“Okay.”
Ashleigh made no attempt to speak. Like an athlete who warmed up before hitting the field, Ashleigh always needed to work her way up to following through, which in this instance meant having someone else prompt her to do so.
Logan disregarded the wooden chair under the cherry wood desk across the room. He could tell that meeting Ashleigh at eye-level wouldn’t work, so he sat on the cold, hard ground and leaned against a leg of her desk. “I’m ready when you are.”
Her fingers stopped speeding across the phone. She tossed it aside, closed her eyes, and flinched. She opened them again but wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I don't know where to start.”
He waited.
“Okay, we sat in a circle trading makeup: me, Aaliyah, Jin, and Josephina. Everything was fine and then I felt it: a tap on the shoulder. I turned around, but there was no one there. I thought maybe Josephina was playing a trick on me, you know, tapping my shoulder and pretending it never happened? So I said, ‘Ha, ha. Funny.’ And of course she acted like it never happened, so whatever, right? Then it happened again. I was like, ‘All right, it’s getting old now.’ And she was all, ‘Ash, what’re you talking about?’ I wanted to believe her, but come on, I felt it, you know?”
Given her fear of the authorities, Logan doubted she’d taken drugs, which might have made her paranoid. “Does Aaliyah have a brother or sister? One of them could have been pulling a fast one on you.”
“No. She’s an only child.” Ashleigh winced and shook her head. “So anyway, then…” Tears beaded in her eyes. “A hand clutched my shoulder, and I jerked around because I wanted to catch her this time, but…” Ashleigh now wore a vacant look…like she had emotionally checked out. “Josephina was actually leaning in the other direction, checking out eyeliner with Jin. Aaliyah had gone to make popcorn. There was no one behind me.”
Logan thought about Tyler’s statement earlier about a ghost haunting them, but even though he’d blown that off, he now began mulling over the idea. Could a ghost haunt more than one house? If this were the case, the ghost could go from house to house like kids seeking candy on Halloween. But of course, since he didn’t know anything about them that was only conjecture.
“So who grabbed me?” asked Ashleigh.
“Maybe Aaliyah threw something at you, and it felt like a hand on your shoulder?”
She favored him with an annoyed stare.
Despite her assurances that she didn’t want to run into trouble with the law, Logan knew if he didn’t ask this next question, he would be failing as a caretaker. “Were you…doing drugs?”
“They even asked if I was tripping on acid.” She clenched her teeth. “Can you believe that? They know I won’t touch that stuff. I know Jin tokes. Josephina tries stuff sometimes. Not Aaliyah. Neither of us will.”
Upon learning that Ashleigh’s friends occasionally used illegal substances set off a fuse of anger and fear inside Logan. Those girls were freshmen. Why were they using drugs? His own friends had drunk liquor and experimented with pot, but they hadn’t gone any further than that. Besides, they only began doing that in their junior year.
His sister’s friends had just left childhood and entered adolescence, not that there was an acceptable age for kids to abuse drugs, but he’d hoped that sort of peer pressure wouldn’t have kicked in yet. He pegged Ashleigh as someone who would refuse drugs and alcohol time and again, only to get run down and eventually cave in. Logan only felt that way because he knew how important it was for her to fit in with her friends, and if continually pressed, he suspected Ashleigh would get upset and do it just to get them off her back.
But he believed that she hadn’t tried any tonight. The certainty and fear in her eyes led to that conclusion. Plus, he hadn’t smelled alcohol on her breath. Still, her voice had been shaky. Had it trembled because she’d lied to him about it? Had he misplaced his trust in her? The idea left him a little shaky.
Logan hated being put in the position of a parent. But he only had himself to blame since he’d pushed his mother to leave. Regardless, he’d have made the same decision again. His mother needed a break. And he took a lot of pride in helping her unwind after a decade straight without getting away.
“So you didn’t,” Logan asked, his chest tight, “do any drugs?”
She stared at him long and hard.
He met her gaze and held it until she scoffed and looked away. When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Well?”
“No!” She slung her neck his way. “I didn’t. I already told you. Besides, what does that—”
“Mind-altering drugs? That could explain—”
“Logan!” Her voice was harsh and accusatory.
Exploding like that made it seem like she’d begun doubting whether she could trust him. For that reason, Logan sensed her pulling away from him. He didn’t like it, but if he had to become “Dad” and piss her off, then he’d do it to make sure that she didn’t join her friends and do something she’d later regret. Her safety mattered more to him than whether or not she liked him.
“I didn’t,” she said. “Okay? So…” Ashleigh glared at him. “You don’t believe me either, do you?”
“I believe you didn’t do drugs.” He thanked God she had enough strength and willpower to accomplish that feat.
“Not about the drugs, Logan! About the ghost.”
“Oh. Well, that’s strange. So something grabbed you. Is that when you called me?”
“Duh! I wasn’t going to stay in a haunted house.”
“Have you ever been at Aaliyah’s house before?”
“No. That’s why I wanted out. Who knows how long that ghost has been there, haunting them.” Her expression clouded over, appearing aggravated. “Now they think I’m fucking insane.” She looked up, an excruciating cringe forming on her face.
