“So, what does that have to do with me?” I asked. “And whether or not I might have been dating him? Which I’m not,” I added in quickly, lest she got the wrong idea again.

  She nodded. “Marty doesn’t exactly know how to pick women.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, his girlfriends haven’t exactly treated him well.” She nodded and her eyes grew sad. “The last one stole his Flex.”

  “His what?”

  “His car—he drove a Ford Flex.”

  “And she just…”

  “Took it,” Bailey interrupted with a nod. “That’s why he’s driving the hearse—the dentist in town gave Marty the hearse.”

  “Lorcan?” I asked as Bailey nodded. “Why would a dentist even have a hearse?” I asked.

  The corner of Bailey’s mouth twitched. “Your guess is as good as mine. Lorcan Rowe is an odd duck.”

  “So he fits in around here.”

  This time Bailey laughed as Marty turned to face us and waved us forward. “Anyway, I really am sorry. How about we start over?” she asked as she turned to face me, making no motion to head toward the house.

  “Yes, let’s start over.”

  She held out a hand and flashed me a sunny smile. “I’m Bailey Bennett, by the way. I don’t think Marty mentioned my last name. I’m a medium and I work at Spook Society. I’m the proud mother of six Pomeranians, I adore Franzia, I’m an Aries, and I think Desi Arnaz was one of the sexiest men alive.”

  I took her hand and gave it a firm shake. “I’m Holly Morton, but people call me Poppy. I come from a long line of gypsies and I make potions. I have an eleven-year-old son named Finn. The only wine I like is Moscato and I’m a Cancer. And I’d say I’m more of a Chris Hemsworth sort of girl.”

  “Ah, good ol’ Thor,” Bailey smiled as her attention shifted to the locket around my neck. She studied it for a few seconds.

  “Your necklace is haunted by a very strong spirit. Did you know that?”

  I nodded, stifling my surprise. Clearly, Bailey was good at what she did. “Darla. She’s from my old house in Los Angeles, but she followed us here. She was murdered in the 1920s. She’s annoying, but harmless.”

  “You both ready?” Marty called out and beckoned us forward again. This time, Bailey complied and I followed her up the walkway and to the front door, where we both introduced ourselves to Layla.

  As regards Layla, she was a small, mousy looking woman. Average height, around average build, with hair an unremarkable shade of brown. Her eyes were hazel, deeply set, and ringed with dark circles. She looked drawn. Worn out, defeated. I imagined I’d looked much the same before Finn and I moved to Haven Hollow. Constant stress will kill parts of you, and there’s nothing more stressful than living with a poltergeist that may or may not want to kill your kids.

  “These are your specialists?” Layla asked Marty.

  Marty nodded while he held the door and Bailey entered, me right behind her. He announced us as we filed in.

  “This is Poppy, my potions expert. She’ll provide the prep work before the exorcism and the cleansing afterward.”

  “Cleansing with sage?” Layla asked.

  “Sage and… some other things,” I answered.

  Sage could work on regular spirits. Long ago, Native American shamans burned sage over a fire to cleanse people of negativity and to promote healing, wisdom, and longevity. For regular, low-level spirits, sage produced the same effect as it might on bees. It sedated them, made them more compliant. There was a reason it had been a longstanding process for cleansing personal spaces.

  But, waving sage at a poltergeist would only piss it off. If regular spirits were bees, then poltergeists were wasps.

  “And this is Bailey, a medium from the Spook Society,” Marty continued, motioning to Bailey. “She’ll be able to communicate directly with the spirit. Hopefully a direct line of communication will allow the spirit to state its unfinished business and usually that, alone, can get it to move on.”

  But, based on Marty’s expression, he was doubtful. As doubtful as I was—poltergeists were beyond the point of reasoning. While Bailey might be able to tell us what had happened to the spirit to turn it into a poltergeist, that wouldn’t be enough to force it from the house.

