Charlene

“If the house is haunted,” Jordan said clearly, “I think that my aunt should have told me about that.”

There was a pause of about a full second.

“Can’t hear you,” came the slightly metallic reply.

Jordan made a disgusted sound and hung up. Immediately, he opened the messenger app and sent Brett an annoyed emoji. He followed it up with an actual message, so that it didn’t look like he was annoyed with Brett.

I don’t know why I expected there to be any signal here.

Brett’s response took about 2 seconds.

Me either.

The phone vibrated again, but Jordan had already put the phone in his pocket. He gave his new place a skeptical look. It wasn’t a bad little house, centered around a set of stairs that had been painted with a line of black cat footprints a decade and a half ago. That was the last time that someone had lived in the house, before his aunt had decided it was just too far to drive for work, and too far for her young children to have to travel to school.

It needed, like, a lot of work. But the family already owned it so it was free. Taking care of the house in exchange for living there was a pretty good deal.

Even if the place was kinda creepy. That was probably a result of having been abandoned. TLC would make it Not Creepy, he hoped.

The first priority was making it a livable space. He was working on getting potable water and the pipes to the kitchen repaired, but that had to wait until his great-uncle had time to come over and help him actually change out the plumbing. Until then, he had 2 liters of Mt. Dew in the fridge. The fridge was the newest thing in the house. It had been salvaged from the dump. Which, no shade, he appreciated that Grandpa had thought to do that for him.

Jordan had gotten the bathroom situation sorted out already. That had meant changing out the sink’s faucet, sanitizing the truly terrible things that happened to a toilet left unflushed for the better part of 20 years, and changing the toilet seat. The shower had terrible water pressure, but it had been a relief to get the whole room scrubbed down and filled with his soaps.

He heard the meow again. It sounded sad.

Jordan felt his jaw tighten. Nope, nope, he was not wasting more time looking for a cat. He had done that three times already. He had walked around the house, looked in every closet, the terrifying storm shelter (or maybe it was a root cellar?), and ventured down to the basement. There was not a single cat to be found, although there was a partially mummified corpse of some farm kitty who had crawled down to die in the dust at some point in the past. It seemed to have died screaming, or maybe that was just how fur-clad skeletons always looked.

He had not yet decided if he was more horrified at the thought of sleeping in the house with it, or touching it to get it out.

The house settled. It sounded like a woman sighing. He carried another armload of the filthy, filthy dishes to the bathroom and began the long process of rinsing and washing them using the sink and bathtub.

It took well over an hour. He stacked and draped the dishes with clean towels from the laundromat to protect them from any dust around the house, and then shut the bathroom door to be super-safe. As he was crossing the small central room, it sounded like the woman was groaning now.

“Excuse you,” he said, a little irritated. He decided that the house was named Charlene, and that she was talkative. He stuck his phone on the charger and turned the volume up as loud as possible on a playlist. He didn’t have that much music saved on his phone, because usually he’d be able to use wifi. He was gonna have to change that.

For today, at least, he could live with the same 30 songs on repeat. He’d make another playlist later.

The kitchen table was sturdy. It was actually a butcher’s block on legs, which was a weird choice. But it was definitely not worth the effort to get rid of a functional piece of furniture, especially one that would take at least 4 people to carry out. Pretty much everything else in the kitchen needed to go, though. He wrinkled his nose and put on plastic gloves, and took everything from the rickety shelf, broken chairs, and defunct cabinet door to the seriously funky rugs out and put them in the back of the truck. That was all going straight to the burn pile.

He moved on to the next rooms. Luckily the bedrooms had been stripped of everything but curtains when his aunt moved out, so he took those down and shut the doors. He was glad to finish upstairs- the stairs were super loud. Creak, creak.

There were more funky rugs in the main room, side entry, and living room. He carried them out gingerly. He developed a system of holding them out from his body to the side and walking like a crab, so that the dust and crusted filth cracking off of it followed him instead of getting directly on his clothes.

Florence and her machine were cut off by a ding, mid artistic wail. Jordan made a disgusted grunt and considered it. It was a pain to have to stop what he was doing, take off the gloves, and check whatever message he’d gotten. On the other hand, he hated working without music to listen to.

The phone dinged again. He registered that alert was an actual text, not snapchat or anything. So it might be important. With a sigh, he carried one last armful out to the truck and stripped the gloves directly into the garbage bag so that he could touch his phone.

