by Elle Adams
Assuming she actually spoke to me this time, anyway. And assuming the detective didn’t interrupt and start poking his nose where it didn’t belong. Granted, it didn’t sound like Mr Renner himself had hired a private investigator, so he couldn’t be the person who’d asked Detective Drew to take over. He seemed entirely unbothered by the way his grandmother had died, accident or none.
“Let her come,” said his wife. “It won’t do any harm to have someone to help out in case the house really is haunted.”
“Fine, but she’d better not get in our way.” He quickened his pace, his shiny shoes slapping on the wet pavement.
Despite the town’s bizarre numbering arrangement, he had no trouble finding the house, and opened the gate without hesitation. Then he reached under the porch and unearthed a key, before unlocking the front door.
“Oops,” Carey whispered. “I didn’t know there was a key hidden on the property.”
“I guess he probably knows his grandmother’s hiding places.” Maybe he also knew how to lure out her ghost. You never knew.
Mr Renner pushed open the front door and entered the hallway, making a noise of disdain. “It’s no wonder the place is falling to bits. Look at that. The wood’s practically rotting away.”
I peered at the door frame he indicated. I didn’t see anything wrong with it, but then again, ghosts were my area of expertise, not construction issues. Though if the house really was falling to bits, had Mrs Renner known how bad it was? If she had, why had she stayed? Those were questions I needed to ask her ghost, assuming she showed her face, but who knew, maybe she’d stop terrorising people now her grandson had shown up. If she’d actually wanted him to have the house, which I still wasn’t clear on.
Mr Renner prowled through the lower floor of the house, complaining about every inch of the place. I decided against mentioning that the construction crew weren’t to blame for the majority of the issues—the house had only come under repair fairly recently, from what I’d figured.
“And just look at this.” He slapped the door frame in the middle of the hall with the side of his hand. “What’s it made of, cardboard?”
I peered through the frame to the other half of the hallway. While I’d scanned each room for any signs of the ghost, I hadn’t explored it in-depth. Now I looked closer, it appeared the back section of the house had been added as an extension, as though someone with little knowledge of architecture had slapped the walls together without caring whether the foundations were sound or not. The door frame looked as though it’d been magically attached to the walls with a stickiness charm and nothing more, while the uneven ceiling exposed several roof beams. Maybe Mr Renner had a point.
He left the doorway and advanced down the hall, forcing Carey and I to back out of the way or else get knocked aside. “The construction crew ought to be here by now… and just what is that?”
“Ah.” Carey and I exchanged glances, realising he’d spotted the hole in the floorboards at the top of the stairs where I’d fallen through the previous night.
Luckily for all of us, at that moment, there came a knock on the door.
“Finally,” said Mr Renner, sweeping away from the stairs with his wife in tow. He wrenched open the door to reveal a mousy little man with whiskers that painted him as a rat shifter.
“Mr Renner?” Even his voice was rat-like and squeaky. “I’m Louis, the head of the construction work on your property. I am terribly sorry for your loss.”
“So you’re the one in charge of this disaster?” said Mr Renner, a contemptuous look on his face. “What do you have to say to me about the state of this house?”
“I am terribly sorry.” His head bobbed contritely. “There was considerable trouble in the process, as your late grandmother was well aware of. We worked with her from the start on the renovations and continued after her death.”
“And you did a lousy job, by all accounts,” Mr Renner said. “Holes in the floor, collapsing supporting walls… and that’s not even getting into the terrible neglect which caused the accident which led to her death. If I was a different man, I’d have you put away for this.”
The rat shifter paled. “Sir, I can only tell you that it was a terrible, tragic accident… we warned Mrs Renner not to stay inside the house while the foundations were so fragile, and she claimed she intended to stay at the inn that day. She wasn’t supposed to be at the property at all. That’s why it took so long for us to realise she was there.”
Huh. That’s odd. I hadn’t known Mrs Renner had been given a room at the inn while the construction was going on. Why would she have gone back to the house? That was a question to ask the ghost, if she ever showed up.
“Well, it’s not good enough,” Mr Renner proclaimed. “We came all this way only to find the house in such a state of disrepair that I have my doubts anyone has tried to fix the place at all. Are you going to help me or not?”
“Gladly, Sir, but allow me to explain the difficulty we’ve been having.” Louis drew in a breath. “After your grandmother’s death, we came to finish the job, but four of our best wizards quit the team, convinced that the ghost of your dead grandmother intended to have them killed.”
“How absurd,” he said. “If the house is really such a lost cause, then why were you so keen to invite me here?”
“Because… well.” He hesitated. “Your grandmother wanted you to have it, and under the circumstances, nobody else wants to live here, not as long as the rumours continue.”
I couldn’t say I blamed them in the slightest.
“Then get in here and do your job, man,” he snapped, backing into the hallway. “I expect an assessment. Tell me what is going on with this extension.”
The two of them drifted into construction-related jargon, while I turned to Carey. “Was Mrs Renner definitely alone here when she died?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she whispered. “That’s why my mum said we can’t rule anything out. I think it was an accident, but as for why her ghost’s sticking around—”
Mr Renner’s raised voice carried down the hallway. “They think she was murdered? By neglect, for certain, but if anyone’s to blame, it’s the people who should have fixed up this house. Just look at the state of that wall.”
