Chapter 9 Ben

Chapter 9

Ben

After an early evening dinner, Ben left Mina and Josh at home to indulge in a bit of solitude as he walked out the door of Gray Fern Cottage. Yes, he'd done it at the suggestion of his daughter, but he was pretending that it was his idea. Because she was usually right about this sort of thing in a way that was preternaturally annoying.

Still, it was so pleasant out here at night, so quiet. No patients. No ringing phone. No anthill-style foot traffic. No teenagers—as much as he loved them to the very marrow of their bones—who argued viciously over snack foods. He could think , string a few thoughts together, even.

He pointed his feet toward the Wiltons' corner of the island. Caroline was supposed to be home—but given the upheaval at the Rose and her family's tendency to find work for her—who knew? He wanted a moment with her, just one moment uninterrupted by teenagers or rude customers or magic.

Magic.

Caroline was a witch. Magic was real. Ghosts were real. And in a weird way, it gave him more hope for the world. Because there was more out there for them than just hard, cold science. At the same time, there were much scarier things in the world than what even his careful series of parental lectures could prepare his kids for—scarier than Ben could even imagine. It was a double-edged nightmare.

He could hardly wrap his head around it. And because he rarely got to see Caroline alone—thanks to her schedule, his schedule, the kids' needs—he couldn't talk to her about it. He didn't want his kids to know just yet, if Caroline chose to share with them. He got the impression that her family didn't know, which seemed smart on her part.

He'd resented her for so long, blamed her for limiting herself, for being afraid to leave the island because there were a few unfortunate accidents in her family. And the whole time, she'd been under a very real threat. Every memory, every argument they'd had back then, every moment she'd seemed cold on his visits home, took on a different tone. She wasn't afraid, she was a hostage. And yeah, his feelings were still real, but if he'd only known…

Well, he wasn't sure it would have changed his response to finding his former flame being dropped into a wheelbarrow outside Shaddow House with her injured ankle propped up on some improvised pool-noodle contraption.

"I just want to say, for the record, that this is humiliating," Caroline was saying as they loaded her into a wheelbarrow.

"But we padded it," Edison replied.

"I knew I shouldn't have told you about Ben's threat," Caroline groused. "Somebody's gonna see me wheeled through town like a sack of potatoes."

Alice stuffed another pillow behind Caroline's back. "If we thought we could do this on one of Mitt's pedal cabs, we would."

"Plus, we would have to explain why we were going out there," Riley told her. "And that would be confusing for more people."

"Um, what are you doing?" Ben asked.

All of them startled, looking almost guilty when they turned around to find Ben staring at them. They were dressed in hiking clothes—even Caroline, whose hiking boot wasn't quite laced tight over her still-tender foot. But it was way too late in the day to be heading into the woods.

"Going for a walk?" Caroline suggested, her smile bright.

"You're in a wheelbarrow," Ben said, noting the rusty garden conveyance. "It's not even a new one."

"In our defense, you gave us this idea," Alice told him.

Seemingly eager to change the subject, Caroline asked, "Um, Ben, what are you doing here?"

Ben held up a small travel medical bag. Mina had handed it to him as she practically shoved him out of the house after dinner. "Mina suggested I go for a walk…and she knew I would eventually end up walking toward your house, because she's basically a criminal profiler given her TV-watching habits… Did she know you were going out here tonight?" When most of the group nodded, he gasped. "She tricked me. My own flesh and blood, the betrayal!"

"Aw, she's trying to Parent Trap you!" Riley said, grinning. "Wait, would Parent Trapping them involve a group activity?"

"Teenagers rarely do anything alone," Ben informed her. "Trust me, group gatherings are one of their better impulses."

"That was a pretty flimsy story," Edison noted.

"Yeah, I'm really gonna have to put more effort into questioning her," Ben muttered. "I've let my guard down since we moved to a relatively low-risk location."

"You live next door to one of the most haunted houses in the world," Riley noted.

"We moved from Arizona. Rattlesnakes and scorpions," Ben explained, shrugging. The others nodded as if they understood. That was comforting. This was nice, spending time with other adults. He didn't have time for a lot of socializing before. His coworkers wanted to talk about work, when he certainly got enough of that at the hospital. And his ex… She never seemed to like spending much time with him in general. And if these people wanted to talk about ghost stuff or whatever weird activity they had planned, well, his schedule was pretty open.

