Phantom Heart

by Kelly Creagh

  Holy crap. Was he legit about to ask me out? I should let him. I totally needed to. I really wanted to. So then why was I ready to head him off at the pass to be sure I understood fully his relationship with Charlotte?

  “Armand!” came Wes’s familiar voice to my left, causing me to jump and Lucas’s jaw to jut with sudden annoyance. “Come to this barn dance competition thing on Saturday.”

  “What?” I eyed him where he now stood in the middle of the vestibule leading to the gym.

  “Yeah,” said Lucas, surprising me when he cut in. “You should come. There’ll be food. And, of course, dancing.”

  “But . . . I’m not really a dancer.” And Charlotte hated me.

  “You don’t have to dance if you don’t want to,” Lucas said. “You can just chill and watch the competition. We can hang out between sets.”

  “And I can hang out during,” Wes said, pointing at me. Then he winked before backing away. “Just think about it.”

  “Yeah, no pressure,” said Lucas.

  “But if you do come,” added Wes, “we can be gorgeously uncoordinated and sedentary together.”

  I smiled—a little nervously. Was Wes flirting with me? Or just messing with me?

  “Dude. You serious right now?” Lucas asked Wes, making me do a double take between the two. Because that seemed the sort of thing one guy friend might ask another if he felt his buddy was encroaching on his territory.

  “I dunno,” said Wes as he pantomimed lifting a Dracula-style cape over his nose and mouth before arching one sculpted brow. “Am I?”

  With that, Wes skulked back into the gym as, overhead, the bell sounded.

  “Ignore him,” said Lucas. “He wears the same socks, like, every day. I’m pretty sure he sleeps upside down in his closet, too—but, yeah, totally think about coming out on Saturday. If you’re not busy, that is. There’ll be a live band. I could even show you a couple more moves. I mean . . . if you wanted.”

  “I see you’re not writing me off as a lost cause.”

  “Well, you know,” he said. “Thought the least I could do was return the favor.”

  I grinned and shook my head at him, blushing as the dividing doors on the floor above opened, releasing a group of chattering underclassmen.

  “Wait, though,” I prompted, hoping the moment hadn’t flown. “What were you going to ask me?”

  “Oh,” Lucas said as students filed past us, a few of them offering curious glances our way. “I wanted to see if you’d . . . let me walk you to class.”

  An obvious lie. I’d already learned Lucas touched his glasses when he fibbed. But just because his bravery had fled didn’t mean he wouldn’t find it again later.

  “Won’t you be late?”

  “Just let me grab my stuff.”

  Without waiting for an official answer, Lucas popped his hat on and bolted back down the stairs and into the gym, where he’d left Charlotte. Who, if I wanted to save myself from falling for a guy I couldn’t have, I was going to have to find a way to ask about. Stat.

  TWENTY

  Zedok

  Before the week was out, I told myself, the family would be gone.

  Wrath would return to his basement, the mysterious new mask would dissolve into the ether, and I would return to my work. I would think no more about the Armands. In a year or so, Stephanie would have become as distant to my thoughts as the summer was to my world.

  I glanced around the vacant, time-eaten parlor as though it might hold assurance for me.

  On this side—the Armands’ side—no oriental carpet softened my step. Paper peeled like dead skin from the walls. A filmy layer of grime, fuzzy with fragrant sawdust, coated all.

  Skirting the two wooden sawhorses supporting the interrupted work of Mr. Armand, I strode again to the mantel atop which I had, over an hour ago, deposited Stephanie’s angel. Its placement there, upon the exact spot where my father’s clock had once sat—still sat on my side—was all part of my plan.

  I had not expected to be left waiting quite so long, however.

  Stephanie. Where was she?

  I turned to the piano. And sighed inwardly at the sight of it.

  “My oldest friend,” I told the sheeted instrument. “What a mirror image the two of us have become.”

  I went to hover over it and placed my hand upon the covered keyboard.

  Normally, whenever I attempted to play, my mind could not connect anything into a melody. Last night, however, marked the first time since being put under the curse that I had been able to achieve something other than a one-note dirge. Granted, I had been playing through someone else and in a dream at that. Not to mention the result had been as startling as it had been disquieting. For instead of either sound or music, my fingers over Stephanie’s had produced a sort of . . . wail. Though the sound itself had been horrible, it still counted as the nearest thing to actual music I had ever been able to produce.

  Well. Without a heart.

  Once or twice, as an experiment, I had dared to implant a substitute for the heart that had been quite literally torn from me.

  The experiments had always worked. And they had always failed.

  I had already resolved that there would be no more substitute hearts. Not after my father’s already broken pocket watch had ruptured in my last attempt.

  I lifted my hand from the piano to trail fingers over my empty sternum. My hand stopped to gather the fabric of my dress shirt into a tight fist, and for an instant, I imagined I could still feel the pain from the watch’s fracturing.

  “She is late,” I told the piano.

  On Tuesdays, Stephanie ran the errand of laundry after school. Last Tuesday, she had come home late in the afternoon—around teatime. It was nearly half past five now, though, which meant she had likely become involved in an additional activity.

