The Second-Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street

by Cory Putman Oakes

  Evie motioned to Willow to wait a moment. Ducking around Willow’s chair, she crept up the aisle behind the boy. He was too busy ripping out pages to notice her. She closed her eyes for a moment, then hovered just behind him with her head over his right shoulder.

  “QUIT. IT,” she growled in her best Phantasm voice.

  The boy jumped. The ruined book tumbled to the floor as he bolted down the aisle, straight out of the children’s section.

  Evie tried to look nonchalant as she walked back to the chair.

  “Not bad,” Willow said approvingly.

  “It’s a work in progress,” Evie said with a shrug. “My Phantasm cry is still sort of . . . developing.”

  “Oh, you’ll get there.” Willow’s voice was now entirely encouraging, without the skepticism from earlier. “If we had a job opening for a Phantasm, I’d hire you in a second.”

  “Really?” Evie asked, unable to stop the warm and fuzzy feeling that flooded her at Willow’s words. A job offer, sort of. And not for the job of Spooky Little Girl—for a Phantasm!

  “Sure. Except we already have a Phantasm. And we don’t have any extra money right now.” Willow’s face darkened. “And I don’t think you’d really want to work for me. Not when we might have to close down.”

  “Oh.” The warm fuzzies faded into sympathy at the sight of Willow’s face. “You really might go out of business?”

  Willow shrugged. “I hope not. The Hotel Ivan’s been in my family for four hundred years—I really don’t want to be the Ivan who loses it. Ugh, that stupid Hauntery!”

  “Yeah . . . stupid Hauntery,” Evie repeated with a guilty lump in her throat. “Hey, you know—”

  Willow’s phone buzzed. When she retrieved it, Evie could see several missed texts on the screen.

  “I have to go,” Willow said, standing up quickly from the chair.

  “Willow?”

  “Yeah?”

  Evie drew in a breath. “The Hauntery isn’t that great. I mean—I don’t know much about it,” she added hastily. “But it can’t be as amazing as everybody thinks. You shouldn’t give up on your hotel.” She pointed to Mystery #6, which Willow was still holding. “Deena Morales wouldn’t give up.”

  A thoughtful smile spread across Willow’s face.

  “You’re right. She wouldn’t.”

  CHAPTER 9

  WILLOW

  The hotel was eerily silent when Willow jogged into the empty lobby. She expected to find Pierce, who had just sent her an eighth text, waiting for her. But instead, she found her father. He was sitting all alone on one of the red couches. When he spotted Willow, he blinked.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  “The library,” Willow answered. Then she caught sight of her father’s slippered feet on the coffee table and found herself suddenly shaky with rage. “Where were you?”

  “Where was I when?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Willow ticked off the possibilities on her fingers. “This morning, when you were supposed to sign for the linen delivery? This afternoon, when the police were here? Or when I was scrubbing vomit off the floor of the music room? Any time in between? Take your pick, Dad!”

  “I’m sorry, Willow, I haven’t quite been myself since . . . since . . .”

  “Since Mom died. You haven’t been yourself since Mom died. You haven’t been anybody since Mom died!”

  He lowered his face into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “You’ve been doing it all, I know. You’ve been doing an amazing job.”

  Willow laughed bitterly at that. She laughed so hard she snorted. “No, I haven’t! I’m drowning here!” Her voice reached a hysterical pitch she barely recognized as her phone buzzed again. “I needed you today. I need you every day. Don’t you get it? I can’t do this by myself!”

  “I know,” her father groaned into his hands. “I know.”

  “I made you an appointment with Dr. Strode. Two appointments! You missed them both.”

  “I know. I’ll go to the next one. I promise, Willow. I’ll go.”

  There was a long silence.

  “How long haven’t we been paying our bills?” Willow asked finally.

  He looked up at that. “A couple of months. Maybe three.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? And don’t say you didn’t want to worry me.”

  Her father scratched his head. “It’s not as bad as it seems. If we can hold out until the Vermont Vapors get here, we’ll be all right. After they pay us for an entire month, we can pay everybody else. I was trying to get us by until then.”