"So, is this secret Shaddow Society business or something?" he asked.

"Oh, that's an interesting title for our little group," Alice said, grinning at him. "The Shaddow Society."

"I still think ‘Shaddow House Ghost and Friday Night Euchre Club' is a perfectly valid name," Riley said as they pushed the wheelbarrow along the path into the woods. Ben just…followed. They didn't object, so he supposed he was welcome.

"We don't even play euchre!" Caroline sighed as she settled back into the wheelbarrow, as if resigned to her fate.

"So, it will throw the Wellings off of our trail," Riley shot back, making Caroline laugh.

It took them relatively little time to cross the island, considering they had to push Caroline uphill in a few spots on the dirt path. The sun had just set when they approached Vixen's Fall. The place wasn't as creepy as Ben remembered it. He'd only made the trek out here once as a kid, and that had been on a dare, proving his nerve by tempting the angry seductress ghost to grab at his ankles. He'd gotten within a foot of the cliff for about three seconds before dashing back to the "safe" spot of the Crown rock formation. He was lucky his idiot friends hadn't shoved him over the edge.

"This is not good for your ribs," Ben told her as Caroline hissed at a bump in the trail. He was pushing her, giving Edison a break for a while. Edison had dashed ahead, pointing out some ridge in the distance that served as an important lighthouse location a hundred years before.

"I'm fine," Caroline insisted. "And it's good for us to get out of the house every once in a while, as much as it might hurt Plover's feelings."

"Plover seems a little bossy for a dead guy," Ben observed.

"Eh, he was a patriarch in need of a family," Caroline said, smiling fondly up at Ben. "We're his ladies, and he worries about us, which seems reasonable. At least more reasonable than Charles."

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Ben said.

"Slightly histrionic Regency-era gentleman attached to the silverware of the beloved wife who poisoned him," Caroline replied. "He's sweet but a little high-strung."

Edison's enthusiastic footfalls slowed as they approached the cliff face. His shoulders stiffened, and Riley slipped her hand around his and squeezed. Vixen's Fall was sadder than he remembered, the shadows deeper.

"Is he OK?" Ben whispered.

"Um, Edison has a pretty severe fear of water," Caroline told him quietly. "He saw his fiancée die in a boating accident."

"But he lives on an island," Ben noted.

"Yeah, he knows," Caroline said. "It's OK as long as he doesn't look at the water."

Edison hung back as Alice and Riley got closer to the Crown, studying it. Ben pushed the wheelbarrow as close as he was comfortable and helped her stand.

"Um, what do I do?" Ben asked.

"You can stay back here with me," Edison offered from his position down the hill. Ben supposed it was easier not to see the water back there. The two of them watched the women stand in a circle, breathe, and work through some hand motions Ben didn't entirely understand.

"It can be sort of emasculating, not having magic, when you're in love with a witch," Edison observed. "The ladies put themselves at risk to protect the living, and we're sort of relegated to a sidekick position. But, it's still rewarding. And Riley is so happy. It makes it worth it."

"Well, Caroline and I aren't…it's complicated," Ben said, much to Edison's amusement, apparently, given the way the man was smirking at him.

Suddenly, Ben heard Caroline gasp and turned his attention to her. She was standing stiffly, with Riley and Alice gripping her wrists. Ben supposed that made him feel better, considering her proximity to a fifty-foot drop.

"What is happening to her?" Ben asked.

Edison didn't seem particularly upset, which Ben found some comfort in. "Um, she's probably having a vision. Or maybe a ghost is possessing her. Either or, really."

Ben looked to Edison, aghast.

"It's probably fine," Edison assured him.

Ben inched closer. "I'm just gonna…yeah."

He raced up to Caroline's side, feeling only a little insulted when Alice and Riley moved protectively around her. Caroline's eyes were rolled back, so only the whites were visible. Her breathing was steady, but Alice and Riley wouldn't let him get close enough to take a pulse.

"Let's get her a little farther away from the edge," Riley murmured. Alice nodded and finally moved away so Ben could curl his hand around Caroline's wrist. The touch of her skin seared , a wretched sizzle against the palm of his hand. She gasped and turned her hand so she was holding his arm. He didn't know if this was magic or nerves or guilt, but it burned . Riley and Alice pulled their hands away, and Caroline threw her arms around Ben. He wasn't prepared for it, and their weight shifted back, falling to the ground in front of the Crown rocks.