How is it? *:- ) Need a pizza? I can come out and take a load to my house, if there’s some laundry you need done.

and

Are you planning to spend the night out there?

Jordan looked around the house.

The honest answer was that the house was still kinda gross and he didn’t want to eat there yet. There was a lot of dust in the air. He probably shouldn’t even be breathing it, to be honest. But it seemed like an unnecessarily rude thing to say to his aunt. He wracked his head, trying to think of anything that might need to be washed. Most of the things at the house just had to be tossed, and he hadn’t brought his stuff inside yet. He’d used cut-up towels to scrub down the bathroom, but he’d thrown them away afterward.

“I can eat on the porch,” he mused. “And put the box directly in the fridge.”

Charlene’s moan sounded positive.

“Pizza is great,” he agreed. “You’re right girl, you’re right. I’ll take her up on it.”

I’d love a pizza! :) :) No laundry yet, but I would love to borrow some rags if you have some around. Yeah, I’m sleeping here.

He checked the message from Brett hours ago and put the phone in his back pocket on reflex instead of turning the music back on. Then Jordan remembered there was something else. He dug the phone back out right away and added another message to his aunt.

If you come over, could you bring over the shop vac from the farm? I couldn’t get it in my car.

Granted, he hadn’t tried. But the car was full to the windows with everything he owned.

The pizza was a really good idea. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until his aunt came by with two boxes from Little Caesars. She picked at it, eating a slice each of cheese and pepperoni while he ate twice as much, but he got to keep almost all of it as leftovers. That was a relief. He didn’t need to figure out food for a while. He was going to spend all his money on gas just to get to work. He didn’t have money to throw around on luxuries like food. That was probably why his aunt had come over, to be honest.

Aunt Kay walked around the house to see his progress, looking vaguely concerned but mostly positive. He squirmed. Maybe she felt bad about how her old place looked? Maybe she disliked that he was going to live there and change things?

Whatever she was thinking, she didn’t share it, and he didn’t push.

She did comment on the entryway, the only part of the house that had been changed after she moved out. “So, uh.” She put a hand under her chin, clearly trying to keep a straight face. “How are you gonna deal with these?”

He looked at the 27 antique sewing machines. Most were the small type in battered black boxes piled to the right, but against the left wall there were four of the big things that had their own little desk-thing and elaborately wrought metal pedals and wheels. They reminded him of the spindle from sleeping beauty. Accordingly, he kept his distance. No curses or tetanus for him, thanks.

Jordan crossed his arms. “I have no plan,” he said emphatically. “I think that Grandma wouldn’t like me to interfere with her storage.”

Aunt Kay made a high sound of comprehension and then choked down a laugh. “You, uh.” She waved her hand at the mess. “You should ask her. It might not occur to her that she needs to find a new place for them.”

He made a sound that sounded like agreement and privately thought that he would not be prodding Grandma to move her sewing machines. Confronting her on anything at all was not a winning strategy. He was thinking he’d, like, clean around the machines. They could stay there. He’d use the other door. It was fine.

By the time that Aunt Kay left, it was halfway dark out and the cicadas were making a ruckus. He walked back in through the entryway and stopped.

One of the wheels was spinning on the sewing machine furthest from the outside door. It was weird that he hadn’t noticed the quiet click, click, click it made until he looked at it.

It wasn’t moving, like, fast or anything. But it shouldn’t have been moving at all. Right? It seemed like it should not be moving.

A shudder ran up his spine. “There’s probably a reason for that,” Jordan said in an undertone. He shook himself and walked past the damn thing, despite feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck. He felt like he was being watched. He deliberately tried to look nonchalant. It was stupid. “What the fuck do I know about sewing machines, or physics. Probably a reason. None of my business, that’s what it is.”

He dragged the shopvac up the stairs and tried not to bump it too many times against the steps. It didn’t take too long to vacuum both bedrooms and the hall. He probably should have stopped there and started wiping things down so that he could bring in his sleeping bag, but he was on a roll. He vacuumed the staircase, moved the vacuum cord, and did a rough job vacuuming downstairs as he lost interest. At least it got the bulk of the filth out. When he unplugged it he realized that he had completely forgotten to get the cobwebs overhead on the entire ground floor, but whatever. Tomorrow.

The cat screamed in the distance, absolutely pissed as hell.

