Chapter 22
Thank god, Jesse is okay.
He’d been cutting down flooring on the second level when the legs of the table saw gave out, tipping the still-moving blade toward his torso.
He managed to jump out of the way just in time, but no one could explain how that table, which was built to avoid exactly these kinds of accidents, suddenly buckled like that.
Well, actually, Theo had an explanation, but no one wanted to hear it.
“Mercy’s ramping up her hauntings,” he’d said as we sat on my front porch after they were done with work for the day.
“Or the table saw was defective and you should contact the manufacturer.” I tried to sound confident as I challenged him, but I could hear the uncertainty in my own voice. I brushed some dust off his knee.
I was slowly learning that this whole liking-each-other thing meant that I could touch him too. Sometimes, that thought was terrifying, but sometimes it was exactly what I needed to do to feel grounded and calm.
Yesterday had been one of those second moments.
I didn’t tell him about the shadow. I couldn’t until I understood more about what was going on. I refused to feed his delusions (no matter how valid their beginning) without ensuring there were no other answers to this first.
My plan, as I hurry into the library two hours early for my shift, is to do just that.
Settling in front of one of the staff computers behind circulation, I open a browser.
Being attacked by your own house and weird cold shadows in my house were not going to be useful search terms, so I start with something more specific.
Construction logs, Harlow’s Rest, Massachusetts, I type into the browser.
I’d noticed Theo keeping track of everything going on at my house in an app on his dad’s tablet. He explained to me that contractors had to keep notes on projects so that they could prove the job was done if they’re ever sued. I didn’t think to ask if they were open to the public.
If so, maybe I can find some logs from the last time someone tried to renovate the Harlow Homestead. They might help shed some light on what was going on in my house, or at least demonstrate to Theo that there’s no pattern of ghost activity.
I scroll around for a while without finding much of use. It looks like some companies do keep their logs online and open to the public, but I can’t find any from We’ll Fix You Contractors.
At least not at first.
When I try searching their name again, I dig deeper into the results and come across a few articles about We’ll Fix You Contractors being bought out by a different company. And looking up that company brings me to their logs.
Which someone has input all the way back to the eighties, including all those from We’ll Fix You.
I skim through the contents until I find my address, then I click on the link.
As I pore through the notes, I notice struggles with paint and varnish similar to what we have experienced.
In some reports, workers have filed complaints about how cold the building is, and how hard it is to get the lights functioning properly.
The batteries drain too fast, or the glow can’t penetrate the dust in the air.
Someone talks about a mist surrounding the work lights sometimes.
It reminds me of what would happen with our flashlights on the second floor when Theo and I went up there.
On July 27, 1992, a crew member is injured by a nail gun that malfunctioned. A few days later someone falls off the porch roof while replacing the shingles, breaking their leg and three ribs. There are also notes about slamming doors and people tripping on the stairs.
Things go on like that until August 7, where the log simply says Refused to enter. Job canceled.
My heart is in my throat, and I have to sit back and take a few deep breaths as my eyes sweep over the information on the screen again.
All this sounds exactly like what has been happening in my house. And it’s all building up to my birthday. The anniversary of the Harlow family’s deaths.
I can’t keep pretending that everything that’s happening is a coincidence. There are too many similarities at this point for me to explain away.
And Jesse almost got hurt. I don’t want that—or worse—to happen to anyone else just because I refuse to believe that the world might be bigger and harder to explain than I want it to be.
I print out the final two weeks of logs in the report and slide them into my pocket.
It’s time to tell Theo I believe him.
When I get home from the library, Mom is sitting on the couch with her laptop balanced on her legs.
She was hanging blackout blinds and sheer curtains over all the windows in the living room as I was leaving this morning, and it looks like she’s finished the task.
With the TV mounted over the fireplace, the blue-tan-and-white geometric-patterned throw rug finally laid down, and the coffee and end tables in place, this room looks like an actual home.
“You’ve been busy,” I comment as I wander in.
She smiles. “It’s looking great, right?”
“All we need is another one of those giant beanbag chairs right about”—I shuffle along the floor until I’m opposite the chaise part of our sectional—“here.”
