Page 1 of The Haunted Hotel

1

“I’m sorry, no comment.”

I look up and see my best friend, Rosie, slam the phone down with a little more force than necessary.

“Are you okay?” I ask in concern.

“Urgh, reporters… again.” She grimaces. “I’ve lost count of how many calls I’ve taken. There’s only so many ways I can say no comment and remain polite and professional. I’m actually thinking of switching to saying I don’t speak English in a variety of different accents and languages, just to freshen things up a bit.”

I grin. “You don’t speak any other languages.”

“That’s what Google Translate is for. Although,” she muses, “I don’t think it’s very accurate. When I went to the Costa del Sol with Mum and Dennis last summer, I tried to ask the waiter what the specials were, but I think I ended up asking if his goat could water-ski.”

“I bet there’s a video of that somewhere on YouTube,” I offer thoughtfully.

Her brow crinkles. “What, of me butchering the Spanish language?”

“No, a water-skiing goat,” I reply. “You’d be amazed at what you can find on YouTube.”

“Amazed, or slightly traumatised?” Rosie cocks her head. “Somewhere buried deep down in its dark depths is a video of Dennis in his glam-rock days circa 1978.”

“Seriously?”

She nods and grins wickedly. “I’m talking full-on four-inch platform knee-high boots, a shiny unitard, and shoulder pads he’d have to turn sideways to get through a doorway while wearing. Honestly, you’d never think it to look at him now. I mean, he barely has three hairs left in his comb-over, and the man does love an argyle cardigan.”

I snort and grab my phone. “Oh my god, I have to see.” I just can’t picture Rosie’s sweet stepdad rocking out like he’s Slade.

The phone rings again and Rosie picks it up before I can reach it. “Good morning, this is the Ashton-Drake Manor House Hotel. How may I help–” I watch as her eyes narrow and her lips thin. “No comment.” She slams down the phone again and huffs out an annoyed breath. “We’ve already made statements to the police and the press. Why won’t they leave us alone?”

“I know,” I say as I rub her back soothingly. “They will eventually lose interest when something more interesting comes along.”

“Something more interesting?” Rosie stares at me. “Ellis, we live in North Yorkshire with nothing but the moors and a tiny little village full of meddling gossips for company. Nothing interestingeverhappens around here. Trust me, they’ll be banging on about this fiasco for decades. It’ll go down in history. In fact, I’ll be surprised if they don’t add it as an addendum to the Doomsday book.”

“Your glass is really half empty today isn’t it, petal?” I hum and continue to stroke her back.

“I wish my glass was more like yours.” She sighs. “Yours isn’t just half full, it’s overflowing with rainbow glitter, fluffy clouds, smiley face emojis, and Care Bears.”

I snort. “Must be a really big glass.”

“How can you be so calm about everything?” Rosie blows out a frustrated breath. “The first annual murder mystery weekend was supposed to be a fresh start for the hotel. A chance to bring in somepayingguests. Instead, we got a troupe of actors who didn’t give us a penny and almost ate us out of house and home, not to mention the fact that one of them ended up dead and stuffed in a hidden cupboard. Oh, and we mustn’t forget the icing on the top of a very crappy, almost bankrupt cake—we now seem to have a whole hotel filled with ghosts.”

“I think the ghosts were always here, only now we can see them,” I point out.

“What are we going to do, Ellis?” Her dark eyes fill with worry. “We’re supposed to be trying to save this place from closing, but all we’ve done is make things worse. Who’s going to want to come and stay here now? We can’t even keep staff, let alone guests.”

“We’ll figure it out, Rosie. I promise.”

I wish I could make her feel better. I know things look dire right now. After all, the hotel is still in very real danger of closure. There’s just no money left. Every year the beautiful old estate falls more into disrepair. The owner, Mr Ashton-Drake, now into his eighties, lives up on the fifth floor and never ventures out of his rooms. Over the years, managers have come and gone with alarming frequency, as have staff. There’s only a handful of us left now, but those of us who are still here love this place. I’ve worked here ever since I was sixteen years old and Rosie’s been here since she was eighteen, and neither of us can imagine being anywhere else.

We’d been trying everything we could think of to bring in more guests and, more importantly, more money to keep this place going when Rosie and I came up with the idea of the murder mystery weekend. I had imagined an awesome weekend with a packed hotel full of elegant guests who looked like they’d just stepped out of the pages of an Agatha Christie novel. When, in reality, we got eight guests and a dead body.

A real dead body.

I do feel sorry for the man who died, one of the actors from the murder mystery troupe. I mean, accidentally impaling yourself on a carving knife while practicing Macbeth’s soliloquy in secret is probably an embarrassing way to go. But despite Professor Plume’s untimely death, I have to say, it was an epic weekend.

Why?

Because we discovered we haveghosts! Real, actual, honest-to-god ghosts! There were hints and whispers over the years, yes, so many weird happenings that previous guests have commented on in the overabundance of one-star reviews we’ve managed to accumulate on TripAdvisor, but now the ghosts have finally decided to show themselves to us.