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Chapter One
Faint music swirled through the air, something with a fast tempo and a driving beat that had my toes tapping, just itching to get out on the dance floor and cut a rug.
Of all the things I missed most about my youth, dancing was at the top of the list. People just didn’t do things the same way anymore. A night out, sure they might dance, have a couple drinks, but it just wasn’t the same.
Folks today, they just didn’t know what it was like, to go to a club and have the band start up and light a fire right in your veins. To drink giggle water and jitterbug until your heart was pounding and your head was dizzy and you felt so alive all you could do was throw your head back and laugh.
I still felt that way sometimes... I mean, every day I was breathing was a delightful shock, a gift I still couldn’t believe was mine.
I shook the feelings off, trying to close my ears to the siren call of the ballroom. I was here for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to dance. Truth was, I couldn’t afford to lose days slinking off to party.
The heels of my shoes clicked sharply against the black and white tiles of the hotel lobby, sounding a whole lot more authoritative than I felt. Even looking around at the ritzy place made me feel like I was doing something wrong just by being here. With the gorgeous art déco style, the lobby counter looking like it was made out of asymmetric pieces of silver, and the art hanging on the walls. And that art was something to behold, all black and white but each image holding a pop of red within their frames like a secret. Well, the whole place was a class act all the way.
It was also full of ghosts.
A girl in a poodle skirt and Mary Janes flipped her ponytail with a laugh as she strolled by on the arm of a greaser in a leather jacket. Meanwhile, over on the white sofa beside the pool table, three women in long, high-waisted dresses sat in a way people did back when under garments had honest to goodness bone in them. They were sharing tea, lifting their pinkies like real high-class dames. At the pool table itself, a couple of guys (one in overalls and one in a severe black set of clothes and shoes with little buckles on them) made with the chit-chat while racking them up.
It was an eclectic clientele at the hotel, that was for ding-dang sure.
But then, the hotel itself wasn’t exactly normal, if you catch my drift. A place like that, with the ballroom, the lounge, the restaurant, the old-fashioned elevator with an attendant and the golden cage that needed to be opened and closed for every trip, not to mention the infinite number of rooms, well, it just wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect to find in Haven Hollow.
Not that there was anything wrong with Haven Hollow. It was a swell town, really the cat’s meow. But the Hotel would have made jaws drop even back in Hollywood. It was the kind of spot where you’d show up just to be seen.
Then again, when Death himself comes to town, you can’t expect him to do things in half measures.
That’s right; the hotel was made by Death. He’d blown into town a few months back and set the place up as a kind of roach motel for the not-so-dearly-departed. Ghosts could check in, but they sure didn’t check out. And he’d styled the whole joint to try and impress little-old-me, which was enough to give a girl a swelled head.
Death, or ‘Damon’, as I’d taken to calling him (because actually talking to Death was enough to give me the jitters) well, he wasn’t technically Death, the Grim Reaper. Instead, Damon was an aspect of Death sent to collect souls that didn’t want to fully shuffle on in this part of the world. And, believe it or not, Damon had taken a shine to me, and said he’d never met anyone like me before, and that I could believe.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m the Queen of Sheba or anything. It’s just that my life has been a bit of a wild one.
It’s your classic tale; girl moves to Hollywood to become a big star, girl meets boy, girl starts going to all the right parties, and meets the right people, boy becomes a jealous mook and kills her in a rage before turning the gun on himself.
And it should have ended there, really. Taken out in my prime by that no account bum Frank, before I’d ever gotten the chance to be the next Lillian Gish or Mary Pickford. But it had all been so sudden, I hadn’t even known what was happening. So, I’d just sort of… stayed around.
Unfortunately, Frank did the same. And if I’d thought his temper was bad when he was alive, jeepers, being dead made him ten times worse. So, I’d spent the next century stuck in the house watching Frank terrorize family after family, and not being able to do a darn thing about it.
But then, a stand-up dame named Poppy had moved into the house in Silverlake with her son, Finn. And see, Poppy? She wasn’t no dumb Dora. She cottoned on to what Frank was doing to her son, and she gave that no-account poltergeist his walking papers. Poppy came from a long line of Gypsy Travellers, and she wasn’t about to let some ghost terrorize her family, no siree.
When she’d left, well, I hadn’t really had anything to stick around for, and I’d been cooped up in that house with Frank for two lifetimes, so I hitched a ride and followed her to Haven Hollow. And the other truth was that of all the folks who had made that home their own? Well, Poppy and Finn were my favorite. So it was right natural that I’d decide to come along for the ride.
If I’d thought ghosts and potion-slinging Gypsies were something, the Hollow knocked me right on my backside. There were dozens of supernaturals all living together in peace, not having to hide so hard. The Morton family settled in, and through Poppy I met loads of other people, folks who could see me, hear me, folks who became my friends. It was more than I’d ever thought I could have again.
And then I’d managed to irritate Poppy’s witch BFF Wanda, who’d thrown a blood bolt at me, not thinking about how her magic, which had been touched by death, might affect a ghost.
Well, bingo bango, the next thing we all knew, I was alive again, with a body and everything. Only, I’m not supposed to talk about it, because apparently it might get Wanda in some sort of trouble, and seeing as how she did me a real solid by making me a real live girl again, that’s the last thing I want.
All I was saying was, having a ghost girl up and walking around with a pulse again, I could see that as not being something even Death himself had seen before. So, really, no wonder he was so giddy on me—I’m sure it wasn’t every day that Death had him a surprise.
After Damon blew into town, I’d noticed ghosts started disappearing. Not moving on, just, poof, vanishing. Turned out, he’d been luring them to the hotel pied piper style, and once he had all the ghosts checked in, he was gonna blow this popsicle stand. But I’d challenged him to a game, winner take all, and somehow, I’d managed to beat Death with a hand of poker.
As a result, the hotel stayed in Haven Hollow, and stayed open, so all the spectral citizens of the town could come and go as they pleased. Somehow, even the ghosts that should have been bound to their haunts could find their way to the hotel, and visit with each other.
Damon couldn’t stick around, though. He was a busy guy, after all. So, while he promised to check in when he could, the unofficial running of the joint fell to yours truly.
To be honest though, the place pretty much looked after itself. I just felt like I should keep an eye on it, make sure that nothing got too outta hand.
“How’s it hanging, Charlie?” I asked as I made my way to the reception desk.
