Winter was coming. The resorts had opened early, and some people were already going skiing on the weekends. The rest of us, though, didn’t have a prayer of seeing snow. Not in the city. At least, that’s what I thought, until one night when I was getting ready for bed, and I heard my dad say, “Looks like it’s starting to snow.” I ran out of the bathroom with my toothbrush hanging from my mouth to see for myself.
“Barbara Anne!” my mother yelled. But I ignored her and ran to the window to stand next to my dad and study the precipitation.
“What do you think, Bitsy?” he asked.
I was so excited I was willing to overlook his use of that horrible, babyish nickname. “Snow!” I said. “Definitely snow!”
It was hard to sleep that night. I had argued that I should be able to stay up for a little while longer to see if it was the real deal. You know, sticking snow. But my mom wasn’t having any of it. “Whatever it is, it will be there in the morning,” she said.
Now, if you’ve ever lived in Seattle, you know this is clearly not true. Measurable snow inside the city limits is a pretty big event—like a run-outside-right-away-and-roll-a-snowball situation. I think my dad would have caved, but my mom looked at him and said, “United front!” In case you don’t know, that’s a grown-ups-against-the-kids battle cry. It was over. I was sent to bed.
But in the morning, it was still there—a beautiful blanket of it that closed down school and everything. Yippee! My mom put Rachel in her snowsuit and pulled her around our yard on a little sled while I built a snowman. Then, later, while my mom was making tomato soup for lunch, Henry called and asked if I could meet him down by the lake.
“I don’t know,” my mom said. “You need lunch, and Rachel needs a nap. I don’t think I’d have time to take you.”
“I’ll eat lunch. And you don’t have to take me. I can walk over by myself.”
“It’s a little far,” she said. And I had to pull the super-sad face that usually only works on my dad—or my grandmother if she’s in a really good mood.
My mom sighed. “Okay,” she said. “You win. But bundle up.”
She made me wear so many layers that I was doing this stiff-legged Frankenstein walk all the way to the park. But as soon as I spotted Henry near the playground, I stopped caring. Henry waved, and when I reached him, he told me that Zack and Renee were coming too.
“Since when are you and Zack friends?” I asked him.
Henry shrugged. “He’s not so bad,” he said. “And Renee didn’t get to go with us on Halloween, so I just thought—”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good idea.”
The world was so perfect covered in snow that I didn’t even mind if Henry and I didn’t have it all to ourselves.
At first, the four of us had so much fun that we lost all track of time. Zack was landing snowballs with deadly accuracy. They kept hitting right at my collar, slipping down my back, and making me scream. We were cold, wet, and happy, but the light was beginning to fade.
“We should go,” Renee said finally. “It’s getting late.”
“Afraid of the dark?” Zack asked.
“Well,” she said. “Stuff has happened here, you know. Once there was even a murder.”
“I’ve heard about that,” I said. “You can see her—the ghost girl—walking around the lake.”
“No,” Renee said. “You have to walk out toward the point to see her.”
“Why?” I asked.
“That’s her spot,” Renee said. “Ghosts have a spot. They don’t just show up anywhere.”
“So let’s go out there,” Zack said.
“I think it’s time to get going,” Henry said.
He had a point. It was getting dark, and a layer of mist stretched across the lake. But Zack was not convinced.
“Too scared?” Zack asked Henry. And for a minute, I could see a trace of the bully he had almost completely stopped being.
“Henry’s right,” Renee said. “I want to go too.”
“Not until we see the ghost!” Zack said. And then he started making all these low moaning noises that, to me, just sounded like he had a stomachache, but Renee was all creeped out.
“Stop it, Zack!” she yelled. “Maybe you think it’s just one big game, but I don’t. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Didn’t you ever know anyone who died?”
Renee ran away from us then—toward a bench, where she stopped and sat. We watched as she drew her knees up to her chest, folded her face into them, and began to sob.
“Oh, shoot!” Zack said. “I forgot.”
“Forgot about what?” I asked.
“About her mom,” Zack said. And he ran over to Renee.
