Chapter 1 Caroline

Chapter 1

Caroline

Trudging home through snow from her first felony, covered in a crust of fake blueberry pie filling, was not the way that Caroline Wilton planned on spending her one night off. But life as one of Starfall Point's resident witches-slash-ghost wranglers had a way of happening when Caroline planned to just sit at home, trying to read.

Her crime spree had started off innocently enough. Early Friday, Caroline had been inhaling her usual absurdly large post-double-shift coffee at Starfall Grounds when she heard Willard Tremont complaining that he'd been having pest problems at Tremont's Treasures. While not quite as grand as some of the other shops on the island, Willard's shop catered to tourists' thirst to take a little piece of the island's ambience home with them.

"I'm telling you. I've been open for thirty years and I've never had problems like this," Willard grumbled to Petra Gilinsky, the coffee shop's owner and operator. Starfall Grounds—just across the street from Tremont's—was a modern oasis in the middle of traditional Main Square shops, all bright copper and deep-blue calm. A display case running the length of the store featured sumptuous pastries, fresh-baked by Petra and her twin brother, Iggy.

"I keep hearing weird noises, like something scratching all along the floorboards," Willard continued. "I never can figure out where it's coming from, and it's all hours of the day, doesn't matter whether I've got someone in the shop or not. Sometimes, I swear, it sounds like whispers."

Caroline damn near choked at that. Faint whispers from all corners of a room? Scratching noises? From her experiences at Shaddow House, the island's haunted epicenter, Caroline knew those were classics sign of ghost activity.

"Sorry," Caroline said hoarsely, pounding on her chest as Willard and Petra turned toward her. "Went down the wrong way. Good cinnamon roll, Petra."

Willard gave Caroline a confused look but continued, "It's gotta be mice or rats or something, but I'm not finding chew marks on any of the furniture. And I'm not finding droppings."

"Yes, please mention rats and droppings a little louder while leaning against my bakery counter, Willard," Petra deadpanned, waving airily at the empty coffee shop. "You're lucky it's a slow morning, or you'd lose your rugalach privileges."

"Sorry, Petra," Willard said, flushing red under his more-salt-than-pepper hair. Willard was approaching seventy and a creature of habit. Petra's cherry rugalach was a major component of his morning routine. "I've gone all distracted with this thing. I could lose customers if I don't get rid of…whatever this is before the summer season starts up."

"I told you not to buy that stuff from Sally Fairlight's niece-in-law," Petra snorted, shaking her head. "Lindsay was way too excited about clearing all of Sally's stuff out of her new ‘summer home.' She didn't even wait a week before ‘de-Sallying' the place. There's gotta be some bad karma that comes with that."

"It was just a few things," Willard huffed. "But Sally was awfully house-proud. Maybe I should have just turned her away, let Lindsay have a yard sale."

"Eh, Sally would have hated that," Petra conceded, topping off Willard's tall black coffee. "Strangers picking through her stuff and haggling down to the nickel."

"I only bought the lot because I thought her collection of old cake stands was perfect for the store," Willard sighed. "My own ma had one of them when I was a kid. Pressed glass. A wedding present from her family back in Raleigh. I even put some of those pie-shaped air freshener things from Nell Heslop's candle shop in them, like a demo? They smell like real blueberry. I thought it would give the customer an idea of what they could do with it."

Willard just looked so upset, so bewildered, that Caroline decided then and there that she and her coven would do what they could to get whatever was troubling Tremont's—even if it was just rats. But Caroline was pretty sure it wasn't rats. Also, the fake blueberry air freshener pies at Starfall Wicks were disgusting—small, thin wax pie-shaped molds filled with a loose, gelatinous air freshener goo that jiggled inside the shell when tilted back and forth.

And they smelled like Barbie's rejected Dream Home air freshener, so really, they were doing Willard two favors.

Caroline wasn't sure exactly when they started thinking of themselves as a coven, but that's what they were, a group of witches working magic together, depending on each other. They were family, a word that was particularly vital to three people who'd had a hard time finding one that worked for them.

Plus, it was a better word than "trio." Trio made them sound like a jazz band that played at corporate events.

Getting into Willard's closed shop had been easy enough. It was well known to locals that Willard kept the key to the back door under a plaster frog. It wasn't exactly a secure vault.

