“Kids, come on. Time for dinner,” Mom says.
For the first time, we all sit at the long wooden table under the new chandelier, the room bright and sparkling. Alec and Mr. Sterling sit at the heads. Mom, me, and Sammy on one side, Irma and Piper on the other. After warm garlic bread and a hearty salad, the table is almost silent as we dig into our spaghetti.
“Boy, I tell you, Raquel, this pasta . . . rivals my grandmother’s,” Mr. Sterling says. “And she’s from Sicily, the real deal.”
Mom grins proudly, always a sucker for anyone complimenting her cooking.
“I was a bit worried at first,” he admits, sipping some wine. “Heard you all were vegans, and I’m a meat and potatoes sort of man.”
“Heh, so am I,” Alec laughs. “Rough living, I’ve definitely lost a few pounds.”
“And yet somehow, you’re still alive,” I mumble under my breath. Mom pats my thigh under the table but keeps her face unreadable.
Mr. Sterling wipes his mouth with his napkin, looking at me. Or through me, I can’t be too sure.
Alec, ever oblivious, moves on. “So, boss, about what we discussed on Friday, I think—”
“Please, Alec,” Mr. Sterling laughs. “We’re off the clock. No shop talk in front of the women.”
Mom’s lips tighten and she blinks down at her plate. I dig my knife into my eggplant parm, just to keep from digging into one of his eyeballs.
“Besides,” he continues, “I’m here to learn more about the Anderson-Green family.”
“Okay, I just have to know, since I’m such a sucker for romance,” Irma says with a giggle. “How did you two meet?”
Mom lets out a nervous laugh. “Uh, well, it’s kind of a funny story. . . .”
“No, baby, it’s a great story,” Alec jumps in. “See, I used to live in Portland and was heading to a job interview down in LA. I was supposed to fly but there were some mechanical issues or something, all planes were down. But I just had to make it to this interview, you know. Me and Piper . . . we really needed a fresh start.”
“And at the same time . . . I was covering a story on new CBD dispensaries in the area,” Mom adds, pouring herself another glass of wine.
“Anyways, with the planes down, I figured why not drive! It’d take me, what, a day. It’s a pretty scenic route, down the coast, on Big Sur. But when I get to the rental car center, I see this gorgeous woman . . . arguing with a rental car attendant. Guess a lot of people had the same idea to drive, and apparently, there was only one car left, which they had double-booked . . . and I tell you, she let that woman have it! Ha! Well, we got to talking, and since she lived in a town right off Big Sur, I offered to give her a lift. But that drive . . . that drive is like magic. All these beautiful beaches, cliffs, and crashing waves. We talked the entire way, and after I dropped her off, I couldn’t get her out of my head. Been in love with her ever since.”
Mom blushes as Sammy pretends to gag.
“Oh my goodness.” Irma beams. “So that was it? You just up and moved!”
“Well, it took some convincing,” he says, winking at Mom.
“I thought maybe we were rushing into things,” Mom says sheepishly. “Bringing two households together. But Alec . . . he made me feel like the impossible was . . . possible. Everyone could use some of that.”
Wow, I never heard Mom talk about Alec that way. It almost makes him seem like less of an asshole. I guess that’s the point.
Alec reaches over and holds Mom’s hand, smiling proud.
“Awww,” Irma gushes.
“That is a wonderful story,” Mr. Sterling says.
“Do they know what happened yet?” Piper asks, her voice cutting through the revelry, face red hot, eyes locked on their hands.
“What happened with what, sweetheart?” Alec asks.
“The house across the street.”
“Oh! Well, it was an accident . . . someone maybe passed by and left a cigarette.”
Can he hear all the cracks in his story? There’s no way that blaze was caused by a forgotten little cig. And no one passes our block during the day, much less at night. Well, unless you count that weird mystery car.
“Those darn cancer sticks,” Irma fusses. “Who’d think something so small would cause so much trouble! I heard they could see the fire from the park!”
