Michaela ended up making coffee for both of them. Trisha disappeared into the bedroom and returned with pyjamas under the robe.

‘It’s getting cold at nights now,’ she said.

‘Heading towards summer at home.’ Michaela sipped on her coffee and flicked through the pages of the book, looking for the place she was up to.

Trisha picked up the other books from Caro’s room. She looked through the titles. ‘Do you think this has something to do with it?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely positive it does,’ Michaela answered.

Trisha was shaking her head and looking around the room. She spotted the second video camera, set up on a tripod and facing out into the room.

‘Oh fuck, tell me that thing’s not on!’

Michaela looked up and grinned. ‘Don’t worry babe, it’s not on. But only because I didn’t think of it.’

Trisha threw a cushion at Michaela then turned serious again. ‘Are they in here now, do you think?’ she asked.

‘The shadow people?’ Michaela looked around the room, gaze lingering in the corners where shadows naturally congregated. ‘I don’t think so, not at the moment. I don’t think they show themselves straight on like this.’ She paused. ‘They lurk, and slink and amass in the dark places.’ She pulled a face.

Trisha wore a matching expression. ‘That’s horrible.’ She looked around. ‘Would they come out if we turned off the light?’

Michaela got up and checked the video camera, turning it on. ‘We’ll find out in a minute,’ she said.

‘Oh God, do we have to?’

Michaela shrugged. ‘No, we don’t actually. I don’t think we’re going to find any real answers until we visit this burial place Caro was talking about. Something she did there has made something happen here, I’m sure of it.’

‘How could she have even gone there? Of all the stupid bloody things to do!’

‘I bet hundreds of people have been there and nothing like this happened to them afterwards. She wasn’t to know she was doing something with consequences like this. How could she? She said it herself – it’s been hundreds of years since people have lived in a world filled with spirits.’

Trisha was hugging a cushion to herself. ‘I think I liked it better when it was some guy pulling a hoax, Michaela.’

Michaela gave Trisha’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘This is better,’ she disagreed. ‘At least no one’s life is in danger.’

‘Can you say that for sure?’

Michaela pulled the EMF device out of her pocket and checked the reading. ‘Nothing’s ever for sure, babe.’

Trisha rubbed her face. ‘You’re kind of enjoying this, aren’t you?’

Michaela smiled and checked the temperature. It had dropped a bit, but that was to be expected as the night grew late. She looked at Trisha. ‘You know what? I actually am. Here I am, an English grad, a kiwifruit orchardist, and yet, I’m more interested, stimulated and intrigued doing this ghost hunting thing than I’ve ever been doing anything else.’

‘Yeah. You’re totally fucked up all right,’ Trisha grumbled.

Michaela laughed. ‘I want to turn the lights off now. You going to bed?’

 ‘You going to go sit in Caro’s room?’

Michaela shook her head. ‘Not just yet.’

‘I’ll stay a while longer.’

Michaela flicked the lights off and looked at the viewfinder of the digital video camera as she adjusted the night vision. She panned it around the room, lighting on Trisha’s face and past it to the blank screen of the TV. She stopped and looked past the camera, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. There was nothing to see. She looked back down at the camera and focused again on the television screen.

The camera was picking up a shape on the TV screen. She stared at it, wondering if she was picking up the shape of something real, or just a trick of the light. Or darkness in this case. She looked around. There was some ambient light from the kitchen, where the microwave clock glowed, but otherwise it was pretty damn dark.

She looked back at the television. She hadn’t been imagining it. There was a definite shadow in the screen. Vaguely man shaped. Head and shoulder shot.

‘What are you looking at?’ Trisha whispered.

‘There’s a shadow figure in the TV screen.’

‘In or in front of?’

‘In. Definitely in.’

Trisha inched down to the end of the couch opposite the television. ‘What does the gizmo say?’

Gizmo? Michaela kept the camera trained on the television and pulled the EMF meter out of her pocket. The needle fluctuated unsteadily then settled.

‘It’s reading slightly higher than before.’

Trisha shivered. ‘Christ, you feel that draft?’

Michaela shook her head in the dark and stepped over to the open doorway to the hall. ‘There’s no draft,’ she said.

‘I felt one. Icy, like a blast of wind from outside on a snowy night.’ She paused. ‘It didn’t last. It’s gone now. Like someone opened an outside door.’

Michaela looked back at the television. The screen was grey and blank. ‘Shadow in the TV’s gone,’ she said. She panned the camera around the room again, but shadows were everywhere. Trisha’s eyes were wide through the viewfinder of the camera. She was still holding onto the cushion.

‘I can’t see anything else,’ Michaela said.

‘Go into Caro’s room.’

Michaela turned around and pointed the camera down the hallway. She couldn’t be sure but she thought something had moved, just before she looked. She glanced away a moment, hoping to catch movement out of the corner of her eye.

Something touched her on the back and she jumped.

‘It’s just me.’ Trisha.

‘Shit. Okay. You coming?’

‘Caro’s room. Lead the way.’

Michaela inched down the hallway, Trisha holding onto her shirt. It really was dark here and Michaela had her eyes glued to the camera, following its greenish view of the hall and doors in front of her. She reached out a hand and it came into view, disembodied, glowing softly in the camera’s light. It grasped the door knob to Caro’s room and twisted slowly.