Page 4 of The Accidental Ghost

Nina already terrified her; she didn’t want to know if it really was possible to pull her intestines through her belly button and cram them down her throat.

But if she was a ghost, why was she here? Was she even still with the living—or was this some kind of plane for dead paranormals?

Were all the stories she’d read and the movies she’d watched completely inaccurate? Was the Long Island Medium full of bunk? Was there truly no other side? No Heaven? No Hell? No afterlife at all?

If this was it, if this was her eternity, roaming the halls of a vampire’s castle in Long Island, and the only way to pass the time was by taking inventory of her fridge and watching everyone else live their lives…how did she make it stop?

Ralph had always considered herself an optimist. In fact, she’d been accused of being overly optimistic all her life, but she couldn’t find a glass half full in this existence.

And now? Well, now Nina had someone coming to investigate her amazing castle to see if it was haunted. Apparently, the women were in agreement that something was “off” in her humble abode.

So they’d contacted one of their many connections and found some ghost hunter named Shamus Ransom to come and do whatever ghost hunters do to sniff out an entity.

What kind of name was Shamus Ransom anyway? Sounded like one of the heroes in her beloved romance novels.

Ralph sighed.

Speaking of, would she ever be able to read a romance novel again? Or her favorite, psychological thrillers? She couldn’t touch a cupcake without squashing it into oblivion. How could she hope to hold a book?

Would she ever be able to curl up in a chair by her tiny fireplace on a cold winter’s night with a cup of coffee, her favorite blanket, and her cat, Blanche Devereaux, ever again?

Her stomach plummeted to her toes. She felt clammy thinking about Blanche, even though to the touch, her skin was dry as a bone.

Blanche… Who would take care of her feisty feline?

Tears stung her eyes, a vision of her fluffy white and black stray she’d found as a tiny kitten and bottle fed back to health flashing in her mind’s eye.

She’d named her after her favorite Golden Girls character, the one she most wished she could be more like.

Blanche Devereaux the kitty was saucy and flirty, just like the real Golden Girl.

Ralph the human…er, now ghost, was definitely a Rose. Most who knew her would probably compare her to Rose Nylund. Idealistic, hopeful, maybe a little naïve.

Okay, she was a lot naïve and a lot like Rose.

Which is what kept her hope alive where Blanche was concerned. She always kept her feeder and water full, but that wouldn’t last much longer than another week. If she could just make contact with someone—with anyone—maybe she could get someone to help Blanche.

She didn’t have any living family, and she was only just starting to make friends with her neighboring store owners. No one was going to notice she’d been gone for a long time if she didn’t…

She’d only recently opened the bookstore. She didn’t have any help yet, so the possibility someone might realize she was gone…er, dead, wasn’t likely for a while.

Her best friend, Hazel, lived in Connecticut. They only saw each other once a month or so, and she’d just been to visit when Raphaela had soft-opened the store a couple of weeks ago. There was little to no chance she’d show up looking for her.

Though, when she didn’t answer Hazel’s texts, she might send someone to check on her. There was a glimmer of hope there, but was it enough hope to save Blanche from starvation?

She didn’t have a huge clientele yet, though her former teaching colleagues and parents of her former students and all the people she loved had come to her soft opening. She’d planned on having a grand opening once she’d received all her inventory.

She hadn’t even had time to implement her idea for a silent book club…

Though, surely someone would notice Once Upon a Time wasn’t open for business. Like, maybe old Mrs. Havershaw, her landlady.

And where was her physical body? If the last thing she remembered was being in the store, was her body still in there?

Gracious. That would smell by now, wouldn’t it? If her body was inside the store, or even in her apartment upstairs, wouldn’t her neighbors, Phil and Gil, who owned the sandwich shop next door, start to…smell her?

How dreadful.

Shaking off thoughts of her dead body lying helplessly neglected somewhere, Ralph turned her attention to the door of Nina’s castle, where she was currently letting in probably the handsomest man she’d ever seen…and she’d seen a few in her fifty plus years.

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