by Elle Adams
“Can all witches see them?” I asked. “Because it’ll be kinda awkward if the boss can’t.”
“I would have thought she’d be able to.” Lizzie’s hands raced across the keyboard. “Ghosts aren’t that common, and maybe one in three witches have the gift, but there’s usually a reason spirits come back from death. Why’d he come back now?”
“I am here, you know,” said the man. “I can hear every word you say. This is my home, and I don’t approve of this at all. And just what is that decorating scheme in there?” He pointed in towards Veronica’s office.
“Ah,” said Lizzie. “Yes, our boss has an interesting taste in decor.”
“That’s my living room!” he said indignantly. “You can’t just walk into my home and redecorate.”
“We don’t own the building, we just work here,” I said. “Also, if you’re dead, you don’t own the house any longer.”
The printer hissed and spat a wad of ink at him. The ink passed right through the man and splattered all over the wall.
Lizzie sighed. “It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?”
“I hope Veronica can see him, otherwise we’re in for a fun time.” I waved my wand at the wall, making the ink vanish.
Sure enough, the ghost stormed, or rather floated, around the office for the next hour complaining and threatening to make phone calls. When Rob cheerfully offered him the phone—on Lizzie’s instructions—he put his hand straight through it. Meanwhile, the printer took such offence at our supernatural visitor that it printed everything in neon green and made constant growling noises.
When Bethan entered the office, she jumped at the sight of the ghost standing in the desk. “Whoa. Who brought a ghost here?”
“I am not a ghost,” Simon yelled. “Get these people out of my house.”
“It’s not your house!” I said, exasperated. “Please tell me Veronica’s here. He’s driving the printer crazy.”
Bethan pressed a hand to her forehead. “My mother’s running late, but I think she left some sage in her desk. It repels ghosts.”
As she left the room, the printer ejected another wad of paper, which soared through Simon’s head.
“How dare you attack me!” he screamed.
“The printer thinks it’s defending its territory,” said Lizzie.
“Yes, I know it was your house,” I told the ghost. “But this is a mistake. Do you remember anything before you woke up here? I mean, did someone summon you from beyond the grave?”
“Nobody summoned me,” he insisted. “I live here, and I’m going to stay here.”
“I’m afraid our boss won’t like that,” Lizzie said. “Can you please keep it down so we can deal with today’s clients?”
“I’ll handle the phone,” Rob said. “He could scream insults at me and I wouldn’t know.”
“I wish you could see him.” Rob was the best of us at dealing with problem clients, but not ghostly ones.
To think I’d assumed work would be the least stressful part of my day.
Bethan returned to the office with a bag of sage, which we laid around the room’s boundaries. Despite that, the next few hours were punctuated by interruptions from the ghost, and the printer, often at the same time. Rob took all the phone calls, but even then, we ran into problems.
“Wolfton has cancelled,” he said. “Apparently, he suffered hysterics after a poltergeist threw a chair at him.” He said this as though it was a minor inconvenience, not one of our major clients.
“Seriously?” I said. “A poltergeist—that’s like a ghost, right?”
“A powerful one,” said Lizzie. “Poltergeists can use magic to move objects around. They often show up in normals’ houses, but they often assume they’re imagining things.”
“In my house at the moment, I’d blame it on Aveline.” A chill ran down my back. I’d never been a fan of ghost stories. “Is this happening in other places, then?”
“If you mean ghosts showing up… yes.” Rob put the phone down. “I’ve heard from at least three clients so far who’ve had restless spirits show up in their houses. Is there a mass exodus from the afterlife?”
The door in the reception area opened, and Bethan sprang to her feet. “There she is.”
“Veronica!” all of us called at once. “We need you in here.”
The boss walked into the office in time to see the ghost aim a punch at the printer and fall onto his face. The printer’s lid flew open, expelling ink everywhere.
“Oh, hello,” Veronica said to Simon. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, you can start by getting those people out of my room!” he snapped. “And who the devil lives upstairs?”
