“Oh,” I said. “Your grandmother told me to ask you about dresses, so if she asks, just say we talked about it.”
“What about dresses?”
I hesitated. “She said I should borrow one from you for the dance.”
“You don’t have a dress?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You should take one,” she said. “Then she won’t ask any questions.” She went to her closet and pushed the doors open.
I felt extraordinarily silly. “Megan, I don’t think any of your clothes . . .”
“Chill,” she said, scanning the racks of clothes. “It’s just for show. You don’t have to actually wear it, but you might as well.”
“If I’m even alive for the dance,” I said, only half joking.
She turned and looked at me solemnly. “You will be, Alexis,” she said. “I promise we’ll find a way to fix what’s happening.”
I sighed. The fact that she took it seriously made it seem so much harder. Half of me wanted someone to convince me that it was all in my head. Then I could pop a magic pill and go back to my normal life.
Except, what was my normal life? Could I go back to hanging out with the Doom Squad? Could I go back to hating Megan?
“What are you going to do with your hair?” she asked, reaching toward the back of the rack. “Have you thought about wearing it up?”
“No,” I said truthfully, because I hadn’t thought about my hair at all.
“Okay, don’t hate me for this,” Megan said, and turned around, holding out a dress . . . a pink dress.
When I say pink, I mean Pepto-Bismol pink. Easy-Bake Oven pink. Beauty-pageant pink. I took an involuntary step back, as if she were holding a snake. “Uh-uh. No way.”
“Come on, it would be adorable. You’d look like a punk-rock Barbie doll.”
“No,” I said. “Megan, no. People would think—”
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought about you.”
Crud. “I would look like a strawberry.”
“Not even,” she said. “I’m telling you, it would be the cutest thing ever.”
I looked at the dress. It was kind of 1960s looking, with a neckline that went in a straight line from the top of one shoulder to the other, and no sleeves. It flared a couple inches under the bust into a puffy skirt that went down to about knee-high. The fabric was kind of stiff, so it stuck out.
“Take it. You’re taking it. You have to,” she said. “Everyone will die.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “Just what I need.”
“What, for people to think you’re cute and have good fashion sense? That would be devastating. Oh, oh— I know what’s missing.” Her eyes swept over the room, searching for something. “Where’s my tiara?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “Fine!” I said. “I’ll take the dress, but nothing else. No accessories.”
I’d only meant to make us safe from her grandmother, and now I was being talked into wearing a pink princess dress. I hadn’t worn pink clothing since fourth grade. We had to leave before she found the tiara.
“Yay,” Megan crowed, and she draped it over my arm. She took one last look around the room.
“Are you going Friday night?” The question kind of slipped out.
“Yeah. Kind of have to. School spirit, rah rah rah.”
“Who are you going with?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Myself.”
“You don’t have a date?”
“Who needs a date?” she asked. “He’d just try to dance and look stupid anyway.”
Who’s punk-rock now?
We didn’t even pause as we walked by the kitchen. Megan picked up her schoolbag from the front hall and shouted over her shoulder, “Bye, Grandma!”
“God keep you,” Mrs. Wiley called back as we walked out the door.
“Why did she say that?” I asked. Was she on to us?
Megan shrugged. “That’s what she always says.”
THE AFTERNOON LIGHT HAD BEGUN to fade from pale white to gold, and the wind had picked up, sending whirlwinds of fallen leaves tumbling across the street. When we paused at stop signs, the leaves blew against the car and made faint scraping noises.
“We’ll go inside and look around a little,” Megan said, drumming along to the song on the radio, “and then maybe we’ll have something to work with.”
“Megan,” I said, hesitating.
She turned the radio down. “Yeah?”
“I don’t want this to sound weird, because you obviously know more about these things than I do, but my sister is seriously unpredictable right now. I don’t think we should mess with her.”
She drove on, not looking at me, not saying a word.
“It’s just that it could get . . . risky. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m here of my own free will,” she said. “Stop making up reasons to feel bad.”
She went on tapping lightly on the steering wheel, and I stared out the front window of the car, trying to ignore the fear that hovered over my thoughts like an approaching storm. Megan and I had reached a delicate balance—and I didn’t want to upset that balance by second-guessing her.
Neither of us said a word as she turned onto Whitley Street.
We parked across the street from my house. After turning the engine off, Megan gazed silently out the window, not moving, not even to take off her seat belt. The air in the car seemed to settle, and the only sounds were our breathing and the scratching and skittering of the leaves outside.
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She sat straight up, her body rigid with stillness, like a tiger crouching in the grass. The sudden change in her behavior frightened me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
I didn’t even notice her hand move, but her seat belt clicked and went flying in violent release, scaring me out of my skin. I gave a shriek, which seemed to wake her up. Her lips pulled tight in a grim little line, revealing tension she didn’t want me to see. It was suddenly as if the house, and whatever was inside of it, were more than she’d bargained for.
