“Are you sure about this?”
Darcy rolled her eyes at Jon, even if he couldn’t see her doing it here in the darkness of their bedroom. The nightlight was on, but she always made sure to keep her face in shadows when she was making sarcastic gestures at her husband.
“Yes,” she told him. “I’m sure. Just like the twenty other times you asked me.”
From his side of the bed, Jon tossed his hands up to the ceiling as if he was asking the Heavens themselves to take his side. “It’s just that… Well, you know.”
“I know, Jon.”
“We haven’t had good luck with vacations.”
“I know.”
“There’s been some, um, incidents when we go on vacation.”
“Really? Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”
She could feel him drop his arms back to his sides, and then his head rolled on his pillow in her direction. “Was that sarcasm?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Turning over on her side to face him, she settled her hand on his bare chest, thrilling to the feel of his skin under hers. “Jon. It’s Christmas. Colby and Zane will have time off from school. It’s the perfect time, and we haven’t had a family trip in forever. What is it you’re afraid of?”
“Does there have to be just one thing? I’ve got several.”
“Like what?”
Picking her hand up, he brought it to his lips, and kissed a finger for each point he listed off.
“Murder.”
“Well,” Darcy had to admit, “yes, we’ve seen plenty of that.”
“Ghosts.”
“Yeah, plenty of those, too. That’s kind of my life.”
“Mystery.”
“Well, sure. But I kind of like the mysteries.”
“Danger.”
She giggled at the featherlight touch of his kisses. “Danger? I laugh in the face of danger. Ha-ha-ha.”
He paused, staring at her, her pinky finger poised against his lips. “Did you just quote The Lion King at me?”
“Yup. That’s what happens when you have a son who discovers the wonderful world of Disney. He knows every word to that song the meerkat sings. You should hear him sing along to that Phil Collins song in Brother Bear.”
“Hmm. That so? Maybe it’s time for me to watch Die Hard with my son.”
“Jon!”
He laughed and kissed her finger again. “What? Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”
“If your idea of Christmas is explosions and gunfights, maybe,” she muttered. “But that’s kind of my point, Jon. Look, the guy in that movie didn’t expect any of that. He was just going on vacation for Christmas. See? You never know when you’re going to go on vacation and end up in the middle of a hostage situation.”
Picking up her other hand, he extended her pointer finger out, and kissed it.
“You can’t put that on your list!” She sighed out a breath, and it turned into soft laughter. “Whatever. Do you honestly think staying here during Christmas is going to keep any of the things you mentioned from happening? I mean, this is Misty Hollow after all. What was it that Breanna Watson called our sleepy little town? The ‘unofficial murder capital of New England,’ wasn’t it?”
“Ahem. Yeah. You got me there.” He let go of her hand to slide his arm around her, under the blankets. “I guess trouble just likes to follow us around.”
“This time will be different. I promise.”
“Oh, yeah? How do you know?”
Darcy shrugged, because she didn’t really have an answer to that question. The Darcy Sweet-Jon Tinker household definitely knew how to stir up trouble, and they could do it without even trying.
To be fair, that was probable when someone who could talk to ghosts married a police officer. Even more so when those two people had a daughter who could also talk to ghosts, and a son who could talk to animals. Their life was never going to be normal, no matter what they did.
“So,” she said, rather than try to argue with him, “does that mean you agree with me? You think we can take a little Christmas vacation?”
His warm breath caressed her cheek as he let out a thoughtful breath. He knew how much this meant to her. He should. She’d only been talking about it for the last week and a half. The four of them hadn’t taken a break together in a very long time. It had been months and months now since the events surrounding Mark Franks, and he still showed up in her nightmares sometimes. She needed time to unplug and unwind. Recharge her batteries. In fact, they all needed that.
“Fine,” he said, giving in at last. “I feel like this was an argument I was destined to lose from the start, so…yes. Fine. Vacation it is.”
“Yay!” Darcy realized she blurted that out a lot louder than she meant to. She couldn’t help it. She was too happy to keep it in. A trip with the family was exactly what she wanted for Christmas. “This is going to be fun!”
At the foot of their bed where she’d been all curled up in a furry ball, Tiptoe raised her kitty-cat head, glaring at Darcy in the dim glow of the nightlight. She did not look happy about being woken up.
