I turned out the lights and lay in bed listening to music for a while, but Rose didn’t come back, and neither did Charlotte. For the first time since moving to Pico, I had an uninterrupted night’s sleep.
Chapter 10
I got up late the next day, feeling refreshed. I wanted to get to the library post haste, but my mom roped me into finding her mixer before I could leave. She was going to bake a cake to celebrate the first week in our new home; at least the delay was for a good cause.
She thought it might be in the attic with all the other junk my parents didn’t need but couldn’t part with. I hadn’t been in the attic yet, having successfully avoided a lot of the work associated with the move. I soon discovered I couldn’t figure out how to get into the attic. Neither the walls nor the ceiling held any obvious doors. Finally, I went into my dad’s office and asked him.
“It’s an entire attic, Christopher. How could you not find it?” He laughed as he said it.
“Not helpful.”
Still smiling, he led me into the hall and pointed at the built-in shelves. I stared at them, then back at him. “Still not helpful.”
He reached under a shelf. With a click, an entire section of the bookcase popped out a fraction of an inch. My dad pulled and it swung into the hall, revealing a staircase.
“Pretty cool, huh? Don’t tell your mom, but it’s the reason I bought the place. I always wanted a house with a secret door.”
Couldn’t he have found one in San Jose? I went up the stairs, anticipating a spooky room filled with cobwebs, old trunks and dress mannequins. Instead, I stepped into a large finished room. It had painted walls, a hardwood floor and no more spiders than the rest of the house.
One wall was entirely lined with built-in bookcases; another was obscured by stacks of cardboard moving boxes. Our old stand-up quarter-operated video machine stood against another wall. It had never worked as long as I could remember, though my dad sometimes talked about restoring it. Near the center, looking distinctly out of place, a couple of big metal AC units sprouted ductwork.
I hoped the pile of boxes hid something left over from Charlotte’s time in the house, a smoking gun that would reveal why she still haunted the place. But all of the boxes were ours, filled with things like Christmas ornaments and my old train set. I soon found the lost box marked “Kitchen” in Sharpie marker, and brought it down to my mom. While she slit open the tape, I slipped out the door, eager to be gone before she found something else for me to do.
I decided to see if Rose wanted to come with me to the library. I was about to hop the fence when my mom called from the side door, “Christopher, what are you doing?”
So close. I had almost escaped. “I’m going to ask Rose if she wants to come with me.”
“Who’s Rose?”
I hopped the fence and kept moving.
“Chris, come back here! Mr. Givens has those dogs, and I don’t trust them. They almost attacked your sister the other day!”
Sure enough, I didn’t get ten feet into the yard before the two dogs rounded the corner. My mom shrieked and called my name again, but the dogs trotted over, their stubby tails wagging. I reached down and petted one on the head. I wasn’t sure who it was; I couldn’t tell them apart. My mom had come up to the fence, and one of them looked at her and growled. She backed up a step, a horrified look on her face.
“It’s okay, Mom—you know animals like me. It’s ’cause I’m a Sagittarius or whatever.”
I grinned inwardly and kept walking around to the front of the house, the dogs trotting alongside me. I climbed the worn wooden steps and rang the bell. Musical chimes sounded inside as the dogs curled up in their usual spots on the porch.
I waited for about half a minute, and was about to give up when Mr. Givens opened the door a couple of inches to scowl at me from the darkened house. He must be one of those people who shun light, always keeping their blinds drawn for privacy. I had only seen the man once or twice. He was in his eighties but seemed alert, almost sprightly. He looked at the dogs lying on the porch and then asked, suspiciously, “What is it?”
“Um, hello, Mr. Givens. My name is Chris.”
“Don’t want any.” I heard voices coming from the inside.
“My family and I just moved in next door and—”
“Not interested.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Sure I do. Girl Scout cookies, or booster tickets, or whatever it is you’re selling. Don’t want any. I’m on a fixed income. Can’t afford it.”
I moved a little and could just see past him inside the house. Coming from a parlor to his left was the source of the voices: an enormous flat-screen TV playing a soap opera. The thing must have cost a fortune.
“I’m not selling anything. I just stopped by to see if Rose wanted to come with me to the library.”
I thought I detected the slightest widening of his eyes, but it was gone in a flash, and I might have imagined it. “Rose? Rose who?”
“Rose? The girl, about my age, who lives here with you? Her room faces my house?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one lives here but me, boy. Now go on, get back to your house. It’s time for my nap.” The door slammed shut. One of the dogs lifted its head up an inch at the noise, and then promptly set it back down.
I petted each of the dogs a bit, until one started growling. Jerking my hand back, I thought about making a break for it, until I realized it was looking behind me. I followed its gaze to where Eve was standing at the gate, looking surprised. I got up and hurried down the walkway to her.
She looked flabbergasted. “Are you nuts? Those dogs are crazy! Mom sent me over here a couple of nights ago to borrow some sugar. I got about two feet in the gate and those things came for me.”
I shrugged, letting myself out of the yard. “Not my fault they have good taste.”
“Funny. What are you doing here?”
“Seeing if someone wanted to go to the library with me.”
