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Murmurs in the Walls is a serial paranormal mystery novella featuring Judith Temple, psychic detective. This is Season 3 of Case Files of a Psychic Detective.
While Murmurs in the Walls can be read as a standalone story, you may appreciate the characters and their interactions more if you are familiar with Judith’s previous adventures, Down in the Holler and Beasts of the Field.
Season 1, Down in the Holler, is now behind a paywall but will soon be available in paperback and e-book. Season 2, Beasts of the Field, is currently free to read! Click here to read Beasts of the Field.
← In Episode II: The Tour, Judith witnessed strange phenomena when she visited a reportedly haunted house.
“What’s that thing? Is that a ghost detector?” Brian bounced on the balls of his feet, dancing around Judith as she pulled a walkie-talkie-sized device from her purse.
“It’s an electromagnetic field detector.”
“It detects ghosts?”
“No,” Judith said, switching it on. “It detects electromagnetic fields. EMF meters don’t detect the presence of apparitions or hauntings; they detect electromagnetic fields and rule out natural causes for phenomena such as your flickering lights.”
Holding the device in her hand, Judith walked slowly toward a lamp which stood in the corner of the living room. As she approached, its light flickered and dimmed, emitting a faint buzzing sound, and the handheld EMF meter began to beep, its numbers spiking.
“Is there a ghost in the lamp?” Brian said, standing just behind Judith’s shoulder.
“As I said, this doesn’t detect ghosts.” Judith held the device up to the lamp’s outlet. “But it may detect faulty electrical wiring.”
Taking along the EMF meter and a handheld laser thermometer, Judith made her way through the house, checking every socket and outlet, comparing the temperatures of the cold spots to those of the rest of the house, and jotting down her recordings in her notebook. While Kortney watched from the kitchen, a crease between her eyebrows and her arms crossed, Brian followed close at Judith’s heels, his eyes bright and his questions, ranging from insightful to silly, bubbling out of him without forethought or discrimination.
“Is that a laser gun?”
“No,” Judith said. “It’s an infrared laser thermometer.”
“Can it shoot away ghosts?”
“No, it measures temperature.”
“What if the ghost stuff goes away while you’re here but comes back after you leave?”
“That is the purpose of making numerous investigative trips, so that I maximize my chances of witnessing the reported phenomena.”
To her own surprise, Judith did not find Brian’s constant questions and interruptions as disruptive as she would have thought. Some of his ideas were fanciful, and he clearly was invested in ensuring that his house was ‘haunted’, but his unflagging interest and good-natured acceptance of her matter-of-fact answers was refreshing, and even helped her to verbalize her thought process in a way she often did not. Judith had noticed a similar phenomenon with her nephews, her sister Constance’s three boys. While the noise and mess and constant battling increased her cortisol levels whenever she spent any significant amount of time in her sister’s home, she had found that her nephews’ constant stream of questions, sometimes banal and sometimes existential, bothered her much less than they annoyed her sister. As long as the questioner was interested in listening to the answer, she had no problem explaining why squirrels have tails but humans don’t, or what happened to Bambi’s mom, or where bubbles come from, or why there are three different ways to write the word to.
“What do you do to investigate movin’ objects?” came Courtney’s voice behind them, startling Judith. “That’s been gettin’ worse lately.”
“Is this in reference to objects not being where you left them?” Judith said. “I would need to witness the phenomena occurring and have some way of being certain that the object hadn’t been moved by normal means.”
Kortney’s frown deepened. “So it’s just about luck, then. You bein’ in the right place at the right time.”
“Not entirely. As I told Brian, part of my reasoning behind making numerous visits to the house is to maximize my chances of witnessing the phenomena.”
With a slow nod, her arms still crossed, Kortney turned and made her way back to the kitchen.
“What’s the walkie-talkie thing tellin’ you?” Brian said, standing on tiptoe to see the numbers.
“That your house may be in need of some electrical work.”
A fraction of Brian’s enthusiasm dropped from his face. “What about the temperature gun thing?”
“The laser thermometer is showing that your HVAC is heating the house unevenly, resulting in cold spots, particularly near vents.”
