“Miss Quinn?” My breathing is back to normal after I saw my client standing in front of me. “Mr. Hayes?” He chuckles and walks towards me. “I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” I fake a smile and shake my head. He leads the way to their house.

“Thank you for accepting the job. A lot of shamans quit after seeing our house. I hope you are not like them” he smiles. Poor man, I bet he just wanted to remove all the memories of this house and move on. I cannot image myself living in a place where I know I will always remember the person I lost.

As I expected, the place was abandoned for years. No one even bothered to clean it up and instead covered the furnitures with white cloth. He tries to open the lights, but these are not working anymore. He laughs shyly, “sorry, I do not remember the last time I paid for the electricity since no one is home anyways.”

“Sorry to ask, but when did you wife die?” He sighs and looks like he wants to refuse to answer. I awkwardly smile, “sorry”. He gets the flashlight from his pocket and looks at me. “2015, 4 years ago” I nod, “and she hasn’t left since then”

I watch him as he sadly looks at the picture frames on the table. “I miss her so much” he says. “It was all too sudden. It all happened when I was too busy with work. I rarely have a chance to go home. But when she told me that she was pregnant, I immediately left my work and went to her.”

He leads the way to their room, which is located in the second floor of the house. “But when I arrived, it was too late.” I look at him with confusion, “what happened?” He sighs and starts to wipe his tears. I did not notice that he was already crying since it is too dark. “The doctors said that she fell form the stairs. I felt so bad. If I was just there, I could have taken care of her and our baby”

He stops walking. “This is our room. Those who were interested to buy the house said that they saw or heard something here.” I look around, I expected that the room will have a sad atmosphere. Instead, I felt anger. Maybe she was angry that she was alone all this time. Maybe the reason she is still staying here is because she cannot leave her husband or she blames him for not being there for her?

Mr. Hayes notice that I was thinking so he decided to give me space. “I will be downstairs if you need me” I smile and watch him leave the room. The moment he closes the door, I open my bag to get my ritual materials. “Ms. Ingrid? Are you here?”

“I did not mean any harm. Your husband contacted me and he just wants you to go somewhere nicer, a place where you can finally relax and have a piece of mind.” I expected a reply or a warm welcome, but all I can hear is her laugh. “You are the 14th shaman who walked into our house”

I honestly did not expect her to look like this. She is gorgeous and for some reason, I feel bad that she has to die so early. She is wearing a white night gown. “I heard what happened” I said, hoping to get her good side. She laughs louder and smirks at me. “And just like the rest of them, you believed him”

I usually do not care about my client’s personal life, but for some reason, I am curious what really happened to Ms. Ingrid. “I am not going with you, shaman.” She says and sits on the bed. “I will stay here until he dies.”

I nod in understanding and grabs a chair across her. “Look, I understand that you are mad at him for leaving you like that, but I need to do my job. I actually need the money” She raises an eyebrow. “So you are saying that you’d rather get his trash money than help me get justice?”

“What are you saying?” I ask her. “He told you I fell from the stairs, right?” I nod. “He looks so sad and I’m sure he regrets it” I reply. I need to get this over with. I do not want to waste my effort, and I will never let my money go.

Ingrid crosses her arms. “You badly need the money, huh?” I am surprised, how did she know? I sigh, I guess I need to be honest with her. “Yes” She nods, “I understand. I have a special deal for you”

I know I already made it clear that I love earning money and this is one of the best examples of how much I love it. For the first time in my three years of being a shaman, I agreed to make a deal with a ghost. If this goes well, I can get both Ingrid and Hayes’ money. Double win for me!

“What can I do for you?” I ask my new client. “I want Hayes to pay for his sins. I want him to go to jail for killing me and my child”. I nod, but deep inside I am thinking of a way how I can do her request. “I know you are still doubtful because Hayes is such a great actor. But I hope that after hearing my side of the story, you will believe me”

To be honest, I am not good at analyzing people or ghosts so I will just go with my gut feeling. “Hayes and I were married for 6 years. We were happy when we were still living in the city but we decided to move here after he bought the house. I love this house. We built so many memories here”

The room suddenly has light as if I was back in time. Everything is clean and brand new. The room smells nice too. “We lived here for 5 years until Hayes was offered a job back in the city. He has no choice but to leave me. At first, it was okay. He calls me every day and video calls before going to sleep.”

