Two is Company (House of Anubis)

Chapter 28: The Ghost Adventure Trio

"So... do you believe in ghosts, Mara?" Eddie asked as he fought to get the legs of the tripod through the living room door.

Somehow Kira had let Eddie talk her into ghost hunting with him and Mara well past curfew instead of going to bed and wallowing in self-pity all night, but to tell the truth, the whole thing was too curious to pass up. At the very least, it was a distraction from everything that had happened that day.

"I'm a journalist," Mara replied evenly, but her grip on the laptop betrayed her unease. "I believe in the truth... whatever that turns out to be."

"And if 'that' turns out to be there's a creepy shadow figure haunting Anubis House, you're gonna be okay with that?" Kira asked, lips twitching upward in amusement.

"Yes," Mara said about as confidently as an amateur tightrope artist. "That's what I said, isn't it?"

Eddie snorted and jerked his chin at his sister. "What about you, Kira?" he asked, setting up the camera. "If we get proof tonight, you gonna accept this place is haunted?"

"Yes, dickhead," she sighed dramatically, but it turned into a bit of a laugh. "If a ghost materializes before my eyes with a blinking neon sign that says 'I AM A GHOST', I will absolutely put aside any skepticism and accept that the supernatural is one-hundred percent totally real."

"Oh come on, you admitted upstairs that it looked like a face," Eddie protested.

"Yeah, that it looked like a face, not that it was one," his sister retorted. "Besides, I also said I was open to it being a ghost! I just don't think it actually is."

Eddie shook his head. "Spends hours reading books about old dead people, but doesn't believe in old dead people."

Kira reached over and flicked the back of his ear. "Of course I believe in old dead people— I just don't think old dead people are still around."

"If you're done bickering, we should get to work," Mara said, but she was fighting a smile. "Right, the video was shot from here," she continued, gesturing to the place she stood, then out the door into the foyer, "through there. I figure if we set up in the corner, we can get the whole living room and the dining room as well. Yeah?"

Eddie grumbled a little bit as he picked up the tripod from the place he'd already set it down and moved it over to where Mara directed him but did as told. "Cool, cool... Hey, does this still count as human interest?"

Kira chuckled and Mara nodded seriously. "Absolutely," she said. "I never said they had to be alive."

Eddie laughed through his nose. "Right," he said and started off toward the kitchen.

Before he could step foot inside it, though, Mara called him back sharply, "Eddie! What are you doing?"

"What? Every stakeout needs food!" he whispered back.

"I swear to God your stomach is one big black hole," Kira teased, plugging in her laptop and starting up a blank document. While Mara's computer would be used to record the video files, she'd been tasked with note-taking. "You can eat afterward, you big pig. Right now, make yourself useful and set up the equipment. This is your project anyway."

"Exactly!" Mara chimed in. "Besides, we're not writing this article on supposition and conjecture!"

He squinted at her in confusion. "No, I was thinking more like chips and dip," Eddie explained, gesturing over his shoulder to the fridge.

"Eddie," Mara and Kira warned in unison, and he relented with a put-upon huff.

"Fine, fine," he muttered. "Bossing me around like a pair of queens."