The Haunting of Maddy Clare Read Online Free Page B

how it works, really. Matthew knows. He took it apart and put it back together again the first day I got it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited.”
    “Mr. Gellis, I really—I don’t—”
    “Please, don’t worry.” He took one hand from the wheel and waved it at me. “I’ve no expectation that you would know how to work it. Matthew taught me enough that I can make it function, at least rudimentarily for this one assignment. I can show you how to turn it on and off—since you will be the one trying to record the Falmouth House ghost, not me. Though the equipment hasn’t mattered very much so far.” He sighed. “As much as I would like to record an actual haunting, we have never yet succeeded. All I’ve ever recorded on that thing is static, the sound of wind, and my own voice.”
    “Perhaps this will be the time,” I said.
    He laughed at that. “Don’t let Matthew hear you say so. He did not want to miss this assignment at all—if you record a haunting your first week on the job, he may have to strangle you.”
    “Have you known Mr. Ryder long?” I asked.
    He cut me a look. “You are asking a lot of questions about him, you know.”
    I smiled and shook my head. “It’s just that different pictures are going through my head. A young man, or an old man? Fat or skinny?”
    “He is my age—nearly two years younger. Neither fat nor skinny, I suppose. And yes, he is very interested in ghosts. Though I think perhaps for different reasons than I.”
    I had no time to ask him to explain this, as he began to tell me some of his experiences in hunting ghosts. He was an excellent storyteller; he had a talent for building his tale, giving just enough detail and leaving just enough suspense to keep his audience interested. I leaned back in my seat and listened, thinking that I must ask him, sometime, if he had copies of his books for me to read. He was probably a skilled writer.
    The stories themselves were terribly sad. A child killed in a carriage accident; a young man disappeared in the marshes, whose body was never found; an old woman, haunting her last residence, enacting the same simple tasks she had performed when alive, over and over, as if unaware she was dead. Most ghost stories, it seemed as I listened, were tales not only of death but also of unfathomable misery and despair. Happy people did not leave ghosts; or perhaps they left quiet ghosts, who sat in their favorite corners or wandered the banks of their favorite streams, never bothering the living. It was deeply strange to listen to such chilling tales of hopelessness and pain as I sat in my comfortablepassenger seat, watching the perfect English day begin to recede into a warm, glowing English sunset.
    “Are you never frightened?” I asked him, as the sun sank below the horizon and dusk began to envelop us.
    “No,” he said, his expression honest. “Ghosts, Miss Piper, are frightening at first—they are, after all, our dead. But ghosts are helpless. They can touch physical things—slam doors, break crockery, turn taps on and off. There was even a ghost I visited who pulled the bedcovers from the beds during the night, while the living were sleeping—as terrifying an experience as you can imagine. But they are trapped, performing the same acts over and over, unable to think or communicate. Do they have true awareness? Did Freddy’s brother choose to be there, or was his spirit ruled by base, inescapable compulsion? Are they imprints left behind of those who have gone—like a shadow, or an echo? The answer to that question is what has driven me for five years. If a ghost exists that possesses awareness, I want to meet it.”
    “And you think you will meet such a thing at Falmouth House,” I said.
    He smiled. “I hope, Miss Piper—I always hope. But I do not make conclusions until I see the proof. And speak of the devil—we are approaching Waringstoke even now.”

    I could see very little of Waringstoke through the twilight: