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A knock on the door interrupted Sassapis. He had finally claimed the slim sliver of sun beating down on the chair nearby the window when he heard the irritating noise.
Sighing, he yelled to Sam. “There’s someone at the door!”
“What?” Came the delayed reply from upstairs.
Sass rolled his eyes. He refused to get out of his chair. “There’s someone at the door!” He pronounced each syllable delicately, purposefully, as if he was commanding a fleet of soldiers and he’d need to make himself clear. Though, he probably just did this out of annoyance.
Sam jogged down the stairs. “Sorry, Sass, I’ll just get the door, then I’ll come speak to you.”
“That’s what I was—“ He gave up on trying to elaborate further. He’d stuck around for nearly 500 years; what’s 5 more minutes of annoyance?
Sam swung the door open, her customer-service-grin plastered wide on her face. It faltered slightly as she was met with three teenagers; the frontmost one fidgeting with a small camera in his hands.
“Hey, could you open the door again?” was the first thing out of the teen’s mouth. “It’ll be a good shot. If you’re okay with your face being in the video, of course.”
Sam furrowed her eyebrows. “Sorry, what?”
The teen blanked, his eyes darting between Sam’s. Then, his eyebrows quirked upwards slightly; as if he was remembering something.
“Oh, sorry,” he half-heartedly said, though genuine, “I forgot to introduce ourselves. I’m Clay, and these are my friends—“ he gestured to the two others standing behind him— “Kit and Char.”
Sam looked behind Clay, to his group members. “Oh. Hello!” She greeted, with much more cheer than she really wanted to use.
“We’re ghost hunters,” Clay continued. “We go to haunted locations and do some paranormal investigating, and upload our findings to YouTube.” He held up his camera, which Sam noted was off. “That’s why I wanted a shot of you opening the door, but I wanted to make sure you were okay with being filmed first.”
Sam considered this briefly. On one hand, she knew it was a bad idea to let these people speak with the ghosts, as she wanted to keep their presence largely secret. On the other hand, it would spread publicity about the B&B, and potentially attract customers.
“Let me speak to my… coworkers,” she asked, before gently closing the door. She stepped into the main living room, where a few of the ghosts hung around. However, enough were there that she could get a satisfactory majority vote.
“Guys,” she spoke, hushed and quick, “there’s some teenagers outside. They want to speak with you!”
Isaac’s eyes widened. “Can they see us?”
Sam shook her head. “I don't think so. I think they’re using equipment.”
“Equipment?” Sass echoed, his eyebrow cocked in skepticism. “Like, EMF readers?”
“Oh, that stuff?” Pete brightened. “When I stayed at that abandoned house in Boston, a couple of rogues came by and used that.”
“Does it work?” Alberta asked, wholly curious.
A synchronized “yes” and “no” chorused from Pete and Sass, respectively. They then, immediately, turned to look at each other and began trying to argue their own points.
“That stuff’ll never work!” Sass groaned. “It’s just flashy lights and weird sounds.”
“I’ve seen it work!” Pete deflected. “I mean, I’ve never personally used it, but Justin from that house took a chance and—“
“Guys!” Sam hissed. “We don’t have that much time, okay? How about we let them in, let them try, and see what happens?”
With nods across the room (some reluctant, some more eager) indicating confirmation, Sam replied with her own echoed nod and headed back to the door.
She opened the door and, upon noticing Clay’s camera was set up and recording, made quick work to plaster a smile on her face.
“Hi! Welcome to Woodstone B&B!” She greeted, with her best customer-service voice. She moved from the door to allow her guests to step inside. Only then did she notice the large, likely heavy backpack Kit was carrying.
“Hi,” Clay greeted, extending his free hand to shake Sam’s. “I’m Clay, and this is my group— Kit and Char.”
Sam hesitated; she knew them already, why was Clay repeating their names? Oh, wait, it was for the camera.
“I’m Sam,” She re-introduced herself and shook Clay’s hand.
The teen handed the camera to Char, then retracted his hand. Sam glanced at the camera; it was still recording.
“We heard this place was haunted,” Clay continued. Props to him, Sam thought, for getting straight to the point. “Do you think we’d be able to do some paranormal investigating? We just want to speak to the spirits here and help them share their story.”
“I can just tell you my story, Sam!” Isaac grumbled. “If she’d let me,” he confided to Alberta.
“Hey, give these kids the benefit of the doubt!” Alberta defended. “I, for one, would love to speak to them.”
Sam ignored the ghosts. She’d gotten pretty good at that over the past four years.
“Of course you can!” She permitted Clay.
“Great,” Clay grinned. “Now, is there any specific room we should be in? Do you keep all your haunted artifacts in a specific area, maybe?”
