If You Find This

by Matthew Baker

  “—so now we’re going to summon the ghost—”

  “—with that blueprint somehow—”

  “—so he can trip the ghost back, and avenge himself, and reclaim his honor.”

  “Nicholas Funes, you are welcome to join us, provided you don’t drop dead during the middle of the seance,” Kayley (forte)said.

  Mascara shadowed her eyes. The skull earring hung from her throat by a string. A stick of chalk was stuck in the pocket of her shirt.

  “No flashlights from here,” Kayley (forte)said.

  As the flashlights switched, on to off, on to off, on to off, the faces vanished. Mark Huff’s face was the last to vanish. It looked, for the first time I had ever seen, scared.

  I led everyone into the ghosthouse, which sounded empty, but wasn’t empty at all.

  “We must pinpoint the heart of the structure,” Kayley (piano)said.

  She (piano)unfurled the blueprint, tracing the lines of the blueprint like she had traced the lines in my palms.

  “In the room where the beams converge and diverge,” Kayley (pianissimo)whispered.

  She paced from room to room, using the blueprint as a map. She drifted through the hallway. She drifted through the kitchen. She drifted through the entryway. The others stood (piano)whispering, in moonlight, in darkness. It felt weirdnightmare, seeing strangers inside these rooms. I calculated the odds Grandpa Dykhouse had hidden in the bathtub, which were about 43%, and in the cabinets, which were about 17%, and in the space between the door and the wall, which were about 29%. The others had hidden upstairs, unless someone had doubled back.

  Kayley paused at the bottom of the staircase, facing the fireplace. She crouched, her back hunched like the crook of a bassoon. She tossed the blueprint. She drew a pentagram on the floor with a stump of chalk. She chalked the outline of a body into the pentagram, with the head, the hands, the feet, at the star’s five points.

  “Here,” Kayley (piano)said.

  Everyone circled the pentagram. I sat alongside Mark Huff. “I’m not sitting by the black spot!” Mark Huff (piano)hissed. Everyone scooted away from me, squeezing into a half circle across the pentagram, like people avoiding someone with a majorly contagious disease.

  “Two spirits haunt this house,” Kayley (piano)said.

  Kayley stuck the stick of chalk in the pocket of her shirt.

  “One’s soul haunts the staircase, the kitchen, the cellar, often appearing as a hovering glow. One’s soul haunts the porch, the bathroom, the fireplace, often appearing as a hovering mist,” Kayley (piano)said.

  “Hovering glow?” Crooked Teeth (piano)said.

  “Hovering mist?” The Unibrow (piano)said.

  “Freaky,” Leah Keen (fermata)whispered.

  I spotted something shadowy gliding along the railing upstairs. The Geluso twins were facing the staircase, but didn’t seem to notice.

  “Which shall we summon?” Kayley (piano)said.

  “I don’t know,” Mark Huff (piano)whispered.

  “Which tripped you?” Kayley (piano)said.

  “I never saw,” Mark Huff (piano)whispered.

  “Make him fight them both!” the Geluso twins (homophony)said.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Emma Dirge (pianissimo)whimpered.

  “The mist ghost, okay, the mist ghost!” Mark Huff (piano)whispered.

  Kayley pointed at the chalk symbol.

  “Spit on the body,” Kayley (forte)said.

  Mark Huff spit on the outline of the body.

  “Stand on the star,” Kayley (forte)said.

  Mark Huff stood on the pentagram. His eyes were > his normal eyes. Twice as big, maybe. A (forte)hacking noise shook the staircase.

  “What was that?” Mark Huff (glissando)said.

  “In requiem. In harmony. Tonight the stars align. We summon the spirit’s form. The soul uses your spit to regain its body,” Kayley (forte)said.

  Again the (forte)hacking noise. Emma Dirge and Leah Keen were hugging their flashlights. The Geluso twins were clutching the earflaps of their hats like people gripping the sides of a roller coaster. Mark Huff crouched, fists clenched together. Wind (forte)whaled against the house. Leaves (forte)skidded across the floor. The curtains (forte)snapped. Again the (fortissimo)hacking noise. The Gelusos (homophony)shouted, “Get ready, Mark!” Kayley (crescendo)shouted, “The spirit draws near!”

  Then, from upstairs, a vast white form exploded across the railing, hanging above us and then (forte)fluttering at the pentagram, and everyone (falsetto, creak)screamed, even me.

