Chapter 7 Ben

Chapter 7

Ben

It wasn't that he didn't trust Caroline's family, it was that he knew Caroline's family. He knew that as soon as a few days passed, the scare of almost losing Caroline would wear off—and they would be more willing to return to the status quo than to fill the void of tasks Caroline usually performed. The Wiltons would make it sound perfectly reasonable for her to "just sit" at the bar while they cleaned, and then within hours, they would make it sound even more reasonable for her to help them move something or hand them something, and by the end of the day, she would be rebuilding the roof herself.

He'd tried to give her a few days of space. He got regular reports from his kids, who spent pretty much every day at Caroline's house, helping her. Riley had given him her cell number and texted him pretty consistently, updating Ben on Caroline's swelling and the bruises. It probably wasn't the most responsible thing to do, as a doctor, but she was probably more comfortable with her friends wrapping her ribs than him anyway.

But now, it was Dr. Toller's first day back from vacation and Ben had to do a follow-up. His gut told him she would be at the Rose. He only hoped he wouldn't see whoever this "Plover" person was. Ben knew that Caroline wouldn't stay single after he left Starfall. Hell, he'd married a whole other person and had children, but the fondness in her voice when she talked about this Plover, it wasn't a "casual friend" fondness. What kind of name was Plover, anyway? Wasn't a plover a kind of bird? This person was important to Caroline. And that made his heart hurt, even though he knew he didn't have the right to that.

He wanted Caroline to be happy. She deserved that, but he didn't know if he could sit back and watch that happen with someone else. And he knew that made him sad and small, but he wasn't sure he was good enough to put his own feelings aside. He didn't know if he loved her enough to let her go a second time. And he did love her. He'd known that all those years ago when he left Starfall, he would never stop.

And yet…the idea of her making a life here on the island with someone else…

He stood at his kitchen door, checking his medical bag for supplies, sighing. "Get your shit together, Hoult. Be a grown-up. She's gone through enough. Let her be happy."

He steeled his spine and walked outside, fully prepared to march over to the Rose and tell her family off for pushing her too far, too early…only to see Caroline through one of the side windows of Shaddow House—one of the huge glass panels of the atrium only visible from his side porch—lounging on a chaise with a blanket around her shoulders, staring down intently as if she was reading.

Clearly, his gut was an idiot.

Ben blinked as his brain tried to keep up with what he was seeing. "Huh."

She was resting. Following doctor's orders. Not working. He would get to know this woman, Riley, and learn her ways.

So if Caroline was in Shaddow House…wait, where were his kids? Were his kids inside Shaddow House ? A sudden sense of dread and yet, acute jealousy, struck him right in the middle. He'd wanted to get in that place for years—even though he sensed there was something not quite right about it—and it had only taken his kids a couple of days? Also, he was a terrible father.

Ben dashed down the steps of his cottage and through the gate of Shaddow House. He felt a mounting sense of something important and potentially dangerous building at the base of his brain stem. It sounded like an awful lot of talking inside that ornate front door, especially for a house that was only supposed to be home to two people. It struck him as odd that such a large house didn't have at least one security camera pointed at the door. But if there were cameras keeping Shaddow House safe, he couldn't see them.

He knocked on the door and the talking seemed to soften, like Ben had walked into a party with toilet paper on his shoe. He could hear whispered conversation from the general direction of the atrium and then heard footsteps. Riley answered, looking confused. "Hi, Ben."

"Hi, I was going to go check on Caroline at the Rose, but…she's not there? She's here, which I'm very confused about. Also, are my kids in your house?" Ben asked.

"Welp, Caroline's mom damn near talked her into going into work today," Riley shouted over her shoulder in a very pointed fashion that Ben thought was probably for Caroline's benefit. "And your kids—rightly so—called me and ratted her out. So, I talked her into coming here, and now that the building has been cleared, your kids went over to the Rose to help with the cleanup. Caroline's mom is supervising them, and since you told them they were going to be responsible for helping Caroline there, too, we thought that would be OK?"

Relief and a little bit of disappointment filled Ben. He'd hoped that the kids would keep him updated on this sort of thing. But living here on Starfall was supposed to give them more freedom, he reminded himself…and at least they were doing something productive? "No, no, it's fine. I'm just, uh, adjusting to the idea of loosening the parental reins a little bit."

