by Ali Standish
And, I think, Mom can’t be too mad at me in front of Coralee.
I stand, brush the sand off my hands, and hold them out to help her up. She doesn’t take them at first, and I’m afraid she’s going to shake her head and make an excuse about needing more taffy to keep her blood sugar up or having to study for the make-up spelling test we both know she’ll ace. Maybe now that she knows what I’ve done, she won’t want to be my friend.
But then she puts her palms in mine and lets me lift her easily to her feet. “Dinner sounds great,” she says. “As long as there’s no meat.”
“My mom’s making lasagna,” I say. “It’s vegetarian. My favorite.”
“Careful, Ethan,” Coralee cautions, wagging a finger at me. “If you tell me too much more about yourself, there will be no mystery left.”
I muster a small smile. This whole time I’ve been thinking that Coralee is the mysterious one, when it’s been me all along.
“So you can really skateboard?” she asks. “Can you teach me?”
“Sure,” I say, surprised. I think of my skateboard, which has been sitting in a box since we arrived, along with my baseball glove, my video games, and all the other stuff from Boston I can’t bear to look at anymore.
I lead the way back to the path that will take us to our bikes and the road. Halfway there, I remember something.
“Didn’t you want to tell me something too?” I say.
“Oh, yeah. It’s about that night at the house. That woman.”
The way she lowers her voice almost to a whisper, like she’s afraid of being overheard, makes me feel uneasy. I hear a loud snap somewhere in the trees behind us and I startle, then stumble over a tree root.
“What was that?” I say, spinning around.
Coralee keeps her head down and pushes me forward. “Keep walking,” she says quietly. “I’ll tell you everything when we get to your house.”
Followed
JUST AS I SUSPECT, Mom is flittering around the front porch like a moth as we pull into the driveway, where Roddie and Grandpa Ike are working under the hood of the Fixer-Upper.
“Where have you been?” she says to me, a tremble in her voice. “You told me you were just going to drop off Coralee’s homework. I called, and Adina said you weren’t there.”
“He was with me, Mrs. T,” Coralee answers. “I had to be absent from school today, and I made Ethan catch me up on what I missed. It was my fault he forgot to call you.”
“Oh.” Mom looks from me to Coralee. I can tell she’s struggling to swallow down the lecture she had prepared for me. “Well, just don’t let it happen again. Okay, Ethan?”
I apologize for worrying her and ask if Coralee can stay for dinner.
Mom has miraculously managed to make the lasagna without burning it, and we all help ourselves to seconds (except for Grandpa Ike). Maybe it’s because Coralee is here, but everyone gets along better than usual. Even Roddie takes off his Boston College cap without being asked.
“Why don’t you tell everyone your news?” Mom says once we’re all digging into our second portions.
Roddie stares at her blankly.
“What your gym teacher said?”
“Oh,” says Roddie, looking down at his plate. “He wants me to help him start a baseball team for next year.”
“Isn’t that wonderful?” Mom asks, beaming.
“Sure is,” Coralee affirms.
“It’s not for sure yet,” Roddie says, grinding pepper over his lasagna. “They might not have funding.”
“How much funding does it take to stick a couple kids out on a dirt field, for God’s sake?” Grandpa Ike says.
“It still won’t be anything like my old team. It’s not like any Boston schools are going to send scouts down here.”
Dad wipes his mouth with his napkin and clears his throat. “Actually, Roddie, your mom and I thought we might plan a weekend for me and you to go visit some colleges in the area. There’s some good schools in Georgia. In-state tuition here is, well, it’s a lot more affordable than—”
Roddie’s fork clatters to his plate. “No.”
“We need to start thinking realistically about—”
“I’m not going to some podunk Georgia school!” Roddie shouts. “Why should I have to be punished just because you decided to move us away? I’m going to Boston College with Grace!”
I glance at Coralee, who is frozen, her fork halfway from her plate to her mouth.
“Um, Mom?” I mumble. “Can Coralee and I be excused?”
Mom nods distractedly, and we slink away from the table. I jerk my head toward the back porch, and Coralee follows.
It’s a relief when I close the glass door behind us, blocking out most of the yelling.
Coralee curls up on a wicker couch while I flip on the porch light and then take the matching chair. The insects and frogs screech loud enough that I have to move one of Grandpa Ike’s junk boxes and pull the chair closer to the couch so Coralee and I can hear each other.
“Roddie really doesn’t like it here, huh?” says Coralee.
I shake my head. “It’s not his fault he’s so unhappy,” I say. “Not really. I screwed his life up pretty bad. That’s why he won’t speak to me anymore.”
“Maybe you should talk to him.”
“No,” I say, picking uncomfortably at the chair arm. “Not a good idea.”
Coralee doesn’t understand. And how can she?
She wasn’t there in the street when Roddie caught me trying to run again. She doesn’t know what happened between us that day.
“So what did you want to tell me?” I ask, eager to change the subject.
