The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

The redhead shook her head. “Your mind put you here. Right now, you’re just a projection. Like me.” She motioned her thumb toward the window. “Your body is still on its hands and knees on the frozen dirt outside the tavern.”

Sarah eyed the girl skeptically. “Bullshit.”

The redhead laughed, and Sarah noted its charm. She shook her head, tossing the long, curly locks of red back and forth. “Put your hand on the doorknob and see for yourself.”

Sarah turned, eyeing the doorknob, and then glanced back at the redhead to see if she was smirking, but she wasn’t. Slowly, Sarah made her way toward the door, and she suddenly felt lighter. It was as if she had just smoked pot without getting high.

Sarah stretched out her arm, afraid to touch the doorknob if the redhead was trying to play a trick on her. Less than an inch away, Sarah lunged forward, her hand going right through the door as if it wasn’t there at all.

Startled, Sarah jumped backward and landed hard on her ass. But instead of wincing in pain, she only winced out of reflex. She relaxed and then stood, staring at her body. She hadn’t felt a thing. “Whoa.”

Sarah wiggled her fingers, trying to find some missing detail on her hands to prove that this was just an illusion or a dream, but every line, freckle, and hair was accounted for. Even the chipped paint of her turquoise nail polish. She dropped her hands to her side and smiled. “Can I fly?”

Redhead arched an eyebrow. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. C’mon.” She floated toward the door and then through it, leaving Sarah alone.

Sarah walked toward the door, noticing that her footsteps were soundless against the normally fidgety wooden boards. She stopped just short of the door and then stuck her arm out. It went straight through the door. She moved it around and then pulled it back. She giggled to herself again and shook her head. “Fucking nuts.” She gulped and then took a breath before shutting her eyes and stepping through the door.

Slowly, Sarah opened her eyes and found herself on the first floor in the middle of the hallway. But it was different, newer. The walls weren’t chipped and cracked, and the tables and chairs that lined the hall glimmered under the lights.

Sarah spun to her left and saw the sun shining through the window. “That’s impossible.”

“The afterlife here is reflective of when we died,” the redhead answered, already sensing the question on the tip of Sarah’s tongue.

“So it’s always like this for you?” Sarah asked, walking toward the nearest chair and tracing her fingers along the golden square pattern imprinted on the evergreen velvet cushion. She knew that chair. She’d seen it when she had worked here, and the tear along the seat cushion had vanished. “What year is it?”

“I don’t know,” the redhead answered, a hint of sadness in her voice. “We don’t remember much.”

Sarah peeled her eyes from the cushion and toward the redhead, who looked pale even by ghost standards. “You don’t know your name?”

“All I remember is being here when I died.” She frowned, floating back and forth through the air as if she were pacing, and then stopped cold. “And I remember who killed me.” Her eyes grew big and wide, and her mouth went slack, her entire body sagging. But then she perked up. “But you can save me. You can save us.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that.”

The redhead circled Sarah, glancing around the house. “The orb is hidden in this house. It moves, but it’s always in the same place.”

“How can something be in the same place, but always moving?” Sarah asked.

The redhead shrugged. “That’s all I can remember.”

Sarah sighed. “Right.” She looked around. “So you’re the only person that can see or hear me?”

“Yes.”

“And I can go anywhere in the house?”

“Yes.”

After spending her time here in the house, Sarah knew at least one place she wanted to start looking, and that was the fifth floor. If the Bells were going to hide something anywhere, it was going to be up there. After all, it was where she found those letters.

Without a word, Sarah sprinted toward the staircase at the west end of the building and then leapt up the steps two and three at a time. While she couldn’t fly, she was light on her feet.

They ascended to the fifth floor, but when Sarah burst through the closed door, she found that the fifth floor was exactly how she had found it, in the same rotten condition it had been during her stay.

The floors were worn, cracked, and stained. Dust covered the paintings and candlesticks along the walls and furniture. The blinds at the other end of the hall were sealed shut, casting the hallway in darkness. It was just as barren and cold and deserted as she remembered.

Sarah made it one step forward before the redhead shot up through the floor with her arms jutting out and to block her path.

“You can’t be up here,” the redhead said, terror in her voice. “You need to leave.”

“You said I can go anywhere,” Sarah said. “And there’s something up here.”

Before the redhead could protest further, Sarah stepped through the woman and marched toward the door at the end of the hall.

The redhead sped up to catch her, trailing along her side. “Please, don’t go inside.”

“You said you wanted help,” Sarah replied, getting closer. “Let me help.”

The redhead continued to retreat until her back was flush against the door but not touching it. “I’m begging you to stop!”

But Sarah ignored the girl, ready to charge ahead, ready to end whatever was on the other side. She reached out her hand, prepared to go right through the girl, when all of a sudden the redhead belted an eardrum-shattering scream.

The pain split through the middle of Sarah’s head and forced her to stop. She shut her eyes and dropped to her knees. The ringing faded slowly, and then