‘Oh for fucks sakes,’ Trisha said. ‘That is not helping, Michaela. What’re you trying to do – scare us half to fucking death?’

Michaela looked at Caro who was standing with her sister’s arm wrapped protectively around her, her face frozen in fright. She didn’t want to scare them, not any more than they already were. But she did think she had a better chance of getting a look at these shadow things if they stayed here.

‘I’m not trying to make it worse,’ she said after a minute. ‘How about a compromise?’

Trisha raised her eyebrows.

‘We stay here tonight, I spend the night keeping watch in Caro’s room, and tomorrow if you still feel the same way, we can get rooms at the hotel. What do you reckon?’

Trisha shook her head. ‘I reckon you’re nuts.’ She pointed at the picture on Caro’s laptop. ‘Do you not see that? Does that not scare the shit out of you?’

Michaela looked again at the photo. It was frightening in some deep, primal way, but on top of that Michaela felt a far more clear fascination. That photo was amazing. The whole situation was amazing. She wished she had some equipment with her. It would be fascinating to study the phenomena properly – she’d had a look at a couple of ‘ghost hunter’ sites on the net this morning, and she’d love a camera, thermometer and EMF meter at the very least.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Trisha asked, sounding suspicious.

Michaela shrugged. ‘I wish I had a camera and a couple other things, that’s all.’

‘What on earth do you want a camera for? We already have a shot of the shitting things.’

Michaela sat down and ran her fingers through her hair. Outside somewhere a bird was singing in a series of loud whistles.

‘What about if you guys spend the night at the hotel and I stay here?’ she said in a moment.

Caro spoke up. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘I reckon we should stick together. And you should interview me or something, and see if we can’t find out why all this is happening in the first place. We have to get to the bottom of it.’ She turned to Trisha. ‘Especially if Michaela’s right about them following us anyway.’

Trisha looked from one of them to the other. Then she flung up her hands. ‘All right. I give up. We’ll stay here. On two conditions.’

‘What are the conditions?’ Michaela asked.

‘No work,’ she said to Caro. ‘Mom will have to get someone else to cover for us until we get this sorted out. You’re right about us sticking together. All the time.’ She looked at Michaela. ‘If there’s going to be some sort of showdown, I want to know where you all are.’

Michaela nodded. ‘And the second?’

‘That we go into town and buy some fucking food. The cupboards are bare and the only thing in the fridge is a pot of penicillin.’

‘All right,’ Michaela agreed. ‘Is there an electronics shop here?’

Trisha snorted. ‘In this backwater town?’

‘We’d have to go to Kenosha. There’s bound to be one there,’ said Caro.

‘Great. Caro, can you email me a copy of this please?’ Michaela was pointing to the image caught by Caro’s webcam.

Caro nodded and sat down at her computer. ‘What’s your email address?’ She tapped away at the keys. ‘The webcam still works,’ she said when she’d sent the email. ‘It switched off after taking the still frame, neither of which should have happened without someone setting it up. Weird. But it’s working again, so that’s something.’

Michaela looked over her shoulder and saw the moving image of both of them on the screen. ‘That’s good. It might be useful later.’

Trisha came back into the room. ‘I called Mom; she is one very unhappy camper.’ She shrugged and looked at the phone in her hand. ‘I had to explain that the health and well-being of her daughter was at stake. She totally doesn’t believe me, but she’s getting someone else to work our shifts. And she’s sleeping over at the apartment.’

Caro closed the top of her laptop and all three of them looked at each other. Outside a bird whistled a cheery song.

‘Well,’ Trisha said. ‘This is it, then. We’re all sorted, I guess.’ She tried for a grin. ‘The ghost hunt is a go for tonight.’

Michaela kissed her and smiled at Caro. ‘We’ll be fine, I’m sure. Meanwhile, we’ll go get some provisions, shall we?’

They were quiet in the car as they crossed the town line.

‘What about school tomorrow?’ Caro asked as they drove past the school buildings.

Trisha shrugged. ‘What’re you expecting to happen tonight, Michaela?’ she asked.

Michaela wasn’t sure. On the one hand, possibly nothing. But like she’d told Trisha earlier, things were escalating. All she knew was that she wanted to be there to witness what, if anything was going to happen.

Trisha wasn’t waiting for an answer though. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she said. ‘I keep expecting this to all be some weird dream or something. Or one of those crazy candid camera jokes. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in real life.’ She threw a sideways glance at Michaela in the passenger seat. ‘It’s just been one big adventure after another since I met you babe.’

Michaela laughed. ‘You think I bring all this into your life?’

Trisha looked serious. ‘Shit like this didn’t happen before I met you, that’s for sure.’

Michaela blinked in surprise. ‘Doesn’t have anything to do with me,’ she said. ‘Gardener would have gone bankrupt and tried to murder his mother last year whether we were there or not. And this, this whatever it is, it was happening before I got here. You called me up and asked me to come over because of it, remember?’

Trisha turned off the road into the parking lot of a mall. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘But I thought it was you who didn’t believe in coincidences. You called it, what? What was your name for coincidences?’

‘Synchronicity,’ Michaela replied. ‘Meaningful coincidence.’

‘Yeah, that’s the one. Synchronicity. And I’m saying shit like this just didn’t happen until I met you.’ She parked and pulled on the handbrake. Caro was looking on apprehensively from the back seat.

Michaela leaned across and kissed her girlfriend. ‘If you’re going to believe in synchronicity, then it must be our destiny to be together.’

Trisha laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘Guess I was asking for that one. Come on you two, let’s get this show on the road.’