"I don't feel right about this," Alice Seastairs had whispered in the midnight darkness, holding the flashlight as Caroline unlocked the door. As always, Alice was dressed appropriately for a spot of light breaking and entering—black sweater, black jeans, black ski cap pulled over her shock of penny-bright copper hair. "Breaking and entering Mr. Tremont's shop. He's always been so kind to me, even if we are competitors."

"We're not breaking… We're just entering." Riley Denton-Everett had selected a "plausible deniability outfit" of jeans, snow boots, and a periwinkle hoodie that made her gray eyes appear bluer. Her plan was, if they were caught, to just pretend she was taking a nighttime walk in northern Michigan's early spring snow.

Caroline supposed that she and Alice were meant to be running away while Riley was lying her ass off. She thought maybe Riley was depending on the general curiosity about her—the newest local on the island—to carry her over the "potential criminal activity" conversational bumps. Riley was resourceful enough to make little annoyances like that work for her.

"It's not my fault that Elliot's been hiding his shop key in the same place for twenty years," Caroline muttered. They all relaxed ever so slightly when the door popped open without a sound.

Tremont's was a homier alternative to Alice's shop, Superior Antiques, where her unfriendly grandparents reigned with an iron fist. Tremont's had the smell of a proper antique shop, all lemon furniture polish and dust and—Caroline guessed—long-forgotten dreams. Huge stained-glass panels, harvested from old churches off-island, cast rainbow splashes of light from the front display windows. Old-school tricycles hung suspended from the ceiling by piano wire. Mismatched glass cabinets displayed silver candelabras, porcelain figurines, overblown costume jewelry, tin windup toys, anything and everything that might catch a shopper's attention if they could fight through the sensory overload long enough to focus on one item.

Caroline didn't even want to think about how many items in this place were "attachment objects"—something that meant so much to the dead in life or its significance in the person's death, that their spirit stayed connected to that item. Riley lived in a house full of them, with more than a thousand ghostly roommates. Caroline didn't know how she did it.

"You know, I'm concerned that, from the outside, a bunch of flashlights bobbing around a darkened shop might attract unwanted attention," she said, glancing around at the charming chaos of the interior. "Somebody sees that through the window, it's a pretty broad hint that this place is being burgled."

"Actually, I was thinking we might use this as an opportunity to practice some of our more ‘basic witch' non-ghost-related magic skills, light a few of the candles in this place?" Riley grinned, gesturing to the displayed flammables. "If anybody sees candles glowing through the windows, they'll just think Willard is adding a little romantic ambience to the store."

Riley had seemed fixated on lighting candles with her mind ever since she'd gained her magic. Caroline was a little concerned.

"Do we really have time for that?" Caroline asked. "Isn't time of the essence when you're committing a minor felony?"

"Is there such a thing as a minor felony?" Alice wondered aloud. "If it's a question of lighters, Riley, I think Willard keeps one under the register. Also, why does Willard have so many candles in a shop full of flammable items?"

"He thinks it adds ambience," Caroline told her. "Even if they're unlit most of the time."

"Come on, I think it will be good for us, practicing a basic magical skill under duress," Riley implored. "It's not like the more hostile ghosts give us ‘try again' chances while we're working with them, and that's with skills that we're actually pretty good at."

"Does ‘haven't gotten us seriously injured yet' qualify as ‘pretty good'?" Alice asked.

"You are grumpy when you're asked to stay up past midnight," Riley marveled.

"I get up at five thirty every morning to open the store," Alice countered.

Caroline frowned. "But you don't open until eleven."

"Yes, but my grandparents call the landline at six thirty, and if I'm not there, they pitch a fit that can be heard all the way from Boca Raton," Alice sighed. "It's easier just to get up early, even if it means keeping old-lady hours."

"We have got to get you a new job, sweetie," Caroline told her.

"Maybe Willard is hiring," Alice snorted. "Meanwhile, we've spent more time talking about me than it probably would have taken to light the candles with magical means or otherwise."

"I already did one!" Riley said, doing a happy little dance as she gestured to the flickering flame of a nearby hurricane lamp. Her cap of dark-blond Denton hair bounced around her elfin face as she enjoyed her moment of victory. Magic had come to them all late in life, and to Riley, every successful spell that did not result in loss of limb or eyebrow was a moment to be savored. "I did what Aunt Nora's books said, pictured the bright light of the candle, and I could feel it growing in my chest, like the flame started near my heart! And boom , fire! Well, not boom . Fortunately, there was no boom , but still, I have made fire! With magic!"

