“Okay,” said Eliza. “Sorry.”
She moved past him, up the steps.
“Wait.”
Eliza halted. Maybe Tommy was going to explain something about the basement. Maybe he’d decided he could trust her. She turned to him, hopeful.
But all he said was “The key.” He held out his hand.
Eliza dropped the basement key into his palm. Then she hurried up the stairs.
Tommy didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. They continued silently with their chores, working on the opposite sides of each room.
Tension spread through Eliza’s body. Her head felt tight. Her back ached. She stretched it while dusting the leaves of rubber plants. Her stomach ached, too, but she couldn’t stretch that. She’d started to feel not quite friendly with Tommy, but something friendly-ish. It had been nice to talk to someone who wanted to listen, who had odd hobbies of his own, who even knew what the word Nepenthe meant. She’d started to hope that he would help with her Carrolls’ Gardens ghost hunting—because clearly, there were ghosts here to be hunted. But now everything had changed. And this time the change was her own fault.
She glanced over at Tommy just once, while they were both checking for weeds in the greenhouse flats. She found him looking straight back at her. His hazel eyes were icy. And for once, Eliza was the first one to look away.
Turn to this page.
WHEN ELIZA WOKE IN the middle of that night, it wasn’t a coincidence.
She’d set her tablet to vibrate at 12:30 and slipped it underneath her pillow. But as it turned out, it wasn’t vibration that woke her. It was a crash of thunder.
Eliza jerked backward in bed. A flash of lightning bleached the turret windows. Rain hissed against the panes. She pulled out her tablet. 12:24. She hadn’t even needed to set the alarm.
Another smash of thunder shook the big brick building. The windows rattled. Raindrops pounded on the turret’s metal roof. In the other bed, her mother didn’t stir.
Eliza slipped out of the covers and darted across the room to the turret. The cushions of the encircling window seat were covered in threadbare velvet, like the seats in an old movie theater. Eliza knelt on the seat and pressed her face to the window. If she pressed hard enough and looked straight down, she could see the windows of the Carrolls’ apartment, as well as the shop below. All the lights were out. Except for the headlights of a rusty pickup truck coasting along the pavement, the entire street was dark.
This was her chance.
With the Spectral Translator in hand, Eliza raced out into the hall, down both flights of stairs, and into the deserted store.
By night, Carrolls’ Gardens looked even more like a patch of strange forest. Fronds and stems twisted through the dark. Flickers of lightning turned each plant to layers of black paper silhouettes. It was impossible to tell what was real and what was only a shadow.
Dodging the fluttering leaves, Eliza made her way to the counter. She reached for the spare keys.
Now the hook labeled BASEMENT was empty.
Something more like frustration than surprise whooshed through her. First the attic, and now the basement? Tommy must have decided to hide the key, to keep her from getting into the basement again. Well, that wasn’t going to stop her. Maybe she could remove the doorknob with a screwdriver; the greenhouse must have a few tools that could help. Maybe she could even pick the lock. The noise of the storm would provide the perfect cover.
With the Spectral Translator in one hand and a lock-picking paperclip from the counter drawers in her pocket, Eliza threaded through the rare plant room, avoiding thorns and stingers and sticky leaves. Fronds whispered around her. Thunder boomed, shaking the walls.
In the back hallway, hard rain spattered the windows. But now, beneath the noise, Eliza heard something else.
Voices.
Eliza halted.
Two voices. Men’s voices. One deep. One raspy and soft.
A flash of lightning bleached the hallway. By its light, Eliza could see that the basement door was standing wide open.
She rolled her head from side to side. She stretched both wrists. Then, her whole body zinging and ready, she inched closer to the open door.
Cold, wet air swirled up from below.
One of the voices spoke again. Eliza couldn’t make out its words. Could this be the same voice Mr. Carroll had heard in the attic years ago? Or were multiple ghosts haunting the rooms of Carrolls’ Gardens, just waiting for Eliza to discover them?
