Rosie raced home, slamming the front door behind her as she darted through the house locking the windows. She stayed up with all of the lights on until her dad came home from his meeting at midnight. Only then did she crawl into bed and drift off into an uneasy sleep. Her dreams were haunted by the hissing voice and images of Mackie chasing after Omar and Jack. Just after six the next morning her phone buzzed with a text. Groggily, she pulled it to her face.
OMAR: Come over!
ROSIE: What’s going on?
OMAR: He’s here.
Rosie’s heart pounded as she threw on sweats and ran out the door. She sprinted the three blocks through the cool, mist-filled morning. Lungs burning, she ran up to Omar’s door.
The front door was wide open and Omar stood framed in its wooden arch drenched in sweat, shivering. As she stepped over the threshold, the strong smell of pine hit her nostrils.
“Where is he?” she panted as she walked into the dim house and closed the door behind her.
“He was just here,” Omar said, his lips trembing and goose bumps covering his body.
“Mackie?” Rosie asked, but she already knew. Omar nodded. “What happened?”
“I woke up early,” he said, his face gray. “It wasn’t even light out, but someone was outside my window, whispering my name—hissing it—over and over. I thought it was a dream at first. But it wouldn’t stop, so I rolled over and looked out.” His hands went to his face. “It was Mackie. In his jersey, sweats, and cleats.”
“Omar,” Rosie said softly. “Mackie’s dead. He can’t have been outside your window.” But even as she said it, she didn’t know if she completely believed it. Rosie sank down to sit on the couch. Something was definitely wrong. Someone, or something, had been behind Omar’s house last night, in the dark trees, and had whispered to her.
“I know. And I tried,” he said as he sat next to her, his voice wavering. “I tried to shake it off, convince myself it didn’t really happen. Last night I took the medicine my doctor prescribed to help me sleep and I thought I was hallucinating. I know that’s a possible side effect.”
A wave of relief washed over Rosie. That would explain it. “You probably were, Omar. Or dreaming. It could have just been a really vivid dream,” Rosie said, but even as she did she heard the hissing voice again, this time stronger—more insistent—coming from somewhere in the house.
“Help him!”
She sat up and slowly looked around.
“But when I came downstairs,” Omar said, “both the front and back doors were wide open.” He raised his eyes and looked straight at her. “Rosie, I locked those doors when I went to bed last night. Then I found . . . He left his number. He was here.”
Rosie froze. “He left his number?”
Omar nodded and led her to the kitchen table where sheets of homework, books, and flashcards lay in a messy heap. Sitting next to the pile were pencils arranged in a number: 44.
Rosie stared at the pencils, unable to move. There was no way that was a coincidence. She tore her eyes from the table to look at Omar.
“I need to go to him,” Omar whispered. “At midnight. That’s what Mackie said. Midnight at the graveyard. Go to him.”
Rosie tried to hide her horror. She surveyed the quiet house. “Where are your mom and dad?” she asked softly, her heart in her throat.
“Visiting Gram. They left last night.”
She nodded and turned her back to the table, blocking Omar’s view of the pencils. “Omar, you can’t go to the graveyard. You don’t even know what all of this means.”
“He won’t leave me alone until I go to him,” Omar sputtered.
“But—go to him? How?”
He still isn’t thinking clearly, Rosie thought. He can’t see how crazy his thoughts are. The guilt has finally taken its toll. But as hard as she tried, Rosie couldn’t convince herself that even she hadn’t heard the hissing voice the night before and then again just now. All she knew was she needed to keep Omar away from the graveyard. She needed to prevent him from doing whatever it was he thought he needed to do.
“You didn’t sleep, and you’re obviously upset,” she said. “Let’s go lie down for a while.” She led him to the couch. She couldn’t leave him like this—maybe he needed to go to the hospital. “When are your parents going to be home?”
“Noon. Around noon,” he mumbled as he reclined. She covered him with a blanket. The circles under his eyes were deep, his face drawn. In fact, he’d been looking rather gaunt these last few days . . . had he been eating?
“Try and get some sleep,” she said, and he finally closed his eyes. She went into the kitchen, pacing back and forth in front of the table. In one quick motion Rosie shoved everything back into Omar’s backpack.
The wind blew and a breeze came through the house as if a door had opened. Rosie sat down at the table. In the other room Omar mumbled, as if talking to someone in a dream, “The graveyard at midnight . . . I will take your place . . . your grave.”
Rosie got up and walked to the couch. “I’ll stay here until your parents get home,” she said softly once his mumbling finally stopped. She walked through the house to look out the windows on the back door.
All along the hallway, from the front door to the back, were dime-sized clumps of brown dirt. The kind of clumps that fall off cleats. Suddenly Rosie thought of Jack’s anger. Jack. He must have been staking out Omar’s house, waiting for him to be alone.
Rosie kicked a clump of dirt. Jack probably laid out the pencils too. But that didn’t explain the voice—the hissing—she’d heard. That couldn’t be Jack. The voice was unlike any human voice she’d ever known.
She pushed the thought aside. Maybe it was Jack. But if Jack was willing to break into Omar’s house to torment him while he slept, when would he stop?