The Stroke of Winter(78)

Tess looked at Wyatt. “My head hurts,” she said.

“Can you stand up?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said.

Wyatt put his arms around her waist and helped her up. She was shaken, but okay.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Tess let him lead her out of the room and down the back stairway to her familiar, welcoming kitchen, where a fire burned softly in the fireplace, the AGA was warm, and Tess’s favorite armchair was waiting. She sank into it with a groan as the rest of the crew filed in.

Grant and Hunter took seats at the table and assembled all the devices, pulling out two laptops from the case Grant had brought and turning them on. Hunter retrieved a snarl of cords.

Meanwhile Jane checked the kettle on the AGA. “How about some tea, everyone?” she asked, looking around the room. “The kettle’s still hot.”

“Tea, my arse,” Hunter said.

Despite everything, Tess couldn’t help but smile. “I have a good single malt if you’re interested,” she said, her voice wavering a bit.

“Now you’re talking,” Hunter said. “I thought you might. You others can ferret out ghosts all you like, but I can sense a single malt a mile away. I think that skill is more useful.”

Tess caught Wyatt’s eye. He couldn’t help but grin, either. “Bottom left cabinet,” she said.

Wyatt opened it and pulled out the Scotch. “Who wants one? Other than Hunter.”

Grant raised his hand. Wyatt raised his.

“I’ll take some wine,” Tess said. “Jane?”

“Why not?”

Wyatt acted as bartender, pouring drinks for everyone. Tess took hers with shaking hands. But the cold wine felt good slipping down her throat. She tried to breathe in and out to quiet her racing pulse.

“While they’re fiddling with the electronics, let’s talk about what happened up there,” Jane said, pulling out a chair from the table and setting it close to Tess’s armchair as Wyatt perched on its footstool.

Tess took another sip. “I don’t really know,” she said. “I started to hear . . .” But she just shook her head. How could she explain what she heard?

“I know,” Jane said. “Sometimes there aren’t words for it. What did it feel like?”

Tess thought back. “It felt like I was somewhere else, but also in the room at the same time,” she said. “I could see all of you, but it was like I was looking at you from . . . elsewhere.”

Jane gave her a knowing smile. “Like from behind a veil?”

This sent a shiver up Tess’s spine. That was exactly what it had been like. She nodded.

Now everyone in the room was looking at her, rapt. It was like they were all holding their breath, as though the very room were holding its breath, too, waiting for her to continue.

Jane took her hand. “And what did you see when you were there?”

“I didn’t see anything,” she said. “I mean, I saw all of you; I was in the room. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but it’s what I heard.”

“What was that?” Wyatt asked. “What did you hear?”

Tess took a deep breath. She was going to say this craziness out loud. Why not? She was in a room full of ghost hunters. Not much would sound crazy to them. Would it?

“I heard a song,” she said. “A scratchy, faraway song. ‘You Are My Sunshine.’” She winced at the words.

“I know that song,” Wyatt said. “My mom used to sing it to me at night.”

“Mine too,” Grant said.

But Jane was looking into Tess’s eyes with a wary look in her own. “I don’t think this was the lullaby all of us heard as children, was it, Tess?”

Tess shook her head. “No. This was low, and slow, and . . . almost demonic sounding. Whatever that is. Threatening for sure. A man’s voice was singing it. And there was a verse that I had never heard before.”

“I know it,” Jane said. “Everybody thinks it’s a sweet love song. They sing it to their kids, to their lovers. But it’s not. It’s a song about—”

“Obsession,” Tess whispered.

“I don’t get it,” Wyatt said. “Obsession? What’s the second verse?”

Tess looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “It’s something about how he will love her forever, but only if she feels the same. And if she loves another . . .” She couldn’t get the words out.

“She’ll regret it someday,” Jane said, her own voice wavering.

“Holy shit,” Grant whispered. “That’s messed up.”

And all of a sudden, the pieces fell into place in Tess’s mind, like Legos fitting together. If those obsessive paintings had a soundtrack, that song would be it.

Daisy had loved another. Was it she who would regret it someday?

Grant broke her train of thought. “I’ll have all the data pulled together later, or tomorrow, when I can go through it all,” he said. “It’ll show where the cold spots were, where the activity was, and what time. But right now, I’ll get the laptop synced with my video recorder to see if it picked up anything in the studio around the time Tess fainted.”

He got busy attaching the USB cable to his device, and then to the computer.