Lizzy sighed, sitting behind the bar and idly polishing a wine glass. The inn was blessedly empty, but that didn't prevent her from worrying about the safety of the tenants. The ghosts had had her awake in council all night, and no conclusion was reached by the time the sun came up. The basement, locked and sealed with the only key around Lizzy's neck, was home to fearsome killers long passed, spirits who never left the earth and took refuge in the pit cellars dug deep beneath the inn that Lizzy had grown up in.

It had once been a summer mansion for her father's family, but when her father passed by his own hand (or so the story went, but Lizzy had always suspected a jealous ghost may have had something to do with it,) the only option was to rent out her childhood fortress to strangers, to cater to them without remark, all the while spending nights building robotic monsters to keep the ghosts at bay, bartering with them with blood and soul and tears to keep quiet, keep calm.

She asked why she had taken on this job, at the tender age of only twenty-two. But then again, had she really had the choice?