A Haunting Midlife (Witching After Forty #3) - Lia Davis Page 0,4

brow. “Don’t touch the A/C. There are blankets in the hall closet and a slew of warm clothes upstairs. Layers.” My emotions had triggered my hot flashes. Then again, at my age simply waking up triggered my hot flashes. And sometimes I woke up in the throes of one without doing anything to cause it.

As I moved deeper into the house, I got a strong sense of being watched. I climbed the stairs to the main floor while Wallie took Zoey downstairs. He'd pretty much taken over the entire downstairs when he was in junior high.

As I stood in the upstairs living room, I turned around, looking for the source of the odd vibe. Then a warm sensation flowed over me, and I swore I smelled Clay’s cologne for just a moment. Okay, so that was just crazy. It was the grief that made me sense him. Being here for the first time in several months, all the memories of our life together. It had definitely been a good one.

Yeah. It was the grief causing me to feel like Clay was about to walk through the door any second.

I went to the kitchen not thinking about how I'd seen my mother’s ghost a few weeks ago. It isn’t possible that Clay would be there. Not possible at all. If he was here, I would've sensed him years before.

Opening the fridge, I nodded at nobody in particular. It was empty. Just like I'd left it in October. “Pizza it is,” I mumbled and shut the refrigerator door. I'd meant to send Uncle Wade some money to buy a few staples for the week but had forgotten. I'd also gotten way too used to Alfred handling it all. He usually made a list and either put in an order for delivery or sent Owen to the store.

They were spoiling me. To be fair, I was providing them a place to live and food to eat. And for dead things—undead things?— they sure did eat a lot. Not to mention the entertainment. They'd talked me into upgrading the internet service because Zoey had introduced Alfred and Larry to something called Tik-Tok and they wanted fast upload speeds. Apparently, they were trending.

It was already late afternoon, and I'd skipped lunch, not to mention I never got my nap. At the moment, my stomach was letting me know all about that mistake. The combo of sleepiness and hunger was threatening to make me grumpy. Maybe even hangry.

“I gave Zoey the tour,” Wallie called from the living room.

“Great.” I brought up the app for the local pizzeria and placed an order for two larges with the works, then at the last second changed it to three. Leftovers were always a good thing.

I'd never taken the app off my phone. Once we were finished here, it would be time to delete all the local apps. I had no plans to return since I'd had Clay cremated. His urn waited, still, in the living room for me to figure out when and where I wanted to spread them.

As a necromancer, even though at the time I hadn't been a practicing necromancer, I wouldn't ever bury a loved one. I'd proven even an old skeleton could be animated by someone powerful enough.

But then, once I had Clay's ashes, I hadn't been able to bring myself to actually do anything with them. Instead, he'd gone over the fireplace to watch over Wallie and me.

I didn’t bother with asking Zoey what she liked. The child could eat all of us under the table and didn’t seem picky about anything. The fact that Zoey, Snooze, his girlfriend Lucy, and now Larry could eat food mystified me. Technically, they were undead. I'd animated each of them at one point or another.

Ghouls. Kind of. If Alfred would let me cut his strings, no doubt he'd join in on the nosh fest as well.

After I placed the pizza order, I stared into the kitchen and breathed out a long, drawn-out sigh. With a flick of my hand, I opened all the cabinets at once to inspect the contents. Not much. Long shelf-life type stuff, like soups. I didn't have the energy to start this. I flicked my wrist again and shut the doors.

Wade had dropped off bubble wrap and boxes, they were piled in the laundry room off the kitchen. But I was too tired from the flight and being up all night to start packing.

A knock pulled me from my haze. Before I got