Page 128 of Love at First Fright

The front door creaked open. Footsteps echoed through the hall—measured, cautious.

Harrison appeared in the kitchen doorway.

He froze, eyes sweeping over the carnage.

Shattered porcelain crunched beneath his polished shoes as he stepped inside. His gaze tracked across open cupboard doors, scattered cutlery, the frosty windows. His mouth hung open.

“Yeah… So look, Harrison,” Brad said. “Dave isn’t coming back.”

eighteen

Charlie

“Right. We need to find the witch.”

I turned from the counter where I’d been staring at my now-cold tea. Brad stood in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, expression set.

“What?”

“The witch. Margery Darke. These spirits—” Brad gestured vaguely at the empty air. “They must be drawing on her power. That’s why they’re so strong. Why they can manifest physically, throw things, bite people.”

I’d only just managed to stop my hands shaking from Harrison’s extended rant. He’d stood amid the shattered crockery for twenty minutes, alternating between despair and demands to clean up the mess immediately.

Brad had puffed up like an indignant peacock. “That’s not in our job description. We’re Spirit Extraction Specialists, not housekeepers.”

“I don’t care what your bloody job description says! Look at my kitchen!”

“Your haunted kitchen. Which we’re here to sort out. For a very reasonable fee, I might add.”

“Reasonable?!” Harrison’s face had gone an alarming shade of purple. “You call this reasonable? You’ve been here three days and things are getting worse!”

“Worse? Sir, do you have any idea how powerful these entities are? There’s a very real chance of death—”

I’d stood frozen throughout the entire exchange, desperately trying not to look at Bat, who’d been doubled over with silent laughter, occasionally wiping phantom tears from his eyes. “This is way better than telly,” he’d whispered.

Eventually Harrison had stormed out, threatening to call Gerald, his solicitor, and possibly the prime minister.

The front door had slammed hard enough to rattle the remaining intact crockery.

“Let’s just leave it for the ghosts to clean,” I’d said without thinking.

Brad had stared at me. “You think the ghosts will clean up?”

It would certainly give Molly something to do.

Now Brad strode past me towards the back door, boots crunching on porcelain shards. “I want to see what you found last night. This grave.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay.”

Bat straightened from where he’d been lounging against the wall. “Oh, this should be good.”

The garden sprawled before us in the afternoon light—overgrown, wild, the maze of pathways disappearing between untended hedgerows and tangled flowerbeds.

Brad charged ahead like he knew exactly where he was going.

I followed, almost losing sight of him as he rounded a corner between two enormous rhododendron bushes.

“Brad, slow down. You don’t even know the way!”