The Second-Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street

by Cory Putman Oakes

  “We can’t keep calling our characters Vampire Concierge and Murder Victim,” Evie pointed out. “We’re going to have to come up with actual names at some point.”

  “For the Vampire Concierge . . . I guess we can just call him Pierce,” Willow suggested. “Since . . . well, since he is Pierce. In a vampire costume.”

  “Count Pierce,” Evie suggested. “Vampires are counts, right? Like Count Dracula?”

  “That’ll work,” Willow said, typing. “And ‘Murder Victim’ is Molly, but we can’t just call her Molly. It should be something more mysterious. More ominous.”

  “And important sounding,” Evie added. “Grand. Lofty.”

  Willow racked her brain for an appropriately eerie yet snooty-sounding name. It was hard to think when the hotel was so uncharacteristically quiet. They still didn’t have a single guest. Which was actually just as well, since everyone at the Ivan was hard at work getting ready for the upcoming whodunit. Francesca and Antonia had their heads together in the kitchen, coming up with the dinner party menu. Bree had been on the phone all morning, trying to drum up some sympathetic local publicity. Pierce was spiffing up the dining room, and Molly was, as usual, searching for her head.

  Willow had assigned herself and Evie the task of writing the scripts for the murder and séance scenes. She’d put the whole morning aside for the task, which had seemed like more than enough time at first. She and Evie had settled in beside a crackling fire, happily brainstorming murder mystery ideas with only the sound of Cuddles’s cute little snores in the background.

  But now the clock on the mantel was inching toward noon, and they still hadn’t even finished the murder scene, let alone moved on to the séance. Cuddles’s snores were getting less adorable and more obnoxious by the minute, and with only three days until the inspector was due to arrive, Willow was getting anxious that they wouldn’t finish the script in time to rehearse properly.

  “Writing is harder than I thought it would be,” Willow confessed.

  Evie nodded in agreement. “How does the Deena Morales author do it?”

  “You mean Angelina Garcia?” Willow put the laptop aside, picked up The Clue in the Old Inn, and started thumbing through it. “I don’t know! She comes up with dozens of character names for every book. Who knew it would be so hard?”

  “Why don’t we call the Murder Victim Mrs. Morales?” Evie suggested.

  “Deena’s last name?” Willow considered this. “It’s not very ominous. And isn’t using one of Angelina Garcia’s names sort of . . . stealing?”

  “We’re not stealing, we’re borrowing,” Evie insisted. “It’s an homage. We’re paying tribute to the character who inspired us!”

  “I guess we could do that,” Willow agreed hesitantly. “Mrs. Morales . . . no, Baroness Morales!”

  “Love it!” said Evie emphatically as Willow settled the laptop back onto her knees and started typing. “Whew! Moving on. How much more have we got to write?”

  “The entire séance scene,” Willow informed her.

  Evie sank reluctantly down to the floor beside Cuddles. “I guess we need a cool name for the Medium, too, don’t we?”

  Willow opened her mouth to respond but closed it immediately as the sound of a wail and a large crash echoed from the dining room.

  “What the—” Willow sprang up and headed toward the sound, Evie at her heels. They arrived in the doorway just as an even louder wail assailed their ears. It sent shivers down Willow’s spine and brought with it a familiar sensation of heaviness.

  Every piece of china the Ivan owned was laid out on the largest table in the center of the room. Pierce was standing in front of it, arms spread wide, placing himself between the valuable china and the white-nightgowned apparition in the corner.

  “Eleanor,” Pierce said calmly. “Your name is Eleanor Ivan. You’re all right, Eleanor. Everything is—”

  “Where am I?” Mrs. Ivan wailed, looking down at her feet. She was floating in the midst of an overturned tea trolley, her feet dragging through a pile of shattered teacups.

  “You’re in the hotel, Mom,” Willow tried, going to stand beside Pierce. “In the dining room.”

  Mrs. Ivan frowned down at the ruined tea set. “I broke that,” she announced, sounding like she was on the verge of wailing again.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Willow said quickly. “It’s not important.”

  “Eleanor, this is Willow,” Pierce told her. “Your daughter. Remember?”

