by S.J. Drew
"Not me."
Isabella sighed and sang a few verses of one of their more popular songs.
"Oh, it is you. Why are you here?"
"Carrie, don't be rude!" Dina said.
"Mom, can I go?" the boy asked.
"Oh, right, Mark, have you been in the tool shed again?" Zac asked.
"No," he said, looking guilty.
"We'll talk later. Oh, and are you still telling guests this place is haunted?"
The band looked at each other and Stephanie gasped slightly.
"No," they answered in unison, looking guilty.
"Kids, stopping saying that, okay?" Dina said. "You know the castle isn't haunted. Now, you two go help in the kitchen."
"Oh, Mom," they whined in unison.
"And Mark, we'll talk later," Zac said.
The two children sullenly stalked off to the kitchen.
"Sorry about that," Dina said brightly. "Twins, you know, and they're always in some kind of trouble. And I'm sorry about Carrie. I thought she'd like to meet you. She's always into some new band and she really loves music and theater."
"Oh, that's fine," Leah said.
"Did you say this place was haunted?" Stephanie asked.
"Oh, no, it's not. But for some reason the twins think it is, and they tell the guests, and then the guests tell other guests and soon we've scared away our target crowd," Zac said. "Which is families and gamers."
"Gamers don't want to stay in a haunted castle?" Leah asked.
"Well, some might, but that's not really what we're going for, you know? We want this to be a fun family getaway, you know, and host board game tournaments and that kind of thing. And sometimes have LARP parties."
The band and Stephanie looked at Leah expectantly.
"Live action role-playing," she said with a sigh.
"Anyway, we've bored you enough. Please, play any of the games you like. You can even take them back to your room. We've also got some nice hiking trails. Dinner will be at seven in the Great Hall. I'm running my one-shot on Sunday afternoon if you're interested," Zac said. "It'll be awesome."
"I'll let you know," Leah replied. "I've had a couple of bad experiences with pick-up games."
"You and me both," Nora murmured.
"Come on, let's go for a walk," Stephanie said. "Then we'll play some games. I've already picked out some I want to try."
The woods around the castle were fairly peaceful and Stephanie selected a beginner's hiking trail for them. They returned to the cottage and she pulled out some games, and through sheer force of bubbly personality managed to get Nora and Maryann engaged in them. When it was time for dinner, Stephanie changed into a sparkly cocktail dress.
"I didn't know there was a dress code," Leah said.
"Oh, there isn't, but I like to dress up," she replied with a laugh.
The food was good and put everyone in a good mood. The tables in the Great Hall seated ten people comfortably, and Stephanie's extroverted nature soon had the whole table in conversation as though they had been friends for years. And eventually the subject turned to the alleged haunting.
A middle-aged, heavy-set woman named Jen looked at the band members in a conspiratory fashion. "So," she said in what she probably thought was an undertone, "have you heard rumors the castle is haunted?"
"Yes," Isabella answered, as she was sitting nearest. Nora and Maryann had been carefully put in the middle so they wouldn't have to converse with strangers if they didn't want to. "But the innkeepers say that's not true."
"I told you, honey," said the middle-aged, heavy-set man next to Jen, "if it was haunted, they'd advertise that. So it's not."
"Oh, Darnell, maybe they just don't know any better."
Leah looked at Isabella.
"I'm pretty sure this place isn't haunted," Isabella said to both the couple and the rest of the band.
"But how do you know?" Stephanie asked.
"Well, I don't," she said uncomfortably, "but the innkeepers seem to think this is just something their kids are making up."
"Why would they do that?" Jen asked with a confused expression.
"Maybe they think it would bring more business," Nora offered.
Jen and Darnell's teenaged son looked up from his phone. "Or maybe they think just a Medieval-themed B&B is lame and a haunted castle is less lame."
"Matt, sweetie, what do you think?" Jen asked.
He flushed slightly at his mother's use of a pet name and shrugged. "It's all lame." He sighed. "But so am I."
"Nah, Deadpool's awesome," Leah said.
He looked up with watery, startled blue eyes. "Hey, you guessed right! Everyone else keeps guessing this is an Iron Man t-shirt. Well, if they even get that."
"If the castle isn't haunted," said Neil, one half of a young couple that rounded out the table, "why are there so many cold spots in the gallery?"