She tiptoed down the first two steps. She had expected the basement to be blindingly dark—but instead, from somewhere out of sight, there came a dim glow. What was going on down here?
With slightly shaky hands, Eliza held out the Translator. The spinner wobbled, stopping just above the angry face—but it could have been the breeze or her shaking that moved it.
She crept down the steps. The chill of the stone floor seeped through her socks like ice water. As Eliza hesitated, trying to trace the source of the breeze, a voice spoke.
And this time, Eliza recognized it.
“Any more?” said Mr. Carroll’s deep voice.
“A few,” rasped the other.
Eliza held her breath. Was Mr. Carroll speaking to the ghost?
She slunk past a sagging wooden shelf. Around its edge, she made out a burning lightbulb in a dirty glass fixture. Beside the light was a gap in the basement’s stone wall—a gap filled with another flight of stairs.
Eliza crept closer. More of the staircase slid into view. The steps led steeply upward, their wooden slats dripping with rain. At the top of the steps, Eliza could see an open cellar door leading out to the stormy backyard. And standing on the staircase, his back to her, was the broad, dark shape of Mr. Carroll.
Eliza halted again, her mind whirling. Was this the cold spot? Just a draft from an open doorway? And what was Mr. Carroll doing in it? She inched nearer. Damp wind struck her face, lifting the ends of her hair.
Mr. Carroll waited on the stairs. Rain pattered around him. As Eliza watched, a second figure—something dressed in a battered sweater and knit cap—appeared at the very top of the steps. Eliza couldn’t make out its face, but it looked too solid to be a ghost. Its tattoo-covered hands passed Mr. Carroll a bundle.
“That one’s heavy,” said the raspy voice. “Two more.”
“All right,” Mr. Carroll murmured back.
The other figure disappeared.
Mr. Carroll thumped down the steps. He set the bundle on the floor in a line of other bundles. Eliza squinted at them. The bundles varied widely in size, but each one was wrapped in burlap and shaped like a lumpy hourglass. Sticking out here and there through gaps in the fabric were bits of green.
Twigs. Leaves.
The bundles were full of plants.
For an instant, Eliza felt furious. She’d expected to find a ghost at last. Instead, she’d found a bunch of shrubs?
She let out a long, hot breath through her nose. She was about to turn away when a new thought plunged into her brain.
What kind of plants did people hand off at midnight, in a rainstorm, through a hidden basement door?
Eliza stopped.
Dangerous plants. Poisons. Drugs. Or something even worse. Frost spread through her body, fizzling the anger away. What kind of secret had she stumbled into?
This was the trouble with people. They had complicated, messy, confusing problems. She was interested in ghosts, not in real life. Whatever was happening here, with the Carrolls and the raspy-voiced stranger and the bundled plants, it wasn’t the kind of thing that belonged in Eliza’s paranormal research notebook. It didn’t belong there—and she didn’t belong here.
With her heart jammed in her windpipe, Eliza raced back toward the stairs. She climbed as carefully and quietly as she could, away from the dim gold basement light and deeper into the stormy blackness. By the time she
reached the upper hall, her legs were shaking, and the darkness was so thick she was nearly blind.
She stopped for a moment in the hall, gasping, holding out a hand to make sure the path around her was clear. Another bolt of lightning flashed. It illuminated the deserted greenhouse and the rain-soaked backyard. It filled the hallway windows with white light. It flared on the face pressed against one of those windows—the face of someone, or something, waiting in the rainy yard. Something dark and hunched. Something cloaked in black.
Something that stared straight back at Eliza with a pair of blazing yellow eyes.
It didn’t matter how quietly she had climbed the basement steps.
Because now Eliza let out a quiet-shattering scream.
Turn to this page.
ELIZA SLAPPED A HAND over her mouth.
But it was too late.
The sound of footsteps echoed up from the basement. Meanwhile, in the backyard, the yellow eyes had disappeared. Whatever they belonged to had backed away and dwindled into the night.
Heavy feet clomped up the basement staircase.
