"Guys," said Jessamine, her voice coming out feeble—but coming out, nonetheless. "The thing... it's talking to me again."

Both Avery and Jamie ripped away from the apparition of the house and flipped to her, eyes wide and mouths agape.

"What's it saying?" Avery reached for her hand, but didn't take it in his, only patted it.

"That I... shouldn't go into the house. Shouldn't even look at it, or get out of the car." She gulped, sensing a weird bulge in her throat; was she going to start crying, too, on top of all her other emotions?

"It's the house," said the possessor, reading and interpreting Jessamine's thoughts. "We're so close; too close. It's going to mess with your mind and play with your feelings. That's why I didn't want you to come here at all."

Jessamine snorted.

Well, too late for that, isn't it? And it's not like I can move the car without accidentally looking at the house, can I?

She figured it was best to reply to this being on the inside, where it'd have no trouble interpreting her words and hearing her clearly. She also didn't want Avery and Jamie to think her a nutcase who was talking to herself, though they both knew well who and what she was talking to.

"Actually," Avery retracted his hand, "I agree."

Jessamine and Jamie gawked at him in shock; until that moment, Jessamine had been certain Avery would take her up to the door and howl at it about getting Amy back in exchange for her. He'd said she was his compass—but in her panicked state, Jessamine felt more like a hostage.

"But I'll call you when we're inside, if I have service." Avery unbuckled his seat-belt, urging Jamie to do the same. "So you can overhear everything that happens... if anything."

The possessor didn't object to this, so Jessamine nodded, keeping quiet. Avery busied about gathering things from the trunk, and Jamie shined his flashlight all around the area, marching around the vehicle and scanning the clearance they'd parked in.

When Avery was done, he handed Jamie a rucksack, then pulled the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. He knocked on Jessamine's car window, motioning for her to lower it.

As she pressed the button, the being inside groaned, muttering something about "this better be quick, you're exposing yourself," but Jessamine ignored it as best as she could, clenching her jaw, pressing a hand to her stomach.

"Will you be okay?" Avery raised his eyebrows as he peered into the backseat, as if expecting to see someone sitting next to her. He placed a hand over the window and leaned forward, his gaze finding Jessamine's, connecting with it.

A jolt jarred through her, causing a plethora of shivers, illustrating how not okay she already was. "Just hurry," she said in a loud, raspy whisper. The thing in her was draining to begin with, but now that it was communicating with her, re-animating, it was sucking up her energy faster than a vacuum.

Avery gestured for her to get closer to him, and she did, but not without difficulty and pain. He cupped her chin, his thumb caressing the bottom of her cheek as he glanced from one of her eyes to the other, slightly squinting. He sucked his lips in, rubbed them together, then gently placed them on Jessamine's, offering her hesitant warmth, reassuring comfort. A quick kiss for luck, courage; and hopefully not one of goodbye.

As he pulled away, Jessamine caught Jamie in the background, failing to hide his surprised expression, but he otherwise said nothing.

"Stay put, and hang tight," said Avery, with one last brush of his fingertips over her skin. The sensation awakened all the vibrations and pulsations she'd experienced with him not a night ago. "I'll be back soon, and, let's hope, with Amy, and some answers on how to get that thing out of you."

The thing in question grunted, mumbling something that Jessamine didn't pay attention to, too focused on Avery backing away, his soft hands and sweet smile growing blurry with distance.

"And then we can put this whole damn situation behind us," he added, blowing her another kiss that she imagined colliding into her cheeks and exploding with a relaxing heat.

She sensed that heat spreading from her jaw to her forehead, and for a few rare seconds, she wasn't overcome with flashes of supernatural beings and growls echoing in her head. She was overcome with affection and lust for Avery, and praying to whatever gods might exist that they'd get out of all this unscathed. Something had started between them—supernatural bond or not, she was tethered to him and his fate, tethered to his spirit. She'd felt it from the start, from the moment he'd entered the coffee shop, the moment they'd touched and been electrified. And only now that he was moving away did she realize it might have meant something bigger; but this wasn't the time to talk about that.

We'll discuss what we are—if we're anything at all—once he comes back.

The being yanked her chin down, to ward off her from watching them enter the house. "You can't look. The darkness within, once they open the door... it'll pull you. Keep your gaze averted, please."