"Or those weird noises here in the Great Hall," said Patrick, the other half of the couple.
"What noises?" Stephanie asked politely.
"Oh, well, you can't hear them right now, but if you come down here at night when no one else is around there's this like, moaning noise, or this like, keening sound."
"Ooo, keening, yeah, like a banshee," Neil said.
"Cold spots are going to be common in a place like this," Nora said, but mostly politely. "It's an old place made out of stone. I'm surprised the HVAC system works as well as it does. The noise could just be the drafts too."
"Well, I hope you're right," Neil said. "We come here to relax, not be scared."
"Exactly!" Jen said suddenly. "So who wants to play Dominion after dinner?"
After the plates were cleared away, many guests elected to stay in the Great Hall and play board games, even Nora and Maryann. Many people were still playing at midnight, when suddenly the lights dimmed, brightened, dimmed again, went out for about twenty seconds, and then came back on.
"Well, that was weird," Leah said.
"Old wiring," Nora said matter-of-factly. Then she looked at Maryann and Isabella. "Right?" she asked meaningfully.
"Definitely old wiring," Isabella answered.
Maryann finally seemed to pay attention and looked around. "Well, I don't see anything to make me believe something else is going on."
But the incident seemed to put a damper on the general mood and soon the games ended the guests filtered back to their rooms. Stephanie almost immediately went to bed which allowed the band some time to talk privately.
"This castle is not haunted," Isabella said firmly.
"You know, we've been in places that aren't supposed to be haunted before," Leah said. "And they were definitely haunted."
"I can check the place out with spirit sight tomorrow," she replied, "but I'm not hearing anything. I'm not getting any bad feelings or feeling any changes in the wind. Maryann?"
"Well," she said slowly, "I'm kind of out of it, but I don't feel anything either. But it can't hurt to make sure, right? I mean, Leah is right."
They looked at Nora.
She sighed. "It's fine. We can investigate, but then what do we do?"
"We'll figure that out when we find the answer," Isabella said. Then she yawned. "I have got to get some sleep though. My contacts are burning."
They agreed this was a good idea and went to bed.
Breakfast was in the Great Hall of the castle, and the prospect of investigating another mystery seemed to cheer Maryann up a bit. Obviously they couldn't check out any of the guests' room without permission, but Zac and Dina had made it clear they were free to spend as much time in the public areas of the castle as they liked. The only potential complication was the presence of Stephanie. She knew nothing of her cousin's magical inclinations, and certainly nothing of the band's. But while she had a lot of good qualities, keen observation skills were not among them. Nora gamely tried to shake off her own malaise and keep Stephanie distracted so Maryann and Isabella were free to do what they
needed to. Leah took over when it was clear Nora was getting too upset; Nora and Maryann often argued and Stephanie was a lot like her cousin.
Isabella cast a spirit sight on herself to enhance her abilities as a natural medium. Maryann wore one of her small crystal pendulums on a cord that day as a necklace and would occasionally hold it up to check if it was reacting. If anyone noticed, they would have simply assumed she was fidgeting with her necklace.
The basement level, what of it they had access to, turned up no unusual signs. The same was true of the first floor. The only public space on the second floor was the gallery, but it was relatively large.
"Do you think this stuff's real?" Stephanie said skeptically, looking at a suit of armor. "I thought anything real would be a museum, you know?"
"They're replica pieces," Nora answered. "Like you said, anything real would be a museum."
"But they're so short!"
"Well, they're decent replicas," she said, and launched into an explanation on Medieval fashion while keeping Stephanie slightly apart of the other three.
Leah hung back between the two groups, ready to tag Nora out, if necessary.
Maryann and Isabella carefully searched the gallery.
"Oooh, I felt a cold draft," Maryann said suddenly as she passed a suit of armor. They both immediately examined the suit again. "Weird. There's nothing."
"Nothing magical anyway," Isabella said, and they continued.
Leah passed by the suit next, and she also felt a brief puff of very cold air. "Um, guys," she said, addressing Isabella and Maryann.
They examined it again.
"Nothing," Maryann said, sounding annoyed.
Stephanie and Nora passed by the suit, but a few feet farther away than the other two, and either didn't feel the cold draft or didn't
