To Haunt and to Hold

By Leanna Renee Hieber

Demons are amassing in New York City…

As the dawn of the twentieth century approaches, the spectral battle for the city’s souls is heating up. Maggie Hathorn, a ghostly socialite, and her living beau, Reverend Roberto Coronado, have spent their entire courtship so far solving murders and banishing evil spirits. All Maggie wants is a chance to bask in her newfound romance, attending dinner parties and stealing moments alone with her beloved exorcist.

But when New York City’s Ghost Precinct receives a call of distress from the spirit world, Maggie realizes that their battles aren’t over yet. Indeed, there are evil forces at work that are larger than she could have imagined. Maggie and Coronado discover that the perpetrators of their previous cases were both part of the American-Born Guild, an organization dedicated to fanning the flames of nativism and emboldening hateful hearts toward violence.

Even more dangerous, members of this guild have been carelessly playing with Spiritualism, opening spectral doors and unknowingly welcoming in demonic entities. This influx of demons is endangering the spectral refuge known as Sanctuary, where Maggie has more than once found a safe haven in times of trouble. Now it is Maggie’s turn to save Sanctuary. To do this, Maggie will need to call on allies new and old to help take down the guild and dispel the amassing demons. And Maggie herself will need to step into her role as a bridge between the living and the dead.

If Sanctuary can be saved, it may just be the key to fulfilling Maggie’s dreams and facilitating the love between a ghost and an exorcist. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094415093

Leanna Renee Hieber

Raised in rural Ohio and obsessed with the Victorian Era, Leanna’s life goal is to be a ”gateway drug to 19th century literature.” An actress, playwright and award winning author, she lives in New York City and is a devotee of ghost stories and Goth clubs. Visit www.leannareneeheiber.com

Book preview

1

MANHATTAN, DECEMBER 1899

Maggie Hathorn floated outside the front door of the Greenwich Village townhouse she’d haunted for the past several years. She glanced back nervously at her handsome beau. Reverend Coronado, beautiful and dark-haired, dressed in his Episcopalian vestments of black frock coat and clerical collar, climbed the brownstone stoop and rang a buzzer.

Coronado, a living exorcist, waited patiently for someone to open the door. Maggie, a lively ghost, bobbed in the air, trying to be a polite lady and wait for admittance, rather than just bursting through the door like she usually did. This was the first time this courting couple, unconventional as they may be, had attended an engagement together. Dinner, with friends.

The door opened and a sharp-featured, raven-haired woman in a fine black mourning gown beamed a smile at them.

Reverend Coronado, I’m so glad you could join us, come in! Hello, Maggie, my dear! Antonia has just laid out a delectable spread for us! Eve Whitby exclaimed, leading them directly into the dining room. Inside, Eve stood next to her fiancé, Detective Jacob Horowitz. The detective was leaning across the table towards Cora Dupris, the right hand of Eve’s department, as they discussed harrowing details of a recent case.

Maggie had watched over Eve ever since she was a baby, but lately, especially watching Eve bend to kiss the top of her betrothed’s head as she gestured for the reverend to take a seat next to them, Maggie found herself overcome with the wistful realization that her dear one had become a lady. She turned to Reverend Coronado and smiled. Her entire incorporeal form, seen by the living only in tones of greyscale, brightened like the key of a gas lamp turning higher.

Her heart was so full, here, in this moment, watching the man she adored take in the pleasant but darkly decorated home of Manhattan’s Ghost Precinct, the operatives of which had given Maggie’s spiritual life so much meaning. Closing her eyes, she centered her thoughts on a deep breath, not wanting a rush of joyous emotion to trigger her passing on to the unknowable light of the Undiscovered Country. Her spectral existence of late had depended upon her pacing herself in all respects, so she thought she should try to stay calm. She hoped that all this joy and connection with Coronado tethered her all the more strongly to this living world and that she was in no danger of flying off to some great beyond. But she couldn’t be sure. Before she opened her eyes again, she prayed that she could remain in control of her own spirit and power of manifestation. She wanted to be nowhere else but here.

The entire Ghost Precinct of living mediums and attending spirits had agreed that the reverend was distressingly attractive and it was evident in the way everyone stared at him. Little Jenny, the youngest Precinct medium, offered a hello in sign language.

Maggie found, to her delight, that a seat at the table next to the reverend had been saved for her to float at his side. Zofia, another Ghost Precinct operative, also floated at her own place at the table, in between Cora and Jenny. Antonia, the fourth living member of the precinct, their resident angel of all things domestic, was busy serving. When Jenny signed to Antonia, asking if she needed help, the tall woman, dark hair up in a haphazard bun, shook her head and bid the child just relax and enjoy the company.

