Chapter 8 Caroline

Chapter 8

Caroline

Caroline hadn't meant to end up at the bar. Really. And she couldn't even do much but sit on a stool and help her mom sort through the financials for the month—a task made even harder by the big red number sitting where their profits should have been.

And yet, here she was, picking food and liquor receipts out of customer receipts because Will and Wally could never be bothered to save those separately. The customer receipts stack was a lot shorter than the provisioning stack, and that was a scary prospect. Shutting down the bar was going to hurt, even with the emergency fund and Riley's help.

And Caroline wasn't sleeping. The vision she'd had after the accident, that poor woman being shoved from the cliff—she kept seeing it in her sleep, night after night, sending her screaming into consciousness every few hours. Despite the stress of it all, financial juggling was still more welcome in her headspace than her thoughts of Ben.

Every spare moment she replayed their kisses in her mind, reliving every moment. He'd rejected her. In her head, she understood that it was most likely due to her debilitating injuries and the intrusion of a Peeping Tom ghost, but in the darker moments, when she was alone with her thoughts, she wondered—was it because she was older? She knew she didn't have the dewy youth of her teenage years, but she wasn't exactly a troll. Or maybe it was just typical post-divorce wobbles? She didn't think Ben was still hung up on his ex. He rarely mentioned her…but maybe that meant that he was hung up on her.

Argh.

Caroline didn't know how to process this. She'd never taken rejection like this personally. She was used to doing the rejecting. And if she was rejected, it was by someone she didn't care about, so it barely stung. But from Ben? It stung, it burned, it cut.

Being at the bar was a welcome distraction.

Maybe it hadn't been a good idea, having Mina, a daily reminder of her dad, working in the Rose. But she kept showing up, day after day, early according to her mother's reports. Josh usually tagged along. The compulsive need to prove he could lift more heavy objects than his sister—for no other reason than knowing that it bugged her—made for a productive competition. That meant that Gert was accomplishing more than she expected on a daily basis—something that was honestly unprecedented in the Wilton family.

"Dad texted me, says it's time for your midmorning meds," Mina said, holding up her sparkly blue cell phone. It went with her T-shirt and the bandana tied around her hair, both a shade of shocking arctic blue. "And then he said that if you're on your feet at all, I'm supposed to ‘throw you in the nearest wheelbarrow and push you over to the clinic' so he can yell at you. Does my dad think there are just wheelbarrows sitting unattended around on the island?"

"Your dad's a man who enjoys a nice hyperbolic metaphor," Caroline said, pulling her meds out of her purse and demonstrating that she was taking them.

Caroline was a little ashamed that she'd expected a couple of doctor's kids to be soft, spoiled, unwilling to work—maybe years of dealing with her brothers had left her jaded. And she was mentally retracting those words. Both Hoult kids worked hard, and even if it was to spite each other, it was welcome . The area underneath the bar had been scrubbed and cleared for dismantling. The deep freeze had been defrosted and the frozen mozzarella sticks restacked by reverse expiration date. The keg lines had been untangled and removed. Josh had identified several kegs in the tap room that were well past their prime and put them in a "disposal" pile, most likely saving her family from a food poisoning–based lawsuit.

Mina snickered. "Thank you, Caroline."

"For taking my meds without a wheelbarrow intervention?" Caroline asked.

"For talking to me like I'm a person," Mina said, shrugging. "Despite the fact that I'm responsible for you being on those meds."

"Well, you are a person," Caroline noted. "But I'm not worried about you reinjuring me. I'm way more afraid that you will somehow detect everything I secretly hate about myself and throw it in my face."

Mina marveled, "Wow."

"Teenagers are terrifying," Caroline replied.

"Only when provoked," Mina insisted. "Look, Dad thinks he's taking care of us, and that's great. We appreciate it. But we worry about him. He doesn't seem to understand that."

Caroline's head reared back at the sudden shift in conversation. Was this what it was like inside a teenager's head?

Mina was still talking. "I can see that you like my dad. And I think my role in this whole dynamic is that I'm supposed to be a snotty jerk who yells in your face that you'll never be my mom, but really, Josh and I just want our dad to be happy. We want him to have something, someone really, for himself. It would be nice if you were that something or someone. He likes you. I can tell."