“Oh.”
An uncomfortable and illogical twinge of guilt snagged in Judith’s chest at the disappointment in Brian’s voice.
From the living room came a faint crash.
“Brian, was that you?” Kortney called.
“No, mama. I ain’t even in there.”
“But,” Judith said, “there is definitely at least one place memory, or haunting, in the house. I witnessed it myself.”
“The guy in my room!”
“Exactly.” Judith raised her voice, directing her words to Kortney in the kitchen. “I haven’t had much luck finding out details yet about previous owners, aside from a list of names I found on a real estate website. Do your neighbors know anything?”
“Most of ’em ain’t been livin’ here but a few years,” Kortney said, making her way down the hall toward them, her face becoming more animated. “But a couple older ladies who been here longer remember the last coupl’a people who lived in this house. The guy who lived here right before us, who still owns the place, he’s the one who decided to start rentin’ the place out. We’re the first renters. Before him, a retired couple lived here and had their grandkids over most weekends. They moved out after ’bout five years or so. Before them, a lady lived here alone for a decade or two. And before her, there was a guy who lived here part time and kept it as his country home. That’s as far back as they remembered.”
“Did they remember anything unusual or suspicious about any of the previous owners?”
“You’d have to talk to ’em yourself,” Kortney said, shaking her head. “Those old ladies got so much gossip stored up in their heads, I couldn’t sort through it all. Took me an hour of chattin’ and two glasses of sweet tea just to get what I told you now.”
Judith did her utmost to suppress a grimace, though from previous experience she knew that her attempt was likely futile. The prospect of small talk, or even targeted questioning, with chatty old ladies was not something she relished. She’d read plenty of detective stories which sang the praises of nosy little old ladies as excellent sources of case-solving gossip, and she appreciated the idea in principle. But she much preferred for someone else to report the highlights of the slew of gossip and memories than to have to sit through hours of tangential reminiscences herself.
“Yes, I can make time to go talk with them,” she said, trying not to grumble. “But first, I’d like to take a look at the converted garage.”
“You think there’s a ghost in there, makin’ everybody dizzy?” Brian said, bouncing again. “Or maybe there’s, like, slime in the walls or toxic mushrooms or somethin’, makin’ everybody feel sick.”
“Possible, though I wouldn’t say plausible.” Judith reached into her bulging canvas bag and pulled out a level, protractor, and framing square. “I want to check into some other theories first.”
When Judith, queasy and slightly green, finished her examination of the “dizzy room”, she reentered the house to find a spread of sandwiches and sweet tea on the kitchen table.
“I didn’t know what you like, so I made a coupl’a different kindsa sandwiches with what we had,” Kortney said.
“Peanut butter and jelly?” Brian dashed up to the table.
“Let the guest pick first, Brian.”
“Thank you.” Judith said, though her stomach rolled at the thought of putting anything into it immediately. She plucked a ham and cheese sandwich from the plate, hoping she could nibble at it without appearing rude while her stomach returned to its baseline. “While we eat, I think I may have found solutions to most of your problems.”
“Already?” Kortney’s eyes widened, and she plopped into a chair. Brian snatched a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and darted to his own place at the small kitchen table. “The movin’ stuff and flickerin’ lights and cold spots, and everythin’? And the man Brian’s been seein’?”
“I’ll still need to do more research into the man,” Judith said. She took a breath, preparing to spout her simplified-for-the-general-public spiel. “That is what in paranormal circles is called a haunting or place memory. Its salient characteristic is that, while the viewer might see, hear, feel, or even smell a person, the person does not interact with the viewer and does or says the same thing every time they appear. The theory is that some events, often those with strong emotional significance, become tied to a certain place, almost like a recording. Those events then may replay over and over again in that same place. Many famous alleged ‘haunted houses’ have place memories enmeshed with them. Apparitions, in which the actual spirit of a living or dead person appears and can interact with the viewer, are a different phenomenon, which I don’t think is relevant to your case.”