"Ow," Caroline grunted into his chest. She was on top of him, glaring down at him with one eye while the other was clamped shut in pain. "I thought we were worried about my ribs."

"Are you OK?" he demanded, propping her against the center rock of the Crown.

She nodded slowly, but said, "No. Another Technicolor reenactment of the mystery lady's death. I still don't know if it was the purple-dress ghost, but given the whole youthful hope thing the victim had going… I doubt it?"

"Did you hit your head?" Ben asked, eyeing the rock behind them.

"It's a long story," Alice told him as they helped Caroline up. Immediately, Ben missed the warm weight of her, but it seemed inappropriate to bring that up now. They maneuvered her back to the wheelbarrow.

"Anything new?" Riley asked.

Caroline shook her head. "I kind of thought if the purple-dress ghost was gonna, I don't know, reach out, now that she's talked to me, it would be here. But it was just more of the same. And even though I concentrated really hard on trying to see the face of whoever was pushing me off the cliff—that still really sucks, even when you know you're not going to die, by the way—they were wearing some dark-colored cloak with a hood over their face. It's kind of impressive, being able to commit murder with obscured line of sight."

As they began trundling Caroline home, Ben quietly asked Edison, "Eventually, this is all going to feel less weird, right?"

Edison pursed his lips. "No."

***

To his credit, Edison tried to explain as much as he could to Ben on the walk back, the history between the Wellings and the Dentons, Riley discovering her magic, the locks.

As they approached Shaddow House, Ben noticed a large, fluffy, gray hound staring up at the house with its head cocked to the side. Caroline asked, "Do you think Mimi can see the ghosts? She seems to spend a lot of time staring at your house. Should we call Iggy?"

"Probably," Riley said, scratching behind Mimi's ears. "She's just angry my house is the one building on the island she hasn't been able to get into."

"Mimi will not be contained," Caroline said, nodding sagely. "Um, also…there seem to be a lot of lights on in the house."

"And there are people moving around inside," Alice said.

Riley groaned. "Aw, man, not again! How many times can my house get broken into?"

The whole group paused as a pop song suddenly blared out of Shaddow House. It was muffled, but Ben recognized the cheerful bubblegum tune from the many, many, many rotations on the cross-country road trip playlist. "Oh…no."

Ben raced up the steps to Shaddow House, and through the front door's glass, he saw his children standing inside, unsupervised. And Plover was standing there looking very proud of himself.

Oh, no.

The front door swung open…by itself. Ben would take time to process that later.

"Kids, what are you doing in here?" Ben asked.

He took the "parent minute" to count all of their limbs, fingers, and toes—and then checked their surroundings for broken valuables. Nope, all the extremities were there, and no antiquities appeared to have been damaged. There was, however, a slightly creepy little girl ghost in an old-fashioned nightgown staring at him from the stairs. A male ghost in a dark-blue cutaway Regency-era coat seemed to be pacing in front of the fireplace. And a ghost woman in a modern sweater set peered at them from the kitchen, ducking her head back in the door as soon as she realized Ben could see her.

His children were fine. In fact, they were smiling, but looking a little sheepish. And Plover appeared to be very pleased with himself.

Riley asked, "How did you get in?"

"Well, we thought we saw someone walking around in your house," Josh said. "And that didn't make sense, and we were worried. But then we thought, maybe it was that Clark guy—"

"Who I still don't like that much," Mina added. "Because Dad warned us about him being an enormous douchebag."

Josh added, "So we went into your backyard to see if we could get a closer look."

"Not to confront a burglar, Dad, we know better than that. We just wanted to see who it was before we called the cops, so we could give them a description," Mina said. "But when we got to the back door, it sort of unlocked itself and swung open."

"Which we found to be weird," Josh said. "Considering there was no one standing in the kitchen."

"They could have been hiding behind the door," Caroline noted. "Waiting to smack you over the head with something heavy."

The rest of the room's occupants turned to her, ghosts included, grimaces on display. Caroline added, "You try being a woman who comes home to an empty house at night and see what thoughts regularly occur to you."