“He’s a ghost,” explained Bethan. “We covered the place in sage and he still won’t leave.”
“This is my home!” he said. “I demand you leave at once.”
“Well, now, this won’t do.” She turned to the printer. “Clean up that mess. I’ll talk to your visitor. Come with me.”
She snapped her fingers at the ghost, and to my surprise, he obeyed. With him gone, I could finally hear myself think. I went to help Lizzie clean up the mess of ink on the wall, while Bethan took the opportunity to pick up the phone and call a client.
“Another cancellation,” said Bethan. “Three ghosts this time.”
“Is there anywhere that isn’t being haunted?” Lizzie wanted to know. “I should check with my sister to make sure there aren’t spirits ordering lattes from Charms & Caffeine and not paying for their drinks.”
“It sounds like it’s just happening here,” Bethan said. “In Fairy Falls, I mean. But there aren’t that many witches with the skillset to banish spirits who don’t want to be gone.”
“Is there not a magical equivalent of the Ghostbusters or something?” I asked.
“What’s that?” Rob said.
“A movie from the normal world.” Sometimes it was hit and miss what references worked in the magical world. “Who do you usually call in when you have a ghost in the house? An exorcist?”
I’d had one incident involving spirits since I’d moved to Fairy Falls, when I’d met the ghost of a wizard pirate who’d haunted the lake. Once I’d dealt with the issue that was keeping him confined to this world, he’d left willingly. He, on the other hand, had at least figured out he was dead.
“A witch or wizard,” said Lizzie. “We learned how to banish spirits in school. But you’d be surprised how many people don’t mind sharing their house with a ghost, provided it’s mutually agreed upon.”
“No thanks,” I said. “Having a mad old witch living in my flat is quite enough for me.”
“I’m not dead,” insisted the ghost, marching through the wall. “How dare you sit here in my own home and gossip about me?”
Despite myself, an unexpected rush of pity went through me. He clearly had no idea how long he’d been gone, and it must be jarring to find a bunch of strangers had taken over his house while he’d been… wherever ghosts went after they died.
“I thought Veronica would have been able to banish him.” Bethan looked worried. “If she couldn’t do it… I might have to call Madame Grey.”
She picked up the phone, but the sound of a dial tone came through.
“Bet she’s getting calls from all over town,” said Lizzie. “Everyone will want her to come in person to get rid of their unwanted ghosts.”
“I’ll message Alissa and ask,” I said. “Though… if there’s a ghost epidemic, I can only imagine how many of them showed up at the hospital. Who can see spirits aside from witches?”
“Reapers,” said Bethan. “But they only deal with spirits when they first die, not years-old ghosts.”
“Reaper?” I asked. “As in the Grim Reaper?”
“Yes, but the Reaper’s job is to take souls into the afterlife for the first time,” said Bethan. “I’ve never heard of them having to deal with an outbreak.”
“Has it never happened before, then?” I already knew
the answer. Even in the magical world, this ghost swarm wasn’t natural. Or the ordinary kind of unnatural, anyway. Ever since my weird encounter in the fog this morning, I’d felt off-balance. Samhain was on the way, and Aveline had implied that stealing the sceptre and using it to kill would have consequences. Consequences like a swarm of ghosts? When the sceptre had been used to commit murder, had it brought down the barrier between worlds?
And if the town’s long-dead inhabitants were coming back, might my mother be among them? It might not have been her I’d seen in the hills, but Simon was no hallucination. He was in the office, annoying and undeniably present. It wasn’t unreasonable to wonder if my mother wanted to speak to me as badly as I wanted to talk with her.
That’s enough, Blair. A plague of ghosts was not good news. The people who might get some joy from being reunited with lost loved ones were outnumbered by those who’d be majorly inconvenienced by having a spirit wandering around their property.
