smile.
“I didn’t realize you could actually see spirits, though. You never told me that part,” Marty said, studying me.
“Well, it’s not something I like to advertise.”
“They don’t even have to be trying to show themselves?” Marty asked.
“No. I can see them all the time.”
“Wow, that’s… incredible.” There was an almost hungry edge to his expression. Fiercely joyful, like he’d just discovered the game he was playing had bonus levels. “Can you talk to them? Interact with them? Can they talk to you?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
Marty beamed at me. “You could be… an incredible addition to our team, Poppy.”
“Absolutely,” RJ agreed as he nodded and looked at Marty, then at Henner.
I held up my hands. “Before you get any ideas, I promised Finn I wouldn’t get involved with ghostly stuff ever again… not after what happened with the poltergeist in our last house.”
“You had a poltergeist in your last house?” RJ started.
I nodded and then took a deep breath. It looked like it was story time…
Chapter Fourteen
One Week Later
I was getting really sick of nightmares.
No matter how many potions I prepped before bed, meditations I attempted, or prayers I said aloud, the nightmares still came. Not every night, but with enough frequency that I was dragging badly during the day and remaining wakeful at night, dreading the moment when I’d have to close my eyes. Finn was beginning to notice the purple splotches under my eyes after so many nights of restless sleep.
At least he was happy, though.
The sweep of the house Marty, RJ and Henner had done revealed no other spirits in the vicinity. I’d even managed to smuggle the tampon box out of the bathroom during the search of the upper levels. I wasn’t sure if the box would set off the equipment or not.
I had to make Marty promise he wouldn’t help Finn find Darla’s pencil box (though I didn’t tell him that was the object she’d attached herself to) because I was fairly convinced Finn would ask him to do just that. At least, until I could convince Finn that Darla really was just harmless and there was no way she could bring Frank back.
I wasn’t sure if it was owing to the fact that Finn was new in town, without a dad or father figure, or that he was still worried about whether there could be ghosts in the house, but Marty, Henner and RJ had sort of taken him under their proverbial wings. There were many days when one or all three of them would come over to keep Finn company after school, if they didn’t have a ghost-hunting gig, that is.
Marty had happily offered to pick Finn up from school on more than one occasion, which Finn loved because the kids had all sorts of questions about Marty’s hearse. Then the two of them would play video games until it was dinner time, at which point I would make dinner for all three of us.
Henner, meanwhile, had drawn up a schematic worthy of MacGyver, vowing to create the ultimate drone for Finn, who was only too excited to help. RJ had even mentioned taking Finn camping in order to spot Big Foot, who supposedly lurked in the woods surrounding Haven Hollow. Like me, Finn seemed to think RJ’s obsession with Sasquatch was hilarious, but it didn’t stop him from keeping RJ company during his Big Foot expeditions.
So, yes, I was beyond grateful to the three men in our life for taking such an active interest in my son and, really, being the father figures he didn’t have. Of course, they were more like friends than father figures, each one completely boyish in his own way.
***
Marty’s first marketing slogan for my business made me snort a swig of lemon water up my nose because I started laughing so hard. Sitting at the table across from me, Marty frowned, his fingers flexing around the piece of glossy paper in minute irritation.
We were waiting for our lunch at a local sandwich place, not far from my shop.
“What’s so funny?”
I swiped at the tears steadily streaming from my eyes with one hand while using the other to point at the logo. He’d chosen one of the pink seven-knob candles I sold as inspiration for my logo.
Knob candles were exactly what they sounded like—a candle made of seven segmented, rounded parts, called ‘knobs’. In rituals, they could be used to grant seven different wishes or they could be used to grant one large wish. Either way, you were meant