Page 60 of How to Fake a Haunting

Two years later

The Historical Society frequently dealt with legend trippers who tried to make off with Mercy’s headstone, and now they were proposing I take Mercy’s headstone for the exhibit I was curating; I couldn’t type my return email accepting their proposition fast enough.

I spun from my desk and checked the clock. Twenty minutes until I had to meet Adelaide for lunch. I was about to dive into the next email when someone knocked on the office door behind me.

I turned to find Callum in the doorway. “Hey,” I said, a jolt of anxiety zagging through me. “Is Beatrix okay?”

“Yes, of course, sorry. I’m picking her up from your mom’s this afternoon. I was thinking of taking her to that art and animals exhibit at Rosecliff . . . Wild Imagination, right?” He arched an eyebrow. “If that’s all right with you?”

I laughed. “It’s fine. Just because I don’t work for the Preservation Society anymore doesn’t mean I don’t want to support their programming. I love the idea of you guys going to Wild Imagination. Let me know how it is.”

“Okay.” He nodded, more to himself than at me, as if pumped he’d gotten the courage to ask. “Okay, sweet. And yeah, I’ll definitely let you know. Though you know Beatrix . . .”

“I know Beatrix,” I agreed. “I’m sure she’ll tell me about it in painstaking detail.”

We both laughed before falling silent. It still felt strange sometimes, even two years later, talking with Callum.

Really talking. Though perhaps strangest of all was how quickly the channels of communication had started flowing after the divorce.

It was as if, by finalizing our agreement, we could finally move forward, finally separate from one another, extricate ourselves from the codependence.

It was also probably no coincidence that our divorce was made final right around the five-month anniversary of Callum’s sobriety.

Callum’s gaze dropped, and I realized I was flexing my wrists the way I did when they were bothering me. I’d spent longer at the computer than I’d planned to.

“How are they?” he asked, nodding at my arms.

“All healed up after the last surgery. Dr. Cohen is a miracle worker, truly. No long-term tendon or nerve damage, and no motor or sensory dysfunction.” I shrugged. “I just have to be sure not to overdo it.”

Callum was silent again, and I knew what he was thinking.

I’d been lucky. Lucky not only to survive my injuries but with regards to convincing the doctors it had all been a huge misunderstanding.

That I hadn’t tried to kill myself. That we’d been working on staging a haunting, almost like a play, and I’d dragged what I’d thought was a prop knife down my wrist so hard and fast that the pain hadn’t registered before I’d done the same thing to the other wrist. It was a bonkers story, but with four witnesses all attesting to the same thing, they’d had no choice but to believe me.

I’d been endlessly grateful for the others’ support. I’d had enough to deal with in my recovery without having to convince a psychiatrist I wasn’t a danger to myself or an unfit mother to Beatrix. Especially because, in the beginning, I thought that was how Rosalie Taylor would try to spin things.

“How’s everything with you?” I asked. “How’s work?”

“It’s good.” He cleared his throat. He seemed nervous.

“Meetings going well?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “That’s sort of what I came to talk to you about.”

Another jolt of anxiety. Had Callum relapsed? Flashbacks from two years ago assailed me. Callum standing shit-faced in the living room, railing about moving furniture. Callum pouring a drink the morning of Flypocalypse. Callum holding the end of a straw, staring me in the eyes, and bending it . . .

“It’s my two-year anniversary on Friday,” he said. “I’m speaking at the seven o’clock meeting. Will you come?”

Relief coursed through me, mixed with overwhelming joy. “Of course!” I exclaimed. “Of course. Nothing would make me happier.”

“Great,” he said. “That’s so great. My sponsor, Wally, will be there. And Monty.”

I let out a small laugh. “I have to say, I never would have thought Monty had it in him. Who would’ve expected your former drinking-buddy-in-arms would be such an ardent supporter of your recovery?”

Callum nodded in agreement, but I could tell something was still bothering him.

“How about your family?” I asked. “Is your mom going to be there?”

