Maybe This Time

Nine

Isolde’s eyebrows climbed up her considerable forehead as she took in the three stories of fifteenth-century paneling in the Great Hall. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

“Pretty much,” Andie said, but Isolde was already going toward the table in the center of the room.

She put her bag on the table and looked around the hall again. “Couldn’t find anyplace bigger, huh?”

“We have smaller rooms-” Andie began.

“I bet you do. Harold likes it. It’ll do.” She sat down at the table. “So who’s in?”

“Me,” Andie said, and sat down across from Isolde as Dennis and Southie took chairs on each side of her and Kelly copped the one between Southie and Isolde, saying, “This is so exciting!”

“Who’s there?” Isolde said, nodding to the empty chair between Dennis and herself.

“That’s an extra,” Andie said.

“Get rid of it,” Isolde said. “The last thing we want is the uninvited sitting in.”

Southie got up and dragged the chair over to the wall. It was a fairly long drag.

“So light the candles,” Isolde said, and Andie picked up the lighter and started on the one closest to her.

“Exactly what do the candles do?” Dennis said, trying for a neutral tone and missing.

“They make the people who put them on the table happy,” Isolde said. “Me, I don’t care.”

Andie lit the last one and sat down again. It was growing dark now, the twilight deepening outside because of the storm, and the candlelight flickered on the ancient stone walls and made their faces seem disembodied.

“Who’s he?” Isolde said, looking behind Andie, and Andie jerked around expecting to see something horrible and instead saw Bill and his camera.

“I just wanted some footage,” Kelly said brightly.

Isolde looked at her as if she’d just crawled out from under a rock. “My fee just doubled.”

“Oh.” Kelly smiled again, not amused but stuck. “Well, all right.”

Serves you right, you duplicitous, cheating child exploiter, Andie thought.

Isolde shook her head. “Hold hands.”

“Why?” Dennis said, and Andie took his hand.

“Because people like it,” Isolde said. “You gonna be doing Twenty Questions all night?”

“I’m merely trying to ascertain your methods,” Dennis said, and Isolde snorted again.

“Okay,” she said, as Southie took Andie’s other hand. “Here’s how this works. You stay quiet. If you don’t believe, try to be neutral so Harold can get through. It’s hard enough without a bunch of snotty nonbelievers cramping his style. He’s not a happy man to begin with.”

“Just who was Harold?” Dennis said, and Andie thought, Give it a rest, Dennis, I need this.

“Stockbroker,” Isolde said. “This is his second career. You done with the questions now?”

Dennis shrugged, and Isolde took a deep breath. “You all need to relax. So deep breaths, people. In…” She sucked in her breath and her already thin nostrils damn near disappeared under the pressure. “… and out. In…”

“Hypnosis,” Dennis whispered in Andie’s ear. “She’s probably got all kinds of tricks hidden under that blouse.”

Andie looked at Isolde. The only thing under her blouse were her considerable breasts and her even larger shoulder pads. “I don’t think so.”

“Are the two of you done?” Isolde said, glaring at them again. “Because I’m trying to work here. Harold’s getting fed up, and if he leaves, it’s over.”

“Sorry,” Andie said. “Really sorry.” She sucked in her breath to show that she was a team player, and Isolde went back to anesthetizing the table.

After what seemed like an eternity, Isolde said, “Harold, I’m getting old here. What have we got?”

There was a sharp knocking and the whole table except for Isolde jerked back.

“Oh, my God! It’s the spirits!” Kelly said.

“It’s your front door,” Isolde said, her voice flat. “This keeps up, Harold’s going out for a cigarette and not coming back.”

“I’ll get it,” Andie said, and got up.

When she opened the door, she saw a tall blond man in the darkness holding out his arms to her, and her heart did a little surge for a split second until she realized it was Will.

“What are you doing here?” she said, annoyed.

“Andie, this is no way to end things,” Will said, coming in, still trying to hug her. “I tried to call you back, and your phone is out-”

“Look, I told you not to come,” Andie said, ducking his embrace as she closed the door behind him. “I’m busy.”

“North’s here, isn’t he?”

“No. We’re having a séance. You can come in, but you have to be quiet.”

“A séance? What the-”

“I don’t have time to explain this right now. Come in and don’t talk, or go home.” She went down the hall and heard him following her.

