7. Damian

Chapter seven

Damian

A s strange as my day had been, I don't think I'd actually absorbed what was happening until I saw the picture on my phone. I'd been working hard to convince myself it was all just a hoax or my mind was making stuff up to make sense of my circumstances, but then, someone cleaned up the broken vase.

Even the events at the magic store could be explained by sleight of hand, but that picture felt real. The old man was see-through. He also looked very put-upon, like you'd expect a butler to be, especially if he knew I was about to knock over a fancy piece of décor.

I guess if I wanted to, I could explain it away, but it felt more real than the rest of the stuff that'd happened, and it wasn't like I didn't have the gash on my finger to prove it.

Owen left shortly after I showed him the picture. I guess he was as weirded out as I was. Of course, Molly sat across from me the moment he was gone. "So, attorney guy is cute, totally your type."

"What do you think my type is?" I asked and glanced at the two guys I'd gone out with, one dressed Goth, the other covered in piercings and tattoos. Neither looked remotely like the other.

"Smaller than you, shy, easygoing."

I laughed. "Um, have you met Whisper and Peace?" I asked, referring to my exes, who were still leering at me from the table nearby.

Molly laughed. "They were never your type, and we both know it. You like the boy next door."

I shrugged. She wasn't wrong. Not that I'd dated many men who looked that way. My friends had always been in the alternative crowd. Whisper and Peace were more like the guys I'd dated since high school. I sipped my beer and wondered if maybe she was right, and Owen was my type.

"Okay, so spill, you said you inherited a bunch of stuff, but not how. What's all this about?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Listen, Molly, I'm not exactly sure. Like I told you before, this was all sprung on me today. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but I'm going to talk to Owen's bosses tomorrow. They set up the will and stuff. I should know more then."

"Okay, well, want company? I still have another day off before I go back to work. "

I thought about it for a moment before responding. Molly would sensationalize all this and likely cause me to get lost in the magical details of it. Right now, I felt like I needed to keep my head.

"No," I said and sighed. "I think I'd better take this one on by myself, but I did inherit a haunted house, or at least I think I did. Maybe you and the spooky kids want to come check it out with me if indeed it's mine."

Molly's face lit up like I'd just given her a million dollars. "Seriously, a real haunted house?"

I laughed, flipped my phone back on, and showed her the photo. "Is this evidence enough?"

"Shit," Molly said. "Yeah, that's pretty spooky shit."

I laughed as she took my phone and showed it to our friends. As usual, half of them accused me of creating a fake, the other half were ready to go meet the old butler ghost right then. When I finally got my phone back, I headed home for the night.

I walked into my dad's old apartment and sighed. It wasn't much. We'd never had a lot of money, and Dad had sold the tiny home we'd owned after Mom died, because it had cut his income in half.

I'd spent most of my life living in the small two-bedroom apartment, and honestly, I felt at home here. It wasn't the mansion with the magnificent windows and the scary butler ghost, but it'd always been mine. What did that mean? I don't know, but I was looking forward to tomorrow morning when I could get to the bottom of the whole thing.

If I'd actually inherited all this stuff, I could finally quit driving and focus on the things I'd wanted or at least thought I wanted before Dad got sick and I had to take on making money. That night I closed my eyes and dreamed of ghostly servants swarming around me.

In the dream, it felt so natural to have spirits tend to my needs, but when I woke up the next morning, only partially rested, I realized ghosts weren't natural at all. Nothing about my experience yesterday had been.