Page 23 of Ghostlighted (Ghost Townies #2)

Chapter Eighteen

M y car was the only one in the lot, so the rest of the staff must have taken advantage of Saul’s offer of an extra day off after the event.

However, I had a key to the side door that led to the hallway with the servants’ staircase that Saul and I always used to get up to the second floor.

His office and the document room where I worked weren’t on the regular tour path.

We never heard any commotion from the gift shop or ran into parties as they wandered through the Manor, so why did the place feel extra silent and deserted this morning?

Maybe because I didn’t expect to be alone .

I practically crept down the passage to the document room, and once I was there, I couldn’t focus.

I wanted to find the thing—whatever it was—that was affecting Avi, but I didn’t know where to start.

As ashamed as I was to admit it, I’d never taken the official tour of the Manor, and I couldn’t remedy that fact today.

It didn’t feel right to poke around the place on my own.

I doubt Saul would have objected if I’d asked, but I hadn’t asked, so that option was off the table.

I couldn’t even reference Frances Richdale’s journal because Saul had sent it to a bookbinder to have it professionally disassembled, the pages photographed in high resolution, and then rebound so we could sell hardcover facsimiles in the Manor gift shop and an ebook version online.

I’d been surprised about the digital option.

“We have an online store?” I’d asked Saul.

“We do. Mostly for ticket sales and tour reservations.” He sighed.

“I’ve always intended to do more with it, but somehow all my time gets taken up with fundraising, so…

” He spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

Then his lips curled up in a smile and his brown eyes sparkled.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider adding internet content creation to your document sorting tasks.

I could ask Taryn to amend the contract to account for it. ”

I waved that away. “The contract is more than generous, and we’d talked about putting together a book about the family based on their papers, so I don’t think this counts as scope creep.”

Saul had been adamant. “Web content wasn’t part of the original deal. I’ll let Taryn know.”

I’d promptly forgotten about it following Carson’s arrest and discovering that Avi was Jake freaking Fields, my favorite thriller writer.

Maybe now would be a good time to make a list of possible blog post topics.

I rubbed the back of my neck, staring at the stacks of crates I hadn’t even peeked in yet.

“There’s certainly enough potential source material,” I muttered. As a hoarder, Thaddeus Richdale was no slouch.

I closed my eyes, spun around twice, and, while I recovered my balance, flung out an arm, finger extended. When I opened my eyes, I was pointing at a battered cardboard box partially hidden in a totally unnecessary and peculiarly shaped niche.

“All right, little box. You weren’t even on my radar, but let’s see what you’ve got to tell me.”

I hauled it over to the table I used for sorting contents as I unpacked each container, coughing at the cloud of dust that puffed out when I set it down.

I don’t know what I was hoping for—maybe crumbling parchment with jagged letters in ink the color of dried blood that said Beware the cursed monkey’s paw!

Hey, what can I say? It’s a classic.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here. Instead, the box contained several lace collars wrapped in yellowed tissue paper and half a dozen thin, oversized books in some kind of rough gray binding that was definitely not leather.

I set the collars aside carefully—Saul would probably be able to use them in one of the room displays—and lifted out the first book.

“Please be another journal, please be another journal.”

My muttered plea to the universe wasn’t exactly answered, but it wasn’t exactly ignored either.

No, the book wasn’t a journal, nor was it written by one of the Richdales.

Instead, it was their housekeeper’s ledger.

And whoever their housekeeper had been, they were the spiritual ancestor of the company that packed up Oren’s effects, because while they were lousy at categorization and logical grouping, they were fantastic at listing the detail for each item purchased.

I peered at the bottom of one page and noted the faded date accompanied by a flowing signature in sepia ink—Frances Richdale. I snorted.

“Frances Richdale, matriarch of corporate micromanagers everywhere.”

In her journal, Frances had flat out stated that Thaddeus was wasting their financial resources on his quest to pierce the veil “to the great detriment of our Family’s wealth and well-being.

