Page 60 of With All My Haunted Heart

“Because she’s dying, yeah.” Elle squeezes her arms around her knees. “She was diagnosed with DIPG about nine months ago, just after her tenth birthday.”

“DIPG?”

“Brain cancer. The doctors missed it at first. They thought her headaches and coordination issues were from a pinched nerve or growing pains. Viv had to push for referrals to specialists before we could get a proper diagnosis. Once we had it, we tried everything. The best doctors. The best surgeons. The best healers. But this kind of cancer…it’s not operable. Chemo doesn’t work on it. Radiation treatments just stall the progression. Even magic can only do so much.”

“I’m so sorry, Ellie.”

“She can’t even talk anymore.” Elle’s voice breaks, and she presses her thumbs against her eyes. Tears spill out anyway. “Willa was so smart and funny. I haven’t heard her voice in weeks. I miss it. God, I miss it.”

There isn’t anything I can say to make this better, but I desperately wish I could. Instead, I lay a hand on Elle’s back, and when she relaxes into my touch, I rub my thumb along her spine and give her space to keep going if that’s what she wants.

Elle reaches for the box of tissues on the side table. Dabs at her eyes. “Do you know what advice the doctors gave my sister after the diagnosis? ‘Go home and make memories.’ That’s how hopeless this cancer is. Nothing stops it. And I…I keep wishing it were something else. Anything else. We deserve to have some hope, you know?”

“Yeah,” I agree, and then memories from the past month click into place. How insistent Elle was that the haunting be real. How infuriatingly particular she’s been about which ghosts could move in. How important it was that the ghosts be good with kids. “Midnight Manor…you’re setting up the B&B for Willa, aren’t you?”

“You have to understand, the past nine months have been hell. Knowing we were going to lose her, watching her lose mobility…” Elle turns to face me on the couch and reaches for my hands, pleading. “When Alex came to me after his breakup and made a joke about starting a haunted B&B, it felt like fate. We had to try. We had to.”

I study her expression, ignoring the growing ache in my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Alex wanted me to, but you were a stranger. One who didn’t seem to particularly like me or my business ideas.” A rueful smile tugs at her lips, and she leans her shoulder against the back of the couch. “Despite all his assurances that you’d help us, I was afraid that if you knew the whole point of the B&B was for her, you’d decide it was a bad idea and back out.”

“Are you not actually opening the B&B?”

“No, we are. The business is real. The investors are real. But she’s the reason it matters so much. She’s the reason I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make this work.” Emotion thickens her voice, and she presses a hand tight to her chest. “She still has life to live, Pip. She deserves longer than she’s getting. And if there’s anything I can do to give her spirit more time, I’ll do it.”

All of me feels tender and bruised, and though most of it is for Elle’s family, there’s this small voice in the back of my head saying I’ve been nothing but a pawn. A tool to sharpen and use. I brush a lock of hair out of Elle’s face, shoving away my insecurities as best I can. “I understand why you didn’t say anything at first, but we’re not strangers anymore. I thought…I thought you trusted me.”

“I do,” Elle insists. “I just didn’t know how to bring it up. I was scared that you’d say no, and once I told you, there’d be no going back.”

Her reasoning stings, but it makes sense.

“Now that you do know,” she continues, tracing her fingers along my knuckles. “Will you help us? When Willa passes, will you bring her back to the manor?”

I stare at her hands in mine, but I’ve gone numb to her touch. A tool and nothing more. I push the thought away. Even if it’s true, that’s not Willa’s fault. “What about her parents?” I ask, thinking of Ted’s reaction when Elle introduced me. “I assume this is what they want?”

“Absolutely.”

“And Willa?” I press. “I’ll need her permission, too.”

Elle shakes her head. “Willa doesn’t know yet, and we haven’t told Parker or Holly, either. We didn’t want to say anything until we knew for sure it would work, and now…I’m not sure how much Willa understands. How much she can hear.”

The weight of Elle’s expectation settles over me, and I don’t see how I could possibly say no. If I were in her shoes, I’d want the same thing. “If her parents are on board, if they can both confirm that for me in person—”

“They will,” Elle interrupts, and the hope is back in her voice now. A tangible, living thing.

It stirs something in my chest that I can’t quite name. “You know this work is tricky. I won’t make any false promises. I can’t guarantee anything.”

“But you’ll try?”

I give myself a final beat, a final breath, before I fully commit. I’m not sure how healthy it is for Elle’s family to do this, but who am I to decide for them? I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a witch with a knack for experimentation. “If Willa wants this, too, I’ll try,” I say at last.

Elle launches herself at me and wraps me in a fierce hug. “Thank you, Pip. You have no idea what this means to me. To my entire family.”

“Happy to help,” I say, despite a growing sense of unease. I hope I’m doing the right thing, and I wish I could shake the worry that everything that’s happened between Elle and me was because this was her end goal. That it was never about me, but what I could do for her.

As she cuddles into my side and shows me videos of Willa from before her diagnosis—swimming and playing soccer and cracking jokes—I remind myself that Elle isn’t some cold, calculating spy. This wasn’t all some long con. And yet…I can’t help but think she doesn’t see the real me. That she looks at me and only sees the witch who can keep her niece from leaving her.

Not that it matters in the long run.