Page 1 of Haunted Heart (Things that Go Hump in the night #1)

ONE

Rule number one of a haunted house is usually “No Running.”

If I had a sign posted, it would probably list “don’t fall in love with the two-hundred-year-old poltergeist” at the top.

“Don’t go into the cellar” is a good one too.

The house is a couple centuries old, but the padlock and chain are brand new.

I replaced them last month before the old metal finally succumbed to rust.

Grabbing the cold metal, I give it a shake, doing my nightly check that everything is safe and secure.

“No one needs to go down there, ever.” The house isn’t mine, but I like to think of myself as its caretaker.

I like to think of myself as her caretaker.

I look up the siding to the window where a dim light flickers. The paint is chipped and flaking. Some of the boards have begun to crumble. Maybe I’ll ask her if I can fix them this summer when the air doesn’t hold this sour chill.

There are a few other things on my checklist, but the sun has started to set. My time is running out.

I hurry around the side of the house and up the porch to where I left my bags.

But when I open the door and let it swing wide on creaking hinges, someone behind me shrieks.

“Genevieve, wait!”

A shadowy figure across the field runs toward me, but as soon as I see her coppery braids flailing, I know it’s not some well-intentioned stranger trying to stop me from going into the house.

It’s just Minnie.

My twin sister bolts up the stairs. Her boot heels thud on the boards, but she stops a good five feet from the open door.

Julia doesn’t let her inside anymore, and Minnie’s smart enough to respect her unspoken banishment.

She gulps air and collapses forward, hands on her knees. “I need a page from The Book.”

The Book .

Minnie and I have never had a problem sharing, but I can’t let her take it. Not tonight. Not until I’m done.

“Not a chance.”

“ Please ? Chad is coming over and I need it.”

Our “boy problems” couldn’t be more different.

“I can’t. If you want it, you’ll either have to wait or memorize what you need in the next five minutes.”

She shakes her head, braids whipping. “There’s a third option.”

She takes another step, and I move between her and the bags.

“I swear on everything unholy, I will not take it off this porch.”

I hesitate, but she swore… And Minnie never breaks promises to me.

I look past her as I pull the green leatherbound book from one of the bags. She takes it slowly, hefting into one arm before she starts flipping through the pages.

That acrid chill air that ruffled my hair before now sweeps dead leaves across the porch.

It’s a full moon Friday night.

The corn maze our grandmothers’ run each autumn had an unusually high number of visitors today, but they’ve gone now.

Minnie kicked out the last of the stragglers who’d driven all the way out here to see two witches’ handiwork. Even if they think the witch thing is just a gimmick.

Tonight is the first night our grandmothers have been gone all year. They left Minnie in charge of the maze because they have their own spells to perform.

Their absence is the reason I was able to liberate The Book. They’d never have let it leave the scrying room if they’d been here to stop me.

“There it is!” Minnie’s words are all excitement and relief, but when I hear the paper tear, I tense up like a cat.

Eyes wide, disbelief silencing me, I turn to Minnie. She stands with the torn page in hand and a grin on her face.

Physically, we might be identical, but otherwise…

“Minerva Humphries, what the hell did you just do?” I snatch The Book up from where she’s left it on the boards and finger the jagged remains of the now missing page.

“Don’t worry, I’ll fix it in the morning,” she says, with a conviction that lacks the surety I’d like it to have. “It will be fine!”

“Will it?” I close The Book and clutch it to my chest.

She shrugs. “I’ll make it fine.” Biting her lip and peering at me, she asks, “What are you going to use it for, anyway?”

I don’t call her out for changing the subject. “I’ll tell you if— when it works.”

She nods and looks into the dark house. “Say ‘hi’ to your girlfriend for me…”

A lamp near the stairs flickers.

“She heard you.” I’ve stopped arguing that she’s not my girlfriend.

Julia would contradict me, and I think I’d like it… if we could have a conversation that was more than our strange version of morse code.

“You do your thing,” Minnie says, tucking the spell into the pocket of her skirt—even with tights, I don’t know how she can stand to wear the fluttering fabric that barely makes it to mid-thigh at this time of year. “I’ll do mine. We’ll see who’s still alive in the morning.”

She hops down the stairs and sprints back across the field.

“What does that mean?” I yell after her.

“It means don’t kill anyone if you don’t have to!” Her voice catches on the wind, disappearing into the orange glow of the approaching sunset.

Picking up my bags, I watch her for a moment before I go inside and close the door behind me.

There’s no electricity here, but the lamps light as I pass through the foyer and into the drawing room where I plan to hold tonight’s fake seance.

That’s just window dressing for the spell I need to perform.

I unload drinks on a side table and roll the rug away from the showpiece incantation circle I drew yesterday and then hid on the off chance my grandmothers stopped by for the first time in years.

The rug didn’t disturb the sand, but footprints will, so I step carefully.

With a snap, I light the two dozen candles I set around the room in preparation for this farce.

