Page 209 of Love at First Fright

Movement rippled through the basement.

Ghosts appeared.

Molly materialised beside the wine racks. Thomas drifted through the wall near the crypt entrance. Vivian descended from the ceiling in a graceful spiral, her grey dress billowing.

The twins popped into existence by Brad’s body. Rosemary poked his shoulder with one finger. Henry giggled.

Edmund floated down the staircase. Other spirits followed—ones I’d glimpsed in corridors but never properly met. A young man. An elderly woman in a nightgown. An older child clutching a wooden horse.

Lady Grimthorne appeared last.

She drifted toward us, regal despite her translucent state. Her gaze swept the basement—taking in the bodies, the blood, the destruction.

When her eyes met mine, something shifted in her expression. Relief. Gratitude. Exhaustion.

“You did it.” Her voice wavered. “After all these years… he’s truly gone.”

“Wasn’t us.” Bat gestured vaguely. “It was all Margery Darke.”

Lady Grimthorne’s lips thinned. “That poor woman. I knew what Cornelius had done to her, but I…” She closed her eyes. “I was a coward. I should have stopped him sooner.”

“You locked him in a basement,” Bat pointed out. “That’s pretty metal.”

“For all the good it did.” She opened her eyes again. “But now… now perhaps I can finally rest.”

Her face changed. Surprise bloomed across her features—eyes widening, mouth parting slightly.

“I… There’s… I can see a door.”

A ripple of murmurs spread through the assembled ghosts. They turned, looking around the basement. Their expressions shifted—wonder, confusion, hope.

Molly gasped. “There! Do you see—”

“By the pillar,” Thomas breathed.

The twins squealed in unison. Henry pointed at something I couldn’t see. Rosemary clapped her hands.

I saw nothing. Just stone and shadows and dead bodies.

Bat floated closer to Lady Grimthorne. “Go on, then. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Will you?” She studied his face. “Truly?”

“Eventually.”

She smiled. A real smile this time, not the tight-lipped expression she’d worn in life. “I suppose I’ll see you on the other side, Bartholomew.”

She turned toward something invisible. Took a step forward. Her form began to glow—soft and warm, like candlelight through paper.

Then she vanished.

My heart clenched.

The other ghosts moved toward their own doors. Vivian grabbed the twins by their hands—one on each side—and pushed them forward despite their theatrical pouts.

“But I wanted to stay and haunt Charlie,” Rosemary whined.

“We never even got to put spiders in his bed!” Henry added.