Another stomp.
“Do you want me to go away?”
Two stomps.
Interesting.
“So you don’t mind me here?”
Two stomps.
I guess two stomps isno.
I realize I am playing a party game with a ghost.
“So what are you angry about?”
Multiple stomps on the floor like a child having a tantrum.
“I don’t understand. Maybe I can leave and get a Ouija board?”
Two hard stomps on the floor.
“Well, then write on the wall in blood or something! It’s cold in here and I left a lot of cash upstairs and—”
“Rhea?”
My whole body sags in relief when I hear Hunter outside.
“In here!” I call, slamming the flat of my hand against the door.
It opens, and I tumble out and directly into Hunter’s chest. He catches me, and I wrap my arms around him and shove my face into his shirt, clinging to him like he’s a life preserver.
He pulls away to look down at me, puts a hand against my cheek. “You’re freezing. What’s going on?”
“The ghost. Poltergeist. It tricked me into going in there and locked me in. It was trying to communicate with me, but wedidn’t get very far.” The door is still open, the money sitting enticingly on the floor. “Hold the door for me, will you? I want this done.”
Hunter reluctantly releases me and braces himself as he stands against the door. I dart into the office, grab the fishbowl, and dart out again, my heart hammering like crazy. It’s not cold anymore—the room or the glass. I guess the ghost has gone back to wherever ghosts go when they’re not scaring the bejesus out of people.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I say. I don’t want to be anywhere near the office right now. “And if you found the door to the stairwell, I’d love to get that put back on so I’ll have some privacy. From the ghost.” Which sounds deranged, but I’m way past worrying about that sort of thing.
Hunter follows me upstairs, and I give him a ham-and-cheese croissant and offer him coffee from my brand-new coffee maker. We sit at the table, surrounded by stained cash, and I gulp down my coffee like it’s ghost repellent.
“Has the ghost been bothering you?” Hunter asks me. “Have you seen it?”
I stare at the opening to the stairs, startled. “No.Canwitches see ghosts?”
“Some can, apparently. But what happened just now?”
I swallow a lump of croissant. It’s so good—it doesn’t deserve to be choked down this desperately. “Just noises. A bang last night, thumps today. The room went cold when we were talking—or when I was talking and it was stomping. One stomp foryes,two forno.I accidentally asked it an open-ended question and it had a temper tantrum.” I shake my head. “I thought being a witch would involve more cauldrons and brooms and fewer hauntings.”
“Magic shit is magic shit,” Hunter says. He finishes hiscroissant and dusts the crumbs off his fingers and onto the waxed paper. “Can’t have the good without the bad. Are you hurt? Or just scared?”
“More annoyed, really. I finally get a place of my own and I’ve got an incorporeal roommate with communication issues.” I take a sip of coffee, searing my esophagus. “Oh God. I hope I can get rid of it before opening day. I do not need books flying off the shelves. At least, notGhostbusters-style. More like whatFifty Shadesdid in 2012.”
He raises an eyebrow. I melt.
“I’ll have to trust you on that,” he says. “But I’ll ask my grandmother. Maybe she knows something.”
