“So, we need to have an electrician come in,” Eilonwy said as she flipped on the lights numbered1and2.
“She said they’ve had several electricians here, but no one can find the problem.”
“That seems odd, and expensive.”
Eilonwy scanned the room. A door adjacent to the bathroomdoor also had a pebbled glass window andPrivatein gold letters. The room was redbrick with oak floors and a tangle of tables and chairs piled in the middle. All the windows had deep sills, wide enough to sit on, with heavy, olive-green curtains tied back from them. “The curtains are ugly, but I like the windows, and the view.”
“Let’s check out the office,” Taran said. He unlocked the right-side brass doorknob and pushed the door open.
It was a narrow room about ten feet wide, with two windows and a long bench seat across the back. A surprisingly clean cornstalk broom lay on the seat. The rest of the room was bare brick, but only five feet deep at the door and three feet deep at the far end because of the triangular outer wall.
“There’s nothing in here except a broom,” Eilonwy said.
They stepped inside, and Taran looked behind the door. “There’s a mirror on the wall.”
“Don’t look into it,” Eilonwy said and pulled him away.
“Why?”
“A mirror behind a door is strange, and it smells like candle wax in here. Can we turn on a light?”
Taran summoned his witch light: “Luminare.” A blue orb the size of a child’s kickball appeared a few feet above him, glowing as brightly as a flashlight. “There’s nothing, only an electrical socket.”
“Let’s look in the bathrooms,” Eilonwy said as she left the office.
Taran unlocked the left-side brass knob and pushed the door open all the way to the wall, where he latched it at the bottom with an attached kick stop.
There were four doors in this hallway, the farthest one on the left labeledMen, the one adjacent to that labeledWomen. Theywere each a one stall with a sink and a baby-changing station. The doors to the right were solid with no signs.
“Let’s check these,” Taran said as he unlocked the door across from where they entered. It was filled with bathroom supplies, toilet paper, and paper towels.
“This is a very shallow closet,” Eilonwy said, moving some rolls of toilet paper aside. “Look at this, the back wall is wood rather than brick.”
“Do you think there’s another room behind it?”
“Maybe, let’s check the last door.”
Taran unlocked that one and swung it open to reveal a small landing and a staircase that went down to another landing, then down to a fire door labeledExit.
“This is a curious landing,” Eilonwy observed. “I saw from the outside that there’s a small, recessed balcony above the exit door.”
“That would suggest this wall has something behind it.”
“Or it’s the back of an apartment that belongs to the next building?”
“It might explain the shallow closet,” Taran suggested.
“Ghost hunting aside, let’s check out the kitchen before we commit to anything. I like the place, but I’m concerned about the electricity.”
Just then all the lights went out and the hallway grew cold. Eilonwy and Taran both looked back and saw a mist emerge from the supply closet. It moved past them, through the hallway, across the outer room to the office, and came back out with the broom.
Taran and Eilonwy went into the seating area, illuminated only by the gray day outside. They watched as the broom danced back and forth, sweeping the floor clean. The tables and chairs untangled themselves, one by one, and moved across the floor.Five small café tables, each with two chairs, assembled into neat settings around the room.
The broom stopped in front of the siblings, the air freezing as they waited. The mist formed into the barest shadow of a human against the darkness. A translucent hand reached out to Eilonwy’s face.
Eilonwy put up her palm and stated firmly, “Move away,” as she splayed her fingers in an outward gesture.
The ghost moved back a few feet, then tried to advance again.
