Summary

Wes Jackson doesn’t believe in ghosts. His Fremantle ghost walk is for entertainment purposes only—right down to the psychic medium (aka his mother) who’s always shocked to find “presences” on his tours…four times a week.

If ghosts were real, the Fremantle Round House would be teeming with them. Australian convicts built the forbidding walls, and after the prison outgrew it, mental patients were locked away within its stark cells. But preternatural activity? None. Any trepidation Wes usually displays while leading his tour through the tunnel beneath the Round House is pure theatrics—until the longtime partner he split with turns up, and ghost of their relationship rears its head.

Can Chance help them resurrect the spirit of their lost love?

EXCERPT

“I feel a presence,” Maeve said grandly.

A shiver of anticipation, and perhaps even the first stirrings of fear, ran through the crowd assembled at the steps that led up to the Fremantle Round House. Overlooking the port city, it still cut an imposing figure though it had long stood empty, the convicts that had constructed it nothing but dust in the ground by now. Maeve stood upon the weathered limestone steps, the streetlights below her casting up and throwing her face into shadow.

“No,” she continued, in the same tone of voice that seemed more suited for an actor projecting on the stage than a tourist on a historical ghost walk, “there are many presences. Too many to count.”

One woman in the crowd gasped, and her husband embarrassedly pulled on her arm to contain her.

Standing two steps above Maeve, Wes Jackson had to resist automatically rolling his eyes. Theatricality could help in a business like his—but there was theatricality, and then there was theatricality. And this woman put a capital T to theatricality.

Mind you, the surroundings positively encouraged it. The Round House looked suitably spooky at night, and it never hurt that the knowledge of it being an old colonial prison demanded an expectation of a ghostly aura before you even got to inspect it properly. With all that in mind, you could discount the fact that it technically should have been called “The Dodecahedron House”—it was only from a distance that it actually looked round, as the twelve sides became more noticeable the closer you got to the weathered stone.

“Of course, it is correct to assume that there could be many ghosts here,” Wes told the people assembled before him. “It was used as both a prison, and for a short period, a mental asylum. I’m sure you won’t be surprised that the local council really doesn’t like to talk about that aspect of its history.”

After all, it was better for them to exploit all that misery in their official Fremantle Arts Museum ghost tour—it had just as dark, if not a darker, history than the Round House, as it had been an asylum for insane women at the turn of the last century. Because of that, it boasted the greatest number of ghostly sightings and personal stories than any other location in Western Australia.

“Torment,” Maeve said, clutching her heart. “So much torment.”

“Yes, well, they were convicts,” Wes said, cutting her off. “Torment was part of their daily life. Shall we go up?”

There was less spring in the step of the paying customers as they made their way up the hill to the door of the Round House. Hanging back a little, Wes grabbed the arm of Maeve and waited until they were alone before hissing in her ear, “Laying it on a little thick tonight, aren’t you, Ma?”

All wide-eyed innocence, Maeve pulled her arm away. “I’m just giving them what they want, dear.”

“Go too over the top, and they’ll realise you’re actually an employee, not a tourist.”

“I don’t tell you how to do your job,” Maeve said, going into her next favourite performance mode: insulted dignity. “So don’t tell me how to do mine.”

Wes sighed, and followed her in order to get to his “audience” and get the tour back on track.

 

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