  Layla smiled at Bailey and then looked up at Marty with trepidation on her face. “Remember, this is just a visit…” she started as she looked toward the living room. “My sister doesn’t want to be here when you do the actual exorcism,” she started. “Truth be told, even though she won’t admit it, I think she’s scared to death of anything having to do with the ghost. And she’s really scared that bringing you all in here is only going to further upset… the entity.” She swallowed hard. “Is that possible?”

  “It is possible,” I answered as Bailey nodded. “But, luckily, we’re professionals so we know what to expect. And on that note,” I finished and reached into my messenger bag.

  The vials jangled together noisily as I tried to find the right solution. Finally, I found it wedged near the very back.

  I withdrew Enchanted Spiritual Oil from the bag, unstoppered the vial, and began anointing myself with the solution. It was made from frankincense, myrrh, heliotrope, and cinnamon, and had a pleasant enough scent.

  Bailey caught me at it and shot me a quizzical look. Marty seemed unfazed, which either meant he’d gotten used to a whole mess of weird, or he’d simply come to expect it from me, in particular. I wasn’t sure if either was a comforting thought.

  “What’s that?” Bailey asked.

  “Enchanted Spiritual Oil. It’s used for protection from harm. It protects the wearer from anything negative trying to cling to you, aka a spirit that wishes to do harm or wishes to go home with you.” I held it out to her. “You two should put some on, as well.”

  “Are you really afraid you could drag the ghost home with you?” Marty asked, taking the vial from me when I offered it. He dabbed some on his wrists and handed it to Bailey.

  “It’s not a ghost, it’s a poltergeist,” I corrected him and then started nodding as Bailey anointed herself. “And where spirits are concerned, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

  “She’s right,” said Bailey.

  “Can I use some of that, as well?” Layla asked, looking at me with a worried expression. I handed her the vial, with a quick nod.

  Layla dabbed the oil onto her face and wrists. She wrung her hands together nervously, glancing between the three of us.

  Marty offered her a kind smile. “Today we just want to look around and see if Poppy and Bailey pick up on anything. Tomorrow night we’ll do things properly… when you, your sister and nieces are all out of the house.” Then he turned to face me. “Everyone will be away for the weekend.”

  “Where are Henner and RJ?” I asked as Marty came to a halt before entering the hallway.

  “Work,” he answered. “Mrs. Gendry’s pipes burst and flooded her basement. RJ and a few of his work associates are repairing things there. Henner’s pretty much the IT guy for the entire city, and he got called into the school this morning to fix a couple of their computers.”

  “Will they be here tomorrow night?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That’s the plan!”

  And I hoped the plan didn’t change because we needed RJ and Henner. Even the most ill-mannered ghost was a regular June Cleaver compared to a poltergeist. When a spirit crossed the boundary from ghost to poltergeist, it surrendered its sanity. Many times poltergeists were murder victims who became obsessed with vengeance, unable to be appeased until their unfinished business was settled, their murderer in jail or six feet underground. And other times, they were the spirits of the murderers, themselves.

  I clutched the messenger bag’s strap a little tighter to my chest and forced myself to breathe in slowly. I had everything I needed to keep a poltergeist at bay, but it didn’t change the fact that I was nervous.

  Layla granted us entrance into the dark house and we came to a stop in her entryway. It was connected to a spacious living room, equipped with a matched set of deep green sofa, love seat, and double arm chairs, all facing the seventy-two inch plasma screen TV mounted on the opposite wall. The stippled ceiling boasted a ceiling medallion and a simple drop light that bathed the space with a cozy glow. It was the only light in the living room, owing to the fact that all the green, gingham curtains had been pulled tightly closed.

  I stopped moving as my heart started pounding in my chest and I stared at the curtains with a mounting sense of dread.

  I’ve seen this room before.

  I recognized the green, gingham pattern of the curtains and the living room furniture. If the moon had been full and shining through a gap in the fabric, it would have been a perfect replica of my nightmare.

  And that meant…

  This was the house in my nightmare visions!

  If this is the same house, Poppy, that would mean the man in the vision, the one who was killed by the shadow creature, was Danny, Layla’s husband…

  Right.

