Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 "Is it working?" Lydia's voice asked through the tablet. "Can you see?" "Try not to move so much!" Abbi said. "The video's all wobbly." Abbi's tablet was open in front of her on the kitchen table. Barkley was playing with a stuffed toy at her feet. Meanwhile, Lydia and Daniel were upstairs again with Abbi's phone and mic. Their own phones were duct-taped to the hard hats they were wearing, which they'd found in the mudroom. Through the twins' phone cameras, she could see everything they were seeing!

She couldn't be with them, and a video call was the next-best option. But whenever they moved too much, the video got all blurry. It was hard to make out details. "Can you lean closer, Lydia? Just a bit?" The video feed on the left of Abbi's screen zoomed in. "No, no! That's too much! I just need to see the app better." The plan was supposed to be simple: Lydia and Daniel would start recording in the same

spot as before, but this time they would stay with the equipment. Abbi was hoping she'd be able to see or hear something useful. But it was hard to make sure the settings were right from here! "Ugh," Abbi said. "If I could just be up there with you, this would be easy!" Daniel swung around, and his face appeared in his video feed. He looked worried. "Want us to come back down? We can just play a game or something instead." Abbi chewed on her lip. She didn't want to be the reason they stopped searching.

Just then, the strange noise blared through the screen! Barkley and Lydia yelped at the same time. "Sorry!" Lydia said. "I don't know what I pressed! Let me try to turn it off."

"Wait! This is good," Abbi said. "We can follow the sound." Daniel turned the volume down so it wasn't blaring anymore. "Follow it how?" he asked. Abbi explained that if he and Lydia walked around with the phone, they could see whether the sound got louder or quieter by looking at the waves in the graph. The higher the wave, the closer they were to the source. "It's like playing hot or cold," Daniel said. Abbi snapped her fingers. "Exactly. Now, follow that noise!"

The good news was that the sound was definitely coming from inside the house. The bad news? Lydia refused to go anywhere near it. "I didn't sign up for chasing a ghost!" Daniel sighed. "If we're gonna prove there isn't a ghost, we have to find out what is making the noise." "Okay, so you can go by yourself." She shoved Abbi's phone and mic into Daniel's hands. He shoved them right back. "No!" Daniel said. "We can't split up! That's rule number one of scary movies." "So you are scared!" Lydia cried.