Ellie has been calling herself a witch for a while now, if only in private. That seems the appropriate word for one who practices the sort of rituals and hexes she found in that dusty old grimoire. Lots of blood and bone and moonlit incantations. The first spell she tried just because she was bored- but it worked. Then she started experimenting, reanimating mice and creating ravens of shadow and giving bad luck to people who annoy her. She's looking to expand her practices, though, and for that, she needs a private place to work.
A divination ritual (purportedly) triangulates for her an old house on a wooded lot outside of town. It's definitely abandoned, and the story is that it's also haunted. It'll serve her purposes. And if any ghosts show up... she bets she can deal with them.