Chapter 4
My phone lets out a loud guitar riff as I’m dragging a suitcase and my box of yarn into the den.
Thankfully, it’s the last of the things we packed in the Pilot, because it’s starting to get dark out.
“Ahhh!!” I yell as I answer the video call.
“Ahhh!!” Taylor yells back.
Nadya leans in to wave at me, her brown skin and black hair bright in the Cali sunlight. They’re sitting in the Jeep with the top down.
“It looks like you’re having terrible weather,” I quip.
“Just awful,” Taylor replies.
“How many tacos have you had?”
“None yet. We revamped the original plan. We’re starting our adventure tomorrow, and the tacos are now”—Taylor’s expressive mouth tips to the side—“very light on the meat.”
That makes sense. Nadya is a vegetarian. “Afraid you’re going to get sick of chips and guac, Nadya?” I smile at the half of her face I can see on the phone screen.
“There will be salsa too!” Taylor insists.
The three of us laugh.
“Tay has taken every opportunity to remind me that I’m not the best taco-trip partner.” Nadya shakes her head and, with one finger, pops her sunglasses from her hair onto the bridge of her nose.
“I’m glad to know I’m missed.”
“Okay, but how are things over there?” Taylor asks.
I drop into the giant beanbag chair I refused to let Mom put on the moving van. As I hold the phone over my head, I sigh dramatically. “This house is…a work in progress. And if you believe the YouTube videos I’ve been watching, it’s haunted too.”
Taylor’s eyes get wide like overinflated balloons. “You know what you need to do, right?”
“I’m not spending the summer researching the ghosts’ history so I can help them leave this mortal plane.
And I am not falling in love with them and forcing them to give up their chance at eternal peace to be with me.
” When we were twelve, Mom made the mistake of showing Taylor and me Casper, this movie from her middle-school years, and it ended up being quite formative for Taylor.
For stories to be truly romantic, she thinks they need to involve a ghost.
A hot one.
Taylor shakes her head indignantly. “You’re going to squander this opportunity for true love, aren’t you?”
I roll my eyes. “There are no ghosts to fall in love with. Just a lot of dust and cobwebs.”
The moment those words leave my mouth, a loud bang erupts from the kitchen. I shriek and drop my phone on my face.
I hear Nadya’s muffled voice ask “What the hell was that?” as I fumble to retrieve my phone. Sitting up, I cast my eyes toward the door. It’s half open, and the light from my room only reaches a few feet into the darkness of the kitchen beyond.
“No idea,” I say as I push to my feet.
“Maybe your mom?” Taylor offers.
I shake my head. “She’s gone to get us dinner.” Leaning forward, I grab the door and open it fully. “Let me see what’s going on and I will call you back.”
“Absolutely not,” Taylor hisses. “We are staying on this phone until we know nothing has swallowed your soul.”
“It’s probably a shingle falling off the house or something.” Most of them look so loose that they’d plummet from the roof if a mouse sneezed on them. But even I know that this sound wasn’t from something breaking off the house’s exterior. It had clearly come from inside.
With my door wide open, more light creeps into the cavernous kitchen. All the recessed lighting is missing bulbs, so there’s no way to break up the darkness.
The house is so quiet. Against the silence, my breaths sound like they’re being amplified by a speaker.
I flick on my phone’s flashlight app, then raise my arm to aim the beam of light at the center of the room. Taylor and Nadya stare back at me from the screen.
“Anything?” Taylor whispers.
I track the light across the walls. Everywhere it breaks up the dark is empty.
“No.”
Nothing even looks out of place.
Until the beam catches the corner of a box on the floor in the space where our new refrigerator will go.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
There’s a sharp intake of breath from Taylor’s side of the phone. “What?” she snaps.
“Taylor, I’m fine. A box just fell.”
It’s the giant container of snack-sized bags of chips and pretzels we bought for the ride. We only ate about a quarter of the bags, so that thing should be way too heavy to topple over because of a draft.
Plus, there would actually have to be a draft in the house.
All the windows are closed because most of the house has a chill clinging to it. Only the half of the kitchen closest to the backyard, my room, and the bathroom seem to retain any heat. Mom is going to need to have the HVAC system in this place looked at before autumn sets in.
“Let me see.” Taylor’s face squeezes closer to the phone screen like she’s going to climb through the glass.
I wish it were that easy for her to be here.
That I could teleport her in whenever I needed her.
She would know everyone in town by name in twenty minutes.
I’ll probably be graduating from college by the time I figure out how to free myself from the forest of spinning thoughts in my head and make a friend.
“Shhh.” I hold a finger to my lips. Then I listen. After a full minute of silence, I add, “Something must be in here.” That box could not have fallen over on its own. I tiptoe toward it.
“Like what?” Nadya hisses.
“A ghost!” Taylor pipes in.
I sigh. “More like some kind of animal. You should see the woods around this place. There could be lions and wolves and shit back there.”
Taylor snorts. “Ghosts you can’t fathom, but lions—a non-native species to the US—are roaming behind your house.”
“Or in it,” I mumble, kicking the box a little. “And I didn’t say I thought it was a lion. Just that—”
“Amity.”
I make a face at her. “Sometimes, it would be nice if I could be the dramatic one.”
Taylor lets out a loud laugh. Behind it, I catch the faint sound of scratching somewhere to my left.