Eliza threw herself into the rare plant room and dived behind a giant palm. The shadows around her swayed.
The footsteps creaked closer.
Eliza’s lungs squeezed into two hard, breathless knots.
Through the dark slashes of the palm fronds, she watched Mr. Carroll step from the hallway into the rare plant room. Even in the dimness, she could see the glitter of raindrops on his Hawaiian shirt. She hunched as low as she could, praying that another flash of lightning wouldn’t burn through the shadows and give her away.
Mr. Carroll stopped a few feet from her hiding spot. His usually jolly face was wary. His dark eyes glinted as they scanned the room. For the first time, Eliza realized not just how big and broad, but how intimidating Mr. Carroll was. He looked like someone who wouldn’t be afraid to confront an intruder with nothing but his bare hands.
Maybe she should step out from behind the potted palm right now. She could explain that she had been ghost hunting and gotten scared, and Mr. Carroll would probably laugh his big laugh and tell her he’d keep an eye out for any ghosts, and then they would probably both head up to bed, pretending nothing strange had happened. But something in Mr. Carroll’s face kept her stuck to the wall. Something hard and cold. Something she hadn’t seen there before. It reminded her of Tommy’s cold, hard voice. Were both of them keeping secrets?
As Eliza shivered, holding her breath tight, Mr. Carroll slowly turned back toward the hallway. His heavy footsteps creaked away. There was the thud of the closing basement door.
Eliza flew out from behind the potted palm.
She tore up both flights of stairs and down the dark hallway into her room.
Her mother was still in bed, sleeping soundly.
Dropping her ghost-hunting tools, Eliza leaped into her own bed. She lay there like uncooked spaghetti.
Minutes ticked by. Eliza stretched everything she could stretch while lying down: her ankles, her hands, her hamstrings.
Finally, no closer to relaxing, Eliza slid out of bed, crept to her box, and grabbed her research notebook.
She made her way to the turret in the corner. The storm was fading to a softer rainfall now. Just enough light misted up from the streetlamps for her to see the pages.
Eliza reread her list: her careful notes about the sighting on the street, the sounds in the basement, the story of the attic.
July 13, 12:30–1:30 a.m., she added. Possible ghost sighting: Backyard of Carrolls’ Gardens. Dark figure. Yellow eyes. And then, even though it didn’t belong with her paranormal research, she wrote:
Mysterious activity: Basement. Mr. C. speaking to unknown person (?) at hidden back door. Handing off plants. WHY?
Eliza closed the notebook.
Usually ghost hunting made her feel electrified and happy—but now she felt electrified and jittery, like the energy coursing through her was the wrong voltage, and it could start to burn.
There was at least one mystery haunting this place. There was a spectral presence—no human being had eyes that yellow color—and there was the mystery of Mr. Carroll and the basement plants. Maybe the two were connected somehow. The yellow eyes had appeared right after she’d witnessed the weirdness in the basement….
If only she had someone to talk to about all of this. Eliza was used to most people not believing in the value of psychical research, but now, without Chloe or Xavier, and with Tommy not speaking to her, she was entirely alone.
Eliza took a breath.
Well—then she would do this alone.
She would find answers. She would keep searching.
Eliza slipped down from the window seat and padded back across the room. If she had stayed for just a moment longer, she would have seen a final weak flash of lightning illuminate the street. She would have seen it glancing off the pavement, turning puddles to mirrors and leaves to flickering tinsel. She would have seen a large, hunched figure gliding away from Carrolls’ Gardens, slipping into the shadows just as the light faded.
But Eliza had already climbed into bed.
And the dark figure had disappeared once more.
BY THE TIME ELIZA woke up the next morning, her mother’s bed was empty and neatly made. The light streaming through the turret windows was bright. She pulled on some clothes, ate a cold toaster pastry, and hurried down the stairs.
Mrs. Carroll was in the floral department, watering a basket of ivy. “I know you wish you had flowers,” Eliza heard her murmuring, “but greenery is just as lovely, and it doesn’t fade!” She stopped to flash Eliza a sunny smile. “Good morning, dear!—Now, pay no attention to that bridal veil plant. It’s just feeling insecure….”
