by J. W. Ocker
“The werewolves didn’t get them!” came an excited voice behind her.
Len stood in the kitchen with a stuffed ocelot under her arm. She looked rumpled from sleep, and the scrape on the back of her hand was pink. She immediately tried to pick up the narwhal and the cassowary but dropped the ocelot. Then she tried to pick up the ocelot but dropped the narwhal. Finally she lined all three on the floor in a row and sat beside them. Then she stole the half-eaten piece of toast off Noe’s plate and snickered as she took a large bite.
“There’s no werewolves down here. They’re in your closet, remember?” said Noe. The joke was out of habit. Len’s eyes got big and she half stood up, like she was about to run.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” said Noe. “There are no werewolves in your closet.”
Len sat back down and pulled her stuffed animals close to her. She took another bite of toast, smearing butter between the corner of her lips and her right ear. “They’re in the basement?”
Noe flicked her eyes over the dirt and stone at the base of the steps and weighed exactly what she should tell her kid sister. It might be a good idea to scare her away from the basement. But if she was sleepwalking there, that didn’t matter, and scaring her would just make her little sister’s awake life hard. “No, there’s nothing down there but boxes and dirt. The werewolves are far away in the woods somewhere.”
Len looked in fear at the window above the sink, which framed a section of the forest surrounding the house. Oops, Noe thought. She would have to think up a new faraway place to put Len’s monsters.
“Come here,” said Noe, placing the plate on the floor with a clink and pulling Len onto her lap. She wrapped her arms around her little sister and Len wrapped her arms around the ocelot and all three looked like a set of nesting dolls. Len was Noe’s antidote to being too much of a Dread Ender.
“Do you remember last night?” Noe asked.
“Mom sang ‘Slient Night’ to me before bed.” Mom always sang Len Christmas songs before bed. It didn’t matter what time of year it was. And Len couldn’t quite handle the word “silent” yet.
“Anything else?”
Len shook her head fast, her blond air weaving a wild halo in the air. She wiped butter off her face with the back of her scraped hand. The injury wasn’t bad. If her parents noticed it or the ones on Len’s elbows, they’d assume them to be just some of the hundreds of scrapes and bruises that Len always seemed to have. The life of a toddler was a rough one.
Noe looked at the injury on her own hand. The palm was red and puffy, like she’d burned it on a hot pan. Other than that and a few aches and pains, she’d mostly recovered from the previous night. On her wrist was an almost matching red mark from her nightly binding. She rubbed at it and thought about her parents. They couldn’t stop her or Len from being hurt by the Smashed Man. They didn’t even seem to want to help with their parasomnia. They thought a baby gate and a locked front door would solve everything. She hugged Len tighter.
“Ow, sissy,” said Len, squirming.
Noe let her up. Len tried to gather all three stuffed animals into her arms again and failed. She looked at Noe, who sighed and piled the three animals into her arms for her. “Go play. I need to go somewhere.”
Noe got up, threw her dish in the sink, and marched out of the house with Erica’s diary in her hand. She crossed the street to Radiah’s house. On the way, she glanced at the white house. It looked solid. Real. Like everybody should be able to see it. The black X, the Nonatuke, sparkled on the front of the house.
She knocked on Radiah’s door as hard as she could.
“Hello, Miss Christmas,” said Radiah’s mom after she opened the door.
“Radiah in the attic?”
“She is. Go on up. See if you can’t get her to go outside.”
Noe walked up the stairs, down the hallway past all the empty rooms, and into Radiah’s old room. She knocked on the attic door. It felt silly doing that.
“Yes?” came a soft voice.
“It’s Noe.” Talking through an attic door felt even sillier.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve got something to show you. Please stop making me talk to an attic door.”
“Come on up, I guess,” said Radiah.
When they were both in the attic, Radiah sitting on her bed and Noe standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, Radiah asked, “What’s that book?”
“Hold on. I need to test something first. Can you look out the window for me?”
