Tonight was the grand opening of our first ghost tour at the Riverside Inn, and there was no sign of any ghosts.
“This might be a problem,” I remarked to nobody in particular, since Carey was still at school and I was alone behind the bar with no customers to speak of. Not that unusual for the time before the lunch-hour rush, but even my brother, Mart, was nowhere to be seen. Weird.
I walked out from behind the bar and peered through the transparent doors connecting the restaurant to the Riverside Inn’s lobby. On the other side, Allie stood behind the reception desk and handed the latest group of guests the keys to their room. She’d donned her best silver cloak and matching hat in honour of our grand opening and also clipped a pair of small cartoon ghosts to her spectacles. I was willing to bet she wore matching socks, too, like her daughter, Carey. We’d had no shortage of bookings this weekend for our first ghost tour, but we were short on actual ghosts.
Typical of the local spirits to vanish the one time we actually needed them around. Shaking my head, I returned to the bar to wait for the guests to depart for their rooms. While I didn’t have to hide my ghost-whispering tendencies anymore, that didn’t mean I wanted to broadcast the less-than-glamourous side of wrangling spirits into obedience. I had to at least attempt to maintain the illusion that I knew what I was doing.
Also, if it turned out that I had to make use of my Reaper skills to find them, then few people would be able to watch without being mentally scarred for life, which would be a slight hindrance to our plans for a family-friendly ghost-tour venture. Not to mention I didn’t like exposing my half-Reaper status to outsiders if I could help it. Most of the people local to the town of Hawkwood Hollow knew, but I maintained the hope that they wouldn’t spread the word any further afield.
Yes, I was aware that helping to run a ghost-tour business was hardly an effective cover story, but both Allie—who owned the inn—and her daughter lacked the ability to see ghosts, let alone perform any Reaper trickery. I was simply there to make sure the ghosts behaved themselves, nothing more.
Pay no attention to the Reaper behind the curtain.
After the guests had departed the lobby, I emerged to search for our elusive spirits.
Allie smiled at me from behind the counter. “Hey, Maura. What’re you doing out here?”
“Looking for my brother,” I told her.
“He’s not around?” She adjusted one of the little ghostly charms on the side of her glasses. “Are you sure he’s not haunting the guests?”
“He might be.” I’d given him open permission to do all the haunting he liked—within reason—which stood in stark contrast to my usual insistence that he kept his ghostly antics to a minimum. For the first time, the guests knew exactly what they were getting into when they stayed at an inn that was inhabited by ghosts. They’d come for a haunting and expected to get one. “Or he’s preparing for the tour.”
“He’s been looking forward to this, right?”
“To an annoying degree.” Over the past few years, my brother had spent a lot of time as the only ghost in the room, and he’d been delighted when I’d agreed to help Carey realise her ambitions to turn the family inn into a haunted hotel. She’d dreamed of doing so for years, but her inability to actually see ghosts had put a wedge in her plans until I’d come along—without knowing I’d end up staying, I might add.
When I’d first moved to Hawkwood Hollow, I’d been less than enthused when I’d discovered that the number of ghosts in town outnumbered the living people and that nobody had any intention of getting rid of them. Usually the local Reaper was on hand to banish those spirits to the afterworld, except the town’s sole Reaper had gone into early retirement more than two decades prior, after the death of his apprentice, and nobody had stepped in to take his place. No, I certainly wasn’t volunteering, not least because I wasn’t an official Reaper and I’d frankly rather eat grave dust than come face-to-face with the Reaper Council again.
Eventually, I’d come to accept that Hawkwood Hollow’s ghosts weren’t going anywhere, and if we could turn the town’s one perk into a tourist attraction, then it could only be a good thing. Assuming our ghostly employees showed their faces before tonight.
I approached the games room at the back of the reception area and heard the hum of a TV and several voices behind the closed door. Aha.
Sure enough, I pushed open the door to reveal every single one of the inn’s resident ghosts, including Mart. The youngest, Vicky, sat in front of the TV, watching cartoons, while Jonathan and Brian played pool at the table. Wade and Louise chattered in the corner, while my brother hovered in mid-air, juggling bits of popcorn, which he dropped all over the floor when he saw me watching him. He swept to his feet and gave a dramatic bow. “Welcome to our domain, sister mine.”
“You do realise our guests are already arriving, don’t you?” I addressed the room in general. “Are you slacking off?”
“We’re strategising,” Mart said self-importantly.
“I thought you wanted us to save the haunting for the big tour tonight,” added Jonathan, one of the younger ghosts. He looked a few years older than my brother, but appearances could be deceptive with ghosts, who were forever frozen at the age of their death. Mart was eternally stuck at eighteen, which was slightly better than him being stuck as a small child the way Vicky was, but I sometimes wished his maturity level had evolved past his teens.
“I didn’t mean you could all hang around in here watching TV,” I said. “The guests would be delighted if they got a preview of a little ghostly mischief before the evening. You can build up to the big event with a few small incidents, can’t you? Locked doors, mysteriously flickering lights, that sort of thing.”
“Testing out all the showers?” Mart asked hopefully.
