I noticed that Weathers still stood on the stairs, like she was afraid to come into the room. I could feel her staring as I worked the bricks out and put them on the floor. I still don’t know what I was hoping to find, but in the end it was almost a disappointment. There wasn’t even much of a space, just about enough to get a hand in. It was the sort of secret hiding place a child might find and then forget. I used to have something similar in my mom’s house underneath the old floorboards.
In the gap, there was a lock of brown hair bound in a ring, tied with a red ribbon that looked as if some insect had been eating it. I pulled it into the light and the air changed all around me. It’s hard to describe, but it felt a little bit like a plane coming down to an airport. Your ears block and suddenly you can’t hear as well. As I stood there staring at the ring of hair, I pinched my nostrils and blew, but it didn’t make any difference. I just knew that I’d found the real thing, that the spirit was bound to the hair.
“This is a relic,” I said to Weathers, behind me. My voice sounded peculiar, still muffled like we were on the approach to O’Hare and dropping fast. I pinched my nose again, blowing hard to clear my head. It still didn’t work and I began to feel a bit choked. Well, there was a way out of that.
I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out my lighter. As I’m writing my own story, I guess I could tell you it was a really cool Zippo, but the truth is it was the cheapest butane lighter you can buy. I remember my hand shook as I thumbed the wheel, and as it sparked and the flame lit, the air changed again, popped almost so that it left me gasping. There was no wind, but suddenly we weren’t dropping into Chicago through a thick fog, we were just standing in a basement, staring at a cigarette lighter.
I raised the flame to the lock of hair and without any warning, it went out. I’d felt the breath on my fingers, but I lit it again anyway, just to see it happen. The flame stood up and then it vanished as the Lady blew it out.
I stood there for a time, thinking a bit more deeply than usual. She had wanted me to find the ring of hair with its sad little ribbon, but she didn’t want to be set free. Like I said before, I don’t know exactly why she chose me, but I’ve always had the Garner charm; at least my mom used to tell me I had. She never meant it in a good way, though.
I carried that thing out of the house like it was a live grenade, stopping only to accept the cash payment old Weathers took from a tin in her kitchen. Hell, I’d earned the money. I didn’t even put the ring of hair in a pocket, just carried it out in front of me until my arm grew stiff. I didn’t feel any breath on the back of my neck then, not until I was out on Fisher Street and walking away.
I can’t explain exactly why I did the things I did that day. It would have been easy enough to throw the lock of hair down a drain, or better still into the river so it could be carried out to sea. Maybe if I’d been scared I would have done it, but you have to realize that this was my life’s work. Finally I had proof I wasn’t completely wasting my time. I never claimed to be a good man, but I never wanted to be a complete fake either. It felt like I’d found my Rosetta stone, the key that would unlock it all for me. It was true too, in a way.
I stayed in Penacook for a couple more days and I bought myself the box I carry today. It’s a small brass thing, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, about as big as a pack of cards. The ring of hair went with me and from then on, well, I guess I was haunted.
The Lady was quiet for a few days after. I’ll spare you the details of how I tried to get her to perform—once for a newspaper guy and once in a bar when I’d had too many shots. She stayed in the box and then, just to rile me, blew in my ears all the way home until I was swatting my own head in frustration. I had enough money to live and I spent that time thinking. What if every ghost had its link to the world, like the Lady’s lock of hair? It took me a while, but after about a week, I found myself in Franklin County, Massachusetts. I stopped again to put new ads in all the local papers. For the first time in years, I changed the copy and sold my services as a Ghost Hunter—Satisfaction or Your Money Back. It didn’t hurt that I’d made more money from Mrs. Weathers than my previous six jobs combined. I didn’t even grumble at the rates per word they quoted. There was gold in them thar hills.
The first few months were a bit of a nightmare, I don’t mind telling you. It wasn’t that I didn’t get any calls; I did. I even thought I’d have to get another cell for work, it was so busy. The trouble was that of the houses I visited, not one of them had anything more supernatural than mice behind the walls. Even so, I learned the skills and I put a toolbox together that a carpenter might have approved. I could strip a room in an hour, and I guess the good builders and painters of Massachusetts must have thought it was Christmas with all the extra work I left for them. I found grumbling old pipes, rat nests, a bird trapped in a chimney, all sorts, but the Lady kept quiet. Outside, she would still tickle my head at times, just to show me she was there, but in the houses, she was quiet as the grave probably should be.
The money ran out and for a time I was forced to go back to the old work, just to keep the main ads running and pay for gas. She didn’t like that. I could feel her breath on my face, pushing me away whenever I went to do my readings, until I had to leave the box in the motel room.
It all changed that winter, after a heavy snowfall. I had a live call from my Hunter ads, though it meant driving to a town named Montague, about forty miles from where I was. I couldn’t afford chains and it was hard going, maybe four hours of creeping along with the wipers going and the lights lost in a blizzard. All those big trucks kept whooshing by as well, making me nervous.
I had my tools and the Lady’s box with me and maybe I imagined it, but there was a feeling of excitement as I pressed the bell of a huge old house on Treadle Road, to the south of Main Street. A young Asian woman opened the door and I smiled at her, thinking that servants were a good sign for a payday. I felt that slight pressure at the back of my head as well, pushing me into the house after her.
I’d been wrong before, but not that time. I was taken to a proper library, filled with books from floor to ceiling. The man who finally came to see me was young to own a place like that. I wondered if he’d inherited it, or whether he was some high-powered broker or something. He looked uncomfortable the whole time he talked to me, and I couldn’t read him that well. Turns out it was his wife who had called me, but she was out of town. You could see he would rather have thrown me out, but the snow was still falling and I assume his wife was not the sort of woman you cross lightly. I’ve met a few like that.
He took me upstairs, fidgeting the whole time, like he couldn’t keep his hands still. He didn’t offer me a drink or anything, and I could see he was going to stand over me to be sure I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t mind, though, because the Lady was pushing me the whole way, like she knew there was something good up those stairs.
The stairs opened up onto a landing with six or seven doors. To my surprise and mounting interest, he had to unlock one of them before I could go in. He saw my look and made a grimace.
“It’s always cold in here, even with the boiler going. I don’t think it was properly insulated when the house was built.” I just smiled politely and he made his face again and led me in.
It was cold. Not freezing, but chilly after the rest of the house. Straight away I could feel the Lady blowing on me, but I didn’t want to make it look easy.