The Second-Best Haunted Hotel on Mercer Street

by Cory Putman Oakes

  “I see,” Evie said, rather disappointed. She hated to admit it, but she’d been hoping for a shortcut. Twenty years seemed like such an interminably long time, and she didn’t have anything like Bree’s camera to motivate her. “So, there’s no shortcut? No trick?”

  “Sorry,” Bree said with a smile. “I can only tell you what worked for me. And that was wanting it badly enough. But you? It seems like with you, it’s more a crisis of confidence. You don’t believe you can do it. And no wonder, with all that negativity around you.”

  “They’re my family,” Evie said reluctantly.

  “Family or not, there are always going to be people who underestimate you,” Bree said. “Sometimes, it can be tempting to believe what others think about you—it’s easier, in a weird way. But if you want to do great things, you’ve got to believe you can. Nobody’s going to believe it for you. They can’t—not in the same way. Make sense?”

  “Yeah,” Evie said, thinking hard. “I think it does—”

  Click.

  Evie jumped.

  “Smile,” Bree commanded from behind the lens of the Nikon. “I don’t have a portrait of you yet.”

  “A portrait? For what?” Evie asked, awkwardly trying to speak and hold a smile at the same time.

  “For the ‘Meet the Ghosts of the Ivan’ series on Insta-gram,” Bree answered.

  “Instagram?” Evie fought down a wave of panic. “I don’t know—I mean, I don’t—”

  “You don’t like to be on social media?” Bree guessed. “No worries. I respect that. But let me get a picture anyway, just for us here in the hotel? After all, you are a ghost of the Ivan now, aren’t you?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Evie smiled. Bree raised the camera again.

  “Hello?” interrupted an authoritative voice from the lobby.

  Bree and Evie pulled each other to their feet and reached the lobby at the same time as Molly. There was a police officer there, looking around uncertainly at the scaffolding.

  “Can we help you?” Molly asked.

  “Yes, I—oh!”

  Evie bit back a giggle as the officer jumped at the sight of the Headless Horsewoman.

  “Oh my,” the officer exclaimed. As he straightened his hat and endeavored to compose himself, his stunned expression faded to one of awe. He took a step closer to Molly, looking her up and down with avid curiosity. Evie stiffened, quite sure that Molly would be offended by such rudeness if she had eyes at the moment to see what was happening.

  “Well, you’re marvelous, aren’t you?” the officer muttered.

  “Yes,” Molly replied. “I am.”

  “Did you need something?” Evie asked, her voice coming out every bit as sharply as she intended it to. The officer’s attention shifted toward her, and he regained his former gruff expression. He fished a grainy photo out of his pocket, squinted at it, then squinted back at Evie.

  “You’re not Willow Ivan, are you?” he asked uncertainly, looking down at the photo again. From her angle, Evie could just barely make out a blurry, black-and-white image of Willow and her father. The photo looked like it might be an old newspaper clipping.

  “No,” Evie answered the officer. “I’m not Willow. My name is Evie MacNeil.”

  “Do you have any identification to that effect?” the officer asked as Bree stepped up to stand beside Evie.

  “I’m a non-corporeal entity,” Evie replied matter-of-factly. “So, no.”

  “Oh, right, of course!” The officer’s eyes flashed between Evie and Bree, then back over to Molly.

  “Is—” He broke off and looked around, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is this a haunted hotel?”

  A tiny, mean-spirited part of Evie wanted to say no to see how the officer would react. Instead, she lowered her voice to match his and said, “Yes.”

  The officer’s eyes widened as he put the photo back into his pocket. “I’ve always wanted to stay in a haunted hotel!” he admitted with such enthusiasm that Evie half expected him to clap his hands and jump up and down like an excited five-year-old. “I’m thinking of booking a weekend at that new place everybody’s talking about. What’s it called? The Haun—”

  “We’re very busy here, Officer,” Bree interrupted him. “Did you say you were looking for someone?”

  “Yes,” the officer said, attempting to regain an air of seriousness and importance, even as he kept stealing excited glances around the lobby. “Might I speak to Miss Ivan?”

