Mothman's Curse

by Christine Hayes

  Things looked much the same as they had earlier, but Tables 1 through 4 were empty. Many of the customers’ cardboard boxes were full.

  Dad’s voice raced along, hawking a woman’s pillbox hat.

  Fox had returned the camera to its proper spot on Table 6. He stood close by, not guarding it exactly, but sending frequent glances in its direction. His posture screamed relaxed, both elbows resting on the table behind him, head cocked as if watching the bidding unfold with wide-eyed attention, as if he hadn’t seen the same thing every Saturday since birth.

  He was, in fact, looking for someone to help us. Once items made it to the auction floor, we weren’t supposed to touch them. Dad took the rules seriously and made sure we did the same. Fox never should have messed with the camera in the first place. Bidding was our best option now, but only grown-ups were allowed to bid. We could ask one of the regulars to bid for us—brothers Carl and Joe, or Mr. Leonard, who owned the drugstore downtown. But we didn’t want any questions. And if one of the regulars bid on something, you could bet the others would decide it was valuable and start a bidding war.

  I watched Fox consider and reject a dozen people in the room before he noticed pink capris lady. She’d won her dog figurine—its head peeked out from the fanny pack around her middle.

  Fox glanced at me; I nodded. We both approached her together, motioning her over for a hushed conversation at the back of the room.

  “You got your dog,” Fox said with an easy smile. “Good for you. Hope it didn’t set you back too much.”

  She beamed. “Three dollars! Isn’t he just the cutest? I can’t believe there weren’t more bidders!”

  “This is my sister, Josie.”

  The woman took my hand, embracing it with both of her own. “Hey there, Josie. My name’s Amelia. What a charming big brother you have!”

  “I’m older,” I blurted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, hon. Isn’t this just the most fun ever? ’Course you two get to live it every week.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t have the slightest idea how to ask this stranger for a favor.

  Fox plunged right in. “Ms. Amelia, may we ask for your help?”

  “Ask away.”

  “There’s a camera we’d like to buy, over there, but we’re not allowed to bid. We have money,” he added quickly. “If you’d be willing…”

  “Say no more. I’ll be happy to bid for you. It’s rather exciting, isn’t it? I can’t even understand what the auctioneer is saying.”

  “It may be another hour or two before they get to it. If there’s somewhere else you need to be…”

  “Nonsense. I haven’t had this much fun in ages. You two sit tight and leave it to me.”

  Fox started fidgeting. His eyes shifted sideways and back, sideways and back.

  His conscience was kicking in.

  “The thing is, ma’am, I may not have been totally truthful before. About the dog being valuable.”

  She winked. “I know. Don’t let the fanny pack fool you. This old broad’s not as gullible as she looks.” She patted the figurine. “I love it anyway. And I can appreciate two savvy kids looking to make a few bucks.”

  Fox grinned. I didn’t. If I’d been the one who’d conned her, no doubt she’d have marched out the door in a huff.

  We waited. Items were sold and collected one by one. I leaned against the wall, drumming my fingers in rhythm with Dad’s voice.

  Finally it was time.

  “And here we have a leather and chrome Polaroid SX-Seventy Land Camera, a great piece right there, comes with its own carrying case. Bill, any film in that camera?”

  Uncle Bill doubled as a sort of awkward spokesmodel for the auction items. Imagine Frankenstein with gray, wavy hat hair and a few too many apple fritters in his belly, and you get Uncle Bill. He stood in his plaid shirt and Wranglers, stooping to make himself smaller, holding up the camera for all to see. He paused to remove the bottom panel, peek inside, and shake his head.

  No film.

  Fox and I exchanged startled glances. No film?

  Dad started up his spiel again. “Okay, then, still a true piece of Americana right there. Let’s hear ten, ten, ten dollar, ten dollar, ten, and thank you very much, sir, and fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen? And fifteen! Now twenty…”

  Amelia raised her hand. She looked at us, eyebrows aloft. Fox nodded his approval. I chewed on my pencil. Maybe we used up all the film. Maybe it fell out. There had to be an explanation.