“So who’s this?” Isolde said as they came in and Andie dragged the extra chair back to the table.

“This is Will Spenser,” Andie said. “He’s not invited but he’ll be quiet.”

Will shot her a sharp look, but he pulled the extra chair over and sat down.

“Will Spenser?” Kelly said, flashing her teeth at him. “The writer? We must talk.”

Will looked at her politely until Andie said, “This is Kelly O’Keefe from Channel Twelve,” and then he smiled back. Good PR, Andie thought and ignored both of them.

“Another unbeliever,” Isolde said, looking at Will. “You’re killing me here.” She tilted her head at him. “Okay, look, Sparky, you gotta lose that anger or you’re out of here. Ghosts’ll grab on to that emotion like it was a porterhouse with a side of cheese fries. We want to talk to them, not feed them.”

“I’m not angry,” Will said.

“Right.” Isolde turned back to the table. “Okay. Hold hands.”

Will glared again as Dennis and Isolde took his hands, but that was his problem. Andie concentrated on Isolde and the breathing. After a shorter time, Isolde nodded.

“Okay. They’re here. Two of them.”

“I thought there might be three,” Andie said. “Two women and a man?”

“Harold says two,” Isolde said. “You want to argue?”

“No.” Andie looked around, but she couldn’t see anything. “Can he ask them to leave?”

“We just got them here,” Isolde said.

“No, I want them out of the house,” Andie said, and Will said, “What the hell, you believe this stuff?”

“Nice job, asshole,” Isolde said to him. “Harold lost one of them.” She closed her eyes again. “Harold, what’s going on?”

There was a loud knock, and Kelly said, “What does that mean?”

“It means there’s somebody else at your fucking door,” Isolde said.

“I’ll get it,” Andie said, pushing back her chair.

She made the trek down the hall and opened the door and saw her mother, looking damp and frazzled.

“Baby!” Flo said, coming in. “What’s going on? The cards are going crazy and I can’t get you on the phone!” She pulled off her Ohio State bomber jacket, shook the rain off it, and handed it to Andie. “And then I almost died on that driveway. Plus the storm is terrible. This is just so bad.”

“We’re having a séance,” Andie said, giving up.

“A séance!” Flo picked up speed down the hall and turned into the archway, following the candlelight. “Oh, wonderful.”

“This is my mother, Flo Miller,” Andie said as they reached the table. “Flo, this is Isolde Hammersmith.”

“Oh, it’s a pleasure,” Flo said, sticking out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Hello, Flo,” Will said, getting up, but Flo frowned at him and said, “What are you doing here?” before she went back to smiling at Isolde.

Isolde held on to Flo’s hand for a minute. “You can stay.” She nodded at Will. “He has to go.”

“Wait a minute,” Will said, but Andie said, “Come on, Will, you can meet Carter and Alice,” and he followed her out of the Great Hall and down the corridor to the library.

“Have you lost your mind?” he said. “You can’t believe in this, this is crazy.”

Andie gritted her teeth and kept walking. “I told you not to come and you barged in here anyway, and now you’re calling me crazy without even getting my side of the story?”

Will looked taken aback. “I’m just saying… ghosts? That woman is a charlatan.”

“Kelly? Yeah, I know.”

“No, the medium. Kelly O’Keefe is a professional.”

“Oh, good,” Andie said as they reached the library. “You can bond with her later. For now, meet the kids. Don’t upset them.” She opened the library door and shoved him in.

Then she went back to the Great Hall. He could sink or swim with Alice and Carter. That’s what he deserved for not listening to her.

“This one’s a good one,” Isolde told Andie, jerking her head at Flo as she sat down. “We can work now.”

“Great,” Andie said, and took Dennis’s hand as Southie took her other one.

“So let’s breathe,” Isolde said, and they did another couple minutes of hyperventilating until she said, “Harold says they’re here. Three of them. He says one of them is hot.”

“So they’re real?” Flo said. “How exciting!”

“There are ghosts here?” Kelly said, her voice too bright to be honest. “You really believe there are ghosts here?”

“There are no such things as ghosts,” Dennis intoned, sounding at the limit of his patience.

“Tell them to go,” Andie said to Isolde.

“Have some respect, they just got here,” Isolde said to Andie.

