A Haunting Is Brewing: A Haunted Home Renovation and a Witchcraft Mystery Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

lying dead in the foyer. I didn’t know him well, but I had liked him, and he was so young and full of promise.
    Victorian gardens are charming: Typically small, they are built in a foursquare shape around a fountain, with cottage plantings such as hydrangeas and azaleas. Brick herringbone pathways encircled a stone fountain topped with a nymph playing a flute. The fountain water was brackish and the sides covered in green slime, but otherwise it was darling. I made a mental note to clean that out before realizing that, despite Duff’s rather macabre prediction, there would be no Halloween party at Spooner House this year. Not after something like this.
    Glancing up at the house, I saw Adam standing behind the wavy old glass of the main tower window.
    I sighed and sat on a wrought iron bench, trying to ignore him. It wasn’t actually
Adam
, of course; not his body. Rather, his . . . leftover energy. Or whatever it was; I had long since stopped trying to understand. Now I just accepted the presence of supernatural spirits.
    Adam’s wan, intense countenance continued to stare down at me. Finally I waved, and he lifted one pale hand in reply.
    Annette, the homicide inspector, joined me in the garden. She cast an eye toward the house’s tower, then back at me.
    “Who you waving at?”
    “No one.”
    “Uh-huh. Quite a way to start the day, isn’t it?”
    “You can say that again.”
    “The kids seem convinced this tragedy was caused by the house, somehow,” Annette said, fixing me with her patented one-eyebrow-raised, don’t-mess-with-me look.
    I nodded.
    “You think that’s possible?”
    “Could be.”
    A year ago I would have denied believing in ghosts, and mere months ago Annette would have called for a 5150 to have me held at the psych ward for observation at the very suggestion that spirits were involved in a homicide. But now we both knew better.
    I sighed inwardly. If Adam’s ghost was lingering . . . it meant he was tormented. Confused. In need of my help.
    “Could it have been a suicide?” I asked.
    “Looks like it, but there’s no note, and his friends insist Adam had plans, was doing well in school, was basically happy. No history of depression, at least not that anyone’s aware of. I’ll keep checking. Suicide doesn’t seem to fit, but . . .” She shrugged. “Hard to know with kids his age. We’ll wait on the medical examiner to determine cause of death. So tell me, Mel, what do
you
think happened?”
    “All I know is what I’ve told you. The only folks I’ve seen here are the students, Mrs. Gutierrez, Ed Gaskin, my guy Jeremy. . . . I can’t think of anyone else who’s been hanging around. . . .”
    “Interesting choice of phrase.”
    “Sorry, no pun intended. That’s for sure. I’m . . . I really can’t believe this. Adam was . . . a really nice guy. So young.”
    She nodded. “The young ones are the toughest cases. All right, thanks. Let me know if you think of anything else. You know my number.”
    “Will do. Thanks.”
    After she left, I joined the group of students huddled on the porch.
    “This can’t be. It
can’t,
” said Tess, sniffling. Her eyes were red rimmed and swollen from tears, her voice hoarse and racked with pain. “Adam and I were . . . we had, like,
plans
. We were going to go
away
together.”
    “Away where?” I asked.
    “Away. Away from this town, away from my mom. She’s impossible. A real piece of work; just ask Byron, he’s met her. Maybe upstate New York; that’s where my dad was from. Adam and I were both born and raised here, and we wanted to check out someplace different, like, with snow. Have you ever shoveled snow?”
    “No, can’t say that I have. I’m a native Californian, too.” I couldn’t help but wonder whether the charm of snow would wear off with a little exposure. But even so, that was the point of youth, I thought: to try new and different things.
    “Do any of you think Adam would have done this to