My parents look a bit concerned.
“I’m fine,” I tell them, my adrenaline still up. “I think there are mice in the basement, though…you know, in addition to the mold….”
“There aren’t any mice,” my mother says firmly. “We had an inspection done. And the mold is only in the basement, and we’re going to dry it out and bleach the hell out of the walls…so, problem solved?” She looks at me expectantly.
“Yeah. Whatever,” I mumble.
“Good,” Shannon says, bumping me with her hip. “Now help me with these kitchen boxes.”
“Can’t I just, you know, move pillows?” I ask. Shannon shakes her head and my parents laugh.
“Go take a break,” Dad tells me. “Sit in the yard, catch your breath.”
“It’s not like you’re any help anyway,” Shannon calls after me as I flee to the back of the house.
ON MY WAY to the backyard, I grab my backpack from the kitchen as I walk through. My phone’s in it, but I don’t want to see any messages from my friends, or see what they’re up to. I can’t deal with it today. Maybe tomorrow.
I step out onto the lawn, and it’s as big and old and weird as the rest of the house. The lawn is overgrown, with patches of yellow-green dead spots. It’s clearly been a while since anyone’s done any yard work out here. There are also a bunch of overgrown trees. I guess trees shouldn’t be strange, but I’m not used to a virtual forest in my backyard, so they seem kind of sinister. Like something could be lurking behind them.
The people before us must have had little kids, because there’s a fort with an attached swing set. It’s old but not ancient, so I don’t think I’ll break it. I take out my sketchbook and a pencil before abandoning my bag on the grass and sitting on one of the swings, facing away from the house.
Thumbing through my sketches as I rock myself back and forth just makes me depressed. I love to draw people, and seeing my happy friends staring back at me in black-and-white makes me tear up a little. What am I going to draw out here? Nature?
I hate that we had to move. I loved our condo in the city. Sure, the rooms were small, but it was modern, and I had an amazing view from my window. Then my dad had to get a “great job opportunity” as head IT guy for some shipping company, and my mom’s an RN, so she can work anywhere. And we’ll be closer to Madison when Shannon goes to college there.
So basically it works out for everyone except me. I had to leave my school and the friends I’ve known since kindergarten to move to the middle of Wisconsin, into a house that’s most probably haunted and…
“You look real,” a voice tells me from across the yard. I nearly drop my sketchbook.
I spot him by a large tree—a little boy wearing a bright yellow superhero shirt with purple basketball pants. There are no fences, so all the backyards kind of run into each other. I assume he’s from one of the houses nearby.
“Um…I am real,” I tell him, trying not to sound too annoyed that he scared me. I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m going to have a heart attack at the ripe old age of fifteen.
He edges closer, and I can see that his brown eyes are alert and even a little afraid. He glances past me at my house.
“They’re not always real,” he tells me.
“Okay…” Maybe there’s a hospital or something nearby and this boy escaped. That’s probably why my parents got such a great deal on the house. That and the mold. “My family just moved in.” I try not to let my bad mood make me act like a jerk. I mean, he’s just a kid. “What’s your name?”
He runs his hands through his shaggy brown hair. “Chris?” he says, as if he’s not sure.
“Hi, Chris. I’m Haley. Do you live around here?”
He nods toward the house directly behind ours. Through the trees I can just make out the light yellow paint and the pitched roof.
“Exploring?”
He flashes a toothy smile that immediately turns into a frown. “I’m not supposed to leave the yard, but I heard them calling. They were mad.”
“That was probably my mom. She’s pretty loud. My dad too, actually. They shout a lot, but it doesn’t mean they’re angry.”
“What’s that?” he asks, eyeing my sketchbook.
“Just some drawings.” I show him one of my friend Raina that I sketched at the lake, the Chicago skyline behind her. I love Raina’s smile…and her ability not to mind me staring at her while I sketch. She also keeps her hair in these crazy braids that are super fun to draw.
He inches forward. “That’s pretty good.”
“Thanks. It’s just a hobby.” I took classes in Chicago, but only until we couldn’t afford them anymore.
“I’d like to paint. I saw a picture once in a book of a painter named…Van something.”
“Van Gogh?” I ask, smiling despite myself.
“Yeah. I want to paint like that.”
“You know, he was really underappreciated in his time and had all kinds of issues.”
He tilts his head. “I can relate.” It’s something someone older should say, and he says it so deadpan I want to laugh, but I don’t. Instead, I offer him another smile, and he offers a small one in return.
He looks at me and the smile falls from his face. “That’s not your ring,” he tells me quietly.
I frown. “How do you know that?” I study him. “Wait. Were you creeping around our house? I bet you were watching us through the basement window. Was that you laughing? It wasn’t funny. You scared the crap out of me.” He flinches. Oops, I just said crap in front of a little kid. He’s probably going to tell on me. There goes any chance of making babysitting money. Although I can do without watching this little creeper, for sure.
“I wasn’t spying, I promise,” he tells me, almost desperately.
“It’s not cool to spy on people,” I tell him. “You’re old enough to know that….How old are you, anyway?”