Radiah narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Just do it, and then I’ll explain.”
Radiah walked slowly toward the window but kept her eyes on Noe.
“Look out the window,” said Noe, walking up behind her.
Radiah complied, but slowly, like she expected Noe to club her over the head. Noe stood beside her and looked into her eyes. “Now look over there at the tip of the dead end.” Noe pointed at the white house. Radiah angled her head slightly, and Noe watched her dark brown irises shimmer into unearthly violet. The last time Noe had seen that happen, she had run screaming into her house. It still made her want to. “Okay. Get the other Dread Enders over here. I’ve got something important to show all of you.”
“Tell me first,” Radiah said, turning around. Noe watched her irises bleed back to brown.
“Everyone should be here. It’s about Erica.”
Radiah squinted her eyes at Noe but picked her phone off her bed. The crack in the case had gotten worse, almost splitting it in two. Radiah punched the glass with staccato fingers. A few buzzes later, she said, “Crystal will be here soon. Ruthy doesn’t have a phone, so I’ll have to go get her. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re really good with Ruthy,” said Noe.
Radiah stopped at the top of the stairs but didn’t turn around. “I hate the idea of her alone in her house. I remember when I was that young and had to deal with the Smashed Man by myself.” Noe thought of Len in the basement with the Smashed Man and nodded, even though Radiah couldn’t see her do it.
After Radiah left, Noe looked around the room. Radiah’s mom should call her own daughter Miss Christmas. The girl lived up here like a box of decorations. All because a flat monster oozed out of the cracks in her basement. She saw the pencil sketches on the desk and flipped through some of the drawings. There was Ruthy’s witch house. Rune Rock. An astronaut floating in space. A herd of horses crossing a stream. Radiah was really good. Noe stopped at a portrait of a girl that Radiah had labeled Erica.
Erica had bobbed hair and freckles so big and prominent Radiah must have exaggerated them. And Radiah had drawn her smiling. That made sense to Noe. Based on the diary, she could tell that Erica was different from the other Dread Enders.
Eventually Noe heard commotion downstairs. She tucked the drawing of Erica back underneath the others and quickly settled herself on Radiah’s bed. Radiah, Crystal, and Ruthy popped up the stairs and into the room.
“Hi, Noe!” said Ruthy in what was almost a cheery voice. It made Noe sad. If that girl had been born anywhere else but this neighborhood, she would have been such an upbeat, happy girl.
“Hi,” she said. She nodded to Crystal.
“Okay,” said Radiah. “We’re all here. What is that book and what does it have to do with Erica?”
Noe handed the diary to Crystal, who opened it to the first page. Her eyes widened as she read. She sank down onto the edge of the bed, her eyes never leaving the pages. “Oh my gosh” was all she said. Radiah and Ruthy crowded around her.
“It was in the space between the wall and the dryer in my basement,” said Noe. “A lot of it is unreadable.” Nobody responded. They were engrossed in the messages from their friend. Noe quietly moved away from the group and left the attic and then the house. It was an intimate reunion with a friend they thought they’d never talk to again. They should have privacy. She sat on the front stoop and gazed at the white house.
After
a while, the noise of the door opening behind her surprised her into jumping up like she’d been trespassing. Crystal, Radiah, and Ruthy all stood there, their eyes red and faces puffy.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” said Noe. “I really am.”
“Thanks,” said Radiah, rubbing at her eyes. “What was wrong with the ink she used? Why did it all clump up and change color like that?”
“I don’t know,” said Noe.
Radiah looked around the neighborhood. “So it’s over there, I guess?” She pointed uncertainly in the direction of the white house. “An entire house, and we can’t see it. Erica was pretty funny. Always joking around.”
“I can see it,” said Noe.
The Dread Enders all looked at her in surprise.
“That’s why I ran away from you last week, like Erica did that one time. I saw your eyes turn purple and thought it was the Smashed Man. I didn’t know you couldn’t see the house. I didn’t know that the runes had any powers.”