  Straightaway, my thoughts went to the boy. She would no doubt have seen him today. Perhaps she was with him now.

  With irritation, I tore free the piano’s cloth cover. The heavy fabric fell away, puddling at my feet to reveal the travesty beneath.

  Hideous, broken, wasted, the monstrosity bellowed its silent misery at me.

  I turned my back on it, doing my best to stifle the fury that my carefully orchestrated plans might have been undermined by him of all people. So much, after all, had gone into the devising of this latest strategy, including the evacuation of the house. Soon, though, Mr. Armand would return from the errand I’d sent him on with Charlie. If Stephanie arrived after that, all of the day’s efforts would have been for naught. And if the increasingly erratic behavior of my masks was any indication, the time I was so used to having in excess was already well on its way to running out.

  Time.

  Habit prompted me to glance toward the mantel, where I’d set Stephanie’s angel.

  And that was when the most insane of impulses overcame me.

  At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to take the angel from her new perch and return her to the place from which I had taken her. This I wanted to do so that Stephanie might yet pass one more peaceful day doubting the monster existed so that I, as Erik, might spend one more congenial night in her company.

  So strong was this urge that, after only one moment more of deliberation, I might have snatched the angel from her place and hurried to undo my trap. And I would have, if the jingling of keys followed by the creaking of the front door had not heralded the arrival of one of the home’s occupants.

  Frozen and listening, I waited for Charlie’s voice to signal that it was she and her father who had returned.

  Instead, the voice was hers.

  “Dad?” Stephanie called, prompting me to turn. “Charlie?”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Stephanie

  The house roared quiet back at me. Instead of entering, I stared up the empty staircase,
my hands tightening on the basket of freshly folded bed linens I held.

  Still bewitched by the memory of my last dream with Erik and needing also to bring a touch of life into this place, I’d picked up a dozen red-on-the-inside-and-white-on-the-outside “Snowfire” roses from the florist I’d found next to the laundromat.

  Just because we couldn’t restore the conservatory didn’t mean we couldn’t have roses.

  The plastic-wrapped flowers lay atop the clean sheets, their scent mingling first with the detergent and then, as I crossed the threshold, with the aroma of fresh sawdust and million-year-old wallpaper glue.

  Last night, Dad had torn down as much of the old wallpaper as he could in the parlor, leaving the more stubborn patches for today. I should have heard him in there now, scraping away. For some reason, though, he didn’t seem to be home.

  “Hello?”

  With my back to the still-open front door, I waited another few seconds, not sure why I was holding out for a response when I had already seen that Dad’s red F150 wasn’t in the drive.

  I guessed the good news was that I wouldn’t have to explain to him why I was late. Not that I’d get in trouble for joining SPOoKy for after-school ice cream anyway, which Lucas had invited me to while walking me to class.

  On a side note, how adorable had it been to watch Lucas power run down the hall after seeing me to American lit? Answer: very.

  Still, I didn’t want Dad jumping to conclusions about me and Lucas. At least, not until I came to my own conclusions about us.

  The bad news about Dad being out? This officially marked the first time I’d been in the house alone.

  Normally, such an event would have been cause for celebration. A reason to crank my music, take a long soak in the clawfoot bathtub, or catch up on my huge to-be-read pile.

  Thanks to the dreams with Erik, though, the house didn’t feel as empty as it should have.

  I shook my head at myself. Because this—loitering in the foyer of my own house, harkening to my nonexistent ESP—was stupid.

  Kicking the door shut behind me, I tucked the basket of linens under one arm and started for the kitchen. But at the entryway to the parlor, a tug in my gut caused me to look inside.

  Though my gaze first zigged to the uncovered piano, it immediately zagged to the mantel.

  To my angel.

  I dropped the basket onto a nearby antique corner chair. Unlooping my purse strap from over my head, I let the bag fall to the floor. Next, I strode up to the mantel and stared right at my angel.

  This marked the second time it had moved. Seemingly on its own.

  Yet there were only two people who could have moved it in either instance. Dad, knowing how much the figurine meant to me, wouldn’t have touched it. Unless he’d found it lying around somewhere. And hadn’t it been on my nightstand last night? A place well within Charlie’s reach. She could have taken it and left it somewhere. In that case, Dad would have moved it someplace where it wouldn’t get broken or smashed.

  Like the mantel.

  And there you have it, my dear Watson. Mystery sol—

  Booooooooooonnnnnggggg.

  Yelping, I retracted my hand from the figurine and spun to face the room.

  The low and out-of-tune note, issued from the enormous grand piano, resounded around me—through me—as my eyes took in its un-sheeted form.

  I held my breath and scanned the vacant room, my blood pumping hard and fast through my veins, propelled by the eerie sensation that, though there wasn’t anyone in sight . . . there was someone there.

  The same someone—the same something—I’d felt before.

  No. No, there wasn’t.

  I tried to take my mind down the first rational route I saw—that I must have imagined the note being played. But my logic refused to follow. Not when I could still hear the fading reverberations of the note as it slowly died out.

