Read Online Rosecliff Manor Haunting by Cheryl Bradshaw - Free Book Online

now.”
    “Is … Grace inside the closet?” Addison asked.
    Vivian nodded. “I thought she’d come out this time, but she won’t.”
    “Can I try?”
    Vivian shrugged. “Guess so.”
    Addison bent down in front of the closet door but didn’t open it. “Grace, if you can hear me, please know you don’t have to be afraid. It’s okay. I want to help you. You and Vivian both.”
    No reply. 
    “I’m going to open the door to the closet and back away,” Addison said. “You come out whenever you’re ready.”
    Addison grasped the round, wooden knob in her hand and tugged the door back, waiting until it was three quarters of the way open before she peeked around the door’s corner. “She’s not here. Where did she go?”
    Vivian shrugged. “She disappears sometimes. She’s probably somewhere in the house. Maybe with Mama. She likes to watch her when she sleeps.”
    Addison knelt in front of Vivian. “Do you know why you’re here?”
    “Do you mean, do I know I’m dead?”
    Addison nodded.
    “Yes. I know.”
    “Does Grace know?”
    “I think so. She doesn’t like to talk about the night we died.”
    “Because of what happened?” Addison asked. “What really happened?”
    Vivian nodded. “And because Grace is scared to leave. She won’t, so we’re stuck here.”
    “Could you move on if you wanted to, without Grace?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t tried. Even if I could, I’d never leave her here alone.”
    “You’re a good sister, Vivian.”
    Vivian tilted her head to the side. “How can you see us? No one else can.”
    “When I was a little girl, younger than you, I received a gift.”
    “A present?”
    “No, not the kind you open. It lets me see people like you even though you’re not alive anymore.”
    “How?”
    “I’m not sure how it happens. I just know I see the people I’m supposed to see when I’m supposed to see them. In my family, the gift passes down from mother to daughter when we’re five. Only, my mother didn’t use her gift, and when it passed to me, she didn’t want me to use mine either.”
    “Why not?”
    “She had a bad experience as a child. She didn’t understand she could help people trying to move on from this life to the next.”
    “Like the woman in the pink dress? The one buried in the cemetery?”
    Addison raised a brow, surprised. “Like her, yes. How do you know about Roxy?”
    “She waved at me. She said you were a nice lady and not to be afraid to talk to you because you could help me.”
    Two thoughts occurred to Addison simultaneously. First, the day she saw Vivian and Grace at the cemetery, Vivian might not have been waving at her but at Roxy. Second, maybe that’s how it worked. After one person moved on, they chose who she helped next. “Vivian, what do you remember about the night you died, about when you and Grace were playing in the attic?”
    “It’s hard for me.”
    “What’s hard?”
    “Remembering.”
    “Why?” Addison asked.  
    “The longer we’re here, the more I forget.”
    “I need you to try for me. Okay?”
    Vivian nodded. Addison continued.
    “On the night of your parents’ party, you were sent away after dinner. Then what happened?”
    “Grace heard someone in the attic, and Mama said no one was allowed in there without her permission.”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s where she kept all the special stuff. The things she didn’t want us to play with.”  
    “So the two of you decided to go to the attic and check it out.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Who did you see when you got up there?”  
    “Boys.”
    “What boys?”
    “I don’t know. Their faces are blurry now. I try to see them sometimes, try to remember, and I can’t.”
    Had Vivian blocked out all of her memories because they were too painful to see?
    “Can you remember how many boys were in the attic?” Addison asked.
    “Two. Wait, three. I think.”
    “Were they your age—older, younger?”
    “They were … taller than me, I think.”
    “So