The Guidance Read Free

Other than that, we mostly use it to store extra belongings from the main house. When Evelyn got married, we moved out and let them have it."
    "That's okay. We're not here to rifle through your things," I assure her.
    "It's a mess. I don't think you girls should go down there. Especially if you have allergies."
    Hmmm ... and me without my Claritin.
    I hear Emily whisper,
Goooo ...
    If she says so, then I must.
    "I
have
to go down there." I turn the handle, and immediately the smell of dust and mold and dampness attacks my nostrils. Celia flicks the light cord that's dangling in the doorway.
    "This doesn't look very good," Taylor says.
    Becca snickers. "Don't be such a girl, Tillson." And then she passes all of us and heads downstairs.
    "I'll stay up here," our hostess says.
    It's probably better that way.
    Emily whispers to me:
Laundry room
.
    The four of us pick our way through boxes of Christmas ornaments, winter clothes, and toys for the grandchildren, back to where the washer and dryer sit. My chest begins to tighten in a deep ache. The atmosphere is dense in this section, and I'm finding it hard to get a good breath of air. It's like I want to pant but there's nothing to suck into my lungs.
    "Are there any spirits here with us?" Becca asks as she holds her digital recorder out in front of her. "Is the spirit of Delaney Lockhart present? I have a recording device in my hand that is able to pick up your voice if you have the energy to speak to us. We can play it back and see what you had to say and try to help out."
    While Becca's doing her EVP work, my chest continues to throb. My heartbeat accelerates to
Speed Racer
levels and I try to tell myself that this isn't really happening to me, per se—it's just that I'm empathetic and can often feel what the spirit might have experienced.
    I hear Emily plainly in my head.
He's here ...
    "Play back your recorder, Becca," Celia says before I can.
    After a quick rewind, we hear Becca's question and then a garbled swooshing turning into a voice that says, "
Leeeeeeeeeeefffffffff behind.
"
    "Did you hear that?" Becca says with excitement. "Score!" She loves getting EVPs, and I must admit I get a real rush out of it as well.
    Then, a little further into the recording, we hear,
"Miiiillllllie."
    He called her that
, Emily tells me.
    I take out my rose quartz pendulum that I use for dowsing. It's really cool because I can ask it yes-or-no questions and have a two-way conversation with a spirit. I'm absolutely sensing a presence here in this basement. However, I have to make sure it's Delaney Lockhart. We've run into so many street ghosts in our investigations lately—random spirits that inhabit Radisson, people who lived a long time ago, before the interstate to Atlanta cut through or the town was wired for cable.
    As I hear Taylor clicking away in the background with her digital camera, I'm still experiencing the emotional choke of extreme heart pain. Is this from Delaney's cardiac? It feels more like a broken heart than blocked arteries. Not that I'm a doctor or anything. There just isn't that sense of blood stopping and not filling the chambers of the heart. I'm picking up something much more forlorn.
    "Are you Delaney Lockhart?"
    I watch as the pendulum dangling from my thumb and forefinger swings back and forth, from left to right. This is how I get the answer no.
    Hmm. "Are you a female spirit?"
    The pendulum confirms another no.
    "Are you a male spirit?"
    "Duh," Becca says with a snicker.
    "You know we have to explore all options," Celia snaps.
    My pendulum begins to swing in a circle, clockwise, which signifies a yes answer.
    "Check this out!" Taylor shouts. "I just took a series of pictures of that corner."
    Sure enough, there's a mist in the bottom right corner that gets larger in each frame until it takes on a shape. A very distinct human shape.
    Taylor points. "That looks like a soldier's cap. Like someone from the Civil War."
    We do have a lot of Civil War history