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Haley rubs her hands together, enjoying the feeling of rough-on-rough. This place has been good for her calluses. She likes having solid calluses; it makes her feel needlessly rugged, like she could climb all the way up the trunk of a tree with her bare hands. She'll probably never have to try it, unless this summer gets awesome, but she likes to think she could if she had to.

Her right hand hurts from punching Devon. She's a little embarrassed – not because she got angry, but because it was a bad punch. But as bad as her punch was, Devon still fell over, pinwheeling backward into a tray full of drinks. Lila found Haley and Devon them wrestling in the open doorway between the inn and the house, Haley's hair in Devon's fist, Devon's shoulders pinned to the ground, the sign reading DO NOT PROP THE DOOR hanging askew. Ghosts escaped leisurely through the open door, floating overhead the fighting teens.

Haley and Devon have not so much as looked at each other since Lila escorted them to her office, an ethereal hand hovering intangibly behind each of their backs. Haley hadn't been able to take her eyes off of Lila's odd, ephemeral outline, projected from some other dimension by means Haley could only guess at. She was flickering like an old television in a thunderstorm, as if she were having a hard time maintaining her shape. Lila managed to keep herself together long enough to sit the two fighting teenagers down in the hallway outside her office, tell them "Don't you dare move until I get back!" before poofing into nothingness.

And so, Haley and Devon wait in the hall, as far apart as they can manage, waiting to be reprimanded. Haley still doesn't understand how being trapped in another dimension works. She wants to ask Devon when Lila might reappear, because she's bored, but as strong as her boredom is, her stubbornness is stronger, and she absolutely refuses to talk to him.

Meanwhile, Olive is searching the living room, wondering how she got tasked with returning the missing ghosts. She can't think of a chore she's less suited to; her heart tenses with every corner she peeks around. She looks underneath things, inside of things. It's not easy, since she doesn't know what exactly she's looking for.

"It's mostly about figuring out where to look," was the advice Lila gave. "Ghosts can change shape. It's easier, the more they forget what 'human' feels like."

"How am I supposed to find it if I don't know what it looks like?" Olive had asked.

"Oh, if you're in the right place, it'll find you." 

Olive hadn't liked that answer.

Scattered off-and-on raindrops patter against the roof. Every now and again, one hits the gutter with a loud PING! and makes Olive jump.

She crouches to inspect beneath the sofa. She ducks around the corners of the living room table and squeezes close to the wall to peek behind the television. She glances suspiciously, trepidatiously, at the shadows inside the corners where the walls meet. 

She pokes her head around the wall of the kitchen, cautiously.

"Have you seen a ghost in here?" Olive asks Neil, who is putting away a carton of milk.

Neil shuts the fridge door and shakes his head. Thus far he has been profoundly silent – Olive hasn't heard him make so much as a sigh or a yawn. Thankfully, he's fairly proficient at hand gestures.

"Okay. Um, well. Keep an eye open, I guess."

Neil gives her a thumbs-up, then points two fingers at his eyes as if to say I'll be on the lookout. 

Olive watches him walk back to his room and shut the door. She considers going to his door and asking him to come with her as she searches the house, but thinks better of it. As it turns out, she's just as afraid of people as she is of ghosts.

She resumes her search, hoping that she will be unsuccessful. She gives a halfhearted effort in hopes that Bree, who is taller and stronger and seems unfazed by everything, will find it first. Lila said Bree would be in charge of searching the woods around the house. Every now and again, Olive thinks she hears a crashing noise coming from the forest. It makes Olive thankful that her job is to examine the living room and not the dark, rainy woods.

Meanwhile, Haley still waits in the hallway outside Lila's study, jealous that Olive gets to be the one on the ghost hunt. Devon sits at the other end of the hall, back against a corner, glaring into the wall. The small hallway feels cramped and thick with their stubborn silence, prides hurting on both sides.

Olive comes to stand beside Haley, picking anxiously at her black nailpolish. "Has the ghost come back through here?"

It's the third time Olive's come by to ask them this exact question. Devon gives her an unamused look.

"I could be helping you look, but somebody had to start a fight," Haley says.

She successfully cajoles Devon into forgetting he's supposed to be ignoring her. "Yeah," he says stubbornly. "Somebody did. Because somebody let all the ghosts out."

"I let out one ghost! You let out the rest!"

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Devon points at the sign on the door to the inn, still hanging crookedly. "What part of DO NOT PROP THE DOOR don't you understand?"

"It was closed almost all the way!" Haley shouts.

"Almost isn't all the way!" Devon retorts, arms crossed over his chest. "Do you half-ass everything this much?"

"I half-assed that punch," Haley threatens. "You want me to do better this time?"

"Try it," Devon says, standing up. "See how long it'll take for Lila to kick you out. Then where are your parents going to send you, you screwup?"

Anger flares from both sides of the hallway, making the little space feel all the more cramped. Olive shrinks to make room.

Lila's door creaks open, and the anger dissipates into a quiet, pulsing tension. Lila looks like she either doesn't notice the situation she's poofed into, or she's pretending not to. 

"Alright," she says pleasantly. "Bree has returned most of the ghosts to the inn. All except for one. There's always one slippery one."