I can see the old Ingrid happily cleaning the house while waiting for Hayes to call her. “But everything suddenly changed. He was too busy to call and never had the chance to visit me for a month.” The old Ingrid is now checking her period tracker and realize that she is delayed. She buys a pregnancy test and she is so happy that the result is 2 lines.

She tries calling Hayes but he is not answering the call. “I was so excited to break the news to him so I decided to go to the city.” She continues the story. The room becomes dark again. “But when I reached his office, I saw him kissing another woman. I do not know who she is but I guess what I saw was enough for me to say that he was cheating.”

She pauses and the atmosphere in the room becomes worse than before. “Instead of going to him, I went back home. I was so angry at him because I know I deserved better. I was a good wife. I left everything just for him.”

Now I understand her grudge. I mean, leaving her here alone was already bad enough. I never had a relationship before so I cannot relate much, but seeing Ingrid cry in front of me is already enough for me to feel how painful it was. “What happened next?” I ask her. “I do not want my child to grow up without a father so I decided to just tell him the truth. He immediately rode the bus home. I expected him to be happy with the news, but I was wrong. He was so mad that he told me to abort it.”

I cannot believe what I am hearing. Mr. Hayes looks like a loyal man who would do everything for his family. I guess he is indeed a great actor. “I refused of course. Then, I told him about his mistress. I threatened him that I will expose his wrongdoings so he will leave my child alone. All I wanted was to fix what we have. For him to stay by my side again.”

Ingrid takes me by the stairs. I can see her rushing downstairs to get away from her husband who looks scary as hell. He stops her midway. Instead of asking nicely, he holds her arm, telling her to just quietly abort the child and leave his mistress alone. Ingrid starts to cry and tries to move away but his grip is too tight. She starts screaming and calling for help. Hayes then pushes her, leading to her death. He sighs and grabs her legs. He takes the body outside and buries it in the garden.

“I hope you believe me now.” Ingrid says and we are back in the room. My heart is pounding. I immediately stand and slowly walks to the door. “Where are the other shamans?” I ask. Ingrid just points the garden where her and the other shamans' bodies were buried.

Just then, the door opens. I run to the corner of the room. “Looks like she told you the truth” he says and walks to me. There is nowhere I can go. The windows are locked. I am already in the corner of the room. There are no things I can grab and even my bag does not have anything useful.

He smirks and gets something from his pocket. It is a gun. He then points it at me. This is the end. I guess saving those souls did not end up helping me at all. I close my eyes until I hear Ingrid calling me. “Run!” Then, books from the other side of the room flew to Hayes’ direction. I run as fast as I could. But as I mentioned earlier, I am not physically active and the moment I reach the stairs, I slip and fall.

I can hear voices around me. Is this the afterlife? Or am I in hell? “I am very thankful that you were there Lucas” I hear my mom. I slowly open my eyes and all I can see is the white ceiling. “She’s awake”

I turn my head and see my mom and Lucas, both looking worried. “Thank God you’re okay” my mom holds my hand. I look at Lucas who looks like a zombie. “I’ll go call the doctor” my mom says and leaves the room.

“What happened?” I ask. “What were you doing in that mansion? Who was that guy?” I do not know how to tell him the truth, and I am not sure that he will believe me either. He notices that I am not in the mood to talk so he sits beside me instead. “You called me and told me where you are. Good thing I was just a few minutes away with my friends. We saw a guy carrying you out of the house. You were bleeding, Quinn! I thought I’m going to lose you.”

I look at him dumbfounded. I called him? How? Hayes attacked me even before I can go down the stairs. Was it Ingrid or the other shamans? I never knew the answer.

The doctor told me that I got a bump in my head because of the hit but other than that I am perfectly fine. I am able to go out the hospital the next day. I am so happy that I decided to treat Lucas to our favorite Korean store.

“Hi! I am sorry I was late” he says as he runs to me. He sits across me while he wipes his sweat. “It’s okay. I’ll order now. Wait for me” I say and stands up. I am about to walk away when I notice something.

Something is definitely not right with Lucas. I look at him intensely. He notices this and looks at me. “Why?” I cup my mouth. I slowly hold his wrist and my whole world stops when I realize that there is no pulse.

Lucas is dead.