Michaela pushed back from the table and stretched. She didn’t think she’d been this tired since pulling all-nighters studying for exams. She blinked at the computer screen and rubbed her eyes. Maybe she should pour another coffee.

Trisha and Caro were asleep on the couch, wrapped in blankets Trisha had pulled from her bed. Michaela checked the time. She’d been working all night, perhaps it was time for a couple hours sleep. They’d stayed up talking for a few hours last night, after the events in Caro’s room. Everyone was reluctant to go to sleep, but eventually the pauses were longer and Caro especially was yawning. Michaela decided to insist they bed down for the night. She would stay awake longer, do some work, and keep watch.

She’d hadn’t been aware of anything more happening, but then they’d kept the lights on and Trisha had closed the door to the hallway when she’d come back in with the blankets. Michaela ran her hands through her hair and wondered if she should get the other camera now and play it back on her laptop,. But she was tired.  A rest first, it was going to be a long enough day as it was.

She’d failed to find anything substantial trawling around the net. Lots of weird stuff, no shortage of that. No shortage of accounts by people who certainly sounded sincere. Shadow people, ghosts, poltergeists and Bigfoot, she’d found them all knocking around the Internet. Now she was almost cross-eyed from the sheer bulk of information. It had become clear fairly early on though, that she was finding the same stories and theories over and over. And nothing that really helped.

Somewhere around four in the morning she’d tried finding out where they might be going when the sun came up. There were burial or effigy mounds all over the state, from what she could see, but she didn’t have a good enough idea of where she was to figure anything out. She’d wait and see instead.

She stood up and stretched again. The house was cold and she spent a moment longing for the warm spring days at home. She wondered what Trisha would think of the place. Deciding to leave that thought for later too, Michaela picked up one of the spare blankets and wrapped it around herself, dropping into the armchair and closing her eyes. Within minutes she was asleep.

The sun climbed high enough to peer through the chinks in the curtains. Caro was the first to wake, emerging from the wrappings of blankets like a butterfly from chrysalis, blinking the sleep from her eyes. She stuck a toe into her sister.

Trisha groaned and rolled over on the couch and promptly fell off.

‘Shit!’ she sat on the floor looking dazed. Caro peered down at her.

Trisha leaned back against the couch and groaned. ‘We are not sleeping on the couch again. We either sort this mess out today or we’re finding somewhere else to stay.’

Michaela woke up halfway through Trisha’s words. She yawned and looked around.

‘Morning gorgeous,’ she said. ‘What are you on about?’

Trisha pulled a face. ‘I said, we’re sorting this out today or we’re moving.’

Michaela stretched. ‘Better get on with it then, I suppose. Caro, did you manage to get some rest?’

Caro was sitting up on the couch, hair a mass of dark spirals around a pale face.  She nodded. ‘Okay considering Trisha was squashing me half the night.’ She got up and pulled the curtain back, sending sunlight streaming in. She waved her hand through the streams of golden dust. ‘Are we still going to see the mound today?’

Michaela looked at Trisha. ‘That’s the plan,’ she said. ‘Right?’

‘Definitely.’ Trisha hauled herself off the floor. ‘Anyone feel like breakfast?’ She looked at the others. ‘Me neither. But I do need a shower.’ She opened the door to the hallway. ‘God, I hate this place now. It feels bad, being here.’ She took a deep breath and disappeared down the hall. Her voice trailed back. ‘If I’m not back in 10 minutes, call the ghost busters.’

Caro snickered. ‘We are the ghost busters.’ She looked at Michaela, her face serious again. ‘Can I ask you something?’

Michaela was standing up, feeling like her clothes were growing on her, she’d been in them so long. ‘Of course,’ she answered.

Caro hesitated. ‘You and Trisha are going to be together, right?’

Michaela nodded and smiled.

‘Well, you aren’t going to stay here, I mean, I know that, but…’

‘But what about you?’

Caro nodded and Michaela saw just how young the girl really was. She went over and put an arm around Caro’s shoulder and hugged her.

‘We won’t be going anywhere without you, okay?’

Caro swallowed. ‘You guys won’t want me tagging along though. But Mom, she’s never around and I, I don’t know, I don’t really want to be left alone.’

Michaela moved and looked Caro straight in the face.

‘Trisha and I have talked about it, okay? We both agree you can’t stay here without us. So no matter what we decide to do, you’ll be part of the plan.’

A smile broke out on Caro’s face and she nodded. ‘But won’t you have to go back home?’ she asked.

‘Yes. No matter what, I will have to go back. But what we’re going to do in the long run, that hasn’t been decided yet.’ That was an understatement. It hadn’t even been mentioned yet. Was it only yesterday Trisha had told her she wanted them to be together? Michaela smiled and spread her fingers through her hair.

‘I’m going to make coffee. You want an orange juice or something?’ she asked.

Caro trailed her into the kitchen. She accepted a glass of juice and leaned against the bench, watching Michaela make coffee.

‘Did you look through any of those books last night?’ she asked.

Michaela nodded and poured some milk in her cup. ‘They’re really intriguing,’ she said.