“Ten,” he tells me, taking a few steps forward, like I wasn’t just bitching him out. “You don’t look like the other ones.”
“Yeah. We all look different.” Dad looks like Grandma Lihn, who is Vietnamese, and while I don’t look Asian exactly, I definitely look more like Dad’s family than Mom’s. In first grade a girl convinced me that I was adopted, and when I confronted Mom and Dad, Shannon nearly died of laughter. She made fun of me mercilessly. Then I really did wish that I had been adopted.
“…sister…She wants to speak with you….”
“My sister?” I look over my shoulder, but Shannon isn’t there. This kid is seriously disturbed. “Hey, do you want me to help you find your parents or anything?” I stand up, but as soon as I step toward him, he retreats to the trees.
“No, I know where they are.”
“Look, I’m just going to sit here and swing, and maybe, if you want, you can swing too.” I sit back down and gently push off until I’m slowly going back and forth. My mom used to work in a psychiatric hospital in Chicago, so maybe I can get this kid to hang out and see if she’ll talk to him, see if he’s okay.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” he tells me.
“Tell me about it,” I mutter. He doesn’t get that I’m being sarcastic, and continues.
“Something terrible happened here.”
“Something terrible?” I ask, and he nods enthusiastically. “Great.”
“No, it was really bad. It gives me nightmares.”
“You saw what happened?” No wonder the kid is disturbed, if he witnessed something bad go down. Again, probably why the house was so cheap. I wonder if it was disclosed. They have to tell you if something illegal happened, right? Maybe there was a cult that lived here, or it was the site of a murder-suicide.
“What did you actually see?” I prompt.
“I didn’t see anything,” he says. “But I learned about it, after. When
I could see them but no one else could.”
“See who?”
“The girls.” He sounds exasperated. “I’m not supposed to talk about it except with my psy-ca-trist.”
“Your psychiatrist?” I sigh. “Then maybe you shouldn’t tell me about it. Maybe your family is right and you shouldn’t come over here.” I’m going to have to find out what’s up with this kid. I mostly just feel bad for him. Maybe he’s from an abusive home or was in an accident or something. “You can go home and I won’t let them know you were here, so you won’t get in trouble.”
“I have to tell you something,” he says earnestly. “It’s important.”
“Why?”
“My sister’s been watching you.”
I give him a patient smile. “And where is this sister of yours?”
“Behind you,” he tells me before he turns on his heel and runs away.
I NEARLY DIE when I hear footsteps behind me. I jump up and get tangled in the swing and fall on my knees, throwing my sketchbook out in front of me.
“Are you okay?” Shannon asks. Once she realizes I am, she starts laughing.
“Yeah.” I scramble up. “You just scared me.”
“You are being so weird today. What’s with you?” she asks, sitting down on a swing. The chains creak under her weight.
“Gee, I don’t know,” I say, dusting the dirt off my knees. “Leaving the place I’ve lived all my life…that might have something to do with it.”
“We all moved, Haley,” Shannon says. “Not just you.”
“But you’re going to college.” I hate the whininess in my voice.
“Don’t be such a drama queen.”
I bite back a snarky reply. Shannon is a lot of things, but understanding is not one of them. I sit on the other swing and we swing for a little bit.
“The moving guys finally showed up, so you’re off the hook,” Shannon says. “Dad said you should make us lunch, though.”
I raise an eyebrow. “So order a pizza?”
She nods. “I want chicken and spinach and mushrooms. Extra chicken.”
Shannon eats a ridiculous amount of protein. “Chicken on pizza is gross. Why can’t you just eat pepperoni, like the rest of us?”
“Do you know how much fat is in pepperoni?” Shannon asks. “I don’t need to gain the freshmen fifteen before I even become a freshman.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” I glance over to the tree line. “Hey, I think I know what’s scarier than an old doll.”
“Yeah, what?” She stops her swinging and turns toward me, the chains crossing above her.
“There was this little boy…”
“Oh, little kids are the worst,” she tells me. “Was he blond? Was he singing?”
“I’m serious,” I tell her. “He ran off right when you came out here. He wasn’t singing, but I think he had an imaginary friend or two. He said he was in therapy because something terrible happened here. It was kind of terrifying.”
Shannon lets out a long laugh. “As terrifying as the basement?”
I think of how I let my imagination get the better of me. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it. This place is…off.”
“You’re just mad that we had to move.” She’s twirling around now, back and forth. It’s making me kind of sick to look at her.
“I’m the one that has to spend the next three years here. You only have to hang around for two months.”
She stops moving, looks at me, and sighs. “Haley, try to make it work. For Mom and Dad. Don’t be such a brat.” Then she hops off the swing and heads back to the house.
Huffing, I kick the swing post but only manage to hurt my toe. The house looms before me, dark and Gothic. How did my parents decide this is where they want to live? I look up at my new bedroom. Someone walks past the window. Probably Shannon bringing up boxes. I feel a little guilty about giving her crap.
