And I can choose to believe that everything is normal. That the sky is blue and water is wet and that, no matter what, the sun always rises in the east and forever will set in the west.
Except for the very next thing that happens.
The one that proves we are definitely not crazy.
15
IT’S ALREADY DARK by the time we make it up the hill, neither of us wanting to go back to the realm of Terri the Terrible until the last second. The trees reach up to the sky, black silhouette arms spindling up to the stars, each turning on one by one.
If we wanted to, we could have been full of fear. If we hadn’t decided everything was normal. Which we definitely had.
We decided! Totally normal.
So normal, in fact, that I believe a song is in order.
Something chipper.
Everything is swell.
Everything is fine.
No need to feel
It’s out of line.
It’s all just perfect.
It’s all just swell.
Don’t you worry now.
All will be well.
“Eva.”
“No, don’t stop me, I’m figuring out the chorus.”
“Evaaa.”
“I’m thinking maybe a key change here and—”
“EVAAAAA!”
“Jeez, what the heck?” I pause my magnum opus, facing Henry.
He does look a little . . . pale.
“Turn around.”
“What?”
“Just—turn around . . .”
Something in Henry’s voice tells me I most definitely should not turn around because there is obviously something hideous, something terrifying, something too ghastly to be seen somewhere behind me.
“M-M-Maybe I won’t?” I stutter.
“I think you should.”
I squint at him, avec purpose, sizing him up. Maybe he’s just playing a trick on me. Maybe this is just some bit of psychology, like trying to scare someone when they have the hiccups.
“Okay, I’m not falling for it.”
“Fine. Don’t turn around. It’s getting closer anyway.”
It?
Is getting closer . . . ?
It is at this terrifying moment that I turn around. I can honestly tell you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if there were any sight that I could randomly bestow on another human being, it would not be this one.
I never, neither in a million years nor for a million dollars, would randomly bestow this sight on even my very worst enemy.
Because what I’m facing—is an army of incorporeal souls.
Los fantasmas.
Ghosts.
And they? Are shambling toward me.
16
THERE WAS ONCE a time when we were little. A festive time when we went over to our dad’s work colleague’s house for a holiday party. It was a random, one-off thing and we never went back, partly because my mom was extremely annoyed at the extent to which the parents let their children play Minecraft. Not only was there screen time, but there was no limit on screen time. So, basically, all the kids at the party were just shuffled aside into the basement (dungeon) and put in front of a bunch of tiny screens to drool all over themselves the whole night and probably damage their eyes permanently.
I still remember my mother on the way home. Henry was already asleep in the back seat and I was supposed to be asleep but I couldn’t help relishing this little moment of unfiltered adult-talk eavesdropping.
“I mean, if I had known, I would have brought Marisol. At least that way they could have played, or made up a puppet show, or done some crafts—” Mom lamented from the passenger seat.
“I know, honey. But you know, different strokes for different folks. I’m sure one night won’t damage the kids for life.”
This is my dad, always true blue, always seeing the other side.
“I get it, but it’s just the principle of the thing. And those kids?! Do they just park them in front of the screen all day? That one game had guns in it! Machine guns! And everybody blowing everybody up. He couldn’t have been more than five!”
“That is pretty extreme,” Dad allowed. “I wonder if they knew he was playing it?”
“I mean, what kind of a society are you making when you put machine gun video games in front of five-year-olds? It’s no wonder we’re caught up in endless wars!”
From the back seat I remember my dad, looking over at my mom, putting his hand on her hand. God, he loved her. If every husband loved every wife like that? I don’t think we’d even have wars.
But the thing I remember most from that party is the moment one of the big kids decided to play an R-rated movie on his iPad. All of us kids, there were about twenty of us, circled around to watch the inappropriate, not-for-our-consumption movie.
Henry was the only kid who wasn’t watching, and that’s because he was conducting an experiment with cleaning supplies.
I remember wanting to be brave, wanting to be a big kid, and wanting to show I could watch the super-scary movie, too.
It was only the part when the zombies came out of the ground and started coming forward in droves, trying to eat brains, that any bravery I might have mustered up decided to hightail it out of my body.
The good news is, Henry mixed ammonia with baking soda and accidentally exploded an entire Costco bulk package of paper towels. The bad news is, that kind of ended the party.
Now that I think of it, I’m sure for all the lamenting my mom did on the drive home, the hosts of that party were probably dragging our parents’ names through the mud for letting their kid conduct dangerous science experiments in the basement unsupervised.
So, you see, it all comes out in the wash.
You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this.
Welp, that would be because, um, those zombies coming out of the ground in the R-rated movie and scaring the tuna salad out of me all those years ago at the Christmas party? Yes, those selfsame zombies were across the lawn, coming toward us from the hill sloping down to the east, which also happens to be the location of the family cemetery.
Gulp.
17
“DON’T MOVE.”
“Uh . . .”
I am currently frozen in fear. So Henry telling me not to move is a bit redundant.
