A/N – I know, I know, I haven't updated Darkest Night in a good while. I'm working on it. I'm not sure why this next chapter is taking me forever. In the meantime, I've got this story. I'm really enjoying this one. I'm glad you all are, too. I'm a nerd for ghost hunting – the science based, not the weird, demonic-séance stuff. That always felt so put-on to me.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Don't forget to leave a review and tell me what you think. Even though I don't respond to each one, I do read them.
X
Chapter 3
Hiccup woke up to a screech. He tried to roll over, but couldn't.
Reality set in: he'd fallen asleep at his desk. He sat up and rubbed the place on his cheek where the cord to the headphones had bitten into his skin. He glanced at the time on the computer monitor. Twenty past two in the morning.
The screech had come from the shadow detector in the second floor hallway.
Hiccup saw nothing on the camera, but he grabbed his EVP recorder from the charger and clipped it to his shirt. He grabbed three mini-flashlights. He took the stairs one at a time, as to not startle anyone. He hit the record button on the EVP recorder.
"Hello?" Hiccup asked. "Are you up here?"
No one answered.
The shadow detector worked by a set of invisible laser beams that went from one box and into the other. When stretched across a doorway or hall, anything that crossed the beams set off the alarm. It took more than dust; only something of substance could break the beams.
Hiccup sat on the floor with his back to Astrid's room. He set the three flashlights in front of him, each facing down the hall.
"I'd like to talk to you," Hiccup said. "I know that you might be here even if I can't hear you, which is why I brought these. They're like torches, but modern. I helped to make them especially for people like you. All you have to do is touch them and they'll turn on for a second."
Hiccup demonstrated. He touched his index finger to the rim of the first flashlight. The bulb lit up. He removed his finger. The bulb stayed lit for three-quarters of a second. He and Fishlegs had designed them.
"This flashlight to my right will represent 'yes.' This flashlight to my left will represent 'no.' The one in the middle represents 'I don't know.' I'm going to ask you a few questions, and this way you can answer me. Do you understand?"
Nothing happened. Hiccup waited, the anticipation tickling his arms. He loved this part and he hated it. When he was a kid, he hated the waiting in the horror movies. He knew something would happen, but not when. Unlike in the movies, he didn't know if something would happen, which almost made the waiting worse. He loved the thrill.
"Are you here with me?" Hiccup asked again.
He was about to stand up and call it a night, when the flashlight to his right lit up. His heart skipped a beat.
"Thank you," he said. "Are you ready to begin?"
It took a moment, but the right flashlight turned on, then off.
He took a breath, and then asked, "Did you live in this house?"
Yes.
"Are you a man?"
No.
"You're a woman," he said. He had guessed, but he wanted to see if the spirit could make the other light come on, too. "Do you know your name?"
A moment later, Yes.
"Astrid?"
Yes.
"Thank you, Astrid," Hiccup said. "Do you know what year it is?"
No.
"It's 2016," Hiccup said.
No.
Hiccup laughed, "I know, that's a jump from 1880. Is that the year you remember?"
Yes.
Hiccup steeled himself, and said, "That's the year that you died."
Silence. The air prickled slightly and turned cold like he stood in front of a freezer.
"Astrid, I know this might be hard to think about, but do you remember how you died?"
For a while, nothing. And then, the flashlight to his left lit up. No.
"I read about it," Hiccup said. "The coroner in your time ruled it a suicide."
The flashlight in the middle lit up.
"Do you remember anything about that night?"
No.
"Do you remember the war?"
Yes.
"We call it the Civil War, now. It's considered the bloodiest battle on American soil. Your father and uncle fought in the war, didn't they?"
Yes.
"Your brother, too," Hiccup said. "Was your family happy after the war ended?"
For a moment, she said nothing. And then, the middle flashlight lit up.
"You don't know?" Hiccup asked. "Or, is it more complicated than a yes or no?"
Yes.
"I understand," Hiccup said. "I was born before my parents were married. Then got married when I was ten, but everyone was concerned that they were together just because they had me. People assumed that they weren't happy, but we were. It's always more complicated than just a yes or a no."
Yes.
"Astrid, can you see me?"
Yes.
"Where are you?"
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, icy cold feathered against the back of his hand. A younger him would have jumped, but he'd learned to control his surprise.
"You're right beside me?"
Yes.
The cold lingered on the back of his hand, and the more he concentrated on it, the more it felt like four slender fingers laying across his skin.
"I guess it's been a while since you had someone to talk to," he said.
Yes.
"I-I spend more time talking to people like you than I do anyone else," Hiccup said.
The middle flashlight lit up.
"It's complicated," he said. "I've always been interested in the paranormal, that's what we call what it. It's things that we can't readily explain by science. When I was younger, we'd spend weekends at my grandparent's house by the lake. Then, Grandpa died, and when we went to visit Grandma, I saw Grandpa sitting out at the docks like he always had. I went down to talk to him and we had a whole conversation. And then my dad came down, mad that I was talking to myself.
"But, he moved on when Grandma passed away. I have this…image of them. I'm not sure if I saw it or I dreamed it, but they're standing at the dock, but they're not old like I remember them. They're younger, like I've seen them in pictures. They're smiling and holdings hands, and then they vanished. I think that means they moved on."
