“Nice to meet you, Finn,” the man in question said. “And since your mom started calling me McFly and I have to admit, I actually kinda like it, you can too… if you want.”

  “Nice to meet you, McFly,” Finn answered and looked up at him with a curious smile. It was at that moment that I could tell Marty Zach had just made himself a new friend. And it wasn’t surprising. Marty put off the energy of a man half his age: I’d noticed him eyeing Finn’s abandoned Gameboy, which was sitting on the counter, with interest. I should have known he’d be the gaming sort. He had ‘overgrown teenager’ written all over him.

  “Thanks for the basket,” Finn said as he eyed it. “What’s in it?”

  “Well, let’s find out!” Marty lifted the gift basket and plopped it on the counter. “I did my best to include a sampling of everything Haven Hollow has to offer.” The wicker basket was deep and, just by rattling it, I got the sense he’d stuffed it full to bursting with goodies. Even now, enormous round suckers strained the top of the cellophane—cellophane that had been taped together in some places, to keep the insides from coming out. It was clearly homemade.

  Finn’s pale face appeared behind the plastic wrap as he eyed the contents with curiosity. He was what Mom called ‘lanky’, all sprawling limbs and no muscle tone. No matter how voracious his appetite, he never gained an ounce, a trait I envied. Turn him sideways and he’d disappear. I wondered if the fact that he was young and always losing himself in his imagination was what had drawn the poltergeist to him.

  Or maybe it was just that, as a child, he was comparatively helpless. Harder to frighten the gypsy woman with the banishing potions and magic.

  “Cool t-shirt,” Marty enthused, dropping to his haunches so he’d be on Finn’s level. “You like Star Trek?”

  “Not really, but I like Star Wars. Did you see Rise of Skywalker? It was super cool.”

  “I did see it and I liked it too,” Marty answered with a quick nod.

  Finn eyed him narrowly. “You like Jurassic Park too?”

  “Of course, man!” he said, shaking his head like that question was too easy to answer.

  “What about Predator?”

  “Get to the choppa!” Marty sang out, in a near perfect rendition of Arnold.

  Finn nodded. Marty had passed his tests. But then he eyed Marty’s shirt with the supreme skepticism you only find in very young boys. “What’s up with your t-shirt? You get it at a convention or something? It’s kind of weird.”

  Marty glanced down at his shirt with a frown. “I made it, actually.”

  “You made it?” Finn asked, his tone sounding awe-struck, like he didn’t realize one could make t-shirts—like they only came from Target and magically appeared there.

  “Yeah, I’m a marketing consultant and a graphic designer and I’m also a handyman.” He pointed at the lettering on the shirt. “This one was a potential logo for the local cleaning service. They went with a different design, but I got to keep the shirt.”

  So I had a part-time handyman and a full-time graphic designer for a neighbor? Maybe my luck was starting to improve. I could use promotional materials for my new store to help get the word out. I didn’t so much as have even a logo yet…

  The problem was, I wasn’t sure I could afford Marty. Was this what Ophelia had meant out on the porch when she’d said he wanted something from me? Marty Zach looked too guileless to be a con man, and Finn seemed to be warming to him, which usually boded well.

  Finn had inherited a talent from our Traveller blood; he was an incredible judge of character. He’d been trying to tell me for years that my last boyfriend was rotten. Eventually, I’d seen the truth for myself—after the jerk had cheated on me repeatedly. Maybe it was a fault of mine, but I wanted to see the best in people. Some people call that gullible, I guess. And maybe it is. But, I liked to think of myself as an eternal optimist. Hopefully ‘gullible’ and ‘optimist’ weren’t one and the same.

  But, no, if Finn had a good feeling about McFly, I trusted that good feeling. Finn had yet to be wrong.

  ***

  We ended up leaning against the kitchen island, eating soupy ice cream with plastic spoons.

  Normally I wouldn’t have condoned dessert before dinner, but poor planning on Marty’s part had forced my hand. The soft serve ice cream from Stomper’s Creamery, the local hangout, was in dire need of being consumed post haste. And it just so happened to be delish.

