SEVENTEEN #2
“Dang. Is anyone here?” Myah asks.
The rods swing and we gasp.
Myah smiles wide, her face brightening. “Okay, okay. So, is this Mr. Truman?”
The rods swing again, back and forth, then point to the door.
I gasp. “Hey! I think he wants us to follow.”
This is it. This is really it!
“Go,” I whisper.
Myah steps cautiously into the hall, following the swinging rods. She walks right next door into the windowless room.
“Harmony,” Myah cries, voice quivering.
“Coming!” I shout, grabbing my bag and the robot and running after her. I quickly turn on both flashlights, facing them up to the ceiling, which lights up the whole place.
The rods stop moving.
“Mr. Truman? Mr. Truman? Dang.” Myah shivers. “It’s freezing in here.”
My spine locks stiff. A sudden drop of temperature … that’s a sure sign of a ghost!
As I set down the robot, it clicks on. The thermal meter passes Myah, and she’s a bright red blob on the controller. But when I face the robot the opposite way, I notice a bright blue blob. It’s quick, like a blip on the screen before it disappears. I look in that direction. Empty.
I swallow hard and start to rationalize. Maybe it was a false alarm. Maybe the meter is picking something up outside. Maybe I broke it. But the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“I … I think something’s here …” I whisper, trailing off, desperately trying to work the controller. But I can’t get the robot to move.
Myah throws the rods on the ground with a grunt and grabs her book bag, digging around. I’m too busy messing with the robot to worry about what she’s doing. I know Robby taught me what to do, but I can’t remember all that programming stuff. And what was that blob?
When I turn around, I see Myah is on the floor, setting up a tan-and-black Ouija board.
“What is that!”
Myah purses her lips. “What’s it look like?”
“Have you lost your mind?” I snap, looming over her. “Put that away!”
“But we’re so close! I feel it. Let’s just try!”
“Maverick said not to mess with those things!”
“He also told us that he didn’t believe in ghosts. So I’ll stick with what I know.”
“Wait! Did you steal that from your grandma’s house?”
She looks at me, the guilt all over her face. I can’t believe I trusted this girl. Again.
“Myah, we’re not supposed to—”
A door somewhere down the hall creaks. We freeze, staring at each other. I go through a mental checklist that would explain the noise but come up empty.
Then, footsteps. Real footsteps. Creeping closer.
Oh no.
Myah jumps to her feet, staring at the door.
“Psst,” a raspy voice says, and I lose all feeling in my legs.
“Myah,” I gasp, lips quivering. Really, my whole body is shaking.
Myah searches the room, grabs a piece of wood, and shouts, “Who’s there?”
I point the flashlight at the door. Myah reels the stick back like a bat, ready to swing.
The footsteps grow faster, closer, until they’re right on us.
Just as I’m about to start crying, Robby turns the corner.
“Robby?!” we shout.
Robby, dressed in a light gray suit and black tie, puts up his hand, shielding his eyes from the light. His little pocket flashlight makes only a pinprick of light for him to work with.
“What are you doing here?” I yell.
He eyes the slab of wood in Myah’s hand as she slowly sets it down.
“I couldn’t let you do this without me.”
I snatch him up in a tight hug, relieved, both that he’s here and that he wasn’t a ghost or a demon.
“We didn’t want to do this without you either,” I say. “But don’t ever go walking around by yourself again, got it?”
He smiles. “Got it.”
“I have to get him back to the gala,” I say to Myah. “Before his mom freaks out.”
Now that we’re gonna be living with her for who knows how long, I don’t want no smoke with Lena. She paranoid but ain’t all bad.
“Mama’s busy,” Robby says, grabbing the robot and the controller. “She won’t notice I’m gone for at least an hour.”
He kneels on the floor, fiddling with the robot until it pops to life, gears and wheels whirling.
Something thumps from overhead, and the three of us jump.
“What was that?” Myah gasps. “Another rat?”
Only a rat the size of a puppy could make a noise like that. And I’ve only seen those on the New York subway.
Robby grabs the robot, runs out the room, and up the stairs.
“No, Robby, wait!” I whisper, tracking him with my flashlight.
At the top of the stairs, he sets the robot on the landing and runs back down, the stairs creaking and moaning.
“You’re crazy! You could have fallen—”
“This way we’ll be able to see what’s upstairs,” Robby says, running back into the room and messing with the controller.
CREEEAAAKKKKK.
The sound is so loud it feels like it came from all four corners of the small room. We freeze, staring at each other.
Robby grabs hold of my arms, shaking. Or maybe I’m shaking.
Another thump above our heads makes me jump.
“Robby,” I whisper, not taking my eyes off the ceiling. “The robot.”
Robby nods. He presses some buttons and pulls up the monitor.
Using the remote control, he guides the robot down the upstairs hallway.
The camera is fuzzy and doesn’t have the best night vision.
But light from the moon shines through the cracks of the boarded-up windows, just enough to see something.
Robby drives the robot into the room above us. The thermal meter picks up a large red blob in the corner.
Something is there. Something too big to be a rat.
I glance over at Myah. She’s back in front of her Ouija board. She sets down a small heart-shaped piece of wood with a glass circle in the middle. I’ve seen a Ouija board used in movies and TV shows but never in real life.
She closes her eyes and tilts her head. “Is someone in this room with us?”
The piece doesn’t move.
“Are you here with us? Are you close? Can you tell us your name?”
Nothing.
“Is your name Tim Truman?”
Nothing.
Myah sucks her teeth. “Mr. Truman, we don’t have time for games. Jabari is missing and your family is worried sick. What happened the night you were—”
Something shifts upstairs. Footsteps right above us, walking fast. Oh no. Someone is definitely in the house!
Right as I turn my attention back to the monitor, a hand grabs the robot and the camera goes dark.
“Harmony,” Robby whimpers, looking up at me wide-eyed, and I stop breathing. We stare at the open door of the room, but that’s all I can manage to do. I can’t move a muscle.
“Mr. Truman,” Myah whispers, her voice quivering. “Is that you?”
Suddenly my side cramps up, like I ate too fast and went for a jog. I wince, grabbing it as if I can stop the pain.
I know this pain. It’s the same pain I had the last time I was near this house.
Am I feeling a ghost?!
I glance behind me at Myah’s Ouija board.
The heart piece wiggles to the word NO.
Myah blinks, her eyes taking up her whole face.
More steps from upstairs. Ghosts aren’t this aggressive. Ghosts don’t make this much noise. That’s when Myah’s grandmama’s words come back to haunt me.
“You may think you talking to a ghost, but you really talking to a demon.”
This isn’t a ghost. This is a haint!
At that very moment, I spot Myah’s paint bucket and grab it, rushing to the door of the room. I flip off the lid, dunk in the brush, and start slapping paint on the door.
Robby stands up. “What are you doing?!”
“Trying to protect us!” The door is half finished, my hands covered in thick blue, the room filling with its eye-burning scent.
Robby frowns. “I thought you paint the door blue to keep the haints OUT. But …”
The brush falls out of my hand as I gasp.
If the haint’s already in here … it means I just trapped us with a haint!
“No. No. No. No,” I mutter, desperate for Robby to be wrong. But I know he’s not.
Something is coming down the stairs, creeping slow. Robby grabs one of the flashlights, pointing it at the door.
“Get behind me,” I say, pushing him back.
The footsteps stop and I’m too frozen to move, to run or hide. There’s not even a window for us to jump out of.
We’re trapped.
Myah is breathing hard and loud. We stare at the door for eternity.
That’s when a little face peers into the room and tips up his glasses with one finger.
Myah jumps to her feet.
“Jabari?!”