The Second-Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street

by Cory Putman Oakes

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-4017-6

  eISBN 978-1-68335-737-7

  Text copyright © 2020 Cory Putman Oakes

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 Jane Pica

  Book design by Marcie Lawrence

  Published in 2020 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  ABRAMS The Art of Books

  195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

  abramsbooks.com

  IN LOVING MEMORY OF BOB OAKES

  CHAPTER 1

  WILLOW

  The ghost would have been a head taller than the girl—if the ghost had a head at all.

  Instead, the ghost had a stump. It was right between her shoulders, marking the spot where her neck used to be. The stump was framed by several lacy shirt collars that were so stiff with dried blood they stuck up at weird angles.

  The ghost’s long skirts billowed as she silently floated up behind the girl. The sharp spurs on her leather riding boots dangled in midair as the apparition slowly stretched out her arms.

  The girl was busy straightening a display of brochures on the mantel while balancing a stack of towels on her hip. She didn’t see the ghost.

  The ghostly woman rose even higher into the air. Her long coat blew back in an unseen wind. She leaned closer to the girl. The ghost’s milky-white fingers were inches from the girl’s light brown curls . . .

  . . . when the tip of one of her spurs caught on the handle of a basket of firewood.

  The ghost careened into an end table, which wobbled dangerously. It didn’t fall over, but the brass candelabra and two picture frames on top of it went crashing to the floor.

  “Molly,” the girl said without turning around. “Haven’t we talked about you going headless in the lobby?”

  “Sorry, Willow,” Molly said. Her boots floated back down to the ground.

  Willow Ivan had never been able to work out how Molly, the Hotel Ivan’s resident Headless Horsewoman, was able to talk when she was not always in possession of a mouth. Or a tongue. Or vocal cords. Somehow, she managed.

  Pity the same couldn’t be said for her eyesight.

  Molly knelt down and felt around blindly. When she found the candelabra, she set it back on top of the table. Two of its three candles had snapped in half, and Willow made a mental note to replace them later. After she put away the towels, and signed for the linen delivery, and fixed the toilet in room eight.

  No, maybe before she fixed the toilet. The lobby needed to look nice. Willow kicked the broken candle halves under the couch, then picked up the two picture frames—unbroken, luckily—and set them back on the table.

  “I’m sorry,” Molly said again. “I can go . . .”

  “Don’t be silly,” Willow said, holding her breath as Molly’s skirts swayed perilously close to a shelf full of breakable knickknacks. “Just be careful, OK?”

  “Sure thing,” Molly agreed, feeling her way around the coffee table. “What I really need is—”

  “To find your head?” Willow suggested hopefully, looking around. “It can’t be far. Last time it was in the pantry, wasn’t it? Or maybe the dining room?”

  “—someone to mope with,” Molly finished. She collapsed onto the overstuffed red sofa and patted the cushion next to her. “What do you say?”

  Willow sucked in a breath. “So, you’ve heard, then?”

  “About Anna? Yes, dear. We’ve all heard.”

  “From Dad? He said he was going to call a meeting.”

  “No, dear. I heard it from Pierce. I don’t think there was a meeting.”

  Willow frowned. Last night, after years of Fading, Anna Winthrop, the Hotel Ivan’s housekeeper, had finally progressed to the final phase of the ghost death cycle and Moved On. Willow had been up with her all night, trying to make her transition as peaceful as possible. Her dad had promised to speak with the staff about Anna’s passing first thing in the morning. He must have forgotten.

  And now it seemed there was no point.

  Towels. Linens. Candles. Toilet.

  “Anna’s been Fading for as long as I can remember, but I never thought she’d actually just be . . . gone,” Willow said wistfully. “She had her Last Gasp around midnight—she dusted the entire first floor and cleaned every dish in the hotel. After that, she just sort of . . . disappeared. Did you know that when she was alive, she used to work in the castle of King Henry VIII?”

  “Yeah,” Molly said skeptically, and Willow got the feeling that wherever her head was, her eyes were rolling. “That’s what she always said . . .”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “Let’s just say she wouldn’t be the first ghost to try and make her life sound more interesting than it actually was. Now that she’s gone, who will do the housekeeping?”

  Willow shrugged and readjusted her stack of towels. “Me, I guess.”

  “Really?” Molly sounded skeptical again. “Don’t you already have enough to do? With school and every—”

  “I’ve got everything under control,” Willow assured her. “The hotel is doing great. We’re full—all twelve rooms! We’re booked up for dinner. Plus, our Zagged rating is through the roof! I checked it first thing this morning, and we’re up to four and three-quarters stars!”

  And Dad was wearing shoes yesterday, Willow added silently to herself. Real shoes. The ones with the ugly tassels.

  The ones he used to wear when he had been the one worrying about the linens, busted toilets, and towels.

  Willow opened her mouth to tell Molly this, but she was interrupted by a soft chime from the back of the hotel.

  “That’ll be the linen delivery. Right on time,” Willow said, swinging around to grin triumphantly at Molly. “See what I mean? Under control!”

  “If you say so,” Molly said, still sounding unconvinced.