Sam glanced past the group, towards the ghosts. “Yeah, uh…” She counted. 5 out of 8 was good enough, right? “…this room behind you, actually. That’s where the ghosts are right now.”
Clay and Kit looked to the room. Char kept the camera focused on Clay.
“Oh, awesome,” Clay monotoned, as if it was a filler word. “Well, we’ll set up there—“ he motioned for his group to follow him as he walked into the room— “and you can give us a rundown of the ghosts here.”
Sam followed the trio into the room. Clay sat down on the couch, narrowly missing passing through Trevor. The businessman flinched and jumped away. Sam winced slightly, out of second-hand anxiety.
“Of course, uh, no problem,” Sam replied. She watched as Char set the camera on the table, angling it to both view her group and Sam, before sitting on the sofa herself. Kit shrugged off their backpack and planted it on the floor, before, too, sitting on the sofa next to Clay.
Clay nodded, signalling to Sam to start talking.
“Oh, um…” she hesitated, trying to decide which ghost to speak about first.
“Tell them about me!” Alberta urged, which Sam was more that willing to go with.
“The first ghost I’ll tell you about is named Alberta. Alberta Haynes.”
“Like the province in Canada?” Clay asked.
Sam nodded. “She was a singer born in 1890, and she died in 1928 after she was poisoned by the son of the woman who built this house.”
Clay hummed in intrigue. “Wow. Interesting,” he commented. “Anything else we should know about her?”
Sam paused to think. “You can sometimes hear her humming to herself.”
“Not ‘to herself!’” Alberta interrupted. “Sometimes to others, too!”
“Or to others,” Sam added.
Clay nodded. “Good to know.” He turned to Char, “Try to listen in, then. See if you can hear her.”
Clay then turned to the camera and made a ‘cut’ motion, before turning to Sam.
“Look, uh, how many ghosts are there?” He asked. “I only ask because I don’t think I’ll have enough storage on my camera for that many clips, y’know?”
“There’s four more I’ll tell you about,” Sam replied. “I don’t think you’ll see the other three.”
Clay’s eyebrow quirked slightly. “Eight ghosts? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many in one house before.”
“Well, there’s three more in the shed, one in the attic, and a whole bunch in the basement,” Sam listed. “All-in-all, there’s around 30 ghosts in the house.”
“Really?” Clay’s eyebrows shot up. He recoiled slightly in surprise. “And we’ll only see five?”
Sass shook his head. “They won’t hear from me. I’m just here to watch.”
“Probably only four, actually,” Sam replied.
Clay nodded. He paused, before standing up and moving to his camera to shut it off.
“Okay, tell us about the ghosts we’ll see,” he said.
-
“Is it on?” Clay muttered to himself after fiddling with his camera for a bit. “Yeah, yep. It’s on.” He quickly moved to the couch before doing his introduction.
“Okay, we’ve set up all our equipment”— Clay gestured to his ‘equipment’, which was really just two REM pods and an EMF reader that Char held— “And our host Sam has told us about the ghosts here. So we’re going to attempt to speak to these ghosts.”
Clay shifted in his seat. It was always a bit awkward trying to start a conversation with ghosts; especially in front of a camera.
“Okay, is anybody here?” Clay called.
“Yes, yes, we’re here,” Sass waved his hand dismissively.
“Not reading anything, Clay,” Char reported.
Clay frowned, but didn’t lose hope. “If you’re here, can you come near our equipment? Don’t be scared of it.”
Trevor scoffed and crossed his arms. “I’m not scared of it. I worked with stuff like this all the time when I was alive.”
“You said they could speak to us, Pete?” Isaac turned to the other ghost, his eyebrow cocked in skepticism.
“Well, they can’t hear us. We have to touch that device there—“ Pete pointed to a REM pod— “and a light will go off, and then they’ll know we’re here.”
“If you're so confident in it, why don’t you touch it?” Sass snarked.
“Well, maybe I will.” Pete placed his hands on his hips, attempting to make some sort of point to Sass. He then walked over to Clay and his group.
“Come on, just touch the light,” Clay coaxed to what he could only hope wasn’t just air.
Char’s eyebrow quirked. “Clay, I’m getting a reading! It’s just—“
The REM pod moved up to yellow.
Pete looked back to the other ghosts, his hand hovering over the small device. “I told you so.”
Clay’s eyebrows shot up. He shifted in his seat, his eyes still fixated on the light. No matter how many times he did this, he still felt a rush of anxiety each time. “Okay, uh… can you do that again? Just— just turn it off so I know it’s not a random blip?”
Pete promptly moved his hand from the light. As if magic, it flicked off.
“Okay, okay…” A grin played on Clay’s face. “You’re a spirit. There’s a spirit here, with us.”
The rest of the ghosts looked equally, if not more, shocked as the group of teens.
“How…” Trevor, uncharacteristically, was at a loss for words. He brought a hand to his mouth. “How are you doing that?”
