WILLOW MANOR

Chapter Six

"Katie..." The woman's voice came from far away, and yet somehow it sounded as if it were in the room with her. Katie sat up in bed. She looked at the clock on her phone. Three am.

"Katie." There it was again, a little stronger. She concentrated on the voice as she lay quietly. She tried to determine exactly where it was coming from.

"Who's there?" Katie whispered into the dark. If she could just determine who the woman was—who the ghost was—or what she wanted, Katie could...

What? What could she do? She had never been able to do anything for Grandma. She'd never been able to find out what it was Grandma had wanted from her. What good was it to see ghosts and not be able to understand why they appeared to her?

"Katie." The voice seemed to try and gather strength. "Save..."

Katie switched on the lamp and glanced around the room. Everything was in place. She threw off the blanket and stood, looking around. "Hello? Arabella? Is that you?"

There was no answer, but the room grew suddenly colder. Katie walked to the door, opened it. Soft light from the hall night lights flooded in. Those lights were motion sensitive, so that meant someone had been in the hall. Were ghosts able to set off motion sensors? She stepped out onto the rug. "Hello?"

A sudden movement drew her eye to the end of the hall. As Katie walked that way, she began to make out Clarissa's form by the window. She was partially hidden behind the curtains and seemed to be just staring out the window.

"Clarissa, what are you doing up?" She said softly.

Clarissa came out from behind the curtain slowly. Strangely, she seemed a little confused, but she covered it by frowning. "None of your business."

"What are you doing?" Katie glanced over the girl's shoulder and out the window. The patio below was dark and the pale first quarter moonlight cast strange shadows from the ornamental shrubs and trees of the yard. She saw no one in the yard, but every instinct in her said that there was. "Who's out there?"

Clarissa rolled her eyes. Her face got paler, as if that were even possible. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Katie frowned. She put her hand on Clarissa's shoulder, led her away from the window. "What are you doing up? Are you sneaking out?"

"What do you care?" She shrugged Katie's hand off.

"I do care." Katie sighed. With just that brief contact with the girl's shoulder, she could feel Clarissa trembling slightly. Fear? Or just cold? "Where were you going at this time of night?"

"Ugh. Why are you even here?" Clarissa rolled her eyes again and tried to get by her.

Katie searched her face. Despite her tough, don't-care façade, Clarissa looked even more sickly than before. She was not sleeping because she was sneaking out. But why was she sneaking out? Who was she meeting? And how could Katie stop it? It was a dangerous activity, to be sure. Who was she meeting? Who knew what that person's motives were? Clarissa was only fifteen. She did not have the life experience to anticipate another's intentions.

Besides all that, the lack of sleep was clearly affecting Clarissa's health. Katie could tell just by looking at the girl's skin. But all of this—the surliness, the secretiveness, the anger—was most likely caused by the underlying depression she was suffering. If she could get Clarissa to open up to her, Katie was sure she could help. And she was sure that whatever was going on with Clarissa, the sneaking out at night would stop.

But now was not the time to have that conversation, in the hall at three a.m., in their pajamas. This was something Katie would have to do some reading on and prepare. It was something she would have to discuss with Walter.