I made a mental note to ask him if he was aware there was a self-proclaimed paranormal detective already on the case, but now was definitely not the time to bring up that subject. If Mr Renner didn’t think his grandmother had been murdered, though, then who had hired him? I had to admit, it was gratifying to think that for all Detective Drew’s claims that he was more welcome at the house than I was, that clearly wasn’t the case in Mr Renner’s eyes. He didn’t think her death was anything more than an accident caused by the dilapidated state of the old house.
I was debating sneaking upstairs for another look around for our missing ghost, when Carey grabbed my arm. “Look!”
I spun to face the doorway to one of the ground-floor rooms, where a plank of wood was hovering in mid-air as though levitated by a spell.
“Um,” I said. “Mrs Renner?”
The wooden plank continued to hover in the air. Then a yelp came from one of the rooms further down the hallway. Uh-oh.
“Carey, stay behind me,” I said. “Mrs Renner, can you tell me what the issue is? Do you want them to leave?”
The wooden plank dropped to the floor, and Mr Renner’s swearing from the next room intensified. I left the room at a run, Carey on my heels, and skidded to a halt.
A grey-haired woman blocked my path—wild-eyed, transparent, and furious.
7
Carey yelped and hid behind me as a tremendous gust of wind blew open every door in the house. Mrs Renner’s ghost flew up through the ceiling and out of sight, while I ran down the hallway to find the rat shifter looking around the living room in bafflement. Behind him, Mr Renner hopped around rubbing his foot. “That is the last straw. Who moved that sofa?”
The sofa in question lay several feet away
from where it had once been, and I had an inkling I knew who the culprit was.
“Mr Renner,” I said, “your grandmother’s ghost was just here a second ago. I think she wants to talk to you.”
He put down his foot, his eyes narrowing. “Are you mocking me?”
“Of course I’m not,” I said. “She just blew all the doors open and then flew upstairs.”
“I saw the wooden beam floating,” added Carey, her voice slightly awed. “That was her, wasn’t it?”
“You saw the ghost?” said Louis. “Excuse me, young lady, but who are you?”
“We’re here to get rid of the ghost,” said Carey, with more initiative than I’d have expected considering the scare she’d just had. “Maura’s an expert ghost-hunter. And I’m her assistant.”
Mr Renner made a rude noise. “Nonsense.”
The rat shifter looked as awed as Carey did when he studied me. “You’ve seen her? Whereabouts?”
At least one person believed me. I pointed into the hallway. “There, but she flew up through the ceiling.”
“Aren’t you going to go after her, then?” Mr Renner said, his tone tinged with sarcasm, which I ignored.
I pulled out my wand. “I’ll see how unstable it is up there first.”
While I could use my wand or even my broomstick to fly upstairs, that didn’t mean the ghost wouldn’t be able to knock me out of the air and force me to use my Reaper powers. But I’d have to take the risk if I wanted answers from her. Whether her death had been an accident or not remained to be seen, but I’d seen her up close for the first time, and I wanted to know why she’d decided to show her face now.
Carey tagged along behind me to the stairs. “Are you sure?”
“I am, but can you keep an eye on things down here?” I held up my wand, eyeing the stairs. “I’d rather neither of us fell through the floor this time, and I can’t watch both of us and the ghost at once.”
She blinked. “But…”
“Please.” I dropped my voice. “It’s lucky you weren’t the one who got stuck in the floorboards last time. She’s dangerous, and I reckon she’d be more likely to talk to me alone.”
She held up the ghost goggles. “Can you take these with you?”
“I’d better not,” I said. “These aren’t good conditions for filming, and it might make her even less inclined to open up to me. Besides, I won’t banish her yet.”
She bit her lip, then nodded, probably figuring that filming the ghost during the day with Mr Renner storming around in the background wouldn’t have anywhere near the impact of doing the filming at night-time. Not that Mr Renner was likely to be pleased with the idea of Carey using his home to make videos for her ghost blog and putting them on the internet either way.
I’d leave that for later. For now, I climbed the stairs, moving quickly over the threadbare carpet and avoiding the nails sticking out of the wooden planks. I kept my wand out ready to cast a quick levitation spell in case the floor collapsed again. Reaching the landing, I hopped over the ruined section of floor, and peered into the grand bedroom through the nearest door. “Mrs Renner?”
No reply. I scanned the room and then moved onto the next. Most seemed to be guest rooms, and the upstairs looked a lot sturdier than the lower floor. Smaller, too, and less patchy. I recalled the construction workers saying something about an extension being added afterwards…
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as a chill blew through the landing. Then a petulant voice whispered, “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
I tensed, shadows stirring around me before I could reel them in. “I’m not here to harm you.”
“Then get out of my house.” The old woman appeared before me, her transparent form flickering around the edges.