  “A message from beyond!” Kayley (forte)shouted. She leapt for them as they swooped to the floor—graphing paper, prealgebra handouts, loose-leaf essays. It was the ISAAC NOTES.

  But, from upstairs, more (mezzo-forte)hacking, and a (forte)thudding and a (fortissimo)spewing sound, over and over and over, like a monster’s growling, and as the Gelusos (piano)snatched fistfuls of floating paper Mark Huff (staccato)shouted “What is that?” and Emma Dirge and Leah Keen huddled together fumbling for their flashlights but Kayley (sforzando)shouted, “Lights will upset the spirits!” but Mark Huff had switched his flashlight too and their beams swung across the staircase and the bathroom and the ceiling and each other and something kept (fortissimo)spewing and the Gelusos were gaping and Emma Dirge was (allegro)whimpering “Let’s leave let’s leave let’s leave!” and Leah Keen was (adagio)whispering majorly illogical things like “Don’t—” and “Please—” and “Everybody—” until the beams met at the fireplace, at the hearth, alighting, together, like a spotlight, onto Grandpa Dykhouse’s shoes.

  “Legs in the fireplace!” Mark Huff (forte)shouted.

  “Abandon ship!” the Geluso twins (homophony)shouted.

  Everyone bolted from the ghosthouse into the yard. The Geluso twins scattered into the trees. The others dodged (forte)yapping wolfdogs and flew after the Gelusos. I ran for the shed, to hide until everyone had vanished, but then something shoved me against the dead walnut tree.

  “Once you’ve been given the black spot, nothing can stop what’s coming for you,” Kayley (piano)hissed, ISAAC NOTES (piano)crinkling between her arms. “But here,” Kayley (decrescendo)said, “for luck.” Then she kissed me, her lips to my eyebrow.

  My eyebrow felt happyjamboree. My eyebrow had never had feelings before. My eyebrow wanted more feelings. “What if I need more luck than that?” I (piano)said.

  She squinted. She stared at my eyebrow. Then she kissed me again, her lips to my lips.

  Then, in my brain, only numbers—zeros and ones, zeros and ones, zeros and ones, 01101100011011110111011001100101, a sort of symphony, all pianos and violins.

  “That’s all the luck I have for now,” Kayley (pianissimo)said.

  Before, Nicholas Funes = Boy Who No One Would Want To Kiss.

  Now, Nicholas Funes = Boy Who Was Somehow Kissable.

  It felt odd, having become this other thing.

  “Please don’t die, Nicholas Funes!” Kayley (forte)shouted, flying into the trees. “I want to teach you to be a better kisser!”

  In the ghosthouse, Grandpa Dykhouse was lighting the lantern.

  “Everyone saw your shoes,” I (mezzo-piano)said.

  “I’ll hide somewhere foolproof next time,” Grandpa Dykhouse (mezzo-piano)muttered.

  Grandpa Rose had puked during the seance. He was sick, was (pianissimo)mumbling, wasn’t himself. The blood had drained from his face. He hobbled from the staircase toward the fireplace, using Jordan’s shoulders as a cane.

  “Who threw the ISAAC NOTES?” I (mezzo-piano)said.

  Jordan waved at Zeke.

  “I tried to stop him,” Jordan (mezzo-piano)said.

  I gestured at Zeke.

  “You could have ended things with the Isaacs forever,” I (mezzo-piano)said.

  Zeke chewed a lip, helping Grandpa Rose onto the hearth.

  “There will always be Little Isaacs. There will always be Big Isaacs,” Zeke (mezzo-piano)said. “There will always
be Isaacs.”

  (caesura).

  “I knew what I had to do,” Zeke (piano)said. “No Isaac will ever stop me from doing that.”

  Numbers had been humming through my brain ever since the kiss, but it wasn’t until Jordan and Zeke and I had left the ghosthouse and were hiking home through the swaying birches and the swaying pines and the swaying oaks that I hit the limit, my brain touched infinity, the numbers clicked into place, everything canceling everything, equation solved.

  X18471913 = ?

  I (piano)whispered to myself, “The stone boy.”

  “What did you say?” Zeke (forte)said.

  “We’re going back to the ghosthouse,” I (piano)said.

  “Now?” Zeke (forte)said.

  “And we need to run,” I (piano)said.

  We bolted to the ghosthouse, the wolfdogs galloping alongside. Grandpa Dykhouse was settling Grandpa Rose into a bed of crumpled wool blankets.

