Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Saturday, I wallow.
I marathon all my favorite shows. Get all my favorite foods delivered to my apartment. Spend hours scrolling through photos of adoptable cats until I cave and put in an application. I even email the building manager to update my lease.
Xander calls a few times throughout the day, but I can’t bear to hear his voice. To explain that despite doing everything right, Willa won’t be moving into Midnight Manor. I’m sure Elle already told him. I’m sure he already knows.
Finally, I text Xander to say that I made it home fine and to focus his energy on Elle. She needs him more than I do right now. Even though she broke my heart, I know hers hurts worse. I won’t do anything—including stealing Xander’s attention—that could bring her additional pain.
I’ll be fine. I did what I set out to do at Midnight Manor. I created a safe, ethically haunted B&B. Whether or not Elle sends the rest of the money she owes me, I’ll find a way to save my business. If it means I have to teach, so be it. I’ll make sure Dea’s salary gets paid.
Falling in love never killed anyone, so on Sunday, I get back to work.
I unpack my bags and go through the old notes on the creativity spell I’d been working on.
After a month away, it feels good to stretch my magic in directions that have nothing to do with ghosts.
Progress comes in fits and starts, but I settle into my old routines, and by Monday, I’m ready to go back into the office.
The chimes greet me as I enter, the familiar sound drawing out a deep exhale. Brewing coffee fills the space with bittersweet tang as I expand my lungs. I don’t see Dea, but she’s probably in the little break room, waiting for the coffee to finish.
Before I can call out a greeting, I notice the banker’s box sitting in her desk chair, already half-filled with her personal items. The picture of her dog, Katya.
The World’s Best Assistant mug I bought for her first work anniversary.
The fingerless gloves she always wore in the winter to keep herself warm, since the office heat is controlled by the landlord.
The same landlord doubling our rent in January.
“Pippa?” Dea sounds startled, and I turn to find her coming out of the break room with one of the office’s generic mugs. “I thought you weren’t coming in until tomorrow?”
“What’s all this?” I point to the box in her chair. Her nearly empty desk.
Dea wraps her fingers around her cup and avoids my gaze, white teeth biting into her terra-cotta-colored lips. “I had planned to turn in my two weeks’ notice tomorrow.”
My heart plummets to the depths of my abdomen. I can’t possibly have heard her right. “You what?”
She shuffles across the room and sets her coffee on the desk.
“I’ve loved working with you, Pippa. This business and its mission are incredible.
I knew from the moment you banished that voyeur ghost from my apartment that your work would create something special.
And it has. I’m proud I got to be part of it, but I got another job offer. I have to take it.”
“You—” I catch myself on the edge of her desk. It feels like the floor is dropping out beneath me, and the sensation is dizzying. “When did you apply somewhere else? How long have you been planning to leave?”
“A few months?” Dea moves the box off her chair and sits, waking up her computer.
“But as soon as the first interview requests came in, I started automating everything I could. Look.” She clicks into a program I haven’t seen before.
“This is your new scheduling system. And this…” She opens another window.
“This billing system is phenomenal. You won’t even miss me. I promise.”
I sink into the chair opposite her. “It’s not your job to make things okay for me.
It was my job to make sure you felt stable here.
” My throat tightens until it’s hard to breathe, and I fight the chorus of disappointed voices in my head.
Nanette Erikson kicking me out of the family.
Elle telling me that I wasn’t worth keeping around.
It’s hard to ignore those voices, to remind myself that Elle said those things when she was hurt beyond measure, but I do my best. I swallow back the feelings of inadequacy and grief, clear the sense of failure from my throat, and focus on Dea. “Is the job cool? Something you’re excited about?”
Her smile starts shy but brightens as she speaks.
“It is, yeah. Nothing will be as cool as working for you, but I’ll be in charge of organizing systems for this massive nonprofit.
They have all these initiatives to increase STEM education in underserved communities.
It’s funny, setting up all these automated systems for you helped me get the job. ”
“That’s…that’s great, Dea. I’m excited for you.” And I am, beneath the feelings of loss and hurt and the twinge of betrayal that I have no right to feel. She’s allowed to work anywhere she wants. I can’t fault her for wanting to jump from a sinking ship before it drags her down.
“It’s going to be great for you, too.” Dea reaches across the desk, and I let her take my hands.
“Without my salary as an expense, you’ll have a longer runway to get the business back on track.
Especially with the bonus you’ll get since you successfully haunted the B&B. This is a good thing. For both of us.”
She drops my hands, her fingers flying over the keyboard again. “Ready to learn the new systems? I figured we could use my last two weeks to get you proficient in everything, brainstorm new offerings to attract clients, and then I can make sure the website is updated before I go.”
“That would be great,” I say, but my voice is flat. Broken and small and pathetic. I push myself to my feet. “I’m going to get coffee first.”
I flee the room without waiting to see whether Dea believes the excuse. The tears start the moment I’ve closed myself in the small break room, and I frantically trace a concealment sigil to soundproof the space before loud sobs tear from my throat.
That’s some serial killer shit, Pippa.
Elle’s voice in my head sends me to my knees.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to use this sigil again without thinking of her.
Of the first time I cast it for her in the library, when she wanted to hide her own grief.
Holding her tight the night I first found out about Willa’s cancer and terminal diagnosis.
Of the night—just four days ago—when the sound barrier hid her eager moans from prying ears.
A deep, jagged ache forms beneath my ribs. Why can’t I let the past month be a fun memory? Why do I keep letting myself care about people who throw me away?
By the time the tears dry, my knees hurt and my back aches.
Dea doesn’t say anything about how long I was gone. Doesn’t mention that I returned from the break room without the coffee that I said I was leaving to get. She lets me keep my secrets. For now.
I settle in my seat and nod for her to get started. “Show me what you’ve got.”