Chapter 25

He didn't quite know how to feel about his conversation with Bree. The words had just come out of him. That he'd…broken her. He scrunched up his face and moved faster, running but not running—floating quickly, maybe those were the right words—back toward the castle.

"You think you can get your new ghost friend to come visit us here?" Bree had asked.

"I can't read his mind, being a ghost doesn't work like that," Alan had grumped at her, but in the end, he'd agreed to ask Vesuvius if he'd come talk to Bree. Of course, that would have been all well and good but when he got close to the castle, right at the edge of it, he could go no further.

"What is this?" he barked, putting his hand against the unseen barrier. His hand skimmed across it, making a fine shower of sparks. It didn't hurt, but it did tingle.

"You can't get through."

He spun around to see a little girl in a white dress holding a multi-colored round sucker to her mouth.

"What?"

"You can't get through. It's a barrier to keep all of us out." She touched the barrier with her sucker, and another shower of sparks danced down.

"Shouldn't you be French?"

She shrugged. "We came here on a vacation from England. My sister drowned me."

He grunted. "I'm…sorry." Those two words felt strange on his lips. "So you were kicked out too?"

"My name is Phillipa. And yes, I was kicked out. We all were." She waved a hand behind her. "That's my mom over there."

A woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties stared straight at the castle. Her hair was disheveled. It might have been blonde at one point, but it was hard to tell. "What's wrong with her?"

"She doesn't like what my sister has done."

Alan looked at the little girl, Phillipa, and then at her mother. There was a resemblance to Bree, ever so slightly. Different noses, a wider forehead on the girl…he was no fool, he hadn't gotten through law school for not being able to put two and two together. "Is your sister by chance…Evangeline?"

Phillipa bobbed a curtsy. "Yes, sir. She is my younger sister, by only a few minutes. We are twins."

Evangeline had killed her own twin sister? The girl in front of him looked to be about thirteen, if he were to guess.

Other ghosts floated around the edge of the barrier that stood between them and the castle. Now that he was looking, he could clearly see them. "And all of these others? Where are they from? How did they end up here?"

"She killed them all," Phillipa said, her voice full of sorrow. "Tricked them. My mother found her…when she was killing me. So of course she had to die too."

Alan had seen a lot through his job, but this was…this was bad, even for his sensibilities. "Is there any way past the barrier?"

The little girl—Phillipa, he reminded himself—shook her head. "It's a one-way barrier. Once you are pushed out, you can't get back in."

"Damn." He thumped a fist against the invisible wall between him and the ghost he really needed to speak with.

"Why would you want to go back? Evangeline didn't kill you," Phillipa said.

"I need to speak with Vesuvius. The old man ghost," Alan put his hands on his hips and paced in front of the barrier. "He seems to understand what Evangeline is up to."

"I know what she's up to," Phillipa said quietly. "We all do."

He turned slowly to face her. "What do you mean?"

"We all know. That's why she got rid of us. She said…she said the person that could talk to ghosts was coming, and she didn't want any of us blabbing her secrets. I've been haunting her since she killed me. I know everything about her."

Alan's eyebrows shot up. "Everything?"

She smiled and bobbed a curtsy. "Of course, she's my twin. I am tied to her. I don't have a choice."

"Would you speak with…that person that Evangeline doesn't want you to talk with? The woman who can speak with ghosts?"

Phillipa looked over her shoulder at her mother. "I am not doing any good here. So yes, why not?"

She held her hand out to Alan. He paused but eventually gave her his arm. Her hand felt warm against his, as if they were both alive. "Well, then. I'd better tell you a little bit about Bree before you meet her."

"What could I need to know?"

"First off…we need to talk about her resemblance to Evangeline."

* * *