I stood my ground, reluctant to bring out my Reaper powers until I was sure there was no other option. After all, once I sent her to the afterlife, she wouldn’t be coming back, and I could say goodbye to any shot I might have had at finding out if her death had been an accident or not. That detective would lose his chance at answers without even seeing her. Not that I was doing this for him. The whole situation weirded me out, and I knew there was something odd about both her death and her ghost’s appearance here.
The breeze intensified as she moved closer and the floorboards creaked beneath my feet. Was she doing that? It was hard to tell, but from what she’d done to the window yesterday, she was way more powerful than the average spirit.
Shadows flowed around my feet and up to my hands. The ghostly figure of the old woman narrowed her eyes at me. “Your shadows don’t scare me. You won’t Reap my soul.”
So she did know what I was. No surprise, since I hadn’t been nearly careful enough to hide it. “I won’t have to Reap your soul if you’d just tell me why you’re here.”
“I stayed because I belong here, and this is my house,” she said. “The Reaper has a new apprentice, does he?”
Shadows surrounded me like a cloak as a chill breeze nipped at my skin. “No, I’m here on my own. I want to know if your death was an accident or not.”
“They all say it was an accident,” she snarled. “They say I was a foolish old woman who shouldn’t have been in the house at all. They say I should have left twenty years ago. The house is mine.”
“Why were you here, then?” I asked. “What were you doing downstairs when you died? Was anyone else around?”
“Dolores,” she snapped. “Dolores Malone was here.”
“Who is Dolores Malone?”
“My mortal enemy.”
Right. Of course she had an enemy. A whole list of them, in all likelihood. People like her were more likely to stick around after death for the sake of revenge than for any other reason.
“So you came back to the house to see this Dolores Malone person?” I pressed. “Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t have put it past her to burn this place to the ground while I wasn’t here,” she said. “She was always showing up on my doorstep and hassling me, telling me I should be in the retirement home and not in this old house.”
“You came back to the house when it was in the middle of dangerous construction work because you were afraid your alleged mortal enemy would knock it down when you weren’t there?” I couldn’t keep the scepticism out of my voice.
Mrs Renner’s ghost straightened upright. “I don’t have to explain myself to the likes of you, Reaper. If you think you can play mind games with me—”
“I’m not here to play mind games, I’m here to discern the circumstances of your death,” I said. “So I can get that paranormal detective off the case. Who hired him, anyway?”
“What’s going on?” Mr Renner shouted upstairs.
The ghost vanished from sight. The floorboards gave another creak, causing me to jump backwards.
“I found your grandmother, but you just scared her off.” I backed to the stairs, careful to avoid the gap in the floorboards. “She said her death wasn’t an accident.”
She’d also named a potential culprit, but I’d reserve judgment until I knew more about this Dolores Malone person. Wand in hand, I reached the top of the stairs. Mr Renner and his wife stood at the bottom, with Carey hovering behind them.
Mr Renner glared at me as I descended the stairs. “Well? What have you learned?”
“Apparently, someone called Dolores Malone was your grandmother’s mortal enemy when she was still alive,” I said. “Your grandmother claimed she was the reason why she was at the house the day she died. She thought this Dolores person was going to demolish the place. Any idea who she is?”
“No idea,” he said in sour tones.
“I do,” said Louis the rat shifter. “Dolores Malone is a witch who lives in the town’s retirement home. I heard she and Mrs Renner didn’t get along, but she was far from the only person who had a quarrel with her.”
Hmm. Given Mrs Renner’s accusation, it was worth looking into. It was the first lead I had from the mouth of the old woman
herself, which had to be worth something. Right?
“And did my grandmother’s ghost have anything else to say about the state of the place?” Mr Renner gave the rat shifter a withering look.
“No,” I said. “She didn’t mention the construction workers at all.”
Carey tugged at my sleeve. “I’m late for school, too. I’d better run.”
“I’ll walk you there,” I said, all too happy to get away from Mr Renner. “I’ll be back later if I learn anything new.”
Mr Renner grunted in a disinterested manner. I’d made a mental note to talk to the rat shifter later, too, but the poor guy had enough going on and I doubted he’d intended to kill the old woman. Not if he’d known he’d end up dealing with her equally unpleasant grandson afterwards.
I left them to it, walking with Carey to the gate and out into the street.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’d skip school again, but my mum won’t let me get away with pretending to have flu twice in a week.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I let her lead the way down the street, and we left the old manor house behind. “You didn’t mention Mrs Renner was supposed to be staying at your family’s inn when she died.”
She looked down. “My mum tried to convince her to stay, but she wasn’t having any of it. We didn’t want word to spread in case people started talking. The inn is our family’s only source of income, and we get so few visitors as it is.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said, “but Mr Renner doesn’t seem like the reasonable type. He was already threatening poor Louis.”
“I know.” She bit her lip. “Mrs Renner wanted to stay in the house all the time and didn’t want anyone else to butt in. She didn’t even like the construction workers being there.”
Hmm. “How well did you know her while she was alive?”
“Not that well,” she said, “but people at the restaurant always gossip, and everyone said her constant complaining kept driving away everyone who tried to work on the house.”
“Now it’s her ghost driving people away instead,” I remarked. “And at this rate, Mr Renner will end up doing the same. If he decides to stay here, anyway.”