Page 2 of Ghost With the Most
I surveyed the funeral home, which immediately let out a long, low creak like a haunted sigh or an old man settling into a rocking chair with sweet tea and a grudge. Somewhere inside, something went thump and then groaned dramatically. “Subtle,” I muttered, my brows hitching at the theatrics. “So, you called me in because...?”
Zelda huffed and crossed her arms. “Because I’ve tried the Three B’s,” she said, ticking things off her fingers with the tinkle of her bangles. “Banishing. Bargaining. Binding. The ghost won’t go. Won’t even show itself to me. It’s insulting. I’m Zelda the Magnificent?—”
I lifted a brow.
“—Shut up,” she cut me off briskly. “I’ve never met a ghost I couldn’t move on. Until now.”
I followed her up the porch steps, carefully avoiding the residual cake frosting and the spot that still shimmered faintly with leftover magic. The boards creaked under my boots in an almost sentient way, like they were judging the state of my soul, or at least my coffee-stained jeans.
Just inside the threshold, I paused. The air shifted the second I crossed it, temperature dropping like I’d stepped into a walk-in freezer. The scent hit me next. Aged paper, withered flowers, cold stone, and something darker underneath. Fermented grief. The kind of smell that clung to your skin long after you left the funeral.
And then, because this joint was clearly trying to earn its full dramatic license, a pipe organ began to play faintly somewhere in the depths of the building. The overture to Phantom of the Opera, because of course it was. It echoed from the walls, the notes just slightly off-pitch, like a landscape warped by time. I turned to Zelda, who stood beside me with her hands clasped in front of her like she was hosting a supernatural dinner party.
“Is this spook for real?” I asked, already regretting the question.
She shrugged, entirely too casual. “We listen and we don’t judge. He’s the only one who can hit that high E flat.”
The organ swelled into an ominous crescendo, as if trying to punctuate her sentence with drama. I exhaled and stepped further into the gloom. Inside, the front parlour of the funeral home was a study in contradictions. Elegant. Decrepit. Timeless and yet somehow also completely out of time. Every inhale carried the weight of time, of secrets sealed into floorboards and plaster. The wallpaper peeled in slow, deliberate curls, like it had grown tired of pretending to be floral and wanted to confess its true, sinister nature. Dust coated everything. Thin, silvery, undisturbed… except where it had been swept aside by unseen hands. Crystal chandeliers hung like shrouds from the ceiling, each sway of their teardrop prisms seeming to whisper secrets to the cobwebs that draped around them.
Heavy vibes pressed in on my senses. That sickly-sweet scent that clings to mourning and refuses to be laundered out. The kind of smell that warned you not to ask too many questions. It clung to the back of my throat like an accusation. Velvet curtains drooped beside tall, narrow windows like exhausted stage performers at the end of a matinee, their hems puddling dramatically on the faded Persian rugs. Light struggled through the panes, filtered through grime and the years, casting everything in a sepia haze that felt borrowed from someone else's playbook.
This place wasn’t just haunted, it felt like grief had carved its initials into every surface and then curled up in a corner to wait. The whole funeral home thrummed with awareness. Not just the passive buzz of a residual haunting, either. This building was paying attention. Every creak of the floorboards, every shift of the walls as they breathed in the summer heat, felt like it had a motive. The air pressed against my skin with a low, insistent hum, a presence with opinions and a long grudge. I was being watched and weighed. And I had the distinct feeling I might come up short.
And I hadn’t even met the ghost yet.
I’d seen enough of the dead to know when they were just passing through, and when they’d made themselves at home. In Savannah, I’d tangled with spirits who didn’t so much want peace as they wanted penance. A haunted B&B. A ghost with unfinished business and way too many opinions. And me, Ivy Hearst, ghost whisperer with a PhD in sarcasm and trauma I didn’t sign up for. Turns out, when you’re the only one who can talk to the dead, you don’t just uncover secrets. You inherit them.
