The Healing Process Read online

  Basil leaned forward and looked at the castle from the passenger window. “It’s weird, I’ll give you that. Who builds a freakin’ castle in Florida, of all places?”

  “Maybe he’ll tell us.”

  “Haha,” Basil said, moving back. “Very funny.”

  “Thanks. I work really hard on that.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Which equipment do you want me to bring in?”

  “Just the backpack,” I said. “We shouldn’t need anything else.”

  He nodded. “Alright,” he said, turning back to grab the backpack. “This keeps getting heavier every day.”

  I smiled at him. “Hey, that’s why I pay you the big bucks.”

  “You just keep getting funnier and funnier.”

  My smile widened into a grin as he pulled the backpack toward him. He groaned as he put it on his lap and we got out of the car together.

  When we walked away from the SUV, I heard him lock it. “We’re leaving our clothes in the car?”

  “We’ll come get them later,” I said. “I suspect we’ll need a break from being inside at some point.”

  “Maybe you are getting something, Lily,” he said. I looked at him and I didn’t think he was being sarcastic, though with Basil, it was always hard to tell. “Are you scared?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Always.”

  “Great,” he replied. “At least it’s not just me.”

  ***

  We started to set up in one of the upstairs rooms. It was one of the only rooms that was still in use as part of the tour package. Before Thornbridge had been turned into a museum, it had been a hotel. The office upstairs was connected to the many rooms that nobody had access to anymore. There was only one room in the third floor, a large room that looked like it was big enough to house at least ten people, but had once been the head of the household’s bedroom.

  Though everything was dated, I could see hints of splendor around me. The ceiling was painted with intricate and beautiful art. It wasn’t religious, though it looked like it could be something in a smaller church.

  The paint was chipped and worn away and from where I was sitting, I could see little bits of the ceiling that seemed to be hanging off, waiting to come down to the ground.

  Other than the ceiling, everything had been swapped with more modern things. I suspected that the bed was about 20 years old. It was large with a very thick expensive quilt on it. The rest of the furniture was also very fancy, placed around the room in such a way that made anybody who stayed in this room feel like they were living in the lap of luxury.

  It was supposed to be the most haunted room in the entire castle. People had reported encounters of all kinds, voices, footsteps—all sorts of paranormal phenomena.

  But I had never gone to investigate. I wasn’t like those other ghosthunters. I only went where I was called.

  Basil sat down on the bed and it creaked under his weight, which was a surprise. He was a lean but short man, though I could tell his body was made almost entirely of muscle. When Basil wasn’t busy investigating ghosts, he was at the gym.

  He sighed, putting his hands behind his head and flopping down on the bed. “So, this is the room where it happened.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “All of it, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “I guess so.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ELIAS

  2019

  After examining Dr. Overstreet, who seemed in good health but generally anxious—for good reason—I decided that the best thing to do was do a sweep of the entire castle. I noticed that everything was up to code, there were carbon monoxide detectors where they needed to be, and although the layout was a little odd, I didn’t think ventilation was a big issue.

  But I couldn’t discard anything.

  “So,” I said as Overstreet buttoned up her jacket. “There is absolutely nothing about these people that you think is the same?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re all different ages, different races, different sexes—what, other than this workplace, did they have in common?”

  She licked her lips. “Well,” she said. “You’re going to think this is a little silly, but I did notice a pattern.”

  “Any pattern is good,” I replied. “Any pattern can help me.”

  “They were both assigned to clean the upstairs room the night before it happened,” she said, then shook her head. “Excuse me, they all were. I mean, everyone does cleaning rounds here…”

  “Was any of your janitorial staff affected?”

  “No,” she said. “We don’t really have any janitorial staff. Everybody is in charge of cleaning, and ever since I realized I was happening, I’ve been cleaning the upstairs bedroom myself.”

  “Why not just close it?”

  “To be completely honest with you, Dr. Arnaud, it’s one of our main attractions. With my workers getting sicker, my priority is making sure that this place stays open so that they can come back to work,” she said, brushing herself off before she sat down at her desk. “Nothing has happened to me, so I thought it might not be related.”

  “But you don’t let anybody else go in there? To clean, I mean.”

  “Right,” she said. “We’re still having the tours, but the silver and gold packages are cancelled. No one can stay up there right now. Our visitors stay there but only for a few minutes while our tour guide walks them through the history of the place.”

  “And none of your visitors have been affected?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said.

  I licked my lips. “It might be best if you close. I don’t necessarily want you to, but it might be too risky not to.”

  She nodded. “I knew you were going to say that. My workers don’t want me to shut down. They don’t want it to become a weird media story, you know, haunted creepy castle begins claiming lives again.”

  “Then say it is for renovations,” I said. “Please. I want you to be safe. I want all of your employees to be safe. I’m here, so I know you want the same thing, Dr. Overstreet.”