Without another word crossing her lips, Logan instinctively knew exactly what she worried about: her friends telling their friends that she’d freaked out and called her big brother to come to get her at midnight, all because she was scared of…nothing. She worried about rumors and how others would begin making fun of her. She worried about the entire school finding out. She worried about how it would affect her reputation.
High school sucked. Logan didn’t think anyone escaped unscathed in one way or another.
He didn’t want to go off on that tangent because he’d dominate the conversation with stories of his own. “Do they have a cat or dog that might have grabbed you and scampered away?”
“No.”
“So if you’ve never been haunted by a ghost or seen one, how do you know one touched you?”
“What else could it be?”
He didn’t have an answer for her.
She threw up her hands and looked skyward.
“It was your first time there,” he said. “If the place is haunted, wouldn’t Aaliyah already know it?”
“I don’t what ghosts do with their spare time. Maybe they play hide and seek with the owners, but come out when their friends drop by.”
Logan could ask “what if” questions all day, but the bottom line was that, even if he believed in ghosts, he didn’t know anything about their existence, so asking any further questions about them was moot.
Ashleigh scoffed. “You don’t believe me. You think I’m crazy. Just like them.”
“I wasn’t there,” Logan said. “I don’t know what could have grabbed you.” If her friends thought she was nuts, maybe they were onto something. No, he couldn’t think that way. Ashleigh wasn’t undergoing a psychotic break. Granted, he wasn’t a doctor who had recorded all of her behavior and analyzed any potential symptoms of psychosis, but she seemed reasonably well-adjusted, excluding the present circumstance.
“Just…” She shook her head, picked up her phone, and gave it her utmost attention. “Goodnight.”
He didn’t like being dismissed, but he didn’t know where else to take the conversation. He got up, walked out of her room, and closed the door
.
“Do you believe her?” asked Tyler, standing behind him.
Logan nearly jumped at the unexpected sound of his brother.
Tyler stared him directly in the eye. “You should.”
6
When Logan woke up the next morning, he set his feet on the ground but slipped and flopped back onto his bed. The grogginess left his eyes as he nearly avoided falling to the floor. Breathing heavily, he looked down at the spot where his head would have collided with wood.
All of his sketches were spread out in a long line, like the middle portion of an accordion, the black leather booklet that had held them lying on the ground beside the desk.
Had Ashleigh done that? To get back at him for not believing her? That seemed trite. He’d wondered the same thing about Tyler, only Ashleigh was too mature for such a childish prank. For the first time, he wondered if a ghost truly was haunting them. But when he thought about the tampons in the toilet, he immediately rejected the notion. Since spirits were supposedly invisible, and thus had no mass, how could one toss a tampon in the bowl, much less flush the toilet?
Logan hunched down, scooped up the pile of sketches, organized it inside the leather folder, and placed it on his desk. On second thought, by suspecting his siblings of messing with his work, Logan may have been too judgmental.
The flooring at his desk tilted to one side due to the house’s shifting foundation. Every time he sat down on his rolling chair, he would slide away from the desk. Until now, nothing on his desk had fallen, but it seemed that going forward, he’d need to place those items further back on his desk so they wouldn’t also slip off.
He snatched his phone from the desk and checked the time. It was a couple of hours before noon. Logan left his room and walked into Tyler’s room, but he wasn’t inside. He then entered Ashleigh’s room, but it was also vacant. Unnerved by the silence, he went downstairs and noticed that a picture frame had fallen from the staircase wall and now lay near his feet.
The family picture revealed Logan, his sister, and their parents smiling in a photo that was taken the week leading up to the suicide. Logan knelt down and picked it up. A crack in the frame streaked across Logan’s eyes before tilting downwards and slicing through Ashleigh’s mouth.
How had it fallen? Could the foundation under the house have gotten worse? Unlikely. None of the other five frames had fallen or even tilted at an awkward angle. They all looked perfectly even. So how could only one frame fall? Easy. It had been knocked down on purpose.
Had Ashleigh and Tyler gotten into a fight, only to have one of them bang into the staircase wall, forcing the frame onto the ground? Logan doubted it. He would have awakened from the noise. Besides, Ashleigh would have picked it up.
So how had the frame hit the ground?
Logan glanced around the house, listening for anything unordinary. Outside, the wind whistled as it hit the aluminum siding, but the interior of the house was completely silent. Once again, he toyed with his siblings’ belief that a ghost may have visited them.
Granted, he didn’t know anything else about spirits, but he was pretty sure they called it a haunted house because a ghost stayed in that one house. They didn’t follow family members from one place to the next, as Ashleigh had all but stated last night. Besides, why would a spirit wait until now to begin haunting them? Since he didn’t have the requisite amount of knowledge pertaining to apparitions, he didn’t have answers for those questions.
Rather than questioning whether supernatural entities resided in their home, Logan needed to find out why his siblings weren’t currently in the house. Before Ashleigh and Tyler left the house, they were supposed to tell their mother or Logan where they planned to go. Short of that, they were required to leave a note on the refrigerator before exiting the house. Logan went over to the fridge and spotted a scrap piece of paper under a magnet.
