A Haunting Is Brewing

by Juliet Blackwell

  “How do I keep people away?”

  “Just . . . jump at them, and make a face, or whatever. You’re haunting this house, remember? Act like a ghost.”

  “’Kay,” he said.

  “I take it Adam’s here?” said Lily softly, eyes still closed.

  “He just left.”

  She nodded, then resumed chanting softly again; she opened her eyes and stood, then poured a circle of the brew from the jar, counterclockwise, around Thaddeus, Miriam, Betsy, Charity, and Reginald. Clockwise, she poured a circle of salt. She lit candles at five points on the circle and started chanting again. But now she seemed in a different world; she no longer responded to my whispered queries.

  A ruckus at the bottom of the attic stairs drew my attention.

  “Adam?” called Tess as she reached the top of the stairs. She was wearing a skimpy genie costume, complete with a tall hat and a pink veil that didn’t hide her tears. “Are you saying he’s here?”

  “C’mon, Tess,” said Riley, right behind her. Riley was wearing a Bavarian-style costume that put me in mind of an advertisement for beer. “Don’t go up there, you—”

  Next came Byron, yet another person dressed as a vampire. It was a perennial Halloween favorite after all; all you needed was a cape and a set of fangs.

  Lily, meanwhile, seemed to remain in her trance, mumbling within the circle of salt alongside the Spooner family dolls. I wished I could consult with her: Our trap seemed to be catching not one murderer fearing discovery, but all of Adam’s heartbroken friends. They probably were too curious not to at least take a peek in the attic. Theater types.

  “Tess, get out of here. I mean, seriously, this could be dangerous,” said Byron.

  “He’s right, Tess,” said Riley. “Tell her, Mel.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Betsy starting to move.

  Tess screamed as soon as she noticed the doll’s movement. Riley’s mouth dropped open.

  Annette bolted up the stairs at the sound of Tess’s scream, her hand on the weapon I knew she was wearing under her cape. I motioned to her to stand back.

  Then Charity began to stand.

  “No effing way . . .” Byron whispered, his eyes on the dolls. Tess fainted at that point, and Byron barely caught her before she fell. He laid her gently on the ground.

  “Oh . . . hell no,” said Riley as she hurried out of the attic.

  “What . . . no way, the legend’s true?” said Byron, still stroking Tess’s hair.

  That’s when I noticed Byron’s vampire cape didn’t look like the cheap imitations worn by most partygoers, or even the costumed police officers. His looked like quality construction: black silk with a red satin lining. And there was an insignia at the throat: an ornate embroidered “S.” I remembered it from the family photo that included Reginald wearing his special cape.

  “Nice costume, Byron,” I said. “That cape looks like a genuine vintage item, like something my friend Lily here would sell at her shop.”

  His eyes never left the bizarre tableau in front of us: All the dolls except Reginald were now standing up, and appeared to be dancing.

  I looked at Lily, who was no longer in her trance.

  “Is this normal?” I asked her out of the side of my mouth. “Why are they dancing?”

  “They’re not. They’re just having a hard time moving normally, I think.”

  They bopped around in jerky moves like so many marionettes off their strings. Their still smiling faces looked out at us. It was terrifying, yet fascinating. Then they starting whispering, but their words were unintelligible.

  “Can you tell us what happened that night?” I asked, hardly believing I was talking to a bunch of dolls. But despite their constant motion and murmurings, I still couldn’t understand them.

  Adam appeared right beside me. “What are you doing? Stop that!” He tried to enter the circle but wasn’t able to cross. He put his hands over his ears. “Make it stop! Can’t you hear that? What—”

  “Stop it!” Byron yelled, unknowingly echoing his dead friend. “Just make them stop. They have nothing to say—are you seriously going to listen to wooden dolls? What is this? How are you even making them do that? Stop it! If you won’t, I will.”

  He pulled a lighter from Tess’s pocket, then quickly lit a piece of newspaper from the floor and hurled it toward the dolls before Annette could stop him. But, like Adam, when the lit newspaper reached the circle, it seemed to hit an invisible wall and bounce off.

  “Stop it right there!” Annette yelled. She trained her gun on Byron as he pulled a plastic container of barbecue lighter fluid from his pocket. “Don’t even move.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Crying, Byron sank to his knees and followed Annette’s instructions not to move any further.

  I hurried to stomp out the flame.

  “What’s happening?” said Tess as she roused herself.

  “Make them stop already,” said Byron, still crying. “Just make them stop.”

  Adam’s ghost was looking at the dolls, cocking his head as though he were listening. Then he turned to Byron. His friend.

  “You?” he said in a fierce whisper. He brought his face very near Byron’s, and though I knew Byron couldn’t see or hear Adam, he drew back as though sensing something. “You did this to me? How could you? Why?”

  “What’s going on, Byron?” asked Tess.

  “They . . . they’re telling on me. I can’t stop them. . . .”

  “Telling on you?” said Tess. “Wait—you mean, you’re the one who killed Adam?”

  “I didn’t mean to!” came the anguished cry. “He just . . . How come he got you, and Riley, too? Plus, he’s rich to start with . . . What’s fair about that? How come it’s always Byron the best friend, and never Byron the boyfriend? What’s that about?”

