So an expert on ghosts—not just ghosts, but hostile ones—moved into our house after a mysterious suicide. And moved out as soon as he could manage.
Suddenly the thin white paperback seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.
Then I snapped out of it. I had to be ready to leave before Miss Oliver came back for me. I stuffed the book in my bag and started for the door, which flew open just as I was reaching for the doorknob.
I shrieked and jumped backward.
Miss Oliver looked at me like I was out of my mind. “A little jumpy, are we?”
I didn’t feel like making small talk. “I’m fine.” I turned sideways to squeeze past her.
We were the last two people in the library. As I neared the exit I saw the security sensors set up on either side of the door and stopped short. The bar code on the book in my bag would set off the alarm, and then she would catch me—or I would have to run.
I took a deep breath. If I bolted, would she chase me? Did she know my name?
“Wait a second,” Miss Oliver called from behind the counter.
“We’ll walk out together,” she said, reaching beneath her desk and flipping a few switches. All of the library lights switched off, and the red power light on the security sensors faded.
No alarm sounded as we walked through in silence, and I waited as Miss Oliver locked the front door and lowered the gate and locked that too. I had no idea that libraries were having such security issues. Maybe because of people like me, who steal rare books and microfiche slides.
“Is someone coming for you?” Miss Oliver asked, looking around.
“Um, no,” I said. “But it’s okay. I’ll just walk.”
“Walk?” she asked doubtfully. “That isn’t safe. Where do you live?”
“Whitley Street,” I said.
She looked at me like I was a stray cat who’d taken up residence on her porch. “I’ll drive you,” she said at last, unlocking the door of the only car in the lot, an old square Buick with dulling paint.
We rode in silence. When we reached Whitley Street, I pointed to my house. She slowed the car.
“This house?” she asked.
How many times had my friends’ parents asked me that question, in that tone of voice? It was so clear to me now—they really meant, “This awful house, with the horrible, violent past? You live, eat, sleep, brush your teeth in this terrible place?”
“Yep, this one,” I said. It was the same thing I’d always said.
I CLOSED THE DOOR QUIETLY BEHIND ME.
“Alexis, is that you?” Mom’s voice called out.
I dropped my bags on the stairs and crossed the hall to the kitchen, where Mom stood in front of the open freezer door, studying the stacks of TV dinners.
“Sorry I didn’t call,” I said, steeling myself for a lecture.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I just got home myself. Kasey told me where you were.”
I glanced at the staircase. “She did?”
“Doing research at the library, right?”
“Um . . . yeah.”
“Your sister’s been working too. She’s totally wrapped up in some project for school.” Mom spoke quietly, like we were gossiping. “It’s not like her. I’ve never seen her so dedicated.”
“Hmm,” was all I could manage.
“I’m microwaving taquitos for Kasey. Did you eat yet?”
“No, but I’m not hungry,” I said, and then I grabbed my bag and climbed the stairs.
As I neared my bedroom door, Kasey’s door opened and she took a half step out into the hallway.
She stared at me with cold eyes, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Long night at the library?” she asked.
I didn’t answer, just walked into my room, holding my head as high as I could manage. When the door was safely locked behind me, I set my stuff down and took a few long, deep breaths.
I changed out of my jeans into a pair of sweatpants, and sat on the floor at the foot of the bed with my bag in front of me, ready to do more research.
Speaking of research, what was this mysterious project of my sister’s? Stealing the reports from school, reading up on all those families . . . What could any of it have to do with Shara?
After a minute, Mom’s voice called up the stairs announcing dinner, and I heard Kasey thump briskly by, leaving her room unwatched.
But for how long?
I peered out into the hall. Voices drifted up from the kitchen—Mom’s tired chatter and Kasey’s emotionless staccato—and I figured, if this was going to happen, it had to happen now.
I stayed close to the wall for the ten feet I had to pass to get to Kasey’s door; then I ducked inside and looked around to make sure there were no ghosts playing rent-acop for her.
Coast clear.
I tried to forget the feeling that had come over me when I’d been in there the previous night—the feeling that I now suspected meant I wasn’t alone. But the air seemed dry, and held only the faint aroma of dolls—a mixture of dust, plastic hair, and something like old books.
So I was alone. For now.
The room looked like a tornado had hit it, as usual. Kasey’s desk was a mess of books and loose papers. She’d been busy, all right—but why?
I went closer to the desk and saw a stack of photocopies and other papers. I grabbed the stack and flipped through it. The photocopies were pages from public records—mostly birth and death announcements.
The other pages were hand-drawn or computer-drawn family trees. There were five of them, and at the top of each was a name and a page number. They’d been torn from her classmates’ ancestor reports.
So I guess the whole thing about returning them was a lie.
I stopped on one that culminated in MELISSA MARGARET LAIRD—Mimi. The tree went all the way back through several generations, and Kasey had either highlighted or crossed out several of the names on the page.
Same for the rest of the reports.
Finally I set them down and tugged the red notebook out from the pile on the desk.