Deflated, I grab my stuff and go inside to hopefully find a pizza place that delivers to creepy old houses in the middle of nowhere. Shannon’s right: I can’t change the fact that we moved here. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
* * *
My room is huge, about three times the size of my old one in Chicago, with a giant walk-in closet. The floors are carpeted in a horrendous orange that looks like the 1970s puked it up. My stuff seems really out of place here.
It’s been a long day. After lunch, I opened box after box, trying to figure out what goes where. I probably should shower, but I don’t feel like it. Instead, I change out of my sweaty clothes into a clean tank top and shorts and lie on my bed. It’s not that late, but I’m completely exhausted. I don’t even check my phone. That’s how tired I am.
I bury my head in my pillow. At least that smells like home, not like this musty house.
“Haley, you okay, hon?”
“Yeah, Mom,” I say, my voice muffled by the pillow. “I’m seeing if I can suffocate myself.”
“Not funny, Haley.”
I look up at her. “I’m just tired.”
She leans in the doorway, her blue eyes studying me, her wild blond hair framing her tired-looking face. “I’m exhausted too. Get some sleep.”
“I will. Mom, are you sure there aren’t any mice downstairs?”
“I really hope not. But if you saw one, you saw one.”
“I actually more like heard one,” I admit. “A scratching noise.”
“Oh…well, that can be a number of things. Maybe a squirrel got in.” She sighs loudly. “That will be such a hassle if one’s made a home down there. Or a raccoon. Those little suckers are smart and can do a lot of damage.”
“Or it could be a ghost?” I offer.
She laughs softly. “Well, that’s the one thing I’m certain you didn’t hear.”
“One of the neighborhood kids came over today,” I tell her. “A little boy. He seemed kind of…off.”
“Off how?” my mom asks, her brow furrowed in concern.
I swallow and sit up. “He said there were other girls living in our house. Girls that aren’t real.”
She smiles. “Kids have overactive imaginations. Give them an old house and they’ll make up stories.”
“He told me he goes to a psychiatrist….”
“Lots of people go to psychiatrists, Haley.” She takes a deep breath. “Grandma Beth has been going to one for over thirty years.”
“I know it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with him, but he freaked me out,” I admit. “And he may or may not have been spying on Shannon and me in the basement.”
My mom straightens up, suddenly alert. “Do you know where he lives?”
I nod. “Yeah, in the yellow house across the backyard.”
“Tomorrow I can talk to his parents about him coming over here.”
“No, don’t do that. I don’t want to get him in trouble.”
“Haley, if he’s bothering you or making you feel uncomfortable in any way, he—” she starts, but I cut her off.
“It’s not like that. I was more concerned for him. Like wondering if there was something wrong with him. He’s just a little kid.”
“I don’t care how old he is. If he’s bothering you, I’ll sort it out.”
“Mom, seriously, it was nothing.” My mom has always been fiercely protective of me. Maybe because I’m little, or because I’m the baby. Or maybe because Shannon has been fighting her own battles since she was old enough to speak. I wouldn’t say I’m Mom’s favorite, but…yeah. I’m totally her favorite. I give her puppy-dog eyes and add, “Please.”
“Fine,” she says resignedly. “But if he comes back, let me know, and I’ll speak with him and see what I think. Got it?”
“Yeah, okay.”
My dad’s head pokes into the room. “How’s my best girl?” he ask
s, oblivious to the tension of the conversation he just walked in on.
“Um…you must be confused, Dad. I’m Haley. Shannon’s next door.” If I’m Mom’s favorite, then Shannon is Dad’s, one hundred and fifty percent.
He steps into my room and looks around. “Well, if being my best girl was determined by being the worst unpacker…you’d be it, kiddo.”
“Unpacker?” my mom repeats, eyebrows raised.
“It’s a word,” he insists.
“Glad I could be first in something,” I tell them with a grin.
“Oh, you’re first in lots of things. Like”—he looks to my mom with his signature smirky smile—“complaining.”
“Yep, Haley’s definitely a top-notch complainer,” my mom agrees.
“Oh, and pouting,” my dad adds.
“I am not pouting,” I say, smiling despite myself. “It’s…more of a moping situation.”
“Oh, yes, sorry. I meant moping.” He winks at my mom and they share a smile.
“And can you blame me? Look at this room!”
“The orange is a bit much,” Mom agrees.
“Shannon’s room is lime-green,” my dad tells me. “So at least she’s as bad off as you, if it makes you feel any better.”
I grin. “It does, kind of.”
“I heard that!” Shannon shouts from her room. “My pain shouldn’t make you happy!”
“Oh, but it does!” I shout back. Then I lower my voice. “Maybe I can draw on the walls…to make it feel more my own?” I ask. My parents never let me do that at home, but here, who knows?
“Maybe,” my mom says at the same time my dad says, “No.”
They look at each other. “I think your mother and I have to discuss it,” my dad tells me, not taking his eyes off my mom.
“Look,” she says, “maybe we can get you some giant sketch paper you can put up. That way you’re not actually drawing on the walls, but you can draw whatever you want.”
The Fade Page 2
