Page 5 of The Neighborhood Ghost

“Good, because I wasn’t going to get it for you. I’m going to get you the same thing I do every year.”

Alice turned to face the mirror. “Nothing?”

“No, my charming wit and lively discourse.”

They laughed.

“What do you want for Christmas?” Alice’s reflection asked.

“Hugo,” Alice replied.

Alice’s reflection crossed her arms. “Besides that.”

“A hug from Hugo.”

“Well, I hope we both get our hugs.”

“I do too,” Alice said. “Keep doing the tapping thing.”

Alice’s reflection resumed her bathroom concert. Alice closed her eyes and drifted off to the once elusive sleep.

The light’sshadows danced across the stone wall of Alice’s wine cellar. A familiar, welcome sight in dark times. Little by little, the wall sconces illuminated the magical room, revealing the handiwork of one Sylvia Savino.

“What a mess,” Alice muttered under her breath as she stood in the cellar doorway. Her arms were crossed, each hand placed on the outside as if to hug herself. Her eyes scanned and examined the remnants of her life’s work.

Every vat was destroyed, laid in ruins of twisted metal rims and shattered, grape musk-stained wooden planks. The handles of the grape stompers torn asunder. Alice’s workbench covered in discarded ingredients. Pages from her grimoire torn and strewn about the stone floor. Her hourglass destroyed. Pieces of the shattered, greenish-black bottles of wine sprayed across the floor in front of their toppled racks. The personalized mortars and pestles, Hugo’s gift to Alice, were cracked and now useless.

Gone.

All gone because of a stupid spell. A spell she should have removed from her life years ago. The spell had brought nothing but pain and torment into her life. It brought her here to Newbury Grove. Brought her to Hugo.

Alice rubbed her arms, her fingers twitching. She bounced her foot, summoning the courage to move forward. “One thing. Pick one thing today, and do the rest later.”

She focused on the nearest wine vat. Alice raised her left hand, her fingers primed to snap and summon the power of the arcane to rectify her once pristine wine cellar.

That’s okay. We can be silly together.

Hugo’s words tore through her soul. The words he used to playfully comfort her on the fateful night they made wine the old-fashioned way. The night Hugo confessed his love for Alice. When she expressed her love for him. They made love together for the first time. Two souls fated by their own grief-filled histories to meet and be joined as one.

Alice’s lips quivered. Her middle finger dripped down her thumb in protest, unwilling to call forth her magick, still mourning the loss of Hugo. Her fingers curled into a ball and descended next to her side before hiding in the pockets of her gray sweatpants—Hugo’s former gray sweatpants.

Alice batted her eyes, holding back the tears as they swelled and tried to force their way down her cheeks. Her neck tensed, and her shoulders tightened. Alice darted her eyes away from the vat to focus on the shadows dancing across the wall. She batted her eyes a few more times, the tears retreating as she turned her mind elsewhere.

“Not today,” she said, breathing in deeply. “Maybe tomorrow. But not today.”

Alice snapped her fingers as she raised her right hand. One of the few remaining bottles ofThe Neighborhood Witch—the non-magical wine Alice and had Hugo brewed together and sold in the Raskin’s Neighborhood Market—flew across the room and into her awaiting palm. Alice retreated from the wine cellar, closing the door and extinguishing the magical flames of the wall sconces. The cellar fell into darkness once more.

Time blurred together.Minutes became hours. Hours became days. Days turned into weeks. Thanksgiving came and went, and December made its grand yearly appearance. The normallybright and cheerfully festive purple house was cold, dark, and uninviting.

Instead of garland and pine, the smell of oranges and cinnamon, or the brightly colored packages normally decorating her maximalist living room, this December only found books strewn about and piled up. Stacks on the floor. Open books drooped over the red crushed velvet of her Victorian couch. The bookcase shelves were nearly barren of any reading material.

A book turned open to a specific page floated in midair. Alice paced the room, another book in hand. Alice hustled over to the floating book. She flipped through its pages, a fingertip tracing every line as she read the ancient tome. It aided in her search for the elusive answer to her question.

How can she bring Hugo Dodds back to life?

Alice paused from reading the book floating in the air. She cross-referenced the answers from the book in her hand and the book floating in the air. She furled her eyebrows as she read each line over and over.

She slammed the book in her hands shut.

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