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“What’s going on?”
“They confirmed that the house is haunted. We’re trying to clear it of spirits.” She sounded like she believed in this about as much as I did.
“With burning sticks and fashion from the seventies?”
“They’re smudging sage.” Addie crossed her arms defensively.
“A proven technique for making the house smell funny, for sure.”
“And for cleansing negative energy.”
I watched her face, looking for any sign that she actually believed this would work. Her manner was defensive, but her face made me think she wasn’t buying into it. Her intelligent eyes looked tired, a little glazed. “How’s it going so far?”
“I don’t know. They’ve been here for hours.” She dropped her arms and looked up from beneath dark lashes. “I didn’t know what else to do, Michael. I went to Mom’s but she told me she didn’t need me this morning, so I came back up here. I was trying to clean the bathroom upstairs when that screaming noise echoed through the house. It scared me to death. I called my mom from the driveway, and she sent these ladies over. They’re proven spirit whisperers from Center County.”
This felt like one more part of the feud, except Lottie wouldn’t have pranked her own daughter just to get me, would she? “How does Lottie know about spirit cleansing?”
“I think she found them on the internet, actually. But they were on that Ghost Hunters show. They’re legit.”
One of the women took this opportunity to raise her warbling chanting to an impressively high note, causing me to cringe. They were legitimately kooky, that was for sure. “Are you paying these people?”
Addie nodded, looking sheepish.
“A lot?”
She raised a shoulder. “I mean, I don’t really know what the going rate is for this kind of service. I was desperate, Michael. I can’t stay here and be terrified all the time!”
I didn’t believe for one second that brewing potions and waving a stinky stick around the house would stop whatever was making the screaming noises, but if it made Addie feel better about staying in the house, I guessed it wouldn’t hurt.
“Fine,” I said, resigned to whatever it was the crazy ladies were doing in there. “Hey, do you know anything about my store? About a sale I was supposedly having today?”
Addie looked completely confused, which secured my confidence that she had not been involved in the attempted liquidation of my stock. “What?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
“We have finished,” said one of the old women, appearing in the hallway. “Lucrecia will finish the perimeter of salt outside and we’ll hang the talisman on the front door. Do not disturb it until you are sure your spirits have departed.” I hoped all the chanting and smelly smoke hadn’t pissed our ghosts off more.
“Oh, thank you,” Addie said. “And you’re sure they’re gone?”
“The spirit world is mysterious,” the woman said, narrowing her eyes at us. “I conversed with your spirit, but she will have to choose to leave on her own.”
“You talked to the ghost?” This was a little much for me.
The woman’s spine stiffened. “I did.”
“What did it say?”
“Shetold me that this is her beloved family home and that she is uncertain about the intentions of the intruders.”
I stifled my irritated laugh.
“That’s us?” Addie asked.
“Correct.” The woman bobbed her head.
“Okey dokey, then,” I said, ushering the spirit sisters down the stairs and to the back door. “Be careful out there on the porch when you’re hanging the voodoo doll or whatever. Some of those boards are rotten.”
“I see you are a non-believer, sir,” the woman said, squinting up at me.
