by Jordan Ford
With a heavy sigh, he leaned against the beige counter and gazed out the kitchen window, trying to decide exactly when the man he’d grown up idolizing had turned into such a loser. He’d always thought the downhill slide had started on the day from hell, the one Tristan was desperate to forget. But sometimes he couldn’t help wondering if maybe it had started before then.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he pushed off the counter and went to pour his father a large glass of water. He placed it on the coffee table, right by his father’s feet, and hoped his silent message was loud enough. Tristan wasn’t too keen on reliving the humiliation of having to call in sick for his hung-over father on the man’s second day of work. That night his dad had apologized profusely and promised to never let Tristan down again, but as far as Tristan could tell, it was a pretty half-assed promise.
Tristan cleared his throat.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll drink it, okay?” His father scratched at his salt-and-pepper locks, his square face scrunching. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be hauling my butt off to work in the morning…on time.”
Tristan curbed his sigh, letting it ease through his lips slowly before turning back for the kitchen. He had no idea what he was cooking for dinner, and it didn’t help that it was the last thing he felt like doing.
“By the way, your mom called.”
Tristan froze at his father’s muttered words. He slowly turned while his dad reached for the glass of water and gulped it back. Shoving his hands into his back pockets, Tristan waited in tortured silence, unwilling to move back into the living room. Whatever conversation they were about to have, it needed to be over quickly.
“She said she’s been texting you but you haven’t replied?”
Tristan’s gaze shot to the floor, his nostrils flaring as he prepared to argue his case.
“Look, man.” His dad sighed. “I know you don’t want anything to do with her right now, but…” A thick swallow cut off his voice.
Tristan glanced up in time to see his father’s lips press together. His pale brown eyes were desperate. “She’s coming to get you on Friday after school. You’re spending the weekend in Albany.”
“I’ve already told everybody I don’t want to do that!” He looked away from his father’s blurry gaze, willing him to turn back and keep watching the damn game.
“She’s supposed to have you twice a month. That’s what was agreed. I can’t go against that just because you don’t want to see her. Please, just quit being so stubborn. You need to give up on this damn protest. She’s your mom. She loves you, and she wants to see you.”
“It’s not her,” Tristan muttered. “I just don’t get why I should have to stay with him as well.” The words were hard to get out.
“Because they live together now.” His dad’s voice was dark and metallic as he pushed himself off the couch, nearly tripping over the coffee table.
Tristan jumped forward to help but stopped when his father raised his hand, silently telling him to back off.
“It’s not like I want you to go either, okay?” His dad’s forehead wrinkled, heart-wrenching pain distorting his expression. “But your mother only has so much patience. If you don’t get your butt down to Albany she’ll have me back in court before I can blink. She’ll accuse me of indoctrinating you against her and drag out the fight.”
“I’m sixteen! I don’t have to see her if I don’t—”
“Do me a solid, Tristan!” his father boomed. “I don’t have the money for more legal bullshit! So you have to go, all right? You just gotta go!”
Tristan’s insides coiled. He hated how loud his father’s voice was. Before the day from hell, he’d never really heard his dad shout before. It was a thunderous, ugly sound, usually directed at his mother. He wasn’t afraid of his old man or anything, but in order to keep at least some semblance of peace, he muttered a soft “Fine. I’ll go.”
Working his jaw to the side, Tristan stepped away, letting his father lumber past and into the kitchen.
No matter how old Tristan grew, he always felt small beside his towering father. He’d taken after his small-boned mother, and although he had a broad chest and shoulders like his dad, he’d never have the powerful presence.
He cringed as his father swung open the refrigerator door and grabbed another beer can.
If only his mother knew. She’d be all over it, claiming Leon Parker was a useless father and incapable of looking after their only son. His dad was right; she’d use whatever means she could to get Tristan back to Albany, but the court had let him decide and he wasn’t budging.
His father—drunk or sober—was a million times better than his cheating mother and her stick-up-the-ass boyfriend.
4
When Anger Flares
Tristan pressed his back against the wall and let his father barrel past. The big man flopped back onto the couch and resumed his baseball-watching, beer-slurping marathon. He spent most evenings doing exactly that, drowning his empty sorrow with beer and the distraction of TV.
Tristan hadn’t known it would be quite like this when he chose to leave New York and move to Vermont. After the day from hell, when his parents first separated, he’d been given no choice but to live with his mother. His dad had found out about the affair and left the house, totally devastated. Tristan had then had to suffer a year of back and forth between his parents. Angry, toxic words, hours of accusations and name-calling. He’d heard it all. Walls and shut doors couldn’t hide it from him.
When the divorce proceedings had finally started, Tristan hadn’t expected to even have a choice. When the lawyer first offered it to him, he was almost paralyzed by what to do. His mother had been on one side of the shiny, black table, her wide, blue eyes pleading with him while his father had sat on the other looking lost and desolate.
