Yet, I promised myself. But, as soon as you can catch your breath, that’s your next to-do item.

  Henner was holding two other gadgets, one looked like an EMF meter, and I wasn’t sure what the other one was.

  A new man, who I could only assume was the mysterious RJ, had only his shapely posterior protruding from the interior of the oven. As he straightened, I saw the rest of him matched his strong backside and legs.

  RJ was tall. Six feet and change and probably two hundred pounds or so. Slap a hard hat and a sleeveless top on him, and he could have made a killing as a construction-themed exotic dancer.

  His shirt had three-quarter sleeves and showed off tanned forearms, covered in a layer of blond hair. He dusted his palms off, knocking a bit of filth free to float to the kitchen floor. Then he turned around to face us, and it was then that I realized he looked like he’d just stepped off a Viking ship from the middle ages. Square jaw, nice straight nose, big green eyes and a mane of thick, blond hair atop his head.

  When he spotted me in the doorway, he smiled, bright and sincere. “Hello there! You must be Poppy.”

  I took a step forward and held out my hand. “Yes, it’s nice to meet you!”

  “I’m RJ,” he answered and then disregarded my outstretched hand as he wrapped his arms around me in the beariest of all bear hugs, lifting me off the ground as if I didn’t weigh a thing.

  Then he seemed to remember he was filthy and plopped me back on the ground, stepping away with an embarrassed smile. “Darn... I forgot I was covered in dirt. Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to get you all dirty too.”

  “Oh, I’d love for him to get me dirty!” Darla purred as she blipped into existence, seemingly out of nowhere.

  Both Finn and I jerked in surprise, eyes darting her way until we could spy her near the coffered ceilings. She bobbed there like an unwelcome spectral balloon that had stayed long past its expiration date. She stared down at the assembled, mostly male crowd, like I’d sat her down in front of a smorgasbord. And she was right, sort of. There wasn’t a bad looking one in the bunch.

  I shot her a brief warning look before returning my gaze to the men in the kitchen. RJ was waiting expectantly, his smile wilting a little around the edges. Not immediately responding with an assurance was a breach of the social contract.

  “Sorry, I just uh… spaced off a little,” I answered with a smile. “I’m not worried about dirt,” I continued as I faced the stove. “But what exactly were you doing buried up to your waist in my stove?”

  RJ scrubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, smearing soot in a solid black line across his neck. “Marty actually called me in to see if I could take a look at your stove. He mentioned it was acting funny. I just so happen to be something of a handyman when it comes to appliances.”

  “Oh, well, I appreciate it very much. Thank you.” Then I looked over at Marty, who was already looking at me with a strange expression on his face—maybe one of admiration? I wasn’t sure. “Thank you,” I said, and he just gave me a quick nod.

  Darla had come to hover around RJ’s shoulder, stroking the swell of his arms. I twitched, but tried not to let the consternation show on my face. If he noticed her presence, it didn’t show. Most normal people were like that. They wouldn’t be able to see a ghost if it kicked them in the keister. Some people didn’t even notice cold spots.

  “Oh, I could just kiss him… all over!” Darla purred. “And I think I will.”

  And she did.

  I did my best to ignore her.

  “Thank you so much,” I said, facing RJ and trying my best to ignore Darla who was now weaving around him, her arms extended so she could feel every inch of him with her ghostly fingers. I noticed goosebumps cropping up on his skin and he glanced around himself a few times, as if he could tell something was going on. Guess he’d never been felt up by a ghost before. “What’s your hourly rate?”

  RJ waved my comment away with a small smile. “No charge. Marty says you’ll be helping us with some potions. That’s payment enough.”

  I nodded. “So RJ, what part do you play on this team? Besides fixing appliances?”

  “Well, I’m not just another pretty face,” he said with a big grin. His voice was deep and resonant.

  “RJ is way more than another pretty face,” Henner agreed.

  RJ smiled at him. Then he looked at me again as Darla continued to assault him. “I got a degree in comparative religion. Then I took it a step further and deep dived into the occult sciences, mythology, and conspiracy theories.”