Henry and I stared at each other. This was news to us. But then, Zack and Renee had both gone to the same school when they were younger, before they changed the districts. Maybe he knew a lot about Renee that we hadn’t discovered yet.
“Follow them,” Henry said. And so we ran to the bench, where the three of us stood in a circle around Renee. I offered her a Kleenex.
“Are you going to be okay?” Henry asked her.
“I’m freezing,” she said. “I want to go home.”
None of us could blame her. Zack and Henry and I lived close enough to walk, but Renee was supposed to call her dad. She started crying all over again when she saw there was no charge left on her phone. I would have helped her, of course, but I don’t have a cell phone yet. And I really should have one by now. I know third graders who have them. Third graders! Anyway, we had to find a phone for Renee. So that’s why we went there—to Henry’s house. It was just so Renee would calm down. So she could call her dad for a ride.
When the four of us got to Henry’s, everybody was out. This would have been great news except that Henry couldn’t find his keys. He was afraid they had dropped out of his pocket—somewhere in the park—and were gone for good now. I suggested that we should keep walking to my house, but Zack didn’t want to give up on going inside. Maybe all that talk of ghosts had put him in the mood to see one. The rest of us, though, were less enthusiastic. I thought it was a terrible idea, mostly because if I’m going to do something stupid, I’d rather be following my own plan. At least that way, it’s easier to answer the “What were you thinking?” question that always comes later.
“I might have a paper clip,” Renee said. She was searching her pockets. “Does anybody know how to pick a lock?”
“With a paper clip?” I asked. “The only lock that’s going to work on is one of those tiny ones on the front of a diary. Not that I have any experience with that.”
And I don’t. Except for reading a short and boring section of my cousin Monica’s diary, which was her fault, really, because it wouldn’t have happened if she had paid attention to me instead of talking on the phone to her boyfriend while painting her toenails.
“Nope,” Renee announced. “All I’ve got is hand sanitizer. Tangerine.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Where is Henry?”
He had moved away from us, to the garage, and was running his hand along the window ledge. “I think Sophie taped an extra key here,” he said.
“Oh,” said Renee. “Wait. I’ve got a mini flashlight too.” She aimed it toward Henry, and some of the light fell through the window onto cobwebs and metal gardening tools that looked like some kind of ancient torture equipment. I was wishing we’d just gone to my house, knocked the snow off our boots, and had a snack. But it was too late now.
“I’ve found it,” Henry said.
When we got inside, we were still creeping along in dim light because Henry was afraid his parents might come home and “catch” us there.
“Henry,” I said. “You aren’t doing anything wrong. You live here, remember?”
“I’m not allowed to have friends over when nobody’s home,” Henry told me. “And you, of all people, should know why.”
Honestly, one bloody accident and a tiny bit of property damage, and Sophie holds a grudge forever. Anyway, Henry only let us turn on one tiny light on the hall table, so it wouldn’t be obvious that we were there.
“Where’s your phone?” Renee asked. But before Henry could even answer, Zack had a question of his own. “So, where do you see your ghost?” he wanted to know.
It was too dark to see him clearly, but I could feel Henry glaring at me.
“The first time?” he asked. “He was right there where you’re standing.”
“Oh,” said Zack. Out of words. Just like that.
“But usually,” Henry said, “he’s upstairs in my room.”
Then Henry took Renee to the kitchen, so she could call her dad. Zack and I just stood there dripping in the front hall, not saying much, until the two of them got back. The house was way too dark, and that made it seem later, somehow, than it really was. And why is it that your hearing improves in the dark? You notice every tick and creak, and none of them sound like anything you’ve heard before.
When Henry and Renee got back, Renee walked right up to Zack and handed him her tiny flashlight.
“What’s this for?” Zack asked.
“I thought you’d need it,” she said. “To lead everybody up to Henry’s room. Since you’re so excited to go ghost hunting and everything.”
Now, this was a bit of a surprise. Renee didn’t usually stand up to Zack. Worse, lately I’d thought she might have some stupid crush on him—because of the way she laughed at all his boring jokes and gave him all these moony-eyed looks.
