Page 7 of How I Met Your Murderer

But nothing I remembered about my life would have made me feel so deeply hopeless as to abruptly end things on a long-planned family vacation to Ireland.

Which led me to think—and I had plenty of time for that in here—that maybe I had some kind of undiagnosed heart defect that was triggered by climbing so many stairs inside the ruined castle. It certainly hadn’t been my blood sugar. I had always been able to feel when it was dropping too low, and Síofra would have seen me shaking and pale, not looking at ease while checking things out.

I still couldn’t explain why it had taken until three years ago to wake up, either—why my energy had been tethered here but dormant, awareness only slowly returning. The same was true of some of the other permanent residents here. Like Sir Pádraig, whose familiar bootsteps echoed down the back staircase as I followed on the heels of the intriguing new ghost expert and listened to the warm chatter of the living. It was far more interesting than my own sad predicament.

His name, I quickly learned, was Raff, which was probably short for something. He had leaf-green eyes and a thick brogue that sounded local to my untrained ear.

As we headed up the wide, carpeted stairs, I noticed Raff walked with a slight limp. I also noticed the way he was trying to hide that he was in pain, hastily glancing away from Caoimhe to cover a wince when he put too much weight on the affected leg.

She started describing Síofra’s frequent bit with the mirrors while I continued to study Raff. A tiny smattering of freckles on his cheek reminded me of the constellation Cassiopeia. One of my favorites. He had also decorated his overalls with a small enamel crest pinned just below the company logo, shaped like a shield and showing the outline of a deer and a mountain range. I was sure I had seen it before.

It took longer than I would have liked, but eventually my rusty memory coughed up something useful: it was a pin for a hurling team. I only knew because I had attended a match with my dad and one of my sisters before coming here to Ballycorven. And even though I didn’t follow any sports, I thought one we didn’t have at home was interesting enough to check out. Raff was showing off the colors of his county team, which meant he was either a fan or an athlete himself.

Actually, judging by that limp, I’d say ex-athlete. And to go from that—being on a team, a valued part of something the entire community loved—to this, creeping around musty old places by himself with gear that looked like cheap replica blasters from Star Wars, had to be downright demoralizing. Raff’s surliness suddenly made sense.

. . . Then I remembered not wanting anyone, not even my best friend, to know why I got claustrophobic and kind of freaked out on plane rides, or the name of the stuffed dog I’d slept with since I was a baby (I missed Mr. Wiggles, too), or that dealing with my type one diabetes was still really fucking hard some days.

Sometimes, you just wanted a thing kept private.

Feeling guilty for having intruded on whatever Raff was going through, I drew a bit of energy from the bedroom we were in—Síofra’s residual anger acting as a perfect conduit for a light manifestation—and reached out to fix the strap of his overalls that had slipped down his shoulder on the climb up before Caoimhe could notice and judge.

He rubbed a hand over the spot as the siblings ushered him toward the next room. His leg dragged a little more prominently on the thick new carpeting as he followed Caoimhe, with me once again unseen on his heels, and Jordy and his demon dog bringing up the rear.

The next bedroom was Brigid’s favorite haunt.

“This is one of the rooms where the furniture is always shifting around overnight,” Caoimhe explained briskly to Raff, who crossed his arms over his chest again as he listened. Arms that definitely looked like they could handle one of those hurling sticks with ease.

God, even sitting through another hurling match sounded better than being stuck in the castle. Sometimes I wished the weird zap-guns and pseudo-vacuums actually could blast us out of existence. But I’d yet to see a direct strike from one of those things (the first so-called spirit expert had gotten a critical hit on Brother Fintan, probably the easiest target here, before he fled Síofra’s wrath) actually remove a spirit from this place.

“We were going to open these rooms as optional guest lodgings after the evening banquets,” Caoimhe went on, shooting her brother a look as the demon dog started wiggling in his arms like it was impatient to break free. For once, Caoimhe and I agreed on something: that thing was a public menace and should not be let loose in the castle. She continued: “Bring in some extra money so we can offer even nicer meals. But we’ll hold off on that for now unless your unusual methods bring us a miracle.”

Raff nodded, his deepening frown suggesting that he didn’t anticipate working any miracles here. Good, a man with reasonable expectations. Then he blurted, “What exactly happened to the lad before me in his second week, then? How did he die?”

He looked so uneasy that I wanted to reach out to him. And do what, I didn’t know—maybe put a consoling hand on his shoulder, offer some encouragement. I hadn’t exactly been cool and calm at all times since I realized what had happened to me, either. Sometimes thinking about it for too long still got the better of me, stirring up a tumult of emotions that made me unpredictable, even to myself. It wasn’t just Síofra who had broken a few mirrors around here; we all had trouble controlling our ghostly impulses. But hey, at least I no longer had to worry about checking my blood sugar several times a day or injecting insulin anymore, which was a relief. All the small pinpricks that dotted my stomach were, like the rest of me, old news by now.

Caoimhe pursed her lips. “They found him in the inner courtyard. The coroner said his heart just stopped working. As if he died of fright, or a great shock.”

It sounded a lot like what had happened to me, minus the fall. I hadn’t been present during the moments of Lorcan’s untimely demise, even if, lately, I was almost always “awake.” Active, as the so-called ghost experts termed it. My awareness now stretched from the tower rooms to the dank and lightless basement that was more like a dungeon, and I could tell I was getting the hang of this whole ghost thing. Getting stronger, able to manifest for longer periods of time. Síofra told me not all ghosts could do that—level up, as it were.

I was maybe a little proud of myself for that.

Raff sighed, then seemed to gather himself and resolutely squared his shoulders. “I’ll tell you now, that’s not going to be a problem for me.” Still, even though he sounded like he believed it, discomfort rolled off him in waves. His energy nudged up against mine, impossible to ignore and making me feel restless and out-of-sorts, too.

And I guess that’s why I did it. Why I tapped into the ancient power that I usually siphoned from in order to manifest—the energy of whoever built this place, I assumed—and ran my light, nearly solid fingers through Raff’s thick, reddish hair until they caught in a snarl and ended up tugging harder than intended.

“Shit,” I breathed out loud, a light gust of wind near his ear. “Sorry.”

His presence had me feeling more scattered and chaotic than usual. The draw of his energy, brighter than any others I had come across since I died, was no excuse. I should have asked first. But instead, still caught in the tidal pull of the strangeness that had overtaken me and not yet able to break free, I popped the enamel pin off Raff’s overalls and dashed away with it.

Two things happened at once: Raff whirled around to face me, green eyes narrowed as he watched the pin hovering in midair, and the demon dog finally broke free of Jordy’s hold and bounded toward me.

“I know you’re there! Show yourself!” Raff snarled, reaching toward his hip like he thought he had a weapon stashed there.

Ouch.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on how much I didn’t like being the focus of that anger, not with Pepper barking his head off, tiny tail pinwheeling, practically tripping on his own paws in his haste to get at me. Just like Raff, Pepper was very much aware of my presence even when I wasn’t showing myself. I suspected the dog could see me, or some shimmering, ephemeral version of me, whether I wanted him to or not. Or maybe, somehow, he could smell me.

Whatever the case, while a few people had been romantically interested in me in life, I’d never had anyone as desperate to fuck me as this damn dog.