“It’s fine, kitten,” Darcy told her. “We were just talking about something exciting. Oh, don’t give me that look. You know you’re going to sleep most of the day tomorrow. Cats make their own schedules with absolutely no regard for what time of day it is.”
The gray cat continued to stare, before flicking her one black-tipped ear. She didn’t think Darcy was very funny. She closed her eyes again and heaved a sigh and snugged her tail around her feet—
And jumped into the air as two little tornados came rushing to the bedroom door, pushing it wide open until it banged into the wall. She managed to land on her feet, claws sunk into the covers, tail sticking straight out.
Darcy didn’t blame the cat one bit. It had spooked her, too. But, that was the way things were when you lived with children as spirited as theirs. She wouldn’t want it any other way.
The whirlwinds named Colby and Zane stared at their parents in the dark until Jon reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. Zane’s eyes were huge, his finger stuck in the corner of his mouth. He’d missed the bottom button on his fuzzy pajamas and now they hung unevenly around his waist.
“Mom?” he said, slowly. “Did you just make a scream?”
“You don’t ‘make a scream’, dufus,” his sister corrected him. “You just scream.”
Her brother scrunched up his face, scratching the top of his unruly blonde curls. “Um, okay, but somebody had to make it. If nobody made it, how come we heard it?”
Darcy hid a chuckle behind a hand. Colby stared at her brother for a moment as if she couldn’t believe what she had to suffer through as the oldest sibling. When she couldn’t come up with a way to put that in words, she just rolled her eyes and muttered, “Boys.”
Colby was older than her brother by seven years and change. In fact, on her last birthday she became a full-fledged teen. Darcy could hardly believe it had been that long—thirteen years—since she’d given birth to this beautiful, brilliant little girl. Well, not quite so little anymore. She had Darcy’s heart-shaped face that was framed by long, dark brown hair that took on auburn highlights in the sun. She’d hit a growth spike, finally, too. She hardly resembled the person she was just one year ago. It was easy to see she would be a real heartbreaker, and sooner, rather than later. Darcy took comfort in the fact that her pink pajamas with the cartoon bears on the shirt demonstrated that her daughter wasn’t ready to be all grown up. Not yet.
“I did scream,” Darcy said to Zane. She sat up, and stretched, knowing it would be a while before any of them got to sleep now. “But it was a happy scream, kiddo. Your mother is happy because your daddy here just agreed to let us go on a little vacation.”
“No way,” Colby blurted out. “Serious? That’s awesome. We haven’t been on vacation in like, forever. Where’re we going?”
“Yeah,” Zane echoed. “Where? To grandma’s?”
Jon rolled up onto an elbow, throwing the blankets back. “He must mean your mom, Darcy. Not like there’s any chance of us seeing mine.”
Which was true. But they wouldn’t be visiting Darcy’s mother, either. She didn’t want to bother her kids with all the details, but… “Sorry, Zane, but we’re not going to see Grandma Eileen. She and Grandpa James are taking a trip of their own this Christmas. In Paris.”
Although she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice it only sort of worked. Jon noticed, and squeezed her hand in sympathy. He understood that Darcy wasn’t jealous, not really, but it was hard not to feel left out when your mother tells you she’s suddenly going off to one of the greatest cities in the world and you weren’t invited along.
Darcy had smiled and told her mother how great it was that she had that chance, and wished her mother a good trip. In the back of her mind, however, there was an evil little voice reminding her of all the times her mother had treated her badly, including when she had dropped her here in Misty Hollow to live with an aunt when Darcy was only just a teenager. She hadn’t known what to do with Darcy and her special abilities. She couldn’t cope. It wasn’t until recently, in fact, that they’d been able to come together and made amends. After that, all that history between them had just simply disappeared for Eileen like it never happened. It was like she forgot all about the pain she’d caused her daughter over the years. It was Darcy who had to be the grownup for both of them and be the one with the forgiving heart.
But, hey. Darcy still hoped her mother had fun in Paris. Really. She did.
“So…where are we going?” Colby asked again when her parents didn’t answer.
