“Well, in all the movies I’ve seen, the ghost needs to go into the light. But is that what we’re supposed to do with a real ghost?” I started to pace. “I wonder if we’ve been taking the wrong approach. Why do ghosts haunt a place anyway? Is it the old school stuff where the ghost is tied to the place by a curse or something? Is it like in the movies where the ghost doesn’t know he’s dead?”
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this.” Coop considered me, his hands shoved in his pockets.
I reminded him of what Eli, Joel, and I had seen the night before. “If the ghostisSir Hugh,” I pointed to the man in the painting, “I think he’s trying to scare us away. Think about it. It worked with your parents.”
“But why?” Coop scowled. “What would tie him to the castle enough to come all the way from Ireland?”
“Yeah, why not stay there?” I glared at the painting. “Wasn’t land a really big deal back then? Like their power and social standing were all about how much land they owned and what it was worth?”
“It was.”
“So why would the ghost of Sir Hugh not stay with his land?”
“I wonder ….” Coop shot me a dark grin. “Mum said, that time she saw him, that he didn’t seem to realize she was there at first. And she thought he was looking for something.”
“We need to understand Sir Hugh. Maybe all the ghost lore is true. If we can find what binds him to the castle—”
“We can send him to the light?” Coop maintained a straight face, but his eyes twinkled.
“Yeah. Something like that.” I went to the window and looked out over the grounds. The truck my parents had taken into town to get groceries approached the castle. Getting groceries from a store half an hour away had turned shopping into a bit of a production.
“I can’t believe we’ve barely been here a month, and Wildstone’s changed so much already.” My dad had hired people to work on all those village buildings that had been in various states of repair.
“He’s something else, your dad.” Coop came to stand close behind me. “I think Miles would have liked him.”
“It’s exciting to be part of it,” I said.
But not as exciting as the warmth of Coop’s chest against my back. I leaned my head back against his shoulder. He brought his arms around me. The pulse in my ears nearly deafened me. Was this going to be it?
Footsteps rang up the spiral staircase, and we turned toward it, breaking apart. Joel burst into the room. “Dad said to quit lollygagging and come help put the groceries away.” My brother glanced between us and grinned before darting back out the door.
We really did need to install an intercom.
