Page 75 of Manors & Mischief

“Per the code you previously gave her,” Devon chimes in. “…you were more interested in the remodeling of the place. Nothing was said of determining what she can and cannot do with Sleepy Hollow Manor.”

“It’s just sort of tacky to make money from historic landmarks, don’t you think?” Nichols asks.

I’m not one for violence, but I feel like slapping the guy. To reduce what Devon and I have done here as tacky, I could throttle him. “So, the White House is tacky? Battle of Gettysburg tours are tacky?”

“I don’t believe they add ghosts to the mix.”

Families start coming in, and my heart just breaks. “We’ve pre-sold tickets,” I whisper harshly.

“I guess you better fish out your wallet for refunds.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous.”

Nichols looks like he’s just about had it with us. He drops his head to the side. “Need I remind you that I can and will enforce fines. I may be mistaken but I was pretty sure you told me you couldn’t pay the last fines, so do you really want to add more to your account?”

“What is it that you need her to do?” Devon asks. “What can she do to keep it going?”

“Nothing tonight. I want the Haunted House shut down, turn the spooky lights off, and then you can write up a proposal that the Office of Code Enforcement will consider.”

“You are Code Enforcement!” Devon reminds him. He’s definitely not going to allow Nichols to hide behind the “office” just because it sounds like he’s not making these decisions himself.

“At least walk through the ballroom,” I say, trying to grasp at any way to salvage the evening. The idea of having to refund all the ticket sales makes me want to throw up. Not just because of the financial loss, but people have made plans around this. It would be impossible to reach every one of them to tell them not to come. I hate this!

“I would prefer to do a walkthrough when there aren’t customers here. I’m surprised with the issues we’ve had in the past that you didn’t see fit to ask my opinion on this event.”

“Why would I think to ask you permission to do something with my own house?!”

“Due to our last conversation, this should’ve been abundantly clear.”

I don’t even have the wherewithal to argue with him anymore. He’s standing in my foyer, crushing my dreams. My head and my heart were on such a high, and now it’s as if the rug has been pulled out from underneath me. He’s really shutting us down, and I can see we’re not going to come to any sort of agreement tonight. He wants everyone out.

I swallow hard, tears coming to my eyes. “I just want this known that I think this is ridiculous.” I try to keep my voice steady and even, but it’s hard as the emotion wells up. “It’s not as if you just heard about this event tonight, yet for some reason, you felt it was best to enforce your rule tonight, instead of telling me before I sold the tickets. Or before we even started the day so I could let people know that they shouldn’t come. This is a gross misconduct on your part, and I will be sure to let everyone know who the blame really lies with.”

With that, I turn my back and face my customers. Behind me, I can still hear Devon trying to talk sense into Nichols, but there’s no chance he’s going to go back on it now. I give the family at the door a watery smile. “I’m so sorry, but there’s been a misunderstanding and Code Enforcement is mandating that I close the Haunted House for tonight.”

“But Mommy,” a cute little girl in pigtails says. “Does this mean we won’t be able to see any ghosts?”

“I’m so sorry,” I say to the mom. “I’ve just now been informed, and I definitely would’ve reached out earlier if I had had the chance.”

The ballroom doors open behind us and Rose pops her head out. She looks between Devon and Nichols, then to me. “What’s going on? I came out because we were supposed to have the next wave of kids start.”

“Nichols is shutting me down for the night,” I tell her, a tear leaking over.

Her eyes widen, then her lips purse. She puts her hand on my shoulders and within seconds, she’s giving me the plan to move forward. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll redirect everyone to the B&B and have my haunted house tonight. I have everything ready for tomorrow, so I can step right in. We won’t need to disappoint anyone.”

Before I can even say anything, she turns to the next few families trying to enter the house. “There’s been a change of plans. Harvest Falls B&B is happy to host you all tonight. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience, but it couldn’t be helped.” She grabs her coat from the rack, and turns toward me. “I’ll handle everything there, you work on reaching out to everyone to let them know of the change. Devon, can you come with me to help out?”

Devon nods.

Rose marches outside, taking charge. “That’s right everyone. Follow me to the Bed and Breakfast, and we’ll get this party started.”

Nichols doesn’t leave until I have every last person out of the house, including the volunteers. I still want to smack him as he makes his exit, informing me again that he’d be happy to look at a proposal, but it seems like a moot point. He already looked around and decided he didn’t like it. Before he makes it all the way down the steps, he turns. “Please turn off these garish lights.”

“Are you a Halloween scrooge or what? These lights are perfectly normal for October, and perfectly normal for all of Harvest Falls. Drive down Main Street right now.”

“Miss O’Malley…”

I stand my ground. “You shut down my haunted house, I’ll be damned if I let you take away my fun, too. Remove yourself from my property.”