"I don't know if this is appropriate," Caroline said, shaking her head. "Your dad and I have a history that I don't think I should talk about with you. There are rules about this sort of thing, I'm sure."

"I respect rules," Mina said, nodding. When Caroline pulled a doubtful face, she barked, "Hey! In the interest of setting those parameters, I think I should inform you, formally, that if you do anything to hurt my dad—or Josh, who also falls under my umbrella of protection, no matter what he thinks—I will destroy you."

"Understood." Caroline nodded. "Will I receive confirmation of this threat in writing?"

"No, I wouldn't leave a paper trail," Mina scoffed. "I'll make it look like an accident…if anyone happens to find your body, which is unlikely."

"I believe that you are capable of that," Caroline said as Mina flounced off to follow whatever direction Cole gave her.

Gert returned from the office with a stack of invoices. "Mina made you take your meds?"

"Under threat of a wheelbarrow," Caroline grumped while Gert sat next to her. Gert just sort of stared at Caroline. She'd never been one for jokes in the workplace.

"I don't think we can save that one, Ma," Wally huffed, pointing to the booth in the far rear corner of the barroom. It hadn't been touched by the collapse. From her vantage point, Caroline couldn't even see dust on the table. Will knew that between the two of them, Wally had a higher success rate of wheedling grace out of their mom, so he was sort of hovering in the periphery, not really doing anything, but appearing to be busy wiping down chairs. Appearing to be busy was his superpower.

"Are you saying that because you don't want to have to carry it across the street to the salvage container, and the Dumpster is closer?" Caroline asked.

"No!" Wally cried. "I just think we should scrap it and get something nicer."

Gert's tone was much gentler. "Honey, new booths cost money, and we're trying to save as much as possible. Please take the booth to the salvage container."

"Can Caroline at least help?" Wally groaned. "These things are heavy!"

Caroline lifted her crutch from the floor and waved it at him, to remind him of her injured ankle. She winced at the strain that put on her ribs, but it proved her point. How was it that Wally was three years older than her and yet, he still sounded like a toddler?

"What about them?" Wally whined, chin-pointing to where Mina was standing on a stepladder dismantling the display of family memorabilia behind the bar and carefully taping it in bubble wrap. Cole was right next to her, measuring the space behind the bar. She only hoped Cole didn't add to their misfortunes by knocking Mina off her ladder or something.

That wasn't fair. Cole had been a sunny and steady presence in the barroom during the stressful cleanup process. He also had the uncanny ability to manage to find a single vision for the renovation through the cacophony of four battling Wilton voices. And he was easy on the eyes, which Caroline appreciated—all burly, bearded charm and big blue eyes. And while he might have fit her "not a local" requirement, it just didn't feel right, picking up the big, old flirty signals Cole had been laying down since they'd met.

"Cole is busy," Caroline's mother reminded them. "And remember we're handling the furniture removal because it reduces Cole's bill."

"Well, what about the kids?" Wally asked, nodding toward Mina.

"The kids are already pulling their weight," Caroline said through clenched teeth. "You might watch them and pick up some pointers."

"Caroline," her mother chastised her softly. She noted that Gert didn't correct her.

Mina turned around and pulled out her earbud, having that teenager's preternatural ability to know when someone was talking about her. "Everything OK?"

"It's fine, sweetie, just keep doing what you're doing," Caroline said, smiling at her. As soon as Mina returned to her task, Caroline turned back to her brother and growled. "Pull your weight or catch a foot up the ass."

Wally took a step back. Behind him, Mina went back to carefully taking down the landscape painting that had hung behind the bar since Caroline's childhood.

"Caroline!" Gert huffed, even as Will and Wally hustled to take the rear booth out. "You don't have to talk to them that way."

"Thanks, Ma," Will grumbled.

"Because that's my job." Gert turned on Will. "Your sister's right, Will, it's damned embarrassing that my grown sons are being outdone by a couple of high school kids in my own bar. Stop looking to everybody else for empty hands and start getting your own dirty."

Caroline's eyes went wide, but she was no more shocked than Will and Wally, who hadn't been on the receiving end of their mother's lecture voice for years. Her mother had not only expressed disapproval for her brothers' actions, but had told them to do more . Caroline was afraid to move for fear of breaking this unprecedented stream of motherly correction.