  “Willow?”

  Pierce, the Hotel Ivan’s concierge, appeared in the doorway.

  Francisco Pierce was everything a concierge at a haunted hotel should be: polite, efficient, and just snobby enough to lend the place an air of quality. His pasty face was usually fixed in a mild frown, and he was inevitably dressed every bit as sharply as he had been on the day he died—more than three hundred years ago.

  “The Fosters are checking out.”

  “Now?” Willow squeaked, checking her phone. It was six thirty in the morning. “I thought they were leaving tomorrow? Why—?”

  “I don’t know. But they’re demanding to speak to someone Living.” Pierce rolled his eyes at the outrageousness of such a request as the back door chime rang for a second time.

  “Bree!” Willow called, catching sight of the Hotel Ivan’s office manager/social media director. “W
ould you mind—”

  “Wi-Fi’s down again,” Bree muttered as she speed-walked through the lobby toward the cabinet where they kept the router. “I do not have time for this if I’m going to get today’s Instagram post up!”

  Bree, a pretty black woman in her mid-twenties, was one of the youngest ghosts at the Ivan, both because she’d died so young and because her death era (the 1960s) was so recent. Her hair was almost always styled in the same large Afro she’d worn in life, and she was never without her Nikon camera, which hung from her neck on a sparkly purple strap.

  “Besides,” Bree continued, reaching into the depths of the cabinet, “you know the linen service won’t accept a ghost signature.”

  Not liking her options, Willow walked resolutely to an office door marked HOTEL IVAN STAFF ONLY and flung it open.

  “Dad?”

  The office was cluttered and cramped, and Willow’s father sat hunched over a desk in the corner. His face was bathed in the light of an ancient computer monitor. Willow realized with a start that her father’s pale complexion was starting to look every bit as pasty as Pierce’s.

  “Busy,” he said.

  “Could you help for a sec? The linens are here, and I also have guests checking out. I need somebody Living . . .” Willow stumbled to a stop. Her father’s eyes hadn’t left the computer screen. And there were slippers on his feet today. Fuzzy, worn, cotton slippers. The ones with a hole in the left heel.

  “Did you go to your appointment with Dr. Strode yesterday?” Willow asked, knowing the answer even before her father shook his head.

  “I was busy. I’ll go to the next one.”

  “OK,” Willow muttered, and closed the door.

  The door chime rang a third time, Pierce started tapping his foot, and Willow stared at the pattern of the wood grain above the door handle, wondering what to do. Finally, she heard her mother’s voice inside her head.

  Guests always come first.

  “Right.” Willow dumped the towels into Pierce’s arms, ran a distracted hand over her curls, and headed to the front desk.

  “Can I help you?” she said to the impatient couple waiting there. “The Fosters, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Are you in charge here?” Mr. Foster asked. He was tall and mostly bald. He and his wife were both blinking uncertainly at Willow.

  “Yes, I am,” Willow answered, and paused, giving them a moment to adjust to the idea of a twelve-year-old in a position of authority. Most adults needed a moment for that, she had found. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re checking out,” Mr. Foster barked. “Immediately.”

  “Is there a problem with your room?” Willow asked in her most patient voice. “If it’s about the toilet, I’ve been meaning to—”

  “It isn’t the toilet,” Mr. Foster said snippily. “It’s more . . . the general atmosphere.”

  “The atmosphere?”

  “We thought it would be scarier!” Mrs. Foster cut in, looking a tad embarrassed to have said that out loud.

  “Scarier?” Willow repeated.

  “Yes.” Mr. Foster pulled a crumpled Hotel Ivan brochure out of his pocket. “We were under the impression that this was a real haunted hotel.”

  “It is,” Willow said. She gestured over her shoulder at Pierce, who was hiding the stack of towels behind the front desk and who was noticeably more see-through than any Living soul possibly could have been.

  “A real scary haunted hotel,” Mr. Foster amended. “It says here that guests can expect to be awakened every morning by one of the top ten Phantasms on the East Coast.”

  Willow turned to Pierce. “Leo didn’t do his show this morning?”

  “Oh, he did it,” Pierce said, looking uncomfortable. “It . . . well, it might not have been his best performance . . .”

  “And we prepaid for the sunrise trail ride with the Headless Horsewoman this morning, but she never showed up,” Mr. Foster added.

  Willow looked accusingly toward said horsewoman, who was currently splayed out on the lobby couch. “Molly!”

  “You told me not to take any guests out when I can’t find my head!” Molly shouted back. “Not after what happened last—”

  “OK, OK,” Willow interrupted quickly before the Fosters could hear the rest of that story.

  “And here it says we can expect to ‘frolic with one of the oldest ghost hounds in Vermont,’” Mr. Foster continued, then glared over the paper at where his two children were kneeling on the floor. They were giggling and taking turns passing their hands through what looked like an enormous, slightly see-through cotton ball with legs. “I thought the hound would at least be menacing. Or flesh-eating. Or something.”

  “You mean Cuddles?” Willow asked.

  Hearing his name, the cotton ball rolled to his feet. Then he scampered over and sat primly in front of Willow, not looking the least bit menacing or hungry for human flesh.