"While we were talking? That's cheating!" Alice gasped, just a little too loudly.

"Could we not yell while committing the minor felony?" Caroline asked, glancing toward the front windows of the shop. It was supremely unhelpful that the stained glass kept her from being able to see people approaching from the outside. But she could hear something, scratching noises from the far corner of the room, near a particularly creepy display of ventriloquism dummies. It was like her brain couldn't quite catch up to the noise, but she suspected the horrors of unsecured puppets had something to do with that.

"Still not sure that's a thing," Riley said, still smirking. "And just think of how many candles we could light if we did it together ."

"We could burn down the entire shop, which is a big felony," Caroline noted.

"That's a good point," Riley admitted, chewing her lip. "But you still want to try it, don't you?"

"Well, yes, clearly , I do," Caroline shot back, laughing despite herself. She joined hands with Riley and Alice, her coven, the sisters she chose, even if the magic had chosen for her first. The familiar sizzle of that unearthly force zipped up her arm, straight to her heart. It made it so much easier for Caroline to imagine the warm glow of a flame building inside of her, wanting to burn, wanting to be . They giggled together, nervous about trying one of the more practical areas of magic that seemed to elude them, for some reason. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth growing, just as Riley described. It spread to the air around them and when Caroline opened her eyes, the room was bathed in golden light from dozens of flames—in lanterns, in candles, even a little Marilyn-Monroe-in-the-fluted-white-dress votive whose taste level Caroline found seriously lacking.

"Look at that!" Caroline laughed, clapping her hands over her mouth. Alice rolled her eyes, but she was laughing too.

"You have to admit, that's pretty cool," Riley said, her gray eyes glowing in triumph.

Caroline heard it again, the scratching that wasn't quite scratching. It did sound like whispering, and not particularly happy whispering. It sounded irritable, like the mutterings of someone who didn't think they'd be heard.

"It is very cool, and we don't appear to be in danger of committing arson, so let's get down to business, shall we?" Alice suggested brightly. She placed her hand on the nearest display counter.

The whispering got louder.

"OK, everybody else hears that, right?" Riley said quietly, glancing around the now well-lit room.

"Sounds like my grandmother after a couple of martinis," Alice said, tugging at her ear gently like she was trying to pop it.

"I'll have you know that I have never been drunk a day in my life!" a cranky voice rasped to their right.

Caroline should have known better. One of the weirder parts of Caroline's new magical gifts was being able to detect which objects were attached to a ghost. Or vice versa, really. While several items in the antique shop gave her nerves a small ping, the four cake stands—elevated cake plates with clear domes meant to display baked goods—to her left were sending psychic shivers down her spine. It just happened to be the counter where Alice was resting her hand.

As Willard had promised, each stand contained a wax replica blueberry pie air freshener. Caroline was very grateful the smell was contained under glass. The cake stands weren't the prettiest thing in the shop—but they exuded a certain power. These glass pieces—the largest fancy handblown glass, the others cheaper pressed pieces—were significant, especially to Sally Fairlight, who appeared behind them, looking very annoyed. And Alice's hand was resting right on top of the largest cake stand in the center of the counter. Of course, Alice's expert eye would be attracted to the good one—the favorite in Sally's collection, based on her reaction.

"Don't touch that!" Sally's ghost yanked the glass stand back, out of Alice's hands. Sally had been a "forceful" woman in life. She certainly hadn't gotten weaker after death . The lid tumbled off its plinth in the struggle, rolling on its rounded side. A wave of synthetic fruit smell struck Caroline in the face, knocking her back a step.

Sally's translucent fingers wrapped around the round glass knob on top of the cake stand, pulling it back. A wax pie had fallen into the lid in the struggle. Its weirdly fragile wax shell broke, and the unnatural berry filling oozed out. The ghost peered down at the mess. And then she grinned as if she'd just granted a gift and an idea all at once.

"Oh, no," Riley whispered.

A ghost could only physically interact with its own attachment object. And Sally had just figured out that she could use her cake stand lids to sling those horrendous-smelling blueberry bombs at the humans.

This was a problem.

"Mrs. Fairlight, you don't want to do that," Caroline said, holding her hands up and using her most soothing "addressing the drunk customer" voice as Sally swung the lid toward them, splattering the case behind them with fake fruit gel. "You don't want to make a mess of Willard's nice, clean shop."