"Jeez, Ma, don't get so worked up!" Wally gasped. "We're going."

"Don't we get credit for showing up?" Will grumbled as they wandered away.

"No!" Caroline and her mother called after them.

Caroline gently nudged her mother with her shoulder. "Thanks, Mom."

"Don't you start," Gert said, her voice tight with discomfort as the boys hauled the table out the door, grunting and complaining the whole span of the floor. "I know, I've let them…get too comfortable with the way things are. I just don't know how to get them to try again. And I'm so tired all the time, and it just feels like it's too big of a fight to take on today, and then tomorrow, and then the next day, and you've always been so dependable…and…"

"I get tired too, Mom," Caroline said quietly.

"I know," her mother said. She breathed quickly through her nose and nodded to the Hoult kids. "Now, those two, they know how to work."

"Yes, they do," Caroline said, watching a smile curve her mother's lips. "They're like Ben, in that way."

Outside, Caroline could hear a scuffle and a crash of wood against stone. It sounded like her brothers were arguing over "who dropped it." Gert rolled her eyes. "I'll take care of it."

As Gert hustled out the door, Caroline saw Mina's shoulders stiffen. She was standing on top of the ladder, staring toward the basement entrance. Her expression was familiar. Was Mina seeing something? Caroline wondered.

Kids saw ghosts more easily than adults did, and teenagers were a little closer to their childlike perceptions. Maybe Mina could see the ghosts consistently without the benefit of magic?

Josh turned around, staring at the basement door, his face pale as parchment. He pulled at his ear, as if it itched. Mina climbed down the ladder, walking toward the door with that same apprehension. It was a feeling Caroline was familiar with by now, waiting to see that awful woman's face peering out at her from around the corner. Josh walked outside, still tugging at his earlobe.

As Mina passed her worktable, Caroline said quietly, "Mina. On the day you hit me…"

"Thanks for phrasing it like that," Mina shot back dryly.

"On the day your moped collided with my torso," Caroline amended. "You said you ‘swear you thought you saw'…something. What did you see?"

"It's stupid," Mina said, shaking her head.

"I promise you, it's not," Caroline said.

"I thought I saw a woman wearing an old-fashioned dress, like something off of Gilded Age ?" Mina said, waiting for Caroline to nod. "Her hair was up in this sort of puffy updo, and she was carrying a parasol , just walking around outside the theater."

Caroline chewed her lip. The ghost lady from the Duchess occasionally wandered to the Main Square, seeking out the location of Waterstones, a sweetshop that dated back to 1880. Caroline could hardly blame the ghostly dame. If Caroline couldn't eat anymore, she'd hover wistfully outside of a truffle display, too.

"She was probably just a historical reenactor or something," Mina insisted. "There seem to be a lot of those around here."

"Have you been seeing a lot of them since you moved here?" Caroline asked. As they spoke, the purple-dress ghost materialized in the shadows, watching them. Josh had already hauled a box full of dishes out the front door, and Caroline wondered if he was finding a reason not to stay in the room. Could he feel the miasma of cold discomfort this woman's spirit seemed to spread through the very air around her?

"Feels like it." Mina's mouth opened, as if she was going to add something, but she pinched her lips shut. Caroline reached out to take her wrist, and an electrical crackle of energy sparked between their hands. Across the room, the purple-dress ghost grinned, the wild edge of it sending a shiver down Caroline's spine. The blood drained out of Mina's face.

The woman's mouth wasn't moving, but a rasping voice practically scraped across the surface of Caroline's brain like steel wool. "Poor, sweet girl. Look at them, making you work your fingers to the bone. You're too young to be toiling away. If you were my own daughter, I would make sure you had the time to enjoy yourself. They're stealing your life from you…"

It felt…wrong, like she was listening to a radio skipping across the channels. Caroline didn't think she was supposed to be hearing it, even if it did feel awfully personalized toward Caroline.

"Sometimes, we see things that don't make sense, and sometimes we hear things that make even less sense," Caroline said carefully.