Lila looks to be in a good mood. Perhaps it's because she looks much more opaque now – Haley and Olive can hardly see the outline of the office desk through her sturdy torso, and her arms are barely wavering in the soft electric light of the hall. Her hair, as dark as Neil and Devon's, is stuck with gray flyaways that ripple as if she's standing in a windy field. Her dark skin is flecked with darker freckles from a sun-spotted life, and those too dance and wink like sequins. She would never be mistaken for someone who is completely there. But at present, she does look more there than not.

Lila turns to Olive and smiles at her. She's the kind of woman who smiles so thoroughly that her eyes crinkle up into dark little lines. "Any luck inside the house, Olive?"

Olive turns away innocuously and shakes her head.

"Are you even looking?" Devon asks.

"Want me to help?" Haley asks hopefully.

"No," Lila says gently to Haley. "I'm going to need to borrow you and Devon to remind you both of the rules you'll need to abide by if you're to live under this roof."

Behind Lila's shoulder, Devon makes a face at Haley. She glowers at him.

"Perhaps check in the tool shed," Lila suggests to Olive. "Sometimes they like to find little dark places where they can jump out at people. Beneath beds, behind basement doors, and the like."

Olive's face has gone very pale. As if Lila can read her mind, she adds, "I know you can do it. They won't bite."

Biting isn't what Olive is worried about. Lila is still smiling jovially, but Olive's arms are starting to quiver. Devon notices. 

"Why did you and your sister come here if you can't handle ghosts?" He snarks.

"Why are you so horrible?" Haley asks, feeling her calluses crease into fists.

"Devon, inside," Lila instructs. "Haley, stay where you are."

Devon moves past Haley and Olive and follows Lila into her study. He shoots one last nasty look at Haley, who gives it right back, before he shuts the door behind him.

Olive quivers. "Well, I guess... I guess I'll keep looking."

She takes a few uneasy steps into the living room before shooting a look back at her sister, who looks after her, jealous.

"So unfair," Haley mumbles, crossing her arms.

Olive knows Devon is right. This is Olive's third time in Echo Valley, and she's still not fully comfortable with the ghosts. The last time she was here was three summers ago, when she had been twelve, and Haley fourteen. Funnily, she remembers Devon and Haley getting along better then. They still fought, but they always seemed to get over it. Maybe the cool-down time between fights gets longer as you get older. Maybe grudges get stronger with age.

The first time she visited Echo Valley, she had been nine years old, and Haley eleven. As her nightmares were starting to become severe, her parents took her to Echo Valley, the "most haunted place in the Northwest," to show her that ghosts were not real. And when they arrived and discovered that, according to locals, ghosts most certainly were real, they took her to the inn to show her that while ghosts might be real, they weren't dangerous.

Haley had been fascinated. Olive had been terrified, and she had been sure she would never want to return. And yet, something about this place has always stuck with her. 

To Olive, something about Echo Valley has always felt... unsolved. Unsolved and personal. Like small talk that's so close to becoming a real conversation, or like a food you think you could come to enjoy, given the right seasoning or sauce or chef or mindset. 

That's it, Olive thinks. Echo Valley is an acquired taste. 

But no, she quickly decides. Even that doesn't feel quite right. Echo Valley is... it's a puzzle that needs a little more searching, a little more discernment, to snap the pieces into place. Or, it's a poem that she doesn't have the vocabulary to read. Or, it's someone trying to speak to her, but in a language she doesn't understand. Yet.

There is something here waiting for her to figure it out. She does not know how she knows this, but she knows that once she does, she will finally understand herself in a way her parents don't, in a way her therapist pretends to, in a way Haley thinks she does.

This place is supposed to fix her somehow. She was sure of it when she talked to Lila on the phone to ask her to let her and Haley stay. But now that she's back, she's starting to doubt herself. She just doesn't know how many times she'll have to come back before it sticks.

She sits down beside Haley, who is still waiting for her lecture. 

Olive sits down beside her, leaning against the opposite wall. "Where am I supposed to look for something that can change shape?"

"Not sure. Have you looked in the dishwasher?" Haley suggests. She has her ear pressed against the door to Lila's study, listening to the muffled reprimanding float through the cracks. Haley knows the tone adults use when scolding people who are not adults. Haley waits her turn and tries to imagine the words being exchanged.

 She whispers, "I bet Devon is getting grilled like nobody's business."

"Weren't you the one who started it?"

"No," Haley said indignantly.

"It hasn't even been a week. What happened to no fighting?"

"I wasn't fighting," Haley protests. "It was one punch. Besides, he started–"

"Why did you have to hit him?"

"He was making fun of us!"

"I know," Olive says placidly. "Why did you have to hit him?"

Haley looks at her like she doesn't understand the question. Devon opens the door to the study and he and Haley exchange glares.

"Lila 'poofed' again," he says, leaning halfway through the door frame. "She says not to go anywhere."

"She's really laying into you, huh?" Haley asks smugly.

"We were talking about my college applications," Devon says. "She still wants to talk to you when we're done. Don't go anywhere."

He shuts the door and Haley sticks her tongue out after him, then stands up.

"C'mon," Haley says. "Let's go get the ghosts back."

"But Lila just said..." Olive says uncertainly, though she stands up. She never knew how to restrain her sister – or maybe she knows it's no use. Besides, she'll be happy for the company.

"Devon said," Haley corrects her. "If the ghosts come back, there won't be anything to talk about." She stretches the boredom out of her limbs. "Besides. I need to show him up."

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