Page 33 of Haunted Ever After

First things first. “Then can she stop scaring the shit out of me?” She gestured toward the fridge.

That got a chuckle out of Nan. “I don’t think she meant to scare you. Think of it from her perspective.”

“From the ghost’s perspective,” Cassie repeated dully. “Think of it from the perspective of the ghost who’s haunting my house.” Was she the only one who realized how ridiculous that sounded?

“Sure.” Nan took her mug back, draining it before putting it down on the counter. “She’s been here, by herself, for…well, for longer than I’ve been alive.” She gestured at herself in emphasis, and Cassie had to admit the visual drove the point home. “She’s been watching this house she loves deteriorate, nothing she can do about it. Then some asshole comes in, tears out her cabbage rose wallpaper that had probably all but disintegrated anyway, and paints her living room this shitty vanilla color. Then you show up, move your things in, make this place a real home again. And don’t get me wrong; I’m sure she loves that. But then—then!—you put those little words up on your fridge, and she can move them. She can get a message across to you. Imagine how that would feel.”

“Oh.” Cassie swallowed around a sudden lump in her throat. When had that happened? When had she gone from angry to sad? She blinked away tears that blurred her vision. When Nan put it that way, her heart ached for Sarah. But…“She said ‘wrong.’ What’s wrong? Is she really that pissed about the wallpaper?”

“Hmm. I don’t think that’s it.” Nan brushed wizened fingers over the words on the fridge, closing her eyes. She didn’t move for several minutes, and Cassie got a little concerned. It was almost like the old woman had gone somewhere else, leaving her body behind like a car in a parking lot to come back and pick up later. Silence stretched out in the kitchen, gradually becoming awkward. Just as Cassie began to wonder if she should intervene in some way—was it possible for someone to fall asleep standing up?—Nan dropped her hand, stepping back and opening her eyes.

“She doesn’t have a problem with you.” For the first time since walking into the house, Nan sounded tired. She sounded old. She didn’t protest when Cassie took her arm and guided her to a seat at her kitchen table. “She doesn’t have a problem with you,” she said again as Cassie pushed a glass of water in front of her. “No, she thinks you’re just fine.” Nan took a deep breath and a sip of water, both of which seemed to energize her. “It’s Sophie she has a problem with.”

“Sophie?” Cassie sat back in her seat opposite Nan. “The girl who does the ghost tour?”

Nan nodded. “She says Sophie’s getting it wrong. That’s the most I could get out of her.” She passed a hand over her eyes. “It’s hard to listen that deep.”

“But how would she know?” Cassie asked the question to the room at large. “Sophie’s never been here. I mean, sure, she’s outside, and the ghost tour goes by here every Friday night. But she…” Cassie’s voice trailed off as she remembered. She liked to open the windows in the evenings sometimes, to get the breeze off the ocean. She’d left them open that night when she’d gone to meet Nick for the ghost tour. Had that let Sarah hear Sophie’s spiel? Or had she always heard the spiel, and just now decided to try and set the record straight with Cassie’s magnetic poetry?

Whatever it was, it was time to believe. No more explaining it away. Ghosts were real and she lived with one. “What about my laptop, though? Most of the time when I plug it in, I can’t get it to hold a charge. Is that Sarah too?”

Nan looked at the laptop, which sat now on the table between them, still plugged in from when Buster had been there the other day. It was all charged up now, because Cassie was scared to unplug it and upset the status quo. Nan prodded at it with her forefinger, but nothing happened. “Hard to say,” she finally said. “I mean, spirits messing with electronics is nothing new, so it’s possible. But I’m not getting anything from Sarah off of it.” She shrugged. “We’ve got a lot of ghosts here in town, but that doesn’t mean they’re behind everything that happens. Sometimes it’s just as simple as shitty wiring.” She opened her bag again, peering inside. “There’s a great handyman, Buster Bradshaw. I’ve got his card here somewhere. He could…”

“He’s been.” At least it was good to know that Buster came highly recommended around here.

