I settled on the couch across the room from the fireplace and the useless TV and set all my stuff on the coffee table. To compensate for the phone app being off, I opened the new text app.

"You guys here?" I asked.

"All of us."

I showed them how to use it and left it on the table. A moment later, my eyes were like grapefruits, watching the virtual keyboard being tapped, then the speaker icon.

"It's nice to use full sentences," said the dull electronic female voice.

"Yeah!"

It amazed me how they displayed more and more skills to manipulate things. I had no idea if it was because they were growing comfortable doing it in front of me or if they were getting the hang of all this technology that didn't exist when they were alive. I didn't care, either. All the way around: it helped me feel I wasn't crazy, talking to empty rooms and dubious apps.

"This is tiring, though. We'll use the other one."

"Okay, whatever suits you best."

I connected my laptop to my phone's internet and opened the one streaming platform that offered all nine seasons of Haunters. I signed up for a free thirty-day trial, still refusing to waste a single dime on Brandon Price's boys band.

"Shall we?" I asked, opening the episode list.

"Go to season one."

"You want me to watch their first visit to the Manor?"

"For context."

"Okay."

Watching Haunters with a bunch of ghosts turned out to be way funnier than I would've ever expected.

The actors— sorry, the investigators were all way younger than in the clip I'd watched, closer to One Direction than to U2. This was their first season, and they were all pure fire and testosterone, seeking out any chance of action, craving visibility. Over the forty-minute episode, they went up and down the Manor, calling out the evil spirits that had taken it over, seeing dark shadows and being touched by invisible hands, while bangs, knocks and creaking doors echoed all around them.

"Fake," the Blotters said every time they claimed something had happened.

Save when Brandon Price fled the master bedroom, screaming like a little girl and swearing he'd seen the full-body apparition of a woman in a long dress.

I narrowed my eyes when the app remained silent. "Ann?"

A soft gust swirled around, like the faintest echo of chuckles.

"My room. Didn't knock."

"I knew it," I said, chuckling too. "Well done. He totally had it coming."

The episode ended with an ominous shot of the Manor's exterior at night, while Brandon Price spoke off camera with his equally ominous narrator tone. He concluded that Blotter Manor was one of the most haunted places he'd ever been to, and they'd gathered more than enough evidence to prove it.

"Such a clown. Play next."

I searched for their hundredth episode, called "Return to Blotter Manor". On this one, they skipped all the historical background information to show a quick overview of their first investigation in the house. Sitting in the garden at night with the Manor rising behind them, all dressed in black as usual, Brandon Price and his teammates talked about what they'd experienced five years earlier, while short clips illustrated their words.

I noticed how they'd changed from their beginnings. Brandon Price's wingman had shaved his head and lost half his pounds. The skittish guy had taken the wingman's lost pounds in, while the quiet occultist tech had grown his hair longer to compensate for his broader forehead. As for Price himself, he still looked like a zillion bucks, with his broad shoulders and his worked-out pecs under his tight long-sleeved tee. He'd dyed his dark hair jet black, and his cheekbones promised to hurt anybody who dared to slap him.

It was his blue eyes that caught my attention. There was something about them I hadn't seen in the other episode, like a cloud shrouding them. He still played tough, but he didn't feel so tough anymore. Something had happened to this man. He'd known true fear, and it showed in his eyes.

"Great! Now I'm an empath!" I grumbled under my breath.

"Why?"

I paused the video and pointed at Price on the screen. "Look at him. Is that fear in his eyes? Can you guys see it?"

"Fear and pain."

"He's been to dark places."

"That's what I thought. Do I really need to watch the whole episode? Forty more minutes of this?"

On the laptop screen, the progress bar of the video jumped to the last ten minutes.

"Thank you!"

The episode resumed on the view from the static cam the Haunters had placed in the basement I still hadn't been to. The infrared light showed a quiet large room. Old furniture covered with tarps, grouped in two lines in the middle of the basement, with room for anybody to move around and between them. Big boxes neatly piled almost up to the ceiling along the wall on the left, the closest to the stairs. Past the central concrete pillar, the boiler took up most of the back wall. A bunch of assorted boards and beams rested against the wall in the corner between the boiler and the left wall.

