Page 9 of My Inherited House Might be Haunted

Calix was a saint. Not only did he give me a huge tumbler of tea, but he also came in and helped me put a cat tree together. I’d chosen to take the kitty to work with me because I’d always wanted a shop cat, and I had an appointment after work to get her looked over.

I should probably be nervous about being a new business owner, since I’d taken this place over a few weeks ago. Honestly, I was too tired to be nervous. I’d had so much to deal with recently: my aunt’s funeral, processing her estate, moving from apartment to house—and now ghosts.

The ghosts were really, truly intent on giving me heart failure. Between hearing steps behind me and things being moved about, I felt like I was in one of those haunted house mazes. I’d love to blame some of this on me being scatterbrained. Like the having things moved on me—I would love to blame myself, but I literally saw my coffee mug get put into the sink this morning, so…clearly ghosts.

I’d spent half the night coming awake at every sound, so today, I was too tired for this shit.

Work went about as expected. My day oscillated between being crazy busy to really slow, and there wasn’t much middle ground. It was the slow hours in the shop that about killed me because it was so, so tempting to curl up somewhere and take a nap.

I hit a lull at about two in the afternoon and chose to call home rather than risk a nap. Video chat, actually, as it was what my siblings preferred.

August picked up on the first ring. We had a six-year age gap between us but it didn’t really matter much. We were still pretty close. In fact, August was determined to come out here for college—which was another two years off—so he could live with me. Which I absolutely didn’t mind.

He looked like my stepdad, with dark auburn hair and all the freckles, dimples winking as he grinned. “Heya, bro.How’s the new house?”

“Huge. I can’t believe Aunt Ruth lived there alone for decades. Really cool, though. She kept it up really well.”

“Then why do you look like something the cat—whoa, there’s a cat!”

Said cat had hopped onto the counter and sat near my arm, regarding the person on the small screen curiously.

“Yeah, she was in the house. I found her sitting on the stairs.”

“Ohhh, she’s the cat Mom mentioned. Hi, kitty. She seems sweet.”

“She is, very affectionate. Still trying to come up with a name for her.”

“Lucy,” August said definitively.

Uh. “What?”

“Lucy. Full name, Lucy Fur.”

The cat gave amerpsound and I just about lost it right there laughing. “August, that’s terrible, and you! Cat, seriously, you like that name?”

Proving a point, August said it again. “Lucy Fur.”

Cat once again meowed back.

“I give up. I was going to go a more dignified route, but if that’s what you’re going to answer to, fine.”

August looked pleased his name had been accepted. “So you are keeping her?I thought you wanted a dog.”

“I want both, really. She’s a really good companion, and I like the idea of a cat to keep the pests at bay, so she’s mine now. I’m taking her to the vet in about two hours.”

“Good. I know she’s fluffy, but she looks kinda underweight to me.”

“Yeah, she’s bone thin under the fur. She’s eating good, though. I think she was abandoned and had a hard time surviving on the streets. She’ll be a pampered princess from now on.”

“Cat distribution system working good, then.”

At that moment, Lucy Fur chose to hop down to the carpet, then raced for the back door. Bemused—I’d never seen this cat move quickly anywhere—I followed her. “Hang on, August, she’s reacting to something.”

Lucy Fur went to the back door and started pawing at the doorknob. Uh. I didn’t really want to let her out. But maybe something was back there?

“August, hang on. Gonna put you down for a sec.”

“Sure.”

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