Lily stared up at the ceiling where the chandelier light fixture used to be. Thankfully, no one had been under it when it came crashing down. Herman’s pool had been moved to Polly’s room and tiny shards of crystals littered the table and floor.

“What the hell was that?” Nolan appeared from the living room.

Lily pointed at the ceiling, not feeling the need to answer the obvious.

It was early in the morning, and he appeared buttoning his jeans as if he’d been sleeping and had just tugged them on. His feet were bare, and he stopped short of the glass. Scars puckered his chest and stomach. It looked like he’d been attacked by a... well, probably by a werewolf. It was unnerving, and she made a conscious effort not to look at him.

“What are you doing here? I would have thought you went home.” Lily glanced toward the stairs, wondering why her brother and Polly weren’t rushing down to investigate.

“Couldn’t leave. Ghost stole my truck.” He eyed the mess on the floor. “Careful of the glass. You’re not wearing shoes.”

Lily glanced at her feet and curled her naked toes. “Neither are you.”

He walked around to the living room and appeared in the kitchen doorway, across the dining room from her.

Nolan held up a broom. “I’ll clean this up. You should get some sleep.”

A loud crash stopped her from answering. She inhaled sharply, jumping a little. A piece of broken crystal cut into her foot, and she retracted it from the floor as she hopped away from the mess. “Ow, ow, ow…”

“What happened?” Nolan asked.

“I stepped on a shard. It’s not bad.”

“What fell?”

“I don’t know.” Lily looked around finding another shattered light fixture, only this time it had landed at the bottom of the stairs. Broken glass trapped her in the hall. A gnome with a chipped face stood by the front door as if watching her. Polly’s little statue friends were beginning to creep her out. “Wait, I see it. A light fixture fell in the front hall.” She inched forward and looked up. Wires hung from the ceiling where the light fixture was supposed to be. “What’s going on? It’s like they’ve been ripped off the ceiling.”

“I have no clue. I inspected all the fixtures and they were solid.” The sound of the broom swished over his words. “Let me get this glass cleaned up and I’ll check the others.”

Suddenly, loud thumps and bangs sounded upstairs.

“Dante?” Lily yelled, considering how to get over the glass to the stairs. “Dante!”

“What the hell, Lily? Are you moving furniture in the middle of the night?” her brother answered.

“That’s not me. I’m trapped downstairs.”

Nolan appeared beside her with the broom. He swept a path toward the stairs for them. Lily tried to push past him, but he blocked her path and held out an arm to keep her between his back and the wall. “Stay behind me.”

Lily frowned and pushed his arm out of her way so she could look upstairs. Footsteps ran overhead. A sleepy Dante appeared at the top of the stairs, but the running continued. The sound wasn’t her brother.

“You have to say something to Polly about all these damned gnomes,” Dante said. “She keeps putting them outside my bedroom like a—whoa.”

“Who’s running?” Lily asked. “Who else is up there?”

“Why do you keep thinking people are running?” Dante tilted his head. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Do you hear it?” she asked Nolan. He shook his head in denial. “I’m not crazy. There is someone running around this house.”

“If you say there is, then there is. A ghost carjacked me, so who am I to judge what makes sense.” Nolan’s eyes flashed with an inner light.

“Where is Polly?” Lily hurried up the stairs.

“Dancing in the moonlight with Herman.” Dante sighed. “I wouldn’t go out there though. She said something about communing naked with the stars for answers to life’s great mysteries.”

Garden gnomes filled the upstairs hall, arranged in perfect lines like an army waiting to march. She stepped through them as she followed the sound of footsteps to the third story. “Hello? Who’s up there?”

“Lily, stop, let me—”

“Stop acting like my boyfriend, Nolan,” Lily interrupted. “I’m fine.”

Dante snickered.

“I don’t think I’m your boyfriend. But if someone dangerous is up there, I’m better equipped to handle it,” Nolan answered.

“We’ll both go,” Lily said. For as brave as she tried to be, she was still frightened of the unknown that appeared to be lurking in her house. What if it was another ghost? Or a demon? Or an evil witch? Before coming to Colorado, she would never have believed there were such things as those, or as werewolves and catshifters. Now, she’d been treed by two and rescued by one. Nothing made rational sense.

“Oh, hey,” Dante whispered. “Jesse called earlier when you were out.”

“Is she coming?” Lily paused halfway up.

“Not so much. She said she wants nothing to do with our mother or her stupid safe deposit box, that we should burn the house down and any bad juju with it and come home.” Dante didn’t follow them up the stairs. “I’m inclined to agree with her.”

“Do you still hear the running?” Nolan asked, interrupting their family talk.

Lily nodded and began leading the rest of the way up. She peaked through the balusters to the third floor. The sounds continued, followed by soft laughter.

“Maybe it’s the creepy gnomes,” Dante called.

“Stop trying to freak me out. Statues can’t walk,” Lily answered.

“Tell that to the gnome peeking down at you.”

Lily automatically looked up. Nothing was there. “Shut up, Dante.”

Several thumps sounded from within one of the bedrooms.

“Okay, that noise I heard,” Nolan whispered.

Lily forced herself to be calm. She was glad Nolan had insisted on coming with her.

Thump.