In the kitchen that still hadn't been renovated, Brandon Price faced the wingman's handheld cam to say they were about to investigate the basement, where rumor had it an evil entity was lurking, that wasn't there for their previous investigation. He would go down ahead of the others, all by himself, to see if he was able to make contact with said entity, which he suspected to be of a demonic nature.

"The brave dear leader," I grunted.

"Purposely."

"You mean he came already planning to get rid of his attachment here?"

"Planning to try."

"Son of a bitch!"

"Language."

That had to be Ann. "Sorry, ma'am."

Meanwhile, on screen, Brandon Price had come down the stairs in alleged total darkness and he already showed on the static cam field. He started talking about the oppressive energy that filled the basement, reaching out with his spare hand to feel it. As he walked into the quiet room, weird taps and knocks seemed to lure him deeper in, toward the central pillar.

"What's that? The boiler?"

"Fake."

"Seriously."

Price reached the central pillar and paused to pan his camera around. Then, out of the blue, the static cam showed him jump back and take a hand to his chest.

"Something just came at me!" he cried. "I felt it!"

A bleep covered his cussing, while he pretended he was being touched and even attacked.

"Back, demon!" he yelled. "You have no permission to affect me."

"Does that even work?"

"Not really."

Brandon Price kept cussing until he let out a choking sound and bent over, dropping his camera. He fell to his hands and knees, screaming for help.

"Leave me, demon! Leave my body!" he kept yelling.

"Pay attention now."

The others stormed down the stairs. Price was still on all fours, apparently struggling to breathe. But as soon as he heard them come, he took a hand to his chest again, mumbling something his mic didn't quite catch. His voice-over narration covered it, to explain that at that moment, fearing for his life, he'd grabbed the blessed medal hanging from his neck and started praying. That had pushed the demon away from him.

"Really?"

"That's no Christian prayer."

"Wait!" I paused the video as the skittish runt helped Price back to his feet.

The wingman was stepping back, away from them.

"What's that?"

I went back a few seconds and played the video frame by frame: a dark mist seemed to come out of Brandon Price while he still held the medal and moved his lips.

"There! Look!" I cried, just like the wingman did a moment later, stepping back and away from them as he pointed at something on the pile of boxes right by Price. "That's it?"

"The evil shadow of darkness."

I decided to overlook their answer, which sounded like Tolkien describing the balrog.

"Let me see that again."

I watched the same moment at half the normal speed. The dark mist flashed by like it'd been kicked out of Price and launched toward the back wall of the basement, so forcefully, it hit the stack of boards and knocked a couple down. Weird: even though the wingman had captured it all with his handheld cam, following the shadow's trajectory from Price to the corner, they hadn't included any of his footage in the episode. Weirder still, they only added one replay, not two or three like I'd seen them do in the clip and the previous episode. And no red arrow to point at the shadow.

When the boards fell, the loud noise put the brave investigators on the run in what looked like their usual fashion: screaming and stumbling on each other in their rush to get out of there.

That was the end of the investigation. The episode closed with Brandon Price outside the Manor at sunrise. The shameless bastard elaborated on the badass demon that had taken over the Manor and how it'd attacked him, trying to possess him. But he'd defeated it.

"Blotter Manor is still brimming with dark energy and dangerous entities. A highly active location, certainly not for the faint of heart."

"Fuck you," I grunted, closing the laptop. "Sorry, Ann."

A thick silence filled the guesthouse, but I could tell they were all still there with me. I took a moment to process what I'd just seen. But before any of us got a chance to say anything, Susan tried the front-door knob, and finding it locked, pounded on it as to wake the dead that were still sleeping in the whole county.

"This woman. Really," I grumbled, standing up.

"Mr. Jenkins is trying to reach you, but you wouldn't pick up," Susan said the moment I opened the door.

I nodded and closed it back in her face.

"Be patient with her."

"I don't know how much patience I have left," I said with a sigh. "I'm going back to call Jenkins before she breaks a window to hear the conversation."

"Let's go."

Back to the Manor with all my devices and ghosts, I found Susan waxing the foyer floor and Mike back to the baseboards. I produced my phone, stopping before the foyer door to the hallway.

"What does Mr. Jenkins need?" I asked.

Susan was as kind as to pause her work to face me. "He wouldn't say, but he did say it was urgent. It can only be something about the Manor."

Like kicking me out? Sure you would love that alright. "I see."

