The Ghost of Graylock (20 page)

T
HE MINIVAN STARTED UP WITH A ROAR
. The headlights shined momentarily through the living room windows before the car backed out of the driveway, its tires spinning on the slick road as their father gunned the engine.

Seconds later, Neil and Bree were alone.

They stood in the foyer, staring at the door as if it might burst open again, all three adults laughing and patting each other’s shoulders, proclaiming how funny a joke the last fifteen minutes had been. But that didn’t happen. The rain only came down harder, raising a din of white noise that threatened to drown out the sound of Neil’s own thoughts. Glancing at his sister, he forced himself not to speak, because he knew if he did, the words would be,
This is what you wanted. Right?

“What do we do?” she asked, almost as if to herself. “Should we pack?”

Neil shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere with him. At least not until Aunt Claire and Aunt Anna kick us out.”

In the living room, he slid over the top of the couch and landed with a
whoomp
on the cushions. The stack of yearbooks that had been sitting there toppled to the floor. Rebecca’s junior year landed open to the page remembering her mother.

Bree stood behind him, looking at the book from over his shoulder. “I suppose we need to decide which are more important right now: the problems of the living or the problems of the dead.” She came around and sat down. Picking up the remote control, she turned on the television. “I honestly don’t want to think about either.”

An old black-and-white movie was on. Neither of them recognized the actors, but Bree didn’t change the channel. She seemed to stare right through the screen, as if she was seeing something Neil could not.

Neil picked up the yearbook from the floor and examined Alice Curtain’s portrait again. He read over Rebecca’s poem several times, the strange words seeming to slowly seep into his skull.

Why did Alice have a different last name?
he wondered. She must have married a man who was not Rebecca’s father. The incomplete Graylock file had left so many questions unanswered. How frustrating that she wasn’t able to just appear and tell him, forced instead to use subtle hints and partial clues.

Glowing bread crumbs.

Ever since he and his sister had entered room 13, it seemed that these clues had lead them down a dark, secret stairwell, one that no one had traversed in a very long time. Why them? Was it because they lived so close to Graylock Hall? Or maybe one needed a certain kind of awareness to recognize mysteries hidden in plain sight. Despite the horror of the past year, what had happened between Neil’s mother and father may have allowed him and his sister to understand the world in a way others did not. Like how Wesley noticed Green Men in ordinary hillsides, Neil and Bree had been forced to see the world in a different way. Maybe this was the reason Rebecca was drawn to them. Maybe this was why she’d taken them to the lake and shown them her death.

Glowing bread crumbs.

But no
, Neil thought. She hadn’t given them nightmares to merely make them aware that she’d died. Or even to learn that she’d been murdered. She wanted them to do something for her. She needed them to see the clues she’d left behind. She knew that, because of their mom, they’d be more likely than most to help.

Looking into the yearbook, Neil’s heart felt as if it stopped. The poem. It had suddenly changed shape. The biggest clue yet stared directly up at him. His hands trembled as he lifted the book to show his sister. “Look,” he said. “She left a message.”

When Bree noticed how pale Neil had become, she grabbed the book from his hands, then reached out and smoothed his hair away from his forehead. “What’s wrong?”

“The first letter in every line of Rebecca’s poem,” Neil managed to say. “Read them straight down.”

Bree concentrated on the page. She recited the poem aloud.

A look of horror blossomed across her face, and her mouth fell open in shock.

“
Daddy did it
,” she whispered.

T
HERE WAS A FLASH OF LIGHT
, a crash of thunder, and the room went suddenly dark.

They both screamed, then moved so quickly toward each other on the couch that they nearly bumped heads. It took them several seconds to realize what had happened. The storm had knocked the power out.

Neil glanced around the room, but he couldn’t see much. Rain continued to pound the roof. Lightning flashed again, briefly revealing tree branches outside, whipping about in a strong wind. Several seconds later, the house shook under the crushing sound of thunder. Neil pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged himself. Thunderstorms didn’t usually bother him, but on top of everything else … this one was a nightmare.

He felt the yearbook poking into his leg. He swatted it away, and it fell to the floor with a loud slap. “Rebecca Smith died on a night like this.”

“I wish we had cell phones,” said Bree, as if deliberately trying to not think about the ghost story they were living.

Neil took his sister’s hand. “Bree,” he said, “we know who killed her. She wrote it in the yearbook.”

Bree was quiet for a few seconds, then nodded. “She wanted everyone to know, but was too scared to tell.”

“That’s why she looked so different from her sophomore to junior year,” said Neil. “Like two different girls.”
Shadow people.
“What causes that?”

“Fear.”

“If she knew her mother had been murdered by her father, maybe she was afraid that she’d be next.”

“Yeah. She might have been right. Especially if her father thought she might tell someone.”

“She
did
tell,” said Neil. “But did he find out?”