She remained in uncomfortable silence for what felt like forever, battling the negative scenarios developing in her brain. Picturing Avery and Jamie making it into the house, but not out. Avery and Jamie confronting the blue beings, running from the red beings, tripping over the bodies, falling into puddles of blood. Jamie falling down the stairs and landing in a mass of plaid and beard at the bottom. Avery being sliced into by floating knives. Avery covering his ears—bleeding ears—to ignore the growling. Avery opening the red door—

Her phone buzzed, then her Lana Del Rey ringtone blasted into the car. She'd squeezed her eyes shut as she suffered all the horrid scenes her conscience—or the being—wanted her to face, so she now opened them and fished out her phone from her pocket.

It was Avery. She accepted the call with a heavy breath of relief, though she knew he wasn't out of the woods yet.

"You in?" Her voice was hoarse, as if she hadn't spoken in years and thick cobwebs had wrapped around her vocal cords.

"We're in," said Avery, voice clear on the other end. "No idea how the fuck we have service in such a remote place, but yeah."

Jessamine expected the being to say something to explain the ominous energy around here, but it kept mum. "Okay, what next?"

"I'm going to put you on speaker," she heard Avery's finger pad on the screen, "and then lock the screen and put you in my pocket. You should be able to listen to everything going on that way." A bit of shuffling occurred, muffled grunts, clicking sounds—then Avery spoke, his voice a little distant but still distinct. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes." Jessamine sniffled, trying to settle into some sort of lying position in the backseat; a means to make it nearly impossible for her to peer at the house.

"Okay, stay quiet, though, just in case. We're," Avery took a sturdy-sounding step, "going to look around."

"Turning on the voice recording device," said Jamie, a bit fainter and in the background. He was marking their movements—Jessamine remembered seeing them do this in Avery's YouTube videos, to avoid mistaking their own moving around as someone or something else's.

"Turning on flashlight—"

A giant bang blasted through Jessamine's speakers. Like an explosive had gone off, though it was smaller in volume than what Jessamine had seen on TV.

She sat up straight, instantly dizzy from the motion, and though she wanted to turn to the house and make sure it hadn't gone up in flames, she couldn't—her possessor had locked her chin in place.

"Are you guys there? Are you okay?"

Avery was panting so loud his concealed phone picked up on his every shaky breath. "Yeah," he managed, sounding out of it, as if knocked out and slowly coming to. "The flashlight... it exploded in Jamie's hand!"

"Fuck," said Jamie, proving Avery's words were true. "That fucking hurt."

"You okay?" A few groans, some dusting off, a zipper unzipping. "Are you bleeding?"

"Shine the camera on me," said Jamie, more irritation in his tone than fear.

"Camera?" Jessamine rolled her eyes. "Are you seriously filming all this, too?"

"We have to," said Avery. "For proof. The cops will ask questions if we bring Amy back, won't they? And they'll ask more if... we don't."

Right, you need cool evidence if all this ends well.

"No," said Jamie, voice like a hiss, speaking through clenched teeth. "Not bleeding, but shit, man. What the fuck was that? It's... gone. Disappeared. How the heck does something make a flashlight explode and disappear?"

"Beats me, dude," said Avery, again moving around—his phone thumped against his thigh whenever he was on the move. "Let's hurry this up. The faster we get out of here... the better. Something smells awful in here."

Awful—like what?

Jessamine recalled the odors she'd been privy to during her flashes—fresh dirt, copper, a nose-wrinkling sulfuric stench, a whiff of the outdoors. Was that what Avery smelled, too? Were the scents she'd imagined real, and contained within the house?

In her momentary relapse into her memory-nightmares, Jessamine had missed Avery and Jamie getting back to work. They were still stirring about, and she wondered if they'd gone anywhere past the entryway.

"Tell them they'll be safest in the attic, if they really insist on doing this," said the creature inside, straight to the point, no emotion in his timbre.

Jessamine swallowed. "Guys," she said, hoping they'd hear her with all their shuffling about. "The thing in me said to go to the attic, it's safer."

"Okay." Avery's reply was immediate; had he been waiting for her to speak? Expecting her to pitch in and assist them with navigating the corridors of this creepy house? She was the compass—and the being inside her was, as far as they were aware, an inhabitant of the house. "Tell your demon I said thanks."

A red-hot pain cracked across her forehead.

"I'm not a demon," growled the creature, sounding everything but benevolent. "Those are in the basement. That's why I'm telling you the attic is safer; higher up and away from them."

The way he said them left a sour after-taste in Jessamine's mouth. Them—hadn't she heard that in her flashes? Hadn't the blue being who'd spoken to her mentioned them?

Demons? There are... demons in there?

