Chapter Four
Four
Moving boxes are strewn throughout the house, with the largest concentration in the living room. We didn’t bring any furniture, apart from the instruments when we moved, but the belongings of four more people were still worthy of a small moving van.
It’s unsettling to see your entire life in boxes and know it only took up half a truck.
“All right, that’s it,” Aunt Paige announces, planting her hands on her hips.
“We’re never going to finish unpacking if people”—she emphasizes the last word—“don’t stop moving things around or snagging them altogether.
This is the third time I’ve had to put this lamp back.
” She gestures to this god-awful lamp with a mosaic shade in a dozen different colors.
It looks like a three-year-old made it. I kind of can’t blame whoever the culprit is for removing the thing.
Margot, half-heartedly digging through a box from her perch on the couch, raises her hands in surrender.
“Don’t look at me.”
“Considering you’ve unpacked a total of two boxes in the last two weeks, don’t worry, you’re not a suspect,” Paige says.
She blows a chunk of dark hair out of her eyes.
She’s had side bangs as long as I can remember and is always mildly irritated by them, but she never pins them back.
Apart from the bangs, she and my mom could be twins, with dark, wavy hair and bright green eyes.
Two years between them, like Margot and me.
Jasper is a carbon copy of them both, but Margot and I have our dad’s dark eyes.
“Also, I truly don’t care enough about Jasper’s Legos or Mom’s ugly antique lamps to move them,” Margot says.
“Also that,” Paige concedes. She looks between me, riffling through a box of books and loading them onto a shelf, and Jasper.
Jasper has been given the role of box destroyer—technically dismantler, but using the word destroy sold him on the task.
He has two already dismantled and is ripping the tape off another.
“I didn’t!” he says.
“It’s okay if you did, bud,” Paige says gently. “But you gotta let us know. That’s how we lose things.”
“But I didn’t!” Jasper protests. He’s seven and inherently curious, but he isn’t malicious. And I doubt he cares enough about our stuff to hide it when his own toys and things are already up in his room on the third floor.
“Don’t lie,” Margot calls, joining the conversation for the sole purpose of setting off Jasper.
Jasper, taking the bait, huffs. “I didn’t take anything!”
“It’s all right,” I say. “We know you didn’t.”
Margot, from the couch, mouths, Liar. I flip her the middle finger when Jasper looks away, and she smiles smugly.
“Margot, cut it out,” Paige says, but her heart isn’t in it. “But since we’re on the topic of not touching things, how about you stop messing with my radio?” Paige reaches over and flips the channel to alternative.
“I didn’t touch your radio,” Margot protests, but I don’t believe her, and from Paige’s expression, neither does she.
“Then who did?” she asks.
“Must be Jas—” Margot begins, but I interrupt.
“Jasper, why don’t you help me organize the shelves?” I ask.
Jasper smiles. He’s missing one of his front teeth, and his tongue pokes through the hole. He joins me at the huge bookshelves covering this side of the living room and instantly starts tugging books off the shelves.
“Try not to lose any of them,” Margot says. I stick my tongue out at her, and she grins and winks.
“Ignore her,” I tell Jasper, leaning down to press a kiss to his head. After Dad left and Mom started picking up extra shifts, I spent most evenings taking care of him. He was so small then, all curls and big green eyes. He still comes into my room when he has nightmares.
Jasper turns around, blowing a raspberry at Margot.
“I’m ignoring you,” he says pointedly.
As Margot opens her mouth with what will definitely be a scathing response, Paige interrupts her, hoisting up a box labeled Fragile.
“Margot. Box. Dining room. Now.” Paige makes a clicking sound with her tongue at Margot, who scrunches her nose but obliges, hefting the box into her arms.
“Has anyone even had a meal in that dining room?” Margot asks.
A lot of this house is excessive, clearly for aesthetic and not ordinary use. Intricate doorways and carved moldings, a dozen different wallpaper prints, and tall ceilings and windows give it a perpetual library feel.
A hundred years ago, it was probably grand, but today, it’s a hand gripping a lost time.
“Take it up with the architect,” Paige says. “Maybe it’s his ghost moving stuff around in protest.”
Margot grumbles and departs for the dining room.
Paige gives me a knowing smile. She’s always had this special ability to make anyone feel like they’re included—the one person intently listening in a group full of wandering ears.
“Have you ever used the dining room?” I ask.
Paige flashes me a grin. “No.” She looks at my brother, holding a hand to her lips. “But don’t tell Margot.”
Jasper disappears soon after Margot, presumably to the kitchen to dig through the pantry. To no one’s surprise, Margot never returns from the dining room.
Paige and I have made a significant dent in the boxes, at least in this room, by the time she calls it quits for the afternoon.
Margot might resent all the unpacking, especially for a move she protested, but I like the busywork. Having a task that requires enough brainpower to distract from anything else is keeping me sane.
I spent a few days in the hospital after the accident, then a few weeks at home, but with only two more months of the semester, Mom urged me back to school. Said it’d be a good way to get my mind off things.
Instead, I spent the remaining months walking through the halls alongside Harper’s ghost. She was everywhere. In photos inside my locker, in every teacher who accidentally called her name during morning attendance, and in the eyes of every person who looked at me.
All I saw when I looked around was her. And she was all anyone saw when they looked at me.
I thought Blackridge was far enough away, but I’m learning that some ghosts are harder to shake. They follow along, rattling like the cans on a newlywed couple’s car.
Paige drops onto the couch, and I sit on the opposite side, feet tucked beneath me.
“So,” Paige begins. “You know I have to ask.”
“You actually don’t.”
“Ah, but I’m going to,” she says, tossing an arm over the back of the couch. “How are you?”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m—”
Paige gives me a once-over. I scrunch my nose, relenting.
“I’m better than yesterday. I think.”
“Well, hey. That’s something. Baby steps.”
“You’d be a great life coach.”
Paige purses her lips, not taking the bait.
“Jo.”
“Aunt Paige.”
Unimpressed, she asks, “You know you can talk to me, right, kid?”
An ache presses on my chest. Paige isn’t one for pity, but for a second, it flickers in her eyes.
I sit back. “I know.”
Paige sighs. I’m not sure if it’s a retreat or if she’s simply trying to earn favor for the next time she pushes. This isn’t a new debate.
“It’s definitely Jasper moving stuff around, right?
Building some collection of stolen household items under his bed?
Or your sister trying to mess with us?” Paige asks.
It’s her version of an olive branch. A change of topic.
She looks toward the small radio she propped on the vanity near the kitchen entrance at my back.
Paige’s alternative station has been switched to classic rock again.
“I swear I just changed this. Margot?” She reaches over to flip the station back.
I lift my hands in surrender. “I didn’t see her.”
“That damn girl. What, is she a ninja or something?”
I smile. “Either a ninja or Casper the Friendly Ghost.”