Pumpkin Spice & Poltergeist (Maple Hollow #1)

“Shh!” I held up a hand to quiet her. “You’re going to wake Iris!”

“You’re still rooming with her?” Lou looked around and shook her head in disappointment.

Iris and I shared the two-bedroom apartment above the Poisoned Apple Apothecary and ran the shop on behalf of the coven. I’d moved in with my fellow coven member and best friend a few years ago, before Lou and I’d gotten together officially. It was hard to imagine living with anyone else now. Who else would put up with me?

“Am I here so you can hash this out again?” Lou asked, pulling my focus back to her as she eyed the inner circle of salt. “You want to justify to me why you tucked tail and ran?”

I frowned down at the empty bottle of red wine beside me. I wished I had more, but if I left the summoning circle, Lou might be gone by the time I returned. I wiped the fresh bout of sloppy tears from my eyes. I should’ve just watched a Jane Austen movie and cried over a bowl of ice cream like a normal person! This whole closure thing was a mistake.

“I’m sorry, Lou. I just missed you and wanted to say goodbye. . . and that I’m sorry for everything. Truly.”

Lou softened a little at that. She’d always given me way too much leeway when it came to romantic responsibility. “This is the gayest thing we’ve ever done, by the way,” she said. “Summoning me from the afterlife to have one more long talk about our feelings.”

We both let out a little laugh, and the tension between us simmered into silence for a moment.

“How did I die?” she asked as if she wanted me to tell her a bedtime story.

I blinked at her. “You don’t remember?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “I only remember flashes of that day. Brunch, maybe? But then nothing. Only peace . . . well, until now.”

I looked up at her, my wet eyelashes clumping along my bottom lids. “Car accident. But something about it just never made sense. They said your car reeked of alcohol.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I told them you stopped drinking years ago, but they wouldn’t listen. They found your car in a ditch at the turnoff to Maple Hollow.”

Lou’s brows knitted together. I longed to smooth that divot between them with my thumb like I used to, but I knew my hand would just pass straight through her. “Was I coming back to see you?”

“Were you?” I asked, unsure of which answer would be worse.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Guess we’ll never truly know. It’s okay, Jords. I’ve moved on. I think it’s time you did the same.”

“I know.” My voice wobbled. “I just wanted a chance to apologize. You can go back to eternally resting or whatever it is you’re doing on the other side.”

Lou’s cheek dimpled on one side. “Don’t make the same mistakes with the next girl, okay?”

“I won’t. I promise.” I sniffed and wiped my nose again. “Goodbye, Lou.”

Lou hugged her knees to her chest and gave me a nod. “Goodbye, Jordyn.”

I swept my hand across the salt, breaking the circle and releasing Lou back to the afterlife. I waited for her corporeal form to fizzle away like the other spirits I’d summoned . . . but she didn’t.

One of Lou’s closed eyes peeked open, then the other.

Her frown lines deepened as she looked at me. “What did you do?”

“I . . .” I looked around the room, then down at my spell book, examining the summoning circle. Nothing was amiss. “Nothing. It was just a normal summoning.”

Lou narrowed her eyes. “What did you say when you summoned me?”

“‘We never got to say goodbye,’” I repeated, trying to remember the exact phrasing. “I can’t move on until I see you?”

I went over what I’d done before she’d appeared. I’d performed the ritual in the exact same way I’d always performed it. I hadn’t even dipped into my black magic stores to ensure she’d be more visible.

“Oh, boy.” Lou let out a long-suffering sigh. “That explains it.”

“What?” My eyes flared wide. “What did I do?”

“I had this weird feeling, like a hook in my gut.” She patted her stomach. “Like I was here for a reason.”

“What reason?”