Feeling restless, I got up and left the office. At the back of the reception area, the boss’s office door lay open, and within, I glimpsed bright neon pink walls and vibrant modern paintings. No wonder poor Simon had been alarmed at the sight of the place.
“Come in, Blair,” Veronica said. “Don’t lurk.”
I stepped into the room. “Hey, Veronica. I wanted to have a word with you about the ghosts.”
She looked up from her desk, where heaps of strong-smelling herbs lay scattered. “The sage ought to have sent that spirit packing. How vexing.”
“Uh, about that,” I said. “You know the sceptre was stolen, right? Might that be why there are ghosts showing up? They say the veil between this world and the afterlife is supposed to be thinner at this time of year, and it might have… side effects.”
“Side effects,” she repeated. “Yes… I think you’re right. The ghosts may indeed be connected to the missing sceptre. I’m afraid I don’t know if Madame Grey has made any progress on finding it yet.”
“Nor me. Bethan can’t get through to her on the phone, so I guess everyone’s calling and asking her to help get rid of the ghosts.” One extra ghost in our office was disruptive but not a cause for concern, but when you multiplied it by the number of houses in town, it became a major issue. And what if the newcomers never left? How was anyone supposed to do their jobs with the dead hanging around?
“Since there’s nothing to be done, we will proceed as normal,” said Veronica. “Do try to ignore the spirit. If he’s here because of the veil thinning, then he will be gone by next week.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Bringing up my mother would do nothing but make me wish for the impossible, and besides, finding the sceptre was more important than filling in the missing gaps in my family history.
When I left work that evening, I walked out into a haze of low-level fog, which masked the road like transparent snow.
Whoa. That’s new.
Maybe the fog was also a side effect of the missing sceptre, too. And the eerie silence that filled the streets, as though all the living people had hidden indoors. Shivering from more than the cold, I hurried to the witches’ headquarters for my lesson and found a line of people outside, winding all the way down the road. With difficulty, I squeezed past them into the lobby. As I’d suspected, the line halted at Madame Grey’s office, but the way to the classroom was clear.
I pushed open the door and found Rita and Rebecca were already there. From Rita’s position at the front of the room, she’d opted to ignore the crowd outside and get on with the lesson.
“Did you see all those people?” I sat down. “Doesn’t Madame Grey want help dealing with them?”
“I’m a diviner and a teacher, not a ghost expert,” Rita said. “I already told everyone to help themselves to our supplies of sage and place it around every room that contains an unwanted spirit.”
“We tried it in Dritch & Co’s office,” I said. “Didn’t work. Lucky there was only one ghost.”
“Can most people not see them?” asked Rebecca. “Only a few of us in my class could.”
“The gift varies,” said Rita. “I’m not surprised you and Blair can both see them. You have a gift for seeing the truth.”
“All the witches in my office could, but the werewolves couldn’t,” I said. “Even the boss couldn’t get rid of the spirit, though. She thinks it’s a side effect of the veil between worlds being thinner at this time of year, and says the ghosts will all be gone by next week. Do you think so, Rita?” I didn’t want to bring up the sceptre in front of Rebecca, who had enough to worry about.
“She’s likely right,” she said. “Once the week is over, everything should be back to normal.”
“But—” I broke off with a glance at Rebecca. There was no point in bringing up my theories about my mother, not yet. “If Madame Grey can’t get rid of them, it’s going to cause a lot of disruption.”
“Not to my lessons,” she said. “Turn to page twelve, you two.”
I should have known Rita wouldn’t let a small thing like a ghost epidemic stop her from getting on with magical theory classes.
We got to work. Occasionally, she looked up and tutted at the sound of voices in the lobby. “They’re making such a song and dance out of this. You’d think nobody had ever seen a ghost before.”
“They haven’t seen hundreds of them at once,” said Rebecca. “Is it because the sceptre’s missing?”
She was a smart kid. Too smart to be fooled. I turned to Rita. “Do you think so?”