The purple-dress ghost's head snapped toward Caroline. Her grin had turned to something calmer and scarier. Determined. She faded back into the shadows.

"I've been hearing things since I first walked into the bar," Mina blurted out, not loud enough for Cole to hear, but clear to Caroline. "Josh, too, but I don't think he wants to admit it. He keeps talking about someone leaving a TV on upstairs here, hearing the voices. But why would you leave a TV on upstairs in rooms that have been wrecked?"

"OK," Caroline said, nodding and trying her best to sound nonjudgmental and calm.

Mina's voice was low. "It's like a whisper, like two different voices at once. I think she's trying to sound nice, sweet, but there's something else, just mean , underneath it . It's like that fairy-tale grandma you know you can't trust because the minute you take the candy from her hand, she's gonna throw you in an oven. I don't want her around Josh if she's going to whisper like that. She's trying to trick us, and I don't know why."

"OK," Caroline said, taking Mina's hand. "It's going to be all right, I promise."

A crashing sound from behind the bar caught their attention. Cole was looking back at them, a mortified expression turning his face bright red. The framed landscape of Starfall Point, the one that Nora Denton used to sit at the bar and stare at on her rare visits, was broken between his massive hands.

"Damn, I'm sorry," Cole said, sounding absolutely contrite. "I'm usually a little quicker on my feet than that. Or…with my hands, I guess. Knocked it right off the shelf trying to get it down without a ladder, because I tried to be a smart-ass."

"It's OK, the whole family hates that painting," Caroline assured him. Mina followed close at her heels as she approached the bar. "We just didn't have the heart to toss it because some ancient, untalented Wilton painted what this part of the island looked like before the bar was built."

"Huh, will you look at this," Cole mused, peeling the broken frame away from the backing. A second layer of canvas was poking out from under the landscape. Cole set the painting on the bar and pulled a series of tiny nails from the backing—which, in itself, seemed impressive in terms of hand strength. "There's another painting under this one."

The three of them worked together to remove the nails. The fragile canvas flaked old paint onto the floor as they worked. "Maybe we should wait for Edison or someone who knows what they're doing," Caroline mused. "For all we know, this is some priceless piece of Starfall history."

"I don't think there's a Van Gogh under here, Caroline," Mina told her, regaining some of her "Mina-ness." When they pulled the landscape canvas away from the second layer, they revealed a face that almost made Caroline shriek. Mina recoiled, grabbing at Caroline's hands.

"Whoa," Cole marveled, swallowing heavily.

This was considerably better art than what Riley bought from Willard's place. It wasn't a wedding portrait, even though the gown the woman was wearing was made from a luxuriant cream silk. One could tell by the way the light was painted over the soft folds of the skirt. The lady was sitting rigidly in a chair so spindly and impractical, it had to be expensive. The subject was the purple-dress ghost, but younger. Not necessarily softer or happier, but younger. There was no hint of a smile curving her thin lips, or warmth in her hydrangea-blue eyes. She was holding her head at such an angle that she was looking down her long nose at the viewer no matter where they were standing. It was like one of those creepy funhouse pictures, but way more judgmental.

It was at this moment that Caroline remembered that in Plover's flower language, hydrangeas meant "heartlessness."

This was a painting that was meant to be displayed over a mantel, to frown down at future generations and let them know they were not living up to standards. But something was off about it. It was…trying too hard? It was as if the woman's head had been old-timey Photoshopped onto a grand lady's body. Her features were too rough, too boxy, for the delicacy the silk gown implied. Maybe the subject had borrowed a dress for the occasion, to prove that she could afford to wear a white gown when most people bought clothes for their durability and resistance to stains?

It didn't matter, really. Caroline was just trying to find a way to avoid mentally processing the dread this painting transmuted in her belly. Was this the nurse described in Mrs. Lettston's journal, the one that tried to usurp her employer? The famous Wilted Rose? The portrait would be an expensive tribute to an employee, particularly given the fancy dress, but maybe, if she'd actually managed to marry the Wilton husband she'd been targeting, it was possible.

There was something altogether strange about it. Not just the mendacious appearance but the magical vibrations coming off the canvas. Caroline got the feeling that this wasn't an attachment object, but it was definitely important to someone…not nice.

