Ghostlight

by Sonia Gensler

  It took a moment to untangle my thoughts. “Do you remember when I told Mom that Julian and I were making a film on the history of this area? She said it would be nice for Grandma’s website, to help draw interest to the rental cottage.”

  “Yeah, but Grandma won’t get a website.”

  “She should,” Julian said. “I bet you the new owners of Hilliard House will make one.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Julian shook his head. “Your grandma might lose business because of that.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking about. What if they included Grandma’s cottage on their website?”

  “Why would they?” Blake asked.

  “Because we’ll make it worth their while,” I said. “I have an idea for a short film—maybe several films—each of them about some bit of history around here. But the films would be about people and their stories. Local lore and all that. It’s what visitors come here for. We could start with Hilliard House and Joshua Hilliard. We have plenty of footage on that already. We could sort of hint at the ghost, you know? And there might be more old-timey Carver County stories we could work with, too.”

  Julian’s eyes brightened. “Interesting.”

  “I bet Grandma would let us use her photos again, and we could do research at the library. By the time Hilliard House was ready to open, we’d have a bunch of short films for their website. And, Julian, if you edit them like you did this film for Joshua Hilliard, they’d be begging for them. They might even pay us.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” Blake muttered. “We can’t do it all this summer.”

  “And I might not be back next summer,” Julian said.

  I came to halt. “Come on, guys, you know it’s a great idea! Can we at least work on the Hilliard House video and see how that turns out? It would be a great way to do what Mrs. Shelton wanted. We’d be letting people know that Joshua Hilliard was a good man.”

  Blake shook his hair into his eyes and walked on, but Julian turned to look back at the house.

  “It could work,” he said.

  We stared at the house in silence for a moment.

  “By the way,” I said, “nice touch with the title credit on the movie. When did you slip that in?”

  “Thought you’d like that. I put it together this morning and added it as a surprise.” He gave me a sidelong look. “And as an apology.”

  It seemed a little strange that a girl could be guiding a ghost to the beyond one day and crouching in the garden to pick green beans the next, but that’s exactly how it went down. Easing back into the mindless and ordinary actually proved to be a comfort, and I think Blake felt it, too. He didn’t grouch at me once, even though he’d lost his blackmail advantage in the garden, and Grandma had given us both dish duty for the rest of the summer. The morning was downright cheerful, especially now that the air felt cool and light after the rain. I hardly minded the mud at all.

  “Hey, I’ve been thinking,” Blake said.

  “Yeah?”

  “We still have half the summer left. We should start some sort of project.”

  I flicked a green bean at him. “We already have a project. The Legends of Carver County, remember?”

  He snorted. “That’s not my project. That’s for you and the evil genius.”

  “Then what? I can’t stand football, and I’m not going to help you with your summer-reading questions.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I sat back and stared at him. “You’re not saying we should start up with Kingdom again, are you?”

  He shook his head. “We’re both so over that—you said it yourself. Plus, I really don’t want to go back to you trying to boss me around all the time.”

  “I never bossed you!”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding me? You still don’t get it, do you? You made all the rules with Kingdom. You decided who the characters were. You scripted it all out yourself. I was just there because you couldn’t play all the characters at the same time.”

  “You created some of the characters,” I said after a moment.

  “Yeah, but you always had to change something about them.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “And when I tried to tell you I was done, you punished me,” he said.

  “Oh, come on,” I muttered. “I’m not falling for your victim act. You were rude to me and you blackmailed me. Twice in one week!”

  “Okay, so neither of us is perfect. I own my faults, but you’ve got to own yours, too.”

  “Own my faults? You sound like a talk show.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  Blake’s eyes brightened. “Speaking of shows, you know what would be cool? If we did something like Ghosthunter Teens. A show about catching ghosts in action, only with us doing the investigating instead of those old bald guys. I bet there’s all sorts of hauntings around here.” He frowned. “It’d be better if I could drive, though.”

  “I don’t know, Blake. I’ve probably had enough ghost encounters to last me for a long while.”

  “What about a spoof? It would be totally funny. And we wouldn’t actually have to find any ghosts. Maybe our team could specialize in kid ghosts, and then…”

  I just kept picking beans while he rattled on about his wacky ghost show. It was nice to have him talking again. It was nice to have him acting like Blake again.

  Or maybe he’d been the same Blake all along and it was me who’d gotten weird.

  How did I go back to being Avery again? And what did that even mean?

  I could imagine Mom’s answer to that question. She’d say being Avery didn’t mean bossing or punishing my brother just because he didn’t see things the same way I did. It couldn’t mean lying and stealing from Grandma, either. And it shouldn’t ever mean being so desperate for attention that I’d blindly follow someone else straight into trouble.

  To me, being Avery meant loving stories. On the page, on the screen, and in my head before I went to sleep at night. Before this summer, all I’d wanted was to escape into tales of people from past times and unusual places. But what about unusual people who lived in ordinary places? In the here and now?

  What about a dreamy girl with no father but more family than she knew what to do with?

  A girl who was betrayed but learned to forgive…

  A girl who helped a ghost move on…

  What would happen next in her story?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Heartfelt gratitude goes to:

  —Michelle Frey and the editorial team at Knopf, for helping me poke and prod Ghostlight into tip-top shape.

  —Jennifer Laughran, for being a tireless advocate, story genius, and dear friend.

  —Katrina Damkoehler, for the perfectly creepy cover design.

  —Brandi Barnett, Kelly Bristow, Martha Bryant, Dee Dee Chumley, Mari Farthing, Kim Harrington, Shel Harrington, Lisa Marotta, Helen Newton, and Natalie Parker, for their friendship and story feedback.

  —Bethany Hegedus, Sara Zarr, and all the participants in the 2013 Writing Barn workshop on “Emotional Pacing,” for helping me hone those critical first three chapters.

  —Vicki Hill and Connie Peacher, for clarifying pertinent details regarding the Church of Christ.

  —Dr. Lisa Marotta and Dr. Terry Peacher (hey, Dad!), for consulting on Julian Wayne’s diagnosis.

  —Marcia and J. Trekell, my mom and stepfather, for helping me remember the night sounds of Stewart County, Tennessee (the inspiration for Carver County).

  —Ruby Peacher, my grandmother, for inspiring me with stories and photographs of the 1937 floods.

  —Ernest, Heather, Jason, Dionne, York, Shelby, and Samantha—my siblings and nieces—for providing me with a lifetime of data on sibling dynamics. Big hugs to each of you!

  —All my dear friends and family members who offered love and support. I’m so lucky to have you.

  —My husband, Steve, for going above
and beyond with this manuscript, giving feedback on multiple drafts—chapter-by-chapter, word-by-word. Thank you for supporting me from the moment I hatched this crazy plan to be a writer, and for growing more enthusiastic about my career with each new book. None of this could have happened without you, and I thank you for sharing this journey with me. I love you. Forever.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sonia Gensler is the author of two young adult novels: The Dark Between, which School Library Journal called “vivid and intriguing,” and The Revenant, winner of the Oklahoma Book Award and a Parents’ Choice Silver Award.

  Sonia grew up in a small Tennessee town and spent her early adulthood collecting impractical degrees from various midwestern universities. A former high school English teacher, she now writes full-time in Oklahoma. You can find out more at soniagensler.com.