I must admit I get a real rush out of it as well.
Then, a little further into the recording, we hear, "Miiiillllllie."
He called her that, Emily tells me.
I take out my rose quartz pendulum that I use for dowsing. It's really cool because I can ask it yes-or-no questions and have a two-way conversation with a spirit. I'm absolutely sensing a presence here in this basement. However, I have to make sure it's Delaney Lockhart. We've run into so many street ghosts in our investigations lately—random spirits that inhabit Radisson, people who lived a long time ago, before the interstate to Atlanta cut through or the town was wired for cable.
As I hear Taylor clicking away in the background with her digital camera, I'm still experiencing the emotional choke of extreme heart pain. Is this from Delaney's cardiac? It feels more like a broken heart than blocked arteries. Not that I'm a doctor or anything. There just isn't that sense of blood stopping and not filling the chambers of the heart. I'm picking up something much more forlorn.
"Are you Delaney Lockhart?"
I watch as the pendulum dangling from my thumb and forefinger swings back and forth, from left to right. This is how I get the answer no.
Hmm. "Are you a female spirit?"
The pendulum confirms another no.
"Are you a male spirit?"
"Duh," Becca says with a snicker.
"You know we have to explore all options," Celia snaps.
My pendulum begins to swing in a circle, clockwise, which signifies a yes answer.
"Check this out!" Taylor shouts. "I just took a series of pictures of that corner."
Sure enough, there's a mist in the bottom right corner that gets larger in each frame until it takes on a shape. A very distinct human shape.
Taylor points. "That looks like a soldier's cap. Like someone from the Civil War."
We do have a lot of Civil War history in this town. Local legend has it that General Sherman visited Radisson on his infamous March to the Sea. He and his men were so enamored of a townswoman here that they didn't burn the place and left many historic antebellum houses in their original condition, like the mansion that Celia and her parents live in on the street behind my house.
Turning to Celia, I ask, "Did Mrs. Lockhart say anything about a ghost in her house before Delaney's death?"
She shakes her head, tossing her short black bob back and forth. "Never before, although she claims her daughter Evelyn's house is haunted. That was one of the reasons she and Mr. Lockhart gave it to her and moved out here into the carriage house."
"You're some kind of street ghost, aren't you?" I call out. "You sensed what was going on here, that we were looking for a spirit, and you butted in. If that's what you are, you need to leave, please. You don't belong here. Go back to where you were or let me help you cross into the light."
Before I can say another word, I feel a piercing pain so bad that I have to clamp my hands over my ears to stop it. All I hear reverberating through my head is this wicked, evil laughter, sinister almost, echoing off my cerebral matter. I scream inside, telling him to bugger off. He's not wanted. I clutch my chest and then I feel an insane twinge in my head.
He's trouble ...
Like I need Emily to tell me that.
I fall to my knees from the intense throbbing in my temples. Taylor drops next to me. "Jason should have come with us tonight," she says. "He's going to be inconsolable if anything happens to you."
Yeah, my boyfriend still doesn't exactly like that I do this on a regular basis.
You'll be fine. Ride it out, Kendall.
I reach for Taylor's hand and hold on tightly as the pain begins to subside. I just wish the soldier would stop it with the evil laugh, like he's taking pleasure in seeing me this way.
Suddenly, a man appears before me in plaid shorts, a white Titleist shirt, and a Nike visor. Oh, this has got to be Delaney Lockhart. He glances down at me and smiles. Then he tosses a glower to the corner where the soldier is standing. Inside my head, I hear him tell the other man to be gone and leave me alone, to "go back to Evelyn's." Great, we're going to have to come back and clean out her house as well.
The soldier disappears, just like that.
Celia and Taylor help me up. I cock