The bluish-green shape on the FLIR never quite took on a human outline, though many forms were suggested as it shifted. Several of the hunters had moved forward to watch the meter, while two–the couple holding hands–edged closer to the door. Burton kept the flashlight trained on the carpet.

“It’s moving,” said the FLIR operator, and something brushed Burton’s face like the cool, slimy tentacle of an octopus. The man at the door rattled the handle and then moaned.

“Get it off me,” he said, and then the door swung open with such force that the man landed on his ass, blinking into the explosion of light from the hallway. The FLIR now showed only the orange forms again, depicting the warm-blooded people in the room. Whatever had caused the anomaly had now evaporated.

The overhead light flickered, blinked, and then stayed on, leaving the group of hunters looking at each other with a mixture of fear, awe, and disbelief.

Burton checked his equipment and found it working again. He thumbed the walkie talkie and spoke into it. “Control Room, we’ve had a doozy.”

Chapter 20

Noonie.

The word had taken on a double meaning for Wayne and Beth, in the way long-time companions formed their own language. At first it had been a code word for their lunchtime sexual encounters, when they invariably ended up late returning to work. The word had evolved into a synonym for Beth’s vagina, though Wayne always found it too cutesy for a place that served up such powerful mysteries, mind-blowing pleasures, and the miracle of a child.

The word had been theirs, and he couldn’t imagine how Amelia Gordon had learned of it. If the board had spelled out “Beth” or “wife” or “I’m here,” he would have dismissed it as coincidence, but she had picked the one word he couldn’t deny. Wayne stared down at the abandoned Ouija board in 218.

“Beth,” he whispered.

The thought of her name somehow seemed safe, because he’d carried her inside him for years. But saying it aloud gave it weight and imbued it with the power of possibility. Making a wish was foolish and believing in ghosts was an act of cowardice. If he really thought he knew better than God, then he would pick up a bottle and hide in the sewers of his own ego and fear.

“Beth,” he said aloud.

I can’t believe in you. Not like this. I believe in how you used to be.

Wayne touched the surface of the Ouija board. The planchette still lay on the floor, where it had fallen after Amelia’s fainting spell.

Amelia had talked about  an angel in the ceiling. Room 318 was directly above.

Do I want to know? If I got an answer, would I accept it? Or would I rather cling to the stories that have given me comfort over the years?

Comfort.

No, it wasn’t comfort.

It was survival.

The board was slick and relatively new. He’d bought it as a prop after one of his conference guests had complained that the discussion panels were too tech-oriented and boring. “You can learn all that stuff on the Internet,” said the crank.

So he’d started sexing up his events, tossing in psychics, palm readers, and everything but one-armed, mud-wrestling midgets, and if he could figure out a way to tie those into the paranormal instead of the plain old abnormal, he would do it in a heartbeat. The Ouija board always drew a crowd because people longed for oracles and throughout history had searched for messages in everything from animal intestines to tea leaves.

During their honeymoon, when they’d played with the Ouija board, that’s what they were doing—playing. As they knelt at the coffee table, drinking wine in their bath robes, they summoned Margaret. All for laughs, all for foreplay, all part of the fun of a haunted hotel.

But then the talk had turned serious, and as a cold wind blew in from nowhere, Beth gazed into his eyes and made him swear. Wayne gave an uncomfortable giggle, playing along. So he’d nodded and smiled. An agreement and an invitation.

When Beth had made The Promise, Wayne never imagined he’d outlive her. He was still drinking in those days. Not so much that it had drowned their relationship, but plenty enough. They were too young to acknowledge the inevitability of middle age, let alone mortality. When you had forever, promises were cheap.

The pact was simple: if one of them died, the other would return to the White Horse Inn. The deceased would try to make contact from the spirit world. Harry Houdini had made the same promise, and as far as anyone knew, the greatest magician in history had not found a way to pick the locks of the afterlife and make a successful return.

Wayne might even have forgotten the pact, throwing it on the pile of somedays and pledges and promises, if she hadn’t reminded him of it as she wasted away in a hospital bed. A mastectomy hadn’t stemmed the spread of cancer, and when it showed up in her pancreas and liver, she swore off the chemotherapy and kept her pain medication to a minimum, wanting to be alert for her final days. Wayne went in the opposite direction, crawling into a bottle and pickling himself like a living laboratory specimen.

Beth didn’t scold him or judge him, and her unconditional love radiating from dimming eyes filled him with shame. In some ways, alcoholism was an even more insidious disease than cancer, because it gave the illusion of choice. Beth’s mother, who always knew best even when she knew nothing, had taken on Kendra, showing her granddaughter how to react to the death of a loved one: the stages of anger, denial, fear, acceptance, and then deep, abiding sorrow.

And when the countdown came, when the heart monitor beeped erratically and Beth’s breathing became ragged, she beckoned him close and whispered, “I’ll see you at the inn.”

She smiled and her gaunt fingers gripped his sweaty ones, and Wayne could only nod. Later, days after the funeral, he realized she’d been referring to the White Horse and the glib deal they’d made years before, fresh after making newlywed love in Room 318.

It took a while, but here I am.

Wayne picked up the planchette, half expecting it to throb with unseemly warmth.

It was plastic, made in China, nothing divine about it.

He hurled it across the room and it bounced against the television.

The television switched on.

“–OPEC has pledged to boost production so that heating oil prices will stabilize for the holidays. Crude oil is currently trading at seventy-eight dollars a barrel and–”

Wayne shut it off.

“Okay, Beth,” he said. “If you want to speak to me, do it directly and not through cheap electronics.”

The curtains fluttered even though the window was closed.

Draft, probably blowing through the ventilation system.

“About that promise,” Wayne said. “It wouldn’t be the first we’ve broken. We both said ‘forever,’ remember?”

He sat on the chair by the desk so he could survey the entire room, including the bathroom with its clawfoot tub, tiled floor, and gray wallpaper. He could spare a couple of minutes. He owed her that much. Promises were cheap.

The lights blinked.

“Are you afraid?”

He wasn’t sure if the words were in his head or if they had wended from the corners of nowhere.

He waited 30 seconds, listening to the distant thrum of the ventilation system and the squeal of the elevator. That gave him plenty of time to consider the question, whether he had posed it to himself or not. It was the kind of question that had only two answers, and both were wrong.

If Beth appeared, all the failure would come sluicing down in a gray avalanche. His skeptical convictions would be challenged, and he’d be forced to change the way he viewed the world. He didn’t want to be knocked out of his comfort zone. He preferred to think of Beth in a better place, far removed from the worries of this troubled plane. If he’d dragged her from eternal bliss just to satisfy his whims, he’d have yet another reason to feel guilty.