“Did you hear that?” Alan asked.
Bob nodded.
Alan continued climbing. The carpet squished under his feet. Alan knelt and felt the runner—it was wet. When he got to the top, he saw that door to the master bedroom was open. Alan continued on. Bob caught up as Alan walked through the door. They both looked up at the ceiling as the murmuring began again.
Alan led the way to the dark closet. The hatch to the attic was open. A little moonlight filtered through the opening. Alan sat down and pulled himself through to the landing of the stairs. His hands hit a patch of dampness on the closet floor. The murmuring upstairs stopped. Alan took care not to bump his toe when pulling his foot through the hatch. He pushed up on narrow walls to stand. Wind blew down in his face as he climbed. Behind him, Bob grunted as he pulled himself through.
Alan touched a stair in front of him as he climbed. It felt damp. When he reached the top step, Alan’s breath caught in his chest. Below the open window, the old rocking chair sat. He had broken the chair into small pieces before throwing it out to the lawn below. He had taken those pieces out to the back field—the old fire pit—and burned them until the chair was nothing more than ashes.
He took a step forward. A cloud passed in front of the moon and the shadows shifted on the floor. When he blinked, the chair wasn’t there—the vision had been a trick of the light.
Alan jumped and grunted when Bob put a hand on his shoulder.
“Something left a trail,” Bob said. He was pointing to the floor.
Alan saw what his friend meant—the wet trail came from the stairs and went over to the window where he’d seen the phantom rocker. The wood planks were damp.
“Hand me that pry bar,” Alan said.
Bob reached and handed the long bar to Alan, who walked it over to the window. With both hands, he drove the narrow end of the pry bar between the floorboards. They creaked in protest as he levered a board until the nails popped out. Bob got his fingers under the board and pulled. When they had the first board up, they moved on to the next. The insulation beneath the floor had settled, leaving several inches of airspace between the floorboards and the loose tufts of insulation. In the dim light, the insulation looked like dirty cotton. There was something else beneath the floor.
“What is it?” Bob asked.
“I don’t know,” Alan said. He closed the attic window and dusted off his hands on his borrowed pants. “But I think those things wanted it.”
Alan and Bob pulled up several more boards and crouched on either side of the hole they’d made in the floor. Between two joists, a container several feet long sat atop the compressed insulation. Bob reached out his hand and touched the white surface.
“It’s wet,” Bob said.
Alan reached out and touched the thing. It was rectangular and several inches deep. The corners were rounded and the white surface was shiny in the moonlight, and not just because of the dampness. It was a shiny white enamel or ceramic.
“Help me lift it,” Alan said.
Bob nodded and slipped his hands under it. On his side of the hole, Alan did the same. They balanced the object as they pulled it from the hole. They sidestepped past the stack of floorboards and set it down in the middle of the attic.
“Hinges,” Bob said.
When he saw the seam that ran around the edge of the box, Alan had a flash of recognition. The thing was the same size and shape as a fancy guitar case—the kind of hard case a seasoned road musician would use because of its durability. This wasn’t black plastic though. This was white and felt like it was made of the same material as an old sink or a toilet.
Alan moved to the side opposite the hinges and found the latch. It was a simple mechanism with no lock. He flipped it up.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Bob said.
“Why?”
Bob shrugged.
Alan frowned and pushed open the lid. It tilted up silently and revealed an interior of plush purple velvet. The material looked almost black in the dim light. Bob moved around the side and gasped when he saw the inside of the box. Alan didn’t make a sound. He felt a cold spike in the center of his chest.
Laid out inside the box—not in anatomically correct positions, the box wasn’t long enough for that—were human bones. The skull had been snapped into several fragments. The pieces were grouped near one end of the box with a collection of loose teeth. Most of the bones looked intact, with the exception of the skull, collarbone, and pelvis. Alan closed the lid.
“Who do you think it is?” Bob asked. “And why is it up here?”
“I think it’s the woman from the stairs,” Alan said. He rubbed the center of his chest, trying to warm up the cold spot there before it spread. “I’m guessing though. Help me carry it.”
They angled the box down the stairs and had to maneuver it carefully to fit through the small door at the bottom. Alan walked backwards down the main stairs and out through the front door. For its size, the box was heavy.
“Where are we going with this?” Bob asked.
“To your car,” Alan said.
Alan walked down the hill and then pulled to the side so Bob could open the back hatch to his SUV. The light in the back came on and Alan slid his end onto the upholstered interior. Alan ran up the hill and closed the front door of the house. When he returned to the SUV, Bob was still at the back, tracing his fingers over the surface of the porcelain box.
Bob knelt and scratched at the ground at the side of the road. He came back up with a handful of mud. He slapped it down on the lid of the box.
“What are you doing?” Alan asked.
“There’s something here,” Bob said. He wiped the mud over the surface and it settled into tiny scratches on the lid. As he wiped away the excess mud, he revealed engraved letters.
Bob read aloud the writing on the top of the box.
“Sophia Helen Prescott, 1933-1963. In aeternum.”
Alan reached forward and took the remaining mud. He spread it across the rest of the cover, looking for more words. He didn’t find any.
“I thought Sophia Helen died when she was a baby. Must be a different one,” Bob said.
“It’s the exact same name, and the years are right for Buster’s sister. I think the old guy lied to us,” Alan said.
“But why? And why was she in your attic?”
“I bet Paul put here there. The Colonel bought the house from Paul in either ’63 or ’64, I don’t remember which.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
Alan leaned against the back of the vehicle and thought. He ran his finger along the side of the box, feeling the seam. With the latch secured, the box was tight. He could barely catch the edge with his thumbnail.
“Buster said those things exist to decompose spirits,” Alan said. “If she’s the woman who has been hanging out on my stairs, then I’d say that those migrators aren’t doing their job.”
“Maybe they can’t get inside this box,” Bob said.
“I wonder if I can kill two birds with one stone. What if I give these bones to the migrators and get rid of them and the ghost at the same time?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff?” Bob asked.
“So I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work,” Alan said. “Want to go on a hike?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ceremony
BOB WAS IN THE lead. He was reaching back and holding the box at waist-level. Alan brought up the rear. They marched through the woods.
“What makes you think they’ll be at the pond again?” Bob asked over his shoulder.