CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Marie arrived at June Manor just shy of eleven o’clock. The place was quiet, but she was delighted to see a guest perched in the sitting room with a glass of wine and a book. It was Shirley DeVoss, an up-and-coming photographer who had spent the entire morning snapping shots of the sunrise over the beach. She’d been a last-minute guest, excited to try a new place so close to the beach.

Boo was sitting at her feet. He looked up at Marie as she came in but did not seem all that excited.

“Is Boo bothering you, Ms. DeVoss?” Marie asked as she stepped into the sitting room.

“No, not at all. He’s rather cozy, actually. I was sitting out on the patio, listening to the ocean while I read for a while, but it got a little too breezy for me. Boo here seemed to sense that I was cold and offered to keep me company.”

“Well, as long as he’s not being a nuisance…I’ll leave you be.”

“Not a nuisance at all,” Ms. DeVoss said, returning her attention to her book.

Marie made her way through the sitting room, into the dining room, and then into the kitchen. There, she found Posey poking at her new iPad. It was something Marie had gifted her with when she’d given Posey her second paycheck a few days ago. Marie had introduced Posey to Pinterest and ever since, Posey had been pinning recipes and life hacks like a madwoman. As Marie entered the kitchen, she saw that Posey was pinning a recipe for a gluten-free lemon crumble cake.

“Do you need an intervention?” Marie asked.

Posey turned to Marie with a tired look on her face. “You know, I just might.” She closed out of her Pinterest account and set the iPad to sleep mode. “Any luck tonight?”

“You know, I thought so at first. I mean, this woman really had me going. But in the end, she turned out to be just very good at picking up on personal clues.” She yawned, waved it off, and said: “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

“Speaking of tomorrow,” Posey said. “Remember, I’ll be in late. But the pecan rolls are already made up and sitting in the fridge. They just need to be put in the oven and baked for half an hour at four hundred degrees. I figured Rebeka can do that. Will she be here that early?”

“Yes, I will,” a soft voice said, coming from the sitting room.

The Rebeka that Posey mentioned was Rebeka Collins, the newest member of the June Manor family. She stood in the entryway to the sitting room, her little backpack slung over her shoulder as she was on her way out for the day. She was a seemingly shy nineteen-year-old who had come into June Manor four days ago, looking for work. Marie had nearly turned her away but then thought of all the responsibilities she had been dumping on Posey. Also, though Marie hated to admit it, the girl looked like she’d been through rough times; she saw it in the girl’s shaky smile and the way she carried herself. No confidence, no real energy. She had a plain look about her, the sort of face that was striking in one kind of light but pale and featureless in another. Marie had hired her for fifteen hours a week to start, just to see how it would work out. Posey was appreciative of the help, but also very protective of Marie and June Manor, so she put a bit of a reserved tone in her voice whenever she spoke the girl’s name.

“Great,” Marie said. “Thanks, Rebeka. So, how was it today? Any questions?”

“No, I think I’m good,” she said. “I put a new filter in the vacuum cleaner. The old one was getting pretty nasty.”

“Oh, good,” Marie said. “See you tomorrow?”

Rebeka gave one of her usual shaky nods and turned away.

Posey gave Rebeka a skeptical look as she made her exit. “She’s too shy,” Posey said. “Maybe too quiet and reserved to work at a bed-and-breakfast where everyone wants to see cheer and hospitality.”

“Do you not like her?” Marie asked.

“Oh, I like her just fine. She just seems…I don’t know. Like something is always bothering her.”

With a shrug, Posey picked up her iPad and started for the sitting room. Marie heard her give a pleasant goodbye to Ms. DeVoss before she left the house.

Marie made her way to her bedroom, leaving Ms. DeVoss to her reading. The only other guest in the place was Mr. Atticus Winslow, and in the two weeks he’d been staying at June Manor, he’d made it very clear that he valued his privacy. And as long as he continued to pay for each day he tacked on, Marie was more than happy to grant that wish.

So with her guests perfectly content, Marie made her way to bed. As she was brushing her teeth in the adjoined bathroom, Boo came to the bedroom door and pawed at it. Ever since the first night she’d stayed in the house once it was her own, Boo had always slept in the room with her—sometimes at the foot of the bed, sometimes on the floor just to the side. She let him in and he took his place right away, letting out a yawn as he settled down.

As Marie crawled into bed and turned off the bedside lamp, her mind instantly turned to what she was starting to think of as a wasted night. Madame Agnes had really fooled her there for a moment. And although Marie was starting to see the woman as just another fraud, there was one thing she’d said that stuck with Marie. More than that, it had her a little unsettled as she did her best to fall asleep.

“I am getting a warning of sorts, urging you to not get too comfortable with these things, or the past will repeat itself.”

---

Marie was delighted to find Rebeka already putting Posey’s pecan rolls into the oven when she made her way into the kitchen at 5:35 the following morning. The young woman had also already set the coffee to brew. This was something Marie typically did the night before, setting it to brew automatically, but she thought it would be good practice for Rebeka to get into a morning routine. It had seemed to mean a lot to her when Marie had given her a key to the front door, allowing her to start the routine without having her hand held the entire way.

“Good morning, Rebeka,” Marie said as she went straight to the cabinet for a coffee mug.

“Same to you, Ms. Fortune.”