“You wanted to go to the library with Mr. Givens? Even for you, that’s sad.”
“Not Mr. Givens! Whatever. Forget about it.”
She opened her mouth to say something but Mom called from the house, cutting her off. Eve had just been drafted into weeding.
I hopped on my board and headed in the opposite direction before I was pressed into service as well. On the way to the library, I took a slight detour over to Richard’s. I didn’t think he’d want to come along, but it wasn’t really out of my way, and I felt like company.
I skated over and knocked on the door of what I hoped was his house. It had been dark when Becky dropped him off, and I hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention.
Richard answered the door a few seconds later. “Hey, dude, what’s up?”
“Nothing; I was heading over to the library to see what I can find out about the ghost. I was wondering if you wanted to come along.”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, the library is not my idea of a fun place to hang out, but it’ll get me out of here before my dad finds something constructive for me to do. Let me grab my keys.” A minute later we were heading downtown in his battered old Chevy truck.
“So how did last night go? You’re still in one piece, so it couldn’t have been all bad!” He gave me a grin.
“I lost the first round, but I’m going to take him in the second.”
“Who, Tim? Not what I meant, dude. Speaking of which…” He took a turn and a minute later we were at Freddy’s. We parked and I saw a raven-haired Becky heading our way.
“She must keep the temporary hair dye market going all by herself.”
“No joke.”
“Hey, guys!” Becky glanced at the truck with a funny look, then back at Richard. A conspiratorial smile spread across her face, like she just figured something out. Yeah, she liked him.
“Hey, Becky,” said Richard, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was scanning the parking lot. I turned, thinking maybe he wa
s checking for Tim, but I didn’t see anyone we knew.
“What are you guys up to?” Becky asked. The radio started playing an ad for Bailey Ford, and she climbed in the window, resting her hand on Richard’s leg as she leaned across to change the station. She looked up at me and smiled, then backed out the window.
“Heading over to the library to find out about Chris’s ghost.” For a guy who just had a cute girl lying in his lap, he looked disappointed.
“You? To the library? On a Saturday? Seriously? Wow.”
“Yeah, well, better than throwing tater tots in car windows.”
“At least I don’t have to wear an apron and silly hat.”
“The hat’s not that bad,” he said defensively.
Actually it was, but I decided to stay out of it.
We both ordered drinks, with Richard adding fries and a couple of burgers to his order. Becky brought it out a few minutes later, and we sat in the truck while Richard ate. He finished his lunch, still looking disappointed. I wasn’t sure why; he ate enough food for both of us. Maybe it was because the place was busy, and Becky didn’t have time to hang out with us.
Richard tossed the bag in a trash can, then reversed the truck out of the stall and drove toward the exit. An old sedan had just turned into the parking lot, and Monica jumped out wearing roller skates. Judging by the Freddy’s shirt she was also wearing, it looked like she worked here with Becky. She stuck her head in the car before it left, saying something to someone I assumed was her mom.
My body rocked forward and then slammed back as Richard jerked the truck to a sudden stop. He honked the horn, waving at Monica as I made sure none of my drink had escaped its lid.
Monica broke into a grin and waved back, skating up to the truck. “Hey, Richard! Hey, Chris! So, like, what’s up?”
“We’re heading over to the library. Going to get ourselves some education,” said Richard.
She cracked her gum and smiled. “Ghost hunting, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“Last night was fun! I mean, besides the part where Chris got his face beat in.” She gave me an apologetic look. “I hadn’t danced in ages. Hey, that reminds me: don’t go forgetting about the Back-to-School Dance!”
She was looking at me when she said it, but then her eyes kind of twitched toward Richard. I wasn’t quite sure what she was insinuating.
“Back-to-School Dance?” I asked, tentatively. Monica was a cheerleader; she danced every day. How could that not be enough?
“First school dance.” Richard explained, less than enthusiastically.
That was kind of obvious. “There’s already a dance?”
“Yup!” Monica gave Richard a sly look, her eyes closing to slits, and she patted his truck for some reason. “Well, I gotta go. We’re packed and I’m already a half hour late to work. If I wasn’t so cute I might be in trouble. Good luck with your ghost!”
Richard and I watched her skate off, and then aimed for the library, which was in the town square near Cooped Up Books.
We pulled into the parking lot behind the large two-story stone building which, like the Court House, was sized for a bigger town. They must have been built a long time ago, when Pico still had delusions of grandeur.
I was surprised to find that it was reasonably busy. The free air conditioning could have been a contributing factor. We passed the mobbed kids’ area in our quest to find the librarian. Contrary to what I expected, the town librarian was a guy in his thirties named Parker. Trying to hide my surprise that he wasn’t a crotchety seventy-year-old lady, I asked him about back issues of the local paper.
He stared at me for a second before answering, probably combating his own expectations about typical patrons of the Pico Town Library—especially considering the state of my face.
“How old? The fifties? We’ve got them, but not digitized. We’ve been planning on doing that, but in the meantime everything’s still on microfiche.”
“Could we see them? The ones from 1950 to 1952?”