  “I know where the heirlooms are,” I (forte)said.

  “How?” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

  “You,” I (forte)said.

  Jordan gaped.

  “The librarian powers actually worked?” Jordan (forte)said.

  I rooted through the notes about Grandpa Rose’s memories, flattening pages on the floor.

  “Here” (pointing at “he started burying bodies for the smugglers”) “and here” (pointing at “the name of whoever was buried there where he would have to bury the others”) “and here” (pointing at “the thick ring of iron keys the smugglers had given him”).

  “What? What ‘here’? I don’t get it,” Jordan (forte)said.

  “He buried the heirlooms where he buried the bodies! The same place! The graveyard!” I (forte)said.

  “The graveyard?” Jordan (forte)said, but Zeke (forte)said, “Makes sense. Already hundreds of bodies there. Nobody would notice a few extra.”

  “And I know where they’re buried,” I (forte)said. “The tomb of XAVIER. Born 1847. Dead 1913.”

  “X18471913!” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)whispered, and Jordan (forte)said, “We’re going to need shovels.”

  “It’s not that sort of grave,” I (forte)said. “What we’ll need is a crowbar.”

  HEIRLOOMS

  Sleet poured from the sky, making ghosts of the trees and slush of the road. I huddled into myself as we walked, hugging the crowbar to my chest, my nose leaking snot. None of us had coats. Grandpa Rose wasn’t himself, didn’t understand where we were going.

  “Take me back, take me back to that house,” Grandpa Rose (forte)begged.

  “Quiet, Monte,” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)hissed.

  Jordan and Zeke kept tight grips on Grandpa Rose, leading him along. A black truck (forte)honked at us, its tires (mezzo-forte)spinning in the sleet as it fishtailed across the bridge. The wolfdogs (forte)barked until the taillights had vanished.

  When we got to the graveyard, we tried to boost Grandpa Rose over the spiked fence, but he was too weak to get over.

  “Who are you people? Where are we going? Do you know who you’re dealing with?” Grandpa Rose (fortissimo)shouted, spittle flecking his shirt.

  “Would you shut up!” I (piano)hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth.

  I shoved the crowbar at Jordan, then led Grandpa Rose along the fence to the gate, an iron archway with a padlocked chain, with Grandpa Dykhouse hobbling after. Jordan was at the gate already, bashing at the padlock, the crowbar clanging against it (fortissimo)again and (fortissimo)again and (fortissimo)again like a song of Can’t Get In. Zeke was crouched at the gate with his wolfdogs, (pianissimo)whispering into their ears. A van drove past us, its tires (mezzo-piano)swishing in the sleet, and parked at the rest home, its headlights switching off.

  “Hurry, boy, hurry!” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)hissed at Jordan, staring at the van.

  “My fingers are starting to freeze to the crowbar,” Jordan (piano)muttered, swinging the crowbar at the padlock.

  The headlights of a car parked at the grocer switched on. Zeke was chewing a lip. Jordan swung the crowbar at the padlock again, and then, from the crowbar and the padlock, (forte)rang a different song, a one-note song of Enter. The padlock dropped from the chain, and the chain (forte)rattled through the bars of the gate and dropped into the sleet. Zeke shouldered the gate, and we stepped into the graveyard, the wolfdogs galloping ahead.

  At the mausoleum, Grandpa Rose was himself again.

  “And this place,” Grandpa Rose (piano)whispered. He wiped sleet from the face of the mausoleum, unburying letters, first X, then X VI, then XAVIER. Underneath that, 1847–1913.

  Zeke had scrambled onto the tomb with the stone boy, was keeping a lookout as the wolfdogs prowled through gravestones below. The mausoleum’s padlock > the gate’s padlock, at least twice the size. Jordan was cradling the crowbar, staring at the padlock, looking defeated.

  “There’s no way we’ll break this one,” Jordan (piano)said.

  “We won’t have to,” I (piano)said.

  I dug for the key in my pocket, felt the shape of the X with my thumb.

  “I see flashlights!” Zeke (piano)hissed.

  “Where?” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)hissed.

  “Outside of the graveyard!” Zeke (piano)hissed.

  I jammed the X key into the padlock. As I twisted it, I felt it scraping through the rust on the inside, unlocking something that had been locked even longer than I had been alive. The padlock (piano)popped open.

  I hauled the chain from the rings on the doors.

  Jordan stepped past me, but I stopped him.

