Chapter 9
If I believed in such things, I would be convinced that Theo Hargrave cursed us. Because Mom and I end up in over our heads far more quickly than I expected. Five hours or so, to be exact.
We’d been having such a good night that we decided to get a quick slice of pizza, then go to a late movie a few towns over. We pulled up to the house a little after midnight, arms laden with tubs of popcorn and frozen Cokes we were never going to finish in one sitting.
She points her drink straw at me as we climb out of the car. “That boy knew your name.”
I’d managed to keep from talking about Theo all night by maintaining a steady stream of chatter about my library job and what courses I plan to take at Rehoboth College in the fall, and some ideas for my room.
But now that I’ve let things get quiet, of course this is the first topic to pop into her head.
“I met him when I got bagels the other day.” And creeping around the yard the night before that, I don’t add.
“You disrupted his talk. Twice,” she says. “You, whose nemesis is public speaking.” Her proud grin intensifies.
I throw up my hands. “Because he was spouting nonsense. All his other videos are like that too.”
Her eyebrows leap up her forehead. “You’ve watched his videos.”
“Not the point, Mom,” I grumble. “The guy is making us look like freaks. I don’t want the whole town seeing us as the haunted-house people.”
Sadness darkens her face. “Honey, not everyone is like Marjorie and those girls.”
I don’t want to talk about my first few years of high school. Or the scars they left behind. One good thing about moving so far away is that I get to bury all that. Start new.
I shrug. Like I can burst my mother’s words with the movement. “But plenty are. And it’s impossible to tell the difference. So why take a chance?”
“Theo seems like a nice kid.”
I brush past her toward the house, as if I can outrun that suggestion. It doesn’t matter if he’s nice. Or super cute. Or funny. Or that I find him easier to talk to than any other stranger I’ve ever met. He could still hurt me.
But only if I let him in.
I hurry up the stairs and unlock the door. As I push into the house, I yell to her, “Theo is a ridiculous guy who believes in ridiculous things, and is trying to use his contractor dad as a way to worm his way into hunting imaginary ghosts in our house for clicks on the internet.”
That’s probably why he’s doing this. Maybe he doesn’t believe in ghosts at all. He just wants to be internet famous like everyone else our age.
Though I can’t fully get myself to buy into this theory. Not after seeing that tattoo on his arm.
Gone doesn’t mean lost.
I shake the thought away.
“We’re Callaway girls,” I yell as I weave through the house toward the kitchen. “We’ve got grit and YouTube.”
“Hell yeah,” Mom echoes, like we’re doing some call and response cheer.
“We don’t need no contractor!” The moment that last word is out of my mouth, I hear a splash. A second later, I feel something warm and wet soaking into my sneaker.
Mom flips on the light at the same time as I swear.
We’re staring at a disaster.
The kitchen floor is practically flooded. The faucet is lying at the bottom of the overflowing farmhouse sink, and all the hardware Mom attached to the cabinets has fallen off and is drowning in the deep puddles. Water is still bubbling from the hole where the faucet had once been.
Mom dives for the cabinet below the sink and turns a valve that stops the flow of water. I hurry to the bathroom to make sure it’s not flooding in there too.
Thankfully, it is bone-dry.
I gape at my mother with bugged eyes from the doorway. “What happened?”
“I have no idea. I checked and double-checked that the fixtures were screwed in securely and I tested the faucet.” She scratches at her head. “Everything was working properly before we left.”
I glance down at my soggy shoes. “What do we do with this?” I lift one foot up and watch water drip from the sole back into the puddle below.
Mom sighs. “For now, let’s get a mop and towels and try to get as much of the water up as we can. Tomorrow, we’ll figure out how to dry everything so we don’t get mold.”
It takes us about an hour. My mother sweeps most of the water out the back door. I soak up the rest with towels and hang the kitchen rug on the shower curtain rail to dry.
I don’t know if it’s the late hour, or if the water has affected the electricity, or if I’m just exhausted, but the kitchen seems darker, like there’s a shadow hanging over us, obscuring the glow from the lightbulbs.
Every once in a while, I reach out and tap one of the sconces to see if that might brighten it.
Mom watches me. “We don’t have the Clapper here.”
“Is that something I learned about in health class freshman year?” I ask warily.
She almost chokes on a laugh. “No. It’s a lighting system where you turn the light on and off by clapping. It was all the rage when I was your age.”