Allow me to describe the macabre vista before me. The lawn, usually green but now purple underneath the starlight, spreads down from where we are, the path from the cliffs, all the way to the other side, where the centuries-old ancestral cemetery is tucked away behind a giant magnolia tree. In front of us, too far away, is the house. Behind us is the cliff, which is about a fifty-to-sixty-foot drop-off to the water below.
So, you see, unless we want to become zombies and eat brains for the rest of our undead unlives, we better think fast.
“Are those . . . zombies?” I manage to utter in despair.
“They can’t be zombies. There’s no such thing as zombies.”
“They sure look like zombies.”
“That’s not logical. There’s no such thing,” Henry tells himself.
The good news is, whatever they are, they’re moving slowly. I’d say at about the pace of an octogenarian carrying a giant bag of groceries. In front of you. At the grocery store. So . . . so slow it’s almost unfathomable.
As they inch their way closer, I begin to make out their clothing. As does Henry.
“Interesting. Their clothes appear to be early nineteenth, maybe eighteenth century. Definitely Victorian era. And they don’t seem decomposed in the way of traditional zombies.” He thinks for a moment, then snaps his fingers. “Aha! I’ve got it. They’re not zombies.”
“Okaaay.”
“Perhaps the electromagnetic field has allowed for some kind of paranormal transmittance,” Henry postulates.
“In English.”
“Those are definitely ghosts.”
“Right.”
The ghoulish figures are about fift
y feet away from us now, which is fifty feet too close, wobbling toward us like molasses. I count five of them.
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five. Do you see any others, Eva?”
I can’t help it. I shriek, “Is this actually happening right now?”
As they approach, their skin begins to reveal itself. Cloudy, translucent skin, seemingly wavering in and out of this plane of existence. In one second, they are there, you could swear it. The next, they seem like nothing more than a wave, or even the thought of a wave.
“. . . But why aren’t they speaking?” Henry whispers, more to himself.
“Maybe they don’t talk.” I shrug.
“So they are silent ghosts?”
“Maybe they don’t want to be rude. Like they don’t want to yell. Or cause a disturbance.” I’m just making stuff up now.
“Do you think they’re here to harm us?”
“I don’t know, why don’t we stand here frozen and ask them while they devour our souls and usher us down to the netherworld?” I suggest.
“According to my calculations, we could stand here another five minutes and easily make it to the house, with time to spare.”
And this is true. During that entire exchange, they have only advanced about five feet.
Henry nods. “I’m going to go see what they want.”
I grab his arm. “Wait! What?! What are you talking about?”
“It falls to reason that if they wanted to hurt us, we’d be dead already. Quite frankly, they are supernatural beings. With powers of which we can’t possibly conceive!”
“I have an idea,” I say. “Why don’t we just shoot video of them. We can post it on YouTube. Then all the ghosts scientists—”
“Parapsychologists.”
“Then all the para-whatever-itses will see it and figure it out and we can just stay in our beds.”
“I understand your theory, Eva, and your trepidation. However, they might not be visible to other carbon-based life-forms.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s possible only we can see them.” Henry dumbs it down.
“Why would you think that?”
The ghost menagerie is now forty feet away from us.
“Listen, Eva. Has anyone else mentioned any paranormal activity in the house? Marisol? Claude? Terri? No. No one has.”
“Maybe the bathroom ghost of dental hygiene just wasn’t interested in them,” I contend. “Maybe the ghost is just concentrating on our dental habits because we’re younger and therefore more impressionable and they just want to make sure we have a positive relationship with flossing and our teeth in general. Including gum health. Which is very important.”
But Henry is still analyzing the battalion of ghosts before us, indifferent to my supernatural dental health hypothesis.
“What could they possibly want from us? They’re clearly disinterested in the house. Their focus seems to be on you and me.”
“Right. Which makes me think our focus should be on getting the heck out of here,” I offer.
“Aren’t you curious?” Henry asks.
“I’m curious in the way someone would be curious if a knife-wielding bandit approached them and asked for their lunch money. Like, there would be questions about who that person was, why they were wielding a knife, and why such overkill just for lunch money. But . . . I wouldn’t want to stick around to find out the answers.”
“Your feelings are registered.” He nods.
“Great. So, let’s go.”
“KIDS!” The yell comes from the other direction. “Kids, what in the world are you doing out here? It’s freezing! Your uncle has been worried sick!”
Henry and I both turn to see Terri running out in slipper-heels and an overcoat. Even though she didn’t have time to put on actual shoes, she did not forget to bring her cocktail.
“Wait.” Henry stops me. “Look. Terri doesn’t seem to see them.”
And indeed. Terri seems to be running toward us with abandon, not a care in the world, other than the wind batting her sideways and the liquid even in her drink.
“Her trajectory will directly bisect the ghosts if she keeps on her current vector— Oh my!”
Henry stops his science class short.
“What?”
“They’re gone.”
