Chapter Eight
Eight
It wasn’t a date.
Not really.
Yet Cassie had wasted the entire afternoon, first being too distracted to get any work done, and then feeling too guilty about not getting any work done to do anything else. Then it was suddenly six fifteen, and she had to throw a frozen pizza in the oven and figure out what she was going to wear. (She should eat first, right? Nick hadn’t said anything about dinner afterward. See? Another reason this wasn’t a date and Cassie needed to stop overthinking.)
Her hair was a lost cause; she could straighten it, but she didn’t really have time. And the humidity would turn it into a frizzy mess in the few minutes it would take her to walk to the café. So back up in a clip it went, and she threw on a sundress that was hopefully cute enough to make up for it. Then she slicked on some lip gloss and laced up her comfiest walking shoes. It was a walking tour after all, right?
The walk from her house to Hallowed Grounds was all but routine by now, from the cracks in the sidewalk to the shop displays and the white cartoon ghosts fluttering from the flagpoles. The sun had just started to dip low over the ocean, turning everything molten gold, and her sunglasses did little against the glare. Useless. But then she spotted Nick outside waiting for her, and she appreciated the camouflage the sunglasses provided.
He leaned against the lamppost outside Hallowed Grounds, his head turned away from her. His jeans were well-worn without being obnoxiously tight, and the sleeves of his blue dress shirt were pushed up his forearms. The evening sun threw russet-colored rays into his brown hair, which was pushed off his forehead and curled down to the back of his neck. Damn, golden hour looked good on this guy. Then again, she’d seen him in crappy fluorescent light earlier today, and he’d looked pretty nibbleable then.
Nick pushed off the lamppost when she approached. “Hey, you.” His voice was warm but not quite flirtatious. Yeah, definitely not a date. Cassie swallowed hard against sudden disappointment.
“Hi.” She gave him an unfortunately dorky wave. She’d been so busy ogling him as she walked up that she hadn’t even noticed the other tourists, but there were three other people—a white middle-aged married couple and a twentysomething guy with dark skin and a camera bag—milling around in front of the shop. They gave each other friendly, closed-lipped smiles; they were obviously here for the same reason, but not yet ready to engage in actual conversation with each other.
Thankfully Sophie chose that moment to round the corner, greeting everyone with a bright smile. Cassie’s return smile was involuntary. The phrase “cute as a button” was invented for Sophie. She couldn’t have been more than a little over five feet, her dark hair a riot of curls tamed by a red headband, and her big brown eyes framed by gold wire-rimmed glasses. Her face was round, her nose was small; she could have been a high school senior doing this for extra credit.
But when she addressed the crowd—was five people enough to be considered a crowd?—she was all authority. “Welcome, welcome! I’m so glad you all took the time to join me tonight! First I’m going to collect the fee: fifteen dollars each, please. Then we’ll get started! The tour runs about an hour, give or take, and we’ll be walking about a mile and a half in total. There are plenty of benches along the way if anyone needs to take a break, and I’m happy to tell more stories to pass the time if need be.”
While Sophie moved to the trio of tourists on the other side of the sidewalk, Nick leaned in toward Cassie. She caught a whiff of cinnamon; he must have been baking. Beneath that she smelled clean soap, a scent that reminded her of the ocean off her back balcony.
“You ready for this?” His voice was a low murmur that sent a shiver down her spine. She looked up into those illegally blue eyes, remembering way too late that she should probably answer his question.
“I think so.” She smoothed her hands nervously—they were already sweaty, thanks, Florida!—down the skirt of her sundress. Thank God for thin cotton; the night wasn’t overly hot, but humidity was eternal. “This isn’t going to be scary, is it?” She was very much not one for horror movies.
“Nah.” He stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, looking up and down the street as though he were assessing the area. “Most of the ghosts around here are benign. Harmless, you know? The more dangerous ones are usually encouraged to move along.”
“Go to the light, or whatever?”
He nodded. “Or whatever.”
“Ri-ii-ii-ght.” Cassie drew the word out into at least four syllables. Looked like they were keeping up the facade that all of this wasn’t bullshit. But that made sense. The other folks here were tourists, paying customers. If he ever broke down and told her the truth—what had to be the truth—it certainly wouldn’t be in front of a bunch of tourists who were waiting to hear ghost stories.
