She had a nose ring to go with her black clothes, another point of contention with her mother Meg, who was more traditional. But at least Aunt Meg had Pep, who wouldn’t dream of coloring her hair or wearing all black clothing.
All of this was despite the fact that Meg herself had colored her hair every shade of blue, pink, purple, and red under the sun. Meg had been the wild child growing up, but she had settled into a woman who liked pretty things and liked her independence, thank you very much.
I had always thought Pep would be more at home at a private school, where she might actually have thrived. Instead she was fated to run a haunted house gift shop. Ours was called Enchanted Bits and Bobs, Odds and Ends, BOO.
“Come on!” said Pep, taking me by the arm and leading me away from the carnage.
We climbed to the fifth floor in silence, giving in to my final humiliation. I had been relegated to the attic, and not just any attic: this was crazy Lady Oakley’s attic.
“Just ignore her,” Pep said. “She’s harmless.”
I knew she was just trying to encourage me, but I was having a hard time buying it. “If she’s so harmless, why are you whispering?” I wondered.
Pep shrugged, her face reddening. “She’s never hurt anyone.”
“She just wants us to think that,” I added darkly. “She’s lulling us into a false sense of calm, and when she has us completely fooled, that’s when she’ll strike.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Pep sarcastically. Then she swung the attic door open and said, “Here we are.”
To be fair, the house had three attics. We were currently standing in the one to the right of the stairs, otherwise known as my new room. There was another to the left and another in a separate part of the house where my family stored endless amounts of stuff, so much stuff, in fact, that we could have turned the place into a store and not run out of things to sell for years.
“Where’s my bed?” I asked, looking around.
At the opposite end of the space was a small, grimy window, and between there and where we were standing, looking in through the door, the only thing I could see was dust.
In case I’m not making it totally clear, the attic that my mother had just given me for my bedroom was empty except for the dust piled in the corners and filtering gently through the air, disturbed by the opening of a door that until a few moments ago probably hadn’t been opened in months.
“Left side,” said Pep, thumbing over her shoulder. “We’ll get everything settled.”
We dropped my suitcases on the old floorboards and turned our attention to getting the furniture out of the other room and set up in my new space. If this was going to be home from now on, I was most definitely going to make it as comfortable as rickety attic furniture would allow.
Getting a few things out of storage, however, was easier said than done. The dust had become quite possessive of the side table and wanted to hang onto it. I won in the end, but not until I’d spent a solid minute coughing.
“This might not be so bad,” I said at last, patting the bed, where I’d sat down to take a break. I took a bit of consolation from the fact that at least the mattress seemed to be relatively new.
Further advantages had occurred to me as Pep and I moved things around. There was a lot of space up here, and I was so far away from the other rooms in the house that it would also be fairly quiet. Haunted Bluff was rarely quiet, especially when Cam, Kip, and Corey got going (boys will be boys, you know), but not even they ventured up here very often.
I wasn’t going to admit it out loud, but maybe Lizzie had actually done me a favor . . . ?
I quickly banished the thought; I actually wasn’t going to admit it even to myself, let alone anyone else. Being even a little bit charitable toward Lizzie was just not within my power.
Chapter Four
Suddenly, there was thunder on the stairs.
Pep was about to say something when the door creaked open.
“You came back!”
A girl with an ear-to-ear grin and messy red hair piled haphazardly on top of her head shot into the attic. She was wearing ripped black jeans and a black sweater covered in sparkling ice cream cones.
“Nice outfit,” I said.
“It’s vintage, darling,” she said, pausing briefly to pose.
After Lark and I gave each other a hug, we all settled in to get me feeling at home again. Pep sat on a box of books while Lark disappeared into the other attic and dragged out a rocking chair that groaned as she carried it.
“There’s a lot of cool furniture up here,” Lark commented with approval. “You’re going to make this room sweet. We should take a couple of the pieces and paint them black for our room,” she said, turning to Pep.