Darcy shook off her thoughts, reminding herself that wherever her story had started, it had brought her here, to a loving family and a wonderful life. “Well, as a matter of fact your dad and I found this really cool Inn that’s quiet and peaceful, off the beaten track, surrounded by trees. It’s so pretty there that you’ll just want to sit and watch nature for hours and hours.”
She gave Jon a sideways look, and he gave her a crooked smile in return.
“That’s right,” he said, playing along. “We’re going to count the deer and collect snowflakes.”
Colby shifted her feet in her bunny slippers. “That doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.”
“Yeah,” Zane agreed. “We gots trees here, mom. Gots lots of snowflakes, too.”
“Ah,” Jon said, all dramatically. “But these are special trees. They’re made from wood!”
“Da-a-ad,” Colby groaned. “All trees are made of wood.”
“So are the bookshelves in the Inn,” Jon said without missing a beat. “They have literally hundreds of books to read there. We’ll watch the trees outside, and then we can sit inside and read book after book after book after—”
“Da-a-ad,” Colby said again.
“Well,” Zane said, his voice tentatively hopeful, “I like books, but maybe we should go somewhere more funner?”
Darcy gasped and put a hand over her chest. “More funner than this Inn?”
“Well, maybe.”
“More fun than the books?”
“Um.”
“More fun than the trees?”
“Um…”
“More fun,” she added at last, “than the indoor mini golf and 3-D laser tag game zone that’s just down the road?”
She watched as both of her kids’ eyes got really, really big, and then almost at the same time they both let out a cheer that should have shook the whole house. Colby hugged her brother and they jumped together for joy. They were just so happy that their parents weren’t going to make them read books while counting snowflakes, or whatever.
Darcy knew her kids loved to read. She ran a bookstore, for Pete’s sake, and since the time both of them were babies she’d read to them on a regular basis. They both had bookshelves of their own in their rooms.
But she also knew that today’s modern kids needed other things to keep them occupied. Things other than just the imaginary worlds contained in the pages of well-written literature.
Tiptoe’s whiskers twitched, and her tail did too. This ear-splitting noise of child excitement was just too much for her. In the next second she jetted off the bed as fast as she could, aiming for the door and the hallway and freedom…
Until she ran nose-to-nose into the family’s other furry member. A Bassador hound not much bigger than she was, with floppy ears that still dragged on the floor if he tipped his head over to the side. Cha Cha was a good dog. He loved all of the family, even Tiptoe. Judging by the way his tail was drooping, he must have been asleep on Zane’s bed until he heard them whooping it up over the news of their vacation.
Tiptoe mewled at the indignation of touching a dog’s nose, but she didn’t stick around to say anything more about it. She sidestepped him and made her escape from all the noise and commotion.
Zane bent down to scrub his dog between the ears. “Hear that, Cha Cha? We’re gonna go on vacation and play small golf.”
“Mini golf,” Colby told him. “And I’m going to beat the pants off you when we do.”
Her brother looked horrified for a moment, clutching his pajama bottoms with both hands to make sure they weren’t going anywhere. He didn’t want his sister taking his pants anywhere.
Jon hugged Darcy, laughing softly into her shoulder, and suddenly it didn’t matter how late it was. The moment was just too perfect.
Cha Cha knew something was up. He jumped around Zane’s feet, tail swatting the air, little barks bubbling up out of his throat. Zane bounced on his heels with the dog, almost like a little dance between the two of them. They were a good match, this boy and this dog.
Of course, that reminded her that this was going to be a vacation just for people. Their furry family members would have to be left behind and watched by someone they trusted. It would be the first time Zane would be away from Cha Cha for that long. Well. There was no sense to upsetting her son tonight with that conversation. It could wait until the morning. Over breakfast. After some sleep.
“Okay, everyone,” she said, with a kiss placed on the top of Jon’s head. “We’ll start making plans for our big adventure tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” Jon agreed. “That will give us the weekend to prepare, and then we can leave Monday. Or is that too soon? Think we can still get reservations on such short notice?”
“Yes. I’m sure. In fact, I made the reservations yesterday.”
He gave her a look. “You were that sure I was going to say yes?”
“Uh-huh. Because I’ve got magic ways of making you say yes.”
She kissed him again, on the tip of his nose this time.
From the doorway, Colby made an exaggerated blech noise. “Come on, you two. There are impressionable young children over here.”
