Credit to Akilah for the kernel of this story idea tonight. I’ll take inspiration from anywhere, but she’s been such a great fount of ideas for all these ten years!

I tried to avoid doing any paranormal investigations by myself – it just isn’t safe. Leaving aside the whole ghost part, there’s the purely practical problem that you’re often in a space that’s falling apart or difficult to access. Another reason to go with a group is to split the sometimes-heavy amount of gear we carry. Finally, it’s always helpful to have someone manning the monitors with headphones, listening to anything the other people who are just experiencing the phenomena might miss.

But in the run-up to heading out tonight, one by one my group dropped out. Alex had the flu. Mary had to watch her niece at the last minute. And Elliot had to work overtime installing emergency updates at the tech company he worked at. After I got Elliot’s message I just about threw in the towel myself, but I knew I was going out of town next week, and then there’s the ever-present rumors that they’re going to bulldoze the old Bellweather mansion. Already, they’d added chain-link fencing around the perimeter of the property a few months ago – fortunately, Lucy, a sometimes member of our merry band of ghost hunters had found us a gap in the fence to get in and out. But would they find and block that too?

No, I was going even if it was just by myself.

On the approach, I spotted a glint off one of the windows in the south turret of the mansion and quickly took a picture. In the viewfinder I was ecstatic to see a glowing orb in the upper window. “Looks like the Bellweather Woman is in the tower tonight,” I smiled to myself. Most of the activity we’d recorded over our many visits to the Bellweather Mansion came from the central hallways and the bedrooms. Other than getting some very unusual EVPs in the south turret, this picture was the first image of activity.

Once inside the mansion, I hurriedly set up my usual battery of devices in locations that had worked out well for us before – the motion-capture camera in the master bedroom; the thermal sensors throughout the banquet hall; audio recorders in the kitchen and maids’ quarters. Once everything was up and running I made my way to the south turret.

Another reason we generally didn’t spend much time in the south turret was because the stairs were in terrible shape. Alex had put his foot right through a rotten board ten steps up the circular staircase and we retreated pretty quickly, leaving remote cameras that rarely picked anything up.

I stared at the hole in the stair that Alex had broken through and wondered whether doing this alone – or at all, for that matter – was a really bad idea. I heard a door shut at the top of the turret and I shook off the nerves, doing my best to keep my steps light and try to keep near the wall where I hoped the wood would be the least rotten.

When the stairs reached the landing at the top of the turret I caught movement immediately. Just by the window was a full-bodied apparition! I raised the battered full-spectrum Canon Rebel and checked the display. I fired the shutter as I moved towards the railing of the stairs, to get the apparition better in frame. I couldn’t believe how spectacular the shot was when I heard a crack.

I hadn’t realized I’d been putting weight on the railing, so it took a moment for me to realize it had broken and that I was falling down the central shaft of the turret. I don’t know how many steps or what the elevation is of the south turret, but I’ll say that the fall seemed to go on and on while I flailed and the floor raced up to meet me.

I’m grateful I don’t remember the actual impact, just darkness.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing at the bottom of the turret stairs – not laying, standing. That in itself was confusing because I remember falling, but what really caught my attention was my body six feet away, legs and arms at odd, painful angles. I was grateful my body was facing away from, well, from me.

“Well,” a female voice spoke behind me. “That was stupid.”

I turned around to see a middle-aged woman walking casually down the stairs. I immediately realized it was her! It was the Bellweather Woman!

“You’re…” I started.

“Please don’t…” she said as she stepped past me.

“You’re…”

“Yes.”

“The Bellweather Woman!”

“My name is Mary,” she said over her shoulder as she moved towards my body.

“You were the first ghost I captured on film…”

“I thought you looked familiar…”

“And the gauzy apparition in American Hauntings when they came here… that was…”

“Yes.” She knelt down by my body. At first I thought she was inspecting my… corpse. But, no, she was looking at my poor shattered Canon Rebel. She gestured to the cracked viewscreen and it flickered to life. “Oh,” she said with a pout. “You got my bad side.”

Mary started walking through the hallway towards the main hall.

“Wait,” I called, hurrying after her. I stepped around my body awkwardly, wondering if I could just leave my body here. “Do you know how famous you are?”

“Unfortunately,” she said nonchalantly.

“But… you, this place is legendary among ghost hunters!”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Your EVPs are some of the best quality anywhere!” I said breathlessly – well, I guess everything I said now was technically breathlessly.

Mary stopped, cleared her throat and affected a high falsetto, “It’s… so… cold…”

“Yes!” I got chills. “That’s it, exactly!”

“Thank you, thank you. Some of my finer work.”

At that moment I realized it wasn’t actually cold… or warm… I just… was. “But… it’s not cold…”

“It’s not, no. But that plays so well!” she smiled broadly before starting towards the main staircase.

“People think you were murdered here.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “I died of pneumonia in 1941.”

“But the story about your husband…”

“Never married.”

“The bloodstain in the east bedroom?”

“Red wine.”

I stared at her.

“You’re ruining this for me.”

“Imagine how I feel,” she said as we came up on the landing.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m going to rest for a bit,” she said. “Manifesting for you took a lot of energy. I’m done for the night.”

That’s when I heard voices coming from downstairs. I moved to the railing and saw flashlights sweep through the great hall.

“Friends of yours?”

I shook my head. The lead investigator looked familiar, but they weren’t folks I’d worked with. I started towards the stairs but stopped and turned to Mary, “Can they see me?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can they hear me?” I said in an involuntary whisper.

“Sometimes,” she said without matching my whisper.

“Can they photograph me?”

Mary rolled her eyes. “You’ll find out.”

Down below I heard one of the investigators say to one of his teammates, “Did you hear that upstairs? I’ll take the thermal camera…” Mary grinned at me, “Smile!”