Chapter 2
As it turns out, there’s a lot of internet real estate dedicated to the tiny town of Harlow’s Rest.
I’ve spent most of our week’s drive from California to Massachusetts with my nose buried deep in Google, trying to get a sense of this place my mother’s forcing me to move to.
It’s got multiple Wikipedia pages and entries on some of my favorite American history websites.
After days of poring over these sites, I’ve learned that Harlow’s Rest had been the location of some major skirmishes in King Philip’s War, and, during the American Revolution, its residents provided all sorts of support to colonial soldiers.
It seems like every other street has some kind of memorial signage or thing of historical significance.
One park even boasts a bench that once cradled John Adams’s ass for approximately ten minutes.
And yes, there’s a sign for it.
This morning, just before we finally cross into Massachusetts for the last stretch of our journey, I stumble upon a YouTube account called Haunted Harlow Homestead with a location tag for Harlow’s Rest.
I have to swallow back a giddy cackle. Absurd ghost stories are one of my favorite parts of really old places.
What will it be here? An angry spirit who was burned as a witch?
Restless Revolutionary War soldiers? Pilgrims?
With eager fingers, I click on the account.
I can’t wait to see how bad the videos will be.
And how quickly I’ll be able to debunk their evidence.
The account looks fairly new, with videos dating only as far back as January. I open the first one.
After a few seconds of muffled voices, the dark screen is replaced by a shot of a white guy about my age standing on an empty road that stretches in front of what looks like a big farmhouse.
He’s a pretty average height, with broad shoulders and a stocky build.
One of his hands scratches through his mess of chocolate-brown hair, the other is shoved in the pocket of his jeans.
He’s staring at the ground, scuffing the dirt with the heel of his construction boots.
I can see his lips moving as if he’s practicing lines.
“Sometime today, man,” a voice mutters from near the camera.
The guy’s head jerks up in surprise. “What the hell, Matt? You didn’t tell me you started filming.”
I snort. These guys are clearly amateurs.
“Theo, you can cut this bit out,” Matt the cameraman notes.
Theo has a boyish face, with a naturally downturned mouth, and it deepens into a severe frown at Matt’s words.
“I don’t know how to do that stuff yet.” His cheeks, already red from what I imagine has to be some pretty cold air given the tufts of snow sprinkled across the lawn behind him, flush harder.
I should skip to another video, but I find myself watching them clumsily set up the first shot.
After another minute or two, Matt finally positions Theo so the house behind him is centered in the frame.
Now that I can see it clearly, I notice how dilapidated it is.
No way has anyone lived there in decades—and survived, at least. If the cold from the missing windows and holes in the roof didn’t get them, then I can only imagine the black mold that must be thriving in the walls would.
Theo gestures awkwardly over his shoulder. The end of a tattoo peeks out from the cuff of his Carhartt jacket sleeve when he raises his arm. “This is the Harlow Homestead—”
Mom nudges my arm, forcing me to pause the video.
Sighing, I pull out one of my earbuds and raise my eyes to her.
She smiles. “We’re in our new home state.”
“Yippee,” I mumble.
Though I’d never admit it, I’ve been sneaking peeks out the window since we hit New England, and I kind of love how lush this place is, even in the summer.
The trees are vibrant with leaves, the grass is crayon-bright green.
Flowers bloom in front of houses and businesses.
At home, everything is arid and brown, unless someone invested in fake grass for their lawn.
But all the nice scenery in the world can’t make up for the fact that my perfect summer and neatly planned future are ruined.
Right now, Taylor and I were supposed to be in the middle of our taco trip.
My mouth should be full of delicious meats and spices and veggies.
She and I should be laughing at all the silly photos we’ve taken.
We’d even ordered matching Sunspark shirts from our favorite Fable Industry movie to wear so we could relive our Elorra and Oliver fangirl days from middle school.
Instead, mine is shoved in a suitcase somewhere, and I’m in a car on the other side of the country with my mother.
Taylor, of course, took it all in stride when I told her about the move—promising that she’d visit and swearing everything would be fine, that we’d do a New England food tour and it would be great.
But I’m not that chill.
I mean, I’m never chill. So no one, especially not my mother, should expect me to roll with the punches here. She knows that I’d had everything—the summer, college, grad school, job—figured out, and she took that plan and upended it like a table full of dinner dishes.
I hear her exhale roughly. “Amity, I need you to get on board with this.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” That is about as on board as I’m going to get at this point.
My mother purses her lips. “How about with a little less attitude?”
My hand fists around my phone. “I’m sorry but I just don’t understand why this all had to happen so fast.” I shake my head.
“I didn’t get a chance to even wrap my head around the idea of not living in my own house anymore and you’re dragging me to basically the other side of the world and forcing me to enroll at some random college. ”
“Rehoboth College is far from random. It has a great reputation, and you should be thrilled they accepted you so quickly.”
