Chapter Fifteen
Chapter
Fifteen
If I never have to use a hot-glue gun again, it’ll be too soon.
I’m working out of the library today, an antique mirror lying face down on the center table.
My first attempt at making a ghost-based message board technically worked, but the messages lasted less than sixty seconds, which isn’t ideal.
I had to pry off all the crystals I previously hot-glued to the back of the mirror, pick off all the glue remnants—a challenge with my short nails—and now I’m re-gluing everything.
This time, I’m setting the crystals in the shape of a revelation sigil.
Since that particular sigil makes spiritual energy more visible, positioning the crystals in that shape should make them more effective.
Hopefully.
“I don’t understand how you’re so bad with that thing,” Laney quips from their place beside me, leaning a hip against the table to watch me work. “Literal children use hot-glue guns.”
I squeeze the lava-hot glue onto a piece of shattuckite, a vibrant crystal in shades of navy and turquoise that’s known for enhancing communication with spiritual energy.
“What can I say? These hands were not built for craft-based magic.” As I affix the crystal at the top of the sigil, some of the glue presses into the pad of my finger, singeing the already tender skin.
“Motherfucker. There has to be a better way to do this.”
“Can’t you make it stick with magic?” Laney wiggles their fingers toward the mirror.
“If there is a way to do that, I don’t know it,” I grumble.
Not for the first time, I wish NACOW weren’t full of traditionalists.
If they weren’t set in their ways and terrified of what mundanes might think, we could already have formal research on this.
We’d have more than the scattered musings found in the Witch-tionary.
“Alex’s sister called.” Elle’s voice cuts across the library, and my heart gives an involuntary jolt. “Apparently, she desperately needs a date night with her husband, so Alex is on babysitting duty. He won’t be back until very late.”
Her tone is laced with innuendo that makes my chest—and other places—ache with longing. But Laney is here, and with both pairs of ghost goggles currently charging on a plate of selenite, Elle doesn’t know that we’re not alone.
I turn around, hot-glue gun in one hand, but my warning dies in my throat when I see her.
Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun.
Her dark-wash jeans cling to her curves, and my hands twitch with the memory of gripping those hips, pulling her close as she kissed me senseless on our ghost-hunting trip.
“Based on the glow of your eyes, I assume we’re not alone?” Elle stops before me, close enough to touch without closing that gap. Part of Operation Make Sure Xander Doesn’t Find Out. Keeping him in the dark means keeping the ghosts out of our business, too.
Which is why we didn’t manage to bring any ghosts home on Wednesday. The only good-fit ghost we found for the B&B caught us making out like horny teenagers, and we couldn’t risk bringing him back to the manor and having him tell everyone else.
“The ghosts are helping me test the spirit board. Or, well, they were. Laney’s still here, but the Jennifers got bored and wandered off,” I say, referencing the ghosts Elle and I recruited at the country club on Tuesday after we had our talk.
Jenn T and Jen B—who introduced themselves collectively as the Jennifers—were high school best friends in the early nineties who died on their way home from prom—and later became the prime example of “Don’t Drink and Drive” for the area.
Now, they spend their afterlife dancing the night away during all the weddings and proms and bar and bat mitzvahs held at the club.
Learning that Xander and Elle plan to host weddings at some point is part of the reason the girls agreed to come to Midnight Manor.
I turn back to my task, hyperaware of Elle’s presence beside me.
Her arm brushes against mine, and the look she shoots me has cooled from its initial heat, settling into something sweet.
Tender. It makes my heart twist. I reach for a piece of blue calcite to add to the mirror, but the damn glue gun expels a huge glop of sticky lava that lands directly on my fingers.
Beside me, Elle chuckles. “For such a talented witch, you really are hopeless with that thing.” She reaches for the glue gun, her hands lingering over mine a moment longer than necessary. I soak up her touch. “Show me where everything goes. I’ll handle the tools.”
“My savior,” I say, faking a swoon. I walk Elle through the crystal placement, explaining the thought behind each one I’ve chosen.
Angelite, like what’s on the ghost goggles, along with blue calcite and shattuckite to aid in communication.
Clear quartz to amplify the power of the other crystals.
