east, where a hill obscured any long-range view. I gestured that we should go the other way. She shook her head and turned on her Kirlianometer and jabbed an emphatic finger at the EMF meter and voice recorder that I held.
She started up the hill, crouching low to keep her silhouette hidden. I went after her, worried she would fall and break her neck, worried about what would come over the rise to meet us. Worried about things that bump in the dark and grab with cold hands …
Memory and imagination wound me in knots, and just when I thought I would snap, three figures appeared over the hill.
In between “Holy crap!” and “What the hell?” I recognized Mark’s close-cropped hair and chiseled profile. Ditto Jennie’s Pocahontas braids and Dwayne’s linebacker shoulders.
Phin straightened like a shot. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, like we had any more right to be at the site than they did.
“Aw, man!” said Dwayne, lowering his video recorder.
Jennie laughed, but Mark gave more of a crow. “I knew it! You ditched us to play Ghostbusters all on your own. Unfair!”
His word choice had Phin vibrating with outrage. “We’re trying to conduct serious paranormal research. If you want to play, go do it somewhere else.”
“Where?” asked Mark. “This is where the graves are. Our graves, I might add.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she snapped. I had to cover my mouth to hold back a laugh, because I’d never seen my sister like this. “I’m trying to control the variables in this experiment.”
Mark raised his hands. “Dial it down, chica. You could have controlled these variables much better if you hadn’t ditched us to come here on your own.”
“I didn’t think you’d follow us.”
“We didn’t follow you. You’re not the only one who can look up ghost hunting on Wikipedia.”
“Wikipedia!” If Phin got any more indignant, she was going to be in orbit. It didn’t help when Mark laughed.
Dwayne, Jennie, and I watched them like a tennis match. When I was reasonably sure Mark was safe from my sister, I asked Jennie, “Where’s everyone else?”
Jennie answered, “Lucas was enjoying himself at the bar, and we ditched Emery because he’d tell on us. Caitlin was trying to ditch him, too, so she could talk to Ben.”
Nice. Now I was doubly embarrassed that I’d been thinking about inappropriate Mini Cooper kissing when Ben really was at the bar to meet Caitlin.
Focus, Amy. He’s just a guy.
“Did you try your corona thing on the dig site?” Mark asked, which might have gotten him back into Phin’s good graces if the unsuccessful experiment weren’t a sore point with her.
“I’m still working the bugs out.”
Before she could go on, something stopped her. The same thing that made us all freeze, at exactly the same moment. So I knew I wasn’t imagining it, the sound that, just like before, was more of a sensation in my middle, as if the noise were too low for my auditory sense to register.
Then came a soft grumble, like a cranky complaint from an ancient man.
The taut air of a collective held breath kept the five of us still until the last rumbling echo. Only then did we turn toward the sound.
“Look!” said Dwayne. There was the faintest flickering glow against the starless silhouette of the big granite bluff to the south.
Mark punched Dwayne’s arm in excitement. “Let’s go see.”
“You are not blowing this test for me,” said Phin, and she and Jennie ran after them.
I would have, too, but I knocked the voice recorder out of my pocket, and it hit the ground with a clatter.
“Crap.” I crouched to feel around for it, and then I had to find the batteries that had fallen out. In the dark, I reassembled the recorder, then made sure it still worked. Which it did. Phin might be the death of me, but she wouldn’t be killing me for losing evidence.
Then I stood, looked around, and found myself utterly alone.
Logic said the others weren’t far, maybe just over the hill. But for all I could see of them, they might have vanished to another dimension. I was pretty sure this was against the buddy-system rule.
Something brushed the back of my head, like a hand catching on the strands of my hair. My heart banged against my ribs and I spun to see—
Nothing. A tarp lay like a dark pool over the now-empty grave by the river. The stakes and cord that Mark had measured out looked like faint, shadowy facets on