فصل 04 - بخش 09

4

At Holly’s request, Ralph pulled the shades in the kitchen and Jeannie closed the drapes in the living room. Holly herself sat at the kitchen table with the markers and the roll of Scotch Magic Tape she’d bought in the office supplies department at Walmart. She tore off two short lengths of tape and placed them over her iPhone’s embedded flash. These she colored blue. She tore off a third length, put it over the blue strips, and colored it purple.

She stood up and pointed to the chair nearest the archway. ‘That’s the one he was sitting in?’

‘Yes.’

Holly took two flash pictures of the seat, moved to the archway, and pointed again. ‘And this is where he sat.’

‘Yes. Right there. But there were no marks on the carpet in the morning. Ralph looked.’

Holly dropped to one knee, took four more pictures of the carpet, then stood up. ‘Okay. That should be good.’

‘Ralph?’ Jeannie asked. ‘Do you know what she’s doing?’

‘She’s turned her phone into a makeshift black light.’ Something I could have done myself, if I had actually believed my wife – I’ve known about this particular trick for at least five years. ‘You’re looking for stains, aren’t you? Residue, like the stuff in the barn.’

‘Yes, but if there is any, there’s much less of it, or you would have seen it with your naked eye. You can buy a kit online to do this kind of testing – it’s called CheckMate – but this should work. Bill taught me. Let’s see what we’ve got. If anything.’

They gathered around her, one on either side, and for once Holly didn’t mind the physical closeness. She was too absorbed, and too hopeful. I have Holly hope, she told herself.

The stains were there. A faint yellowish spatter on the seat of the chair, where Jeannie’s intruder had sat, and several more – like small drips of paint – on the carpet at the edge of the archway.

‘Holy shit,’ Ralph murmured.

‘Look at this one,’ Holly said. She spread her fingers to enlarge a splotch on the carpet. ‘See how it makes a right angle? That’s from one of the chair legs.’

She went back to the chair and took another flash photo of it, only this time down low. Once more they gathered around the iPhone. Holly spread her fingers again, and one of the chair legs leaped forward. ‘That’s where it dribbled down. You can raise the shades and open the drapes, if you want.’

When the kitchen was once more filled with morning light, Ralph took Holly’s phone and went through the pictures again, swiping from one to the next, then going back. He felt the wall of his disbelief beginning to crumble, and in the end all it had taken was a bunch of photos on a small iPhone screen.

‘What does it mean?’ Jeannie asked. ‘I mean, in practical terms? Was he here, or wasn’t he?’

‘I told you, I haven’t had the chance to do anything like the amount of research I’d need to give an answer I felt sure of. But if I was forced to guess, I’d say … both.’

Jeannie shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘I don’t understand.’

Ralph was thinking about the locked doors and the burglar alarm that hadn’t gone off. ‘Are you saying this guy was a …’ Ghost was the word that first came to mind, but it wasn’t the right one.

‘I’m not saying anything,’ Holly said, and Ralph thought, No, you’re not. Because you want me to say it.

‘That he was a projection? Or an avatar, like in the video games our son plays?’

‘Interesting idea,’ Holly said. Her eyes were sparkling. Ralph had an idea (sort of an infuriating one) that she might be holding back a smile.

‘There’s residue, but the chair didn’t leave marks in the carpet,’ Jeannie said. ‘If he was here in any physical sense, he was … light. Maybe no heavier than a feather pillow. And you say doing this … this projection … exhausts him?’

‘It seems logical – to me, at least,’ Holly said. ‘The one thing we can be sure of is that something was here when you came downstairs yesterday morning. Would you agree with that, Detective Anderson?’

‘Yes. And if you don’t start calling me Ralph, Holly, I’ll have to arrest you.’

‘How did I get back upstairs?’ Jeannie asked. ‘Did he … please tell me he didn’t carry me after I passed out.’

‘I doubt it,’ Holly said.

Ralph said, ‘Maybe some sort of … just guessing here … hypnotic suggestion?’

‘I don’t know. There’s a great deal we may never know. I’d like a quick shower, if that’s all right?’

‘Of course,’ Jeannie said. ‘I’ll scramble us some eggs.’ Then, as Holly started out: ‘Oh my God.’

Holly turned back.

‘The stove light. It was on. The one over the burners. There’s a button.’ When looking at the pictures, Jeannie had seemed excited. Now she only looked scared. ‘You need to push it to turn the light on. There was enough of him here to do that, at least.’

Holly said nothing to this. Neither did Ralph.