Phantom Heart

by Kelly Creagh

  I nodded at Lucas, whose panic returned in an instant, his eyes snapping to mine.

  Relax, I tried to convey, be cool and just play along.

  “Richard Armand,” Dad said, offering his hand to Lucas, who accepted my father’s stiff military shake. I cringed inwardly, hoping Dad’s grip wasn’t as crushing as it looked. “Stephanie says you two are working on a local-history project for school?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” said Lucas, though I could tell it caused him deep unease to lie.

  “What’s with the camera bag?” Dad said, his seriousness returning, genuine this time. “Are you two taking photos in here for this thing?”

  “Oh. Uh . . .” Lucas fidgeted with the bag strap, like he was fighting the urge to deny the thing was even his.

  “Chill, Dad.” I looped my arm through one of my father’s giant ones and gave it a squeeze. “We’re just documenting a few things. Like the differences between the main stairway and the servants’ stairway and other Victorian-era things like the butler’s pantry and the dumbwaiter.”

  “Son, you just going to stand there and let her call you names?” Dad asked.

  “Uh, yes, sir?” replied Lucas.

  “Good answer,” said Dad. “But, seriously, these photos aren’t going to end up on Facebook or YouTube or some kooky ghost-hunting site, right?”

  “N-no, sir,” said Lucas, who then seemed to stop himself from what he was about to utter next, probably some memorized, knee-jerk spiel about case confidentiality.

  “Dad’s not ready to show anything off yet.” I gave Lucas a pointed glare, hoping he now understood how my father felt about the spirit realm and those who wanted to tap into it.

  “Nothing worth showing off.” Dad backtracked in the direction he’d come. “You can probably tell, Luke, that I’ve only just started patching up the place.”

  “It’s Lucas, Dad,” I corrected.

  “Lucas,” replied Dad. “As in George. Got it. Maybe I should make it easy on myself and just call you Skywalker.”

  “Well, sir,” said Lucas. “I’ve been told I am strong with the Force.”

  “Ugh.” I palm-slapped my forehead. “Don’t encourage him.”

  “Hey.” Dad pointed at Lucas with the newel cap. “Who shot first?”

  “Uh, that would be Han, sir.”

  Dad grinned. “I like this kid,” he said, continuing to aim the newel cap at Lucas, not like he was a person but, rather, an interesting specimen of fauna I’d retrieved from the woods. One he was even considering letting me keep. “I left Chess in the yard, so . . .”

  I waved him on.

  “Dinner in an hour, Steph,” he said over his shoulder as he turned. “Skywalker, I hope you’re hungry.”

  With that, Dad was out of sight again, giving me the chance to breathe a sigh of relief.

  “I guess I should have asked permission first about the camera,” mumbled Lucas.

  “Permission granted,” I said. “And don’t mind my dad.”

  “Easy for you to say. You forgot to mention your dad was the Brawny Towel guy.”

  “He’s really just a big teddy bear.” I smiled, nudging him with one elbow.

  Lucas didn’t look convinced.

  I grinned. “We’d better get started with this investigation before he and my sister come back in. So, where to first?”

  “Well, that depends,” he said. “Where would you say your concerns first began?”

  Mine? The answer to that would be the graveyard. But that would be the wrong place to take Lucas with my dad prowling around outside.

  “I guess, technically, that would be Charlie’s room,” I said. “So, this way.”

  “Charlie is your little sister?”

  “Yep,” I called back as I reached the stairs. Gripping the now headless newel, I turned with a smirk and waited for him to join me. “And I just dare you to call her Chuck.”

  TWELVE

  Zedok

  “It’s speculated in some circles that closets, as a general rule, can be problematic.”

  The boy’s voice drifted to me through the halfway open door of Charlie’s bedroom, which once, long ago, had been my bedroom. Erik’s.

  I stood just without, hoping to ascertain how much information had been passed between them, and whether there were plans to involve any likeminded friends of this zounderkite. Similar to cockroaches, there was never just one. Out of pure curiosity, I also wished to gauge the nature of their relationship.

