Madison raked her fingers back through her hair and stared at the computer screen, reading through the email again just to make sure that she had understood the message. She gave a short laugh when she realized that she had, indeed, read it correctly and that the people who sent it were absolutely serious about their offer.
It had been less than a week since her grandmother had left her the sprawling mansion on the hill at the edge of town, but she was already having a paranormal group asking permission to do an investigation. She wasn't sure if she should be offended at their hastiness, or feel bad that they had nothing better to do with their careers than cruise the obituaries and real estate logs waiting to pounce on whoever inherited the next creepy old house.
Going through the email one more time just for good measure, Madison reached across the desk to pick up her phone. She dialed her best friend and didn't bother to wait for a greeting.
"What do you know about Noah Hix?" she asked as soon as she heard the click that indicated Dianna had picked up the phone.
"Hi, Madison. Are you feeling better?"
"Yes, yes, yes. Hello, I'm alive, my grandmother still isn't, but there are silver linings and rainbows after the storm in my future. What do you know about Noah Hix?"
"Mourning doesn't do good things for you."
"Does mourning usually do good things for people, Dianna?"
There was a long pause and Madison could almost see the expression on her best friend's face as the question churned through the gears in her mind.
"No."
"Ok, then. What do you know about Noah Hix?"
The truth was Madison wouldn't really describe herself as being "in mourning". She hadn't seen her grandmother in months after her condition disintegrated so far that she didn't even resemble the woman Madison had always known, and in that time she had already had the opportunity to mourn her. Her death was just a formality and by the time it happened, Madison had already worked through all of the emotions and accepted it.
"You mean the gorgeous paranormal investigator?"
"I'm assuming that's the one."
"He has his own web show where he goes to haunted locations and does paranormal investigations and then posts the evidence. It's really fascinating. Why do you want to know?"
Dianna's voice had gone from dreamy to confused between the two sentences. She knew that Madison was the consummate skeptic when it came to anything having to do with the paranormal.
"It seems that Mr. Hix and his team want to do an investigation at Grandma's old house. Apparently there have been legends lurking around the place for the last couple centuries and they have been trying to set up an investigation for years, but Grandma would never give them the time of day."
"So they're contacting you hoping for a different response?"
"Evidently. I guess they've been cyber-stalking the house and found out that Grandma died and left it to me so they decided they would swoop in and try again."
"That seems…tacky. Are you going to do it?"
Madison sighed. She had clicked through the link at the bottom of the email that connected her to the website of the group and was browsing through some of the images. There seemed to be an abundance of vaguely humanlike shadows and doors standing partially open, but with dramatic captions that told her whoever posted the pictures had apparently read far more into the pictures.
"I'm not sure. I mean, if Grandma didn't want them doing it, I'm sure she had her reasons."
"I doubt it. Grandma didn't have to have a reason for anything. She'd refuse a package delivery for something she ordered just for the fun of it."
"That's true. I guess I'm just torn. You know how I feel about all of this paranormal stuff."
"That it's bull-honkey?"
"I don't think that's a phrase I would ever use to describe it, but yes, that's the basic idea."
"Actually, that's the exact phrase you used. I wrote it down. September 17, Madison talking about paranormal investigations…bull…honkey."
"That's written on your calendar?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm glad to know you're chronicling my life in such detail."
"Only the outlying moments. I'm keeping track to screen for early-onset Alzheimer's."
"Dianna, just because your neighbor said one weird thing, you said she had Alzheimer's, and it turned out that she actually did does not mean that that’s how it always works out. Anyway," Madison lifted her voice a little to try to regain control of the conversation, "The point is that this Noah guy wants to meet with me to discuss filming at the house for his Halloween special, and I think I might be considering it."
"But I thought it was all bull-honkey?"
"Bull-honkey aside, they are offering to pay me to rent the place out for three days and to appear with them in their evidence video."
"Ooo! Hello sexy ghost hunter, goodbye student loan debt."
"Exactly my thought process."
They chatted for a few more minutes before Madison hung up the phone and turned her attention fully to the website on her computer screen. The investigator certainly was beautiful, she couldn't deny that. She just wasn't sure all the bad-ass black clothing in the world and even eyes and lips that could probably charm the panties right off the ghosts of the schoolmarms that once taught at her grandmother's mansion could make her get over the ridiculousness of the concept of a paranormal investigation.