“They’re squatters. Tell them to get the hell out.”

Isolde shook her head. “They’ve been here longer than you have.”

“How long would that be?” Kelly said to Andie. “You know, generally speaking.”

“I don’t care how long they’ve been here,” Andie said. “It’s time to move on. Tell them to go toward the light.”

“They’re tied here,” Isolde said, her voice serious now. “Harold says the man feels… injustice.” She listened for a minute. “This is his house. To him, you’re squatters.”

“I’ll get the paperwork and show him,” Andie said, looking around for a supernatural squatter. Nothing. Damn.

Isolde listened again. “No. You don’t own the house.”

“No, I don’t,” Andie said. “But-”

“Then he doesn’t care about you,” Isolde said, and Andie started to say something and then stopped because Isolde was listening again. “Oh. Oh, boy.”

“Now what?” Andie said.

“There’s a woman. She’s looking for her baby.”

“Baby?” Kelly said, leaning forward. “There’s a baby?”

“There’s no baby,” Andie snapped at her.

“She lost it a long time ago.” Isolde was deathly serious now, all the sneer gone from her face. “There’s a child here.”

“Alice and Carter.”

“She wants Alice,” Isolde said, her face grim. “She thinks Alice is the baby she lost. She’ll never give up Alice.”

“Oh, no,” Flo said, horrified.

“Fascinating,” Kelly said, avid.

“It’s all right,” Dennis said, bored now. “None of this is real.”

“The hell she won’t give up Alice.” Andie looked around the room. “Okay, wherever you are, you cannot have Alice. Alice is mine.”

Something moved behind Isolde in the darkness.

“Don’t do that,” Isolde said sharply, and then the knocking started again. “Damn it.”

“She can’t have Alice,” Andie told Isolde. “Tell her to get the hell away from my kids.”

“Get the door,” Isolde told her quietly. “And get control of yourself. This is very bad.”

Kelly leaned forward again. “So the ghosts want the children?”

Andie stood up. “Just tell me how to get rid of them,” she said to Isolde, and then she looked at Kelly. “I’m telling you now, if any of this ends up on television, I am kicking your ass from here to Cleveland. I know you’re wiry and you probably fight dirty, but I have size and rage on my side, so don’t cross me.”

“Well, really,” Kelly said, smiling at her, all teeth. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Like hell,” Andie said. “Also, Southie? She’s cheating on you with the cameraman.”

“What?” Southie said, turning to look at Bill, who said, “Hey, I was there first,” and Isolde said, “This is not helping,” and then there was another knock and Andie went to the front door, prepared to snarl at whatever idiot was screwing up her life now.

She yanked open the door and saw Lydia Archer, standing under an umbrella and looking like avenging death.

“Is my son here?” Lydia snapped.

“Southie? Yes,” Andie said.

Lydia walked in, said, “I like your teeth,” shook out her umbrella and left it draining on the stone floor, and then went down the hall, following the candlelight through the stone archway in her quest for Southie.

“My teeth?” Andie said to her back and closed the door.

She picked up speed and got there just as Lydia saw Kelly.

“You!” she said, fury in her voice, and then there was a flash of lightning from the storm, and Andie saw three figures in the Great Hall that hadn’t been there before: the thing in the tiered dress, a man who looked like the guy on the tower in an old-fashioned coat, and May, pirouetting with perfect grace, her dark curls flying.

Hi, she said to Andie. You wanted to see us? We’re here.

“Oh, my God,” Andie said, cutting across the beginning of Lydia’s tirade.

“What?” Lydia said, looking in the direction of the ghosts. “What?”

“Can you see them?” Isolde said to Andie.

“Yes. Tell them to go.”

May laughed.

It’ll take more than that to get rid of them, she said. And you need me.

“No,” Andie said to her, and then realized the whole table was watching her. “I can see her,” she told them. “I can see all three of them, but two of them are…”

Dennis frowned in the direction she’d been staring, as if trying to see what she’d seen.

“Just energy,” Isolde said. “Harold says there’s not much there of two of them, just need. The other one, she’s still got some life in her. Literally.”

Damn straight, May said, and twirled around again, and Dennis leaned forward, squinting.

“What the hell is going on here?” Lydia snapped, and all three ghosts seemed to grow a little more defined.

