Now she was crying, clawing at the floor as she tried to get away from me.
“I’ll stop,” I said, “after you tell everyone what you’ve done.”
“Fuck you!”
“A generous soul and a rapier wit. You must be proud.”
I sent a potted bunch of decorative branches through the air, toward Farah, and she lifted her arms to fend them off. Somehow I made the pot halt in midair, and it hovered in front of her as she cowered.
“Did you know,” I said, calling on my computer research, “that there’s only one recorded death from a spirit in the history of the United States? The Bell Witch.”
Farah was sobbing at the implied threat and, in the state I was in, I didn’t even stop to ask myself why more ghosts didn’t kill asshole humans.
“The Bells were a pioneer family in Tennessee,” I said, “and some say a mean old woman came back from the grave to haunt the family out of revenge. Some say the father screwed her over in a land deal, and she wasn’t about to take that.”
I jerked the pot, and Farah winced.
“But I’m not here for revenge,” I said.
“You’re here for Elizabeth.” Her voice was a squeak.
“I’m here for justice.”
As the plant continued to hover and she shrank back more, my words rang through me, catching on the remaining memories of the mask and the ax that still haunted me.
Was this justice? Or was I getting revenge on my own killer the only way I could right now, by projecting him onto Farah?
The sound of a door opening downstairs made me lose concentration, and the pot dropped in front of her. She hauled in a breath, looking around for me, not finding me. Then, when footsteps thundered up a nearby staircase and voices yelled out Farah’s name, she cried back to them, all helpless and dumb.
“Here! Oh God, I’m here. Help me!”
I whooshed back to a corner of the ceiling, not knowing what to expect now but eager to see what happened. I thought I’d heard Gavin, Wendy, and Noah in the group, but would they have Eileen the cleaner with them?
Weird thought. Wasn’t the family here because Farah had run off like a loon, not because a spirit had captured her? But still. A ghost couldn’t be too careful.
As their footsteps pounded down the hallway, Farah wiped the tears off her face. She glanced at the dead James nearby, then at the room’s entrance.
I didn’t like the heavy, resigned smile that weighed down her mouth.
“I’m still going to get away with this,” she said, and I knew she was talking to me. “You can’t stop me.”
What the hell did she mean by that? I didn’t wait around to find out, because I barged from the room, going toward the footsteps.
When I saw Gavin, Wendy, and Noah rushing toward me, I zipped down to the floor and materialized for a second. It drained me slightly, but it worked, because the trio halted right away.
“Did you see that?” Gavin said. “It’s her.”
“I know,” Wendy said, much more accepting than her older brother.
But Noah, who must’ve recovered just fine from his fainting spell, took cover behind Gavin.
“Holy shit!” he said.
“Wear your big-boy pants, Noah,” Wendy said, her voice level. “It’s just the ghost who was at our house earlier. I don’t know why she’s here when I told all her other ghost friends to get lost, but…” She addressed me. “Why are you here?”
I wanted to ask why they were here instead, but I supposed Noah knew about James and had guessed Farah would retreat here since that was what she always seemed to do when things got stressful. He probably even had access to this address.
But this was no time for chatter, even though I wanted to ask Wendy why Scott and Twyla had so easily deserted her. Maybe they’d gotten bored with nothing happening at the mansion anymore. Or maybe they thought I had this under control now. Probably the bored part.
“Wendy,” I said, knowing she could see and hear me without my having to expend any more energy than usual. “Don’t go in there, please. Farah went off the deep end, and I don’t know what she’s going to do next. She murdered Elizabeth.”
Wendy suffered another gut punch. I was really throwing them around tonight.
Noah was gaping at his supernatural sister while Gavin searched around for me with his cautious gaze. Wendy had obviously filled them in on her developed talent on the car ride over.
“Just listen to me,” I said to her. “I don’t know what Noah told you, but I saw Farah murder Elizabeth. James, the guy who does your pool, knew about it. He’s been blackmailing her for months.”
Wendy’s mouth opened, and she jerked her gaze over to Noah. Obviously, he hadn’t revealed much except for that Farah had probably run off to her so-called boyfriend’s, distressed about the night’s events.
“She killed James to shut him up,” I said. “So don’t go in there. It’s grisly, and she’s dangerous. She’s got a screw that really got loose tonight.”
I didn’t tell Wendy why. The last thing I needed was a million questions about hallucinations and how I could be so callous as to haunt the shit out of Farah.
I realized that Wendy wasn’t listening to me anymore, and I swung around to see why.
Farah was standing in the hallway with the broken bottle in hand, a trickle of red coming from her temple where a lamp had hit her. Blood caked the long shard that she had obviously pulled out of James’s eye.
Noah clutched the back of Gavin’s shirt as his older brother stepped forward.
“Farah?” Gavin asked.
She was going to avoid punishment for Elizabeth’s murder, all right. I had a feeling that she meant to take her own life on her own terms.
I looked back at Wendy. “I think she’s about to kill herself. You can stop it, get her to confess, come clean so Elizabeth’s loved ones can have closure. Just work with me.”
I didn’t want her alive, but this wasn’t my call.
Wendy didn’t take much convincing. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do what anyone would do to convince her to live,” I said.
“She won’t listen to me, not ever.”
Gavin had backed Noah against the wall, keeping him safe and covered, and I realized that there was only one person Farah respected and admired above everyone else. One person she would listen to, if he knew just what to say. And he had taken Wendy’s hand and pulled her back to the wall, too.
“What’s going on, Wen?” Gavin asked with both his siblings behind him as Farah swayed on her feet.
“The ghost says Farah’s about to kill herself,” Wendy whispered. “And the ghost knows why.”
I had an idea, and it was a long shot, so I went to Gavin and pressed hard against his cheek, praying that he wouldn’t shut me out of him.
He didn’t, and I sent him a quick hallucination.
Farah standing in her long nightgown, gripping the broken bottle like a knife.
As she looks at us, she raises the shard toward her wrist.
“I killed Elizabeth for you, Gavin.”
Before we can stop her, she slices from the base of her hand up, opening her skin, blood pouring out. Then she lifts the glass to her throat and yanks it over her neck… .
I pulled out of him, hovering near his ear, whispering, “You’ve got to stop this. Tell her not to do it. If she confesses, everything will be okay. Hurry.”
He’d been through too much to doubt me. So he walked away from the wall while still using his arms to bar his siblings.
“Farah, we thought you might be here, with James. Noah knew the address.”
“James is dead.” Farah drifted toward the stair railing, leaning over it to look at the first floor, which was all cold, hardwood. “He tried to hurt me.”