Coralee curls herself more tightly around her legs and scans the dark horizon like she’s on the lookout for something.
“What’s going on?”
She won’t meet my eyes. Instead, she looks up at the porch light, where a half dozen insects are throwing themselves toward the bulb.
“Okay,” she says. “Here goes. Ever since that day in the Blackwood house, strange things have been happening. I think—I think I’m being followed.”
“By who?”
“You remember that woman we saw? Standing at the top of the staircase?”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“How could I forget?”
“Well, I saw her again.”
Goose bumps creep up and down my arms.
“Where?” My voice cracks. Like I’m not sure I want to know.
Coralee gulps.
“Where, Coralee?”
When she answers me, her voice is a mere whisper. “Right outside my bedroom window.”
The Red Velvet Box
NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY Coralee rushed us away from Coralee Cove when we heard the tree branch snap, and why her eyes keep flickering toward the sweep of darkness beyond the porch.
Who knows what could be out there, hiding in the shadows?
Coralee tells me everything, and then I make her tell me again.
“So you think the woman followed you from the Blackwood house?” I ask.
She nods.
“You woke up in the night?”
“No, I wasn’t asleep yet, and I went to the bathroom—”
“And when you came back—”
“I was closing my blinds, and I saw her standing there. Right below my window.”
“You’re sure it was the same woman?”
“I’m sure. She was the right height. She stood the same way. Really proper, kind of old-fashioned.”
“It couldn’t have been your mom? Or Granny?”
“Granny hasn’t been able to go farther than the front porch for the past two years. And Adina is too tired at night to creep around underneath my window.”
“So then what did you do?” I continue.
“What would you do? I hightailed it back into bed and pulled the covers over my head.”
“And the next night?”
“Same thing, except—”
<
br /> “Except what?”
“Well, this time I waited up to see her, and when I did, she raised her hand really slowly toward the window.”
“Like she was waving at you?”
“Like she was reaching for something.”
My mind whirs. How could the woman from the house have followed Coralee? She was on her bike. There’s no way anyone could have trailed her on foot, and there were no bikes or cars parked outside the house.
Unless . . .
The palms of my hands have gone sticky with sweat.
“Coralee? I think I have a theory.”
“Me too,” she says.
Then we both blurt out what we’re thinking at the exact same time.
“What if she’s a ghost?” I say.
“It’s because of what I took,” says Coralee.
“Wait, what?” we say together.
“You took something?”
“You think she’s a ghost? Why would you think that?”
I can feel my cheeks warming. “I just thought—something that Grandpa Ike said about the woman who used to live there. She died on the stairs and— Why are you looking at me like that?”
Coralee is gazing at me with an expression I’ve seen on Mom’s face a thousand times, her eyebrows knit with worry, her eyes wide with concern.
“I get why you thought that,” Coralee says slowly. “I probably would have thought the same thing if I had heard that story. But I found, well, I found tennis-shoe prints outside my window. Ghosts don’t wear tennis shoes, right?”
“Of course not,” I mumble. “I didn’t mean I actually believed she was a ghost. It was just a stupid theory.”
She puts a hand on my arm. “I can understand why you would want to believe that ghosts are—”
“Like I said, I don’t believe in ghosts,” I snap, moving my arm to scratch a fake mosquito bite, trying to ignore the feeling in my stomach, like a balloon being punctured.
People don’t come back from the dead.
“So you were saying that you took something?” I say, needing to change the subject.
Coralee hesitates before reaching down into her backpack. She pulls out a red velvet box. “I didn’t mean to take it,” she says. “Honest. But I was looking in the pockets of that raincoat for something that might tell us who it belonged to, and right when I found this is when we saw that woman. And then we were running, and I didn’t even realize I still had it in my hand.”
It’s not until now that I notice Coralee doesn’t look like herself. She’s got dark circles under her eyes, and even though the skin on her lips looks raw, she’s still chewing on it.
“Did you look and see what’s in it?” I ask.
Without a word, she slides the red box across the glass table between us, and I pick it up.
It’s a bit wider than my palm, and heavier than I expected it to be.
I press my fingers against the plush fabric and pull. The lid springs open.
I gasp.
Even in the hazy porch lighting, the contents of the box gleam and twinkle like Christmas lights.
What’s in the Box
1. A pair of shiny diamond earrings.
2. A string of milky pearls as long as my arm.
3. A golden ring with blue stones, which Coralee calls “sapphires.”
4. A heart-shaped locket, its face made of rubies, that hangs from a silver chain like a ripe strawberry on a dewy stem.
5. A delicate silver watch, crusted with tiny diamonds around the face.
6. A gold pendant shaped like a peacock, its feathers rippling with emeralds and crystals and more sapphires than I can count.
Treasure
ONCE I’VE LAID OUT all the treasures on the table and examined each one, I look up at Coralee again.
“Do you think these are real?” I ask.
“They’re heavy,” says Coralee. “And shiny. And some of them look really old. If they aren’t real, they’re really good imitations.”