“Well, thanks to Alec with his water hose and fast thinking,” Mom says, “we were able to keep it from spreading.”
“It’s what happens when you survive a bunch of forest fires.”
“I heard junkies hang out in those houses,” Piper says, staring at me, and all heads snap in her direction.
“Where did you hear that?” Alec asks, frowning.
She shrugs, playing with a piece of lettuce on her plate. “School.”
A shiver zips up my spine. Not sure where this conversation is headed, but I can already sense it is driving too close to home.
“Mr. Sterling,” I start. “Can you tell us a little bit more about this house?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you’re not worried about all that gossip about the house being haunted, are you?” Irma laughs.
Once again, Irma has us all speechless.
“Haunted?” Mom says, setting down her glass of wine.
“Yes, all just a silly urban legend, grown out of boredom. But, as a precaution, I personally had our local priest drop by and give the home his blessing. Mr. Watson was here to witness.”
“Um, okaaaay,” I say, turning back to Mr. Sterling. “But I was actually wondering who lived here before. And why did you pick this block, specifically, to start the residency? All these houses are empty. Why have us sit in the middle of all this?”
Irma softly sets down her fork, eyes darting to Mr. Sterling.
“That’s really none of our business, Marigold,” Alec warns.
“No, no, Alec. It’s okay,” Mr. Sterling says with a warm smile. “I’m all for curious minds. See, Marigold, I’ve lived in Cedarville all my life, and as you can see, our fair city has taken quite a beating over the years. Drugs, riots, crime . . . we’ve gotten a bit of a reputation. Thus, outsiders are hesitant to relocate here. Which is why I started the Grow Where You’re Planted Residency. The hope is to incentivize nice wholesome families, like yours, to move into this area and help change our image so that more people will be willing to consider making Cedarville their home. This is just a start; soon all these homes will be remodeled, like yours, with a thriving community and booming industry.”
“But wait, what about the people who already live here?”
“What about them?” he chuckles. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, we have a very slim population.”
“What happened to everyone?”
Mr. Sterling nods, popping a piece of bread into his mouth. “They left. For work or other opportunities.”
“But why leave so quickly? Why abandon everything you own? It’s almost like they were . . . running away.”
“Maybe running away from mortgages or property liens,” he laughs. “But there’s nothing scary about Cedarville. We’re one of the friendliest cities in the country!”
“So you bought all these homes?”
He shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “We’ve procured a number of foreclosed homes, yes.”
“But if you own all of them, why leave them like this?” I wave toward the window. “It’s almost like you want this city to look run down . . . on purpose. Which goes against your mission. So, if you want to change your image, why not start with the community that’s already here?”
“We’re only interested in working with people that want to see this city return to its glory,” he says, a curtness in his voice.
“And you think the residents here don’t want that too? Have you tried asking them?”
Irma’s face grows tight, staring down at her plate. Mom takes a deep breath as Alec inhales, setting his fork aside.
But Mr. Sterling hasn’t dropped his smile,
doesn’t even blink. It suddenly dawns on me, his face reminds me of one of those creepy dummies with skin made of fresh Silly Putty. Maybe that’s why he seems so . . . fake.
After a long silent moment, Mr. Sterling wipes his mouth with his napkin and gives the table a gleaming smile.
“Well. It’s been quite a lovely dinner.”
Nine
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
After watching the sun start to come up for the thousandth time, I had just fallen back to sleep when the knocking starts. Or I should say pounding. Like the police are at the front door. And that’s the only reason I jump out of bed.
The house stirs, each door opening. I step into the hall just as Piper does, rubbing her sleepy face.
“Who is that?” Mom grumbles. “It’s six in the damn morning!”
Alec throws on a shirt as he runs downstairs.
“Yes?” he says, opening the door.
An old Black man stands behind the screen door, his face in a deep scowl.
“Yes?” he snaps. “That’s all you got to say? You gonna explain this?”
Alec steps out while we stay inside, protected by the screen door, crowding around each other to see.