Jordan rolled his eyes and filled up a bucket to use as mop water for the kitchen floor. “The vacuum is not going to hurt you,” he said, as though anyone was listening. While the water ran, he went back upstairs to see if he’d gotten the cobwebs upstairs when he’d vacuumed. Ah, good, it looked alright. He could sleep in a room like that. “I’m done anyways.”

The replying yowl was plaintive.

He stopped, stock-still. It seemed like the cat had heard him and actually, like, answered his tone.

Then he shook himself. “Don’t be such a baby,” Jordan said, pitching his voice low and dramatic. He jogged down the stairs. “That cat is, like somewhere, in the cornfield or the barn, and I am not going in there to find it. Cornfields are known for their great acoustics. Cat is probably a mile away.”

He mopped the kitchen, and did a half-decent job of it. Then he dumped the bucket for, like, the fourth time and changed the cleaner from the lemon-scented linoleum sanitizer to something that would work on the floors of other rooms. He finished up the bottle of wood-cleaner brought over from his old apartment and tossed it away. It felt like an accomplishment. It was probably the first time he had ever finished a bottle of cleaner. That was such an adult thing to do. He hauled the bucket upstairs and slopped water everywhere, feeling virtuous.

Charlene just got louder and louder as he tried to get the bedroom ready for the night. She was quiet as he scrubbed the bedroom walls, windowsill, and floor.

But the house almost seemed affronted when he went up the stairs repeatedly to haul his sleeping bag, two garbage bags full of clothes, a bedside stand and spare phone cord, and humidifier. Like, she was cranky that he was clearly getting ready to sleep over.

Made sense. The house was settling. Probably the stairs were the least structurally sound bit, and putting his weight on them repeatedly made the house.. do whatever it was that resulted in the sounds of a house settling.

He was not actually clear on what it meant for a house to settle, to be honest. Why did they do that. It seemed unnecessary.

“Can’t believe I gotta deal with these dramatics,” Jordan complained to himself after his shower to peel off the filth of the day. He wiggled just that bit closer to the wall so that he could use the phone without stressing the cord. “It’s June.” He gave the creepy window a baleful look. “Shouldn’t have to deal with this shit in June. It’s my month, Charlene. Work with me here.” The view was pitch-black. The only thing he could see was that there was a crack in the glass. He needed to get curtains so that he didn’t have to look at that.

The light overhead was a bare lightbulb that he’d changed out himself. He turned it off and wiggled back into his sleeping bag.

He was an adult. He was 23 years old, and he was not bothered to sleep in a completely dark room in an empty house, nearly an hour’s drive from the closest person who he knew. Not bothered at all.

It sounded like someone was whispering, somewhere in the house.

He opened his eyes and stared blankly up. It might actually seem darker with his eyes open than when they were closed.

‘I’m totally alone,’ he told himself. It was meant to be a comforting thing, like, there was no strange woman wandering around the house talking to herself. But it actually made him feel a little more creeped out. How was he simultaneously worried that he was alone and worried that there was someone around?

After, like, 5 minutes he was ready to give up. It was too dark. It was fucking creepy. He didn’t need this kind of negativity in his life.

“New plan,” he said, so quietly that it couldn’t have been heard from more than a foot away. “I’ll turn on a light downstairs and crack the bedroom door. Ambient light.” He shifted onto his front, ready to stand up.

There was a creak.

He froze.

That had been the unmistakable sound of wood creaking. Like, when it did when someone walked on it. On the stairs.

He did not breathe or move. His muscles felt stiff. He waited, absolutely stilled by fear. He did not know what he was so afraid of.

It was stupid. No one else was in the house. He had locked the door, and the only other people with a key were his grandparents. If someone else had gotten in by forcing a door or a window open, he would have heard it. And the house was in the middle of nowhere. Basically no one knew it was there and no one would have a reason to go there. It was super dramatic and self-centered to think that someone might be in his house when there was nothing interesting in it at all.

He was still certain that someone was standing outside the bedroom door. Waiting.

He did not get up. He had the wild thought that he could turn on the bedroom light and banish whatever was outside. It was matched by a terrifying certainty that turning on the light would only draw more attention.

All he wanted was to be out of the house. Just. Be gone, far away.

That was not going to happen. First of all, there was nowhere else to go. If he had an abundance of places to stay, he would not have begged to live rent-free in a house that needed some serious maintenance. Secondly, leaving was a process that would require him to not be too scared to get out of his comforter and walk down the hall. Lastly, he had not parked very close to the house and he might get picked off by a mountain lion if he was dumb enough to go wandering around at this hour.