I pick up the strand of pearls again and run them through my hands. They’re smooth and cool. “So you think this woman saw you take the box and tracked you down somehow?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s been there two nights in a row?”
Coralee nods.
“Why didn’t you just leave them out on your porch for her or something? Then maybe she’d go away.”
Coralee clucks her teeth. “What would happen if Adina found them first? Or if that lady came up onto the porch to get them and Adina heard her and called the police?”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” I ask. “Why don’t we call them right now?”
Coralee stiffens and she shakes her head. “Go to the police? Think about it, Ethan. What was that lady doing with this kind of jewelry in an old, abandoned house? She probably stole it and was hiding out there. If this stuff actually belonged to her, she would have gone to the police by now. But if we go to the police with some story about a mysterious woman hiding out with a box full of jewels, they’ll think we’re lying. Whoever she is, I’m sure she’s found a new hideout by now. They might think I stole all this stuff. Ethan, they could put me in jail!”
“Okay, okay,” I say, holding my palms up. “No police. You’re right. But we have to do something. We have to tell somebody. This jewelry could be worth a lot of money. If someone knows you have it and wants it back, you might not be safe.”
“I know,” Coralee whispers, bringing her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around them.
Just then, Mom calls my name, and we sweep the jewelry back into the box as fast as we can. Coralee slips it into her bag as Mom opens the porch door. “It’s getting late, kids. I think Coralee might want Grandpa Ike to take her on home.”
But one look at Coralee’s face tells me that home is the last place she wants to go.
Ghosts
ONCE GRANDPA IKE AND I get home from dropping Coralee off, I spend most of the night tossing and turning, worrying about Coralee and trying to convince myself that I never actually believed the woman we saw was a ghost.
Believing in ghosts is dangerous. It gives you hope when there is none.
I can’t let myself forget. Kacey is gone.
You can’t be with her. You can never be with her again.
Help
THE NEXT MORNING, I get up early for school and pedal the wrong way, toward Coralee’s house. I don’t want her to have to bike to school alone.
When I pass by the Blackwood house, I pause and look it over.
No movement. Except for the door being closed, there’s no sign anyone’s been there since we left. Coralee was right. The woman we saw is probably long gone by now.
I don’t stop again until I get to Coralee’s house.
I breathe a sigh of relief when she emerges, but as she draws closer and brushes a few braids back from her face, I see her eyes are puffy.
“Did you get any sleep?” I ask.
“Not really,” she says.
“Me either.”
Coralee climbs on her bike, and we set off at a much slower pace than usual.
“Did she come back?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I shut the blinds as soon as I got in.”
We get to school late since Coralee was too tired to bike very fast, and she spends half of science class dozing before Mr. Charles wakes her up and threatens to give her lunchtime detention.
“You should fall asleep more often at school,” Suzanne says to her at the end of the period. “It makes class so much nicer for everyone else.”
Coralee is too weary to even roll her eyes.
At lunch, we grab a table no one sits at because the uneven legs make it wobble. This way, we definitely won’t be interrupted.
“So,” I say. “What are we going to do? We have to tell someone.”
“I know,” Coralee says, unwrapping her sandwich and taking a small bite. “That’s why after school today we’re going straight to Mack’
s.”
When we get to Mack’s, she sees how upset Coralee is, hangs a Back in Fifteen sign on the door, and ushers us into the library. She listens to Coralee tell about going to the Blackwood house. How she felt like she’d been there before, how the woman appeared just as her hand closed around the box, and how when she got home and opened it, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
Mack doesn’t say anything, but her mouth tips into a frown that deepens as Coralee tells her about the woman standing outside her window. Finally, when Coralee is through, Mack leans forward and says, “That’s some story.”
“You believe me, though, don’t you, Mack?” Coralee asks, a tremble crossing her lower lip.
“Course I do,” says Mack. “Now about this jewelry. Did you bring it with you?”
Coralee nods and pulls the velvet box from her backpack.
“You took that to school?” I ask.
“I couldn’t leave it at home,” says Coralee. “That woman might have broken in and stolen it back.”
Mack takes the box and opens it. She studies its contents, her expression impossible to read.
“Do you think they’re real?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Mack. “No doubt about that.”
She examines the jewelry for another minute, then shuts the box tight. She closes her eyes too. “Let me think,” she mutters to no one in particular. “Let me think.”
“Should we go to the police?” I ask.
Mack’s eyes flutter open. “No,” she says. “No need for police. You leave this with me. And you leave your mysterious woman to me too. I’ll take care of it.”
“But—how?” I ask.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Mack says. “No one’s going to bother y’all again, and I’ll make sure these jewels find their way back to where they belong. You trust me?”
“You know I trust you, Mack,” says Coralee.
“And you?” Mack says, turning her gaze to me. “Can you trust me to protect Coralee?”
I nod. “I trust you. I just wish—”
“Then no more questions. And no more trespassing in abandoned houses. You promise me? Nothing good ever came from snooping around an abandoned house.”