“Let’s get started!” Sophie situated herself by the door to Hallowed Grounds and clapped her hands together once. Instantly, the disparate group of people milling around fell into place in front of her, resolving into her audience. Cassie was impressed.
“One of the reasons I have us meet here is because it’s the best place to start the tour. Which seems weird, right? It’s not even open. Hallowed Grounds is one of the longest-running businesses in Boneyard Key. It was founded in the 1930s and was originally a diner, but these days it’s more of a coffee shop and lunchtime spot. I usually like to start this tour by telling you the story of the former owner and how he still has a hand in his old business. But we have a special guest tonight. Nick, would you like to do the honors?”
Cassie turned to Nick, a grin spreading over her face. She had no idea he was part of this whole thing!
Nick looked just as surprised. “Uh.” He shifted from one foot to the other, looking uneasy. He shot Sophie a glare from under his eyebrows but she was unmoved, meeting his gaze with an easy smile. Finally he gusted out a sigh.
“Fine.” He gestured awkwardly to the darkened windows of the coffee shop. “Elmer Buchanan ran this place for years. Decades, even. His dad was actually the one who started the business. It was a diner in the thirties, like Sophie said. When Elmer came back from serving in World War Two, he got married, settled here, and ended up taking over the diner. I don’t know when dinner service stopped. Probably when he got older and was sick of staying up late. It was always a breakfast and lunch place when I was a kid.” This was not a rehearsed speech. Nick started and stopped, stammered at some points—a stark contrast to Sophie’s obviously well-rehearsed patter. Cassie wanted to squeeze his hand, take some of his obvious nervousness into herself to help him out. But that might be too much too soon, so she settled for sending a mental you’ve got this his way.
Sophie nodded. “Elmer took over the place, like Nick said, and it became his life. Especially after his wife died, sometime in the eighties, right, Nick?” She continued after Nick’s nod of agreement. “He was a gregarious guy, loved being in the center of town, knowing everything that was going on.”
“Not to mention everybody’s business.” Nick’s smile was less stiff now as he fell into conversation with Sophie. Cassie was impressed; Sophie was good at this. “Still does. I’ve been the fifth owner after Elmer. The other ones didn’t want to deal with his…uh…input.”
One of the other tourists—the middle-aged husband—snorted. “I know what you mean. My boss retired three years ago, but he still drops by the firm. Pretty sure he fully expects the place to have burned down without him around.” He shook his head. “Some people don’t know how to let go.”
“That’s it exactly.” The rest of Nick’s obvious nervousness fell away as he seized on the other guy’s words. While public speaking wasn’t his thing, conversation obviously was. “He texts me all the time. Gets testy with me if I so much as tinker with a recipe. It used to bug me at first. Like, leave me alone, man!” He grinned as the group chuckled. “But I get it. Hard to let go, like you said. So I let him complain, and just nod and smile. It’s my place now, and when it comes down to it, I do what I want.”
“Nick.” Sophie sounded amused. “You forgot to mention…”
“Oh. Yeah.” Nick glanced at the darkened windows again, let his gaze travel up to encompass the whole building. “Elmer died around Y2K. So, uh. Yeah. He’s been gone a while.”
A startled laugh exploded from Cassie’s throat before she could stop herself, which prompted answering chuckles from the trio of tourists. Nick and Sophie responded with tolerant smiles that made Cassie’s laughter fade as fast as it had come on. She had the unsettling feeling that neither of them was kidding.
Sophie took back the conversation. “I like to start with Elmer’s story because he’s a perfect example of the kind of spirit that hangs out here.” She started down the wide sidewalk, and the group fell in line behind her like obedient ducklings. “Ghosts aren’t always scary. Here in Boneyard Key, they’re a way of life. Part of the scenery.” She led them up the street, past a T-shirt shop. The sun had lowered farther in the sky, sending shadows across the street.
Cassie pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and fell into step with Nick, bringing up the rear of the small procession. “I didn’t realize you were part of the show,” she said sotto voce, out of earshot of the rest of the tour. “That was pretty cool.”
Nick snorted, shaking his head. “I can’t believe Sophie put me on the spot like that. We’re gonna have words later.” But a smile played around his lips—very full, kissable lips, Cassie found herself noticing—that belied his stern tone.
“You sure? You had that story all worked up and ready to go.” Come on, she wanted to say. I’m not one of the tourists here. She wanted him to be real with her, to treat her like a local. But she didn’t know how to break through. What was the password to unlock the real story?
