Page 17 of Haunted Heart (Things that Go Hump in the night #1)

SEVENTEEN

“What spell do I want?” I ask my grandmother as I hand her the black page book.

Somehow, the tome looks less scary in her library with all the other dusty spines.

She weighs it in her hands, scowling at it. “This is missing a page.”

I don’t ask her how she knows.

“You’ll have to talk to Minnie about that.”

“I’m sure I will, once I find her.” She hands me a piece of parchment, setting The Book on the windowsill beneath the still-bright light of the full moon glittering low in the pane.

“I planned to give this to you after your fancy graduation… as a reminder that you belong here, but… seems like you already know that.”

I take it, looking at the spell written there.

“What, exactly, does it do?” I trust her not to give me anything dangerous, but…

“You are learning. Good.” She chuckles. “Use that, and you can reassign a ghost’s anchor.”

Julia’s anchor is her heart. It’s the thing that lets her remain in the living world long after she should have passed on. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I don’t know,” my grandmother says, in the way she always does when she definitely does know. “Why might you want to anchor Julia to your heart, instead of hers?”

I freeze because I’d never considered…

Looking at my grandmother’s face, trying to tell if she’s teasing me, I ask, “I can do that?”

“If you want to and she’ll let you, then yes. Now, go make plans I have no part in.” She flutters her hand at me, dismissing me.

“I’m not in trouble?”

“Oh, you are. I just haven’t decided how to punish you yet.”

I pause in the doorway and look back. “Julia thinks you’ve been neglecting my education.”

She doesn’t look up. “There is no reason for you to use this book. So there was no reason for me to teach you Babylonian.”

“What about Sumerian?”

This time, she does stare up at me, over her glasses. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to snatch that spell back.”

“I’m going!”

I hurry upstairs and pack a small bag. I can come back for more later, but… I want to bring this first bag to show her that I do plan on sticking around.

I drop my charging brick on top of my clothes and zip it up as I hurry back down the stairs.

Before I head out, I take a moment to peek in at Jonas. He’s out like a light and snoring so loudly, I’m sure everyone sleeping here will be glad the room is spelled to be soundproof.

I feel like I’ve crossed the field to Julia’s home a hundred times, but I’ll happily cross it a hundred more, as long as she’s waiting for me.

“You’re tired,” she says when she wraps her arms around me again.

Ghostly hands stroke my face, and then Julia takes mine, tugging me upstairs.

I follow her to the bedroom and close the door as she closes the curtains.

“My grandmother gave me this.” I place the spell on the table and take off my boots as Julia floats over to it.

She reads the words and then reads them again. “Do you know what this would mean?”

“You’d be tied to me instead of your house.”

She dips her head, nodding with a faraway look in her dark eyes. “Do you understand the consequences?”

“Probably not.” What have I understood tonight?

“For me, they’re simple… When you die, I will pass on.”

She comes to me, pressing her cold fingers to my skin.

“And I won’t survive as long as your heart will.” I don’t like that, but I have to remind her.

“For you… I could take control of your body for short amounts of time.”

“You could possess me?”

“The same way I can slam doors here, I could make you slap someone. Things like that.”

“But would you?”

She hesitates and then smiles a little sheepishly. “I can think of a few instances where I would, yes.”

“What kind of instances?”

She looks down, almost as if she sees through the floorboards. “If you were incapacitated and needed to defend yourself, but couldn’t?”

“Well, I wouldn’t object to that.”

“If Minerva irritates me again?” The question might be a confession.

“I would object to that.”

“I’ll be with you, everywhere. This spell essentially means that I’ll haunt you, not my home.”

“But you could leave this house for the first time in centuries.”

She nods, looking down at the spell. She takes a deep breath, and the walls creak when she exhales.

“You sleep. I’ll think.”