by Dan Poblocki
They both stared up at the sky, rain rinsing across their faces.
No! Please! Don’t be dead! Don’t be DEAD!
She yelped when they blinked. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “Are you okay?”
Poppy blinked. “I think I am.” She patted herself down as if searching for an injury. “Dash?”
Dash tried to stand up. “That was close.”
Rising, Poppy hugged Azumi. “You saved us. If we’d kept going in that direction … I don’t want to know what we’d look like right now.”
“We have to get out of this storm,” said Azumi.
Another bolt of lightning split the sky overhead, followed immediately by a deafening crack of thunder.
“Get out of the storm?” Dash echoed. “How? Go back into Larkspur?”
“Look!” Poppy pointed toward the woods. Near the trees, there was a dark structure that looked like it might be a small barn or stable. “Maybe in there.”
Dash shook his head violently. “I’m not following you into another building.”
A flash of lightning and roll of thunder shook the earth. When the wind gusted, some of the tree branches brushed the ground.
“We don’t have a choice,” said Poppy, grabbing Azumi’s hand. “If we stay out here, we’ll die.”
“The house doesn’t want to kill us,” Dash insisted. “It only wants to scare us. Our fear is giving it fuel. If we die, it loses too.”
“Tell that to Marcus!” Poppy shouted, shocking everyone into a momentary silence.
Dash clutched at his skull. “Poppy …”
But Poppy had already started away from him, pulling Azumi roughly behind her. Azumi yanked herself back. Poppy shook her head and then stomped onward, leaving them behind. Azumi held her hand out to Dash instead. “We need to stay together. You said it yourself. Remember?”
AS HE HIKED across the meadow, Dash could still feel electricity tingling through his body. Was this what Dylan had experienced when—
Dash squeezed the thought away.
He hated to admit it, but Poppy was right. The idea of staying out in this storm frightened him almost as much as the weird-looking barn.
The building seemed to grow as they struggled through the fierce wind. With each flash of lightning, Dash could see more details. Ragged holes gaped in the rotting roof. The wooden walls that held it up were ancient and tilted. One good gust might knock the whole thing down.
Poppy was not slowing her pace. Dash was growing frustrated arguing with her. Something had happened to her when the creature had killed Marcus. In Poppy’s mind, her ideas were the only ones worth anything. The shy girl he’d met early that morning was gone.
A wide doorway stood open in the buckling wall of the barn, and Poppy and Azumi huddled just inside. There didn’t appear to be a door attached anymore, which was a relief. Nothing could swing shut and trap them inside.
None of us is the same as we were this morning. He heard Dylan’s voice in his ear. Especially not you, little brother.
“When did you get so wise?” Dash whispered, as if his brother could hear him.
“Who are you talking to?” Azumi asked him as he took cover from the wind and rain and stood beside them.
“Me, myself, and I,” Dash murmured, glancing into the darkened space. He turned on his phone’s flashlight, revealing damp spots on the dirt floor where water puddled, dripping from the ceiling. Rain drummed on the roof, and the wind creaked the structure’s old bones. Open stalls lined the left wall. Straw was piled against the partitions like snowdrifts. The musky smell of damp livestock stung his sinuses.
A squeal echoed around the space, and Dash jumped backward through the doorway. Swinging his light to the left, he saw Poppy climbing a rickety set of stairs. His face burned. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he called out to her.
“I thought I heard something,” she answered, continuing on.
“Something?”
“A voice. Listen.”
Dash heard nothing but the rain hitting the roof and his heartbeat pounding in his head. He tried to squash his anger. Yelling at her wouldn’t make her hear him any better. “Seems like a good reason to stay down here, don’t you think?”
Azumi stood at the bottom of the steps. She glanced over at Dash, looking like she was thinking the same thing. “Can’t you do something?” he whispered.
“It sounds like a recording,” Poppy called out. “Or the radio.”
“Be careful, Poppy!” said Azumi. “Should we follow her?”
