Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery

by Juliet Blackwell

  “And here I was rather hoping you would beg me to stay,” he said in a quiet voice, his gaze holding mine.

  “Far be it from me to dictate to the likes of Aidan Rhodes.”

  He smiled. “In any case, I need a favor.”

  Uh-oh.

  “While I’m gone I need you to fill in for me and adjudicate a few issues. Nothing too strenuous.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  He handed me a heavy well-worn leather satchel tied with a black ribbon. “You’re always so curious about what I do for the local witchcraft community. Now’s your chance to find out.”

  “I never said I wanted to find out. I’m really perfectly happy being in the dark.”

  Aidan smiled. “Why do I find that hard to believe? In any event, find out, you shall.”

  I sighed. As curious as I was about Aidan’s world, I hesitated to be drawn into it. However, I was in his debt and the bill had come due. “Fine. I’m going to need more information, though. What-all is involved in ‘adjudicating issues’?”

  He shrugged. “Little of this, a little of that. Mostly it means keeping an eye on things, making sure nothing gets out of hand. Handling disputes, assisting with certifications . . . valuable job skills that really beef up the résumé—you’ll see.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, skeptical. At the moment I didn’t need a more impressive résumé. I needed a lawyer. “What kind of certifications?”

  “Fortune-tellers and necromancers must be licensed in the city and county of San Francisco. Surely your good friend Inspector Romero has mentioned this at some point.”

  “He has, but since I’m neither a fortune-teller nor a necromancer I didn’t pay much attention. So that’s what you do? Help people fill out forms down at City Hall? Surely—”

  “It’s all terribly glamorous, isn’t it? Resolving petty squabbles, unraveling paperwork snafus . . . The excitement never ends,” he said with another smile. “But it’s necessary work, and you’re more than qualified to handle it while I’m gone. You’ll find everything you need in there.”

  I opened the satchel and took a peek. Inside were what appeared to be hundreds of signed notes written on ancient parchment, a business card with the mayor’s personal cell phone number written on the back in pencil, and a jangly key ring. I pulled out the keys: one was an old-fashioned skeleton key, but the others were modern and, I assumed, unlocked his office at the recently rebuilt wax museum. “Aidan, what are . . . ?”

  I looked up but Aidan was gone, his departure marked by a slight sway of the curtains. Letting out a loud sigh of exasperation, I grumbled, “I swear, that man moves like a vampire.”

  “Vampire?” Bronwyn poked her head through the curtains, Oscar still in her arms. “Are we worried about vampires now?”

  “No, no, of course not,” I assured her as I closed the satchel and stashed it under the workroom’s green Formica-topped table. “Sorry. Just talking to myself.”

  “Oh, thank the Goddess!” said Bronwyn, and set Oscar down. Whenever Aidan was around, Oscar became excited to the point of agitation, and his little hooves clicked on the wooden planks of the floor as he hopped around. “Never a dull moment at Aunt Cora’s Closet. Anyway, Maya’s here, so I’m going to take off unless you think you’ll need me this afternoon.”

  “A hot date?”

  “Even better—I’m picking up my grandkids after day camp and surprising them with a matinee at the Metreon. Then we’re going to go back to my place to make pizza and popcorn and tell scary stories with all the lights out!”

  “They’re lucky to have you, Bronwyn.”

  “I’m the lucky one.”

  “By all means, go have fun,” I said as we ducked back through the curtains to the shop. “I’ll be here for the rest of the day. Hi, Maya, how are you?”

  “Doing well. Thanks,” Maya said as she shrugged off her backpack, a soy chai latte in one hand. She leaned down to pet Oscar and slipped him a bite of her croissant. “I think I aced my final exam.”

  “That’s great!” I said. “Not that we’re one bit surprised, mind you.”

  “Certainly not,” Bronwyn said. “Maya, you’re a natural born scholar.”

  “Nah,” she said, though clearly pleased at our compliments. “I just study hard.”

  “If only that was all it took,” I said, remembering my recent struggles with algebra. I had refrained from using magic to help me pass the GED, but just barely. The temptation to cheat—just a little—had been nearly overpowering.

  “Oh! Guess what,” said Bronwyn as she filled her large woven basket with her knitting, several jars of herbs, and assorted snacks. “I have the most wonderful news.”

  “What?” asked Maya.

  “You remember my friend Charles?”

  “Charles Gosnold?” I asked.

  “That’s the one!”

