Page 13 of Spellbinding Spirit

Sebastian

The attic feels differenttonight. It’s colder for one thing. The kind of cold that creeps in through the cracks and settles into your bones. I tug my jacket tighter and glance at Cat, who’s fiddling with one of her digital recorders. The tiny red light blinks steadily in the dimness, the only movement in a space that feels too still.

“Remind me again why we have to be in this bloody freezing attic?” I mutter, rubbing my hands together.

“Because that’s where Sally is supposed to be. What would you have preferred? A cosy living room with central heating and a hot chocolate dispenser?”

Her voice is calm and clipped but I catch the way she glances at the shadows every now and then. She’s not as relaxed as she’s pretending to be.

I wander over to the window, my footsteps muffled by the threadbare rug stretched across the wooden floorboards. The glass is smudged with years of grime but I can just about make out the illuminated grounds below. The trees sway gently in the night breeze.

“Right,” Cat says, straightening up. “That’s the equipment checked. EMF meter’s running, recorders are live, and the motion detector is in place. Now we wait.”

“Riveting,” I reply, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Remind me again why I’m here?”

“Because I needed someone to keep me company,” she says, pulling out a notebook. “And you’re not half bad at shifting heavy boxes.”

“‘Sebastian, I need you to protect me’ is what I was hoping to hear.” I can’t help but tease her. It helps me to remember that we’re just friends and it stops me from thinking about the kiss this afternoon.

Cat flashes me a brief smile then drops down onto the mattress and pulls one of the duvets I’ve laid out over her legs, flipping through her notes. I know she’s focused—she always gets that crease between her eyebrows when she’s in work mode—but there’s something different about her tonight. She’s quieter, more thoughtful. Maybe it’s the letters we read earlier or maybe it’s the way this attic seems to press in around us.

We sit in silence for a while, the faint hum of the equipment the only sound. I try not to think about how dark it is up here, how the corners of the room seem to stretch into shadows deeper than they should do. It’s just an attic. Old beams, dust, and a lot of creaky floorboards. Nothing to it. But that doesn’t stop me from keeping my fingers tight around the torch in case I need it to bring light into the darkness.

“What was that?” I ask, my voice low.

Cat looks up sharply. “What?”

“That noise. Like... scratching.”

We both go quiet, listening. There it is again—soft, faint, but definitely there. A scuffing sound like something dragging across the floorboards.

“Probably just a mouse,” I say quickly to reassure me and her, though my stomach does a little flip. “It’s an attic. Bound to have mice.”

“Maybe,” she murmurs, her eyes narrowing as she stares at the little screen on her night vision camera.

The scratching stops. A moment later something shifts in the far corner of the room; a muffled rustling, like fabric brushing against wood.

“Cat...” I start and lift my torch, ready to switch it on. She holds up a hand to silence me. Her gaze is fixed on the corner, her notebook forgotten in her lap.

“Hello?” she says, her voice steady, measured. “Sally are you here?”

Silence.

She tries again, her tone softer this time. “Sally, it’s Catherine. We’re just here to listen. Can you tell us your story?”

The recorder keeps blinking, steady and unbothered. The EMF meter stays stubbornly quiet. For a moment it’s just the two of us sitting in the middle of an empty attic, waiting for a ghost to answer.

I want to say something, to crack a joke or point out how ridiculous this all is, but the words stick in my throat. Because for all my scepticism there’s something about this place and this moment that makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, we’re not alone.

A sudden, sharpclackmakes us both jump. Cat’s notebook tumbles from her lap as she spins towards the sound pointing the camera into the darkness.

“What the hell was that?” I ask, my voice louder than I intended. I flick on the torch and let the light move across the room.

Cat’s eyes are locked on the motion detector, which has been knocked clean off the chair where she’d set it up. It’s lying on the floor now with its little light blinking furiously.

“Wind,” I offer weakly although there’s no draft. The attic feels airtight and the air is still and heavy.

Cat gets up with careful and deliberate movements. She picks up the motion detector, inspecting it before placing it back on the chair. “Sally,” she says again, her voice firm. “If that was you, thank you. Can you do it again?”

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