Rebeka seemed to be in bright spirits this morning. It was perhaps the happiest Marie had seen her since taking her on. The smile she gave Marie was one that reminded her of Rebeka’s age—on that fine line between adulthood and still being a teenager. Ah, to be nineteen again.

“What have we talked about, Rebeka?” Marie asked with a dramatic flair of evil.

“Sorry. I meant ‘Same to you,

Marie.

’”

“That’s better.” She poured her coffee and as she doctored it up, asked: “Everything go okay this morning?”

“Everything was fine,” Rebeka answered. “Although, when I came in, I saw that one peculiar guest—Mr. Winslow. He was sort of just looking at the bookcase in the sitting room. As soon as I came in, he went speedy quick up the stairs. He looked back at me like he was really angry.”

“Yeah, that’s Mr. Winslow. He’s an odd one. I wouldn’t think too much of it.”

“Oh, and another thing,” Rebeka said. “You’d told me to keep tabs on the manor’s social media activity. I found this back-and-forth on Twitter where people are making some pretty wild allegations.”

“Like what?”

Rebeka took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled for a bit. “Like right, here. Spookydude408 says: ‘Remember that Fortune lady with the manor in Maine? Brendan Pecks’ friend? Rumor has it she’s like a ghost buster now.’ And then Mulderscully4Life replied: ‘Old news. Yawn. Looks like Peck has transitioned her nicely to the realm of the dead. LOL.’ Stuff like that.”

“So nothing awful.”

“Well, that depends, I guess. I’ve done my very best not to seem too nosy, but I’m still not quite sure about the little trips you take out. Posey told me it had something to do with some spooky stuff, but not that you were like this real-life ghost buster.”

“Well, it’s complicated.”

“Sounds like it,” Rebeka said. “And they mentioned Brendan Peck. That’s the ghost-chasing guy, right? Used to be on Discovery Channel.”

“Yes.”

Rebeka nodded, impressed. “He’s sort of cute.”

Marie did her best not to blush as she turned away. She had not seen Brendan since they’d shared those two kisses before he’d left a little less than two weeks ago. They spoke on the phone and FaceTimed nearly every day and already, she could sense something changing between them. Maybe it was distance or the reality that they would never work as a couple. While she did want to see him again (quite badly in fact) she had no illusion that they were going to be able to have this great whirlwind romance.

And there were times when she thought of him that she also thought of Robbie Dunne, the local she had known from childhood who had been showing a pretty obvious yet resigned interest in her. She almost felt bad that Robbie was not occupying the same mental real estate as Brendan.

“I’ll take that awkward silence to mean Brendan Peck is not something you enjoy talking about,” Rebeka said.

“That’s a good observation. Now…are you okay to stay until about eleven today? Benjamin just finished installing the last glass panes in the greenhouse and I’d love for all of the planters to be scrubbed. You good with that?”

“Sure thing.”

“For now, help yourself to coffee and one of those pecan rolls when they come out. As I keep saying and you seem to ignore, you’re always welcome to anything in the fridge.”

Marie went to the fridge and took out a mixed berry yogurt. She took it, with her coffee, to the dining room table and went through her own morning routine. She read the local news, checked her personal email, double-checked June Manor’s reservations page, and scanned Facebook for a bit.

There were no new reservations, but the trickling in of the occasional guests had been noticeable over the last two weeks. Between now and the end of October—a five-week stretch—she had eight guests scheduled, and Mr. Winslow did not seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Then on the final four days of October, she was booked solid thanks to her first little run-in with the supernatural. Many of Brendan’s followers and minions had booked rooms, thinking it might be a cool Halloween experience. She almost felt bad for them; though she suspected the manor had indeed been haunted at first, the ghosts or spirits or whatever they were had long since gone, thanks to Boo.

The sporadic bookings on her calendar and the steadily growing number in her bank account thanks to her five ghost-cleaning jobs (she hated that term, but it was the best she had come up with) had her thinking the future might be bright. Add in the income from deposits of future guests as well as Mr. Winslow’s regular little chunks, and there seemed to be very much to be hopeful for.

No sooner had she thought this than the front door came flying open. Posey came rushing in, closing the floor quite loudly behind her. Posey was nothing if not a bit dramatic, and this morning she seemed to be in rare form. Even before she opened her mouth, the woman seemed absolutely on fire with something.

“Posey, I thought you were taking the morning off,” Marie said.

“Technically, I am. But there’s something I need to show you. Something you aren’t going to like at all.”

“Oh…that does not sound promising.” Marie remained seated, scraping yogurt out of the container and hoping this might be one of Posey’s overreactions. It happened a lot, particularly when she felt she had put too much seasoning into a dish.

“Yes, it’s a—wait. Why are you eating yogurt when my pecan rolls are clearly in the oven?” She took a deep whiff, enjoying the smell of her cooking creation.

“I was hungry. I’ll have a roll, too. Don’t worry. Now…focus, Posey. What is it?”

Posey pulled out her phone, flicked open a screen, and showed it to Marie. She read slowly, her heart dropping a bit. “Oh…I see.”

Rebeka entered the room, reading the screen over Marie’s shoulder. “Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, that’s not good.”

“No, it’s not,” Posey said, looking at Rebeka as if she were an idiot.

Marie read the words in front of her, trying to convince herself that Posey and Rebeka were being overdramatic. But as she read more into it, she was terribly afraid they were right.

This could be very bad.