“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure,” Katie replied.
“You said that you caused the rift, but that was just hyperbole, right?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that one moment, I was wishing and praying to see you again, and the next thing I knew a hole opened up next to me and led me back into the woods. That’s quite the coincidence.”
I thought for a moment. “Ever think that maybe if you wished to go away that it would go away too?”
“I tried that.” Katie looked over to the faint blue tint coming from the woods. “But it didn’t work.”
“Doesn’t that kind of tell you it wasn’t you in the first place?”
“Maybe.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I have to fix it.”
“Why do you think nobody’s seen it yet? I figured every ghost hunter in the state would have come flocking by now.”
“They don’t want to see it, just like they don’t want to see me. Think about what would happen if everybody in the world saw the rift to the Dark Place or knew there was ghosts. It would be bedlam.”
“I don’t know. I think most people still wouldn’t believe, even if you were staring them in the face.”
“Maybe.”
“I barely believe, and it’s happening to me.” Samantha’s car turned down the street before Katie could say anything else. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The Primrose Diner was the oldest restaurant in town. Rosie, the owner, took great pride in that distinction, and in her historical landmark status. To everybody else, though, it was a bit of an eyesore with its bright pink exterior screaming out to everybody driving past. To Rosie, it meant history, or at least that’s what she said when people asked why she didn’t tear it down—or at least give it some fresh paint or repairs.
I thought it just meant she was cheap, honestly. After all, when something was “historic”, it generally meant that people didn’t have to clean it up and make it nice. I was sure that nothing had been replaced since she bought the place from her uncle in the ‘70s, and it was unlikely he’d replaced anything since he opened the place in the ‘40s.
Still, there was something nice about walking into a place and knowing it was just the same as it was the last thirty times you had been there, and the last thousand times before that. The food was passable, sure, and it was open later than anywhere else in town, so Rosie had a monopoly on late night customers.
“How do you even know about this place?” I asked Samantha as we walked inside.
“Please, I’m new, but I’m not dead.” She stole a look at Katie. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Katie said.
“This is the only place to go when I can’t sleep. I’ve been here almost every night since we moved in.”
The checkered-tile floors were sticky with maple syrup. I walked over and slid into a booth that had been patched with duct tape so much the pink vinyl underneath was barely visible. Samantha sat across from me, and Katie hovered at the end of the table.
“She should be here any minute,” Samantha said, glancing at the clock on her phone.
“This is crazy, you know,” I said. “What makes you think paying somebody you found online is going to be able to help us?”
“Nothing,” Samantha said. “But since Frank’s plan didn’t work, we needed another, and this seemed like a good enough place to start.”
“I’m just saying that I wouldn’t have paid for some random person’s advice.”
“Well luckily, you didn’t have to pay,” Samantha replied.
“I think she’s here,” Katie said, looking over at the door.
An old woman with thin, gray hair walked into the diner. She wore dozens of layers, with a short burgundy shawl around her shoulders. Her nose was hooked, and when she turned to me, I could see she had lost several of her teeth. The long years of her life were etched on her face with a multitude of wrinkles.
“This must be her,” I said, waving my hand in the air.
Samantha looked back. “I’m not sure. She’s a bit of a cliché, isn’t she?”
“There are clichés for a reason, Samantha.”
The old woman noticed my wave and smiled at me. However, soon her smile turned into confusion and puzzlement. She turned to look behind her, then back to me, before scratching her head. A few seconds later, a portly, bald man walked in and took the old woman by the arm.
“Come on, Mom,” he said, before dragging her in the other direction. The old woman turned and waved at me with a toothless smile before disappearing into a booth at the other end of the diner.
“Maybe not,” Katie said.
“No, I should say not.” The shrill voice was coming from the booth behind us. “Honestly, that kind of stereotyping is what got a lot of innocent women burned at the stake.”
Chapter 25
A large woman, large in a tall way not in a wide way, stood up from the booth behind us and whipped around to our table. She wore a blue cap with a rose brooch pinned into the felt, and a long, flowing, blue cape which stopped an inch from the ground. It bounced as she moved, as if it had a mind of its own. A purple kerchief was tied around her neck, while her face was made up perfectly, with glowing, red cheeks that matched her fiery lipstick. Her cold, blue eyes bored into my soul as she swept into our booth and sat next to Samantha.
“I would very much thank you not to think of any of those stereotypes when I am around, thank you.”
“Are you ‘Broom Hilda?’” Samantha asked.
“That is my handle,” the woman said. “However, it’s more a joke than anything. While my name is Hilda, I do