Riley beamed at him. "It's nice that you worry. It means you care."

"And the kids were right to rat you out, Caroline!" Ben called into the house, making Riley snicker. "I'm very proud of my network of informants—who inform everybody but me."

"I guess you need to come in to examine Caroline, huh?" Riley said.

"Well, being within ten feet of the patient is an essential part of the in-person examination process," Ben said, nodding. Riley glanced around, and almost looked like she was asking for permission, before she finally nodded and opened the door wider for him.

He felt an odd electric buzz up his spine as he entered the house. The interior lived up to all of his expectations, between the opulent, colorful décor, the strange antiques—a huge grandfather clock, a suit of actual armor, a…bronze stork playing a saxophone? None of it seemed to match, but it all belonged together. Except for the stork, that was just freaking weird.

Caroline was seated in an airy light-filled room lined with glass. The space—and its ferns and seating—seemed to be oriented around a stone fountain of a woman in a flower crown kissing a skull. He could see why someone living on Starfall would want to have a room like this to prevent winter blues. Sometimes, being cooped up within four walls for months on end could get sort of…intense.

Caroline was surrounded by books and notebooks with three framed sketches lined up against the base of the fountain nearby. She seemed to be comfortable, seated and warm, with a steaming mug of tea at her elbow and an adorable pair of black-framed glasses perched on her nose. She was staring down at a large copper bowl on the table to her right, frowning. That was sort of strange given that the bowl was half-full of bits of rose quartz?

It was the same expression Mina had when doing trigonometry homework. Wait, was Caroline doing homework? About rose quartz? Oh, no. Riley seemed nice, but he hoped she wasn't trying to "heal" Caroline's ankle with woo-woo stuff she found online.

Caroline smiled up at him through those adorable glasses and his heart did a familiar beat-skip-beat. "Your kids are working their butts off right now, helping my mom box up the unbroken glassware and plates—which is especially important, since she only has the one working shoulder—so be prepared for some grumbling when you get home," Caroline told him. "Mina has sent me ‘fire emoji,' ‘squid emoji,' and ‘foot emoji.' I don't know what that means, but it can't be good."

"Mina is texting you?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, Josh sent ‘burrito emoji,' ‘snowflake emoji,' and what looked like a face made out of dotted lines," Caroline said, holding up her phone to show him. "But I think at this point, they might just be messing with me. Is this really how kids communicate?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Ben told her. "It is possible they're just messing with you."

Both of his kids were texting Caroline. (And calling Riley, apparently.) He didn't know how to feel about that. It was good that they had adults they trusted, and that he trusted, that they could talk to—but wasn't it also adding more complications to all of their lives?

"As you can see, I am sitting, with my foot elevated, not lifting anything heavier than these books," she told him.

"Under duress," Edison Held commented as he came down the steps. He smiled at Ben as if it wasn't strange for other people to be under Riley's roof, but there was a note of discomfort in his eyes as he shook Ben's hand. "A lot of duress. I had to bring her some titles from special collections that I'm not technically allowed to remove from the public library to get her to sit still."

"The betrayal ," Caroline gasped. "You're supposed to be on my side."

Edison shrugged. "Well, being a literary outlaw, I am going to go back to the library to hide out. I'm going to pack up more boxes of books to make way for when Cole…eventually gets here."

"Sorry, Edison," Caroline groaned. "I know you were looking forward to your own office here at the house."

"Eh, this just means I get to spend more time cataloguing the books before they're reshelved," Edison said. "And you know I love that."

"When you eventually go back to work, can you take that empty Tupperware back to Margaret? I left it by the front door, next to Plover's tray," Caroline said. "It's clean and everything. Tell her I said thank you for the soup."

Plover. There was that name again. And he had his own tray at Shaddow House? What did that mean? Did Plover live here?

"You said the soup tasted like sneeze and kale," Riley noted.

"Don't mention that part," Caroline told Edison.

"I will tell her it was an unforgettable taste experience," Edison agreed, nodding to Ben. He kissed Riley goodbye. "Be careful."

Interesting.