“Never leave a flame unattended” is only a rule for normal fire. I turn my back on the witchflame and know that nothing will burn that isn’t supposed to.

Taking the last bag with me, I head upstairs, skipping the third step and avoiding the railing as I go. Julia might not be trying to kill me anymore, but the house is still old , and she has done a fair amount of damage to it.

At the top of the stairs, I pause, as I always do.

The ornate mirror there is one of the few places I can actually see her.

I look past my own reflection, her face staring out. Pale and gray, her eyes dark and veiled by her long black hair.

In the dark of the mirror, she places her hand against the glass. I sigh as I touch it with my own.

I don’t know what Julia looked like when she was alive, but the face she wears in the mirror is not the one I met when I first came into her house.

Back when she was trying to kill me, her jaw stretched grotesquely long, she had too many teeth, and her eyes stared at me like vacuous pits…

She’s beautiful both ways.

I think what I see now is almost what she looked like before she was murdered.

“I have so many questions you can’t answer.” I kiss the mirror where her lips seem to be and when I pull back, I can’t see her anymore, but I feel the cold wash of her hands on my neck.

Tonight isn’t about us, though.

Tonight is about something that has gone terribly wrong in the last year.

I pull out The Book and the six-pack of beer before I drop the bag on the bed in the second largest bedroom. I’ve come to think of it as my room—books under the bed, scarves draped over the headboard rails… a memory box on the nightstand.

My supplies for the night go on the dresser and then I dig out the vial of prepared ingredients, taking a deep breath.

There are worse crimes to commit on a Friday night than drugging your best friend so he’ll stop trying to hit on you, right?

Especially when that drug is actually just a spelled potion meant to kill this ridiculous crush and put things back to the way they were…

Right?

There’s a flicker of something in the mirror behind me.

It’s beginning to feel like I’ve haunted this house almost as thoroughly as she has.

“It’s going to work,” I say, and the lights turn off in a wave around the room for a second before turning back on.

A sarcastic agreement. I can just imagine her saying “sure” while rolling her eyes.

Julia and I worked out a system years ago. One light blink for yes, two for no, and a host of other random variations on the theme.

“It has to work.”

Julia doesn’t give me any kind of response. I’ve been lurking in her home long enough she knows when she doesn’t need to answer my mutterings.

I know it’s a terrible idea, but after weeks, it’s the only one I have.

And Dylan keeps getting bolder and bolder.

Any day now, he’s going to trip over the line that marks the end of friendship and the start of something I won’t give him. And I don’t want to lose my friend just because he’s oblivious.

I check the spell ingredients again, making sure all the proportions are right, and then add a final pinch of salt to each of the open bottles of beer. The six-pack is his favorite IPA and I am counting on the disgustingly strong flavor of the hops to hide any odd taste.

Julia brushes past me, a presence I can feel, but never see.

“Are you trying to distract me?”

Floorboards creak like a sigh. “Of course not.” I imagine her saying.

Whether or not I believe her…

The clock is ticking, and I’m running out of time before my guests get here.

But I have my supplies, and the spell is simple enough.

Thank Hecate, the incantations in this book aren’t in Latin. No pronunciation errors await me here.

But The Book itself feels menacing.

Touching it elicits goosebumps, and the way the pages crinkle sends a shiver down my spine. I don’t know if that’s because Minnie tore out the page, or if it senses my intent to use it.

Bound in an eerie green leather, the pages are black, like they’ve been burned to a crisp.

The words on them are only legible to a witch’s touch.

I trace my fingers down the page, reading the spell silently once more. My fingertips come away smudged gray, ashen.

Popping the caps of all six bottles, I put pinches of my pre-made concoction inside. The beer fizzes for a moment before settling.

I glance at the clock on the wall. It hangs askew, but even after all these years, the hands tick around its face; the time is always right.

My friends are startlingly punctual—six years of college will do that to a person—and I’ve no doubt they’ll be here on time, especially if Rose is coordinating.

Taking a deep breath, I read the words.

“Morning light and evening rush, deal with the man for whom I can’t blush.” I swirl the bottles and watch the elixir glow before it settles back to the unremarkable golden ale in a brown glass. “Let his lust die, and make his skin flush. Kill the soul of this unbidden crush.”

I stare at the bottles, half expecting them to bubble or… show it worked some other way, but there’s nothing.

Nothing to make him suspicious.

One more simple spell to screw the caps back on, and it’s done… for now.

“I hope this works.” Because the only other option I have is telling Dylan to cut it the hell out… and probably never speak to him again.

That’s the way I should do this. But I don’t want things to change. I just want my old friend back, the way things were.

Back before he started hugging me a little too long, or touching my hand in random moments. Complimenting things a boyfriend might care about.

“Do you think it’s going to work?” I ask Julia.

The lights flicker like I’ve just won a jackpot at a Vegas casino and I groan, tipping my head back.

It’s not an answer. She’s laughing at me.

“I know , but I’m desperate!”

And my time is up.