Page 56 of How I Met Your Murderer

At his confused look, I started to explain all that I’d been told about them—which only made me angry at our shite circumstances all over again, heat creeping up my neck as I stared down the castle like it was a living adversary.

My fingers twitched toward the TurboPro 5000—like lighting up the stones with bursts of electricity until the thing was out of charge was going to do feck-all but make every spirit restless again and undo all our hard work—as I continued “Even Niamh seemed afraid of it. And I’m pretty sure she’s the real deal, a proper witch, so we’re probably screwed. But—”

“But we’re incredibly emotionally well-adjusted experts in the arts of romance and ghost hunting, and we make a great team,” Eric said, placing a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth. I liked how easy it was becoming for him to lean in and touch me in little ways. How quickly a small gesture from him could recenter me.

“The best.” I hooked my fingers into the belt loops of his jeans and tugged his hips against mine as I kissed him back. “We’ll handle this thing together, or at least say we tried.”

Eric’s smile was sad but beautiful as he agreed, “While we’re together. That’s the plan. Let’s make the most of it.”

The courtyard’s shadows deepened again, like some creature was stretching to its full height. Then a tremor ran through the earth beneath us, not enough to knock me off-balance, but enough to make me unsteady.

It felt like another warning. Another threat.

A sign that whatever haunted this place wasn’t going to let Eric go so easily.

Well, neither was I. I was too stubborn for that.

Standing there, with the castle looming over us and the wind tugging at the edges of his form no matter how hard I clung to him, I realized something awful and true: helping move him on was going to break me. But not helping him would break him, one way or another.

And that wasn’t a choice at all.

From the Notebook of Rafferty O'Meara, ExorSquad Spirit Extraction Expert

3rdof October

A DETAILED RECORD OF THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF ERIC JAMES CRAWFORD (b. December 29 th, 1982, d. July 15th, 2009)

AKA ERIC’S AFTERLIFE AGENDA

That’s right. I stole Raff’s pen.

1. Finish one last D&D campaign

2. Learn how I really died (Maybe we can find an autopsy report)

3. Return overdue library books to Beacon Street

4. Eat a full Irish breakfast (Raff to eat, I’ll live vicariously)

5. Get drunk on Guinness (Raff again, taking one for the team)

6. Apologize to Chloe for missing her wedding (Email her? I know it’s weird)

7. Buy the teapot Mom wanted and ship it to the States

8. Take a selfie with a sheep

9. Win at pub trivia (In the castle will have to do. I’m calling our team Dead Inside)

10. I’ll tell you this one if we get there, Raff. In private.

For what it’s worth, I don’t even care about most of this stuff anymore—mostly number 2 and number 10. It’ll be good to get a message to my family, too. Hopefully this doesn’t mess up our spell from the village witch.

Because that’s what this list is, right? Ingredients for a spell to move me on.

I feel like I’m living a D&D game, although I always thought I’d be more alone if that happened. I definitely never pictured myself with my very own paladin along for the quest to cross my soul into another realm. Maybe I sound delusional, but together, I don’t think we can fail.

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