“Holy shit, it’s freezing,” Jessica said, close behind him.

“I didn’t want you to come in yet,” he said. “It might be a little overwhelming.”

Jessica pulled back her sleeve. Every hair stood at attention. She started to shiver. He watched the EBs float in and out of her, their icy touch sending off every alarm built into the protective systems that had been finely honed over the millennia to keep man and woman from danger.

“Are you all right?” he asked, holding his hand out to her.

She paused, took a breath, expelling it in a mushroom cloud of vapor. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just trying to get my bearings.”

“That’s fight or flight vying for control. Just hold onto me. I’ll try to get them to back off.”

He looked into their faces, teens to toddlers, impossibly gathered into the small room. Again, there was an alarming number of children that didn’t look right, deformities that made him cringe. They want to be here when we go in the attic.

Addressing them all, he said, I just need you to clear a path. If you keep touching Jessica, she won’t be able to help you. You want our help, right?

Jessica’s teeth chattered. The flesh of her hand had turned the texture and temperature of the grave.

The EBs parted. A narrow path to the door that led to the attic was made for them. Jessica sighed.

“I’m all right now,” she said.

“That’s because they’re letting you be, at least for now. Be careful how you step. It’s icy as hell.”

He helped her to the door where she once again crouched down and worked at the lock. It took a lot longer than the bedroom door. She cursed under her breath. Eddie watched the EBs react, the younger ones recoiling with silent gasps.

“Better watch your language. There are children present. I think you’re freaking them out.”

“Sure, I’m the one freaking them out. This lock is old and probably rusted.” Her fingers worked cautiously. “Don’t want to break it. If we have to bust the door in, that’ll alert the fools downstairs.”

Eddie felt the EBs’ impatience. They were only going to hold back so long.

He knew not to rush her. That would only make her mad and slow things even more.

The spirit children were at his back, pressing closer like hundreds of acupuncture needles stabbing up and down his spine.

Jessica angled the screwdriver high, twisting the unbent paperclip. “Almost there.”

So were the EBs.

Something clicked inside the lock. Jessica gave the knob a hard twist. She had to push her shoulder against the wood to crack the door open.

“Ladies first,” she said, grabbing a flashlight from her pocket and snapping it on, ascending into the darkness.

Paul’s stomach roiled and rumbled. He had to stop his on-camera dialogue with Nina twice because he thought for sure he was going to blow chunks. His head pounded with pent up pressure.

Enjoy the guilt. You’ve earned it.

Tobe watched him with heavy-lidded eyes, ready to pounce should he make an excuse to call it a night.

“No one will come to the island, lest they disturb the unsettled rest of the two dozen children who perished here. Their disturbing deaths were also an end to the Ormsby family line. The people of Charleston made a conscious effort to let the story die with them, a shame so great, they wanted to hide it from the world,” Nina said. She spoke with her eyes closed, hands atop the old, scarred dining room table, “reading” the history of the house. “Paul, I’m seeing something. It’s…it’s awful.”

He forced himself to feign concern, asking, “What is it?”

“There were two men. No, three. They came to the island looking for help. They were met by two of the Ormsby children. Something about their boat having engine trouble.”

Paul covered his sigh of exasperation with a cough. “Can you see their faces or better yet, get a name?”

Her eyebrows knitted closer. She shook her head. “It’s too hard, like watching an overexposed super-8 movie. The Ormsbys took them in, gave them shelter. But there was nothing wrong with their boat. They, they came to…to…”

Nina broke down in tears. Paul looked over to see Mitch grinning behind his camera. Rusty looked pale and just as nauseous as he felt. Whatever he saw in the mirror had rocked him to his core. He hadn’t spoken a word since.

They all jumped when a stampede of footsteps came crashing down the stairs behind them.

“What the hell are they doing?” Tobe hissed, dashing out of the camera’s view.

Paul knew it wasn’t Jason and Alice. Their tiny feet could never create such a thunderous racket.

The footsteps reached the bottom floor, continuing down the hallway and into the dining room. Tobe gave a startled hoot. The furniture vibrated as the horde of pounding feet trampled through the room. Paul jumped from his chair, expecting to be overwhelmed by the unseen charge.

It stopped as suddenly as it began. Paul’s heart continued fluttering in tight syncopation with the cadence of the footsteps.

Mitch spluttered, “Holy crap, what was that? Did you get that Rusty?”

Tobe staggered into the room, leaning against the wall. “It went right through me,” he muttered. Rusty pivoted to make sure he captured Tobe’s unrehearsed reaction.

“Welcome to Ormsby House,” Rusty said, shutting off his camera and disappearing into the kitchen without another word.

Chapter Thirty-One

Jessica jogged to the top of the stairs, the beam from her flashlight jittering across the walls like a nightclub light show.

“Eddie, it’s hot.”

He was more cautious making his way up the ancient wooden steps. When his head was level with the floor, he said, “Now this is summer in the south. Is there a window anywhere?”

She swept her beam around the attic. “Nope. We’re going to be sweating our asses off in no time.”

“The EBs won’t come up here. That’s why it’s not like the rest of the island.”

“I think we’re going to need more light.”

A dangling chain glittered in the narrow shaft of light. “Now let’s hope the bulb isn’t blown out.”

It took several tugs for the clear bulb to buzz to life. The tiny filaments sizzled and there was hesitant but expanding light. The attic came into focus.

Jessica’s jaw dropped.

“All that’s missing is Vincent Price,” she said, filled with a leaden awe.

The attic was a vast space, spanning the width of the entire house. It was crammed with tables cluttered with leather bound books and glass tubes, vials resting in metal holders, pencils used down to their nubs, loose papers, medical supplies and tools both mundane and strange. Two long gurneys sat side by side opposite them with long IV poles. Shelves had been built into one wall, all of them stacked with folded sheets, blankets and surgical scrubs. On a coat rack in another corner hung several long, yellowing doctor’s coats, the pockets bursting with rubber gloves and needles.

Along another wall was an enormous mahogany desk and leather chair. Two tiffany lamps were poised on each end of the desk. She walked closer to it, the floor creaking. Again, the lamps worked, casting kaleidoscopic light on the desk. A curling ink blotter was littered with notes and scribbles that meant nothing to her. It was like staring at a foreign language. It reminded her of what her doctors wrote on prescription pads.

“What the fuck is this?” she said.

Eddie plucked an appointment book off the desk, flipping through the brittle pages. “Looks like there wasn’t much on the calendar. Just a bunch of numbers on the notes pages in the back.”

She gently touched the wood of the desk, the objects scattered on it, the leather spines of the books as if she could glean their history through the pads of her fingers.

“This looks like a doctor’s office or lab,” she said. “Were any of the Ormsbys doctors or scientists?”