I stepped inside, taking in the blue and white wallpapered foyer with its glittering crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the dark mahogany-colored stairs that wound up to the second floor all over again. It was just as jaw-dropping as the first time I’d stepped through the threshold.
The house was incredible. Hands down.
“Seriously, I love this house—well, minus all the dusty, draped-in-white-sheets furniture. If I weren’t already signed up to go to Western in the fall, I would totally be telling you that we need to move in here and be roomies!”
“It’s always a possibility,” I said in a singsong voice and winked at her.
“Gah, yeah right. My mom would have a freaking cow if I told her I wanted to take a semester off so I could bunk with you in your freaking awesome house by the beach, you know she would.”
Vera had been lucky enough to get the two weeks off from work to come with me, quitting and bunking with me for an undetermined length of time was out of the question. It was something I understood. Her family could be pretty strict, especially when it came to school and Vera’s future. Part of me always believed that was why Vera was so outgoing and rebellious; she had a lot of time being trapped in her parents’ house completely under their thumb to make up for.
“I know, I know…it’s just a thought,” I said as I started trudging my overstuffed suitcase up the winding stairs. Vera followed behind me, her big blue eyes soaking in every tiny detail of the house. “Haul your crap up here and I’ll show you the rooms you can choose from.”
“God, I so wish I could spend the entire summer here with you. You are so lucky, you just don’t even understand,” she gushed, letting the sheer size of the place go to her head.
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t say anything. There was no point. Vera wouldn’t understand how far from lucky I felt when I’d inherited this house. It was more like odd. Inheriting this house had been an awkward reminder for me, and everyone else in my family, that I was adopted.
I’d never really given much thought to being adopted growing up. Both of my parents had brown hair just like me, and there were never any other siblings for me to be compared to because, due to medical reasons, it wasn’t possible for my adoptive mother to have children of her own.
My parents had been just as shocked about the house as I was. We all drove out a few months ago, as soon as everything was finalized, to see what I’d been left with. Then came another shocker when we pulled up to this place. My dad had been ecstatic about living in a house by the beach and wanted to move immediately, but Mom had said it just wouldn’t feel right to her. So she’d left what to do with it up to me.
This was why I was here for the summer. I was deciding what I was going to do with it, while at the same time, deciding what it was I wanted to do with the rest of my life now that graduation had come and gone.
“The very first thing we’re going to do is get rid of all these ghostly sheets on everything. How did you guys spend the weekend here with everything covered up so creepy-like?” Vera muttered, folding her arms across her chest as she stared at the covered furniture in the hall with distaste.
“We uncovered some stuff, but not much. My mom didn’t see the point,” I said as soon as I stopped at the first bedroom on the right. “It’s almost like she wants me to just sell it and forget about it, like it’s stepping on her adoptive parent toes to keep it or something.”
“Eh, I can kind of see where she’s coming from. I mean this is so out of the blue,” Vera said as she leaned against the doorframe of the bedroom and peeked only her head in. “Nu-uh…this had better not be what all the rooms look like,” she said, crinkling her nose.
I laughed and shrugged one shoulder. “They get a little better.”
I couldn’t blame Vera for not liking the first room; it wasn’t my favorite either. White wallpaper with tiny pink flowers covered the walls. A canopy bed with plastic tossed over the mattress stood in the center, flanked by two incredibly dusty nightstands, and across from one tall, cream-colored block that I could only assume was a dresser beneath the heavy sheet.
“Next please,” Vera said as she started across the hall to the room diagonal from that one.
“This room is mine, actually.”
“Figures.” She scoffed. “Of course you’d take the one that’s halfway decent.”
I smiled as I leaned against the wall and peered inside. It had pale yellow walls, dark furniture, a four poster bed, and best of all—a balcony. I’d fallen in love with it the moment I saw it.
“All right, next.” She shuffled across the hall to peer into the next room.
“This one isn’t all that bad,” I insisted, following behind her.
“Eh, I need to see the others first,” she said as she continued on to the next room.