“Wait,” Brian said through a mouthful of bread and peanut butter, “livin’ or dead? You mean, like, teleportation or – what’s that word, mom, when somebody’s in two places at once?”
“I assume you mean bilocation,” Judith said. “Teleportation has nothing to do with it. Most times when apparitions of a living person occur, it is due to what is known as a crisis apparition, when a living person is near death or in peril and appears to a friend, family member, or someone else who can help them. But that is neither here nor there. The man you have witnessed, Brian, is part of a place memory attached to this house. It is possible to remove the place memory so that it no longer disturbs you, but that is not my area of expertise. I will need to consult with my colleague. I would like to do more research into the previous owners, but I can do that without having to take up more of your time.”
Judith shifted in her seat but knew better than to blurt out, One of the previous owners was a murderous criminal. Kortney and Brian wouldn’t be able to provide any helpful information in that quarter, and the knowledge certainly wouldn’t help them to sleep more soundly at night. The glint of the knife –
Long and sharp and surging toward her through the dark
– the thick squelch it made as it pierced the sandy-haired man’s stomach –
Slicing, stabbing pain just above her clavicle, so dangerously close to her neck
– shot through Judith’s memories again, and, hands shaking, she set her untouched sandwich back on her plate.
She squeezed her hands together in her lap. “I do, however, have an explanation for the other phenomena.”
Brian, kneeling on his chair, grabbed another sandwich. “Is a ghost tryin’a scare us away?”
“No. Ms. – Kortney, I mean – as I mentioned to Brian earlier, your HVAC is unevenly heating the house, resulting in cold spots. And you have faulty electrical wiring. I would recommend finding a good electrician.”
“Faulty wirin’?” Kortney frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
“In terms of what is wrong with it on a technical level, I have no idea. I have very limited knowledge of electric wiring. But the EMF meter recorded extremely variable readings at your outlets and devices, and the readings did not stay stable when I tested them a second time a few minutes later. In several places, the readings were very high the first time I neared the outlet but low when I came near later. That variability may account for the flickering lights. But again, I think you should consult a professional, as I have no idea what could be causing that.”
“Oh.” Kortney chewed her lip, her eyes dropping to the faded wood of the secondhand table, and a sudden, stabbing headache pierced Judith’s forehead.
Kortney sitting at this very table, frowning at a pile of bills, looking back and forth between the little white slips of paper and her glowing laptop screen, the digits on her bank statement creeping lower, lower –
The seizing pain eased, and Judith sucked in a quick breath. Kortney still stared at the table, plucking with her fingernail at a loose chip of varnish.
Her skin squirming with an uncomfortable sensation, Judith looked more closely at the small house. All the furniture was faded, outdated, probably gifted or thrifted. The décor, while homey and inviting, looked to be sourced from dollar stores or secondhand shops. With the suddenness of a sinking stone, Judith realized that an electrician was not in the cards for Kortney and Brian.
“I also figured out why the converted garage causes dizziness,” Judith said, her words spilling out of her in a torrent that did little to disguise her discomfort. “Whoever built the garage didn’t do it properly. They didn’t make sure it was level with the rest of the house. Or perhaps they realized that it wasn’t level but adjusted the angles slightly to make it seem as if it was.”
“I’m sorry.” Kortney’s gaze lifted from the table once again. “I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
“The reason the room is disorienting is that it’s essentially an optical illusion.” Judith reached into the canvas bag, which she had hung over the back of her chair, and pulled out her level and protractor. “None of the floors or ceilings in that room are ninety-degree angles. They’re close – anywhere from eighty-seven to ninety-five degrees, give or take. But the whole garage is tilted. Whoever built it adjusted the angles of the walls and ceiling just enough to make the room appear level, even though it’s actually tilted. That’s why it’s uncomfortable to be in the room. Your body knows it’s standing on a tilted surface, but your eyes are telling you that it’s even with the rest of the house.”
“No way,” Kortney breathed.
Without a word, Brian dashed from his seat and bolted for the door to the converted garage. Her chair scraping back, Kortney followed him, Judith trailing behind.
When Judith made it to the door, Brian was already squatting by the wall, examining the corner. “It’s the wrong angle; I can tell!”