"Obviously, I can fix the frame, free of charge, off the clock," Cole said. "It's my responsibility, for breaking it."

He could, but she didn't want Cole taking potentially haunted debris to his house and muddying the ghost waters.

She used to think like a normal person. What happened?

"For now, let's put it with the other display items and store," Caroline said. "We've got too much other stuff to worry about for you to be exhausting yourself on side carpentry projects."

Cole shrugged. "All right then."

The phone in Caroline's pocket buzzed. She muttered, "Speaking of which."

She prayed it wasn't a text from her mother asking her to break up whatever fight between Will and Wally was still happening outside. The text was from Riley.

Big development. Get here ASAP.

Now Riley was using the emojis.

Shit.

***

It had taken considerable time to explain to Cole, Mina, and her family why she suddenly had to head home. And then, she'd had to convince Mina to leave immediately because she didn't want to leave a vulnerable teenager unattended with an aggressive (and honestly, passive-aggressive) ghost. And then , she'd had to sneak the not-quite-a-wedding-portrait into a tote bag and get it out of the bar. And then , she'd had to limp home on her crutches, or at least, she would have, if Riley hadn't sent Mitt Sherzinger to fetch her in one of his pedal cabs.

"Riley's started a tab for you," Mitt told her, his shorts bunching around the legendary thigh muscles required to haul tourists all over the island on his pedal-powered machines. "You are not to try to crutch your way home under any circumstances. You call me, and I'll come get you."

Caroline started to say, "But—"

"You were hit by a small motor vehicle last week," Mitt reminded her.

Caroline shook her head. "But you—"

"You were hit by a small motor vehicle last week ," Mitt said again.

"Fine," Caroline sighed, slumping back into the seat, even as it made her ribs scream. And yeah, she was secretly sort of pleased that Riley had thought to take care of her. It was one of the things she was still getting used to, as part of being in a coven.

Just a few minutes later, Mitt rolled up to the gate of Shaddow House, and Caroline realized the wisdom in driving her there. There was no way she would have made it up that hill on her own.

"Thanks, Mitt," she said, carefully climbing out of the cab. Riley was waiting at the gate to help her up the stairs.

"Hey, Caroline," Mitt whispered, handing over her crutches. "What's it like in there?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Caroline said, winking at him.

"I knew it," Mitt sighed.

Alice was fluffing pillows on the parlor couch when Caroline walked in—something that apparently required Plover's supervision. Caroline had been careful to leave her tote bag outside the front door. Even if she wasn't sure the painting was an attachment object, she was not about to bring it into the house and trap an unpleasant ghost inside with people she cared about—living or dead.

"Miss Caroline!" Plover called, rushing to meet her. "So glad to see you."

"Someone got used to having you around during your convalescence," Riley observed as they helped Caroline get settled.

"All I'm missing is a shawl and a lace cap," Caroline muttered.

"Enough of your grumpery, because we have cause for celebration," Riley said, emptying a linen bag onto the coffee table. "We found another lock!"

"What? When did that happen?" Caroline exclaimed. "I feel weirdly excluded!"

"I was at work, so I missed out on it, too," Alice told her. "And to be fair, we have jobs, but Shaddow House is Riley's full-time job. We can't expect her to wait until we have time to search."

"Thank you for your understanding. I found it in the secret basement level Plover only revealed to us recently," Riley said, her tone pointed.

Caroline shuddered. The "secret level" only accessible through the cellar felt like an express subway route into hell. A spiral mineshaft leftover from early copper mining efforts on the island, it was lined with locked metal cells that reminded Caroline of submarine doors. Each door seemed to contain its own variation of ghostly screaming. So…basically, it was a basement full of nightmare spirits. Considering the ghosts allowed to have free range upstairs, Caroline could only imagine what was lurking downstairs.

"I did apologize for that, Miss," Plover reminded her. "And I was only trying to ease you into the ways of Shaddow House. You must admit, the horror show in the basement is a bit much."

"True. I suppose you're forgiven. Anyway, do you remember my idea about the original location for the entrance?" Riley said, pointing to the sketch she'd bought from Willard's shop. "The lock was buried in an area of the secret-lair level, under where the door would have been. I'm guessing the Wellings didn't know it was a secret basement. They just knew there was a handy spot where they could hide it between two load-bearing stones, near where they thought the door would be."

