Chapter 25
A few minutes later, I’m sitting on the porch waiting for Theo.
In my hands, I cradle a small leather satchel.
There was a cubbyhole behind the portrait of Mercy in the closet, and this was tucked inside. I haven’t looked at the contents yet. I just grabbed it and ran downstairs for my phone. Then I texted Theo, asking him to come here.
It took him less than two minutes to get back to me.
While I wait for him, I scroll through the texts he sent over the last fifteen hours.
Theo: I’m so sorry.
Theo: I wasn’t thinking.
Theo: What can I do?
Theo: Please talk to me.
Theo: I’m sorry.
Theo: Please just let me know you’re okay.
Theo: I don’t want to keep bothering you when it’s clear you don’t want to talk to me. But if and when you’re ready, I am here.
Tires scrape the gravel as Theo’s blue truck bumps up the uneven road that leads to the house. As soon as he’s close enough, he throws it in park and jumps out of the driver’s side. He jogs his way to the porch, slowing to a stop when he’s a few feet away from me.
“I’m so sorry,” he says at the same time as I thrust my hands out and explain, “I found this behind the portrait of Mercy.”
His mouth snaps shut, and his brow furrows. “Wait. What?”
“I think it has something to do with her ghost.”
Theo’s eyes survey the pouch cradled in my palms. “That’s why you asked me to come over?” He points at it.
I nod hard enough that my glasses slip down my nose.
He takes a step back. “Amity. You ran out of my house yesterday and haven’t been answering my texts.”
I cringe.
“I was worried about you.” He shakes his head, his chocolate-brown hair flopping into his eyes. “I don’t care about the ghosts or whatever right now.”
It’s the last thing I expect him to say. My hands close around the satchel, and I set them carefully in my lap. My body feels like bark on a tree that’s spent too long in the sun: dusty and brittle and seconds from cracking.
“What happened?” I hardly hear him over the birds chirping in the trees. He approaches, and I scoot over so he can lower himself to the porch stairs. “Please tell me.” The pain in his voice summons more fissures to my skin. It won’t be long until I shatter.
Taking off my glasses, I rub at my eyes. The loose right arm clacks a little with the trembling of my hand. “I…” I blow out a breath. “This thing with us. It’s really new. We’re just getting to know each other.”
His brow wrinkles, then he leans back against the porch post. “Okay,” he says softly. He’s completely still, except for his hands, which fuss with the buttons on his cargo pants.
What I should say next is that he was my first hand-hold. My first kiss. That everything we do from now on will be a first for me. But I can’t get the words out of my mouth.
In seventh grade, I refused to play spin the bottle at a party.
I didn’t know half the kids there, and this was only a few weeks after Taylor and the “thumb wrestling” kiss incident, so the idea of making out with a stranger sounded about as appealing to me as being the final girl in a horror movie.
Marjorie found this particularly hilarious and started referring to me as “Sister Mary Amity” in our group chat.
Looking back on it now, I don’t know how I didn’t see it then.
Making fun of my inexperience was one of a million tiny cuts—comments about my clothes, things I liked, things I said—that they didn’t even hide in their secret chat.
They’d say it to my face. And I’d laugh, as if I was in on the joke, not the butt of it.
The Sister Mary Amity thing always stung the most, though. Even when I thought it was a nickname, a sign of affection. Because it forever reminded me that I was different. Strange. Out of alignment with everyone else around me.
That’s all I can think about now as I stare into Theo’s open expression. I am Sister Mary Amity, and he’ll find it as odd as Marjorie and everyone else.
“It…it felt like things were moving a little too fast.” My eyes skirt his face, resting on the branches of Dale’s tree over his shoulder.
“When I put my hand up your shirt?”
Heat rushes to my face as I nod.
Theo’s chin drops to his chest, and he drags his hands through his wavy brown hair. My stomach lurches and I brace for the worst.
“I’m so sorry.”
His words are so unexpected that I jolt. “For what?” He won’t look at me, so I press my palm over his ghost tattoo. His gaze skims over my hand like he’s not sure it’s real.
“I should have asked. Checked in instead of pawing at you.”
“You didn’t paw at me.” I take his cheeks in my hands and raise his eyes to my face. “I didn’t know it was too fast until it happened.” I had fallen as deeply into that kiss as he had. I was enjoying it. Wondering if I wanted more. Until his warm skin on my stomach set off every alarm in my body.
“You’re sure?”
I nod. I can’t stop myself from smoothing out the wrinkles in his brow with the tips of my thumbs.