  “What about the Rainy Day Fund?”

  “How do you know about—”

  “Bree told me. What’s the Rainy Day Fund?”

  Willow’s father frowned. “We can’t use that.”

  “Why?”

  “That money is not for the hotel.”

  “What do you mean? Why can’t we use—”

  “That money is for you, Willow.”

  “Me?” Willow squeaked, and her father sighed.

  “Your mother and I saved it for you. So that if the hotel went under, or if anything happened to us, you’d be provided for. It’s not for just any rainy day, it’s for the rainy day. When there’s nothing else left. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted us to spend that.”

  Willow snorted again. “Yeah, well, I can think of a lot of things that Mom wouldn’t have wanted.”

  “Willow—”

  “I’m losing them, Dad! Leo, Antonia, all of them! I’m losing her. They’re Fading. If I can’t think of something, we’re going to lose them all. We’re going to lose Mom all over again! Help me!”

  Over her father’s shoulder, Willow saw Pierce poke his head into the lobby.

  “Willow? There you are. I’ve been texting you.”

  “Sorry, I got—”

  “You’d better come. It’s Leo.”

  “Leo?” Willow’s heart jumped into her throat as she rushed to follow Pierce through the door that led to the staff quarters.

  “I’ll do better,” her father said from the couch. “I promise. I’ll do better.”

  Willow let the door slam behind her.

  Leo and Alford’s room was packed. Pierce and Willow joined Molly and Antonia against the back wall. Francesca and Bree were crammed in front of a bookshelf in the corner.

  Leo lay prostrate on his chaise lounge in the center of the room with Alford kneeling at his side and Cuddles snuggled up against his legs. It seemed to Willow that Leo was wrapped in his finest dressing gown, but it was hard to tell. You had to squint to see him, and there were times when his body seemed to flicker in and out of sight.

  Willow was aghast. “He seemed fine this morning when he did the Phantasm cry,” she whispered to Pierce. “How did he get so bad so quickly?”

  “It must have been his Last Gasp,” Pierce answered, also in a whisper. “His last burst of energy before he Moves On.”

  Alford looked back over his shoulder. “He wanted to do one last show. He wouldn’t let me tell anyone—” Alford cut himself off with a sob.

  Leo reached over and felt for his husband’s hands. “Don’t cry, Alfy. Not now.”

  Alford chuckled. “If not now, at the end, then when should I cry?”

  Leo shook his head. “No crying,” he said firmly. “Not after we’ve had such a glorious death together.”

  “We did,” Alford agreed, wiping tears from his mustache. “We really, really did.”

  “I’m sorry we never retired,” Leo said. “It’s my fault—”

  “Don’t worry about that, Leo,” Alford assured him. “I wouldn’t change a thing. Really.”

  Willow heard Pierce draw in a deep breath before he took a step forward. “Leo?”

  “Pierce? Is that Pierce?”

  “Yes, Leo. I told you once that I wouldn’t miss you if you Faded.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Another deep breath. “I was wrong about that.”

  “Thanks, Pier
ce.”

  The concierge backed up again to stand beside Willow. His shoulders were shaking.

  “No crying!” Leo bellowed, trying to sit up but coughing loudly before falling back on the chaise lounge. He was almost entirely transparent now, so much that he was nearly invisible, and there was not as much time between flickers.

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” Willow said quietly, starting toward him. “I’m so sorry—”

  “This isn’t your fault, dumpling.” Leo raised his head to look at her, and for a moment, Willow could have sworn she saw Leonata’s makeup and platinum-blond hair in the next flicker. She winked at Willow, then flickered back to Leo’s stubbly features. “I won’t have you thinking that. And I won’t have you stealing my death scene, either. So back up, love.”

  Willow let out a watery chuckle and took a step backward.

  Leo blew her a kiss, then fell back onto the cushion with a frown. “I’m ready. I’m ready to go. But I don’t know how. I don’t know . . .”