Time seemed to stretch out. He slowly collapsed back onto the floor but didn’t dare make another movement. The night seemed long, when he was spending it looking at where he suspected a door was in a dark room, with only the ambient sounds of wind for company.

Eventually he fell asleep, though he had no realization that he was getting tired. He woke up feeling overheated and sore. It was a relief to crawl out of the comforter and let the morning air reach the layer of sweat on his legs. He bent to check his phone-

“Ah, hell.” He stared at the time, wishing it would change. “Crappy time to wake up.”

He’d missed his chance to get anything done in the morning. But he also had too much time to just clean up and head to work. He could have slept another hour- probably would have, if the room hadn’t gotten too hot as the sun came up. He needed a fan or something. The house had central heating and cooling, but it wasn’t so great that it could keep the morning sun from roasting him.

…That was another argument for bedroom curtains, actually. He mentally put aside 50 bucks from his next paycheck.

He showered, again, in the unenthusiastic trickle that the showerhead gave out. He wondered, again, how he could fix a water pressure issue and if that would be a free fix. He stepped carefully over all the clean dishes, made a note about sanitizing the cupboards and putting new doors on them, and got dressed for work. He ate another two pieces of pizza, stuck one in a plastic baggie to be his lunch, and mentally thanked his aunt again for the windfall.

It took just under an hour to drive in. There was 40 minutes before his shift started. He considered sitting in his car and dissociating to the radio to kill time, but went in anyway. It worked out- they could use him on the register, and he could use another 10 bucks from clocking in early.

When he was done 7 hours later, he walked the aisles to gather up more cleaning liquid, a big bottle of water, and a trio of cheap-as-shit rugs. He tried not to think too longingly about stocking up on food. He was fine for another day or two, and he needed to put the last of this paycheck into his gas tank.

But shit, he’d love some pizza rolls. Cereal and milk. Bread, and butter, and jelly for toast-

Ugh. Jordan shook himself out of his self-pitying fantasies and left with his home improvement materials. He put 15 dollars in his gas tank and daydreamed about what he could do with the last $5 as he drove home.

Probably nothing, if he was totally honest with himself. He would feel too anxious to have literally no money to his name.

And the other factor was that, yeah, it was a pathetic amount, but it made him feel a lot better to not be completely broke when he got his next paycheck. His bills were paid, he had gas and food, and he technically had money. That was a successful month. Wasn’t doing that bad.

The place looked a little less sad with rugs in front of the kitchen door, sink, and in the bathroom. It was practically furnished. And he’d be tracking less dust around, hopefully. He was so optimistic about cleanliness that he actually kicked his shoes off at the door.

That’s right, his house was officially cleaner on the inside than the ground outside. Fancy.

He filled up a bucket with warm water and the wood soap and went to town on the downstairs flooring. He’d totally skipped over the spare bedroom upstairs, hallway, and stairs last night when he’d cleaned before bed, so he doubled back and got those areas too. He had to change the water out 10 times before he was satisfied.

Fuck yeah. He dug out his phone, opened Snapchat, and started a video that panned over the space. “My house is cleaaaaaan,” Jordan sung. He ended the video with a dramatic zoom on the sheen of water at the bottom of the stairs, and then added it to his story.

He ate two more pieces of cold pizza and grimaced at the texture. It was getting kinda hard. He had about half a pizza left, but it wasn’t going to be edible much longer. He fiddled optimistically with the oven and tried out the gas stove. It worked.

That expanded his options, at least a little. If nothing else, pizza would be less hard if he reheated it.

He sorta ran out of energy after that. The sun was setting. There was a ton of shit that he could do- Jordan remembered, with a wince, that the creepy little cat corpse was still in the basement- but he didn’t have the power to get it done. Feeling guilty for slacking, he dug out his laptop and stuck the usb storage full of movies into it. He rewatched something from 2014, and just felt more tired. He tried to run a bath and discovered that the plug wasn’t watertight. It needed to be replaced, then. He had a shower instead, very deliberately turned on the light at the bottom of the stairs, and went to cocoon himself in the bedroom.

To benefit from the light, he really should open his door. It made sense. But he really hesitated to do it, standing with his hand on the doorknob.