"Oh, yeah, that's a good point," Mina said, frowning. "Before you get too mad, Dad, I would remind you that the parts of our brain that assess risk and consequences have not finished developing yet."

Ben groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. That part of the lecture, they heard…of course.

"So we walked in—" Mina said.

"Because we just wanted to make sure everything was OK," Josh assured Riley.

"And Plover was there," Mina said.

"I disagreed with his decision to let himself be seen or allow them inside," the man in the blue coat clarified. "I'm sure they're lovely children, once you become acquainted with them. But they're so loud and a little excitable. But ultimately, the house seems to approve."

"Really, Charles?" Mina scoffed. " We're excitable?"

"I like them!" the lady ghost yelled from the kitchen.

"Thank you, Natalie!" Josh called over his shoulder. "You're pretty cool, too!"

"I wanted to simplify Miss Caroline's life, wherever possible," Plover said, smiling fondly at her.

"Not really sure that's what this accomplished…" Caroline said, shaking her head.

Plover continued as if she hadn't spoken. "As the staff, that is my job. Not having to hide her nature from the children would accomplish that, since Dr. Hoult is obviously going to be part of Miss Caroline's life. I knew neither Miss Riley nor Miss Caroline would violate their promise to protect Shaddow House's secrets, so I decided to take a more proactive approach."

"By letting strangers into the house?" Riley asked. "No offense, kids."

"None taken," Josh replied.

"Did I know that the young lady would also be a practitioner of the Denton magic? I had some inkling, but not entirely, no. However, it seems like a welcome and very convenient side effect," Plover said.

"Is it normal, that magic just shows up all of the sudden for a kid who has never even expressed interest in it?" Ben asked, his voice squeaking.

"As normal as it was for Caroline and me," Alice said. "It's one of those ‘magic chooses the user' things that we probably won't ever fully understand. Riley needed helpers and so we received magic. Maybe the magic has decided she needs more help. Or maybe there's a family connection between the Hoults and the Dentons a couple of generations back that sort of smoothed the way, genetically speaking."

"Oh! That would be cool!" Mina said, her eyes bright with excitement. "I could call you ‘Aunt Riley!'"

"I don't hate it," Riley said, shaking her head.

"I think we're supposed to be here," Josh said. "I've had this gut feeling since we got here that this is where our family belongs. Like…everything just makes more sense."

"I know what you mean," Mina said. "I've been feeling it, too. It's kind of like a special tingle I've never felt before."

"Ew, Mina!" said Josh.

"Not like that." Mina rolled her eyes, then raised her hand and a coaster flew off the nearby table. "Like that."

Riley blinked. "Um, I wasn't able to do that, not with that sort of control, until I'd been here a while. Wow."

"It only works on the haunted stuff, though," Mina observed, sounding annoyed.

"The coaster is haunted?" Ben asked, brow furrowing.

"By the ghost of a housewife who was extremely protective of her furniture," Mina said, nodding.

"I've been using it for months, putting my ciders on it," Caroline muttered. "Aw, now I feel bad."

Mina continued, "Josh doesn't seem to have ‘direct' magic like I do, but his hearing is weirdly receptive. He could hear ghosts on the other side of the house that I couldn't, which seems fair. He's always been the listener, between the two of us."

"I wasn't sure of what I was hearing, but it's good to know I wasn't, you know, losing it," Josh said. "Plover and the gang are the first ones I've seen."

Ben recalled the voices he heard from Shaddow House as a teenager, the laughter, and he wondered whether this was something Josh inherited from him.

"It sort of makes sense, when you consider that—even with the male members of the family practicing and seeing ghosts in the past—the Denton magic seems to be matrilineal, or at least, female-focused," Alice said. "The house, the magic, is making up its own rules out of necessity."

"It's been a little scary," Josh confessed. "But I can block them out, if I concentrate hard enough."

"On his first day ?" Riley gasped.

"In your defense, kids grow up faster these days," Caroline assured her.

Josh shrugged. "It's like music: when I don't like the sound of one part of a composition, I just don't see it or hear it. Drove my violin teachers nuts."

"Should I be offended that the kids seem better at this than I am?" Riley asked Plover. "Honestly, I'm a little bit offended."