“Henry never said we could go up,” Zack said. “We’re not even supposed to be here, right, Henry?”
“I don’t care if you go up,” Henry said. And just like that, both of them had turned on him.
“Well, do you think he’s up there now?” Zack asked.
“He’s usually there late at night. Sometimes at the foot of my bed,” Henry said. “But you really never know when he’ll show up.”
“See?” Renee said. “Worth a try.”
“You want to go up there?” Zack asked.
“Oh, no,” Renee said. “I have to wait down here. My dad’s coming to get me.”
“But we can’t wait to hear all about it,” I said.
“You’re not going either?” Zack asked me. “Oh, I see how it is. The girls are too afraid to go up there.”
“No, we’re not!” I said. “Are we, Renee?”
“Fine!” she said.
And so we all started up the stairs together.
I had been in Henry’s house a thousand times; there really was no reason for me to feel so petrified. But as all four of us followed that thin line of light, it felt like we were going into some strange cave, some unexplored space where we definitely didn’t belong.
“What’s it look like, this ghost?” Zack wanted to know.
“He’s not an ‘it,’ ” I said. “He’s a boy. Named Edgar.”
We stepped through the doorway just as I said Edgar’s name. Maybe it was my imagination, but Henry’s room seemed colder and darker than the rest of the house. There was this strange noise too, like someone crinkling paper, and a weird, glowing light near Henry’s bed.
“What’s that?” Renee asked.
“It’s just the radio,” Henry said. “My dad gave it to me to help me fall asleep. I must have forgotten to turn it off.”
I know it sounds ridiculous now, but everyone froze. We just stared at the glowing yellow square on the front of the radio. It seemed…alive. And then something shifted. I thought I heard wind at first, but then, slowly, it began to seem more like a whisper that almost, but not quite, made sense. “Wind,” I thought I heard, and then “stone”?
Henry moved toward it, but before he could reach the radio, it started blasting out music—classical piano. I recognized the melody immediately because it was the same one Henry and I had heard in the music room the night of the school play.
“Turn it off!” I yelled at Henry.
“I’m trying!” he said.
Then the music stopped. And in its place, there was laughter.
That’s when Renee screamed. Then the music returned, but it was just four notes now. Dum-da-duh-dum. Over and over until Henry was finally able to pull the cord from the wall, and the thing went quiet.
Downstairs, the four of us sat in stunned silence, waiting for Renee’s father to show up.
“He can take you guys home,” she said. “It’s too cold to walk. Too dark.”
I took Renee up on her offer right away. Who wouldn’t? Henry just stared at us like the traitors that we were as we planned our escape. And Zack. He did the strangest thing of all. He started to hum. It took me a minute, but then I realized that he was humming those same four notes that had been coming out of the radio.
“Quit it!” I yelled at him. “You don’t need to try to scare us anymore. We’re already petrified.”
“I’m trying to figure something out,” Zack said. “Oh, man.”
“What?” I asked.
“Those notes. Those four notes? Dum-da-duh-dum. D–E–A–D.”
“Stop it!” Renee said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Henry asked.
“Those are the names of the notes. I’m sure of it. My dad’s been teaching me guitar.”
“So?” Renee said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, it does,” I said. “It’s Edgar’s way of saying ‘boo.’ ”
After that, I wanted to get home so badly that all I could do was stand there in the hallway in my coat, ready to go. That’s how I know for sure what happened next.
I saw the handle turn first. Before the gust of wind. Before the door blew open with a bang and sent snowflakes swirling in.
Henry and I struggled to push it shut. And then there was one last thing—before the door closed completely. I looked across at Miss Leary’s house, at the white snow that lay across her walkway, glittering in the porch light. And I watched for a moment as they formed—footprints—one at a time, out of nowhere, heading straight for Miss Leary’s.
I didn’t wonder until much later why the light was even on, or who she could have been expecting to come to her through the darkness on such a cold and snowy night.