“It’s only slightly off-kilter,” Judith said. “It would be extremely difficult to see it without some kind of tool.”
“I can see it!”
“That’s crazy,” Kortney said, more to herself than to Judith. Stepping down the steps into the room, she steadied herself against the wall and tilted her head. “But yeah, it makes sense. That’s really all it is?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know that there’s much you can do to fix it.” Judith rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, knowing that she was wading into awkward territory but unsure how to navigate it. “Leveling out a garage space like this would be very expensive and probably not worth the time and expense.”
“What about the movin’ stuff?” Kortney turned suddenly, looking intently at Judith. “Have you figured that out?”
“You’ve mentioned moving objects several times,” Judith said, “but unfortunately I haven’t witnessed it myself. I think it’s likely that objects are being accidentally moved or misplaced, or that Brian may use items and leave them around the house. Then, when you go to look for them, they are not where you left them.”
The creases in Kortney’s soft, round face deepened. “That ain’t what I’m talkin’ about.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know, it just – you know, stuff moves ’n falls over. An’ – I don’t know.”
Judith caught a glimpse of Brian, kneeling on the concrete floor and watching his mother, his freckled face suddenly somber.
“I could make another visit,” Judith said, though from a logical standpoint she highly doubted whether another visit would yield different results.
“That would – that would be an extra cost, right?” Kortney made her way back up the steps, passed Judith, and strode into the house.
“Not – no, it’s included in – in what you’ve already paid.” Judith wasn’t adept at bending the truth. It boggled her mind, sometimes, that there were people who made a living out of malicious lying. She could barely even manage a small mistruth for a worthwhile cause.
Judith followed Kortney into the kitchen. “If you could keep a record – just in a notebook or on a sheet of paper – of all the times that objects fall or are not where you expect them to be, then I can consult with you over the phone.”
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe.” Kortney sliced through an apple, her knife striking the cutting board with a slap.
Pressing her fingernails into her palm, Judith edged toward the door, calculating how to leave without worsening the offense it appeared she had already caused. “Of course, if you would prefer I do another in-person consultation, that could be arranged.”
“No. I don’t need that. Thanks.”
“Well, then –” Judith bit her lip and reached for her canvas bag, when a thump came from the direction of the converted garage.
Then a crash, a shattering.
“Brian?” Abandoning the knife and the half-cut apple, Kortney moved toward the door.
Instinctively, despite her desire to escape to her car and process the awkward conversation with Kortney in privacy, Judith followed the noise.
In the doorway of the converted garage, Kortney stopped and stood still, her eyes wide. Judith peered over Kortney’s shoulder, and her stomach clenched, her skin cascaded in ice, an adrenaline-fueled rush of shock and confusion.
Thin shards of a cheap glass vase lay scattered like eggshells on the concrete floor. A canvas with Live Laugh Love calligraphed across it in flaking paint was on the floor, across the room from where it had originally hung. In the corner where he’d been kneeling when they left, Brian huddled, his eyes so wide they were more white than green.
As Judith watched, a book shot off the coffee table, hurling itself through the air and ricocheting off the wall before flopping to the ground with a thud. A table lamp tipped over, landing with the crash of a shattered lightbulb. Other objects – a picture frame, a throw pillow, a small notebook – hurtled through the air as though thrown, smacking into walls and shelves, knocking over other items in their path.
Forcing herself to breathe, Judith steadied herself with a hand on the doorframe. “Is this what you were talking about?”
Kortney’s mouth hung open, her face slack. “Yeah,” she managed. “This is – it’s more, a lot more, but – Yeah, this is exactly what I was talkin’ about.”
Thank you so much for stopping by the read Murmurs in the Walls! If you enjoyed this episode, please let me know with a like, comment, or restack!
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→ Keep reading! Episode IV: The Meatloaf
It was really considerate of the ghost (or whatever it ends up being) to understand Courtney's financial situation to make sure it moved stuff around at the end of this consultation, so she didn't have to pay for another one.
What perfect timing for the "ghost" to wreak havoc!