Ashleigh had written that she and Tyler went to the library branch to learn more about ghosts. Since those two had gotten into a fight earlier, they must’ve patched things up. Had they seen the frame and left it in place for Logan to discover it? That seemed possible, given that they obviously suspected that a ghost haunted them, and maybe they wanted Logan to see that evidence as something that occurred from supernatural origins.
He returned the frame to the wall. He’d ask his siblings about it later, but he’d also make sure they got a new frame before their mother returned home. It reminded Logan of her voicemail and the message his father had written to him. Excitement coursed through him at the notion of acquiring some knowledge or advice or whatever his father felt important enough to share with Logan on the day he turned nineteen.
In the meantime, he texted Ashleigh and let her know that he’d soon join them at the library. Would Eloise be there? The possibility of seeing her again made him smile…until he realized that he hadn’t called her. She’d given Logan her number a couple of days ago. He should have called by now, and if he saw Eloise later, he’d need a good explanation.
After eating, showering, and dressing, Logan drove to the library branch, even though it was quite close to home, and entered the facility a little before noon. He stepped behind a family of six as they entered the building. Logan looked around, shocked to find close to forty patrons in the stacks and at the computer stations. Two days ago, he’d been one of only a handful of individuals in the entire place.
In the past couple days, the branch staff had erected a Christmas tree, giant snowflakes constructed of paper, and other decorations, signifying the start of the library’s winter reading program.
At the public service desk, shielded by three grade-school girls, Eloise typed on the computer and handed a booklet to one of them. “You’re all set, girls.”
The trio thanked her and left the desk at the same moment Logan headed toward her.
She looked up at him, expressionless. “Hey, Logan.”
He was thrown off by her friendly yet distant tone.
“I saw your brother and sister here a little while ago,” she said, scanning the branch. “But I don’t see them now.”
Unlike the last two times they met, the playful element in their conversations hadn’t returned. He hoped she’d adopted that demeanor due to the extra demands during such a busy day, but he had to assume it had more to do with not having called her. Logan disliked the indifference she showed him, but he couldn’t blame her. If they switched places, he would’ve probably have had a similar reaction.
“My boss told me you were searching for a new job,” she said. “How’s the job search going?”
“Yeah, please thank her for helping me out, and let her know I’ve got an interview next week. By the way, I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’ve wanted to, but some things have come up lately that—”
“It’s okay.” Eloise’s smile brightened and looked more authentic. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Maybe not, but I want to. It’s just that there is a lot going on right now. Ashleigh and Tyler aren’t getting along with each other.”
“They seemed fine when I saw them walk in earlier.”
He shook his head, puzzled. “First they’re accusing each other of doing things around the house, and now they’re both somewhat convinced that we’re being haunted by a ghost.”
Eloise’s smile disappeared. Her mouth closed and her eyebrows lowered.
He hadn’t expected that response. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me. You just surprised me.”
“That’s good to hear. Anyway, things are tense at the house.”
“A ghost, huh? Tell me about it.”
“That’s why they’re here right now. I guess they’re doing research on them.” He glanced at the computer station, surprised not to find them there. “I’m shocked Ashleigh didn’t just go online and look, but I guess she could have done that at home.”
“You can’t believe everything you read online,” Eloise said. “I guarantee that your sister would
probably find more valuable information in our books or in our databases than on the internet.” She paused for a moment, nibbling her lower lip. “What makes them think that you have a ghost in the house?”
“It sounds like you believe in them.”
“I do.”
She’d made it seem as though knowing spirits existed was as ordinary as breathing. “Why?”
Eloise glanced to either side of her. Then she permitted a quick little chuckle.
“What?” he asked, intrigued by her response. He couldn’t get over the idea that she found his disbelief slightly comical, not in a way that belittled him, but simply that she knew better than to doubt their existence.
“Keep going. I’m curious to hear what else you have to say on the subject.”
He wanted to hear more about her opinion on the subject, but he didn’t want to badger her about it. “Well, personally, I think Tyler’s acting out because he misses our mom. As for Ashleigh, she called me last night at midnight to pick her up from a friend’s house. She was convinced a ghost grabbed her shoulder. It’s strange.”
“That is,” Eloise admitted, her mouth dragging into a frown. “Ashleigh may have seen a potential spirit away from home, but did Tyler also have anything peculiar happen while outside of your house?”
From behind him, Logan heard a pair of men chatting. He turned around and found those two men step into line behind him, while a few senior citizens strolled toward the spot directly behind them.
“Well,” Logan said, spinning back towards Eloise. “It’s really busy today.”
“It’s the first day of our winter reading program, so it can get hectic. Every other year, it’s usually been short bursts of activity, followed by boredom, but it’s been busy all day.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his siblings making their way towards him. Ashleigh held a bag of books, whereas Tyler cradled five books under both arms, although a few paperbacks threatened to tip out of his grasp.
“I should get going.” He darted out of line, reached Tyler, and snatched the items that nearly got away from his brother.
The Descendants Page 6