I sit in this chair but not fall through it, yet can’t grab the teacup?”
Nobody answered.
“We could convert the living room into a bedroom,” Olivia said. She didn’t live here, but she was here often enough to think she had a vote.
Heck, I didn’t mind her voting. “That could work. We can entertain in the kitchen.”
Owen shook his head. “No, we need somewhere to hold coven meetings.”
Drew held up a finger. “Won’t he need somewhere light tight?”
Oh, darn. We lapsed into silence, trying to figure it out. “Maybe we can rent a house nearby?” I asked.
Wallie snapped his finger. “The basement! We’ll renovate it. I mean, we have magic. We can even dig out and give him his own entrance so it’s like a little apartment down there.”
Nodding, I grinned at my son. “I love that idea.”
Everyone seemed in agreement, so I slapped my hand down on the table. It went right through the wood. “It’s agreed. We’ll renovate the basement.”
The house began to rumble under our feet. Everyone jumped up and looked around in a bit of a panic. “Is that an earthquake?” I asked.
But then the wall behind the table began to… There was no other way to explain it. It grew.
“What is happening?” Drew asked, his voice shaking from the vibrations in the house. The shaking intensified, nearly taking me off my feet. Drew threw his arms around me and helped steady me. “Thanks,” I whispered as the rumbling quieted.
We all took stock of the room. “This room is bigger.” I studied the wall. “And looks kind of great. Where else?”
“I’ll look downstairs,” Sam said.
Wallie pointed upstairs. “I’ll check up.”
I peeked out and studied the deck. It was definitely a lot longer. When I turned around, Sam was emerging from the basement stairs. “Uh, it’s exactly like we described it.” He scratched his head. “With the walkout and everything. Winston even dug out a little dirt path leading up to the basement door.”
Wallie bounded down the stairs. “There’s an extra bedroom upstairs on either side of the hall!”
Larry grinned broadly. “Yes! Finally, I can stop sharing with Alfred.”
As we exchanged amazed glances, Lucy ambled in the open back door. “Hey, you were asking about a blonde ghost?”
I nodded. “Yeah?”
She stopped and licked her paw four times before licking her lips, then speaking. “She’s out back.”
Chapter Twenty
We bolted out the back door. Everyone let me go first, but I got the sense that they were all fighting behind me, each of them trying to get out first. It occurred to me that Sam, Olivia, and Drew could just go through the walls, but I didn’t wait to see what they did. I just kept going.
As soon as I hit the deck, I saw her. She stood out by the cliffs, staring at the ocean with her blonde hair billowing on the breeze. “Mom,” I whispered.
She was too far away to have heard me, yet she turned to face me when I said her name. I ran as fast as I could toward her.
The ghost world, the in-between, whatever it was called, didn’t save me from being a little too heavy and a little too old to be running full tilt. I was going to regret these shin splints later. As I hurried across the grass, I lamented the fact that I couldn’t heal myself. Stupid obscure magical rule I didn’t understand. Zoey had healed me while in tiger form. Maybe that would work again.
“Oh, Ava,” Mom said as I reached her.
This time, we were on the same plane and this time, I knew if I touched her, I could make her solid. I flew into her arms with a cry of relief to finally be in my mother’s embrace after all these years.
“How are you here?” I asked with my face buried in her hair. “Why are you in this place?”
“I’m trapped here, but I’m not sure why.” Mom looked around as if looking for something or someone.
Trapped? In the in-between? “I don’t understand.” Then I knew. Or I had a guess. It had something to do with the curse that killed her. Bevan Magnus had hated my mother enough to add a little something extra in her curse. Like a restless afterlife.
“Darling, I’m being stalked here. I can’t stay in one place for too long.” She looked around worriedly. “You’ve got to get out of here. You’re lucky it hasn’t found you yet.”
Pulling back, I grabbed her shoulders and looked into her green eyes. “What is it?