THE GHOSTHOUSE
I started to panic. I ran to my bedroom and cupped brittle brown pine needles between my hands and made myself breathe. The needles smell like my brother, which helps calm me down. I breathed through the needles, crisp tart air. I needed to think.
Grandpa Rose was missing. That was a fact. My mom worked the night shift and wouldn’t get home until almost morning. That was a fact. If I called my mom and said that I had lost Grandpa Rose, I would be grounded for the rest of my life, or at least until eighth grade. That was a fact. I would have to find Grandpa Rose myself.
I didn’t have any facts about where Grandpa Rose might have gone. To answer the question, I needed additional information. In my parents’ bedroom I found Grandpa Rose’s luggage, a leather suitcase with metal hinges. In the suitcase there were,
1. A broken music box, dark wood with gold swirls on the lid
2. A passport, with stamps on every page, plus a photo of MONTE ROSE
3. A couple of letters written in a language I couldn’t understand (Italian?)
4. Underwear (boxers with green stripes)
5. Socks (the kind with gold toes)
I memorized the information. I kicked into my high-tops. Then I dug through my closet for my knife. The knife has a cracking leather sheath, a cracking leather handle, and a blunt chipped blade the length of a geometry compass. I belted it to my leg, where it would be hidden under my jeans, and went looking for Grandpa Rose.
By now dinnertime had come and gone, and all the neighborhood regulars were out, enjoying what remained of the daylight before the twilight went to dusk. Mark Huff, (piano)kicking a soccer ball around his yard. The Geluso twins, careening around on bicycles, (forte)shouting something about zombies. Emma Dirge and her sisters floating up and down on their trampoline, their dresses snapping against their legs as they floated up, puffing out again as they floated down. Leah Keen sprawled on the grass underneath, watching the feet slamming against the trampoline. Everyone ignored me, as per usual.
The Geluso twins (piano)cranked past me on their bicycles.
“Have you seen my grandfather?” I (forte)shouted.
They looped around, (piano)skidding to a stop where I was standing.
“What did you say?” Crooked Teeth (forte)said.
“Have you seen my grandfather?” I (forte)said.
“We don’t pay attention to old people,” The Unibrow (forte)said.
They hopped onto their bicycles and (piano)cranked away again.
Zeke and his wolfdogs were sprawled across the wildflowers along the creek. Zeke had his jeans rolled to the knees, was feeding his wolfdogs biscuits from the pocket of his shirt. I peeked over the railing of the stone bridge.
“My grandfather ran away while I was getting tortured by kids who hate you,” I (forte)shouted.
Zeke didn’t say anything.
“It’s your fault he’s missing, so you’re going to help me find him,” I (forte)shouted.
A wolfdog raised its head and (piano)growled.
“You can’t make me,” Zeke (forte)said.
It was true, which was frustrating, so I kicked the bridge, which hurt. Zeke (forte)laughed. I shoved a lock of hair out of my eyes and kept walking.
As I was crossing the bridge, though, Zeke and his wolfdogs scrambled from the trees into the road.
“If I help you, you have to swear that next time you won’t give the Isaacs even a single number,” Zeke (forte)said.
“They already know our combination,” I (forte)said.
“I’ll fix that,” Zeke (forte)said.
“How?” I (forte)said.
“Also, if you’re trying to find your grandfather, you’re going the wrong way. He wasn’t headed into town. He was headed toward the wharf,” Zeke (forte)said.
“You saw him?” I (forte)said.
“He had your same eyes,” Zeke (forte)said.
The wolfdogs needed Grandpa Rose’s scent, so we headed toward my house.
Something I think is odd is that we’ll give a person a name, but we won’t give a group of people a name too. Like how my name is Nicholas, and my mom’s name is Beatrice, but when we’re together, Nicholas + Beatrice, we’re something different. When I’m part of Nicholas + Beatrice, I’m different from when I’m only Nicholas. Or when Little Isaac is only Little Isaac, he’s nice, and when Big Isaac is only Big Isaac, he’s nice, but Little Isaac + Big Isaac is something mean, but then Little Isaac + Big Isaac + Mark Huff is something nice again.
Nicholas + Zeke was a sort of equation no one had ever had to solve before. Emma Dirge and Leah Keen were perched in the gnarled branches of a beech tree, watching us through the leaves as we flew past. For them, Nicholas + Zeke = ? They didn’t know whether Nicholas + Zeke was something they should want to talk to or something they shouldn’t.
As we ran up my driveway, Emma and Leah dropped from the beech tree, brushed some bark mulch from their knees, then hurried off toward Mark Huff’s, to gossip, probably. I dug my key out of my pocket, and let us in.
The house was quiet. The furniture was turning bluish in the dying light. The wolfdogs sniffed the couch’s cushions, the piano’s keys, the oven. Zeke (forte)barked at them, and they trotted after us down the hallway, sniffing the carpet.
