by Dan Poblocki
“And we’re sorry,” Bree added. “It must have been horrible for you.”
Mrs. Reilly nodded. “Deep down, they may have known I was no villain.” Her words now seemed to bubble forth, uncontainable. “I believe with my heart and soul that the people of Hedston never wanted to blame me alone, but who else did they have to blame? No one else was there.”
Again, Neil had a feeling she was wrong: Someone was there — the person who’d chased him in his dream.
Still, Mrs. Reilly sniffed, disgusted at her recollection. “No one did a thing to help. No one spoke up in my defense. How much easier had it been for them to run me out of town than to attack a mundane evil — the kind that is born of neglect and denial?”
“So you moved away,” said Wesley carefully. “Did you ever go back to Hedston?”
“No,” said Mrs. Reilly. “Why should I, when the memory of that town has followed me all these years? Even now, I am there….” She blinked, as if forcing herself back into her body. “I believe we must all share the guilt for the tragedies that occurred at Graylock Hall. If I’m a demon, then so is everyone who sat back and did nothing, while that building fell apart with those poor people in it.” She reached out and grabbed Neil’s wrist. Her fingers were cold; he stiffened, but forced himself not to pull away. “You said you’d tell your friends the truth.” Neil nodded, staring at her trembling lip. “Promise,” she whispered.
“Mom?” The man had returned. He stood just outside of the small powwow circle. “Are you okay?”
Mrs. Reilly glanced at her son as if coming out of a dream. “Oh. Nicholas. Are you done with your call?”
“All set,” said the man, his hands in the pockets of his black jeans. He looked at the group, realization dawning in his eyes. His brow darkened. His bloodshot eyes filled with loathing.
Neil felt the room start to spin. It would all be over in a moment. He patted the old woman’s hand. “I promise,” he said. “I do, but I have one more question.” He knew he had to spit out this next part or else it would lodge in his throat. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Nicholas Reilly stepped forward. Raising his voice, he said, “What’s this about?”
“Ghosts?” Mrs. Reilly asked, confused. She dropped Neil’s hand. “What kind of ghosts?”
Neil glanced at her son, whose chest seemed to be growing larger. “We’ve been seeing … a girl.”
“You’re kidding,” said Nicholas. “Not a girl! How terrifying for you.”
Bree spoke up, ignoring him. “Do any of these things mean anything to you?” She mentioned the deer antlers, the piano bench, the white logs in the fireplace.
Mrs. Reilly only stammered, “N-not that I can recall. Why?”
Nicholas grabbed the handles on the back of his mother’s wheelchair. “Let’s get you back up to your room. You’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
“Well, I’d like to have some more, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Reilly said, glancing up at her son. As he pushed her chair away, she reached out and grabbed his arm. “I want to ask them something.” Nicholas sighed, but turned the chair around so that Mrs. Reilly faced the group once more. “Where are you from?” she asked.
Neil stood up. He suddenly felt terrible about barging in to the nursing home. He owed her an explanation. “Bree and I are visiting our aunts in Hedston for the summer. Wesley and Eric live there too. We’d heard the stories. We were curious to meet you. Sorry. We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
Mrs. Reilly nodded, seeming to forget how upset she’d been moments earlier. “I do like guests. I don’t get nearly enough of them.” Nicholas rolled his eyes. “Your visit was a surprise, but I’m happy to set the record straight.” She smiled at each of them. Then she tilted her head and glanced around the space. “Where’s the other one?” she asked.
Neil, Bree, Wesley, and Eric looked at one another in confusion.
“What other one?” Neil asked.
Mrs. Reilly sat up straight, grabbing the wheels of her chair and turning herself around, taking in all of the room. Nicholas stepped back. “The other girl you came in with. She was just here.” She let go of the wheels and drifted a few inches forward. “My sight isn’t too good, but I’m sure she had long dark hair. Dressed in white. Never said a word.”
