Chapter 21
Aili’s POV
The afternoon light slanted through the living-room curtains like we were already in some gothic detective movie.
Lisa sat cross-legged on the rug with her grandmother’s grimoire open, pages weighed down with salt shakers so the breeze from the open window wouldn’t flip them.
Nick paced by the basement door like it was going to lunge at us.
Brandon leaned against the wall, arms crossed, face unreadable as usual.
Sam scrolled on her phone pretending to be calm, but I caught her biting her lip every now and then.
Lisa flipped another fragile page. “Okay. Here’s more on the Caoineadhán. They were often seen near riverbanks or bog roads. Always crying, rarely violent, usually bound to the place where their remains or belongings are hidden.”
Sam finally looked up. “Can I ask something? Where do you even get all these books? You’re like a walking supernatural library. Are your parents witches or something?”
Lisa snorted. “No. My parents barely believe in horoscopes. But…” Her expression softened as she traced a finger along the old handwriting.
“My great-grandmother, Maeve O’Rourke, was rumored to have the ‘sight.’ People said she could hear voices from the other side. She was a midwife, but folks in the village used to call her Bean Chaointe—‘the crying woman’—because she’d show up when someone was about to pass. Guess the family kept her books.”
Brandon tilted his head. “So basically, you inherited your great-grandma’s ghost diary.”
“Pretty much.” Lisa smiled wryly. “Never thought I’d actually use it.”
A shiver crept up my spine. “Great. So now we have a haunted basement and a family-heirloom ghost manual.”
Nick leaned against the couch arm. “Let’s just see what it wants so it’ll leave before the floor caves in or something.”
Lisa nodded. “According to this, we need whoever has the strongest connection to the otherworld to ask the spirit why it’s still here.”
Her eyes drifted to me. Everyone else’s followed.
“Why is everyone staring at me again?” I asked, trying not to squirm.
Sam smirked. “You’re the banshee. Isn’t that literally your job description?”
I threw up my hands. “I’ve had the ‘job’ for, like, five minutes. No one gave me a manual.”
Lisa closed the book gently. “Still, you might be able to sense more than we can. Let’s try.”
We headed to the basement together.
The air grew colder with each step down the creaking stairs.
That soft, mournful wailing was still there—like wind trapped in a bottle—but now it sounded closer, more desperate.
The concrete floor still bore the jagged crack from the night before, and a pale mist clung to it like it was exhaling grief.
Even the sunlight from the small window near the ceiling seemed to dim as we entered.
A heavy sadness pressed on my chest the moment I crossed the last step.
I rubbed my arms. “It’s… really sad down here.”
Nick rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I nodded, though the lump in my throat said otherwise. “Yeah. Just feels… heavy.”
We formed a loose circle around the crack in the floor.
Lisa lit a stub of white candle and set it on an upturned paint can.
“Alright,” she said softly. “Aili, try to focus. If you hear anything—words, names—say it out loud.”
I closed my eyes and tried.
I thought maybe my banshee side would kick in like some sixth sense.
But all I heard was what everyone else did: the soft wailing, echoing like distant crying in a tunnel. No words. No visions. Just sorrow so thick it seeped into my bones.
Brandon’s voice was quiet. “Anything?”
I opened my eyes and shook my head. “Nothing. Just the same crying.”
The gloom in the basement seemed to intensify, like it sensed our failure.
Even Sam stopped her usual sarcastic commentary, her eyes suspiciously glassy.
That’s when Lisa suddenly stiffened.
Her pupils dilated slightly, and her breath hitched.
“Lisa?” Nick asked, stepping forward.
She lifted her hand as if telling him not to break the moment.
Then, in a tone that was not quite her own, she whispered, “She can’t hear me. None of you could… until now.”
We all froze.
Brandon shot me a look. I shook my head—I definitely wasn’t doing this.
Lisa’s voice came again, softer, threaded with tears.
“I… left something. I can’t go until it’s where it belongs. My brother’s daughter… she suffers. She needs it. Please.”
Nick’s mouth fell open. “Lisa, are you—”
“It’s not Lisa,” I said quietly. “It’s the Caoineadhán.”
Lisa’s eyes filled with tears though she didn’t seem aware of us anymore.
She pointed a trembling finger toward the far wall behind an old shelf.
“There. A box. Hidden.”
Brandon and Nick hurried over, dragging the rickety shelf aside.
Behind it, wedged into a crumbling niche in the wall, was a small wooden box, its brass clasp tarnished with age.
Brandon carried it carefully into the circle.
I opened it with cautious fingers.
Inside lay an emerald-green pendant necklace, the stone smooth and cool, hanging on a thin gold chain.
Beneath it were neat stacks of old banknotes wrapped in wax paper—more money than I’d ever seen in cash.
Sam let out a low whistle. “Someone was hoarding treasure in your basement.”
Lisa’s voice—still carrying that echo—whispered, “For my niece… Anna. Her husband’s debts… the farm… please give it to her. Tell her… I watched over her.”
A fresh wave of grief washed through the room, thick enough to make my eyes sting.
Then Lisa blinked hard, swayed, and Nick caught her before she stumbled.
She gasped. “Oh my God. I could hear her. I could feel her. She’s so… tired.”
Brandon squeezed her shoulder gently. “You did good. We’ll do the rest.”
The five of us packed into Sam’s beat-up car and drove twenty minutes out of town, following the address Lisa found in the county registry for Anna Callaghan, listed as a relative of the previous homeowner.
The road wound past empty fields until we pulled up to a modest, weather-worn farmhouse.
A woman in her forties with weary eyes opened the door.
“Yes?”
Nick stepped forward, adopting his most polite smile. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. We found something at the old Murphy house—where my friend here just moved in—and we think it belongs to you.”
I held out the wooden box. “We, uh, found it hidden in the basement wall. There was a letter with it but it got ruined. It said this was meant for the family.”
Anna’s gaze dropped to the box, then to the necklace.
Her hands flew to her mouth.
“That necklace… I haven’t seen it since I was a girl. It was my aunt Kathleen’s. She… she died during the flood years ago.”
Tears filled her eyes as she lifted the pendant with trembling fingers.
“She used to tell me it was for me one day. We’ve been drowning in debt trying to keep the farm. I thought… I thought she’d forgotten us.”
Sam cleared her throat awkwardly. “Guess she didn’t.”
Anna let out a shaky laugh that turned into sobs. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means. You might have just saved our home.”
Behind her, two younger kids peeked out from the hallway, eyes wide but smiling shyly at the sight of their mother’s tears of relief.
Anna looked up at us again, eyes shining. “Please tell whoever left this… thank you.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “We will.”
As we turned back toward the car, the air shifted—warmer, lighter.
I glanced back at the farmhouse porch.
Standing just beyond the sunlight was a faint figure of a woman in an old-fashioned green dress, the same emerald pendant glowing at her throat.
Her face was soft with peace, her outline already dissolving into golden light.
She smiled at Anna, then at us, and with a final shimmering sigh, she stepped forward into the brightness and was gone.
Only Lisa and I seemed to see it; Brandon caught my expression and knew without asking.
For a moment, none of us spoke. The silence felt like a blessing.
As Sam started the car, Nick murmured, “Guess not every haunting is evil.”
Brandon met my gaze in the rear-view mirror. “No. Sometimes they just need to be heard.”
I looked out the window as the farmhouse disappeared behind us, feeling a quiet ache in my chest.
For the first time in days, the world felt a little lighter… but I knew not every spirit’s story would end so peacefully.