Page 58 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

“I am sorry for setting this burden on your shoulders, sweetheart,” Nora told Riley.

“I kept waiting for the magic to appoint a new Steward, new helpmates for me, a coven. But it never happened. Seeing what you’ve accomplished now, I suppose that it was because you were meant to be here to do this.

And I’m grateful for it. You did what generations of us couldn’t. ”

“I didn’t do it alone,” Riley noted.

Nora turned to smile at the others in the circle. “Yes. It’s been very interesting, looking in on all of you from time to time.”

“You haven’t been able to see…everything, though, right?” Edison asked, scratching the back of his neck.

“Like most spirits, I looked away when it was appropriate,” Nora said dryly.

“Thank you,” Edison whispered, looking at the floor while Collin and Ben laughed at him.

“I think you’ll find that with your coven looking after things for you, you’ll be able to travel a bit more freely,” Nora told Riley. “But you’ll always need to come back to Shaddow House.”

“It’s home now,” Riley said, shrugging. “It’s nice to have some flexibility, but I don’t mind.”

“And I think you’ll find with the locks, you can call me forth any time you need to talk,” Nora said. “I believe that was the point of the locks, once assembled.”

“We think so too.” Riley said. “But my mother?”

“She’s already moved out of my reach,” Nora said. “Whatever comes beyond the beyond. The afterlife has many layers and facets. But I have a sense we’ll see her again at some point in our journeys. Time is very different here.” She turned to Plover. “And I will see you soon.”

Nora leaned close and kissed Plover fiercely. It was the first kiss they’d ever shared as equal creatures, and it would have to last him for a long time. He felt her, in his whole being, and he was grateful for it.

He vaguely heard Josh say, “This is unsettling.”

“Josh?” Ben said.

“Yeah, Dad?” Josh asked.

Ben told his beloved son, “Shut up.”

Josh nodded. “Yep.”

When Nora finally, reluctantly, pulled away, she gave Plover a knowing smile. “I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Plover promised. With her hand on his cheek, she faded into nothing.

“That was very sweet,” Alice told him as Collin slipped his arm around her. “I’m glad you got to see her.”

“Should we close it?” Caroline asked, nodding up at the void.

“I would prefer not to stare directly into my own existential dread,” Edison told them.

“One more thing,” Mina said, making a hard pull motion that drew a short, squatty shape in a disheveled red-and-white striped suit toward the circle. Jingles the Clown, with his off-putting red-and-white makeup and oversize pants, had frightened his last Denton witch.

That was one spirit that Plover would certainly not miss.

“We’re melting your creepy stork statue,” Mina told him as she forced Jingles through the shrinking ring of shadow energy. “Only a clown would be attached to a bronze stork playing a saxophone. Gah.”

“Feel better?” Josh asked.

Mina pursed her lips. “Yes, I do.”

The witches closed the circle and swept up the salt.

Plover stood, staring up at the space where the void once hovered.

Mina was correct, as usual. The house, with all its nooks and bric-a-brac, felt more spacious somehow, and Plover’s shoulders felt less burdened.

Still, there were simply too many spirits sealed inside Shaddow House—well, resealed, to put it more accurately—for him to retire now.

Besides, what would a retired ghost do?

Shaddow House was no longer a trap for ghosts who posed a threat to the living; it was a haven for those who didn’t.

His ladies (and Josh) needed him to act as a liaison between those spirits and the coven.

His love, his Nora, was waiting for him on the other side, but the time for that would come. That was the benefit of the afterlife.

The dead had nothing but time.

“I declare this meeting of the Shaddow House Ghost and Friday Night Euchre Club adjourned,” Riley announced.

“Still not the name,” Caroline told her.

“It’s the name if I say it’s the name,” Riley shot back.

“I think we have to vote on these things,” Alice said.

“I’m on your side, Riley. I think it’s an awesome name,” Josh told her.

Mina snorted. “You’re saying that because you’re trying to get more imported jelly beans.”

“Two things can be true at the same time,” Josh replied primly.

“We can have custom club shirts made,” Riley said, clapping excitedly while she hopped up and down. Edison chuckled and hugged her close.

“No custom shirts,” Caroline told her.

“With little ghosts embroidered on them!” Riley added.

“Will it have my name embroidered over my heart?” Alice asked. “Like a bowling shirt?”

“Don’t you start with this!” Caroline cried.

Plover smiled to himself. The coven was certainly going to make that time interesting.

While Plover stepped in to de-escalate the custom shirt debate, several floors down, in the secret basement level, the brass lock on a single red door slipped open.

The door swung free and a cold, howling wind swept out and hovered over the bare floor.

With a hiss of discontent, it spiraled up toward the stone foundation of Shaddow House.