  “Conspiracy theories?” I repeated.

  He nodded. “They’re not all bunk. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that all those cryptid stories are actually real. There are monsters out there in the…”

  Marty threw his elbow into RJ’s side and motioned to Finn. RJ grunted but he took the hint and didn’t finish his sentence. Finn was frightened of ghosts. I’d never get him to leave the house if he thought the lunch lady was a ghoul.

  “RJ’s also an aficionado on Big Foot,” Henner added.

  “You are?” I asked RJ.

  He nodded a few times. “Sure am.”

  “Big Foots are real?” Finn asked.

  “Of course!” RJ almost sang back to him. “I go on sasquatch expeditions every month or so.”

  “Have you ever seen one?” Finn asked.

  “More than once… at least I’m pretty sure I have.”

  “That’s so cool,” Finn said, smiling finally.

  “Oh, and look at this one,” Darla continued, oblivious to our conversation.

  She’d floated just behind Henner. And just like she’d done to RJ, she ran her hands over Henner’s chest, like she could feel him up through his clothes. I knew she couldn’t interact well with the mortal world, or at least that’s what she’d said. As a ghost, if you had enough power to manifest at all, you were still limited. She’d compared it to touching objects through a thick, wet towel. Apparently, she didn’t care at this point. Not that I could blame her, exactly. It had been over ninety years since she’d gotten any, and now she was surrounded with attractive men.

  Henner shuddered when she stroked the bare skin of his face. That meant he had to be, at least, a little sensitive to magical energy. Not that I was surprised—he had a witch in his family line. That meant he’d be more sensitive to things that went bump in the night than other humans would be.

  “Now, you stop that!” Henner muttered, and I was pretty sure he was addressing Darla.

  Hmm, interesting.

  Darla’s hands wandered even further south, crawling like pale spider legs down toward his groin. That was when I remembered I wasn’t the only one watching her. Finn could see her, as well.

  “Darla!” I snapped, glaring at the spot above Henner’s shoulder with a reproachful glower. It had to look like I was snapping at Henner. There went my reputation. “Stop it!”

  Finn had turned away with a cranberry-red blush, mumbling something about needing something from his bedroom. Then he fled. I was betting he was going to retrieve a banishing potion, if only to keep Darla away from the hunky men in the kitchen. At this point, I applauded his judgement. It did leave me alone in the room with RJ and Marty staring at me with clear questions on their faces. Henner looked unperturbed. It seemed to be his default state.

  “You can see the ghost?” RJ asked.

  “I... erm...” I began. Should I lie? No, that would probably make me look unhinged. And it wasn’t as though they weren’t going to believe me. It was just… I didn’t like most people to know the extent of what I could and couldn’t see and do. That subject was one of those things better kept to yourself—I’d learned that from experiences. I sighed. “Yes, I can see spirits.”

  “Can your son?” RJ asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, Finn can too. It’s a lingering trait from our Traveller blood.”

  “Yeah, Marty told us all about how you’re a gypsy and you’ve got special abilities,” RJ said with an impressed 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.”

  “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 to burn them, one knob at a time, for seven consecutive days.

  And the color of each candle varied, depending on the nature of the wish. Yellow was associated with success, green with money, red with passion and romance and pink with love.

  That wasn’t the part that was cracking me up. What I found so hysterical was that Marty had chosen the pink candle (decidedly the most… fleshy of the colors) and placed it against a black background, with the words ‘Seven Knobs for Seven Brothers’ as the slogan.

  “McFly, it looks… it looks like an advertisement for a gay musical porn!”

  Marty frowned down at the sample, squinted at it, his brow furrowed in deep thought. “What do you mean?”

  I sighed. “Seven knobs for seven brothers?”

  “Oh… hmm. I guess I didn’t… think of that angle.”

  And then we both started laughing. I mean, how could we not?

  Marty’s expression cleared, all the furrows in his face disappearing like someone had taken an iron to them. The expression reminded me so much of Finn, it actually stung a little. RJ was taking him on another Big Foot hike today. The big man had started bringing candies and s’mores in the event they came back empty-handed, as they always did. At least, there was still a reward for trekking through the cold.

