I Was a Teenage Ghost Hunter II

Chapter 1

Devin Mulwray folded the lime green polo shirt, placed it on the stack of other lime green polo shirts and glanced out of the plate glass window eight feet in front of him for the tenth time in the last five minutes.

The view out the window wasn't very enticing: it was of another plate glass window that belonged to Lights, Lamps and Louvers across the walkway. It was crammed with dense ranks of assorted standing light fixtures, decorative chandeliers and ceiling fans hovering above them. The complicated interplay of lights combined with the sun glare off the window to play tricks on Devin's eyes. He thought he saw elusive flickers or moving shadows, but they could easily be effects from the interacting lights, not anything more complex or interesting.

"You're staring again."

Devin blinked and drew back at the sharp voice. "Sorry, thought I saw something out the window."

"Huh? I don't see anything. What's so amazing about a lamp store window?" Charity Masterson stood beside Devin, looking at the shirt he'd just finished folding. She made an expression like a French chef regarding a perfectly made pastry that had just been doused with ketchup. "This shirt's a disaster, Devin."

"What?"

"I said, this shirt is a disaster."

"Well don't look at me. I didn't design it."

"Oh my God! There's nothing wrong with the design, it's the way you folded it. It's all crumpled and off balance and one arm's twisted back like it's a shirt for a deformed, broken-armed freak or something."

Devin looked at the shirt more closely. It was true that it didn't look exactly like the other candy-colored shirts carefully arranged on the display table. They were all folded in a geometrically precise, identical style, as though organized by robotic arms programmed to produce identical folds from the first polo shirt to an infinite series of polo shirts into the future.

"Maybe I need more practice."

Charity picked up the shirt and shook it out, as though to banish all traces of Devin's folding mishap. "Look, I told you. Here at Hemper and Clutch we have a very specific folding technique. You saw the video, right?"

"Five times, I think."

"Alright then, I'm gonna quiz you. Which sleeve do we start with?"

Devin sighed and thought back to the training video. He'd never thought he'd be nostalgic for the days when he worked in the Escamonde Hotel café. Ramona had been a terrible manager, with her sulky attitude, constant cigarette breaks and poor personal hygiene. And the work hadn't been very stimulating. But at least the Escamonde had a unique atmosphere. Decades of guests had left a residual aura, giving the place a certain character. It was an Arcata landmark, preserving memories of the town's earlier days.

But Hemper and Clutch, with its bright colors, mass-manufactured clothes and perky sales clerks, had about as much atmosphere as a sealed, sterilized operating theater. The hotel's unique architecture and landscaping, touches Devin hadn't appreciated much at the time, were conspicuously missing at the massive mall where Hemper and Clutch was slotted among scores of similar stores in concrete and steel arcades.

He'd been drifting off, thinking too long for Charity's taste. "It's not that tough a question. Which sleeve?"

"The arm sleeve."