  Fox gave the stink-eye to the man bidding against Amelia. What did the guy want with a useless old camera, anyway? Well, useless as far as he knew.

  Another bidder joined in and the price jumped to thirty dollars. An empty pit churned where my stomach was supposed to be. I was glad I hadn’t had time to eat my Hershey bar.

  Amelia bid thirty-five dollars, then forty-five. Sixty dollars. I murdered that poor pencil, waiting and worrying, until the other bidders finally shook their heads and withdrew.

  “That’s sixty, sixty dollars, once, twice, and sold to the lady in pink.”

  Aunt Barb, seated next to Dad at the podium, recorded the transaction in the logbook. Amelia held up her bidder’s card: number 98. Uncle Bill carried the camera over and placed it in her outstretched hands.

  I slumped, overcome by a mix of relief and buyer’s remorse. There went a good chunk of our hard-earned money—our trip money—and for what?

  A broken-down clunker of a camera that took pictures without film. Creepy pictures of a creepy man that sent chills down my spine and right back up again.

  I couldn’t shake the sudden, sinking feeling that our sixty dollars had bought us a lot more trouble than we’d bargained for.

  * * *

  We took our new camera someplace where we could count on total privacy: an old wood shack we called the Cave. Hunched under a clump of trees behind our house, it made the perfect base of operations for Fox’s auctions. We’d sent Mason there before the bidding to wait while we secured the camera. The kid had plenty of useful skills; he just had no poker face.

  We found him playing with an old calculator, or what was left of it. Its pieces were strewn across the card table in the middle of the room. Candy wrappers littered the floor. When he saw us, he nearly fell out of his chair, demanding to know what he’d missed.

  Fox chose a seat at the table. I took the time to check for cobwebs by flailing my arms in a few wild circles before sitting down beside Mason. We were locked in constant battle with the spiders for ownership of the Cave. I didn’t want them getting any ideas about landing in my hair.

  Fox set the camera on the table and we all stared at it awhile. Then Fox picked it up again and checked to confirm what Uncle Bill had already shown a roomful of customers: no film. “How is this thing taking pictures?” he muttered. He poked and prodded, but the camera seemed completely ordinary.

  Mason crunched on a jawbreaker right in my ear. He flexed his fingers as if he wanted to snatch the camera out of Fox’s hands.

  I stared him down. “Don’t you get any ideas. You’re not taking it apart,” I told him, just as Fox turned the camera on himself and snapped a close-up of his face.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I dare the guy to show up in a picture of my nose. In fact…” He snapped a photo of the table, and another of the ceiling, and a few more random shots before I thought to jump up and grab the camera away. Leave it to Fox to get into a throwdown with a ghostly image.

  “Fox, stop it!” Maybe it was just a trick camera, or maybe it was something more, but taunting it didn’t seem like the smartest way to find out.

  Fox stood up, too. “What? It’s not like there’s any film.”

  “Well, you never know when it might stop working. We spent sixty dollars on that thing.”

  “Not much we can do about that now. Although…” His eyes got that greedy glaze. It didn’t hurt that they were the exact color of a dollar bill. “We could probably get our money back and
then some if we auctioned it. What kid wouldn’t kill for a haunted camera?”

  “Forget it. How can you even think about selling it?”

  “Who says we have to sell this camera? I bet Dad has dozens of old cameras around the house. I dream up a few new ghost stories, doctor a couple of photographs…”

  “Fox.”

  His voice got all hushed and breathy. “I can’t believe I never thought of selling cameras before. They’d be the crown jewels of Fletcher’s Haunted Artifacts.”

  “Fox!”

  “Give me one auction and I could make it all back,” he muttered. He gathered the pictures he’d snapped and fanned them out on the table. We leaned in close, but not too close, waiting for the images to take shape. Mason slipped his hand into mine. “All right, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Scary,” Fox whispered. “Show your face.”