  The last of the raspberry truffle ice cream slid like sweet nectar down the back of my throat. I hadn’t had ice cream in ages, too busy trying to work off my last ten pounds that was stubborn as an old goat. I’d forgotten how much I missed sweets.

  And then there were the beer nuts. I eyed them with anticipation every few minutes or so. I will get you my pretty, I promised. You and your dipping sauce too.

  “So, where are you from?” Marty asked.

  “Los Angeles,” I answered.

  “And what brings you both to Haven Hollow?” he continued, after successfully navigating an entire scoop of fudge ripple into his mouth.

  “Mom’s crappy ex-boyfriend and an even crappier ghost,” Finn answered as he dug into his ice cream with renewed zest.

  I felt my eyes go wide as Marty looked at me and we both smiled in embarrassment.

  “Ghosts, huh?” he asked.

  I laughed the question away and then rubbed the back of my neck as I tended to do when I was nervous. Ordinary people didn’t react well when the subject of magic and ghosts was brought up. I figured Marty wouldn’t be any different.

  “I, uh… I thought it might be easier to start my business here than in Los Angeles,” I said, settling on a half-truth.

  “Oh, and what business is that?”

  “Gypsy magic potions,” Finn answered. I was debating sending him outside.

  “Gypsy potions?” Marty repeated.

  “Yeah, Mom’s a gypsy,” Finn answered. “So am I, but I don’t have the same powers she does.”

  “Um… haha,” I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck again, figuring this was probably the last time we were going to see Marty Zach.

  “What does it mean to be a gypsy?” Marty asked, sounding genuinely interested.

  “It means Mom comes from a super magical family,” Finn answered.

  “Is that so?” Marty asked as he looked at me.

  “There are different sects of gypsies,” I answered, shaking my head at Finn. “There are gypsies descending from the Romani people and Irish and Scottish gypsies.”

  “We’re Scottish gypsies,” Finn said.

  I nodded. “We’re descended from Scottish gypsies called Travellers.”

  “And so I’m figuring your people were pretty nomadic?” Marty asked.

  “They were, back in the day, yes,” I answered. “And those who still follow the Traveller way are still nomadic today.”

  “Yeah, in the old days, they used to live in horse-drawn wagons,” Finn said.

  “Right. Scottish gypsies date back to the 12th century,” I continued. “And lots of them continue to travel around, working in circuses and fairs and things like that.”

  “But, you don’t travel around?” Marty asked.

  I shook my head. “I was never really into the moving around thing. I like to be settled in one place.”

  “Yet, you just moved to Haven Hollow?”

  I nodded. “But I was in Los Angeles for the majority of my life.”

  “And your family? Are they still nomads?” Marty asked.

  “Not really. My mom and dad moved around for a little while, but then they settled in Washington State to be close to my grandmother, who is getting on in years.”

  “That’s GG,” Finn supplied.

  Marty nodded. “So how does the magic stuff enter into it?”

  “Well, mom makes potions and her potions are magical. They heal people,” Finn said.

  I didn’t want Marty to think we were crazy, so I decided to dim Finn’s explanation down a bit. “Part of gypsy culture is living off the land and applying natural fixes to common ailments. It’s basically holistic medicine and it’s been handed down through the generations, from my mom and my grandma, before her.”

  “We call Mom’s magical concoctions potions,” Finn added.

  “Holistic magic potions?” Marty repeated. Strangely, he didn’t seem surprised.

  “Holistic… remedies,” I corrected. “Anyway, I found a great little space for my shop right on Main Street. I still have some shelves to put up and I need a bunch of marketing materials and a sign, but I should be able to open in a week or so.”

  Marty nodded and swallowed another gargantuan bite of ice cream. “Isn’t all that holistic stuff big in L.A.?”

  “It is, but there’s a ton of competition and the few customers I had weren’t cutting it. Plus, I got tired of college kids asking if I had vape pens or CBD oil.” He chuckled at that. “Maybe it’s silly, but I thought I might have better luck out here in the sticks.”