On the porch sits a pile of various tools—a power drill, chain saw, even a little push lawn mower. None of which belong to us.
Alec and Mom give each other a look, still puzzled.
The old man points again at the tools, frustrated by something unsaid.
“Wait, are these yours?” Alec asks.
He scoffs. “You know damn well these are mine because you took them from my shed! I spent all morning driving around looking to see who stole my stuff all to find it here! And you didn’t even bother to hide it!”
Alec, dumbfounded, glances around, as if an answer to the problem will appear.
“Um, look, sir . . . ,” Alec says.
“It’s Mr. Stampley to you!”
“Right. Mr. Stampley. We didn’t steal your things.”
“Then how you explain this!”
“I’m just as surprised as you! Maybe someone dropped them off at the wrong house.”
“Pssh! No one would do some foolishness like this.”
“Maybe someone was playing a little practical joke on you.” Alec lets out a nervous laugh. Mr. Stampley only stares, fuming.
“Ain’t nothing funny about stealing a man’s things!”
“Did any of you see these here last night?” Mom asks us in a low voice.
We shake our heads. I was the last in after taking Bud for his evening walk and the porch was empty.
“Well, sir, I’m sorry but . . . I have no clue how your stuff got here,” Alec says, hands on his hips. “But I’ll be happy to load it back in your truck.”
Mr. Stampley shakes his head, adjusting his cap. “I should’ve known. Only crazy people, troublemakers, would move to this block!”
He looks up at the house next door, visibly shivers, and starts collecting his belongings.
“Where’s my ax? I know you have that too.”
The school’s track team has a meet today. I sit in the rusty bleachers, watching the 100 meter with my hoodie up. Don’t know why I’m doing this to myself. Guess I’m a sucker for self-torture.
Monica Crosby is the team’s star runner. She’s toned, tall, slender build . . . and she’s good. Almost too good for this school. If circumstances were different, I’d suggest she try out for a private school; she could totally score herself a scholarship, maybe even try out for a pre-Olympic team. She’d boost her speed if she focused on her core and tightened her strides. But here, in this new town, I keep my mouth shut and mind my business.
I can’t believe Coach let David back on my old team. Then again, why would I ever think he would let me back? Especially after I fucked up. All the practices and meets I missed . . . with my record, no one should ever trust me on their team. I’ll just screw up. Always do.
“That’s the girl who lives on Maple Street,” a girl whispers behind me.
“For real?” her friend gasps.
Tightening the hoodie around my face, I head for the stairs.
I was my old school’s Monica Crosby. Now I’m nobody but a girl who lives on Maple Street.
Whatever that means.
“So what’s the big deal about me living on Maple Street?”
The garden club asked for volunteers to help clean a piece of property in the hopes of converting it into a community garden. Yusef and I team up to comb through the perimeter with trash bags and sticks. But I’m already regretting it. Because a few yards away, I can see a moldy queen-sized mattress in the rubble-strewn field. An oasis for bedbugs. I can barely keep my eyes off it.
FACT: Bedbugs can live up to eight months without a blood meal, meaning they can survive on furniture until a new human host nears.
Yusef wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “Why do you ask?”
“I mean, I get I’m fresh meat, but everybody at school keeps specifically talking about how I live on ‘Maple Street,’ like that means more than it should.”
Yusef twists up his mouth a few times. “Nobody’s lived on your block in a while.”
“No shit,” I chuckle. “But what else don’t I know?”
Yusef sighs, squirming as if he is about to tell me the most embarrassing story.
“Aight, well. It’s just that everyone surprised you’re still alive, with your house being haunted and everything.”
I snort and pick up an empty Coke can. “Oh. Is that all?”
“Nah, Cali, you gotta understand, your house . . . it has history,” he says, following me. “No one thought you’d survive this long living with the Hag.”
“The Hag? Who’s that?”
“Not who, but what,” he says, all serious. “It’s this creature, a demon woman, who comes in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping, cast some type of spell on you. You wake up, but you can’t move or talk. You’re, like, paralyzed.”