  Mrs. Ivan drifted away from the overturned trolley, toward the door to the dining room. She stopped when she came face-to-face with Evie. “Willow . . .” she muttered. Her eyes widened. “What have you done to your hair?”

  “Um.” Evie raised a self-conscious hand to her locks, which were their natural flame red today. “Um, I don’t think—”

  “She’s confused,” Willow explained. “Mom, I’m Willow.”

  “Oh, Molly,” Mrs. Ivan said with a distracted wave in Willow’s direction. “I can’t look for your head right now. I’m busy. Very busy . . .”

  Evie leaped aside and allowed Mrs. Ivan to drift determinedly through the doorway.

  Willow swallowed an enormous lump in her throat.

  Pierce sagged with relief. “She came in out of nowhere,” he explained, bending down to right the tea trolley. “Through the wall and into the tea set.”

  “She touched the tea set?!” Evie exclaimed, coming all the way into the room with a confused look on her face. “I thought she’d only been a ghost for a few months.”

  “Six months,” Pierce corrected her, using a napkin to sweep the tea set shards into a pile. “WISPs can sometimes manipulate objects on the Living plane by accident. But they don’t have any control.”

  “A WISP?” Evie asked. “You mean a Woefully Impermanent Spiritual—”

  “She’s not a WISP,” Willow interrupted, not liking the shakiness in her voice. She knelt down beside Pierce and waved him away from the mess. “I’ve got this.”

  “I’ll help you,” Pierce insisted. “Let me—”

  “I said I’ve got it!” Willow snapped.

  Pierce stood up quickly, and Willow instantly regretted her words. She suddenly felt very alone on the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Pierce said, and Willow couldn’t help but notice he was using the same calming tone and the same words that he’d just used on her mother.

  “Let’s not tell my dad about this,” Willow said, indicating the mess all around her. “He’s already—I mean, I don’t want him to worry.”

  Pierce set his napkin down on the table. “Willow, don’t you think maybe he should be worried?”

  “What?” Willow asked, confused.

  Pierce knelt back down on the floor. “You shouldn’t have to worry by yourself. He’s your dad.”

  Willow shook her head. “He can’t handle it right now.”

  “Why?” Evie asked. “What’s wrong with your dad?”

  “He suffers from depression,” Pierce answered.

  “He needs good news,” Willow said. “I don’t want to bother him until we have some.”

  And then, as though she’d heard Willow’s words, Bree swept into the room. “The Channel 13 news crew is here!” she announced brightly, then drew back when she saw the mess on the floor. “What—”

  “It’s nothing,” Willow said, standing up shakily. “Channel 13?”

  “The same channel that runs Antonia’s cooking show. They also do the Mercer Evening News,” Bree clarified. “I told them all about our situation, and they’re so into it—the beautiful, local, historic Ivan being threatened by the evil, soulless Hauntery that will stop at nothing to put us out of business! They want to do a story on us, and they’re here to interview you. With cameras and everything.”

  “Cameras?!” Evie squealed, and Willow was puzzled to see her suddenly looking over her shoulder in terror. “Where?”

  Bree jerked a thumb over her shoulder. �
�I’ve got them all set up outside by the stables. But they want to come in and get some footage of the inside, too.”

  “I’ve never done a TV interview before!” Willow said, nervously smoothing down the front of her shirt and wincing as a stray ceramic splinter dug into her thumb.

  “It’ll be great publicity,” Bree assured her. “Everybody in Mercer watches Channel 13.”

  “I don’t,” said Pierce drolly. “I find them humorless and dull.”

  “Everybody watches it?” Evie asked, and Willow thought she looked oddly nervous again. Bree seemed to notice, too.

  “Don’t tell me you’re camera shy, Ms. Phantasm,” she teased Evie.

  “No, no,” Evie said, sounding flustered as she backed slowly out the door. “It’s not that. It’s just . . . I forgot I have an afternoon haunting scheduled. At the library. I don’t want to be late.”

  “But the script!” Willow exclaimed. “We’re not done!”

  “Can we finish tomorrow?” Evie asked, taking another step back.

