Karma Moon—Ghost Hunter Read online

  They’re always with me.

  Always.

  What-ifs may or may not be the technical term written in Dr. Finkelman’s chart, but it explains it way better than anything else.

  Simply said…I worry.

  But not about weird things, like belly buttons.

  That’s an actual thing. The fear of belly buttons. It’s called omphalophobia. I suppose I get it, in a way. Like all the lint and everything. But it’s still a weird thing to worry about, if you ask me. Math, too; that’s called arithmophobia. I totally get that one more than the belly button one, especially if you’ve ever had Mrs. Frickman for algebra.

  There’s arachnophobia, too. The fear of spiders. And I mean, that one just makes good sense.

  My worries are way more normal than extra lint buildup or algebra.

  To put it straight, I’m afraid of what might happen. And New York keeps me real busy.

  WHAT IF

  a nuclear bomb hits New York?

  WHAT IF

  the next lockdown drill

  at school isn’t a drill at all?

  WHAT IF

  Mom never comes home?

  My worries run on a continuous loop.

  And I don’t know about the belly button kind, but mine invade my brain and my body, too. Every second of every day, but especially at night when the lights are out and it’s quiet. On the inside of me, it sort of feels like jumping beans are jammed into every vein in my body and never let me be still.

  And I know one thing is for sure, a ghost hotel isn’t going to be good for my what-ifs.

  Dad sighs and covers my fingers with his giant hand.

  It’s warm and heavy.

  The special band is still there no matter how long Mom’s been gone or how many suitcases she packed.

  Mom taught me all about the woo-woo.

  But I bet she doesn’t know that my what-ifs went into overdrive after she left us alone here without her.

  When I asked the greatest, almighty woo-woo source, aka Crystal Mystic, if what she did was totally messed up, it gave it to me straight.

  CRYSTAL MYSTIC

  YOU CAN THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS!

  Of all the woo-woo in this world and beyond, Crystal Mystic is my woo-woo surefire system.

  Its awesomeness announces itself in its name.

  Mystic.

  With one solid shake, all your spiritual questions can be answered in one solitary second. The crystal globe awakens with a mystical flashing light, and through the magic of woo-woo and four double-A batteries (not included), it speaks its truth from beyond the stars, transmitting through the small speaker at the bottom.

  The one and only problem with Crystal Mystic is it doesn’t predict what might happen. Which can be a big problem when you have a bad case of the what-ifs.

  Huge, actually.

  If only I could find the perfect woo-woo that could help me predict the future, I wouldn’t have to worry so much. Then the jumping beans would finally sleep.

  And so would I.

  Dad takes my hand in his.

  “How can I possibly go a whole ten days without seeing this face?” he finally says with a grin. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”

  “But, Dad,” I say. “I feel like I’m having a heart attack even thinking about it.”

  “You’re not having a heart attack,” he assures me.

  “You’re right,” I agree. “It might be a stroke.”

  He stares at me.

  “Let’s take a deep breath together,” he says.

  His voice is calm and his smile is that special one he gives me when I need it the most. A smile that says a lot without any words at all. It says I’m okay and he’s okay and so is everything else in the world right this minute. And for a few seconds, while that smile is shining its light, a bright ray bursting through a worry storm, it actually feels true.

  “Breathe in,” he says.

  We both take a deep breath, in through our noses and then out through our mouths the way Dr. Finkelman taught me to do.

  “How’s your heart?” Dad asks me.

  I shrug.

  “I think you’ll live,” he says.

  “You don’t know that,” I tell him. “Kids have heart attacks, you know. It’s a thing.”

  “Where did you get that?” he asks.

  “Google,” I tell him. “But Crystal Mystic confirmed it.”

  “Snooks, here’s the thing,” Dad says, inching closer to me and meeting my eyes. “We’re a team. You and me. I can’t do this without my partner.”

  “You have Big John and The Faz, though,” I remind him.

  He nods. “But they’re not my Snooks. This is my big break,” he tells me. “Our big break. This is going to change our life, and you’re a part of that. You have to be there.”

  “But what if—”

  “You’re Research.” He points to me. “We all have a different role. Who’s going to do it if you’re not there?”

  I think about that.

  “Big John?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “He’s Video Editing and Sound—holding the boom.”

  “The Faz?” I try again.

  “Directing.”

  That’s when I point to Dad in one last-ditch effort.

  He shakes his head. “I’m Cinematography. I’ll be too busy shooting footage. We all have our role, Snooks. You can’t let us down now.”

  “Fine,” I mumble. “I’ll go. But you better have a doctor on speed dial. I still may have a heart attack.”

  “I promise you’ll be fine.” He kisses me on the forehead and stands up to leave.

  “Dad?” I say.

  He turns around to face me again in the doorway.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me again why you call me Snooks.”

  He laughs. “Don’t you ever get tired of that story?”

  “Never,” I say.

  “When you were born and I saw you for the very first time,” he says, “I knew you were the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t decide if you were as sweet as a frosty snow cone on the hottest July day or as sweet as a home-baked cookie fresh out of the oven. So I called you Snookie. A combination of both.”

