Page 98 of If I Stopped Haunting You

“But this doesn’t explain why the ghosts are still here,” Neil said. “Are they the type of ghosts who need to wrap up their unfinished business in order to move on? And if so, what’s their unfinished business?”

Pen took up the torch once more, pausing as her eyes slid to another sarcophagus parallel to Georgina’s.

“Penelope?”

She shook her head and crossed to it, eyes going wide and heart sinking as she read the inscription.

“It’s him,” she whispered. “Archibald Skinner, Archie.” She brushed her sleeve through the dust, coughing into her arm as she scanned it. “He died ten years later in 1828. ‘Beloved husband and son’… but his inscription doesn’t say duke.”

She scooted back for Neil to join her. His hip bumped against hers as he sidled up beside Pen, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her before leaning over the sarcophagus. He read over the inscription several times before stepping away, his bottom lip clamped between his teeth.

“They were both so young,” he murmured.

Pen sighed but said nothing. Neil held out a hand and she stared down at it, at his waiting fingers. Fingers that belonged toa familiar hand that belonged to a familiar man. They were filthy, covered in grime, and dirt was stuck beneath his fingernails, but they were his. Sniffling, she entwined her fingers with his.

They climbed out of the tomb, and she stamped out the torch in the snow, watching as the flames sizzled out. Quietly, they fought their way through the snow and stopped before the grave, the one he’d shown her what felt like a lifetime ago.

They knelt in the snow side by side, sitting back on their heels. The cold leached in through her jeans as she reached out and tugged off the ivy wrapped around the stone, brushing away the dirt and grime from the engraved dates.

“Born December seventeenth, 1815.” Pen glanced sidelong at Neil. “Their son. By mid-March, she was already pregnant with him, and Archie was sent away in April. He fought in Waterloo, and for whatever reason, wasn’t able to return home until the baby was born.”

“Hold on.” He leaned past her, ripping the last of the ivy from the headstone to reveal a set of Roman numerals after the name. Archibald SkinnerII.

“That would have saved us a lot of time,” Pen murmured.

“Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.”

They sat in front of the grave for a while. Pen’s heart felt enormously heavy. She’d hoped for a happily ever after, and she supposed Georgina and Archie had had one, but it wasn’t some fairy-tale ending. Pen leaned her head on Neil’s shoulder and stared blankly at the gravestone until her hands were cold and she’d lost feeling in her thighs. Finally, after minutes or hours, she couldn’t be sure, they stood, and Pen wrapped her arms around Neil, pulling him close. When she leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him, he tasted like coffee and snow, smelled of the tomb and the macabre things in the ground beneath them. But his hands and his lips were comforting, something she never thought she’d come to know.

When they finally pulled apart, Neil looked dazed, his handson either side of her face as he bent down and pressed his forehead against hers. He sighed, and she could feel the sound all the way down to her toes.

“As fun as this was,” he breathed, “I’m so ready to get the hell out of this castle.”

“I concur.” She pulled back and brushed a few stray curls from his eyes. “We still have some things to do. Like taking you to the hospital.”

“Is that really necessary?”

She raised a brow in answer as they pivoted toward the castle to glance up at the window. Georgina stood as she had the day before, half turned toward them, eyes cast down. But there was something different about her, about the softness around her mouth and the glimmer in her eyes.

Was this it, the closure to her story? Could Georgina and Archie and all the spirits in Skinner Castle finally rest? Or was there more? There was only one way to find out.

“Let’s go.”

They trudged back through the snow, but Pen did not feel the cold. Neil’s hand was warm in hers, and she tried to focus on that instead of what was to come.

When they arrived at the side door to the castle, Neil tugged her to a stop, bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, voice low.

Pen looked at the door.

This was it. Once they walked into that castle, there was no turning back. But Georgina and Archie deserved the closure, whatever it was. That’s why ghosts lingered, right? They lingered because they had unfinished business, and Georgina had been ripped away from her family at such a young age. Wasn’t that traumatic enough?

“I’m sure.”

Neil kissed the top of her head. “Okay.”

Clearing her throat, she opened the door. Silently, theyshucked off their boots and coats, and when they rounded the corner, Laszlo and Daniela were leaning over the kitchen table, eyes wide as their heads snapped up to take them in.