Free The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl) by Paige McKenzie

is a heavy brush she must have left behind; I bend down and see a few strands of brown hair still tangled in its thick bristles. I open the top drawer, and the strong scent of perfume fills the moist air. I sniff, trying to identify it—lavender, I think. With something else mixed in, something spicy to keep it from smelling too delicate. The drawer creaks when I push it closed, the scent fading until it’s all but vanished.
    Slowly and carefully I back out into the hallway, eager to leave this room exactly how I found it. Exactly how Aidan must have left it.
    The next room, I’m relieved to discover, is a bathroom, complete with working lights and running hot and cold water.
    The carpet behind the last door—first on the left at the top of the stairs—is so plush that I have to push extra hard to get the door to open. The curtains in this room are pulled firmly shut so the room is even darker than the rest of the house. I finger the wall just beside the door until I find the light switch, but the light won’t turn on. I reach into my pocket. My fingers brush against the knife as I pull my phone out to use as a flashlight. For a split second I wonder which of the items in my pocket would be most useful.
    Don’t be ridiculous, Sunshine. You’d feel it if there were spirits close by. Your heart rate would accelerate; your temperature would plummet.
    Wait . It’s cool in here. Not, like, spirit-touching-me ice-cold, but a pleasant cool breeze circles the room, like this one part of the house has AC.
    I choose my phone and flash a tiny beam of light around the room.
    It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust.
    And then I gasp.
    It’s a nursery . Everything in here is white. I mean, it’s grayish now, thanks to the dust, but it was all white once, so bright that it must have been cheerful. There’s a crib in one corner and a dresser across from it. I open the dresser drawers, and inside are tiny little clothes, so small they look like they were made for a doll instead of a person. There’s a white stuffed animal on the changing table, an owl that looks almost exactly like Dr. Hoo, identical to the toy I saw at Victoria’s house, the one she said was Anna’s favorite.
    The stuffed bird’s lifeless plastic eyes stare at me, practically glowing in the light. I take a step back, like I think this bird might take flight just like Dr. Hoo did one terrifying night. Butthe owl stays lifelessly still, and after a few moments I point the flashlight in another direction.
    Every detail in this room was attended to: there are soft patches over the furniture’s corners to keep a toddling baby from getting hurt. There are scented sachets in the drawers beneath the changing table to keep the air smelling fresh. There are tiny pink rosebuds on the otherwise white sheets on the crib, as though whoever decorated the room knew the baby was going to be a girl.
    Which I was.
    The breeze lifts my long hair off my shoulders. I point the light up, looking for the AC vents, for a ceiling fan, for any logical explanation. But there is nothing. No thermostat on the wall, no intricately carved vents by the ceiling. Even the windows aren’t open, and when I try to open them, I discover that vines have pretty much sealed them shut.
    This room has a breeze all its own. Like whoever filled it with all of this furniture wanted it to be as comfortable as possible.
    I back out of the room. When I turn around, the door slams shut behind me all on its own with a bang so loud that I jump in surprise.
    I regain my footing and stand in the hallway, panting as though I’d been running, staring at the door that just slammed shut behind me. I feel the need to put more distance between myself and the nursery.
    I drag my bags into the second bedroom, across and down the hall. I manage to open one of the windows just a crack. I lean against the window frame and breathe in the outside air deeply. Not that it offers any respite from the heat. Not like the air in