by Devon Glenn
Emily looked at Elerick with relief. “That’s what the junkie ghosts said,” she pointed out.
Elerick laughed. “I believe you. Just don’t share any needles with those guys, OK, Emily? Just say no.”
“They don’t use needles,” Emily said haughtily. “Beth drinks it out of a bottle.”
“I am not having this conversation with a nine-year-old,” he muttered, getting up to leave. It was hard to tell whether the camera battery had died, or if Elerick had shut off the light.
They found out soon enough. “Ten,” Emily corrected him. “I’m ten!”
After a few moments of silence, the tape sputtered and stopped.
Emily shook her head in disbelief. She remembered scandalizing the adults in the room that night, but seeing it through the eyes of a twenty-one-year-old was a completely different experience. Aside from her grandfather, Auntie Emerald’s guests had been some pretty troubled people—and it bothered Emily that the one ghost wouldn’t even show his face.
Emily also noticed how understanding Elerick was, first in his defense of her abilities during the séance and then his suggestions for her after it was over. She didn’t realize until now how much he had influenced her work as a medium; he was the one who had told her to channel loved ones rather than spooks.
“What was going on with the video quality?” Sadie asked. “Is it just me, or did something go wrong with the image every time a ghost appeared?”
“It’s not just you.” Emily bit her lip in concentration. “Did you notice that each specter looked slightly different depending on what type it was?”
Sadie’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t. Can you rewind it? I want to see.”
Sadie and Emily watched the scene play out in reverse, pausing each time a ghost arrived. Emily’s grandpa and Elva left traces of light in their wake. “They’re both spirits,” Emily explained. “They’ve crossed over to the Other Side, so of course they look different from the ghosts.”
“So the Gray Man, Beth, and Finn were ghosts?” Sadie asked.
Emily nodded.
“But the Gray Man just made the tape look fuzzy, like it had been damaged,” Sadie continued. “Why does he look different from Finn and Beth?”
Emily thought for a moment. “I have no idea. But you’re right. The other two had a powerful effect on the camera, especially Finn. It’s like he magnified everything he passed.”
Sadie reached down to the floor and pried a beer out of the plastic casing. She handed it to Emily and grabbed a second one.
Looking down, Emily saw the book that Sadie had brought with her. “What book is that?”
“It’s a Victorian flower dictionary,” Sadie explained. “I found it when I was cleaning out the attic in your parents’ old place. I thought all the books had been donated to the library already, but this one had been left behind. Maybe you can use it for your Haunted Happy Hour.”
Inside the book, somebody had used an old newspaper clipping for a bookmark. It was the front page of a tabloid called Washington Weekly Affairs dated July 5, 1893. President Cleveland had gone in for routine dental work, but sources told reporters that his condition was actually far more serious. Below the fold, a senator who had supported a tax increase to offset a tariff reduction was facing tax evasion charges, or would have been, had he not died suddenly in a storm. Emily put the clipping to the side and stared at the list of symbolic meanings for flowers and household plants. “That would be fun,” she said.
“Hey, didn’t your grandfather use flowers in the séance?” Sadie asked, remembering what Emily had said in the video.
“White roses!” Emily exclaimed. “Let’s see what that means.” She skimmed through the pages until she landed on the letter r for roses. “Red, yellow, pink…white. White roses stand for innocence.”
Sadie grabbed the book from Emily’s hands and tossed it aside. “That’s pretty boring, Gramps,” she said to the Ghost of Grandpas Past. “More important question: Do you remember who the guy was who sat on your bed?”
Why yes, she did. “That’s Elerick.”
Sadie took a deep breath. “Well, did you know that he’s coming back to work in the spa?”
“Yes.”
“How would you know?” Sadie pouted. “And don’t tell me it’s because you’re psychic.”
“I ran into him online a few minutes ago,” Emily confessed.
Sadie’s eyes widened. “Doing what?”
“Asking me out for a drink.”
“I hate you,” Sadie said. She unhooked the tablet from the TV. “Well, I guess you two can play this video at your wedding.”
Emily laughed. “We’ll see.”
“Are you at least going to invite him to the Happy Hour?”
“Yeah,” Emily said. It would be rude not to invite the newest employee to a company event. “Who else should we invite?”
“Let’s invite some orbs. Maybe Grandpa and Finn will come. Or the Gray Man.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Emily said as she scrolled through Orbies. “It looks like there are a bunch of Cape May ghosts with profiles. Finn, too! Did a living person set these up for them? Who has this much time on their hands?”
“For someone who believes in ghosts, you’re very skeptical of technology. How do you know the ghosts aren’t using the app themselves? I mean, if you’re a ghost, you have nothing but time.”
“There’s only one way to find out. Let’s invite them.” Emily typed up a quick announcement, saved it as Haunted Happy Hour at the Black Wave Beach Hotel, and sent it to Elerick, as well as every orb account in Cape May. “Done. Now beer me!”