“Definitely not.” He already flooded my room at least once a week if I didn’t keep a close eye on him; I’d met dozens of ghosts, and none of them enjoyed hot showers as much as my brother did. “Don’t do anything that might cause damage or lead to complaints. Didn’t I already tell you that?”
Not that my brother listened to me at the best of times. It was a miracle I’d convinced him to agree to stick to the planned schedule for our ghost tours, but for once in my life, his need for attention had won out over his desire to rebel against my orders.
“Maura,” Allie called through the door. “You have customers.”
“Oops.” To the ghosts, I said, “You can stay in here until closing time if you like, but if I were you, I’d want to get the guests in the mood for tonight’s haunting. Have a think about it.”
Allie watched from the reception desk as I left the room and closed the door on the ghosts. She’d long since grown used to my habit of appearing to converse with thin air, and I had to admire how swiftly she’d adapted to our incorporeal guests too. Unlike her daughter, Allie had never planned to end up running a haunted attraction. She’d been the sole owner of the inn and restaurant since the death of Carey’s father some years ago, and keeping the place running was an impressive enough feat on top of single-parenting a sensitive teenager whose obsession with ghosts had mostly been met with ridicule from her classmates. It gave me no end of satisfaction to know that they regretted their comments now we’d begun to build a successful business out of the town’s major ghost problem.
“Everything okay in there?” asked Allie.
“Yeah, the ghosts just needed a reminder that our guests did come here expecting a haunting experience outside of the tour,” I explained. “I suggested they should give them a taste of what’s to come.”
“I don’t blame them for saving their best for later,” she said. “I have to admit I didn’t expect us to get quite this many bookings.”
“Your daughter’s a whiz at publicity,” I reminded her.
“I’d say more credit goes to you for making this happen.”
“I’m just your friendly neighbourhood Reaper.” Compliments always made me uncomfortable, and besides, it was mostly Carey’s work. Whenever Allie tried to claim I was the one who’d inspired her to make a go of this, I pointed out that Carey’s plans had existed far before my arrival in town. Pure luck had brought me here—that, and a chronic lack of cash. The latter problem had been solved when I’d found permanent employment here in Hawkwood Hollow, and I owed Allie for that. Honestly, it was the least I could do for both of them to help her daughter with her ghost-tour ambitions.
I returned to the restaurant to serve the pair of witches waiting at the bar, who ordered two of our Halloween-all-year-round themed cocktails and complimented the new decorations we’d put up for the grand opening.
“We’re here for the ghost tour later,” said the taller of the two witches, whose dark hair was buzzed short. “Do you have merchandise? That logo of yours would look great on a T-shirt.”
She indicated the cute cartoon ghost that featured in the banners we’d festooned the bar with, which was a product of Carey’s impressive rendering of my own terrible drawing into a serviceable logo.
“Not yet,” I told her. “We’re working on it.”
Or Carey was, since my drawing skills amounted to stick people and not much else. I could definitely see her applying her design skills to merchandising, though.
“Fair enough,” said the second witch, who sported a pink mohawk.
As I served the witches their drinks—if they wanted to order cocktails at midday, who was I to judge?—Jia, my coworker and fellow ghost-wrangler, entered the restaurant, wearing a T-shirt depicting Boo from Super Mario.
“Hey,” I said to her when she joined me behind the bar. “I’ve already had questions about merchandise. Might need to ask Carey to get a move on with that.”
“Or hire someone else,” she said. “Carey might be impressive at multitasking, but she’s still only one person.”
“True.” We did need another staff member—a living one, that is—but our job requirements had only grown more specific with the expansion of our business. It’d be tricky to find someone who fitted in with our eclectic workplace and could see ghosts too. Considering the town was packed with ghosts, you wouldn’t think it was an unreasonable expectation, but Hawkwood Hollow had an unusually low percentage of inhabitants who were able to see their incorporeal neighbours. My current working theory was that anyone with a gift for seeing ghosts moved out of town at the first opportunity, which I didn’t exactly blame them for. I’d actively tried to avoid ghosts for most of my adult life… except for Mart, who was stuck with me whether either of us wanted it or not.
Jia adjusted the name badge she wore on her uniform. “Ready for the big show?”
“Yep,” I said. “The ghosts are, too, I think.”
In the background, I heard them chattering upstairs, having taken my advice to heart and decided to give our guests a small-scale preview of the delights to come.
“Even the town’s ghosts who usually stay hidden are coming out to play,” said Jia. “I swear I saw a couple I didn’t recognise on my way here. I thought they’d moved on to the next world.”
“Let’s hope they don’t decide to come to the inn,” I said. “We don’t want our tour disrupted by random local ghosts.”
“I don’t know. It’ll make things memorable for our opening night.”
“We selected our spirits for a reason,” I reminded her. “We don’t want to end up playing host to the type of ghosts who like beatboxing at 2:00 a.m.”
“You’ve met one who did that?”
“Mart went through a phase a few years ago,” I said. “He was even more annoying than usual, if you can believe it.”
She grinned. “I have my doubts.”
