Mezzanine

| 28 |

Lola and I stared at the painting in silence. My head spun as I tried to process everything. Not only was the portrait I'd been working on for the last three months of the ghost from the factory, but she was related to Lola—she was her great aunt.

"How..." I trailed off, unsure what to say next. "How did Maria die?"

Lola sighed and ran her hand back through her hair, shoving the damp curls out of her eyes. "I mean, I never met her. She died before even my mom was born. My grandma's only ever mentioned her once or twice. She doesn't like to talk about her."

"Why?"

"She died young, Jay." She gave me a pointed look, like the answer should have been obvious. When I didn't respond, she continued. "She was only twenty. It was tragic—a car accident. At least that's what my grandma says. The two times I've heard her mention Maria's accident, she's gone quiet and left the room. I've never pried."

"Oh." It suddenly occurred to me, other than that Lola had a younger sister named Val, I had no idea what her family was like. Did her grandma live with them? What were her parents like? What was her relationship with all of them?

"Are you close with your grandma?" I asked.

A soft smile flickered across her face, like she was thinking of a memory that was sweet. "I am, I guess." She met my gaze, her hazel green irises shimmering through her thick eyelashes. "No one's ever asked me that before."

I smiled back. I wanted to meet her family one day. I wanted to know more about her, and I wanted her to know more about me.

"Okay, so if she died in a car accident," I directed my focus back to the issue at hand, "then what does that have to do with the factory? Why would her spirit be there?"

"Maybe she was summoned as a part of that ritual," Lola suggested. "Based on what we learned from her when we were there, she seems like she's trapped. She needs help to get out." She paused, furrowing her brow. "She's in pain." Her voice hitched, like she was holding back a hiccup or a sob.

I didn't know what was going through her mind, but I could imagine. Now that she knew the ghost was the spirit of her great aunt, it pained her more to think about it. Lola was related to her, and that meant something.

Family meant something.

"That's why we've been singled out," I whispered.

"What?"

"That's why we suddenly have the ability to read minds, and my older brother before me. It's because we're related to George and Maria." I paused, remembering how the planchette on the Ouija board reacted when I asked if the second spirit was George. "They're the two ghosts at the factory."

"And we're their family." Lola narrowed her eyes. "But why mind reading? Being related explains why us, but it doesn't explain the ability—how we developed it and its purpose. What's the reason?"

"It must have something to do with that ritual George and the rest of the factory workers died in," I said.

I thought about the symbols carved into the hearth and painted on the Ouija board, specifically the one Carter and I read about online—the hourglass with eyes. There had been an occult group in the early nineteen hundreds that believed in a demon associated with it. In addition to communication with demons, they also practiced mind control. Could some part of the ritual involve granting the ability to read minds?

"But what about the others?" Lola's voice stirred me from my thoughts.

"Huh?"

"Our classmates. Why Andy and Evelyn? Is there something more to that too?"