Page 9 of Ghost With the Most
I yanked a charm pouch from my bag and tossed it onto the grass. The effect was immediate. Every gnome froze mid-attack, returning to their previously cheerful poses, one still clutching Zelda’s bootlace like a war trophy.
Zelda glared at the frozen tableau. “I’m starting to understand why Meredith has no pets.”
“She’s got them,” I muttered. “They’re just ceramic. And very stabby.”
Once we got back to the house, Meredith didn’t comment on our slight dishevelment. Her smirk said everything. She might claim that she didn’t believe in ghosts, but she definitely knew about magic.
“Charming companion you’ve got, Miss Hearst,” she quipped, glancing at Zelda.
“She’s an acquired taste,” I replied, brushing a leaf from my hair.
“Right back atcha,” Zelda shot back, tilting her head.
I took a breath. We were getting nowhere fast, and now I was on the verge of a rather monumental headache. So I decided to just level with Meredith. Woman to woman.
“Can you think of any reason why your dead husband doesn’t want to move on?”
She didn’t flinch, but she didn’t offer any other insights either. The silence that followed was loaded. Pressurized. Like something beneath her ribs was rattling its cage, begging to be let out. But Meredith just lifted her teacup again and took a measured sip, before looking me right in the eye.
“I don’t have a clue.”
Later that evening back at the funeral home, I made a new circle in the parlour. While I didn’t think I had anything to fear from Beau, there could well be other spirits in the vicinity and I wasn’t about to throw out a house party invitation. The salt hissed faintly as it hit the scuffed wooden floor, echoing in the stillness like a warning whispered through a cracked keyhole. The candles flared to life one by one, little tongues of fire licking at the gloom, casting the wallpaper’s decayed floral patterns into ghostly relief. The air was already cooler, already humming with ghoststatic… that kind of low, electric hum that raised goosebumps and made the back of your neck itch like something was just about to reach out and touch it.
I exhaled slowly, centering myself. Breath. Flame. Focus.
Beau arrived as I finished the incantation, slipping into the room like a secret you weren’t supposed to remember. Elegant, amused, and vaguely insufferable. He leaned against the edge of the fireplace like it was his living room, eyes glinting with that same wicked charm that made him both suspicious and annoyingly likable.
“Didn’t get enough of me yesterday?” he asked, his voice honeyed with mockery, sweet, cloying, and entirely too aware of itself. His presence settled low against my skin, denser than air, like humidity before a storm. It wasn’t just cold. It pressed. I folded my arms, not because I was cold (although I was) but because I needed the barrier. “Meredith says you were harmless.”
He snorted, the sound brittle and dry as dead leaves. It bounced off the chandelier like a laugh that had forgotten how to be joyful. “Did she now?” The way he said it was sharp enough to cut something soft, and maybe that was the point. A wound made casually, almost on instinct.
“She also says you were dramatic,” I continued, unwilling to let him tug the reins. “That part checks out.”
He gave a ghostly bow, one arm sweeping wide in a gesture that would’ve made any theater director weep. The shadows seemed to lean with him, like they were part of the act. “Guilty as charged,” he said, that wicked half-smile playing at his lips, but there was something hollow behind it this time. The kind of emptiness that felt... recent.
“Did she kill you?” I asked, direct as a scalpel.
He stilled. Just for a second. But it was enough. The air dropped a few degrees, and the chandelier above us swayed gently, though there was no breeze. He stared at me for a moment too long, and when he finally spoke, his voice had lost its velvet edge. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” he murmured, too casual. Too rehearsed.
“Not a real answer, Beau.” My voice was steady, but inside, something twisted. Because the ghost in front of me was performing — and badly. And the worst liars? Were the ones trying to convince themselves.
“It’s the best I’ve got,” he replied with a shrug that barely rippled his translucent shoulders. “I don’t remember. Not clearly. It was... sudden. One minute, I was here. The next, I was dead. And tethered. That’s not normal.”
“No lingering trauma? No slow fade?”
“Nope. Just lights out and lights up again.” His smile faltered for the briefest second. “Like someone hit the off switch on my soul and gave me a reboot.”
I frowned. Something about that phrasing itched under my skin. Tethered. It was starting to sound less like a haunting… and more like a trap.
“She said she hadn’t seen you for days.”
He chuckled, low and cold. “Well. Meredith always was a liar.”
His words slithered through the candlelight, unsettling and unbothered, and something in my gut twisted. I’d dealt with grief before. Obsession. But this? This was different. Like someone had neatly sliced the cord of what Beau remembered of his murder, tied it off, and hidden the knot.
“She’s polished her grief into a PR campaign,” I said, half to myself.
“She always did love a performance,” Beau said, drifting toward the piano and trailing his fingers over the closed lid. Dust puffed into the air like powdered secrets. “And she hated not being the most interesting thing in the room. In that respect, we really were quite perfect for each other.”