  “I guess so, but—”

  “Thanks!” Evie called, and if Willow hadn’t known better, she would’ve said her new friend all but ran out the front door of the Ivan.

  “What’s with her?” Willow asked.

  Pierce shrugged.

  Bree rolled her eyes. “Phantasms,” she said. “They’re all such drama queens. Come on, let’s get you ready to go on camera!”

  CHAPTER 12

  EVIE

  From the moment she’d heard Bree utter the words news crew, all Evie could think about was how quickly those cameras could have busted the secret of her job at the Ivan wide open. She hadn’t liked running out on Willow like that, not when they had so much to do. But she couldn’t afford to take the chance of showing up on the evening news.

  Back at the Hauntery, Evie did not have time to relax. She had six lengthy back-to-back hauntings with Louise, then, just as the sun was starting to go down, she found herself summoned to a mandatory emergency staff meeting. When she arrived at one of the Hauntery’s state-of-the-art media rooms, she gulped as she spotted the Mercer Evening News logo splashed across the large projection screen.

  Evie’s nerves were humming as she, her parents (who had recently returned from their Phamazon job), and Louise gathered in a large clump with the rest of the Hauntery staff. Mr. Fox prowled around in front of the crowd. The colors of the projector image bounced off of his bald head as he walked. Once all of the Hauntery employees quieted down, he signaled to someone in the back of the room. The news logo faded, and Willow appeared on the screen, standing nervously beside a very blond reporter.

  “And finally,” the reporter said, “the story of a local landmark, the Hotel Ivan, which is fighting for its very existence now that the newest branch of the Hauntery has opened just a stone’s throw away on Mercer Street. Here with us this evening is Willow Ivan, the daughter of the Hotel Ivan’s owners. Willow, can you tell us what makes your hotel so special?”

  “Um, yes,” said Willow, who looked a bit startled as the reporter thrust a large microphone in front of her mouth. “My family has run the Hotel Ivan for the past four hundred years. We have twelve beautiful guest rooms, a restaurant with two Michelin stars and a celebrity chef, a rustic stable . . .”

  As Willow continued to talk, lovely images of the Hotel Ivan floated across the screen—beautiful, whimsical snapshots (probably taken by Bree) that showed a warm, inviting, cozy haunted hotel.

  Evie’s mother sighed wistfully. “Such a charming place,” she whispered to Evie too quietly for Mr. Fox to hear.

  “It is,” Evie agreed.

  “Such a shame they’ll be out of business soon,” her mother finished, looking genuinely distressed for a moment before shrugging and turning her attention back to the screen.

  “We’re a family hotel,” Willow went on, her voice getting slightly less shaky. “Most of our ghosts have been with us for several decades at least. As we say at the Ivan, Haunt Local!”

  “Yet unlike the Hauntery, which boasts the slogan ‘Hauntery ghosts never Fade,’ you are not able to make the same guarantee to your ghost employees, are you?” the newscaster said with a look of concern on her face that looked utterly fake to Evie. “We were all sad to hear about the recent Fading of your Terrifying Phantasm. Do you think your lack of a Phantasm is going to be the final nail in the Hotel Ivan’s coffin?”

  Evie bit her lip hard as Willow shook her head.

  “We were all very sad to lose our dear Leo and his husband, Alford. But we have a very exciting and talented new Phantasm who will be debuting soon!”

  Don’t say my name, don’t say my name, Evie begged Willow silently.

  “We’re all so thrilled to have her! She’s just in time to headline our new murder mystery whodunit!” Willow gushed, and as the camera panned away from her and back to the reporter, Evie wasn’t sure whether she was about to explode with pride or sink to the floor with relief that her secret was still intact.

  “We wish you the best of luck, Hotel Ivan,” the newscaster said morosely, as though the Ivan had already died and they were all attending its funeral. “And now, on to your competition, the Mercer Street Hauntery.”

  A new bearded newscaster appeared onscreen, standing with Mr. Fox in front of the Hauntery.

  “Thank you, Sheila! I’m here with Mr. Fox, the Hauntery’s vice president of quality control. Mr. Fox, what do you say to accusations that your hotel conglomerate is heartlessly putting historic, family-run properties like the Hotel Ivan out of business?”