  Maya and I exchanged glances, and I barely managed to refrain from rolling my eyes. Privately, I referred to him as Charles the Charlatan. Although he claimed to be a clairvoyant, he was about as sensitive to the world beyond the veil as a rhinoceros, and even less graceful when it came to interacting with humans. I couldn’t imagine why Bronwyn would consider him a friend, except that she was so bighearted that she saw the good in just about everyone. Except, perhaps, vampires.

  Seeing the good in others, especially when it’s not apparent, was a lesson I struggled to put into practice.

  “Well, you’ll never believe this, but for my birthday Charles has arranged for the Welcome coven to spend the night at the Rodchester House of Spirits!”

  “The house of what, now?” I asked.

  “The Rodchester House of Spirits. It’s a haunted house in the South Bay,” Maya explained.

  “Haunted?”

  “Allegedly haunted,” Maya said.

  “Wonderfully haunted!” Bronwyn insisted. “You mean you haven’t been, Lily?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t lived in the Bay Area very long and hadn’t managed to visit many tourist attractions. And in any case, haunted houses weren’t high on my list of places to see. I had enough of that in my regular life.

  “I went years ago,” said Maya. “My auntie got a kick out of it, but Mom wasn’t thrilled. I remember a staircase that went nowhere, and a door that opened onto a wall . . .”

  Bronwyn nodded enthusiastically. “And six kitchens and hundreds of rooms.”

  “Why on earth did this Rodchester person need six kitchens?” I asked.

  “She didn’t, really,” Maya said. “According to legend, the Widow Rodchester kept building, adding onto her house because she was afraid to stop.”

  “Exactly.” Bronwyn nodded. “Sally Rodchester’s husband made his fortune manufacturing the famous Rodchester rifles, the ones that were said to have ‘won the West’—which meant, essentially, killing the people who used to live here. After both her husband and her baby died young, Sally consulted a medium who told her the souls of those killed with Rodchester rifles were angry. The only way she could stave off further bad luck was by continually adding onto her house. Which, by the way, was already huge.”

  “How would adding onto her house appease disgruntled spirits?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember the rationale, exactly . . .” said Bronwyn.

  “My guess is the medium’s brother was a carpenter,” said Maya. “But then, I’m a cynic.”

  “Oh, silly! But can you believe we get to spend the night there?” Bronwyn may have been in her fifties, but when she got excited about something she glowed like a little girl. And spending the night in a haunted Victorian mansion was just the sort of thing to excite her sense of wonder. “What a magnificent birthday present!”

  “Bronwyn, that sounds. . . .” Dangerous, I thought. My life hadn’t been characterized by the love and kindness my dear friend had known, so I tended to see thin
gs in a more complex light. “. . . interesting. How did this even come up?”

  “I happened to see a brochure for it the other day, and thought to myself, I haven’t been there in ages. I mentioned it to Charles, and he surprised me with the arrangements! We’re going to form the circle, and call down the moon . . . Oh! And mix cocktails!”

  Cocktails. Of course.

  “What could possibly go wrong?” said Maya, smiling but shaking her head. “The Welcome coven, cocktails, and the spirits of angry gunshot victims?”

  “You two will join us, won’t you?” Bronwyn asked.

  “I say this with the greatest of respect and affection, my friend,” said Maya, “but: No. Freaking. Way. How ’bout I take you out to lunch for your birthday? Empanadas?”

  “Well, I’m disappointed you won’t be there, but I accept your offer of lunch with pleasure. Lily? How about you? This sounds right up your alley.”

  “Bronwyn,” I began, “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Why not?” Bronwyn looked crestfallen.

  “It just . . . seems like a bad idea, that’s all,” I said, unable to articulate the peril I sensed lurking on the dark horizon of my consciousness, elusive but no less real. But then, as I had just been telling Aidan, I wasn’t a fortune-teller. I was probably just put off by the idea of a haunted house. “Won’t you rethink it?”

  “But everything’s all arranged. The whole coven’s going! Please say you’ll come! I know it’s late notice, but they had a cancellation, which is how we got in. It’s next Saturday!”

  Traipsing around haunted tourist venues on a lark wasn’t my idea of a good time. I dealt with enough supernatural weirdness and danger as it was. But could I let my friend—and her coven—go into a potentially hazardous situation without me?

  I rubbed the back of my neck. It was barely noon, and I’d already been served with a piggy lawsuit, burdened with Aidan’s bureaucratic responsibilities, and now faced the prospect of chaperoning Bronwyn’s coven overnight in a haunted mansion.

  As my mother used to say: Don’t some days just starch your drawers?

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