She was reading one of the books she’d found on Britney’s shelf and was lost in the story when she heard a mournful howl that sent prickles up her spine.
It was probably the dog—Buddy—but it sounded so close and loud and creepy. When she looked out her window, she saw a shadowy lump sitting on the dock. The moon was reflected in the dark water, and the forest rustled as if it were alive. She put a hand to the window glass and felt the summer heat seep into her palm.
Poor Buddy. He seemed so sad. Her plan was to clean him up and then convince her mom to bring him inside, but it was going to take a little time to get him to that stage. It was awful how those people had left him behind like just another piece of their trash. She thought about going outside with some more food and kind words, but…it was just plain spooky out there at night, all overgrown and wild and shadowy. And the outside light didn’t work sometimes. But she wasn’t going to be able to sleep until she’d helped him.
Lily crept downstairs and stopped. The den was still a labyrinth of garbage, even though the piles were diminishing. It looked like a city of forgotten things, and each tower of boxes cast strange shadows in the scant light emanating from the bathroom. But why was the light even on in the downstairs bathroom?
“Mom?” Lily called.
A faint rustle answered her, soft as socks on dusty wood.
“Are you up?”
Another rustle.
Well, her mom kept weird nurses’ hours and often stayed up at night listening to life-hacking podcasts on her phone with her earbuds, so maybe she was up cleaning or crocheting and had left the light on to make it easier to see.
Lily stepped off the bottom stair onto the floorboards and instantly wanted to snatch her bare foot back. What if something was hiding down here in the garbage? Sure, it seemed fine during the day, but they’d found rat poop and chewed cardboard lying around, and if there was one giant roach, there had to be a million. She wound her way around stacks of junk and black bags toward the source of the light, holding her breath and trying not to touch anything.
But when she stood in the doorway, there was no sign of her mom. The bathroom was clean now, and the old magazines and grody comb were gone. This would be Lily’s bathroom, Mom had said, since her parents had their own bathroom in the master bedroom and she didn’t have one upstairs. She hated the old-fashioned pink wallpaper, and it was just plain weird having carpet in a bathroom, but at least she’d gotten to pick out the shower curtain, which was white with cute succulents and cacti on it. When she’d been down here earlier, the shower curtain had been open, showing off a fresh bar of soap and new bottles of shampoo and conditioner and a towel that still had tags. Now the shower curtain was closed.
And when the rustling came again, it came from the bathtub.
Definitely not her mom.
Lily picked up the new toilet brush and tried to control her wildly beating heart. That noise—it was probably a roach, or maybe a trapped moth. Florida was full of supersized bugs. Or maybe it was a cute little mouse.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the shower curtain and pulled it back with a sudden clank.
The tub was empty.
Not even a teeny spider.
Her arm holding the toilet brush fell to her side.
“Ha. Very funny,” she told herself. “I’m soooo melodramatic.”
As if in answer, water suddenly gushed out of the tub faucet. It wasn’t clean, clear water or even the brown grunge of old pipes. This water was thick and green and viscous, as dark and gooey as the glop in the bottom of the pool outside. Or the swamp.
Lily reached out, trying to close the tap, but it wouldn’t budge.
A loud burble behind her made her spin around, and she saw that the toilet was overflowing with the same thick green-black sludge. It rose and rose and flooded over the seat, splattering onto the carpet and soaking it, leaving ink-black stains. The scent of rot and death filled the room, choking her.
“Mom!” she cried. “Mom, help!”
There wasn’t a toilet plunger, but it’s not like that could’ve stopped the river of slime seeping into the room. It spread out and soaked into the beige carpet, and she stepped back only to find the bathtub also overflowing. Her heart was beating like crazy, her hair on end and her limbs all numb. She didn’t have to act at all—this was real terror.
Her mom didn’t show up, and the flooding wouldn’t stop, and it was almost touching her toes, despite the fact that she kept backing up and backing up toward the door. She looked around wildly for anything to stop the overflow, but even the sink was oozing now. And written on the recently cleaned mirror in green-black gunk was a single word: MINE.
With a loud slam, the bathroom door closed, and the light went out, leaving Lily in total darkness. The thick, warm water squelched between her toes, and it felt like she was sinking in mud, being sucked down into endless depths. She closed her eyes and screamed bloody murder, hard enough to shred her throat, and she felt water touch her face as if the goo was dripping off the ceiling, too.
“Lily?”
She opened her eyes and found her mom staring at her like she’d grown another head. The bathroom light was on, the door was open, and…there wasn’t a single drop of green-black sludge in sight. The toilet was sparkling clean, the shower curtain was drawn back, and the word scrawled on the mirror was gone.
“Are you okay?” her mom asked, looking utterly exhausted and done. “Why were you screaming? And why are you holding a toilet brush?”
Lily looked around, breathing hard like she’d just run a mile.
What…had just happened? She had seen that thick black water. She’d smelled it.
Was she sleepwalking? Did she have a fever?
When that grapefruit landed on her head, had she gotten a concussion?
