If I had work today to distract me, I would just get ready and leave. However, Greta had told me my hours were too high already, and it was only Friday. I had to find something else to do and having talked to Margo yesterday, I knew she had classes today and then a date, with the nice Chip Manasco I’d met at the party.

Standing at the tall gothic style window in my bedroom that overlooked the front yard, I sighed and rubbed my temples. Everything out there seemed normal. The house my father had left to my mother was perfect. If he had lived, if I hadn’t been born to a family of crazy witches, I would have loved growing up here. This house was built in 1823 and the Delvaux’s had spared no expense. My father had added to it and made improvements to please my mother, but the beauty of the original structure remained.

What could have been a storybook childhood was one of horror instead. This house had once been a home for my Delvaux ancestors. Now it was nothing of the sort. I studied the gazebo in the front yard, recalling the way the man had looked more like a retired rock star than a powerful warlock. He had been relaxed and amused by the barrier keeping him out. Nothing had been very intimidating about him until he’d vanished. Giving me one more reason to not relax at this house. This had never been a place where I could enjoy being home the way other people seemed to do.

A door closed down the hall, reminding me of those who lived here and made it the miserable place it was. The day my mother had walked through its beautiful doors, this house that was once so full of my father’s family’s history suddenly changed. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the closing door meant Leanne was coming to find me and torment me more with talk about Rathe. I heard nothing, and my door was still firmly shut.

I started to look back out the window when the slight movement near the bed caught my attention. I already knew who it was before I saw her. I wasn’t startled by the blonde little girl who was watching me. Annabelle Delvaux had been born in this house and in 1910, after only five short years, she’d also died in this house. Annabelle was one of the first spirits I could remember seeing. In my earliest memories, Annabelle had been a friend I played with openly until my mother yelled at me to stop talking to myself like a crazy person.

“Hello, Annabelle,” I said, smiling at her familiar face.

She lifted her small pale hand in a wave.