“Is this… Alberta?” Clay asked.
“No, I’m Pete.” Pete didn’t move his hand.
“No?” Clay spoke after a bit. “Uh… Trevor?”
Pete frowned. “No, um, I’m Pete.”
“Isaac?” Clay offered, to no answer. Pete sucked his teeth.
“Well, it’s gotta be one of you,” Clay frowned. “There’s only so many ghosts in this house, and—“
“Is this Pete?” Kit finally asked.
“There it is,” Pete placed his hand over the REM pod.
Kit looked to Clay. “Remember their names next time, okay?”
Clay rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“So, Pete, do you have anything you want to tell us?” Clay continued. “Switch that light off if so.”
Pete considered this briefly, before shrugging and keeping his hand on the light.
“What?” Trevor spat. “You have a chance to speak with the livings and you pass it up?”
“What?” Pete shrugged. “I have nothing to share.”
Trevor scoffed. “Okay. Y’know what? Move. Let me speak to them.”
Trevor began advancing towards Pete, but soon was halted by Alberta.
“Oh no, No-pants. It’s my turn next.” She wagged her finger in his face, causing him to recoil slightly.
Trevor scoffed. “Oh, no. Not this time. Wait your turn.” He pushed past Alberta and approached the light. He moved Pete’s hand out of the way and waved his hand over the REM pod.
“Okay, could we maybe speak to—“ Clay started, but interrupted himself as the light began flickering on and off.
“Pete? You want to say something else?” Clay asked.
“What? No, I’m not Pete,” Trevor spat. He moved his hand from the REM pod. It turned off.
“Oh, okay… I’ll take that as a yes,” A crooked grin grew on his face.”
He turned to the camera. “Okay, viewers. This episode is actually a special one. I’ve recently bought equipment for the Estes method, and this will be the first episode that we’ll try it out.” Then he walked over to the camera and shut it off.
“Let’s set up,” Clay turned to his group and instructed. He moved to the backpack on the ground and began pulling various trinkets and tools out of it.
“Kit, hand me the REM pods,” he held out his hand, not looking up, “and the EMF reader.”
“They think I’m Pete! How could they?” Trevor sulked. “No offense, Pete.”
“None taken,” Pete quickly replied. “I’d be upset if someone thought I was someone else, too.”
-
“Okay,” Clay spoke to the camera. “So the way this works is, Kit—“ they waved to the camera upon hearing their name— “is gonna wear both noise-cancelling headphones and a blindfold. All they’ll be able to hear is the spirit box, which is how we’ll communicate with the ghosts in this house. Me and Char’ll ask questions and Kit will say what they hear.”
Clay turned to Kit and nodded. Kit put the headphones on.
“So, how does this work?” Isaac muttered to Alberta. “Do we just speak to them, or—“
Clay turned to the camera. “So, Kit will not be able to hear me or Char when we ask—“
“Does this work?” Kit interrupted, to Isaac’s shock. “Speak.”
Clay chuckled. “Okay, you ghosts are eager to talk to us. Yeah, we’ll speak.”
Isaac recoiled. “Pete, you’re the expert. Tell us about this.”
Pete stared with the same expression of confusion at the device. “I don’t know, I… I never saw anything like this back in Boston.”
“Expert,” Kit said. “Then I heard ‘don’t’ and ‘never’.”
Clay’s eyebrow raised in intrigue. “What shouldn’t we do?”
Pete, realizing these kids were far off the right track, approached Kit and spoke, “Hi, er, my name’s Pete. They’re just talking nonsense… don’t listen to them.”
Kit furrowed their eyebrows. “They don’t listen.”
“Who doesn’t listen to you?” Clay asked. “Is there anyone we should speak to for you?”
Alberta sucked her teeth. “Move aside, Pete, you’re doing it wrong.” She moved to Kit, but the teen spoke before she had a chance to.
“You’re wrong,” Kit spoke.
“We’re wrong?” Clay furrowed his eyebrows. “Could you elaborate?”
“Maybe they mean we’re wrong in our assumption?” Char offered. “Like, they might be saying we don’t listen or Kit doesn’t listen.”
Clay nodded in acknowledgement. “Is that what you mean? Are we not listening to you?”
“That’s right,” Alberta replied, “And you better prick up your ears and stay quiet. I’ve got a story to tell.”
Kit chuckled. “Oh, that’s funny,” they commented. “A female voice just said, ‘You prick, stay quiet’.”
Clay furrowed his eyebrows. “Okay, well… there’s no need to be aggressive. Look, we just want to tell your story.”
Sass scoffed. “Just stay quiet, guys. Obviously their equipment doesn’t work.”
“Stay quiet,” Kit echoed. “But this time, a male voice said it.”