“Anger,” Isolde said. “Get that woman out of here or we’re in trouble.”

Andie stood up. “Come on, Lydia.”

“Not until I’ve-”

There was a knocking sound, and Andie said, “I’ll get it,” and all but shoved Lydia out of the room. “Wait here,” she said when they were in the entry hall, “do not go back in there.”

Then she went to savage whatever idiot was screwing with her séance now, but when she opened the door, it was North, tall and strong and calm. She said, “Oh, thank God,” as he stepped in, put her arms around him, buried her face in his wet overcoat, and said, “Save me.”

She heard his overnight bag hit the stone floor as his arms went around her, and he felt so good that she held on longer than was polite. He said, “That bad?” and when she looked up, he was smiling down at her, just like the old days, and she lost her breath because it was him, holding her again.

Then Lydia said, “Well, it’s about time you got here,” and Andie stepped back as he let go of her.

“Hello, Mother,” he said, sounding annoyed.

“It’s a damn good thing you came to your senses,” Lydia said. “These people have all lost their minds. They’re having a séance with that O’Keefe woman in the room.”

“A séance?” North said, looking at Andie as he took his coat off.

Andie took the coat and put it on the hall tree, trying to get her breath back while she figured out how to tell him that she believed in ghosts in front of his mother.

“It’s over now,” Lydia said. “I went back in and the woman who was running it said I’d brought too much anger into the room, and it was strengthening the spirits.”

“They like being bullied, do they?” North said, and then Andie saw Crumb come into the entrance hall from the living room, wearing her violently orange-flowered apron and a furious expression.

Andie leaned up and whispered in the direction of North’s ear, “I fired Crumb this morning. Also, remember, we’re still married.”

“There goes the nightly blow job,” North said under his breath and crocodile-smiled past her. “Mrs. Crumb. So sorry you’re leaving us.”

“No we’re not,” Andie said.

“I heard the knocking,” Crumb snapped. “We wasn’t expecting any of you. Four people last night and now this. You need me to take care of this mess.”

“You can discuss that with…” North looked down at Andie. “Mrs. Archer.” He gestured to Lydia. “This is my mother, Mrs. Archer. The other Mrs. Archer.”

“What other Mrs. Archer?” Lydia said.

“How many more are there?” Crumb said to Andie, ignoring them all.

“How many Mrs… Oh, how many guests?” Andie did a fast count in her head. “Four more.”

“We only got two more bedrooms. ’Course Mr. Archer will be in with you.”

“What?” Lydia said, and North looked at her, and she shut up. “Fine.” She looked at Andie and then at North and then went back into the Great Hall.

Okay, North’s sleeping in my room, Andie thought, no, May’s room. She’ll like that. It doesn’t matter since I’m sleeping in the nursery with Alice. “Of course he’ll sleep in my room,” she said to Crumb, and North looked interested but didn’t say anything.

Crumb folded her arms. “I don’t know what that is to me. I been fired.”

“Good point,” Andie said. “Leave.”

“Well, now,” Crumb began, and then Southie came into the hall, saw Crumb, and said, “For the love of God, woman, get us drinks.”

Crumb looked at Andie, and Andie said, “Fine, we’ll talk about it later.”

The housekeeper smiled, triumphant, and said, “You’re going to have to share a room, Mr. Sullivan,” and went off to shift some guests.

Southie caught sight of North and came as close to a glare as Andie had ever seen from him. “How nice to see Mother,” he said to North.

“Don’t blame me.” North looked at him without sympathy. “I told you not to come here.”

“The Beast of the Nightly News had him,” Andie told North, trying to find her way back to sanity. There were ghosts, but North was there. It might even out, especially if she threw herself at him again, and distinct possibility given the way her mind was going south just from his sheer proximity. “Southie was helpless in her clutches. She truly is a blot on humanity.”

“Excellent,” North said, looking down at her with that beautiful, serious face. “Mother’s been spoiling for a fight. Let her have the Blot. You take me someplace, give me a drink, and tell me what the hell is going on.”

Yes, Andie thought, but she said, “I think we’d better go in with the Blot. “I’m not sure your mother can take her.”

“Nonsense. A good stake through the heart and she’s done.” North looked at Southie. “I beg your pardon, Sullivan, I should have asked. Do you love this woman?”

“God, no,” Southie said.