Dash grimaced, his shoulders aching.
From the loft, Poppy called out, “Oh my gosh, there’s a ton of stuff up here.”
“There’s a ton of stuff down here too,” said Dash. “None of it means we need to go poking around.”
Poppy peered over the ledge at him, her mouth pressed into a scowl. “But we still need to figure out how to free the rest of the Specials.”
Dash couldn’t help flinching. “The Specials? I thought we were hiding from the storm. We’re heading back to the driveway. Remember?”
She went on, her voice hardening. “There might be something up here that’ll help release Matilda and Irving.”
“And my brother? We still care about him, right?”
“If we run into them again, we need to be prepared,” Poppy answered. Maybe she hadn’t heard him? She nodded at the doorway, where the rain was coming down in sheets. “And we’re kind of stuck in here for now.”
Azumi began to climb the steps.
A sudden sense of loneliness closed in around Dash. If Dylan were here, they would stand up for each other. Before he knew what he was doing, he too was on the stairs.
Once he’d reached the top, he could hear the voice that Poppy had mentioned. It had a droning quality, but it was too soft for him to make out any words.
The roof was pitched sharply against the left edge of the platform. In the center of the flooring, a red wool blanket had been laid out, as if someone’s picnic had been interrupted and they’d left before they’d planned to. A few dust-encrusted bags were lying around the blanket in a misshapen circle. This was where the sound was coming from.
Dash shone his phone’s flashlight on a small wooden rectangle in the middle of the blanket. On its lower half someone had written the alphabet, and the words YES and NO. In its center were the words Shadow Board.
“People use them to talk to ghosts,” said Azumi.
“I know what a Ouija board is,” said Dash.
Poppy knelt on the blanket.
But Azumi shouted, “Don’t touch it!” Poppy flinched.
Poppy shook her head. “Okay. We’ve been talking to ghosts just fine by ourselves.”
She grabbed one of the dusty bags and unzipped it. Reaching inside, she removed what looked like a tape deck. From a small speaker, the droning, warped voice grew much louder, bouncing around the loft. “A cassette recorder,” said Poppy, pressing the stop button. “Almost dead.” Digging in the same bag, she produced a couple of notebooks, pens, some Polaroid pictures, and finally, a set of batteries. She slotted the batteries into a panel on the back of the recorder, then hit rewind. “Maybe if we listen from the beginning—”
“We won’t be in here that long,” Dash interrupted.
“You don’t know that,” said Poppy. The cassette clicked to an automatic stop as it finished rewinding. She tapped another button, and the recording began to play.
A GIRL’S CHIPPER voice rattled the tape recorder’s speaker. “Note to self,” she said. “Find a new group of friends, preferably ones that aren’t immature weirdos.”
“It’s a little loud,” said Dash.
Poppy fiddled with the volume knob and accidentally hit the fast-forward button. When she pressed play again, another voice spoke—a different girl with a velvety and frightened warble: “But I read somewhere that the orphanage director’s father was the one who built the house. He was a famous artist. I think his name was Frederick Caldwell. Some of his work use
d to hang in the library in Greencliffe. Lots of landscapes. But he also did portraits. I’ve heard that there was something weird about his work.”
Nervous laughter erupted from the speaker, and then a boy spoke up. “What kind of weird?”
“Not sure. But you’re supposed get a spooky feeling from looking at the paintings.”
“I get a spooky feeling from looking at your mother!” said the boy on the tape.
“Shut up, Will!” yelled the two girls. Everyone on the tape chuckled.
“Seriously though,” said another boy. “I’ve heard that too. And the reason is: Frederick Caldwell made a pact with something that lives in these woods.”
“A pact?” asked the first girl.
“Uh-huh. My grandfather said there was a secret society down in New York City who told Frederick what to do. Where to build the house. How to contact the … thing that could help make him richer and more famous. But there was a cost. That’s why the painter’s family died. That’s why Frederick ended up going insane. And his son too. This land is cursed. Lots of people died here.”
