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There was something amiss in her home, Maddie was sure of it.
Their equipment is going missing, misfiring and malfunctioning. Her children are avoiding her and Jack, sneaking around doing god knows what.
She expected it from Danny. He started pulling away from her last summer. Maddie thought it was just stress due to starting high school but now he does not ever speak to her willingly.
She constantly reminded herself, he is just a child. He will eventually grow up from his teenage rebellion.
But Jazz? She was always such a good kid. Now she is missing curfew. Sneaking out, even at night. Most worryingly, she started skipping school.
Not to the same amount as her brother, who is a rare guest in class, but she was a perfect student before!
Something was wrong with her children.
Maddie had to face the facts: one of her kids was dead, now—a ghost, a monster—and it was her duty to destroy it before it killed the rest of her family.
But first, she needed to figure out which one of the kids was dead.
Danny was a troublemaker ever since he was little. Playing video games instead of doing homework. He was a smart boy, he just needed to apply himself more. Maddie wasn't surprised puberty made him disinterested in school. No matter how much she disliked it, that's how many teenagers are.
The change in Jazz came about suddenly. It wasn't the gradual shift that went undetected like with her brother, her daughter seemingly became a different person overnight.
Danny might just be going through puberty, but Jazz might be a ghost.
Not that she wished her daughter to be gone, a monster in her place, yet everything pointed to that being the case. Her sudden personality shift, distaste for her and Jack's profession, outright disgust at their weapons.
Danny was afraid of ghosts. Maddie remembers fondly checking for monsters under his bed. Jazz didn't believe in ghosts till they became more common than squirrels. Now, she defends them. She sympathizes with these creatures and no explanation can convince her of their true nature.
Jazz doesn't want to listen to them. They are experts—pioneers—in the field and despite that she denounces all their research. How she can believe ghosts can be good in spite of all the evidence she and Jack collected over the years is beyond her.
Unless her daughter is gone and the impostor wearing her face is one of them.
She had to accept it: Jazz is six feet under and it's time to put that ghost down with her.