Page 39 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)
“He told me you were hurt,” Samuel murmured. “That you’d insisted on seeing the new phase of the building, and then he hit me over the head with a shovel. I woke up with my feet in a bucket of dried mortar. He was bricking me in, stone by stone, whistling a happy tune. He was already halfway done.”
“Oh, man, full-on Cask of Amontillado ’d you?” Josh marveled. “That sucks.”
Ben stared at his son, who shrugged. “I told you I’m doing the American Lit reading.”
“Please continue,” Ben told Samuel.
“I screamed at him to stop, but he ignored me, like he did just now,” Samuel said, glaring toward the wall where Stanford had been digging outside.
“I screamed until I lost my voice. I screamed until it felt like there wasn’t any air in the awful little hole he’d built for me.
I screamed and scratched at the wall until everything went gray. ”
“I heard your voice,” he whispered, turning to her. “Even in death, I saw what he did to you. I saw him pull the chain from your neck. I’m so sorry I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“You didn’t have a body,” Victoria reminded him, rubbing the back of her hand against Samuel’s cheek. “I understand how that works now. There was nothing you could have done.”
“Do you remember what happened afterward?” Riley asked. “That might help us figure out your attachment object.”
Victoria shook her head. “Everything was gray, like Samuel said. I could see vague shapes, but I couldn’t feel anything around me, hear anything.
Nothing felt real,” she sighed. “I wanted the letters Samuel wrote me. I wanted proof that I’d been loved, that what we felt was real.
That I had been real. He wrote me such beautiful letters. ”
Samuel ducked his face into Victoria’s hair. Alice wondered how that worked, ghosts touching, but now she could see. If they wanted to touch, they could touch each other, and there was a comfort in that.
“I’d asked my maid to hold the letters, if anything should happen to me,” Victoria said. “Tildy had more access to my room than anyone else in the household. And I didn’t want my family to see things that were so…personal.”
Samuel’s eyes went wide. “Oh, right.”
“I think Tildy left my parents’ service shortly after my body was found,” Victoria said.
“She left my letters in a rosewood box I’d kept my less important jewelry in—birthstone rings, my first earrings, and my silver baby spoon and such.
And then I was here. Being dead leaves one with blank spots in one’s memory. ”
“It’s possible that box is being used as a bookend in the shelves,” Edison admitted, pointing to the house’s library. “I found it in Nora’s office. I couldn’t open it and it was the perfect size to hold island history separate from island legends.”
Everybody seemed to be staring at Edison. He cringed. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK. The indignity keeps me from making jokes about Victoria being born with a literal silver spoon,” Riley told him. She offered Victoria an apologetic smile. “Inappropriate humor is how I cope.”
“There was a tiny silver fork too. It was a gift set from my godparents, but a little excessive,” Victoria assured her.
“So, Stanford snatched your engagement ring, but he didn’t take the Sun Fire?” Alice asked. “They found the ruby near the bod…you. Sorry, that’s so awkward.”
Victoria took this in stride, merely snuggling into Samuel’s side. “I don’t think he meant to break the chain. I think he just grabbed at whatever he could reach. I don’t even know what happened to it after.”
“What do you think he was burying at the base of the folly?” Riley asked. “Maybe he was trying to cover up evidence? Someone could have found it later. Also, I don’t like murderers digging at my foundation, for the record.”
“One of my cousins found the ring. He was working at the hotel, trying to keep up with deliveries and such after I ‘disappeared.’” Samuel said, shaking his head.
“Cousin Dell was one of the few people I’d shown the ring to, before I gave it to Victoria.
It never sat well with him, that I would just disappear.
He knew I would never just walk off the job. It wasn’t in my nature.”
“And also, people thought you were guilty of murder,” Caroline noted. “I feel like the whole island owes you an apology cake, or a banner, or something.”
Samuel shrugged. “Dell spent what time he could sneaking away, snooping around the hotel. He found the ring in the corner of the stairs, where Victoria…fell.”