“Only you and Erica can see this house.” Radiah didn’t seem to like that idea.
“Can you take us to it?” asked Crystal.
“Wait. What? Don’t tell me you’re falling for this,” said Radiah, waving both of her hands in front of her. “There’s no such thing as an invisible house.”
“Well, I believe Erica, and it sounds like it has all the answers to the Smashed Man,” said Crystal.
“No, even if it does exist, it sounds like it gave Erica all the wrong ideas about the Smashed Man. If she hadn’t found what she did there, she’d still be here with us,” said Radiah.
“What do you think?” asked Crystal, turning to Noe.
“I think Radiah is right about how much good it did Erica. But it is real. I’m looking directly at it. And now that we all know about it, it’s going to drive us crazy knowing it’s just sitting there at the end of our neighborhood.”
“What if somebody lives there?” Ruthy looked over at the end of the cul-de-sac, fright crossing her face.
“From what we could read of Erica’s description, it sounded like nobody lives there,” said Crystal.
Noe remembered the movement in the window. The one she had seen when she’d found Ruthy’s paper monster at her mailbox. She decided not to bring it up. “There’s no harm in at least walking over there, right?” she asked.
“Okay,” said Radiah. “But only because there’s no such thing as an invisible house and you guys need to see how ridiculous this is.”
Noe led them across the bulb of the dead end to the white house, aiming at the shimmery black X like a target. She walked up the steps to the front porch and turned around. The three girls looking up at her had purple eyes.
But what really made her jump was hearing the door behind her open.
Fourteen
Noe turned around to see a woman standing in the doorway of the white house. She had short black hair that curled at the ends and a pair of spectacles with large rosy lenses. She wore a bright blue dress and leaned against an aluminum crutch, the top of which wrapped around her forearm. The woman stopped short of exiting the house, standing in the doorway like she wasn’t allowed to leave.
“Who are you?” asked Noe.
“Your eyes are normal, girl.” She tapped the side of her spectacles as if she wasn’t sure if Noe knew what eyes were. She had a Southern accent.
“That’s not a name.” Noe bristled at how the woman said “girl.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Radiah.
Noe didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure. Wasn’t even sure if the woman was really there or not. Who lives in an invisible house? “Is this your house?” Noe asked.
“Who are you talking to, Noe?” asked Crystal, her purple eyes darting around the space that Noe saw as a house, but the rest of them saw as forest. Noe shivered, remembering her purple-eyed father standing beside her in the basement asking, “What are you pointing at, Noe?”
“They can’t hear you?” asked Noe.
“Does it sound like they can hear me? As long as I stay inside this house, they can’t see or hear me. And you shouldn’t be able to, either,” said the woman with the accent.
“Noe, what is going on!” said Radiah.
“You were spying on me when I went to get the mail the other week,” said Noe, guessing that this woman was the one who had moved the curtain.
“A woman can look out her own window.”
“Erica was joking, wasn’t she? There’s no house here. You’re messing with us too,” said Radiah.
Noe finally gave up on the woman in the invisible house and turned to her purple-eyed friends, startling a bit because she couldn’t get used to seeing eyes that color. “There’s a house here. And apparently somebody lives in it. That’s who I’m talking to. You can’t see or hear her because she’s inside.”
“For goodness’ sake,” said Radiah, and marched directly at Noe and the house. Except Radiah didn’t walk straight. She veered around the house until she ended up at a spot up the ravine. She turned and crossed her arms. Her purple eyes were tiny glowing flecks at this distance. “See? I just walked through it. No house.”
“You’ll never convince her she’s not walking in a straight line.” The woman looked around the neighborhood, her eyes squinting behind the tinted lenses. “I can’t have you girls drawing attention to this part of the street. Come inside.” The woman disappeared into the house, leaving the door open.
