by Dan Poblocki
In the cafeteria, a group of girls who were sitting a few tables away glanced at him and giggled. He recognized Francine and some of her friends. One of them, a dark-haired girl named Claire, locked eyes with him for a moment before looking quickly away. A prickly sensation shot up his neck.
She was the ghost hunter’s daughter.
Claire had moved to Archer’s Mills only a few years before Lucas. But her experience had been the opposite of his own. Her father, Miles Holiday, was the host of a popular television show that documented ghosts and the supernatural. Lucas made sure to watch every episode, like most of the kids at Archer’s Mills Middle School. Having a famous father made Claire famous too. It was rare to observe her unaccompanied by a crew of fawning friends. The odd thing was that she didn’t seem to want the attention. She always looked slightly miserable when they all offered to be her partner for a class project or begged for a tale of ghostly intrigue.
Whenever Lucas put on Invisible Intelligence, Miles Holiday’s TV show, his grandmother would fidget and fret, arguing with the screen, calling Miles a Johnny-come-lately, an inexperienced charlatan who used force and belligerence to send away lingering souls using little empathy and zero finesse.
Irene said that spirits are like children on the first day of kindergarten—you need to let them know what to expect, or else they’ll be running the class.
At school, Lucas had once felt bold enough to share his grandmother’s opinion of Miles. Afterward, tales spread like toxic gas that Lucas had called Claire’s dad a fool, a jerk, a fake. Those weren’t even the words he had used. For a long time, everyone would glare at him, and one day, an older boy even swatted his books from his hands, scattering them down the hallway like a trail of slime left by a slug.
Such was the unwitting power of the girl they called the ghost hunter’s daughter.
On the day after he’d heard the knocking, he turned away from the giggling girls in the cafeteria, crumpled up what was left of his lunch, and tossed it all in the garbage.
A few days after that, at a moment just after twilight, Lucas was curled up on the couch in the living room, flipping through the television channel guide, when the porch steps creaked outside.
Lucas’s grandmother owned the hair salon on Beech Nut Street. Several nights a week, she took late appointments. Lucas would come home after school, do his homework, then heat up a microwave meal and watch television, waiting for her to return.
Apparently, Gramma was home earlier than usual.
In the back of his mind, Lucas expected to hear the rattle of her keys and the click of the lock, but the noise didn’t come. He glanced toward the foyer.
The window in the door was covered in a gauzy curtain. A figure stood on the other side, its silhouette backlit by the streetlight at the end of the long driveway.
“Gramma?” he called out. “Did you forget your key?”
No answer came.
Lucas squirmed backward, pressing his body into the space between the couch cushions.
The tapping began softly.
He didn’t feel ready for this to happen to him again so soon.
He shook his head. He closed his eyes.
The tapping grew louder. It did not stop.
Lucas sprinted to the hallway, slipped into the coat closet, and then closed the slatted wood door behind him. The knocking turned to pounding. He squeezed his eyes shut again, his stomach churning with terror.
The front door’s knob rattled and squeaked as it turned. Hinges squealed. Lucas held his breath.
Cold air crept into the house, slipping under the closet door and nipping at Lucas’s ankles. He leaned against the wall. His grandmother’s leather jackets enveloped him, blocking out the light from the hall. There was a change in the air, a pressure that clogged his ears.
Even though he’d heard the front door open, the tapping went on.
A loud voice called out from the living room, where he’d been sitting moments earlier. Lucas nearly screamed. But he knew that voice. It was as familiar to him as his grandmother’s. Tonight, we’ll look back at some of our favorite locations, said the voice, to see how they have transformed since our last visit. It was Miles Holiday, speaking from the television. The ghost hunter himself. These towns have become popular spots on the recent map of our changing country, Miles went on. In some cases, growing crowds make pilgrimages, seeking answers to—
Whoever had entered the house had turned on the show that Claire Holiday’s father hosted, Invisible Intelligence.