I dialed the lawyer, heading to the east parlor out of habit. I sat on the couch under the window and looked out. It'd been a gorgeous summer and fall was being gentle, a break before winter came down on us with a vengeance.

Jenkins greeted me in his nice-but-distant way. "Miss Garner, thanks for calling."

"Good morning, Mr. Jenkins. Susan told me you needed to talk to me?"

"Yes. When we signed your papers, I mentioned that, on rare occasions, Miss Blotter would open the house for special events, in order to raise funds for the Blotter Foundation."

"Yes, I remember. And that she stated in her will that she expected me to honor a few commitments she'd made before passing."

"That's correct."

"So, guess one of those commitments came up?"

"Exactly." Jeez. Couldn't he just say it, instead of making me ask every question?

"What is it about?"

"A TV shoot that will take three days tops."

"No problem. I can stay at the guesthouse while they shoot in the Manor."

"Oh, that would be so kind of you." Why was he so relieved?

"Would you mind telling me what TV show is coming?"

"It's a reality show. They visited the Manor before, and the last time, they said they wanted to come back this year. They're scheduled to visit the Manor next month."

That was too long an explanation to not answer my question.

"Of course, if that's what Miss Blotter agreed with them. And what's the name of the show?"

Jenkins clearly hesitated. "Haunters."

I frowned at a birch tree across the garden. If glares killed, the poor tree would've withered instantly.

"The paranormal show?" I asked, to make sure I'd heard it right.

"Yes, that one."

"No."

The electronic voice from my phone startled me. I didn't recall turning the app back on.

"Come again?" Jenkins asked.

I spun around and found the cat ball on the coffee table flashing like crazy.

"Give me a moment," I replied, hurrying to the parlor door.

I looked out in time to see the north parlor door slam open and hear heavy footsteps marching down the hallway toward me. Mike just dropped his things and fled. Susan hurried out of the foyer, trying to see what was going on.

"Miss Garner? Did you say no?"

"Sorry, I wasn't talking to you." What was I to say? That was a ghost, not me? Susan scowled at me, clearly demanding an explanation. I ignored her, spun around and returned to the window, feeling the room suddenly crowded. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jenkins. You're saying Haunters want to come shoot yet another investigation of the Manor next month?"

"Yes, Miss Garner."

"Have you watched the show?"

His tone said way more than his one-syllable answer. "Yes."

"So you've seen what they do on the locations they investigate. Are you telling me Miss Blotter was okay with allowing that circus into the Manor?"

Once again, his silence was deafening.

"Mr. Jenkins? Did she agree to this in writing?"

"I'm afraid so, Miss Garner. Five years ago, in exchange for a six-figure donation to the Foundation." Seven figures? Someone was feeling guilty?

"You mean she signed a legally binding document?"

"Yes. Later on, she tried to rescind the agreement, but the production would only accept if she returned the whole donation."

"There's gotta be something we can do to stop them!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Garner. The only way you can stop them is by making the reimbursement from your allowance. They called me yesterday to let me know they'll be arriving at the Manor by October 20."

I was so upset, I just disconnected. Plain to see there was nothing left to say because the suit didn't bother to call back. At the same time, a burst of what I can only describe as energy brushed past me and out of the parlor. All the doors on the first floor started slamming open and shut.

Mike and Susan were holding each other tight in abject terror, eyes wide open jumping from one slamming door to the next.

"Library, please!" I called out, leaving the east parlor toward the other end of the hallway.

The slamming stopped, and my footsteps weren't the only ones creaking on the floorboards. The library door opened for me and closed again. For the first time ever, I felt the electricity in the air all those Youtubers talked so much about. I realized it mean upset or angry ghosts around.

"We all need to calm down," I said, resting my back against a bookshelf.

"They cannot come!"

"I know, I know, but bringing down the house won't do us any good. Please, let me see what I can do. I could use a lawyer, but we cannot trust this Jenkins. Maybe I can find another to consult." I sighed, shaking my head. "We still have time to work something out. Give me a couple of days." I rubbed my face with another sigh. I felt so angry and overwhelmed and scared, all at the same time.

"We trust you."

I smiled. "Thank you, guys. From the bottom of my heart. I promise we're gonna fix all this. The clowns and the demon. But right now, I need a bite and a while to think."