“God you’re filthy,” Jeremy told her. He patted off her back, then even her backside. As his hands traveled over her ass, she stiffened up.
He’s taking an awful lot of liberties, thought Kara.
“You’re not exactly clean yourself,” she chuckled. Then she did the same for him.
It’s not like you’re stopping him, either.
r /> When they were finished, a small cloud of dust hung in the air. Kara sneezed.
“You still have the photo?”
“The original’s back in my room,” said Jeremy. He pulled out his phone. “But right here…”
They sank down on the bed together, side by side, while he pulled up a digital image of the actual photograph. Pinching it larger with two fingers, he zoomed in on the candle on Northrop’s table. Next to the phone, he held the actual candle in his free hand.
It was unmistakable. The symbols were a perfect match.
“That’s creepy,” Kara shivered.
“What is?”
“I mean, looking down at it in a hundred-year old photo is one thing,” she shrugged. “But actually holding it our hands like this…”
Jeremy nodded. “I know. I feel exactly the same way.”
Just then, the door to the room pushed open somewhere behind them.
“Feel exactly the same way about what?” Logan asked.
Twenty-One
Logan walked in like he owned the place, or at least like he lived there. Which up until a few hours ago, he had.
“Look what we found,” said Kara.
Jeremy held up the candle. Logan went to take it from him, but Jeremy held onto it just a little too long.
“Be careful with it.”
The smirk of disdain on Logan’s face masked the promise of a secret ass-kicking. He tore the candle from his fingers. “Relax, chief. It’s a candle, not a Faberge Egg.”
He turned it over in his hand, running a thumb over the deeply-etched symbol. While he did, Kara told him all about their discovery, from the maintenance closet to the hidden nursery to her entire retrocognitive episode.
“That’s nuts,” Logan finally agreed. He handed the candle back, but to Kara not Jeremy. “I mean… what are the chances? We now have two of the items from the photograph, out of four.”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed. “So?”
“So maybe we’re supposed to find them. Maybe that’s why the woman screamed in Kara’s face while we were in bed last night…”
Kara noticed immediately his emphasis on the word. She swiped the candle from him.
“I was in bed,” she corrected him. “You were on the couch.”
Logan shrugged. “Whatever.” He smiled wanly before continuing. “Point is, maybe the woman that once lived here wasn’t just showing you her baby’s nursery. Maybe she was trying to show you what was in it.”
Kara thought about it for a moment. Some of it made sense. Jeremy however, wasn’t sold.
“What you saw was just a residual haunting,” he said. “A mother passing through a common doorway, to take care of her baby. She probably did it hundreds of times while she stayed here. You only saw echoes of it.”