  “She’s not here,” Evie said quickly. “I’m not sure when she’ll be back.”

  “How about her father, Mr. Ivan?”

  Evie hesitated. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why, but her gut was telling her very strongly that she needed to keep this police officer far away from Mr. Ivan and Willow. When she looked over at Bree hesitantly, she could tell that the Ivan’s savvy office manager was thinking the same thing.

  “He’s gone for the day as well,” Bree lied swiftly. “Might we give them a message?”

  The police officer looked disappointed. He dug into another one of his pockets, pulled out a business card, and held it out to Evie, who was standing closest to him. Evie stepped forward automatically to take it. Her fingers were inches away when she stopped, flushed with embarrassment, and stepped back.

  “Come on, then,” the officer said impatiently, waving the card in the air.

  Evie, liking this police officer less and less with each passing moment, glared at him. “I am only recently non-corporeal, sir,” she informed him. “I can’t—”

  “Oh.” The officer looked embarrassed. “My apologies, miss, I meant no offense. I’ve received thorough training on the subject of non-corporeal entities—NCEs—of course. But I haven’t come across many in my current assignment.”

  “What assignment is that?” Bree asked.

  “Department of Truancy.”

  “Ah!” Molly snapped her fingers. “You mean you’re the one who makes sure that kids aren’t skipping school?”

  “Exactly, ma’am,” said the officer, and Evie was suddenly incredibly glad she’d lied about Willow’s and her dad’s whereabouts.

  “I’ve been applying for a transfer to NCE Relations for years,” the officer said as Bree stepped forward to take the business card out of his hand. “But so far, no luck. It’s all about who you know, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” Evie said, eager to be rid of the officer before one of them accidentally blew their lie. “Don’t worry, we’ll see that Ms. Ivan gets your card, Officer . . .?”

  “Myers. Officer Harry Myers. Please tell Ms. Ivan and her father to contact me immediately. Truancy is a very serious matter.” He tipped his hat to them. “Good day to you all.”

  When he was gone, Bree let out a loud sigh. “The Living,” she scoffed. “Always in such a hurry. Always thinking they’re so important.”

  “That’s what I’m always saying!” Evie exclaimed.

  Bree leaned over to toss the officer’s card into the bin beside the front desk, and Evie felt marginally better. If Bree wasn’t worried, maybe there really was nothing to worry about.

  Back in the library, Molly did another spin in front of the mirror. “I don’t think this Medium costume is right. I can’t see what it looks like, but it feels off. What do you think?”

  “Maybe we could go in a different direction,” Bree said. She stood up, glancing at her phone. “It’s three o’clock right now. We still have twenty-four hours to get it right before the inspector gets here.”

  “Three?” Evie exclaimed. She hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. “I’d better go. I’ve got a . . . a . . .”

  “Library haunting?” Bree guessed.

  “Um, yeah,” Evie mumbled, realizing that lying about her job at the Hauntery was getting harder every time she had to do it. Especially when Bree smiled at her the way Evie imagined an older sister would.

  “See you tomorrow, Ms. Phantasm.”

  Evie ran full speed through
the back door of the Hauntery.

  “You’re late,” snapped Louise.

  “Sorry,” Evie said, not feeling sorry at all. “I got held up.”

  “You’re not even changed!”

  Evie sighed heavily, closed her eyes, and willed the hideous pink dress to appear. Before she could even look down to see if she’d gotten it right, Louise grabbed her hand and dragged Evie toward the lobby.

  “The inspector is here, getting checked in,” she announced over one shoulder. “We’re supposed to do our act for him. Then he’s going to a private cocktail party with Mr. Fox and some people from Corporate, which your mother will haunt. Then there’s dinner, and your father’s Phantasm performance during dessert. But we’re his first impression, so we need to be perfect. Oh, Evie. Ugh!”

  She stopped and dropped Evie’s hand, glaring disapprovingly.

  “What?” Evie demanded, looking down at her outfit. It was just as pink and ruffly as usual.

