He looked over to Jessica, who had managed to stay on her feet. “You okay?” he said.

“It sounded like something exploded,” she said.

Eddie felt the weight of the EBs’ power as it pressed on his chest, squatted on his shoulders, and made moving his limbs feel as if he were wading through a tar pit. “It was the children. They’re reacting to something, but I can’t tell what it is.”

Jessica held up her open book, pointing at one of the pages. “It happened right when I saw Alexander Ormsby’s name and this picture. He was the last of the line, the one that killed himself downstairs at the same time his children were murdered. Do you think this is him?” She held the picture up. Eddie took it, brining it up to the tip of his nose.

His eyes scrunched shut, and he said, “Yes, that’s Alexander. The EBs confirmed it. You know who he looks like?”

“Tobe, right?”

“There’s a definite resemblance. When you study the face, you can see the difference between the two, but at first glance, it’s easy to confuse one for the other. If this is Alexander, he looks like he was a very serious man. I wouldn’t want to cross him.” He patted the picture down on the table.

Eddie turned back to his oversized ledger, flipping through the pages, looking for any mention of an Ormsby. The leather of his book was older than Jessica’s, the paper swollen and off-white. The moment he saw the name, he tried to shut his mind, close the barn doors so the EBs couldn’t see, desperately trying to avoid another tremor.

“This one, I think, was written by Nathaniel Ormsby,” he said.

She reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Spreading the paper out before her, she ran her finger down the page.

“Nathaniel would be Alexander’s father. I wonder if that other book is George Ormsby’s. He was Nathaniel’s father and son to Maxwell, the man who started it all. That’s as far back as the list goes, but that’s all I asked Swedey for. I would kill for an internet connection right now. A guy like him is what we need for historical research.”

The words stung, even though Eddie knew she hadn’t meant them to. There was a time when history was readily available to him. All he had to do was reach out to the nether world of the dead and ask. It had been a while since he’d tried, having given up the ghost, so to speak, for the past couple of years. But he was feeling better now, more in control. He’d even managed to shut the EBs out just now so he and Jessica could explore without their violent reactions.

The spark of an idea lit up his mind.

Jessica suddenly said, “Eddie, I don’t feel so good.”

He sprang from his chair just as her legs went out from under her. Diving, he managed to prevent her head from bashing the floor. She didn’t lose consciousness, but her flesh went pale as milk and cold to the touch, bathed in a sheen of sweat.

“I should get you downstairs. It’s too hot up here.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I like the heat. It just feels like I lost every ounce of my strength for a second.” He helped her to her feet. “Whatever it was is gone now. Probably just hungry.”

“You sure?”

She shooed him away. “Yes. Come on, we’re getting close. I need to find names and help these kids find peace before the ghost squad down there makes things worse.”

The tea towel filled with ice felt soothing against Tobe’s jaw. He’d never been punched before, not even when he was a young, anxious boy. Paul stood across the room from him, avoiding his gaze.

Daphne called down to ask what had happened. Tobe lied, telling her they had upturned the massive dining room table to move it away. She remained upstairs with Jason and Alice, which was just what he wanted. Having them underfoot would only add to the disaster.

Turning to Nina, he said, “Seeing as Paul is out, will you be able to continue?”

She adjusted her scarves, prepping herself. “That won’t be a problem. I can feel them all around us, watching, waiting. I don’t think it will take much to get undeniable proof of life after death for the cameras.”

“Don’t we already have enough?” Paul asked, his shoulders slumped, voice defeated.

Nina said, “You don’t understand, Paul. We’re right in the middle of the most important paranormal experience of all time. We can not only show the world that the paranormal exists, but that it may, in fact, be the normal.”

“And make a lot of money to boot,” Rusty said sarcastically.

Mitch sat at the head of the table, glowering at his fellow cameraman. Rusty looked up and caught his angry stare. “Look, Mitch, I said I’m sorry. I got carried away. We’re all on edge here.”

“Which is why we should stop,” Paul said.

“Which is why we need to press on,” Mitch grumbled. Tobe nodded in agreement. “Tobe, I need you to hit the lights. Nina, do whatever it is that you do to get these things to react. Rusty, you can do whatever the hell you want at this point. I’m through with being your boss.”

Rusty’s chair scraped against the hardwood floor. “Have fun.”

He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and left the house, slamming the front door.

Tobe reached across the table, enfolding Nina’s hands in his. “We need you to put everything you have into this. If you feel you’ve gone too far, go one step further. Let’s show the world that ghosts do exist.”

A flat smile played upon her face as she awkwardly pulled her hands away. She draped a black lace scarf around her neck. “Just be prepared.”

The more Jessica read from Alexander Ormsby’s journal, if that’s what she could call it, the tighter the knot became in her stomach. So much of it was gobbledy-gook, either written in a sort of homemade code, some in short hand, with medical terminology thrown about for good measure. Alexander was hiding something. People only hid things that were bad, unless they were Christmas presents. There were no presents hiding within the pages of this book.

“What the hell were you up to?” she said aloud.

“What?” Eddie asked.

She walked across the attic and looked over his shoulder. “Yours is no better.”

“I think we’re going to need a code forensics specialist to decipher this stuff. The Ormsby men were busy at something they didn’t want the world to know about.”

He turned a page. Jessica jabbed her finger in the center of the scrawls.

“Hold on. Look at this list.”

Sub 0507 > F > hrng imp

Sub 1112 > F > bld

Sub 0802 > M > men fac

Sub 1001 > F > NA

“Those have to be people,” she said. “Male and female, right?”

“I’m assuming you’re right at this point.”

“Let me get the last one,” she said, striding to the hidden bookcase (again, more secrets being hidden away). The last volume was thicker than the others and markedly older. Her fingers became entwined with thick cobwebs that had been sewn around the tome.

As she gently opened the cover, the old leather sounded as if it was about to break. The first page told her more than the hundred she’d perused in Alexander’s book.

Practices and Philosphy : Maxwell Ormsby (1886—1900)

Further Explorations and Evaluations : George Ormsby (1901—1925)

“Eddie, come over here,” she said, pin-wheeling her arm.

“Any luck?”

“Yep. And look at this, actual English!”

He angled the book to read. She flicked his hand away when he tried to turn the page. “Finders keepers,” she said. The pages were the color of coffee stains, but the ink was still legible. She assumed the author of the early parts of the book was Maxwell Ormsby, the wealthy man who’d bought the island and erected the mansion. It started with what seemed a simple journal entry.

“My initial invitation to the esteemed Sir Francis Galton for a weekend of intellectual conversation and the finest dining to be found in the entire state turned into the most enlightening and fascinating two weeks of a very long life. As his cousin, Charles, has ripped the curtain from our eyes on mankind’s past, so has Sir Francis cured this blind man of the potentialities of the future. What a mind! Days and nights passed us by as if they were only mere minutes. So engrossed was I that I noticed neither the passage of the sun or moon—my only insight into the time of day being the composition of the meals as they were served to us. He has an engagement in New York that will keep him occupied for the next several months, but he has agreed to return to the island before heading abroad. There are many things we need to discuss.”