Even if she’s right, it’s beside the point. “You should have let me take my taco trip with Taylor. What difference would a few weeks have made?”
Mom’s jaw tightens, and she taps her ragged, bitten nails against the steering wheel.
It’s pretty clear she has some thoughts on this subject, but she seems to be weighing them carefully.
“Honey,” she finally says, “this was not how I wanted to do this. But it’s a seller’s market, so we had to list the house. ”
My mouth drops open. “Is this you talking or Dad?” My real estate agent father’s whole life revolves around the current state of the market.
She shakes her head. “Of course it’s me. The more money we get for the house, the more comfortable you and I will be here. Plus, we need time to get our bearings.”
I glance down at my Messages app. “He’s only bothered to check in on us once since we left.
And it was just to make sure we weren’t dead on the side of the road or something.
” He hasn’t even asked how I’m doing, or how I’m feeling about any of this.
Not that I should be surprised. My father is the only person on his top-five list of priorities.
On a good day, Mom and I might come in twentieth.
Which is probably why, my whole life, our relationship has been pretty distant.
He checks off most mandatory parental tasks (roof over my head, clothes on my back, food on the table, making sure I’m healthy…), but he barely knows anything about who I am.
Like he was a set piece on the stage of my life. Not a character.
“You know how he is about his job. That’s all this is. Don’t be mad at him.”
I shrug. It’s one forced-move-across-the-country too late for that.
When Mom doesn’t say anything else, I pop my earbud back in and resume the haunted homestead video.
On the screen the broad-shouldered boy—Theo—gestures toward the old house and then takes a deep breath.
“The Harlow Homestead was once the home of Harlow’s Rest’s founding family.
Wealthy and generous, the Harlows were beloved by their community.
So much so that after their mysterious deaths, the town was renamed in their honor.
” He has big, expressive eyes, the green color so vivid I can easily make it out even though the camera is not zoomed in on his face.
“Harlow’s Rest, as this is where the family was laid to rest.”
He swallows before speaking again. “But many believe the Harlows—or at least some of them—do not rest at all…”
“Dun, dun, dun.” Matt’s voice cuts in.
I have to choke back a laugh as Theo throws his hands up at the camera.
The video focuses in on a close-up of the house.
Shutters droop from windows, most of which are boarded up or cracked.
The wraparound porch cradles a thick carpet of dried leaves and sticks and other detritus, and half the railings are gone or snapped in two.
The front door is warped, and boards are missing from the stairs leading up to it.
Theo continues narrating over the recording.
“The official story is that the Harlows all succumbed to tuberculosis—known back then as consumption—during the 1698 outbreak. People say that Elias Harlow locked them all in the homestead to stop the disease from spreading to the rest of the town. They were lauded as heroes, and the next year, the town was named after the family in their honor.”
Theo’s face fills the screen once more. “But according to the town’s records and personal diaries kept by some of the Harlows’ friends and neighbors, the scene discovered inside the house when the magistrate came to investigate was bloody and violent.
And not all the family members’ bodies were recovered.
Firsthand accounts of the week leading up to the Harlows’ deaths place the eldest daughter, Mercy, outside the house during the quarantine, and many describe her as acting strangely—her body moving unnaturally, her eyes glowing.
” The boy’s voice deepens the longer he talks, and his face lights up with excitement.
He is so into this, I realize.
I’ve never seen anyone so serious about a ghost story. Taylor wants desperately for them to be real, but for her, it’s about the fun of being scared. Of the world suddenly being bigger than we could ever imagine.
But this guy, he’s a true believer. You can see it in the heavy furrow of his brow, in the way he won’t quite approach the windows and doors. Hear it in the gravity of his voice.
“These days, the Harlow Homestead sits empty. The house has changed hands many times over the last few centuries, but owners never remain for long. And every documented tenant has a story about strange occurrences—renovations gone wrong, cold spots, weird mists, shadows where they don’t belong, furniture and items moving on their own.
” Visibly steeling himself, he approaches the front door.
“In this video series”—Theo pauses and reaches out to lightly grip the knob on the front door—“we will dig deeper into the history of the Harlow Homestead.” He waves for the camera to move toward the open door.
The screen fills with a gritty darkness as Matt zooms in.
“What actually happened here that fateful week in August? What was wrong with Mercy Harlow? Did she really kill her family, as many suggest? And, finally, whose ghost continues to haunt the house to this day?” For a moment, the screen goes black as eerie instrumental music plays.
Then Theo’s face fills the frame again. “I’m Theo Hargrave, with Matt Lazlo on camera, and this is the Haunted Harlow Homestead. Thanks for tuning in…”
Swiping away from YouTube, I look up the Harlow Homestead’s location online and make a note. As soon as we settle in, I’m definitely visiting this place.
I don’t realize how easy that will be until my mom announces “We’re here” and turns the car onto a long dirt road.
At the end sits the exact same house from Theo Hargrave’s video.