After Radiah returned, walking that same curve that didn’t seem like a curve to her, Noe said, “I know you can’t see it, but there is a house here. And I think it holds the answers to everything. To Erica. To her diary. To this neighborhood. To . . . the Smashed Man. But the only way I’m going to be able to show you is to take you inside.” She took Ruthy’s hand and then motioned for Crystal and Radiah to form a chain. “Follow me for ten more seconds, and if nothing unusual happens, call me crazy and we can all go home.”
The girls all paused, looking at each other uncertainly, before finally linking hands and following Noe. She thought there might be problems going up the steps to the porch, but the girls followed her like they were walking up a hill. She crossed the threshold of the open door and heard a gasp behind her. Her head whipped around, and she saw her purple-eyed friends staring at her hand, the one that held Ruthy’s.
I must have disappeared, she thought. And then she almost giggled. Except for my hand. She tugged Ruthy through, and the other two girls followed.
“Did we just teleport?” asked Crystal, looking around the inside of the house with the wonder of someone who has seen a well-executed magic trick. Her eyes had returned to their bright blue.
“Erica’s diary was right,” said Radiah, her brown eyes and mouth competing for which was opened wider.
“This place is a dump,” said Noe.
Around them were piles of books and laboratory equipment. The peeling walls had star charts and scientific diagrams taped to them. One of the windows had a large, jagged hole in the glass. That must have been from Erica. But mixed in with all that were dirty, rumpled clothes and dishes caked with dried food. There was a rickety folding camp chair. A stained, threadbare couch. It was disgusting. Like the way Mom described Noe’s room when it was only messy.
“I hate it here,” said the woman with the accent, appearing from a side room. She was balancing a rattling brass tea set on a platter in one hand, while her other hand was busy with the crutch. She looked precarious, so Noe lifted her arms to help her, but the woman shot her a look through the red lenses that made Noe back up instead. “I can’t believe I have to live here. All because of that little girl going after the monster in her basement.”
All four girls froze and stared at the woman. “You know about the Smashed Man?” Noe asked.
“Is that what you girls call him?”
“But adults . . .”
“Noelle Wiley, you don’t know anything. You’ve all stumbled across a monster and think you know everything about ever
y universe.”
“You’re not very nice,” said Ruthy.
“Why would I be? A month ago, I was home in Gulf Shores. That’s in Alabama. It’s the most beautiful place in the country. Right on the bluest part of the Gulf of Mexico. Warm all the time, and sunshine like it’s your best friend. White sand so bright and clean. Birds so big they’re like angels skimming across the water. And now I’m in this tiny town in cold, gray New England. I mean, you call this summer?” She pointed out the window. “I’m not even breaking a sweat.” She shook her head, the curly ends of her hair bobbing a little as she did so. “If only that girl had left the . . . Smashed Man . . . alone.”
“I don’t like the way this woman is talking about Erica,” said Radiah.
“How do you know my name?” asked Noe. “And what’s yours?”
“Fern. And I know who you are because it’s ridiculously easy to discover that kind of information.” Fern placed the tea set on a cardboard box and poured tea into three brass teacups engraved with elephants, the trunks of which formed the cup handles. “Take a cup of tea. Sit down somewhere. I don’t like you girls standing around like a bunch of fool flamingos.” She didn’t acknowledge that there weren’t enough teacups for everyone but did take one for herself.
None of the girls took the remaining two teacups, but they all crowded onto the couch after pushing off clothes and moving dishes to the floor. Noe leaned on one of the couch’s arms. It looked like it had been clawed by a cat. Fern sat with a little difficulty in the folding camp chair—this time Noe didn’t even try to help her—placing the crutch on the floor beside her and holding her cup of tea delicately, like it might disintegrate at any second.
“Let me make this clear: I don’t want to explain anything to you,” said Fern. “I want you all to go back to your homes and forget about this house. That’s what I want most in the world right now. But I also know that’s not going to happen. Because little girls like you don’t know what’s best. So I’m going to explain a few things so that you’ll leave me and this house alone. I want you all to shut your mouths. Don’t ask questions. Don’t comment. And when I’m done, you go home and forget about this house.”