As she slowly ascended the stairs, she spoke steadily to the spirits that lived in the house. She could feel them as easily as if a living person were standing beside her. For a moment like this, she wished she could interact with the dead as powerfully and easily as Eddie could.

“Come children, I want you to stay close to me. Follow me. I know you’re curious. Don’t be afraid.”

The stairs creaked as the trio went up one step at a time. Tobe caught himself from falling backwards when his foot thumped into the landing.

“Which room is it?” she asked.

Tobe pointed behind her. “The master bedroom,” he said.

She wondered if he’d told his wife they were sleeping in the room of a suicide all this time.

The room had a bed, two dressers and a faux Louis XV upholstered chair. She pointed at the chair. “Is this where he was found?”

“Yes. He hadn’t been dead for long when the police found him. It was assumed he had committed suicide after the atrocity,” Tobe said off-camera.

“I don’t believe it was Alexander who murdered his own children,” she said. “The children know this as well. They want the world to know it was not their father.”

Nina thought she saw a shadow pass over Tobe. It was hard to tell in the dark. The temperature in the room dipped. Growing plumes of frost crept across the windowpanes, filtering the moon’s meager light.

“Gather round your father, children. He’s here. I can feel him. I can almost hear him. He’s trapped on another plane, which is why you can’t see him. I’ll be your bridge. Come, come say hello to your father.”

She knew damn well she couldn’t bridge the spirits to one another, but it would play out quite well on film.

The curtains billowed outward even though there was no breeze.

Perfect, Nina thought. A little family reunion is just what we need.

“Yes, we can see you. Don’t be afraid. Show yourselves.” Her ears popped as if she were on a descending plane.

They were so close. She could feel something big about to happen.

She said, “Your father loves you.”

Mitch shouted, startled, as the camera was ripped from his hand. It skidded across the floor, smashing to pieces against the wall. “Jesus, something’s burning me,” he said, grabbing at his jacket, trying to unzip it with trembling hands.

The chair jerked away from her. It toppled over with a violent crash. Nina jumped back to avoid having her feet crushed.

“Did you get that?” she asked Tobe. He nodded quickly, like a nervous bird. Mitch had his jacket off and was trying to pull his shirt off.

“Nina, you have to see this.” Tobe waved her over, motioning for her to look into the display screen on the camera.

In night vision, the multitude of long, jagged scratches on Mitch’s body gleamed a sharp gray. They covered his entire torso. Nina reached out to touch one. Mitch hissed. The scratch gave off a resonant heat.

“What the hell?” he implored, grabbing the camera so he could see for himself. “Tell them to stay away from me!”

The bed leapt forward half a foot, the heavy oak legs stomping the floor. Mitch nearly dropped their remaining camera.

She heard someone running up the stairs. “What’s happening up there?” Paul yelled.

Nina fumbled for the lamp beside the bed. Playtime was over. They needed light to see what was coming next. The bulb exploded when she pulled the lamp’s chain.

She jumped when the door slammed shut, one of the dressers shifting over and coming to rest before it. Mitch wailed as more scratches arose on his flesh. Tobe dropped the camera and tried to push the dresser aside.

Outside, Paul screamed, followed by Daphne. Frantic footsteps clattered overhead.

Stop. Stop. Stop! It’s too much! Please, just stop!

Nina’s head swam. She backed into a corner, wishing with every ounce of strength she had for the spirit children to go away. Maybe Alexander had killed his children. And maybe, this was a reunion never meant to happen.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“And my aunt wondered why I majored in anthropology,” Jessica said, her head buried in Maxwell and George Ormsby’s journal. “I’m finally putting it to use. Eddie, can you bring those other two books over here.”

He laid them side-by-side on the table.

“You found something?” he asked.

She arched an eyebrow. “I think I found everything. I thought I recognized Sir Francis Galton’s name.”

“Sounds like an explorer,” Eddie said. He used his sleeve to sop the sweat from his face. Ever since she’d latched onto the secret of Ormsby Island, she hadn’t felt the heat at all. Her head was still a bit woozy, but this wasn’t the time to pull a fainting spell.

She shuffled through the journal’s brittle pages. “Galton was a world renowned anthropologist back in the nineteenth century, though he was a bit overshadowed by his cousin, Charles Darwin.”

“You’re talking the Origins of Species Charles Darwin, right?”

“There’s only one. And just as Darwin became famous for his theory of evolution, Galton gained some initial fame, then infamy, with his own philosophy. It looks like Maxwell Ormsby became infatuated with the man and his theories after a chance invitation to join one of his intellectual discussion groups on the island. From what I’ve read, he had Galton as a visitor on four separate occasions between 1888 and 1890. They actually became good friends.”

Eddie nudged her with his elbow. “Spill it. What was Sir Galton infamous for?”

“You ever hear of eugenics?”

He shook his head. “Is it like Dianetics?”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you sure you graduated Duke, or did you scare them with your psychic abilities to hand a diploma over?”

Sighing, he said, “Feel better about yourself now?”

Grinning, she replied, “Much. Eugenics is a philosophy dedicated to manipulating the genetics of human beings to create a better, stronger race. You might have heard of an asshole named Hitler who was a very big proponent of the idea.”

“You mean that whole desire to create a master race was eugenics?”

She nodded. “At its worst. Before he took the whole concept to hell, it was seen as a bonafide scientific endeavor. Universities were dedicated to exploring the ideas. Eugenic societies flourished. You have to understand, this is right after the industrial revolution in America. We’re a rising super power. A strong people meant a strong country. So what do you need to do to get stronger? Deep-six the weak. And by weak, I mean people who were sick, poor, deemed mentally deficient, thieves, even the blind and gay.

“And how do you weed these people out without pulling a Hitler? Eugenics brought the world genetic screening, which led to forced sterilization, especially among prisoners and the insane, arranged marriages based on perceived genetic matches, segregation, birth control and abortions, whether you wanted one or not.”

“So this Sir Galton was a monster,” Eddie said.

Jessica continued speed-reading, her finger zipping under lines of neatly written text.

“Not exactly. His intentions were pure. Eugenics in its earliest form was just an offshoot of the evolutionary process. If we could evolve from apes by happenstance, just think what we could become if we consciously tooled around with succeeding generations. It took other men to bastardize the whole thing. When you think about it, we’re on the cusp of a new wave of eugenics. We use genetic manipulation all the time now to alter crops and livestock, producing heartier versions than the ones that came before. The next step is humans. It won’t be long until scientists can manipulate DNA to custom make your baby. You want a boy with brown hair and blue eyes, pony up the fee and it can be done. In our lifetimes, doctors will use in vitro techniques to eradicate genetic defects in fetuses, because everyone wants a healthy baby. That, my friend, is eugenics in spades.”