Chill: Which Ghost?

CW: abuse, alcoholism. Here's last session. 

The SAVE envoys have decided that Willa's father is a real problem (rather, Willa has decided to ask them for help). They get together for dinner at the ranch: Willa, Blake, Jordan, and Father Will. Jennifer has gone back to Chicago to heal and rest, but she contacts her friend Melinda Grace, a psychic and longtime SAVE ally, to join the group. Likewise, Willa taps Beth Anne for this mission, since it involves a ghost and she, like Willa, practices the Incorporeal Art. 

Willa tells them the backstory: Her father, Douglas Lane, was a drunk and habitually hit her mother (Hilary). One night, about nine years ago, he went after Hilary and Willa shoved him, and he fell backwards, cracked his skull, and died. Since then he's been haunting Willa off and on, but he's getting more aggressive.

The envoys turn their investigative brains on. Blake logs onto SAVEpoint and looks for cases with similar parameters, and gets back a lot of results (abusive people seem to become ghosts frequently). There's some commonality in how they present (that is, aggressive and destructive), but not so much in getting rid of them. They might fixate on specific objects, or might be banished with a conversation. Douglas, in fact, said he wanted Willa to apologize and admit she was wrong, but Willa doesn't think she can do that truthfully, and he's likely to know. They decide they need to do more research into Douglas himself. 

Willa says that Douglas' parents are dead and were before she was born, as far as she knows. Jordan gets online and looks up genealogical records, and learns that his mother (Carla Lane) was never married to his father (William ?). There's no death record for either of them, but Jordan finds a record for Carla in the 2010 census, and an address in Boise. Willa, of course, is a bit shocked to learn that her grandmother is alive.

During all this, Beth Anne is hearing whispers from Jaworsky. She brings this up to the group, and explains to the folks that don't know about him about her adventures as a kid with the monster under her bed. Suddenly the room goes black, and every light and cell phone goes bananas. Jordan makes her way to the wall and activates a Line of Defense, warding the room, and everything goes back to normal. 

The envoys discuss their plans, and decide that in the morning, they'll all go and visit Hilary, Willa's mother, before they go to see her grandmother. 

And indeed, in the morning, they head out. Hilary's house is pretty run down and the yard overgrown, and Willa reflects that she hasn't been here in a while. They knock, but no answer. Father Will walks around the house and peeks in windows, but doesn't see anything. Willa calls her mother and hears the phone ring inside, but still no answer. They call Blake over and have him open the door (Skeleton Key), and head inside. 

Looking around the house, they see no signs of struggle. Willa notes, however, that her mother hasn't made coffee today, which is odd. Blake checks the bedroom and finds Hilary lying on the floor next to her bed with a tacky pool of blood around her head. He calls for the others and Jordan goes into medic mode while Father Will calls for an ambulance. Hilary is alive, and Jordan manages to get her stabilized. 

Melinda checks the room, and guesses that someone straddled her and beat her face with an object of some kind. Hilary must have rolled out of bed on her own, presumably to try to get to her phone. Blake texts Detective Jackson, and he gets there shortly after the cops do. Willa and Jordan ride in the ambulance with Hilary, while the others talk to the cops. 

Willa learns that Hilary has a bad concussion and has lost a lot of blood. They get to the hospital and she's taken away into the ER. Meanwhile, Blake talks to Detective Jackson and tells him about Douglas, and he says he'll see what he can learn.

Everyone winds up back at the hospital and they talk over what's happening. Everyone assumes (reasonably) that Douglas did this, but Father Will points out that this happened after Jaworsky was banished from the ranch last night - are we sure that he didn't attack Hilary? Beth Anne doesn't remember Jaworsky being that aggressive, and he usually focuses on children. 

The doctor comes and talks to Willa, and tells her that it looks like her mother was beaten with a bottle. She's got a concussion, a bunch of lacerations, is missing a couple of teeth and is going to have some impressive shiners, but she'll be OK. Willa asks if this has happened before, but the doctor says he has no reason to think so. 

They decide that the next step is to go visit Carla Lane (Willa's grandmother), so Willa calls her up. She understands that she has a granddaughter, at least, and doesn't seem surprised that Willa didn't know she existed. She says that she's fine with receiving visitors, just bring her a carton of cigarettes and some lemonade. 

The characters have a couple of hours before Hilary is lucid enough to talk, so they head out to go meet Carla.