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“Phil Giunta’s paranormal novel, By Your Side, is a superb introduction to his work. Think ‘Ghost Hunters’ … but more realistic. The characters are thoroughly believable, the plot is expertly constructed, and the twists and turns keep you flipping pages. If you enjoy reading ghost stories, you’ll enjoy this novel. Highly recommended!” —Weldon Burge, Author of Harvester of Sorrow
I hope you enjoy the following scene from Chapter Nine – The Fate of the Vernons
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but how could two dead girls end up neatly tucked in their beds?” After turning off the lights, Amy sat against the edge of Elias’s desk and leveled her IR camera at the opposite end of the room where Miranda had seen the Vernon girls lying in bloody repose.
From the comfort of the suede office chair, Miranda shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“It’s interesting that you had visions in specific rooms, as if what happened back then occurred in this house.”
“Well, anywhere we go here, we’re in the vicinity of those events,” Miranda said. “For example, the basement in my vision wasn’t laid out like what’s down there now. It was the Vernons’ basement. At least part of this house occupies the same space as theirs did. From what I saw, their house was perpendicular to this one. It faced the woods, not the street, but there was still a second-story room right about where we’re sitting.”
“Maybe Eddie was right earlier,” Amy said. “Maybe Jeff Vernon doesn’t know that this isn’t his house.”
Miranda held up her digital voice recorder. “Now would be a good time to ask him.”
“Ask me what, ladies?”
She jolted at the new voice, which should have sent her rolling backward if the chair still had casters instead of worn wooden legs. She slid from the orange vinyl seat and backed into what should have been Elias’s desk, but it was gone—as was Amy. The mint green dressers had returned.
Miranda dragged the chair toward her, a protective barricade between herself and the murderer in the doorway. Jeff Vernon didn’t acknowledge her at all but smiled at his daughters sitting on the floor, books strewn about.
Yellow walls were aglow with daylight from open windows. A warm breeze rustled mint green curtains as Jeff entered the room. Heat flared in Miranda’s face, as one might experience when turning a corner and nearly colliding with a sworn enemy. Rubbing his bloodshot brown eyes, Jeff joined his daughters on the floor.
“It’s the last week of summer reading club,” one of the girls said. “And we’re learning the planets, but Natalie’s having a hard time keeping them in order.”
“You didn’t get it right either,” her sister cried.
Jeff held up his hands. “OK. Settle down. Did Mrs. Prembel teach you a trick to memorizing the order of the planets?”
“Yes,” Natalie said. “It goes like this, ‘My Very Excellent Memory Just Served Up Nine Planets.’”
“Right, so what are they?”
“Um, Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.”
“Almost right,” Jeff said. “You just need to swap Mercury and Mars. Mercury is closest to the sun. Think of it like this. When you’re sick and we take your temperature, you know that silver stuff in the thermometer? That’s called mercury. When you have a fever, the mercury rises because of the heat. So when you think of mercury, think of heat.” He raised a hand toward the windows. “The sun is hot, and the planet Mercury is closest to it.”
It occurred to Miranda that all she knew of Jeff Vernon came from tragic newspaper articles and a cryptic warning from his wife’s ghost. Here and now, Jeff was a human being, a caring father. He was also a broken man with slumped posture that signified resignation to the suffering that life had inflicted upon him. Long sideburns extended from an unkempt mane of chestnut hair and ended in dense stubble. His gray shirt sagged from his gaunt frame while the waistline of his navy blue pants was bunched up under a white belt. Rapid weight loss from the stress of the embezzlement trial and despair at the loss of his son, no doubt. Miranda sensed his detachment from the world and knew he was no longer engaged in living, which could only mean one thing.
This was the day.
“You know, girls, I’ve been thinking a lot about Adam,” Jeff said. “I miss him and I know you do, too.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “I, uh… I was thinking maybe there was a way we could be with him again. Would you like that?”
“Adam was sick, Daddy,” Carla said. “You and Mommy said so.”
“They took him from me. From us.” Jeff struggled to catch his breath. “I wasn’t there when he died because they lied about me. People I trusted for nine years turned on me and because of them, my son died alone. They destroyed my family.”
By this time, he was mumbling to himself. Everyone else was frozen in place, staring at him, including Miranda. Jeff wiped his eyes. “Someday, they’ll get theirs, but I know a way we can be together again with Adam.”
“What about Mommy?” Natalie asked.
“She’ll join us later.”
“What do we need to do?”
Jeff pulled himself to his feet. “Just close your eyes.”
Miranda shrank into the corner and slid to the floor. “No, please. Don’t make me watch this. I know what happened. I don’t need to see it.” The twins exchanged confused glanced before shutting their eyes. “If only I could grab you both and run away from here.”
That was impossible, of course. The history that played out before her was immutable, a permanent scar on the land. It was no different than what she had experienced at the Emery Zoo a few days ago and a hundred places before that. Miranda had long since become inured to glimpses of violence in her visions, but never to the horror of watching children die.
While birds sang and curtains fluttered in a summer breeze, two ten-year-old girls sat on the floor, oblivious to their fate.
In the doorway, their father reached around for the pump-action shotgun.