Felix Reynolds, a university student with a sixth sense, has to uncover the truth about the past he has no memory of in order to unravel what really killed his family, and keep himself and his friends alive in the process.
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Context: the following bonus chapter occurs shortly before Felix's flatmates all go home for the Christmas break, after their first visit to the manor house but before the NYE poltergeist event (more specifically, it occurs between chapter 11 and 12).
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I can always tell when Mum is thinking. Her eyebrows crease ever so slightly, and she runs her tongue along the back of her bottom teeth as her dark eyes stare directly at whoever it is she's speaking with. To the untrained eye, her expression doesn't flinch, but having known her for nearly nineteen years, it's a look I can identify instantaneously. Why on earth she doesn't just ask him is totally frustrating.
When I query exactly this, Mum raises her eyebrows with a sigh. "If he has any knowledge about the spirit world, Ava, we need to let him come to us."
Ugh, I don't have the patience to wait an entire lifetime.
"Some spirit talking families are extremely private, you know that, and it's not our--"
"But he's so weird, and not just like, whoa, nineteen-year-old white boy weird. Whenever I ask him about spirits, he shrugs. Who shrugs at a question like that? Well, he shrugs a lot, but that's the kind of thing people don't just shrug at. There's someth--"
"Ava," Mum says slowly, forcing me to stop talking. "I've already told you not to try and coax something out of him."
"It's groovy, I've asked him about spirits, like, once," I lie. I click my tongue as I lean my head back against the sofa's armrest. "You and Dad both agree there's something he's not telling us, we know he's got a spirit attachment, and whoa, what about his aura? You've never not been able to read someone's aura bef--"
"Ava," Mum interrupts. "End of discussion. The important thing is that he knows we're here to talk to whenever--if ever he feels ready to."
I sit back up and go to open my mouth again, but Mum digs her eyes into my own before I'm able to get anything out. Despite her putting a hard stop to our conversation, her expression returns to the contemplative one decorating her face a few minutes prior. She's obviously just as intrigued by Felix as I am.
With a long sigh, I jump up from the living room sofa, and announce my plan to head back to the uni apartment. As I'm leaving the room, Mum reminds me to stop bugging Felix about spirits, which I pretend not to hear.
A short while later, I'm letting myself into the apartment, and both Jamie and Felix are occupying the living area. Perfect. Jamie's talking loudly about something, and it sounds like he's complaining, although I'm not sure who to because Felix is hunched over a thick textbook as he scribbles something into it.
"Ah, Ava!" Jamie calls over to me from one of the sofas near the window. "Do you harbour crockery in your room?"
"Yes," I reply as I stop beside Felix, who's sitting on one of the kitchen stools.
