Page 8

Ollie paused, sniffing at a patch of grass before barking sharply into the distance. Amy jumped, her heart racing. She scanned the foggy landscape.

“It’s okay, Ollie,” she said, though her voice wavered. “It’s just the fog.”

But then she saw it, a flash of white high above in the widow’s walk, barely visible through the mist, and her breath caught in her throat. For a moment, she thought she saw a figure standing there, pale and still. The faint outline of a dress billowed in the breeze.

“No way,” she whispered, pulse pounding. The Woman in White?

She blinked, and the figure was gone. With the widow’s walk empty, the mansion was still and silent as ever. Shaking her head, she pulled out her phone and opened the security app. The cameras showed nothing. No movement, no intruders. Everything was locked and secure. She glanced back toward the mansion. The widow’s walk seemed to glow faintly in the moonlight.

“Just my imagination,” she muttered. She hurried back toward the cottage, Ollie trotting close at her side. The fog had thickened, pressing in around her. Amy swallowed hard and tightened her grip on Ollie’s leash. “Just my imagination,” she repeated, “just my imagination.”

But the words felt hollow in the night’s stillness.

Amy sat cross-legged on the couch in her cottage, a blanket draped around her shoulders and Ollie curled up beside her, snoring softly. The TV cast a flickering blue light across the dim room, the sound low enough to avoid disturbing the stillness of the night. She should have gone to sleep hours ago, but every time she closed her eyes, her mind spun with calculations, anxieties, and the image of that white flash on the widow’s walk.

Her wineglass sat untouched on the coffee table, the rich red liquid reflecting the soft glow of the screen. She clutched the remote tighter, flipping through channels aimlessly, hoping for something to distract her from the gnawing worry in her chest.

Just as she was about to give up and turn the TV off, the screen flickered to a new program. The dramatic opening music and a familiar voiceover caught her attention immediately.

“Welcome back to Dead Reckoning, where we uncover the truth behind the world’s most haunted locations.”

Amy froze. The blanket slipped off her shoulders as she leaned forward. She’d heard of the show before—who hadn’t? It was one of those guilty pleasure programs people half joked about but secretly devoured. The hosts were equal parts charismatic and theatrical, their investigations blending eerie encounters with over-the-top dramatics.

The camera panned to a crumbling Victorian structure perched on the top of a hill with a long, winding driveway looping ominously to its portico. The lead investigator, Mason Stark, strode into the shot, his piercing blue eyes and rugged features practically designed for television.

“This week,” Mason said, his voice dripping with intensity, “we explore the chilling history of the Rosewood Asylum, where countless patients met untimely ends—and where their spirits are said to still linger.”

Amy couldn’t look away.

The episode unfolded with a mix of interviews, dramatic reenactments, and grainy footage of the Dead Reckoning team navigating the asylum’s dark hallways. Mason’s co-host, a tech-savvy investigator named Brynn, set up elaborate equipment designed to pick up electromagnetic fields and infrared anomalies. The team captured faint whispers, unexplained shadows, and a door slamming on its own. Every moment was edited to maximize suspense, complete with ominous music and slow-motion close-ups of the investigators’ reactions.

Amy might have rolled her eyes at the theatrics on another night, but now, she felt a flicker of something else. Hope.

When the episode ended, she sat back and simply stared at the screen as the credits rolled. Her mind raced.

They must pay the owners of these places, right? She didn’t know how much, but surely a show this popular had a budget for appearance fees. And if the mansion’s haunting was as compelling as the asylum’s, if not more so, they’d jump at the chance to film here.

Her stomach twisted at the thought. Letting a ghost-hunting show into the mansion felt like an admission of failure, a last-ditch effort to salvage what she could. But wasn’t that exactly what she needed? A miracle?

Ollie stirred beside her, yawning loudly before settling back into his bed. Amy reached for her laptop on the coffee table. She hesitated for a long moment before opening it.

“This is crazy,” she muttered to herself, but she typed Dead Reckoning contact information into the search bar, anyway.

The show’s website was sleek and professional, with bold fonts and dramatic images of haunted locations. A banner at the top read, Have a haunting? Contact us to share your story!

Amy clicked the link, her heart pounding.

The form was straightforward: name, location, and a brief description of the haunting. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She could feel the pull of hesitation, the part of her that screamed this was a terrible idea. She imagined Kelsey’s reaction if she found out. Imagined Sully’s smirk, and the sarcastic comments he’d undoubtedly make.

But then she thought about the property tax bill still sitting on her table. The dwindling renovation budget. The crew counting on her to keep the project moving.

Amy swallowed hard and began typing.

Name: Amy York Location: Widow’s Point Island, Maine Description: My property is a 200-year-old mansion with a history of mysterious deaths and ghost sightings. The house was once used as a home for pregnant unwed mothers. In the last years of the home’s operations, there were illegal adoptions, and two women were murdered and buried on the grounds. The mansion stood empty for decades until recently. While it has been undergoing restoration/renovation, there have been strange occurrences, unexplained cold spots, tools moving on their own, conversations with long-dead people, and a possible sighting of an apparition on the widow’s walk. Local legend refers to the figure as the Woman in White. She waits for her husband, who was lost at sea, to return home.

She stopped typing, her hands shaking slightly. Was that enough? Should she include more?

She glanced down at Ollie, who was watching her with his head tilted, as if he sensed her anxiety. “What do you think, buddy?” she asked softly. “Am I completely losing it?”