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“About two hundred years ago, this house was owned by a woman named Julia Wittaker. She lived alone, tended her apple orchard, and was generally liked by the others in the nearbyvillage. But no one knew how she had built the house. No one knew where she came from or who her family was. That, of course, made some people suspicious.
“Back then, this was still technically the American frontier. When the law man wasn’t looking, people did what they wanted more often than not. And there was a man who wanted Julia’s house, her land… and everything else she had. Back then, men stupidly thought that women were something to be owned, not someone to own things.”
Dylan snorts, and I flinch, looking at him, trying to figure out why.
“Did he kill her?” Rose asks, glaring at Dylan.
I nod. “First, he tried to marry her, but she refused. Then, he tried to get the villagers to believe she was a witch so that she would be hanged. They didn’t believe him… But he was right. Shewasa witch.”
“So, what happened to this so-called witch?” Dylan asks, taking another long sip.
“He came to her home in the dead of night and strangled her in her bed upstairs. He got her house… and he got her wrath as well.”
“Good.” Rose says. “Fuck him.”
“She came back to haunt him?” Margie asks, with a little more hopeful bloodlust in her voice than I would expect.
“He tried to bury her, but her body kept returning to the house. So he burned it and buried what didn’t turn to ash in the cellar.Butwhen her body couldn’t return to her home, her soul did… and that wassomuch worse for him.”
“Fuck yeah. I hope he got what was coming to him.” Margie shifts to crossed legs, leaning forward.
“Wait.” Parry looks confused. “What didn’t burn?”
“Teeth!” Rose says, a little too excitedly. “And bone? I think one of my podcasts said those are hard to get rid of.”
“There are certainly some bones down there, but it’s her heart that keeps this place haunted. If you listen closely, in the dead of night, you can still hear it beating.”
That is met with silence.
I let it linger for a moment before I ask, “Do you know what a poltergeist is?”
“I’ve seen the movie,” Jonas says.
Margie screws up her face in a frown. “Isn’t it like a malevolent spirit that throws stuff around?”
“Yes. And when that malevolent spirit doesn’t like you… you’re the thing it throws around.”
“Oh my gosh,” Rose shifts to sit on her knees. “Did she yeet the guy out of her house?”
“Eventually, she threw him down the stairs and broke his neck,butnot until after she’d tortured him for a good long while.”
“I like her.” Rose and Margie clink their cans together.
“I’m sorry,” Parry says, glancing around the room. “She’s a murderous ghost and you want us to bring her out to say ‘hi’?”
“Exactly.”
“Is that a good idea?” he asks.
Dylan snorts a half laugh. “I mean, ghosts aren’t real, so it’s not going to matter anyway.”
I glance sideways at him and wonder if this is a side effect of the first half of the spell he’s drinking.
But I ignore him and smile at Parry. “As long as you don’t give her a reason to want you out of her house, you’re fine.”
Grumbling something I don’t understand, Dylan finishes his beer and sets the bottle aside.
I nudge him with my elbow. “Stop being a spoilsport. This is supposed to be fun.”
