The Ghost Exterminator (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-One: Toys in the Attic

At the top of the stairs, in the highest tower, lay a small, square room with bay windows on every wall. Jo followed Wyatt’s body, steered by Angelica, up the rickety stairs. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do to get the ghosts out when she got to the top, but she knew from her conversation with the Bubblelicious brat that this was where it had to happen. This room was where they belonged.

Jo felt like she’d been flattened by a steamroller and her second sight was fuzzy and raw from the aftereffects of her duel with the talisman, but she wasn’t willing to risk Wyatt’s soul for another second.

The movements of the rest of the ghosts in the house were lazier now that the medallion had lost its power over them. They drifted in a more natural way, listlessly, as if they didn’t quite know what to do or where to go anymore. A thousand lost children.

Jo knew she would have to take care of them, and soon, but at the moment she was more worried about the two children lost inside Wyatt Haines.

At the landing at the top of the stairs, Angelica hesitated. Jo slipped past her and opened the door then gasped in surprise.

For all the renovations in the rest of the house, this one hadn’t been touched.

A thick layer of dust coated the hardwood floors and vintage toys crowded into the small space. Dollhouses and porcelain-faced baby dolls fought for space beside hand-carved jack-in-the-boxes and toy soldiers. It was a time capsule, a treasure trove, painstakingly prepared by someone who had loved these two little children, these two little ghosts, very much.

Jo turned and beckoned to Angelica. Wyatt’s eyes were filled with her tears. “Home,” she whispered in his voice.

Angelica stepped across the threshold. As soon as the body broke the plane into the room, the green glow that was Angelica began to rise away from him, like steam. That simply, as Jo stood by and did nothing, Angelica was free of Wyatt’s body, with Teddy not far behind. They floated across the room, their spectral bodies growing clearer as they roamed the room, brushing against their toys.

Wyatt shook his head sharply, swaying as he came to himself again. “Dammit, Jo!”

She beamed at him, ridiculously pleased to hear him sounding so much like himself, his spirit still safely attached to his body. “Look,” she urged him quietly, pointing to his two former occupants.

Wyatt’s tirade froze on his lips when he spotted the two children. “Is that them? It worked? What did you do?”

“I didn’t have to do anything. This is where they’re meant to be.”

Wyatt frowned, coming farther into the room, careful not to disturb the ghosts as they reacquainted themselves with all their possessions. “What is this place?”

“Haven’t you ever been up here? This is your house, after all.”

He shook his head, running his fingers through the dust over an old train set. “The tower room is too small to be of any use. We planned to close it off and use it for storage. No refurbishment necessary. But it looks like someone put a lot of time and energy into this room.”

“It’s Angelica and Teddy’s toy room,” Jo explained.

“But who made it like this? Ghosts can’t just walk into a toy store and buy things.”

Jo looked around the room that had been arranged with such care and love. “It was their sister. Their little sister.” When Wyatt just frowned at her, she clarified. “You know her as the little old lady who went to church and gave to charity. The previous owner of the house.”

“But that means they’ve been here for decades.”

“At least seven decades,” Jo confirmed. “Maybe more.”

“Why seven?”

“They didn’t remember the second World War or the Great Depression. Those things have an impact, even on a nine-year-old. Angelica did remember The Great War, but it was far away and didn’t affect her.”

“How did they die?” Wyatt asked, his voice low and somber.

Jo figured he was probably experiencing the same epiphany she’d had at Bethie’s house. These were real children once. Knowing that they had been loved, the center of someone’s world, somehow made their ghostly state all the more tragic.

“They got sick,” Jo explained quietly. “I think it was probably the influenza pandemic, but neither of them knew what year it was or exactly how it happened. This was their summer house. Their spirits came here because they remember being happy here. The next summer, when the family came back to stay, their little sister could see them. Her parents thought it was a manifestation of her grief, being left an only child, playing all day with her invisible siblings, but she really did see them. She came to live in this house and even though she aged, they never did. She kept the toy room for them.” Jo pointed to a projector screen that pulled down over one of the windows. “She even had a film projector installed and showed them Marx Brothers movies. She loved them.”

“It really was their house.” Wyatt grimaced. “No wonder they were trying to get rid of me.”

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I’ll transcend them. I’ll transcend all of them. No more Episodes.”

“We don’t want to go.”

Jo looked over, startled by the sound of Angelica’s voice. The young ghosts stood side by side, Angelica petulant and mischievous, Teddy solemn and silent.

“We want to stay here,” Angelica insisted. “In our house.”

“It isn’t your house anymore,” Jo said reasonably. “It’s Wyatt’s house now and soon it’s going to be an inn, with strange people coming and going at all hours. You don’t want to live in a place like that. Er, exist, rather.”

Angelica frowned at her mistrustfully. “What happens? Where do we go?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Jo admitted. “You go
on
. It’s where you’re supposed to go. No child should be deprived of her afterlife. It’s nice over there.”

“How do you know?” Angelica countered aggressively. “You’re not dead.”

“You’re right, but some things you just have to take on faith. This is the way it’s supposed to be.”

Angelica’s lower lip shoved out in a pout as Teddy shoved his thumb into his mouth. “I don’t like rules,” she complained.

Jo smiled in spite of herself. “You and me both. But there are some rules even we can’t get out of. Come on, Angelica. Be brave for Teddy.”

That got her. The young ghost looked at her little brother and straightened her intangible spine. She caught her brother’s hand, gave him a reassuring smile, and nodded her consent to Jo.

