“Cilla talked with my folks about it. They almost didn’t let me stay with you guys because of them. Like it all happened yesterday.” She shook her head. “Craziness.”
“So you’re saying you’re okay with everything? You’re over it. I have to go to school with those guys—well, not Jason, he dropped out—and I’m not over it. Not even close.”
“I’m not over anything. But I’m not going to let it rule our whole summer. We’ve got way more important stuff to worry about. Like, this house? Like the dream.”
Teddy cleared his throat and glanced away. “Right. Message received, zero distortion.”
“Good.” She straightened her shoulders. “The dream changed last night. The door I told you about, with the glass panes in the top? This time, there were voices behind it, calling my name. I think the house knows I’m reaching out. I mean”—she looked at the house, backlit by the afternoon sun—“something’s pulling me to this place. Like, I can feel it. Standing this close, I can feel it even stronger.” She put a hand to her chest. “Right here. Whenever I wake up from the dream, there it is. Like I belong here or something.”
“You belong in a rat-infested death trap. Good theory.” He followed her into the weeds and up the path they’d made yesterday. “Unless . . .”
She rolled her eyes. “Go on. Impress me, genius boy.”
“Unless it really is just a recurring dream, and all the stuff in it—the snow, the dishes, and now the voices—are only brain farts. You know, symbols or whatever. You said the dream started after you moved away from Bernier. So, maybe it had a lot to do with what happened before you left—all the stress and everything.” He threw his hands up, ready to duck and cover. “Just saying.”
She pondered this, and then shook her head. “No. I know the inside of that house, and it knows me. We’re connected.”
“Uh-huh. Are we quoting Ghost Hunters now?”
“I figured it out myself, thanks. But shows like that aren’t that far off. I’ve read all about it, okay? Making electronic voice phenomena recordings is something that lots of paranormal investigators do. You don’t have to use high-tech equipment to capture something, either. One of the earliest documented EVPs was made in Germany by a guy recording bird calls on a Victrola. When he played the record back, his dead wife spoke to him from the white noise.”
“You know what?” Teddy stopped. “This is nuts.”
“No kidding.”
“No, Nat.” When she turned back, Teddy’s expression was uncertain. “Maybe we should leave the recorder up there. I’ll buy you another one, okay? Let’s forget this.”
She looked at him, then at the house. Late-afternoon shadows stretched long. “I’ll grab it and come right back down.”
He checked his phone. “T minus three minutes and counting.”
She went through the back door into the kitchen, scooping up the recorder. Her gaze was drawn to the wall—just a wall, nothing more—where the door to January stood in her dream. Gingerly, she rapped on it, waiting for an echo, some sign of a hidden room or passageway. Solid.
When they got back to Aunt Cilla’s, they headed for the summerhouse, where Natalie would be staying for the next couple of months. Teddy’s father Michael Finley, who’d been killed in a car crash when Teddy was three, had built the summerhouse himself. Carpentry was Michael’s hobby; he’d also carved a bird hotel and mounted it outside on a post, where Natalie and Teddy used to leave secret messages for each other when they were little.
The summerhouse had one room. Natalie had moved in a bureau and a cot from the house, stacking the most vital of her collection of parapsychology and ghost-hunting books by the head of her bed. Now, she and Teddy sat on the mattress with the recorder between them. She pressed play.
First, her own voice spoke: “This is Natalie Rose Payson . . .”—static—“If somebody here is”—hhhssssshh . . . her tone dipped—“trying to reach”—and the rest of the message faded into static.
The tape hissed on and on. A steady pounding ran beneath the white noise, like a heartbeat. Natalie and Teddy stared at each other. Then, out of nowhere:
“Tell me my regiment.”
Natalie gasped.
It was a man’s deep voice, trembling, as if the recording was very old, degraded.
“Do it.”
“Thirteenth Army Infantry.” A girl’s voice, small and strange. “You walked point.”
“And tell me your name.” He waited. “I want to hear you say it.”