“Tell him to look again. I bet he missed something.”

Great. That was absolutely what Buster wanted to hear from her.

Nan levered to her feet, and Cassie was relieved to see that she seemed steadier now. “That goes for me too,” she said as Cassie walked her to the door. “Anything else weird happens, you give Libby a call. She’ll get me over here.” She paused at the door. “In the meantime, see if you can get Sarah to talk a little more.”

“How?”

“Use your words.” Nan nodded back toward the kitchen. “She’s been alone a long time. She might like to talk.”

Cassie closed the door behind Nan, then looked over her shoulder at the magnetic words on the fridge. She could relate, couldn’t she? To being lonely. To wanting someone to talk to.

Maybe she and Sarah weren’t so different after all.

After dinner, Cassie settled in on her sofa. It had been a while since her last reality television binge, and she was ready to turn her brain off for a little while. No ghosts, no cute guys who ran cafés, no poor financial decisions with janky plumbing and a stuck kitchen window. She reached for the remote on the side table, and promptly knocked it to the floor instead. She swore softly as it slid across the wood floor like a hockey puck to rest under the sofa, thudding against the back wall.

“Of course.” With a long sigh she hauled herself off the sofa and lay on her stomach. But no matter how far she stretched, her fingertips just barely brushed the remote. Resigned, she got to her feet and tugged the sofa away from the wall.

“All this to watch gorgeous people in tiny bathing suits try to find love.” She slipped behind the sofa to pick up the remote when something near the baseboard caught her eye. When she’d moved in, one of the first things she’d done was direct the movers to nestle the sofa next to the built-in bookshelf; the blues and creams of the sofa matched the bookcase perfectly and it looked made for this room.

But now…she bumped the sofa with her hip, nudging it a little farther from the wall so she could kneel on the floor. At the side of the bookcase, just above the baseboard, there was a small place where the texture of the wall changed. It wasn’t large, maybe three inches or so, but this close Cassie could see it clearly. Wallpaper. A piece that had been missed when the flippers stripped the wallpaper and repainted the room, it was wedged between the baseboard and the built-in bookcase. Cassie picked at it with her fingernails, but it was stubborn. Obviously the painters had given up on it and just given it the landlord special: paint over it and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Her manicure kit was on the coffee table, and it only took a few seconds and a pair of nail scissors to extract the piece of wallpaper. The colors were obscured by the cream-colored paint, of course, but when Cassie tilted it toward the light she could make out the texture. It was a floral print in the shape of a round, unfurled rose.

A cabbage rose.

“Okay.” She sighed at the ancient wallpaper. “Okay.” Hotties in bathing suits could wait. She studied the scrap of wallpaper as she walked back into the kitchen. Then she studied the words on her fridge before selecting the two that would work best for this.

“All right, Sarah.” She raised her voice like she was calling to someone in the other room, but maybe Sarah was right here, looking over her shoulder? How did ghosts work, anyway? “I get it. These guys did a shitty job on your house, and you’re pissed about it, right? If this is the wallpaper that Nan was talking about, it was green and pink with cabbage roses on it. I’m not gonna lie, wallpaper is kind of a pain in the ass, and given the choice, I’d rather paint the room a different color. But it’s not my choice; it’s yours. So I need you to tell me. What do you miss?” She held the wallpaper scrap to the fridge with one hand. “I have two words here. If you are dead set on the cabbage roses, choose the word ‘flower.’ ” Cassie lay the magnet over the wallpaper. “If you just want it repainted in those colors, choose the word ‘color.’ Leave the word you want in the middle.” That magnet went over the wallpaper next, and between the two of them they held the wallpaper scrap securely against the fridge.

She held her breath as she took a step back. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but nothing happened. She let out a sigh as the adrenaline that came from talking to a ghost faded into a slight hum in her blood.

“Maybe you need a minute to think.” God, it was weird, talking out loud to thin air like this. But she was committed now. “Take your time. I can’t do anything about it tonight anyway, and I really want to watch some TV. You can join me if you want.”

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