  “Your hair,” Louise said accusingly. Then she closed her eyes, and Evie felt the hair on either side of her head spring up into two very tight, bouncy pigtails.

  “I can do that myself, you know,” Evie growled. “I hate it when you—”

  “We have to be perfect!” Louise huffed, and began hauling Evie toward the lobby again. “Mr. Fox has made me the inspector’s official ghost liaison. As soon as our act is over, I get to escort him around for the rest of the evening!”

  “Congratulations,” Evie muttered as they approached Mr. Fox, who was standing beside another man at the front desk.

  “Ah, girls, there you are,” Mr. Fox said with a huge, forced smile, but also a glint in his eye that told Evie they were late. He gestured to the man beside him. “This is Mr. Renard, the most senior inspector on staff at the Zagged Guide. Mr. Renard, these are the Hauntery’s Spooky Little Girls.”

  “Splendid!” Mr. Renard effused. He was tall, the same height as Mr. Fox. But unlike Mr. Fox, Mr. Renard had a huge mop of thick blond curls atop his head. Beneath all of his hair, the hotel inspector had beady little eyes that reminded Evie of something . . . maybe a squirrel. They seemed to look at everything at once, not missing a single detail. “What a wonderful way to start.”

  “Welcome to the Hauntery, Mr. Renard,” Louise said grandly, then stretched her fingers out toward Evie.

  With a sigh, Evie took Louise’s outstretched hand and forced her voice into the familiar monotone.

  “Play with us!” they chorused. “Play with us . . . forever!”

  CHAPTER 15

  WILLOW

  Willow couldn’t sleep, so she wandered.

  By this time tomorrow evening, the whodunit would be over. The inspector would either be impressed or not, and it would be too late to do anything else to change his mind. The fate of the Ivan would be decided, one way or another.

  Sleep, under these circumstances, was impossible.

  So Willow wandered.

  She walked through the kitchen—spotless, in preparation for tomorrow—meandered through the lobby—which was looking a shade nicer than usual, even if it still smelled faintly of wallpaper paste—and finally drifted down the first-floor hallway, where she winced under the gaze of all the portraits. All those former Ivans. All of them had probably done a better job of running the hotel than Willow had.

  I don’t want to be the Ivan who loses the hotel!

  She found her mother in the music room.

  Mrs. Ivan was floating in front of the piano, her nightgown swirling behind her as she trailed one hand delicately and soundlessly over the tops of the keys.

  Willow closed her eyes and remembered the way her mother used to play the piano, the way she used to be able to tap out an entire song after hearing it once. Willow had never had her mother’s talent, but that hadn’t stopped her from practicing. She’d spent hours in this very room, sitting before this very instrument. But that had been before. Ever since that fateful Friday, Willow had hardly been able to look at the piano without tearing up.

  Willow opened her eyes. Her mother was staring right at her.

  “Hi,” Willow said.

  The ghost blinked but said nothing. Willow wasn’t sure if she’d really been seen. She waited, bracing herself against the suffocating, choking feeling of loss that always seemed to follow her mother’s ghost around.

  But it didn’t come. There was no blanket of grief settling around her head, no crushing, drowning feeling in her chest. The air didn’t thicken, she was able to breathe normally, and she felt no inexplicable urge to start sobbing. Instead, Willow found that she felt rather numb. Like she had no feelings inside of her at all, good or bad.

  That should have been better, shouldn’t it? Better than soul-crushing grief, the feeling of drowning on dry land? Willow had been waiting for her bad feelings to ebb, hoping they would disappear one day. But now that they had, she felt . . . worse. Much worse.

  Numbness was worse than drowning.

  Willow sighed and sat down onto the piano bench. “It’s a big day tomorrow,” she said. Mrs. Ivan stopped over by the left side of the instrument, her gaze locked dreamily on the side of Willow’s face. “We’re ready, I think. We’ve rehearsed a lot. Pierce still hates the vampire outfit, but . . . well, you know Pierce.”

  A tiny smile appeared on the ghost’s lips at that.