CHAPTER 22
Forget-Me-Nots
“We renamed the hotel the Black Wave after a great storm that killed the original innkeeper’s wife,” Joan explained to Elerick, who stood outside next to Emily, Sadie, and Jenna with his hands in his pockets, admiring the hotel’s newly renovated exterior. The three-story building had survived the storm, as it had survived several other storms and the great fire more than a century before. An anomaly of neoclassical architecture, the hotel had plain walls, tall windows, and white columns that stood muted and dignified among the rows of Victorian gingerbread homes in garish colors that lined Beach Avenue. “The building was never quite as cheerful as the Painted Ladies next door,” Joan added, “but now that we’ve renovated it, I think it looks sleek and understated.” It had taken eighteen years to get the Black Wave in shape for guests to arrive, and in that time, Burt and Joan had waited patiently while their loans fell through, their construction plans stalled, and the worst recession in decades kept a fair number of tourists at home.
Once Emily’s parents had permission from the town’s planning commission, the couple immediately began work on renovating the new hotel’s interior. Burt went all out and added a restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Atlantic Ocean. Emily noticed the way her mother recounted these details with pride now that it was all over.
“There’s also a full bar,” Emily assured Elerick.
He smiled. “I got your invite.”
Joan pointed to the top floors, which held rows of summery guest rooms filled with sleigh beds and jetted tubs. “These, you’ve seen already,” she said.
Elerick nodded. “They’re very nice. I slept like a log.” It was clear to Emily at least that Elerick had seen enough of the hotel; he was preoccupied looking at her.
“How’s your dad doing, Elerick?” Joan asked, suddenly realizing that she was losing his attention.
“He’s good. He sold the apartment complex about a month ago, and now he’s driving across the country in an RV. It’s something he couldn’t do with my mom around.”
“Ha! I bet not,” Joan said, chuckling. “She would have hated being stuck inside a car for that long. Running across the country, maybe, but not driving.”
Emily, however, was distracted by something the others couldn’t see. Across the room, the ghost of Darthilda was peering at Elerick with wonder. Emily followed Dar’s sightline to the armchair where he sat, only it seemed that she was looking at something above his head. Whatever it was, it must have been beautiful.
Soon, a man passed right through Elerick, sending a shiver through the living man’s body as the phantom glided toward Dar as if the two of them were the only people in the séance room. With great deliberation, he ran his free hand along the surfaces of the furniture. From the table sprang a vase full of daffodils, which made Dar laugh. “Daffodils are for chivalry,” she said.
“I’m doing my best,” Rahul replied.
Dar’s eyes moistened when a garland of white roses appeared draped over the arm of a chair. “Innocence,” she said. “More like naiveté.”
Rahul touched the mantel of the fireplace, where a bronze pot of open stargazer lilies brought a powerful perfume into the room. Emily sneezed.
“Ambition,” Dar said haughtily. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Unless it goes too far,” Rahul added, pulling tall stalks of yellow hyacinth that had sprouted from the ceiling like a floral chandelier. “These are for jealousy.”
Rahul continued to touch the furniture. He ran his fingers along the top of the bookcase, summoning a clay pot that overflowed with rhododendron.
“Oh, Rahul,” Dar said, her forehead creased with concern. “They’re beautiful, but they forewarn danger.”
“Perhaps you’d prefer these, then?” Rahul opened his palm in front of Dar’s, and a bouquet of lilacs appeared in her hand.
“First love.” She blushed.
“My one and only love.” Rahul set the lilacs on the table, where they deepened in color and twisted in shape until they bloomed into roses as red as wine. “I never left you,” he said. “These are from me. Every one.”
Rahul moved to the windowsill. He planted flowers on that window and on the one next to it.
Spinning in a slow circle, Emily noticed more flowers under the door, hanging out of the dumbwaiter, and peeking out of the fireplace.
“I tried every flower in the book, but memories can only repel the bad energy for so long,” said Rahul. “These should be enough to help you cross over. After that, we’ll need to stop the cycle.”
“But how?” Dar asked. She floated close to Rahul’s ear. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I passed away quite some time ago.”
Rahul pressed his hands through Dar’s translucent body, and they both laughed. “I’m going back,” Rahul said seriously. He pulled one last bouquet of flowers from behind him: a spray of delicate orange blossoms. “Will you come with me?”
“We won’t remember who we are now, will we?” Dar said flatly. “We’ll forget all this. It’ll be like it never happened.”
“There are things about us that are immutable,” Rahul replied. “We’ll find our way back to each other somehow.”
The two lovers pressed their foreheads together, eyes closed, while the light of another world shone around them.
Emily felt the air shift as the images of Rahul and Dar grew dim. Whatever portal had opened for Rahul in that moment was closed. He was gone, and Dar had departed with him.
Emily looked around the room at her mother, sister, and Sadie. She knew they would believe her if she told them what she had just seen, but they wouldn’t really get it.
Elerick cleared his throat and reached into the breast pocket of his coat. “These are for you,” he said to Emily. In his hand was a small, cheerful bunch of blue and purple flowers with bright yellow centers. There was a small card attached. It was unsigned, but it showed a picture of a white woman’s hand holding a spray of blossoms whose meaning was easy to decipher. “Forget-me-nots,” Elerick said.
