The air smelled different. Clearer. Crisper. The saltiness and humidity of the shore had been replaced by pine sap and a cool breeze. I leaned my head out the car window, letting my hair flutter behind as I inhaled.
“How much longer?” Lily asked. She pushed the empty cheese-puff bag and candy wrappers from the backseat onto the floor. We’d been driving north for over four hours.
“Minutes,” Mrs. Randazzo said, glancing at the GPS screen. “We just need to follow the curve of the lake.”
Outside my window, a water-skier cut a wake through the deep blue waters of Lake Hoby.
“Okay, time for a quick recap,” Aunt Angela announced from the passenger seat. “Our story isn’t too far from the truth. I’m taking my sister, my niece, and her friend on vacation. No one needs to know I’m writing an article or the name of the magazine. We’ll have fun, experience everything, and that’s that.”
“Works for me,” Lily said, twirling her hair around her finger. Her mom and aunt had the same dark, shiny hair, but Angela had recently cut hers into a short, shaggy haircut that looked amazing on her. Lily had considered getting the same haircut for about a day but then decided she couldn’t part with her long waves of hair. I’d probably never have the guts to get a haircut like that. I tugged at my own blond ponytail as if to make sure it was still there.
“Here’s the lowdown on the hotel.” Angela propped her bare feet on the dashboard and crossed her tanned legs. Her toenails were painted pale pink, and she wore white shorts with a really pretty gauzy floral shirt. Piles of thin bangle bracelets jangled on each arm. Her outfit was so simple, but it looked great on her. Lily was like that too—she could make anything look fantastic. She must get it from her aunt. Lady Azura would probably call it “having real style.”
“The house was built in 1910 by the wealthy Helliman family as a summer retreat from the city. Mr. Helliman owned the biggest soap company in the nation. Mega money, we’re talking.”
Angela swiveled so she could better see Lily and me. “In 1924 a fire destroyed a large portion of the house. In the 1940s, the house was purchased by someone else and turned into a hotel named Helliman House. The hotel did well for years. This area has always been a big summer getaway spot. But the owner didn’t keep things up, and the hotel got shabby. Really gross, I hear.”
“You’re taking us to a run-down hotel?” Lily sounded horrified.
“Of course not!” Angela laughed and snapped her gum, a gesture that reminded me of Lily. “This other guy, Grant Himoff, bought Helliman House about five years ago. Got it for a steal, I hear. He did major renovations. Top-notch. He’s trying to attract families with waterslides, boating, and game rooms.”
She trained her gaze on us. “The key is that this Mr. Himoff cannot know what I’m really up to. I’m trusting that you girls can keep a secret.”
Could I keep a secret? Bring it on! My list of secrets grew longer and longer every day.
“Up ahead!” Mrs. Randazzo called from the driver’s seat.
Lily and I craned our necks, searching the few gaps in the sky-high pine trees that lined the winding road and cast the car in shadow.
Then a huge hotel appeared in a clearing before us.
White clapboard gleamed in the brilliant afternoon sun. Hunter-green shutters sandwiched the numerous windows running the enormous length of the three-story building. A large deck extended along the front. Dark-green Adirondack chairs were angled for the best views of the majestic mountains.
We drove up a circular drive. The front section of the hotel, though updated, was older, and the additions, which arched out from either side to form a horseshoe toward the back of the property, had been added more recently. Guests played croquet on the wide front lawn.
“Welcome to Helliman House!” Two cute college-age guys dressed in white polo shirts and white pants greeted us as we tumbled out of the car.
“Hello, hello!” Angela chirped, settling her oversize cat’s-eye sunglasses over her eyes. “We’re checking in. Staying for five glorious days!”
Even though it was for Angela’s job, she and Lily’s mom were giddy about their getaway. They had left all the little kids with the dads.
The blond guy opened the trunk to take our bags and tipped his head in surprise. Lily, Mrs. Randazzo, and I had each packed a small duffel. Angela traveled with five large matching hot-pink leather bags. I couldn’t guess what she was doing with all those clothes for five days in the mountains. That must come with the territory of being so stylish.
Lily and I entered the lobby right behind her mom and aunt. A rustic wood reception desk lined one side, directly across from a magnificent old stone fireplace. Knotty pine furniture, clustered in intimate groupings, filled the room.
“Check that out.” Lily pointed out the windows along the back wall. A sloping green lawn dotted with white Adirondack chairs led down to a large pool with a towering waterslide. Beyond the pool lay a small marina with colorful sailboats, paddleboards, and shiny motorboats. Lake Hoby shimmered in the afternoon sun.
“Mom, can we go to the lake?” Lily asked.
“In a sec.” Mrs. Randazzo and Aunt Angela were giving the young girl behind the desk, who wore a name tag that said SOFIA—HERE TO HELP, information to check into our rooms.