Darcy snuggled closer into Jon’s side on purpose. “Oh, I think you’ll survive, my wonderful daughter. You’re old enough to see your parents kissing.”
“I was talking about Zane,” Colby said with a teasing smirk.
Her brother stopped petting Cha Cha and looked around at everyone. “Huh?”
Colby rolled her eyes again, and Darcy and Jon laughed, but it was all in good fun. Zane even smiled, realizing he was the focus of the joke without being upset by that fact. Their family teased each other. It was all in good fun.
“Come on, Zane,” Colby told him. “I’ll explain it all to you when you’re older, like I am. How about we go back to bed and let the grownups have some time alone.”
“You’re not that much older than me,” Zane grumbled. “Just ‘cause you go to older kids’ school doesn’t make you smarter than me.”
“Uh, it’s called ‘middle school,’ and yes it does mean I know more.”
“Does not.”
“Yes, it does. I know lots of things you don’t.”
“Do not!”
“Do so,” Colby insisted as they started off down the hall. Cha Cha followed right along behind the two of them.
“Like what?” Darcy heard Zane asking.
“Like…what kissing is like,” was the almost-whispered answer.
Darcy traded surprised looks with Jon. She felt her jaw drop. “Did our little girl just say she knows what it’s like to be kissed…?”
Jon sighed, and rolled over onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. “She’s not a little girl anymore.”
“She’s too young to be that old!” Darcy tried to keep her voice down. She didn’t want to wake the whole house up again, and she didn’t want Colby hearing her. “You know what I mean. She’s too young to know about things like…things like kissing.”
“Oh, you think so, do you? Then tell me this. How old were you when you first kissed a boy, Mrs. Sweet?”
“That’s not the point!” Although she supposed it was. She would have been…yeah. She would have been right around Colby’s age when she had her first serious kiss. It had been a disaster. There had been all this slobber, and then the boy hadn’t spoken to her for a week after that. She didn’t want Colby’s first time to be that awkward. “I’m just saying there’s things she needs to know before she tries…all that.”
Jon shrugged, obviously less concerned about it than she was. “Colby sees the way we are to each other. Loving. Respectful. Affectionate. All the right things. We set a pretty good example for our kids about what love is supposed to be, I think. She’s looking forward to having something like that in her own life.”
“Yeah, but we’re married, and we’re going to be together forever. We don’t just kiss because it feels good.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Kissing you feels pretty good to me.”
“You know what I mean!”
He rolled over again to face her. “Do I?”
“Yes you… Wait. Jon! What are you… Stop it. Hey! You know I’m ticklish there!”
His hands found all the right spots until she was laughing uncontrollably, trying to defend herself.
She was just about to tell him to turn off the light when they heard a little voice at the bedroom door. “Um. Mom?”
Zane was back. Jon let go of her, mumbling something about remembering to lock the door next time. Darcy slapped his thigh under the sheets to let him know he was going to pay for that later, when there weren’t any little children around. “Hey, honey. Don’t worry. Mommy wasn’t screaming again.”
“I know. Um. Can I ask a thing?”
“A thing? Oh. You mean can you ask something. Sure, kiddo. What’s up?”
“Um.” Whatever it was, he seemed really upset. “If we go away to the fun place with the small golf, then…um.”
He lost the words, and started playing with the buttons on his pajama shirt instead.
“Hey,” Jon said. “What is it, big guy? You can tell us. It’s okay.”
“It’s just…” Zane took a big breath, and then made himself say it. “If we go away for Christmas is Santa still going to be able to find us?”
Darcy made sure to keep the smile off her face. Zane still believed in Santa, and she wanted to keep that part of the magic alive for him as long as they could. Some people thought it was wrong to let kids believe in a lie, even a fun one like this, but in Darcy’s opinion there wasn’t enough imagination left in children’s lives anymore. They needed more of that, not less. Colby knew the truth about Santa, and had for a long time, but Zane still believed. Darcy liked that.
“Yes, honey,” she told Zane, putting real sincerity into her voice. “Santa always knows where to bring the gifts. That’s why he’s Santa.”
“That’s right.” Jon swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, holding his hands out for Zane to come over. “Santa won’t forget you just because you go somewhere else to have some fun over the holidays. Besides, we’ll be back here the day before Christmas. Tell you what. I’ll leave a note to let the jolly old elf know all about our plans. That way he’ll know right where we are.”
