stared at me, mouths gaping.

  “How the hell…” Damon managed.

  “Did you somehow
tamper with the device beforehand? Are you playing a trick on us?” asked Lara.

  “No, I swear!” I dropped my hands to my side.

  The woman’s voice on the recording was staticky. I’d heard it the first time as clearly as if she were Damon speaking to me.

  Damon played it back again, then eyed me with cautious curiosity.

  There was no way out of this. It was time to come clean. I knew it would change the dynamics of my relationship with both of them, but there was nothing else I could do. I couldn’t bluff my way out of this one. And I hated lying.

  “Serena, how on earth did you know what the voice said?” His face had paled and his voice shook, and I wasn’t sure how much it was to do with the fact that the EVP had worked and he’d finally heard proof that there was a presence in his house, and how much was to do with the fact that I had heard the voice in real time when he hadn’t.

  I had thought I was ready for this, but my muscles trembled again and I struggled for breath. I couldn’t say the words. I needed to get out.

  I dashed from the room and went back to the living room, taking a seat on the couch and hugging a cushion to my chest. Damon and Lara came in a moment later, and I heard the door to the sitting room closing behind them.

  Damon went to the table and poured a glass of water from the bottle. He handed it to me. “Here.”

  I took a few sips, not realizing how parched I was. “Let me explain,” I said, placing the glass on the coffee table and mentally preparing myself for the conversation I never thought I’d have.

  Chapter 15

  “So what you’re saying is, not only can you hear ghosts, but you can predict future events? Through the sense of sound?” Damon scratched his scruffy head.

  “Well, yes. But I can only predict things when I’m with my sisters. When we connect and put the five senses together. But the ghosts…” My thumb and finger found their way to my ear lobe. “That’s a first for me. I thought maybe you had visitors staying with you or something, but when I saw the room was empty, well…”