Free Diary of a Blues Goddess by Erica Orloff

your
system
, Georgia?"
    I nodded, undecided whether to be terrified or fascinated by our resident ghost.
    "Well… I didn't mean to make fun of you."
    "Yes, you did. But now you heard her yourself."
    Jack whispered, "Nan? You heard it, too?"
    "Stop whispering," she commanded. "We can't let her think we're afraid of her."
    Jack, who, out of instinct, had been hunched over as if he expected a demon to come popping out of a closet or something, pulled himself up to his full height. "Of course we're not afraid," he said out loud.
    I rolled my eyes. "Men! You're so big and brave. And foil of shit."
    Dominique grabbed Jack's arm. "Well, I for one am glad he's here," she said. "Which room was Sadie's?"
    "That one." I pointed to a bedroom we never used down on the right-hand side of the long hallway.
    "Are you sure?" Jack asked.
    Nan spoke up, "Of course Georgia's sure. That was Sadie's room. I remember it because I was there the night she was murdered. We closed up that room and have never used it."
    Jack ran his hand through his messy bed-hair. "But I swear to you the slam came from my side of the hallway."
    Dominique agreed, "Me, too. Actually, if I was going to guess, I'd say it was
that
room." She pointed to a back room Nan and I used for storage.
    "Well," I said with bravery I didn't feel, "let's go down and take a look."
    Dominique wasn't thrilled with the idea. "Now, Georgia, there's a reason
The Exorcist
and
The Omen
and
Rosemary's Baby
only happened to white people. Because black people are too smart and too chicken to go investigating ghosts and—" she dropped her voice and whispered "—the devil."
    Nan clutched her green silk robe tighter around her. "Well, I'm half-black, and I'm not afraid. Now… there's four of us. And you two—" she eyed Dominique and Jack "—are big enough to handle just about anything. This is
my
home, and enough is enough. Come on."
    Like a bad
Friday the 13th
movie (were there any good ones?), the four of us, half afraid, half brave, edged our way toward the door to which Dominique had pointed. Inch by inch, we crept down the hallway, holding hands, silent. My heart was beating fast as a rabbit's, and my mouth was dry. I'd heard Sadie slam doors before, but never this angrily, this loudly. And no, I'd never had the nerve to investigate before. We just accepted the ethereal life that seemed to reside in the house with us. In a way, Nan liked the company. And maybe I was just a little bit frightened to go challenging Sadie. Nan once held a seance with a guy who turned out to be a major fraud, and Sadie didn't make an appearance. After that, I almost told myself it was all the wind.
    The four of us, holding hands, stood in front of the wooden, eight-paneled door.
    "Open it," Dominique whispered.
    "You!" I elbowed her. Finally, Nan took the worn brass knob in her hand and turned it. We'd been in the storage room a hundred times before—mostly in daylight. Nan flicked on the light. The room was filled with boxes, most of them mine and containing my mother's things. An old, nonworking fireplace. Built-in shelves lined with old books. An ancient push-pedal sewing machine. Boxes of vintage clothes I occasionally raided for an outfit when I hated everything in my closet. Old lamps. Even a box of stuffed animals from my girlhood room, with names like CoCo the Bunny, Miss Prunella the Monkey, and Belinda Bear.
    I surveyed the room. "Nothing very interesting," I said aloud, trying to sound confident and walking deeper into the room. "And no ghost."
    The four of us looked around. Jack opened a closet. Just more junk. But it was Dominique who stepped on it. Literally.
    "My
heel
!" She squealed. We all looked down at her silver-feathered mules, one of which had its heel caught in the floorboard. "Will you look at this?"
    There by the fireplace, the floorboard was loose. It didn't align properly, and if you looked closely at it, clearly someone had taken a screwdriver or a knife to it.
    I knelt on the