“It’s not a story.” Nick’s brow furrowed as he cast her a sideways glance. His voice had dropped, giving them more privacy. “You still think this is all bullshit, huh?”
She opened her mouth to reply but closed it immediately, feeling herself floundering. “I mean…you’re talking about ghost stories here. I get all this—” She waved a hand around, encompassing the shops they passed, all closed up tight for the evening. “But it’s a touristy thing, isn’t it? Something that sells T-shirts and ghost tours and whatever. I mean, if I go to Weeki Wachee to see the mermaids, I can get caught up in the fantasy they’re selling. I can say, ‘Oooh look at the mermaids!’ I can let myself ignore the hoses they’re holding so they can breathe. I know deep down that the tails they’re wearing are costumes. I’m not expecting the mermaids to be real.”
“This isn’t Weeki Wachee, though.” He thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans again and lengthened his stride to catch up to the group. Their one-on-one conversation was over as quickly as it had started. Cassie picked up the pace, practically trotting to match his steps. Great job, Cass, she scolded herself . If there was any notion of this being a date, you just killed it in record time.
By the time they were back in earshot of Sophie and her spiel, the group was in front of I Scream Ice Cream, where Sophie was winding down her story.
“So the good news is that if the freezers go down, the ice cream still stays cold!” She grinned while the rest of the group chuckled at her joke. Cassie hazarded a glance at Nick, who was mid–eye roll. He froze for a second as his gaze caught hers, then his expression softened.
“Okay, that one’s bullshit.” His voice was little more than a breath in her ear, his tone amused. He shot her a shy grin when she looked over at him.
“Yeah?” Her heart surged with hope. He was bringing her in on the joke, like a peace offering. Maybe she hadn’t ruined things after all.
The tour group moved on, and he bumped her shoulder with his as they fell into step with the rest. “Sometimes an ice cream shop is just an ice cream shop.”
“Okay then, Freud.” They continued down the sidewalk that led them around a bend toward the fishing pier. Cassie glanced across the street at her house as they passed it, but quickly turned her attention back to Sophie and her account of the town’s history. There would be time for her own personal (hopefully not really) haunted house later in the tour.
“There are lots of theories about what makes Boneyard Key so special. If you’re familiar with Cassadaga, which is in Central Florida on the way to Daytona, it was founded largely because of its psychic energy. Something to do with ley lines that I don’t even pretend to understand.” She pulled a face and the group laughed in response. “Some people think Boneyard Key is the same way. Something to do with the thinning of the veil …” She made spooky jazz hands to emphasize these last words. “But the general consensus comes from the town’s ominous past. We’ve had our share of tragedies here. Tragedy begets death, which of course begets ghosts.”
“Tragedy?” The middle-aged wife glanced around, and Cassie could see her point. The streetlights—wrought iron and made to look like old-fashioned gas lanterns—had begun to pop on as the sky darkened around them. Their warm, cozy light bounced off the closed-up kayak rental and bait shop, painted in cheerful shades of blue and green and orange. It looked like a postcard, or an art print titled Florida at Night , not like the kind of setting that tragedy could touch.
“Well, not recently,” Sophie clarified. “Boneyard Key was founded in the 1840s, but not here.” She led the group across the street and onto the darkened fishing pier, their footsteps clomping hollowly across the wooden slats. “We don’t have a great moon tonight”—Sophie peered up as though the crescent in the sky had disappointed her personally—“but if you come back during the day, you can look across the water and see the site of the original settlement. It’s called Cemetery Island now, because that’s all that’s left over there.”
Cassie stared as hard as she could, but all she could see in the darkness was a lump of slightly deeper darkness. She’d take Sophie’s word for it.
“It’s a small barrier island,” Sophie continued. “And when people lived there it wasn’t much, mostly a fishing and clamming community, but it was settled and thriving. Until the Great Storm of 1897.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound good.” Cassie had mostly been talking to herself, but beside her Nick made a grunt of agreement.
“Hurricanes usually aren’t,” he said, and she winced in sympathy. Floridians typically took hurricanes with a grain of salt and more than one margarita, but when they were bad, they were devastating.
“They weren’t measuring hurricanes yet,” Sophie continued, “but they say now that it was probably a Category Four storm, with winds at something close to 145 miles an hour.” She nodded as the group gave various gasps and low whistles. “Yeah, it was a big one. Wiped out the town, and most of the island itself. Many of the survivors of the Great Storm took off for points north after that, but a core group of families stayed—we call them the Founding Fifteen. They moved inland and established a new settlement here. They’re the ones that made Boneyard Key what it is today.”