“Well, Dell must have tucked it away in the back of a drawer for safekeeping,” Alice said.
“I didn’t spend time at his place if I could help it.” Samuel shrugged. “I never much cared for Dell’s wife. So, I wandered away from the ring whenever I could, went back to the hotel. Even though it was uncomfortable, being away from the ring. It made me itch and ache.
“But the hotel was the last place I had seen my Victoria. Over the years, I guess I got confused, not really existing properly in either place, and I couldn’t find the ring again and everything just became a gray mess.”
“I’m so sorry, Samuel,” Alice told him.
“That still doesn’t explain why Stanford was digging,” Caroline noted.
“Still do not like that,” Riley added.
“Since he wasn’t at all responsive to Samuel, I’m guessing it’s an echo haunting, like Victoria running from what we now know to be Stanford in the halls at the hotel.” Alice paused and looked at Victoria. “You aren’t in two places at once, right?”
Victoria shook her head. “No, frankly, I’m horrified to know any piece of me is trapped in the hotel with Stanford.”
“Pardon me. An echo haunting?” Mina asked, raising her hand.
Riley said, “According to Plover’s assigned reading, which I am only now getting around to, now that I’m not chasing Aunt Nora’s ‘witchy character building assignments’ around the house.”
She paused to give Plover a pointed look. He shrugged his insubstantial shoulders. “Your Aunt Nora believed the ruse was an essential part of your magical development.”
“Still hurts my feelings,” Riley told him.
“Victoria left a psychic imprint on the hotel when she died a violent death there. If you think about it, most ghosts that regular, non-magical people see are probably echo hauntings. That much emotion, the trauma, a ghost wouldn’t have to choose to be seen. They’re just there .”
“And she just keeps repeating it over and over again, even if there’s no one there to see it?” Ben asked.
“Well, it’s not really her , but in a way, yes,” Riley said.
Edison shivered. “That’s rather awful.”
“Especially when you consider the orange,” Alice noted.
“Oh, wait, does that mean that Samuel has seen Victoria’s echo running around the hotel, doing the same thing, for all of these years?” Mina asked, a horrified expression on her face. “Not able to talk to her or be seen by her or…”
Mina—who once threw a rock at a ghost who was terrorizing her, following up by calling said ghost a “lying old bitch”—was on the verge of tears. Josh put his arm around her and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “It’s OK, Meanie. They’re together now.”
“I tried to avoid the hallways whenever possible,” Samuel admitted.
He nodded at Collin and Alice. “I heard the staff whisper about hearing strange noises in the hall, shadowy figures. But you two, you’re the first ones to see her in decades.
That’s how I knew I could reach out to you, show you what you needed to see. ”
“And now you’re here,” Riley said. “Plover can put you through the new ghost orientation. And after you’ve adjusted to the initial shock of your reunion, you can decide whether you two want to stay here, together, or if you want to move on to whatever’s next, also together.
Completely your decision. You’re welcome here if you want to stay—”
Riley stopped her sentence short as the ceiling ghost slithered its way into the foyer, cutting Alice a wide swathe to hover over Samuel.
“It would appear the ceiling ghost feels the need to posture for the newest addition,” Plover huffed.
“He did the same thing when I moved in,” Natalie called from the kitchen door. “It was gross then too!”
Alice did not want Samuel and Victoria’s reunion marred by the ceiling ghost being the ceiling ghost. She did not like the way it was lurking over them.
“No, no,” Alice told it. “Not today.”
She stepped forward and was thrilled when the ceiling ghost retreated.
For once, she was the menace. She was the threat, and it was a heady feeling.
She imagined that same space bubble surrounding her stretching upward, pushing the ceiling ghost back.
She grinned sharply at this new development. Yes. She could work with this.
Meanwhile, Riley grabbed one of the many bowls of salt stashed around the house and slung it upward, careful not to throw it in the direction of the rest of the coven. The salt hit the ceiling ghost, forcing it to dissipate and retreat.
“That never stops being fun,” Mina said, shaking her head.