  “The hound’s name is Cuddles?” Mr. Foster growled.

  “Yes,” Willow said as Cuddles turned his attention to Pierce, who produced a treat from a bag labeled GOOD GHOULS: TREATS FIT FOR THE LIVING (BUT NUTRITIONALLY BALANCED FOR YOUR DECEASED PET). “We call him Cuddles because . . . well . . .”

  “Because he likes to cuddle,” Pierce finished with as much dignity as possible given that Cuddles had jumped into his arms, devoured the treat, and was now licking his face.

  “Cuddling is not scary,” Mr. Foster insisted. His face started to turn red with frustration. “Nothing here is scary. I mean, look at her!” he pointed toward Molly. “She’s headless! She could be scary. Terrifying, even . . . if she was doing anything interesting. But she’s not! She’s . . . what is she doing?”

  “She’s moping,” Willow answered.

  “Moping is not scary!” Mr. Foster raged, his face turning even redder.

  “Sir,” Willow tried, “this is a family-run hotel. It’s quite old. Most of our ghosts have been haunting this property for—”

  “—centuries,” Pierce cut in proudly, tucking Cuddles under one arm.

  “Centuries?” Mr. Foster sounded skeptical.

  “I started working in the kitchens here in the winter of 1619,” Pierce informed them icily. “Died in a kitchen fire in 1656. Was promoted to butler in 1670 and then to concierge in 1694, a position I have held ever—”

  “Yes, yes. That’s very impressive. But it is not, in fact, scary,” Mr. Foster maintained.

  “What would be scary to you, sir?” Pierce asked.

  “Well . . .” Mr. Foster began thoughtfully, then cut himself off and elbowed his wife. “There! Look!”

  Willow turned to follow his gaze.

  A ghostly apparition had appeared on the stairs to the right of the front desk. It was a woman wearing a white nightgown that seemed to float around her as though she were underwater. The nightgown and her pale skin were both so translucent that Willow could see the stairway behind her. Her curly brown hair was in disarray, and her hollow eyes darted from side to side, fixing on everything in turn but nothing in particular, as she drifted slowly down the steps.

  As the ghost entered the lobby, a feeling of heaviness came with her. To Willow, it felt like a thick cloud had washed right over her from her eyeballs down to her toes. It seeped in through her nostrils and reached down her throat, choking her.

  A sob escaped the woman’s throat, and Willow swallowed, feeling a strong urge to cry herself. Instead, she took a step backward and looked anxiously toward the Fosters. But they didn’t seem affected by the grief cloud.

  “A Weeping Woman!” Mr. Foster marveled, then fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket. “Kids! Go stand by her! Quick, now—”

  “No!” Willow shouted.

  Cuddles barked in Pierce’s arms as the kids scrambled toward the stairs. The apparition appeared not to notice the commotion, but Willow moved quickly to place herself between the woman and the Fosters.

  “She’s not a part of the hotel guest experience,” Willow said firmly
, holding her arms out wide to ruin any pictures. The kids groaned in disappointment, and Mr. Foster’s face screwed up with anger once more.

  “I’d be happy to give you a refund, sir,” Willow assured him hurriedly. The floating woman let out another sob and drifted toward the front desk.

  “Fine,” Mr. Foster said irritably. “But we won’t be staying here again. When we come back to town, we’ll be staying at a Hauntery. They know how to make things scary!”

  “And their toilets always work,” Mrs. Foster added nastily, gathering up the children.

  “The Hotel Ivan is the only haunted hotel in Mercer,” Willow called after them. “There’s no Hauntery within a hundred miles of here.”

  “Thank goodness,” Pierce muttered.

  The Fosters slammed the door behind them.

  Willow took a step toward the back door, then realized that the doorbell had stopped chiming some time ago. She’d missed the linen delivery. She should probably still go fix that toilet in case somebody checked in later. So much for having everything under control.

  Willow turned to the Weeping Woman. She was behind the front desk now, still looking lost but also strangely as though she belonged there. She had stopped sobbing. She blinked, then looked up.

  “Willow?” she said.

  Then she blinked again, and the spark of recognition in her eyes faded into confusion once more.

  Only one thing comes before guests, Willow, and that’s family.

  “Hi, Mom,” Willow said with a sigh. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

  CHAPTER 2

  EVIE

  The Mercer Street Hauntery looked exactly like every other Hauntery Evie MacNeil had ever seen—and she’d seen a lot of them.

  Each Hauntery property had the same (intentionally) squeaky iron gate that spanned two (artfully) crumbling brick pillars. The hotel itself—a sprawling, squatting Victorian mansion—had the same faux-marble columns in front as all the others. The usual two-story, latticed, southern-style porch wrapped around two sides of the building. The fake gravestones in the well-manicured grass were purposefully weathered and knocked at angles that conformed perfectly to Corporate guidelines. The soundtrack playing when you entered—a mixture of spooky sounds and organ music—had been certified by a panel of psychologists as fear-inducing and was required to be played on a constant loop in all Hauntery lobbies.