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“A ghost?” Gary guessed, stalking around in circles with his tail twitching in annoyance. “A creature of some kind, who built the trap? How would I know? I’ve never seen anything like that thing.”

Meredith still clenched her chest, as if the thing reached inside her body and squeezed her very heart with its cold, clammy, black-fingernailed hands. “I’ve never even heard of a ghost trap before. You have to go ask my aunt what the hell it means.”

Gary shot her a glance, his ears pinned back in annoyance.

“That’s totally cheating. You’re allowed to look up stuff on your phones, you’re allowed to call people, you’re allowed to research, sell, and buy whatever you need within the twenty-thousand-dollar budget, but I don’t remember anything in your contract about sending your familiar off to do research with older, wiser witches. ”

“Exactly,” Meredith agreed breezily.

“Exactly what?” asked Gary.

“There wasn’t anything in the contract about it, which means I can do whatever I like. Go, find my aunt, get me answers,” she ordered adding a shooing gesture.

The four of them ranged around a foldable table in the back yard, since the house still smelled too awful to eat inside of it.

Pizza boxes flipped open between them and Carmen, who came on for her night shift a few minutes before the pizza arrived, as they stuffed their faces after a day of hard work.

“We have most of the garage gutted,” Meredith pointed out as she reached for another slice. “Tomorrow, we could use those tables along the back walls to start setting things out like the glassware and antiques we plan to sell, separate it from the trash that still needs sorted.”

“Is your cat missing?” asked Bodie, glancing under the table. “Every other time we’ve eaten, he is right in the middle of the damn table.”

“Sorry,” Meredith said, but she didn’t sound altogether that apologetic. “He has no manners. Most cats don’t, though. They say people who like to have control get dogs. People who don’t mind having no control prefer cats.”

“Do you prefer cats, then?” asked Jeremiah, glancing at her.

If she didn’t know better, he was trying to get to know her better. She bit her lip, almost amused at her own silly flirtations. “I wouldn’t say I prefer them, but I will say he’s fine. Probably off hunting or doing some other cat business.”

“I’m hungie!” said a voice nearby, and they all swiveled to see the mostly naked guy appeared again.

He still only wore one sock, an American flag as a bandana, and had some of the floppiest junk Meredith ever saw.

She considered the junk carefully, wondering if it was caused by poor maintenance or simply the ravages of old age.

“Want a slice of pizza?” Meredith offered the ghost, congenially enough.

“Where is my mother!” he screamed. “And who are you people?”

He lifted his hands, much as the woman had the day before with the bonfire, but this time their pizza boxes and pizza flew into the air.

Carmen scrambled for a camera, filming between the naked guy and the flying pizzas before he threw his hands down, spraying pizza in every possible direction.

Pepperoni dripped down a flagpole, while one piece dangled at an almost flag-like angle out of the door of a birdhouse, the cheese and toppings dripping slowly off to the ground below.

“They have got to stop doing that,” Meredith muttered.

“I can’t believe I caught that on film!” Carmen practically squealed.

“How are you people so calm about this?” Jimothy asked, hands shaking as he used a napkin to wipe his fingers before crumpling it and throwing it on the table. “The paranormal activity is increasing the longer we stay in the house.”

“I wouldn’t say increasing,” Meredith corrected with a shrug. “It isn’t decreasing, though.”

Jimothy pinched his lips at her, while Jeremiah squeezed his arm. “You know I’ll always look out for you, little brother. We can do this.”

Jimothy didn’t look as sure, but then again, if Meredith was right, he didn’t seem sure about a lot of the home renovating stuff.

Decided, she stood. “How about if we go on a nighttime, after-dinner walk around town while these guys clean up,” she suggested to Jimothy. “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

Jeremiah and Bodie didn’t argue, especially since Jeremiah still looked a bit worried about his brother, so soon they meandered their way down Main Street together. “It’s a pretty enough town,” she said in opening.

He snorted. “It’s fucking precious,” he said in response. His dark hair matched the American dream around them, very wholesome and clean cut. “I’m gay, by the way, if you’re trying to hit on me. I did find the host kind of cute, but you’re really not my type.”

