She flipped her pillow again and settled into it with a sigh. She tuned out every thought, or at least tried to, and focused on the tick, tick, tick of the clock. After what felt like another three hours, she finally fell asleep.
Even asleep, Lena couldn’t get any real rest. The moment her breathing grew regular she felt herself running down long rows of strawberries. She had no idea why she was running, she only knew she had to. She raced down an endless row, her heart thumping in her chest. She was out of breath. But there was someone behind her — someone she desperately wanted to avoid. Or perhaps something in front of her — something she desperately wanted to see.
Her feet thudded on the ground over and over until she wasn’t sure if she was forcing them to keep moving or if they were forcing her. Then, all at once, the rows of berries gave way to something new.
She wasn’t running any longer. She was climbing. Up, up, and up she went, getting higher and higher. The rungs of the ladder were slanted, the gaps uncomfortably wide. She hoisted herself step-by-step, panting with the effort. Her legs burned. She could barely see. All around was fog, or haze, or blur. She ignored whatever it was and kept climbing. She had to get to the top….
Suddenly, the climbing was over. She had arrived, apparently, and was seated on a small shelf. She knew she had to be up really high, but she couldn’t see through the thick white mist that surrounded her.
Lifting the camera from around her neck (had it been there a moment before?), Lena held it in front of her face. Her vision cleared, but what she saw made her want to close her eyes. She was several stories above the strawberry field, not running, not climbing, not sitting. She was falling. Falling fast.
Lena woke with her heart pounding and her back damp with sweat. Looking around her darkened room, she knew she’d been dreaming. She wasn’t falling — she was safe and sound in bed. Her clock read 4:45. The camera was beside it, the viewfinder looking at her like a mechanical cyclops.
She changed her tank top, flipped her pillow (again!), and slipped back into bed. Closing her eyes, she tried to change the movie playing over in her mind, remind herself it was just a dream. But even awake and solidly in her bed, she felt as though she were falling….
As soon as the sun was up, Lena was, too. She jumped out of bed, grabbed a frayed-hem denim skirt out of her closet, and riffled through her dresser. The pale green T-shirt that Abby had customized for her seemed as good a choice as any, and she pulled it on before slipping the Impulse strap over her head. As soon as the camera was hanging at her side, she felt dressed. A quick comb-through of her strawberry-blond hair and she was on her way.
From the top of the stairs she could smell simmering peaches. Her dad had started canning early to beat the heat — obviously a losing battle. Just walking into the kitchen made Lena break into a sweat.
“Mmm.” Mr. Giff mumbled a greeting through a bite of toast covered in warm, foamy jam skimmings. “Wanf smmm?” he asked with his mouth full.
It did smell good, but Lena shook her head. Her stomach was jumping all over the place. She wanted to talk to Abby.
“I’m heading over to Abby’s for breakfast,” Lena fibbed, slipping her messenger bag over her head and making her getaway before her dad asked for help. “Happy canning.” She waved, and was out the door.
The urge to run the three blocks to Abby’s house was beaten down by temperature and tiredness. Lena walked as quickly as she could without breaking a sweat, trying not to let the nightmare replay in her head.
Abby was sprawled on a futon on the screened-in porch of her house on Bixby Street, wearing old-man boxer shorts and a tank top. Her skinny brown arms and legs were flung out wide, as if they were afraid to touch anything. She was awake, but barely. When she saw Lena, she held out her hand like a star trying to block photographers.
“Stop with the paparazzi!” she mumbled. “It’s too early for pictures.”
Lena tried to laugh at the joke, but all she managed was a feeble smile. It was too early for pictures. She didn’t even know why she’d worn the camera.
Well, actually, she sort of did. Ever since she’d bought the Impulse, not wearing it felt really weird. Whenever she took it off, an anxious feeling came over her, like something terrible was going to happen. And that was what she wanted to talk to Abby about.
“I think I’m being haunted,” she blurted.