The volume jolted up to an almost painful level. Lucas clapped his hands to his ears. Someone was trying to draw him out of his hiding place.
As the voice went on, loudly, Lucas strained to hear another sound underneath it. Footsteps. Breath … Anything that might give away the intruder’s location in the house.
The tapping grew louder. Now it was a knocking—knuckles hitting hard against some unseen surface.
If I time it right, Lucas thought, I might escape. Judging from the cold air at his ankles, the front door was still open. He could run outside and down the steps—
The closet door shook. Lucas brought his hand to his mouth and clamped it tightly against his skin. The knocking became a hammering. The wooden panels rattled as if about to break. Any moment, clawlike fingers would reach through and—
Lucas crouched, feeling for something heavy to use as a weapon. His grandmother’s black umbrella? Good enough … He stood and then braced himself, raising the sharp point of the umbrella over his head. The hammering intensified. He hooked the umbrella onto his elbow and pressed his fists to his ears, which made him realize that most of the din was inside his own head.
“What do you want!?” he shrieked.
The noise kept up, transforming into an impossible noise that seemed to be made of wind and machinery and fire. His heart galloped in his chest. There was only one thing he knew would stop it.
He opened the door.
Everything paused. The commotion. The pressure. The voice from the television.
All his panic was wiped away, and now he could only stare with wonder.
Standing before him was a woman Lucas didn’t recognize. Her face seemed to shimmer and change in the way faces in dreams can shift and blur. Lucas couldn’t tell if the woman was tall or short, if her skin was dark or light, if her expression was angry or calm. Her body was edged with silver, reflecting an otherworldly glow that seemed to be cast from nowhere.
“Who are you?” Lucas managed to ask.
Her voice echoed from somewhere above or below, right behind him or maybe far away. Help me, she said. Those weren’t quite the words she’d used, but their meaning came through to him as clear as a windowpane. Wavering emotions rode along with it. Hope and awe and fear …
And fear
And fear …
The longer he stayed quiet, the more her panic grew. Like a force of nature, it thrummed and thrashed, trying to breach his mind. Lucas straightened his spine, forcing himself to stand still. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with his grandmother. It only seems scary for a short time, she’d said.
How short a time?
He’d never felt this frightened, and not only because of this woman, the one who’d knocked, but because of what it meant for the future. His future.
Was this how it would be?
“I think you’re looking for my grandmother,” he said steadily. “She’s the one who—”
The woman held up a hand, and Lucas’s voice dried up in his mouth.
No, child, she said. I’ve come for you.
“I’M SORRY, CLAIRE,” said Lucas, “but wherever your father’s at, he’s in real trouble. The kind of trouble someone doesn’t come back from.”
Claire felt warmth drain away from her face. Norma slipped her cool fingers between Claire’s. Her friends stood up beside her.
“No one invited you, Kent,” said Francine.
Lucas was still for a few seconds. “I know th
is isn’t something you want to hear, Claire, but you’ve got to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Claire heard herself say. The seed of a storm was spinning in her chest. “I don’t even know you, Lucas.”
“That’s true.” Lucas swallowed hard. “You don’t. Not many kids in this town do.” He was still a dozen yards away, his face hidden in shadow. “I’m sorry I spooked you at school today. I needed to tell you, but … I didn’t know how.”
“So, you followed us here instead,” said Whit, pulling off the luchador mask. His hair stood up, mussed. Mikey reached out and smoothed it down.
“How are you so sure Claire’s dad is in trouble?” asked Norma. “Did your creepy grandmother tell you?” Claire squeezed Norma’s hand to shush her.
“It wasn’t my grandmother’s message to share. I didn’t even tell her what I know.” Lucas’s voice was the rustling of leaves through the tunnel, the breeze wheezing through the eaves of Claire’s house, the pipes knocking in the basement whenever the heat kicked on. “A woman came to me this time. She said … she said she was your mother.”