“No,” said Pep.
Just then there was a series of thumps, and I glared at the wall. The plaster was so old I could see bits of it coming off with each thump.
“Cut it out, Lady Oakley,” I yelled. The thumping stopped.
“Good thing she doesn’t mind my being here,” I muttered. “ And don’t try to make me feel better about Lizzie taking my room,” I warned darkly. “I don’t intend to forgive her.”
“You might as well forgive her for that and stay mad at her about everything else,” said Pep.
“What everything else?” I said.
“The last twenty-five years,” said Pep.
“That goes without saying,” I grumbled.
Lark had brought a sandwich with her, and it wasn’t until I saw it that I realized how hungry I was myself.
“Anyhow, you’re going to make this room your own,” Pep said encouragingly. “We’ll help, and it’ll be great.”
A sudden crash brought the three of us to our feet. This time I didn’t think it was Lady Oakley; her revenge for my yelling at her would have been subtler. Lark sprang up so suddenly that her sandwich went flying everywhere. Looking around and not seeing anyone, she calmly started picking the pieces up off the floor and putting them back on her plate. But she kept an eye on the room while she did it, as if waiting to see whether whatever had caused the disturbance was going to show itself.
“What was that?” I demanded. The noise had sounded like it came from several floors down, but it had been so loud that I was afraid the house might collapse around us.
“The ghosts!” Pep exclaimed.
“Which ghosts?” I demanded. There were so many these days . . .
“The new ones! We’ve been having the worst time getting them settled,” Pep said, shaking her head. “As usual, the old ghosts are laughing at us and not helping one bit. In fact, they’re showing the new ones pranks and ways to get in trouble, which basically amount to lessons in how to make your mom mad.”
“Typical stuff,” said Lark, before taking another large bite of sandwich.
“We’d better get downstairs,” said Pep, standing up and heading for the door, while Lark stuffed the rest of her pre-dinner snack into her mouth.
The three of us rushed down the four flights of stairs to the grand entrance hall, where we found pandemonium. The ghosts must have come in right after Mom took me upstairs, and they were causing havoc.
“I like how Cookie tried to keep me out of the house, but these goons are fine to let in,” I muttered.
“No, this is MY lamp! It’s not your lamp!” One ghost kept floating through a lamp on the side table (and the side table itself) and giggling uproariously.
“I could get used to this place,” cackled another as he winged and zinged around the room at breakneck speed. “So many things to break and so little time!”
“Wheeeeee!!!!” a third one cried, flipping end over end in the air.
“Come down here! How dare you!” Aunt Meg was racing around with a broom, swinging it wildly in every direction. The ghosts merely scattered and laughed.
Aunt Meg was small, and Pep took after her in that way. Both daughters had their mom’s curly hair, although Pep’s was brown like her mother’s, in con
trast to Lark’s blazing red curls.
Meg was nothing like my own mother. Meg loved to dress up and wear fancy clothing. She loved thrift shops more than anything else in the world and she never wore the same clothes twice. Today she was in silk pants that had a teal and light brown map of the world on them. She wore her gold shirt tucked in. Neither of her daughters was anywhere near as flashy as their mother. “There aren’t enough clothes for more than one Meg,” Lark had told me once.
“If you don’t come down I’ll perform an enchantment on you,” cried a new voice from down the stairs.
I closed my eyes in consternation. When would Lizzie learn to butt out? The girl only lived here, it wasn’t like she was really one of us, so it was really none of her business.
“Threatening ghosts never works,” Lark said, just as annoyed as I was. “It just makes them more likely to dance on the table tops and throw things at us.”
“What’s the point of being good at salsa if we don’t take advantage of it?” burst out a giggling ghost who had heard what Lark said. Then the ghost fell backwards laughing.