Her mom was waiting for an answer, and…
“Uh, there was a roach,” she lied. “It surprised me.”
Her mother plucked the toilet brush from her hand and shoved it back into its holder. “Yeah, I saw one, too. We’ve just got to get used to it. It’s basically Jurassic Park around here.” She put a hand on Lily’s shoulder and attempted a tired smile. “I know it’s hard, but we can make this work.”
“Uh, sure,” Lily mumbled, feeling her whole face go red. “Sorry.”
“Go back to bed, sweetie. We’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
Lily nodded. Her throat was all closed up—words wouldn’t come. Her mom was waiting, eyebrows raised, so she hurried past her and made a beeline for the stairs. Running up to her room as if she were being chased, she tried to think of a single scenario that could explain what had just happened.
But when she got to her room, she skidded to a halt.
Nothing could explain what she saw.
Her clothes were out of their drawers, tossed everywhere. Her books—not the ones from the shelves, but the only ones she’d brought from Colorado—were lying on the ground like broken birds, their spines snapped. The bed was back in its original place, and Lily’s sheets and comforter and pillow were crumpled on the floor like someone had stomped on them. Written on the white mattress again in even bigger ash-gray letters was that same, threatening word.
MINE.
And under that, two more:
GO AWAY.
6.
Lily wanted to scream and she wanted to run away, but she knew that making a big scene would only make her parents angry. She whipped out her phone and took pics of the mess and the words before hurrying downstairs to her parents’ bedroom. The door was closed, and she could hear their voices on the other side. They weren’t shouting, but they didn’t sound happy.
Well, too bad. Lily wasn’t happy, either.
She knocked politely on the door, and her parents’ voices went silent. She was bouncing on her toes now, full
of energy and scared and excited, but she closed her eyes and shoved the feelings down like a wave smoothing over scribbles in the sand. She had to be calm and reasonable if she wanted them to take her seriously.
The door opened to show her father’s glare. “Another roach?”
Lily held out her phone, showing the picture she’d snapped. “I’m sorry to bother you, but someone’s been in my room. They messed up all my stuff and wrote on the mattress.”
Instead of looking at her phone, he looked past her, down the dark hall, and shook his head. “Lily, I don’t know what to say. All the talks we’ve had since that night, all your apologies, your promises to change. They don’t mean anything, do they?”
Lily flinched and shook her head. He had it all wrong.
“No, this isn’t me being dramatic. I swear. Just…come see.” She turned and headed for the stairs. When he didn’t immediately follow, she stopped. And stared.
Her father was standing in the door in his robe and pajama pants, looking at her like she’d betrayed him. He turned to glance back at where Mom sat in the bed. “Laura, I can’t. I just can’t anymore.”
He went back into the room, and Lily’s mom slid out the door instead.
“Is he not coming?”
Mom looked at the phone, frowning, before putting a hand on her shoulder to steer her away. “Your dad had a long day. Let’s go see what’s up.”
Lily led the way upstairs feeling unsure. Yeah, she regretted what had happened back in Colorado, and she’d said her apologies and begged for forgiveness and promised to be better. But that didn’t change what had happened in her room here, now. Her dad should’ve definitely cared if some weirdo was sneaking into his house. She’d done what he asked, hadn’t been dramatic at all, and he still didn’t believe her.
At least Mom was on her side.
But when Mom saw her room, she didn’t gasp and rush inside or draw Lily into a comforting hug. She sighed heavily and leaned against the doorframe like she couldn’t hold herself up anymore and said, “Really, Lily?”
Lily looked all over the room, trying to figure out what she was missing. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’re not getting as much attention as you’d like, and we all know you wanted to stay in Boulder, but…acting out like this? Did you think we’d just turn around and go back because you trashed your room and turned it into some fake mystery?” She rubbed her temples and subtly wiped away tears. “It doesn’t work, okay? All the drama. It’s never going to do what you want it to. Now, put it back together and go to sleep.”
But Lily moved to block her mom. She had to make her understand.
“I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t. That would be stupid. Someone else did it. Maybe—”
“Don’t. Just don’t. I’m too tired for this.”
Her mom stepped around her and left, leaving Lily alone with the mess she definitely hadn’t made. Before, she’d felt confused and targeted and uncomfortable, but now she felt utterly abandoned.
They didn’t believe her.
Not her dad—no big surprise. And not her mom, either.
Her mom used to be her biggest fan, always, but…Well, Lily had watched her parents argue more and more as her dad struggled to find work and didn’t, and then their savings dwindled and they sold his much nicer car. As her dad got angrier, her mother seemed to fade away. She just disappeared into her phone or her yarn bag. And sometimes she looked at Lily like it was all her fault.
And now her room—they thought she’d done this for attention.
It would’ve been insulting if it hadn’t been so devastating.
Her parents had always told her they were on her side, even when they complained that she was being melodramatic or silly, but now, when she needed them most—really needed them—it was clear that they didn’t care.
Her eyes went hot and red, and she dashed the tears away with the back of her hand. She wanted to close her eyes and make it all disappear, but every time she tried, she saw the greenish-black water again, saw the word MINE scrawled on the mirror. The same word scrawled on the mattress. Again.