At some point in my explanation, Laney got bored and slipped away, scanning the bookshelves elsewhere in the library.
Watching Elle work is an exquisite torment. She moves her fingers with such nimble confidence. It makes me wonder what those fingers could do with the most sensitive parts of me…if we were given the time and privacy we need to explore this thing between us.
“What’s this shape?” Elle asks, adding a perfectly contained squeeze of glue to a crystal.
“It’s the revelation sigil I used on my first day here. I’ve never applied it like this, but it should help the messages stick around longer.”
“It’s lucky you had all these with you,” Elle says, placing the final piece of quartz in the center of the sigil.
“Oh, I definitely didn’t. I’m much more a sigil witch than a crystal one.
Though they are growing on me.” I lay my hands over the now-completed collection of crystals and funnel magic in through the crown of my head, letting it pool around my heart, before continuing the flow down my arms, out my hands, and into the spirit board.
“Dea overnighted these to me along with the selenite bowls to charge the ghost goggles. It all came in yesterday.”
Yesterday, when Elle was mysteriously gone for another personal errand.
I lower my voice, even though Laney is on the other side of the room.
“I missed you, by the way,” I say, but instead of the smile I expected, Elle shoots me a worried look.
Is that too much? Is it too soon to admit that I miss her when she’s gone?
But then I realize that Elle can’t see that we’re alone.
“Laney isn’t here. They’re on the other side of the library. ”
The mischievous smile that spreads across Elle’s face feels like magic. “Well, in that case.” She leans in close and tilts her face to bring her lips almost to mine. “Why don’t you show me how much you missed me.”
“Bro! The Jens said you made a magic bulletin board!”
I jolt away from Elle before I get the chance to kiss her, and whip my head toward the doorway. Except…there’s no one there. It isn’t until I scan left that I find one of our newest ghosts strolling into the library, coming in through the wall.
Despite keeping her personal errand a secret, Elle did trust me to search for ghosts without her yesterday.
I found Colton, the source of the interruption, at Oak Spires University.
He died in an alcohol-fueled incident at his fraternity in the mid-aughts that he still insists was both epic and worth it.
Despite his decidedly frat bro persona—and sense of humor—he’s a genuinely decent guy, which is why I let him come to the B&B.
“These women are not your bros, Colton. And would it kill you to use the actual doorway?” Harry, a philosophy professor who died in the 1950s, chides the younger ghost as he comes into the room through said doorway.
Colton shrugs. “Probably not, dude. Since I’m already dead and all.”
I hold back a laugh, barely, but when I see the confused look on Elle’s face, I clarify. “Colton and Harry just came in. They’re the ghosts I brought back to the manor yesterday.”
“Are the ghost goggles charged? I’d like to meet them.” Elle turns toward the empty room and offers a polite smile. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you when you arrived yesterday.”
Harry, dressed in his formal teaching attire complete with a tweed jacket, considers Elle. “She can’t hear us?”
“Not yet,” I tell him, and the words double for Elle. I focus on her. “I don’t want to interrupt the charging cycle, but I can draw the sigils on you directly.”
Elle tucks a strand of her gorgeous strawberry blond hair behind one ear. A soft smile brightens her face. “Go for it.”
Though I’ve been able to touch her in brief private moments over the past few days, each time is a thrill.
I trace the amplification sigil across her skin, and that simple platonic touch makes me wish we were truly alone.
I want to let my hand trail down her neck, let my fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck so I can pull her close and taste those sweet lips.
Instead, I let my hands drop as her eyes glow bright with my magic.
While Elle, Colton, and Harry chat, Laney rejoins me at the table.
I double-check that all the crystals are securely glued down, and then turn the antique mirror over.
Earlier, I painted the mirror face itself black to serve as a base for the spirit board.
Xander found the mirror in the attic this morning, and it looks original to the house.
Even with the glass painted black, it fits the overall aesthetic of the B&B.
“Laney, could you try it again? With any luck, the words won’t disappear right away.” I step aside to give them space and watch as they draw their finger across the board, and their scrawled writing makes me suspect Laney was an artist when they were alive.
Testing. Testing. 1 2 3