The Neighborly Thing To Do

Chapter 1

Cassidy

There’s someone knocking on my front door, interrupting my plans to sleep in for the first time in ten years.

I pull my pillow over my head and hope they go away. No luck. When the pounding gets annoying enough, I stomp out of bed, shove the Pine Bluff U sweatshirt G gave me over my head, and throw open the front door.

“What?” I grouch, peering around to see the mayor, the ghost of a long-dead man who haunts an old house that would give human children nightmares, and another man who I squint at for a moment. I know him, but I’m not—

Oh, fuck. It’s G’s uncle. I haven’t seen him in ten years.

“Good morning, Cassidy,” the mayor chirps. Do ghosts even sleep? Is that why he’s so chipper at this hour?

The same definitely can’t be said for me.

I didn’t get home until after midnight last night, and the four hour drive had worn me right out.

I could have left earlier, but G had looked so small in that dorm room.

I worry sometimes that I’m stifling her growth, but I think we both have a bit of separation anxiety at this point.

It's been just the two of us for ten years, after all.

When I’d gotten home, I’d fallen into bed, barely taking the time to change. I’d comforted myself that I didn’t work until the afternoon today, so I could sleep in as late as I wanted.

So much for that.

“Mr. Davies, what brings you here?” I’ve never been clear on if you’re supposed to call him Mr. or Mayor, so I’ve been using them interchangeably for years. Which isn’t that often. I don’t exactly speak to the mayor on a regular basis.

“Cassidy, you remember Hugh, right?”

Hugh Saunders. G’s mom’s brother, a sorcerer who looks like a car salesman with intense, beady eyes. I last saw him at the funeral, where he’d given me two hundred bucks to “get through the summer,” and then fucked right out of our lives.

Yeah, I remember him.

“Sure. If you wanted to wish G well, she left for Pine Bluff yesterday,” I tell him. Kind of weird that he’d come back now without even calling first, but what do I know? Maybe he lost my number somewhere along the way.

“I’m not here for Georgia,” he rasps in a voice that sounds like he barely ever uses it.

I squint, feeling at a distinct disadvantage here.

I’m barely awake, and this is starting to feel like a riddle they expect me to solve when I only have half the clues.

“What’re you looking for, then?” It might come out a touch more aggressively than I mean to, but, oh well.

He hasn’t been the one here. He can put up with a little passive-aggressive behavior.

Mr. Davies clears his throat. “Cassidy, Hugh is here about the house.”

“What about the house?” My hand tightens on the door knob I still haven’t let go of, sure something is about to go wrong. That sounds way too ominous.

I wish I pulled a pillow over my head and tuned out the knocking.

“I want to make you an offer,” Hugh says. “Fair market value for the house.”

“What.” When the fuck did I put my home on the market? I inherited a house free and clear from my father; I plan to live here until I die.

Mr. Davies shifts uncomfortably now, which is a weird look for a ghost. I can’t see through him clearly, but he is translucent, and the background shifting through him as he moves is a weird optical illusion I haven’t gotten used to, even after a decade in town.

“Cassidy, no one will deny you did an amazing thing these last several years—”

“What. About. The. House,” I repeat, enunciating each word clearly, not caring how rude it makes me sound.

“—But you can’t deny that you don’t really belong here. This town is a finite resource, Cassidy. There’s only so much land, so many houses. We’re not equipped for humans to live here, taking up space that could be used for one of us."

I reel at that, trying to process what he’s saying.

He’s trying to take away the house that’s rightfully half mine. He’s trying to rip the house I’ve lived in for ten years out from under me just because I had the weird luck to be born human. He’s trying to kick me out of town the minute I’m no longer useful to them.

Un-fucking-believable.

“This house is mine,” I say curtly, gripping the door and preparing to slam it.

“My father split his will pretty evenly between Georgia and I. It’s half mine.

And even if it weren’t, it’s certainly G’s.

” It’s not Hugh’s; him being G’s mom’s brother doesn’t entitle him to the damn house.

He never lived here, never supported us.

G hasn’t gotten so much as a birthday card.

Mr. Davies looks at me with some sort of benevolent pity that raises my hackles.

I got that look a lot right after my father died, but it’d tapered off when I’d proven I could handle my shit.

But now it’s back, because he thinks I’m a stupid kid who’s missing some crucial piece to the puzzle. I hate it. I might hate him.

“The thing is, Cassidy, Hearthstone’s laws don’t work like you’re used to in the human world.” He’s explaining it like he might to a toddler. “We have to prioritize our community, and the unique protection we provide supernatural people. We don’t allow humans to live here.”

I flinch back at his words. I don’t want to—don’t want him and fucking Hugh to see that—but I can’t help it. “You didn’t mind a human living here the past decade,” I spit out.

Mr. Davies sighs. “No one denies you did a good thing, Cassidy. But it’s done. Georgia is grown now, and you can return to the human world. You have a place there. It’s better for everyone, really.”

My mouth falls open at the high-handed condescension. I turn to Hugh. “So you’ve, what, suddenly decided you want to move home?” I ask incredulously. As far as I know, Hugh Saunders hasn’t been in Hearthstone since the funeral, and he wasn’t around much before that, either.

“I’m a business man,” he says in that raspy voice of his. “I think I can bring a certain something into Hearthstone.”

That’s not an answer to my question. “What does that have to do with this house?” I demand.

