“The basement.” He shines a flashlight at the dirty carpet, beige with a faded pink rose pattern, as if we’ll be able to see through to the other side. “That used to be Otto Davilla’s room, and where his body was found.”
“We have to go down there.”
Surprise spreads over his features. “You’re seriously up for it?”
I meet his gaze. It is the sweetest indulgence to admire his face for as long as I like, and all I want is for him to keep talking and talking so that I have an excuse to keep on looking and looking. He’s got the most beautiful eyes in creation, astonishingly dark. Morgan’s gaze is fossilized shark teeth, volcanic glass, the Dark Horse Nebula. It makes me think of the lightless void of black holes, and endlessness, floating through space like cosmic dust, like a fresh drop of ink being drunk into paper. The black widow’s long legs as she elegantly spins her web. When he walks into a shaft of light, a rainbow luster is added to the darkness, and I think then of Tahitian pearls. Alder leaf beetles. The common grackle bird, with its oil-slick feathers.
“Absolutely,” I say.
Morgan drops his backpack, flips it open. He pulls out a battery-operated traffic light, which I recognize, since I once purchased it for Aisling as a Christmas present.
“Why do you have that?”
“On loan.” He pats the yellow lens fondly. “This thing is more reliable than any EMF reader, any para light, any REM pod. It’s been sitting in your house, which is haunted, absorbing magic and supernatural energy. I call it the Surefire.”
I am beginning to suspect that Morgan is a few trees short of a forest. I am bewildered, but no less attracted to him. His eccentricity has a hook in me, rather—even though he is quite wrong, I am drawn in.
“Henriette Davilla,” he announces. “Are you here with—”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “Her name’s Henriette?”
“Yeah. I figured you knew that? You took so many Moonville facts and tweaked them to fit your books that I assumed you used the name Henriette specifically because of the Davillas.”
Come to think of it, I don’t remember why I picked that name. It’s possible that I subconsciously hoovered it from Moonville’s legends, like I did so many other things.
The red lens of the stoplight flickers, then winks out.
I jump back a step. Morgan’s lips press together, whitening. His upper lip is more pigmented than the lower, the slope of each line meeting in a slight lift at the corners, so that he looks perpetually amused even when his mouth is at rest.
“Is this Otto or Nate?” he asks the room.
The red lens flickers again, right as we hear anotherthump, louder this time. And much closer.
A door slams.
I turn sharply.
“Hello?” someone shouts. “Who else is here?”
Morgan and I sprint into the living room, where we find the last two people I would ever expect: Joan Finkel and Wanda Horowitz, two ladies who work at Our Little Secret, the local murder mystery dinner theater. Wanda’s doubled over, hands on knees, wheezing. Her flashlight rolls across the floor.
“You scared the poor old broad something bad,” Joan chastises us.
“You scared us, too.” My dress is sticking to my sweaty back. “What are youdoinghere?”
Joan rotates Wanda, who’s still wheezing, so that we can read the letters on the back of her shirt:Moonville Ghost Hunters Org,with a cartoon ghost holding a magnifying glass.
“I didn’t know there was a local chapter!” Morgan is euphoric. “Where do I sign up?”
Joan fetches Wanda’s flashlight. “You shouldn’t’ve come here without us. Places like this can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She juts a thumb at the door. “We’re clearing out—we were just down in the basement and heard the cops on our police scanner app. A concerned citizen said they saw a car driving backwards in this area, so we might have company soon. It is, ah, not quite legal to be here.”
“My EMF reader!” Wanda howls. “I left it in the basement.”
“I’ll help you find it,” I offer, just as Joan’s phone emits clicking noises, a voice rippling, “White Buick Verano.”
Morgan swears. “That’s my car!”
Eight