After Edison left, Riley turned to Ben. "If this is an official medical visit, why don't you two go into my office, where you'll have a little more privacy? Caroline doesn't need to strip in a glass room."

"No such thing as privacy in this house," Caroline muttered as Riley helped her hobble into the office. He noted that Riley shoved several papers and books into her large ornate wooden desk and then locked the drawers, which seemed…excessive. What exactly was it that Riley did for a living again?

Riley seated Caroline on a not-exactly-comfortable-looking blue leather sofa across from an intricately carved white marble fireplace. A fire was already burning merrily in the grate, which would help because the room felt colder than it should. It was the nature of living in one of these drafty historical houses, Ben told himself. Gray Fern felt like living in a wind tunnel sometimes.

Ben knelt in front of the couch as he examined Caroline as clinically as he could manage. Considering her mishap, she was in pretty spectacular shape. The contusions were in the right stage of reduction. Her road rash was healing. Her ankle was roughly ankle-sized. The bruises were in the yellow-green "dying grass" color phase, which was a good sign.

"The bruising kind of looks like a Monet painting," Caroline said as he helped her sit up and slip back into her shirt. "I don't hate it."

"Just keep doing what you're doing, the not working and the sitting part," he told her. "Over-the-counter pain meds as needed. Don't let your brothers talk you into moving furniture or deep-cleaning their houses or something."

"I would say that's silly, but you've met them," Caroline nodded. "And does that end the doctoring part of this appointment?"

"Sure," Ben said, nodding.

"Good," she huffed, grabbing his shirt with her good hand and pulling him closer. He sort of squeaked—in a manly fashion, obviously—as she dragged him from his kneeling position and practically into her lap. Her mouth closed over his, and she seemed to inhale him. Ben's hands planted themselves on either side of her hips, and somehow, they slipped under her butt. It was a terrible and immature thing to think…but it felt just the same.

Oh, he was going to hell, if for nothing else than this massive violation of…all of the doctor oaths.

He moaned at the taste of her—Earl Grey tea and some sweet pastry—as her tongue flicked across his lips. Her good leg wrapped around his waist, pulling him even closer. Her fingers slid down the front of his jeans, and his whole body screamed yes as he went aching and hard under her hand. His hips bucked as she tugged at his zipper. Her grin was downright intimidating as his weight shifted against her, pinning her against the couch. She squealed and it was not a good sound.

"Sorry!" he cried. "Sorry!"

He leaned his forehead against hers. "Oh, man, I'm so sorry. Believe me, but we can't. I can't," Ben said, pressing his lips to her cheek as he nuzzled against her. "It's too fast, too much, too soon."

She nodded as he pulled away, and he prayed he wouldn't see hurt on her face, but instead it was…fear? Oh, no, was she afraid of him now? He shouldn't have kissed her, but she was just so close and she smelled so good and she felt just like she used to and he never stopped lov— What the hell was she looking at?

He turned his head to see a black, oily shape sliding along the office ceiling like a larger-than-life amoeba. Caroline was shaking and her hands wrapped around Ben's shoulders as she tried to force him behind her.

The oil sort of oozed down from the ceiling directly above them, almost to eye level with Caroline when Riley came running in with a silver bowl. "Caroline!"

Caroline's arm darted to a side table and grabbed a dish full of rose petals and…salt? In unison, they threw salt at the black oily mass. Riley made a hand gesture that looked like drawing a closed hand across her heart and then mimed shoving the mass away. Caroline could only manage the shoving motion.

The salt sizzled against the surface of the…apparition? It let loose an animal shriek and withdrew into the ceiling, and—thank God—away from them. Ben whimpered, his head whipping back and forth, trying to figure out what just happened. His knees seemed to go out, and he sank to the floor.

"I told you keeping salty potpourri dishes around was a good idea," Riley panted as if this was a completely normal thing to happen in the middle of the morning. "It doesn't bind them or enclose them anywhere, but the hostile ones certainly get the point. No trespassing, you ceiling-crawling dick!"

"Oh, I'm glad you're here because I don't think I would have been able to pull off that hand gesture," Caroline huffed, flopping back on the couch. "Ow."

"Not strong enough to get rid of the bastard, but I don't think he—or she, let's be progressive here—is gonna try to get that close again," Riley said. "Oh, jeez, Ben. You OK?"