My redheaded cousin leaned forward, held her palm flat under her chin, and blew. The air that flew out of her mouth was sparkling white and flowed smoothly over the laughing ghost. Taken by surprise, the new recruit was pushed backwards, away from the table.
“They really are witches!” another ghost cried. “I wasn’t sure I believed it! How very exciting!”
“Aren’t you glad you came home?” Meg panted as she rushed past me. “Lark, you know you aren’t supposed to use magic on the ghosts unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“It was,” Lark argued. “There was a ghost in front of me, so it was necessary.”
“How do you figure?” Meg demanded.
“They were starting to really annoy me,” said Lark.
“Leave the redhead alone! She doesn’t have a sense of humor,” cried a ghost with a double chain necklace.
“If only you’d say something funny,” Lark said.
I turned to watch my pretty cousin Lizzie descending the stairs. She was wearing leather pants and a black leather blouse. As she took another step down the stairs, three ghosts darted toward her and overwhelmed her.
“Maybe this one will be more fun,” cried the ghost woman who’d wanted to salsa.
“Trust me, she isn’t,” I murmured.
“Hey, we died! The least you can do is let us have these little amusements,” cried another ghost as Meg unleashed a fresh round of fury.
Just then Lizzie cried out, ducking away as the new ghosts messed up her perfect hair and tugged on her ears. She tried to swing back at them, but she didn’t have the same special ability I did, so it didn’t do any good. Her next ploy was to cover her head with her arms and whimper in frustration.
“She should have learned the blowing trick,” said Lark smugly.
“Help her,” Aunt Meg demanded.
“You already told me not to use magic. I’m so confused,” Lark shrugged.
Pep, Lark, and I turned to look at a flailing Lizzie, while Meg got even more frustrated.
“I’m talking to you, Jane,” Meg glared at me, ignoring her daughter’s backtalk.
“I think her hair looks good pulled on end,” I offered.
My aunt gave me a look that would have boiled water and pointed an imperious finger at Lizzie. To be fair, she was also clearly trying not to laugh, so I rolled my eyes and without waiting another second marched forward toward the ghosts.
The one wearing chains was nearest, so I simply grabbed him by the shoulder and flung him backwards. Salsa ghost lady gasped, then turned to Lark, and said, “That was much more impressive than your blowing. I’m Glenda, by the way.”
Ghosts weren’t something I could hurt by touching them, and by the same token, flinging them across the room wasn’t going to do them any damage. But I always felt better when I did it. To everything and everyone but me, they weren’t solid beings but wisps of smoke and mist.
I looked at the chaos before me and shook my head in bemusement.
Just back from the big city as I was, it struck me forcefully that there was something about this mansion that wasn’t serious. It was just a big stage for weekend fun and adventure, where people came to escape from their real lives. Everything here was authentic, but not necessarily real. There was an order and a way of doing things that had gone on for generations, and despite how every new ghost and le-haunt thought he or she could disrupt it, they always failed in the end.
And in the end, I finally moved over to help Lizzie. I’ll be honest, I moved more slowly than I would have if they’d been harassing Pep, but once I got their attention, the three new ghosts assembled quietly. Despite their seeming surrender, however, they didn’t quite understand what they were getting into.
I reached up and brushed my hand against the nearest ghost, pulling him away from Lizzie, who was whimpering and trying to put her hair back into place.
“Don’t be difficult, George,” Glenda advised. The ghost was so surprised that he went willingly. Then the other two turned to look at me, almost gleefully.
Here we go, I thought.
“You’re one of the few,” breathed George.
“Here, I’m one of the many,” I corrected, not wanting them to think they could bother the rest of the Garbos.
“You leave her alone. Only her family gets to harass her,” said Pep with a grin.
“You’re like normal families,” the chain ghost said dryly. “Fine, I’ll be delighted to go where I’m supposed to.” He sounded imperious as he waited for someone to show him the way, and my Aunt Meg was so relieved that they’d calmed down, she did just that.