Grandpa Rose’s suitcase was still in my parents’ bedroom. My mom probably wouldn’t have wanted me bringing someone from school in there—especially when the bed hadn’t been made, and dirty pajamas were hanging from a lampshade—but this was an emergency, obviously. Beyond the dusty glass of the windowpane, our backyard was visible—my brother was upset, trembling in the wind, worried about Grandpa Rose being missing.
I unlatched the suitcase. Zeke lifted out the music box, touching a finger to its gold crank, its gold clasp, the gold pattern twisting in swirls across the dark wood of its lid.
“Where did your grandfather get something as old as this?” Zeke (forte)said.
“How do you know it’s old?” I (forte)said.
Zeke chewed a lip. He tucked the music box back into the suitcase. Then he plucked a handful of dirty socks from the suitcase for the wolfdogs to sniff.
“You have that scent?” Zeke (piano)murmured, nuzzling his head against theirs.
I didn’t know if we were friends now, or just locker partners searching for a missing grandfather. I wanted to be friends, because I thought having a friend would be like having a brother. It’s not that I didn’t love my brother. It’s that sometimes I would have liked having a human brother too.
The wolfdogs were trotting ahead, sniffing the gravel for some scent of Grandpa Rose.
“What’s your grandfather after?” Zeke (forte)said.
“I don’t think he’s after anything. He gets confused sometimes,” I (forte)said.
“He didn’t look confused. He looked like he was after something,” Zeke (forte)said.
We were to the wharf almost. We rounded the bend in the road, passing onto the empty stretch where the ghosthouse sat perched on its hill. Its winding dirt driveway, like the rest of the hill, was buried under dying leaves. The mailbox had missing numbers.
The wolfdogs stopped, raising their heads, their snouts pointing at where the roof of the ghosthouse was poking above the trees.
I didn’t like where this was headed. Even just looking at the ghosthouse made me feel at risk of getting haunted. I didn’t want to go anywhere near that hill.
Zeke (piano)sniffed the air.
“He was smoking before,” Zeke (forte)said. “Do you smell that?”
I sniffed the air. I couldn’t smell anything except rotting leaves, rotting pine, and the wind from the lake.
Zeke (forte)sniffed again, scowling.
“We’re not far now,” Zeke (forte)said. “I smell cigarette.”
I kept begging the trail to change direction, but instead the wolfdogs slipped into the underbrush and (piano)scrambled over a toppled wooden fence and then galloped straight up the hill, sniffing at leaves and twigs and dirt, until the scent had led us all the way to the ghosthouse.
“Have you ever been here?” I (piano)whispered.
“Not since that ghost tripped Mark Huff out the attic window,” Zeke (piano)whispered.
The sky was going dark, and getting starry, and everything was transforming into silhouettes. The ghosthouse loomed above the yard. Tattered curtains flapped beyond shattered windows. A dead walnut tree was hunched next to the porch. Weeds had grown through fallen shutters. A bucket swung (piano)creaking from a rope above a stone well. I was freezing, suddenly, and had frozen—was too afraid to get any closer—stood shivering with my knife clutched between both hands.
“Grandpa Rose?” I (piano)whispered.
Zeke crept up the steps, squatted on the porch, then turned and waved a stomped cigarette.
“He must be here,” Zeke (piano)hissed.
I crept up the steps. The wolfdogs prowled below, sniffing the roots of the walnut tree, the raspberries growing along the cellar, a bird’s nest that had fallen from the roof. I kept imagining that any moment a pale dead face was going to appear in a window, shrieking something at us, which was only making things worse.
“You think he went inside?” I (piano)whispered.
“Maybe let’s try looking through the window,” Zeke (piano)whispered.
The wolfdogs had vanished. We crept across the porch, past the door, toward the window. I wasn’t sure if a knife could do anything against a ghost, but I kept my knife out anyway. I was sweating. I was hardly breathing. I couldn’t stop imagining those shrieking faces. We crouched beneath the windowsill, then peeked into the ghosthouse.
Dead leaves littered the floor. White ash littered the fireplace. Jags of glass hung from the frame of the window. Nothing seemed to be moving, except for the (piano)flapping curtains.
Suddenly from the backyard we heard a (forte)banging sound.
Zeke looked afraidafraid.
“What was that?” Zeke (forte)said.
We hopped the railing from the porch onto the grass, peered around a drainpipe into the backyard. The wolfdogs were circling a lopsided wooden shed, (piano)huffing at a smell in the dirt. Past the shed sprawled a grassy meadow of milkweed and thistles, and then woods. Bats flitted over the meadow. Normally, in my neighborhood, by this time of night you would see the lit-up windows of houses everywhere. But here there weren’t any lit-up windows—like the ghosthouse didn’t just scare away people, but even other houses.
All that dark past the shed only made the light that was coming from the shed even freakier. Something was glowing in the shed—a ghostly golden glimmer, streaming through the slats between the wooden planks, burning the dirt around the shed white.