Ben was not OK. His eyes kept darting back and forth between Riley and Caroline, and then back at the ceiling because, what if that thing came back? Also his pants were partially unzipped, and that was a problem.

Caroline patted Ben's chest. "Ben?"

All of the blood and air seemed to return to the sensible parts of Ben's body, and he screeched, "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

***

"If it makes you feel any better, I said exactly the same thing the first time I met Plover," Riley told Ben as she served him a mug of chamomile tea. They'd moved back into the atrium because the office and the possibility of whatever the hell that thing was returning made Ben incredibly uncomfortable.

Alice had arrived while Ben was sitting there, waiting for his world to make sense again. Apparently, she'd felt Caroline and Riley's distress in dealing with the ceiling thing—something Ben would process later. Alice had simply given him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a sympathetic smile. Caroline was back on her chaise, blankets intact, drinking more tea. Edison, who had returned from the public library on Riley's frantic call for help to get Ben off the floor, poured Ben a rather large glass of whiskey. He was hovering, waiting for Ben to spill either of his beverages.

Ben's life was madness. He let out a slow breath. "So ghosts are real?"

"Yep," Caroline said. "Usually, they're a little better at hiding than that. But the ceiling ghost is less predictable than the others."

Ben gestured the hand occupied by a whiskey glass. "Ghosts."

"Mm-hmm." Caroline nodded. "Also, we're witches. Our magic helps us communicate with the ghosts. And occasionally, send them running when they violate personal space."

"OK… Sure. Have you always been a witch? Like when we were dating?" Ben asked.

"Oh, no, I'm a late-in-life magical bloomer." She paused to nod toward the copper bowl full of rose quartz pebbles. "I was actually practicing when you came in. Riley can full-on levitate antique furnishings, but I can't seem to lift a rock—which is discouraging."

"You were trying to lift a rock…with magic?" Ben asked.

"I told you, lifting stuff is my special magical talent, we just haven't found yours yet," Riley told her gently, apparently ignoring Ben's question.

"Story of my life," Caroline grumbled. "Oh, and the Shaddows don't exist."

"Wait, what?!" Ben exclaimed.

Alice topped off Ben's whiskey glass. "The Dentons made them up so people wouldn't ask questions about why they never let people in the house. They wanted to be able to do their work while they sort of faded into the background. It only took a few generations for everybody to forget that they'd never really met the Shaddows."

"I feel so betrayed…and a little gullible," Ben said, sipping the tea and then the whiskey. Both burned. "I can't believe we didn't question it. I mean, I guess we did. Everybody on the island has their own ‘Shaddow theory.' But I don't think anybody guessed they were being Keyser S?ze'd."

The others snorted and he said, "Oh, man, it's nice to be around people old enough to get that reference…but really, ghosts ?"

Riley looked faintly embarrassed. "I'm so sorry, Ben, that was the worst possible ghost for you to meet for the first time. Most ghosts are actually really nice. They're people, just like you and me. They're just, let's say, corporeally challenged. Um, Plover, would you please show yourself to Dr. Hoult to prove it?"

Nothing happened.

"Plover, please? If you would be so kind," Riley asked in a very intentionally sweet tone. "OK, this is embarrassing, and I'm going to have Eloise do it if you don't cooperate. Or worse, the clown ghost, and that would be humiliating and terrifying for the both of us."

"Plover?" Ben's face lit up. "Plover's a ghost?"

A thin, distinguished-looking man in an old-fashioned suit materialized to his right like smoke unfurling. He inclined his head respectfully. "Doctor."

"Plover is a ghost." Ben repeated, not bothering to hide his grin of absolute delight. Plover wasn't competition for Caroline, he was a ghost . And it made sense that Caroline said his name with such affection. He looked like something straight out of one of her BBC movies.

"Yes," Plover intoned. "In this house, I am the ghost."

"That's pretty much true." Caroline nodded. "He's Riley's right-hand man. And my personal favorite."

A burbling noise sounded from the fountain, and frankly, sounded like insulted burbling.

Caroline winced. "I'm sorry, Eloise. You know I love you too."

Plover smirked and bowed to Caroline. And then Ben wondered if maybe he underestimated the potential of ghost competition for Caroline's affection.