  Another few seconds and we had our answer. In every photo: creepy man, creepy man, creepy man. Sometimes front and center, sometimes lurking in the background, but always there, always with the same expression. We had half a dozen pictures of the saddest person in the world.

  Fox released a slow breath. He picked up a photo and squinted at it, his arm not quite steady. “That’s it, then. It has to be a trick camera. He shows up every time, looks the same every time.” He was about to toss the picture down when he stopped short, his fingers gripping the edge with crushing force, face stricken. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?” I said.

  “His lips moved.”

  Mason tightened his hold on my hand.

  “They did not,” I insisted. “Quit messing around.”

  Fox shoved the picture under my nose. Sure enough, the mystery man’s lips were moving, shaping the same few words over and over. I gasped and stumbled backward.

  “They’re all moving!” Mason shouted, pointing at the table.

  In every photograph, the man’s mouth worked furiously, desperately. We stood helpless, paralyzed with fear, watching until his movements slowed and finally stilled.

  Fox kept staring, his breathing rough. I pulled my sweatshirt sleeves down over my hands to slow the cold creeping into my limbs. Mason curled up against me. I could feel his heart racing in his chest.

  “So,” I said, swallowing, my throat bone-dry, “not a trick camera, then?”

  “What’s happening?” Mason said. “Is it a ghost? What does he want?”

  Fox widened his eyes at me, then tilted his head at Mason. His standard you’re-older-you-handle-it look. But the wide eyes remained, seeking reassurance I wasn’t sure I could give.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, squeezing Mason’s shoulders. “What would a ghost want with us? Nothing, that’s what, because there’s no such thing. There has to be an explanation. We just need some time to figure this out.”

  Mason’s forehead scrunched. His mouth was shaped to form another question when Fox came to the rescue. He picked up the leather case and held it close to his face, examining the lining inch by inch. “Check this out,” he said, tilting the case to show us the clue he’d uncovered: the initials JG inked in red on the white silk lining.

  “JG? Does that help us?” I said.

  “We can find out who this is—who owned the camera before now.”

  I frowned. “How do we know JG is a person? Maybe it means ‘joke gift.’” Or “joyless ghost,” I thought without meaning to.

  Mason wriggled away from me. “Why don’t you ask Dad?” he said. “If it is a person, he just sold all their stuff, didn’t he?”

  Fox nodded. “Best idea of the day,” he said. “Josie and I will talk to him. But listen, kiddo. All of this needs to stay a secret for a while, okay?” He pulled a Snickers bar from his pocket and held it out to Mason. “The mystery man, the photos—all of it. Just until we figure out what’s making the camera work that way. You know how Dad worries. We don’t want him to take it away or anything. Deal?”

  Mason grabbed the candy, head bobbing.

  “Now, go on and eat that in your room while we finish up here,” Fox said.

  Mason took off toward the house, already chewing.

  I blocked Fox’s path, hands on hips. “You still think the camera is rigged? You saw the guy’s face, saw his mouth moving. How do you explain that?”

  Fox gathered the photos, tucked the camera in its case, and swung the strap over his shoulder. “I can’t.”

  “And you’re not even a little bit worried about all this.”

  “Who, me?” He smiled his most reassuring smile: cocky, unflinching, all pearly whites and lofty eyebrows.

  Which set me worrying even more, because it was the smile he used whenever he was lying through his teeth.

  3

  On the way back to the auction house, we passed a few straggling customers in the lot trying to wedge boxes and lamps and the odd piece of furniture into their cars. Inside, we found Dad sweeping up dried mud from the auction floor. Uncle Bill was stacking chairs. Aunt Barb stood chatting with a neighbor, her own broom long forgotten.

  Dad spotted the camera right away. “I should have known that woman was in cahoots with the two of you,” he said by way of greeting. “You wasted sixty dollars on that? We must have a dozen old cameras stashed around the house.”

  “I knew it,” Fox muttered. “Pure profit.”

  “We like this one,” I said to drown him out. “It has character.”

  “Come to think of it,” Dad said, scratching his head, “I thought that camera belonged with next week’s lot. You kids didn’t get that out of the storeroom, did you?”