  “Closets?” Stephanie asked him. “Really?”

  “A famous investigator and researcher once stated that you were asking for trouble if you left your closets open at night,” the boy droned on, the irksome know-it-all cadence in his voice making me wish upon him a slow and agonizing death. Did I hear he would be supping with the family this evening? Pity the grounds did not produce any belladonna. “There’s some conjecture that closets can hold or trap energy and, possibly, act as vortexes between dimensions.”

  “Vortexes,” Stephanie repeated without inflection.

  In reality, he was not so far off from the truth, though “portal” would have been a better word. I had passed from one side of the house to the other many a time through that closet. Closets, though, were not my only means of transport. In Moldavia, all doorways and thresholds held, for me alone, the power to open to one version of the house or the other.

  “I’m not asking you to believe it,” replied the boy with a shrug that suggested he meant what he said. “I’m not sure I believe it. But, all the same, it can’t hurt for your sister to sleep with the closet closed from now on.”

  “Point taken,” Stephanie mumbled.

  She said something else then, but I missed it on account of the fast thudding of small steps. Charlie came barreling up the stairs, and just before she could round the banister, I managed to retreat into the door’s shadow.

  THIRTEEN

  Stephanie

  “Why are you in my room?” Charlie asked.

  Lucas and I hadn’t been in her room for more than five minutes before she’d come running up the stairs. No doubt Dad had sent her to spy on us.

  Thankfully, I’d already gotten a chance to tell Lucas about her initial conversations with Zedok, her claims of there being another house, and the business surrounding her closet.

  “Charlie, this is my friend Lucas.” I gestured toward Lucas, who’d been waving some colored-light-studded remote-control-looking device over the closet’s back wall.

  He’d already snapped plenty of pictures, checking the view screen after each batch of shots, his expression giving nothing away. But I could tell by the way he’d taken his time soaking it all in that, for him, just being here was a big deal.

  “Hey there,” Lucas said, smiling at my sister, causing a pair of dimples I hadn’t noticed before to appear. “Nice to meet you, Charlie.”

  Charlie just stared at him, her head tilting back as Lucas drew nearer, like it was a skyscraper that approached her and not a person.

  He lowered himself onto his haunches and offered Charlie his hand. Instead of shaking, though, she gave him five.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the device in his other hand.

  “This is an EMF detector.” Lucas held up the device with the colored lights. “That stands for ‘electromagnetic fields.’ I was just seeing if there were any readings in here.”

  Charlie pointed to the stack of boxes in the corner near the window. “All my books are in there.”

  Lucas laughed and obligingly looked. But his smile fell when he spotted something on one of the window’s panes—a large leaf plastered to the glass.

  Er. A large leaf with legs.

  The moth, one of the giant skull-decorated variety we kept running into, inched up the pane, moving toward the jamb.

  “We’ve seen
those everywhere,” I said. “I’m guessing they’re a local breed?”

  Lucas didn’t answer, but went to the window, dropping his EMF detector onto Charlie’s bed. Charlie wasted no time in going for the device, which she scoured for buttons. Lucas, in the meantime, raised the window with strong arms, taking care not to scare off the insect.

  To my horror, he looped an arm outside—and grabbed the thing.

  Adding to my unease, he brought the creature inside, cupping his other hand around it to create a makeshift cage.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered the instant the insect began to emit a high-pitched squeak-screech. “Is it really making that sound?”

  Lucas didn’t answer. Instead, he peered into the gap between his two hands.

  Curious, Charlie dropped the EMF detector back onto the bed and went to Lucas’s side. She teetered on her toes, trying to see.

  Lucas, in a daze, crouched again to let her look, though his focus on the creature remained unwavering.

  “You said you’ve seen more of these?” he asked, his face graying before my eyes.

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “Why? They’re not dangerous, are they?”

  “They’re not indigenous,” replied Lucas.