  “But . . . why would you kill him? You’re that in love with me?” Tess’s beautiful eyes grew even larger, and in her suggestive genie costume she was truly gorgeous. I imagined she had fed more than one hormone-fueled imagination. But to kill over her? “What happened that night?”

  “I was going to spend the night here to show you I wasn’t afraid. But then Adam came back, and he told me what happened with him and Riley, and we fought—I was defending you, Tess! He never deserved you.”

  Tess was shaking her head, and so was Adam. Both had tears in their eyes, and Byron kept crying, too. It was tragic, and stupid. Such a waste.

  “It went too far, and I guess I don’t know my own strength, because I had him in a choke hold and then . . . he stopped moving. I didn’t mean to! I wanted to make it look like a suicide, so I thought of what we talked about with Reginald Spooner, and tied him to the chandelier . . . and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!”

  We all remained still for a long moment—all except the Spooner mannequins, which kept bopping aimlessly around within the circle. Party noise drifted up toward us: laughter and chatter and pretend screams, and the strains of that old standby, “Monster Mash.”

  Finally, Annette said, “Byron, Tess, come along with me. We need to talk.”

  They obeyed, heading meekly down the stairs. Annette nodded to me and Lily as she followed them. I smiled my thanks and turned back to my accomplice.

  “So, what happens with them?” I asked about the dolls.

  “They’re not really holding entire spirits, as you can see. Just a trace amount of the animus of Reginald’s family members. I think we were right: He wasn’t responsible for their deaths; he was trying whatever he could to save them. I think if he’d had training he might have been able to accomplish something truly astonishing, but as it is . . . they’re just barely charged.”

  “So . . . what do we do with them?”

  “We let them go. Allow their energies to reunite with their spirits.”

  “And are those s
pirits haunting Spooner House?”

  “You tell me, Mel. You’re the ghost expert.”

  “Yeah, maybe not so much the expert. Anyway, the only tormented soul I’ve felt here is Adam.”

  Speaking of whom, Adam was slumped on the floor, his back up against the wall, just staring at the mannequins.

  “They creep me out,” he said finally.

  “Me too. But did you hear Lily? She’s going to let the energy go free and they’ll be able to reunite with their spirits.”

  “That’s bizarre.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  Lily seemed to be paying no attention to us—or more to the point, to me. Since she couldn’t see Adam, it must have appeared like I was talking to myself. Instead, she was chanting again, and then she used her toe to break through the circle of salt. As soon as she did so, the dolls fell in a pile on the floor.

  Lily sank onto the floor herself, rubbing the little silk bag on her belt and panting as she recovered from her spell casting.

  “They’re gone,” said Adam, lifting his head and looking around the attic. “The doll family—I mean, I can see the dolls are still here but they’re . . . gone.”

  Thank goodness. Lily had done her part. Now I had to do mine and convince Adam to move on.

  “I can’t believe . . . it was Byron, after all,” Adam said. “Now I remember we fought that night. But . . . he was my friend.”

  “I don’t think he meant to hurt you. I think you’d both been drinking, and emotions were running high, and . . . I’m sure he’s sorry.”

  “So, he really did kill me. He killed me. I’m, like, no longer of this world, or whatever?”

  I nodded.

  He blew out a breath, and I could see the tears glistening in his eyes. “Listen, uh . . .” He cleared his throat. “Be sure to get that message to my mom, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “Also, tell her I’ll be, you know, watching. Like, I mean, not in a creeper way. Tell her I’m on the other side, or whatever, but I’ll check in on her, and my kid brother, and I’ll see them again. Tell her . . . tell her she’s a really great mom.”

  I nodded but couldn’t speak. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, Adam had disappeared.

  “You okay?” Lily asked as she crossed the room to join me.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t find any words.

  “Is it Adam?” she asked, looking around, head slightly tilted as though trying to sense something out of the ordinary.

  I nodded again.

  “How about you and I go talk to his mother together?” Lily said. “I have a charm I could use to help her understand that you’re telling the truth.”

  “A charm?”

  “Bay leaves and a cinnamon stick, tied with a green ribbon, and a few words . . .” She trailed off with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter. But it works. It will make it easier for Adam’s mother to believe you, and it will help her to hear his message. And afterward . . .”

  I cringed. “Lily, no offense, but I’m not sure how much more I can take.”

  “I was thinking about Texas-sized margaritas.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  “I make them from scratch, my secret recipe. We’ll invite Maya and Bronwyn, and Dog and Oscar. Make a night of it at my place.”

  This was definitely the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  I was hoping to steer clear of the supernatural for a while, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think I wouldn’t encounter ghostly goings-on with another historic home renovation project, eventually. It seemed to be my fate. But at the very least, when in need of a witch—or a “voodoo guy,” for that matter—at least now I knew whom to call.

  “Lily, besides the whole putting-poppets-to-rest bit, I think margaritas are your best idea yet.”

  Read on for a preview of Juliet Blackwell’s next Haunted Home Renovation mystery,

  KEEPER OF THE CASTLE

  Available from Berkley December 2014

  Communicating with the netherworld can be a game changer.