Plus the new addition: GO AWAY.
Ha. Like she could.
Like that wasn’t what she wanted more than anything in the world.
Like she wasn’t stuck here, in this gross house, in this crazy room where someone was sneaking in to play some weird prank on her. She wasn’t ready to consider any other possibilities.
No way was she going to sleep in that bed. She made a nest on the floor and wrapped her comforter around herself, inhaling the scent of their old house and the familiar tang of Mom’s favorite detergent. She was crying, and there were too many reasons why to count. It stung that her dad couldn’t even be bothered to leave the room and that her mom had offered her no comfort. And it really hurt, the way they’d both looked at her like she’d betrayed them.
They’d had a big talk before moving down here, everyone seated around the dining room table, and Dad had given her a hard look that made her want to curl up and die. He’d reminded her that this was her chance at a do-over, a chance to make up for her past mistakes and toe the line. Her chance to really look at who she wanted to be and make a lasting change for the better, for her and for the family.
“No drama,” he’d said, harsh as a door slamming shut.
“No drama,” she’d repeated, her voice small. With those two words, he wasn’t just shutting down a behavior but pretty much everything about who she was. That night, she’d stuffed a garbage bag with her most flamboyant and costumey pieces of clothing, her glitter-star sunglasses and unicorn-horn headband and blue sequined fedora and hot-pink faux-fur jacket. She was really going to try, even if it meant making herself seem smaller.
Even if that felt wrong.
But it hadn’t lasted, of course. A leopard couldn’t just change her spots.
The drama was just a part of her, and it crept back in like an understudy slinking around backstage, waiting for the chance to shine. But what was happening here went beyond showing up to family dinner in head-to-toe rhinestones and stage makeup or singing “Memory” at full volume to every cat she met in an alley. This was real, and yet her parents didn’t believe her.
Lily got up and held out her phone, walking around the room and hoping for just one bar. She hadn’t had any service since they’d arrived. If she could just talk to CJ, maybe he’d believe her. Finally, in the corner, she found it: one tiny bar. But CJ hadn’t sent her a single text today. The last one was from their first night on the road from Colorado. Lily had complained about the cramped car, the increasing heat, and the suck fest of road food, and CJ had responded with GIFs of doughnuts.
New place is the worst, she typed. Hoarder house! Oodles of garbage! Dead snake in my room! Florida is the armpit of the world! IT’S A HARD KNOCK LIFE FOR US.
She hit Send and waited. Boulder was two time zones away, so there was a good chance CJ was still up and might answer. It took a few moments, but the response came…and wasn’t like CJ at all.
GO AWAY THEN it said in all caps, which was weird.
Uh, I can’t drive yet and sorta have to do what my parents make me? she responded.
YOU’RE NOT WANTED was the response.
Oooookay, she texted back. I expected GIFs of alligators, but you’re being mean.
The answer took longer this time but was just as puzzling.
JUST LEAVE JUST GO THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME
All caps, really? And did you forget punctuation? she shot back, because CJ was, among other things, a grammar nerd.
IT WAS ALL MINE AND I WANT IT BACK
And then the phone rang in her hand. She pulled away and stared at it; nobody actually talked on their phones! And the call wasn’t from CJ’s number—the phone said Unknown Caller. Lily thumbed the volume down so her parents woul
dn’t freak out and watched the phone ring and ring and ring. Voice mail should’ve picked up, but it didn’t. It just kept ringing.
Finally she answered it.
“You’re being a real butt, you know,” she barked.
But the only answer was creepy breathing.
And that’s when she realized it wasn’t CJ.
Her body went rigid, like she’d been struck by lightning, her hairline going hot and her teeth grinding as her hands shook.
“Who is this?” she whispered.
“Go away,” a little girl’s voice said. “Unless you want to play.”
“No!” Lily shouted back, furious and terrified. “I’m not going anywhere. You go away!”
The voice laughed and laughed, mad and high-pitched.
Then the phone went dead.
7.
Lily stared at the phone in her hand. What had just happened?
She went to turn it back on, but the second her finger touched the power button, a real spider skittered across the screen. With a gasp, she threw the phone across the room, where it hit the wall and clattered to the ground. She danced around, slapping at herself, but she couldn’t find the spider again, so she walked over and stared down at where her phone had fallen. The screen was black now and webbed with cracks, but she remembered the words she’d seen there.
GO AWAY.
THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME.
MINE.
Those same words again.
The only answer that made sense was…Britney. Maybe she’d moved out but still lived nearby. Maybe she’d been sneaking in to mess with…well, the new girl taking over her old room. Maybe she’d written on the mattress, moved the bed, messed with the books—as revenge. It had only been Lily’s things that had been messed with, after all. Maybe Britney had been waiting for someone to unlock the house so she could get her stuff, and instead, Lily had thrown all her stuff in the dumpster, buried it under a ton of garbage.
That had to be it.
“Lily?”
Mine Page 4