Free Riley Bloom 1 - Radiance by Alyson Noël

had heard it, but were determined to sleep through it.
    I moved on to their overflowing suitcases, curious to see what kind of clothes they’d packed for their haunted castle weekend getaway, when Buttercup, still entranced with the perfume bottle, hit it with his paw so hard it went spinning across the room and slammed into the wall where it cracked into a million little pieces of foul-smelling shards.
    “Good one, Buttercup.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes at him. “Way to go.” I sighed, watching as he tucked in his tail and bowed his head low, knowing he was in trouble and unwilling to come anywhere near me. And I was just about to manifest a leash, which I knew he would hate but was obviously becoming necessary, when I heard a click.
    Followed by a soft whirring sound.
    And then a nervously whispered:
    “Did you get it?”
    I glanced over my shoulder, clutching a white T-shirt featuring a picture of the Union Jack tightly in my hand, only to find myself face-to-face with the dynamic duo—otherwise known as the husband and wife team who’d sandwiched me earlier. The two of them dressed in matching his and hers forest-green sweatshirts, with the words PENNSYLVANIA’S OWN INTERNATIONAL GHOST BUSTERS written in a large, loopy white scrawl across the front.
    The husband holding some kind of recording device that seemed to really excite him, while the wife held the camera with a noticeably shaky hand. Creeping toward my general direction, clearly bent on capturing live, streaming footage of—
    Well—
    Me.
    Crouched down low, T-shirt still dangling from the tips of my fingers, knowing I’d just been caught in the embarrassing act of nosing through their belongings.
    My eyes darted frantically, realizing the full scope of what was really going on—not only had I been caught peeping—I’d also been caught inadvertently haunting a haunted room I’d fully intended to, well, de-haunt.
    And there was nothing I could do about it. No way I could leave. I was stuck right there in that blue room until I could find a way to accomplish what I set out for. Otherwise Bodhi would never let me fly to London, never let me hear the end of it.
    “Buttercup!” I hissed, dropping the T-shirt and hearing them both gasp at the sight of it seemingly falling through the air of its own accord. Determined to keep my voice to a whisper, but by the way they gaped at their recorder, at the little squiggles and lines that jumped all around, it was clear that even though they couldn’t see me or hear me, their equipment registered every last bit. “Come here, now!” I called between gritted teeth, annoyed by the way he’d loped toward them, sniffing then licking their hands as though they were long-lost friends suddenly reunited again.
    He slunk toward me, tail tucked tightly between his legs as his big brown eyes gazed into mine. “That’s better,” I cooed, scratching his head to show I was more annoyed than mad, watching as the couple lifted their hands and studied the fingers Buttercup had just slobbered all over, before turning to each other, bushy brows raised as if to say: Did you feel that?
    “You need to stick by me, not them. No matter what happens from here on out, I need you by my side, okay? We can’t take any chances—I just have to figure out what to do before they—”
    The woman moved toward me, moved in small baby steps as she crept across the floor. Her large bare feet, riddled with corns and bunions, with nail polish so badly chipped they made my own nails look salon fresh. Raised up high onto her tippy-toes, padding across the rug, video camera held out before her, the soft whir of it the only sound in the room as it recorded what I could only assume were a series of white, glowy, wavering images of one smallish blob of light and one even smaller blob of light, since, from all the shows I’d ever seen on TV that covered ghosts and hauntings and such, it was pretty rare for those recorders to pick up