“Then let Mother have her.” He smiled down at Andie again. “And in the meantime, you can tell me what’s happening. It can’t be nearly as bad as you sounded.”

“It’s worse,” Southie said. “We-”

“Southie,” North said. “Go away.”

“What?” Southie blinked at him. “Oh. Right. Sure.”

He went back into the Great Hall, and North looked down at her and said, “Where were we?”

“Well…” She stopped, knowing if she told him the truth, that there were ghosts, that he’d be calm and rational and probably have her committed.

“If it’s that bad,” he said as her silence lengthened, “give me the short version.”

She took a deep breath and said, “There are ghosts. We’re having a séance to get rid of them, but it’s not working. Kelly O’Keefe is here sleeping with her cameraman and Southie at the same time and all that emotion makes the ghosts stronger. The kids won’t leave because the ghosts kill anybody who tries to take them away. Your mother is furious with Kelly O’Keefe and that’s making the ghosts stronger. And my mother is here, too, and you know how she and Lydia are when they get together, so we’re all just feeding those things and I can’t get the kids out and I’m so tired…”

She stopped, overcome suddenly by how awful everything was and now he was going to have her committed-

He said, “What do you want me to fix first?” and she felt all her tension go.

“Save the kids,” she said. “I don’t give a damn about the rest of them, but get the kids out of here.”

“We can do that,” he began, and then Alice screamed bloody murder in the library, and Andie took off at a run.

Andie threw open the library door and saw Alice shrieking in the middle of the room, turning blue from lack of oxygen. Her screams weren’t her usual “NO NO NO,” they were deeper, coming from a place of so much fear that Andie scooped her up and held her close and said, “It’s okay, Alice, it’s all right,” as calmly as she could while Alice screamed and screamed.

“What happened?” she said to Carter, patting Alice frantically, and he nodded to Will. Andie turned on Will. “What did you do?”

He looked horrified as he stared at Alice thrashing in Andie’s arms. “I told her she was going to come to Columbus to live with us.”

“Jesus, Will! Why-”

“He told us we didn’t have any choice,” Carter said flatly, and Andie thought, You fucking MORON, but then Alice’s screams deepened, her eyes rolling back into her head, and she forgot Will entirely. She turned to take her out of the room and saw North in the doorway, surveying the mess calmly, and pushed past him and into the hall, carrying Alice with her, past Southie, who looked alarmed, and Lydia, who looked confused, and a distressed Flo, and a sympathetic Dennis, and an avid, staring Kelly, up the two flights of darkened stone stairs, whispering to Alice that it was all right, that she wasn’t going anywhere, that Andie was with her, but Alice was beyond that now, flailing in a place where there was only terror. Andie could hear Carter on the stairs behind her, but he was going to have to wait. She carried Alice into the nursery and sat down in the rocking chair there-no ghosts in this one, Andie thought-and began to rock, humming “Baby Mine” to the little girl since she couldn’t hear words.

Alice’s screams were guttural now, her throat raw, and Andie kept humming, her cheek on Alice’s hair, rocking and rocking. Alice slowed to rasping, gasping breaths, and then as Andie hummed and patted, she quieted down even more, to shaky, moany little sighs, and Andie began to sing, and Alice listened until Andie sang, “Never to part, baby of mine.”

Alice straightened, her face dirty with tearstains. “You promised.”

“He was wrong, I promise I won’t take you until you want to go, we’re never going to be with him,” Andie said, and Alice subsided into her arms again, and said, “Sing.” Andie did, and Alice relaxed, sighing whenever Andie sang “baby of mine.” When she’d finished the song, Alice sniffed and said in a shattered little voice, “Sing it again,” and Andie did, and Alice curled into her and began to suck her thumb as they rocked.

“Again,” Alice said when Andie was done, pliant now, and Andie sang again, smoothing back Alice’s hair from her feverish little brow, wondering how it could be that she could hate any kind of commitment and still know she’d be with Alice forever. Because she was going to be. Nobody was going to raise Alice but her. She’d get through to Carter, too, if it took her years, he was going to feel safe and loved again. They needed her. And she needed them. This kind of love, this went so deep she’d never get out of it.

“Never to part,” she sang again, more sure than ever, and Alice turned her head up. “Never to part,” Andie said to her, looking into her eyes. “I will stay with you forever. I will never desert you. Never.”

