Free The Blackham Mansion Haunting (The Downwinders Book 4) by Michael Richan

obscenely, nearly
obscuring the eyes.
    A chill went down her spine, terrified at the figure in the
mirror fragment. This was a bad idea, she thought, terrified and frustrated
at the same time, preparing to drop from the River and return to her body in
the living room of the original house. She saw movement in her peripheral
vision, and knew something was coming into the room with her. Then the glass in
her hand flared, sending bright light into the room, hurting her eyes. She
dropped the glass and it fell to the floor next to her, still radiating. She
raised a hand to shield her vision, and stood. Time to go, she thought,
turning around.
    Then the back of the room caught her attention, and she saw
the dark figure in the corner, hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly. It was
a corpse, thin and emaciated. It looked as though it had been hanging there for
a very long time. Multiple strands of a fibrous substance connected from its
head to the ceiling, suspending it a foot off the ground.
    Deem stepped back startled, walking into the wall. Part of
her wanted to drop from the flow immediately, while another part wanted to
examine the hanging corpse. You don’t have a choice, she thought, seeing
the movement in the doorway, knowing whatever had made the scuttling noise was entering
the room. She saw a long, thin leg pass through the doorframe, and then another
— and she dropped out, leaving the River.
    When she opened her eyes, she was back in the original house,
sitting in the living room. The book in her lap was still opened to the page of
the mirror drawing. She caught her breath, her mind wrapped up in the shock of
what she’d seen in the bedroom of the seventh house, trying to make sense of
it.
    Hello? she heard.
    She shot to her feet.
    “Who’s that?” she asked, knowing it was time to leave the
house. She gathered her backpack and was about to shut the book when the
drawing of the mirror caught her attention. It was faintly glowing, just like
the glass she’d handled moments before.
    My name is Lorenzo Lyman, she heard. Who is there?

Chapter Six
     
     
     
    Deem had kept the book closed since she sped away from
Paragonah, but now she was nearing Leeds, and a decision needed to be made. She
knew Carma would disapprove of the book coming into the house with what she’d
just witnessed, but she desperately wanted to open the book and see if the
drawing of the mirror inside still glowed. And especially to see if it would
talk to her again.
    She decided to pull off at Silver Reef and park her truck on
a quiet road near the collapsed buildings of the ghost town. With the dark rise
of the bluff behind her and the stars overhead, she scanned the streets for any
activity, wanting some privacy. There were no cars out, and things seemed
quiet. She turned off the truck’s engine and reached for the book, still sitting
on the passenger seat where she’d left it after leaving the Blackham mansion.
    She turned the pages, knowing the approximate location of the
drawing. She had run out of the house pretty spooked, closing the book in a
hurry and bolting for her truck. Now she wanted to find out if whatever she’d
experienced in the house still remained in the book. She knew before she
reached it that it did; the edge of the leaf glowed already, faintly lighting
the pages around it.
    I’m shaking , she realized as she flipped through the book. Calm down.
    When the page she was after finally opened in front of her,
she studied the drawing. The paper itself was glowing, most intensely in the
center of the mirror. The glow fluctuated, ebbing and flowing with a pulse. She
decided to drop into the River, and once she entered the flow, she gasped.
Whereas the center of the mirror had always been blank before, now she could
see into a room, as though watching from a spy cam.
    Oh my god, she muttered.
    It looked like a still image, and she examined every inch of
it, holding the book at an angle to see if she could look past the