Page 8 of Ghost Broker (Mercury Raine #1)

F or the second night in a row, Mercury awoke to find a ghost at the foot of his bed, watching him. And for the second night in a row, it was not one of the current Aventine ghosts.

“Is Granny Grey going to remain at Aventine Manor?” Pearl asked with an indifferent shrug.

“If Miss Huddleston undertakes a transfer here, yes.”

“Granny simply has to stay!” Pearl burst immediately into tears. Emotionally unstable ghosts had been very fashionable a year earlier. “She has to.”

With a sigh of resignation, Mercury sat up in his bed and rubbed away the lingering sleep hanging heavy in his eyes.

“Why does she have to stay?” Mercury had his own reasons for wanting the geriatric ghost to remain. But until he learned Pearl’s reasons, he was unlikely to get any sleep.

“Granny doesn’t like London. She was unhappy there last year. And being surrounded by so many people scared her.”

That rang true from all Mercury had observed of the very anxious specter. “You feel she would be more at peace here?”

The translucent tears fell faster. “So much more. So very much more. ”

“I am eager for Granny to reside at Aventine Manor,” Mercury assured her. “And I intend to do all I can to facilitate a swap.”

“You managed it with Lord Garston.” Pearl’s tears turned to an anxious hopefulness. “And that means I get to return to Aventine for a time.”

“Which, I assure you, pleases me to no end.”

Mawky floated through the wall, her hand, as always, to her heart. Her eyes darted to Mercury. “You’re awake. How fortunate.”

“Is it, though?” Mercury rubbed at the ache between his eyes.

“Vernon is being insufferable, and it is truly harrowing to endure.” Mawky did her best to collapse dramatically on the foot of his bed but floated through it instead. “Everything is so wretched right now,” she said from inside the straw mattress.

“It’s very tiring, isn’t it?” He managed to keep the dryness out of his tone.

Mawky’s head popped up once more, though most of her remained inside his bed. “Vernon is being swapped tomorrow?”

“That is the plan.”

“And Pearl will be staying here with us?”

Mercury nodded.

“After all that I have endured, this is welcome news.” Though Mercury couldn’t see it, he suspected there was a hand-to-heart situation taking place. “Most welcome.”

“And I have every hope of Granny Grey joining our phantasmal flock in another day or two,” Mercury added.

Mawky began slowly rising, more of her growing visible. “See if you can convince the Huddlestons to choose Signora Bellona.” She floated closer and closer to the ceiling. “I do not know if I can bear another of her arias.”

At least the Signora didn’t sing in the middle of the night .

Mawky disappeared through the ceiling above. Pearl still hovered near his bed. Uncertainty and worry pulled at her ghostly features. Tears would undoubtedly return in another instant.

“Is something else weighing on you?” Perhaps he could offer some stability before she fell apart again, and, in so doing, get back to sleep that much quicker.

“I do have another Integral Trait besides emotional instability,” she said.

All ghosts had more than one. “What is another of yours?”

“Intuition. I…sense things.” Something in her tone had him a little on edge, a feeling of foreboding washing over him. “Granny’s arrival has changed things for you. If she doesn’t stay, the events she has unintentionally triggered will spiral and collapse on you.”

“Does your intuition allow you to ascertain what she knows or what is coming in her wake?”

Pearl shook her head. “Only that it is coming, and without her here, it will crush you.”