Cassie leaned into Nick, her voice low. “A tourist town with the most souvenir shops per capita?”
Nick’s snort of laughter caught them both by surprise, and Sophie narrowed her eyes at them in mock censure. “As I was saying, it was about that time that…well, that’s when the hauntings started, for lack of a better term.”
She sounded so matter-of-fact about it that Cassie could almost forget that Sophie was talking about ghosts. “What was I saying about tragedy and trauma? Suddenly the Founding Fifteen—those families who stayed behind—found themselves able to communicate with those who’d been killed in the Great Storm. Most of those spirits didn’t stick around for long; they seemed to want the closure of being able to say goodbye, or seeing that their families were going to be okay. But then, as years went by, some ghosts just started…staying.”
“That had to have been creepy.” The younger tourist in the group aimed his camera toward the water; Cassie couldn’t imagine what he’d be able to capture.
“Maybe.” Sophie’s voice was carefully neutral. “And maybe a little comforting too. Sometimes when we lose someone, it’s like we’d give everything to have one final talk with them, you know? The dead aren’t always scary.
“The original settlement was called Fisherton,” she continued, “but when…well, when the weird things started happening, outsiders started calling it Boneyard Key. As a joke. Eventually it stuck, as people who lived here decided that sharing space with the dead wasn’t such a bad thing to do.” Sophie took a beat to let her words land; she really was a good storyteller. “There’s not much left of the original settlement on Cemetery Island—we’ve had a few more hurricanes over the years that’ve taken care of any remains of structures, things like that. But during the day you can rent a kayak and go over there. It’s an easy trip. There are a couple of foundations of houses, and tucked in the back is the original cemetery.” She paused. “It was oddly spared by all of the storms.”
Sophie let those final words sink in before she led them off the pier and back onto the sidewalk. Cassie leaned into Nick as they headed down the street. “Do I want to see Cemetery Island?”
He shrugged; saying meh with his whole attitude. “If you’re into kayaking. And cemeteries.”
“My two favorite things.” She grinned as Nick was startled into another laugh, interrupting Sophie. She narrowed her eyes at them but was smiling too much to be mad.
“As I was saying, this is one of our most famous landmarks.” She glanced over her shoulder then back at the tour group. “I’m not sure what that says about our town, but there you go. People like to take pictures of it, right?” She gestured to the guy with the camera, and he laughed.
“Guilty,” he said. “I was planning to get up early to shoot it tomorrow during sunrise.”
It was a stilt house built about thirty feet out into the Gulf. Though house was a generous term; the stilts were intact, along with two and a half walls. And some of the floor. A little bit of the roof.
Sophie nodded. “Now I’m going to admit that I have no idea if this place is haunted or not. I don’t have a whole lot of information on its history. The structure itself is abandoned, and as you can see, the Gulf is slowly taking the house, a piece at a time. Whoever once owned it is long gone. Unlike Nick’s friend Elmer, no one dead stuck around, and any descendants moved away decades ago. It’s become part of the scenery here in town. We call it the Starter Home.” She smiled as the group chuckled. “Just needs a little work, right?”
“Sure.” Cassie had to laugh at that. “It’s got good bones.” How many times had she heard that phrase when she’d been house hunting? Though saying it out loud while taking a ghost tour in a haunted town felt very different.
But Nick apparently appreciated ghost-related puns. “Good one.”
They continued around the bend, but Cassie hung back for a moment, gazing at the Starter Home. There was something about it that made her sad. Someone had built that house once. Someone had dreams of watching sunsets over the Gulf from their (probably) cute stilt house on the water. Who had lived there? What had happened to their dreams? Why had they left? She was suddenly very thankful for that somewhat shady flipper who had rescued her house. She hadn’t lived there long, but she hated the thought of it sitting there empty and forgotten for all those years, like the Starter Home here.
When she turned back around, Nick was waiting patiently for her, hanging back while the rest of the group continued around the bend and back to the main street leading into downtown.
He raised his eyebrows. “You okay?” He looked from her to the ruins of the stilt house, and back again, like he had picked up on her train of thought.
“Yeah.” She kept her voice light, fighting against the sudden melancholy that had come out of nowhere. “All good.”
