Page 21 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

The pink that had returned to Collin’s cheeks faded. “Um, how many ghosts are haunting this house, exactly?”

“That’s a pretty long story, my guy,” Josh told him solemnly as he flopped onto the couch next to Alice. “And as funny as I think it would be to count how many ghosts you can’t see in this room, I think we’re supposed to be talking about you and Alice having a collectively shitty day.”

Caroline shot him a warning look, her hands in the air. Josh shrugged. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Plover looked down his long ghostly nose at Josh, making the teenager sigh, “Pardon my foul language, please, ladies. Anyway, ghosts are real. There’s an afterlife.

These women are witches who can work magic on ghosts and haunted objects.

And I’m sort of magic-adjacent. I mostly listen.

Also, the house is full of hundreds of ghosts attached to basically every antique object you see in the house, so be careful of what you pick up—particularly the toaster in the kitchen. It bites.”

Collin took a deep breath as he absorbed the CliffsNotes version of Hauntings 101. “OK, then.”

Mina’s dark brows lifted. “Really?”

“No! Clearly, I have hundreds of questions, but I’m trying to play it cool so I don’t melt down,” he shot back, making Mina laugh. He chuckled. Alice took his hand, finding comfort in that low-key electrical pulse. He frowned down at her hand. “Where did the ring go?”

Alice shook her head. “It was so loose on my finger, it must have slipped off. I was distracted by my grandparents back at the shop. I barely noticed. I just ran.”

“Can we go back to what happened at the shop?” Caroline asked Alice. “What made you run over here?”

“My grandparents hid cameras in the shop while I was out of town,” Alice said, taking a deep drink from her own brandy snifter. Collin squeezed her hand.

“Raging assholes, both of them,” Caroline marveled, shaking her head.

Josh looked to Plover to admonish Caroline, but the ghost butler shrugged. “She’s an adult. And correct.”

“They traveled all the way up here to demand that I return to them whatever I took out of the shop. The camera wasn’t angled to their advantage, so they don’t know what it was.”

“How much have they seen with those cameras?” Riley asked.

“Well, they didn’t mention having footage of ghosts, so I guess not much,” Alice muttered into her glass. “They think I was talking to myself on the videos. They threatened to have me institutionalized.”

“We wouldn’t let that happen,” Caroline told her.

Alice shook her head. “It’s an empty threat. It’s just that they started saying things about my mother, and it was too much.”

“They’re the freaking worst,” Riley said. “Maybe it’s time to think about finding other employment.”

“Already done. She’s doing private consulting for me,” Collin replied. “I am willing to increase your retainer considerably, Alice.”

“And it’s maybe time to move out of the shop apartment, considering that they’re hiding cameras uncomfortably near your living space without telling you,” Caroline added.

“Oh, no… I hadn’t even considered my apartment,” Alice said, her mouth dropping open.

“You don’t have to stay there,” Riley told her. “We have plenty of room. Most of the guest rooms are charmed to keep the ghosts out and give you privacy.”

“Most of them?” Collin asked. Riley shrugged.

“No,” Alice said, her voice firmer than it had sounded since she fell through the door. She couldn’t stay with Riley after what she’d done. And staying at Shaddow House might give Clark more of a reason to show up there. “You and Edison have enough…additional people staying with you.”

The expression on Riley’s face was hurt, but Alice couldn’t “help” by taking it back.

Alice insisted, “I won’t be a burden. I’ll figure something out.”

“I would offer to let you stay in my old place, but Wally’s moved in there,” Caroline said. “Mom and Dad are actually pretty thrilled to have their whole house to themselves.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Alice told them.

“We still have tourists taking up all the rentals,” Caroline replied.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mina insisted.

“Labor Day is this weekend. This is when the tourists have their last big hoo-ha,” Josh told her. “What’s the big mystery?”

“No.” Mina rolled her eyes in the way only an older sister could.

“And it’s ‘hurrah,’ not ‘hoo-ha.’ I mean, we haven’t brought in any new haunted items recently.

Alice has been inside this house hundreds of times.

Why would this ghost lady, Victoria, suddenly show up and scream in her face? What’s new?”

“Other than Collin?” Riley asked. “She said she could ‘smell him’ on Alice.”

“The ring,” Alice said. She looked at Collin. “I was wearing it before I walked into the house. The inscription on the band was ‘V & S.’ The ghost’s name was Victoria. Plover, do you know anything about her?”