The girl gave a keening whine. Static surged in. Through it cut a hoarse wail that made Natalie raise her hands to her ears.
Scrabbling, like claws against wood. Then pound-pound-pound again, endlessly.
The sounds stopped.
After a long pause, Teddy said softly, “What . . . the hell was that?”
It took Natalie a while to find her voice. “I have no idea.”
Dad answered on the second ring.
“Kiddo, how you doing?” Over his shoulder: “I got Nat on the line.”
Natalie pictured Mom sitting in the recliner with her knitting, putting her feet up after a long day cleaning rooms at the Spruce Lodge, the only motel in Lincoln.
“So, how’d your first day at the Grill go?” Dad said. “Knock ’em dead?”
“Vice versa. I suck.”
“Ah, give it two weeks. You’ll be running circles around the best of them. How’s that cousin of yours? Behavin’?”
“Never.”
Natalie held the handset of Cilla’s old house phone to her ear, looking at the photos of Teddy decorating Cilla’s living room. Teddy, receiving gold cups in science fairs and physics competitions, certificates of academic excellence. He was shorter than the other winners, standing apart. Teddy had always been an honor roll student, but after Natalie moved away, he’d developed a drive that was a little scary; at fifteen, he already owned a shelf full of SAT prep books and knew exactly what universities he was going to apply to, MIT being number one on the list.
“Bernier been treating you right?” What Dad meant was, has anyone messed with you yet.
“Dad. I can handle it. Seriously.”
Mom picked up the bedroom extension. “Are you really sleeping in that mildewy old summerhouse? Even though Cilla has a perfectly good guest room?”
“I like it out there. I cleaned it up. It’s actually pretty nice now.”
“Whatever you say. Don’t let the blackflies carry you off in your sleep.” Mom paused. “Miss you around here, baby. Maybe sending you down there wasn’t the best idea.”
This time, Natalie made herself take a deep breath before she answered. Saying she was sixteen, not six, wouldn’t help her case.
“No way. I can make great tips. Everybody back home’s busy this summer, anyway. Kacey and Sam are working in Bar Harbor, Mai’s in summer school . . .”
Dad made a sound in his throat. “Put my sister on.”
Cilla was fixing a cup of tea in the kitchen, and she carried it with her when she took the phone. “Oh, sure. Stick me in the hot seat,” she said. Clearing her throat, she said into the receiver, “Hi, Billy. How’s everything?”
Natalie ran upstairs and knocked on Teddy’s bedroom door. He was hunched over his desk, working on a B-19 bomber. He didn’t look up as she sat on the bed. Model building was Teddy’s passion, along with those horrible thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles that made her eyes cross. Planes hung from the ceiling by strands of fishing line, and tanks and cars cluttered the shelves.
She took the recorder from her pocket and held it in her lap, fidgeting.
“Will you listen to it again with me?” Her voice was soft.
“No.”
“But we caught something. I mean, do you know what this—” She stopped herself, took a deep breath. “I understand if you’re scared, okay? So am I. But
. . .”
Teddy set his paintbrush down with a click. “I am not. Scared.”
His gaze was hot, indignant. Natalie looked at the floor for a moment. She should’ve known better than to go there with him.
He pushed back from the table, screwing the tops back on his bottles of paint.
“It’s not real. It’s a fake, a joke—don’t you know that? That house sat wide open after we left yesterday. Obviously, somebody was either in the house listening to us when we left the recorder, or came in later and decided to mess with our heads.”
She watched him. This was Teddy with his back against the wall, digging in. She ran her fingers over the silver case of the recorder. “Will you go back there with me?”
He exhaled through his nose. “I’d never ditch you. Just don’t expect me to believe we’re listening to ghosts.”
That night, as Natalie slept, the three lights emerged from her and danced again. For a time, they clustered at the window, gazing out at the moonlit backyard, whispering together, their energy making faint pinging sounds off the wire-mesh screen.