Neil grabbed at his sister’s hand. Bree squeezed back. He felt the same way he had back in room 13, when the ghostly shape had begun to appear in the darkness. His stomach lurched. He wanted to run, but to where? From what?
The old woman looked toward the group, concern filling her watery blue eyes. “She was so familiar to me. Where did she go?”
THEY RODE HOME IN SILENCE. If Mrs. Reilly believed that there had been another girl with them, then the seat between Bree and Neil would have to be where she now sat. They both made an effort to keep their distance from it. Neil crossed his legs tightly, and Bree hung on to the handle above the car door.
When they passed back into Hedston, Wesley spoke up. “At least she was nice.”
“Nice?” said Eric. “Who cares if she was nice. Nice doesn’t mean she’s not guilty.”
“You really think that little old lady was capable of killing those kids?” Bree asked.
“She wasn’t always a little old lady,” said Eric. “Did you see the size of her shoulders?”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” said Neil, pressing himself against the door, far away from that center seat. “Someone or something is haunting me and Bree. We might have had a chance to stop the haunts when we assumed the ghost was Nurse Reilly. We had a little information. But now we’re back at square one. If something followed us home from Graylock, how do we figure out what it is?”
“We look to the clues,” Wesley suggested.
“Which are?” asked Eric.
“The three pictures that keep popping up, for one,” said Bree. “The antlers, piano bench, and firewood.”
“That doesn’t seem like a lot to go on,” said Eric, turning onto Tulley Avenue toward the pie shop. “And there’s no guarantee that those pictures you guys keep seeing have anything to do with Graylock. It might all be a coincidence.”
The group snuck into the shop through the back door. But Neil was barely past the threshold when he heard Claire’s voice. “You were gone for quite some time,” she called out. Nearly jumping out of his skin, Neil turned with the others to see his aunt at the office desk. She went on, “I thought we were going to ask before taking off from now on.” Neil didn’t know what to say. He knew they’d broken her rule, but he’d been hoping to find her so occupied that she wouldn’t notice. Her head wobbled slightly like their mom’s did when she was about to explode. “Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?”
“Blame me, Claire,” said Eric. “I had my mother’s car. I wanted them to come for a ride. We were too far away before they realized they forgot to ask.”
“You could have called.”
Neil stepped forward. “We’re sorry.”
“Are you? Truly? Because you only look scared.” She was right — Neil was terrified. He wanted desperately to tell her what had been happening, but he was more frightened about what might happen if she and Anna sent him away. Claire sighed. “I don’t blame you. Everything must seem scary right now. Change is hard.” She shook her head. “I’ve been too busy to keep you two busy enough. I want you to have fun up here. And I don’t want you to feel like prisoners. So … just don’t tell your Aunt Anna that I lost track of you. That’s better than the alternative. Don’t you think?”
Neil felt as if she’d shot him in the stomach. He knew what the alternative was: shipping him off to another relative. Perhaps seeing the pain in Neil’s face, Claire quickly changed the subject. “I only noticed you’d left because your father called here looking to speak with you guys.”
“He called?” Bree said, perking up. “Did he say anything?”
“Only that he knows he’s a real jerk for not phoning sooner.” She smiled, seemin
g to take pleasure in calling him that. Neil grinned too. “And that he’d try again tomorrow.” Her smile dropped away as she added, “Bree, did you tell him that you didn’t want to stay with us anymore?”
Bree’s cheeks flushed red. “I only meant … that maybe somewhere closer to home might be easier for all of us.”
“Oh,” said Claire, clearly hurt. “Well, if that’s what you guys want —”
“It’s not what I want,” said Neil.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Claire said, turning back to her computer. Neil couldn’t tell if she was still upset. “Shop’s closing soon. Anna’s cooking. Hungry?”
AT DINNER, ANNA ASKED EVERYONE about their day. Bree and Neil looked at each other, while Claire conspicuously shoved a forkful of spinach into her mouth. “It was interesting,” said Bree. “We learned a lot.”
“About?” Anna asked, her eyebrows dancing. Somehow, she always managed to look at them with suspicion.