Zane rushed over to give his daddy a hug. He was excited for a vacation away with the family, but he was even happier to know it meant he wouldn’t miss Christmas. Jon mussed his son’s already messy hair, and squeezed him tight, until Zane started to squirm and pretend to be choking.
“Ack, I can’t breathe!” Then he laughed, and wrapped his arms around Jon. “You give the best hugs, Daddy.”
“Hey,” Darcy protested. “What about me?”
“Um, you give good ones, too, but Daddy’s are the best.”
Jon hugged him again. “I sure do…because I know all the best tickle spots!”
He made Zane squeal like a little hyena as he tickled him over and over, and then finally tossed him up in the air and caught him on the way down. Zane laughed and laughed until tears rolled down his face.
Worried that something might be wrong, Cha Cha came padding back into their bedroom to see what was going on, his ears swaying, his nose sniffing the air. When Jon tossed Zane up again, the brown Bassador hound yipped and bounced side to side on his front paws, not sure what to do about this odd situation.
“It’s okay, Cha Cha,” Zane told him, leaning upside down now over his father’s leg. “Dad’s just being funny.”
Cha Cha whuffed.
Zane giggled. “No, silly dog! I’m not flying. Birds fly, not boys!”
Darcy listened in amazement as those two had another one of their little conversations. Zane knew not to do this anywhere but at home. They didn’t want anyone suspecting he was really talking to animals. Her boy was special. The world wasn’t ready for that kind of special. Not yet.
She sat there with her knees up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, watching her two men. Jon was such a good father. She really lucked out when he came into her life and they fell in love, and he gave her their two wonderful children. Not all of the good ones were gone. One of them was right here, with her.
Reaching out, she smoothed a hand along Jon’s shoulder. “You should let our son get some sleep now. That is, if he can even get to sleep after all that.”
“Hmm,” Jon mused. He bounced Zane up again, and then made the noise of an airplane landing as he set the boy down on his feet again. “Maybe your mom’s right, kiddo. It’s late. Time for bed. Can you take Cha Cha with you and you two snuggle up in bed?”
“Sure thing, Dad. And don’t worry, Mom. Now that I know Santa can still find us I’m gonna sleep just fine. I had all the worries, but now I don’t.”
He picked Cha Cha up in his arms, telling him that now he got to see what flying was like, too. The dog was a pretty big load for him, but he managed. Back paws dangling, head bobbing, he wagged his tail wildly. His tongue lolled in a doggy smile. He was flying in his boy’s arms, and he was loving it.
A movement in the shadows, over in the corner, caught Darcy’s eyes as Zane left the room. An old woman appeared there, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, smiling back at her. She waited until she knew Darcy had seen her, and then she was gone again in an instant. That was Great Aunt Millie, checking in on her, and the family, making sure everything was all right.
These brief glimpses were as much of Millie as she’d seen recently. She used to visit in Darcy’s dreams all the time, but lately it had been just a flash here, or maybe a whispered word there. It was like her aunt’s ghost was slowly fading out of her life. Forever.
That made Darcy a little sad, but she had always known it would happen eventually. All of Millie’s old business had been taken care of long ago. She couldn’t stay around forever to spend time with her family, no matter how much Darcy might have wanted it to be otherwise. The longer a ghost stayed in the land of the living, the less stable their spirit became, and the angrier and more unpredictable they got.
Death was part of life, and there was no reason to fear it. Passing over to the other side was just the next step in what it meant to be human.
The shadows became nothing more than shadows again as Jon got back under the covers with her and turned out the light. She pressed herself into his side, laying an arm across his chest, getting comfortable for the night.
“Sleep tight,” he told her, his voice already drifting away. “We’ve got a lot of planning to do tomorrow.”
Yeah, they did. “I love you, Jon.”
“I love you too, Darcy.”
The road leading up to the Hideaway Inn had been recently plowed after the morning’s snow squall. It was a relief to see. When they woke up before five o’clock this morning, and the snow was coming down that hard, Darcy had been worried they would have to delay their trip. The plows got out to do their jobs quickly though, even if it was Monday. Their car still slipped at times even though Jon was taking it slow and steady. Landing them in the ditch would put a very quick end to their vacation plans.