Alice took a deep shuddering breath and nodded, and then said, “Sing the other baby song,” and after a moment, Andie figured out what she wanted, and began to sing “Somebody’s Baby,” soft and slow, and Alice put her head on Andie’s arm and fell asleep, sucking her thumb.

Andie brushed the white-blond strands of hair back from Alice’s clammy forehead again and kissed her. Mine, she thought, and then looked up and saw Carter in the doorway to the little hallway, watching them.

“She’s all right now,” Andie whispered to the boy, and Carter nodded and turned to go. “Carter.” He turned back and she said, “That goes for you, too. All of it. I’m with you forever.”

His face was in shadow and he didn’t move for a long moment. Then he went down the hall to his room.

“You might have checked that with me first,” Will said, exasperated, and Andie turned and saw him standing in the doorway to the gallery hall, Southie and Kelly behind him, and behind them North. Will looked annoyed, Kelly looked avid, Southie looked kind, and North looked calm. Beautifully, competently, unflappably calm.

“What do you need?” he said to her over them all, and she said, “We just need to be alone.” He reached past them all and pulled the door closed, shutting them all out swiftly, and Andie stood up and carried Alice over to the bed she’d made up for her by the fireplace. She pulled the spread and sheet back and tipped Alice into bed and took off her grubby tennis shoes and looked at her narrow dirty feet. Bath tomorrow, she thought, comforted by the banal thought, and pulled the sheet and comforter up over her.

Then she stood and watched Alice sleep, the little girl’s breath still coming in little shudders but more evenly now, her pale lashes almost invisible on her tearstained cheeks.

How had she survived the past two years? How had Carter? All that death, all that loss, all the strangers, the ghosts?

She leaned down to Alice’s ear and whispered, “I will always be with you,” and Alice smiled in her sleep.

“Oh,” Andie said, and sat down on the floor beside Alice’s bed and cried.

North stood in the hallway while Kelly yapped at him, ignoring her to take stock. It was one thing to hear that the little girl went crazy when they tried to take her away, another thing to see that pale little face turn blue, those wild little eyes roll back in terror. Andie was right, the first priority was to get the kids out of this house into someplace safe and normal.

“I just want to go in and help,” Kelly said, trying to get past him.

“Get her out of here,” he told Southie, and Southie took her arm.

“Well, really, Sullivan,” Kelly said, trying to pull away.

“We saw your newscast,” North said, looking down into her greedy little face, and saw her eyes go wary.

“Newscast?” Southie said, looking at her with narrowed eyes.

“I did it for the children,” Kelly said, and Southie said, “Come downstairs and tell me about it,” with a grimness in his voice that even Kelly heard since she let him drag her down the stairs.

“I don’t care about any newscast,” Will said, confronting him. “I’m going in there.”

“No,” North said, “you’re not. That’s my ward in there and you don’t have my permission to interfere with her upbringing.”

“Andie wants to raise the kids.” Will met his eyes. “And that means I am, too. We should talk about this, since we’ll probably be adopting them…”

North let him blather on, feeling almost kindly toward him. He was handling the situation so badly that Andie would probably break up with him before morning. Plus Andie was wearing her wedding ring again; he’d seen it on her hand as she’d cradled Alice in the rocking chair. It was probably just part of her charade, but she was wearing that cheap, pathetic ring again. His ring.

“… so you understand why I should be in there.”

“The children are not available for adoption.”

Will folded his arms. “You think you’ll get Andie back this way. She’ll never leave those kids. They’re a deal breaker for her.”

“So you want to adopt them to keep Andie.”

“I care about them.”

“You don’t even know them,” North said. “If Andie decided tomorrow that she didn’t want them, you’d walk away from them without a backward glance. So, no, I will not be letting you anywhere near them. Go downstairs.”

“I’ll go when you go,” Will said, looking stubborn.

“Spenser,” Southie called from the archway, and Will turned around. “Come on downstairs. I’ll buy you a drink. You have to try the house brandy. I think Crumb makes it in the basement.”

Will shook his head. “I-”

“You’re an uninvited guest in this house,” Southie said, coming to join them, still affable. “And my brother asked you to leave his wards alone. So come down and have that drink.”