  “You mean to this area.”

  “I mean to the United States.” He stood quickly when Charlie’s curious fingers got too close, and promptly chucked the thing out the window.

  While it flittered away, vanishing into the deepening dusk, Lucas shut the sash and flicked the latch.

  “Charlie,” said Lucas, his attention returning to my sister. “Stephanie says that you don’t like to sleep in your room and that your closet bothers you. Can you tell me why?”

  At once, Charlie’s demeanor changed, her carefree smile failing, those small brows coming together. I hated to see the peace drained out of her like that. But I couldn’t be mad at Lucas. He hadn’t said anything scary—hadn’t mentioned anything at all about Zedok. He’d only asked her a question. Seemed I was the one to blame here. Because, until now, I’d been all too quick to dismiss Charlie’s claims about her monster. All because it wasn’t something that fit into my paradigm. In that moment, though, I found myself fighting off the awful thought that Mom would have listened to her.

  “Charlie,” Lucas prompted again as Charlie glanced back in the direction of the door. “Is there something the matter?”

  Instead of answering him, Charlie zoned out, going still and quiet, something she hadn’t done since the other morning in the parlor when I’d found her standing in the middle of her crayons and all those scattered papers.

  “She never used to do this before,” I said in a half whisper.

  “She does it often now?” Lucas asked, his own voice tight and low.

  “Sometimes,” I offered. “Whenever she talks about him.”

  “Charlie, what is it?” Lucas asked, suddenly raising his voice to just above normal volume. “Is there something there?”

  Charlie’s thumb went to her lips and hovered there as her gaze remained locked on the door, which hung half open. Before, this kind of behavior hadn’t done much more than annoy me. Now it sent arctic chills up my spine.

  Slowly, after receiving no answer, Lucas went to retrieve his camera from where he’d set it on a nearby chair. Then he drifted to where Charlie stood, the floorboards creaking under his feet.

  As though in answer, an echoing creak sounded from out in the hall.

  Startling me as he sprang into action, Lucas leapt for the door, which he threw open.

  FOURTEEN

  Zedok

  Quicker than I would have thought possible, the young man burst into the hallway where I stood, his two staggering steps bringing us abruptly face-to-face.

  Face-to-mask.

  I remained frozen in the place where I’d moved to gain a better vantage point from which to observe this intruder. And now my efforts had rewarded me with as good a view of him as I could have hoped for.

  “Charlie, did you see something?” the boy asked, even as he gazed right through me.

  It came as no surprise. Unless they were as young and unconditioned as Charlie, even those who believed my existence was possible rarely perceive me before I offered undeniable proof. The boy had heard the creak of my footfall, though. An important thing to note.

  Charlie latched herself to Stephanie’s legs, watching me from behind them, one eye hidden, which told me her silence was something I could bargain for.

  While the boy squinted and searched the gloom, I wrapped a hand about the hilt of my sword and began a slow retreat in reverse down the hallway, careful this time to keep my steps deliberate and silent.

  Lifting his camera, the boy snapped a photo, the spark of its blinding flash igniting the hallway like a bolt of lightning. He shot the camera again and again. I would not show up in his photographs, though. Not until I was something he was willing to see.

  As I went, I pressed a finger to the keyhole mouth of my mask, cautioning Charlie against revealing my presence. She blinked at me, frowning, but nevertheless, the child did as I bade and kept my secret.

  FIFTEEN

  Stephanie

  Dinner turned out to be awkward times five centillion plus pi.

  At least during the first half, with Dad asking Lucas leading and uncomfortable questions like “Were you two paired for this project at random, or did you choose to work together?” and “Where are you planning on going to college, Lucas?” and, my favorite, “Do you have a job, Lucas?”

  To my amazement, Lucas dealt with each inquiry with graciousness and an odd finesse I hadn’t expected. He’d been fumbling and awkward during our first meeting in the library. Tonight, though, his air had become that of a congenial scholar. Sherlock Holmes meets Peter Parker. All business but with a bit of warmth and wry wit thrown in.

