Beginning with whatever stood behind that locked door at the top of the stairs.
“Iwilllive here one day,” she repeated quietly, her words seeming to echo off the basement walls. “It needs me. It’s like it’s calling to me. Don’t you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
The door at the top of the stairs swung open a few inches, then slammed shut again with a loudbam!
The boy jumped and cried out in fear, then scrambled on top of the workbench and out the window. When he realized his sister had not followed him, he called back: “Come on!Let’s go!”
But the girl remained stock-still beside the huge mortar and pestle, surrounded by grimy beakers and bowls and jars with their mysterious contents. Slipping the journal into the front of her jacket, she stared up at the basement door. It opened slightly, then closed with a slam, again.
Shesmiled.
One
Monterey, California
Present day
“As one of the oldest towns in California, Monterey is home to ghosts and ghouls of all types!” intoned the leader of the ghost tour. His voice dropped to a theatrical whisper. “Look around you, and open yourselves up to the possibilities, and you just might realize that ghosts areeverywhere.”
Harper fixed her gaze on the restaurant’s shiny brass-framed front door, willing her friend Tariq to walk in. Wherethe hell washe? He was the reason she was here tonight, waiting for a ghost tour she did not want to go on in the first place.
It was her own damned fault. She should have known better than to make a bet after drinking too much sparkling wine at her birthday party. She was no kid, after all. Which was the point: Harper had just turned forty.Forty. Hard to know whether to celebrate embarking on a new decade, or to mourn the too-rapid passing of the years.
But she had made the bet, and she had lost, and she was a woman of her word. So now here she sat, in a historic Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant, along with the other participants ofJoel’s Amazing and Wondrous Ghost Tour of Old Monterey. A full moon sent silvery light streaming in through the wall of windows overlooking the glistening, serene Monterey Bay. The incessant barking of nearby sea lions could be heard over theclinkof silverware and glasses in the busy establishment, where garish neon lights promoted beers and promised a good time, and tacky Halloween decorations—spiderwebs, jack-o’-lanterns, and witches on brooms—abounded.
Harper glanced at her phone.Ten more minutes, and if Tariq doesn’t show, I’m out of here.Losing a bet was one thing, but she’d be damned if she would attend this event alone.
The other tour participants were abuzz with anticipation at the thought of encountering a ghost, their expressions somewhere between excited and nervous. There was a mother and her teenage daughter visiting from Iowa; a very affectionate couple from France on their honeymoon; an older, retired couple from Arizona; a tall, muscled man with a thick five-o’clock shadow who scowled and seemed as out of place as Harper; and a rather breathless twentysomething blonde who talked a lot about being a “teensy bit psychic.” Such was their group of intrepid ghost hunters this evening.
“May I have your attention please, everyone,” declared the ghost tour guide, clapping his hands. Boyishly handsome, with a slight build and artistically tousled dark brown hair, Joel Aristide appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was dressed for tonight’s tour in an anachronistic Victorian ensemble featuring a black top hat, a white shirt with billowy sleeves, and a waistcoat of green velvet. As a concession to the Halloween season, he had draped an orange scarf featuring black cat silhouettes around his neck, and in one hand he held a bright orange aluminum water bottle emblazoned with witches on broomsticks and the sloganI ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
“From long before the Gold Rush of 1849 to the Roaring Twenties to today,” said Joel, “our fair city has been host to scandals, fortunes won and lost, jealousy, and intrigue. But before we begin, I must ask: Do any of you consider yourselves…” He paused for dramatic effect, leaning forward and tilting his head as though listening to voices only he could hear. “Sensitive?”
The members of the tour group tittered and exchanged glances.
“By ‘sensitive,’ ” Joel clarified, “I mean, of course, sensitive to the spirit world beyond the veil?”
The young blond woman raised her hand and said, “Maybe, like, a teensy bit?”
“Excellent!” said Joel with gusto. He had an annoying habit of bouncing on the balls of his feet, up and down, up and down. “And perhaps the rest of you will discover tonight heretofore unacknowledged sensitivities to the spirit world. One never knows.”
Harper gave in to a yawn, trying her best to hide it behind her hand, when she felt an elbow digging into her ribs.
“Are we having fun yet?” whispered Tariq, slightly out of breath and carrying the scent of the cold briny air blowing off Monterey Bay.
“Where have you been?” Harper whispered. “You leave me here, alone and defenseless, to face Joel-the-Wondrous-Ghost-Tour-Leader?”
“Give the guy a chance,” Tariq murmured. “You might enjoy yourself. Stranger things have happened.”
“If anyone sees me here, my already questionable reputation will be ruined.”
“Is that why you’re in disguise?” Tariq smiled, noting the knit hat she had pulled down around her ears and the dark-rimmed glasses she didn’t normally wear.
“It’s cold. And my contacts were bothering me.”
“Uh-huh.”
