SOMETHING WICKED

Day 3—Wednesday morning

Harper threw down her journal with a sigh. She didn’t want to think about her nightmares anymore. Even in the bright sunlight, the mere thought of them frightened her.

She looked around her room at the mess of boxes that still needed to be unpacked and she wanted to bury herself under her covers. The restless night made her tired and cranky and unwilling to work.

On her nightstand, there was a pink peony in a cup of water. Harper loved peonies. One of the few things she liked about their new house was the great big peony bushes in the back. Her mother must have brought the blossom up as a peace offering. She knew they were her favorites. Harper smiled, feeling the anger from the night before begin to dissipate.

Unwilling to write anymore, she decided to go check on Michael instead.

The air-conditioning was working and it was finally cool in the house, but as she approached Michael’s room, Harper felt sweaty and clammy again. She hesitated at his door. It was completely silent in his room. Part of her was scared to go inside. It was like her nightmare, this feeling of unknown fear that made no sense. Shaking off her reluctance, she barged in. He was sitting in the middle of the room staring off into space. Even though the door slammed with a thud, he had no reaction. Harper knelt before him. His eyes were wide and unfocused. Whatever he was staring at was all in his head.

“Hey!” Harper grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard. “Snap out of it.”

He blinked as his eyes focused. “Harper, what’d ya do that for?”

Relieved, she hugged him tight. “What were you looking at?”

Michael pushed away and looked all around the room. “You scared Billy off,” he said. “He was going to show me a secret.”

“What kind of secret?”

“He said he would come into my head and show me his memories,” Michael said. “But you chased him away and now I don’t get to see what they were.”

An irrational terror struck Harper. She could feel the tight pull of anxiety around her chest as a sense of déjà vu assailed her.

Don’t you want to see my secret, Harper? Just let me in and we’ll be friends forever!

Harper gripped Michael tightly. “Michael, promise me you won’t let him do that again.”

“Why not?” Michael looked curiously at her.

“Because it’s bad, really bad,” Harper said. “Never do that again. Promise me.”

Michael turned away to grab one of his toy cars. “Okay, I promise,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t like it at all. It made my head hurt real bad.”

As Michael said this, the temperature inside the room dropped suddenly. “Why is it so cold in here?”

Michael looked at her in surprise. “It’s not cold.”

Harper pressed her lips tight to keep her teeth from chattering. Maybe she was getting sick and feverish. “Come on, let’s go out to the park.”

Michael hesitated. It looked like he was going to say no. He looked all around the room before nodding in agreement, and Harper hurried him out. She’d take the scorching heat of the park over the strange coolness in Michael’s room any day.

Day 3—Wednesday evening

After a long afternoon running around outside and even getting their dad to drop them off at the movies, Harper and Michael were finally sitting in the living room watching TV.

Michael yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“Harper, I’m tired,” he said.

“Hey, you wanna sleep in my room and have a mini campout?” Harper asked. The thought of Michael going back to his room bothered her.

“Yeah, but you still have boxes all over your floor!” Michael said. “Let’s camp in my room instead.”

“What about the living room? We can break out the sleeping bags and sleep down here,” she said.

“Not tonight, honey,” her father piped in from the adjacent dining room. “Your mom and I have some work to do down here.”

Michael jumped to his feet and began to head upstairs. “It’s okay, Harper,” he said with another yawn. “We can do a campout another night.”

She followed him upstairs and helped him wash up and change. As she sat next to him on his bed, the atmosphere of the room began to unnerve her. She didn’t understand how Michael could fall asleep in such an uncomfortable place. Reluctantly, she exited the room and stood at the edge of the stairway. Harper didn’t know what to do. She knew she couldn’t tell her mother about Billy without making her freak out and overreact, and that was the last thing Michael needed, but she had to do something. She pressed her hands to her forehead. It felt like her brain was being ripped apart from the inside. She needed to have her mother refill her pillbox.

Then the whispering started again. The soft but panicked whispers of someone calling her name from a far distance. They hissed loudly in warning, and then a shout.

Suddenly, someone pushed her from behind. She could feel herself falling, her arms flailing as she tried to grab hold of the banister. Harper twisted her body into a ball as she crashed onto the steps; pain erupted as she slid down in rapid descent. It was only when she reached the first landing that she hit a barrier. Gasping in relief, Harper grabbed on to the wood slats of the railing, stopping her fall. She could swear that something had blocked her from plunging down to the bottom of the stairs, but when she looked to see what it was, there was nothing there.

What was going on? At the top, she’d felt two distinct hands pushing her hard. Now, she was stopped by an invisible barrier. Was she going crazy? She lay on the landing, trying to assess the damage and wondering what was happening to her, when her parents came running over.

“Harper!”

Her father reached her first, carefully checking out her limbs and asking where she was hurt. Her mother ran up right behind him, grabbing Harper’s hand in a death grip.

“Harper? Harper? Talk to me, honey! Can you talk?” Yuna turned to Harper’s father with a panicked look on her face. “I told you these stairs were too slippery. She could have been killed!”

From upstairs, Harper heard her sister gasp in shock.

“Is she okay?”

With everyone asking her if she was all right, Harper could only nod in dazed confusion. “My whole body hurts,” she whispered.

Kelly walked carefully down the stairs in her bare feet.

“It’s ’cause she was wearing socks,” Kelly said. “Harper, you have to wear slippers or bare feet. The wood’s too slick.”

“Peter, I told you we should’ve put a runner on these stairs,” Yuna fumed.

Harper’s father nodded. “I’ll take care of it first thing.”

He leaned back and gave Harper a reassuring smile.

“Well, the good news is that you didn’t break anything,” her father said. “The bad news is that you are going to feel awful for a few days.”

Harper grimaced at his forced cheerfulness. She hated when he tried too hard to act like something wasn’t a big deal. Once Kelly was sure Harper was all right, she ran back up to her room.

Yuna pulled Harper up, exclaiming over the numerous bruises that were already sprouting on Harper’s arms and legs.

“What if she reinjured herself? Maybe we should take her to the emergency room to be safe,” Yuna said.

“No!” Harper yelled. “I don’t want to go to the hospital!”

Peter gave Harper a gentle pat on the back. “I don’t think you have to go. I think you’re going to be all right. It could have been a lot worse,” he said. “We’re really lucky you didn’t fall all the way down.”

He kept a firm grip around her waist as she hobbled down each step. Yuna dashed ahead.

“I’ll go get some ice packs and ibuprofen,” her mother called over her shoulder.

As she followed her dad’s lead, Harper looked up to the top of the stairs. She couldn’t help but notice that even with all the commotion, Michael had never come out of his room.