  “’Course not. It was on Table Six with everything else,” Fox said. “It didn’t belong to the estate you sold today?”

  “No. Maybe Bill mixed it in by accident.”

  “Whose is it, then?” I said. “We don’t even know which estate you have lined up next week.”

  Dad’s mouth quirked upward. “That doesn’t sound like my kids, forgetting to make everybody else’s business their own.”

  “And you haven’t made us help with inventory or research or any of our usual jobs,” Fox countered. “What’s the big secret?”

  “No secret.” Dad clutched his broom a little tighter. “Just been busy. It’s a big estate.”

  “So whose is it?” Fox pressed.

  “Just a widower over near Clark.” He and his broom skulked away to a section of floor he’d already swept. Fox and I raised our eyebrows at each other.

  Clark. A town twenty miles west with its own terrible history. Long story short, most of it was destroyed in a landslide when Dad was a kid. Hundreds dead, buildings unreachable. A whole town, gone. People still talked about it like it’d just happened. The whole thing made my chest feel heavy and cold, as if I couldn’t get a decent breath. Of course Fox and I had always, always wanted to go there and see it for ourselves, and of course no one would ever let us.

  Fox wasn’t giving up on the issue just yet. “A big estate near Clark, huh? It wasn’t old Mr. Goodrich, was it?”

  Dad rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He wouldn’t look at us.

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us!” Fox cried. “We almost missed the auction of the century!”

  Sighing, Dad set his broom against the wall. “I was going to tell you.” He sighed again when he saw our eyes, wide and unblinking. “Come with me.”

  Haunted camera or no, our interest had just jumped to the moon and back. We followed at his heels as he led us to the storage room that we used for sorting, cataloging, and photographing merchandise.

  Dad unlocked the door and pocketed his keys. He threw the master switch to flood the room with light from the double-high ceiling.

  Every free inch of space was occupied with secondhand swag.

  “This is the Goodrich estate,” Dad said.

  “Dang,” I said.

  Our voices sounded hushed and harsh, swallowed up by all the stuff.

  Fox couldn’t speak. He a
lways had something to say, but right then, all he could do was drool. He was probably imagining the money he could make selling just two or three items from the infamous Goodrich estate—even a used toothbrush or a can of motor oil.

  Because everyone knew that the Goodrich mansion was one of the few buildings to escape the landslide.

  Mrs. Goodrich had been running some sort of errand in town when the landslide hit. They never found her. Mr. Goodrich had been at home and survived, house untouched, the wall of dirt and debris rumbling to a standstill just shy of their property. He pretty much stayed in that house for the next forty years, refusing to leave or relocate. He paid people to bring groceries and keep up the grounds, but basically his life ended along with all those other unlucky people in the disaster.

  “Why all the secrecy, Dad?” I wondered, even though I could guess at the answer. Dad was no fool. He knew that if we knew he’d landed the Goodrich estate, we would have been hard-pressed to keep our mouths shut.

  Dad pushed his hat back to scratch his forehead. “Didn’t seem respectful, after what that poor man went through, to turn this place into a circus over it. They even kept his obituary out of the paper until I could get the house cleared out. I’ve hired a guard up there so people stay off the property, but it won’t stay a secret for much longer. Customers are already pestering me about why I haven’t advertised next week’s auction. The obituary comes out tomorrow.” He chuckled. “I’m surprised your aunt hasn’t burst from not being able to gossip about it.”

  “There are initials in the camera case,” Fox said. “JG.”

  “John Goodrich,” Dad said quietly. “I hadn’t thought about that place in years. I sure never figured I’d be the one to sell off his estate.”

  I closed my hand around Dad’s callused fingers. “What do you remember about the landslide?”

  “I was about six—younger than Mason. We’d had a lot of rain, for weeks and weeks. We joked about building an ark. People on TV were starting to talk about the danger of landslides. Then one afternoon we turned on the news and saw that Clark was all but gone. In a town of five hundred people, almost three hundred were killed.