I shush her, my hackles rising. Something is definitely in this kitchen.
Tightening my muscles, I hold still and concentrate. All around me, shadows drape the cabinet doors and empty counters, and the fireplace looms at the back wall like a giant gaping maw. There are crickets chirping outside, and frogs’ songs dance with the rustle of tree branches.
But nothing moves in the darkness, and I don’t hear the scratching sound anymore.
“Anything?” Taylor whispers.
I shake my head.
Lifting my phone again, I watch my friends watch me on the screen as I shift the light around the room.
It pans over the fireplace and the pantry beside it.
Then the window. Then across the empty spot where the fridge will go, illuminating the practically ancient wooden boards that make up the wall this room shares with the dining room.
I don’t see anything on the counters, or in the sink, or in the space that waits for our new dishwasher.
The island in the middle of the room that will house the stove is bare.
I flash the light over the last few cabinets. As it lands on the scuffed face of the one on the end, the door trembles. Like something is behind it, trying to get out.
This house may not be haunted, but I am absolutely not alone.
My heartbeat speeds up, causing my pulse to throb against my eardrums. My face must expose my distress, because Taylor and Nadya are whispering urgently at me.
“What’s happening?”
“Get out of there.”
I grasp for my favorite safety nets. Rationality and facts.
That cabinet is for drinking glasses or plateware. It’s too small to house anything that could actually hurt me. Most likely, I’m going to find a mouse or a bug in there. Something totally normal for an old, abandoned house.
“I am opening it,” I declare.
“Nadya, dial 911 so we’re ready,” Taylor orders.
“How is calling 911 here going to help?”
“How do you reach 911 in another state?”
“The local dispatcher will usually connect you,” I say as I move a little closer to the cabinet.
“How the hell do you know that?”
I shrug. “I just absorb stuff. I probably saw it on TV or read it in a book.”
“Why didn’t we go to more trivia nights?” Taylor laments. “We could have made bank.”
Ignoring her, I throw the cabinet open.
For a long moment, I don’t see anything. Just the stained surface of the inside of the cabinet and fraying shelf paper. I aim my light more squarely into the space, and something in the darkness moves.
It lets out a wild screech, and before I have time to react, something furry flies out, claws at the ready.
This time, I’m the one screeching. I jump away, and my phone drops from my hand, hitting the floor with a thunk that’s deafening in the empty kitchen. Taylor and Nadya yell for me, but my eyes are glued to the floor, searching for whatever was just intent on skewering my face.
It scurries through the pool of light from my phone, and I finally get a good look at it.
Brown-gray-and-white mottled fur. Big bushy tail.
A squirrel.
I press a hand to my heart as I pick up my phone. That bastard.
“Amity, I am two seconds from testing your 911 theory,” Taylor yells.
I flip the phone toward my face. “I’m fine. It’s just a squirrel.”
Swiveling the screen again, I aim the camera at the door so they can see for themselves. The squirrel stares back, standing on its hind legs with its tiny hands pressed to its mouth.
“Awwww,” Taylor coos.
“How did it get in?” I love that Nadya is as practical as me. I need all the help I can get tempering Taylor’s wild imagination.
“That’s exactly what I need to find out.” I wave at them. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
Taylor blows me a kiss. “Have a good first night! Tell the ghosts I said hi. I can’t wait for them to fall for me when I visit.”
The flashlight captures the squirrel again when I hang up and raise the phone back toward the rear door.
“All right, Dale, time to reunite with Chip.” If he has a name, it feels less weird to talk to him (not my best attempt at rationality, but it’s been a long day).
Besides, with his little pink nose, and the small gap between his teeth, he kind of looks like one of the Rescue Rangers.
“There are some nice trees outside. I bet they’ve got some great places to hide nuts.
So once I open this door, you’re evicted. Got it?”
I know squirrels aren’t capable of human expressions, but I swear Dale gazes at me like he understands.
There’s a white spot of fur on his head like a little crown, and his left ear is missing the tip.
A scar cuts above his left eye. Clearly, this rodent has seen some stuff.
The woodland version of a brooding antihero.
With soft steps, I inch toward the door, giving him a wide berth.
Then I ease it open and use my foot to usher him out.
Dale is a smart boy, because he immediately dashes over the threshold.
With one last glance at me, he dives into a plastic planter at the top of the stairs with such gusto that the whole thing tips over onto the grass.
Closing the door, I roll my shoulders and give my body a good shake. Even without believing in ghosts, hearing something in your empty house can do a number on your nerves. Once my heart settles into a normal rhythm again, I head back toward the den.
I only make it a few steps when I hear a rustle and a soft murmur in the distance.
Goose bumps rise up my arms.
There’s no way I can blame this on a squirrel. Fear grips me again, and I find myself considering Taylor’s haunted-house theory, which no longer seems so ridiculous.
Then a flashlight beam slices through the window.
I jump. Ghosts don’t need to see in the dark.
I rush to the back porch and step out just in time to see a person in my yard.
He stands at the bottom of the steps, his phone angled at the house as if he’s filming. He has familiar wavy chocolate-brown hair and broad shoulders.
At the sight of me, he startles and loses his grip. The phone bounces between his hands for a moment, then it slams into the ground screen-first. “Oh shit,” he mutters.
I immediately recognize his voice.
This is no spirit.
It’s that Ghost Boy from YouTube.