Whispers

Chapter 4

I had never had so much fun before. Yeah, I loved snowboarding with Jeremy alone, but I enjoyed my day with Nathan and Mrs. Richards as well. After about four runs down the slopes, we all piled in the lodge for hot chocolate.

I nearly fell asleep on the bus ride back, but Jeremy actually kept his word and made me stay awake. When we got back, we were instructed to go get out of our gear and put on some nice clothes for dinner.

"Nice clothes, huh?" Jeremy raided a brow as he looked at the clothes he brought. "Do you have anything nice?"

"You have a button up. Wear that and jeans. Who are you looking to impress? Camille?"

"No!" That was an instant defensive tone. He was lying. I gave him a look that told him I knew he was lying. "Okay, I am. I can never lie to you. Why?"

"I've known you since.. what? Kindergarten?" We both laughed. "Just get dressed. You don't need to be five star. Camille already likes you."

"Really?" For such a smart guy, he sure is stupid. Camille has liked him for over a year. How did he not notice.

"Get dressed!" I laughed.

When we got downstairs, everybody was very well dressed. I looked at Camille and saw that she wore a casual pink dress, and talking to Alexa. It looked good against her tanned skin. Jeremy looked stunned by her looks. She was super pretty. I'll give her that. She just wasn't a heavy preference of mine.

"She does look pretty, doesn't she?" Erika said from beside me, making me jump.

"Do you have to be so sneaky?" I glare.

"It's fun." She shrugged and walked down the stairs, her long black dress flowed elegantly behind her. She was interesting, that's for sure. Whatever, I'm gonna enjoy my night.

Jeremy and I walked down to where everybody was. Some people were still coming down the stairs. I looked around and saw somebody down the hallway opposite of the hallway where the dining room was. I saw that she had on a long, purple Victorian dress. Her hair was blonde. I couldnt make out her face. She seemed to be floating because I couldn't see her feet.

"Hey, are you okay? You're looking a little pale," Camille said full of concern. I looked at her since she scared me, then looked back down the hallway. The woman was gone. "What? What did you see?"

"Um, nothing. Let's go eat." I stared down the hallway then turned and walked ahead of them to the dining room. I scratched my head and just thought I was imagining it. Better to think that way.

I kept silent the entire dinner. Everything was kept formal. Our class kept chatter to a minimum anyway since there were other people in the dining hall. They were other guests. I had zones out. Did I just see a ghost?

"Are we still doing our small ghost hunt?" Jeremy asked me with excitement.

"Yeah." I raided a brow at him. I had agreed this morning. "Why did you think I changed my mind?"

"Cause you look a little freaked out. What happened back there?"

"Don't worry about it. It was probably my imagination." I chuckled and returned to my food. I barely ate. Seeing that woman made me lose any appetite I had. She looked so familiar. I've never met anybody that looked like her, though. Well... besides Erika. She had black hair, though, not blonde.

"Did you see a ghost?" Camille gasped.

"He probably just saw the Purple Lady." It was old man Mr. Richards. He was standing right behind me, making me jump.

"Who?" I held my hand over my chest to slow my heart rate from the small scare.

"I'll tell you about her tomorrow. She appears often around this time of year and in the Spring." The old man leaned down to our level. "Some even hear her talk. They say she sounds like an angel, but she is no such thing. The things she does cause me to have to clean up things in the hall. Like chairs in the hallway or a vase dropping. I don't think she likes our decor."

"Then why don't you change it?" Jeremy snickered.

"You ask my wife that question." Old man Richards laughed, making us laugh. He gave me the creeps, but his laugh was contagious. What was up with old people and their laugh being contagious?

"If I could have my class's attention, please!" Mrs. Richards looked excited. "So as you know we have a small history lesson tomorrow morning. Tonight, however, you are allowed to stay up until midnight-" our class cheered "-on these rules." The class groaned. "You have to be ghost hunting. No going into anybody else's room. Be quiet. Please be respectful of the other guests."

The room was buzzing now. Then the Erika raised her hand. Everybody held their breath, even the other guests. Who would have a question about us staying up late?

"Do you have any gear we can borrow?" Erika had a smile on her face.

"Actually, yes. Well, they belong to the owners of the hotel, but we are allowed to use them."

The buzz kept on and on. I was having fun with planning our little ghost adventure. It took one thing to mess up my mood. One I never expected. A photo. Not of me or my friends. One that hung up on the wall. It wasn't a photo, though. It was a painting. The photo was of a man and woman. The woman was vaguely familiar, but the man... the man looked like me. It spooked me to no end.

We made it back to our rooms then Jeremy pulled out a box from his suitcase. I raised a brow when he brought it to my room through our shared bathroom. He set it on my bed and opened it. It had a bunch of strange device. The kind you'd see in ghost hunting shows.

"I bought all of these the second I found out this place is known for being haunted." He seemed so content with himself.

"This had to have cost you a lot of money!"

"Yeah, but my uncle was very happy to give me the money for it. Perks of having a decently rich uncle." He chuckled. He wasn't wrong. His uncle held the family fortune, while his parents wanted a fresh start. They said they didn't want "blood money." That in itself is a long story.

"Lucky you." I rolled my eyes. "So, explain to me what all of this stuff is."

He picked up a small device that had any colors on it. From green to yellow to red. "This is a K2 meter. It measures electric pulses in the air. It won't go off near a phone or outlet. I've tested that."

"Cool."

Then he picked up a box that had a cute little music crank on it. "This is a music box motion detector. It'll go off when a huge mass is in front of it." Then he picked up a similar box, but this one had an entena. "This is a rempod. It detects heat and motion. You'd have to be touching it for it to go off." He set a bunch of cameras on the bed. "These are night vision go-pros. We'll keep these rolling all night. I have plenty of batteries and SD cards for the whole trip."

"Jesus. All this trouble just to capture a picture or video of a ghost?" I laughed. He gave me a serious look and I lifted my hands up in surrender.

"Yes! Anyway, this a special device that was so expensive that I had to beg my uncle to get it." He grabbed a thick case from the box and opened it. Inside was a Connect bar from an Xbox and a tablet. "This is the Kinetic SLS Camera. It projects beams that then get fed back to the tablet and maps put a stick figure if someone or something is in front of it."

"That is so cool!" I was getting excited. Forget the painting. This would be fun. "How are we gonna do this?"

"Wait! I got a few more things!" He went through more. A spirit box, a thermal camera, EVP recorder, and so much more. I couldn't keep up at this point. "Anyway, we'll set up two night vision cameras in each of our rooms, and I already have permission to set one on each end of our hallway. We'll both have go pros strapped to our heads so we don't have to worry about holding it." He held up the recorder. "We'll use this at all times. We'll do one session in your room, one in mine, then wherever else we get some good activity."

"Cool! Let's set up."