CHAPTER 4
The jukebox sat in the back of the Grill, glowing mellow shades of cherry, lemon, and lime. Lately, it had been eating people’s quarters.
Lowell Emerick arrived carrying a toolbox. His gaze was sharp; his grin was slow. His features hinted at Penobscot Indian Heritage, and he had a languid way of moving, his arms sinewy and browned from outdoor work.
Natalie stood behind the counter, learning the finer points of the soft-serve machine from Delia, but she turned to watch him walk the length of the dining room. He didn’t look back until he reached the jukebox, and then only for a moment, some of the sardonic humor fading from his expression. Her body responded by tensing like a fist. She was suddenly aware of everything about herself: her long awkward legs, not exactly fat but nowhere near skinny, her zillions of freckles, the way her Payson’s Grill T-shirt hugged too tightly across her chest and shoulders.
“You’re overflowing, girl. Hey.” Delia shoved the lever up.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Him? Doing his MacGyver thing. Why?”
Teddy emerged from the kitchen, wearing an apron and carrying a tub for dirty dishes. He tended to keep his head down at work and say little; you might find him peeling potatoes with a paperback propped open in front of him or scrubbing dishes with the kitchen radio tuned to NPR. Teddy stopped abruptly at the sight of Lowell removing the juke’s back panel.
Natalie said, “Did you know about this?”
A muscle moved in his jaw. “No.”
Cilla had waitressed through the breakfast rush and now stood talking with a couple of the regulars. Natalie wanted to pull her away, but Delia held up the oozing sundae dish.
“The thing about ice cream is . . .”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Natalie had thought her biggest challenge today would be not grabbing Teddy to rehash the tape again. She’d hardly slept, and the idea of breakfast made her stomach dry up like a pork rind; all she could think about was going to the house again. Now there was Lowell Emerick to think about.
As Delia passed the Wurlitzer, she nudged him with her toe. “I want that thing running by noon, mister, or it’s your ass.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His voice was wry, lower than Natalie remembered.
“I got my eye on you.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Oh, I know.”
Delia had a little more swish in her walk after that.
Stiffly, Natalie checked on her tables—she’d forgotten to bring somebody a refill and the lady at table three had said no bacon, please—when she noticed the girls at the last booth, whispering. They were about her age, and vaguely familiar. Probably seventh graders when she was in eighth grade at Bernier Middle School. They saw her looking, put their heads together, glanced at Lowell, and then back at her.
Heat flooded Natalie’s cheeks. As she walked back to the counter to grab the decaf pot, she snuck a look at Lowell. He was staring right at her, one of his brows slightly raised, as if she’d caught him unawares. He jabbed a screwdriver into the juke’s guts. At once, Natalie was livid.
Cilla was still chatting away, but Natalie cut in. “Can we talk in the office?”
Teddy stopped in the middle of clearing a table and followed.
“Did you ask Lowell to come here today?” Natalie said, crossing her arms. When Cilla nodded: “What for?”
“Because I knew he could fix the juke. He’s got a knack.”
Teddy snorted.
Cilla’s lips thinned. Her hair was twisted up high on her head, and three pencils stuck out of her bun, forgotten. “He fixed the ice machine and replaced one of the ranges, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. And I still don’t understand why we have to be the ones to throw him a bone whenever he needs work.” Two spots of color had appeared on Teddy’s cheekbones.
Natalie flopped her arms down helplessly, glancing back toward the dining room. “Everybody’s looking at us. Talking about us.”
Cilla squeezed her shoulder. “Hon, I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to let them talk.”
Five minutes later, Lowell deposited a quarter in the juke. Music jolted from the speakers and the dining room broke into applause. Not seeming embarrassed in the slightest, he tipped his hat and stooped to gather his tools.
Natalie gave two customers refills on their coffee, watching over their heads as Cilla said to Lowell, “So, what was wrong with it?”
“Not sure.” Lowell wiped his hands on a rag. “I cleaned some old grease off the amp chassis, replaced a couple wires in the control box. Did the trick.”