Eliza headed across the shop.
The door to her mother’s workroom was closed. Eliza inched it open and peeped inside. Her mother stood at the central table, the red-berried plant and something with long purplish leaves sitting before her. She was bent over an open book, whispering softly to herself.
Part of Eliza wanted to dart inside, close the door behind her, and tell her mother all about the night before. But that would mean admitting that she’d sneaked out of bed—again—to ghost hunt. And it would mean admitting that she couldn’t handle this mystery on her own.
Eliza shut the door.
She turned back toward the shop. The main room glowed with morning sun. Its light filtered through a thousand leaves, turning them to glinting emerald and amber. A few customers examined water lilies in the bubbling indoor pond.
“Good morning, Eliza!” Mr. Carroll boomed from behind the counter. “I hope that storm didn’t keep you up all night!”
“Um…nope,” said Eliza. She shifted in her shoes. “What can I help with?”
“Why don’t you take it easy today?” Mr. Carroll suggested. “Find a sunny spot. Read a book. I could bring you a glass of my famous sweet tea.” His smile broadened. “It is your summer vacation, after all.”
Maybe she was imagining it, but Mr. Carroll’s smile looked different this morning. It was like something microwaved: warm at the edges, but with a hard frozen spot in the middle. Did he suspect something? He had heard her scream….
Eliza swallowed. “That’s okay,” she managed. “I like to keep busy.”
“And I like people who like to keep busy.” Mr. Carroll waved a hand the size of a baseball glove. “The greenhouse needs sweeping. You could start there!”
Eliza wound through the rare plant room and into the hall. She checked the window where that shadowy face had pressed itself, its yellow eyes burning in at her—even though she knew there’d be nothing there. Then she pushed through the glass doors into the greenhouse.
Tommy stood at the greenhouse’s far end. His shaggy head was bowed over a small table, where a few potted plants and tools and papers were scattered. He didn’t look up.
&
nbsp; The wide push broom leaned against the outer wall. Eliza grabbed it and began brushing dead leaves and spilled dirt out from under the tables. The broom rasped softly. Tommy still didn’t turn.
He must have decided to ignore her completely.
A thought struck Eliza. Did Tommy know about the basement plants? Had he warned her away from the basement in order to keep his uncle—or the mystery—safe? Had he actually been trying to protect Eliza from something? She would have liked to find out, if Tommy hadn’t been giving her the silent treatment. Eliza swallowed a lump in her throat. It was strange: Having a friend—or an almost-friend—and then losing him felt worse than never having had a friend at all.
Eliza was just thrusting the broom beneath another table when something let out a loud Mmmmrrrff!!
Eliza jumped. The broom hit the floor with a smack.
Groaning lazily, Moggie hauled herself out from under the table. She took her time stretching each back leg, and then her spine, grunting and snuffling all the while. Eliza hoped she didn’t look like that when she stretched.
She glanced up. Tommy had turned around. He was staring straight at her, his face wary.
“Oh,” said Eliza uncertainly.
“Um…,” said Tommy even more uncertainly. His fingers twitched toward the tabletop behind him. “I didn’t—um—didn’t hear you come in.”
“Oh,” said Eliza again. Maybe he hadn’t meant to ignore her. “Sorry for startling you.”
“It’s okay,” said Tommy. Without turning his back to Eliza, he angled toward the table and stuffed a couple of papers into his pocket. “I was just…concentrating.”
“On what?”
“Nothing.” Tommy’s voice dropped to an unfriendly mumble. “I’ll get the dust pan.”
“Wait.” Eliza spoke up before Tommy could slouch away. “I wanted to apologize about going into the basement. I was just trying to help. So I hope you won’t…” Eliza felt her neck growing tenser. She rolled her shoulders back and took a breath. “I hope you won’t hate me.”
The Story Pirates Present Page 5