“Maybe,” said Bree. “Maybe not. We know she went into Graylock afterward. Her doctors said she was crazy, but was she really?”

“You think she was pretending?” Neil asked.

“Maybe she thought she’d be safe in there.”

“But she wasn’t safer. He tracked her down.”

“He knew where she was. He was her father.”

“And since they lived here in Hedston, he must have also known that several patients had drowned in that lake,” said Neil. “Drowned on nights like this, when the power went out and that back door unlocked automatically. Rebecca hadn’t considered that. On the night she died, her father knew that if he got her out of the building, he could make her death look like an accident. Another tragic drowning. And she’d never attempt to tell what he’d done to her mother again like she had in the yearbook.”

“So horrible,” Bree whispered.

Neil and Bree stared at each other for several seconds, their eyes growing accustomed to the darkness. The wind howled through the eaves above. The wood creaked, sounding as though someone were walking around in the attic. Bree glanced at the ceiling. “I really wish we could call someone.”

“We’ll be fine until the aunts come home,” said Neil, trying to reassure himself.

“And then what?” Bree asked, finding her voice again. “We pack our things and leave with Dad?”

“We can’t! We need to find Rebecca’s father.”

“But he’s a
killer
, Neil,” Bree whispered. The television flickered blue light. Static came across the screen. “Hey, look,” she said, relieved. “The electricity’s back.”

But the rest of the house remained dark. Only the television seemed to be working.

“I don’t think so,” said Neil nervously.

Together, they watched as a fuzzy image came into focus through the grainy TV snow. Soon, the picture was sharp, clear, and vividly bright: a pair of antlers hanging from a wood-paneled wall. “Oh no,” said Bree. The image shifted, showing a piano bench piled high with sheet music. Neil knew that the next would be the fireplace with the white birch logs piled on the andirons.

But no. The final image was different this time. When the white logs appeared, Neil noticed that they were spattered with drops of a dark red liquid.

Blood.

N
EIL STOOD, HIS ENTIRE BODY TINGLING WITH GOOSEFLESH
. “Did you see that?” He pointed at the television, but the image had changed. The antlers again.

“Which part?” said Bree, standing too, taking his hand. The piano bench flickered by again. And finally, the third image answered her question. She gasped when she noticed the spatter, then glanced at Neil. “What does it mean?”

Neil didn’t answer. He didn’t know.

The three pictures flashed by repeatedly, faster and faster, until they became a blur not much different than the static out of which they’d appeared. The screen turned bright white and then black. Again, they were tossed into darkness, unprepared.

The front door slammed open. The wind rushed into the foyer.

Bree screamed. Neil dashed around the couch, catching the handle and pushing with all his might until the latch had clicked shut. He flipped the dead bolt.

“How did that happen?” asked Bree, a high voice in the shadows of the living room. Neil knew her real question: Had someone opened the door?

In the dining room, the floor creaked. They turned toward the noise.

“Who’s there?” Neil asked. But of course, no one answered.

“Neil,” said Bree, making her way to the foyer, “I really don’t like this.”

“Well, I’m having a blast,” Neil said. Bree’s lip trembled and he immediately hugged her, feeling bad for the joke. “Do you want to wait for everyone outside? On the porch?”

In response, the brightest lightning bolt yet struck just across the street, followed by an explosion that seemed loud enough to break eardrums. The two leapt away from the door, tripped, and tumbled to the floor near the bottom of the stairs.

Blinded, Neil blinked the flash out of his eyes and tapped at his temples until he was certain he still had all of his senses.

Another creak came from down the hallway. This one sounded closer.

Silently, Bree waved at Neil, then pointed at the stairs.

Was she really suggesting they go hide up there? He raised his eyebrows in an expression that asked,
Are you nuts?
“We’d be trapped,” he whispered.

Then a deep voice called softly from the other room.

“
Rebecca …?
” The voice sounded far away and close at the same time. “
Come here, sweetheart.
”

Bree clutched at Neil’s hand, crushing his fingers against the floor. They froze as another footstep fell closer still.

Was Rebecca’s father a ghost too? The idea seemed suddenly plausible. Their Internet search hadn’t turned up any local Smiths — and there would be no Smiths left in Hedston if they were all deceased.

How badly had this man wished to keep his secret?
Ghosts can’t hurt you
, Neil thought.
Baloney
. Rebecca had hurt them many times. But was it possible for the dead to silence the living completely?

Neil’s mind ran laps around the room. His eyes fell upon the cordless phone that sat on the sideboard against the wall. But the connection light was out. With no power, that phone would be as useless as a cell. They needed a phone that plugged directly into the wall. A landline. He thought he remembered seeing one out in Anna’s studio.

In the barn.

“Rebecca …,”
the voice called once more.
“You’re safe now. Come out, darling.”

Another footstep creaked on a floorboard around the corner of the staircase.

“Rebecca …?”

Any closer and he’d be upon them.