In an instant Abby was wide-awake. She sat up and swung her long legs over the edge of the futon. Her dark eyes looked worried. “You think you’re being what?”
“Haunted,” Lena repeated in a hoarse whisper. Now that she’d said the words, she suddenly felt a little woozy. She steadied herself against the pillar at the top of the stairs. “You know, by that boy,” she went on. “And the tower. The things that are showing up.” Lena took a deep breath, several slow steps, and climbed into the hammock that was strung across a corner of the Starlings’ porch. “I think the camera is haunted, or like, a medium — one of those things ghosts use to communicate,” she finished. Wow. She wasn’t really planning on saying all of that — it just kind of came out. When did I decide I was being haunted? she wondered with a shudder.
Lena pulled the tower picture, the one that had started it all, out of her bag and stared at it for a long time. Abby sighed, got to her feet, and worked her way into the hammock beside her so the two of them could look at it together.
The hammock swung slowly back and forth, the fabric creaking on the hooks that held it. Lena heaved a sigh. It was a bit of a relief to have put her spooky suspicions into words, and another relief that Abby hadn’t laughed. But if what she said was true, things would undoubtedly get a lot worse before they got better … if they got better at all.
“You can’t get that tower out of your head, can you?” Abby finally asked. “I wish I had seen it. Or not seen it. Or whatever.”
“I wish you had seen it, too.” Lena pressed her lips together. “Or that I hadn’t. Actually, I just wish I could stop thinking about it, or dreaming about it….”
“Dreaming about it?” Abby echoed.
Lena nodded. “And not good dreams.”
“Ew. Nightmares.” Abby’s eyes looked genuinely worried now. She put her hand on Lena’s shoulder for an instant, then took it away to pick up one of the photos. “Hey …” Abby pulled the picture closer to her face. “This is weird.”
The whole thing is weird, Lena thought. But she leaned in to see what her friend was pointing at.
Abby’s blue-painted fingernail was hovering over the letters on the water tower in the photo. “The town is ‘Phelps,’ right?”
Lena nodded and looked closer, immediately seeing what Abby was talking about.
“Check it out. There are only four of the letters of the town’s name in this picture: h, e, l, and p. And that spells …”
“Help,” Lena finished. “Maybe the shadow needs our help,” she added quietly. “Maybe there’s something about that tower that he wants us to know.”
The air in the screened-in porch felt closer and hotter than ever. Gray clouds were gathering, throwing a blanket on the sky.
The creepy feeling Lena had been trying to shake settled hard around her shoulders. She wished it weren’t so muggy. She wished she could crawl into Abby’s abandoned bed. She wished she could hide under the covers for eternity.
“Well, I guess that’s better than beware,” Abby breathed.
Lena laughed nervously. She supposed Abby had a point. So far it didn’t seem like the boy wanted to hurt her. But he was super-creepy in the pictures, and last night’s nightmare was terrifying.
Lena could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She was trying not to panic, but …
“We need some answers,” Abby said after studying Lena’s troubled face. She grabbed Lena by the hand and pulled her through the screen door and into the den, which was thankfully cooler than outside. Abby pulled an extra chair up to the desk and gently pushed Lena into it. “Time for a little research,” sh
e announced as she slid into her own chair and switched on the family computer.
Lena smiled, grateful for her friend’s action-taking nature. They waited while the machine hummed to life, then did a Google search for “Phelps water tower.”
“Not Phelps County in Nebraska, though,” Abby said with a chuckle, glancing through the listings that came up.
Lena couldn’t laugh. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was being haunted.
“Or Georgia,” Abby added, scrolling down and clicking on the only entry that looked like it might apply — a brief article about Malcolm Phelps, the founder of Phelps, New Jersey. He’d had the tower built in 1919.
“Well, at least I know that the dang thing actually exists,” Lena breathed, feeling a tiny bit relieved. “Or existed …”
Abby tried a few more searches, but couldn’t find anything to confirm whether the tower still stood or not.