“Miss Victoria is one of the more reticent residents of the house,” Plover told Riley. “I believe she was brought into the house sometime in the 1940s, without commentary from your great-grandfather. She appears every decade or so, but doesn’t interact with the other residents.”

“You think the ring could be her attachment object?” Riley asked. “How would that work if it’s outside the house?”

“We found it at the back of a drawer in Tremont’s Treasures,” Collin said.

“A drawer from a dresser belonging to a distant cousin of mine.” Alice nodded.

“You think there’s a family connection there?” Caroline asked her.

“I don’t know,” Alice admitted. “My grandparents never mentioned anything about particularly tragic deaths in the family, or anyone named Victoria. I could talk to Willard.”

“Where does that leave us?” Collin asked.

Alice shrugged. “Sometimes, a ghost just needs someone to talk to about their trauma, some action that will resolve the unfinished business that’s keeping them attached to the earthly plane.

And sometimes, they’re a little less cooperative and we give them a little…

nudge. That’s where our magic comes in.”

“And with everything you have going on, you think that talking to Willard is a good use of your time?” Collin asked.

“Victoria’s in a lot of pain,” Alice said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving her in here, in that state, with people I care about. For that matter, I don’t like the idea of leaving Arthur alone with my grandparents in the shop. Poor Arthur.”

“Well, I don’t think your grandparents would be willing to sell his cabinet to anyone present right now,” Riley speculated. “I don’t think I’m supposed to go back into the shop. Legally speaking. I’ve said a lot of things to your grandparents that could be construed as threat by some people.”

“ Boring people,” Mina muttered.

“That counts as ‘some people,’” Riley added.

Alice blew out a breath. “Good point.”

It took some time for Collin to work through his various questions about their magic and the history of Shaddow House and how it all worked.

All things considered, he was handling the transition from nonbeliever to believer pretty well.

But finally, Edison and Ben came home from work.

Ben presented Alice with her shoe, which had apparently been in his yard this whole time.

Alice realized she was imposing on the kids’ evening routine and dinner. Edison looked exhausted, which made sense, considering that he’d lost his key volunteer at the library. Margaret Flanders’s health issues were still keeping her at home.

“I should go,” Alice said, standing suddenly. She was a little wobbly, hardly surprising considering the amount of brandy she’d consumed. Also, she was only wearing one shoe. She slid the other one on.

Collin stood and offered her his hand. “I’ll walk you out.”

“To where?” Riley asked. “Where are you going to go?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Alice assured her. “I have to at least go back and grab a bag of my stuff from the shop. You have other things to worry about, like the fact that you found a lock this afternoon.”

“Oh, yeah. I kind of forgot in all the hubbub,” Riley said, frowning. “Mina, has it been in your pocket this whole time?”

“No, I stuck it in the couch cushions,” Mina said, holding it up.

Riley pinched the bridge of her nose.

“You did what, now?” Edison asked.

“I’m going to leave you with that,” Alice told her, patting Riley’s shoulder. “Good night, Plover. Natalie. Eloise. Various ghosts.”

“Good night, Miss.” Plover materialized by the door. Alice wondered if he did it specifically to startle Collin, who only nodded politely at the butler.

“What’s a lock?” Collin asked as they walked out the door.

“That is information you don’t need heaped on you right now,” she sighed as she clipped her way down the stairs. She paused at the gate of Shaddow House, wondering how the hell she was going to go home.

What if her grandparents were waiting for her at the shop?

Normally, she went to Proctor House to deep-clean it a week before they arrived for their “summer inspection.” But since they hadn’t given her warning of their arrival, they would have to accept that dust existed in their house.

Hell, they might be waiting for her at the shop just to berate her for that .

“I don’t think you should go back there,” he told her.

Alice chuckled. “Yes, I think you’ve made that clear.”

“I think you’re forgetting that I own a hotel,” he told her. “I literally have more than three hundred guest rooms. We could consider temporary residency part of your compensation as my consultant.”

“Oh,” she said, frowning. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Collin laughed. “And thanks to an archaic booking system, I happen to know that a lot of those rooms are available. And none of them are haunted.”

Alice’s lips pulled back in a grimace.

Collin’s jaw dropped. “Are some of them haunted?”

She walked away without answering.

Collin cried, “Oh, come on!”