It’d been the hardest decision he’d ever made, but it was the only one he could. His mother had a boyfriend. It didn’t matter that they’d gotten together when she was still married; they’d remained a couple, happy and in love while his father was ripped apart at the seams. Besides, she had an inner strength and ambition…unlike his dad. If Tristan hadn’t chosen him, his old man would have been left with no one—a poor, lonely wretch living on Fruit Loops and beer.
“I’ll start dinner,” Tristan mumbled, pushing up his sweater sleeves and shuffling into the kitchen.
There was no point fighting over his mother. It only made his dad drink more, and Tristan didn’t want to have to lug him up the stairs later that night. Thankfully his father wasn’t an angry drunk. If anything, liquor made him snore like a freight train…or cry like a girl who’d been dumped at the prom. Neither choice was appealing.
Checking the refrigerator, Tristan snatched the last couple of beer cans and tucked them under his sweater before grabbing his father’s car keys off the hook and sliding them into his back pocket.
“I just forgot something in the garage,” he called. “Back in a sec.”
Sneaking out the kitchen door, he trotted down the steps and went around the back of the garage, emptying the last two cans and squishing the metal down for recycling. He was pretty sure he could convince his dad they’d run out of beer. He’d managed to do it before. The car keys were safely in his back pocket too. His father wouldn’t look for long before giving up and mumbling something about buying more beer the next day.
His father had always been quick to quit on a cause, which was why he probably walked out on his wife, even though she was the one who’d cheated and should have been booted out the door.
Throwing the flattened cans into the recycling bin, Tristan stopped to look across at the mysterious house. If he rose to his tiptoes he could see the edge of the tower poking out above the winter trees. He wondered what was up there. Probably just an old attic filled with broken furniture and dust-covered boxes. Once-priceless treasures that had been discarded for something newer and shinier.
Anger fired inside of Tristan’s chest as he pict
ured his mother and her new boyfriend locking lips like high school sweethearts.
“Stupid assface,” Tristan muttered, turning back for the house.
He was nearly at the stairs when he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. Whipping around, he spotted the baseball just as it landed in the driveway and rolled to his feet.
Emotions clogged his throat as he slowly reached down to grab it. Running his thumb over the red stitching, he pushed the ball into his palm. It felt so familiar. How many thousands of times had he caught and thrown a baseball in his life? The hours he used to play catch outside with his dad. The endless practices and games his parents ran him to. It had been his number one priority. He’d been obsessed…until everything fell apart.
Because of lies and deception.
Because his mother and her boss were so wrapped up in their own pleasure that they didn’t stop to think about how it would affect anybody else.
Tristan’s nostrils flared. He gripped the ball and hurled it with a loud shout. He didn’t even think about where he was aiming. He certainly didn’t expect the little white ball to sail across to the mysterious green house and fly through the open attic window.
He cringed and hunched his shoulders, relieved at the lack of shattering glass. He felt like an idiot for losing his temper. With all the shouting and angry outbursts he’d been dodging over the past year, he’d learned to internalize everything, to shove his emotions down deep so they couldn’t rise to the surface and hurt anybody.
“Hey!” A young, disgruntled voice caught his attention.
Tristan’s eyes flicked towards the mailbox. A young boy, who looked about ten, glared at him. “Was that my ball?”
“Uh…” Tristan swallowed and walked for the back steps.
“Hey! No fair! I want my ball back!” Pounding feet on the pavement stopped him from going inside.
As easy as it’d be to escape into the house, he didn’t want some precocious kid pounding on the door and disturbing his dad. Tristan couldn’t guarantee what his father might say or do. He didn’t want to face the embarrassment when his father did something to trigger a wave of street gossip.
He rolled his eyes and spun around as the kid puffed to a stop behind him. The boy’s face was round like a basketball, his skin tinged red by anger, the cold wind, or overexertion. It was probably a combination of all three.
Tristan flashed him an apologetic smile and shrugged. “It’s just a ball, kid. I’ll give you one of my old ones.”
“I don’t want one of yours. That was my ball. You had no right to throw it away. I want it back!”
“Then go ask for it.” Tristan pointed at the house.
The kid’s brown eyes rounded like dinner plates as he slowly looked over his shoulder. “Are you crazy?”
“What?” Tristan frowned.
“Hey, Matty! What’s taking so long?” a small kid with freckles and a shock of red hair yelled from the other side of the street.
“This dick threw my ball at that house!” He pointed his chubby finger behind him while Tristan frowned.
He was about to tell the kid to watch his mouth when the little redhead gasped and ran over to them. “No way. Not that house.”
Tristan took in the boy’s pale expression, his face wrinkling with confusion. “What’s so bad about that house?”
“You don’t know?” The chubby kid shook his head like Tristan was an idiot.
He gave him a sharp glare before gazing at the dark, green residence with its army of trees and wraparound vines.
“It’s haunted,” Little Red whispered.
5
The Haunted House
Tristan snickered. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“Yes there are!” Little Red argued. “There’s a ghost in the attic. It’s a young girl who was murdered and she hasn’t left earth yet ’cause she wants to see her killer avenged.” His green eyes bulged.
Tristan bit his lips together, struggling not to laugh at him. Clearing his throat, he shook his head with a skeptical smirk.
