Julian came down the stairs first, wearing baggy shorts like a regular kid. His T-shirt had a cartoon of a bearded man with a really high forehead and angry black eyebrows. I’d have asked him about that, but he only looked my way for a second. Even then I saw the jitters in his eyes.
What did he have to fear? His dad wasn’t embarrassing, and my grandmother couldn’t be that scary. When Mr. Wayne nudged his shoulder, Julian stepped forward and offered his hand to Grandma.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hilliard. I’m Julian. I should have introduced myself yesterday, but I lost my way on your property. Avery was nice enough to show me around.”
Grandma smiled and gave his hand a dainty shake. “I hope you’ll be staying on the hill the whole summer, Julian. Every year Avery May and her brother come all the way from Dallas to visit, but until now they’ve never had anyone their age nearby. Usually we get retired couples or writers on retreat at the cottage.” She turned to Mr. Wayne. “You’re our very first musician. I hope you’ll consider joining us at Sycamore Road Church of Christ this summer. The congregation would be honored to hear you sing.”
“That’s awfully kind of you, Mrs. Hilliard,” he said. “I’m quite fond of hymns. I started out singing in church, you know.”
Grandma leaned forward. “Did you really?”
“Best training I could have had. I even toured with a Christian group when Julian was little, and he used to sing with us from time to time. Good work for the soul, but not so great for the bank account.”
“Oh, I see.” Grandma took a breath and smiled again. “Do you have grand plans for the summer? Any questions I can answer?”
Mr. Wayne took a seat on the sectional, his body lean and supple like a cat’s—if a cat could sit upright and rest its paw on an armrest. Julian joined him, but he perched stiffly on the edge, similar to Grandma and me. I tried to send him a smile that said “This stinks, right?” but his jittery look didn’t soften.
“My plan for the summer,” said Mr. Wayne, “is to get some songs written. I need a place without distractions. No cable TV, no Wi-Fi. Your neck of the woods is perfect, and Julian needs a break from the city, too.” He didn’t even glance at Julian when he said that last bit, which I found interesting.
Grandma nodded. “And will your wife be joining you?”
Most of the time Grandma’s personal questions made me squirm, but this once I appreciated her nosiness. I wanted to know, too.
Mr. Wayne didn’t bat an eye. “My wife is a record producer, and she’s booked up with studio sessions this summer. Our daughter should be coming soon, though. Lily’s swim camp just ended, and she needs a space where she can run wild without distracting her mother. She’s only eight.”
For a second I’d perked up at the idea of another girl coming to our hill, but eight was practically a baby. And with Julian acting so strange, I was starting to wonder if I’d be on my own for the summer after all.
Julian spoke then, and his voice was so unexpected and loud that I nearly jumped.
“Dad, can I show Avery something in my room? It won’t take long.”
Mr. Wayne glanced from him to me and smiled. “Assuming it’s okay with Mrs. Hilliard. Just keep the door open.”
“Dad.”
“Be back in ten minutes, Avery May,” Grandma said. “I can answer all Mr. Wayne’s questions about the house during that time, and then we’ll have to move along.”
Julian practically bolted for the stairs, and after a quick nod at Grandma, I followed him. Obviously I’d been in Hollyhock Cottage many times before, but his room still managed to surprise me. The single bed was pushed against the wall on one side of the room—no big deal there. But the opposite wall looked like a display in an electronics store. A laptop sat on a wide desk with a massive external hard drive plugged into its left side. A monitor the size of a wide-screen TV sat at the center of the desk. The leftover desk space was filled with Julian’s camera and all sorts of other expensive-looking gadgets peeking out of padded cases. Wires and outlet strips snaked across the floor. Everything seemed to hum and flash and give off heat. A plump leather office chair faced us, as if waiting to fold Julian in its arms.
He obliged by slumping into it. “Okay, first of all, do you need to scream or something? If so, just get it over with.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been in a boy’s room before.”
“I mean my dad.”
“What about him? He seems okay.”
He studied me for a long moment, like some interrogator from a spy movie. “Are you messing with me?”
“Messing how?”
“Oh, come on. Curtis Wayne? Country music star Curtis Wayne?”
“Country music? I never listen to that stuff.”
His body actually crumpled a little, and I wondered if I was going to have to call for help or do CPR. It turned out to be a good kind of crumpling, though. It finally forced the jittery look off his face.
“You’re being serious?”
“I guess his name sounds familiar,” I said. “But I don’t pay much attention to who’s who in country music.”
“Wow. I mean…that’s great. I get so sick of people talking about him at school.” He shrugged. “I know it’s stupid, but I was hoping you’d never have to meet him. I didn’t want to be ‘Curtis Wayne’s son’ to you.”
“Is that why you asked me up here? To rant about your dad?”
I sounded crabby, I know. It’s just…I’d be sitting pretty if the only confession I had to make about my dad was that he was famous.
“Actually, I wanted to show you something. Pull that chair over here by the computer.” He jiggled his mouse and opened a gallery of thumbnails, clicking on the first one. “Check out this photo.”