Joan, Jenna, and Sadie looked at Elerick with surprise, then suspicion.
“I suppose you have both grown up quite a bit since the last time you saw each other,” Joan said warily.
The first time that Elerick had come to the inn, Emily had been a little girl. Now here he was, bringing her flowers. Emily tugged a lock of her hair and twirled it between her fingers without realizing she was doing it. She chose her words carefully. “There are things about us that are immutable,” she said quietly. “In some ways, we never change.”
Elerick nodded. “You’re a spooky girl, Emily.”
Jenna and Joan gave each other knowing looks. Sadie looked slightly miffed that there hadn’t been any flowers for her.
“Elerick is going to be working with us now, girls,” Joan interjected. “Why don’t we show him the rest of the building?”
Sadie looked at Jenna. “I wish I were spooky.”
Elerick put his hand in the small of Emily’s back to guide her through the doorway.
Jenna patted her daughter on the shoulder as she led her out of the room to follow the others. “Me too.”
CHAPTER 23
Trapdoor
Back in his room, Elerick sank into the down comforter, allowing the too-large pile of pillows to cover his face as he let out a frustrated sigh. His dream was not the product of his imagination, and Emily had just confirmed it.
The good news: he was spending the holidays in a hotel with the most unusual girl he had ever met. The bad news: the hotel was owned by her parents, who were also his employers. He wished he could forget the look on Joan’s face when he handed Emily the bouquet of forget-me-nots. “Why?” he asked the empty room.
“Why not?” a feminine voice replied.
Startled, Elerick sat up. He looked across the room at the fireplace—Emily was perched on the odd built-in that did not have an actual fire inside but did have that unusual sloping brick formation.
Emily tiptoed down the narrow brick staircase and onto the carpet, then stood triumphantly in front of her guest. “Two of the rooms have a secret entryway,” she explained. “Your tour of the inn is now complete.”
Elerick studied his new visitor: on her way through the vents, she had gotten her dress dirty, and her ponytail was in disarray. If anyone saw her leaving his room looking like that, no one would believe that she was just giving him a tour of the hotel.
“You’re brave coming into a guy’s hotel room,” he scolded her. His hand instinctively moved to his hair to see if it was sticking up in the back where he had been resting on the pillows.
Emily shrugged. “It’s my hotel,” she said. “You’re brave for staying in it.”
“So where does the trapdoor lead to?”
“You’ll find out.” Emily walked closer to the foot of his bed as if it were perfectly normal for a girl to arrive in his hotel room unannounced. Fighting a strong urge to brush the dust off her knees, Elerick backed away. They had plenty of time to get reacquainted. A drink was one thing, but a hotel stay was out of the question. If he got too close to her and it didn’t work out, the rest of the season would be unbearably awkward. He would have to find some way to stall. “Since you’re here,” he said, “would you care to explain who those ghosts in the séance room were?”
Emily looked disappointed, but she quickly recovered and sat in the armchair opposite. Like every armchair in the Black Wave guest rooms, this one was velvety, pale blue, and tall enough to make Emily’s legs dangle off the floor when she sat back. She fidgeted, kicking off one shoe. Before Elerick could reach down to pick it up for her, she slid her foot back inside the shoe. He gestured to her knee, which was still dirty. She d
idn’t take the hint.
“I don’t know who the man was,” Emily replied. “The woman, Darthilda, was a medium who lived in Cape May in the late nineteenth century. She actually lived in my old house when it was still part of South Cape May. After the storm knocked it down, developers salvaged the remaining pieces and moved the building closer to the center of town. I used to see her there all the time. Now she haunts this hotel.”
Elerick looked intrigued. “Why wouldn’t she talk to us? Didn’t she recognize you?”
“Don’t you know? Sometimes ghosts leave behind residual energy—imprints of important moments in the places where they happened,” she explained. “They tend to turn up when there’s a strong connection with the living world. It’s kind of like typing in keywords to conjure answers from a search engine. You walked in with flowers, and out came one spirit giving flowers to another. But the moment we were seeing had already passed; their souls had already moved on.” Emily paused. “Why did you bring me flowers today?”
“I didn’t,” Elerick admitted. “I saw a bouquet just lying on the counter when I got to the lobby and assumed someone forgot them. I stuffed the stems into my back pocket with every intention of asking Joan or Jenna if they were meant for a guest or something. But then I saw those two spirits, and it seemed like maybe they were meant for you all along. Is that weird?”
Not that Emily was the best judge of what was weird. “No,” she said, resting her hand on her dirty knee. “Just, as you said, spooky.”
Elerick had inched farther forward on the bed to move closer to Emily. He couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out and put his hand gently on her knee, brushing the dirt away and then tracing the delicate skin behind it with his fingers, which made her shiver and sent goose bumps up her thighs. He wondered if she could hear his heartbeat, which felt like it was pounding against his chest. No. That was a rap at the door. “Just a minute!” Elerick said to the person in the hall.