“That’s the Internet for you, totally incomplete,” Lena declared, parroting her father, who was a high school teacher. It was odd, because she wasn’t sure if she wanted the tower to be there. On the one hand, it would mean that the camera had captured reality (a welcome change). On the other, how could she have missed something so huge and obvious?
Abby was about to start a new search when the screen went dark. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think I crashed it.” She tried to reboot. Nothing. Lena checked the plugs. Everything looked fine, but the computer seemed dead.
“This thing is practically new,” Abby said, giving the monitor a gentle whack. “It’s never done anything like this before.”
Lena got to her feet, and the Polaroid knocked lightly against the edge of the desk. She glanced down, momentarily wondering if the camera had anything to do with the computer crash.
“It’s cool,” Abby reassured her. “My mom is a whiz with this stuff. She’ll get it up and running in no time. And we need to get out of here, anyway. You look like you’ve seen a gho —” She stopped herself. “Well, you’ve looked better,” she corrected.
Abby got up and started to put on her shoes before she noticed she was still wearing her pajamas. “Wait here,” she told her friend. “I don’t want to ruin my reputation as a fashionista….”
After Abby disappeared upstairs, Lena pulled out the picture of the Phelps tower. It looked just like the one they’d seen on the Internet. Confirmation. Right? “Are you there?” she whispered to the photo. A hot breeze coming through the screen door was the only answer she got.
Abby returned dressed in a cute skirt and sandals and scarfing down a bagel. “I’m guessing there’s no way we can talk your dad into a return trip to Phelps?” she half asked. “That would be the easiest way to go back and see what’s really there.”
Lena shook her head. Her dad was in full jam production, so unless he ran out of fruit, it wasn’t even worth asking him to step away from the stove. He would simmer fruit and jars and measure sugar and pectin all day. By evening the kitchen would be filled with jam and they’d have pizza for dinner.
“And I’m also guessing you won’t sleep again until you have proof that tower is really there?” Abby raised a brow.
Lena grimaced. Right again. She just had to know if the tower in her photo had been there when she snapped the shot … or not. If she knew that, she might be able to unravel the mystery of the boy.
“Okay. Then we need to go somewhere where we can do some real research,” Abby concluded. And without waiting for an answer, she shoved the last bite of bagel into her mouth and grabbed Lena by the hand.
CHAPTER SIX
Even though Abby didn’t say so, Lena knew exactly where they were going. It was no secret that Abby loved the town library almost as much as a flea market, and Lena was a big fan, too. The ancient stone building was large and grand and smelled of books. And, best of all, it was air-conditioned.
“Information desk, here we come,” Abby announced as Lena took a picture of her walking through the front door. “I hope that grumpy old guy with the crazy beard isn’t working today….”
Luckily, Captain Whiskers wasn’t at the desk. A bookish but friendly-looking woman with red hair and reading glasses was sitting behind it instead. “We’re looking for information on the Phelps water tower,” Abby said, getting right to the point.
The woman looked up from the stack of books she was checking in and smiled. “Phelps water tower?” she repeated. “You mean the one that was torn down?”
Lena nearly choked on her tongue. How easy was that?! she thought. A single sentence gave her confirmation that the giant tower 1) had existed and 2) had been demolished. “Yes,” she cried, a little more emphatically than she meant to. “That’s the one.” Then, just as fast, her next thought erased the relief she’d felt. If it had been torn down, what was it doing in her picture?
“Do you happen to know when they tore it down?” Abby asked. She was great at details. And actually, if the tower had been torn down yesterday then it could have still been there in the picture.
“Hmmmm,” the librarian said thoughtfully. “I’m not sure, but I think it was sometime in the late nineties. I remember it being kind of a big deal at the time … lots of people protested the demolition. It was in the paper for weeks.”
“Well. There you go.” Abby clucked her tongue. “Thanks a lot for your —” Lena grabbed her friend’s arm to keep her from walking away.
