chapter sixteen
She’s got to be outside,” Lemon says as we run toward the house. “There’s no way she could’ve gotten in by herself.”
I don’t say anything, my panic still too close to spilling over to risk a single word. An old house is better than the ocean, I tell myself. An old house is better than the ocean.
We wind through the rocks to the wooden boardwalk, then take the back steps two at a time. The Lancaster home looms above us, tall and terrifying, its gables and eaves stretching into the starry sky, like a haunted house out of some horror movie. Another flash of light, in an upstairs window this time. My heart triples its pace and I break out in a cold sweat.
“She’s going to be right up here, waiting for us,” Lemon says. “I just know—”
But her words are cut off as soon as we reach the porch’s landing and see the back door cracked open.
“Can she pick a lock?” Lemon asks.
“No way,” I say. “Someone must’ve left it open.”
“Who, though? The house tour closes at four every day and—”
“Don’t even start talking about some ghost.”
Lemon sighs. “I wasn’t gonna.”
I dig my phone out of my pocket and turn on the flashlight before I rush through the door and into an 1800s kitchen. It’s cut off from the rest of the house by a swinging door and has all sorts of ancient appliances—a huge iron stove with copper pots hanging from the brick wall behind it; a large hutch with lots of old-looking plates and cups displayed; a big center island with carefully arranged bowls and spoons on the butcher-block counter, along with a burlap bag of flour next to a wooden measuring cup. There’s an apron laid over the edge, as though someone was in the middle of cooking and just left. I know the museum people probably set this up to make it look lived-in or whatever, but a chill still skitters up my arms. If I squint, I swear I see the swinging door… swinging.
I’m breathing too hard, too fast, a horrible sort of harmony to Lemon’s own huffing and puffing. I’m frozen, fear cementing my feet to the old hardwood floor. I remind myself that ghosts aren’t real, mermaids aren’t real, none of this is real.
This isn’t my life.
This isn’t my story.
My story belongs in a yellow house three thousand miles from here, with two moms and a sister, and with beautiful paintings covering the walls.
I blink the dim kitchen back into view and make myself move toward the swinging door. Lemon grabs a fistful of the back of my T-shirt and I don’t swat her away. The weight of her hand feels like the only thing keeping me from floating toward the ceiling. I push the door open and go through.
We walk into a dark, wood-paneled hallway that seems to go on and on until it opens up into a large vestibule. The blue-white light of my phone’s flashlight makes everything look freakier, like we’re on one of those ghost-hunting shows where all you hear is loud breathing and people whispering What was that? and Did you hear that? and Oh my god. A tall grandfather clock ticktocks beside the front door, a giant Persian rug swallowing our footsteps. On either side of the vestibule, there are two huge rooms—one a formal dining room and one that looks like a parlor, with a bunch of fancy couches and bookshelves.
I can feel Lemon trembling next to me, goose-bumped arm against goose-bumped arm.
Then, a creak, somewhere above us.
A thump, like footsteps.
My eyes fly to the ceiling, as though it’s transparent and I expect to see Peach—dear god, let it only be Peach—peering down at me and grinning. I swallow the urge to yell her name, which would be the stupidest thing I could do if there is someone else in here, but I have to say something. I have to call to her somehow.
“Peach?” I whisper. “Peach, are you up there?”
I know there’s no way she can hear me, but Lemon and I freeze anyway, waiting for Peach’s happy giggle, her voice calling back to me, letting me know she’s fine and she’s just playing a horrible joke on me.
Nothing.
Until…
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
Fast, like running.
“We have to go up there, don’t we?” Lemon asks, looking upward too.
“Yep,” I say, then grab her hand and squeeze tight, pulling her toward the stairs near the front door. They’re dark wood, a thick banister curving all the way to the second floor in a comma shape.
One step.
Creak.
I wince as the old wood’s groan echoes through the house, but I keep going.
Creak.
Step.
Creak.
We keep going like that, slowly. We curve around and are almost at the top—I can see the upstairs landing, see another flash of light from a bedroom down the hall—when a scream splits the shivery air and makes my stomach splash to my feet.
No, not a scream.
Screams.
What sounds like several voices screech like banshees and I know, I know, I know one of them is my sister. I drop Lemon’s hand and bolt up the rest of the stairs, an idea zooming into my head. I unzip my Safety Pack and fumble inside for my little bottle of hand sanitizer spray. I point it in front of me, phone and spray now poised like weapons.
“What is that?” Lemon says, jogging alongside me and aiming her camera at the darkness with trembling fingers. “What are you going to do, clean them to death?”
“It’s better than nothing,” I say, and continue running as I hit the top landing and fly down the hall toward the screams. Peach careens out of a room at the end of the corridor, arms flailing, mouth and eyes open as wide as they’ll go.
I catch her in one arm and hold out the sanitizer with the other hand. I start walking backward, fast, ready to get out of this house of horrors as quickly as possible now that I’ve got my sister, but I don’t realize that Lemon has latched on to the back of my T-shirt again until it’s too late. My feet tangle with hers, the back of my head slams into something hard and bony, and she cries out as all three of us go down in a heap on the floor.
“Oh my god, my nose!” Lemon cries out. But it sounds more like Oh my god, my nothe. My legs are draped across hers, Peach is literally sitting on my stomach, and I work to get us all untangled.
“We’ve gotta go,” I say.
“It’s a real ghost!” Peach wails. “Two of them!”
“My nothe!” Lemon says again, holding her hands to her face.
I finally get Peach on her feet and then dig my right foot out from under Lemon’s left, my phone’s light swinging in her direction. She pulls her hands back enough for me to see red. Blood. Enough to make my stomach tighten and the scars on my cheek burn from memory. Her eyes go wide when she sees the bright color puddling in her hand. She lifts up her shirt to press it to her face.
“We’ll get it fixed,” I say, breathing hard. “We’ll fix it, okay?”
She nods and I grab her hand and fly for the stairs.
I never get there, though. Another light flashes from down the hall and I swear—I swear—I hear someone call Lemon’s name.
“Did you—?” I start to say, but get cut off by her name again.
“Lemon?”
The voice is a whisper, raspy and phlegmy, and there is no way I want to know who it belongs to.
I try to pull the three of us toward the stairs again, but Lemon digs her heels in, her eyes wide, half terrified, half curious. Her bloody shirt is still smooshed to her face as she stares down the hallway.
“Lemon, no,” I whisper-yell.
Creak.
Creak.
Footsteps across an old wood floor.
Light flashes again, this time spilling from the room Peach ran out of and fixing right on us. It’s so bright, I can’t see who—or what—is producing it. I hold up the sanitizer, finger fixed on the nozzle.
The light comes closer, grows brighter, bigger.
“Lemon?” Raspy, ghosty whisper. My stomach puddles into my feet, and my mouth waters. I might throw up. I really might puke right here and now.
“Stop!” I yell, aiming my spray at the light. “Stop right there!”
“Lemon, it’s—”
“Stop!” I yell again.
“Hazel, don’t!” Lemon says.
But it’s too late. I press down on the sanitizer nozzle, and a clear stream shoots out into the space in front of me.
It doesn’t hit anyone, not directly, but two figures walk right into the spray.
“What is that?” one of them says, followed by some coughing.
I hear a smacking sound, then a different voice. Familiar. “Ugh, it tastes like some kind of cleaner.”
“Lemon?” the first voice says again.
“Lemon, what the heck?”
The bright light in front of us drops, revealing two very familiar-looking human faces.