Jia and I served customers until Carey came home from school, bounding into the restaurant with all the excitement of a toddler in a toy shop. Of everyone, Carey was by far the most excited to finally kick off the opening night, even more so than the ghosts were.
“People have been asking me questions about the tour all day,” she told us. “Even one of Cris’s friends said she might be interested in coming.”
I made a mental note to keep an eye out for Carey’s former bullies if they did show up, though I didn’t think even they would have the audacity to try to ruin our big event. They’d been quiet over the past few months anyway, following the incident a few months ago when they’d tried to summon their own ghosts and bitten off more than they could chew, and it was difficult for anyone to deny that Carey’s new business venture was a hit with the locals.
“We’re almost fully booked for tonight,” Allie told her daughter. “I might have to start turning people away if they show up later without a reservation.”
“Where’d all these people come from?” Carey scanned the restaurant, her eyes wide.
“Your advertising efforts, of course,” said Jia. “You plastered the town in posters and shared the grand opening announcement online. It’s all thanks to you.”
Carey’s face turned mauve. “That doesn’t explain how we had so much interest. I’ve never had much luck reaching people with my blog posts before.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” I said. “Your posts had a ton of reach, but the locals are interested too. They appreciate the novelty. How many people total do we have space for on the tour?”
“Thirty, max,” said Allie. “Otherwise we’ll have issues with overcrowding in the upstairs corridors. I’ll set up a waiting list just in case anyone wants to sign up for a later date.”
“Good idea,” Carey said. “Tell you what, we can eventually start doing three or four tours per night if we start early.”
“It’s an idea, but don’t try to do too much.” Tonight was more of a test run, so we could adjust accordingly if need be. “Things might calm down a bit when people figure out this is going to be a regular thing.”
“Yes, and we need to hire more staff before we can increase the number of tours we run each day,” Allie told her daughter. “Maura and Jia are already working full-time in the restaurant, too, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Her radiant expression faded a little, then brightened again. “Tell you what, if the tour is a hit with the locals, we can see if any of them want to join our staff.”
“One thing at a time,” Allie said to her. “Oh, and don’t forget to do your homework before the tour starts.”
That might be a tall order. Carey’s excitement couldn’t be quenched, and I’d almost started to pick up on some of it by closing time. We’d had three more requests for merchandise from customers, and someone also asked if we were going to expand our tours to cover parts of the town outside the inn. I replied that we were working on it, since Carey had shown an interest in setting up several different types of tours to have on rotation so we’d have a bit more variety. Her ambitions might be stymied by the town’s other residents, though. Especially a certain Reaper, who’d no doubt object to us bringing packs of rowdy tourists into the cemetery where he lived. Old Harold preferred to avoid all company, both living and dead.
While Carey went to change out of her mustard-yellow uniform into something a bit more appropriate for a ghost tour, Jia and I closed up the restaurant and then went to make sure the ghosts were all accounted for. All five of our newer employees were in the lobby, but there was one notable absence. Where’d my brother gone this time?
I scanned the restaurant, seeing a lot of living people but no dead ones. Frowning, I approached the bar and ducked behind the counter, where I spotted a transparent figure hiding behind the kitchen door. “Mart?”
“Yes?” He scooted into view, looking slightly abashed.
“What were you doing back there?”
“Tidying.”
I raised a brow at him. “Tidying what?”
“Nothing.”
What was he up to? Wait. “You don’t have stage fright, do you?”
He pouted. “Stop laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing.” Though I had to stifle an incredulous snort at the notion of my overconfident brother experiencing a sudden spate of nerves.
“I don’t appreciate that.” He poked me in the chest, creating the sensation of being prodded with a transparent icicle.
“Oi.” I took a step back out of range. “You have no reason to be afraid. Isn’t this what you always wanted?”
“No, what I always wanted was to be a professional Sky Hopper player.”
I gave him an eye roll. “Nice try. You used to skip out on broomstick lessons the same as everything else.”
“It’s all right for you,” he said huffily. “It’s not easy being the star of the show. Everyone’s putting all this pressure on us to perform well today, and now I’ve forgotten how to haunt people at all.”
“You’re haunting me right this instant,” I said. “Just be yourself. And believe me, I don’t often say that and mean it.”
He gave me another poke, which I dodged, and then scooted out of the kitchen and across the restaurant. Already the guests were congregating in the lobby. Young mingled with old, the majority of the crowd comprised of witches and wizards, since shifters were generally uninterested in anything related to ghosts, at least in my experience. Drew hadn’t been able to make our opening night either. The head of the town’s police force had a lot of demands on his attention, so I kept my fingers crossed that we wouldn’t need his help.
Ahead of the crowd, Carey waited at the foot of the stairs to the upper floor with a microphone in her hand, dressed in her new smart silver cloak and hat to match her mother’s. She carried her bright ghost goggles in her free hand, but she didn’t need to be able to see ghosts herself to be an effective host. I was pretty impressed, to be honest. I couldn’t have handled that level of responsibility when I was a teenager.
The clocks chimed eight. The guests were ready, and the ghosts were ready too. It was time for the tour to officially begin.