“That’s Hilliard House,” I said, leaning closer. “But…you didn’t take this yesterday. It’s dark outside.”
“I snuck out there last night. Don’t tell my dad.”
At any other time I would have smiled at that—a shared secret was the cornerstone of friendship—but looking at that photo made me think of Grandma’s rules about Hilliard House. More important, Grandma’s biblical levels of wrath when she learned I’d broken those rules. Still, I couldn’t help staring at the shot. Julian must have been standing on the road in front, so the house seemed tall and spooky. Behind it the sky was a swirl of black and gold.
“I didn’t want to use the flash, so I took my tripod. It looks cool, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
He clicked through a few more photos—all pretty much the same as the first, but from different angles. “There’s one in particular I want to show you,” he said. “It’s the best of all, but it’s a little creepy.”
I was already creeped out by the thought of Grandma learning I’d followed Julian to Hilliard House. I didn’t think another photo would make a difference.
It did.
“You see it?” he asked.
Of course I did, and it made my throat close up. A light glowed faintly in the first-floor window, the one to the far left of the front door.
I turned to him, my face a little hot. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You must have got inside somehow.”
He leaned back in his chair, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. “It freaks you out a little, doesn’t it?”
I swallowed a few times and looked at the photo again. “What is it? Some flash effect?”
“I wasn’t using a flash, remember? And it’s not a reflection. It’s like someone lit a lamp in that room.” He clicked his mouse again. “But the light is gone in the rest of the shots.”
“Julian, why are you showing me all this?”
He clicked back to the photo with the light in the window. “I stayed up half the night thinking about this house. It might just work. In fact, I think it could be perfect.”
My belly did a backflip. “Perfect for what?”
“For our film, of
course.”
Ordinarily, just the mention of Hilliard House made my stomach twitch and roil. Seeing it yesterday, and now, looking at Julian’s photos, was really starting to mess with my head.
The strange thing was that I couldn’t remember exactly why it affected me that way. I guess Grandma’s anger was a part of it. She’d forbidden us to go there, and the one time I got caught breaking her rule I’d paid dearly for it. But there was something else on top of that—a memory that floated just out of reach, like dandelion fluff on the breeze. Or maybe it was more like a shadow that followed me but never could be faced straight on.
“Hold on a second,” I said. “I already told you there are lots better places on the farm for filming than that.”
“Like what? I can’t imagine any place cooler than that old house.”
I thought for a minute how to explain all the locations of Kingdom—magical and completely scare-free places—but then shook my head. “It’s better if I show you. Telling you just isn’t the same.”
He studied his computer screen. “But I was really hoping…”
“What?”
He scrolled through the photos one more time before taking a breath and facing me again. “No, you’re right. I should see all the options before we get started.” He grabbed his camera and pulled the strap over his head. “You do want to make a movie with me, right? Dad says I get a little carried away sometimes.”
“Yeah, it’d be super cool to make a movie. It’s just…I’ve never filmed anything before. I’m more of a writer.”
“It’s the same thing, pretty much. It’s all storytelling.” He checked the little screen on his camera before turning back to me. “You have favorite writers, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Well, I have favorite directors. That’s why I’m wearing this shirt.”
I pointed to it. “That’s a movie director? It looks more like a serial killer. My brother would probably wear a shirt like that.”
“It’s Stanley Kubrick. You know, 2001: A Space Odyssey? A Clockwork Orange?”
I had no clue what he was talking about, so I just shrugged.
His eyes narrowed. “They’re classic films. How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirteen.” In, like, ten and a half months. Close enough.
“Well, I only watched A Clockwork Orange after my cousin downloaded it. My dad would freak because it’s super creepy.” He stood up. “So, you want to show me these fabulous story locations now?”
—
Grandma reminded me I was due back at the house for lunch, so after politely saying good-bye and thanks to Mr. Wayne, I took Julian straight to the old cow barn.
The cows, who’d never shown much in the way of good taste, were fond of the new prefab barn near the house. Blake and I preferred the old half-ruined barn in the lower pasture, because on the inside it looked kind of medieval. Grandma said it looked that way because it was built like old English tithe barns, but on a smaller scale.
Julian stared up at it. “I don’t mean to be rude, but, seriously?”
“I know it seems like a cruddy old barn, but look inside. Does it remind you of anything?”
He walked through the wide doorway and looked around. Then he looked again through his camera lens.
“It, um, reminds me of…a barn?”
“But look at those beams,” I said. “They’re like arches. The first time we explored this place, Blake said it looked like a medieval hall. You know, for feasting and stuff? Like the Knights of the Round Table?”
“Interesting.” Julian took another look through his camera and clicked a few times. “It’s not my image of Camelot, but I could see Lancelot and Guinevere secretly meeting in a place like this.”
I smiled.
“But we can’t film here,” he said. “Too many obstacles. For one thing, the lighting is awful.”
I peered at the images over his shoulder. They did seem pretty dark. “What if I brought in some candles?”
