Bad Blood

by Carly Anne West

  “Read a book,” he’d growl, or “Go do your homework!”

  But we’ve read all the good books, and we did all our homework. The days after Halloween had at least gotten us out of the house for school, but then came the weekend. By Saturday afternoon, Dad is freaked out enough about his deadline to notice us breathing too loudly.

  “I’m going to my study—again!” he barks before my mom finally finds her opening.

  “Hon, don’t you think it would do us all a bit of good to let them get some fresh air?” Mom asks gently, and to my surprise, Dad relents. He really must be at his wit’s end.

  “But no having fun,” he grumbles, and Mya and I have our shoes on faster than Mom can tell us to be home before dinner.

  “Air!” Mya cries, tipping her nose to the sky and inhaling deeply. “Glorious air!”

  “I thought I’d never see the sun again,” I say, and I swear my body actually feels lighter.

  “How long until he doesn’t want to feed us to a pack of angry sharks?” Mya asks.

  “No longer than a year,” I say. “Eighteen months maybe.”

  “I know I should feel bad about all the rest of it, but honestly, it’s the candy that bums me out the most.”

  I nod. It’s only like the millionth time it’s crossed my mind … We got grounded for life, and we didn’t get the goods. Not even a Peppermint Golden Apple. Oh, and the full-sized candy bars in Delwood Heights? Real. Seth Jenkins confirmed it, then rubbed our noses in it at lunch on Thursday. I barely know him, and I’ve never hated him more.

  “Trinity’s parents made her write a report on the origins of Raven Brooks,” says Mya, kicking a pebble out of her way. “Lucy’s parents are still deciding on her punishment, so you know it’s gonna be bad.”

  I bat away a low-hanging tree branch. “Enzo said he and Maritza had to help out at the Banner.”

  “I’d take that over house arrest any day,” says Mya. “And speaking of which …”

  She produces the bag full of papers we found at the weather station from her backpack.

  “I still don’t know why you took those,” I begin. “We can’t understand any of that without a PhD.”

  “You don’t need a PhD to read the newspaper though. And we grabbed at least ten of them.”

  In the backyard, far from Mom and Dad’s eyes, we spread the articles out and start reading. The first few are just mentions about the research—prizes and grants our grandparents won. But then we come across something a little juicier.

  I read the first few sentences of the article:

  For local meteorologists and husband-and-wife team Roger and Adelle Peterson, the storm hasn’t passed. According to this dynamic duo, their research into the unique weather conditions that have plagued the town of Raven Brooks for as far back as residents can remember is not nearly finished. Despite the devastating and unexpected loss of research funding from the Tavish Society, the Petersons are determined to get to the bottom of the unique and often dangerous weather phenomena that blow through our fair city.

  All right, not great, but not unexpected, either. I already knew all this. I pass the article off to Mya, who skims it quickly.

  “Why do you think the Tavishes cut their funding?” she asks. “Do you think they discovered something that the Tavishes didn’t like?”

  “What would they find out? That the storms are bad for tourism?” I say. “I don’t think that’s enough of a reason to pull their money.”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that Maritza’s always telling me how the town gets hit with these crazy storms or flash floods or whatever, but somehow none of the neighboring towns ever have the same thing happen.”

  I know there’s a bigger story here. I can feel us dancing all around it but never quite getting there.

  “How did the Tavishes make their money anyway?” I ask.

  “It was the Golden Apples, right?”

  I shake my head. “The Golden Apples just made them richer. They only had the money to buy out Gammy Flo’s candy because they were wealthy from something else.”

  “I’ll bet Enzo and Maritza could tell us more about the Tavishes.”

  “You know,” I say, inspiration looking a lot like a criminal act in this moment, “I bet they’d be home by now.”

  Mya looks scandalized, but not so much that she’s saying no.

  “You don’t think their dad would let them hang out … do you?”