“Is there any way we can search those old newspapers?” Lena asked. “You know, read some of the articles you mentioned?”
“Certainly,” the librarian replied with a smile. “I can set you up with some rolls of microfilm and you can search to your heart’s content. It might take a while to find the right dates, but if you’re feeling patient I’m sure you’ll find them.” The librarian got to her feet and the girls followed her toward the back of the building.
Lena wasn’t feeling particularly patient — more like the opposite. The gears were spinning wildly in her mind. Every answer seemed to lead to a new question. If the tower wasn’t there anymore but it showed up in the picture, what about the boy?
“What exactly are we looking for?” Abby whispered as they walked past long, tall rows of neatly shelved books.
“I don’t know yet,” Lena replied. She hoped she’d know when she saw it.
The librarian stepped inside a quiet room filled with flat files and several machines. “These cabinets hold all the Narrowsburg Buglers printed since the paper was first published in 1908,” she said, donning her reading glasses so she could make out the tiny labels on the drawers. She opened one near the bottom. “I would start with late spring of 1997 — that should be far back enough — and work your way forward.”
“Great, thanks,” Abby said. She pulled open a drawer and ran a finger along the boxes of rolled film. Clearly her tenacity was kicking in. Lena eyed the rows and rows (and rows) of microfilm and felt her heart sink. This was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
“Here we go. June 1, 1997,” Abby said, pulling the roll out of the drawer. Then she reached back in and grabbed several more boxes. “Can you get the 1999s?” she asked, nearly dropping a bunch of film.
Lena caught two rolls before they fell to the floor, plucked the last three from the drawer, and followed her best friend to the microfilm machines. Abby started to set herself up on one. There was another beside her, but Lena hesitated.
“I know it would be faster if we each took a machine, but I kind of want to look together,” Lena said.
Abby slid the film into the machine. “Oookaaaay,” she said, drawing the word out and asking her friend without actually asking: Are you all right?
“I’m just a little weirded out is all,” Lena replied. Her sleepless night was catching up with her — her head felt like it was packed with cotton.
Lena pulled a chair up beside Abby’s and together they watched newspaper headlines and articles whiz by on the screen in front of them.
After what seemed l
ike an hour, but was probably six minutes, Abby paused on an ad for ultra-hold mousse. “Check out that hairdo,” she said, pointing at the image on the screen. The woman in the picture had a puffy bob and bangs with a life of their own — they hovered about two inches above her eyebrows.
“Niiice,” Lena replied halfheartedly. Even though she was the reason they were searching for clues, she felt herself growing more and more anxious. At the moment, she just wanted to get out of there! Lena let out a long breath, adjusted the Impulse at her side, and tried to stop fidgeting.
Abby finished her second roll of microfilm and slid the end of a third into the machine. The images whirred along in a seemingly endless blur. “I’m not finding anything,” Abby confessed after a while. “You want to take a shot?”
Lena glanced out the window. A group of kids was shrieking, running through a sprinkler. Enjoying the heat.
“Hello? Lena?” Abby called.
“Sorry,” Lena apologized, shaking her head. Poor Abby was doing all the work while she was zoning out. She reached for the next box of microfilm and saw it had been unrolled and lay in coils all over the table beside her. Had she done that? She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. She didn’t remember moving them.
Lena shivered. “Actually, I don’t want to look anymore,” she said. “This is getting us nowhere. Summer is almost over, and what are we doing? Reading old newspapers! Let’s get out of here.”
Abby raised an eyebrow at her friend and opened her mouth to say something, then closed it instead. Without another word she pushed a lever, rewound the film, pulled it off the machine, and slipped it back into the box.
Lena was grateful not to have to explain why she wanted to leave. “Thanks,” she said as she got to her feet, gathering up the roll of spilled film. She collected the others, dropped two, and started cramming them back into the file cabinet.
Now You See Me ... Page 3