  Also, I couldn’t help but notice that, whenever possible, Lucas took pains not to lie to my dad.

  He’d thankfully also taken the lead on my “school project” angle. But each time the subject came up, Lucas had—after supplying some polite though evasive answer—steered the conversation back to my father’s plans for the house. A smart move on Lucas’s part because Dad loved to talk about his work to anyone who’d listen. And as Lucas asked question after question, my father’s stern demeanor finally started to crack.

  “And this is going to sound weird,” Dad said at one point in the conversation, “but at least once a week, I have a dream about how this place used to look. Y’know. Back in the day.”

  Wait. Dad was having dreams, too?

  Lifting one plaid-flannel-sleeved arm from the table, Dad pointed in the direction of the parlor. “The fireplace in the front room, for example. In my dream, it had decorative glazed tiles surrounding it. Painted with sparrows and flowers that matched the wallpaper. There was the carved figurehead of a deer, too. Antlers and everything. That’s all gone now. But I can see in the framework on the iron facade where there had once been tiles. I must have glimpsed that detail before and my brain just . . . filled in the rest during REM. The subconscious is one heck of an organizer, isn’t it?”

  “Y-yeah,” Lucas stammered, his smile uneasy.

  “You didn’t mention the dreams to me,” I said.

  Charlie, who had rushed through her dinner so she could get in her tablet time before bed, sat in the hall outside the kitchen, the device propped on her knees.

  “Because you’re always wrapped up in some textbook,” Dad scoffed.

  “Since you’ve been here,” prompted Lucas, “have you seen . . . y’know, anything out of the ordinary?”

  I froze. Oh geez. He went there.

  Dad grinned at him and wagged his eyebrows once. “You mean like a ghost?”

  “Dad doesn’t believe in ghosts,” I interjected quickly, in case Lucas needed another reminder that this was
territory that need not be tread upon.

  “I am aware, though,” Dad countered, “that this place has a history of ghosts. I’m assuming, Lucas, that since you’re from around here, you know something about that?”

  Dad chewed his next bite of roast in expectant silence. This time, I held back from swooping in to offer Lucas an out. Because he’d been the one to bring it up. And because the proverbial can had so already been opened. Also, there was the little fact that Dad hadn’t asked anything I didn’t want to know myself.

  “Well,” Lucas began, shooting me a meaningful look, “I know that this house was built for a well-to-do family of four in the late 1800s.”

  “The Drapers,” Dad mumbled with a note of contempt that had nothing to do with the Drapers themselves and everything to do with their bodies being six feet under our property.

  “Oh, you know about them,” Lucas said.

  “Well,” Dad began, “the realtor told me they were the original owners. He also mentioned that this place had a reputation. What he didn’t tell me was that the Drapers had all died here on the same night and that foul play was suspected.”

  “What?” I said. Though I knew about the dates, this was the first mention I’d heard about anything nefarious.

  “Found out that little nugget at the local hardware store today.” With this, Dad balled up his napkin and tossed it onto the table. “Apparently, the Drapers’ eldest, a kid named Erik, got himself mixed up with some kind of cult.”

  I slowed my chewing to a halt, my eyes bugging at the plate of food I now couldn’t hope to finish. Dread spread over me like a frost, and I laid my fork down.

  “The Order of the Mothmen,” muttered Lucas, and immediately I lifted my widened stare to him.

  “You know something about it?” asked Dad, who perked with sudden interest.

  “The Order of the Mothmen,” Lucas repeated, speaking softly while sparing a glance toward Charlie, who stayed absorbed in Frozen. “They were a bunch of teen boys who were, much like the rest of the aristocratic world at that time, interested in Ancient Egypt and the occult. During the Victorian era, exploration of Egypt, along with the emerging practice of Spiritualism, was all the rage. People had Egyptomania. And anything having to do with the mystery surrounding death intrigued them.”