Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
ALICE
The attic is dim at first, but more light doesn’t help. Muriel pulls a chain overhead to switch on the lone hanging lightbulb, and it sways wildly above us. Casting eerie shadows that dance like ghosts.
It’s way colder up here than it should be too; that’s the second thing I notice. It’s summertime, but Muriel’s attic is freezing. As if that squirrel really is supernatural, and his lingering spirit doubles as an air conditioner.
If Charlie wasn’t climbing up next, I’d make a run for it. I’d throw myself down that ladder so fast. Instead, I stand frozen in place, teeth chattering as he climbs up behind me.
“Are you sure about this?” he whispers. “It’s not too late to go home.”
The softness of his voice gives me even more chills, how close he’s standing. If he remembered to call me Carrots at the end, it would’ve been perfect.
Give it a rest, Alice.
I’m not sure why I keep overthinking this. Why I care so much about the word choices of a man I met yesterday—why I’m thinking about him this much at all. But suddenly, I’m a stuttering, fidgety mess, as awkward as it gets.
Charlie glances down at me. His warm hazel eyes are full of concern, even while wearing those swim goggles, and I have no idea what to say next or how to act normal. So I scurry away, distracting myself the only way I know how.
By hunting a ghost squirrel. While rambling.
“You have a lovely home,” I call out to Muriel as I edge toward the rodent noises in the distance.
We’re all headed in different directions, as if we’ve silently agreed to divide and conquer, and Muriel beams at me from across the attic. At least, I think she does. Her catcher’s mask makes it hard to tell. “Thank you, dear.”
“It’s a wonderful location for a bed-and-breakfast. You must be a real hit with tourists.”
I’m not just saying that because I’m terrified and trying to distract myself. Muriel’s house is the most beautiful Victorian mansion I’ve ever seen, a blush-pink wonder with white trim and more bay windows than I ever could’ve imagined. When I saw it from the sidewalk for the first time, I gasped. The spindlework accents, the tower, the full wraparound porch—if it wasn’t haunted, this place would be a dream come true. Not as perfect as Charlie’s schoolhouse, but close.
Over on the other side of the attic, Muriel smiles at me again before going full historian. And nothing could’ve made me happier.
“That’s so sweet of you to say. The Harris House has been in my family for generations. It was built in 1896 using a kit from Sears and Roebuck. Can you believe they used to sell kits for houses like these?”
I can’t.
Cobwebs stick to my baseball mitt as I ease around a stack of luggage, but I swoon anyway.
“A few minor repairs had to be done after the flood in 1938, but most of the house is exactly as it was from the beginning. Even the stained glass windows.”
Double swoon.
Charlie peers around an artificial Christmas tree a few feet away. “Are we taking the tour or hunting a squirrel?”
“We can do both!”
My voice is way too cheerful, like I’m a walking smiley face emoji that’s also an atomic weapon. I get ready to say more, something upbeat and full of exclamation points. But my foot brushes a soft lump on the ground, and I stifle an atomic gasp.
Ghosts.
Death.
Despair.
An icy hand winds around my ankle—or maybe it’s just an old tablecloth that my sneaker has gotten tangled in. Breathing a sigh of relief, I lean down to free myself as Muriel lectures Charlie.
“Women are natural multitaskers. And there’s always time for a little history…even while we’re fighting for our lives.”
Excuse me?
Nobody mentioned anything about fighting for our lives. “I thought you said the ghost squirrel was friendly?”
“Most of the time, dear. Nothing’s ever guaranteed.”
Shiver after shiver rolls through me, and I’m going to need a new word for goose bumps. Something larger and more intense—v ulture bumps? —because this sensation cascading down my arms isn’t normal.
Before I can recover, Muriel jumps back into her history lesson. Killing me with words. “The Harris House has been voted one of the most haunted destinations in America for the past forty years. A wide array of ghosts call these hallowed halls home.”
This is not the history tour I signed up for. Charlie tries to get us back on track, but Muriel ignores him. Darting around the nearest tower of boxes, she swishes her tennis racket like it’s a deadly weapon.
“In fact, this attic is one of the most haunted areas of the entire house. It’s said that on full-moon nights, you can still hear Old Man Harris as he?—”
“Muriel, let’s save the ghost tour for later—after we take care of the squirrel. One scary thing at a time.”
Charlie’s voice is a life raft. I don’t know I’m hyperventilating until he speaks, his steady response washing over me. My baseball-mitt hand is clutched to my chest like I’m having a cardiac event, and I try to relax, taking a deep breath.
It doesn’t help. There aren’t enough deep breaths in the world to make this attic less terrifying. Charlie can see the panic in my eyes, even behind my catcher’s mask, and he weaves toward me. I hurry to meet him halfway, ready to use that man as my own personal ghost shield.
Hunting demon rodents alone is highly overrated.
I don’t make it far. I bump into an antique baby carriage as I round the closest pile of boxes, and my heart nearly beats out of my chest. Has that carriage been here the entire time?
Probably.
Now that I’ve noticed it, I can’t unsee that carriage. Or the cobwebs draped over its black canopy. The spookiest baby doll ever created lies waiting inside, and when Charlie reaches me, I’m still staring down at it, transfixed and horrified.
I’m pretty sure that’s Stephen King’s baby doll. That he brought it up here himself. Just for me.