  She bit down on her lower lip. I could tell she was concerned. “I understand where you’re coming from. If I could just close down, I would. It’s not as simple as that.”

  “I understand. But the health and safety of everybody here is what’s most important.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right, I just don’t think I have to close for everybody to be healthy and safe.”

  “Maybe. But is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

  She closed her eyes, exhaling heavily from her nose. “No. It isn’t,” she said. “I’ll dismiss my staff.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You should probably also go home too. About Lily Quinn—”

  “I need her,” Overstreet said. “We all do.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Provided you’re all aware of the risks.”

  “I will ensure she is,” she said, standing up again. “Thank you, once again, for everything, Dr. Arnaud. Would you like me to walk you upstairs?”

  I shook my head. “Just tell me where it is,” I replied. “I’m confident I can find my own way.”

  “Go right inside or left when you get out of the office. The corridor doesn’t bend or curve in any way, it’s just long and straight. The lights can be a little disorienting and there are some boarded up rooms that look like they’re part of the wall. Once you’re past those, there’s one set of stairs left. It’s really large, wide, and hard to miss. Go upstairs and you’re there.”

  “Thank you,” I replied. “I really do hope I’ll be able to help.”

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling at me. “Let me walk you to the door, at least.”

  ***

  Dr. Overstreet hadn’t been joking. The corridor was very long. It was large, wide, and the electric overhead lights made it look like it would never end. Because of where it was in the castle, there were no sounds coming from outside. All I coul
d hear was the low humming sound of electricity overhead. The lights weren’t particularly bright and though they illuminated the way, I found myself disoriented. Just like Dr. Overstreet had warned me.

  I finally got to the stairs, which were as wide as the hallway. I looked up, and noticed that they were very steep, which I found surprising considering their width and positioning in this labyrinth of a castle. I couldn’t see the top of the stairs when I started walking, keeping right so I could hold myself up even on the slippery steps. They were surprisingly wet and I was a little worried I was going to slip.

  They had to have a freight elevator, I thought. The building was, from what I understood, up to code, which meant that it had to be handicap-accessible. This clearly wasn’t and it was exhausting, but I wanted to follow the path that every one of the employees who had gotten sick had.

  They had all gone up the stairwell, so I, too, was going to go up the stairwell. I was going to try and clean the same way the employees had but I hadn’t asked what the process was. It had seemed much more important to get her to close the castle and send everyone home, but I should have asked her what the procedures were. I should have asked her about the people who worked for her, exactly what cleaning the upstairs room involved, what products they were using.

  It could be a simple case of using the wrong products, though there was no way for me to know that before looking at them, and I hadn’t heard of any cleaning products being recalled.

  I got to the top of the stairs and noticed how tired I felt. The air felt closed here and my lungs were feeling the effect of being somewhere cloistered and damp.

  I took a second to catch my breath at the top of the stairs. I could see why this wouldn’t be ideal. The ventilation here seemed... different. Maybe it was my imagination, but it certainly felt worse.

  I walked over to the double wooden doors, the entrance to the only bedroom up there, and opened them without hesitation. I was expecting to find a large room, unoccupied but clean.

  Instead, I found a clean room, but it was certainly occupied.

  Lily Quinn, the woman I had met in Dr. Overstreet’s office earlier, was standing in the corner of the room, looking at the wall. A man in his early, maybe mid, twenties, sat up in the bed, a laptop open in front of him.

  “Dr. Arnaud,” Lily said, turning to look at me. “What are you doing here?”

  I took a step forward and closed the door softly behind me. “Dr. Overstreet told me that this was the room where every employee was when they fell ill,” I said. “I figured this is where I would start. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

  Lily cocked her head, her half-moon earrings dangling when she did so. “Right,” she said. “Well, feel free to come in and look around. As long as you don’t mind us doing our work, we don’t mind you doing yours. Isn’t that right, Basil?”

  Basil’s gaze darted between Lily and me, then he shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, boss,” he said. “Whatever you say.”

  “What do you… do here, exactly?” I asked before I ventured any further into the room.

  “We’re paranormal investigators,” the young man said, matter-of-factly.

  I blinked. “You’re—”

  “Dr. Arnaud,” Lily said, walking toward me. I noticed the large platform shoes she was wearing, which sounded hollow on the tile flooring. “I don’t believe you have met my assistant, Basil Tolbert.”

  “No, I don’t think I have.”

  Basil smiled at me, giving me a wave. “Hey, what’s up?”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Seriously,” she said, approaching me. “We won’t interfere with your work if—”

  Her sentence was cut short because she had stumbled over something, and she was flying forward, obviously about to faceplant on the floor. I took a step forward and caught her, not very gracefully, my hands gripping her arms far too tightly. Her hands were extended and her arms were pointed down so she could catch herself before her face met the ground.

