Page 14 of Big Witch Energy

“Seriously, I have to get some sort of project started, no matter what Plover says about it being ‘ill-timed and ill-advised,’” Riley replied. “There hasn’t been any sort of construction in the house since Aunt Nora died. The spirits are getting…bold.”

Caroline grimaced. When she was a kid, construction at Shaddow House never seemed to stop, but the locals didn’t know that wasn’t a demand by the mercurial (and fictional) owners, the Shaddow family—but an effort by the Dentons to keep the dead occupants confused.

“Creeping up near your bedroom?” Alice guessed.

“I woke up to that clown ghost standing in the hallway, staring at us while we slept, which is the last time I leave the bedroom door open,” Riley said, pursing her lips. “Really, gotta figure out which object Jingles is attached to, because he has gotten too comfortable.”

Caroline shuddered. While there were times Caroline envied Riley living in the legendary house, she liked knowing she could go back to her little cottage near her parents’ family home, where sleeping didn’t require special runes to keep her bedroom clown ghost–free. Heavy was the head that wore the crown of Steward of Shaddow House. It was a burden that Riley’s mother had tried to spare her, keeping her away from Starfall until the previous year.

“So, your brothers didn’t show up for work again?” Riley asked quietly as Caroline moved to pull refill pints for the table of four in the corner.

When Caroline returned from serving them, she said, “Mom refuses to force the boys into coming to work if they don’t want to—which was a luxury I was never afforded. Instead, she runs us both into the ground because that’s easier, I guess?”

“Are we talking misogynistic undertones to the family dynamic or is she just unable to physically force them off their couches?” Alice asked.

“Little bit of both maybe?” Caroline guessed. “Mom was harder on them when we were little, but then we lost Chris, and she just can’t bear to do anything that will upset them. And I guess both boys sort of settled into taking the easy route. That was always their nature, and Mom just let them lean into it. But I was always able to sort of work through it. Mom can, too, so now I guess we’re both supposed to.”

“Chris passed a few years ago, right?” Riley asked.

Caroline swallowed heavily. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Everybody on the island knew what happened. But even sharing magic, even knowing about Riley’s unresolved feelings about losing her own mother, talking about Chris with someone Caroline cared about somehow made it real. It was something Caroline had to work up to. The loss was still simply too much.

“Passed is a very gentle way of saying my brother fell from a footbridge,” Caroline said, squeezing Riley’s hand. “He was in Grand Rapids, meeting a girl he’d been talking to online. Jenna. She’s a sweetheart. We kept in touch…afterward. Chris was trying to be romantic, meeting her at the bridge, like something out of an old movie. But he slipped on the ice and somehow managed to fall right over the railing, into the water. It took days to find his body.”

“Look, I know you don’t really like talking about it, but is there an origin story for the curse?” Riley asked quietly. “Like you built the bar on land stolen from another Starfall family or one of you pissed off a fairy queen or something?”

“No,” Caroline said, shaking her head. “And I’m not even sure ‘curse’ is the right word for it. It was just a pattern that some auntie a few generations back put together. And the family just sort of accepted it, as more and more of us died off.”

“Isn’t that, in itself, sort of weird?” Alice suggested. “I mean, everything on Starfall has a story. The mailbox on Third Street has a little historical plaque on it because JFK dropped a postcard in it.”

Riley’s dark-gold brows winged up. “Really? That’s kind of cool.”

Alice nodded. “He and Jackie visited before he was elected. There was a big debate over whether the Duchess should be renamed ‘The Presidential Hotel.’ The historical committee almost imploded. Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Oviette still don’t talk over it.”

“Why all the interest in my family…problem?” Caroline asked as her mother hefted a tray of sandwiches out of the kitchen and across the room to a table of Perkinses. The family ran several ferries in the tourist season, but when the lake was too, well, frozen for boat traffic, they spent their days overhauling boat engines.

Riley took a sip of her coffee, lowering her voice so it was barely audible to Caroline from behind the mug. “Well, I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the little old lady in purple, glaring at you from behind the jukebox?”

Caroline tried to be subtle when she turned, moving to pour Alice more coffee. There was indeed a lady in a very formal purple brocade dress, the sort of thing one saw in historical paintings from the late 1700s, early 1800s. The rich shiny material—a sort of robe that closed over a long, loose white gown—seemed like the kind of thing you would wear before bed. It barely moved when the ghost shuffled backward into the shadows of the basement entrance. The ghost seemed to be staring up, over the bar, where some of the family artifacts were arranged—old photos, a landscape of the island that had hung there since before her father could remember, framed newspaper articles, softball trophies.

Caroline had never seen this specific ghost in the Rose before she had magic, but she’d learned that was normal. Since her magical “awakening,” Caroline spotted ghosts in places all over the island that she’d never suspected of being haunted. Magic simply changed one’s perception. And it had been a while since the three of them had been in the Rose at the same time. Maybe the ghost sensed the three of them up here and decided to creep out and see for herself?

“Does it seem to you like there’s something off about her?” Riley asked.

“Other than that fabric being so out of place here, I want to yell at her to stay still before she gets ketchup on her skirt?” Caroline asked dryly.

Caroline noticed her mother was standing less than five feet from the dead lady and didn’t seem affected at all. So, Caroline supposed that the part of her that was recognized, chosen by Riley’s magic, didn’t come from Gert’s side.

“No, it’s as if she’s trying to trick us,” Alice said, her brow furrowing. “Hunching herself over, moving as if walking hurts. I don’t think she’s as old as she’s making herself out to be.”

“I think she’s from a different era though,” Caroline observed. “That part seems real. I don’t think she’s wearing a Halloween costume or anything.”

“It’s just something ‘not right,’” Riley said, shrugging. “But I mean, it is a dead person backlit by a neon moose beer sign, so… Oh, I think she heard that. Didn’t like it.”

The ghost glared at the three of them, which somehow seemed more sinister from the shadowy corner, and faded from sight.

“Well, that’s not good,” Caroline mused.

“At least she’s not tossing beers across the room at us?” Riley suggested with a false brightness that sounded brittle.

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