  Marty leaned over the counter, snagging the beer nuts and mustard sauce I’d been eyeing from the top of the pile, sliding them over to me in one smooth move.

  “Thanks,” I said with a little, guilty smile.

  “Nah, I don’t think that’s silly. This town has a spooky reputation. Your shop will fit right in. Do it up like an old apothecary with some dark wood shelves, brass scales, and old bottles. People will eat that right up. You could call it ‘Holly’s Home Remedies’ or something.”

  “Actually, I already have a name for it.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I cleared my throat. “Poppy’s Potions.”

  “Poppy?” he started.

  “It’s my middle name.”

  “Huh,” he said, nodding. “Then Holly is…”

  “My first name.”

  “But everyone calls Mom ‘Poppy’,” Finn explained.

  Marty looked at me and smiled. “Poppy,” he repeated, like he was tasting the word. “I like it.”

  Finn plucked one of the large lollipops from the basket, scowling when I swapped it for a strip of jerky and a packet of wasabi peas.

  “Mom.”

  “You’ve had enough sugar for the night.”

  He rolled his shoulders forward and cast a sullen glance over at the antique stove that dominated most of one wall. The La Cornue Range Stove had been stylish and modern... when it was installed in the 1920s. I wasn’t sure how much elbow grease it was going to take to get the individual pieces clean or if the thing would even start. It seemed like a fiery conflagration waiting to happen.

  Finn peeled the wasabi pea bag open with a great deal of unnecessary attitude. “Are these things hot?” he asked Marty.

  He shrugged. “I mean, kind of?”

  “I don’t like hot stuff.”

  “Just eat the jerky,” I said and took the peas from him.

  He nodded and faced Marty again. “Where’d you get all this stuff anyway?”

  “From all the shops in town,” he answered. “The jerky, nuts, peas, and pretzels are courtesy of Roy Osbourne, the owner of the Half-Moon Bar and Grill.” Then he looked at me. “The best steak you’ll get in the entire state, hands down.” Then he looked at Finn. “The candies are from Sweeter Haunts. It’s decorated year-round for Halloween and they have the best candy corns you ever had. Swear. The ice cream came from Stanley Stomper. He’s a bit of a reclusive sort and never comes out of the shop, but the floats are to die for. There’s some sugar-free gum and flavored dental floss in there from Lorcan Rowe’s Dentistry and the rest is from Miss Hazel’s Convenience store.”

  “Thank you,” I said, touched he’d gone to such an extent to welcome us. It really said a lot about him. And I was happy to know there was a dentist in town. Hopefully he was an orthodontist, as well, since Finn had braces.

  “Eh, don’t sweat it,” Marty said and gave me a lingering smile. “What are neighbors for, right?”

  “Right,” I answered. “By the way, you were going to tell me about what happened to my apple tree?”

  “Oh, right!” he said and nodded. “Ophelia happened to your apple tree.”

  “Um… what do you mean?”

  “I mean your apple tree didn’t react well to being around Ophelia.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  Marty shrugged. “You should see her at the grocery store. She walks by the fresh produce and I swear it all starts wilting seconds later. It’s like the old hag is cursed.”

  Or maybe she was the one doing the cursing? I had a bad feeling about my ancient, bad-tempered realtor. Soured milk and spoiled food could and did happen around witches...

  “You think she’s a witch?” Finn asked, looking at Marty before he turned his worried expression on me. I immediately shook my head.

  Ophelia wasn’t a witch. I would have felt the power coming off her if she were. And, besides, Ophelia didn’t look like a witch—she was way too old. Witch magic was strong—enough to slow the aging process down to a crawl. A witch had to be a century and a half old before she’d look anywhere close to my age. And that meant Ophelia would have to be close to four or five hundred to look as old as she did. Thanks to my own magic, I looked good for forty-three, but I’d never outlast a witch.

  And there was that other thing about witches. They were fiercely territorial and jealously guarded their homes and land. So, the last place you’d find a witch was in a realty office. But there was something... off, about Ophelia, all the same. So much so, that I wasn’t surprised to hear she and fresh produce didn’t get along.