"And there are ghosts all throughout the house?" Ben said.

"The majority of us have elected not to show ourselves to avoid overwhelming you," Plover said.

"Thanks, I appreciate that. I like you a lot more than the ceiling ghost," Ben muttered into the whiskey. "He's replaced Clark as my least favorite person-and-or-thing on the island."

"Oh, no, Clark is the worst," Riley said. "Edison found proof at this kid Kyle's house that Clark was paying Kyle to terrorize us. And then, uh, the ceiling ghost dropped a chandelier on Kyle when he broke into the house to steal some ghostly objects."

Ben blinked at her. So that was how the Ashmark boy died?

"It was a whole thing," Caroline said.

"Anyway," Riley continued. "We found out Clark was behind it, so we're thinking of blackmailing him if he becomes more of a problem."

"I still don't like that plan," Edison told her.

Ben took a moment, trying to process everything Riley had just told him. So Clark was involved in a break-in at Shaddow House? Was that the reason he'd been so tolerant of the poor management of Gray Fern? Keeping the house empty of renters would allow Clark to watch Shaddow House from Ben's own windows? No wonder Clark had been so persistent about trying to get Ben to renew his contract with Martin Property Management. Hell, Clark had written Ben three emails in the last two weeks asking him to reconsider.

"That was a lot," Caroline told Riley. "For a first-timer."

"Well, I've never had to explain this to a new guy before. It takes a little more to summarize than I thought it would," Riley said, jerking her shoulders. "Besides, he knows about the ghosts. And you trust him. Plover…is tolerating him."

"I am undecided on Dr. Hoult," Plover sniffed. "Of the blackmail? I approve."

"He's never liked Clark, either," Edison assured Ben. "Plover also didn't like the security cameras Riley and I installed all around the perimeter of the first floor to try to prevent future break-ins. And he was none too subtle about his gloating when the ghosts' energy shorted them out in less than twelve hours."

"It was only a small fire, sir," Plover said, smirking.

"Well, everybody likes to be proven right, even if they don't have a pulse—wait, Edison, why are you going through things at Kyle's house?" Ben asked. "Did you break into his house?"

"I was the only one Kyle was close to, so I'm the executor of his estate," Edison said. "I think he left the receipts behind as some sort of fail-safe."

"You're the executor of the will of a guy who broke into your girlfriend's house?" Ben asked.

"It's complicated," Edison sighed. "But this is kind of nice, really, to talk to someone about it."

"Right?" Riley exclaimed.

"OK, I have seen this with my own eyes, so I'm just going to believe everything you're saying," Ben said, draining his glass.

"See, the ceiling ghost was actually helpful," Caroline noted.

Riley scoffed. "Yeah, but not on purpose."

Ben nodded to the books strewn around them, the framed art propped against the fountain. "So, what are you reading here when not trying to levitate rocks?"

"Latest ghost investigation. I've been seeing this ghost lately, around the bar. And then when your daughter knocked me unconscious, I had a vision of the cliffs at Vixen's Fall." She paused to chin-point to the framed sketch. "And a woman being shoved off of them."

"Oh, do you think it's the ghost that grabs people's ankles?" Ben gasped. "That story has freaked me out since I was a kid."

"I don't know," Caroline said, grabbing for one of the very old books Edison had apparently stolen from the library. "In the vision, it felt like this girl seemed hopeful, innocent. Well, OK, a little resentful, but she just wanted to meet some boy she loved—um, Emmett; her Emmett—and get away from the island. And I think the story we heard when we were kids was that she was sort of a man-eater?"

"I'd always heard that a rejected lover threw her off the cliff when she accepted some richer man's proposal," Ben said.

"I heard she jumped off because her groom left her at the altar," Alice said. "Why do so many ghost stories involve brides?"

"Folklore has a tendency to be rewritten with each generation," Edison said. "The truth is probably some really mundane version where she ticked off her sister or something. Also, a wedding day is always fraught with terror-slash-poignancy."