Mother.
Claire’s skin turned to stone. Some of her organs too. Lungs. Liver. Spleen. Her heart worked harder to keep her blood pumping through places it didn’t want to flow.
Francine cackled. “Nice try, Kent. Run along home now. Tell Granny the joke didn’t work.”
“I’m not joking. I would never”—his breath hitched—“never joke about something like this.”
Claire’s answer came out like a chirp. “You really spoke with my mother?”
Did she actually believe him?
Whit shoved himself through the group. “Leave us alone, Lucas,” he growled. Mikey reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him back.
“Okay, okay,” Lucas said, holding his hands up—a pair of white flags, surrendering. “I’ll go. I didn’t mean to scare anyone. I just wanted to … do my duty.”
“Well, your duty is done,” Mikey said. “Bye!”
Just before Lucas reached the end of the tunnel, he paused and then turned back. “You’re going to need my help, Claire,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry.” He stepped out into the sunlight. The glare of the afternoon devoured his silhouette, and he was gone.
Silence echoed like a bell.
Claire wanted to believe he was being his usual strange self. He had bashed her father before, but what he’d said just now hadn’t sounded cruel. Mostly just … honest.
Norma spoke up. “Are you okay, Claire?”
Claire’s head felt heavy; she worried that if she nodded, it might topple off her neck.
“He’s being a jerk again,” said Mikey.
Whit slipped the mask over his head, hiding the crease that was running up his forehead.
“Let’s get back to hunting ghosts,” said Francine, trying to change the subject to one that was more to her liking. “That dead kid must still be down here somewhere. Can we try raising him again?”
“I—I think I should go home,” Claire answered. “I want to check on a few things.”
“You don’t really believe him, do you?” Norma asked quietly. “Lucas basically admitted he was trying to freak you out all day long.”
“That’s not what—” Claire gave her friends a hard look. “Wouldn’t you be freaked out?” They clamped their mouths shut. They weren’t used to her responding harshly, even though she’d barely spoken above a whisper. “You know what people say about his grandmother. She knows things. Wouldn’t it make sense that Lucas would have the same … ability?”
“But they also say his grandmother hates your father,” answered Norma. “Maybe she put Lucas up to this.”
Claire collected her belongings. Lucas’s words were creeping into tiny crevices in her mind, tendrils grabbing hold.
“Do you want us to walk you home?” asked Whit.
“I’m a big girl.” Claire brushed soil off her pants. “But thank you.” She smiled her gap-toothed grin and then loped toward the end of the tunnel, leaving the others in the dark.
CLAIRE WALKED UP and over the green hills, then down through the empty basins through the backyards of her neighbors.
All the while, her mind churned.
The idea that her mother’s spirit had visited a possibly psychic boy in Claire’s school made her heartbeat stumble. It was that old fear come true—her mother was still out there, wandering the world. Someone like her father could hunt down her spirit and send her away if he believed her to be too frightening, too threatening to people.
Years earlier, after the East Coast tsunami, there were some who took comfort in believing that spirits lingered. They thought that the dead would pass along messages and memories, words of encouragement and of warning, to sensitive people. People like Irene Kent. Then there were others who believed that the dead’s noisy voices might overwhelm the survivors and cause them to stumble on their life’s path, that looking forward was always better than glancing backward.
Claire thought of Lucas’s grandmother. Her father had once considered working with her on his television show. Irene was meant to have appeared occasionally as a ghostly expert. But something happened. A disagreement.
Miles wished to send the dead away.
Irene did not.
The Holidays’ house appeared across the lawns, its red Victorian turret rising over barren branches. Spring was on its way, and evidence was all around. The neighborhood trees were still bare, yet green stalks rose from the earth near Claire’s trail. The earliest flowers showed purple and white buds teasing with color. The Holidays’ house was different from the others that surrounded it—older, opulent. The outside was decorated with details that Claire remembered her mother saying belonged to the Queen Anne style. There were oval windows made of stained glass. Its porches and porticoes were all curving lines, latticework, and pink-painted trim.