Will got the same look on his face that Kelly had, surprise that Southie had a serious voice and wariness about what he’d do next. “I’m not leaving without Andie.”

“Let me put it another way,” Southie said, standing beside North. “There’s two of us and one of you. And one of us is nobody to mess with. Come downstairs on your own power or we’ll drag you down.”

Will looked back at North, who thought, Try me. Please, and he must have read the look in his eyes because he gave up. “Tell Andie I need to talk to her.”

“You bet,” North said. You jerk.

Will headed for the stairs, and Southie shook his head and rolled his eyes as Will went past him and then followed him down.

Dumbass. Trying to adopt kids to keep Andie. Nobody kept Andie. And the kids deserved to be wanted for themselves, not as Andie-bait.

He leaned against the wall and stared into the echoing space above the Great Hall. They deserved a guardian who paid some attention to them, too. He’d screwed up leaving them down here, but now things would be different.

Voices rose up, two women arguing, and he looked over the rickety banister and saw his mother and Flo going at it down in the Great Hall, and another woman, sharp and odd-looking even from his angle above, watching them. No wonder Andie had been so glad to see him.

He went downstairs and into the Great Hall, and when Lydia and Flo turned to see who’d come in, he said, “Andie has enough problems without you two rehashing old arguments. Either pull together to help her or get out.”

“I’m not leaving while that woman is here,” Lydia said, but Flo nodded.

“He’s right,” she told Lydia. “Andie doesn’t need us behaving badly, and the anger just makes the ghosts stronger.”

“There are no ghosts,” Lydia snapped, rounding on her.

The woman with the big hair and bigger hoop earrings said, “Oh, yeah, there are, and this one’s right. You gotta calm down.” She looked like a caricature of a New Jersey princess, but her voice was serious and strong.

“And I don’t see why you won’t leave as long as Andie’s here,” Flo went on, indignant. “She’s been here-”

“Not Andie,” Lydia said, exasperated. “Kelly O’Keefe.”

“Oh.” Flo’s face changed to puzzlement. “What’s she doing here? Andie didn’t invite her.”

“She wants Sullivan,” Lydia said, her eyes practically glowing with rage, “and she’s trying to ruin North using the children-”

“Well, then, we’ll just get rid of her,” Flo said, and Lydia shut up.

“Good idea, you work on that,” North said. “She’s in the sitting room right now.”

“Okay.” Flo turned to go and then stopped. “How’s Alice?”

“She’s quiet now. Andie’s with her. But O’Keefe wants to talk to her-”

“Over my dead body,” Lydia said.

“I say we just throw her out of the house,” Flo said, and set off for the living room.

“I may have misjudged Flo,” Lydia said, watching her go.

“Go help her, then,” North said, and Lydia shot him a sharp look and went.

North turned back to the woman sitting at the table, watching him carefully. “I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced. I’m-”

“You’re North Archer,” the woman said. “You’re the missing piece.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re the one they’re all fixated on,” she went on. “Some of them are angry with you and some of them are afraid of you and some of them just want you. And I have to warn you, one of the ones who wants you is dead.”

“You’re the medium,” North said, putting it together.

“Isolde Hammersmith.” She stood up. “Things are bad here. Get these people out of here before it gets worse.”

“That’s my plan,” North said mildly. “Do you need a ride back to town?”

“I’m staying the night.” Isolde picked up her big leather bag from the stone floor. “Andie needs me.”

North opened his mouth to suggest she’d be more comfortable someplace else-anyplace else-and then heard the storm pound the windows.

“Everybody’s in the sitting room,” he said instead. “It’s probably warmer in there. Southie was going to light the fireplace.”

“That’s good,” she said. “No ghosts. Make sure the fires are lit in the bedrooms, too. Ghosts don’t like fire.”

“Good to know,” North said, and went out to the hall phone and checked for a dial tone. The line was working again, so he got out his address book and dialed Gabe McKenna’s private number. When the answering machine picked up, he said, “I need you down here first thing tomorrow,” and gave directions to the house. Whoever was playing games with Andie and the kids, Gabe would find out. And after that, he’d pack up Andie and the kids and take them home. Lydia and Southie could deal with Kelly O’Keefe and Isolde Hammersmith.

Then he picked up his overnight bag from where he’d left it by the door and went back upstairs to the nursery.