“This is the room my parents stayed in.”
She nodded approvingly at the lavender walls and darkly rich furniture. “Nice, but didn’t you say there were five? I only counted four.”
“The fifth one is in the basement.”
“Oh, hell no.” She put her hand up in mock defense and bugged her eyes out like she was talking to a crazy person. “I am not staying in the basement by myself. End of story.”
I chuckled and shook my head as I crammed my hands into the back pockets of my jean shorts. “So what room do you want, then?”
“I’ll take this one,” she said, pointing to the room where my parents had stayed. “I’m not even worried about putting my stuff in there right now. I think first we seriously need to de-creepify this house, open up the doors and windows, and let some fresh air and sunlight in.”
“First, I need to grab some necessities from the Jeep—water, a fruit bar, and some Claritin,” I said just before starting back down the stairs.
Vera fingered the dusty drop cloth that covered a table, or something, in the hall. “Claritin is a must.”
As soon as we’d taken some Claritin, eaten a small snack, and quenched our thirst, we headed all the way down to the basement. It was best if we started at the bottom and worked our way up. This was my philosophy anyway.
The basement held virtually nothing. It was a large room with blue walls and a light-colored hardwood floor. Random things were placed sporadically around—an empty fish tank, a broken coatrack, a purple futon chair, an incredibly bowed TV stand, and a large mirror leaning against the far wall with a crack right down its center.
“Someone got seven years of bad luck,” Vera said matter-of-factly.
I walked straight to the closer of the only two doors in the entire basement. “Guess so.”
“God, why would you even put a bedroom down here? It’s so dark.”
“I don’t know, privacy maybe?”
“Ugh, it’s like you’re cut off from the world down here,” she whispered, obviously not enjoying her surroundings. Vera had never been a basement kind of girl; they’d always given her the creeps.
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. Don’t be such a baby,” I teased, gripping the doorknob to the bedroom. I turned the knob and opened the door just as something big, black, and furry darted from inside and through my legs.
I didn’t know who screamed loudest, me or Vera. Glancing back, I spotted the culprit—a black and white cat—as it dashed up the steps to the first floor.
“How the hell did that thing get down here?” Vera asked, her hand still pressed against her chest. “Eww, please don’t tell me it’s been locked inside that room since you guys left, because if that’s the case, then I’m so not cleaning this room.”
I flicked the light on and searched the room for any signs that the cat had in fact been trapped inside since then, but saw nothing. “Doesn’t look like it.”
Vera stepped into the room behind me and cautiously crept to the bed. “I can see where it’s been sleeping though.” She pointed to the white sheet that covered the bed. Black and white fur clung to it heavily.
I grimaced when I took a closer look
and noticed tiny bones from a mouse beside it all. “Yuck...and eating.”
“Eww, gross!” Vera shouted. “I can’t be in this room. Close it back up. You don’t need it for anything.” She bolted out of the room, leaving me all alone inside.
I slowly followed her out, glancing around at it as I went, wondering how the cat had managed to get inside in the first place. There was only one tiny window up at the top of the far wall. Beneath it stood a tall dresser with numerous cat paws imprinted in the dust. The cat had come in through the window. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a gaping hole in the screen of the clearly opened window.
“Huh, guess I have a pet,” I muttered to myself as I exited the room.
“Can we please head back upstairs? There’s nothing down here,” Vera called to me from the steps. “And besides, I really want to open up the front door, maybe your freeloading cat will go back outside.”
Great, I’d forgotten it was now loose inside the house and I had no idea whether it was friendly or not. Awesome.
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About the Author
Jennifer Snyder lives in North Carolina where she spends most of her time writing New Adult and Young Adult Fiction, reading, and struggling to stay on top of housework. She is a tea lover with an obsession for Post-it notes and smooth writing pens. Jennifer lives with her husband and two children, who endure listening to songs that spur inspiration on repeat and tolerate her love for all paranormal, teenage-targeted TV shows.
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