But if she wasn’t going to admit it, I wasn’t going to challenge her. “Ready?”
She gulped in a breath of air and nodded resolutely. “Let’s go.”
The car doors unlocked with a soft click, and we stepped out onto the road. The wind hurried by us, moaning softly. The perfect fall day was cooling into a chilly twilight, and the sky seemed to glow soft brown. I shivered involuntarily.
Megan grabbed her bag from the trunk and faced the house.
“The dress?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Leave it for now.”
I closed the trunk. The noise seemed to get lost in the wind.
We must have looked like a solemn little procession, staring up at the house as we crossed the street and went up the front walk. I volunteered for the front position, and Megan followed a few steps behind me.
The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and hesitated for half a second before going inside.
“Is she here?” Megan whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Wow,” Megan said. I turned to see what she was looking at, but she was just studying the foyer. I tried to see it the way she was, the high ceiling plastered with cherubs and angels, the leaded-glass window over the front door, the sweeping staircase opening up in front of us, the ornate handrail with its carved roses and vines. . . .
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.
As I reached the top of the steps and listened for sounds from Kasey’s room, I began to relax; although, as I learned earlier, it didn’t have to sound like she was home to mean she was. The door was open. I edged closer and sighed with relief; the room was empty. Even if Kasey was home, she definitely wasn’t in her bedroom.
Megan came more slowly up the stairs, looking back at the foyer and peering down the hall.
“I feel like I’ve seen this place before,” she said.
/> “There’s one in every scary movie,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Do you want to see my sister’s room?”
I went alone into Kasey’s room while Megan hovered a few feet behind me. The longer we were in the house, the quieter and more withdrawn she seemed to get.
Nothing struck me as out of the ordinary. I turned around to leave, but Megan wasn’t there. She’d wandered down the hall and stood just at the top of the stairs, studying the wallpaper, dragging her fingertips across it.
“Hey,” I said. “Maybe we should go outside for a minute.”
She turned to look at me, but instead of answering, she went ghostly white and seemed to freeze in place, staring over my shoulder down the hallway.
Not a good sign.
“Megan?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t even move.
I took a step toward her.
“Wait,” she said.
An order.
I obeyed. Too afraid even to move my head and follow her gaze behind me, I stared at her, trying to read her expression.
Nothing. Her face was blank.
“Sarah,” she said. “Sarah.”
“. . . Megan?”
“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah—”
“Megan, what are you saying?”
After a moment she seemed to wake up. Her eyes went wide and she shook her head furiously, but the name wouldn’t stop coming out of her mouth. Her whole body was stiff, her muscles so tense that the tendons showed in her arms.
“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah—”
“Megan!” I cried. “Quit it!”
But she couldn’t. It was like me, in the basement, with the story.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Megan! Stop it!”
She stopped, blinking a few times. Finally her gaze settled on me, and her glazed eyes seemed to clear.
“What happened here?” Megan gasped.
“Why do you keep saying that name?”
“In this house,” Megan said. “Something happened in this house.”
She collapsed.
Down the hall, Kasey’s door slammed shut all by itself.
Megan had fallen gracefully into a little heap in the corner. I knelt at her side and felt her wrist for a pulse. It was there—weak, but there.
“Come on,” I said, shaking her shoulder gently. “Wake up.”
Megan stirred; her eyelids fluttered open and then slid shut as if they were weighted. Her lips moved in an attempt to speak.
“Megan, come on, wake up. We have to get out of here.”
I grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her up to a sitting position.
She blinked. “Let’s go,” she whispered, color flooding her pale cheeks.
I helped her to her feet, and as we went down the steps, her hand gripped the banister as if it were a life preserver.
“What just happened?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I’ll tell you outside,” I said, holding her by the arm as we crossed the foyer and hurried out of the house.
While Megan rested against the side of her car, my eyes searched the house, looking for any strange light or movement—Kasey’s face in a window. . . . But there was nothing.
After a minute, Megan raised her head and looked at me.
“I’m okay,” she said, trying the words out.
I didn’t ask if she was sure, but our eyes met, and hers darted away.
“I am,” she insisted. I waited for her to climb into the driver’s seat before I walked around to the passenger side.
Once we were safely in the car, she gripped the steering wheel in her hands and tightened her fists until the skin over her knuckles was white. She took a long, deep breath in and held it.
“Who’s Sarah?” I asked. The name seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.
“What?”
“Sarah. You just kept saying that name . . . Don’t you remember?”
“No,” she said. “I really don’t. All I remember is feeling something evil.”
She leaned back against the seat, staring intently at the steering wheel.