What was supposed to be a two-hour drive down seldom used New England roads turned into almost three with the weather the way it was. They spent the time singing songs like “100 Bottles of Ketchup on the Wall” and “Baby Shark” and playing games like I-Spy. Jon made sure to stop once for donuts and bottles of milk from a coffee shop as a special treat for the kids. Not that Darcy didn’t appreciate her glazed cruller. After all, donuts weren’t just for kids. They were for grownups with a sweet tooth, too.
Now, after a series of turns down county highways and narrow country roads, they were driving up a slippery hill along a road the GPS unit labelled Valleyview Lane. The tall pine trees crowding in on either shoulder didn’t allow for any view at all, let alone one of a valley. The branches were heavily laden down with clumps of white snow that kept dropping off into the road in front of them, now that the sun had risen to warm things up. It had been fifteen minutes or so since they’d seen a house or anything at all.
“I think we’re almost there, guys,” Jon said to the kids in the backseat. “Keep looking up the road. The little map on my phone says it’s just a few minutes away.”
“Yay!” Zane cheered. In his booster seat he was big enough to look over the back of Darcy’s seat, and he craned his neck to try and get the first look. “We’re gonna get unpacked and go play golf, right?”
They had passed through the little town with its playcenter not that long ago, with signs for mini golf and a trampoline zone and other fun stuff. Zane had begged them to stop right then but Jon had pointed out that it wasn’t even open yet. Their son had pouted until Darcy promised him they would go today, after unpacking and getting settled in their room at the Hideaway Inn.
That had been mostly the truth. In reality they would have to wait until after lunch, when the place opened. Zane would just have to be patient. Darcy was already planning on further bribing him with pizza for lunch to make the waiting easier.
“Is that it?” Colby asked, pointing ahead of them to a clearing in the trees, up on their left. A wooden sign hanging from a post had the name painted in green letters between two carved, cartoonish pine trees. The Hideaway Inn. Next to the sign was a long, plowed driveway that lead all the way up to a huge, sprawling house.
“Yup,” Jon said, leaning forward to get a good look at the place. “There it is. Man, it’s big, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh.” Darcy felt herself getting excited, now that they were this close. “The website says it used to be a private mansion, oh, about two hundred years ago. It’s been renovated a few times since then. It’s been an Inn for a few decades now but there’s a couple of rooms on the first floor that have been preserved just like they used to be as sort of a museum to the past. It’s really cool.”
Jon was slowing down for the turn onto the driveway. As he did, he turned to give Darcy a look.
“What?” she asked him.
He raised a meaningful eyebrow.
“Jon…”
He added a smirk.
“It is not a haunted house!”
“The house is haunted?” Zane asked from behind her. “Huh. Cool.”
Colby sighed loudly. “Mom, you didn’t say anything about us going to a haunted house for our vacation. That’s not my idea of fun, you know?”
“Kids, no,” Darcy tried to explain herself. “For Pete’s sake. This is not a haunted house. I didn’t bring us here for ghosts. Honestly. I just wanted us to have a getaway for a few days. Just a nice, normal vacation.”
Jon was still looking at her when he dramatically dropped a hand to click on the signal light.
“It is not,” Darcy said again, “a haunted house!”
Zane clapped his hands in glee. “When can we see the ghosts?”
“Dufus,” his sister told him. “You can’t see ghosts. Only me and mom can see ghosts.”
Her brother stuck out his bottom lip. “No fair. I want to see ghosts, too.”
“There’s no ghosts,” Darcy insisted. “We’re not going to see any ghosts on this vacation. Zero. None. Like I said, this is going to be a nice, normal vacation for a change.”
“In this family?” Jon said with a laugh. “Not sure I’d take that bet.”
“Hmph,” Darcy told him. “We’re due for some good luck for a change.”
Jon nodded. “I’ve heard that one before.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. She was going to give them a normal vacation if it killed her…
Uh, no. Maybe she wouldn’t use that phrase. Good luck or not, saying things like that, even in your own mind, was just plain tempting fate.
