“Harold?” I asked in serious disbelief. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” the spirit confirmed. Wow, I couldn’t believe my former boss had returned from the spectral plane to pay me a visit. He’d hated me, and even more than that, he hatedpaying me anything—especially not what I was owed for all the hours I put in at his coffeeshop.
“No wonder the spell didn’t work,” I murmured to myself, thinking of the useless ceramic frog in the hallway. “It was made for Virginia. And you clearly aren’t her.”
“Who’s Virginia?” Harold echoed.
“Don’t worry about it,” I shot back quickly. I really preferred not to tell him that Virginia was the one who had killed him in the first place. Instead, I swallowed hard and asked, “Why are you here? Why did you come to see me, Harold?”
“I don’t know,” he answered as his blue light pulsed yet again. I wondered if the color he’d taken on was a coincidence or if it was something more of a mood ring. Would evil ghosts glow red? Magical ones green? Interesting to think about, but not what was important at the moment.
“Do you have unfinished business of some kind?” I asked after licking my dry lips.
“It’s hard to remember much in this form,” he said in that jarring echo of his. “But give me a moment, and I’ll try.”
While I waited for Harold to collect his thoughts, the two cats slowly moved out of the hallway and came to stand beside me in the kitchen.
“What does it want?” Merlin asked, swishing his tail so hard it thwapped me in the leg.
“A talking cat!” Harold exclaimed in fright and zipped back toward the sink.
“Yes, he’s a talking cat, and you’re a ghost. Which seems scarier to you?” I asked, tilting my head to the side in disbelief. “Besides, you just saw him talking in the hallway. You also watched him summon lightning, remember?”
“Oh, I think I do.” The blobby blue Harold bobbed back over to us, coming dangerously close to crashing into Luna this time. “And this one threatened me!” the ghost cried when he recognized the white cat.
“I have a name. It’s Luna,” she hissed, arching her back at him.
“Eek! A talking cat!” Harold screamed and raced about the house.
Oh, boy. This was going to take a while.
I needed to take charge here, or we’d be at this all night. “Harold, you came for a reason. I know you’re having a hard time remembering, so I’ll ask some questions to see if that helps. Okay?”
He bobbed up and down, which I took to mean he agreed.
“Is this about how you died?” I ventured carefully.
“I was poisoned.”
“Yes, that’s good, Harold! Yes, you were poisoned.” Oops, my voice sounded all high and babyish like it did when I talked to Merlin—before he started talking back, that is. When I’d still assumed he was just a regular fuzzy wuzzy. Even though Harold seemed harmless, there was nothing fuzzy or wuzzy about the ghost before me.
“Well, you don’t have to sound so happy about it,” he booed.
“Oh, trust me. I’m not happy about it.”
Sigh. I might as well tell him the truth and get it off my chest. He’d forget it in a few seconds any way. “I’m sorry, too. You were murdered because someone wanted to hurt me.”
“But she avenged you,” Merlin added, hopping up onto the table to get closer to the talking blue orb. “She risked her own life to punish those who hurt you.”
“So my killer is now dead?” Harold wanted to know.
I shrugged for lack of a better response.“Um, yes and no. The mastermind is still on the loose, but the one who pulled the trigger is definitely dead.”
“No, I wasn’t shot. I was poisoned,” he insisted in another wailing echo.
“Right.” No tangents, no metaphors. Straight simple language. “Does your visit have anything to do with your daughter? Kelley?”
“My daughter,” the ghost mumbled and then flashed bright cerulean and shouted, “Kelley! Yes, I wanted to thank you for helping her.”
I smiled. Harold would have been a good dad if he’d been given more of a chance. “Of course I helped her, she’s my friend.”
“But you gave her your one wish. You didn’t have to do that.”
My jaw would have hit the floor if it could reach.“You couldn’t remember that cats can talk, but somehow you both knew and remembered that my cat brewed a potion which I then gave to Kelley so her biggest dream could come true?”
The blue blob tilted to the side.“Memory is strange as a ghost. It comes and goes.”
“Well, you’re welcome for helping Kelley. She wants to do your legacy proud. You have a very good daughter there. It’s too bad you didn’t get much of a chance to know her.”
Harold’s hue turned dark like midnight. “It is too bad.”
“Tomorrow is the grand re-opening of the coffeehouse. She kept the name,” I informed him. “To honor you.”
He brightened once more.“Would you please tell her I’m proud of her?”
Well, this was sweet and all, but I really needed to get some sleep since I was scheduled to work a double shift tomorrow.“I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for the visit, Harold. Was that all?”
“Wait!” The ghost raced around the kitchen before returning to face me. “I have a warning to deliver from the other side.”
“That might have been a good thing to start with,” Merlin said snippily.
I shushed him, then softened my voice to speak to Harold.“What is the message?”
His voice grew deep and clear, changed.“Seeds that have been sown will soon bear dangerous fruit.”
I gasped.“Harold? What does that mean?”
He spun slowly as if surveying the room.“What does what mean?”
“The message you just gave me,” I pressed. Please remember, please rememb—
“I don’t remember,” he said and then flashed out of view.
19
The next morning I woke up with a killer headache. Not only had the whole fiasco in the kitchen taken an unpredictably long time, but when it was over I lay awake for close to an hour pondering the meaning of Harold’s ghostly warning.
Seeds that have been sown will soon bear dangerous fruit.
What did that mean?
For all I knew, Harold heard it in some movie before he died and now summoned it back up, confusing it for a real memory. It certainly sounded like some weird prophecy that had come straight out of an epic fantasy film.
The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. I guessed I’d just have to wait and see what happened next, as much as I hated not being able to prepare.
It would be a busy day.
The coffeehouse’s grand re-opening had arrived. I had to give her credit, Kelley had made especially fast progress in retooling the menu and retraining the staff. Now the moment of her public debut as owner of Harold’s House of Coffee had arrived.
She’d need all hands on deck because today was going to be non-stop busy. The magic I’d secretly given to her guaranteed it would be so.
At my urging, Kelley had scheduled the full staff to work a double shift for the day, including me.
When I arrived at Harold’s, I found her wearing a white ‘50s inspired party dress with little pumpkins and horns of plenty patterned all over it. She ran over to me with a huge grin on her face. “Gracie, hello! Are you ready for our big day?”
“Your big day,” I reminded her with a grin. “And yes, I’m definitely ready.” No need to let her know I’d lost several good hours of sleep last night, thanks to the paranormal soap opera my life had become.
She nodded, and a pair of jack-o-lantern earrings bobbed along with her.“Good news, the new uniform shirts arrived last night. Grab one from the office and get changed.”
Oh, no.Harold had allowed us to wear whatever we wanted because he was too cheap to invest in uniforms, but Kelley had gone all out by commissioning a series of custom T-shirt designs that would change each month.
I sifted through the box until I found a large, then pulled it on over my other shirt. On the front, my new uniform said“#PSLISBAE,” which was the new hashtag Kelley was trying to get started on social media. The back read, “Ask me about my favorite pumpkin spice!”