Meredith snorted, too. “I picked up on it. Your brother isn’t,” she admitted, thinking of the moment when he nuzzled her nose. Why would he even do such a weird thing? she thought again, still touched despite herself.

“No, yet our parents haven’t figured it out, somehow or another. So, do you want to hear my full sordid backstory, or are we too late in the game for sharing those?” Jimothy asked.

“Share away,” she said with a smile. “I figured we could both use a break from the smell and maybe some talking time.”

“So, I always planned to be the next big thing online, right? I was going to be so internet famous, I knew it from a young age, and no one could tell me differently. I think I started my first gaming channel at about age eight or something ridiculous? It’s still live, but mostly because my mother likes to go look at videos of me before my voice changed to its much manlier tones.

” He deepened his voice in theatrics, and Meredith smiled at him.

“It worked out,” she said. “The James Brothers is a really well known?—”

“Let’s not lie about fame, okay? I’m the camera guy.

I’m the comic humor. I’m the one that fucks up whatever my brother is trying to do, which set up a familiar and likeable show people want to tune into.

I’ve been trying to make our show fail for ages, hoping to start a solo show about hiking and foraging on my own, but instead…

” He gazed off into the distance, snapping off a piece of someone’s evergreen hedge as they walked past it.

“We just keep getting more and more famous.”

She scuffed her shoe on the cement, glancing behind her, glad for once to lack the camera person following them. “You make the famous part sound like more work than it is worth.”

He shrugged, staring at the fire station in the distance.

Maybe he thought about the firefighters that visited their house before the lightning hit the day before.

Maybe he imagined dating one of the firemen.

Maybe he thought about none of it at all, simply watched the flag flipping in the wind.

Either way, he finally said, “Fame is funny. Everyone thinks they want it, but what they really want is the people who they care about to see them. I don’t think fame helps with that, if I’m honest. If anything, it makes it even harder for you to see you anymore, if you get me? ”

She thought about it, continuing to easily match his pace and meander through the early evening while lights began to flick on in the homes around them. “So, by being seen by so many, you’re less likely for anyone to see the real you, even you?” she tried.

“Basically,” he agreed. “How do you start a relationship, create intimacy, build trust with someone if all they see is the facade?”

Strangely, it made Meredith think of Bodie, with all of his cocky arrogance and whiplash fast comebacks. Did he struggle with the feeling no one could see the real him, too? Did Jeremiah? Did she? She wasn’t sure.

“Are you actually afraid of the ghosts?” she asked him, cutting to the root of their actual problem. “Do we need to get you out before more happens, or are you okay?”

Jimothy went still, his eyes focusing on her for long moments before he answered. “See, I expected you to try to get rid of people to narrow the playing field, but this isn’t that, is it? You’re genuinely asking me if I’m going to be okay through all of this or if it will mess with me, aren’t you?”

Meredith nodded. She wanted to win, sure, but she wasn’t a monster. She liked Jimothy.

“I’m good,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “But I wouldn’t mind if you tried to get some time with my brother away from the cameras.”

Her eyes darted to him, instantly remembering her earlier fantasy and thinking that her alone with either Bodie or Jeremiah likely would be the worst possible idea. “Why?” she asked bluntly.

“I don’t think he actually wants this either,” Jimothy said, holding his hands out and staring at his empty palms. “This life? This show? I think he’s doing it for me, or that he feels responsible for me because our parents died when I was still only seventeen, so he was basically my parent for a year.

Whatever the reason, I don’t think I’m the only one who wants out of this whole rigmarole, but I don’t know how to bring it up. Could you talk to him for me?”

Meredith opened and closed her mouth twice before she managed to find words. On one hand, she wanted to help Jimothy, and if his brother really wanted out of the reno life too, it made sense for them to have a talk about what would come next.

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure she could keep her hands off Jeremiah, given time alone with him. Something about his eyes…she shivered, just remembering it. “I’ll try,” she finally promised.

Jimothy squeezed her arm. “That’s the most I can ask for. Thank you.”

Don’t thank me yet, she thought. Wait and see if I manage to do it without boinking your brother before you thank me.