Page 83 of With All My Haunted Heart

Her smile dims. “Please don’t be mad at me, but…” She glances up at the ceiling, her gaze intent. “I can’t stay here.”

“Not here,” Elle says, like that’s the distinction Willa means. “At the manor, with me. And Alex! You love Alex, remember? Pippa made us these special glasses that will let us see you no matter where you are in the house. You won’t be stuck in a circle like this.”

Willa won’t meet Elle’s eye. “I love that you did all this for me…”

Vivian sniffles and wipes away her tears. “But you have to go, don’t you, baby?”

“Great-Grandpa Charlie is waiting for me.” Willa smiles at her assembled family members. “But I’ll see you again. When it’s time.”

Understanding finally washes through Elle, and it quickly turns to panic. “Willa. No, honey. You don’t have to go yet. I set everything up for you. I—”

“Ellie,” I say, cutting her off as gently as I can while Willa’s form becomes increasingly transparent. “It’s time to say goodbye.”

“No. No.” Elle shakes her head. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We did the impossible. You did the impossible, Pip. We got here on time. I can’t…”

“You can,” I insist, closing the few steps between us and squeezing her hands tight in mine. “I know it hurts, but you can do this. Willa is ready to go. Don’t miss your chance to say goodbye.”

Elle holds my gaze as her sister and brother-in-law share their final bittersweet goodbyes with their daughter, and I watch the panic and anger melting away to reveal the true grief underneath.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ellie,” Willa says, and her voice breaks through Elle’s resistance.

“No, I’m sorry.” Elle steps past me to face her niece directly, but she grips tight to my hand like I’m her only anchor in this storm. “I love you so much, Willa. I want you to be okay.”

Willa smiles and glances skyward again. “I’m better than okay. I promise. But you have to be okay, too.”

Tears slip down Elle’s cheeks, but she nods. “I’ll do my best.”

With a final look at each loved one in the room—her Aunt Ellie, mom, dad, and grandmother—Willa vanishes from the summoning circle in a burst of light and sparkles.

And there’s nothing anyone can do to bring her back.

Chapter

Twenty-Five

“Her family will need a moment.”

The soft voice of the hospice nurse is accompanied by a gentle tug on my arm. “Please collect your things and remove the magical barrier.”

Even with my heavy heart, I know he’s right. There isn’t anything else for me to do here. Nothing that can help Elle as she slumps down into her chair and buries her face in Willa’s mattress and cries. In another universe, one where this thing between Elle and me wasn’t so new and fragile, I could help comfort her. But her mom is already at her side, and there’s nowhere for me to be.

With the help of a refraction sigil to keep myself as unobtrusive as possible, I dissolve the containment circle surrounding the room and collect the crystals I’d set out to make Willa’s spirit visible.

The hospice nurse ushers me out of the room, his movements firm but not unkind, and then he’s on the phone, calling whoever you’re supposed to call after a patient dies at home.

I make my way to the front of the house and sink into the sofa. As the soft cushions support my weight, the implications of the night settle around me. I was mentally prepared to arrive late or for something to go wrong with my magic. It didn’t occur to me that Willa wouldn’t want to stay on this side of the veil.

It should have, given the number of ghosts I met the past few weeks who wanted to move on rather than move into Midnight Manor, but it didn’t.

Eriksons don’t let things slip, Perpetua.

You have disgraced this family for the last time. You—

I shake the memories away. This is not the same. Elle is not the same as Nanette. Elle knows who I am. She knows that I did everything I could. That I’m the only one who had any chance of pulling this off. Elle will understand that this was Willa’s choice. That I couldn’t have done anything different.

As the adrenaline of the night fades, exhaustion settles in my bones. Eventually, headlights slow in front of the house, and then there’s a gentle knock. With everyone else occupied, I answer the door and find an older white man on the porch dressed in a gray suit, maroon dress shirt, and black bowler hat. He’s easily six foot three, and his face is covered with a white beard that’s streaked through with bits of dark brown, like a piece of howlite.

The man offers me a pleasant smile. “I’m Donald. From the funeral home. I’m here to collect Willa.”