Page 39 of Manors & Mischief

“I don’t think so,” I tell her.

“You don’t want the pizza?”

I give her a smile, then briefly touch the dirty scruff on her chin. I wonder what the guys down at the pizza place thought when she came walking in the way she did.

“You go upstairs and climb into that huge clawfoot tub. Draw out your plans for the Children’s Haunted House, and I’m going to finish up out here.”

Her eyes gleam, but she hesitates. “You sure? I can’t afford to⁠—.”

“I’m not asking you to pay me, Ember. I’m doing it because I want to.”

She nods, stepping back some more as I take the pizza box from her. She backs away, still unsure, but once she hits the stairs, she walks up, striding across the new rug she laid down over the mismatched floorboards and then stops with her hand on the door. “Thanks, Devon. For everything.”

“No problem, Sweetheart.”

The ends of her mouth tip into a smile, and I watch as she enters the house. I take a moment to eat a slice of pizza before placing the box on the stairs and finishing up the other half of the yard.

By the time I’m done, the sun is setting and the sky is a beautiful, fiery orange color, and I’ve also polished off the rest of the pizza for dinner. I tilt the wheelbarrow up at the street and unload the final batch of bushes and leaves. The town will be by in a day or two to pick it up, so that when it’s Haunted History Tour time, Sleepy Hollow Manor will shine.

I didn’t get to the other spaces, but the front is beautiful. The tiny touch ups of paint that I did and the new landscaping have transformed this place from what it was only a couple of weeks ago. It’s amazing everything that has gotten done.

I stand out there and snap a picture. It isn’t until I’m really looking at it that I notice Ember in the doorway. The door creaks open, and Ember steps out in a dark blue lounge set, her hair around her shoulders. I beckon her forward, and she nearly skips down the steps.

She gets outside the gate with me, and turns. A gasp wrenches from her throat, the sound almost inaudible as a couple of kids go by on their bikes. “Hey, look at the manor!” one kid calls out.

His friend responds, “Still creepy though.”

Ember and I peer at each other and laugh. “He’s right,” she says.

“She hasn’t lost her charm,” I agree.

Ember squeezes her hands together in a praying position in front of her. “She looks unbelievable.”

Immediately, she hugs me again. My hands go around her on instinct, and I just settle in to how right this feels—how good. How perfect that we’re both standing in front of Sleepy Hollow Manor together—when she peels away from me.

“Bea!” She tears herself away from me, and I turn to find Bea heading up the street.

Ember throws her arms around her, too, and Bea grimaces and mouths, “Sorry” to me.

I don’t know why. It’s not like anything was happening, or that we were having a moment or anything.

Ember grabs her friend’s hand and drags her to where we’re standing. “Look.”

“Wow, you guys. I don’t have any words. The house looks beautiful.”

“You think so?”

“It looks how I remember from when we were kids. Don’t you think, Dev?”

“Yeah,” I croak out. I can almost picture me and my grandpa up on the porch sitting with the Lewises. Most of the time I was bored, the kind of little kid bored because something shiny and new wasn’t in front of me at every turn, but when they talked about the well, I always listened. And the one thing Mr. Lewis loved to talk about was the well.

Off to our right, out of sight from us right now, the structure still sits. I haven’t visited in years, though I think about it all the time. At one time, I thought it was the only reason I made it into the league. Sure, that fell apart, but I still believed. When I came home for the final time, after no other team would give me a chance, I walked out there again. I threw a penny into the well and said if it was the last thing I did, I’d own Sleepy Hollow Manor and make sure no one forgot about the well.

That certainly didn’t work out either.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t visited in a while. I haven’t tested its abilities or asked for anything new. I thought I didn’t deserve it. However, standing right here along with Ember, I’m starting to think that maybe I do.

Maybe the well did listen, just not in the way I thought it would. I thought I would buy it. I thought I would be bringing it back to life as a solo venture. But Mr. Lewis did warn me that sometimes the well works in mysterious ways.