The Hideaway Inn really was huge. Two stories tall with a smaller third story over the middle section. Two wings spread off the main part of the building, facing East and West, angling toward the road like arms reaching out to welcome them in. Snow clung to the tiled roof. The façade was brick, with stonework arches built around each and every window, and the front door too. The steps leading up to the entryway were flanked by honest-to-God stone lions. It had a very Gothic look to it, all in all.
But it was not, Darcy told herself again, a haunted house.
The driveway had been plowed that morning, leaving huge banks of snow to either side. Up near the building it became a roundabout that brought them up to park near the stairs. Past that was a parking area, plowed out and waiting for visitors. It was empty.
“Are we the only people checking in?” Jon asked.
“I guess so.” Darcy shrugged. “I didn’t ask. I was just glad to find someone who was still taking bookings this close to Christmas. As it is, that fun center is only open for the next three days.”
“What!” Zane started bouncing up and down in his seat. “Then we need to go today. We need to go today!”
Colby rolled her eyes. “Calm down, will you? You’re acting like such a little boy.”
Zane stopped his bouncing long enough to give Colby a withering look. “I am a little boy. You wish you was a little boy.”
“As if,” was his sister’s immediate response. “I like being a girl just fine, thank you.”
“Do not.”
“Do so. Girls can do anything.”
“Nuh-uh. There’s lots of stuff girls can’t do.”
“Oh yeah?” Colby said, folding her arms with an expression that made her look very much like her dad. “Name me one thing that boys can do that girls can’t.”
Darcy was quick to interrupt before Zane could come up with an answer to that one. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. “Okay, you two. We’re here, let’s just agree that each of you is happy being who you are.”
“Yeah!” Zane said, as if he’d won some personal victory. “Happy, happy, happy.”
“Ugh,” was all Colby had to say. “Come on, Dad. Let’s get the luggage. I hope our room is cool.”
“And haunted,” Jon said with a teasing wink for Darcy.
“It’s not…!” she tried to argue, but Jon was already outside, closing the door and going around to the trunk with Colby. “Hmpf. You believe me, don’t you Zane?”
“Um, sure. But I kinda want to see the ghosts.”
Darcy couldn’t help but laugh. Her children were already becoming their own people, so much more self-possessed than she had been at their age. She liked to think she had something to do with that, but really, the credit went to them. In a world where they could choose to be anything, they chose to be Zane Tinker and Colby Sweet. She wouldn’t want it to be any other way.
Colby held the door for them as they went inside, into a large room with hardwood floors and dark wall paneling that served as a sort of lobby. Electric lights in wrought-iron sconces with glass flutes gave the illusion of old-timey gas lamps. A fireplace was set into one wall, alight with tiny orange flames emanating from a gas-fed burner. At the far end, a short counter topped in white marble had a little plaque on it that read “Welcome, Friends.” A computer sat on the counter, next to a sign-in ledger. The whole place was a mix of the modern and the old. Darcy fell in love with it immediately.
There were Christmas decorations everywhere. Silver tinsel was strung along the walls. A small and artificial Christmas tree was tucked into one corner, with a white cloth wrapped around the base and red glass balls hanging from the branches. Colored lights reflected off the ornaments. A shining star was on top. Blue ceramic snowflakes hung along the edge of the service counter. The fireplace had a cardboard pop-up of a waving Santa Claus in his classic red suit standing in front of it. Figurines of the three wise men, accompanied by two sheep, sat on the mantel.
And from each of the two doorways leading away from this main room, sprigs of mistletoe were hung, tied up with red ribbons. Darcy thought it was a nice touch for the season.
“Where is everybody?” Jon asked, holding a big suitcase in either hand, looking around at the empty room. Classical music played quietly in the background over a speaker system that Darcy couldn’t see, but otherwise the place was quiet.
Colby set down the suitcase she was carrying. There were two more in the trunk still, but those were going to go up to the room later, when the children weren’t looking. They had the Christmas presents in them, and there was no peeking before Santa came. The idea to sneak them in later was more for Zane’s benefit than Colby’s, but it would be fun to surprise their daughter, too. What was Christmas, without a little surprise?
But for the moment, they needed to grab the attention of whatever staff was around.
“Hey, Zane?” Darcy said to her son, “can you go over to the counter and ring the bell for us?”