“I am not putting one of those monstrosities in my living room,” Mom declares.
I don’t know what she has against comfort. “But think, you’d always be able to have the whole couch when we watch TV.”
Sadness slips across her face for a second. “Do you think you’ll still come hang out when you have your own space up there?” Her eyes cut to the ceiling.
“I hung out with you all the time back in the old house.” Where is this coming from?
“But that was just one room. You’ll have everything you need up there.” She shakes her head. “And you’ve got this new job, and a boyfriend—”
“Whoa.” Embarrassment ignites my face. The Hargraves’ work van and Theo’s truck are still outside. I don’t need her calling him my boyfriend when Theo and I haven’t even talked about what we are.
People still do that, right? My tote bag sags off my arm and thumps to the floor. Like that word has drained the energy out of me.
“We’re not…I’m not…”
“Amity.” She gives me an exasperated look. “I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I see the way you two look at each other. And you hold hands. You kissed goodbye for at least five minutes on the porch yesterday.”
I cringe. “Why were you timing us?”
She doesn’t bother acknowledging my dramatic response. “You didn’t tell me.” She lets out a breath. “When things changed between you two.”
I shrug. “I’m almost eighteen. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be telling you anymore?” Here’s another guidebook I wish someone would write: How to negotiate your relationship with your mom when you’re technically an adult.
“You can always talk to me about anything.”
I sigh. “I thought you wanted me to live upstairs. You bought a microwave and small fridge so I wouldn’t have to always come down to the kitchen.”
“I’d thought you’d like having a real space of your own. Like if you were in the dorms.” She rubs the heel of her hand across her forehead. “I wasn’t prepared for how stressed out the idea of never seeing you would make me.”
“I am excited for that,” I admit. “But I’m glad I get to keep you around too.” My mom has always been one of the only people in my safe circle. Even if that circle is getting a little bigger these days, I need her to stay in it.
“We’ll make sure we see each other?” she asks.
I nod.
“A lot?”
“I am going to need a new Friday night movie buddy.”
Mom’s eyes flick to the ceiling again, where Theo is working.
“You want me to have sleepovers with him like I did with Taylor?” My mom’s pretty lenient, but she’s never struck me as a fill-your-drawer-with-condoms-and-let-your-boyfriend-sleep-over kind of mother.
Her face goes absolutely crimson. She clears her throat. “You are—I mean—you’re basically eighteen. If you want him—”
“Oh my god, Mom.” Now I’m the one blushing. I am not ready to think about sharing a bed with him. I can barely fathom doing anything with Theo other than kissing. “I was kidding. We are not having sex yet. Not even close.”
She inhales. “Well, when you are, I’m here to talk if you need it.”
“Even if I’m like thirty?”
“I would be quite comfortable with you waiting until then to lose your virginity.”
“Noted.”
I grab my bag and follow the sounds of hammering toward the second level.
Before I met Theo, the idea of not having sex until my thirties did not seem all that bad.
Sex has so much…stuff that comes along with it.
You have to really trust someone. And things can go wrong.
It has always seemed like a big deal to me.
I really wish the world didn’t make us feel like it was a milestone we had to conquer before we were old enough to handle half the potential consequences.
One time, when I was like thirteen, my mother caught me reading one of the old paperback novels on the small bookcase in her office.
It was summer, and I’d blown through all the books I owned or had gotten out of the library and I wanted something to read by the pool.
The book was supposed to be a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” and, as the internet likes to say, was “super spicy,” but I didn’t even make it a third of the way through the story before realizing it was not for me.
She caught me with it before I could sneak it back and insisted on having a conversation with me about sex and consent, and I was so mortified at the time that I could barely listen to her.
After, she told me that if I couldn’t talk about sex, then I shouldn’t be doing it.
Back then, I thought she was being such a mom, but now I understand what she means.
I think a lot about what it would mean to have sex with Theo, but the idea of telling him, or my mother, that makes me want to melt into the earth.
How, then, would I respond if I actually tried to do it?
I whip my head back and forth a few times, trying to clear it before I get upstairs.