"Just to review, you didn't move the load-bearing stones, did you?" Edison asked.

"No," Riley promised. "I dug around them."

"I'm not sure that's better," Alice said.

"Can we just celebrate the fact that we found another one?" Riley demanded.

"I found one of the good bottles of champagne your Aunt Nora stashed in the pantry!" Natalie the dry-erase board ghost yelled from the kitchen. "I would get it for you, but I can't move it!"

"Thank you, Natalie! That is the kind of enthusiasm I was hoping for!" Riley cried. "Also, good job shouting!"

"We don't mean to bring you down after your hard-earned success," Alice assured her. "It's just that, the more of these locks we locate, the more logistical issues we have. For instance, is it smart to store all of the locks in one place, from a strategic point of view? We can't move them from the house, obviously, because that's a terrible idea, but should we hide them in different locations so if someone manages to get inside, they won't grab all of them in one swoop?"

"That's a good point," Riley conceded. "Though I'm not sure re-hiding them is smart, either. We could lose them all over again."

"And how are we going to destroy these things?" Caroline asked. "We've tried spells. We tried dissolving the locks in acid. We even tried smelting one. All we did was leave some very interesting patterns in the stone in the atrium, which Plover took quite personally."

"Yeah, my sense of victory is definitely waning," Riley said, chewing her lip and flopping onto the couch. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "OK, I accept all of your points. My celebration was a little premature. I'm just…looking for a win, I guess, considering the relatively rough month we've had. Caroline nearly getting knocked inside out and all."

"I appreciate the effort to find a silver lining," Caroline assured her. "It's considerably more cheerful than my thought patterns about the locks lately."

Riley's brows arched. "Meaning?"

"Well, I've been wondering, do you really think that the Wellings are going to all this trouble just to control ghosts and get access to ghost assassins?" Caroline asked, shaking her head. "I mean, untraceable murder was probably super handy hundreds of years ago, but that sort of thing can be accomplished by drones nowadays. Why are they still trying so hard to get at them?"

"I think denying bad people access to ghost assassins is probably a good policy regardless," Alice noted.

"I'm just saying that it doesn't seem like a relevant goal nowadays," Caroline said. "Your magical ancestors didn't have the full story when they started building Shaddow House. Maybe your Aunt Nora didn't have the full story when she died. Maybe it's something more sinister?"

"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," Edison suggested. "Maybe instead of trying to destroy the locks, we should try to figure out what they're supposed to do. If we knew what the Wellings wanted to do with them, we could, I don't know, beat them to the punch. How do we know what they are and what they do anyway?"

"Because of my Aunt Nora's journals," Riley said. "She was pretty clear about the fact that locks both attract and bind the ghosts' power. And that the Wellings' whole plan was to weaponize that power against their enemies."

"And how did she know that?" Edison asked. "Because of what her family told her, from what they gleaned from clues the Wellings left behind? So, it's possible we don't really know what they do. Or at least, not everything that they do."

"She did write ‘multiple loops for multiple magical uses question mark' in her journal," Riley said. "So, what, we conduct experiments to see what the locks can do? That seems…ill-advised."

"Everything we've done since you've stepped on the island is technically ill-advised," Alice reminded her. "By the standards of most average people."

"Fair," Riley sighed. "So how would we even start?"

Caroline's expression was half grin, half grimace. "It's funny you should ask."

***

Standing outside in the darkened yard of Shaddow House, Caroline felt a little guilty for disrupting the elegant peace of the property. While it wasn't exactly well-tended vegetationwise, there were multiple statues from various mythologies arranged in a sort of sundial formation around a recently painted white gazebo. Cozy benches lined the inside of each octagonal angle of the gazebo, creating a reading space Caroline envied on a soul level.

"None of these statues are haunted, right?" Edison asked. They'd chosen a corner of the garden relatively obscured by Gray Fern Cottage. The last thing they needed was nosy non-Hoult neighbors seeing their activities over the fence. Weirdly enough, it was the first time they'd really had to worry about such a thing at Shaddow House.