” From the looks of this, she was either keeping her housekeeper honest or doing her best to control a budget that was bleeding heavily from the cash outflow caused by Thaddeus’s inability to grasp the sunk-cost fallacy.

Because holy crap , some of this stuff was expensive, especially for that time period.

This could actually be a good topic for a blog post, maybe not the inaugural one, but close after the introduction—a list of the supplies Thaddeus used for his research.

I peered at the page again, noting the large amount of garlic and excessive number of silver chains.

Or maybe the supplies Frances used to interfere with his research .

Had Frances been the one to stumble upon the spirit-repelling artifact? According to her journals, she certainly hadn’t been a fan, although her entries had been observations of Thaddeus’s attempts, rather than plans for anything that would block them.

The housekeeper’s ledger contained item descriptions, but not always the reason for the purchase.

For example, “Haunch of venison requested for Mr. Holum’s dinner” was pretty clear, especially since each page also included a list of who was staying at the Manor on that date.

Mr. Broderick Holum of San Francisco evidently had a taste for venison and a hearty appetite.

However, it had nothing more to say about the “carved purple chalcedony locket on golden chain” or “rings of braided Andalusian horsehair (5) wound with silver thread.” Maybe it figured those were self-explanatory?

What would anybody do with five rings of braided horsehair, anyway, Andalusian or not, regardless of what thread they had wrapped around them?

Victorian spiritualists could be super weird.

My chuckle died in my throat as I spotted the date next to Frances’s signature—it was more than two years prior to the first entry in her journal.

While Frances’s journal had been explicit about the what of Thaddeus’s attempts—that is, what he was hoping to achieve with any given experiment—they hadn’t been very specific about how he intended to accomplish it.

Well, she’d described the activities, but not what the participants had used for them in anything but general terms. I remembered every seance called for three white candles .

But this page of the housekeeper’s ledger had an entry for beeswax candles, 12 inches, three dozen, scented with lavender, tinted black .

Somewhere between this date and Frances’s journal, Thaddeus had switched from black candles to white. Why?

Excitement began to crawl from my belly up through my chest. If I could match actual materials from the housekeeper’s accounts to the journal’s events, I’d be able to match Thaddeus’s goal with what he’d used to reach it.

If nothing else, it would tell us what not to try investigating regarding Avi’s abilities.

And maybe, just maybe , if I was very lucky, I’d find that break in the timeline. Because I can’t imagine that something that would result in repelling all spirits within a hundred-mile radius could possibly be a small thing.

I remembered how fascinated I’d been by the historian’s research methods in The Daughter of Time , how he and the bedridden detective had used sources other than “official” history to build their case for absolving Richard III of murdering the princes in the tower.

History was too easily revised by the winners in any conflict, and people—even the most well-intentioned—had a tendency to cast themselves and their “team” in the best possible light.

To get the real picture, you had to look at objective facts.

Things that had no reason to be either sanctified or demonized.

Frances, in her journal, had a clear bias—she thought Thaddeus was an idiot for pursuing his obsession to communicate with Josiah, and furthermore, she resented the hell out of him for wasting their family money to do it.

Frances’s journal only covered about eighteen months, from September 1906 until March 1908, when Frances had been in her mid-thirties. She’d introduced the volume with a very telling paragraph:

Whereas my Husband has devoted all our Resources to his Pursuits, it behooves me to chronicle his Actions, ere he once again repeat failed Trials to no avail and to the great detriment of our Family’s wealth and well-being.

From that, it was clear that Thaddeus’s experiments had been going on for some time. I suspected—I hoped—that somewhere in all these boxes I’d find other volumes of her journal and I’d be able to align them with the housekeeper’s ledgers.

My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I wiped the dust off my hands and pulled it out, hoping for a text from Ricky.

It wasn’t, but it was equally exciting in a completely different way: a delivery notification from UPS. My EVP equipment had been delivered and left on the porch.

I checked the time—eleven thirty. That was totally legit for an early lunch, right, especially on a day I wasn’t required to be working? I grabbed my hoodie and hurried down to my car.

