Chapter 8
What kind of self-respecting ghost would haunt this place?”
Miles adjusted his backpack and headed up the tidy, bush-lined driveway. “Pretty sure they don’t get a choice.” He was positive, actually, after talking to Blake the bus ghost.
Gabriel squinted at the blue two-story house, with its yellow trim and flower boxes in the front windows, as if he could see straight through the walls to any lurking spirits. “It doesn’t look remotely haunted.”
“If all haunted houses came straight out of an episode of Scooby-Doo, it would make my job a lot easier.” Miles forced amusement into his voice. “I don’t even know if there’s a ghost, that’s why I’m checking.”
“So, you’re a cadaver dog and a human EMF detector.”
It was a shadow of their usual banter. There was a vacancy to Gabriel’s voice that made them feel hollow. Like he was reading a script.
He’d acted this way all day. During class, he’d barely spared Miles a glance, and he’d vanished completely at lunch. Miles was shocked he’d showed up tonight.
Taking the hint, he resolved to give Gabriel the space he wanted, but Miles was suffering for it.
His brain had been spinning all day, each thought worse than the last until he was nauseous.
Part of him wanted to grab Gabriel and demand he stop being so selfish and just talk to Miles instead of keeping him in this awful, unknowing silence.
Instead, he made himself smile, and said, “Except I work. EMF detectors are only good for dramatic moments on cheesy ghost hunting shows.”
Casual. Cheerful. Unaffected. If Miles had survived that first week with Gabriel, he could do this. Hell, he could do anything.
Sure, he’d pictured their reunion going a little differently —a gratefully rescued Gabriel awestruck by Miles’s bravery, one of those relieved, desperate kisses straight out of a movie, maybe even a new shiny boyfriend label—but that was his own fault for daydreaming.
“That woman across the street is staring at us,” Gabriel warned him as they approached the front door.
Miles had clocked her when he’d pulled up. She’d taken one look at Charlee’s battered Honda and planted herself in her driveway like a guard dog in a purple tracksuit. She was harmless—if she were going to call the cops, she would’ve done it already. “Ignore her and she’ll go away.”
Not only was this neighborhood full of nosy people, but nosy people who took one look at Miles and thought he was trouble.
He’d had the cops called on him more than once for suspicious activity, which was just code for “there’s someone who looks poor in my rich neighborhood, he must be here to rob us. ”
Ugh. He despised Glenwood.
A massive sunflower wreath all but obscured the door knocker, but Miles didn’t need it.
He lifted the welcome mat to reveal a silver key winking up at him, right where the owners had promised it would be.
The door unlocked easily, and Miles followed Gabriel through.
It was surprisingly cozy inside, with more character than he’d expected.
The living room housed a monstrous peacock-blue velvet couch and colorfully beaded pillows, a plush cream rug beneath a mosaic-tiled coffee table.
A massive TV was wall-mounted across from it, flanked by huge potted plants.
The only immediately off -putting thing was the heavy scent; Miles could taste artificial pumpkin in the back of his throat.
They crossed the living room—avoiding the immaculate rug—into the dining room, where a six-person table of polished oak squatted.
The kitchen was right there, the marble island and stainless-steel appliances visible through the open doorway, but Miles didn’t go in.
If there was a poltergeist, the last place he wanted to be was the room with all the knives.
Being in a stranger’s house while they were gone was always strange. Unsettling. Miles didn’t consider himself especially snoopy, but he always felt like he should peek around to make sure there weren’t any bodies in the basement.
“We’ll set up here,” he told Gabriel, wiggling off his backpack and placing it on the dining room table.
“How does this work, exactly?”
“I walk around the house, check things out. If there’s a ghost, I can usually sense it even if I can’t see them.
But calls like this are usually a false alarm—creaky old houses with rattling pipes and mice in the walls.
People love any excuse to tell their friends their house is haunted, until they start freaking themselves out.
” He shook his head. “I really don’t know when living in a haunted house became a cool thing.
People don’t understand what a pain in the ass real ghosts are.
But it keeps my parents in business, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. ”
“Old houses have had more time for a horrific death to happen inside,” Gabriel pointed out, sitting at the end of the table closest to the kitchen.
The inside of the house looked modern, but Miles had noticed the historical home plaque mounted by the front door. “Which is why I’m checking.”