"Not to my knowledge," Riley said as Alice clipped the disturbing canvas to a display easel they frequently used to examine artifacts. It was sort of weird they had a designated easel for ghost artifacts, but Caroline had learned not to question this sort of thing. "I think one of the prewar Dentons wanted to give us a place to go without ghostly company—which was thoughtful of them. So, what do we have here, Caroline?"

Caroline adjusted her stance on her crutches to approach the easel. "So, before you yell at me about mistreating historical artifacts, Edison, I didn't know I was going to be handling this, so I did the best I could."

Edison looked affronted, his face shifting pale under the full summer moon. "I don't…yell. I talk…emphatically."

All three women gave him a bemused look. Edison added, "I talk emphatically…at a louder than average volume… OK, but it's just about this one thing!"

Riley burst out laughing and kissed him. Behind them, Plover made an aggravated huffing noise from the kitchen door. He and Natalie had to watch the proceedings from there, as the magic of Shaddow House kept them inside.

"OK, so this is a painting that we found hidden under another painting at the bar," Caroline said, waving toward the purple-dress ghost's stern younger visage. Riley, Edison, and Alice winced in unison.

"Yeah, she's a piece of work," Caroline agreed. "And even less pleasant in person. As far as I knew, the place wasn't haunted. But it's her portrait. The ghost is definitely the older version of her, but her whole persona feels faked somehow, like she's not as old as she looks, not as sad and sick. Her voice doesn't sound right. It's got layers to it, like some badly mixed demo tape. And since I started seeing her around the same time as the dreams started, I think the two issues are connected."

"What dreams?" Alice asked. "I thought you only had that dream once after the accident."

"Yeah…it's more a nightly show inside my head," Caroline admitted.

"Caroline!" Riley exclaimed. "We don't keep things like that from each other! That was the agreement!"

"I know, I know." Caroline nodded. "But I was still processing everything, and I felt like I was going crazy after the accident, and with Ben in town, and I've just been so scattered. And since the dreams weren't waking you up, too, I figured it was just a psychological thing. And I didn't want to bother you with it if it was all in my head."

Riley threw her arms around Caroline, quickly followed by Alice. Edison stood on the periphery, awkwardly patting Caroline's shoulder.

"You're never bothering us," Riley said. "That's the point of this whole thing. We're in it together, or it's dangerous and scary and it doesn't work. So, if something wakes you up in the middle of the night and you're scared, you call us."

"If you see a creepy ghost in a place you've never seen one before, you call us," Alice said.

"If you and Ben hook up again, you call us," Riley said. "Because we're going to need details."

"I would like to be left out of that call," Edison noted. "I do not need the details."

Laughing, the hug broke, and they separated to examine the painting. There was no artist's name scribbled on the back or the bottom corners, which seemed unusual. The painting was also lacking a date and the name of the subject—which would have been super helpful. Edison guessed from the style and the clothing that it was late 1700s to early 1800s, which told them relatively little as that was a big boom period for the island's colonization.

"So, um, can you make her talk to you?" Riley asked. "Because I'm not feeling a lot of ‘ghost energy' coming off the painting, like I normally do with our, uh, guests. It's just sort of residue, like a dish that wasn't washed properly."

"That was one coffee cup and I said I was sorry," Edison sighed. Alice snorted.

Caroline shook her head. "She only seems to talk to me at the bar."

"Well, let's see if we can force the issue." Riley disappeared inside the house and came back moments later with a Welling lock. Plover and Riley both seemed to brace themselves as she walked out of the kitchen door.

"Plover, any change?" she asked over her shoulder.

Plover attempted to push his hand through the kitchen doorway but was blocked by an invisible magical wall. He shook his head.

"Feels normal to me!" Natalie told them.

"So…removing one of the locks from the house doesn't release a thousand-plus ghosts onto the island, good to know," Riley said.

"Is that one of those things that we should have tested on the fly?" Alice asked.

"Probably not," Riley admitted. "And we should probably do this as quickly as possible before some Welling heir senses a disturbance in the universal energy that only seems to be detected by dedicated assholes, or something."

"So what do we do?" Caroline asked. "Shake the lock at it until some demon face appears in the paint?"

