“I’M DRIVING A DINGHY!!”

Okay, it’s Miles’s family’s restaurant dinghy, and I still don’t know whether “driving” is the word you’re supposed to use, but I’m behind the wheel, the wind and saltwater are in my hair, the NASA-sized ghost satellite is lying beside my foot, and, basically, I’m a boss.

Once I reach Nameless, I tie the dinghy up in Miles’s family’s slip exactly like he told me to, then dig in my pocket for the other set of keys he gave me, and—

“I’M DRIVING A CART!”

“Okay,” I mutter to the SoundMaxx5.0 with Double-Record and Replay capabilities as I struggle to drag it from the cart, around the manor, and to the front doors once I’m home. “Let’s see what you can hear.”

I’ve barely closed the door behind me when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I fumble for it, the light from the screen casting shadows everywhere.

 

I turn every light on, but somehow, the manor still seems darker than usual. And quieter.

“It’s in your head,” I mutter, sliding the SoundMaxx5.0 from its box in the living room. Miles described it right; it’s basically a cross between a tripod and a giant umbrella.

“Directions,” I mumble, looking the antenna up and down. “Where are the directions?”

 

 

I’m more worried about colliding with the broken boy at the moment. There’s no writing on the box or the contraption, only some green and black bows and netting connected by a ball and some rubber nubs that seem too important to touch. Flashbacks of the microwave incident are making my hands sweat, so I contact the professional.

I find a latch with a finger-sized lever and voilà! Up springs a life-sized antenna that could launch a missile. A cord dangles from the handle, its plug thick like the type used on washers and dryers.

This could absolutely blow out the manor’s entire electrical board.

Good enough for me.

I find the least ancient-looking outlet and wince as I line up the prongs with the holes. I push in the plug.

“Everything’s dark. Why is everything dark?” I hear myself cry.

Once my hands stop sweating, I realize I’m a complete idiot and open my eyes. There’s no fire (yet), the lights are on, and holy hogs, the SoundMaxx is lit up like a spacecraft, neon green bars threading through black tubing, a red ball flickering at the top. I start breathing again.

 

With any luck, the SoundMaxx is now recording the whispers swirling throughout the manor. I know that’s exactly what we need so we can learn more about the broken boy. So why does the thought of all that chatter make me want to run out the door screaming? Then, Miles adds one more tiny detail.

 

Miles could be talking about only two places. One he knows about: the creepy arched door upstairs. The other, he doesn’t—the closet in the sewing room, the place I first met the broken boy, the same place he’s tried to lure me back to since then.

 

Does he really think he has to convince me?

I respond with a thumbs-up and try to let myself relax a little. Miles will be here soon, I won’t have to face the broken boy alone, and Mom’s excited to see her new friends, so there’s no chance she’ll come home early—thumbs-up!

Nothing to be afraid of. It’s not like some evil forces conspired so I’d end up in the manor all alone tonight to face the broken boy with no one to protect me. I mean, that would be unbelievable. Who would believe something that bonkers? Definitely not me.

No way.

I think the SoundMaxx put me in a trance. I must have been staring at its blinking red light for too long and passed out. Either that or I’m starting to randomly black out for no reason and lose chunks of time, so I’m sticking with the trance theory. Last thing I remember, I was staring at my phone, it was 7:47, and I was sure Miles was going to show up any minute. Now, it’s 8:59, Miles still isn’t here, and I’m trembling hard enough to make the sofa shake.

Why am I trembling? Was I dreaming?

“That’s it,” I whisper to myself. I was dreaming. Dreaming that I was falling.

I run my hands over my arms and legs, feeling for the painful scratches that I know should be there, though I have no idea why. That wasn’t a dream or a nightmare.

“A memory?” I whisper, except I know that isn’t what woke me up.

It was a sound that woke me up. A tap or a chime or . . .

I turn to the window facing the cemetery, but there’s no one there—no broken boy, no hand pressed against the glass or breath fogging the pane. My gaze falls back to the blinking red light of the SoundMaxx, which reminds me about Miles. It’s nine o’clock. I fumble for my phone.

*#160;

This isn’t going to work; we’re cutting it way too close. Mom will be home in thirty minutes, and that’s assuming she’s not a single minute early. I pace the living room a few times before I decide I need to pee, but when I try to turn on the hallway light, nothing happens. Only then does it dawn on me that I’ve been pacing in the dark. Before I went into my red-blinky-light trance, I had every light on.

I turn back to the SoundMaxx. “So you did blow a fuse,” I say to it.

I use my phone to light my way down the hallway. Then I catch sight of one of the old glass bottles I unearthed while organizing piles. Was that what woke me up? A tap on the glass? I’m still on that; I can’t help it. My ghostly senses are tingling. Something woke me, and whatever it was doesn’t feel gone.

I set my phone on the edge of the bathroom sink, the screen still lit with my unanswered message to Miles. The flush of the now-working toilet echoes, and the faucets creak as I pull the handles forward. The pipes moan behind the walls. The entire manor is alive with more noises than usual; every plank and nail feels unsettled.

Unnerved, I wash my hands quickly and splash cold water on my face, then grab the towel off the hook and scrub my cheeks raw. All I want is for Miles to text me that he’s almost here.

“How many receipts can there be to add?” I whisper.

The light on my phone fades as the screen goes to sleep, leaving only the moon to create shadows against the bathroom wall. When I turn to replace the towel on its hook, I hear a fingernail on glass, inches from my face.

Tap, tap, tap.

Then one long scrape down the mirror.

It’s him.

I feel him over my right shoulder, his breath hot on the back of my neck. The smell of his decay chokes me, and the air in my lungs turns to cement. I know it before I see it—that rotting flesh hanging from his finger, exposing bone. That purple nail, jagged along the edge. Slowly, I raise my head to find him in the mirror. There he is. Saucer-eyed and ghostly white, cracked blue lips, rotted teeth clacking and grinding over words that refuse to form.