The Spirits Knew Who Was Lying Chapter 07

The Spirits Knew Who Was Lying Chapter 07 The Price

Her face was bone-white.

“Please help me. I’ll pay. I’ll pay anything.”

She fumbled for her phone, already pulling up the transfer screen. I caught her wrist and held it still. They I lit an incense stick and traced it slowly around her body.

Smoke curled through the air. A shape began to form beside her.

Lily gasped, clutching my arm. “Is that him? Is that the one?”

These past two days, every time I close my eyes, I hear voices. They keep asking me to send them things. I’m terrified.”

“I didn’t even believe in any of this. But then things started happening. I’d go to the bathroom and he’d be there. I’d wash my hands and the tap would run red. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

She was crying now, tears cutting tracks through her pale skin.

I frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be a medium? Send them on their way. Perform the rituals. It’s not complicated.”

Her voice cracked. “I don’t know how.”

The words hung in the air.

Lily Shaw, the internet’s beloved spirit speaker, the woman who claimed she could speak to the dead with a single touch-didn’t know how to send them back.

She was crumbling right in front of me.

I took out a small vial and anointed her eyes. When she turned and saw what had been standing beside her this whole time, her eyes rolled back. She crumpled to the ground.

I opened my livestream, splashed water on her face, and watched her jerk awake.

The chat exploded the moment they recognized her.

“Wait-that’s Lily Shaw? Lore, what are you doing? Leave her alone!”

“This woman is so jealous she’d actually hurt someone?”

I sighed and shook my head.

Lily blinked up at me, disoriented. Then she remembered. Her head whipped around, scanning the space beside her. Her hand shot out and grabbed mine.

“Is he gone? Did you send him away?”

I poured her a cup of warm water. Her fingers were ice-cold. The moment she wrapped them around the cup, frost bloomed across the ceramic. She sat there trembling, afraid to move

“Thirty thousand dollars. I’ll help you.”

Her eyes went wide. “Thirty thousand? You’re robbing me.”

She slammed her hand on the table.

I smiled. “I won’t pretend to know everything, but I know this-thirty thousand might not even be enough for what you’ve done. Do you have any idea who you’ve been dealing with? Any idea what the rules are

“You don’t know anything. And yet you dove straight in. You’ve got more nerve than sense.”

Lily’s face darkened. She muttered under her breath, “It’s just a way to make money. What’s the big deal? Other people do it, so can I. Say a few lines, look sincere, cash the checks. But no, it’s never enough.”

The chat froze.

“What did she just say? ‘Say a few lines, look sincere’? I thought she was genuine. I thought she was real.”

“Someone tell me there’s still something real in this world.”

Lily hadn’t even realized what she’d let slip.

I lit another stick of incense and held it up. It burned for half a second before the flame snuffed out, smoke curling sideways into nothing.

Now she was scared.

“What does that mean? What does it mean?”

“It means you haven’t fed them. And they’re all watching you.”

She shook her head, not wanting to believe.

I pointed. “There are so many behind you. One with a mole on his face. Another with a dark mark on his

arm.”

With every detail I named, her face went whiter. The stream was losing its mind.

“Oh my God. Those descriptions-those are the people she did readings for. The one with the mole—I recognize him.”

Someone posted a photo of the deceased in the chat. I glanced at it, then looked away.

I fixed my eyes on Lily. “Thirty thousand. Final offer.”

She didn’t argue this time. Her fingers flew across her phone. The transfer came through instantly.

I lit the incense, arranged the offerings, and began the work of sending them home.