We crept across the backyard, pressed our faces to the slats, squinting into the light.
In the shed, Grandpa Rose was rooting around a cluttered workbench, lit by a rusty metal lantern.
“That’s him!” I (piano)whispered.
Grandpa Rose was (piano)mumbling, “Then key, then trunk, then cog.” Then (forte)shouting, “No! Sinbad, Clemens! No no no!” Then (piano)mumbling, “Then key, then trunk, then cog.” He didn’t sound anything like the Grandpa Rose I had met before. He sounded like a different Grandpa Rose altogether. As confused as my mom had warned me.
“I’ve got to go,” Zeke (piano)whispered.
“But—” I (piano)said.
“I did my part,” Zeke (piano)whispered.
Zeke backed away. He (forte)barked at his wolfdogs, then ran into the trees, his wolfdogs trailing him. He was gone.
I stuffed my knife into its sheath, then (piano)knocked on the shed and cracked open the door. Grandpa Rose stumbled against the workbench, dropping his cane.
Grandpa Rose frowned.
“Who?” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
“Please, Grandpa Rose, we have to get home,” I (forte)said.
“But I’m looking for something,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
“Looking for what?” I (forte)said.
Grandpa Rose looked at the rusted tools hanging from the workbench. He touched a crowbar, a hammer, a saw. He scratched at his beard with both hands. “I can’t remember,” he (piano)muttered. Then he (forte)slapped the shed. He (forte)shouted, “I can’t remember!”
I tried to pretend I wasn’t afraid of him.
“You’re confused, Grandpa Rose. Take my hand. I’ll walk you home, and you can watch television, and everything will be okay,” I (forte)said.
I held his arm. He may have been huge, but he was majorly weak. If you shut your eyes, it was like holding the arm of a kindergartner. That’s how weak he was. I snuffed the lantern, then led Grandpa Rose out from the shed, into the dusk.
Back at the house, I got Grandpa Rose onto the couch and made another sandwich. He bit in, staring at me as he chewed. Pulpy tomato juice dripped between his fingers to the plate. The ragged blanket my mom keeps on the couch was draped over his body. He had barely lasted the walk home—I’d had to help him the whole way.
“I need you to take me back there,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
“That’s the ghosthouse,” I (forte)said.
“That’s my house,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
“Your house?” I (forte)said.
I didn’t know if this was the confused Grandpa Rose still or if this was the actual Grandpa Rose.
“Mom never said she lived at the ghosthouse,” I (forte)said.
“She didn’t. I did,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
“When?” I (forte)said.
“I have things buried,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
I stared through the window above the couch at the silhouettes of the trees in the backyard.
“I’m like that too. My brother’s buried back there. If we have to sell our house, I’ll never see him again,” I (forte)said.
“Brother?” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
I told Grandpa Rose about my brother the tree.
He stopped chewing. He swallowed, squinting. He stared through the window at the trees.
“I don’t know how to be a grandfather,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered.
“I don’t know how to be a grandfather either,” I (forte)said.
He wasn’t blinking. Normally when someone doesn’t know something, I try to help, but this was not my area of expertise.
“It’s probably the same as being a father,” I (forte)said.
“Well, I never got that either,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered.
He wiped some tomato seeds from the snarls of hair around his mouth, then bit into the sandwich.
“Help me find what I buried, and you won’t lose anything,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said, chewing.
“Find what?” I (forte)said.
“Heirlooms,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said, swallowing. “Your family heirlooms. For twenty-nine years they’ve been buried in the same place. Hidden where they were when I was arrested.”
“Hidden where?” I (forte)said.
“I was in prison, this time, for twenty-nine years,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said. “Some of those years were for things I actually did. Most of those years were for things I actually didn’t. But, for twenty-nine years, the only thing I lived for was the thought that if I survived that I could give the heirlooms to your mother.” He handed me the plate. “I had a few other scores to settle after prison. But those are settled now. The heirlooms are my final job.” He wrapped himself into the blanket. “I thought she would understand. But she doesn’t understand. She keeps talking about making me live in a rest home.” He sank into the couch. “I don’t care where you keep me after we’ve found the heirlooms. Put me in the rest home if you want. But not yet.” The blanket rose and fell with his chest. “I wasted my life. Doing wrong, making trouble. I’ve always been selfish. Before I die I want to do one good thing.”
“How much are they worth?” I (forte)said.
He was breathing like someone about to sink underwater.
“I made a map to the heirlooms,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
He clutched my elbow with a weak twitching grip.
“So I would remember,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.
His blinks were changing tempo.
“My tattoos,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered, and then his eyes shut, and his jaw sank, and his head rolled into the pillow. His face was pale. He wasn’t moving. I was almost sure that he was dead.
“Grandpa Rose?” I (piano)whispered.
I bent over his face. I held an ear to his lips. I couldn’t hear anything.
Then a breath (piano)whistled from his chest, like wind whistling from a cave.
He wasn’t dead. He was only sleeping.