  “A few friends of mine are doing an experiment on Ophelia,” Marty continued.

  “An experiment?” I repeated.

  “Huh?” Finn asked.

  Marty nodded. “RJ and Henner rigged up some homemade ghost hunting equipment for this side gig we’ve got going. Henner is monitoring every fruit Ophelia comes into contact with.”

  “How does one even do that?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I dunno, but leave it to Henner. He can accomplish the impossible. Anway… So far? Every fruit has gone bad as soon as she gets within five feet of it.”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  Marty shrugged. “At first we thought maybe she had a ghost attached to her or something.”

  “A ghost?” Finn asked, his eyes widening in worry.

  Marty shook his head. “Yeah, it wasn’t a ghost, so far as we can tell. But it’s something. The readings around Ophelia are off the charts.”

  “Is that why she was so mad at you?” I asked. “Because she didn’t want you doing experiments on her?”

  He cocked his head to the side. “I mean… it could be. She gets annoyed with all our investigations.”

  “What kind of investigations?” Finn asked.

  “Well, mainly fruit and vegetable investigations where Ophelia is concerned. But her annoyance doesn’t end there. She gets irritated when we do our ghost investigations too. She mainly gets exasperated at those.”

  “Ghost investigations?” Finn repeated.

  Marty nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a ghost hunting business on the side.”

  “Oh,” I said and looked at Finn, worried how he’d react to this news.

  The tremors in Finn’s hands were all the warning I had before he pushed away from the table. “I’m gonna play Super Mario in my bedroom, okay?”

  He tossed the words over his shoulder as he crossed the hardwood kitchen floors and disappeared up the stairs. In other circumstances, I’d have called him back to apologize for being rude. Tonight I didn’t have the heart to do more than stare after him as he dragged a veritable bridal train of cobwebs after him.

  “Okay, I’ll be up in a little bit!” I called after him.

  Marty’s brows pushed together over those intense blue eyes. “Did I say something wrong?”

  I sighed. “No, Finn’s just creeped out by this place and angry I didn’t mention the cemetery, which I didn’t even know was on the property or I never would have bought it.”

  “Ah, you mean Haven Cemetery.”

  I took a deep breath. “He doesn’t like haunted houses, as you may have gathered.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, neither do I. It’s why I started my ghost-hunting business in the first place. Henner’s grandmother was subject to a malevolent haunting. Since then, we’ve banished a few more ghosts.”

  “And how do you banish ghosts?” I asked, knowing I probably wouldn’t approve of his methods.

  Marty seized a handful of candy corn that had scattered in the bottom of the wicker basket and popped them into his mouth. “Well, we always try to involve a psychic friend of mine. She works for a firm in town called ‘Spook Society’. I leave most of the reasoning with spirits to her, if she’s available. Henner, RJ, and I only make first contact. If the spirits are open to using the ghost box Henner made, we can usually get them to move on, ourselves. Except I think the wires keep getting crossed because every voice that comes out either sounds like Schwarzenegger or Elmo.”

  I think he expected me to laugh, but I couldn’t. It was just… he was in danger, but he obviously didn’t realize it. Spirits could be violent and destructive forces. They could possess people and wreak havoc with your health. Ghosts weren’t just cold spots, creaking floorboards, and fodder for scary stories. They were serious and they needed to be regarded as such.

  I stood up a little straighter as a thought filtered in. Maybe I could help him. “Have you ever tried a banishment potion?” I asked, popping another beer nut into my mouth, rolling it around so the spicy mustard made every part of my tongue tingle. God, these were good.

  “Banishment potion?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “Potions are one of the easiest and most effective ways of getting rid of troublesome ghosts.” That was true, although the last ghost I’d dealt with, the one traumatizing Finn, had required four banishment potions mixed together, numerous candles and a hell of a lot of willpower on my part. Yes, the spirit had been that strong. But that spirit had been the exception, not the rule.

  Marty’s expression was quizzical, but not unfriendly. Soft confusion shaved years off his appearance, so he looked like he was in his mid-thirties. Possibly even younger.