I laughed to myself as I drove out of the empty lot.

Saul Pasternak was probably the least-demanding boss in the history of the world—witness what amounted to an extra paid holiday for Manor staff.

However, if the EVP equipment worked as I hoped, he’d probably forgive me for anything short of burning down the Manor, because it would mean that he could speak with Avi. That anyone could speak with Avi.

More importantly, though, it would mean that Avi could speak to anybody he wanted.

When I got home, I didn’t bother pulling into the garage.

Instead, I just pulled into the driveway and ran to the front porch.

The box wasn’t sitting in front of the door, and my stomach plummeted.

I didn’t think there could be much package theft here in Ghost, but I hadn’t expected murder, either, and I’d been wrong about that.

Then I spotted it tucked under the porch swing and gave the UPS driver props for the camouflage win.

I unlocked the door first, then teased the box out and hefted it into my arms. It wasn’t particularly heavy, but it was awkwardly bulky.

Opening the door wide enough that I could maneuver inside without letting Gil escape might be a challenge.

He was lurking next to the stairs, so I deduced that Avi must not be manifesting anywhere. He made a break for it, but I butted the door closed with my, well, butt, and earned a displeased rumble from him.

“I don’t know why you’ve suddenly developed this hankering for the great outdoors, big guy, but we need to have a serious talk about it.

” I headed for the kitchen with him slinking along at my heels, ears swiveled back and tail down.

“And stop sulking. You may think the grass is greener out there… Okay, I suppose the grass is greener because there’s actual grass, but birds aren’t nearly as easy to catch as you seem to think.

” I plopped the box onto the counter and looked down at him.

“They have wings, Gil. Wings. They’re not just mice with feathers. ”

Gil’s ears perked up, and he bounded back into the family room.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Avi said.

“Don’t encourage him,” I called. “He tried to bust out again.”

Avi walked into the kitchen with Gil trotting next to him. “Has he always done that?”

“Never. He’s always been curious and interested , especially when birds were involved, so I was always careful not to tempt him.

Made sure the doors were closed, that kind of thing.

This prison break behavior didn’t pop up until a couple of days ago.

” I spread my arms. “Granted, we’ve never lived anywhere that out was particularly enticing, but he’s got more room to explore here than in any of our previous places, so I don’t know what the deal is. ”

Avi bent down to pet Gil. “Maybe he’s just lonely. Didn’t you always work from home before?”

“Yeah.” I hunkered down to skritch Gil’s ears. “Do you think that’s it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I can try to be around more.” He rolled his eyes. “Assuming I can figure out how.”

“Do you, er, manifest while I’m not here?”

Avi screwed his mouth to one side, clearly wracking his brain. “I’m not sure. When you’re not around, there’s not much I need to do, so maybe not?”

“When you left the car earlier, do you remember appearing somewhere specific in the house? Doing anything there?”

He grimaced. “No. I just walked down the stairs now because I heard you talking to Gil. Do you suppose I can’t be present unless there’s a reason?”

“I don’t like to think so,” I said, frowning. “That denotes lack of choice. You should have enough agency to be able to show up whenever you want.”

“Ah.” He held up one forefinger. “But what do I want? That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Unfortunately, we both knew the answer to that one. He wanted Oren. The company Gil and I had to offer was a poor substitute, but at least it was something .

I stood and laid my palm atop the box. “So when Ricky and I went to Portland the other day, I had an idea.”

He raised both palms in mock horror. “Maz, as much as I appreciate your friendship, I do not want to hear about your awkward attempts to woo Ricky.”

“And yet, you’re the one who suggested I buy new clothes for that very purpose.” I folded my arms. “Do you want to hear my idea or not?”

“I’m sorry. By all means, continue.”

“Ricky and I stopped at a falafel place for lunch?—”

“The one in the Pearl?”

I blinked. “You know it?”

“It was one of Oren’s favorite spots. He took me there a couple of times when I visited him in the city. He said it had been recommended to him by his cousin’s husb— Oh.”