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

something?”
    I nodded. Adam’s memory loss was par for the course, which made my life—and his death—a lot more difficult. If only I could ask him:
Who did this to you?
Seems to me we’d all be a lot happier.
    “I should stay away from tequila,” he said. He reached for the front door handle but was unable to grasp it. He tried again, a look of consternation on his face. “What the . . . ? Is it . . . locked?”
    “It’s not locked.”
    “Then what—?”
    “I’m sorry to tell you this, Adam. You came here last night, and you died.”
    “Huh?”
    “You died last night. Here, in the foyer.”
    Adam cocked his head, reminding me of the Spooner family mannequins in the attic. “Like when you go in front of an audience and totally die in front of them?”
    “No, for real.” I spoke slowly and calmly, pained by his look of incomprehension. “You passed away. And unless I miss my guess . . . you’re stuck here in the house for a while.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    I took a deep breath. “Let me try to explain. . . .”

Chapter Five
    Adam didn’t believe me.
    I talked for half an hour, but he kept shaking his head and trying to turn the brass doorknob, insisting it was broken. At last I opened the door and invited him to leave, but he couldn’t get past the threshold. He used all his strength, but his foot paused over the threshold in mid-air and he couldn’t go any further. It was as if an invisible wall blocked him.
    Still, he refused to believe me. Not that I blamed him; what could possibly prepare a person for something like this?
    It was heartbreaking to watch him try to leave Spooner House. I thought about how wrenching it must have been for Annette Crawford to inform Adam’s family; the grief and devastation they must be feeling right now. I have a stepson in high school, only a few years younger than Adam. . . . I couldn’t imagine the anguish of losing him. Adam’s circle of friends, too, would be forever marked by his loss.
    Had this beautiful Victorian mansion, which already had witnessed the death of a family and a suicide, taken another life? And . . . could the dolls have been roused by a trespasser, as in the legend the students had mentioned?
    Ridiculous
. Adam either killed himself in a bleak moment of despair, or someone—someone human—had done this to him.
    After watching him struggle, I felt compelled to figure out what had happened. Then maybe I could help Adam to walk toward the light, or into the stars, or to do whatever he needed to do to pass on to . . . wherever we went after this life on earth.
    One thing I knew for sure, I thought as I watched Adam banging fruitlessly on the window: I couldn’t leave the poor guy’s ghost trapped in the Spooner Mansion forever.
    ***
    Two days later the police department released the scene. The medical examiner had declared Adam’s death a presumed suicide. When I arrived on-site Maya was sitting on the bench outside Spooner House, coffee cup clutched in gloved hands with cutoff fingers.
    “Thank you for meeting me here,” I said to her as I approached the house.
    “You’re welcome. I was a little surprised to hear from you—I guess I assumed they’d call off the Halloween fund-raiser, given what happened.”
    “I thought so, too, but Lurch—sorry, Ed Gaskin—said Adam’s family asked the board to continue in Adam’s memory. He had been devoted to the Spooner House and the youth center. They’re even providing matching funds to whatever the event raises.”
    She looked thoughtful. “I guess that makes a certain kind of sense. But still . . . it seems sort of eerie. But then, I guess that suits Halloween, right?”
    I nodded.
    “Speaking of which . . . is that your costume, or just your normal dress?”
    Today I was wearing a sleeveless orange dress trimmed with fringe, topped with my dad’s old leather bomber jacket.
    “I have a strange fashion sense. I spent years dressing to please other