My sister and I are ghost whisperers. Part 2.

Have you ever had a dream that felt so real that you doubted yourself when you woke up? The dream had dug its fingers into your back hard enough that you could still feel it when you looked around and tried to reconcile what was with what might be?
Sure, you probably have. I know I have, and while me and my sister Jesse are in a…unique line of work, I don’t doubt it’s common to have that momentary disorientation upon waking as you try to compartmentalize what is real and what is a dream. That’s why the first couple of nights we were at The Alchemist’s Retreat and I had strange dreams of some past life I never lived, I didn’t worry. I woke in the morning, a bit more affected by the dreams that I would normally expect, but by the time breakfast was served in a small, bleak parlor downstairs, I would feel more myself again.
But by the third morning, I was still feeling the insistent digging of those slumbering fingers along the ridges of my spine and the borders of my mind well into the afternoon. By the fourth morning, I had the thought that those fingers had been replaced by teeth.

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When we first came to the “summer house†of Lady Thurston, I had felt a combination of mild apprehension and acrid contempt. The house was big and creepy, sure, but this pointless, rich bitch old woman complaining about her finances while hiring ghost whisperers to come scout out her mansion filled with antiques and likely stacks of money? **** her.
She wanted to make everything mysterious and sinister. My grandfather this, Ulgathic tomes that. Either she really was deranged, or she was bored and wanted to roleplay with some peons she hired to humor her. The more time I spent around her, the more I felt sure it was the latter. Again, **** her.
Would we take her money? You bet. And we’re professionals, so we’ll put on a good show for her, dance around like good little paid performers. But it didn’t mean I had to like it. It didn’t mean I had to like her.
If it seems I’m being harsh, let me explain. First off, I actually believe in the supernatural. But we’ve been doing this for awhile now, and most of the time it’s a total bust. We have enough tricks up our sleeve to mollify our customers, but that’s because that’s exactly what they are. Customers.
And the customer is always right.
When someone calls a medium or a spiritualist or a ghost hunter, they aren’t calling them to be shot down. To be told “no, there’s not a ghost haunting your house†or “sorry, I think your husband is just rotting in the ground across town because I don’t believe in an afterlifeâ€. They call because they believe there’s something strange in the neighborhood, and they want external validation.
This is the most basic principle of what we do. There are always ghosts. There’s a monster under the bed and yes, in fact, the boogeyman is in the closet waiting to eat your soul. Because no matter what the customer thinks is there, be it a lost loved one or some terrible hellbeast sent to torment them, they want it to be true. Oh they’ll lie to you, and to themselves, and say they just want peace. They just want to not be afraid any more. They know it’s silly, but they just have this feeling lately, and they just want to make sure nothing is living in the house with them that shouldn’t be there.
But it’s all a sham. When me and Jesse first started doing this kind of work, we made the mistake a few times of being honest. Telling people that there was nothing there. And they’d smile and nod. Pretend to be relieved. But in their eyes you could see the hurt and resentment. What we were really telling them was that they were wrong. That there really wasn’t magic in the world. And that they weren’t special.
So now we help them with their lie. Give them what they need. It’s not hard to fake a convincing supernatural occurrence, especially when your audience is ready to believe anything that confirms what they already want to hear. To some people that may sound dishonest, like we’re taking advantage of people. Stealing even. But I think we really do a lot of good in the world.
Which is part of why I dislike people like Thurston. She doesn’t seem to want to believe in anything, and odder still, she doesn’t seem to really care what we find. Oh she’ll play her part, asking occasionally how things are going with our thermal cameras and our EMF equipment, cornering us every evening to tell vaguely sinister stories about her family’s past, but at the end of the day I feel like it’s all bull****. Like she’s smirking at us behind our backs.
But if that’s true, why has she brought us here?

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The day we arrived, she brought us her grandfather’s effects, which consisted of initially a photo album, followed shortly by a notepad filled with incomprehensible scribbles and a large brass key. We flipped through the album dutifully, but at first it was much of what you would expect. Old pictures, including some really faded tintypes, of various family members engaged in different sullen poses and staged activities. Yawning, I had flipped the page and tried to casually check my watch. If we could get done with this **** quickly enough, we might be able to set up before it got too late and be done by late tomorrow.
Then I saw a picture that stood out from the rest. It was a man, standing alone on a hill. His hair stood out from his head, long and wild, and under each arm he carried massive tomes bound in some dark skin. He was posed, one foot up on a rock, but it almost looked as though he was caught mid-stride coming down the mountain. Because behind him, lit up by some unknown light source, was the black profile of what Thurman told us was Mount Mnar, aka “Dead Mountainâ€. I looked back at her over my shoulder and saw a thin smile on her lips.
I was still looking at her when Jesse poked me in the ribs. “Hey! That looks like you!â€
I frowned at her as I turned back and then looked where she was pointing. It was an old photo taken in front of the manor house. Several people were moving through the shot, but near the door there was a young woman that did actually look like me. At the time, I gave a laugh and shrugged.
I’m not laughing about it anymore.
Because I remember these vivid dreams I’m having, and in those dreams I think I am this woman. There is a group gathering at the house for some kind of party and discussion of “Abraham’s Revelationsâ€, whatever that means, and I see the man that Thurston called grandfather moving through the halls of the manor talking to this group or that, seemingly at the nexus of everything wherever he goes. And if I’m being honest, it isn’t hard to see why. He’s young and handsome, with a bearing and resounding intellect that gives him this strangely commanding and magnetic presence. Even catching his eye for a moment when we pass each other on the lawn sends a shock of electricity down my spine.
I wonder if he will ask me to sit with him in the parlor one of these nights and tell me of the wonders he has found on the mountain.
Goddamn it. That’s what I mean. I can feel the teeth of this thing now, whatever it is. At first I felt like I was gaining another life, but now I feel like I’m losing my own. Jesse wants to act like she’s holding up better, but I think it’s an act. She sees this as a big pay day, with Thurston asking every day for us to stay on awhile longer, explore the mysteries of this place and her family, help her get to the root of what lay moldering underneath her rotten family tree. But when my sister doesn’t know I’m watching, she looks as haunted as I feel. I think she’s not sleeping well, and once I thought I heard her walking around in the dead-of-night.
I’m trying to stick it out. I know we need the money, and I don’t want to disappoint Jesse. But I hate my waking hours in this place and I dread sleep. I dread those damn teeth. Because I think the teeth belong to something large and hungry that is eating me a bite at a time. But I need to go for now. We’re about to go on a hike up the mountain.
And God help me, I feel an excitement that is not my own.


Source.