  “Don’t know what, Leo?” Alford asked.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Leo said, his forehead creased in frustration. “They’re all here. Everyone is here, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “You’re not supposed to do anything, honey—”

  “I want to do something! I need to do something!”

  Everyone was silent for a moment, until Alford suddenly sat up straighter. “Sing,” he said.

  “Sing?” Leo asked, sounding doubtful. But Alford was standing up now and pulling Leo to his feet.

  “Like the old days, honey. In the opera houses. You remember.”

  “The opera houses . . .” Leo murmured, standing none too steadily. Alford put his arms around Leo to steady him, and Willow blinked. Alford had started to flicker too. His brown uniform was growing hazier by the minute.

  “The stadiums, the theaters,” Alford said into Leo’s ear. “The Palais Garnier—the USO show where we met, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Row upon row of those beautiful red velvet seats,” Alford murmured. It was so quiet in the room that everybody who was assembled could hear him, too. “The instruments, the costumes. You standing center stage. Singing to a packed house. The aria—”

  “The aria . . .” Leo smiled.

  “Sing, my love,” Alford whispered. “One last time.”

  Leo drew himself up on his almost-invisible legs. His voice filled the room. Not his Phantasm cry, the one that had shaken the rafters and haunted the rooms of the Hotel Ivan for so long. Instead, the room quivered with a beautiful, reverberating tenor that shook the tears out of everyone present in spite of Leo’s command that they should not cry.

  The aria came to an end. Only Leo’s outline was visible now. He kissed Alford, and then his eyes drifted up toward something near the ceiling.

  “Alfy,” he rasped. “Alfy . . .”

  Then he Faded from sight, dressing gown and all, leaving Alford with his arms wrapped around nothing but air.

  “Wait for me,” Alford said softly. “Wait for me, Leopold. I’m coming.”

  He closed his eyes, breathed out once, and he, too, was gone.

  Alone on the chaise lounge, Cuddles buried his face in his paws and cried.

  Willow hung up the phone.

  “Well?” Pierce asked.

  “That was the Vermont Vapors.”

  “And?”

  “They’re canceling their stay with us. The entire month.” The words felt heavy in her mouth. “It seems the Hauntery offered them a better deal.”

  Pierce looked down at the floor. “So that’s it, then. We’re finished. The Hauntery’s won.”

  Willow took a deep breath. Agreeing with him would be awful, but it would also be a relief.

  But then, for some reason, Willow thought about something Evie had said in the library.

  You shouldn’t give up on your hotel . . . Deena Morales wouldn’t give up.

  Slowly, Willow pulled out the Zagged Guide’s letter. “Not yet,” she said. “They haven’t won yet.”

  Pierce shook his head. “Willow, I know what you’re thinking, but—”

  “But what, Pierce? Things are bad right now, I know. But what if we can get that inspector to rank us number one? We’ll get our guests back! Nobody else will Fade. We still have a chance.”

  “But how can we possibly—”

  “We weren’t trying hard enough before. That’s my fault. I told everybody that the Hauntery didn’t matter, that we shouldn’t worry. I was wrong. I see that. And now we’re going to beat them at their own game.”

  Pierce raised an eyebrow.

  “We’ll be better,” Willow continued. “We’ll be scarier. We’ll fix this place up to be the scariest haunted hotel anybody has ever seen. Way scarier than any cookie-cutter Hauntery.”

  “With what money? We can’t even pay our bills! We need to fix the fridge and pay the linen service . . .” Pierce trailed off and lowered his voice. “If you need a loan, Willow, I’d be more than happy to—why on earth are you smiling?”

  Willow was smiling. She was also looking out the window, out at the clear blue sky.

  “I don’t need a loan, Pierce. I feel a rainy day coming on. How about you?”

  That evening, Willow tacked a note to the message board at the Mercer Street Public Library.

  CHAPTER 10

  EVIE

  “What are you wearing?” Evie asked.

  Louise spun around, running her hands over the lapels of her new black suit. It looked exactly like the suit Mr. Fox always wore.

