Page 42 of My Blind Date is a Ghost

“By all up high, the worlds and wise, by oceans wide and deep blue skies, by day and night, the powers three, protect Cora Barnes, so mote it be!”

I see a shimmer of blue glitter fall around me that quickly dissipates. The yellow light that had trapped me vanishes as well.

“Cora!” Beckett says, cradling me in his arms. “Are you okay?” He looks at Jacob. “What the heck was that?”

Jacob looks at Beverly. “That was very, very bad.”

“I know,” Beverly says, her face lined with worry.

“How could that even happen?” Sophia asks. “This place is warded. It’s, like, the most impenetrable place in Mystic Cove.”

“Not completely impenetrable, it seems,” Beverly says, rubbing her face and sitting on the couch opposite where I had put the packages. “Someone knows you’re here,” she finally says after a long pause.

“What?” I ask, getting to my feet. I’m a little lightheaded, so Beckett gives me his arm for support. “They know I’m here, at The Book Coven?”

“No,” she says. “I mean, maybe they know you are here, literally. But I don’t think so. I just think that whoever brought you back to life, whoever created that binding spell, they know you are alive. They know that their spell worked and that you aren’t a ghost anymore. They know you are alive, and they still want you for whatever their original purpose was.”

“But why?” I ask. “Why me?”

Beverly just shakes her head. She doesn’t know. None of us know. And that is why I’m in danger. I can’t defend myself if I don’t know what I’m fighting.

“So,” Jacob says, “not only are we facing a witch or warlock powerful enough to raise the dead, but powerful enough to break through Beverly Barnes’s wardings on her own home turf.”

“This is bad,” Sophia says. “This is very, very bad.”

“So, what do we do?” I ask. “What did you do to me? What was that glitter I saw?”

“It was a protection spell,” Beverly says. “It seems to be enough for now. Don’t worry. You aren’t going anywhere.”

“Don’t worry?” I ask. “I have every need to worry. If someone wants me so badly they will break through your wards, which, I believe, breaks a lot of Mystic Cove’s supernatural laws, who knows what they will do? If they brought me to life, they can surely kill me again. And if they can’t get their hands on me, what’s to stop them from doing just that?”

“Hey, that’s not going to happen,” Beckett says, rubbing my arms and trying to calm me down. “I won’t let it happen.”

But I’m inconsolable. I’m spiraling. I break away from him. “How, Beckett? You’re just a human. What can you do?”

“I don’t know yet,” he says. “But I’m going to figure it out.”

“How?”

“By doing what I do best. I’m going to be a detective and I’m going to solve this case my way, got it?”

I open my mouth to argue. It’s my life, my death, and I should have a say in what we do next. But I decide to close my mouth. Beckett is right. He’s the detective here. He’s the police officer. He’s also a man of this world. I’m a stranger in a strange land. I don’t know anyone here outside of the people in this room and I don’t know how this world works. If I want to find out what is happening, who is behind it, and stop them, I need to rely of Beckett.

“Fine,” I say.

“I mean it—” he starts to say, but then stops himself. “Oh, sorry. I expected you to keep arguing with me.”

“I almost did,” I admit. “But I talked myself out of it in my head. You’re right. You are the detective. You need to solve this case your way, even if it means looking into the parts of my life that I wanted to stay buried.”

“Well, okay, then. Good,” he says. He almost seems unsure where to start since he never expected me to agree to this. He clears the packages off the couch and sits down. He invites me to sit down across from him. He asks Beverly for a notepad and pen.

“What do you want to know?” I ask.

He clicks his pen. “Tell me about the day you died.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I tell him, first, what I know about Jeremiah Holland in order to explain why he made many of the townspeople uncomfortable. I then tell him How my husband came by the shop to pick up my son since I had a book club meeting that night. He had been early.

“Why was he early?”

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