  She straightened up. Her eyes were wide and glassy. Her mouth was half open, and she was very obviously distressed. She was looking at me, right into my eyes.

  I blinked. “Are you okay?”

  I watched her swallow. When she spoke, it was very soft, very quiet. I had to strain to be able to hear her. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yeah, I think there’s like a tile that is raced off of the floor or—”

  “No,” she said, though she didn’t shake her head or anything. She was still staring at me and I noticed that she hadn’t blinked. Little blood vessels in her eyes looked like they were about to pop. “I mean Meredith. She says that it’s not your fault. She says that she didn’t mean what she said, that she was drunk and angry and—”

  The room spun around me as I stared at this woman—this woman I hadn’t even met more than an hour ago—talking to me about my late fiancée. The woman I had planned to marry.

  As if she knew her. As if she was right there, talking in her ear, telling me everything that I had wanted to hear ever since the accident.

  “What the fuck?” I said quietly. I wanted to shout, I wanted to be angry, but mostly, I was just shocked.

  I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room and I didn’t want to deal with it. She shook her head, looking paler than I had ever seen her. I thought she might faint. “I’m sorry,” she said, closing her eyes. “Sometimes, when people touch me—”

  I held up my hand to stop her from talking. “Just stay away from me,” I said. “I’ll come back later. I’ll be downstairs for when you’re done.”

  “Dr. Arnaud, you…”

  She was saying something else, but I was on the other side of the door before I could hear it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LILY

  2019

  I hadn’t meant to do that.

  I had known many people like Dr. Arnaud before. They never believed in me, which was not particularly surprising. If you’re God was science, then the principles of mysticism probably made no sense to you, I reasoned. I didn’t resent it. I only believed in it because I had seen myself. Because I had felt myself. Because my life revolved around it. But if it hadn’t been for that, I would have been a skeptic too.

  That was one of the reasons I avoided having strangers touch me, though. As I had gotten older, the visions had gotten less powerful. The gift that I had was being worn away, like a muscle, I tried to work on it but age made it harder. I figured that the further away you were from both birth and death, that meant that your feet were planted in this universe, in this realm. It was a concern. But then people would touch me, and I would know things about them I shouldn’t have known.

  I would know about their deepest secrets. I would know their traumas, the deepest desires, the day that they would die. I would know who they would marry, what they would name their children. And sometimes, like what had happened with Dr. Arnaud, I would get glimpses of their loved ones behind the veil. They would give me messages, and I was little more than a conduit, a phone operator with no free will. It always hurt people. Sometimes, they believed me.

  Not always. Not when it counted.

  And Dr. Arnaud didn’t believe me at all.

  I shouldn’t have cared. I understood that it was outside of my control, but he didn’t understand that. He only had the information that I had given him, which wasn’t enough. I needed to clarify what had happened, even if he didn’t believe me.

  I walked towards the door, turning around just once to look at Basil. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I just need to find him. I want to apologize.”

  “He’s not going to accept your apology,” Basil said.

  I scoffed. “Thanks. Really appreciate the support.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “Do I need help apologizing? No, I got this.”

  “Okay. Well, you know where to find me.”

  I flipped him off, walked outside the room, closed t
he door softly behind me and practically ran down the stairs. I was expecting to run into him quickly. I hadn’t waited very long, and the stairs, while steep, wouldn’t have hidden him from view.

  But he wasn’t on the stairs anymore. He must have taken off running, or practically running, to no longer be in view.

  “Dr. Arnaud?”

  There was no answer. Just the echo of my voice on the walls. The castle felt bigger and more frightening with only my voice replying to my calls.

  He had to have heard me, I thought. It was the only thing that made sense. He was not answering me because he was angry, and I couldn’t blame him for that. If I was in his position, I would have been angry too.

  “Dr. Arnaud?” I asked, this time a little more loudly.

  Once again, the only thing that I heard was my voice.

  I began to walk a little faster, trying to catch up to him as I finally stepped onto the large corridor. Because of the layout of the corridor—straight, wide—I was able to see the outline of Dr. Arnaud’s body in front of me, walking very quickly.

  “Wait!” I said. “I can explain.”

  It looked like he hesitated, but I wasn’t sure. There was no way to be sure, but I thought that he had heard me.

  I was going to have to sprint.

  “Just one minute!” I said loudly, and the walls answered with the same words. “Please. Just one minute.”

  That time, he definitely heard me.

  He craned his neck and looked at me, but he turned back around and began walking even faster. I swore under my breath and quickened my pace. He wasn’t going to get away from me that easy. I was happy to give him his space, but only after he had listened to me. I didn’t want to break into a run—that seemed immature at best—but I basically power-walked toward him.

  He noticed, because he quickened his pace too. I only had a few seconds to think about how ridiculous this all was before I saw him get on the stairs. Now I was definitely not going to catch up to him.