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“Run!” Miles yelled as he launched himself at the ghost. His arms curled around Leroy’s neck, and he yanked the ghost backward, away from Chloe. Leroy spun around, aiming his knife at Miles’s chest. My friends and I shot off defensive spells all at once, but they sailed straight through the ghost.
“Our magic is useless!” Grant yelled.
Miles swung his iron rod at Leroy, and it went straight through him. The ghost vanished in a wisp of smoke. Miles quickly scrambled toward the exit where I was standing. My friends and I gathered in a tight group.
“There’s got to be a banishing spell we can do together,” I said.
Leroy reappeared at the end of the table. He set his gaze on us and started toward us in a confident stride, passing straight through the table. The ghost might be solid when he attacked, but he definitely had the advantage here. Lucas threw up a shield to stop Leroy, but his shield didn’t work. Leroy stepped straight through it.
Lucas grabbed my shoulder and shoved me out of the room. My heart raced as my friends and I ran for our life down the hall. Although Leroy’s ghost pursued us, we could still hear the haunting screams of the other ghosts as they relived their last moments over and over.
“Leroy’s still possessed!” Grant cried as we turned the hall.
“How’s that possible? He’s dead!” I yelled.
Miles scrambled around the corner. “He’s reliving his last trauma. Ghosts do that to make sense of it so they can move on, but sometimes they get stuck!”
We entered a sitting room. I rushed over to the windows and tried prying one open, but it wouldn’t budge. My friends gathered around and tried to help, but it was like it’d been sealed with magic.
“Stand back!” Lucas ordered. We scattered, and Lucas shot a battle orb at the window. Normally, such a high-powered spell would shatter it, but it just fizzled out.
“There’s some kind of shield around the mansion!” Lucas cried.
Laughter came from down the hall. The ghost was coming closer.
“Go!” Lucas barked, pushing us down another maze of hallways.
“We’ve got to break him out of the loop!” Miles cried.
“How do you suggest we do that?” Mandy demanded.
“There’s an intercast ward that keeps away vengeful spirits,” Chloe said breathlessly as she ran. “Let’s cast that and come up with the rest later.”
I kept running, leading my friends down the hall as fast as I could. We had to get far enough away from Leroy to buy us time to cast the ward. I spotted an open doorway at the end of the hall.
“Everyone in there!” I pointed. “We’ll cast the ward around the room.”
I sprinted toward the room and caught myself on the doorframe as I slowed. I stumbled inside and whirled around, expecting my friends to enter behind me. Instead, what I saw was Leroy closing in on my friends, a steak knife held above his head. I witnessed Lucas’s terrified expression a moment before the door slammed shut behind me.
Terror lurched in my gut, and I grabbed the doorknob and yanked as hard as I could. It wouldn’t budge. I hammered my fists on the door. “Lucas!”
I could barely make out my friends’ voices over the thunder rumbling outside. The rain had started, and it pounded heavily against the windows, drowning their voices even further.
“Cast the ward!” Miles screamed at the others.
I heard Chloe and Lucas speaking an incantation in unison, while Grant screamed Talia’s name and Mandy cried out in pain. Goddess, what was happening to my friends?
“You must tell me what’s going on,” a voice said from behind me. I whirled around to see that the room had transformed, looking cleaner and brighter. It was another residual haunting.
I stood in a small home library. Bookcases lined the walls, and two huge windows looked out over Lake Santos. The room buzzed with an energy I could only attribute to the haunting, because the rain pounding against the windows seemed quieter than before. Leroy Pinewood leaned against a desk in the middle of the room, and his wife sat in a chair nearby.
“Can’t this wait, dear?” Cynthia said. “Our guests are expecting us.”
Leroy’s eyes looked so kind, unlike they’d been when he stabbed those people in the dining room. This must’ve happened before he was possessed. I realized the night was playing out in reverse through the hauntings.
Leroy sighed. “Cynthia, the coven is scared. A woman was poisoned, and a man was hanged. A priest was murdered in broad daylight! This kind of thing shouldn’t happen here. The town can tell the Imperium Council is on edge. Please tell me what’s going on.”
Cynthia pursed her lips. “I’ve told you before, it’s Imperium Council business. I don’t want to worry you.”
