... . ☁ . ☁ . ☁ . ...

Haley's made up her mind – she's going ghost-hunting whether Olive comes with her or not. Olive looks hesitant, like she's unwilling to say what she's thinking. The memory of Devon's smug retort resurfaces in Haley's memory and makes her scowl.

Why did you come here if you can't handle ghosts?

He'll see who handles what, Haley thinks. But still, she's wondering the same thing. Why had Olive wanted to come here?

She laces up her shoes and asks her sister, "It really doesn't bother you at all when people make fun of you?"

"It does," Olive says hesitantly, looking as if she thinks admitting this will give Haley more reason to start fistfights. "Being made fun of is the price for being weird."

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is."

"I mean, it doesn't have to be."

"You always want to do things the hard way," Olive chastises. "If you just tell people what they want to hear, and let them say whatever they want to say, then eventually they'll leave you alone."

Haley searched back through her mental history, through the last seven years of rampant bullying, of which Haley was seldom the target. And yet, she was almost always the one who escalated.

"No offense," Haley says, "but that strategy has not worked out for you so far."

Haley puts her ear against the door to make sure Lila's not about to burst through and catch her about to leave. She hears nothing, so she grabs her shoes, which she'd pulled off and tossed to the other end of the hall.

Olive sighs. "I'm coming, too." She goes to retrieve her shoes from where she left them near the sliding glass door, but the sight of Neil on the living room couch makes her jump.

"How long have you been there?" She asks, startled.

Neil looks at a clock on the bookshelf, then holds up eight fingers. On his lap is his half-finished bowl of cereal. He is chewing so quietly that for a moment Olive is suspicious that he's not actually eating. As usual, his whiteboard is laying beside him.

He looks out the sliding glass door and Olive follows his gaze to see Bree standing on the patio, wringing out her hair. She's soaked through to her skin, as sopping wet as the day Haley and Olive first met her.

Bree opens the door and kicks off her shoes.

"Has the ghost come through here?" She asks the three of them. She looks exhausted. "Confused-looking, kinda lumpy, about–" she stands on a deck chair and holds her hand above her head "–about yay-big? Dripping wet?"

"Nah, we haven't seen it," Haley says. "Why are you always dripping wet?"

"Because it's always raining," Bree complains. She peels off her flannel shirt and drops it in a wet clump on the doormat.

"You don't have to be outside when it's raining," Olive quietly points out.

Neil makes room for Bree on the couch, and she flops down onto it. "I thought I knew where the ghost might be going. I was wrong."

She rolls over and notices that Haley and Olive are hovering beside the closed door to Lila's office. A slow grin spreads across her face. "Uh oh. Are you in trouble?"

Haley shrugs. Olive says, "she hit Devon."

Bree laughs. "You've been here for like four days."

"It only took him four days to get on my nerves."

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Sounds about..." Bree yawns and stretches out, taking up the entire length of the couch. "Sounds about right."

Neil scoots farther forward until he's nearly falling off his seat. Bree's eyes flutter like she's about to fall asleep, and then... she's snoring within a minute.

Haley and Olive look at one another, impressed. The sound of the snoring catches Devon's attention, and he opens the door to Lila's study. He's alone in there – Lila seems not to have reappeared. Her cat is curled up on her desk, snoozing.

"Find it?" Devon asks.

Neil shakes his head, grabs the whiteboard, and scribbles: Not yet. I'll ask around town. 

Haley imagines him walking up to people on the street, tapping them on the shoulder, and showing them a sign reading "ghost?"

"You haven't gone yet?" Devon asks Neil, exasperated.

I was eating breakfast.

"You're always eating breakfast." Devon grumbles.

Bree wakes up mid-snore and reports, "Nothing in the woods."

Neil grins and writes, You checked all of the woods?

"Oh, whatever," Bree says. "I looked at a lot of trees. How far can it go, really? We've never had a ghost leave the property by more than a mile or two."

"A mile or two is a lot of woods," Devon points out.

"I jogged," Bree says. "It's a big ghost. I think I would've seen it."

"It was a big ghost when you saw it," Devon corrects. "Doesn't mean it's still big now."

"Ughh–" Bree complains. "I'll go do another round. Just... let me lay down for like five minutes."

"What about you?" Devon asks Olive, already looking skeptical. "Where'd you look?"

Olive is already starting to turn red. She steeples her index fingers, taps them together. "Around the house."

"The whole house? The yard? The shed?"

"... The living room."

Devon stammers. "Just the living room? It's been –" he checks the clock and scowls "– Olive, it's been forty-five minutes. I thought Lila asked you to check the tool shed."

When Olive doesn't respond, Devon makes a face at her. "You got scared."

Olive shoots a glance at Haley, who already looks like she's preparing for Round Two with Devon.

"Yeah," Olive says. "I got scared."

Devon makes a disgusted noise.

"I'll look in the tool shed," Haley says, making a face at Devon.

"No, you're going to stay here and wait for Lila. Or don't, but I'm going to tell her."

Bree sits up on the couch and laughs. "You liar." Bree turns to Haley and says, "Lila's only here when it's raining."

Devon looks at her like she's pointlessly spoiled his fun. Olive asks, "What?"

"The hologram. Or, that's what we call it. She can only, like, do it when it's raining."

Haley remembers the day they arrived, the rain pattering against the roof of the truck, and the sky clearing as they stepped out of the truck. They must have missed Lila by minutes.

"... Why?"

"Long story," Bree says. "Want me to tell you about it while we look for our missing ghost?"

"You wanna be an accomplice?" Devon asks Bree, as if he's insulted she's taking Haley's side.

Bree shrugs. "She's already in trouble."

"Lila told her to wait!"

"I don't care!" Haley says. And maybe she doesn't. She spends so much of her time in trouble that maybe it doesn't occur to her that there's another way to spend her time. "I'm not just going to sit outside of the study waiting for it to start raining!"

"She has a point," Bree agrees.

"Fine. Not my problem. I'm going to go look in the tool shed because she won't," Devon says, pointing at Olive. "And you, do whatever you want."

He slams the sliding door shut. Neil – who by now has finished his cereal and is pulling on a jacket – notices the aggravation on Haley's face. He waves to get Haley's attention and holds up his whiteboard.

He's just upset that this isn't the first time a ghost has gotten out –he erases the board with his sleeve, scribbles some more – and it's not the first time it's been partially his fault. Erase. Scribble. And he's almost never the one who actually finds it. 

Neil pauses, considers, then elaborates.

In fact, he never has.

Haley's about to ask him to tell her about the previous times ghosts have escaped from the inn, but she starts to feel guilty about asking him to write such long sentences, and in the midst of all these thoughts another question surfaces, so instead she blurts out, "Why don't you talk?"

Olive elbows her sharply and Haley jumps. "Ow, what?"

Neil looks thoughtful, writes something, erases it. He thinks for another minute and then, slowly, writes his response.

Easier to say what I mean when I'm writing.

But Bree's looking at Neil, and something in her expression makes Haley feel like she's not getting the whole story. She hates that.

"Wanna go catch a ghost or what?" Bree asks.

"How do we even catch it when we find it?" Haley asks.

Bree grins. "You were going to go out on your own and look for it without even knowing what to do when you found it?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Come on," Bree says, opening the sliding door. She slips her wet shoes back on. "I have a lot to tell you."

➵ . ➵ . ➵