The front porch of the house, if you could even call it that, was surrounded with tall pillars. A massive coach light hung from chains, and it was on too.
Dad stepped in front of me and pushed the front door open. He didn’t step through the threshold right away but instead we stood there listening for a moment.
When he was satisfied that one was inside, he stepped over the threshold. “There was some protection magic here, but someone broke the spell,” Dad said as I followed him inside.
“So, it was a witch,” I said.
“Unless she broke it herself for some reason,” Dad answered.
We were inside what could only be described as a grand entryway. Well, at one time, it had been grand. The marble floor was dull and dirty. The orange balustrade lining the stairs before us was the same.
There were still signs inside from when the place was a sanatorium. There was a large room off to our right that had a crumbling sign: Day Room
Samara must have been using the space as a living room because it was clean and showed signs of past remodeling. There were three newer-looking sofas placed around a wood coffee table in the middle of the room too.
“Should we split up?” I asked. “This place is pretty huge. If we need to hurry, we might have to do it separately.”
“Let’s stick together for a little while longer,” Dad said. “That appears to be her living room, so let’s see what’s the other way.”
We found our way down a hallway, past a decaying formal dining room, and ended up in a huge kitchen. It was an expansive space that had at one time been used to prepare meals for all of the patients at the sanatorium, but Samara had installed new appliances. They looked to be commercial grade, so she must have had some money.
I started poking through some of the cabinets. “Maybe I should make some cookies,” I said offhand. “You know what, I don’t know why I said that. That’s a silly idea.”
“It’s not, though,” Dad answered. “It’s actually a great idea. Can you find everything you need?”
I looked around some more in the cabinets and then checked the fridge. “I’ve got everything I need here,” I said. “You think baking cookies will draw her spirit here?”
“If she liked cookies,” Dad said. “And who doesn’t?”
I held out a bag of expensive gourmet chocolate chips. “I’m pretty sure she did. I don’t know who would buy these except a cookie connoisseur.”
“Either way, if her spirit is around, it will be drawn to the baking cookies,” Dad said. “So, it’s worth it.”
“I doubt she’s going to be able to tell us who killed her,” I said as I dragged a huge mixing bowl down from one of the cabinets.
“Here, let me get that for you,” Dad said. “Don’t want you dropping it on Laney’s head.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“She’s probably not going to be able to tell us who killed her, but she can at least tell us who might have wanted her dead,” Dad said.
“And why she broke into my shop,” I added. “And why she’s messing around with magic.”
“One thing at a time,” Dad said. “We don’t know if that’s all connected. I’m going to keep looking around, though. You’ll be all right down here? I’m going to look upstairs. See what’s in that room with the light on.”
“I’ve been in spookier places,” I said.
Dad left the kitchen and headed upstairs while I mixed all the cookie ingredients together in the bowl with a large silicone spatula. “I’m baking cookies,” I said. “We’re supposed to be communing with the dead, and I’m baking.”
“If it helps, think of them as necromancy cookies,” Meri said. “I’m going to go check out the rest of the first floor. Holler if you need me.”
“All right,” I said as I cracked the first egg into the bowl.
“Baking cookies,” I said to Laney. “This is what I’ve become.”
She cooed at me, and it made my heart constrict.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s a good thing to become. It’s just weird to go from investigating murder and fighting the forces of evil to being left in the kitchen to make cookies. But like Meri said, it’s technically necromancy, so I can deal with it.”
“You shouldn’t be breaking the eggs right into the bowl,” the voice made me whirl around, and I nearly dropped the second egg onto the floor.
Behind me stood the mostly transparent specter of Samara Delarosa. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her foot tapped silently, but with annoyance, on the floor.
“Samara?” I asked, but I’d seen her corpse. I knew it was her.
There was no mistaking the shock of platinum blonde hair, and high, pinched features. Her ghost was also wearing the same outfit she’d died in the night before.
“You can get shells in the batter if you break the eggs in the bowl. You need to break them into a separate bowl, and then dump them in,” she said and took a step closer.
All the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood up. The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. She was sucking all of the energy out of the room in order to manifest.
“Samara, I need to talk to you about who might have killed you,” I said.
“Crack the eggs into a separate bowl,” she barked at me.
Realizing that she was fixated on the cookies, and that I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her until I followed her directions, I got a smaller bowl and cracked the rest of the eggs into it.
Samara stood near me nodding her head and watching me finish the cookie dough. I shivered in the cold kitchen and hoped