He sighed, and I knew I’d hit on the source of discomfort. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “She still says she doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand any of it. Why I quit drinking. Why I stood by you after your injury. Why I agreed to the divorce. Why I didn’t fight you on sharing custody with Beatrix.”

I crossed the room and put a hand on his arm. “And she probably never will. But you don’t need her to.”

He stared at my hand on his arm, then nodded. “You’re right. You’re always right.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not. And that’s okay.”

He nodded again. We stared at each other. I opened my mouth to say something else, but a commotion came from outside my office.

“You’re busy,” Callum said. “I’ll let you go.”

“It’s the afternoon tour getting back. They’ll be going through the museum now to see the exhibits. But I am meeting Adelaide for lunch soon.”

Callum put a hand in his pocket and took out his keys. “Tell her I said hi,” he said generously. “And Lainey?” He gestured around us. “I’m really glad this is going so well. The tours. The museum. All of it.”

I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m glad too.”

I watched him walk out. He crossed in front of the windows as he made his way to his car.

Again, the urge to say something, to call after him, came over me.

It’s okay, I told myself. You don’t have to tell him everything right now.

That was the best part of our new reality.

Whenever I needed to talk to Callum, to tell him something, he listened.

I left my office, heading toward the main part of the museum.

I crossed the foyer and opened the heavy wood door, peeking into the cavernous room on the other side of it.

A group of ten sat on the long bench, listening in rapt attention.

Morgan stood at the room’s center, regaling the tour-goers with the story behind each haunted artifact on display behind her.

Joe was in the corner, preparing a selection of ghost-hunting equipment for demonstration.

I tried to close the door without being seen, but the hinges creaked, and everyone’s attention shot to me. One woman yelped. Another brought a hand to her heart, thoroughly startled.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not a ghost. I’m real.”

The tour-goers laughed.

“I’m sorry to have interrupted you.” I met Morgan’s eye. “I’m heading out to meet Adelaide. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m back if we’re any closer to procuring Bathsheba Sherman’s gravestone for the fall exhibit.”

She grinned and nodded. “Sounds good.” She turned to the group.

“Ladies and gentlemen, do not let her fool you with unnecessary apologies. This is Lainey Taylor! Another founder, along with myself, Joe, and Adelaide Benson, and the one who secured this historic Newport property. But she’s also the director of museum affairs and chief curator of Newport’s first—and only—Museum of the Supernatural and Gilded Age Occultism. ”

The tour-goers clapped raucously.

I blushed. “Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your tour.” I returned Joe’s nod from the corner and shut the door.

I headed for the exit, passing alcove after alcove, admiring each artifact as I sailed down the hallway: a ghost doll from the General Nathanael Greene Homestead; a section of the terrazzo floor from the reception hall in Belcourt Castle; a portrait of Angela O’Leary from the Providence Art Club, where she’d committed suicide; the wooden coffin pendant that’d belonged to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman.

I stopped before the final artifact—or, series of artifacts.

A wall of mirrors. Mostly broken ones. Five, to be exact.

The fifth, and only intact, mirror was a gorgeous gold thing, small and rectangular, reminiscent of one that hung above the mantelpiece in Marble House’s ballroom.

Its intricately patterned border resembled the scales and prickles of a pinecone.

I stood to the side of the mirror, hesitating. Something was inside it. I could feel it. But then I stepped in front of it. Stared into the silver. Smiled.

I wasn’t afraid of mirrors. And I wasn’t afraid of my reflection. Not now. Not anymore.

I stepped into the bright summer sun, pulled the heavy door shut behind me, and walked down the stone path.

I was already thinking ahead to lunch with Adelaide.

Thinking of the wildly colored dress she’d be wearing, the turquoise hair.

The feather earrings and multicolored nails.

Likely, she’d have leads on all sorts of haunted artifacts she wanted to pursue across Rhode Island.

Throughout New England. She’d want to bring Gothic lecturers into the museum.

Stage plays. Maybe hire an illusionist to put on performative séances.

And I would listen. Consider all of it. Nod and reflect and ask questions.

Because crazy or not, that girl had some really great ideas.