  I shrug. “I mean, if they didn’t ask, then there’d be no way for them to know for sure …”

  Neither of us says anything after that, but somehow, we magically find our way to the front of the Esposito house, and sure enough, their dad’s car is parked in the driveway.

  “I mean, if this pebble just happened to fly up to the window of Enzo’s room …”

  “True, true,” says Mya, staring at the rock in my hand. “And if they just happen to open the window to see what it is, it would be rude not to say anything.”

  “An excellent point,” I say, and off the pebble flies, from my fingertips to the ledge of Enzo’s window.

  Unfortunately, there’s another window I didn’t consider: the one to the kitchen, which coincidentally is where Mr. Esposito is washing dishes and staring at my sister and me as we corrupt his kids.

  The front door swings open, and there stands a stern Mr. Esposito, a pink checkered dishtowel slung over his shoulder, an angry vein throbbing in his temple.

  “Aaron. Mya. Is there something I can help you with?”

  Nope, not unless you have a shovel to dig us out of this latest mess I’ve managed to get us into.

  “We were just … we’re here because—” Mya tries, but this time, I’m faster.

  “We’re here to apologize,” I say.

  “But it was Enzo who—!” Mya starts to protest, but now isn’t the time for assigning blame. It’s the best excuse we’ve got. Besides, it was my idea to go into the forest the last time I was with Enzo, so I suppose I’m finally getting my due.

  “And what is it exactly that you’d like to say sorry for?” Mr. Esposito says, his arms tight across his chest.

  He’s one of those grown-ups. He doesn’t just want an “I’m sorry.” He wants an “I’m sorry because.” He wants reflection. Remorse.

  I’ve just stopped my eyes from rolling all the way up in my head when I catch sight of Enzo frantically waving from the window above.

  I clear my throat loudly. “Uh, Mya wanted to start by saying something,” I say, nudging Mya forward like she’s about to give a book report.

  “Huh?”

  She looks at me like I’ve sold her to the enemy, but I need Mr. Esposito’s eyes off of me while I try to decode whatever Enzo’s trying to tell me.

  “Yes, sir, I, uh … I wanted to say that, um, it’s a funny story actually, because, haha, we were, um …”

  Mr. Esposito is starting to look a little worried about Mya, but as long as he’s looking at her, he’s not watching as I pretend to scratch my chin.

  Enzo has a crumpled ball of paper in his hand, and I’m pretty sure he wants to drop it right in front of me, which is absolutely the worst possible idea, so I twitch my head to the side of his house and stop when Mr. Esposito shifts his focus back to me.

  “Well, that’s a … fascinating story, Mya, but that still doesn’t explain why you kids thought it would be a good idea to cut through a forest with no maintained path and no parental presence so you could—what, get sick on chocolate?”

  “Full-sized chocolate,” I correct, and the vein in Mr. Esposito’s head starts throbbing again.

  I can tell Mya has now caught sight of Enzo because she’s suddenly pretending to stretch but really, she’s pointing to the side of the house like I did, and seriously, how is Enzo not getting this?

  “But, er, you’re absolutely right, sir, and we’ll never do it again,” I say, outright pointing to the side of the house now. “We’ll never go into the forest alone. Never.”

  “We
ll, that’s reassuring, Aaron, but the forest is that way,” Mr. Esposito says, pointing in the opposite direction, but it worked because from the corner of my eye, I see a white paper ball sail in a high arc overhead and fall to the side of the portico, just outside of the field of Mr. Esposito’s vision.

  “What are you two doing out, anyway?” he asks. Apparently, it’s only just occurred to him that we’re the only culprits roaming free.

  “Dad’s on deadline,” I say, and surprisingly, that’s all it takes.

  “Ah,” Mr. Esposito says knowingly, and somehow, that doesn’t make me feel better. Apparently, Dad is under as much pressure as I think he is. And that’s never a good thing.

  “Okay, so, bye then,” I say, and it’s abrupt enough that Mr. Esposito is suspicious again.

  “Where are you two off to now?” he asks.

  That depends entirely on what Enzo’s note says.