" She called me a drunk," the old woman snarled, pointing a long, bony finger at Alice. Somehow, she was moving multiple cake stands. She was only supposed to have one attachment object. How was that possible?

"No, I didn't," said Alice. "I was talking about my own grandmother. I didn't mean anything by it, Mrs. Fairlight, I promise."

"Also, just how many of these stands are you attached to?" Riley cried. "You are not following the ghost rules!"

"This whole collection is mine!" Sally roared back. "And I don't want it here at Willard's! No one asked me!"

Sometimes, Caroline forgot how fast Alice was on her feet. When Sally picked up a stand to throw another wax pie, Alice managed to dance out of the way, dodging, while Riley's feet were doused in cobalt goo.

"Oh, come on!" Riley cried as her feet squelched through the mess. "These are my good snow boots!"

"Young people used to have more respect," Sally huffed.

"Well, really, we're not all that young!" Alice replied in an attempt to placate Sally, who was having none of it. How many of those air freshener things had Willard loaded into the cake stands, anyway?

Alice danced left to right as another wax pie vaulted off a stand and splattered against Caroline's stomach, covering her entire torso in cerulean glaze. All three of the living women froze.

"Aw, honey," Riley tsked, her tone sympathetic. "And that was your favorite early spring coat."

"Caroline, I'm so sorry!" Alice gasped as one more pie launched off a nearby stand and smacked Alice in the chest.

"All right, that is enough !" Alice hissed. "Ma'am, you will stop throwing these vile pie things at us right now and listen to what we have to say."

"So much for the whole, ‘trying to stay quiet during the commission of a minor felony' thing," Caroline muttered.

"Still not a thing!" Alice cried, pointing at Caroline without looking at her, making Caroline snicker. Riley couldn't help but follow suit. And soon, as she always did, Alice was laughing too, but she managed to hide it by biting her lips.

"Fine," Sally harrumphed. "I'm all out of pies anyway. And I'll have you know, I never touched a drop in my life. My grandmother worked with the temperance movement!."

"Yes, Mrs. Fairlight, you mentioned it a couple of times," Caroline said carefully. "And I'm sure Alice didn't mean anything by it. She didn't realize it was you."

"I didn't," Alice assured her. "I'm very sorry."

"Not that you would know anything about me anyway," Sally sniffed. "Your grandparents never saw fit to let you close to anybody around here. The Proctors, all high-and-mighty. Thought they were too good for island folks—not that we wanted them around, thank you very much."

Riley glanced at Alice, who shrugged. "It's not as if she's wrong ."

"I don't know this one," Sally said, chin-pointing at Riley. "You'd be Nora Denton's niece, then? Never got around to visiting little old me, I suppose."

"Sorry, I kinda had my hands full," Riley told her.

"Well, I'm sure Nora left you a pretty big job with Shaddow House," Sally conceded. "I've felt the tug of it, ever since my heart stopped. Useless thing hasn't done what it's supposed to for the last twenty years."

"You feel the house ‘tugging' at you?" Caroline asked.

"That's something we haven't heard before," Riley said, frowning.

"Maybe the locks are getting more powerful since we started, well, fiddling with them?" Alice suggested.

Trust Alice to deem the attempted destruction of malevolent magical objects that trapped ghosts in place as "fiddling."

"Focus," Riley reminded Caroline quietly. "Miss Sally, would you be willing to separate from your cake stand collection? Move on to the afterlife? Because you're upsetting poor Willard, and you might scare off his customers. You don't want to close his shop."

Sally opened her mouth to protest, and Riley added quickly, "I know you don't mean to, but by their very nature, ghosts have a way of unsettling the living, just by being in the same room."

"Well, I don't know about any of this ghost business, but I'm not about to let go of my glassware just yet," Sally said. "I can't believe the nerve of my nephew's rotten wife. Some of these belonged to my mother ; she brought them all the way up from Virginia when she followed my father here. And I added to her collection along the way. She used these all my life, at every special occasion, just to let us know how important our birthdays were, our graduations, our baby showers. The collection was supposed to go to family . I told Harmon that, so many times. And he just let that Lindsay just throw them away like they were nothing. I have to stay close to them, to make sure whoever ends up with them appreciates them."

