Page 64 of The Ghost of Ellwood

The thought should’ve terrified me, but after meeting Theo, I was used to it.

Right as I stepped forward, a rush of cold air hit my face. I stumbled into the wall. The unease from earlier returned full force, and I tried to suck air into my lungs but found I could only wheeze. Was that smoke? When I steadied myself and looked back down the hall, bile rose in my throat.

A woman in a black dress stood at the end of the corridor. Her face was deathly pale, black circles were beneath her eyes, and she was smiling, showing her teeth. I had never been more terrified. She started to glide forward, her feet not even touching the carpet. That sinister grin remained planted on her face.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare.

A hand came down on my shoulder.

“You okay there, Ben?” Carter asked.

The spell broke and I jumped backward, getting the hell out of that fucking hallway as fast as possible and taking Carter with me.

“Whoa! What’s wrong?” he asked as I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him along.

I didn’t stop when we were out of the hall. I dragged him from the ballroom and to the parlor where the signing would take place. Once we were in the room, I released him and leaned against the table, breathing deeply and shaking like a leaf.

I struggled to make sense of what just happened.

“You saw something.” Carter held my gaze with a look of both fascination and horror. “What did you see? Shit, man, I’ve had the creeps ever since we walked in. I screamed when I saw someone walk from the corner of my eye, but it was just your beefy ex-loser.”

“I…” The words stuck in my throat. “I honestly don’t know what the hell that was, but I never want to see it again.”

“Damn. What did it look like?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Carter. Please let it drop.”

As a distraction from my thoughts, I began stacking some of my books on the table. Most of them would stay in the boxes behind my chair, but we were displaying them to let people know which copies we had available.

The woman’s face was seared into my mind. It was inhuman. Theo appeared mostly human with a few notable exceptions, like his pale skin and ability to disappear at will. But the woman—or whatever she was—hadn’t seemed human in the slightest. Her presence had filled me with absolute fear.

I’d never felt something so malicious before.

My hand shook so badly that when I went to place a copy ofBloody Rageon the stand, I knocked over the stack of books beside it and sent them all into the floor.

“God, Ben,” Shane snapped, squatting down to retrieve them. “Take a walk or sit down. You’re not helping.”

I sat in the chair, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Here.” Carted handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks.” I twisted off the cap and took a long pull from the bottle, wishing it was something a lot stronger than water.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” Shane said, after picking up my mess. “But you need to get it together and quick. They’re about to open the doors.”

Thank God for my ability to compartmentalize. I blocked the unpleasant incident from my mind and focused on the task at hand. The doors were opened and people shuffled into the mansion. I heard them before I saw them. There were exclamations of surprise and delight as they took in the mansion’s interior.

People had been hired to be in costume to greet the guests. A man dressed as a butler welcomed them inside and gave a brief history of the place. He was one of those creepy butlers too, with the scratchy voice and thinning, white hair.

“Now, follow me to meet the honored guest of Redwood Manor,” the butler said.

A girl squealed, and it echoed from the foyer into the parlor.

“You have fangirls?” Carter asked, smirking.

“Shut up.”

I sat behind the desk in a cushioned chair, feeling more like royalty than an author. It was a strange feeling. Even stranger when people treated me like royalty too. The staff made the readers form a line and instructed the first one to step forward.