  “I’ll give your logo another shot,” Marty continued. “In the meantime, can we change subjects and talk about a case that’s giving the guys and me a run for our money?”

  “Sure,” I said with a quick nod. “Did you try the banishment potions yet?”

  He nodded. “We tried all three of them and nothing worked.”

  Hmm, that was surprising. And it had to mean this ghost of his was a strong one. I swallowed hard.

  “Have you met Layla Clemmons yet?” he asked in a low, terse voice, almost as if he were afraid of being overheard.

  “No. Should I know her name?”

  “Probably not… unless Finn has mentioned her? She teaches seventh-grade math at his school, and she’s a very sweet woman.”

  “Yeah, Finn hasn’t mentioned her.”

  Marty nodded. “Anyway, she’s had a rough shake lately. Her husband died of a heart attack just after she took in her sister, Barbra, and two nieces who are right around Finn’s age, Hannah and Allison.”

  “Barbra?” I repeated as a memory of my first customer hit me. Barbra had come in looking for something to help with her sleeplessness and anxiety. She, too, had had her house foreclosed on and was living with her sister, with her daughters.

  “Yeah.” Marty faced me quizzically.

  “I think the same Barbra came into my store. She was in a pretty bad way and needed something for sleeplessness and anxiety. I guess that was owing to the haunting?”

  “Probably.” Marty nodded. “Anyway, the story gets worse.”

  “I’m guessing it has something to do with a recalcitrant ghost?”

  Marty nodded again. “Layla thinks an evil spirit attached itself to the house after her husband, Danny, died.”

  “Okay. She doesn’t think it’s Danny doing the haunting?”

  He shook his head. “I asked her the same thing, but she said Danny was very loving and kind in life and she couldn’t imagine him coming back to haunt them all in death.”

  I nodded. “Hmm, maybe his death opened some sort of ghostly portal or something, attracting a much worse entity?”

  “I mean, I guess,” Marty said with a shrug. “Anyway, shortly after Danny passed, mysterious holes started cropping up outside, in the back yard.”

  “Holes?” I repeated, frowning.

  “At first, Layla figured it was moles. But, then the holes started appearing inside. Floorboards torn up, holes punched into the drywall, ceiling panels missing, that sort of thing. After the antique copper ceiling in the kitchen was vandalized, things really started going off the rails.”

  “How so?”

  “Winds started sweeping through the house at random intervals, even when all the windows and doors were locked. Furniture was smashed and a voice kept screaming in the dead of night. Henner and I went over to try to persuade the ghost to move on, but the ghost box only picked up a few intelligible words.”

  “And you tried the banishment potions according to my exact instructions?”

  He nodded. “Followed them according to your directions, even double checking as we went to make sure we didn’t screw anything up. I think all the potions did was further piss off the ghost.”

  My muscles were clenched tightly and goosebumps strained so hard against my skin, it hurt. “It sounds like a poltergeist,” I said, my voice flat. “I’ve dealt with one before.”

  “The ghost that scared Finn, right?”

  I nodded mutely. It felt like Frank’s frozen fingers were wrapped around my neck once more, choking off my air, his amorphous face still managing to sneer at my attempts to banish him from the house. But banish him I had and if I’d done it before, I could do it again.

  A memory of Barbra’s sad face dropped into my head and I thought about her two daughters, who were Finn’s age. They probably went to school with him. Whatever this bastard was, it needed to go. And I needed to help because Marty and his team wouldn’t be able to do it alone. They’d already failed.

  But what about your promise to Finn? I thought to myself and my stomach dropped. I’d told him I wouldn’t ever get involved with another ghost, if I could help it.

  But I had to get involved. I couldn’t let Marty take another chance with something so strong that banishment potions failed against it. And there were two little girls to take into account, as well.

  Finn would understand. He’d have to.

  Marty examined my expression, a flicker of worry crossing his face as he processed whatever he saw there. “Look, Poppy, you don’t have to do this. There will be other cases we could use your help with.”