Not so shy that I was submissive to him, but I wasn’t going to explain. I gave him a tight smile and stepped out of the tub on trembling legs. “You’re taking up too much space in here. I want to dress,” I said. He stepped back into the doorway, not bringing himself outside of it. “I’m about to slam the door, so if you don’t want me to break your pretty nose, step back.”
I didn’t wait for an answer or for him to move before I shoved the door.
He scrambled back, and the wood pounded against the frame, leaving me alone again.
Dressing in one of my final few unworn outfits, I tried to figure out how the fuck I was supposed to get down to the basement. My first thought was asking the guys for help, but some instinct told me not to. We may be friendly, but they weren’t my friends. Someone was killing me and perpetuating this cycle. The basement hadn’t been as obvious of a clue as the others so far, and what if I wasn’t supposed to be down there?
Would the guys allow me to explore, or would they do everything in their power to stop me?
I’d have to bypass the ghost by myself.
But the problem of my reaction the ghost hadn’t changed.
Kirin was waiting outside the door when I exited the bathing room, and I went through the motions as usual. Tell them who I am and a lie about why I’m here. Let Kirin break the lock on Felix’s office so I could slip inside. My skin broke out in a cold sweat when I crossed the threshold and I warily eyed the corner with the hollow wall. The ghost wouldn’t come through. I’d been in here plenty of times before trying to go down to the hidden basement, and I’d never caught so much as a hint of its presence.
I kept my eye on it, nonetheless, as I sat down in the desk chair and rifled through the papers. I’d read them front to back twenty times. None of them mentioned a second ghost in residence, though Felix had to have known. It supported my theory that he’d sprung this on me on purpose.
He even had a spirit box on his desk, which I’d avoided touching until now.
The tiny cube was made of solid wood with solid gold clasps and embellishments. A few characters were carved on the sides, holding the spirit residents of the box captive. Its top was firmly latched shut, but the box never moved, so I had to assume it didn’t have any current hostages.
I’d read every text on spirit boxes I’d been able to get my hands on after being attacked. You couldn’t kill a ghost, for obvious reasons, so you had limited options to take care of a ghost problem. One, send it on its way to the next realm, whether that was Elysion or Halsyn. Sometimes, helping a ghost move on was as simple as promising to deliver a message for them. Empty promises didn’t work on the vengeful ones, though. Two, remove it from your area. The ghost would still be dangerous, but no longer around you. Wind magic could work for this, if strong enough, or teleportation spells. My limited magic wasn’t capable of either.
Three, capture the ghost in a spirit box. Widely recognized as the best way to deal with a dangerous spirit, the boxes were uncommon but easy enough to purchase if you knew where to look and paid the right price. They took practice to use, since you needed to help the box contain the ghost with spells and proper aim of the box’s inherent magic. All I’d learned were the basics, and I didn’t have the funds to have my own spirit box on hand.
What was the point in having one when I’d be too terrified to use it, anyway?
Unfortunately, it was time for me to face my fears. I wasn’t super optimistic about that going well, considering I’d managed to unintentionally kill myself during my last run-in.
Fingers grazing the top of the box, I took a deep breath and whispered a sensing spell under my breath. The box was heavily warded, but I felt nothing beneath the box’s own magic. There didn’t seem to be a resident. Even if there was, the chances of a ghost getting out simply from me opening the box were low. Spirit boxes held tight to ghosts.
The box was my only choice.
I wandered to the storage closet and grabbed a hammer, hoping to make it easier to slam my way through the wood and jump out of the way before the ghost rushed in. Then I pulled the bookcase from the wall and stared at the blank space behind.
My gaze was locked on the hollow wall, and my body refused to move. Every muscle was frozen, not capable of doing more than twitch. My brain was sending me a clear message. ‘Fuck no. You’re not doing that. Why would you intentionally do that?’ When I finally convinced my body to move, all I did was step back. The hammer hung limply in my fingers.
Uncle Felix may have overestimated my abilities, because I didn’t know if I could do this.
A drop of sweat dripped from my forehead and landed on my navy blue trousers, making a dark wet spot. When a couple more droplets hit my sweater, I realized it wasn’t sweat, though I had a sheen of that covering my body too. The drops were tears. My eyes were weeping, and I hadn’t even noticed.
Shuffling my feet forward again, the tears came heavier and heavier until my vision was blurry with them. I sniffled, my nose running too, and let out a few choked hiccups. Then I moved myself closer to the false wall. I was only half a metre away, now, close enough to lift the hammer and create a giant hole.
Each arm was a lead weight at my side, fingers barely twitching, let alone moving. So close. So fucking close to facing the ghost head on, and my body wasn’t on board with the plan.
“C-come on, Hadley. Y-you can do it.”
Encouraging self talk didn’t have quite the same effect when my voice came out wispy and stuttering, but I kept at it.
“Y-you’ve f-faced worse. You m-made it through the g-g-ghost attack. Y-you have the s-scars to prove how strong you are.”
The scars tingled along my side, reminding me of their presence. My therapist had told me to remind myself how I survived, that I could do anything, but I couldn’t say this was helping at the moment. Frankly, in my last face-off with this ghost, Ihaddied, and living through my attack when I was nineteen had been sheer luck. Nothing to do with my strength.
At least telling myself how I was lying to myself made me feel somewhat in control again. I’d lie to myself if I wanted to, dammit. Maybe if I said the lies enough times, they’d become true.
“You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.”
I repeated the mantra under my breath until the words came out without me focusing on speaking, the stutter leaving my voice.