There was a brief pause, and then the first girl said, “I’m so glad we came!” Sarcasm dripped from her voice.
Azumi pressed the stop button, and Dash and Poppy jumped.
Wide-eyed, Poppy spoke up. “I knew we came up here for a reason! These kids’ stories! A pact? It’s like someone wanted us to—” Azumi touched the rewind button for a second, and Poppy flinched. “What are you doing?”
“Listen,” whispered Azumi, turning on the recording again.
The voices started up. “—son too. This land is cursed. Lots of people died here.” There was the pause, followed by: “I’m so glad we came!”
“What are we listening for?” asked Dash.
Azumi shook her head, rewound the tape a little, and hit play one more time.
“—is cursed. Lots of people died here.” She flicked the volume back up, and suddenly Poppy heard something else inside that small pause. Another voice. A deeper voice. It said: “You’ll … die … too …”
And then that chipper voice went on, “I’m so glad we came!”
Azumi pressed stop and looked at Poppy and Dash. “You heard it?” Stone-faced, Poppy and Dash nodded. “Who were these kids?” Azumi asked.
Dash glanced down at the blanket, picking up the notebooks and photographs that Poppy had taken from one of the bags. A Polaroid fell to the floor—a picture of four kids, smiling as they stood before what looked like the gate of Larkspur House. The group in the photo were dressed in clothes that might have been stylish forty years earlier. The two girls had long hair and the boys wore shiny shirts with giant collars.
“They probably came up from Greencliffe to explore Larkspur,” said Poppy.
“I don’t think they ever left,” said Azumi, her brow creased.
“Five of them,” Poppy said, nodding at the backpacks and bags lying around the shadow board.
“But there are only four in the photo,” said Dash.
“One of them had to take the picture,” Poppy went on. “Five. The same number as Cyrus’s first orphans in the 1930s who drowned. The same number of the Specials in the 1950s.”
“And us,” said Azumi. “There were five of us too. Before Marcus and Dylan—”
“It’s the house,” said Dash quickly. “It’s like … it keeps calling five kids. Over and over. Like five is its lucky number.”
“A powerful number,” said Azumi. “My baaba used to talk about how certain numbers have special meanings.”
“So what’s it mean right now?” asked Dash. Azumi shook her head. The diamond-shaped piece of wood rattled in the center of the shadow board, catching everyone’s attention. His eyes popped wide. “Was that you guys?”
The girls whispered, “No.”
All three of them scooted away from the board.
To their surprise, the wooden pointer began to slowly slide around, pausing on certain letters. Azumi read them aloud. “L … O … O … K …” The pointer stopped moving.
“They’re here,” said Poppy, her eyes flicking around the darkness of the loft.
“Look?” Dash said, staring at the shadow board.
“They want to talk to us,” said Poppy. “Just like the first orphans did, in the classroom with the chalkboard.”
“Yeah, but didn’t those kids try to drown you and Marcus?” asked Azumi.
Dash poked at the pointer. “What do they want us to look at?” He glanced around as if trying to find this new group of spirits. “Hello? Could you be a little more clear?”
“Oh my goodness,” said Poppy, glancing down at the notebooks she’d taken from one of the bags, sliding out a thin piece of paper onto the blanket. “Check this out.” It was a yellowed newspaper clipping dated 1912. She read: “Greencliffe, Jun. 1. An early-morning fire in the upper floors of Larkspur House resulted in the deaths of two members of the Caldwell family today …” Poppy looked up at the others. “It’s the same story we found back in the tower of the house. That page was torn off halfway through, but this one …” She unfolded the bottom part of the paper, revealing the rest of the article. “This one is whole.”
The wooden pointer slid across the word YES several times before skidding to a stop.
“What’s the article say, Poppy?” Azumi asked.
Dash shone his flashlight onto the page so Poppy could see better.