  “We at the Hauntery Corporation pride ourselves on supporting the local communities we move into,” Mr. Fox said into the microphone. “As you know, we are the world’s biggest employer of NCEs . . .”

  As Mr. Fox droned on, Evie’s father leaned over to whisper to Evie’s mother. “The Ivan has a new Phantasm?” he mused. “I wonder who they got?”

  Me! Evie screamed internally. Me, Dad! I’m the new Phantasm! The one they’re so thrilled about!

  “. . . and we were so lucky to have the chance to restore this gorgeous Mercer Street property to its former glory,” Mr. Fox continued.

  “Yes, about that,” the newscaster broke in. “What do you say to those who claim that up until recently, the property we’re currently standing on was nothing but an abandoned lot with an old gas station? What about the many longtime Mercer residents who say that this Victorian mansion didn’t exist until the Hauntery built it late last year?”

  Mr. Fox smiled wanly into the camera. “I’d say those longtime Mercer residents are dangerously misinformed.”

  “Well, there you have it!” the newscaster concluded. “The Hotel Ivan versus the Mercer Street Hauntery. Who will be number one? We’ll find out when the Zagged Guide releases its new rankings next week. Back to you in the studio, Deborah!”

  Mr. Fox pushed a button on the projector, and the video paused. He walked purposefully to the front of the room and faced the Hauntery staff.

  “I’ve had just about enough talk of this Hotel Ivan,” Mr. Fox said gloomily. “By next week, they will be just like every other tiny fleabag hotel the Hauntery has come up against—that is to say, the Hotel Ivan will cease to exist. In just a few days, the Zagged inspector will be with us, and I expect you all to give him the highest class of service you are capable of delivering. Are we clear?”

  There were mumblings in the crowd.

  “The news is right about this building being brand-new,” a uniformed bellhop behind Evie whispered. “My buddy was part of the crew that built it. From scratch, he said. Nothing historical about it.”

  “What about the ghosts who haunt the Ivan?” a ghost standing somewhere to the right of Evie mused. “What will happen to them if the hotel goes under?”

  “Who cares?” sneered Louise, fiddling with the sleeve of her suit jacket. “It’s their fault for deciding to work at a substandard hotel in the first place.”

  “As you all know,” Mr. Fox continued,
drawing everyone’s attention back to the front of the room, “I’ve been sent here by Corporate to personally oversee the launch of this property. No Hauntery Hotel has ever debuted as anything less than number one in its regional Zagged Guide. Should the Zagged inspector leave here with anything but the highest opinion of our hotel, I will find out why, and the employees who failed in their assignments will be terminated immediately.”

  There was a collective drawing of breath around the room.

  “Impress the inspector,” Mr. Fox ordered, “or take your chances with Fading. Remember, Hauntery ghosts never Fade. But each and every one of you can be replaced. Easily. Is that clear?”

  There were mutterings and lots of nodding of heads.

  “I said,” thundered Mr. Fox, “Are. We. Clear?”

  “Yes, Mr. Fox!” the staff chorused.

  “Good. Dismissed!”

  ***

  After the staff meeting, Evie’s parents excused themselves to perform a scheduled haunting on the eighth floor.

  “Don’t we have a haunting later tonight, too?” Evie asked Louise.

  “It was canceled,” Louise informed her, then puffed up her chest. “Mr. Fox canceled it so that I can attend a meeting with him tonight. With people from Corporate. It’s a teleconference that’s bound to last for hours. He said it would be an excellent networking opportunity for me. It starts in just a few minutes.”

  “Have fun,” Evie said dryly, though she couldn’t imagine that anything occurring in the presence of Mr. Fox or Corporate could actually qualify as fun.

  Louise raised an eyebrow. “I tried to tell you about the cancellation earlier today, but I couldn’t find you.”

  “Oh?” Evie said, trying to look bored.

  Louise narrowed her eyes. “Where were you?”

  “Around,” Evie said vaguely. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’re up to something,” Louise said, looking Evie squarely in the face. “If you’re thinking of trying to edge me out of this internship, think again. Mr. Fox is delighted with my performance so far. That’s the word he used on my first evaluation form. Delighted.”