Page 66 of Big Witch Energy

Ben threw the front door open to find Josh and Mina standing in front of the couch, arms crossed and disapproving expressions securely in place.

“Where have you been?” Josh cried, in a downright rude impersonation of Plover as Caroline walked through the door. “Do you know how worried we were? What we thought happened to you?”

“Ooh, ease it back some, Josh,” Mina said, her expression confused when Alice, Riley, and Edison followed through the door. “Going a little too British and elderly.”

“Do you have no compassion for my poor nerves?” Josh demanded.

“Oh, no, you went full Austen. That’s an overreach,” Mina murmured out of the corner of her mouth.

“Guys, we’re sorry, we just had a little bit of a middle-of-the-night sleepwalking encounter with some lady ghosts,” Ben told them, hugging Mina tight. “I should have left a note or a text or something, but it was a quickly evolving situation.”

“Really?” Mina sounded way too intrigued by that for Ben’s comfort. “Lucky!”

Josh snapped out of his melodramatic mien instantly. He put his arm around Caroline, prompting a tired smile from her. “Oh, man, we felt this horrible ghost scream a while ago. That’s what woke us up. And when we realized you were gone, we just thought you guys just snuck off for some private…eh…”

“Naked fun time?” Mina suggested.

“What? No!” Josh hollered, giving his sister a fully horrified look.

“I never want to hear you say those words together again,” Ben said solemnly, making Mina cackle. “Not even when you’re eventually having…naked fun time yourself.”

Josh shrieked indignantly, putting his hands over his ears. “Just stop talking!”

Ben added, “Fifty years from now. When I’m dead.”

Mina’s nose wrinkled as she waggled her head back and forth. “That seems like a late-in-life start, honestly.”

Josh didn’t respond, only sighed wearily.

“OK, OK, let’s end the conversational trauma now and talk about dead people,” Caroline suggested, clapping her hands and using a bright “camp counselor” voice.

“Sounds good,” Josh said, pointing at her. “Who was it this time?”

“Emily. The Vixen’s Fall ghost,” Alice informed them. “Who was not so much of a vixen as a victim. She was actually very sweet and didn’t make a single grab at our ankles.”

Caroline winced as she settled her weight on the couch. Ben sat on the coffee table and elevated, then massaged her foot to counteract the inevitable swelling as he explained what happened. Alice and Riley bustled around the kitchen, boiling water for tea, pouring the coffee the kids had already made. By the time they came back to the living room with cups, milk, and sugar, Ben had reached the point of the story where the angry decomposing ghost screeched in his face.

“Do the kids really need to know about all this?” Caroline asked. “It seems like too much for them. The inherent creepiness of full-body possession in my sleep.”

“Um, yeah, because if we’d had the full picture about this Emily getting tossed off the cliff, I could have told you that Rose-the-creepy-barroom lady was the one who probably did it,” Mina scoffed.

“I’m sorry, what?” Caroline asked, nearly spitting out her piping-hot coffee.

Mina shrugged. “Oh, she hated Emily. Rose hated everybody, honestly. But especially Emily.”

“Pause,” Caroline said patiently, raising her hands. “Explain.”

“Remember when I called Rose a dirty bitch?” Mina asked.

“Vividly,” Riley deadpanned. “But mentioning her name—might have been helpful.”

“I’m not good with details, sometimes, when I’m mad…or hungry…or sleepy,” Mina told them. “And right before I started yelling at her, I guess maybe I was particularly stressed out, or my third eye was pried open or something. But she treated me to a sort of video montage that I think was supposed to make her seem sympathetic, but it was really just middle-aged lady ravings all at once—like she was downloading a zip file into my head, but I don’t think she knew what she was doing. It sucked because she was the actual worst. Sorry, Caroline, I know she was an ancestor of yours, but she was full-on, reality-star-exposed-on-YouTube brand of ‘yikes’. And the funny thing is, I don’t think she meant to do it. Because what she showed me…”

“Uh, we need less ‘stream of Mina-consciousness’ and more of a linear narration,” Josh told her.

“The vocabulary lists are really paying off, Josh,” she said. “OK, fine. So, what Rose was trying to show me was her life as a poor unappreciated housewife, sick, miserable as her family just sort of blithely ran the inn and ignored her. But the truth was, she ran that place with an iron fist, and she managed to do it from her sickbed upstairs. And she loved it. She controlled who the family bought ale from, who they bought their food supplies from, whose tab got extended, who got to pay their rent late. Did I mention that your family used to own a lot more than just the Rose? They owned cottages and farms all up and down the shoreline and made a pretty penny gouging people for living in them.”

Caroline nodded. “So, my family managed to fritter a real estate empire away. Shocker. Wait, so Rose, as in ‘the Rose?’ I thought The Wilted Rose was supposed to be named after some angry spinster nursemaid, like a cautionary tale against trusting too easily.”

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