Only problem was how to sneak them out of the house. Grandma would never give the okay for fire in the old barn.
Julian shook his head. “What else have you got?”
Our next stop was the cattail pond on the other side of the hill, the one Blake and I had named the Mystical Pool. Huge oak trees shaded it, and at one end was a thick cluster of cattails—tall, bushy, and regal. Blake and I had swum in this pond a few times, totally against Grandma’s rules. The muddy bottom had slurped and sucked at my feet, and one time Blake came out of the water with two leeches on his right leg. We never swam there again after that, but in our stories the pond became a magical body of water from which King Stanmore’s first wife arose and offered him the gift of a charmed sword…and her love.
As we drew near, about a hundred frogs squeaked and leapt into the water. Two turtles sunning on a dead branch slid under the surface with a plop. Their ripples widened until the water was smooth again.
I gestured at the pond with a flourish. “Pretty cool, huh?”
Julian studied it from one end to the other, and then checked it through his camera, same as with the barn. “It has an interesting quality to it,” he finally said. “A little eerie.”
I looked back at the pond. Eerie? Well, there were the leeches, but I hadn’t planned on telling him about that.
“If we wait here long enough,” I whispered, “the turtles and frogs will come back out.”
Julian frowned. “Maybe another time. What else have you got?”
Grandma would have called him a “tough customer,” but I’d been saving the best for last.
The copper beech tree was very old, very tall, and its branches drooped all the way to the ground. If you parted them, you walked into a space almost like a tepee, only not so dark and close—light and air could still filter in. The floor was cool dirt, making it a great place for escaping the heat and stickiness of a July day, and the leafy roof offered protection from the rain. In Kingdom, this was where the friendly badger family lived, and where Princess Etheline escaped when life at court grew boring, or worse, dangerous.
I parted the branches and waved Julian in. After a worried glance at me, he hugged his camera to his body and stepped inside.
“You can still stand under the branches when you’re close to the trunk,” I said, “but I like to sit. It cools me down. And then, when the sun shines directly through those dark red leaves, it’s like the sky is on fire.”
He lowered his backpack to the ground and sat next to me, his forehead wrinkling a little as he checked the scene through his camera. “Again, the lighting is a problem.”
“But I bet you never thought of filming under a tree before. It’s…” I scrambled for the right phrase, “out of the ordinary.”
He nodded. “Okay. But what sort of story would take place here? I’m not filming a Narnia movie.”
He might as well have kicked me. “What could be cooler than a Narnia movie?”
His eyes softened in a familiar way, as if he found me quaint. “It’s an interesting place, Avery, but not practical. Anything else?”
“Well…there’s bits of forest here and there that are kind of wild and old-timey.”
“Like what we walked through to get to Hilliard House?”
I nodded slowly.
“There’s the river, too,” he said. “We could make good use of that.”
“So what are you saying?” My stomach already seemed to know the answer, because it was churning again.
“I appreciate the tour, Avery, but Hilliard House is still the best option. All you have to do is look at that house and the stories start telling themselves.”
“But I can’t go there.”
Julian studied me. “What’s your deal with that place?”
“I hate talking about it. The last time I was at the house…”
How best to explain it? The only people who knew about that day were Grandma, Blake, and me. We never even told Mom the whole story.
“T
he last time you were at the house what?”
I swallowed. “I snuck inside without permission, and Grandma found out.”
“So? Did she make you stand in a corner or something?”
“No, Julian, she took a belt to my backside. In my whole life, that’s the only time she ever laid a hand on me. It was serious.”
He was quiet for a moment. “But why?”
“She says Hilliard House is a dangerous place.”
There was more to it than that, but it was too weird to say out loud. It wasn’t just that I’d snuck into the house—I’d actually fallen asleep for hours. Grandma called the sheriff and begged him to put together a search party. After they found me, she said I’d wasted the time of a lot of hardworking men. I had to stay in her sight for the rest of the summer. That was when Kingdom started. I couldn’t really go anywhere, so we had to pretend.
But if I told Julian that, he’d ask why I went to the house in the first place. And I wouldn’t be able to answer. The answer to that question was the shadow I could never see straight on.
“Avery?”
I looked up at Julian. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”
“How long ago did you sneak into the house?”
“Oh, it was years ago.”
He looked thoughtful. “You’re not a little kid anymore, you know.”
“She would still kill me.”
“Then we’ll get in and out without her ever knowing.”
My heart lurched. “Were you even listening to me?”
“It’s no big deal, I promise. We just have some planning to do first. Can you meet me here tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. There’s church and Grandma’s Bible lesson and all that. We’re not supposed to go visiting on Sundays.”
“Okay. Monday, then. In the meantime, you could do some work for the film.” He leaned forward. “Since you’re spending all day with your grandma tomorrow, ask her when Hilliard House was built and why nobody lives there anymore. Try to find out everything she knows about the place.”
I shook my head. “She’ll get suspicious for sure.”
“Not if you ask the questions in the right way.”
“I don’t want to get in trouble again.”
Ghostlight Page 2