“Pie,” Claire mumbled. “Right, guys?”
Neil smiled. It wasn’t a total fabrication.
After they’d all cleared the dining table and scrubbed the dishes in the sink, the aunts decided to light the citronella torches in the backyard, and they invited Neil and Bree to sit outside, eat ice cream, and watch the sky.
“There’s supposed to be a meteor shower this weekend,” said Anna, following Claire out the door. “Last year’s was spectacular. The falling stars inspired a whole batch of my pottery.”
“If it’s okay with you all,” said Bree, “I’m going to relax upstairs.”
Standing out in the dimly lit yard, the aunts glanced at each other, obviously concerned. And they don’t know the half of it, thought Neil. It had been a strange day. He certainly didn’t trust his own brain to behave — should he trust his sister’s? But by the time he turned back, Bree had disappeared into the house, and he felt he had no choice but to follow Claire and Anna.
As the three sat in the metal lawn furniture out back, the chirping of the crickets and tree frogs became so loud that the aunts’ conversation was nearly drowned out. Neil didn’t care; he wasn’t listening anyway. The world vibrated all around him, and for the first time in a long time, he felt somewhat okay in it. No need to escape in stories. No need to hide away in legends.
Back at the house, the sound of running water came from an upstairs window. Bree was taking an evening bath — a habit she’d had since he could remember. He forced the memory of his own traumatic bathtub experience out of his mind.
He licked voraciously at the cone that Aunt Anna had prepared for him, trying to catch the mint-chocolate-chip ice cream before it leaked down onto his fingers.
For the first time all summer, Neil allowed himself to think of his mother. He wondered where she was right now. A month ago, he would have been sitting on her bed with her, her face smashed into a damp pillow, her blond hair sprawled like a cobweb halo. He would have stroked her back as she held in the sobs he knew she’d hidden from him when he’d entered the room. Whenever he found her like that, he didn’t know what to do. She’d asked him not to tell anyone how she was feeling, but it had gotten harder and harder, especially when she seemed too tired to even lift her head to glance at him.
Alexi and Mark said that ghosts don’t like things to change. A haunting might simply be a soul’s inability to make peace with the past. Ghosts can’t see forward; they only look back. Just like his mom.
It seemed silly to call the police because your mother was too sad. He would have done just that if Bree hadn’t called their father instead and told him what was going on. Neil was almost excited at the prospect of his father having to come home and finally deal with this situation. But when Neil learned his father’s solution — that he and Bree would stay with the aunts — he’d felt as if his head might explode with anger.
Looking up from his cone, Neil was surprised to see his aunts dancing like hippies in the torchlight. There was no music except for their laughter. They twirled and raised their arms to the speckled sky, as if calling for the stars to fall. When they noticed Neil watching, they ran to him and pulled him up, causing his cone to drop into the grass. He began to protest, but when Anna spun him, he relented, becoming entranced by her giddiness. She clasped his shoulders, bringing him to a halt; then, with one finger, she raised his chin. “Look,” she whispered.
Dozens of white streaks, each lasting less than a second, dashed across the dark dome above them. Neil felt something strange moving inside his head, a buzzing type of burn. Then, before he knew it, his eyes filled with tears, and all the stars crashed in one big blur.
A scream filled the night. It took Neil a moment to realize where it came from. The aunts turned toward the house too. The light in the upstairs bathroom looked stark, alone. “Help me!” Bree cried out, before screaming again.
When the sound of her voice cut off abruptly, Neil was jolted out of his trance. He forgot the stars, forgot his mother, forgot everything, and ran toward the dark house.
HE QUICKLY REACHED THE BACK STEPS. The door. The kitchen. The foyer. The stairs. The hallway. The bathroom.
Neil tried the knob but it wouldn’t budge. He pounded the door as hard as he could, rattling the surprisingly strong wood. “Bree?” He pictured his sister on the other side, sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood spreading out on the tile below her cracked skull, the window smashed, a blur of white, someone slipping outside into the night. “Bree!” he shouted again, so loud that his throat hurt.