I turn to the coterie of ghosts and yes, indeedy-doo, they are completely vanished, disappeared, fin.
“What the—?”
“Don’t say anything,” he mutters.
“You mean, like, Hey did you just see that armada of zombies on the lawn?”
“Exactly.”
“Kids, dinner is ready! If you don’t come in right now I swear to God—”
“We’re coming, we’re coming!” we shout back.
Henry and I share a look.
Well, this is awkward.
No, there’s nothing strange about rejoining our family inside after sharing a supernatural encounter on the lawn with five geriatric ghosts. This is all totally by the book. Cake.
Nothing to see here.
Nope, nothing at all.
18
DESPITE THE GREAT paranormal encounter Henry and I have just experienced, the two of us are sitting calmly, even intently, at the dinner table. Terri is regaling us with tales of her many days as a lasso star in the rodeo.
I know, I know. I was surprised to hear it, too.
But it just goes to show you, never judge a smoking, drinking, shopping, and phone-addicted book by its cover.
“You know, I kinda miss that old show . . . kitschy thing that it was,” Terri waxes on. “Of course, that was long before I met your uncle.”
This room is extremely dark, with deep walnut wood paneling halfway up the walls where it abruptly turns to burgundy damask wallpaper. There are sconces on the walls, yellowed by decades of use. A crystal pendant chandelier twinkles down from the ceiling in a million winking sparkles. Terri looks up into it, as if looking into a crystal ball.
“You should have seen it. Waco had never witnessed anything like it, before or since! Three lassos, all at once!” Then Terri shakes her head, beaming. “Now that was a great day.”
“Maybe you should take it up again. The lasso? Lassoing. Whatever you’re supposed to call it,” I suggest.
She looks at me, lost for a second, as if my voice is dragging her back from the dusty plains and miraculous days of the Texas Panhandle.
“What? Oh, shoot. That’s ancient history.” She brushes it off, glances at Claude, and finishes in a near whisper, “I have a different life now.”
True, but I can feel a part of her still there. Lasso in hand.
Hmm. I would not have guessed somewhere beneath all that face paint was a real live Calamity Kate. I guess you really never know about folks until you start asking questions.
I vow to ask more questions.
My dad used to love to say, “Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. That way you’re a mile away and you have his shoes.”
Claude has been texting this whole time, grumbling to himself.
“Honey, are you planning on eating anything?” Terri nudges him.
“What? Oh. Yes, it’s just . . .”
And then he goes back to texting.
Whatever real estate deal it is Claude is working on, it does not seem to be going well. Every so often he stress-shovels some food in his mouth and keeps texting.
His annoyance is palpable.
Henry and I look to Terri. She shrugs and then takes out her own phone.
“Well, this has all been very enlightening, but perhaps it’s time to retire,” Henry suggests, nodding to me.
“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m pretty tired. Truly a wonderful meal. Thanks, Marisol!”
But Marisol is in the other room, binge-watching Planet Earth. She should be sitting here with us, of course, but first there is Terri, and second that episode she’s watching, with the lizards and snakes, is practically Star Wars with reptiles. Totally
engrossing.
We make our way to the stairs. This entire staircase area from top to bottom is covered in books, serving as a kind of library nook in the middle of the house. There’s even a little settee with a reading lamp at the bottom, in case anyone decides to just sit down and get themselves lost in a story in the middle of the stairwell.
Of course, there is the possibility that Henry and I are a bit nervous about shuffling up said stairs by ourselves, given the recent uptick in paranormal experiences.
We both halt immediately at the bottom.
“Wait. Why did you stop?” Henry asks.
“Why did you stop?” I reply.
“Clearly, I stopped because you stopped.”
“No, you stopped first.”
“Well, honestly, what does it matter?”
“Maybe it matters because it’s weird we just both stopped randomly—and simultaneously.”
“I see. You think there’s something intangible, imperceptible, only discernible by our subconscious stopping us.”
Somehow that sentence terrifies me.
Henry and I share a look.
And then, at the exact same moment, we both tear up the staircase with all our might, various elbows and knees flying as we bound up two steps at a time, up up up the stairs and toward our room.
Wouldn’t it be great if all of this actually was our imagination? If there was absolutely no explanation for why Henry and I seemed to have sensed something there at the bottom of the stairs?
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that is not the case.
Because we’re nearly to the second floor when something very strange happens. At first it’s just one book, then two, then three, then four, then five, six, seven, eight, nine, fifty, one hundred, then all the books begin flying out from their shelves—flying out and circling around in the midstair landing—swirling higher and higher like some scholarly tornado, up up up, creating a kind of . . . literary hurricane. It occurs to me that this sight is not unlike the one we experienced on the shore, with the water and the lights and the strange feeling of undangerousness. But I have no time to say any of that, as we are too busy escaping the wrath of the library tornado, ending up safe and sound, quiet and calm, back in our bedroom.
Henry & Eva and the Castle on the Cliff Page 5