Poppy read more. “The boy is currently under observation at the new Peekskill Hospital south of Greencliffe.” She looked up. “The boy was Cyrus, remember? The painter was his father.” She went on, “This is the second tragic event to strike Larkspur House recently. Only one month ago, several visitors were killed when their car crashed into the wall inside the main gate at Hardscrabble Road. Those victims were Mrs. Dagmar Spencer, age 40, of New York City, and her five young wards: Fergus Spencer, age 11; Gustav Spencer, age 9; Kristof Spencer, age 10; Dawn Spencer, age 12; and Tatum Spencer, age 11. Their driver, Blake Brazzel, was thrown from the car and sustained only minor injuries. He claimed that he lost control of the wheel. Mrs. Spencer, a self-proclaimed psychic medium, had reportedly been invited to the house with her children by Mrs. Eugenia Caldwell for a Spiritualist ceremony. The investigation into that accident is ongoing.”
“Five more dead kids,” said Azumi. “This house is hungry.”
“What’s a Spiritualist ceremony?” asked Dash.
“Something to do with psychics,” said Poppy. “Maybe this Mrs. Spencer and her children held a séance for Mrs. Caldwell?”
“Why did these kids want us to know about this?” asked Azumi.
Dash folded his arms. “What if it’s all a distraction? What if they’re working with the house to confuse us?”
“By giving us more information?” said Poppy, sounding confident. “I don’t think so. They want to help.”
“But what if their help is the kind that hurts?”
Azumi nodded at the stairs. “We’re only here until the storm breaks … until it’s safe for us to leave again and find the driveway.”
Poppy began to rummage through the other bags. When she opened the heaviest one, she discovered a large tool—two metal handles that swung apart and a sharp pair of blades that opened and closed like a bird’s beak. “A bolt cutter,” said Poppy.
“Maybe they meant for us to find this,” Dash said, taking the cutter from her.
The pointer slid across the board again. Azumi called the letters. “L … I … S … T … E … N …”
The cassette player on the blanket by Poppy’s knees whirred to life again as the tape sped forward all by itself, and Poppy jumped away from it. The cassette stopped and then began to play at a normal speed. Screaming erupted from the speaker, the kids’ voices overlapping in a frenzied panic. Then, drowning out everything else, a familiar sound roared—a snarling howl.
It was the creature!
Poppy clapped her hands to her ears, but what came next was too loud to block
out—a sudden crunching sound followed by a horrible silence. The player stopped abruptly, the buttons of the machine snapping up as the deck popped open, tossing the tape onto the blanket between them.
CHILLS COATED AZUMI’S skin, like the water that was still dripping from the roof of the barn overhead.
She stared down at the cassette. It made her wonder what she might have left in the house that someone would find someday—evidence that she’d been here.
She closed her eyes, only to see Marcus flying through the air, right before he hit the tree, and the creature watching the rest of them run away. Icy guilt ran through her veins as the image looped through her brain like a glitch, before it melted into a vision of her sister lying motionless on the mossy ground in the Japanese forest.
She pressed her palms into her eye sockets. The burst of purple and green that appeared in the blackness behind her eyelids kept her from thinking about what must have happened to the five kids from Greencliffe after they’d encountered the shadow creature that lurked in these woods.
The pointer continued to slowly slide around the shadow board, hovering over the same letters, again and again. L … I … S … T … E … N … L … I … S … T … E … N … L … I … S … T … E … N …
“What are we supposed to hear?” asked Poppy.
“The rain,” whispered Azumi. “It’s stopped.”
Dash swung the bolt cutter and pointed it at the shadow board. “They’re telling us to leave.”
Poppy started, “I don’t think that’s what they’re—”
“I don’t care what you think,” said Dash, standing. “Azumi’s right. There’s no more rain. It’s time to go.”
“You don’t need to talk to me like that, Dash,” said Poppy. “I’m only trying to figure out—”
“Stop!” said Azumi. She shook her head, clutching her arms across her rib cage. “Stop fighting!” Dash and Poppy stared at her, their cheeks burning. “I really want to go home. We need to find the way out.”