Claire adored living here. Her mother had picked out the house herself, imagining space enough for a large family that she and Miles had never managed to have. When she was little, Claire’s parents had told her they’d taken that extra love and given it to her instead.
Before Penelope had gotten sick, the joyful design of the house had mirrored the family’s life inside it. Claire remembered music and spontaneous dancing after delicious dinners, climbs to the top of the turret to spy on the neighbors from behind the compact, jewel-colored windows, and bicycle rides around the enormous basement on stormy days.
Silence can sound like thunder when it comes all of a sudden.
Penelope’s illness arrived in the same way.
Her mother was gone before Claire even had a chance to learn much about the monstrous thing that consumed her.
After it was over, late at night, Claire used to try talking to her. She’d ask if she was feeling better now that she was no longer inside her body. And if there were dogs and cats in heaven. And if she was still able to bake their favorite brownies. But Claire never got an answer—certainly nothing as solid as a knock on the front door of the red Victorian in the middle of the night.
As Claire climbed the wooden steps to the back porch, anger flash-banged through her skull. Had her mother really spoken to a boy she barely knew rather than to her own daughter? Claire threw open the kitchen door and stomped toward her father’s office at the front of the house.
“Claire? Is that you, honey?” Aunt Lizzie was upstairs. “I was worried!”
“Sorry, Aunt Lizzie! I was with some friends.”
“Please phone next time. I hate thinking of you lying in a ditch on the side of the road!”
Aunt Lizzie could be very dramatic, which was why Claire had already decided to keep what Lucas had said a secret. She paused at the bottom of the great curving staircase. “Did Dad call in yet?”
“I haven’t heard anything. He must be busy!”
Claire’s cheeks burned red like a poisoned apple in a fairy tale.
THE HINGES OF Miles’s office door squeaked faintly. The scent of leat
her and pine tingled Claire’s brain, bringing her father’s face to the front of her imagination. His pointy nose. His trim brown beard. His hazel eyes, sparkling with wonder. The room was filled with the essence of him.
Whenever Claire was feeling sad, she would search the house for items that had once belonged to her mother—dresses that had been packed away in boxes, cartons of unsharpened pencils, Penelope’s old pillow—and hold them to her nose, inhaling deeply. The smell of her mother was still so strong, it felt in those moments as if she were right there with Claire. She wondered if ghosts were merely memories provided by our senses—the five known ones, and possibly, a mysterious sixth.
Claire swung her backpack off her shoulders and rested it on a wooden chair by the window, then zipped it open. She removed her notebook and placed it on her father’s desk. Sitting in his cushy swivel chair, she scanned the information she’d copied from his records: Hush Falls Holler; ghost of Lemuel Hush; town at the bottom of the lake; Graveyard Watch … She’d written all of it down while her father had been sleeping, before he’d left for this job. But Miles had taken his notebooks and maps with him on the trip, and all Claire was left with now were her own notes and a few scraps that littered the wide cherry surface of his workspace.
There had to be some way to reach him. Once, everyone had carried a cell phone, but the waves had knocked down so many towers on the East Coast that they’d made the devices nearly impossible to use anymore, at least around here. She flipped through her scrawl, searching for the name of his motel. But if he’d listed it, she’d neglected to copy it, and now she couldn’t remember it. Maybe Aunt Lizzie knew the answer. But if Claire were to ask, Aunt Lizzie might insist that she was overly tired and then send her to bed early.
Instead, Claire picked up the phone and dialed Information. When an operator answered, Claire asked for the names and numbers of all the hotels or motels within several miles of Hush Falls. To her surprise, the operator provided only one: Lost Village Motor Lodge. Claire wrote the name and number in her book. “Can you connect me?” she asked the operator.