  “Eh, you know. Around,” I say, and Mya nods like that’s an actual answer.

  But Mr. Esposito seems to have tired of us, and as luck would have it, a timer goes off in his kitchen just when I think he’s going to ask us another question.

  “You kids be safe. And be good,” he says, emphasizing the good part which stings a little.

  “Sorry again,” says Mya, and at last, Mr. Esposito seems to soften a little.

  “Stop acting your age,” he scolds, a little more playfully this time, and we turn to leave on a better note, the best we can hope for anyway.

  Once we hear the front door close behind us, we drop to our hands and knees, then to our bellies, and one at a time, we army-crawl across the lawn and underneath the sill of the kitchen window until we reach the side yard of Enzo’s house and the crumpled note he risked life and limb to give us.

  After a two-block sprint away from the Esposito house, I flatten the note on the sidewalk.

  More secrets.

  Mya looks at me. “So, what’ll we do until then?”

  Eating turns out to be the answer to that question. We venture to the Square in the middle of town and make our way around each side of it. We eat tacos and nigiri, chocolate-covered bananas and pizza bagels. We even wander over to the natural grocer when we got desperate for new scenery and give one of the weird healthy candy bars a try. By the time six forty-five arrives, I’m belching a symphony.

  “Aaron, stop! I’m already close to puking!”

  “Why do you think I’m burping so much? It’s gotta come out somehow. Trust me, this is the least disgusting way.”

  As we near Enzo’s house, I detour us around his street to approach it from the opposite side. This time, we won’t have to avoid the kitchen window; we can creep over the fence and straight into the backyard.

  I take a quick peek to make sure his dad isn’t back there and scramble over the edge, catching myself just before I land so I can pull Mya from the top.

  “Over there!”

  I point to a thick hedge framing a little vegetable garden and listen for any sign of Enzo, but as each minute ticks by, we’re further away from seven o’clock, and I’m more and more convinced that the plan is blown, and Mr. Esposito is going to find us.

  And end us.

  “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Mya whispers, reading my mind.

  “One more minute,” I say, not sure I want to even wait that long. Danger has never really bothered me much. It’s stupid danger I have a thing against.

  “One more minute until what?” says a voice above us, and I lose any hint of bravery when I shriek and scramble backward.

  “Shhh! Are you nuts? My dad’ll hear you!” Enzo hisses, crouching behind the hedge with us.

  “What took you so long?” I scold him.

  “Sorry. I should have told my dad to hurry up with dinner because I need to be on time for our secret meeting,” says Enzo, frowning.

  Maritza rolls her eyes and pulls Mya over to the next bush. “They’re so dramatic.”

  “You should have heard Aaron all the way over here from the Square. ‘Oh, my stomach. I have to burp, Mya. I’ll explode otherwise.’”

  “Oooh, you were at the Square? Did you see the bracelet I was talking about?”

  Mya nods. “I bet you we could make something cooler, though. Like, something that has the same charm for you, me, and Lucy.”

  “Yeah, but what would the charm be?”

  I look at Enzo, and he looks back at me.

  “That’s thirty seconds of my life I’ll never get back,” he says, looking back over his shoulder at his sister. “Anyway, we don’t have much time. Dad had to get on some conference call, but I have no idea when that’s going to end,” says Enzo, pulling a photocopied page out of his pocket. It looks familiar.

  “I found the old proof of this story when I was stuck cleaning out the records room.”

  “We actually already saw this,” Mya says. “We found an old copy of it … um … at our house.”

  “So then, you saw the photo?”

  I lean in closer. “What about the photo?”

  “Look at it,” he says, jamming his finger down on the page.

  Just below the fold is a grainy photo of the two people I recognize as my grandparents, with Adelle’s fashionable but frizzy beehive and Roger’s thick-rimmed glasses and same football-player shoulders as my dad. They’re both bent over a desk I immediately identify as the same one in the abandoned office from the weather station. There’s something sad and vaguely creepy about seeing the entire office intact behind them. Even the hallway in the corner of the frame looks alive despite the black-and-white blur that depicts it.