  Suddenly, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew why there was a poltergeist hanging around. Because Layla had killed her husband. As I remembered the necklace the shadow creature had been wearing in my vision, I turned to face Layla with a feeling of impending dread.

  She wasn’t wearing the necklace, but that didn’t matter. Danny had said the necklace belonged to his wife... and owing to the fact that the creature was wearing it and the creature killed him, I had to believe the creature and Layla were one and the same.

  But Layla doesn’t look like a monster, I argued with myself.

  It doesn’t matter. It’s just how Danny viewed her—that she was monstrous enough to kill him. The shape of the monster wasn’t anything more than a façade—an allegory.

  I had to do something to warn Bailey and Marty.

  As I watched, Bailey moved around me to quietly argue with Marty.

  “You can’t mention that I work for the Spook Society, Marty,” she started. “How many times do I have to tell you? If Mr. Howard learns I’m doing cases with you, he’s going to be pissed. I might even lose my job.”

  “Sorry,” Marty muttered, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “It just slipped out, but I swear I’ll be more careful next time.”

  Layla was still within hearing range, so I couldn’t say anything about my belief that she was responsible for her husband’s death.

  An aura of menace clung like musk to the house, grating against my magic like sandpaper taken to a lacquered piece of wood. My teeth ached like I’d developed cavities in every tooth simultaneously.

  There was no way I was going to take this home to Finn. I didn’t want to be here at all, but I had a job to do and Marty needed help.

  What was interesting, though, was that so far, since we’d entered the house, I couldn’t feel or see Danny anywhere. And I wasn’t expecting that.

  “You really think this stuff will help?” Layla asked, looking down at her wrists with a concerned expression.

  I swallowed hard, wishing I’d brought some Compelling Oil, because then I could have forced the truth from her about what really happened to her husband.

  “Of course it won’t,” a scratchy voice said from the corner of the room.

  The unexpected noise made the three of us jump and spin around to face the speaker. Somehow my eyes had managed to rove over the shadowy corner furthest away from the window, and I’d completely missed the wan shape crumpled at the base of the love seat. It took me several seconds to place the voice, because she barely looked like the exhausted woman I’d met on opening day.

  Barbra leaned her head against the love seat, cheek mashed into the plush cushions. Her hair was matted, her eyes almost completely lost to bruise-like shadows. Her lips were chapped, her skin sallower than ever, and she looked ready to drop dead of exhaustion.

  I supposed the potions hadn’t been helping her sleeplessness much, then. That was probably also the reason she was glaring daggers at me.

  “She’s a fraud,” Barbra croaked, not bothering to lift her head from the pillows. “None of those damn elixirs worked.” I was about to defend myself, but Barbra turned to face her sister. “This whole ghost-exorcism business is just BS. It’s a waste of your time and money! But you never listen to me anyway, do you? Not about Danny, or the house, or the...” She trailed off, grumbling darkly under her breath, apparently too tired to say more.

  Layla waved an embarrassed hand in her sister’s direction. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She hasn’t been sleeping well since Danny’s death.” Then she looked at me and dropped her voice so Barbra wouldn’t overhear her. “She’s the one who discovered the...” Layla made a choked sound and her words faltered. “The body.”

  The body of the man you killed, I thought to myself.

  “Barbra, why don’t you go to the girls’ room and try to rest on Allison’s bed? I think she and Hannah are outside playing in the treehouse,” Layla said.

  Barbra looked like she might argue, but ultimately just shrugged and climbed to her feet, performing an ungainly zombie shuffle down the hall. I watched her go, worry prickling at the base of my skull. Something really needed to be done for Barbra and soon.

  Layla turned to us with an obviously false smile when her sister left. “Why don’t I show you the rest of the house?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Large portions of a once immaculate house had simply been pummeled into so much rubble. I was a bit nervous ascending the stairs to reach the girls’ bedroom, as one section of the drywall on the right side of the stairs seemed on the verge of collapse. White dust coated the bannister and came away on our fingers as we climbed.

  The distinct holes I could see were about the size and shape of a man’s fist. My shoulders curled forward as I remembered finding similar holes near the headboard of Finn’s bed. This was definitely the work of a poltergeist. And hopefully one I could banish.