  “We’re ready,” Willow said again. “We’re either going to knock the socks off that inspector and get back to number one, or . . .”

  Willow trailed off. Her mother looked away, then drifted around to the far side of the piano.

  “Or we’ll have to close,” Willow muttered, hovering her fingers over the keys, her thumbs above middle C. “Hopefully, the ghosts will find new places to go. But I’m afraid they’ve waited too long, taken too much of a chance by staying here.”

  Willow pressed her fingers down to try a tentative chord. The notes sounded jarring. Off-key. Wrong.

  Willow took her hands off the keys.

  “Pierce has already started to Fade,” she said quietly. “Antonia, too. And Cuddles. And you—”

  The ghost paused to stare at the heavy drapes that covered the windows.

  “Actually, I don’t know what will happen to you,” Willow mused. “No matter what the inspector says tomorrow, I don’t know how to help you, Mom. Any suggestions?”

  The ghost turned and drifted through the bookshelf on the far wall, out of sight.

  “I didn’t think so,” Willow said, slumping down on the piano bench, feeling like a balloon that had lost its air.

  “You didn’t think what?”

  Willow’s head snapped back up. Evie was in the doorway.

  “I—um,” Willow stammered. “I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow morning.”

  “I wanted to do one more check,” Evie admitted, coming farther into the room. “Plus, Molly’s still looking for her head. I told her I’d help.”

  “I should help look, too,” Willow said, but she made no move to get up from the bench.

  Evie nodded to the piano. “Were you playing something?”

  “No. It’s out of tune.”

  “Oh.” Evie took a breath. “I meant to tell you . . . a truancy officer came to the hotel today.”

  Willow felt herself grimace.

  “He said he’s been trying to get in touch with you. You or your father—”

  “I’m handling it.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes,” Willow said curtly. With everything else that was at stake, Evie wanted to talk about school?

  “OK,” Evie said with equal curtness.

  They sat in silence for a long moment. Well, Willow sat. Evie stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking like she had forgotten what to do with her hands. She seemed nervous, and Willow wondered if it was just about the inspector coming tomorrow or something more. She was about to ask her what was wrong when Evie spoke instead.

  “Did you make up with Pierce?” she asked.

  �
��What?”

  “I heard you guys yelling at each other.”

  “Oh,” Willow said. “Yes, I apologized. He forgave me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. He knows I only mean, like, ten percent of the things I say when I’m mad. He’s known me a long time.”

  “It must be nice to have people who understand you so well,” Evie remarked.

  Willow looked up. Evie had said those words in the same way she said most things. Boldly. Quickly. But there was something about the way she lingered over the word people and understand that made Willow suspect they meant something more to Evie.

  “Your family . . .” Willow ventured. “They don’t get the Phantasm thing, huh?”

  “Nope, not at all,” Evie confirmed.

  “Is that why you took the job here? To prove something to them?”

  “Sort of,” Evie said, picking at some nonexistent lint on her black jeans. Her hair was in pigtails, Willow noticed. Cute, curly pigtails. Which didn’t seem very Evie-like at all. “They think they know me. They think they know what I can do. But I’ve always hoped that they’re wrong.”

  “I know that they’re wrong. I saw you scare that kid at the library. You were wonderful.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never actually done a full Phantasm act in front of a room full of people before,” Evie admitted, absently twirling one of the pigtails around her finger. After a moment, she seemed to realize what she was doing and closed her eyes. Her hair transformed from the pigtails into a long, smooth, purple ponytail. “Tomorrow at the dinner will be my first time. My first real Phantasm cry.”

  “Is it ready?” Willow asked, trying not to sound concerned.

  “I think it is,” Evie said, and Willow thought she was trying to sound confident. “I’ve been practicing every spare moment I get.”

  “Then I know you’ll be great,” Willow said quite sincerely. “You know, Evie, I’ve been meaning to thank you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. With everything going on here, I didn’t know what to do. Especially after Leo and Alford—” Willow paused, her throat suddenly dry. “I almost gave up. I was ready to give up. But you told me not to. You were the only one who told me not to!”