  He flips the light switch by the door. “See you in the morning. You know what? I think tomorrow I’m going to try something new at Toby’s.”

  I laugh at that one. “No you won’t,” I tell him.

  “No I won’t,” he agrees. “We’re the same that way, aren’t we? Creatures of habit.”

  “Definitely,” I say.

  “Night,” he tells me, disappearing from the doorway.

  Door open.

  Hall light on.

  He knows me better than anyone else in the whole world. Better than my best friend, Mags, even.

  Better than Mom, for sure.

  And I know him.

  I listen to his bare feet slide across the old, creaky wooden floorboards on his way down the hall. He’ll watch the news and then fall asleep on the couch during Jimmy Kimmel.

  Just like he does every night.

  “Dad?” I call out to him.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you,” I say.

  “Love you more,” he calls back.

  And by the end of that week, it’s set in stone. We’ll go to Colorado over spring break. A ten-day assignment to search a haunted hotel for a paranormal life-force and hopefully even secure a season two.

  This is Dad’s dream.

  His big break. The cookie even said so.

  We just need one thing to actually make it happen.

  A real live ghost.

  My what-ifs are just going to have to suck it up.

  Lucky for
me, Dad lets me bring Alfred Hitchcock and my very best friend, Mags, along for our ten-day ghost adventure. Mags agrees, but only after she makes me promise one oddly specific, cross-my-heart-hope-to-die condition.

  CONDITION: INFINITE DIBS ON EVERY BOY SHE SEES.

  The thing is…I need my best friend for a haunted-hotel assignment, so I would have agreed to pretty much anything.

  My very best friend in the entire world is Mags (Don’t Call Me Margaret) Laverne Bogdonavich. She is twelve too and is more boy-crazy than anyone else I know. She loves eating breakfast for dinner, has a slight obsession with sea turtles and lives two buildings down from us on Charles Street. She pretty much sees herself as the Greta Thunberg of New York, which basically means she will call out anyone on the street who’s using a plastic straw or a single-use water bottle. And if you’re carrying a plastic bag—look out. Oh, and also she’s hands down the best kicker on our Immaculate Heart of Mary K–8 after-school kickball team.

  Mags isn’t assigned to an actual job for the trip other than her usual policing of any and all plastic offenses, but I am. Before we left, Dad officially promoted me to Senior Researcher for Totally Rad Productions. He even said that with an official title like that, my name will appear in the credits.

  My name on Netflix.

  That’s huge. My name scrolling across the actual television screen for all the world to see.

  For the haunted-hotel project, it will be my job to help gather information for the narrative voice-over parts of the documentary that Big John will dub in later. It’s my very first time doing something so important for Totally Rad, and I’m taking it very seriously.

  I even have my very own ghost-sighting logbook to keep tabs on every single hint of paranormal activities I see.

  The historic and stately Stanley Hotel sits high on a hill overlooking the town of Estes Park way up in the mountains of Colorado. You can’t miss it. It’s stark white with a bright red roof and looks more like the White House in Washington, DC, than a Motel 6 or Holiday Inn.

  On day one of our ghost adventure, Big John stops the rental van on the driveway in front of the matching red steps that lead to a front porch lined with tall white pillars.

  “Let the ghostly mayhem begin,” Mags says when the van comes to a stop, adding a “Wooooooo” to the mix. “I think I’m going to like it here,” she adds, pointing her phone in the direction of some shirtless boy mowing the lawn out front.

  “Mags Bogdonavich,” Big John calls from the driver’s seat. “I promised your father no boys on this trip.”

  “Biiiiig mistake,” Mags says. “The picture is already on its way to the cloud to be saved for all eternity.”

  Big John pretends to try to snatch her phone away while she holds it high over her head. Everyone is laughing and joking and just…being.

  Except me.

  My jumping beans are already at it.

  I couldn’t even play I Spy with Mags and The Faz on the way up the mountain. I was too worried about being buried alive in an avalanche to spy anything but loose boulders.

  Before we left for Colorado, Dr. Finkelman, MD, PhD, LP, gave me a prescription for the trip. Except this prescription wasn’t the official kind you give to a pharmacist for hard-to-swallow pills or even a nasty-tasting syrup.

  It was a Post-it.

  PRESCRIPTION: KARMA’S WHAT-IFS WILL STAY IN NEW YORK.

  The only problem is…my what-ifs have a very sophisticated GPS.

  * * *

  Inside the lobby of the Stanley there are two humongous wooden fireplaces with a main desk and a grand staircase in between. Behind the main desk are tiny wooden cubbies labeled with room numbers. Lining the grand staircase are ancient pictures of people dressed in fancy formal wear. Each picture is framed in ornate gold. To the right of the staircase is an old-fashioned golden elevator with a gated door. Taped to the front is a handwritten sign stuck on with yellowing Scotch tape.

  I elbow Mags and point to the sign. “Do you think the risk is ghost-related or falling-to-your-death-related?”

  She’s not even listening.