Lizzie didn’t waste any time being grateful to me, being too busy fixing her lipstick. She’d gotten her hair back in place except for one strand that was sticking straight up the back of her head. I had an internal debate about whether to tell her, but I decided she’d walk past a mirror soon enough.
In fact, I was surprised she hadn’t magicked a mirror to trail along next to her at all times, preferably with camera lighting secured around the edges.
“Well, well, well, look who decided to come crawling back,” she simpered at last.
Yup, no gratitude would be forthcoming. Lizzie only talked in simper, which didn’t leave any room for saying “Thank you.”
“Yeah, I missed the place and some of the people,” I said.
She smirked. “That’s not what I heard. What I heard was that you couldn’t hold onto a real job so you had to come crawling back here to live with your mom.”
“Isn’t what we do here a real job?” I asked.
“I’m saying you don’t think it is,” she rolled her eyes.
“You could just say thank you,” Pep pointed out to her blond cousin.
“I could’ve dealt with them,” said Lizzie, blinking furiously. She did that when she was lying.
“You were doing a great job,” said Lark.
“Sorry about your room, by the way. I decided to liven things up a bit,” said Lizzie, quickly regaining her balance and simpering some more. How she thought navy curtains and no decorations on the walls livened anything up I’d never know, because I didn’t care enough to find out.
“Don’t even worry about it,” I smiled brightly. “I’m very happy in the attic.”
Before she could tell how badly I was lying, I turned and walked away.
Having gotten the ghost management episode out of the way, I wanted to get to the kitchen as soon as possible. I hadn’t been home in months, and the kitchen was where all the wonderful things in the mansion happened.
Like cake.
Pep and Lark followed me, leaving Lizzie on the stairs to clean up the ghosts’ mess by herself.
The hallways were wide, and usually dark, the mahogany paneling old but still beautiful. We had made it halfway down the hall when, without warning, the door to our right burst open and a skeleton shot out.
“Grrrrr,” said the skeleton, holding up bones for hands in a scary manner.
“Hi, Steve. How are you?” I asked.
“Jane! Goodness, it’s been a long time. Top of the morning to you! I’m well,” His lips cracked and shifted into a skeleton version of a smile. Then he backed up and closed himself back in the closet.
Even if I hadn’t known where the kitchen was, I could have found it by the wonderful smells that were now filling the hallway.
Aunt Audrey was always making something incredible.
Audrey, the only resident of Haunted Bluff I hadn’t seen yet, was Cookie’s other son’s widow. Uncle Bill had died under mysterious circumstances when I was young, leaving behind a new wife and no children.
Given that Audrey knew we were all witches, she couldn’t very well go back and have a normal life. Besides, she had grown very close to my mother and was happy to stay and lead a witch’s life. Audrey, my mom, and Meg had been best friends for ages.
Audrey didn’t like the ghosts and skeletons much, so she usually worked in the kitchen, creating gourmet meals for the rest of us.
I had barely set foot in the kitchen when a plate of cookies was shoved into my hands. With such good fortune, how was I to say no?
“It’s so good to have you back,” Audrey beamed at me.
I took a cookie, sat down at the big counter that dominated the center of the room, and thought about all the time I’d spent in this space.
The kitchen was the most sacred space in the house, and the one that we tried hardest to keep clear of any ghost groups or other nasty creatures. It just wasn’t sanitary to have them hanging around.
What made the room even more inviting was that my aunt Audrey loved ambiance and color and had made the kitchen her own domain. I always loved hanging out there, and no, it wasn’t just because of the cookies. Okay, it was a lot because of the cookies. But I also just liked the space, and felt happy there.
Aunt Audrey beamed at me.
“I trust the trip wasn’t too awful?” she asked.
She went back to chopping carrots, but not before giving Lark a glare and asking, “Was the sandwich enough or do you need more?”
Spooky Business (Jane Garbo Mysteries Book 1) Page 3