Sofia was very peppy, asking Angela questions and handing her packets of information on hotel activities. Her mane of strawberry-blond curls bounced as she talked. “So you have two adjoining rooms. Shall I get separate card keys for all four of you?”
“Definitely!” Lily said. We wanted to be able to explore on our own.
“The hotel is so large,” her mom commented, staring at an illustrated map. “Where are we staying?”
“Let’s see.” Sofia glanced at her computer. “Oh”—her perky smile vanished for a second, but she quickly composed herself—“you’re in the main building on the second floor.”
Angela noticed Sofia’s falter. “Is that bad?”
“Not at all. That’s the historic part. The original house. It’s supernice. It was just redone.” Sofia glanced over her shoulder. A door to her left labeled PRIVATE was slightly ajar. She leaned over the desk toward us. “Some people say the second floor is . . . haunted.”
“Haunted?” Lily squealed. “Really?”
Taking Lily’s broad smile as encouragement, Sofia nodded. “That’s the rumor. I think it’s so cool, don’t you? I’ve never seen anything, but if I were staying in an old hotel, I’d want it to have ghosts.”
I didn’t think it was cool. I’d just left one haunted house, and now I was checking into another?
My eyes darted about the lobby. Framed black-and-white photos of people in old-fashioned clothing lined the walls. Several guests, some in tennis clothes, milled about. Everyone seemed solid and alive. I had no weird tingly feelings. The air felt vibrant and happy.
Sofia’s wrong, I thought. Just because this place is old doesn’t mean it’s haunted.
“Sara.” Mrs. Randazzo placed her hand gently on my arm. “If you want, we can get a different room.”
Had my face betrayed my fear? Or was she remembering the conversation I was still hoping she hadn’t overheard?
“You look a bit pale,” she said quietly.
“No, no, I’m fine,” I insisted. “It’s the long drive, that’s all.”
“Sara’s not afraid of a haunted hotel room, are you, Sara?” Lily clapped her hands together the way she always did when she was excited. “I’ll keep you safe from the supernatural. We’ll be ghost gathers together!”
I didn’t know what a ghost gather was, but I decided not to ask. Better just to nod and smile.
“Haunted how?” Angela pressed Sofia. “What do guests report? Noises? Sightings of actual ghosts?”
The PRIVATE door swung open, and a broad-shouldered man in a pressed navy blazer and green tie moved quickly beside Sofia. “Hello, hello, Grant Himoff here. I want to personally welcome you.” He shook Aunt Angela’s hand, then Mrs. Randazzo’s. “Sofia just started with us. Summer job, right, Sofia? Just out of high school. So young.”
All smiles, he waved over one of the front-door guys. “Spencer, please show these beautiful ladies to their rooms. I’m sure they want to start their vacations. Complimentary smoothies are being served for the next hour down by the pool.”
In a flash, Spencer, the blond guy in all white from out front, corralled us out of the lobby and down a short hall leading to the elevators.
I glanced back. Mr. Himoff bent his head toward Sofia, talking rapidly in a low tone, probably lecturing her about scaring guests with ghost stories.
The elevator let us off on the second floor. Hallways, wallpapered in a green-and-beige stripe, stretched to the left and right. Lily shifted her sequined tote bag onto her shoulder and headed right.
“Whoa! Wrong way,” Spencer called.
Lily pivoted and followed him, her mom, and aunt to the left, but I lingered, staring down the wrong hall. Something felt odd in that direction.
Quieter. Dimmer.
The light fixtures, designed to resemble candles, were all dark down the right hall but burned bright down the left.
“Why are there no lights here?” I called out.
“That wing isn’t in use right now.” Spencer kept walking.
“Why not?” Aunt Angela asked.
“Renovations.” Spencer shrugged. “They aren’t using any of those rooms while they fix them up. Off-limits. Here you go.”
Spencer opened the doors to our rooms.
“I call the bed by the window!” Lily flung herself across the green sateen bedspread. “Are you good there?”
I perched on the second bed, close to the bathroom but directly across from a large flat-screen TV.
“Sure thing, but I control the remote.” I clicked on a cooking show, just to tease Lily. She hated watching people cook.
“We’ll see about that!” She lunged to grab the remote from my hand, but I was too quick. I snatched a pillow and bopped her on the head.
Giggling, she reached for my second pillow and whacked me back.
“Girls!” Mrs. Randazzo called. “Stop acting like savages. What’s poor Spencer here going to think?”
I stole a glance at Spencer. He smiled. He had no problem with a pillow fight.
Angela thrust glossy, printed sheets of activities into our hands. “Look at all the fun stuff they have for kids your age. Throw on suits while we unpack.” She glanced through the door leading to their room. Her pink luggage teetered in a pile. She seemed to have suddenly realized just how much she’d brought with her. “It’s going to take me a little while to unpack. We’ll meet you down at the pool.”