Riley poured a careful line of salt in a near-perfect circle around the easel and the lock. "Well, I've been reading up, and I think the closest thing we could do would be a ‘summoning.' Basically, we try to force the spirit to materialize in front of us, in the circle."

Riley spent a few minutes reviewing the hand gesture necessary to complete the ritual, a pinched position of the right hand, drawn toward the chest. If it had been a shadow puppet, their hands might have looked like a bird's head. The three of them took their places outside the circle and took some clearing breaths. They made the drawing gesture and…nothing.

They tried again. Caroline focused on listening to her sisters' breathing, on the cool wind on her cheeks, and the light shining down on them. They made the gesture again and the lock sort of jolted on the grass. But the ghost lady didn't materialize, and the painting was unaffected.

"Well, that's something," Alice said, frowning.

They repeated the drawing gesture and the lock rose from the ground, nearly to eye level. It seemed to glow, first red and then bright-yellow symbols stood out against the copper. The lock dropped to the ground and where it had levitated, a little pinhole light had formed.

"Oh," Caroline said, swallowing thickly. "What is that?"

The light expanded into a vortex the size of a grapefruit. Inside of it was…nothing. No light, no sound, no stars. It was a void, and it filled Caroline with a sense of dread so profound, she wanted to run from it, screaming. But she wouldn't leave Riley and Alice behind to deal with this.

Riley didn't seem concerned so much as repulsed. Alice was staring into that nothingness with her head tilted to the side. "I think it's a doorway. There's something on the other side. I don't know what it is, but it's not…good. But it doesn't have to be bad, I suppose?"

"I am getting a very different feeling," Edison said.

Riley nodded. "It wants us in there. And I don't like it."

"We feel little to no effect, Miss," Plover called from the house, sounding very confused.

"What do we do with it?" Caroline asked.

"Shove all the leftover dryer socks into it?" Alice suggested. When the others gave her a confused look, she huffed, "I'm allowed a little bit of whimsy, every once in a while."

"How do we close it?" Caroline asked.

"Well, the opposite of a summoning," Riley said, making the same ritual gesture backward, drawing away from herself. They followed her motions and the grapefruit reduced to an orange and then to nothing. The lock cooled and returned to a normal color. They followed Nora's instructions for properly closing a circle and cleaned up the salt.

"Maybe this is what happens when you try to use the locks on unhaunted objects? Or objects that have little ghostly dish spots on them?" Caroline suggested as they collapsed onto the gazebo benches with a bottle of wine.

Caroline sighed. "Well, the purple-dress lady didn't show up, and I'm a little relieved. I'm not sure what I would have done with the painting if she was attached to it. Burning it seems appropriate but mean. But I wonder if the portal would have been stronger if we had used a real attachment object?"

"It's something I'm not too eager to test at the moment, but it sounds like a valid theory," Riley said. She was nestled into Edison's side, looking very tired. "And I wonder why the Wellings dragged my family into this whole mess, the construction of the house, any of it…"

"Money," Caroline said. "Money makes the world go round, and there doesn't seem to be a spell to create it. Alchemy seems to be a bust. Plus—if a haunted object makes the locks work harder—your family had the trove of haunted antiques they needed to power whatever they're planning to do with the locks."

"Maybe the whole thing was a setup," Riley said. "It seems like an awfully big coincidence that the Wellings just happened to be heading to this tiny island at the same time. The Dentons had to have a reputation in the ghost community, right? People knew they had cash. Maybe the Wellings targeted them."

"Also a valid theory, but not particularly helpful to have hindsight. A more pertinent question: What do you think this new development means about the ghost locks?" Alice asked. "What were they meant for?"

"Besides ghostly world domination?" Riley considered. "Thinning the veil between the two worlds. Making death itself not work anymore so we're all just stuck wandering the planet with no reprieve in sight?"

"Well, that's bleak," Caroline snorted as a light clicked on upstairs at Gray Fern Cottage. "Oh, um, something else I forgot to mention… Mina can see ghosts. And given that I feel the same sort of electric buzz around her that I felt around you two, I think maybe she could have magic, too. Maybe Josh; I'm not sure. Mostly, he seems to hear things."

"Oh, sure, that makes sense," Riley said, nodding absently. Suddenly, she sat up. "Wait, what?"