  “I’m definitely calling dibs on that one,” she whispers back, still ogling the god of lawn mowing through the open double doors.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this,” I inform her, “but you’ve already called infinite dibs for the whole trip. Calling it now is just plain redundant.”

  She doesn’t take her eyes off the kid. “It’s what?” she asks, fluffing up her blond curls.

  “Redundant,” I say. “It was one of our vocabulary words this year. Already stated. A duplicate. Totally unnecessary. Now shush, will you? Can’t you see I’m working?” I wave my spiral-bound logbook at her.

  “So work already,” she says. “No one’s stopping you. I’ve got a whole other thing going on here.” She’s still staring out the open double doors of the lobby.

  “Who’s supposed to be meeting us?” I ask Dad.

  “Esmeralda Figueroa is the manager. She should be expecting us,” Dad tells me, glancing at his watch and then calling out into the empty lobby, “Hello? Is there anyone here? Esmeralda? It’s Vince Vallenari with Totally Rad Productions.”

  The glass door marked LETTIE’S GIFT SHOP opens with a high-pitched ting.

  “Hello. Can I help you, sir?” A tiny old woman leans out the door, scanning us through a pair of cat-eye glasses she’s holding up in front of her face.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dad tells her, standing tall with a proud smile. “We are with Netflix and we are here to film.”

  It’s nice seeing that grin again. It’s been around a whole lot more since that Netflix call.

  She starts toward Dad, eyeing him suspiciously from behind the rhinestone-studded glasses before she speaks again. She’s a thin woman, wearing a multicolored Western shirt with leather fringe hanging on the front of it, with jeans and brown cowboy boots that have silver tips on the toes. Her grayish hair is swirled up in a giant puff on her head that’s not quite as tall as Marge Simpson’s, but it definitely has a beanstalk quality to it. And not quite as blue as Marge’s either, more like a light violet tinge.

  “Film?” she asks.

  “We are with Totally Rad Productions and are here to film a docuseries on the hauntings that are taking place…for Netflix?” Big John tells her.

  Big John is a giant next to her tiny frame. He’s got a barrel chest, wide shoulders and a large booming laugh too. The Faz is the opposite of Big John in every way. He’s skinnier, shorter and quieter. And he always, always wears a Totally Rad baseball cap no matter what. And even though his real name is Giuseppe Faziospoon, Dad and Big John call him The Faz because back in high school, he always wore a black leather jacket just like this guy The Fonz did in this old-time television show Happy Days.

  He eventually lost the jacket, but the name stuck.

  The tiny Colorado cowgirl scans us through her lenses again, her pinky pointed high in the air. “Oh, goodness,” she sighs, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “Not another group of ghost hunters.”

  “You’ve had them here before?” Big John asks.

  “Many, many times,” she tells him, raising her eyebrows on the second many. “So, what’s a Netflix?”

  “You’ve never heard of Netflix?” I ask her.

  “Is it a television show?” she asks.

  “Ah…not exactly,” I say.

  “Well, I don’t own a TV myself,” she tells me.

  “No TV?” I say. “What do you watch while you eat your dinner—”

  “I’m supposed to ask for Esmeralda,” Dad interrupts. “The manager?”

  “Ah, well, Esmeralda was three managers ago,” she informs him. “We’ve had four since that one disappeared in the dead of night in February. Mr. Plum is the new manager. As of last Friday, anyway.”

&nbs
p; WHAT-IFS

  Did she say disappeared in the dead of night?

  I swallow. “Can you please define disappeared?” I ask her, my pen poised over my logbook.

  “I don’t understand,” Dad says. “That can’t be right. Three managers ago? I just spoke with her.”

  The cowgirl snorts. “I’m sure you did. It’s nice to meet you all. I’m Ms. Lettie and I have owned the gift shop since 1972. There are two of us who rent space in the hotel. Madame Drusilla, the house spiritualist, has an office down below the lobby off the back courtyard.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, but I mean, I made all the arrangements with Esmeralda like”—he counts on his fingers—“only six or seven weeks ago?”

  She nods with a knowing smile. “Here at the Stanley, that’s how it goes, but it keeps us on our toes. I’ll ask Jack to fetch Mr. Plum for you. Last I saw him he was with Mr. Lozano, the new front desk clerk.”

  “That’s Jack? Out there?” Mags points out the double doors. “The boy mowing the lawn?”

  “It is indeed,” Ms. Lettie tells her. “He’s my grandson.”

  Mags is already scrambling out of the lobby and down the front steps. “I’ll do it for you, Ms. Lettie!” she’s hollering over her shoulder.

  While Dad discusses the past managers with Ms. Lettie, I watch as Mags taps the sweaty boy on the shoulder and shouts words in his direction. The roaring drone of the mower comes to a stop, and he hops up the front steps with Mags following close behind.

  “Yeah, Gran?” the boy says, giving me and Mags the once-over while he wipes sweaty drips off his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “Would you mind running to fetch Mr. Plum, darling?” She motions at us. “There’s yet another ghost group here looking to speak with him.”