‘I’m really interested in that stuff,’ Caro said. She glanced at the other room. ‘Even this shadow people stuff? It’s really freaky and scary, but kinda interesting too, you know?’ She looked down at the floor. ‘Don’t tell Trisha I said that, okay?’

The jug boiled and Michaela poured the water into her cup. She was fairly sure at this stage she had coffee instead of blood pumping through her system.

‘I won’t tell,’ she said. ‘And you’re right – it is interesting. It’s fascinating stuff. It makes you realise there’s a lot more going on in the world than we know about. I love that.’ Michaela shrugged and subsided into silence. She took a sip of the coffee. It was bitter; she’d forgotten to add sugar. ‘I can understand you wanting to study the stuff in those books,’ she said. ‘I think it’s a great idea. But I think you’re going to realise in a hurry that it’s not just academic stuff. It’s real, and because of that, actions have consequences.’

Caro was frowning. ‘What do you mean?’

Michaela stirred the sugar into her cup. ‘Well, actions always have consequences, one way or another, but what I really mean, is that when you start experimenting with consciousness, or the spirit world or whatever, things might happen that you never expected.’

‘Like the shadow people turning up because I visualised the effigy mound as a doorway into the world of shamans and spirits?’

There it was. The trigger.

Michaela nodded. ‘As unbelievable as it seems, I think the shadows are a direct consequence of that visualisation you did.’

‘But how? I mean, I can’t be the first person to imagine that kind of thing.’

Michaela shrugged. ‘And we don’t know what anyone else has experienced. All I can guess is you were in the right place at the right time, doing something that caught their attention for some reason, and now they’re here, sniffing around.’ She thought about it for a moment. There must be more to it than that. It was so hard to think this way, as though the impossible were not only possible, but highly likely. ‘And maybe you were the right person in the right place,’ she added.

Caro was blushing. Michaela looked at her. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘What you said about right person at right time. Maybe you were right.’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I went there at Midsummers.’ She blushed harder. ‘And my period started while I was there.’

Michaela leaned back against the kitchen bench and thought about this. She sighed. She just didn’t know enough about all this. There was so much to think about and learn, but no time to. If they were going to be able to do anything, it was all going to be off the cuff, and Michaela was secretly afraid that would be more dangerous that anything.

She rubbed at her face. ‘I need more time,’ she said. ‘I can’t figure everything out.’ She stood up. ‘I need to make notes. A timeline. I think so much better when I’ve things written down.’

Caro followed her into the dining area where their laptops still stood on the table.

‘I’m going to get dressed then I’ll help,’ she said.

Michaela looked up at her. ‘That would be great. Two minds are always better than one. We will probably have to do it on the drive to the mound though.’ She remembered something. ‘I need to get the second camera out of your room, okay?’

Caro nodded and they both headed down the hallway to Caro’s room. The shower was still going. Michaela stopped outside Caro’s room and glanced at the girl before opening the door. The colour had returned to Caro’s cheeks and she looked only mildly apprehensive about what might be behind the door.

Michaela swung the door open and they both peered in.

‘It looks like normal,’ Caro said.

‘Yeah. Good.’ Michaela stepped in and opened the curtains. Caro bent over the camera on the tripod.

‘I’ve just switched it off,’ she said. ‘These cameras are so cool. Are we going to have a look at what’s on it?’

Michaela picked up the voice recorder and switched that off too. It was a digital one so she couldn’t tell if anything had been recorded. It didn’t matter. She looked around the room. It was impossible to tell that just last night shadows had crowded around a girl in the bed. She shivered anyway and walked over to the wardrobe, pulling the door open. Nothing.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I guess everything’s back to normal in here.’

Caro was at the door. She looked back in the room. ‘Yeah, until night time again.’

They left the door open and Caro took the camera back to the kitchen. Michaela opened the door to Trisha’s room and slipped in.

Trisha was dressing. Michaela wrapped her arms around her and bent down to bury her face in Trisha’s warm neck. She smelled good.

‘What’re you doing?’ Trisha asked.

‘Smelling you,’ Michaela said.

Trisha wriggled around so they were facing. She placed her hands on Michaela’s cheeks and smiled.

‘I love you,’ she said.

A grin spread across Michaela’s face. ‘I am never going to get tired of hearing that,’ she said.

Trisha pinched her cheeks then. ‘You’re supposed to say it back, babe, not make some smart comment.’

Michaela organised her grin into a chastened look. ‘I’m sorry. I love you too.’ She squeezed the smaller woman and Trisha gave a squeal.

‘All right already, give it up, you great lug. You need a shower.’

Michaela let go and kissed her instead. ‘I’ll go and have a shower,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll head away, shall we?’

Trisha nodded, serious again. ‘I want this over with, Michaela. I know this ghost busting shit is right up your alley, but I’d rather it was someone else’s ghosts we were busting, you know?’

‘I know. We’re close, I think. I’m getting a handle on it. We’ll have more idea what to do after today, I think.’

Trisha stared at her. ‘I hope so babe. I’d really rather start planning what we’re going to do about us, you know.’

Michaela grinned again and grabbed Trisha, lifting her off her feet and planting a big kiss on her lips. ‘I’ve some ideas about that too,’ she said.

Trisha laughed. ‘Have a shower, get dressed and let’s go. You can tell me all your big ideas on the way.’