Page 7 of Haunted Ever After

He shook his head in barely disguised contempt. “Nothing. I’m sure it’s fine.” The word fine dripped with loathing. “It’s just…modern, you know? This house never used to be modern.” He sighed and shook off his bad mood. “But that’s a flip for you. Anyway. You said there was something wrong with the electric?”

He started out upstairs, testing the outlets, before moving downstairs to the living room, while Cassie opened another box marked KITCHEN. Dinnerware. Finally. It had been a long week of eating off paper plates and drinking from the exactly two mugs she’d been able to find.

Tucked in a corner of the box near the bubble-wrapped plates was a coffee tin, and Cassie let out a small “a-ha” sound when she took it out. Inside was her magnetic poetry collection. The little tin contained dozens of single words with a magnetic backing. It was a silly thing she’d started in college as a party game, but over the years she’d found that arranging random words on her refrigerator soothed her. Cleared her mind in a way that any other form of brainstorming couldn’t. At her rental, her landlord had replaced the fridge about a year ago, a brand-new one with a door that magnets didn’t stick to. She never thought she’d say it, but thank God for older appliances.

Cassie hummed under her breath as she peeled the words apart, sticking them one at a time onto the door of her refrigerator. Eventually she pulled a few toward the center.

yellow

sunshine

feels

like

morning

Not very original, but it was a start. She switched the first and last words. morning sunshine feels like yellow. A little better.

She was jolted out of her almost-meditative state by Buster behind her. “Nothing wrong with any of these outlets.”

“Are you sure?” That couldn’t be right. Frustration rose in a grumble in Cassie’s chest. “My laptop won’t charge. I keep having to go down to the coffee shop to get it to power up.”

“Oh, you mean Elmer’s place, just down the way?” Buster’s eyes lit up.

“No. Nick. The one who called you?” Who the hell was Elmer?

Buster snapped his fingers. “That’s right, it’s Nick’s now. I keep forgetting. Nick’s a good kid. Here. Lemme see.” He gestured, and Cassie handed him her laptop and cord from the kitchen table. She tried not to heave a sigh as he hooked up her laptop and moved to plug the cord in the outlet in the breakfast nook. He was a nice old guy, and sure, Nick said he was the best, but this felt like every time the guy in IT asked her if she’d tried turning her computer off and on again. Being mansplained to in her own home was a little much.

“That’s the first one I tried.” She attempted to sound patient. Of course it was the first one she’d tried; that breakfast nook was the perfect place to sit with her laptop. In fact, it was where Cassie had planned to spend the better part of her day. If, you know, the outlet worked. “It’s not gonna…” Her voice cut off abruptly as she heard the telltale chime of her laptop connecting to power. She flipped it open, and sure enough, the battery symbol in the corner glowed green, indicating that it was plugged in and charging.

“See? There you go.” Buster didn’t sound condescending or mansplain-y. His voice held the simple satisfaction of a job well done.

“But…” This wasn’t helping her frustration. Why had it worked now? What had he done differently? She peered at the wall, then back at her happily charging laptop. “I tried that outlet. I tried it so many times.”

Buster waved a hand. “These old outlets. They’re temperamental.”

But Cassie’s attention was still on her laptop. The damn thing practically looked smug. “I guess,” she said absently. “I’m sorry I called you all the way out here for nothing, though.”

His laugh was a creaky wheeze. “There’s no ‘all the way out here’ around here, ma’am. It takes maybe ten minutes to get from one end of town to the other, and that’s if you’re not in a hurry.” He waved Cassie off when she got her wallet out of her bag by the door. “No charge. It was worth it just to see inside this place.”

“Really?” Sure, the beachside cottage was cute and all, but it wasn’t all that grand. What was so exciting about seeing inside it?

“This place was empty for years. Decades, to be honest. Just kind of sitting here, starting to fall apart. Part of the background, no one really thought about it.”

“Oh.” Cassie looked around the living room with new eyes. With its fresh paint and polished floors, it was hard to imagine the place dark and empty, abandoned and alone. Was it possible to feel sorry for a house? Because she kind of knew how that felt.

“Then that flipper from Jacksonville or wherever bought it a couple years back.” Buster’s tone of voice told her exactly what he thought of that flipper from Jacksonville. “Everyone hoped to get a look inside, but he didn’t use a single local on the renovation. A whole lot of out-of-towners, big temporary fence, ‘No Trespassing’ signs up all over the place. Next thing we know, we heard some city girl bought it.”

“Guilty.” Cassie tried to sound cheerful, but from what Buster was saying, they didn’t take too kindly to outsiders around here. Just another reason why this move might have been a mistake.

But Buster didn’t seem to have a torch or a pitchfork anywhere on his person. “For a city girl, you seem okay. Have to say, I’m glad to see you’re actually planning to live here. I figured it was gonna become one of those vacation rentals or something, like everyone’s doing these days.”

“Nope, just me.” Her words bounced off the bare walls and boxes, echoing back in her ears. Just me. Lonely girl in the lonely house.

“Well, welcome to town.” He extended his hand and she shook it. “Keep an eye on things around here, you hear? Call me if anything comes up. I’d be glad to stop by anytime.”

What was going to come up? The house had been renovated, it had passed inspection, wonky electric and all. But out loud she said “you got it” as Buster left.

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