Jo took a deep breath and grounded herself. She reached out, easily finding a thin spot for the portal. The entire room felt thin, as if it were right on the edge between this world and the next, probably a side effect of housing ghosts for three-quarters of a century.

“Whoa, wait a second. No one is transcending anyone yet.”

“Wyatt, I’m fine. I can do this. Stop being such a—” Jo caught herself before she said something inappropriate for young ears. “A, uh, doofus.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being a doofus, Jo, but
this can wait
. It can all wait. You need to go to the hospital—”

“I’m fine!”

“And there is no way we are doing any more ghost sh—” He quickly modified what he was saying when he caught her glare. “—stuff. No more ghost
stuff
up in the attic with the creaky timbers all around us when every time you do something ghosty, it triggers an earthquake.”

Jo frowned. She hated to admit it, but Mr. Uptight might actually have a point with that one. “I think the quakes were probably caused by the medallion, but you’re right. We should probably go downstairs and stand in a doorway or something.”

He blinked, visibly stunned by her capitulation. “I’m right?”

“Don’t make a big thing of it. It happens. Rarely. Come on.”

Jo stood in the front hall, having had enough of the kitchen thank you very much, and tried not to waver on her feet. Wyatt didn’t need any more fuel for his “you are too exhausted to do this tonight” argument. She refused to show weakness.

He glowered at her from his post at the front door, poised to yank her from the house at the first sign that it was coming down around their heads.

“This is stupid and masochistic.”

So was her being in love with him, but she did that anyway. Why should this be any different? “Shut up, Wyatt, or I’ll put more ghosts into you.”

“You’ll probably do it by accident anyway,” he insisted. “You don’t have the energy to do this.”

“As inspiring as your vote of confidence is, I’m doing this whether you want me to or not. Since you have such a problem with this, why don’t you wait outside?”

“Did asking me to wait outside work last time?”

“No, but I was hoping you’d learned your lesson.”

Jo thought that would be the last word on the subject, but apparently Wyatt wasn’t done pleading his case. He shoved away from the doorway and came to face her, capturing her face between his hands.

“Jo. I’m not trying to control you or saying this just to be contrary. I’m worried about you. These ghosts. What difference does it make whether you transcend them today or tomorrow? Who cares? You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

She laughed at herself a little. No wonder he thought she was a masochist. She hadn’t bothered to tell him why it was important to do it now. “I’m going to have to work on my communication skills,” she muttered.

“What?”

“I’m not used to having people worry about me or try to look out for me. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

This being in love business wasn’t as easy as it looked. Of course, it wasn’t likely to be a problem much longer. Wyatt would probably walk out of her life five minutes after she got the ghosts out of his. He should
want
her to do it tonight. But whether he wanted her to or not, she needed to.

“Remember what I said about Samhain being a night of power?” she asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. “That means everyone who is sensitive to supernatural power is out tonight, most of them making mischief. Ghost energy isn’t as appealing to witches and demons as some other forms, but this much energy, no matter what kind, is going to draw attention. And odds are, it isn’t going to be the kind of attention we want.”

Wyatt frowned, but it was a mild tremor on the Pissed-Off-CEO Richter scale. “So you need to get rid of it before it gets into the wrong hands.”

“Exactly.”

He nodded slowly, taking a step back. “Be careful.” Then he turned without another word and went back to his post at the door. Jo blinked in shock as he waited there, absolutely silent, absolutely motionless, for her to get on with it.

The man could be reasonable. Who knew?

Jo took a deep breath, grounding herself and preparing to search for a portal. With so much ghost energy in the house, it was child’s play to find a space where the living plane had been worn thin and give it a tiny tug.

The portal sprang open, clean and white and inviting.

Without prompting, the ghosts began to flow toward the open portal, vanishing through it faster than Jo could count them. The room quickly emptied. Ghosts from other parts of the house must have sensed the open portal, because they began to flow down through the ceiling and through the walls. They disappeared into the next plane like bubbles down a drain.

There were so many of them, they flowed together, wisps of green energy, but when she looked closer, she saw figures in the energy now. Children of all ages swarmed around her.

Jo watched the show, relaxed and in control.
This
was what her job was supposed to be like. She got a rewarding little rush with each spirit that moved on to its proper place. Actually she was feeling pretty damn good. The residual ghost energy in the house was giving her a bit of a buzz now that it wasn’t being manipulated by the spell.

After a matter of minutes, the room emptied and ghosts stopped flying through the walls and ceiling. Jo let the portal fall closed.

She turned to the door to find Wyatt watching, his expression rapt and almost awed.

“Wow.”

Jo blushed and gave a little curtsy, delighted by the light of admiration in his eyes. She thought, on the plane, that she had convinced herself not to care what other people thought, but seeing his acceptance of her gifts written all over his face made her want to hug herself tight to hold onto the warmth of that feeling. Maybe she didn’t need to be admired the world over. Maybe just Wyatt looking at her like this was enough.

“Are they all gone?” he asked, and her warm fuzzies froze solid in record time.

If they were all gone, so was she.

A screech of tires in the street outside saved her from answering.

“Jo!” It was Karma’s voice, urgent and frantic.

Jo and Wyatt came out onto the porch as Karma sprinted up the walk, somehow looking perfectly balanced and elegant while running in three-inch-heels. “Karma?”

Her boss stopped abruptly. “You look fine,” she accused. “You both look fine.”

“Oh, shit. I forgot to call you back.”

Karma nodded tightly. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”