  “After Grandpa Rose,” I (piano)said.

  Grandpa Rose nodded, and frowned.

  Then Grandpa Rose gripped the rings, shoved apart the doors, and stepped inside.

  The air in the mausoleum smelled rotten. Skeletons in tattered clothes were piled along the walls—a skull blindfolded with a wool scarf, a skull with a broken eye socket, a skull split by zigzag parallel cracks, a skeleton in a checkered suit jacket tangled together with skeletons in plain suit jackets, bones stuffed into boots flecked with dried concrete, bones stuffed into leather loafers, jaws with uneven teeth, jaws with silver teeth, jaws stuffed with moldy gags—all of the bodies Grandpa Rose had been paid to hide. Near my high-tops lay a loose hand of pale bones, wearing a dull wedding ring. I hadn’t expected to be afraid of the bodies, but seeing them was different from hearing about them. Seeing them, I got colddeathbed, like all of the warmth inside me had been sucked straight out.

  Zeke stood in the doorway with his wolfdogs around him. “I don’t like this place,” Zeke (piano)whispered. Zeke wouldn’t step inside.

  “So many bodies,” Grandpa Dykhouse (adagio)whispered, staring at the skeletons, but Grandpa Rose (allegro)whispered, “Yes, this place, I remember being here!”

  XAVIER’s casket sat in the center of the mausoleum. A dark trunk with a brass lock had been shoved against the foot of the casket. The lock was engraved, with cramped gold letters, ROSE.

  My heartbeat beat faster, and faster, and faster, hit an uncountable tempo.

  “The key,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.

  I dropped the ROSE key into Grandpa Rose’s cupped hands.

  I knelt at the trunk.

  Grandpa Rose twisted the key and lifted the lid.

  The trunk was almost empty.

  No ivory revolver. No bellows clock. No golden hammer.

  At the bottom were a faded photograph, a pair of leather notebooks, and a rusted metal cog.

  I gaped at Grandpa Rose. Grandpa Rose gaped at the trunk.

  “Are these the heirlooms?” I (piano)said.

  Grandpa Rose shook his head.

  “I remember there being so much more,” Grandpa Rose (piano)whispered.

  My heart had quit. I slumped against the trunk.

  Grandpa Rose (piano)murmured something I couldn’t understand. He shoved his shirtsleeves to the elbows, then reached into the trunk. He took the faded photograph, carefully pinching the curled e
dges. He grimaced, like someone about to either puke or cry.

  “Do you know who this is?” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.

  It was a woman with tangled hair and an upturned nose, wearing a bluish dress, standing against some birch trees. She was holding a garden spade and a watering can.

  “Who?” I (piano)said.

  “Your Grandma Rose,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.

  “But she never let anyone take her photo,” I (piano)said.

  “She only ever let me take just this one,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said.

  I sat back up. I took the photo. I stared at her face. I memorized the eyebrows, the jawline, every wrinkle, every freckle. No one would ever want to buy it, but there was nothing else like it. It was totally worthless and totally priceless. I couldn’t stop staring.

  “You were right,” I (piano)whispered.

  “A picture? What about the treasure? Where are the revolver, the clock, the hammer?” Jordan (forte)said, but Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)grunted at him, like BE QUIET.

  “What about these?” I (piano)said. I took a leather notebook, flipping to a random page of misspelled words and underlined numbers.

  “Nothing, useless, diaries I kept when I was away,” Grandpa Rose (piano)said. He collapsed onto the casket, scratching at his beard with both hands. In the moonlight, his face looked ancient. “Where are your heirlooms, kid? Kid, why aren’t your heirlooms here?”

  “What’s this?” I (piano)said, touching the rusted metal cog, but Grandpa Rose (forte)shouted, “I don’t know, Nicholas, I don’t know!”

  It was the only time he had ever used my name.

  Then the wolfdogs (forte)snarled, and from the doorway Zeke (forte)said, “Do you remember when I mentioned those people with flashlights?”

  I spun around.

  “Why?” I (piano)said.

  “Because they’re here,” Zeke (forte)said.

  We stepped from the mausoleum—Grandpa Rose, Jordan, Zeke, and I. The four of us stood in the sleet, Grandpa Rose (piano)mumbling to himself and squinting at the flashlights, Jordan’s fingers swollen from breaking the padlock, Zeke’s face purpled with bruises, me clutching my grandmother’s photograph, the leather notebooks, the rusted metal cog.