"In my experience with the Dentons, younger practitioners always have an easier time adjusting to their newfound abilities than those who found their magic later in life," Plover assured her.

"And now, how do you feel?" Riley asked kindly. "It can be a lot. And you two have already got the whole teenage angst thing going on."

"It's…better?" Mina said. "It's sort of comforting to know that everything can't be explained. Because that means everything is knowable, and I'd rather that not be true? I mean, I have magic. I can do stuff. I don't know what yet, but it's going to be awesome ."

"And I'm OK with just the hearing stuff, because honestly, everything else seems like…a lot," Josh said. "Besides, you've always said you were just waiting to find that thing you were good at. Clearly, this is it."

"Not quite the thing I was picturing," Mina said. "Hard to put ‘ghost whisperer and part-time witch' on a college application."

"Maybe with the right college," Josh told her, nodding solemnly.

Riley grinned and wrapped an arm around Mina. "Welcome to the Shaddow House Ghost and Friday Night Euchre Club, kiddo."

"Still not the name," Caroline told her.

Josh shrugged. "It's still not as weird as the hair I've got showing up in unexpected places, so…yeah it's fine."

"Ew, Josh!" Mina said, shaking her head at him.

Josh jerked his shoulders.

Riley glanced up at Ben. "As long as your parent and guardian approves of you joining said club, because I don't want to contribute to the delinquency of a minor."

"I-I, wha…?" Ben moved his hands helplessly as he managed to reach a heretofore unknown level of panic. "What does this mean? I mean, the puberty era, I could handle, sort of. But this, I can't buy a book to help me explain this…or one that will explain it to me."

"Ew, Dad," Josh grumbled.

"That depends on which bookstore you go to," Mina added.

"I can't tell you that it's not dangerous," Caroline sighed. "After all, we're trying to protect the house from a rival magical family that's trying to steal secret artifacts so they can use the ghosts for their own ends."

Mina looked absolutely thrilled at the very idea of this sort of intrigue. "Really?"

"I think I like you," Alice murmured. "You're a little bit of chaos in a bottle, aren't you?"

Mina wriggled her eyebrows.

Oh, no. Mina had found like-minded souls. Ben knew this day would come.

"I can tell you that no member of my family, to my knowledge, has died from their interactions with ghosts," Riley said. "The Dentons died off from what seems like pervasive fear of commitment. Sorry, Plover."

"Your aunt made ‘commitments' to me in every way she could," Plover said.

"Really?" Josh marveled. "Way to go, Plover."

Josh held his fist up for a bump. Plover just stared at him.

"I can't keep them from this, can I?" Ben asked.

Caroline shook her head and looked a little sad. "Probably not. But we won't teach them anything you're uncomfortable with. I can't leave the island, but your kids… I don't think the same rules apply. If you wanted to take them away from here, I wouldn't blame you. I just don't know what it would do to them, physically, emotionally. We didn't give them magic intentionally, I swear. The island, the magic, whatever it is, it's a wild card."

"It's still pretty cool to get picked," Mina said.

For a moment, Ben's heart caught. Mina's gifts were finally quantifiable. She couldn't necessarily use it to get the attention she deserved, but she was special. And she knew it. There were people who would recognize it and value her for it, but also simply because she was Mina—sassy mouth, Pop-Pie issues, bright colors, and all. She'd found like-minded souls…and Ben had been right to be terrified of this eventuality.

Ghosts. Freaking ghosts .

"Magic chooses the user," Riley said. "I'm not sure why it chose you, Mina. And I'm not sure why your hearing is so sensitive, Josh. But there has to be a reason. There's something you can do that the house or the universe or whatever bureau of ridiculousness that oversees these things has decided you need to do."

"You're making us sound terribly disorganized," Alice noted.

"If there's one thing the Shaddow House Ghost and Friday Night Euchre Club is, it's disorganized," Riley said.

"Still not the name," Caroline said.

"I kind of like it," Mina said.

Josh agreed. "Me, too."

"Do they get a vote?" Caroline asked.

The corners of Alice's mouth pulled back. "Yeah, I think the magic pretty much guarantees they do."

"We're also going to be in charge of music choices from here out," Mina informed Riley.

"Oh, no." Riley looked aghast. "Plover, what hath thou wrought?"

Plover shrugged. "It's not so bad, really."