“God, your generation needed phones,” I mutter. Then I shift my attention back to the sodden towels before she can start telling me about how the washing machine only worked in her day if you whistled.
When we’re finally done, I stumble into the den, my eyes fighting not to sink closed. Somehow, no water crept under the door, which is a relief.
After changing into my pajamas, I lie down on the air mattress with my phone. My plan was to scroll mindlessly through YouTube videos until I fall asleep, but instead I find myself navigating to Mr. FixIt’s social media page and opening a DM.
Hi, I write. Thanks for all your great DIY content!
It’s really helped my mother and me as we renovate our new house.
I was wondering if you had any advice for what to do about water damage.
We had some accidental flooding tonight and everything’s wet and we’re worried about mold.
Any suggestions you have would be so, so appreciated. Thank you again for everything!
It’s a long shot that he’ll answer, but, under all her joking, I could see how stressed out Mom was. I need to do something to help. And this guy’s a professional. He’ll know how to tackle this right.
After that, I manage to get through one cat video before drifting off to sleep.
Someone’s knocking at the front door.
It’s not Mom. She poked her head into the den a few minutes ago to inform me she was off to buy fans.
Hopefully, whoever it is will take the hint when I don’t answer and leave.
Three rounds of knocking later, I accept I am not going to get my wish and roll off the air mattress with a groan. Thank god I decided to change into some leggings and a T-shirt before lazing around this morning. No need to be opening the door to potential randos in my pajamas.
If I were smart, I would have checked the window before answering the door.
I’m not smart this morning.
As soon as I see him, I slam the door shut. “Nope.”
“Amity, I’m here to help.” Theo’s voice is muffled by the cherrywood. When I don’t say anything, he adds, “With the water damage.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I saw your DM.”
I open the door just enough to peek at him with one eye. “What DM? I didn’t message you.”
He drags a hand through his hair sheepishly. “You know how my dad’s a contractor?”
“Yeah. So?” I ease the door closed a little so I can barely see a sliver of him as he bounces on his heels.
His visitation seconds are about up. No one should have to talk supernatural nonsense without vats of coffee and at least three hours of previous consciousness. I have had neither of these things yet.
“Well, he has a YouTube account…”
No.
No.
No.
My brain has begun to click the puzzle pieces together, and…
“No,” I say out loud.
He only shrugs. “My dad’s Mr. FixIt.”
I yank the door open fully. “Ghosts did not flood my kitchen, Theo Hargrave.”
His lips purse. “We’ll discuss that later.”
I scowl. “You cannot help with this.”
“I can, though.” He scoots a boxy bright orange dehumidifier on a cart closer to the door. “This will dry things out, and I’ve got more equipment if we need it.” He nods behind him to the blue pickup truck sitting in the driveway.
I lean around him to see. “Is your dad here too?”
“Not right now. But I know how to use this stuff, and I got his permission.” He gives me a big, open grin that I want to hate more than I actually do. “Plus, he said he’s going to stop by at some point to check on things.”
I know I can’t refuse. Mom and I have reached need-a-professional status. With the deepest reluctance I have ever felt in my life, I step aside and let Ghost Boy in the house. “Don’t you dare pull out an EMF reader,” I mutter.
He snorts, then raises his hands in surrender. “I come solely for construction purposes.” But as he gazes around the living room, his jaw goes slack, like he can see spirits floating around us or something. “Wow, this place really is frozen in time.”
“Not all of it. They did a lot of work to the kitchen. Here, I’ll show you.” I grab the dehumidifier’s handle and drag it (and Theo) through the house to the kitchen. “This is where all the water was,” I explain.
Rubbing at his chin with the backs of his fingers, he wanders around, inspecting the room. “So there’s been additions, but nothing has changed about the original house.” He puts a palm over one of the cabinets on the interior wall. “These are probably hundreds of years old.”
“Mom says they’re hardwood and in great condition.” I don’t know why I sound so defensive. Probably because I want to have a logical explanation for whatever tall tale he’s cooking up in that head of his.
“They are. It just makes sense with things I’ve read. That the original house refuses change.”
“That’s absurd. We’ve already changed it.” I point to the yellow paint on the walls. It’s still kind of streaky but it’s there. The color didn’t go back to dingy white overnight.
“But look how much less saturated that is than the exterior walls, which are new.” He gestures to the side of the kitchen with the back door.