As Cilla slipped him some bills from the cash register, the entrance bells jingled and a slim, hard-bodied girl with short tawny hair spilling over her brow and a tattoo on her arm leaned into the Grill. The last time Natalie saw Grace Thibodeau, she’d worn her hair in a single wild braid.
Grace looked at Lowell. “You set?” He nodded. “Then let’s go.”
Through the plate-glass window, Natalie watched them cross the parking lot and climb into a big white pickup idling at the curb. The driver was a silhouette. As they took off down Main Street, Natalie muttered, “Glad to see nothing’s changed,” and slapped a dishrag down on the counter. Delia looked at her curiously.
Teddy found a broken board in the weeds outside the house on Morning Glory Lane and gave it a practice swing.
Natalie watched him. “Ready to bust some ectoplasmic heads?”
“I’m not checking this place out without a weapon.” He squinted at the upstairs windows. “Some wackadoo on crank could be squatting upstairs, waiting for those stupid kids to come back again.”
“Or maybe we experienced something real. Do you know how special that would be? I mean, we made a genuine EVP recording. Contact with the other side. Hardly anybody in the world can say that.”
“The other side can stay right where it is. I’m good.” But she was already walking toward the barn. He ran to catch up.
The barn roof had collapsed, bowing the structure, forcing the double doors open wide enough that Natalie could slide through. She jerked back just as quickly, heart pounding: The haymow floor was rotted straight through, revealing a gaping blackness into the foundation. Overhead, a sparrow fluttered across the patch of blue sky exposed in the rafters.
“Forget it,” she said, and they went into the house.
Natalie scuffed her sneaker over the dusty floor.
“See? The only footprints are ours.” She sighed; the house was stillness itself compared to the Grill. “You know, I’m starting to understand what it was like for you. Staying in Bernier, letting everybody talk. You said last night that you’d never ditch me. But I ditched you.”
“You didn’t ditch me. Your dad took that job in Lincoln. It was good for
you guys.” He walked ahead of her, making samurai sword shing! sound effects as he swatted cobwebs. “It wasn’t so bad. I mean, it was. But after seventh grade, everybody pretty much forgot about Peter and gossiped about other junk.” He was quiet. “It was kind of gross, actually.”
Natalie said nothing. It occurred to her that she’d probably been gossiping about the same junk at Lincoln Academy—who was crushing on who, who was flunking, whatever—acting like she was normal, like she’d never had a gun cocked in her face, never run through these woods waiting for a bullet to slam through her back. Normal. Except for the nightmare, of course; her secret reminder that she was anything but.
The first night she’d spent in their new house in Lincoln, she’d had the dream, and it had persisted ever since; not every night, but at least twice a week, waking with a pounding heart and an inescapable feeling that she’d left something behind in Bernier. Something that badly wanted her to return. She’d told no one but Teddy, and even then only in e-mails, giving her a little distance from what was happening to her. As far as she could see, it either meant she was crazy, or haunted. Neither one was a good opener when trying to make new friends.
Together, they checked out the first floor. Kitchen, dining room, two parlors, a bathroom with a sludgy toilet. Upstairs, the bedrooms were empty, mildewed. One doorway contained a narrow staircase, and they stopped together at the foot.
“Ugh,” Teddy whispered. The air in the forgotten attic was redolent with scat and decay, as close as a hand pressed over your mouth.
A headache began pulsing at Natalie’s temples. “Let’s not.” She shut the door. They went back downstairs, leaving the attic to its slumber.
“I call the left-hand parlor for recording number two. We’ll see what happens.”
Natalie stopped in front of the soot-smeared hearth and set the recorder on the mantel, pressing the button.
“Frank-ie and John-ny were lov-errrs—love-errrrrsloverrrs—”
They both jumped. The record button was depressed, yet a voice was coming from the speaker, a girl’s monotonous singing echoing through the room.
The Door to January Page 2