of other things—microwaves, uninsulated appliances, and electrical cords, for example. The interaction of natural and supernatural fields could make a mess of one’s spells, which was why a lot of kitchen witches like Aunt Hyacinth wouldn’t do spells in the actual kitchen. Or they’d unplug everything first, which was a bit of a nuisance.
The thing was, naturally occurring EMFs could make you feel unsettled and uneasy, mess with your sleep, or even make your pacemaker do wonky things. All of which could make your house feel haunted, when it was really just too close to a high-voltage power line.
I’d run the EMF meter over both dig sites and gotten no fluctuations. Whatever Lila had sensed that made her dig up the second skull, EMFs weren’t it.
“What about the voice recorder?” Phin said. “Did you keep it running for EVPs?”
She was asking me about the MP3 recorder I had going to catch electronic voice phenomena. That was when a voice you didn’t hear during an investigation turned up when you were listening later. There were a lot of gadgets to juggle when Phin was involved.
“It’s been running the whole time,” I told her.
“Did you ask questions while I was taking Kirlianographs?” Phin’s impatient voice said she knew the answer. The area wasn’t so big she wouldn’t have heard me talking to myself. But I answered her anyway.
“No.”
“Amy! Why didn’t you ask questions?”
“Because I hate EVPs. They creep me out.”
They always had. EMFs and EVPs might seem mystifying if you were new to investigating, but this was like getting back on a bike I hadn’t ridden in years. Other kids go through dinosaur phases. When I was eight, I could name every kind of spirit from revenants to poltergeists. That was how I knew that apparitions were so rare.
I was thinking that maybe I should have Mom send me the books and videos I’d boxed up after the La Llorona incident. That was how far I’d slipped out of my entrenched position. Except calling might get her hopes up that I was changing my mind, which was another reason I didn’t want to be in the pasture doing what I swore I would never do again.
Phin exhaled in exasperation. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right.”
“I said I would come and test your Kirlianometer to see if it could visualize any anomalies with the ground. And I went along with measuring EMFs. But I’m not here to look for—”
I bit my tongue. Literally. After cursing in pain for a while, as Phin waited impatiently for me to make my point, I rephrased.
“I don’t want to invite the ghost to talk to me. I just want it to go away. From me and everyone else.”
My sister looked at me like I was an idiot, which was not uncommon, and then said something that made me feel like an idiot, which was much more rare:
“How can you know how to make it go away if you won’t even ask it?”
This was remarkably sensible. Maybe if I didn’t have so many hot buttons about ghosts, I would have thought of it myself. I started to tell her as much, but she was looking at the display screen of the camera with an expression of … well, it could have been either concentration or consternation.
“What?” I said, because that look often preceded blown fuses and blown tempers. “Nothing.”
And then she turned off the gadget. Sure, we were wrapping up, but the way she did it set my alarms to pinging. Phin had no subtlety, and if there was something she didn’t want me to see, it could not be good.
“Delphinium, what is in that picture—”
I broke off as another noise caught my attention. Phin went still, and nodded to show she heard it, too. I didn’t want to stir the air with even a whisper.
The indistinct ripple of sound continued, a hushed rise and fall. The rocky hills threw voices like a ventriloquist. The noise could have been coming from over the ridge or over the river.
I scanned the night in a slow circle and nearly strangled myself on a swallowed shriek when I saw a pair of glowing eyes staring at me from the dark. But at my half-audible gurgle, the eyes disappeared, and the deer they belonged to bounded away with a flick of her white tail and a clatter of hooves on the rock.
The murmuring broke off, and its abrupt absence was somehow easier to locate. Phin pointed