I opened it and skipped through pages of Kasey’s school notes. There were about ten new pages at the end, and the first few were filled in Kasey’s messy chicken scratch—not just words, but interlocking circles, a ragged tree, random chaotic doodles. . . .
The effect was mesmerizing, and I found myself staring for several moments before I suddenly realized I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there. I had a feeling Kasey wouldn’t just leave her precious work unprotected for long. I was about to make a run for my room when I noticed the last page.
It was covered in lists, written in the smallest scrawl imaginable. The page was so full that if you blurred your eyes, it looked gray.
And she’d written everything backward, like that movie where the kid writes REDRUM all over the place.
I picked one list to try to focus on. It took forever to get my brain adjusted to reading backward.
IVY COLEMAN (RIDGE) (died 1974)— 3 children
SON: ??? Ridge
DAUGHTER??
DAUGHTER: Rhonda Ridge (Hutchins) (died 1983) (1 daughter)
DAUGHTER: MIRI HUTCHINS
SON: John Ridge (died 1990) (2 daughters)
DAUGHTER: Eve Ridge (Hamilton)
DAUGHTER: Delores Ridge (Oliver)
Delores Oliver?
Librarian Delores Oliver?
I didn’t recognize any of the other names.
I needed more time with the list, but Kasey was still working on it. She’d notice right away if it was gone.
I listened out in the hallway but couldn’t hear anything but TV noises from downstairs. Maybe Kasey had decided to take a load off for a while and watch some game shows.
I had an idea.
Clutching the notebook close, I darted down the hall and through the study to the darkroom.
The paper was thick, but she’d written with dark ink, so maybe it would work—if I set the exposure long enough.
Except I
was out of photo paper.
Then I remembered my extra-fancy matte paper, the stuff Dad got me last Christmas. It cost, like, two dollars a page, and to make sure I didn’t accidentally use it for regular stuff, I kept it wrapped in a towel at the bottom of one of the bathroom drawers. Kasey didn’t even know it existed, so maybe . . .
I opened the drawer.
There it was.
I put a page down under the enlarger and then set Kasey’s list, print side down, right on top of it. I cranked the timer and let it run for ten seconds, twenty, forty-five. Finally, after a minute, the light clicked off.
This was taking way too long. I dropped the paper in the developer and ran back out to the hallway with the original.
Footsteps were thumping up the stairs.
I dashed into Kasey’s room, nearly tripped over a shoe on the way to her desk, and slammed the page back onto her notebook.
But there was no time to get out.
I hurled myself into the closet.
It was practically impossible to keep my breathing quiet, especially when Kasey came sauntering in and looked around. I watched through the slat as she stretched her arms like a cat and then sat on the foot of the bed, looking around the room.
She didn’t seem to know I was there.
Come on, come on.
The print was cooking in the developer right now. I’d be lucky if it wasn’t just a solid square of black.
But I had more immediate problems.
Kasey pressed her hands to her temples and shook her head like she was trying to shake something off. She squinted her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose.
Then her whole body jerked, and just like that, the struggle was over.
Her movements became fluid, deliberate. She smoothed her hair down and looked around the room.
I felt nauseated.
It wasn’t Kasey anymore.
She froze, and her hazy eyes focused, hardened with the effort of listening.
Don’t look in the closet, don’t look in the closet—
She stood up, tilting her head to one side.
I held my breath.
She took a half-step toward me—
The bedroom door opened.
Kasey drew back and blinked as she looked toward the hallway.
“Kasey, honey, I need you to get your clothes out of the dryer.”
“What?” Kasey asked. Her hands fidgeted and tugged at a belt loop on her jeans.
“Your laundry,” Mom said. “The laundry you were supposed to fold?”
Kasey sighed, took a last wary look around, and left. As soon as I heard her feet on the stairs, I ran back to the darkroom, yanked the page out of the developer, and slipped it into the stop bath.
It was dark, but legible. And, as an added bonus, the words that had been backward on Kasey’s page were now normal—lists and lists of names in unsteady handwriting.
There would be time to read them later. I did a rushed version of my usual cleanup, stowed the photo paper back in the drawer in case I needed it again, and went back to my room with the print hidden under my shirt.
I sat on my bed, trying in vain to make a connection between the names on Kasey’s paper. Finally I set the list aside and moved on, pulling the library book and microfiche slides out of my bag. I held one slide to the light but couldn’t make out any detail—just little blocks of text and teensy black squares.
A series of quick taps on the door made me jump and drop the slide.
“Alexis?” Mom called.
“Hold on,” I said. “It’s locked.”
I opened the door to see her standing in the hallway with her jacket on and briefcase in hand.
“So listen,” Mom said. “I have to go back to the office for a while and try to make up some work from yesterday. Just an hour or so. The new senior VP is coming Friday, and I really want to be prepared. . . .”
I could hear the excitement in her voice.
Suddenly I felt bad for Mom, really bad. Imagine working for something for years, watching people get hired below you and then promoted to be your boss. Imagine your family never saying thank you, or even telling you they’re sorry you work so hard and nobody acknowledges it.
What was this, Challenge Alexis’s Long-Held Assumptions Day?