Ghost problems were generally a lot like living people problems—resentments, old hurts, and regrets that festered and kept people from moving on to whatever spiritual resting place they were destined for after death. For the past year, the three of them had been slowly working through the more benign cases contained in the house, helping the ghosts move along to the next plane of existence, giving them peace. Or occasionally, like tonight, they would hear about a haunting on the island that had the potential to hurt people and seek it out.

Working with the dead was a lot less work when the dead person cooperated, which was a sentence Caroline never thought would enter her mind.

Riley mused. "So, if you're not willing to part with them, would you be willing to, say, change venues, to Shaddow House? You could stay there, knowing that your cake stands are being stored with some of the most carefully guarded antiques on the planet."

Caroline pursed her lips. She supposed that was true. Antiques that were attached to potentially harmful spirits tended to be closely supervised.

"We could take you there tonight," Riley offered.

"Wait, what?" Caroline turned to Riley. "We don't have to steal the cake stands. Why not just come back and buy them tomorrow?"

"We can't leave the collection here," Riley said. "Sally could use her new skills to toss a heavy glass object at somebody and hit them in the head! No offense, Sally, but you don't seem to have a close grip on your temper."

Sally shrugged. "No offense taken, I suppose. I did throw all that mess at you."

"Or worse, someone else could buy it before we get back," Riley added. "We need to take it back to Shaddow House for safekeeping until Sally feels ready to move on."

"Are you saying I'll get to finally see the inside of Shaddow House?" Sally asked.

Like most people on Starfall, Sally had grown up on the island and never been allowed inside the mysterious semi-Victorian mansion with its ever-evolving mass of additions and fa?ades. The house was a mystery most Starfall Point residents never solved, and every time Caroline got to see the inside, she felt the privilege of it.

"Well, that's not a bad deal," Sally said, sticking out her hand for a shake. Riley reached out to take it and barely blinked at the pins-and-needles discomfort of touching a spirit.

"But I can't steal from another antique shop!" Alice protested.

"It's not like there's antique shop owners' code," Riley told her. "And we're lucky that no one has heard the ruckus or seen the lights. We need to move along."

"There's a Michigan legal code," Caroline reminded her. "And it frowns upon theft. Generally speaking."

"All right, what is with all the legal talk? Are you doing that thing where you just sit back and make ‘funny' comments without helping, like you're Jane Goodall studying a social grouping of idiots?" Riley asked.

"Little bit." Caroline jerked her shoulders. "I just like to be the voice of reason that reminds you that there are real-world consequences to the otherworldly things we do."

"Well, that's reasonable, I suppose," Riley conceded.

"Ladies, we've talked about how these conversations are not helpful in high-stress ghost situations," Alice reminded them.

Caroline considered that. "Yes, but we've also talked about the fact that I find the faces Riley makes when I make unhelpful jokes in those moments to be very funny."

Alice snorted, none too delicately. This was what Caroline treasured about her "ghost moments" with her coven. They were doing something very serious, and even dangerous, but they could still find ways to tease each other, to laugh.

"Caroline is right, stealing antiques is illegal," Riley conceded. "But we're leaving an antique behind that's worth twice what the cake stands are worth!!"

Riley held up a bag that contained a porcelain music box that had once been haunted by a ghost named Helena. It played Three Blind Mice , but because the little metal comb that created the notes was warped, that meant a too-slow, discordant rendition of the nursery rhyme echoing through Shaddow House. Riley maintained a very strict "creepy music boxes that play independently go into the trash compactor" policy. But because Helena was so sweet, Riley kept Helena's object until she moved on to the next plane.

"Did you seriously bring a haunted music box to a burglary?" Caroline asked.

"A previously haunted music box, and Alice was able to repair it in her shop, so it's not even creepy anymore," Riley said. "I thought we might need an unhaunted object to exchange for a haunted one—and I was right! And yes, I know how insane that sounded."

"But switching out a music box for glassware is going to throw his whole inventory system off!" Alice insisted.

"You mean that pile of notebooks that date back to…1982?" Riley asked, nodding at the haphazardly piled steno books leaning against Willard's massive metal cash register.

"I didn't say it was a perfect system," Alice said primly.

"I've known Willard a long time," Caroline told her. "If the creepy whispering stops—sorry, Sally, but it's true—he'll probably forget the cake stands exist by Monday. He's a nice man, but…unfocused. Speaking of, Riley, what are you staring at?"