“And what happens if there is a ghost here?”
“I’ll try to communicate with them, find out what I can.
My parents prefer to learn who the ghost is so we can release its spirit, or find out if it needs something specific to move on instead of just cleansing the space or banishing it.
It feels… nicer that way. More respectful.
Like we’re giving them a better chance of finding peace, I guess. ”
Miles started unloading his bag, laying out crystals and candles on the wood. He was careful not to jostle the sweater-wrapped heart in a jar he’d shoved to the bottom. It seemed like a good idea to keep it on him in case of an emergency need-direction situation.
The silence felt uncomfortably deliberate, so Miles blurted out, “You’ve really never had to do anything like this before?”
“Like what?”
“You know…” He waved around them. “Investigate a haunted house. Dig up a grave in the middle of the night. Banish a poltergeist as it’s trying to bash your head in against the nearest wall. Dispose of a cursed mirror that makes people claw their own faces off.”
“No.”
“So it’s true then that your mom just does séances for rich people,” Miles muttered, then winced. “Sorry, that was rude. I meant—”
“It’s true. And it’s very profitable work.”
Something about the tone of Gabriel’s voice felt like a challenge, a calculated edge of arrogance he wanted Miles to react to. Poking, to see if Miles could be goaded into a fight.
He smiled, feeling just petty enough to hope it annoyed Gabriel, and changed the subject. “You okay chilling here while I scope out the house?”
If Gabriel was disappointed, he hid it well as he slipped off his peacoat and draped it over the chair beside him.
“I’ll be fine.” He scanned the house, lingering on the bookshelf in the living room and the photographs on the wall, much like he had in Miles’s home.
There was a hungry curiosity in the way he examined other people’s lives.
“Don’t touch the grimoire,” Miles warned, pointing at his bag.
It was locked up in its containment box, but he knew the second he opened it, nasty little tendrils would come out, searching for anything they could latch on to, probing against his protective charms, licking at his skin like sandpaper.
With the way Gabriel was acting right now, he wasn’t sure he trusted him not to do something stupid just to frustrate Miles or make some asinine point.
Crossing the kitchen to the stairs, Miles cautiously lowered his mental shields.
He could sense something, a low thrum of energy in the air.
It wasn’t malicious or evil, just… sad. Grief and fear—the sneaky kind that kept you in bed for days, sobs muffled into pillows and salty tracks on skin.
There was something about it that suggested innocence, an undercurrent of confusion.
It was awful, but he’d rather deal with a sad ghost than an angry one. Dreary was always a safer bet than murderous.
The stairs creaked loudly as he climbed, making him feel like he was in a low-budget horror movie. Next, the lights at the top were going to flicker and go out.
He peeked in each room—four neat bedrooms and two bathrooms—but didn’t see anything. The energy was an ache in the back of his teeth, not tethered to anything specific as far as he could tell. The ghost was most likely attached to the house itself—or a person in it.
Back in the dining room, Gabriel was scrolling idly through his phone. His pale fingers drummed against the tabletop.
“There’s definitely a ghost here,” Miles informed him, “but it doesn’t feel too dangerous. It might be a kid.”
“A kid? How can you tell?”
“Their energy always feels a little different. Innocent, kind of… shallow. If you focus, you can probably feel it.”
“All I can feel is the grimoire.”
Through the containment box? Gabriel was so attuned to it, he was being affected in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Worry itched under Miles’s skin that he was making a terrible mistake even letting Gabriel near it.
“Well, trust me, this ghost feels like a fluffy little kitten compared to some of the ones I’ve wrangled. Or Florence.”
“A fluffy little kitten. Very intimidating. Should I grab the salt?”
“Shut up.” Miles knocked his hip into Gabriel’s chair. “You don’t get to act like a macho ghost expert just because you banished one.”
He pulled the containment box from his bag and Gabriel stood to attention like a dog who’d spotted a ball. Yeah, that made Miles feel loads better about handing it over.
Cautiously, he opened the box, scowling at the grimoire’s plain leather cover and the frigid chill that blasted forth. He hadn’t missed it these last few days.
“If you start to feel weird—” Miles caught himself. “Weirder than normal, let me know.”
“I’ll be fine.” Gabriel took the grimoire. His skin erupted into goosebumps where he’d rolled up his sleeves. “I know what to expect now.”