THREE #3
“Anyone who has lived and died here stayed long after,” Asher says. “LOTS of activity! People have captured photos of ghostly entities walking through the square or floating in and out of homes. Like that house, 432 Abercorn Street, where a famous homicide took place in the late 1950s …”
My stomach ties itself in a large knot and twists into a cramp. I touch my side and lean into the pain. Robby notices.
“You okay?” he whispers.
I clear my throat. “Yeah. Fine.”
But I’m not fine. We’re standing on ancestors, on our history, and they’re mad. So mad they turned into something scary. Is that what Grandma is turning into? Maybe she’s mad that Daddy and I haven’t been cleaning up the way we should.
I bow my head and say a quick prayer.
I’m sorry, Grandma! Promise, I’ll get to cleaning as soon as we get home.
“And that is the Arnold House,” Asher says, carrying on with stories.
“During the Civil War, they used the basement as a makeshift hospital. Many soldiers died on the operating table. Today, soldiers are seen walking through the halls as if ready to report for duty. There’s even a story about ghost soldiers practicing drills on that very grass. ”
Adults start taking pictures with their phones, and I almost forgot my whole take-a-picture-of-a-ghost mission. I grab my camera and snap a few shots of the square.
“What about that house over there?” one of the adults asks.
Asher glances over at the white abandoned house on the corner.
“Oh, right. Yes. That’s the Myers House.
Originally owned by Henry and Elizabeth Myers in the 1800s.
It’s said that when Henry went off to war, Elizabeth waited by the downstairs window for him to return.
When she learned of his death, she died of a broken heart right by that very window.
Years later, when another family moved in, Elizabeth was seen walking the halls.
But the house has been vacant for a long time now. ”
“Uh, hey … I think I caught something in the square?” the blonde woman squeaks loudly, holding her phone up. “I’m not sure. Is this an orb?”
On the screen is a snapshot she took of the dark square, lit only by a few streetlights. But in the corner, I see something that looks like floating round white lights. I gasp.
Orbs!
Asher leans over to examine the photo and nods. “Yup. Definitely activity.”
As the tour group gathers around the woman to get a glimpse of her photo, my stomach fills with butterflies. I grip my camera tighter. Is this it? Is this finally the moment I cop a shot of a real ghost?
I start clicking away, turning in a circle, holding my breath.
The houses are really beautiful … except for that one on the corner.
The Myers House, Asher called it. The looming white mansion stands out and not just because of the wire fence around it.
It’s missing half its windowpanes, at least the ones that aren’t boarded up. And—
Wait. Did something just move in there?
I mean … I thought I saw something. It could be a weird trick of the streetlight. I hold my breath and zoom in. Maybe if I get a little closer—
Asher claps his hands, and I jump with a screech.
“Moving along! Next stop is …”
On the ride home, Lena and Daddy laugh over some silly inside jokes, and I scroll through photos from the tour, examining each picture like a forensic scientist from a crime show. Robby munches on saltwater taffy Lena picked up for him.
“Want some?” he asks, his mouth full of gooey candy.
“No, thanks,” I mumble, focused on my camera, the battery at 5 percent.
“Man, some of that stuff was really … dark. I’m going to have nightmares. I just know it. I don’t even watch horror movies. Sometimes I read horror comics, but then my mom takes them away.”
I suck my teeth. Every shot seems … normal. No ghosts.
“What’s wrong?” Robby asks.
“Nothing. Or, well. I don’t know how that lady got a shot of a ghost on her phone and I didn’t? I took mad photos of everything!”
He shrugs. “Yeahhhh. I don’t know. Her photo just looked like a fuzzy glare to me.”
“But that Asher guy said it was an orb.”
Robby snorts. “Of course he did.”
I start to snap back but come up empty, ’cause he’s right.
A ghost tour’s sole purpose is to make people believe that ghosts are real.
So of course Asher would play along. And that lady, she probably works for the company, a paid actress or something who pretends to be a tourist and makes us think she saw a ghost!
My jaw clenches and I throw my head back with a groan.
“Ugh!”
Robby shrugs. “Well, I had a good time. That Asher guy is hilarious. Probably makes lots of money.”
My stomach clenches tight. If Asher is making a lot of money, he’s not alone.
I don’t want to admit how much I’ve spent on all these tours.
It’s kinda embarrassing. But tonight has to be the last one ’cause I can’t keep on playing myself like this.
If I can’t catch a ghost in the most haunted city ever, then something must be up, and that something must be me.
Real talk, traveling with Dad has been fun, but it probably broke my brain.
Well, not just the traveling. I haven’t been thinking straight since Grandma died.
But if she was here, she’d say enough’s enough.
It’s time to get back to Harlem. Back to Truth, Kiki, and Aunt Peggy.
Back to what I know, back to my block, and back to school.
No more chasing ghosts all over the country.
With a sigh, I’m about to turn my camera off when something in the viewfinder catches my eye. It’s a shot of that abandoned white house in Calhoun Square.
I frown. I remember the house being all squares and rectangles, but something circular is in the windowpane. Thinking back, I purposely didn’t use a flash …
Wait!
I click the wheel, zooming in fast, and gasp.
“What? What’s happening?” Robby asks.
“Yo,” I mutter. I point a trembling finger to the first-floor window on the left, farthest from the busted-up door. “Do you see that?”
Robby frowns. “See what?”
“Look!”
Two white lights with a faint bluish tint shine in the window, a little blurred and fuzzy. But definitely there.
A chill falls over me, but a smile takes over my entire face. ’Cause those are not just white lights. They’re orbs. Which means only one thing …
It’s a ghost.
Robby stares silently at the photo for what seems like forever, then scoffs. “Yeah, right.”