"That's weird," Riley said, squinting at an etching framed on a nearby walnut sideboard. She crossed to pick it up. It was ink on paper, the iron ink so old and faded, it looked almost purple-blue behind the old glass. It looked vaguely familiar, like pieces she'd seen in childhood explorations of the attic at the family tavern, The Wilted Rose.

"Huh, I think my mom sold them to him, to be honest," Caroline said. "Willard went through a framing phase in the nineties. He asked people to bring in whatever historical documents they could find in their attics and started framing them in the acid-free preservation stuff. Mom found a bunch of these sketches at the Rose. She's not the sentimental type. Also, they're not particularly well-done."

"They're not that bad," Alice insisted. Caroline arched her brows, making Alice concede. "They're not great."

Riley peered down at the glass. "That's Shaddow House."

"No, it's not," Caroline scoffed. "The architecture's all wrong."

"Yeah, it's a different fa?ade, but look at the windows," Riley insisted. "That weird sort of bay window that seems to hang off the east wing for no reason?"

Caroline blinked at the rough sketch. There were some similarities to the basic structure of Shaddow House, but it just didn't look like the house she'd been looking at her entire life.

"The house has been changed so many times over the years, we could be looking at the original design," Alice said.

"Who knows how many times it was designed and redesigned? Maybe this is something the original architect suggested?" Caroline asked.

"Or maybe an architect who got chewed up and spit out along the way," Riley observed. "There's a signature at the bottom, sort of."

She pointed to the bottom right of the sketch. It looked like four tiny squares arranged into a cube. The date was obscured by some sort of damage to the paper. It looked like seventeen-eighty-something.

"If I was going to hide a mystical doodad, that's where I would put it—under the doorway. Doorways have magical significance," Riley said. "See, this is where it would be helpful if Plover could come along on these little field trips. He could tell us whether this is a legit theory or two-a.m. ramblings."

"So you'll take the cake stands, but not the framed pieces?" Alice asked.

"The cake stands are haunted, the framed pieces aren't," Riley said. "My moral fiber is flexible, not absent ."

"Wait, you're going to come back to a store the day after you rob it?" Caroline asked.

Riley nodded. "Technically, this is burglary, and yeah, it'll throw Celia off my trail. Who comes to a store the day after they steal from it?"

"So, you admit that you're committing a major felony," Caroline said just as Alice asked, "You've never seen a single episode of a police procedural, have you?"

"OK, then it's settled," Riley said, clapping her hands. "I'll take these two. That leaves one for each of you."

"I don't think you're picking up on my tone," Caroline said as Riley carried two of the heavier cake stands to the door. "Also, should we trust the clumsiest person in the coven with two of the cake stands on an icy sidewalk? Including Sally's favorite?"

"I'm not the clumsiest," Riley began to protest. When Caroline and Alice turned to stare at her, she pouted briefly. "Fine."

"I'll take this one," Caroline said, wrangling the handblown lid out of Riley's hand. "Give the base to Alice."

"She's right. That is my favorite," Sally told them. She eyed Riley speculatively. "How clumsy are you?"

"It was one extremely old, expensive Moorcroft vase. One . And it wasn't even haunted!" Riley grumbled, before handing the base to Alice. "It was Plover's favorite, though."

"I think the two of us have a better chance of carrying one and a half cake stands each, than you have with the one in your hands," Caroline retorted, as they headed toward the door.

"Uh, ladies, the candles," Alice noted, gesturing to the remarkably well-lit shop. She pointed to the floor, where the foul blue gel was puddling at their feet. "And the mess."

Riley bit her lip as she surveyed the fake-fruit-scented lake forming around their feet. "Yeah, that's gonna take a while."

***

It did take a while to scrape the blue splatter from the floor and their feet, but fortunately the unnatural-scented gel seemed to want to be removed. Like it was sentient.

Caroline was never buying another scented candle, ever. Also, Willard was going to have to air out the shop for days.

After they left the shop, Caroline dragged a push broom behind them, obscuring their footprints as they walked toward the square. The snow on the main sidewalk was so thoroughly marked with boot prints that no one would be able to determine what belonged to them. She dragged her late brother's old baseball cap out of her coat pocket and slapped it over her chin-length dark hair. She wasn't about to suffer the indignity of a cold on top of smelling like the discount-store version of Strawberry Shortcake.