“I just won’t want a ton of light,” he told himself. That was totally it. “It’ll come through underneath the door.”

It was even true, actually. There was a solid centimeter and a half visible under the door. The room wouldn’t be super dark again.

He started another movie on his laptop and left it playing. He didn’t deliberately fall asleep, but he realized that he was waking up. Wary, Jordan looked around his room. It was hard to see, but the light from underneath the door did help. The other light was the red blinking of his laptop- the screen had long since gone dark from inactivity.

Clack, clack, clack.

His heart stopped.

It took a long moment to place the sound. That was one of the antique sewing machines, right? The wheel was spinning.

…That was downstairs. How was he hearing it? Just because the house was so silent in the night?

A moment later, he remembered the other problem. Namely, that the sewing machine had no business moving in the first place.

A woman sighed- Charlene made a sighing noise as she settled. It was the house, he reminded himself, a little frantic.

XXX

The next day, he got up earlier. He glared at the sewing machines- now still- and ventured just far enough into the barn to find a shovel. He dug a hole, in the process discovering that it was very difficult to hold onto dignified anger while shoveling. Maybe that was just because he suspected he was shoveling incorrectly.

He tried to summon the determined anger from before when he went down the stairs into the basement. This did not bother him at all. He was cool, calm, collected.

No, he wasn’t. He made high-pitched sounds of stress and disgust as he tried to pick up the cat corpse using the shovel. He had to kind of chase it around until it met a wooden pole and use that as leverage to scoop up the body. Jordan had a full-body shudder, but he was successful. He carefully carried it up the stairs and out of the house and put it in the hole as gracefully as possible. He covered it quickly and pretended that the last ten minutes had not happened.

He did another walkthrough of the house, and finally dared to open the closets. It was depressing to see more space that he needed to clean. It was a very unpleasant surprise to see clothes in one of them, including a suit and a wedding dress. It didn’t look anything like what he knew Aunt Kay had worn for hers- he had a photo of himself at age 3 with her at the wedding- so it must have been from the house’s earlier residents.

At a guess, Aunt Kay had never managed to work up the heart to throw away someone’s wedding clothes. It did imply a depressing story- no family had been alive or willing to take the sentimentals after the residents had died.

But he was a cold-hearted bitch, so. “To the burn pile!” Jordan declared. He took all the clothes out, from 80s-style coats (his aunt’s, for sure) to patched and holey coveralls (honestly, what?). He tossed them on top of the other garbage in the back of the pickup that his grandfather had left there for collections.

A door slammed.

He jumped. He stared back at the house suspiciously.

Nothing seemed to be moving.

Well, good. Charlene was going to have to cope. “I didn’t get no sleep cuz of ya’ll,” he hummed ominously. It felt like a war cry. The rest of the verse went unsung, because it didn’t exactly fit the situation.

He choked down reheated pizza, put the rest in a bag for lunch, and left for work early. His shift was 10am to 4pm this time. He thought longingly about getting breakfast at a drive-through, but steeled his heart. He stopped at a dollar store instead. With grim determination, he bought not one but two nightlights. He still had 2.68, and got paid in less than 24 hours. Not bad, he told himself. He was doing just fucking fine.

He worked. He went home. He put the nightlights in- in the hallway outside his bedroom, and in his room. It felt like a middle finger to the world. The cat yowled in the distance, but at least it did sound distant.

Of course, he didn’t really know what to do with all the ‘fuck you’ energy he had been building over the course of the day. The creepy cat body was buried, he’d have light, everything that wasn’t his had been tossed- oh.

That wasn’t true, he realized. Those damn sewing machines were still there. He paced into the entryway and scowled at them. They were still and innocent now, but he was not fooled. “I could put them in the barn,” Jordan said darkly. “With the bats.”

The threat hung in the air.

“But Grandma would be so mad.” He deflated, gave the machines one last stern look, and went to scrub out the cupboards.

Gravel crunched outside, and a car engine hummed. He stopped with a start and considered stepping outside. The kitchen door swung open before he’d had a chance to get off the counter.

His grandfather stepped in, clearing his throat. “I see you’ve been working on the place.”

Jordan pulled his soapy arm out of the cupboard and nodded. “Yeah, a bit.”

Grandpa ducked his head as he walked into the house, like he was considering taking off his hat but decided not to at the last instant. He took a curious look into the central room. “Looks good,” he said gruffly. “That truck full?”