Thank you for the invitation, friends, Coronado said to Eve and her company as he accepted a cup of tea. "And thank you also for not calling me to the stand during your case. Even though we all were attacked together at the onset of your case, I’ve been so busy fending off new attacks that I couldn’t have testified without losing ground on my own cases. I’m grateful to be able to focus on the emergent threats to our Episcopalian parishes, food pantries and aid societies. I have every confidence that you will win your case against Albert Prenze, Miss Whitby, Detective Horowitz. His vendetta against you and the spirit world in general has been a blight on this city."

Thank you, Reverend, Eve said. And I feel the same about all you have endured, but have every confidence in you and your colleagues.

At a mere nineteen years old, Eve bore an air of a woman twice her age, having had to become a Spiritualist medium at a very young age when the dead wouldn’t leave her alone. Maggie understood this: being young and somehow not, at the same time. Having died at seventeen but been a ghost for nineteen additional years, her life and death was a complex mixture of circumstance and hard-fought wisdom. That could be said for everyone present. Reverend Roberto Coronado himself had visions and peculiar circumstances that led him to pursue a life of banishing demons while welcoming loving spirits. Maggie liked to think they’d begun crafting a perfect partnership of keen detective work and metaphysical experimentation.

Reverend, would you do us the honor of a little Grace? Cora asked as the last plate was served. Coronado bowed his head and opened his palms in a welcoming gesture.

Lord, may we give thanks for all that is in abundance here, worthy spirits all, working to make this world and the next a bit better, one soul at a time.

Eve, have you learned a Hebrew dinner blessing yet? Maggie prompted. I’m sure the conversion process will ask a lot of you, but this is one I feel sure Rachel would have taught you in your youth?

Eve smiled and lifted a plate of bread in her right hand. Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu melech ha’olam hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.

Everyone chorused an amen.

You’ll win Mother yet, my dear, Jacob said to Eve with a smile, leaning in to kiss her cheek. You’ve won me no matter what, and I think she’s getting used to the idea. I think even Rabbi Kohler is impressed with your immediate dedication, but don’t let on that I said so.

Mazel Tov, both of you, on your engagement, Coronado offered.

Thank you, Eve said, beaming.

Reverend Blessing participates in an inter-faith coalition with Rabbi Kohler and we’d love for you both to attend the ceremony, Horowitz said eagerly.

Ah, yes! Coronado exclaimed. Good friends going back some years, if I recall Blessing saying something along the lines of ‘Brothers in the struggle against oppression.’

Indeed, Jacob said solemnly. And on that struggling count, I hear there’s been some horrific nativist and anti-immigrant sentiment happening that has you on the front lines. My sympathies, Reverend.

Yes, and let us know how we can help, Cora declared. Ever the fighter, mindful of her own Creole family’s struggles, Cora’s unique strengths had been coming to the fore in the past few years. Maggie had noticed and she felt certain Cora could help keep a watchful eye on the places that Coronado would deem most vulnerable.

You’ve trained your spirit world assets well, Miss Whitby; your precinct has already been of tremendous service, Reverend Coronado said with a smile, nodding at Maggie next to him and Zofia farther down the table. I know for certain Miss Hathorn saved my life.

And Zofia saved many in the recent tenement fire, Maggie added.

The little dark-haired spirit smiled widely. Only the faint greyscale singe on the edge of her garments offered evidence of her death in a garment district fire. She was the most tireless spirit Maggie had ever met, always watching out for any catastrophe or conflagration, anywhere in the city. She was tirelessly devoted to waking people, pointing to exits or raising alarm wherever and however she could. Eve’s founding of the Ghost Precinct a few years prior, which worked with the dead in order to help solve living mysteries, not only gave purpose and calling to her fellow living mediums, but to ghosts as well.

The company chatted amiably about various things – Maggie trying not to notice how her colleagues were looking between her and the reverend with delight, as if hoping to catch them in a dreamy look.

Just as dessert was being served, the phone rang. Eve cocked her head to the side. It didn’t usually ring and the people who would be trying to reach her were already here. Her parents would just knock upon the closed doors that connected their homes. Unless it was Aunt Evelyn.

Excuse me, Eve said, rising to dart into the parlor and pick up the bell from the large box along the wall.

Everyone resumed eating while she was gone, but was too curious about who might be calling, listening in to her side of a halting conversation.

"Oh, hello, my friend, this is … unexpected. Are you or anyone you know