“Don’t make excuses for me being a creep.” He’s so serious it stirs an ache in my chest.
“You’re not, and I wasn’t.”
The way his face melts into my touch wipes any other thoughts from my head. I want things to go back to how they were before I ran out of his house. When all of this was easy and exciting, not scary. Not full of potential land mines I’m always stepping on.
I told him what happened. It might not have been everything, but I didn’t lie.
We were going too fast. Can’t that be enough for now?
Then we can move on from this. And I don’t have to wonder what he’d think of Sister Mary Amity.
Maybe I don’t have to actually tell him how inexperienced I am.
If we just go at a nice, slow pace, everything will be fine.
I press a kiss to his forehead, and then hold up the satchel that had fallen into my lap. “Can we talk about this now?”
He sits up a little straighter and studies me for a second. Like he can divine from my expression if we’re okay. After a beat, he accepts it. “You found this where, again?”
I point up as if either of us can see the second floor. “Behind Mercy’s picture.”
“How the hell did you get it off the wall?”
I grimace. “I was pretty pissed off after having a terrible conversation with my father and I took my anger out on it.”
“Okay, Bruce Banner.”
“No, that’s the thing. It lifted off easily. Like…” The thought has been in the back of my head since I discovered the cubbyhole, but saying it out loud feels like making it real.
“Like someone wanted you to find it?” Theo asks.
My shoulders lift toward my ears. “Maybe?”
“Who needs a tinfoil hat now?” He grins.
I shove at his arm. “You were thinking the same thing.” My gaze dips to the satchel, and I give it a little poke with my finger. “What do you think it is?”
“It looks a little like a hex bag.”
“Like that fictional witchcraft.”
He ignores my comment. “Have you looked inside?”
“No. I was waiting for you.”
He pulls the string securing it, then empties the contents onto the step in front of us. It’s a little bundle tied with a cord. We both lean closer, our shoulders and hips pressing together.
There’s a tooth, a small bone, and a lock of hair.
“Gross,” I murmur.
Theo collects it all back into the satchel. “Can I see where you found it? Maybe there’s some kind of clue of what it is.”
I tried to give the cubbyhole a thorough check when I found the pouch, but my heart was pounding hard enough to make me dizzy, so it is absolutely possible I missed something.
Theo offers me his hand as we stand up to head inside.
We only make it about five steps through the door before my feet refuse to move anymore.
On the other side of the living room lie three of my dolls. Two more sit at the bottom of the stairs.
“Those were not there when I came outside.” My pulse speeds up a little. Where the hell did they come from? I take off my glasses and rub at my eyes, then put them back on.
Nothing changes.
Though I know my mom’s still at RC, I call out to her anyway. My voice ricochets back at me in the silence.
“Could your dad…or Jesse…?” I ask Theo.
He shakes his head, but I already knew that. No one’s been here today because they’re waiting for the new toilet and vanity for upstairs to arrive.
“Dale?” I suggest weakly.
“When’s the last time he was inside?” I swear there’s hope in Theo’s voice.
“Not since we moved in.” But even if the squirrel was still getting into the house, I wasn’t outside long enough for him to drag this many dolls—who are basically the same size as him—out of the den and distribute them around the house.
“Then who…?” I let my half question hang in the air until I can’t stand the silence any longer. “God, my house really is haunted, isn’t it?”
I am out of rational explanations for how these dolls got here. Or why that picture suddenly loosened. Or where the voice we all heard on Matt’s spirit box came from. Or why the perfectly secure railing let go.
I stiffen my shoulders, preparing for the most epic I-told-you-so of all time. With how much shit I’ve given Theo over the past month or so, I’d deserve it.
But he’s standing there next to me, shell-shocked. His mouth has opened and closed twice without him saying anything.
I nudge him gently. “Should we…um…” I swallow. “Follow them?” It’s not like I’m not scared. My heart is doing its damnedest to crack open my ribs. But my need for answers tends to win in any fight. If there’s a ghost in this house, then I want solid, undeniable proof.
Plus, if we don’t figure out what’s going on, couldn’t things get worse? No way am I going to stand here and wait to watch my shoes, or the dishes, or the couch dance by us and up the stairs like something out of a Fable Industry movie.
“Come on.” I grasp Theo’s arm and drag him toward the stairs. “Remember our deal? Now’s your chance to ghost hunt.” My voice quivers, but I do my best to smile at him. Neither of us can fall apart right now or Mercy Harlow is going to eat my house (or, you know, whatever it is ghosts do).