Crickets. Of all the times for the being to interfere and force its comments into her head, this was a question he'd decided not to answer. Torture? Or did he genuinely not know how to reply to Jessamine without worsening her already erratic fear?

Something creaked—Jessamine imagined the boys were going up the stairs. She remembered said stairs from her visions; wide, but coated in dust and old with use, likely unsafe.

"Be careful," she whispered, unsure they'd catch her voice with the noise they were making going up the creaky steps.

"There are so many orbs in here," said Jamie, sounding farther away, either ahead of Avery, leading the way, or lurking behind. "Visible, too. So rare for us to see them so easily with the naked eye. Shit."

"They legit light the place up," said Avery, his words drawing a picture for Jessamine, including her in their investigation though she was stuck hanging behind for her own safety.

"Is that why the flashlight broke?" Jamie's tone changed to awe. "They figured we didn't need it, so they just... got rid of it?"

"Who knows? Hey," Avery coughed, "focus the camera on them, get them on there, yeah?"

"I am, don't worry. Something like this... fucking excellent." Jamie was a smidgen too enthusiastic considering the circumstances.

But then again, Jessamine could understand excitement at seeing things one had been chasing for years. He and Avery hunted ghosts—and they'd entered a building apparently infested with them. These ghosts didn't hide; Jessamine suddenly recalled watching them hover about her in interest, smoothing against her skin, their touch cool and soft. They, unlike other creatures inside that house, weren't malevolent; at least, they hadn't felt like it.

"I'm getting lots of noises, too," said Jamie, sounding like he was turning his head left and right. "Hopefully, the camera picks those up, too. Orbs? Movement? Flashlight exploding? This is investigator gold, man. I've never seen so many spirits in one place."

"They're ghosts in Limbo," said the possessor, likely trying to explain what Avery and Jamie were seeing, to help Jessamine paint a better picture of the scene. "Limbo is a plane of existence adjacent to this one, meant for those not yet ready to go through the ghost portal."

"Ghost portal?"

Jessamine gasped; she'd meant to think that, not say it out loud. But the eerie familiarity of the term had prompted her to utter it before she could stop herself.

"Huh?" Jamie's voice came from the speaker, first.

"Ghost Portal?" said Avery, startled.

From the sudden lack of movement coming from them, Jessamine assumed they'd stopped walking, stunned by her words.

Avery cleared his throat. "What's that?"

"Don't tell them—they're about to find out."

Jessamine grimaced at the sinister timbre the being had taken. "Never mind—where are you guys?"

They exchanged a few hushed whispers that Jessamine couldn't understand, before resuming their trek up the stairs; more creaks and squeaks came through the receiver. Hadn't they made it to the upper landing, by now? Or had they already located the steps to the attic, and those were what they were going up?

"Guys?" Jessamine hiccupped. "Where are you?"

"Whoa," said Jamie, after a clicking and grinding sound, like a door unlocking and swinging forward to allow entry. "That's bright."

"We're in the attic," clarified Avery, responding to Jessamine a little too long after she'd asked the question. "And it's super lit-up in here, a freakishly blue glow."

Jessamine sought to twist her head towards the house, thinking to hell with the being's warnings. But the possessor held on tight to her jaw as if sitting in front of her and physically seizing her by the chin to prevent her from moving.

"What's going on?" She croaked through tightened lips, trying not to yell at them—it wasn't their fault she couldn't get a better visual of where they were.

Whose fault is it, though?

"Oh, shit." It was Avery's voice; tentative, too tentative, and low in his throat. "What the fuck is that light doing?"

Jessamine wanted to ask him what he'd seen, but the being now clamped her mouth shut, and had done something to her voice, too.

"It's taking shape," said Jamie, his voice also low, close to a whisper. "It's... whoa, what is that?"

Jessamine squirmed about, like a prisoner tied up in the backseat of a cop car, determined to break loose.

Let me talk! I need to ask them what's happening!

"You're about to find out, so stay quiet."

"Hello, gentlemen." A new arrival—a cold, curt, female intonation with a familiarity that launched chills down Jessamine's spine and froze her to the core. "I see you've disregarded our warnings, and entered our house. So what is it that you want?"

Still unable to speak out loud, Jessamine felt her tongue dancing in her mouth, desperate to hammer her possessor with questions.

Who... or what... is that?

"That, dear Jessamine, is Ada." The being's tone took on a sense of pride, of fulfillment. "She's a Guide. The leader Guide of this house, this portal. Overseer of ghosts, and holder of the prophecy."

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