  As far as I was concerned Danny was most probably the poltergeist—he’d been murdered by his wife and he was furious over that fact so he’d come back, from beyond the grave, to enact his revenge. It was just a shame Barbra and her girls were in the middle of it.

  And, I still couldn’t get a feeling on whether or not Danny was even in the house. Truth be told, I would have expected to see or hear from him by now. Unless he was hiding, making it more difficult for us to detect him.

  There was more rubble on the second floor landing. Floorboards had been pried up. The insulation had been pulled partly out of one wall, hanging like a fat, pink tongue on the floor.

  Layla paused at the doorway of the room, peering in nervously. “We moved Allison and Hannah’s beds into the downstairs guest bedroom, and the ghost hasn’t bothered them as much.”

  “And where is Barbra’s room?” I asked, finding it interesting that the girls were no longer being attacked since they’d left this room. That wasn’t standard poltergeist activity. Usually, all family members were fair game, no matter which room they were in.

  “Oh, Barbra was sleeping with the girls for a while. Now she’s sleeping on the love seat, in the living room.”

  I took a deep, shaking breath and followed Bailey and Marty into the girls’ former bedroom. I noticed with interest that Bailey hadn’t spoken a word in the last few minutes. Instead, she kept closing her eyes and nodding, sometimes holding her hands out in front of her.

  “The ghost isn’t in this room anymore,” Bailey said, at last. “I felt its energy downstairs.”

  Interesting that she could feel Danny’s spirit, but I couldn’t.

  “Bails, are you able to tell us anything about the spirit in the house? Like who it is?” Marty asked.

  She circled around, holding her arms up above her head, as if she could feel the answer in the air. “The energy in this house feels… male. I’d say this… poltergeist is the late husband, Danny.”

  Just like that, I could suddenly feel the spirit’s weight, like a storm front compressing the air, making it difficult to breathe. Though I couldn’t see him, I could tell the spirit was here.

  “But, why would Danny come back to haunt us?” Layla asked, eyes going wide.

  “I don’t know,” Bailey answered.

  The room’s wallpaper had once been an eye-searing shade of pink. Now, most of it was in tatters on the floor, leaving beige wall and glue behind. The headboard had been reduced to a pile of matchsticks, and at least one mattress had met its end here. Stuffing and springs littered the carpet like bedtime shrapnel. Glass glittered and winked at us as we moved into the room.

  Layla gestured at a pile of pictures, mostly of Barbra and her girls, that lay in the middle of the floor. “One of those frames hit Hannah, going as fast as a major league pitch. It hit her right beneath the eye.”

  I remembered Finn telling me about how Hannah had shown up with a black eye she didn’t want to talk about. The puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place and fiery anger burned in my stomach. This SOB poltergeist wasn’t going to get away with this. And neither would Layla…

  “Barbra is beside herself, of course,” Layla continued. “The picture probably would have hit Barbra in the head if Hannah hadn’t sat up so suddenly.” Layla was quiet for a minute. Then she faced us again, worrying her lower lip. “Barbra feels like this is her fault.”

  My heart ached for Barbra. I knew that feeling only too well—wanting to be able to protect your children against something otherworldly, something you felt helpless against.

  “Layla, do you mind stepping out of the room?” Bailey asked as she opened her eyes and faced the woman in question. “Sometimes spirits can be shy.”

  “Right,” Layla said, shuffling backwards. “Of course. I’m going to check on Barbra.”

  Marty waited until she’d gone to quirk a brow at Bailey. “You’ve never asked anyone to leave before.”

  Bailey shrugged. “I’ve also never had a grieving widow breathing down my neck.”

  “Can you… see the ghost, Bailey?” I asked as I turned to look at her.

  She shook her head. “I can feel him and every now and again I pick up on a word or a feeling but,” she started, her words dying on her tongue as she turned around and closed her eyes. “For some reason… I’m having trouble actually… seeing him. It’s almost like he’s being blocked or he’s playing a game with us.”