“Let’s go claim some lounge chairs,” Lily suggested.
Mrs. Randazzo made us listen to a long list of rules. We couldn’t swim without a lifeguard. We couldn’t leave the hotel property. We had to stay together. She went on and on. Finally, Mrs. Randazzo and Angela retreated to their room. I pulled on my favorite aqua-and-navy halter one-piece. Lily slipped into her magenta ruffled bikini. We both threw on the matching paisley tunics we’d bought together last month at a stand on the boardwalk and hurried back to the elevator.
“What am I missing?” Lily rummaged through her bag as we waited for the elevator to open. “I got sunscreen, lip balm, floppy hat, sunglasses, cards, celebrity magazines. . . . ”
My attention drifted down the darkened hallway. The hallway that was off-limits.
Dim light filtered in from a small window at the far end. Shadows swirled about in the silence. My shoulders stiffened as my eyes caught a shape moving.
I squinted, trying desperately to see. A figure. Small. A long skirt or a robe formed a triangle by her feet. A ropelike braid fell down her back.
I blinked rapidly. Was Sofia right? Was this floor haunted?
Lily saw her too. What did that mean?
“Hello? Hello, down there!” Lily called.
Her voiced echoed back. The hall was now empty. All we heard was the faint click of a guest room door shutting.
And the chime of the elevator as the door opened.
Lily looked wide-eyed at me. I looked at her. We both hurried into the elevator.
In the lobby, Lily grabbed my hand. “We need to report this.”
“Report what?” I wasn’t sure what we’d seen.
“Mr. Himoff!” Lily barreled toward the reception desk. She was an act-first, think-later girl. I liked to turn things over in my mind, but today Lily was leading the show. “We just saw the weirdest thing.”
Mr. Himoff kept his usual broad smile but cautioned Lily to lower her voice. He nodded at a group of guests in the lobby preparing to set out for a hike up Mount Norma.
Lily told him and Sofia, who stood by his side, about our strange sighting.
“That’s impossible,” he scoffed. “That hall is being renovated. No one is staying in those rooms.”
Lily insisted we’d seen a woman.
“Must’ve been a cleaning woman.” He didn’t seem overly concerned, but he promised to send security people to check it out.
“Ah, Mrs. Foster and Darius!” he turned his back on us to greet a woman and her young son. “What can I do for you?”
Sofia waved us to the far side of the desk. “That hallway,” she whispered, “the one he said is closed for renovations. That’s not the truth. It’s closed because that’s where the ghosts are.”
“Sofia!” Mr. Himoff’s voice boomed in the high-ceiled lobby. “Darius here is looking for a checkers set.”
Sofia gave us a grim smile and went to help Darius. Lily and I took off out the back doors and across the sloping lawn.
“Do you think we saw a ghost?” Lily asked. Her voice was filled with wonder.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t, really.
“That would be so amazing if we did. Can you imagine?”
I could.
Lily stopped as we reached the white fence circling the pool. “We need to go back. To explore. Tonight, okay?”
“Okay.” My mind jolted with sudden possibilities.
Lily clapped her hands together. “What if we find a ghost?”
This was it. The perfect intro. I couldn’t have scripted it better. If we find a ghost, I can talk with it because that’s what I do . . .. I formulated the words in my brain.
Here we go, I thought.
“If we find—”
“Hi.” Lily’s voice came out low and giggly. “You taking tickets or something?”
Two boys about our age leaned against the fence, blocking our way in.
“Just name, rank, and fingerprints,” said the taller of the two. He flipped his long brown bangs off his forehead and narrowed his hazel eyes.
“So this is your job? Pool police?” Lily asked, grinning.
“Waterslide warrior, at your service.” The boy crossed his arms in a tough-guy pose. His biceps were more muscular than most guys I knew. “This is my sidekick.” He nodded toward the skinny boy at his side with a mop of dark curls. “He specializes in wet towels.”
“I do not, Wyatt!” The mop-haired boy blushed, then swatted his friend with, of all things, a wet towel. “And I’m not your sidekick.”
“Owen’s a little sensitive. I keep whupping him in waterslide races.” He turned to the slides towering above the pool. Two tubes twirled downward, spitting out swimmers side by side into the deep end.
“You up for it?” Wyatt asked Lily. “Me against you?”
Lily’s eyes shone. She never backed down from a challenge. “Bring it!”
I watched as she dropped her bag on an empty chaise lounge, peeled off her tunic and kicked off her sandals, then confidently followed Wyatt to the slide.
Owen stood silently next to me, twisting the towel in his hands.
So much for telling Lily, I thought. The perfect opportunity—and now it was gone.
I turned to Owen. “Want to swim?”