“Yeah.” Jordan climbed down from the counter and wiped his hands dry on his jeans. “I think I got everything out.”

Which meant that he could finish bringing his things in from his car. Part of them, anyway. Pots and pans and some kitchen supplies like flour, a couple more bathtowels, a small trash can… It would help the place look more lived-in.

Grandpa put a hand in his pocket. “I’m gonna head over, then. We’re going to go into town for dinner, if you want to join.”

Jordan was definitely interested in dinner, so he climbed into the pickup cab and followed his grandfather’s other, newer truck back to the farm. Then he left the old truck, joined his grandfather in the cab, and scooted over to make room for his grandmother to join in. She put an arm around his shoulders and gave a perfunctory squeeze. She smelled like rose lotion or soap.

“How’s that little blue house, Jordan?” Her voice was loud and so cheerful that it felt a little faked.

He ducked his head. “It’s good, I like it.”

“Good, good.” She turned the conversation to his grandfather, and he leaned back and drifted.

They drove 40 minute for fastfood Chinese because that was what Grandma liked. His grandparents dropped him back off at the house on the way back.

Jordan didn’t have that much time to kill under it got dark. He double-checked twice that the doors were locked and the windows were shut. He tossed a big towel over the disobediently mobile sewing machine and gave it a stern look. And then he went up into his bedroom.

He plugged his phone in, started a movie on his laptop, and scrolled social media. The house creaked and moaned. Defiantly, he pretended not to notice. He did check the video he had posted to Snapchat earlier, wanting to see the place in the daylight. His own voice blared, smug as anything. The place did look good. Jordan smiled- and then cocked his head at the end of the snap. He replayed it and then did a screenshot at the end. As soon as the white faded from his screen, he left the app and opened up his pictures.

It looked like the puddle at the bottom of the stairs was reflecting something. He squinted at it and enlarged the image, but he couldn’t make out what it could have been. Had he had the vacuum sitting on the stairs above or something…? No. He definitely hadn’t.

Feeling creeped out, he put his phone away. It was a mistake. The wind was strong, and it made whooshing sounds over the fields and plains. The cat was outright howling- how long had that been going on, and he hadn’t noticed before? It sounded hoarse.

He picked his phone back up and tried to care about facebook.

The stairs creaked.

Jordan froze, feeling his heart pound. He held his breath.

Steps sounded in the hallway. They stopped right outside the door.

Oh, god. Oh shit, shit, shit. He was shaking. His grip on his phone was so hard that it almost hurt.

He couldn’t do this. He had to get out-

No.

Every fiber of his spirit rose up in spite. No. This was his house. He wiggled angrily out of the sleeping bag, still holding his phone in a death grip. He had done so much work to make it livable. And things would be awkward if he backed out now. He was not going to tell his grandparents that he couldn’t live in the house because it was spooky.

“We’re dealing with this, right now, Charlene,” Jordan said. His voice was loud by the end of it.

The floor creaked again.

He flipped the light switch and flung open his bedroom door.

…nothing.

His heart thump-thumped one last, frightened protest. And it began to slow down.

He took a step back into his room. He swallowed. “Good,” Jordan said, trying to sound firm. “There’s nothing-” he lifted his phone, and went to take a video for Snapchat. He was going to banish his fears, document the moment that he braved up enough to confront his house, and it was going to be a mildly funny anecdote for his 8 followers.

He looked into the camera and fear whited out his brain. There was a woman there, right in front of him. Only on the camera. He could see that her mouth was moving. On some stupid reflex he turned up the volume- and it fucking worked. Her voice stuttered into the air.

“Was starting to think you were going to ignore me forever.” She had the kind of folksy register that any of his Grandma’s friends might have used. She sounded disapproving. “What did you do with my dress, young man?”

“Sorry,” he said, on autopilot. He was terrified and confused, but a middle-aged lady in a checkered dress was frowning at him. “I’ll bring it back.”

“Thank you.” She managed a smile, and then stuck out her hand. He had to check the camera to be sure he found it when he reached back. He couldn’t feel her touch at all. “I’m not Charlene, by the by. I’m Mary. I was murdered.”

He shook her hand. “I’m Jordan,” he said, helplessly. “I was not murdered.”

She patted his hand. “Good for you, dear. I’m still in the cellar. Could you be a dear and have me brought up? I have a headstone at the Lutheran church. I’d like to go there.”