“It’s true! Danny Birkman told me.”
“I believe it.” The chubby kid scratched the side of his neck, looking twitchy. “Sometimes you see a pale-faced girl with white hair floating around in the tower.”
“What?” It was impossible for Tristan not to be cynical. They were talking like it was reality and not some ghostly legend that’d been passed down over the years.
“The curtains are always closed in that place and you hardly ever see anyone come in or out. I mean, sometimes stuff gets delivered there, but no one ever leaves.”
“I was peeking through the fence once and I saw a lady come out onto the porch to collect a delivery. She looked real mean.”
Tristan gave the boys a droll look. “If the house is really haunted, why would she stay there?”
“Because the ghost is her daughter,” Little Red whispered, his voice a spooky warning.
The boy next to him shivered, rubbing the mitt up his arm and chewing his lip.
“Okay.” Tristan rolled his eyes, scuffing his Converse on the rough concrete, ready to head back inside and get on with dinner prep.
“A man used to live there too, you know, but no one’s seen him in years.” The chubby kid’s nose twitched and he shot a nervous glance over his shoulder. “What’s the bet she killed them? And buried the bodies in the basement.”
“Or locked them in a trunk in the attic!” Little Red was so convinced. He scratched his freckly nose and then started biting his thumbnail. “Maybe we should just forget it. It’s just a ball.”
Tristan was about to agree and once again offer one of his old ones to replace it. He was pretty sure he had a box of them buried in the bottom of his closet.
He pointed his thumb towards the house and was about to speak when the ball’s owner started to protest.
“What? No!” The boy’s face scrunched. “My grandpa gave me that ball. I can’t lose it!”
Little Red crossed his arms. “Well, I’m not going in there.”
“He threw it.” The kid pointed at Tristan. “He should go get it.”
“Agreed.”
They both nodded and Tristan was tempted to tell them to stick it. But the little kid with his chubby cheeks and wide glassy eyes looked like he was about to cry or something.
Guilt nibbled, an incessant feeling that he knew would only get worse if he didn’t do something about it.
“Dammit,” Tristan muttered between clenched teeth.
The little boy sniffed and started blinking. Tears were a fast-approaching threat. Tristan didn’t want any trouble. If he didn’t go and get that damn ball, the two kids would run home to tell on him. Geez, that was the last thing he needed, some pissed-off father pounding on his door, demanding to know why he’d thrown his son’s baseball away.
“Okay, whatever. Just… I’ll go.” Tristan pushed between the boys and jogged down his driveway.
“Be careful!”
Tristan shook his head with a light snigger and then paused when he opened the gate. He gazed up at the tower. Thick vines wrapped around the exterior, making it look pretty climbable. But the polite thing to do was to knock on the front door.
It was ridiculous to feel scared or creeped out by the kids’ insane stories, but as the tall wooden gate squeaked shut behind Tristan, he couldn’t shake the disquiet that had taken up residence on his shoulders. The loud click of the gate lock closing made him flinch. He walked up the concrete path, overrun with unkempt grass and weeds, and then climbed the front steps. A shiver skittered down his spine as the top step creaked beneath his weight.
The porch needed a fresh coat of paint. The brown varnish beneath his sneakers was so thin and worn he could see the boards of wood. In fact, the entire house looked as though it needed a spruce up. Thick cobwebs laced each corner of the overhang, dead leaves and the odd bug dangling from the white silk.
Tristan’s Adam’s apple felt swollen in his throat a
s he swallowed and rapped his knuckles on the thick door. It was stupid, but he had his fingers crossed that no one was home. Although the stories were just that—stories—being so close to the house made Tristan’s nerves sizzle.
He gazed at the large brass doorknob stuck into the center of the wood. The brass was engraved with a leafy pattern that looked old-world, although it suited the quirky house perfectly.
He could picture gnarled fingers wrapping around the knob on the other side—bony white knuckles and razor-sharp nails.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered, pulling his shoulders back when he heard the thump of feet on the hardwood floors.
A series of clicks followed, and then the door lurched open about two inches. It was being held in place by a chain and only gave Tristan a narrow view of the woman’s sharp face. Her clear blue eyes scrutinized him with a glare that made him swallow and take a step backwards.
“Hello.” He forced a smile that probably came out looking like a grimace.
“What do you want?” Her accent was posh, like British royalty or something. Her tone was icy, but she had a soft voice. It was a weird combination and totally unnerving.
Tristan cleared his throat. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. I was just wondering if you could check your tower…attic thingy for a baseball. We think it went in your window.”
Her fine eyebrows pulled together in a tight frown. “You broke one of my windows?”
“No, ma’am. It was open. The ball just kind of flew straight through.”
“It was open? On a freezing-cold day like this?” Her eyes rounded, fear skittering across her expression. “Excuse me, I must go.”
“But the ball?”
“No! Find something else to play with. You shouldn’t be hitting balls towards the houses anyway.”
Tristan raised his arm with a sheepish smile. “It was an accident. Please, can I just—”
“No!” she snapped again. “I must go.”