“Can you hold down the fort for a while?”
“Um . . . sure.”
Alone with Kasey. I tried not to think about it.
Mom shifted her briefcase to her other hand.
“Mom,” I said.
“Hm?”
“I know you really want to get promoted, but . . .” Uh. “Even if you don’t, you know, you’re still . . .” Hmmm. Running out of words here. “I mean, thanks for working so hard.”
She smiled. “That means a lot to me.” Then she touched my shoulder and left.
* * *
I settled onto my bed and stared at the bookshelves across the room. I couldn’t bring myself to put the vandalized yearbook back in its place, so I’d stuffed it into the bottom drawer of my desk.
No sound came from Kasey’s room, but I could imagine what she was doing: sitting hunched over her desk, making lists and more lists and randomly copying names down into her notebook.
I fell back against the pillows and closed my eyes, too weary to sit up. I tried to clear my thoughts, but I kept remembering Megan’s face as she read the article and learned the horrible truth about her mother. Then I thought of innocent toddler Megan, in the photo at the lake with her grandmother, oblivious to the fact that the woman with the camera was soon going to try to kill her.
How long had Shara planned before she got up the nerve to actually go through with it? When she looked through the lens that day, had she looked at Megan with hatred?
But how could you take such a photo, hating your subject? How could you wait until the light shined perfectly on the water behind her, catching the windswept flyaways of her baby curls, the deep thoughtfulness of her tiny eyes? There was love in that picture.
I thought of the charm bracelet Megan had worn that day, the one she still wore every day, hiding her past beneath her expensive sweaters and cheerleading uniform.
Then I realized with a start: my charm. It wasn’t just any charm: if Megan had actually lived here, that meant mine was probably the other half of hers.
Our house before this one had been tiny and cramped—so the Gothic expanses of the new one towered over me. I was seven years old. (It took me two years to figure out that we didn’t actually live in a mansion.)
That first night, after Mom tucked me in and gave me a kiss, I lay staring up at the ceiling.
And that’s when I heard it:
The whispering.
At first I thought it was coming from the hallway, but when I peeked out, nobody was there. I dove back under the covers, and the whispers seemed to get louder. Even with my hands over my ears, I could hear the voice slithering and hissing like a nest of snakes in my head, until finally I could make out two words:
Come play.
It must be Kasey, I decided. But it was too late to play.
Thanks to Kasey’s daylong series of screeching temper tantrums, the whole family was drained. Our parents were Exhausted with a capital “E” and any little girl caught sneaking out of her bedroom would be in Trouble with a capital “T.”
Come play, the whispers begged.
I folded the pillow over the sides of my head to block out the sound, but it didn’t work.
I was determined not to go to my sister’s room, but I felt myself drawn to the window and figured that wasn’t breaking any rules. I gave in to the urge and went to the cushioned window seat, pressing my hands flat against the panes of glass. Then I reached down and unlatched the window, pushing it up and letting in the cold night air.
Come play.
Something rose up inside me, a burst of bravery, and for some reason I decided that I must climb out the window. I must climb the giant tree. I had to do it to prove to myse
lf that I wasn’t afraid of the new house.
As I knelt and began to stick one foot out the window, the whispers grew louder and more excited, and I grew more confident that what I was doing was absolutely the right thing. Think how proud Mom and Dad would be the next day. Think how impressed Kasey would be.
I set one foot lightly on the roof and shifted a bit of my weight to it, but my foot slipped a little on the loose shingles, and I thrust a hand toward the wall behind the curtain to steady myself.
I got my balance back, but as my hand pressed against the wall, panic surged up inside of me. The whispers became slower, angrier, as I stared down at the twenty-foot drop off the edge of the roof.
Suddenly I didn’t want to come play.
It was wrong. It was dangerous. My parents wouldn’t be proud—they’d be horrified.
My hand felt along the wall for something to grab on to, to get the strength to pull myself back inside. I was distracted by the swirling roar of whispers in my head, scolding me and beseeching me to Come play, Come play, Come play. . . .
What my hand found was a small piece of metal, tied with a loop of ribbon, hanging off a tiny nail in the wall.
I grabbed the metal, and the whispers went silent.
With a burst of strength I hauled myself back inside and shut the window, locking it, and climbed back into bed. In the moonlight I stared at the object in my hand— a flat silver heart, cut in half with a smoothed-over zigzag edge. There were letters on it, S, H, and half an A, and below them, M, E, and the round back of what could have been a Q or an O . . .
Or a G.
When I woke up the next morning I would have thought the whole thing was a dream, except for the presence of the charm and ribbon, which I’d wrapped around and around my little hand and held on to like a talisman.
For years I slept with that heart under my pillow. I never really stopped to wonder where it came from or who it had belonged to. I liked it, on some deep level, and I thought, on the same deep level, that it liked me back. It was my lucky charm.
The whispers never bothered me again.
After eighth grade, when Beth and her mom moved away, I gave up on the concept of luck. If there was any such thing, I figured, I was getting the bad end of it. Better to reject the whole idea outright than to keep inviting bad luck to kick me around.
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