“You know how I keep saying I’m doing this for me . . . ?” She hugged herself tightly. “Ever since I was a little girl, whenever I was around people—fortune-tellers, psychics—they’re all afraid of me.”
“Afraid how?”
“I just walk by their tents, and they come out and start yelling at me. Not the fake ones, but the real ones— the ones who aren’t just making stuff up.”
I didn’t want to ask what they yelled.
“They tell me Sarah is here and Sarah is angry and Sarah hates you. And they’re so scared; they just want me to go away. They get so upset.”
“Who’s Sarah?” I asked her.
“That’s what I want to know.”
I looked up at the house. It looked so serene from the outside.
“Whatever I felt in there,” Megan said, “it’s totally evil. Like bad evil, Alexis.”
She exhaled and started the car. As we drove down Whitley Street, away from the house, her face seemed to at least soften a little bit.
Where could we possibly go after that?
“We’re going to the library,” she said.
I nodded and leaned back in my seat. But as we neared the stop sign on the corner, something caught my eye. In the rearview mirror I could see our neighbor Mary guiding her gigantic grandma car into her driveway.
“Stop here,” I said, undoing my seat belt. “Park right around the corner and wait for me.” Before Megan could even ask where I was going, I was already out the door and cutting across the neighbors’ yards to Mary’s house.
I reached her as she was hoisting her trunk open. I gave her a bit of a scare, which made me nervous because she’s so old.
“Good heavens,” she said, looking at me. “Alexis, are you all right?”
“Yes, fine,” I lied.
“It’s not your father, is it?” she asked.
“No, no, nothing like that.”
I glanced at her trunkful of grocery bags.
“Do you want some help with these?” I asked, nodding toward them.
“Well, no . . . you’re all out of breath,” she protested, but I knew she didn’t mean it. I scooped three bags into my arms. Mary grabbed the small brown sack with the eggs in it and started up the front walk. How on earth did she ever manage to get all of her own groceries inside? She must have had to make a separate trip for every single bag.
Up until a couple of years ago, I went to her house a few times a week and had lemonade and cookies while she asked me all about school and friends and life. She never ate any of the cookies, but she always had plenty around. They must have just been for me, and for Kasey, when I dragged her along. When was the last time I’d been there? I thought of a whole package of cookies going stale waiting for us to come visit.
It took two trips to get all the groceries inside.
Mary pulled a chair out from the kitchen table for me. “Would you like some lemonade?” she asked, making a move for the refrigerator.
“Actually, I can’t stay long,” I said. “I just have a question.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. She let the fridge door slip shut and turned to me. “What’s your question?”
“You’ve lived here a long time, haven’t you?” I asked, even though I knew she had.
“Elvin and I moved here in 1972,” she said. Elvin was her husband. He died before we moved in, but I’d heard plenty about him over the years.
“Did you ever hear about anything weird happening in my house?”
Mary froze.
Aha.
Then she shook her head. “Maybe you’d better run along,” she said, suddenly very interested in the contents of one of the grocery bags.
“What was it, Mary?”
Now she looked right at me. “Perhaps when you’re a little older,” she said. “But I don’t feel right telling you now. Not when y
our father—not when you’ve got so much stress already.”
I wasn’t leaving that kitchen without names, dates, details. Everything she knew, I was going to know. I crossed my arms and looked back up at her. “I won’t tell my parents you told me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She stared at the floor. I kept my eyes on her. The sunshine coming through the window silhouetted her puff of silvery curls.
“I need to know,” I said simply.
She turned away, but I knew I was breaking her down.
“Who’s Sarah?”
“Sarah?” she asked, spinning back, her eyebrows forming a deep V on her forehead. “I don’t know anything about a Sarah. Do you mean—”
She abruptly cut herself off.
“Mary, please, it’s so important.”
“No, Alexis, I just don’t . . . Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Let’s see . . . They moved in at the end of the summer,
1995.”
“Who?”
Mary paced and fidgeted for a moment, wiggled her fingers, stared out the window. “I . . . I don’t remember.”
A lie. We both sighed at the same time.
“Can’t you just give me a hint?”
“No. I can’t. I can’t say any more.”
“Just tell me, did someone get hurt?”
“I guess so . . .” She stared helplessly at the ceiling, gripping the cross that hung from a chain around her neck. “I don’t know if I would say hurt, but she did . . . die.”
I fell limply against the back of the chair. “In the house?”
“Goodness,” she said. “This was a mistake.”
“No, wait—someone died in my house?”
She sighed like she knew it was too late to stop now. “Yes, in your house.”
“From natural causes?”
“No, dear,” she said.
“What year?”
“Let’s see, it was 1996. October. The middle of October.”
“So . . . okay, wait—nobody lived there until we moved in?”
“No, an older couple moved in for a year, but they moved out very quickly. They didn’t seem to like the neighborhood.”
“What was their name?”
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