  Which, Evie was pretty sure, was the point.

  “I got it!” Louise announced, her eyes sparkling.

  “Got what?”

  “The internship!”

  Evie stared at her blankly.

  “You know, the management internship with Mr. Fox?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Last week, Mr. Fox had made an announcement about taking applications for an internship, which he had called “an exciting advancement opportunity.” Evie vividly remembered wondering who on earth, alive or dead, would voluntarily sign up to spend more time with Mr. Fox than was absolutely necessary.

  Apparently, she had her answer.

  “Kathleen Deetz started out in hotel management, you know,” Louise informed Evie. “Before she started GhouledIn.”

  “Oh, so now you think you’re going to become a millionaire like her?”

  “She’s a billionaire. And who knows? Maybe I will. I’m not going to be a Spooky Little Girl forever. Mr. Fox says I have management potential. You should really start thinking about your future, too.”

  “I’ll get right on that.”

  “I’m serious. It’s about time you stopped this nonsense about wanting to be a Phantasm and started setting some realistic goals for yourself.”

  “Like being a billionaire?” Evie scoffed.

  Louise stuck her nose in the air. “At least I have my sights aimed high. As far as I can tell, you aren’t aiming at anything.”

  Evie gritted her teeth, then remembered the note she’d seen on the message board at the library that morning. What she wouldn’t give to tell Louise that she had a job offer—as a Terrifying Phantasm! If she didn’t know for an absolute fact that Louise would run straight to Mr. Fox with the news, she’d tell her right this minute. The look on Louise’s face would almost be worth getting fired . . .

  Almost. But not quite.

  “Your parents think the same thing,” Louise continued.

  “They were talking to me about it before they left.”

  Evie’s mom and dad had been loaned out to Phamazon for the next few days. Phamazon, the Hauntery’s sister corporation, was the largest online retailer of non-corporeal-entity-related products in the world. In addition to its exclusive line of Hauntery memorabilia, which included everything from mugs to T-shirts to reusable grocery bags, Phamazon also rented out Hauntery ghosts for private events. Some rich person from
Florida had hired Evie’s parents via Phamazon to haunt their vacation house in Boca Raton for the weekend.

  As far as Evie was concerned, the trip couldn’t have come at a better time.

  “Your parents are as worried about your prospects as I am,” Louise went on. “They won’t say it to your face because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “Well, aren’t I lucky that you don’t worry about things like that.”

  “There’s no place for feelings in the business world,” Louise said sagely, turning toward the door. “I’m shadowing Mr. Fox this afternoon. What are you doing?”

  Evie shrugged and faked a yawn. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something . . .”

  When Evie walked through the open front door of the Ivan, she hardly had time to look around before a small white blur came streaking toward her, followed by a woman holding a camera.

  “Catch him! Catch him!” the woman yelled.

  Evie reached down and seized the blur right before it managed to run between her legs and out the door. She did it without thinking and was briefly elated that she had managed to touch something Living. But upon closer inspection, it became clear that the white blur was actually a ghost—a ghost dog, Evie realized as a tongue appeared from somewhere in the depths of the fuzz and gave her a very thorough face-licking.

  “Sorry!” The woman with the camera scooped the creature out of Evie’s arms. “I’m trying to take his picture by the front desk, but he just won’t stay put!”

  “No wonder,” said a sharply dressed man behind the front desk, who was wrinkling his nose in disgust. “He had another accident back here.”

  “Cuddles!” the woman with the camera admonished the fluff ball. “Not again!”

  “I knew I smelled something,” said a second woman on the other side of the lobby. This woman was headless and walked right into a standing lamp.

  Evie took a quick second to look around. To someone used to the grandeur of Hauntery lobbies, the Hotel Ivan’s lobby was kind of a letdown. It was all a bit dark and shabby, with peeling wallpaper, old furniture, and a layer of dust on everything. But still, with the cozy fireplace and the assorted knickknacks on every surface, Evie thought the Ivan looked very homey.