The doll’s cloudy glass eyes stare straight at me, and I think a soul might be trapped inside—probably Old Man Harris. Charlie flips the baby over, but that doesn’t help. With my luck, he made it angry.
Muriel dodges around a tower of wooden milk crates, slicing her tennis racket through the air as she hunts for the ghost squirrel. I glance at her and prepare to ask the dumbest possible question— is there a soul trapped in this baby doll? —but I hear a noise in the distance first. Something alive.
Scritch.
Scratch.
Scritch.
Scratch.
That noise echoes around us, and it’s the new soundtrack for every bad dream I’m ever going to have. It sounds like fingernails digging into wood, as if the ghost squirrel is sharpening his claws, and I adjust my catcher’s mask. Though what I really want to do is run.
The noise shifts. It’s a few feet away, echoing behind a stack of old paintings. Then it’s gone. When we hear that sound again, it’s clear on the other side of the attic. Right by Muriel.
“Houdini,” Charlie mutters, and I gulp.
There are no other noises around us. Nowhere else that animal could’ve gone. The ghost squirrel has Muriel cornered, and that sound inches closer.
Scritch scratch.
Scritch scratch.
I don’t know what comes over me. How I go full Brave Kilpatrick so fast when I’m usually just plain Alice, our family’s anxious mess. But the second I realize Muriel is alone—that she’s under attack—some dormant part of my DNA wakes up. Something courageous and dumb.
Very, very dumb.
Charlie tries to stop me, but I’m moving too fast. He reaches for my arm, and I slip between his fingers, baseball mitt and all. As I weave through the attic maze around us, he can’t even keep up. Alice Kilpatrick is in the zone.
I’m still holding the pillowcase Muriel gave me earlier, and as I race toward her, two thoughts occur to me at once.
Why did she give me the pillowcase? Me, of all people?
But also?—
It’s time to capture our foe.
I ready my squirrel-catching bag, holding tight to the opening hems of my pillowcase as Muriel closes in on that scratching sound. She swishes her tennis racket as she moves, cutting the air like a knife, but there’s something else in her other hand. A white plastic squeeze bottle I hadn’t noticed until now. Is that baby powder?
There’s no telling where it came from. I’d swear on a stack of Jane Austen novels she didn’t have that in her hand when she climbed up here. But she has it now. And she’s ready to use it.
“Alice,” Charlie warns, but he’s too late, too far away.
Muriel leaps around a wall of boxes, and everything happens so fast. All of it horrible. The ghost squirrel lets out a terrified screech, and Muriel yells for us to run, to retreat.
So we do.
Her attic is a tornado of sound. Footsteps thudding. People shouting. But the loudest sound is the frantic scramble of that ghost rodent as Muriel chases after it.
I think I hear Charlie’s voice in the distance too, yelling out a warning of his own. It sounds a lot like close your eyes .
I don’t.
There isn’t time.
I’m too busy fleeing for my life. Escape is the only option, but I turn the wrong way and run straight into a tall, dark shape that appears out of nowhere. A body without arms.
A body.
Without.
Arms.
Emitting a rodent shriek of my own, I try to defend myself against this new enemy. Flailing and stumbling and fighting for my life until I realize it’s not attacking me back.
That I’m fighting a dressmaker’s mannequin wearing a bathrobe—an inanimate object. Not the ghost of Old Man Harris.
This is clearly the devil’s attic. I can see that now. And if that isn’t the plot of one of my brother’s beloved King novels, it should be.
I spin back towards Muriel. Who knows why? Anything to get away from that mannequin. As soon as I turn around, a puff of white explodes in front of me— baby powder —and it drifts down like acid rain. Floating through the wide-open cage of my catcher’s mask and burning my eyes.
I fling off my mask, my baseball mitt too, but it’s no use. Muriel detonates another round of baby powder to vanquish her ghost squirrel, and I’m done for. My lungs ache and my eyes water, and I can’t see a single thing. I can’t even open my eyes.
I have to get out of this attic.
My escape mission is a blur. I can’t breathe, and I run into everything around me as I try to get out of that fourth-floor death trap. Everything. My body ricochets off antique furniture and piles of boxes like I’m a one-woman demolition crew, the whole world crashing down around me.
Suitcases.
Baby carriages.
Boxes full of spiders and lost souls.
I crash into all of it. There are other sounds too—Muriel, Charlie, and their demon squirrel—but they sound so far away. As if I’m lost. Alone in the most haunted attic in America.
Something gauzy and cold drifts by my face, and I stifle a scream. The breath of a million haunted baby dolls surrounds me, and I’m pretty sure my heart explodes in my chest.
Stumbling backward, I try to get away. Then I go one step too far.
I can tell the moment it happens. The exact second the floor disappears out from under me. My left foot finds the open trapdoor of the attic, and I lose my balance instantly.
It’s free-fall time. And it’s going to hurt.
Before I can gasp or scream, a strong arm slides around my waist. Pulling me to safety.
Charlie Roscoe.
He keeps his arms around me as he backs away from the trapdoor, holding on tight as he hugs me close, our bodies pressed together from shoulder to shin. And I hold on too.
“No shortcuts,” he grumbles playfully as he steadies my body against his. Both of us breathing hard. “You’ve got to use the ladder like everybody else.”
I laugh nervously, gratefully, gripping him tight as the dust settles around us. And the baby powder—so much baby powder. We just met yesterday, but it never occurs to me to let go of Charlie, not once.
And he doesn’t let go of me either.