“You guys seem to want us to stay quiet,” Char laughed.
“Or maybe,” Clay mused, “They’re trying to tell us they have to stay quiet. Like, something’s making them stay quiet. Is that it?”
“Charlotte seems to be the only bright one here,” Isaac snarked. “Clay is as dull-minded as Alexander Hamilton.” He put Clay’s name in air-quotations.
“Charlotte,” Kit spoke. “Clay, Alexander Hamilton.”
“Those are our names,” Clay spoke to Char, “except for Alexander Hamilton, of course.”
“That might be Isaac,” Char mused. “Didn’t Sam say they were alive around the same time?”
“You’re right,” Clay emphasized. “Are we speaking to Isaac now?”
“And now they speak to me. How flattering,” Isaac deadpanned, placing a hand to his heart in feigned appreciation. He approached the kids and spoke, “Yes, this is Isaac.”
“Wow, that’s a long sentence,” Kit mumbled to themself, furrowing their eyebrows. “So, he said… ‘They speak to me, how flattering. Yes, this is Isaac’.”
Clay and Char shared a look of excitement, moreso on Clay’s side.
“Well, you’re welcome,” Clay replied, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “So, you brought up Hamilton. Tell me about him.”
Isaac scoffed. “Him? Him? He is the single, most terrifically horrid person I’ve ever met!”
“Here we go,” Sass rolled his eyes.
“I’m so lucky that I did not happen to share relations with any of his friends or family. Granted, it was a small world back then, and it wasn’t uncommon for—“
“Him?” Kit spoke. “He is the most terrific person I’ve met.”
Isaac’s eyes widened in horror. If he had blood that could drain from his face, it would. “No, wait! That’s all wrong!”
“I’m so lucky,” Kit continued, oblivious to the ghost soldier freaking out right in front of them, “that I shared relations with him.” Kit laughed. “Holy crap, Isaac was gay for Alexander Hamilton? No wonder we didn’t hear about that in the history books.”
Clay laughed. “Is that true, Isaac? Did we catch that correctly?”
Isaac shook his head loudly. “No! Not at all! You got the first bit right, sure, but never for Alexander Hamilton!” The name was spoken with a unique disgust; like it left a bad taste in Isaac’s mouth.
“You got the right?” Kit spoke. “No, hold on— ‘You got that right’.”
Sass laughed. “Sam, you’d better come down here. These ghost hunters misenterpreted Isaac and now they think him and Hamilton were together.”
A clatter of objects sounded from upstairs, followed by rapid footsteps.
Sam speedwalked down the stairs. “Hey, Clay, how’s it going?”
“We just discovered that Isaac was in a relationship with Alexander Hamilton! Like, romantically!” Clay grinned. “How cool is that?”
Sam’s eyes flicked to Isaac, who was busy muttering in distress to himself.
“Yeah, that’s very cool..!” Sam laughed, tight-lipped. She wasn’t a very good liar, and on top of the fact that watching the ghosts’ reaction to this was hilarious, it was very difficult for her to hold back her laughter.
Char cocked her head. “Is something wrong? You seem all…” she trailed off.
“No,” Sam shook her head. “No, no… I’m fine.” She glanced at Isaac, who was now begging her to get these people to leave.
“It might be best for Isaac’s mental health if they go.” Sass reasoned.
“But… I do think it’s best if you wrap up,” Sam continued to the teens. “I have an… event later today and I need to set up for it soon.”
Clay and Char shared a look. “Okay…” started Clay. “How much longer can we be?”
“In the next 10-15 minutes or so,” Sam replied.
“Get them out now!” Isaac barked. Sam flinched.
“Sooner rather than later would be ideal,” Sam spoke, a customer-service-grin plastered on her face.
-
A couple days later, when the house had wholly forgotten about the whole ordeal, Jay was busy looking for a YouTube video to watch while doing his work. He’d recently gotten into ghost hunting videos; he was searching for a way that he himself could speak to the ghosts, rather than having to use Sam as a translator.
He wanted to support smaller channels, so he decided the best course of action would be to temporarily block all the big accounts he came across.
Eventually he came across a video that caught his eye. It was titled, “GHOST HUNTING GONE WRONG!!!! ***WE WERE KICKED OUT***”
Jay sucked his teeth. “Teenagers…” he muttered to himself. As he went to scroll away from the video, he noticed which building was used in the overly-edited thumbnail.
“What the…” He clicked on the video out of sheer curiosity.
“What’s up fam, my name is Clay, and you’re watching The Ghost Seekers,” Came the overly exaggerated intro. “This is a very special episode, fam. We’re exploring an active B&B called the Woodstone Mansion, and we’re going to try to speak to the ghosts living on the property. Let’s go!”
“Sam!!” Jay yelled to his wife, “Why are there people speaking to the ghosts?!”