  Then I spot the two boys in the hallway. Or rather, I spot their heads and shoulders. The rest of them appears to have disappeared … into the wall.

  I squint closer to be sure, but really, I don’t need to. It’s my dad and Mr. Gershowitz as kids, seemingly disembodied in the hallway of the weather station.

  “Am I completely dense, or are their bodies gone?”

  “You are dense, but not about this,” says Enzo.

  “Maybe the film got messed up,” I say. “Something happened in the developing or the printing.”

  “Nothing else about the photo is off,” says Enzo. Clearly, he’s already thought this through.

  “So then, what? My grandparents were actually warlocks who could make people disappear?”

  Enzo blinks slowly at me, like I’m the dumbest human being on earth.

  “Or, a more plausible explanation: They were walking downstairs.”

  I flash back to the weather station and my time there. Enzo doesn’t know about any of that, and I don’t see any reason why he needs to know, but I’ve seen it myself. There are no stairs there.

  Then I remember what he and Trinity told me on Halloween when we were in the woods.

  “Wait, Trinity said the police checked that place top to bottom. There isn’t a level below the ground at the weather station,” I say.

  “Exactly!”

  Mya and Maritza crinkle their noses at us. “Shhh, dummy!” whispers Maritza.

  I shake my head at Enzo. “So, if there is a secret basement, there might be something the police missed …”

  Enzo nods. “Look, I don’t think your grandparents set that fire. But they had secrets, and with you guys back in town, those secrets are going to come out.”

  There it is, the knot in my stomach laid bare for both of us to see. It should be super painful to see my guts splayed out like that, and mostly it is. Still, there’s a part of me that’s almost relieved. Not just that Enzo understands, but that he doesn’t believe my grandparents were dangerous.

  At least not intentionally dangerous.

  “What do you know about the Tavishes?” I ask Enzo.

  “I know they were rich.”

  “But do you know how they made their money? Like what business—”

  “Caw! Caw!” Maritza calls from across the yard, and when I turn, I see her flapping her arms like wings and I think she makes a ter
rible bird. But her eyes are huge, and when she points one of her wings toward the back window, it becomes a little clearer, at least to me.

  “What are you doing?” asks Enzo.

  Maritza can’t handle the stupidity. “Dad’s hanging up.”

  Enzo pushes the photocopied article into my hands and instinctively ducks down, even though he’s not crouched behind anything. Then he points to his own eyes with two fingers, then points to me, which means something like I’ve got your back I think, and Maritza joins him in his stooped form, and they soundlessly slide open the patio door and disappear inside their house, leaving Mya and me to escape on our own.

  I wave her over sharply, and she scurries to the fence and makes it over the top without any help. I follow a little less gracefully. Even though it’s not necessary because no one is following us, we sprint all the way home, only slowing when we reach our block.

  When we open the door, it’s like we were never gone. No one greets us at the door, no one looks worried or relieved or peeved or confused. No one is there at all. It’s just a quiet, dark house with no proof of life.

  Because we basically ate our body weight in snacks at the Square and I’m about to explode with the gas building in my intestines thanks to those nature bars, we skip the kitchen altogether and retire to our separate rooms with little more to say. What is there to discuss, really? Just one more secret to protect.

  Only this time, I think I might know where to find the answers. This time, I have something to show Mr. Gershowitz, something he can’t shrug off or dismiss. I know my dad is a vault, and I have zero hope I can get information from him.

  But if Mr. Gershowitz can be straight with me, maybe I can steer this rumor away from my family and avoid a Titanic-level disaster.

  Now all I have to do is find Mr. Gershowitz.

  I spent most of the night trying to figure out how to locate a ghost.

  According to Dad, Mr. Gershowitz hasn’t talked to him since their argument, and despite my couple of nights spent in the woods after that—in places I thought it was his job to patrol—I haven’t seen any sign of him, either.