But my lifestyle had cost me more than I expected. Trust. Sleep. The last of my denial. By the time I made it out of Georgia and up to Sleepy Hollow with a demon on my heels, I knew one thing for sure: the dead weren’t done with me. And judging by the way this funeral home was sizing me up like a confession waiting to happen, I had a feeling my next haunting wasn’t going to wait for an invitation.
The furniture was arranged with a weird kind of symmetry that made me deeply uncomfortable. Like someone had once known exactly how things were meant to be, and then gotten bored and shuffled the pieces. Tufted settees sat too close to each other, like strangers forced into small talk. A long, lacquered viewing table complete with a crumbling (and mercifully empty) coffin stretched the length of the room, flanked by mismatched chairs that had clearly never agreed on anything. The chandeliers overhead crackled faintly with leftover enchantment, giving off more static than glow. It wasn’t just a funeral home; it was a time trap. Every surface was curated with nostalgia, until you looked closer and saw the rot underneath.
And then, right on cue, the coffin on the viewing table shuddered.
Zelda and I both snapped our attention toward the sound, watching as the coffin rattled on the unpolished wood surface before it began to slowly levitate. It didn’t jolt upward or float gently like some kind of Hollywood-crafted special effect. It rose with the theatrical flair of someone, or some thing. A slow, deliberate arc into the air, a pause for dramatic effect, and then a slow spin, like it was auditioning for a role in a spectral ballet.
I crossed my arms.
Of course it was levitating. Because why wouldn’t a ghost do a little interpretive dance when I walked into the room? Nothing says ‘welcome to your next trauma’ like a floating coffin with delusions of Broadway. I’d seen poltergeists throw furniture, heard ghosts whisper through walls, and once watched a possessed blender make a smoothie with pure malevolence. But this? This was next-level undead theatrics.
I didn’t know whether to roll my eyes or applaud. There was probably a very serious explanation buried somewhere beneath all the drama, but all I could think was for the love of ghost-Elvis, someone give this spirit a hobby. Maybe a séance book club. Or a yoga class. Something less floaty.
Zelda pouted beside me, unbothered. “See? He’s so dramatic.”
“I’m too tired for this crap,” I muttered darkly.
“You’re welcome,” Zelda smirked.
“That wasn’t a thank you,” I added wryly, earning myself a brief huff of amusement from my witchy companion.
For a moment, I just stood there, watching the coffin twirl like it had a vendetta against gravity, and I wondered… what’s the damn point? What was the reward for ferrying these lingering spirits to their so-called happy place? Did they throw you a celestial parade? Offer you a haunted loyalty card? Or did they just disappear, leaving you with another sleepless night and one more scar you couldn’t show anyone? I was so tired. Not just the bone-deep exhaustion that came with late nights and too much caffeine, but tired in my soul. Tired of being the cosmic concierge for the dead. Tired of watching everyone else move on while I stood in the threshold, waving them goodbye and pretending I wasn’t bleeding from the effort.
And the worst part? I wasn’t even sure I was doing it for them. I’d always told myself I helped spirits because it was the right thing to do. But lately, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I did it because I had to. Because if I didn’t make peace for them, maybe I’d never find it for myself. Maybe I was trying to outrun something inside me. Something dark and coiled and ancient that had always made me feel different. What if I didn’t just see the dead because I was gifted? What if I saw them because I belonged to them, in some way I didn’t want to name?
Zelda flounced across the parlour with a kind of practiced elegance that suggested she did it often, and on purpose. She landed on an overstuffed settee upholstered in a fabric I was ninety percent sure used to be red velvet. “So,” she drawled, propping one boot irreverently up on the coffee table. “You’ll fix it, right? Whisper at him? Wave your sage bundle? Do the thing?”
I looked at her flatly. “There’s a bit more to it than that.”
“That’s why I called you.” She smiled like a woman who’d already won whatever game we were playing. The compliment was laced with sugar and sassy condescension in equal measure, wrapped in that witchy charm that Zelda wielded like a couture sledgehammer. Despite everything, despite my exhaustion and the miles still baked into my shoulders, I didn’t hate her for it. She had a style all her own, and it never ceased to impress me. But she was right. She’d called me. And I had a job to do.