  For instance, I never used to believe in bad omens. But ever since I started encountering ghosts on my construction sites, I’d become more open-minded.

  And it was clear that the Wakefield project was cursed.

  It had been plagued with ill portents from the get-go: Two well-respected general contractors had walked off the job; sign-waving protesters blocked the tall iron gates to the property; there had been a series of suspicious building mishaps; and the big, burly, and typically fearless construction workers—those who remained on the job, anyway—refused to linger at the site after sundown. I wouldn’t have been surprised to note a line of crows perched nearby, or a ring around the moon, or some other sign of disaster ahead.

  Luckily, this wasn’t my jobsite.

  “Coffee?” offered Graham.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  I had driven to Marin County, north of San Francisco, bright and early today only because a very attractive man had asked for my help. Tall and broad-shouldered, with the cut physique of a man who worked with his muscles, Graham Donovan had a way of making me forget that, when it came to romance, I was a battle-scarred cynic.

  Adding to his many charms, the green-building-consultant-to-the-stars also happened to be in possession of a thermos of piping hot, dark French roast.

  Besides . . . I was just plain curious: Why would someone dismantle an ancient Scottish monastery, ship it overseas stone by stone, and try to reconstruct it as a retreat center in California?

  Graham poured coffee into a small tin cup and handed it to me. Graceful tendrils of steam rose in the damp early-morning air, the rich aroma mingling with the pungent scents of eucalyptus and dried grasses. The day was just dawning, and we stood alone on the hill. My mutt, named Dog, loped around, sniffing the ground and wagging his shaggy brown tail.

  “I’ll say this much for your client: He chose an amazing site,” I said. “It’s almost . . . magical.”

  A gently sloping meadow surrounded by lush forest opened onto a view of the faraway Pacific Ocean. Behind us was a gorgeous old Victorian manse; below us was the jobsite, where stones lay in piles or stacked to form partially built walls, as though a fourteenth-century Gothic ruin had materialized right here, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “That’s the to-be-assembled pile,” said Graham, gesturing to a massive mound. Bright blue chalk marks—which I knew corresponded to a coded schema intricate enough to drive a Rubik’s Cube expert nuts—stood out from the dirt, lichen, and moss clinging to the rough-hewn stones. Carved pieces were scattered among the rectangular blocks: Some were components of columns and vaults, others crude gargoyles and decorative plaques.

  “Okey-dokey,” I said, sipping my coffee. “Would those be the suspicious, ghost-encrusted stones, then?”

  “I get the sense you’re not taking this seriously,” said Graham.

  “They look perfectly innocent to me. Frankly, I’d worry more about spiders than ghosts.”

  “Some tough ghost buster you are, scared of a few tiny little spiders.”

  “First off, I have never claimed to be a tough ghost buster. Not even an official ghost buster, really. And I’m not scared of spiders per se. But you know how this sort of thing goes: A couple teensy arachnids hitch a ride to America, and next thing you know, they end up devastating California’s citrus groves.”

  Graham smiled. “I’ve always admired your sunny outlook.”

  “I’m a native; I think about such things,” I said. “Look what happened with William Randolph Hearst: He imported zebras to roam the grounds of his ‘Castle’ decades ago, and his rancher neighbors are still dealing with them.”

  “What have they got against zebras?”

  “Turns out zebras are rather foul-tempered. Or maybe t
hey’re just grumpy about being displaced from their natural habitat. My point is, I’m not sure bazillionaires should be allowed to just import whatever they want, willy-nilly. It’s asking for trouble.”

  “Which brings us back to ghosts. It’s gotten so bad the men won’t go into the building once the sun goes down.”

  “Ancient stones like these, in a setting like this, throw in a little fog and a moonless night . . . Could be people’s imaginations are running away with them.”

  “Could be. But I think there’s more to it. You know I don’t say this easily, Mel, but I’ve seen a few odd goings-on, myself.”

  “You really think your client imported a ghost along with these stones?”

  “Maybe. Is that possible?”

  “I’m not sure. I would have thought a ghost would have remained with the land. But, frankly, I probably know more about spiders than the intricacies of ghost immigration. I’ll have to look into it. Does your client have a particular affinity with Scotland? ‘Ellis Elrich’ doesn’t Scottish.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Graham. “You could ask him tonight. We’re invited to his ‘sherry hour.’”

  “I’m not a big fan of sherry.”

  “It’s just what he calls it. There will be other drinks available.”

  “Then why call it sherry hour?”

  A slow smile spread across Graham’s face, and he reached out to pull on a corkscrew curl that had freed itself of my serviceable ponytail.

  “I do love your curious mind,” he said.

  “Curious in the sense that I always look for answers? Or in the sense that I’m strange?”

  “Why limit ourselves to only one interpretation?”

  I couldn’t help but return his smile. After a few years of bitter sniping about men in general, and my romantic prospects in particular, I had been mellowing. Graham was helping me to regain my sense of humor.

  “Anyway,” I said, getting back on track. “I don’t really feel like going to sherry hour. The man’s not my client, after all.”