“Yup.” He knew what that little bell with the plunger on top was for. Darcy had a similar one in her bookstore and he and Colby had practically grown up there. He went right over and lifted his hand up as high as he could over this one.
Darcy was just about to tell him he didn’t need to whack it as hard as he could, when a figure jumped up from behind the counter.
The man was in a three-piece suit with sloping shoulders and a sagging, red bowtie. He leaned his elbows on the marble top and smiled down at Zane with crooked teeth. “Hey there, sport. What’s new?”
Zane had to crane his neck to look up at the man. He was so tall that Darcy had to wonder how he could have possibly been hiding back there, but nevertheless he was there now. She stepped across the woven rug in the middle of the floor in three quick steps, and took Zane’s hand in hers, worried that he might be frightened by this stranger.
“Hi, Mister,” was what Zane said to him. “You have funny hair.”
Darcy shushed him, but he wasn’t wrong. The man in the bowtie had frizzy red hair that stuck out in several directions at once. With his pale blue eyes and slightly large nose, he had kind of a clownish appearance.
“That’s okay, really,” the man said with a chuckle. “No worries about the what the lad said. He’s aces. I’ve tried to do something with my hair but it’s quite unruly. Runs in my family, and not a thing I can do for it.”
He laughed, full of good humor, and Darcy relaxed. Jon had been right. They were all so used to running into some sort of trouble wherever they went that she was seeing boogie men where there weren’t any.
“I’m sorry,” Darcy told the man. “I didn’t mean to overreact but you startled me. I’m Darcy Sweet, and this is my husband Jon Tinker. These are our children. We have a reservation.”
“Ah, yes. Certainly.” He swung the sign-in book open to a page marked with a red cloth strip. “I’ve got you all set up in the finest room. If you’ll just sign in, please, and then there’s the small matter of a credit card. So unpleasant, asking for payment up front, but as Shakespeare said, if money go before, all ways do lie open. I’m Maxwell Bylow, by the way. I own this establishment. Welcome to the Hideaway Inn.”
He had a subtle British accent, more pronounced on his vowels, and now Darcy could see that he was just being friendly, not intentionally spooky.
She gave him their credit card and let Colby sign the register. Maxwell raised an eyebrow over the different last names they used, and Darcy gave him the short version of how she and Jon had agreed that the men of the family would have his name, and the girls would have hers. It worked for them, and that was all that mattered.
“I’m a little surprised,” she added, “that we’re the only ones here. The town we passed on the way here is lovely. Pittsfield, was it? I thought you’d be swarming with tourists coming to visit, even this late in the year.”
“Hmm, yes,” Maxwell murmured. “Usually we are, but it always thins out over Christmas. Some years we have a handful, some years less. At the moment, I am the only one here to attend to the Inn. This is a family run affair, but as I’m the last of the family I depend on paid help, and without more guests it doesn’t pay to have their help.” He chuckled at his joke, but then shrugged. “Truth be told, I’d’ve closed for the season already, if not for your last-minute reservation.”
“Well, we’re glad to be here,” she told him. “This place looks amazing.”
“And there’s small golf at the fun place!” Zane exclaimed.
“Mini golf,” his sister corrected him, with another sigh.
Darcy favored them both with a smile, and then looked around the spacious main room, at the hallways leading off to the wings on both sides, and the stairways leading guests up to the second floor. She wondered how anyone got to that third-floor section she had seen from outside and if maybe Maxwell would be willing to give them all a tour of the building, and explain some of its history…
A shadow formed on the stairs over on her right, past the doorway to the East wing. It detached itself from the lamplight, and shimmered darkly, until it became the outline of a woman in a dark dress, with long hair knotted into a braid. She began floating up the stairs, and then she hesitated, as if she could sense Darcy’s gaze on her. Hand on the railing, she turned a blank face with empty eyes her way.
And then the ghost smiled at her.
As Darcy continued to watch she moved onward again, floating up the curving staircase, disappearing as the stairs rose above the level of the ceiling.
“Mom?” Colby said in a quiet voice. She was looking over at the stairs as well. She’d seen it, too.
“Yes, honey. I know.”
No matter how much she wanted it to be otherwise, she knew what they had just seen was real. There were ghosts in the Hideaway Inn.
Which meant she brought them to a haunted house after all.