“You mean . . . sleep paralysis?”
“Yeah, that’s what it’s called!”
My mouth dries, thinking of that night I almost choked on my own tongue . . . and the shadow in the hallway.
“And while you down, she steals your skin,” Yusef says. “She collects other people’s skin to wear during the daylight like she’s normal. And when the skin gets too old and baggy, she has to find new skin.”
“So, what you’re saying is . . . people think that I’m the Hag, dressed in my skin, plotting to take theirs.”
“Yup.”
I shrug and pick up some empty food containers. “Cool.”
“Cool?” he scoffs.
“Well, if everyone thinks I’m a demon, then they’ll leave me alone.”
He laughs. “I guess that’s one upside.”
“The best upside I could ask for.”
“Oh, hey,” he says, pointing. “You got something on your sleeve.”
I glance at my arm and find three tiny red spots. The world comes to a screeching halt.
FACT: Bedbugs are small, flat, oval, brownish, wingless. They turn red after feeding on the blood of a human, like vampires.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”
Yusef laughs. “Girl, it’s just some ladybugs. Relax! They’re harmless.”
That mattress . . . I knew it! I knew it!
“I have to go, I just I can’t no I have to go I um sorry there’s not well I gotta go. . . .”
I’m babbling. I can hear myself babbling, but I can’t stop myself from babbling because there are bugs on me and I don’t know if they are bedbugs or regular bugs or harmless bugs or murder bugs, but whatever they are it doesn’t matter because they’re on me now and now they’ll be on everything in the house.
“Cali? You okay?”
But I’m already running, full sprint, back home. Heart in my throat, ready to soak my skin in gasoline.
Back when my parents were still together, we were, for lack of a better term, hoarders.
We collected and kept everything under the sun, our house full of junk too precious to throw away. Then my dad returned from a weeklong work trip to New York with bedbugs. We didn’t know we had them. They hid in the crevices of our home, silently multiplying. Microscopic organisms with the uncanny ability to wreak havoc on your life.
I didn’t think much of it when I saw the first bite. I blew it off as a mosquito bite. Until my legs were riddled like freckles and erupted into a rash that took over my whole body. At thirteen, everyone chalked it up to puberty, that I was overreacting to a simple allergic reaction. Nothing serious to worry about. I was given a million explanations but the right one. Then, one night, while combing through WebMD, I found an article, ran to pull back my bedsheets, and found the first of many nests. Hundreds of black dots and blood spots covered the bottom of my mattress.
FACT: Bedbugs are nocturnal creatures. They feast while you’re sleeping, grazing on your skin like cows.
We trashed everything. Wooden dressers, bedframes, mattresses, sofas. It’s what you have to do to truly get rid of bedbugs. They lay invisible eggs that can hatch at any moment, even after extermination.
But after months, I could still feel them crawling on me. I stayed up all hours of the night, hunting with a blow-dryer, re-bleaching clothes, fingers chapped from all the disinfecting. I saw bites that weren’t there, black spots even when my eyes were closed, scratched my legs until they bled. Went to the top allergist in the state before they started sending me to shrinks, saying it was all in my head. Delusional parasitosis—the belief a person is infested with bugs that aren’t there. Comes with a side of hypervigilance (like, obsessive cleaning), paranoia, depression, insomnia, and grade-A anxiety. I don’t remember much from my freshman year of high school. Sleep-deprived, I failed most of my classes and exams. But no amount of affirmations and psych talk could get me to relax. Why should I believe anyone when they didn’t believe me that something was wrong in the first place?
During the summer before our sophomore year, Tamara’s cousin offered me my first blunt, and it was the palate cleanser I needed. But . . . it started to not be enough. The highs were fleeting, never lasting as long as I wanted. Then, I stupidly tore a muscle in track and was introduced to a lovely white pill called Percocet. Long after the injury healed, I found that snorting crushed-up Percs was the right concoction to stop the bedbugs from taking up all the space in my head.
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