Page 1 of The Neighborly Thing To Do
Chapter 1
Cassidy
There’s someone knocking on my front door, interrupting my plans to sleep in for the first time in ten years.
I pull my pillow over my head and hope they go away. No luck. When the pounding gets annoying enough, I stomp out of bed, shove the Pine Bluff U sweatshirt G gave me over my head, and throw open the front door.
“What?” I grouch, peering around to see the mayor, the ghost of a long-dead man who haunts an old house that would give human children nightmares, and another man who I squint at for a moment. I know him, but I’m not—
Oh,fuck. It’s G’s uncle. I haven’t seen him in ten years.
“Good morning, Cassidy,” the mayor chirps. Do ghosts even sleep? Is that why he’s so chipper at this hour?
The same definitely can’t be said for me. I didn’t get home until after midnight last night, and the four hour drive hadworn me right out. I could have left earlier, but G had looked so small in that dorm room. I worry sometimes that I’m stifling her growth, but I think we both have a bit of separation anxiety at this point. It's been just the two of us for ten years, after all.
When I’d gotten home, I’d fallen into bed, barely taking the time to change. I’d comforted myself that I didn’t work until the afternoon today, so I could sleep in as late as I wanted.
So much for that.
“Mr. Davies, what brings you here?” I’ve never been clear on if you’re supposed to call himMr.orMayor, so I’ve been using them interchangeably for years. Which isn’t that often. I don’t exactly speak to the mayor on a regular basis.
“Cassidy, you remember Hugh, right?”
Hugh Saunders. G’s mom’s brother, a sorcerer who looks like a car salesman with intense, beady eyes. I last saw him at the funeral, where he’d given me two hundred bucks to “get through the summer,” and then fucked right out of our lives.
Yeah, I remember him.
“Sure. If you wanted to wish G well, she left for Pine Bluff yesterday,” I tell him. Kind of weird that he’d come back now without even calling first, but what do I know? Maybe he lost my number somewhere along the way.
“I’m not here for Georgia,” he rasps in a voice that sounds like he barely ever uses it.
I squint, feeling at a distinct disadvantage here. I’m barely awake, and this is starting to feel like a riddle they expect meto solve when I only have half the clues. “What’re you looking for, then?” It might come out a touch more aggressively than I mean to, but, oh well. He hasn’t been the one here. He can put up with a little passive-aggressive behavior.
Mr. Davies clears his throat. “Cassidy, Hugh is here about the house.”
“What about the house?” My hand tightens on the door knob I still haven’t let go of, sure something is about to go wrong. That sounds way too ominous.
I wish I pulled a pillow over my head and tuned out the knocking.
“I want to make you an offer,” Hugh says. “Fair market value for the house.”
“What.” When thefuckdid I put my home on the market? I inherited a house free and clear from my father; I plan to live here until I die.
Mr. Davies shifts uncomfortably now, which is a weird look for a ghost. I can’t see through him clearly, but he is translucent, and the background shifting through him as he moves is a weird optical illusion I haven’t gotten used to, even after a decade in town.
“Cassidy, no one will deny you did an amazing thing these last several years—”
“What. About. The. House,” I repeat, enunciating each word clearly, not caring how rude it makes me sound.
“—Butyou can’t deny that you don’t really belong here. This town is a finite resource, Cassidy. There’s only so much land, so many houses. We’re not equipped for humans to live here, taking up space that could be used for one of us."
I reel at that, trying to process what he’s saying.
He’s trying to take away the house that’s rightfully half mine. He’s trying to rip the house I’ve lived in for ten years out from under me just because I had the weird luck to be born human. He’s trying to kick me out of town the minute I’m no longer useful to them.
Un-fucking-believable.
“This house is mine,” I say curtly, gripping the door and preparing to slam it. “My father split his will pretty evenly between Georgia and I. It’s half mine. And even if it weren’t, it’s certainly G’s.” It’s not Hugh’s; him being G’s mom’s brother doesn’t entitle him to the damn house. He never lived here, never supported us. G hasn’t gotten so much as a birthday card.
