Page 51 of Ghostly

The energy in the air boomed, passed through her like a wave—and was gone.

As was Harry.

“Harry?” Ida looked around the room. He should show up at any moment now. Surely, he would. She had all her lines prepared.We meet again, at last. I dolook a bit better than you, don’t you think? Perks of dying young.

But there was nothing.

“Harry?” Ida tried louder. She phased through the wall to her old bedroom—empty ever since Jamie had moved out—to the bathroom, refurbished twenty years ago, downstairs, past the new radio in the living room, the package of sliced bread spread out in the kitchen—sliced bread, who needed that!

But Harry was nowhere to be found.

She returned to him upstairs. Maybe he needed time? But no—when she died, she appeared as a ghost straight away. And she felt the energy—his essence, his soul, whatever it was, leaving. He should’ve been here.

“No, no, no.” She glided up and down the room. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. You were supposed to meet me!”

The windows rattled.

“You were supposed to help me! Release me! Make up for what you’d done!”

Frost spread across the glass, blurring the view onto a few remaining, dying roses in the garden.

“And you were supposed to show me how to pass through. I should be free! You killed me, you might as well have freed me!”

A plate and cutlery, left on the table from Harry’s last meal, rattled, lifted and flew across the room. The plate broke as it hit the wall, but the pieces didn’t hit the ground; they stayed up and began to spin, faster and faster, forming a funnel by the fireplace.

“No. No! It’s not fair!” Harry had been her last remaining link to this world, the last person she used to exact her revenge upon. Jacinda died years ago; there’d been no word from Jamie since he left.

It was only her and Harry.

And now he, too, was gone, and she was still here.

“You said you’d take care of me.” Ida’s voice broke, and she collapsed into a heap by Harry’s chair. “When Mother and Father died. You were my brother. My guardian. Why didn’t you protect me?” The last word spread into a wail. The glass on the windows vibrated, shook harder and harder, until it shattered. Cracks formed on the ceiling. Dust flew out of the fireplace.

All the lost years blinked in front of her eyes—the life she should’ve had, a husband, a family, a lovely garden with kids running around, Harry coming over for dinner, telling her it’s all right, that he’s sorry he ever thought her strange and erratic.

The room turned to black, and Ida felt no more.

Chapter 13

Bent down, Gabriel stared at the deer-hog statue he’d brought to the coffee table. The laptop next to it beeped every once in a while with a new message that Ernest sent him regarding Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy’s case.

But instead of diving into work, he kept returning to the statue.

The low humming had been coming from it ever since Ida disappeared, in the middle of her outburst, three days ago. Gabriel assumed she was haunting the statue, but with every passing hour, he grew more worried. She’d never been away for so long. And the way she’d left—what if something happened to her? What if she was trapped in there? What if she was somehow… broken?

“Ida, please. If you can hear me, everything is fine. You can come back.” Gabriel touched the statue. Was it warmer than usual? “Please, come back.”

The laptop beeped again, and Gabriel forced himself to get back to business. He had begged Ernest for this case, and had a ton of research to do. Hadn’t there been a time when he wanted Ida to be quiet so he could work in peace?

The statue stopped humming.

And Gabriel’s heart, for a second, stopped pumping.

“Gabriel.” Ida stood by the bookcase.

He’d never felt such a weight lift off his chest; not even when he’d found out he passed all of his exams in the first year of law school. She was back, and she looked the same as always—if a little confused.

“What happened?” She turned in a circle, taking in the living room as if she’d never seen it before, then lowered her gaze to the statue. “Why is the deer here?”