Sally floated over the surface of the snow, almost passively, as they walked through the dark, silent Main Square of Starfall. In the distance, the icy wind howled over Lake Huron's black waves with all the petulant force of an angry ex, but here, protected by the attached line of little shops, it was eerily silent. Caroline loved seeing their little town at night, like a slightly spooky Christmas card, no people or noise to disrupt the loveliness of the island under snow. Of course, it also meant an absence of the luscious melting sugar and chocolate smell that drew tourists to the island's fudge shops every spring, but one couldn't have everything.

Riley giggled as her feet slipped in the snow. They bobbled the cake stands but never lost their grip on them. It was like a haunted episode of The Three Stooges . Even as Sally yelled for them to watch themselves, Caroline only rolled her eyes.

They'd become a coven almost by accident. The magic had chosen Alice and Caroline to be Riley's partners in this venture—helpmates to assist the last of the Dentons to carry the burden of Shaddow House and all its craziness. And despite the unease of now seeing ghosts in places she'd previously considered "safe," Caroline found she didn't mind. They'd managed to get through their encounter with an undead "client" unscathed, and with a relatively peaceable solution.

"Remind me again why your family had to build this place on a hill?" Alice grumped as they hefted the stands up the road to Shaddow House, careful to avoid shops and houses they knew to have security cameras.

"Almost there," Sally sighed, staring up at Shaddow House. What had started off in the late 1700s as an isolated and stately family home on the hill had sort of mutated over decades of renovation to a semi-Victorian monster with a turret tower and rather melodramatic, gingerbreaded front porch with a variety of chimneys and additions that didn't make any sense. The robin's-egg blue siding contrasted sharply with the pale grays of the other houses, including—nope, nope, not time to think about that now.

Better to focus on the ghostly menagerie Caroline was about to walk into. It was never a good idea to walk into Shaddow House unguarded. There were hundreds of ghosts within its walls, attached to unlabeled objects all over the house. Literally anything in the house could be haunted, from the furniture to the dishes to Plover's beloved silver mail tray.

"You know I enjoy our outreach work with the undead community, but shouldn't we be focusing our energy on the search for the Welling locks?" Alice asked as they made the final climb to Shaddow House's gate. "Particularly during the slow season."

"What, are you afraid that our search for vital magical ritual objects won't fit into your tight schedule?" Caroline teased.

A year ago, it would have ended the conversation and Alice would have crossed the street to avoid Caroline for weeks. But now, Alice only rolled her eyes and said, "You know what I mean. The sooner we find the ghost locks and eliminate the threat, the better."

Caroline shivered. While she still didn't fully understand why a rival magical family would enchant a bunch of magical copper paperweights to enthrall the dead, it didn't sound like something she wanted in the hands of people who had proven themselves to be untrustworthy and sort of murdery.

Riley huffed. "Right now, the greatest threat is all of us sticking to the sidewalk in a film of frozen fruit-scented blue glop. Let's move."

"Caroline?"

Caroline froze in her tracks. She knew that voice. She'd spent every waking hour of her teenage years mesmerized by that voice. No. No. Nonononono .

She could feel every crinkle of faux blueberry-scented gel on her skin as she turned around.

Dr. Ben Hoult, her high school sweetheart, was standing on his parents' porch in all his way-too-fit-to-be-approaching-middle-age glory. Somehow, she'd mentally blocked that his childhood home was right next door to Shaddow House. He'd moved away years ago, so seeing him there again… It was like she'd been electrocuted, every muscle frozen, unable to move an inch. Or maybe Riley's dire warnings about sticking to the sidewalk had come true.

His face—how was it possible he was still so damned handsome?—was illuminated by his phone. His eyes were still that impossible shade of hazel that looked green in some lights and golden-brown in others. His hair—yep, he still had all of it, despite her more gleeful imaginings—was still dark molten gold, save for the slight feathering of silver at the temples. He'd grown a short, but impressive, beard, something he'd always wanted to do when they were kids, but had never managed to pull off because, you know, hormones are mean.

He was altogether beautiful, damn her eyes.

And Caroline and her friends were holding technically stolen furnishings on their way into a haunted house that no one on the island had been allowed into since they were kids. And they'd been none-too-quietly discussing magic and ghosts while covered in blueberry-scented goo. Again, while carrying stolen bric-a-brac.

Of all the weird things Ben had seen her do in their teenage years… This was still pretty bad.