Home of Robert Pattinson, Daniel Radcliffe, Princes William and Harry, not to mention my dad’s all-time favorite band, the Beatles (okay, maybe, technically, they were from Liverpool—but still, it was close enough for me).
All I had to do was rid this place of a ghost and I was there. Convince some pampered mama’s boy with an unfortunate name who refuses to give up the big house with the fancy gardens and fountains and pointy-topped turrets to move on to, well, from what I’d seen of it, a really weird school and a really uncomfortable life review.
And in that moment, I knew I could do it. Easy peasy. I had all the motivation I’d need. I mean, seriously, I was so suddenly sure of myself, I was just brimming, overflowing with confidence.
Cutting off Bodhi’s never-ending speech when I said, “Okay, so let’s cut to the chase here. What exactly am I dealing with? Just how old is this kid?” Figuring it was best to go in with a plan, and knowing his age would tell me just how to approach him.
Either he was younger than me, and therefore less scary, maybe even completely inferior in every way. Or he was older, and, well, I’d have a little more work cut out, but nothing I couldn’t handle for sure.
“I don’t know.” Bodhi sighed. “Nobody knows. This kid’s a real enigma, a complete and total mystery. But some say he appears to be around ten.”
“Ten?” I gaped, glancing between the castle and Bodhi. I could hardly believe my good luck. This kid, this scary ghost kid, was only ten? “Please.” I laughed, shaking my head and allowing for a slow, dramatic roll of my eyes. “I remember ten.” I blew my bangs off my face, squared my shoulders, and straightened my skirt, preparing myself to go in. “So, where is he? Where’s this scary little ten-year-old kid? Let me at him. I’ve got a trip to London waiting for me.”
Bodhi looked at me, obviously weighing something in his mind. Clearly deciding against whatever it was, when he shrugged and said, “Fine, we’ll do it your way. For now. Follow me.”
12
Buttercup and I followed him across a large garden, cutting across a path of carefully trimmed hedges that made for a pretty complicated maze for those who couldn’t just walk straight through them like we could. Continuing right past the thick stone wall and emerging on the other side into a huge, oversized room with a super high ceiling, large stained-glass windows, threadworn rugs, dusty chandeliers, and, like, a ton of old things that I guessed to be priceless antiques.
“He’s said to haunt the blue room,” Bodhi whispered, even though no one was present and no one could hear us. His eyes darting all around until he spied the large, sprawling staircase, dropped his board, and skated toward it.
“So, this place has so many rooms they have to color code them?” I asked, having visited more than a few celebrity mansions in my earlier dead days, but never an actual castle, never anything quite so big and sprawling and amazing as this.
But Bodhi just shrugged, having already reached the top of the landing and tilting his head to the right as he said, “If I remember correctly, it’s that way, third door on the left.”
I stopped. Stopped right there in my tracks. Not liking the sound of that. Not liking it one measly bit.
“What do you mean if you remember correctly?” I studied him closely, trying to find some kind of tell, some kind of giveaway nervous tick, twitching eye, jerking knee, something. But other than that odd chewing of his bottom lip, I got nothing. He was stone-faced. Completely unreadable. Unwilling to give anything away. “You mean you’ve been here before, right?” I continued to probe, knowing he was hiding something, something I might very much need to know, for future use if nothing else, and I was determined to make him spill. “Was it for the Radiant Boy? Were you sent here to convince him to move on? And if you were, does that mean you failed? Does that mean you were unable to—” I raised my hands, curling my fingers into air quotes when I said, “coax and convince the ten-year-old to cross the bridge?”
He looked at me, his eyes betraying nothing when he said, “It’s a long story, Riley. One we clearly don’t have time for if you want to make it to London.” And even though his voice was curt, and more than a little dismi
ssive, it didn’t work. I was on to him now. I could feel it in my nonexistent bones.
He’d failed, where I was about to conquer.
Ha! Some guide he was turning out to be.
“Fine.” He sighed, giving a little, but only a little. “Let’s just say you’re not the first to have a crack at this kid. Many have tried over the last, uh, several hundred years. But that just means that the bar is set so incredibly low no one’s expecting much from you now. Which is lucky, since ten bucks says you run out of there screaming the first second you lay eyes on him.”
“Ten bucks?” I rolled my eyes, swinging my blond hair over my shoulder. “Please. I can manifest mountains of ten-dollar bills, as can you. You wanna bet for real, then bet me something that’s actually worth something. Seriously, give me a little something to strive for here.”
He squinted, lips lifting at the sides when he said, “How about that trip to London? You convince the Radiant Boy to move on, you get your trip. If not—” He shrugged, leaving the rest to hang there, though the meaning was clear.
But I just shook my head. We’d already decided I was going, all I had to do was get the job done in a timely manner. No way was he changing the rules now. Not after they’d already been set.
He turned away, trying to hide the smile that snuck onto his face. The smile I didn’t have to see to know it was there. By the time he turned back again it was gone, wiped away clean, and replaced by a look of deep skepticism when he said, “Fine, you don’t run out of there screaming, you succeed where all others have failed, you actually get the Radiant Boy all the way across that bridge and I’ll teach you how to fly to London, okay? There. How’s that?”
And when he looked at me, it was clear he was proud of himself. So sure that it would never happen, that I’d fail miserably, and the whole thing would be off.
Which was fine by me. As the youngest in my family, I was used to being underestimated, and I loved nothing more than to prove everyone wrong.
“What about Buttercup? Can he fly too?”
Bodhi glanced between my dog and me and just shrugged.
“Fine,” I said, tucking my hair back behind my ears, preparing for the battle ahead, figuring the rest of the details could be worked out later. “You got yourself a deal.”
I followed alongside him as he headed down the hall, stopping abruptly when he said, “Well, this is it.” He pointed toward a heavy, elaborately painted door just a few feet away. “The blue room. Home of your newfound friend.”