The fingers on his hand squeezed.
"I started looking into other haunted houses and I started writing about my experiences. I've written three books so far about the people I've helped," Hiccup said. "Astrid, I want to help you move. Is that okay?"
Yes.
"That's great," Hiccup said. "That means we'll spending a lot of time together."
Yes.
He laughed. He liked Astrid already. He yawned, and Astrid patted his hand.
"I know, I should get to sleep," he said.
Yes.
"If I do go to sleep, you'll talk to me tomorrow?"
Yes.
"Thank you, Astrid," he said. "Goodnight."
Yes.
He gathered up the flashlights, carried them and the EVP downstairs, and headed up to the bedroom. He readied in the bathroom with the door closed. He kept his eyes on the mirror, but he didn't see anyone watching him.
X
Hiccup woke up to a warm light. The entire room glowed. Hiccup sat up, and had his feet on the floor before he noticed. The covers on the bed were not his own.
He stood up. His blue cover had been replaced by a dark red one. The room was his, but it wasn't. The walls were a shade of cream; two sitting chairs were angled by a filled bookcase by the window; the drapes were drawn back with ribbons; and paintings hung on the walls that he had never bought.
He ran into the hall. His footsteps made no sound on the hardwood.
He nearly ran into a woman as she stepped out of the parlor. He skidded to a halt, but she made no notice of him. She walked right through him, as if made of light. Hiccup spun, and watched her walk into the bedroom he had just come from, only the door had closed. Hiccup followed the woman inside. The bed had been made, too.
"Hey," Hiccup called, but his voice made no sound.
The woman tucked a book into the bookcase, and walked out again. She walked through Hiccup, only this time he was better prepared. He stood his ground, but she made no notice. She walked through him. He felt nothing, no shimmer of light, no heavy presence. It all lit a panic in his chest that bubbled into his throat.
Hiccup followed the woman down the stairs and into the kitchen, where everything had gone back in time. His coffee pot was gone. A man in an old suit sat at the table, reading a letter.
Hiccup fumbled in his rush to get to the man, who continued reading as if Hiccup was there. The letter looked new, but the date in the corner read August 9, 1859.
"What?" Hiccup asked.
The man looked up and spoke; his lips moved, but no sound came out. The woman spoke but, equally as quiet. They spoke to one another across the room as if Hiccup did not stand between them. How did they not?
The woman's attention drifted upstairs and she marched out of the kitchen. Hiccup leaned back over the man's shoulder to read some of his letter. The script was so outdated it was hard to follow.
It talked about the north and south, and he spotted Lincoln's name, and the mention of runaway slaves. The writer of the letter didn't seem to be pleased with someone else, from the south.
Hiccup wished he'd paid more attention in history class.
The woman came back into the kitchen holding a small girl with a mess of blonde hair tied back into a braid. It had been slept on, and the young girl didn't look happy. She pouted in her mother's arms.
The mother turned back to the man at the table, and opened her mouth, but suddenly the kitchen flashed white. Hiccup stumbled backward, and his backside smacked into his folding table, the one that he'd bought.
He stood back in his kitchen, with his coffeepot on the counter, with his day-old coffee from the morning before.
He placed a hand over his racing heart. What the hell?
It was daylight. He stumbled into the folding chair and slumped his head onto the tabletop. After his heart returned to normal, he warmed up the day-old coffee and drank half a cup black before he reached for the sugar and cream.
He walked to his office and sat at his desk. He woke up his computer and while it booted, he recorded the strange event in his notebook. His penmanship shook. Physically shaken, he wrote.
The cameras showed the house has it was in his time.
He rummaged through his books that were still packed. At the bottom of the box, he found the one he wanted. It was an old book, translated into modern English from German, which had been translated from Japanese; the original book had ceased to exist, and it had taken Hiccup years of searching rare-book shops, online rummage sales, garage sales, and thrift stores to finally find a copy.
He turned the delicate pages to the section he needed.
Trans-time crossing - An event in which one moves forward or backward through time. Typically restricted to one location.
He'd heard about it, and briefly read about it, but he'd never experienced it. Until that morning, he doubted its reality. Hiccup turned to the internet, but a search on trans-time crossing reared little to nothing. No one had evidence to back it up. He had not been dreaming, he knew that for certain. It was like he had become the ghost, but how?
Hiccup went to the forum on his own website, the one that he and Fishlegs had started back in high school. With maintaining and updating, it had become a well-visited paranormal investigation site. He started a new topic, and titled it Trans-Time Crossing. He had a few mysterious people in the forum that knew odd things; if they didn't know, then he wasn't sure he'd find anything.
Hiccup minimized the site and returned to his ghost hunting monitors. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Hiccup rubbed his face, and stood. He hadn't gotten the mail the day before.
He walked down the side of the gravel drive, in the summer grass, to the mailbox beside the road. He hadn't added his name to it yet, but the address had been freshly painted when he bought the place.
Inside, he found a thin stack of letters, three of which were addressed to former residents. The last one had his name on it in hand-written ink and his parents' return address in the corner.
He half-laughed. They would.
Hiccup tucked the mail under his arm and started back toward the house. Movement in the upstairs balcony caught his eye.
There, sitting on the balcony, was a blonde woman in a blue dress.