“The land’s been surveyed and is valuable. It’s perfect for a boutique hotel,” he says shamelessly. “Summer tourism is an untapped industry up here, and I intend to ensure that Hearthstone fully develops that market.”

“You can’t do that,” I argue, brain spinning with what he’s saying. Tear down my house and put up a hotel? “What about Georgia?” I ask, grasping at straws.

“I’ll let Georgia stay with me when she comes home to visit,” Hugh says. “Free of charge, for family.” His voice gets more grating every time he speaks.

The idea of letting Georgia stay on her own damn property is galling, and I don’t know what to say. I want to tell them they can have the house over my dead body, but I can’t make the words come out.

“I’m prepared to pay a competitive rate,” Hugh says, and Mayor Davies looks at me like he expects me to jump on board.

I slam the door in their faces and turn the lock.

They don’t bang down my door. They’re both too civilized for that, and I’m sure Mr. Davies went back to the town hall to draw up some sort of formal eviction notice. Can I even be evicted if I’m not a tenant?

Well, it sounds like he’s going to try. Or he’s at least going to draw up the paperwork for the sale and then force me to sign it. I begin to pace the house, thinking.

I don’t know what to do. It’s not like I have a lawyer, and I’m not stupid enough to think that this town would respect a human lawyer, either. Mr. Davies wasn’t wrong when he said they operate by their own rules here.

I need to talk to someone, but the problem is, the only person I really speak to regularly is G, and she’s out for obvious reasons.

I’m not going to tell her that her only other surviving relative is threatening to steal our home.

She’s starting college, for fuck’s sake.

She needs to be focused on school. She has so much to learn, and I’m not going to be the one to ruin it for her.

I end up calling my mom once it reaches a decent hour. She lives all the way on the west coast, so it takes a while, and I won’t have that long to talk before I’ll have to think about getting ready for work, but it’s never a good idea to piss her off by calling too early.

“I don’t understand,” she proclaims, and I can hear voices in the background. She’s talking to me while she’s out on one of her walks, then. “You’re done, Cassidy. You finished what you set out to do. Why would you want to stay there? There’s nothing more in that town for you. Come home.”

I don’t know what I expected. My mom spent the last ten years hoping I’d hand Georgia off to someone else and come home.

She hasn’t said anything explicit about me moving back after G left for college, but that’s because of the number of times I threatened to stop talking to her altogether if she told me to give up my sister again.

It shouldn’t surprise me that she’s still thinking it.

“This is my house,” I say stubbornly.

“So take a buy-out, Cassidy. Honestly. Ask the man for a lot of money to go quietly, and take it as the win it is. Get out. It sounds like he can afford to pay you, and you can use that money and build a life here, where you belong. They never wanted you in that town; take the hint, stop trying to make them like you, and come back to your life. Your real life. You had so much potential, honey.”

I bite my cheek so I don’t say anything, now wishing I didn’t call.

It’s not her fault. My mother loves me and wants the best for me, and she’s been convinced I’ve been deprived of it my whole life.

Whether it was my dad leaving her, or him only seeing me twice a year, and always at innocuous locations, never his own home, or me choosing to drop out of college to take care of G—my mom sees some sort of idealized life and wasted potential when she looks at me.

It’s not that I don’t want some of that.

Yes, I’d maybe have liked to have a father who wasn’t embarrassed to talk about me.

And yes, I wish I got to finish my college degree.

But this is my home. This is my house; Dad left it to me fair and square.

I built a life here with G. It’s all I’ve known for ten years.

I’m not giving it up just because someone said so.

“You can stay here while you get on your feet,” my mom says when I don’t answer her fast enough, like that’s the thing I’m getting stuck on. “I’d be happy to have you. Your bedroom is a workout room now, but we can get it set back up.”

“Mom,” I say heavily. “It’s my house. They don’t get to kick me out.”

They don’t get to say no humans allowed like little kids hanging a sign on the tree house. Sure, maybe this town isn’t designed with me in mind, but I’ve been here. I bag their groceries and I raised G and I live here. If we’re getting technical, I was even born here.

“You’ve always been stubborn,” Mom mutters, and then, predictably, “The one thing you got from your father.”

Mom blamed my stubbornness grumblingly on my father my whole life, but I think I come by it honestly from both sides.

“Mom—”

“Call me when you’re ready to make plans, honey,” Mom continues. “I know change can be scary, but maybe it’s for the best. It’s time for you to stop putting your life on hold for other people. It’s time for you to finally get a chance to live.”

That fucking hits like a punch to the solar plexus, and I don’t know what to say. Thankfully, I don’t have to figure it out, because my phone beeps.

“I have another call. Gotta go,” I mutter, hanging up on her and accepting the other call without even a look. It’s either G or work, and I’d much rather talk to either of them than my mother right now.

“Cee!” Georgia squeals, voice too high and loud. I pull the phone away from my ear.

“Hey, kiddo,” I say, standing and running a hand through my hair. I need to get it together in more ways than one. I can’t let on to G that any of this is happening, and I need to look like a functional person when I go to work in thirty minutes.

I put G on speaker and walk to my bedroom, pulling out clothes as I ask her, “What’s up? First day okay?”

She laughs freely, then begins to tell me about the stupid team bonding activities they’re doing, which vaguely reminds me of my own seven months at college, except her and her new friends all have fucking magic to add to the messy equation.

I pull on clean-ish khakis and feel my shoulders loosen as G keeps talking. This, right here. This is why I can’t let this go yet.