Neil felt a presence behind him and turned to find the aunts hurrying to catch up. Claire and Anna picked up the shouting where he’d left off. “Bree? Honey? Open the door!” Seconds ticked by. Neil began to feel numb, pins and needles creeping up his arms from the tips of his fingers, like poison spreading toward his heart. He heard Claire say something — Should we break it down? — but he didn’t know who she was speaking to.
“Bree!” he tried again, calling his sister’s name so hard he thought he might break.
Then, from the other side of the door, a voice came. Softly. “Yes?” Bree answered.
Neil and his aunts were so stunned, none of them spoke for several seconds. Eventually, Claire managed to ask, “Is everything okay in there?” Neil clenched his jaw. How many times had he heard that question over the past few days?
There was a rustling at the knob, then the door opened a crack. Neil pushed it ajar, accidentally knocking it into his sister. “Hey!” she said. “Watch it!” She stood beside the draining bathtub, a plush pink towel wrapped around her torso, her brown hair stuck to her forehead. “Ever hear of privacy?”
“What were you screaming about?” Neil asked. His heart was still knocking in his chest and would probably keep going on that way for the rest of the night.
Bree glanced at the bathtub. Expressionlessly, she said, “I fell asleep. I had a dream.” Met by horrified stares, she seemed to suddenly understand the havoc she’d created. “Sorry!”
Anna stepped forward, peering into the bathroom, as if she too wondered whether Bree was really alone in there. “You can’t do that, honey,” she said. “Fall asleep in the bathtub? Don’t you realize you could have drowned?”
Bree maintained those cool eyes, that thin smile. “No, I guess I didn’t realize.” She sighed. Neil heard a slight trembling in her chest as her breath escaped her lungs. “Look, I’m really sorry. I won’t do it again. Showers only for me from now on. Okay?”
Claire shook her head, then reached out and stroked Bree’s wet head. Bree stepped back, and when Claire pulled her hand away, a long green strand stretched off from Bree’s hair. Wide-eyed, Bree snatched the lake weed from her aunt’s grip, crumpling it up and hiding it behind her.
“What the heck was that?” asked Anna.
Bree blinked, looking numb. “A special scalp treatment. Keeps my hair really glossy.”
LATER THAT NIGHT, after everyone had found their way to their bedrooms, Neil lay looking at the ceiling above his bed until he
was certain the rest of the house had finally gone dark. Then he pulled back his sheets and crept to the door. The hallway was a mess of shadows, but he managed to find his way to Bree’s room. He didn’t knock. Pushing open the door, Neil gasped.
Bree was sitting on top of her bedspread in the darkness. Light shined through the window, up from the porch lamp below, marking a dim yellow swatch on the ceiling and softly illuminating her face. Bree watched Neil watching her, as if she had expected him to come.
He closed the door and made his way to the end of her bed. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Really?” Bree shook her head, and Neil climbed up next to her. “What happened? What did you see?”
Bree turned to the window. Neil waited. After what felt like a long time, she said, “I never realized before I came to Hedston how very sad ghost stories are.”
“Sad?”
Bree nodded. “Those Ghostly Investigators you love so much? They’re always getting rid of the spirits. Banishing them, or whatever they call it. Like during the episode we watched the other night, those two guys came swaggering into that place and started telling the people who lived around there that all they had to do was demand the ghosts leave. And the people were happy that they could get on with their lives.” Bree looked up from the blanket, right into Neil’s eyes. “But what about the ghosts?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for the ghosts?”
“Not particularly,” said Neil. This was just like her — to have sympathy for the bad guy. She was the same way about their father. “Not when they’re doing awful things.”
Bree shook her head. “Those Investigator people talk about ghosts like they’re monsters or something,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “Creatures that need to be defeated, when, really, they’re humans. With memories. And wishes. And fears. And I know that the spirit who followed us home from Graylock has been doing bad things. But she’s been doing them for a reason.”