"Well, on that note." Caroline flipped the book open to a page. "I was doing a little light reading. This is the journal of the Mrs. Reverend Elias Lettston. Only, it's not so much a journal as a one-woman, unpublished gossip column. Maybe she thought it didn't count as gossip if she didn't say it aloud? And she doesn't name names, which is really frustrating. Again, I suspect she thought it made her somehow more virtuous, or something. Anyway, she has the tea on everybody on the island—who's sleeping with who, who's cheating who in land deals, who has scurvy. Which I guess was a little more scandalous back then. I keep finding references to a ‘Rose.' I'm having a little trouble following ye old script here thanks to aging paper, fading ink and, well, horrific handwriting—like, worse than Riley's."

"Hey!" Riley griped.

Caroline shrugged and continued, "It sounds like there was a nurse working for my family back when we ran the bar as an inn. Back then, a nurse could mean a nanny or even someone who tended to an older family member. Mrs. Lettston calls this nurse an old maid, kind of vindictively, to be honest. And she implies in not-so-subtle backhanded language that this nurse wanted the innkeeper for herself. She was ‘wilted' by time, bitterness, and lack of manly attentions, and thought she could take my great-great-great-however-many-great ancestor's place for herself. Or maybe she succeeded, and the evil nurse is my great-great-great-however-many-great ancestor. I don't know yet because Mrs. Lettston literally tracked every daily movement on the island, and she left about ten years' worth of journals to get through. But man, I hope not, because that could mean I'm related to a murderer."

"So you think maybe that's where The Wilted Rose got its name?" Ben asked. "Like a warning?"

"Could be," Caroline said. "Could be that I'm seeing the vision from this Rose's perspective, meaning she was punished by the angry wife. Or I'm seeing the fall from the doomed wife's perspective and Rose got her way."

"Sure," Riley said. "Or maybe it's entirely unrelated and we're dealing with a ghost that has nothing to do with your family. Or maybe, you just hit your head really hard because you were run over by a moped—sorry, Ben—and the vision doesn't mean anything. It's unprocessed angst over the historical fiction you were reading last."

"But maybe, just maybe, this ghost chose to reveal herself to me because she has something to do with my family," Caroline insisted. "Maybe if we help her, or hell, banish her, if necessary, I can break the curse or spell or whatever. And me or any member of my family could leave the island for a day without worrying about being run down by an ice cream truck."

"I don't want to be a downer, but that's a pretty large intuitive leap," Edison said.

"I'm aware. But if there's even a remote chance," Caroline said, waggling her head.

Ben's jaw dropped. "Oh, Caroline."

Caroline's brows rose. "Yeah?"

All the blood seemed to drain out of Ben's face. He was cold, everywhere. He'd doubted her. He'd never thought of Caroline as "crazy," per se. But he'd thought she'd used the "curse" or bad luck or whatever as an excuse not to leave her demanding family, like it took away her agency, kept her from having to claim her choices. He'd blamed her for his having to make a life without her. And yet she'd only been responsible, sensible even, to stay on the island when leaving meant certain death.

"We're just going to go…" Riley said, gently leading Edison out of the atrium.

Plover stayed by the fountain, glaring at Ben. "I don't know what you did, but I can tell you, sir, that I doubt very much that you deserve the affections of Miss Caroline—"

"Plover!" Riley called from the next room. Plover mimed pointing at his own eyes and then pointing at Ben.

Ben wrapped his arms around Caroline. "I'm so sorry. I didn't believe you. But you were telling the truth the whole time, weren't you?"

She shrugged. "Well, I don't have magical confirmation, but—"

"But if magic and ghosts are real, why not curses?" he said. She nodded. "I'm sorry that I took all that time away from us."

"You needed that time away," Caroline said. "You needed to make your life, fulfill your purpose. And I needed to stay here and let Riley find me so I could fulfill mine."

"You're a witch ," Ben marveled. "I mean, Gina Mursky used to say that about you in high school all the time, but to see it for myself."

"It takes some getting used to," she admitted. "But I'm still the same me."

"Still have superstrong hands," he noted. "And a really great ass."

"Don't you forget it." She laid her head on his shoulder as he laughed. "You know, it's sort of funny… In Plover's flower language, ferns represent magic. Secrets. Maybe your ancestors knew all about what was happening in Shaddow House, when they named your place?"

"Let's just tackle one huge magical family mystery at a time, OK?" Ben said.