When they caught up to the group, they were stopped in front of her house. Sophie had just turned around, waiting for Nick and Cassie to catch up. Cassie looked at the little gate of her picket fence. Painting it was on her to-do list, and now that she knew the house was a tourist attraction, she mentally bumped it up higher.
She’d heard this part of the tour already, from her balcony last Friday night when Sophie had brought another group by. She’d laughed it off then, but now her heart hammered in her chest. All this walking around in the dark, hearing the history of the town in the places where it happened, was getting to her, and Cassie was starting to see all this ghost stuff in a very different light. What if it was all true? Wasn’t a real estate agent supposed to disclose if a house was haunted?
Cassie tried to focus on Sophie’s words, but she couldn’t hear them over the blood pounding in her ears, so instead she focused on her house. She’d left the downstairs windows open and the porch lights on, which glowed now against the clapboard siding that was painted a soft yellow. Sure, the picket fence needed some paint, and the sod lawn the seller had put in really did look like crap, but there wasn’t anything about the place that looked particularly ominous.
“…She died sometime in the forties.” Sophie was wrapping up the story. “The house sat vacant for decades. But…” Her voice suddenly switched from spooky back to her bright sunny attitude. “A couple years ago it was purchased. It’s been renovated, and now it has a brand-new owner.” She threw Cassie a subtle glance and a smile as she started off down the sidewalk, motioning for the group to follow.
The lot next to Cassie’s house was vacant and surrounded by an old wooden fence, its whitewash nearly worn away. The faux gas lamp here didn’t work, so once they’d left the glow of Cassie’s front porch, they were swallowed up by darkness just in front of that vacant lot. But the darkness was short-lived; there was barely enough time to be creeped out before they hit the warm glow of the next streetlight. They were almost back to the downtown area where the tour had started.
“Now there’s a little path here, between the dunes, that takes you straight to the beach.” Sophie gestured off to the right, and while Cassie tried to follow the movement, the path toward the beach was too dark to make out. “You don’t want to head down there now, though.”
“Why, is the beach haunted too?” One of the patrons made a woooo -style ghost noise, and the group gave a collective chuckle. But Sophie nodded in all seriousness.
“Sometimes. Usually around…” She consulted her smartwatch, which briefly illuminated her face. “Oh, yeah, he might be out by now. Let’s just say if you take a shortcut through the beach walking home from, say, The Haunt? After a drink or two too many? You may have company.” She shrugged. “There’s a ghost out there in the dunes that really wants to hang out with drunk friends. If you’re sober you may be okay.”
“Bring him a beer and he won’t bother you.” Nick had been quiet for a bit, so when he spoke up now, Cassie jumped, her heart in her throat. He tossed her a crooked smile when she looked at him. “That’s what my friends and I always did when we’d go down to the beach to drink. He liked being part of the group.”
Cassie’s laugh felt forced, as she was still trying to get her heart rate to go down. “There’re a lot of rules to these ghosts.” She meant it as a joke, the way the guy a minute ago had made that woooo noise, but Nick nodded thoughtfully and Sophie, who had heard her, pointed at Cassie in recognition.
“There are! It’s weird, right? But you have to remember that ghosts were once people. And just like we all have different personalities in life, those personalities carry on into the afterlife. Now, I don’t know the full story of the beach bum—that’s what I call him. My theory is that he’s someone who was wandering home after a night out and went the wrong direction. Like into-the-ocean wrong direction.”
“That…he’d have to be pretty drunk to do that.” One of the tourists sounded somewhere between impressed and shocked.
“He would.” Sophie sounded way too cheerful to be talking about someone’s possible demise. Cassie stole a glance from Nick to Sophie. Two lifelong residents of this place, they took all this haunting in stride.
But neither of them lived in a house with the ghost of a creepy old lady who’d whacked her husband. At least, she didn’t think they did.
The real estate agent really should have disclosed that.
A slight breeze kicked up, cooling the sweat on her skin and ruffling stray locks of her hair. Cassie shivered and leaned in to Nick, who looked down at her with concern.
“Everything all right?” He put an arm around her, chafing one hand up and down her upper arm.
She forced a smile. “Yeah.” She wasn’t sure if it was the truth. Just like she wasn’t sure if this had really been a date. But if she could keep this guy’s arm around her, and maybe make him laugh again, well. It wouldn’t be the worst night ever. Not even close.