Her hands trembled as she gripped the railing. Nolan briefly placed his hand over hers as if to steady her. They crept toward the bedroom.

Thump. Thump. Rattle. Thump.

Lily and Nolan reached for the door at the same time and pushed it with the tips of their fingers. The wood creaked as it opened.

Crreeaak. Thump. Bang.

They tilted their heads to look in.

“Damn, blasted. I…”

The sound was faint, but Lily heard the muffled words as if they came from underwater.

“Where’d ya go ya wee varmint…”

“Who’s there?” Lily demanded.

Lily leaned closer to Nolan and tried not to make a sound as she stared at the room. A bed was in the middle next to a small dresser with a white porcelain bowl. The dresser slid an inch to the right and the foot of the bed lifted off the floor before thumping down.

Nolan again tried to push her behind him, but she resisted and moved to see who was causing all the noise. The bed bounced in a steady rhythm. She slowly leaned to the side to peek along the hidden edge of the bed.

The sound stopped. A gnome stood facing the corner like a punished child. Another gnome lay on the floor.

“I think Dante is right. It’s the creepy gnomes.” Lily stared at the little statues, watching for movement. A chill worked its way up her spine.

Nolan placed a hand on her arm. She jumped a little in surprise at the contact. He inhaled through his nose, and whispered, “Ghost.” The word came out on a white puff of breath.

The bed lifted higher than before and crashed down.

When Lily turned her attention back to the gnomes, they had not moved, but there was a pair of transparent legs sticking out from under the bed. The ghost’s stained pants were frayed at the bottom hem and his boots were caked in dirt—if that was even possible.

“Uh, this house is not yours,” Lily said. “Go to the light. Be gone, spirit.”

“What are you doing?” Nolan whispered.

“Banishing him?” Lily shrugged. How the heck was she supposed to know what to do?

“How do you know it’s a him?”

She pointed at the floor. “I assumed from the pants and boots, but I guess it could be a girl.”

“All I see is a couple of gnomes.”

The ghost’s feet kicked, and the bed lifted up only to fall with a bang.

“Stop that!” she ordered.

The ghost cackled and wheezed and did it again. This time, he shimmied until his feet disappeared under the bed. All noises stopped.

“Is he gone?”

“Maybe?” She shrugged helplessly.

“Do you see him?”

Lily turned to Nolan and grabbed his upper arm. “Nolan, if I was really in a hospital with something in my brain making me hallucinate, you’d tell me, right? I mean, you’d tell me if I was insane or none of this was real, right?”

“Uh, Lily—”

“I’d be all right with that. Because if you expect me to bend over to look under the bed to see if there are any big-bad scaries lurking beneath there, I’m telling you now that I don’t think I’m brave enough. I’ve seen how this horror movie ends. I’m not about to get sucked into a dark vortex by Cackles the Cowboy Clown.”

“Dark vortex?” He arched a brow.

“Every little kid knows about the dark vortex. It’s why we know not to go into closets or look under the bed.”

“I don’t think that’s a real—”

“It’s real.”

“Lily, do you want me to look under the bed for you?” Nolan asked, his tone aggravatingly calm and reasonable.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Nolan suppressed a grin. He lowered onto his hands and knees, threw the draped covers out of his way, and leaned close to the floor to look under the bed.

Lily felt a chill along her arm. She held her breath. Her eyes moved before her head turned.

She came face to forehead with a ghost.

He stood a couple inches from her face. When she glanced down, she saw his whiskers shift with a smile. “Boo!”

She gasped, jumping away from him.

The ghost crowed a high-pitched sound, holding his stomach and slapping his thigh as if it were the funniest thing in the world. “Oo-ee-ee-ee.”

“I don’t see anything,” Nolan said, still looking under the bed.

The ghost of a miner grinned at her. He was shorter than her with a long, scraggly beard and wrinkles carved deep into his features like dry riverbeds in a desert. His gray hair curled around his ears with a flattened indent where his hat would have been.

“Uh, Nolan,” Lily whispered.

“Nothing’s here,” Nolan said, pushing up from the floor.

“Nolan,” she said louder, not taking her eyes off the ghost.

He stood. “What?”

Lily pointed at the transparent miner.

“What? You want to go?” Nolan asked.

“Ghost.” Lily kept pointing.

“Stan,” the ghost said. “Pleasure to meet ya, ma’am. Have ya seen a shoe anywhere? I can’t seem to find where they put it.”

“St-stan,” Lily repeated. She glanced down but couldn’t quite make out his feet against the wood floor.

“Stan? He’s here?” Nolan sounded irritated as he walked to where she was pointing. He went through Stan’s body. The ghost seemed to absorb into the man before reappearing on the other side. “Ask him where he put my truck.”

“Eh-ee-ee-ee,” was Stan’s answer. He winked at her before disappearing.

“Well? What did he say? Where’s my truck?” Nolan practically shouted as if that would make the ghost hear him better.

“He’s gone.”

“Did he say where?”

“No. He just laughed when you asked him. He’s looking for a missing shoe though.” Lily ran her hands through her hair and went to a dark window to look out over the backyard. The moon was bright but not full, casting shadows over the landscape. Below, she saw the figure of her aunt dancing in front of the barn, holding Herman over her head. She turned her back on the window. “My life is ridiculous, and I just saw my aunt Polly naked.”