  I grabbed my angel from the mantel, then forced myself to trudge past the piano that Dad must have uncovered because he was planning on dismantling it soon. I returned to the basket of clean laundry and, willing myself to stop shaking, laid my angel atop the bedsheets, next to the roses.

  Basket in hand, I left the parlor quickly, and with a determination I was still waiting to feel, I marched into the kitchen, where I found a note from Dad on the counter.

  All four smoke alarms were beeping when I got back from picking up Charlie.

  Couldn’t find any 9Vs, so we went to Wally World. Shouldn’t be gone long. Tacos for dinner.

  —Señor Dad

  All four smoke detectors? At the same time?

  Still no reason to get psyched out. Whoever had last replaced the alarm batteries would have done so all at once. It made sense they’d all go out together, too.

  After putting the roses in water, I started up the creaking stairs with the laundry. Normally at first, then my steps quickened. As if speed could help me escape the sensation that someone followed close on my heels.

  Reaching the second-floor landing, I swung around the newel and made a beeline for my room. There, I set my angel back on my dresser, where Charlie couldn’t get it. Then I scooted it all the way back.

  There.

  Lingering for a beat, I frowned at the angel’s featureless face, wishing in that moment that I could have the person who it represented instead.

  Mom. The angel had been hers.

  Unlike Dad, Mom had harbored a baseline belief in supernatural forces. Though, as a scientist, she could always explain away the weird stuff, too.

  I guess I was like her in that way.

  I left my room at a brisk walk and headed toward Charlie’s.

  Until today, I’d encountered no evidence beyond dreams and stories. Now, though, by working off the suggestions that had been fed to it—that this house was haunted—my ego was doing its job by trying to protect me from a perceived threat.

  But it was my rational mind that could protect me from the ego’s predisposition to freak out.

  The house was old, the floorboards creaked, causing one of the strings in the piano to vibrate, and Dad moved my angel to keep it safe.

  Erik was a dream—an archetype representing both my grief and my growing feelings for Lucas. And while some kids chose to have an imaginary friend, Charlie had decided to conjure an enemy. Which, given that the stories surrounding our house were public knowledge, had probably come from something she’d heard at school.

  Zedok was just her way of filling the vacant spot in her life she’d begun to take note of, her mind working off suggestion as well to transform the invisible elephant in the room into an invisible masked man.

  I pulled a twin fitted sheet out of the basket in Charlie’s room, wishing all the while that I’d thought to turn on Spotify or something. Anything to drown out my thoughts and other hard-to-explain noises.

  Singing to myself, I pushed the piano incident to the back of my mind and got to work making Charlie’s bed.

  The music I’d discovered in the attic had contained no lyrics, but I’d still found the melody as haunting as it was unforgettable. I’d pulled the sheet music from my schoolbag while waiting for the laundry to dry, deciphering the notes like runes, humming the refrain to myself and cementing it in my mind. Though sadness threaded the notes that both dipped and climbed, above all, strange beauty underscored the song, which had died uncompleted and mysteriously mid-note on the final page.

  Though the music had never been finished, the ballad’s chorus existed in its entirety, and I clung to the memory of it now, repeating it with differing syllables while I hoisted the sheet high over the bed so I could float it down over the mattress. The moment after it settled atop Charlie’s bed, though, the spine-prickling sensation I’d first experienced when I’d opened the front door returned.

  Turning my head, I settled my gaze on a chair
that had been pulled out from the corner. Closer to the foot of Charlie’s bed. As though someone had drawn it out so that they’d have a better view of my sister while she slept.

  Dad again.

  He didn’t have trouble sleeping so much anymore, but when he did go prowling, it was always to check on us.

  Though I kept singing, my focus remained fully on my fingers clutching tightly to the selvedge of the white sheet. I eyed the chair. Then, unsatisfied with the way the sheet had settled, I fluffed it up once more.

  Then I did something I hadn’t planned. On my next cycle of the refrain, I pitched my arms toward the chair, sending the sheet at and over it.

  Over the invisible person who had been sitting there.

  The figure shot to their feet, sending the sheet to the floor before the thin layer of white fabric had had time to fully betray their outline.

  But there was no denying I had seen the impression of a mask.

  A scream erupted in my ears. Propelled into flight by the most primal fear I’d ever experienced, I didn’t know it was mine until I reached the stairway banister.

  My body moved on its own, legs carrying me from the danger while my mind tried to work out how I hadn’t been grabbed or stabbed. Or worse.

  Ripping open the front door, I fell out of the house, tripping down the front porch steps and landing hard on the walkway, my palms the only things stopping my nose from crashing into stone.

  I flipped myself and crab-crawled back from the open mouth of the front door, screaming again in the face of nothing, because I had fully expected to see someone there, ready to descend upon me.

  There was no one. Not in the foyer or on the stairs.

  Flipping myself again, I pushed up from the grass I’d retreated into and fumbled to my feet. From there, I ran pell-mell for my car, which I’d left parked in the drive.

  Latching on to the handle, I yanked at it with an anguished cry.

  My keys. I’d left them in the house.