For once he was grateful for the fact that ghosts didn't make any sound with their movements. She wouldn't be able to tell if he was still in here or had drifted straight through another wall and into another part of the house, or even left the house entirely. That meant he could hover and wait to hear what she said without giving her the satisfaction of knowing he was hanging around to listen — that he cared what she had to say at all.

He wasn't sure what he'd been hoping for, but what she ended up saying was dissatisfying. God damn, she was still harping on about the damn door? The absolute nerve, when this whole fucking thing was her fault. And now he was in the middle of a crisis, Christabel was maybe-dead and maybe-a-ghost and definitely gone, and all Bea cared about was herself and her ability to wall herself off from the world. This was why she was never going to find a husband. He didn't know where she'd gotten the impression that she had a right to do whatever she pleased in life and never be bothered, but it had clearly been her attitude for some time. She resented even the smallest effort to try and get her to talk to anyone. She had probably decided to be a spinster when she was ten and was too stubborn to even consider any arguments to the contrary — and she had killed him, he had died, for nothing at all. She was never going to get any better. He might as well have raised the alarm and sent her to jail on New Year's, because she wasn't going to improve her life at all, she was just going to keep feeling self-righteous about her need for solitude at all times.

With an exasperated huff, he headed through the far wall of Oscar's room and out of the house.

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