“Get on with your work, both of you. No speculating.” Rita grimaced at a crashing noise from overhead. “Ignore the noise. Sammi has a ghost in her room and is refusing to let anyone banish it.”
Rebecca flinched at the sound of Sammi’s name. “Can they be banished, though? I mean, I know we haven’t covered it in our lessons yet, but if Madame Grey can’t do it—”
“She can,” said Rita. “When it comes to these ghosts, they’re likely to go away on their own. There is no point in panicking.”
We finished the lesson in silence, and then Rita dismissed us. By now, the queue outside had gone down somewhat, with only a few witches mingling in the lobby. Rebecca came out of the room behind me, and whispered, “Thanks for the other day. I don’t know what they’d have done if you hadn’t stepped in.”
I grimaced. “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do to help.”
“Some of them are blaming the ghosts on me, too,” she said. “Luckily, Sammi can see them too.”
Being Madame Grey’s granddaughter, it wasn’t a surprise that she could. I wished I could make her and the others realise they had more in common with Rebecca than they thought.
“I’ll see you at the next lesson,” I said. “Oh, how are you getting on with Toast?”
“He’s great,” she said, brightening. “The other kids tease me about him, but he’s great to have around. And he obeys all my commands.”
“That’s what you want,” I said. “Between you and me, Sky isn’t a conventional familiar either. He’s a fairy cat.”
Her eyes rounded. “Really?”
I nodded. “Sometimes it’s good to be a little different. Even in the magical world.”
10
When Rebecca left, I headed to Madame Grey’s office. I wanted to talk to her about Aveline’s assertions about my mother stealing the sceptre, just to get the weight off my mind. The queue had almost vanished by now, and after the last witch left the office, I caught the door before it closed.
“Oh—Blair,” said Madame Grey in distracted tones. “Are you the last one? I need to speak with Helen—I’ll only be a minute.”
“Sure.” I walked into the office. To my surprise, I spotted Sammi standing in the corner. “Oh, hey, Sammi.”
She muttered a hello without looking at me. Awkward. I moved behind the desk to wait for her grandmother, while Sammi paced in front of the door. She looked more like Alissa than her grandmother, and perhaps it was that similarity th
at drove me to say, “I’m not here to tell tales on you again, don’t worry.”
Sammi turned to frown at me. “You got me into trouble.”
Her hand twitched towards her wand. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the subject, since she had ten times my skill as a witch. On the other hand, she was, well, eleven. And she had good reason to dislike Rebecca’s family.
“I thought your grandmother would have taught you not to torment your fellow witches,” I said. “Or your parents.”
“My mum’s dead.” Her shoulders hunched. “And my dad left town.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. I’d known Madame Grey had raised her, but I hadn’t realised it was because her other immediate family was absent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
It sounded like she and Rebecca were in similar circumstances, though they might not realise it. “Well, there’s no excuse to bully the other students. Especially someone like Rebecca, who’s had a rough time of it this year. It’s not fair that she has to deal with you teasing her on top of that.”
She flushed bright red. “I’m not a bully. Her sister—”
“Her sister bullied me, but that doesn’t make Rebecca responsible. And her mother was worse.”
Her gaze dropped. “She can use magic to change people’s personalities. It’s freaky.”
“Anyone else can do the same with the right spell,” I said. “Who told you being different was a bad thing? All of us would be freaks in the normal world.”
She blinked. “It’s not that she’s different. It’s just that she’s not like… us.”
“Do you think I’m a freak?” I asked. “Because you’d be agreeing with Blythe if you said yes.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. “No. I guess not.”
“I’m not going to play schoolteacher and demand you apologise to her or anything,” I said. “I guess your grandmother already did that.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “She grounded me, and I had to stand here for hours while she dealt with all the people complaining about ghosts. She says it’s a good learning experience for when I’m coven leader.”
“Is that what you want?” I asked. “To lead the Meadowsweet Coven?”