However, he seemed unfazed when he met me at the bathroom door just as my watch read 8:00 A.M.
We explored the whole of the old house, starting with the bottom and working our way up.
Not that it was necessary or important to explore, but I like old houses and I didn't have any better plan than waiting for the ghost to manifest.
Come to think of it, I didn't have any better plan after it manifested.
Banishing ghosts was not something I'd ever tried, and everything I'd read about it over the years (not much) seemed to indicate that doing it wrong was worse than not doing it at all.
The cellar had been redone at some point, but behind a smallish old- fashioned door, there was a room with a dirt floor filled with old wooden milk crates and junk stored down there by some long-ago person.
Whatever its original purpose, it was now the perfect habitat for black widows.
"Wow." I pointed at the far corner of the ceiling with my borrowed flashlight.
"Look at the size of that spider.
I don't know that I've ever seen one that big." Chad tapped me and I looked at his circle of light, centered on a broken ladder-back chair.
"Yep," I agreed.
"That one's bigger.
I think we'll just back out of here and look elsewhere--at least until we have a nice can of spider spray." I shut the door a little more firmly than I might have.
I don't mind spiders, and a black widow is one of the beauties of its kind ...
but they bite if you get in their way.
Just like vampires.
I rubbed my neck to make sure the collar of my shirt and my hair were still covering my own bite.
This afternoon I'd go shopping.
I needed to pick up a scarf or high-necked shirt for better concealment before Amber or Corban saw it.
Maybe I could find another lamb necklace.
The rest of the basement was surprisingly clean of junk, dust, and spiders.
Maybe Amber hadn't been as intimidated by the widows as I'd been.
"We're not trying to find out who the ghost is," I told him.
"Though we could do that if you wanted to, I suppose.
I'm just looking around to see what I can see.
If this turns out to be a trick someone is playing, I don't want to be taken in." He slashed his hands down in a way that needed no translation, his eyes bright with anger.
"No.
I don't think you're doing it." I told him firmly.
"If that was faked last night, it was beyond any amateur fiddling.
Maybe someone has a bone to pick with your dad and is using you to do it." I hesitated.