“Sure, but you’re going to have to wait. They’re boxed up. We thought we were going to send them out to be digitized last fall, but then they cut our funding. I can find them for you, but it might take me a couple of days. Can you check back on Thursday?”
“Yeah, sure. You have anything else from back then that would have info on the town, or the people who lived here?”
“We have some local history books that might have what you’re looking for.” He showed us to a small section on local history and recommended a couple of volumes.
“Thanks. How about ghosts?”
He looked perplexed, but led us to a different section. “Not to be nosy, but what are you looking for exactly?”
I told him where I lived, and he laughed. He knew the rest. Apparently my house was a town celebrity. “The Monroe house! Man, I thought that place would stay vacant forever. So have you seen the ghost? Hey, that’s not what happened to your, um…”
I shook my head. “No, this was from a guy at school,” then added, wanting to appear sane, “And I haven’t seen any ghosts. I just heard I was living in the town’s haunted house, and wanted to read up about it to mess with my sister.”
“Bad news about the eye, but good news about not running into the ghost! When I was a kid we used to dare each other to sneak into your place and spend the night. I don’t remember anyone actually doing it—spending the night, that is. A couple of kids stayed in there for a couple of minutes, then ran back out acting all brave, you know? Well, I guess every town has its share of secrets; ours sure does. Your best bet would be to talk with someone who was around back then, like Mr. Givens or maybe Mrs. Brown.”
“Um, Mr. Givens isn’t especially talkative. Who is Mrs. Brown?”
“Yeah, Mr. Givens is an old coot. He’s started coming in here a lot lately, which is strange, ’cause I don’t remember seeing him once in the first five years I worked here.
“As far as Mrs. Brown goes, she was married to old Dr. Brown. From what I understand, she started out as his nurse, and then his wife died and… Anyway, they ended up getting married. She’s been around forever. Knows everyone. She’s in the phone book; you should give her a call. Careful, though: unlike Mr. Givens, she’ll talk your ear off.
“And, hey, go easy on your sister. Try not to freak her out too much.”
Richard and I thanked him for the help, and I assured him my sister deserved any freaking out she got. Then we sat at an empty table and spent the next few hours looking over books on Pico history and ghosts.
The books on ghosts were useless. There was conflicting information on how and why ghosts manifest. Some asserted it was the result of a tragedy or violent death, while others agreed with what Rose had said about sticking around when they had unfinished business.
The history books were a little more interesting. There was a lot of information on the founding of the town back in 1873. It had been a settlement before someone started a successful boot manufacturing business in the 1860s. The small company eventually grew into a decent-sized high-end boutique business and finally was acquired by the company my dad works for. Then came the real boom: chickens. Nearly all of the books mentioned Mr. Collins, and what a pioneer he was for raising birds rather than cattle, though there was no mention of why he did it.
One of the books Richard was looking through detailed the history of the prominent local families, among which were the Baileys, Collins, Fosters, Givens, Schmidts, and Shermans.
Richard found a mention of the Monroes, but it focused on Jack Monroe, Charlotte’s grandfather. It walked through his life, starting with him becoming a famous architect out East, and then marrying a local Pico girl, Margaret Gable, whom he met during the Fair in New York. She had attended the Fair while visiting relatives. A whirlwind romance ensued, and soon they were engaged to be married.
Apparently Margaret took care of an elderly parent who refused to leave Texas. So the couple moved to Pico, where Mr. Monroe started a co
mpany that designed and built the major town buildings including the library, courthouse, local Masonic temple, and bank.
While none of the books mentioned Charlotte Monroe, some alluded to Pico having a mysterious past, or at least a few urban legends. Stories hinted at Native American burial grounds, mysterious disappearances, witchcraft, secret societies, and even hauntings. None appeared to be tied directly to the Monroes, so I dismissed them. Most towns had their spooky stories, conjured up for entertainment and to scare kids into not wandering off and getting into trouble at night.
After a couple of hours sitting in the uncomfortable plastic library chairs we’d had enough, and decided to hit a movie. Pico contained two theaters. One was ancient, built in the twenties, and had only one screen. It was now used mostly for plays and concerts, though Richard said they sometimes held midnight showings of cult classics on the weekends. He liked it because it had a balcony, which offered privacy for, you know, “stuff.” The other cinema was a “modern” four-plex built in the seventies, and updated in the nineties with recliners and stereo sound. We went there and caught the latest action flick.
After the movie, Richard had to head into the pharmacy for work. It wasn’t until he was driving away, after having dropped me off at home, that I remembered his truck was supposed to be out of commission.
Chapter 11
The night started uneventfully. I had something to watch, thanks to a couple of movies showing up in the morning’s mail, but I wasn’t in the mood for TV. What I wanted to do was go out.
I thought about who to call, but besides Richard, Becky, and maybe Monica, I didn’t have any friends I could ask. I talked to other people at school, but no one I felt comfortable just calling up.
My thoughts drifted to Becky, but then I thought about what Rose had said to me. Maybe Becky was just using me to get at her dad. Or what if she was just a flirt, and didn’t really like me? Maybe she did like Richard.
The Haunting of Pico (Pico, Texas - Book 1) Page 8